Last Ditch

by G. M. Ford

  The drunk held his arms in front of his face in the Muhammad Ah peekaboo defense, bobbing and weaving in his sleep, warding off dream blows. He'd been that way all night. He had the back end of the cell all to himself. Projectile vomiting will generally increase the size of one's personal bubble. For the past hour or so, he'd been making his peace with Mary, whoever Mary was. Or at least he was trying to. Even in his hallucinations, Mary wasn't going for it.

  "Swear to God I'll change," he blubbered. "I can do it. I know I can. You'll see, Mary. This time . . ."

  He tried to stand, slipped on his own purple puddle and fell heavily onto his right side. He rolled in it.

  "No, don't say that, Mary. Don't say that. Swear to God, I'll change. This time . . ." His words trailed off. Small snores started. I hoped he was doing better in his dreams, but I somehow doubted it.

  Quincy the Rasta man and I shared the small cot nearest the cell door. He'd been stretched out on the cot when they'd pushed me into the cell. About the time the drunk first started spewing, Quincy sat up and invited me over for tea and sympathy. I accepted. Since then, we'd alternately made conversation and watched the drunk like a TV. We'd decided we weren't renewing his option for another season.

  Quincy was holding forth. It was my own fault. I'd been curious, so I'd asked. I'd seen these guys in the streets for years, and although the politics bored the shit out of me, I'd had a few questions I'd been dying to ask. This was the best chance I was going to get.

  "My dreadlocks are an antennae, mahn. Dey give me perspective on the moral bankruptcy of de West, of Babylon. Dey de visible rejection of the assimilation process. The black man have no say in it. He just supposed to find a way to fit in."

  He waited for me to argue.

  "How do you get them to stay that way?" I asked.

  "You rub dem with coconut oil and palm oil and den beeswax, and den you start curling dem. You do it right, dey stay dat way."

  "What's the word 'Rastafarian' mean?"

  "It's two words, mahn. Ras mean 'prince.' Tafari, now dat was da name given to Haile Selassie before he crowned emperor of Ethiopia. Prince Tafari."

  "Why Ethiopia?" I asked. "It's a long way from Jamaica."

  "It's in de Bible, mahn. It say, 'Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.' Psalms sixty-eight thirty-one."

  "And Haile Selassie is the living God?"

  "Yes."

  I was confused again. "But he's dead."

  "Don't matta, mahn. De spirit lives. Some things are universal." He took out a battered pack of Luckies. "You got a light mahn?" I shook my head and pointed to the four-foot-by-four-foot sign painted on the green block wall, NO SMOKING was first among the don'ts.

  He shrugged. "What dey gonna do, mahn, put us in jail?"

  He had a point.

  "Maybe he's got one," I said. He looked over at the drunk.

  "Doan wanna smoke that bad." He put the cigarettes back in the pocket of his green Army jacket.

  Thousands of anxious fingers had worn the green paint off the bottoms of all the chain links in the screen. I kept my hands in my pockets. A metal door banged somewhere in the building. A distant conversation slowly receded. The drunk stirred, mumbled something unintelligible, broke wind and went back to snoring. The door at the end of the hall hissed open. Footsteps.

  The jailer stopped in front of the mesh. "Waterman?"

  "That's me."

  "You're outta here. You ..." He pointed his baton at the Rasta man. "... to the back of the cell."

  "No fucking way, mahn. I'm gettin' nowhere near that smelly fucker."

  "You want me to get some help in here? That what you looking for, Bob Marley? Huh? You're gonna be with us for a while. I get Waterman here straightened away, I'll be back down to fix you up with a haircut. That shit on your head looks unsanitary to me. Rules say we got to maintain sanitary conditions."

  He grinned and patted his palm with the baton.

  "You best be bringin' some help, mahn."

  "What's your last name?" I asked.

  "Why you want to know, mahn? You writin' a book?"

  "Somebody coming for you?"

  He shook his head.

  "Gonna have to sit this one out," he said. "What you in for?"

  "Drunk and disorderly," he said sadly. "It's dat demon rum, mahn. Dat demon rum."

  "Give me your name, and I'll see what I can do about getting you out of here."

  He twisted his hair while he thought about it.

  "Reeves. Quincy Reeves."

  He spelled it for me.

  "Give Bluto here a break, and I'll see what I can do."

  Quincy shrugged, picked his multicolored hat off the cot and moved to the center of the room. The jailer opened the door wide enough for me to slip out and then slammed it behind me.

  Rebecca and Stubby Watts were waiting for me in the visitor area. Stubby owned Evergreen Bail Bonds. Back in the good old days, I used to do a lot of skip trace work for him. That was back when us primitive types used to look for folks by hand. Nowadays, he's got a staff of electronic bounty hunters who sit in front of computer terminals. If you want to hide from Stubby, you better pull a Ted Kaczynski. You better find a cabin out in the middle of Bumfuck somewhere, and you better adopt a lifestyle where you don't generate a single piece of official paperwork. Not a pay stub, not a parking ticket, not an overdue charge at the library, not a nothing. Because the first time your name or any of your known aliases gets entered into somebody's computer, anywhere in the world, Stubby's boys are going to be all over you like a cheap suit

  I hugged Rebecca and then shook his hand.

  "Stubby," I said. "There's a guy in there named Quincy Reeves. See what you can do about getting him out"

  "What's he in for?"

  "Drunk and disorderly."

  "Buck and a half," Stubby said.

  "Spring him. Send me the bill."

  Duvall watched as Stubby pulled open the door and disappeared inside. "You made a friend?" she inquired.

  "Yeah. Quincy's a Rastafarian. Nice guy."

  She cocked an eyebrow. "Jailhouse romance?"

  "Not funny," I snarled. "Get me out of here."

  We pushed open the double doors and stepped out into the street

  "Where are you parked?" I asked.

  "Second and Madison."

  I took her elbow and turned north. We stayed close to the buildings, out of the wind and out of the way of the hoards of scurrying commuters who filled the sidewalks. The swirling air carried the faint odor of diesel fuel and the promise of rain.

  "By the way. Thanks. I'm sure getting me out of the slammer put a hell of a hole in your day."

  "Don't mention it," she said. "At this point I'm so far behind, it doesn't matter anymore."

  We crossed Fourth Avenue and headed down the steep slope of Madison, the wind scourging our faces, our hair a half a block back.

  I paid the fourteen-dollar parking charge. Under the circumstances, it seemed like the least I could do.

  Rebecca pushed her seat-belt harness beneath the collar of her coat, turned the key and looked over my way.

  "Where to?"

  "Ballard. I need to get my car."

  She shook her head. "They impounded it."

  "Shit"

  "You can get it back from Southside Towing between eight and five tomorrow."

  "For a mere ninety-five bucks."

  "Plus tax," she added, dropping it in reverse.

  "Son of a bitch."

  I fastened my seat belt The CD player sent Frank Sinatra's resonant baritone rolling through the car. I settled back in the seat as she backed out of the parking stall. "A brand new love affair ..."

  "How about dinner?" she said. "The Asia Grill maybe?"

  I checked my watch. Six-fifteen.

  "A bit early for dinner," I groused.

  "I just thought it might cheer you up."

  She slipped the Explorer into drive and eased out onto Madison. The Metro bus in
front of us had a sign on the back offering a fifty-dollar reward for the arrest and conviction of vandals. The sign had been tagged with bright blue paint, TOLO it read.

  "I can't for the life of me figure out how Trujillo and Wessels got to Bermuda's place," I said, as much to myself as to Duvall.

  "The gun belonged to Mr. Schwartz," she said.

  "The gun in the box?"

  "Yeah."

  "How do you know?"

  "While I was waiting for you, I called Harvey Wendenhall to see if the ballistics results were in yet" "And?"

  "They got a fourteen-point match. It's the murder weapon."

  "And it was registered to Bermuda?"

  "He bought it in May of sixty-nine. Warshal's Sporting Goods on First Avenue."

  A shiver ran down my spine. She read my face.

  "You're worried about Mr. Schwartz, aren't you?"

  "Yeah," I said. "Big-time. Turn left as soon as you can."

  "Why?"

  "Just do it."

  Instead, she pulled the wheel hard to the right, slid to a stop along the curb and jammed it into park.

  Several angry horns bleated above the dm of the traffic.

  "As you'll probably recall, Leo, I'm not particularly good with phrases such as 'just do it' "

  She had that look she used to get in grammar school. At this point you either put up your hands or you apologize.

  "Sorry," I said. "I didn't mean it the way it sounded."

  "If I thought you meant it the way it sounded, you'd be on the sidewalk by now," she said.

  Whatever fool said love never means having to say you're sorry must never have been in a serious, committed, nineties relationship. Once per infraction, however, was definitely my limit.

  We sat in silence for a moment.

  "What's going on?" she said.

  "I've got a bad feeling Bermuda went down to Pier Eighteen."

  "Why in God's name would he do that?"

  "Because ... I think he knows what happened to Peerless Price." "So?"

  "So ... I think my last visit scared him. I think he wanted to talk to Judy Chen."

  I told her about the last number Bermuda had called.

  "When he didn't get an answer, I think he went to the only place he knew to go. Back in his time, that's where she lived. She and her son had a couple of rooms up over the warehouse."

  "Where you were attacked."

  "Yeah," I said.

  "Why Judy Chen?"

  "Because she knows too. She practically told me so. Somehow or other, they both know what happened to Peerless Price."

  "What did you say that scared Mr. Schwartz so?"

  "It wasn't anything I said. He just knows me is all. He knows what a hardheaded bastard I am."

  While she thought it over, I had another idea.

  "Why don't you let me drive you home, and then I can run down to Eighteen and satisfy myself."

  She pulled the lever back into drive. Another chorus of angry horns greeted our sudden reappearance in the street

  "Not a chance," she said.

  Chapter 20

  The guard Stepped out of the shack, directly into the path of the Explorer. Rebecca slid the car to a stop about a foot from his shins. He stood in the glare of the headlights and wrote the Explorer's license number on a clipboard. He was a short guy, with skin about the color of coffee with too much cream, sporting the world's last full-blown, Julius Erving Afro. As he walked, the brown guard cap wobbled about on the wiry mound of hair. He strolled over to the driver's side, slipped the clipboard under his scrawny arm and rocked back on his heels. "Hep you folks?"

  I leaned over and thrust my trusty "piece of the rock" insurance adjuster card out the window. "We need to have a look at the place where the guy and the car went in the water."

  He took the card. "Prudential," he said. "Good company."

  "Solid as a rock."

  "Heh, heh, heh," he chuckled. "Like a rock," he sang.

  I thought it best not to correct his commercial confusion.

  "Like a rock," I agreed.

  He handed the card back to Rebecca.

  "They some problem?"

  "Just a formality," she assured him.

  He nodded knowingly. "Hep yourself, then. You axe me, he din have no binuss down there inna first place," he said. "Way down on Eighteen. Far left as you can go."

  I directed her down the long central aisle.

  "Go slow," I said. "Check the aisles on your side. I'll check them on mine."

  "What am I supposed to be looking for?"

  I swept my hand across the windshield.

  "Anything but orange containers."

  We were creeping along at about three miles an hour. The mercury vapor lights lining the yard cast their odd light only on the tops of the corrugated canyon, leaving us to squint through ghastly green gloom.

  "Take a left here."

  She wheeled the car around the comer. We drove for a quarter mile and then turned right toward the river. Two hundred yards ahead, our headlights were reflected back into our faces by the front window of Triad Trading's little office. We crept along until we pulled to a stop in front of the building.

  "Nothing," she said.

  I pushed open the door and stepped out.

  "Be right back."

  I checked the door on the office. Locked. I tried to slide all the windows. Same thing. Then I walked across the lot and worked my way around the warehouse, one door at a time, stepping carefully so as not to break an ankle on the rubble. Everything was locked up tight. I'd worked my way over to the door I'd entered the other night and was admiring the shiny new padlock and chain, when I heard her voice.

  "Leo," she called.

  I raced back around the building toward the car. I slowed to a walk when I saw her. Rebecca squatted in the grass by the comer of the nearest container. She'd liberated the flashlight from the glove box and was shining it down on the ground between her feet. She raised her eyes at the sound of my feet on the gravel. The soft ticking of the engine was the only sound. Across the river, the dry-docked ferry floated dark and lifeless like a flood-ravaged hotel. "Look," she said.

  I closed the distance and peered down over her shoulder. The top third of an aluminium cane. White handle. Sheared off to a jagged end, just above the height adjustment holes.

  She brought the light down close to the jagged end. A smear of what in this light looked like black grease adorned the broken end. We both knew better.

  "Blood," I whispered.

  She shook her head. "Too thick," she said. She bent nearly to the ground and sniffed the broken end of the cane.

  She straightened up and looked me in the eye. "Well?" I prodded. "Brain matter."

  I groaned and walked in a small circle. "You sure?"

  She nodded. "I'm sure," she said. "The smell is unmistakable."

  My stomach rolled once and then settled tenuously back in place. Instinctively, I reached for the cane, but she grabbed my wrist.

  "Don't touch," she said. "Or Mr. Watts will have to get us both out of the cooler."

  She was right. Despite my inclination to work around the cops, there was no taking a powder on this one. The old anonymous phone call wasn't going to cut it. They'd talk to the guard and make us in the proverbial New York minute. No. We were going to have to call the cops and wait around until they showed up. Oh, joy unbounded.

  We both stood up. She reached in the pocket of her coat and pulled out her cellular phone. She flipped it open and waved it in front of my face. "Do you want to do the honors or should I?" she asked.

  I showed her a palm. "Let's get our stories straight first."

  I could tell from the expression on her face that she was going to do her Goody Two-shoes number on me. She didn't disappoint.

  "What stories? I'm not going to tell them any stories."

  "Don't start that Little Miss Perfect in the front-row crap with me, okay? If I tell 'em I came down here because I had information that sugg
ested Bermuda might be down here, I'm going to the can for the second time in one day, and I'm telling you, I'm not going quietly, and you're not going to get me back out for a measly five hundred bucks."

  I could tell she believed me. She didn't like it, but she asked, "What do you have in mind?"

  "Let's keep it simple. Let's just tell 'em that we were dissatisfied with their progress at investigating the assault on me, so we decided to come down here and see if maybe we couldn't turn up something on our own."

  "Like public-spirited, self-actualized citizens."

  "Exactly."

  "You really think they're going to buy that offal?"

  "It makes more sense than the truth."

  She thought it over. "Okay," she said finally. "You're right. It does make more sense than the truth."

  "You make the call. It'll look good for you in case anybody gives you any crap about being in here with me under false pretenses."

  She pushed the POWER button and began to dial. I wandered over to the muddy incline between the office and the warehouse, staying off to the side, keeping my feet out of the muck. I could hear Rebecca speaking into the phone. Below me the river belched up a sudden low ripple and then went silent again.

  In the murky artificial light, I could make out the narrow tracks of the Fiat ranning from where I'd parked it, down the muddy incline toward the river. Despite the temperature, the memory of the dark water sent a bead of sweat running down my spine. I shuddered so hard my cheeks flapped. Suddenly freezing, I pulled my jacket tighter about me. What caught my eye, though, was another set of tire tracks, much wider and flatter than those of the Fiat, running parallel, the right wheel inside the Fiat's tracks, the left veering out to the left, as if a much larger vehicle had been parked in the same spot since I'd left the Fiat there on Tuesday. I shivered violently again.

  Worst of all, as nearly as I could tell in the low half-light, the other set of tracks also led off into oblivion. My stomach rolled again at the thought of Bermuda and the cold, rank water below.

  Rebecca spoke behind me. "They're on the way."

  "Move the car, will you?"

  She snapped the phone closed and stowed it in her pocket

  "Move it where? We want to make sure we don't contaminate the scene."