“What’ll it be?” he asked.
“I want to leave a message.”
“For who?”
“Tracker.”
“Don’t know nobody by that name, friend.”
“I understand,” Cross said. “Thank you, anyway.” He slid his hand across the wet surface of the bar, palm down, the bull’s-eye tattoo clearly visible on the back. When he pulled his hand back, a fifty-dollar bill remained.
The two men rolled a series of empty fifty-five-gallon oil drums away from the wall behind Red 71’s back office. They walked through the ball-bearing curtain into a poolroom. Cross slid behind a small round table set up against the far wall. Buddha took a stick from one of the wall racks and chalked it as though he was going to play. But his eyes were focused two tables down, where Rhino and an Indian were playing nine-ball.
The Indian was coppery-complected, his hair combed straight back, tied into a ponytail with a strip of rawhide.
Rhino drove the cue ball at the rack, scattering it. Two balls dropped: the one and the seven. He delicately tapped the white cue ball into the green six. It kissed gently, deflected off a short rail, and nudged the yellow-and-white-striped nine ball into the corner pocket.
“Awrrright!” Princess shouted in triumph, leaping from his seat to offer Rhino a high-five. Nobody in the room even looked up, although they had all heard quieter gunshots. The Indian stood motionless, sweeping the room with a trail scout’s eyes. Then he turned and walked over to Cross’s table. When Cross nodded, he took the vacant seat.
“Thanks for coming,” Cross said.
“A job?” the Indian replied.
“Some shadow work.”
“There are plenty of very good—”
“For this, ‘very good’ isn’t good enough.”
The Indian bowed his head slightly. Enough to acknowledge the respect he was being shown, but not enough to indicate acceptance of the job.
“You know about this Circle of Skulls thing?”
“Only what is public. They have never entered our territory. And none of us would be mistaken for white.”
“They’re just playing it like a race thing. You know: Get out of the area or we’ll make you wish you had. Hard for them to pull that when everyone in the area’s the same color.
“That’s a deep game,” Cross continued. “It scans like camouflage, but—”
“Because…?”
The Indian let his question hover, patiently waiting.
“Because it’s two of them that do…the actual thing. And they got another man with them. A man with a movie camera.”
“They are making rape movies?”
“Not Hollywood movies—this is the real thing. Nobody’s acting. So it’s either freakishness or business. Maybe both. If they’re just making slimy home movies, like the way some of those freaks take trophies…But if they’re making them for the hard-core market, or even customized to order…”
“I will do this.”
Herman Holtstraf—a.k.a. Leonard Lippe, according to the stack of papers Cross had studied for hours—stepped out of his two-bedroom apartment on the ninth floor of a near-Loop condo conversion.
He carefully double-locked the door, then tugged on the knob, making sure the dead bolt was firmly in place. His footsteps were soundless in the deep-carpeted hallway. He took the elevator downstairs, exited the buildings, and strolled casually away.
Two blocks later, Holtstraf quickened his pace. He spotted a black Jeep Cherokee, used another key to open the driver’s door, and slid behind the wheel.
He started the engine, hit the power window switch, and reclined against the seatback; it was over eighty degrees outside, but Holtstraf knew it was better for the engine to wait a minute or so before putting a vehicle in gear. He was a man who took good care of his possessions.
The phone in Cross’s jacket pocket buzzed softly. “Go,” he answered.
“Four, one, X-Ray, Charlie, eight, Bravo.”
Cross quickly checked several sheets of paper spread out before him. “Doesn’t match. Which one you on?”
“Number two.”
“He’s on the move?”
“Yes.”
“Need a box?”
“Negative.”
“He’s not checking for tags,” Buddha said to the Indian as the pudgy man gently coiled the Shark Car around a tight corner.
“Or he’s got some cover.”
“I hope so,” Buddha grunted, half under his breath, his hand flicking at his lapel again.
“Remember what Cross said,” the Indian warned.
“Yeah, I heard him,” Buddha assented. “But it wasn’t your wife they threatened to rape.”
“Chain of command,” Tracker replied.
“There’s always a chain of command. That’s why a lot of those college boy LTs got themselves fragged.”
“You volunteered for this one, Buddha.”
“I know,” the pudgy man said grimly, continuing to maintain visual contact with the black Jeep.
The target drove sedately, not risking a ticket, courteously slowing to permit a jaywalking pedestrian to cross. Finally, the Jeep circled a block twice, then pulled into a parking garage. The Shark Car followed, moving at a crawl around the sharply ascending curves.
“You want me to…” Buddha turned to Tracker. It was only then that he noticed the Indian had vanished.
Cross was drawing a series of intersecting lines on a blank sheet of paper when his phone rang again.
“Go.”
“He switched rides. Try Alpha, seven, Foxtrot, Bravo, six, four.”
Cross quickly scanned the papers in front of him. “Chevy Volt? Dark red?”
“Yes.”
“That’s his. Registered. The Jeep connects to a—”
“Out of the Loop now,” Tracker interrupted. “Heading for the border, east.”
“You need what?”
“Backup. With legit plates. I’m in a borrowed car.”
“Say why switch.”
“Last driver unstable. You know how fast he is. If I made a locate with him along…”
“Roger that. I’ll get something over the border. One around Cal City, another East Chicago. When you land, call.”
An hour later, the cellular phone buzzed. Cross picked it up, glancing across to Rhino as he did.
“Go.”
“I’m on the ground. Cal City. In a bar called Mary’s Show Place. You know it?”
“I know where it is.”
“I made a locate. Need transport out.”
“Fifteen minutes, max.”
Tracker sat alone at a far corner of a long bar, head in his hands. To the bartender, just another redskin laid off from the steel mills, drowning his prospects in booze. Funny, never heard of one of them drinking straight vodka with water on the side. Hell, the way this one kept asking for refills, you couldn’t even tell how much firewater he was putting away.
Princess walked in the front door, wearing a sleeveless leather vest over his bare upper body. A long chain dangled from his right ear, a small steel ball swinging gently at its end. A red handkerchief was half out of his back pocket. He reeked of cheap perfume. The bodybuilder went out of his way to make eye contact with everyone he passed. Nobody held his gaze. He spotted Tracker in the corner, went over, and sat down.
“I have the house spotted,” the Indian greeted him.
“You think they’re all in there?”
“Forget it, Princess. Cross said no physical contact. We’re here for info only.”
“I know. But if they start something…”
“Me, they won’t see. And you, you’re staying right here. I’ll be back soon as I can.”
“Okay,” Princess replied, handing over an ignition key. “It’s out by the curb. I’ll be over by the pinball machine.”
Tracker straddled the big Harley, shocking pink with matching saddlebags. As the engine roared to life, he cursed Princess under his breath.
&n
bsp; The house was green, with freshly painted white shutters; a matching trellis thinly laced with struggling ivy shielded the front porch. Tracker made one swoop on the garish motorcycle, marking the Chevy Volt in the driveway, the closed door to the two-car garage, the white picket fence surrounding the property. Maybe two, three hours to sundown, he calculated.
He rolled the bike into a 7-Eleven parking lot, pulled his phone, hit a button.
“Go.”
“Too much daylight.”
“You got a place to lay up?”
“No,” the Indian said, underscoring the single word. “And I’m not hanging out with Princess in that bar. You know what’s bound to happen, he stays there too long.”
“Yeah, I know. We’re on our way. Can you hold out there for another forty-five?”
“Your ETA seven-fifty, right? I’ll find someplace to stow this damn scooter, get back to the bar just before then, yes?”
“Yes.”
At seven-forty-five, Tracker entered the back parking lot of Mary’s Show Place on foot.
He noted how full it was but drew no conclusions—“maybe” was for generals, not combat soldiers.
As he walked in the front door, he glanced toward the pinball machine, but Princess was nowhere in sight. One eye-sweep picked up the bodybuilder, his bulk mostly obscured by a crowd of men who had arranged themselves in a semicircle. The Indian walked carefully around the group, saw an opening, and seated himself on the bench next to Princess.
“Hey, what’s happening, partner?”
“They will be here in a few minutes,” Tracker said quietly, his lips close to Princess’s ear. “Cross said to wait for him, understand?”
“I’m just having some fun,” the hyper-muscled child said, defensively. “We’re all having fun.”
“What kind of fun?” the Indian asked warily, scanning the bar for signs of destruction.
“Arm wrestling! For beers. I already won over a hundred.”
“You drank a hundred beers]”
“Nah. You know I’m not supposed to drink. I’ve been buying for the house. They all like me. I beat everybody so far. That’s why I’m waiting around—they got some hotshot they’re gonna bring in for me to try.”
The Indian grunted.
“It’s just fun. But no more playing for beers. When this guy they’re bringing in shows up, I’m gonna make myself a couple of thousand. Any minute. You watch.”
“Princess,” the Indian said, keeping his voice level and reasonable, “you’re betting two, three thousand dollars and you don’t know anything about this guy they’re bringing?”
“Sure!”
“He’s probably a professional. There’s a whole circuit where they—”
“I could be one, too. A professional. A couple of the guys here already said so.”
“Do you have that much money?”
“Well…Not on me, but…”
“Geronimo save us,” the Indian muttered to himself, his eyes threat-scanning the room.
Cross and Rhino walked into the bar and took a table in a deep corner. The gang leader caught Tracker’s eye across the room, jerked his head in a “Let’s go!” signal. The Indian shrugged his shoulders helplessly. Cross got up and moved toward where Princess was seated.
Before he could get within earshot, Princess piped up: “All right! Here’s the money. My backer,” he proudly announced to the watching crowd.
A slender man with a mop of dirty-blond curls, wearing a red varsity jacket with white sleeves, spoke to Cross: “You? Okay, how deep you want to go?”
“Hold up a minute,” Cross told him. “I need to speak with my boy first.”
He walked around the table until he was behind Tracker and Princess, leaned his head down, whispered, “What the hell is going on?” to Princess.
“Arm wrestling! It’s really fun. I beat everybody in the place. So they’re sending this guy over for me to go against. That guy in the fancy jacket? He’s the one who said I needed a backer.”
“We’re here on business,” Cross whispered to the bodybuilder.
“Sure, but…come on, it’ll be fun!”
The crowd parted as a leviathan slogged his way forward. A wide bench was ceremoniously moved into place across from Princess. The leviathan lacked the bodybuilder’s vascular-defined muscles, but his sheer mass was overwhelming.
“This is The King,” the manager said to Cross, patting his champion on the back. “I suppose you want to up the bet now?”
Several men in the crowd sniggered on cue.
Cross stood up, catching Rhino’s eye over the shoulders of the seated men. He tapped his right temple twice. Rhino got up and exited the bar. Cross turned to the manager. “You cover five?”
“You look like a flaming faggot to me,” The King sneered at Princess. “Smell like one, too.”
Princess smacked his lips in an air-kiss.
The King started to rise from his bench, but his manager restrained him with a hand on his shoulder.
Cross pulled a sheaf of folded-over bills wrapped in a rubber band from his shirt pocket and tossed it on the table. The manager reached for it.
“You want to count it, let me count yours,” Cross said quietly.
“Ante up,” the manager called out to the semicircle of men. Bills started flying onto the tabletop. He gathered them together, moistened his thumb. “I got thirty-three hundred here.”
He put the bills in a neat stack, opened his own wallet, and elaborately counted out seventeen hundred-dollar bills. “Satisfied?” he said to Cross, reaching for the rubber-band-wrapped stack.
For about five seconds, the place went quiet.
“Let’s get it on!” the manager called in a fight announcer’s voice.
Princess and The King reached out their left hands to grab the wooden pegs set into the table. Each placed his right elbow on a tabletop pad. They felt for a good grip of each other’s hands for a long minute, then locked in.
“I’m gonna break your arm, homo,” The King promised.
Princess giggled.
“Ready?” the manager asked, pointing at The King, then at Princess. Both men nodded: The King glowering, Princess grinning broadly.
“Go!” the manager screamed.
The King rammed his arm to his left, bouncing off his seat to get more power into the thrust.
Princess’s arm didn’t move, containing The King’s hand as gently as a curious scientist might hold a butterfly. The bodybuilder stared deep into the face of his adversary. Princess’s eyes, usually a deep blue, took on a purplish tint.
“This was supposed to be fun,” the disappointed-again child said in a sad voice. “I was having fun. Making friends. Why did you have to go and call me names?”
The King grunted, redoubling his effort—it felt like isometric impossibility.
“You started it,” Princess said. “I didn’t do anything. I was nice to everyone. They liked me. You started it.”
Cross exchanged glances with Tracker. The Indian twisted his head to the right slightly. Cross followed his lead, saw Rhino back inside the bar, standing near the door. All other eyes in the room were on the two contestants.
Veins bulged in The King’s face, blue lines on a red background. He didn’t hear the cheering support of the crowd, didn’t feel the pulse of their feet rhythmically pounding on the floor.
“Let it go, pal,” Cross said to The King. “Just relax. There’s no way you’re gonna budge my boy, believe me. He’s all worked up now. You don’t let go, he’s gonna snap your arm like a dry twig.”
The King was bathed in sweat. The whites of his eyes dominated their sockets. “Aaaargh!” he roared, throwing every remaining ounce of his strength into a final attempt at a slam.
“You started it,” Princess said, sorrowfully. Then he quickly shoved The King’s hand all the way back to the tabletop. The snap-crack was audible ten feet away.
The King opened his mouth to scream, but he fainted before any sound cou
ld come out. The manager knew what he’d just witnessed: “Call the paramedics! Hurry!”
Princess got to his feet, his eyes glazed, a thin stream of drool coming out of the corner of his mouth. Cross reached out, swept the money off the table and into his jacket pocket.
“Don’t anyone be stupid,” he said to the crowd.
He and Tracker bracketed Princess, herding him toward the door. All three men had their backs to the crowd when a tall, slender man with a dark crew cut reached into his red-and-black-checkered jacket. Rhino stepped forward, pulling the Uzi out as though it was a derringer.
“Don’t!” he squeaked at the slender man.
The room froze.
The Shark Car was at the curb, engine idling, Buddha at the wheel, the back doors standing open. Cross jumped in first, pulling Princess after him, Tracker right behind. Rhino slid into the front seat, next to Buddha, and the Shark Car took off.
“He started it,” Princess mumbled.
“It’s done now,” Cross told him, patting the bodybuilder’s huge biceps the way you would gentle a horse. “All over now. Take it easy. Breathe through your nose. Come on….”
“He gonna be all right?” Cross asked Rhino.
“Yes. You know how he gets after he…does something. He’ll be okay. It’s a poison his own body makes…has to work its way through his system before it finds an exit.”
“He’s dangerous, brother.”
“We’re all dangerous,” Rhino said, locking eyes with Cross.
Cross ran a hand through his hair. When he brought his head up, his eyes were clear and calm. “Okay, brother. But watch him close, all right?”
The huge man solemnly and sadly nodded his agreement.
Three nights later, Tracker descended the stone steps and entered the Red 71 poolroom.
He stood at the counter, waiting patiently, until the old man turned away from his small black-and-white TV. Tracker handed over a ten-dollar bill. The old man gave him a set of balls in a plastic tray, saying, “Take number nineteen.”
Drawing Dead Page 6
