Streeter Box Set

by Michael Stone

  “Mitch told me that only one person visited him.”

  Bosco nodded. “Some broad came out to see him a couple of times. Can’t remember her name but she listed herself as his wife. Tell you one thing, if she’s a natural blonde, I’m your congressman.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Cheap wig and dark sunglasses. Never talked to any of us. We had a lot of that with visits. Guys passing hookers off as their wives or whatever. It’s easy to do if you keep the guards happy. See, we were paid squat down there. I never even made thirty a year. You gotta work the cons or you’ll never make ends meet. Being poor’s for pussies. Inmates can get anything they want. Drugs, booze. But it all costs.” He paused and studied Streeter more closely. “Mitch said you’re looking for another con or a gang that took care of Swallow. You’re looking in the wrong place. He didn’t bother with none of them. Just go talk to that jerkoff he bunked with. He’ll tell you I’m right.” Cal dropped his cigarette on the ground and stepped on it. “It hadda been someone with pull that kept him comfy. Hadda been a guard that looked out for him and kept his butt hole tight and dry all those years.”

  Streeter winced at the allusion. “A guard? Who?”

  Cal didn’t respond.

  “Look, you’re already well into the bonus round. Just give me a name, a reason, and how to find the guy, and I’m on my way.”

  Bosco took out another cigarette and lit it. Then he nodded and leaned forward. “There’s this one total fuckin’ slob named Otis Weeks. A regular farm boy without a ounce a brains. He seemed to be about the only person that Swallow ever talked to. And he’d been there so long that he could wire anything. Like visits from a hooker, and like keeping the other cons away. It’s tough picturing Weeks himself having the balls to team up with Swallow, but he could have. One way or another, he’ll sure as hell know who did. My hunch is that, if you go squeeze Weeks hard enough, the guy you’re after’ll fall out. You better be a little cagey, though. Otis is pretty paranoid.”

  Streeter thought for a moment. “He still work down there?”

  “No. He retired about a year ago. Thirty-two years on the job, full pension. He left right after Swallow walked. Otis lives with his mother, west of Monument. Do you believe that?” Cal shook his head in exaggerated wisdom. “Close to a two-hour drive each way to work and back, but he couldn’t move out of Mommy’s house. The guy’s a regular swinging dick, all right. I don’t have his number, but I’m sure a smart guy like you can read a phone book.”

  Streeter couldn’t believe this phony sitting next to him used to be a prison guard. He reached back into his pants and pulled out the wad of fifties. Peeling off four more, he handed them to Bosco. “I’ll take a crack at it.”

  Cal grabbed the money and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. The bent Pall Mall was in his mouth as he did, and smoke curled around his eyes, forcing him to wince deeply. “I guess that means we’re all done here, right, tough guy?”

  Streeter nodded, stood up, and looked down one more time. He wanted to tell Bosco to practice his ridiculous hard-bitten act some more in front of a mirror before taking it public. But he might need the ex-guard again. All he said was, “I guess we are. Good luck there, Cal. But you might want to remember, smoking cigarettes is for pussies.”

  He turned and walked back to his car.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Otis Weeks sucked on the tiny brass hash pipe as he squinted at the television. Jerry Springer. “Goof wad,” Otis snarled, alone in his basement rec room. Lately, that’s how he lived: isolated, stoned, and honked off. Springer was pacing in front of five men who wanted to become women. Or was it women who wanted to become men? Weeks had lost track, but he liked listening to the audience react. Spasms of angry howls washed over the forms slouched onstage. If they ever held cock fights in an insane asylum, Otis figured, it would sound about like that.

  “Freaks!” he yelled, turning his attention back to his drugs. He took another toke and set the pipe on the tray next to his recliner. Bending forward, he wheezed audibly. His asthma was hounding him. Smoking dope and the occasional Benson & Hedges menthol didn’t help. It was so bad lately that he’d get winded tying his shoes. Although only five foot nine, he pushed the scales at close to two fifty. True, he had some mass in his shoulders and chest. But the bulk of his weight rested between his knees and his sternum, and it wasn’t going anywhere.

  When he brought up the recliner and put his feet on the floor, he looked around. An empty shot glass sat on the tray next to his pipe. Ginger schnapps. Twelve-ten on a Friday afternoon might be a bit early to start drinking, but Otis rationalized it a couple of ways. First, he was retired. Retired people are supposed to, if not party constantly, at least kick back most of the time. Second, it was only ginger schnapps. Barely counted as booze. Smoking the drugs he didn’t even try to justify. Otis had fired up on hash or pot daily for over twenty years. He’d slipped past the DOC’s random urine tests by always keeping a vial of clean pee tucked in his boot. As he used to brag to his drug source in Pueblo, “I’ve been holding a piss since the Nixon administration.”

  Suddenly, a noise from upstairs worked its way toward him. “Od-us!” A pause. “Oh, Od-us!” it repeated, louder. A car commercial popped up on the tube, so Weeks grabbed the remote and clicked it out of existence. Then he glanced at the door to the stairs and squinted for clarity. Yet another “Od-us!” tumbled down the stairs. His mother always made his name sound like a short sentence.

  Slowly, he stood and moved toward the door. His thigh caught a corner of the tray and almost knocked it over. “Ehhh,” he grunted. When he got there, he opened the door and looked up. Again, he squinted behind his thick glasses and frowned in concentration. Damn, he was more wasted than he thought, but he could still make out the formidable figure of his mother at the top of the stairs.

  “Od-us, when are you going to town?” Lois Weeks cringed back at her son in the dark stairwell. “I need that prescription filled.”

  There was a nervous silence as he thought. “I got it yesterday,” he finally blurted. Then he scratched at his chest through the rumpled tan DOC shirt. “It’s in your medicine cabinet. I’ll be up in a minute to show you.”

  He hadn’t been out of the house in nearly five days, and he knew damned well his mother had no medicine. It was supposed to thin out her blood. Or maybe thicken it? Otis had lost track. He could see her mouth slowly drop open as she considered his answer. Lois was always bent over and leaning slightly to the side, like she was looking around a corner. With her mop of gray hair parted deeply on the left, horse lips, and dark, barren eyes, she looked like Jimmy Carter in drag. Otis didn’t like her much, although he’d lived his entire fifty-four years under her roof.

  Slowly, Lois began to nod as though everything was clear. Then her eyes narrowed and she drew her head back. “I’ll look myself.” Sounding vaguely mad, she sniffed at the air. “What’s that smell?”

  Otis glanced over his shoulder and then back at Lois. He knew she’d have a fit if she ever found his drugs. Still, he figured, with her circulation problems, he could repanel the entire rec room in the time it would take her to navigate the twelve steps down there. She hadn’t been to the basement in years.

  “Incense,” he answered. “I musta told you that a hunnert times.”

  “What kind of insects smell like that? It’s more like you’re burning a bunch of tires, for Pete’s sakes.”

  “Incense!” he yelled back. Can’t she get anything right? “It cuts the odor from the sump pump, like I told ya. Jesus Christ!”

  Lois’s eyes flashed open and she nodded. “Sump pump,” she repeated gravely. With that she turned and shuffled into the kitchen, shutting the door behind her. Otis stared up for a moment, and then stepped back and closed his door. He made his way through the rec room and into the little office he’d put together over the years. After closing that door behind him, he moved to his desk and eased himself into the chair. He shook his head to clear it and re
minded himself to stick to just pot for a while. Hash always messed him up too much. So did the opium he flirted with from time to time.

  As he opened the top drawer, several plastic eight-millimeter film containers he kept his drugs in rolled aimlessly around. He noticed the two envelopes of cash from the other night. Over twenty grand. It reminded him of Carol Irwin. Otis grabbed his pot and shut the drawer. Then he reached down to a lower drawer and opened it. His heart fluttered for an instant when he saw what was inside. Three pair of new thong panties he’d taken from Carol’s dresser. Red, black, and—his personal favorite—bright green. Lying there crumpled into small wads, they looked more like lacy ribbons than clothing. Weeks took the green one and held it up just inches from his face. He leaned forward and rubbed his cheek gently against the soft silk. Then he dropped the panty back into the drawer and shut it with his knee.

  He wasn’t sure why he’d taken them. Maybe he just wanted a reminder of Carol. Hell, he half fell in love with her in those few hours they were together before she died. No way he wanted to see her dead. He told her she was beautiful. If she cooperated, they could maybe go off somewhere and get to know each other.

  “I’d rather die of bone-marrow cancer than let you touch me,” she’d hissed back as she squirmed in the chair. “You hear me, you stupid shit kicker?”

  Sitting at his desk, he felt his eyes get moist. Sure, he had to smack her a few times to get the right answers. But when he put the gag on her, he never imagined she’d panic and choke. He wasn’t even in the same room when it happened. No, he didn’t mean to hurt her. The term “unlucky in love” raced through his mind. So did his mother’s constant assessment of him: “If there’s one thing you’re good at, Od-us, I’ve never seen any evidence of it.”

  He blinked against the wetness in his eyes. Still loveless and friendless. As always. And what was it that Carol had called him? “Fucking clueless!”

  That last part wasn’t completely true, Otis knew. He might look like just a celibate old sauce hound, but he had his moments. Made all-state as a high-school football tackle. Hell, he’d even spent a couple of winters in junior college. He liked sociology. Of course, he never finished, and that was pretty much ancient history anyhow. Still, he was no idiot, he kept reminding himself. He could rise to the occasion. That’s how he tracked down Swallow and Irwin. They sure as hell never expected that. No, he told himself now, you don’t want to sell Otis Weeks short.

  Streeter always became slightly disoriented when he left the city. So here he was, late on a Friday afternoon, lost eight miles east of Monument. Most of the houses were too far off the road for him to see their addresses. He was on a two-lane blacktop, flat as a desk with the autumn sun searing his windshield. Screw it, he decided. Pull into the next driveway and ask for directions. But before he could, he saw forms in the distance near the side of the road. He drove another couple of hundred yards and pulled over. Two girls in their early teens stopped walking when his car began to slow down. Streeter put the old Buick into park, waited a moment, and then got out. There was a whiff of burned rubber in the air, along with a faint rumble of distant power equipment. The girls stared and then started walking again.

  “Howdy,” he said, working up a smile and nodding when they got to him. “I’m lost. You ladies know your way around out here?”

  Once again, they both stopped in unison. Wearing jeans and T-shirts, neither of them seemed impressed with the stranger. Maybe curious, but certainly not afraid. “We sure should,” the taller one said. “Lived here our whole lives.” She had chopped red hair and incredibly pale skin that was highlighted with black lipstick.

  “Can you tell me where Otis Weeks lives?”

  At the sound of the name, both girls scrunched up their faces in forced disgust. “Not him,” the tall one said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The talker took a step closer and lowered her country-and-Western voice. “He’s nothing but a damned weirdo. None of us even talk to him.” Her friend was nodding at every word. “Ain’t right, an old man like that still living with his mother. Pull-ese. And he looks at us so funny.” She shuddered and stepped back.

  “Yeah, well, I need to talk to him.”

  “You here to buy that piano of his?” the tall one asked.

  Streeter frowned. “What piano?”

  The shorter girl spoke for the first time. “He got a sign out: ‘Piano for sale.’ It’s been there for about a year. Guess they’re too cheap to advertise.” She turned and lifted her arm in the direction they had just come from. “His place is over there. That brown one that looks like a big old cow pie.” She turned back. “Sorta like your car.”

  Streeter glanced at the house but resisted looking at his Buick. The girls were moving down the road behind him by the time he turned back. He got in his car, drove the half-mile to Weeks’ driveway, and pulled over. During the hour-long trip down from Denver, he was trying to think of a pretense for his visit. He was sure he was getting closer to his target and he didn’t want Weeks tipped off to what he was after. The best he could come up with was the ever-popular “I’m lost.” Very clever. But now he had a perfect excuse to be there. The piano. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, and he knew he wouldn’t squeeze Weeks as Bosco had suggested. But he wanted to meet Otis and maybe shake him up some. Streeter would be fishing blind, but sometimes that’ll catch you plenty. Sometimes it’s all you’ve got.

  Glancing at the house, he realized the little girl was right. Listing to one side, the two-story building looked more like a tractor shed sitting alone on the bare prairie. Its peeled wood was dried to a dull dung color, and the porch steps sagged badly. A faded white plank with “For sale, Spinat piano—$750” painted on it was nailed to a post at the driveway entrance.

  The bounty hunter left his car at the road and walked to the front door. He gently tapped on it. Then it took over five minutes of knocking ever louder before he heard motion inside. In another minute or so, the door opened and a boxy woman in plaid shorts, a sweatshirt, and a denim baseball cap answered. She winced at her visitor, struggling to recognize him. Failing that, she looked down at the unlit cigar in her hand and scowled. “You got a match?” she asked the man in front of her.

  Streeter shook his head. “I don’t smoke.”

  The old lady raised an eyebrow and nodded. “But you used to, didn’t you? I can always tell.” She frowned again. “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Bill. I understand you have a piano for sale.”

  Lois studied him. “The piano. Yeah, the piano. You’re the first one. We musta had…” Before she could finish, the lumbering form of Otis walked up behind her and coughed loudly. Both the old lady and Streeter turned to him.

  “It’s a beauty, mister,” Otis said, pushing past Lois. “What’d you say your name was?” He held out his hand as he spoke.

  Streeter looked hard at him. Weeks’ eyes were dark, and blue veins wormed around them. Huge bags rested underneath. Drinker’s eyes: always damp and never completely focused. Something else, too. His pupils were the size of quarters and he had that drowsy voice. A doper. Made sense, given the kind of garbage he’d been into at the state pen. “Bill,” he finally answered. Then he waited a beat. “Bill Swallow.”

  The man in front of him dropped his jaw and his hand at the same time. He frowned and his face flushed. “I’m Otis.” Then he clamped up and studied his visitor. Years of institution work had taught him one thing: patience.

  Finally, Lois broke the silence. “Phil here says he wants to look at the piano. Can’t sell the damned thing standing out here. Show him where it is, Od-us.”

  Weeks’ eyes narrowed. “His name’s Bill.” He waited a second. “Yes, sir, Mr. Swallow. I’ll show you the spinet. Wouldn’t mind hearing you knock out a tune, either.”

  With that he turned and walked into the house. Lois moved behind him, and Streeter followed her. The bounty hunter was glad he’d taken lessons. He ran through his limited play list
. “The Minute Waltz,” “Stardust,” and “Tie a Yellow Ribbon.” He’d go with the waltz. The living room was dark and it smelled distinctly like mothballs. An aged black spinet stood against the far wall, and there was a metal folding chair in front of it.

  “Who plays?” Streeter asked.

  “No one,” Lois responded. “My husband used to, but he’s been dead for over twelve years. Od-us here keeps saying he’ll take it up, but then, like everything else, he never follows through. I finally decided I’d rather have more room in here.”

  Streeter glanced at Otis, who took the insult in stride. “I see you used to work in corrections,” he said, nodding to the insignia on his host’s right shoulder.

  Otis’s eyes narrowed as he glanced down on his tan shirt. But he didn’t answer.

  “I had a cousin who spent a little time as a guest over at the state pen. Where’d you work, Otis?”

  “Different places,” he answered. A smile crept across his face and he nodded toward the piano. “Give it a shot, Mr. Swallow. See how she sounds.”

  The bounty hunter sat in the folding chair and stared at the keyboard. It took him almost ninety seconds to finish “The Minute Waltz.” The spinet was so out of tune it sounded like he was playing under water.

  “Showroom condition, ain’t she, Phil?” Lois inquired.

  “Yeah, right. You want seven fifty for this?”

  “We’ll take seven,” Otis said. “Think you’re interested?”

  Streeter ran his fingers gently over the keys, deep in thought. “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll help deliver it,” Otis said. “You live around here?”

  “North Colorado Springs, not far from the academy. About twenty-five minutes away. Let me think about it. What’s your number?”