When Last Seen Alive

by Gar Anthony Haywood

  “You’re thinking I won’t kill you, you’re probably right,” Gunner said, aiming the gun’s snout in the general direction of the space between the janitor’s eyes. “But I’ll kneecap your ass without a second thought, that’s how you want to play it.”

  Blue remained motionless, legs coiled up beneath him like a cobra about to strike, then slowly came to his feet again. “You’re a lucky man,” he said, his gaze entirely focused on the Ruger.

  “You mean because I brought this?” Gunner asked, grinning. “That isn’t luck. It’s intelligence. Hardheads like you make this sort of thing a necessity in my business.”

  “It’s not going to change the fact I’ve got nothing else to tell you.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Your friend Cong will be, too. Like I said before, he was hoping I could get the information I require without involving the police in any of this.”

  “Man, fuck the police. Fuck Cong. And fuck you.”

  “Damn. That’s a real hostility problem you’ve got there, Mr. Blue. I come here to ask you a few questions, and you start throwing ‘fuck yous’ around. Where the hell is all this anger coming from, man?”

  “I don’t like mixing in other people’s business. You got a problem with that?”

  “I’m not convinced yet Covington’s business wasn’t your business. In fact, I’m starting to think more and more that they might’ve been one and the same.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to that man. Not a thing!”

  “So who did? You aren’t buggin’ like this because you don’t know. You’re either trying to protect yourself, or somebody else. Or maybe both.”

  Blue fell silent again, his attention turned once more to the Ruger Gunner was still halfheartedly training upon him. It was clearly the only thing keeping him from going for Gunner’s throat, let alone becoming nonconversant.

  “I tell you what you want to hear,” he said finally, “it’s over. For good. I don’t ever wanna see you or the cops in here again asking about this man Covington. You understand what I’m telling you?”

  “The cops have a mind of their own,” Gunner said. “If I told you I can control where they go and who they talk to, I’d be full of shit.”

  “They aren’t gonna come around here unless you bring ’em around.”

  “Okay. So I won’t bring ’em around. Providing, ofcourse, you can convince me you had nothing to do with Covington’s disappearance.”

  “I didn’t. I swear it.”

  “Good. Now convince me.”

  Blue paused one final time, sucked in a deep breath. “Some people in this world you just don’t wanna fuck with. Man I saw with Covington that night, he’s like that. He ever finds out I talked to you about this, I’m dead. That’s guaranteed.”

  “I understand,” Gunner said.

  “He was with Covington the time I saw him going back into his room. They were going in together, it looked like Covington was inviting him in.”

  “Who?”

  Blue shook his head. “I don’t know the man’s real name. All I know is what people like to call him: Barber Jack. On account of the razor he carries, the biggest fucking knife I ever saw.”

  “Barber Jack? You mean Johnny Frerotte?”

  “I told you. I never heard the man’s real name.”

  “Johnny Frerotte’s about five-six, five-seven, weighs close to two hundred and thirty pounds. Light skin, light hair, walks like he’s got bricks in his pockets.”

  “You know him.”

  “No. But we’ve met.”

  The truth was much more complicated than that, but Gunner didn’t care to say so just yet.

  “Then I don’t have to tell you why I don’t like talking to you about this,” Blue said. “Do I?”

  “No. You don’t,” Gunner admitted. Wondering if he’d be doing any talking, were their situations reversed.

  “It might not’ve even been him, I don’t know,” Blue said. “I’d only seen the man once before. But it sure looked like him to me.”

  “And you only saw him with Covington the one time?”

  “Going into unit five, yeah. That was the last time I saw either one of them that night.”

  Gunner asked him if he’d overheard any conversation between the two men, and Blue shook his head, said, “They weren’t having any conversation. At least, none that I could hear, anyway.”

  “Then you don’t know what they were doing together.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “And you weren’t curious enough to find out.”

  “Curious? Why the hell would I be curious?”

  “I just thought it might pique your interest, that’s all. Seeing a Joe Average tourist like Covington rubbing elbows with a local psycho like Barber Jack.”

  “My interest doesn’t get piqued over shit like that. I told you.”

  “You don’t like mixing in other people’s business.”

  “That’s right. I don’t.”

  “I know you’re never going to believe this,” Gunner said, slipping the Ruger back into its holster under his left arm. “But I don’t like to do it much, myself.”

  He was trying to be fair, giving the janitor this one last chance to rush him, but the younger man never moved. Either distrustful or merely disinterested, he just stood there and watched as Gunner wrapped a business card in a twenty dollar bill, tossed the bundle atop the bed beside him.

  “The money’s for the table. The card’s for you,” the investigator said.

  Then he turned and walked out the door.

  four

  BARBER JACK’S STRAIGHT RAZOR WAS EIGHT INCHES LONG.

  A winged dragon with a serpentine tail was ornately carved into both sides of its ivory handle, and its gilded, finely filigreed blade was always polished to perfection. People who claimed to have seen its owner wield it said he liked to open the razor up slowly, dazzle a foe with the light dancing off its edges before cutting him down with a single sweep of his right arm. The city was teeming with stories of those who had died at the touch of Barber Jack’s uniquely horrific weapon, but few were ever told about those who had managed to survive it. Many doubted such people even existed.

  Gunner knew firsthand that they did.

  He had been at the Acey Deuce Bar the last night Barber Jack—whose real name was Johnny Frerotte—made an appearance there. It was nine years ago now, back when J.T. Tennell, the South-Central bar’s original owner and bartender, was still around to manage the conduct of his patrons like a short-tempered prison warden. J.T. had never cared for Frerotte in the first place, never really liked having his kind around, but the squat giant with the fancy knife rarely visited the Deuce, and always managed to behave himself when he did, so the barkeep had little excuse not to tolerate his business.

  On this night Frerotte had been alone, standing at the bar instead of sitting there for fear a stool might fail to bear his weight. He was smoking his customary cigar, a Cuban blend as long and fat as the leg of a chair, and was drinking Johnnie Walker Black, neat, while his eyes rolled over the near-empty house like those of an angry policeman. Gunner sat in a booth with his cousin Del Curry at the opposite end of the room, trying to pretend it didn’t bother him to have Frerotte’s gaze washing over him like that. A broad-shouldered black man named Adam Cowens and his date, a heavy-set sister wearing an unconvincing wig and blatantly false eyelashes, were the only other customers in sight. They sat farther down the bar to Frerotte’s right, whispering various come-on lines into each other’s ear, laughing and giggling like two kids at the movies. Cowens seemed not to notice the avaricious looks Frerotte kept giving his woman, but Gunner had no such problem, even from a distance.

  J.T. noticed them, too. Standing behind the bar directly in front of Frerotte, watching him like he was the only living soul in the house, the big bartender could smell the blood about to flow as if it were already in evidence. His instincts told him to show Frerotte to the door, step in on him now before
he could do something irreversible, but he chose instead to give the man the benefit of the doubt, worried that he might be reacting to something that wasn’t really there.

  It was a decision J.T. would regret for the remainder of his life.

  Cowens left his woman to go to the bathroom, and Frerotte took advantage of his absence to eye his lady in earnest, all but licking his lips and rubbing his palms together as he did so. Cowens’s friend, meanwhile, just sat there, doing a masterful job of ignoring his very presence in the room. Without turning her head to one side or the other, she slipped a cigarette into the right side of her mouth and began to rummage around in her purse for something to light it with. Frerotte never hesitated; he lumbered over to her, thumbing a gold-tone lighter to life, and waited for her to make use of the proffered flame.

  “Here you go, little lady,” the fair-skinned giant said.

  The woman with the bad wig looked at him, thought for a moment about turning him away, then tilted her head toward his lighter to accept his invitation.

  That was when Cowens reappeared.

  “What the hell is this?” he asked. Directing the question at Frerotte, and not his friend.

  Gunner sat up in his seat and wondered if Cowens had any idea who Frerotte was.

  “Sister needed a light, I was giving her one,” Frerotte said calmly, his shoulders lifting once in a tiny shrug. He was even smiling to show the man how innocent it all was.

  “She ask you for a light?” Cowens asked.

  “No. You always wait for a lady to ask before you give her somethin’?”

  J.T. started moving toward the pair, said, “All right, all right, chill out a minute.”

  “He was just lighting my cigarette, Adam, that’s all,” the woman said. “Don’t make a thing out of it, please.”

  “Fatboy’s the one makin’ a thing out of somethin’,” Cowens said. “Ain’t that right, fatboy?”

  “I said that’s enough!” J.T. bellowed.

  “I am fat, that’s true,” Frerotte said, the smile still visible on his face. “But that ain’t no reason to be insulting.”

  The closed straight razor was in his right hand now. No one had seen him reach for it, it had just appeared there.

  “Put that goddamn thing away, Jack,” J.T. said.

  “You better do what the man says,” Cowens agreed. More respectful of Frerotte, perhaps, but still not smart enough to be afraid of him.

  Gunner eased his way out of the booth and stood up, finally convinced that Cowens was oblivious to Frerotte’s identity.

  “You know what your problem is, brother?” Frerotte asked Cowens, not even showing J.T. the courtesy of a glance. “Too much muscle. Shit’s got you thinkin’ you’re indestructible.”

  No one Frerotte’s size should have been so capable, but he flicked the razor at Cowens’ face and withdrew it again almost faster than the naked eye could register the motion. A huge chunk of flesh took flight and landed at J.T.’s feet on the other side of the bar, as Cowens howled and brought both hands to his face, trying to stanch a flow of blood his fingers could barely abate.

  “But see? You ain’t indestructible,” Frerotte said, smiling now not to disarm Cowens, but to torment him.

  “Goddamnit, Jack!” J.T. shouted, before bending over to pick up the bloody brown nub that had once been the better half of Cowens’s nose.

  Cowens was still screaming in horror, tears and blood running down his hands, as his woman rushed over to him, begging somebody, anybody, to go get her a towel. J.T. scrambled around the bar, ushered her and Cowens into the back where his office and private bathroom lay. That left Gunner and Del alone to watch Frerotte clean his razor with a bar napkin, performing the task as nonchalantly as a man setting the proper time on his watch.

  “Put that fucking thing away, Jack,” Gunner said.

  Frerotte looked up to see the investigator standing just outside of his reach, eyes set hard like somebody braced for war. His cousin Del stood right beside him, his expression equally determined, the two of them creating a united, if unimposing, front. The grin that had left Frerotte’s face momentarily returned, only a little lighter and less venomous than before.

  “You talkin’ to me, Gunner?” Frerotte asked.

  “Yeah, I am. Fold the goddamn machete up and put it in your pocket. May take the cops a while to get here, and I don’t feel like looking at that thing while we’re waiting.”

  “You ain’t gonna have to. I’m leavin’.”

  Gunner shook his head.

  “Oh, I see. You gonna make me stay, is that right? You and your little brother there?”

  “That all depends on you. I don’t want to mix it up with you, Jack. We aren’t friends, but we aren’t enemies, either. I’d like to keep it that way, if we can.”

  “Then stay the hell out of my business.”

  “You mutilate a man in my presence, I figure that is my business.”

  “Then you figure wrong. What the hell you thinkin’ about, gettin’ in my face like this? Are you strappin’? Is that it?”

  “Put the knife away, Jack,” Gunner said again. Knowing even as he did so that evading Frerotte’s question was as good as answering it: No, he wasn’t carrying a gun tonight.

  “I tell you what,” Frerotte said. “I’m either gonna see what you had for breakfast this mornin’, or what you got for me. One or the other.”

  The big man took a step in Gunner’s direction.

  “Stop right there, motherfucker,” J.T. said.

  He was back behind the bar, training the shotgun he always kept anchored to a shelf beneath it on Frerotte’s ample gut. Even in his agitated condition, Frerotte could see that this man of little patience had no more patience left for him.

  “Get the fuck outta here, and don’t come back,” J.T. said. “I ever see you in my place again, I’m gonna empty this motherfucker on you first, and ask you to leave later. You hear what I’m sayin’?”

  Frerotte examined the barkeeper’s face for a moment, searching for some indication that the threat was insincere, only to discover just the opposite was true. He would die if he ever set foot in the Deuce again. He had never been so sure of anything in his life.

  “All right. Have it your way,” Frerotte said, trying to portray a man too big to be affected by so small a defeat as this. He turned to face Gunner one last time, said, “Until next time, my brother.”

  He closed the razor in his right hand lovingly, slipped it into his back pocket, and was gone.

  Nine years later, the “next time” Frerotte had referred to still had not materialized.

  Gunner had done everything in his power to avoid the big man, and Frerotte had never come looking for him, at least to the investigator’s knowledge. Gunner didn’t know why, and he didn’t much care; he was just glad to see Jack had lost interest. Cowens, meanwhile, left Los Angeles for good not long after his mutilation, some said for Atlanta, others Memphis, taking his girlfriend and a badly reattached nose with him. Gunner saw him once before his departure, pumping gas into a Lincoln at a station on Hawthorne Boulevard, and had a hard time not staring at the misaligned mass of flesh and bone Frerotte’s butchery had left him to live with. Neither one of them said a word about Barber Jack.

  After years of not doing so, it would have suited Gunner just fine to never speak the man’s name again, but now that was impossible. A janitor named Blue had seen to that.

  “What the hell you wanna ask me about him for?” Lilly Tennell asked Gunner, spilling Wild Turkey all over the Acey Deuce’s bar as she tried to pour him a shot and scold him at the same time. The big woman with the red smear of a mouth hadn’t been there the night her late husband had banned Frerotte from the premises, but it was a move she had always been strongly in favor of. She despised Frerotte with a passion and had been riding J.T. to close the Deuce’s doors to him from the moment she first laid eyes on him.

  “I need to talk to him, Lilly,” Gunner said. “For a case I’m working on.”r />
  “Ain’t a case in the world that important. Do yourself a favor and leave that motherfucker alone. You’ll live longer.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, and I feel the same way. But I don’t have a choice, I really have to talk to him.”

  “And you think I know where you can find him?”

  “I was hoping you might’ve heard something about that, yeah.”

  “His name don’t come up around here, Gunner. You know that.”

  “Doesn’t mean he hasn’t dropped in at least once since J.T. passed, just to see if he could get away with it.”

  Lilly laughed at the very thought. “Shit. I wish to God he had. He’d’ve lost more than his goddamn nose, he’d’ve tried comin’ in here.”

  “Then you don’t know where I can find him. That what you’re saying?”

  J.T.’s widow stared at him, two massive, meaty arms crossed in front of her chest, trying to decide if he was man enough to handle the information he was asking her to divulge. Gunner just let her look, knowing from experience how useless it was to press her when she was determined to be deliberate about such things.

  “Man came in here a while ago, said he an’ Jack was in the joint together once,” Lilly said eventually, her tone full of disdain and disapproval. “Talked about the time they did together like it was a vacation on the Riviera, or somethin’.”

  “And?”

  “And he said he just run into Jack a couple days before that, first time since he got out, over at one of them casinos over on Normandie. Jack’s a security man there, he said, you can believe that shit.”

  “Which casino was this?”

  “The Royalty Club, I think it was. I’m not sure.”

  “The one across the street from the Queen of Hearts.”

  “Yeah. But I could be wrong, like I said. Man was talkin’ to Benny Abbott that night, not me, so I’m only tellin’ you what I overheard.”