Breezy Petty, about five years ago. Nasty. Very nasty. “Yeah, it’s true,” Taggert replies.
“How you do this?”
Taggert scratches the scar on his throat and squints, pretending he has to dig up the details from his memory. “I started with his right hand,” he says. “Dipped it in gas, set it on fire, and let it burn a while, then put it out. Then his left hand, left foot, right foot, and so on. He hung in there for a long time. I think I eventually had to put a bullet in him.”
Mando licks his index finger and idly rubs at a scuff on the toe of his boot, like he’s bored by the story, like he’s all kinds of rough and tough. “I’ll talk to my boss in Mexico,” he says. “If he says okay, we come up with a way to get the paper to you. I’ll contact him” — he motions to Benjy.
There’s a knock at the door. Worry ripples across Mando’s face. He slides his boot off the table and sets the chair down. Taggert tightens up, like there’s a big screw in his stomach that’s attached to everything. Again he thinks how dumb it was not to bring a piece.
He turns to look over his shoulder as Mando waves the muscle to the door. The guy puts his eye to the peephole, then curses under his breath. When he opens up, another bodybuilder, not as pretty as the first, steps into the room and rattles off something in Spanish.
“An old woman is died while playing a machine,” Mando says. “Enrique is afraid. He thinks it could be a bad sign.”
“We saw it,” Benjy says. He points at Taggert. “He tried to help her.”
“Really?” Mando says to Taggert. “So now maybe you have a ghost following you.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Taggert replies.
“No?”
“No.”
Mando shakes his head ruefully. “We got a lot of ghosts in Mexico,” he says. “A lot. I have seen some myself.”
“Oh, yeah?” Taggert says.
“Seriously, hombre. In my town, the children, we play by the water, the stream, you know? One time after the rain the stream flooded, and the water took away a little girl, Rosa. The men search and search but never find her. Her family buried an empty coffin.
“A month later, another girl, Isabel, woke up crying. Her mother says, ‘What’s wrong, Isabel?’ and the girl says, ‘I’m not Isabel; I’m Rosa.’ The mother tells the girl it’s wrong to talk that way, but Isabel is still crying and still saying she is Rosa.”
Music blasts on the other side of the closed door separating the bedroom from the rest of the suite. A woman laughs.
“Hey!” Mando yells. “Hey!”
The door opens, and a dark-haired girl in a tiny bathing suit pokes her head out. Taggert can see another girl, a blonde, sprawled on the bed behind her.
“We are talking,” Mando says.
The dark-haired girl rolls her eyes and closes the door. The music cuts off.
“So, anyway,” Mando says, picking up his story, “Isabel’s father brought the priest to talk to Isabel. The priest ask her questions about Rosa’s family, about her house, and Isabel answered them all. She tell the priest she wants to see her mother, and then she will show him where her bones are.
“The priest took Isabel to Rosa’s house. I remember I seen them walking. The girl looked strange to me, and I was scared, you know, very scared. Rosa’s mother speaked to the girl and couldn’t believe it. It was really Rosa’s ghost in Isabel’s body.
“They talked for a while, then the ghost said she must go. Rosa’s mother begged her to stay, but the ghost said God was waiting for her.
“The priest put Isabel on a burro and took her into the desert. They came to a place where all the garbage from the flood was piled up, and Isabel told the priest where to dig.
“Right there he found Rosa’s body. Isabel, she was asleeping then, and he couldn’t wake her. He wrapped Rosa’s body in a blanket and tied it to the burro and carried Isabel all the way back to the pueblo.
“Isabel waked up like normal two days later, only talking about a dream of heaven. I remember the whole pueblo came when they dug up the empty coffin and put Rosa inside.”
One of the bodybuilders crosses himself, and Mando raises his hands and tilts his head as if to say to Taggert, “Ghosts. What more proof do you need?” Taggert can’t suppress a snicker.
“You don’ believe me?” Mando says, his heavy eyebrows crashing into each other above his nose.
“Oh, I believe you,” Taggert says quickly. “It’s just it sounds a little crazy, you know?”
“It’s not crazy,” Mando says.
Taggert leans back in his chair, trying to ease the tension. “Look,” he says. “I just wanted to come here and let you see my face, let you see the kind of man I am.”
“A man who don’ believe in ghosts,” Mando says.
“A man who’s all about putting money in his pocket,” Taggert says. “The same kind of man as you.”
Mando flashes his gold tooth in a quick smile, but Taggert doesn’t trust it.
“Okay,” Mando says. “I talk to my boss and contact you soon.”
The music starts in the bedroom again. Mando tenses as if he’s about to shout once more, but then something sly comes into his expression, and he turns back to Taggert.
“Party girls,” he says with a shrug.
“Best kind,” Taggert replies.
“You like to party? With girls?”
“Who doesn’t?”
Mando stands and walks to the bedroom door. He opens it and says, “Come, come, ladies, to meet someone.”
The girls step into the doorway on either side of him, and he wraps his arms around them. Nice stuff. The best money can buy.
“This is Tanya,” he says, kissing the blonde on the cheek. “And this is her friend…” The name escapes him.
“Vallee,” the dark one says.
“Vallee, Vallee.” Mando kisses her on the cheek too, then says to Taggert, “You want to party with them?”
“Some other time,” Taggert says. “I’ve got places to be, people to see.”
“Come on,” Mando says. “Pick one. Or both.”
“Really, bro, thanks and all, but…”
“You are a faggot?” Mando says. “No, you are not a faggot.”
Taggert colors as he tries to hide the anger rising inside him. This is no test. Mando is fucking with him, pure and simple. Got to let it go, though, to make this deal.
“Maybe you are a cop,” Mando continues, his face tight behind his fake smile. “Maybe that’s why you won’t fuck my girls.”
“You know I’m not a cop, man,” Taggert growls. He plants his hands flat on the table and pushes himself up out of his chair. Mando flinches a little as he approaches him and the girls.
“You want to watch?” Taggert asks him.
The smile disappears from Mando’s face. He steps away from the girls, and Taggert takes his place between them, ushering them into the bedroom. The door closes behind them, and over the music Taggert hears Mando say something in Spanish that makes the bodybuilders and Benjy laugh. A joke about him, no doubt.
13
FRIDAY AT NOON BOONE DIALS THE NUMBER HE GOT FOR BIG Unc from Morrison’s notebook.
“Playpen,” barks the man who answers.
Boone is taken aback but recovers quickly. “Is Big Unc there?” he asks.
“He comes in around two. Who’s this?”
“Who’s this?”
“This is Tim.”
“Tim, right,” Boone says. “Thanks, Tim.”
“Hold on, now,” Tim sputters. “Who the fuck is this?”
Boone hangs up. He can pull the address for the Playpen off the Internet and drive over to talk to this Unc about Joto this afternoon and still be back in plenty of time to pick up Amy and go to Carl’s to watch the boxing match.
He walks into the kitchen and opens a can of food for Joto. The dog dives right in when he sets the bowl on the floor. Boone hasn’t heard anything from Loretta about someone wanting to adopt him. She shou
ld shoot some new photos once he’s healthier.
“Henry,” Boone says, trying out the name Morrison mentioned. “Hey, Henry.” The dog doesn’t look up.
Boone makes himself a ham and cheese sandwich, pulls a beer out of the refrigerator, and returns to the living room to eat in front of the TV. The news is on. Car bombs and Internet sex stings, miracle babies and tainted meat. Payday’s tomorrow, and he’s got thirty bucks to last him until then. Shouldn’t be any big thing though. The Olds has half a tank of gas in it, and there’s a decent bottle of wine in the cupboard to take over to Carl’s.
He tosses Joto a corner of his sandwich and changes the channel. “Today we’re talking to teenage tramps,” some white-haired joker says.
A new crack has appeared in the ceiling of the bungalow, like a black bolt of lightning in a white sky. Boone wonders if there was an earthquake yesterday. Sometimes, when you’re on the move, you don’t even feel the little ones.
THE PLAYPEN TURNS out to be a bar on the weedy fringes of Compton, a windowless pink stucco box right there between the Louisiana Fish Market and Kisha’s Hair Affair. Boone is parked in front, working out what he’s going to say to Big Unc, when a couple of kids walk past and give him hard looks. He doesn’t blame them — white faces down here usually mean nothing but trouble — but before they can set off any alarms, he steps out of the Olds, takes three quick breaths as he crosses the sidewalk, and ducks into the bar.
He pauses just inside the door to let his eyes adjust. Everybody can see him, but he can’t see anyone. As soon as he’s able to make out an empty stool, he slides onto it. The bartender, a short old guy in a Laker T-shirt and thick glasses, is on him immediately.
“Can I help you?” he asks. Boone recognizes the gravelly voice from the phone. Tim.
“How about a Bud.”
“You got ID?”
Boone unfolds his wallet and lays it on the bar.
“I need for you to take it out,” Tim says.
The old man’s sweating him, but Boone keeps his mouth shut and slips his driver’s license from its clear plastic sleeve and hands it to him. Tim examines it up close, then at arm’s length. He stares at Boone, then the license, then back at Boone before saying, “What you want again?”
“A Budweiser.”
Boone scopes the place out while Tim shuffles to the cooler with deliberate slowness. It’s a narrow room, bar on the left wall, red vinyl booths patched with duct tape on the right, a couple video games blinking in back. The jukebox is playing Marvin Gaye, and both of the other customers, shadowy figures slouched a few barstools apart, are smoking, even though it’s against the law.
Boone nurses his beer after Tim delivers it and tries to come up with a way to ask about Big Unc without spooking him. He watches a spiderweb up near the ceiling that’s situated directly in front of an air-conditioning vent. The cold wind blasting from the vent has stretched the web to its limits, puffing it like a parachute. It’s torn from its mooring when the front door opens with a whoosh and a blade of sunlight stabs the darkness, then withdraws.
“Unc here?” the newcomer asks.
Tim hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “He in back, fucking with that machine.”
Boone smiles at his good luck.
The newcomer steps up to the bar not five feet from Boone and says, “Let me get a couple drinks here.” He’s tall and skinny, wearing a black nylon do-rag, a clean white T-shirt, and baggy jeans. With him is a girl, maybe eighteen, tight skirt and blouse straining to contain her big ass and titties, a braided blond wig hanging to the middle of her back.
“Vodka and cranberry,” the guy says. “What you want, baby?”
“Ya’ll got wine coolers?” the girl asks Tim.
“We got wine coolers,” Tim says. “We got whatever you want.”
He moves off to fetch the drinks, and the new guy looks down at Boone and says, “How you doin’, my brother?”
“Better by the beer,” Boone replies.
The guy smiles, showing the whitest teeth Boone has ever seen. “Let me ask you,” he says. “They a KKK meeting around here somewhere?”
“Oh, shit,” the girl hoots.
Boone looks down at his beer and shakes his head. “Ahh, man, why’s it got to be like that?” he says.
“Nah, I’m just fucking with you,” the guy says. “You cool, you cool.” He turns to the girl. “You know who he look like? Like that dude in that movie.”
“Brad Pitt?” the girl says.
“Brad Pitt? He don’t look like motherfucking Brad Pitt. You need to get over to Laser Eye Center, get you some LASIK.”
Tim delivers the vodka cranberry and the wine cooler. The guy passes the cooler to the girl and picks up his drink.
“Cheers,” he says to Boone.
Boone raises his bottle and tilts it toward the guy’s glass, then watches him and the girl walk to the back of the bar. The guy knocks on a red door, and he and the girl disappear through it after someone on the other side opens up.
Boone finishes his beer while listening to “Me and Mrs. Jones” on the jukebox. He’s all revved up. The next few minutes could go a million different ways. He almost knocks over his stool when he stands and walks down the bar to where Tim is working a word-search puzzle and asks, “Where’s the bathroom?”
Tim points toward the back and says, “You need paper? We keep it behind here.”
“Nah, I’m good,” Boone says. Just past the video games he spots the men’s room on his left. On his right is the door the young couple went through, with a peephole and a PRIVATE sign. The door is slightly ajar, and Boone hears music playing on the other side and someone rapping, “I like big butts, and I cannot lie.” He doesn’t like the idea of barging in unannounced, especially when Unc has company, but this might be his only chance to get to the man. Changing course abruptly, he shoulders open the door and steps over the threshold.
The room is bigger than he expected it would be. Five video poker machines are lined up along one wall, and there’s a blackjack table and a craps table. The couple, sitting on a worn leather couch in a lounge area with a small bar, stare up at him, startled. An older man stands in front of a karaoke machine, microphone in hand. He’s wearing some kind of loose-fitting canary-yellow pajamas, and his hair is braided into cornrows.
“The fuck you doin’?” he shouts over the music.
“Everything’s cool,” Boone says. “I just want to ask you some questions.”
Unc’s eyes narrow, his free hand darts toward his pocket. Before it gets there, Boone is on him. Boone had hoped it wouldn’t zig this way, but now that it has, he’s got to take control immediately. He drives an elbow into Unc’s chest and grabs his wrist, which stops him from drawing whatever he was after. Unc swings the mic, but Boone blocks the shot with his forearm and throws another elbow, this time to the man’s Adam’s apple. Unc sinks to his knees, retching and clutching his throat.
Boone turns to check on the couple and steps right into a smack on the forehead from the guy, who moves in closer and hits him again with the butt of a Beretta. Boone is blinded by pain for an instant but manages to knee the guy twice in the nuts and drive him backward into the wall. Grabbing the guy’s arm, Boone slams his gun hand into a black velvet poster of Tupac until he drops the weapon, then muscles him to the couch, where he tumbles onto his cowering girlfriend.
Boone stoops to pick up the Beretta. Unc is on his knees now, one hand digging in his pocket. Boone kicks him there, in the pocket, and Unc howls and withdraws the hand while Boone stands over him and presses the Beretta to the back of his head.
“Get what you were getting, but slowly,” Boone says.
Unc reaches into his pocket with bloody fingers and comes out with a little chrome pistol.
“Toss it away,” Boone says, prodding the man’s skull with the gun.
Unc slides the pistol across the floor. It caroms off the wall and ends up under the craps table.
The karaoke machine is
still blasting Sir Mix-a-Lot. Boone yanks the plug out of the socket. He glances at the Beretta in his hand and realizes that he’s way into felony territory now. Too late to back down though.
“Go on over there with your friends,” he says to Unc. “I get my answers, and I’m gone.”
Unc rises slowly from the floor and limps to the couch, cradling his injured hand in his good one. He sits next to the girl and glares at Boone, beads of sweat glistening like tiny jewels on his forehead.
Boone closes the door and flips the deadbolt, all the while keeping the Beretta on Unc and the couple. He’s feeling sharp again after a few dizzy seconds following the blows to the head, but something warm and sticky is dripping into his left eye, distorting his vision, blood from a cut above his eyebrow.
“You got any towels in here? Any napkins?” he asks.
Unc points to the bar and says, “What you want to ask me about?”
Boone moves to the bar and finds a stack of drink napkins with the name of another establishment, the Home Stretch, printed on them. He wipes his eye clear with a few, then presses more to the cut to try to stop the bleeding.
“About a dog,” he says.
“A dog?” Unc says. “All this fucking drama for a dog?”
Boone shrugs. “You’re the one who went for his gun.”
“And you’re damn lucky I didn’t shoot you,” Unc says. The girl next to him on the couch adjusts her skirt, jostling him. “Be still,” he snaps.
She gives him a dirty look and crosses her arms over her chest.
Boone leans against the bar and says, “You bought a dog from a guy named Morrison. Henry the Fifth, a brindle pit bull.”
“Man, I sold that motherfucker more ’n six months ago.”
“To who?”
“To none of your goddamn business,” Unc says. “Unless you’re the IRS, I don’t have to open my books to you.” The girl beside him fidgets again. He elbows her and says, “Bitch, I told you to quit knocking into me.”
The guy on the couch with them leans forward to look around the girl at Unc and says, “Listen up, nigger, don’t be calling my girl a bitch.”
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