Phineas Troutt Series - Three Thriller Novels (Dead On My Feet #1, Dying Breath #2, Everybody Dies #3)

by J. A. Konrath

  No reply.

  “Behavior problem?” I asked, watching her eyes. “Problem with a teacher? Another student? Sex? Drugs?”

  The principal glanced away when I said drugs.

  “Does Shorington High have a drug problem?”

  “Certainly not.”

  I shrugged. “Lots of wealthy kids here. And Amy was busted for cocaine. Half a kilo isn’t personal use. That’s dealer possession.”

  “Our students are exceptional, Mr. Troutt. I can state, with authority, that Amy Scadder didn’t get those drugs from anyone at Shorington High.”

  “So where’d she get them?”

  “Somewhere off school grounds.”

  “Maybe from this guy?” I flashed her the pic of Amy with the creepy dude.

  Principal Kwon’s eyes narrowed. “I remember him. Our school Police Consultant, Officer MacDonald, had to escort him off school grounds on more than one occasion.”

  “Any chance he took down his name?”

  “He may have.”

  “Can I speak to Officer MacDonald?”

  “He retired last year, moved to Florida. I could check to see if he left a forwarding address.”

  I waited.

  “You’d like it now,” she figured out.

  “Please. It would mean a lot to her parents. They’d really like closure.”

  I could sense I was losing her.

  “I’m afraid I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes, and I’d have to get it from the Administration Center, which is always busy in the mornings.”

  “Good thing you’re the principal,” I said.

  We stared at each other. She gave it one last try. “I can text you his information.”

  “I don’t have a cell phone.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  I’d tried appeals to decency and vanity without success, so I took a shot at sympathy.

  “Cancer,” I said. “Seems silly to sign a contract that will last longer than I do.”

  The principal seemed to consider it, and then got on the phone to the Administration Center. Two minutes later, I had a name and number.

  “Did you know a friend of hers?” I asked. “Sharon Pulowski?”

  “I didn’t know they were friends. Sharon graduated last year.”

  “Any chance I could get her phone number?”

  Principal Kwon looked at me like I’d just asked for ten million dollars.

  “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help, Mr. Troutt.” She said, declaring the end of our meeting. “I hope you find Amy. I’m afraid that her questionable associates outside the school may have led to her disappearance.”

  “I’m afraid you may be right.”

  After leaving the principal’s office I stopped into attendance and asked to borrow a local phone book. Couldn’t find anyone with the last name Pulowski. But I did find Scadder’s car service.

  Earl was starting to act up as I headed to Spartan Limo to talk with Scadder’s ex-driver. I had no Tylenol left, and Maestro Earl was conducting a rhapsody on my nerve endings. Cancer pain was constant, throbbing, and more emotionally debilitating than physically. At least in this stage. When I was a breath away from death, Pasha said the pain would be so bad I’d be under constant heavy sedation.

  It wasn’t our sexiest pillow talk.

  As of now, the pain was an unending road that got worse the farther I traveled. Give me a gunshot wound or a broken bone any day of the week. At least they heal.

  It was a long shot that Miguel Ramos still worked for Spartan, and even if he did I wasn’t sure interviewing him would help me. But asking questions was how people got found. And usually the hired help knew more about the family they worked for than the family did.

  Spartan was easy to find, a few miles east of Shorington in an industrial park. It wasn’t much to look at; simply a parking lot full of various size limousines, and a small adjacent building attached to a truck repair place that also shared the lot.

  The shop was small; two couches in a waiting room and a woman behind a desk talking on the phone. She was twentyish, with either a canned tan or a recent trip to the Bahamas under her belt. She wore a double breasted brown blazer that complimented her hair, and had stupidly long fingernails, squared off at the ends and painted rose red.

  “Gotta go, Donna. Customer.”

  She deftly hung up the phone and showed me her teeth, which were so bright they had to be as phony as the nails.

  “Can I help you sir?”

  “I’d like to talk to Miguel Ramos.”

  “Mr. Ramos just took a car out.”

  “Does it have a car phone?”

  “It’s highly unprofessional for a driver to get calls when on duty.”

  “You said he just left. He probably hasn’t picked his fare up yet.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “It’s important,” I pressed.

  She raised phone and dialed a number using her knuckle.

  “Mikey, got a guy here to talk to you.”

  She handed it over to me, then pulled out a bottle of nail polish from her drawer. The drawer contained nothing but nail care products.

  “Mr. Ramos? My name is Phineas Troutt. I’m working for Vincent Scadder.”

  “That asshole? I’m sorry for you, man.”

  He had a high voice with a faint Mexican accent that he seemed to be trying to downplay.

  “He’s hired me to find his daughter, Amy. After her arrest two years ago she was released into your care.”

  “Not my care. I was just there to pick her up. Dropped off the papers, and boom, she took off like a hot knife through a goose once we got out of the police station.”

  Or like corn through butter, if we were mixing metaphors.

  “Did you ever drive for Amy?”

  “I took her to and from school every day until Daddy bought her that car. She was a snotty kid.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “God dammit!”

  I looked at the receptionist and saw one of her nails had fallen off. It was laying on her desk like a long red worm. Miguel continued, her outburst unheard by him.

  “Never thanked me for a ride. Never talked to me like a person. Treated me like something she owned. Like her old man did.”

  “Did you ever take her to friends’ houses?”

  “Maybe every once in a while. Amy didn’t have too many friends.”

  “How about boyfriends?”

  “No. Wait… There was this one guy, real creepy customer. Lived in northern Illinois somewhere. Green Birch, I think. I took her there twice, she made me promise not to tell her parents.”

  “Why was he creepy?”

  I heard the sound of a car honking through the phone, and Miguel used the Spanish expletive for a boy with an active Oedipal complex.

  “Goddamn cabbies think they own the road,” he told me.

  “Goddam it!” swore the receptionist. She’d tipped over a large bottle of nail glue, and I watched as she repeatedly tried and failed to pick it up as the glue oozed out.

  “Why was her boyfriend creepy?” I repeated.

  “Once I picked them both up at Water Tower Place, took them to his house. He was ten years older. Mean face. He started messing around with her in the car. She kept telling him to stop, but his hands were all over her. She finally started to scream, and he stopped. But the rest of the ride he had this weird smile on his face.”

  “Did you try to interfere?”

  “No. I don’t speak to customers unless spoken to.”

  I noticed that the receptionist was trying to get the bottle upright using two emery boards as chopsticks. It was futile at this point; the bottle was empty.

  “What did he look like?”

  “Like I said. Creepy looking.”

  “White?”

  “Yes. With a mustache. And crazy eyes. You know what I mean.”

  I knew. I had the photo.

  “Do you remember the address?”

 
“Shit no. Two years ago? I only remember it was Green Birch because we passed that amusement park.”

  “Could you find it if you drove there again?”

  “Dude, I know every side street and back alley from the Magnificent Mile to Wrigley Field. But north of Chi-Town, it all blends together in my brain.”

  “Do you have a GPS?”

  “Do now. Didn’t back then.”

  So much for finding the address.

  “So you were actually the last person to see her?” I asked.

  “Hey, homes, don’t play that shit. She never even got into my car. Amy took off while we were still at the police station. You want eye-witnesses that I didn’t take her, how about a lobby full of cops?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” I said, even though that was exactly what I meant. “Do you remember what she was wearing?”

  “What? No. Hell no. It was two years ago. Do you remember what you were wearing two years ago?”

  I didn’t. But good odds it was jeans and a t-shirt.

  “Thanks for your help, Miguel.”

  “I hope you find her. She wasn’t too bad a kid. Just snotty.”

  I hung up the phone and asked the receptionist if I could make a call.

  “Can’t you see I’m dealing with a situation here?” she said, waving around her emery boards, flicking nail glue everywhere.

  I reached over and uprighted her glue bottle. “One call. It’ll be quick.”

  “Don’t you got a cell phone?”

  “No. But I have something to trade.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Super glue. In my truck.”

  She glanced at the mess on her desk and said, “Deal. No long distance though. The bosses get pissy when the phone bill is high.”

  I found half a tube of glue in my glove compartment. There was dried blood on the cap from the last time I used it. In a pinch, super glue was good for closing wounds.

  I scraped off most of the blood with my fingernail by the time I gave it to her, then picked up the phone and turned so she couldn’t see me dial long distance.

  A woman answered.

  “I’m looking for Mr. MacDonald.”

  “May I ask who’s calling?”

  “It’s about an incident at Shorington High School, several years ago.”

  “Hold on a second.”

  She yelled for Mac, and the woman had some lungs on her. A few seconds later, he picked up.

  “This is Mac. You know anything about lawnmowers?”

  “I don’t.”

  “It’s ninety-jesus-nine-god-dancing-degrees out here, sun feels like lasers on every bare inch of my god-dancing skin, and every time I pull the cord the engine goes BA-BA-BUPP-BUPPP-BUPPPPP and then farts on me. It’s got gas and oil. What else does the god-dancing thing need?”

  “Check the spark plugs.”

  I could guy talk with the best of them.

  “The god-dancing spark plugs. Why didn’t I think of that? Who is this?”

  “My name is Phin Troutt. I was hired by Vincent and Phyllis Scadder to find their daughter, Amy. She ran away two years ago.”

  “I remember. Had a few runaways while I was at the school, but they all turned up except her.”

  “What can you tell me about Amy?”

  “Not much. Don’t really remember her at all. Bet I couldn’t pick her in a line-up.”

  “Principal Kwon said there was a boy, not from the school.”

  “What? Don’t recall.”

  “She said you kicked him off school property a few times. Drove a white Land Rover.”

  “A Land Rover? Wait… I do remember that little punk. He’d park in the loading zone, wait for her when school got out. Threatened to tow him a few times. He refused to open the door, just sat there, giving me the finger.”

  “You ever ticket him?”

  “Half dozen times, at least.”

  “How could I get a license plate or an address off the ticket?”

  “Let’s see, it was about two years ago. The Shorington PD might have records going back that far.”

  “Could you check?”

  “I could. Never got closure, there. Let me make a few calls. What’s your number?”

  I gave him my number at the motel, told him to leave a message with Kenny, the manager.

  “You there now, Phin? In Shorington?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do yourself a favor. Never move to Florida. It’s like a shopping mall in hell. Crowds, crazy prices, long lines, and hotter than sitting on a flame grill.”

  “Noted. Never move to Florida. Thanks, Mac.”

  “I hope you find her. Maybe she got away from that guy. But I’d bet a buck for every fire ant on my god-dancing property that the poor girl is in a hole somewhere.”

  I hung up, and made a quick 411 call, asking the operator for a Pulowski residence in Shorington. No one listed. I asked for neighboring suburbs and Chicago, and got a number for S. Pulowski on the South Side. I jotted it down and called. No one picked up.

  I thanked the receptionist, let her keep the glue, and headed back to my Bronco. I couldn’t do more until I got the license trace on the Land Rover from Jack, so I decided to head back to the city and prepare for my night out with Pasha.

  I met Dr. Bipasha Kapoor several months ago on a case. I was still in my cocaine and hooker phase, and had just finished a week long binge at some fancy hotel. Pasha had gotten hold of me to help find out who was threatening her life. I solved her problem. I also fell for her. Hard.

  Leaving Pasha was going to hurt.

  I would stick around as long as I could still function well enough. But when Earl became unmanageable, that was my cue to leave. I wasn’t going to let Pasha watch me die.

  Not because I wanted to die alone. Dying would be easier with her there.

  But I wouldn’t make someone I love go through that.

  Besides. I wouldn’t actually be alone. Earl would be with me, and I’d be smug knowing that our duel ended in a tie.

  Plus, I’d have my memories.

  There might be no one else in the room, but Pasha would be on my mind. And the thought of her would comfort me. And my final dignity—in the pain-wracked, bed-ridden, indignity of death—my final dignity would be knowing I spared her seeing me check out. I would clamp down my teeth on that dignity, and stare death in the face, and tell him that yes you bastard, I was here on this earth, and I made an impact, and I loved and was loved back, and now I’m ready for you, you son of a bitch.

  Here I am, Mr. Death. Snuff me out.

  End my pain.

  I got off the expressway at Cermak and headed into Chicago’s Chinatown. I’d helped the manager of the Michigan Motel, Kenny Jen Bang Ko, rid himself and his business of an extortion gang. Those three kids that hassled me yesterday were from that gang, the Clan. After I busted up their protection racket, Kenny gave me a free permanent room. The Chinese had this thing about eternal gratitude.

  Then again, my room rented for about forty bucks a night, two of the four electrical outlets didn’t work, and the bathroom sink had a permanent drip, so even eternal gratitude had limits.

  Still, it was cleaned every day, and it didn’t cost me anything. Pasha had been asking me to move in, but I’d been telling her that I liked my own space.

  Truth was I didn’t want to live with her because then it would be harder to leave.

  I pulled into the parking lot of the Michigan Motel, listening to the glass crunch under my tires. Kenny once hired a street cleaner to rid his lot of all the broken glass, and within a week it was all back again. People just liked to break glass.

  I parked in front of my room and took my guns out of the glove compartment. Then I walked over to the check-in booth to pick up my mail and any messages. The booth was an extension of the motel room Kenny lived in. It jutted out into the parking lot like a ticket booth, except the glass was bullet proof. There were several divots in the glass that proved the point.
/>   The sign said to ring the buzzer, in both Chinese and English. I knew the buzzer didn’t work, so instead I banged on the glass.

  After a minute, which was how long it usually took, Kenny Jen Bang Ko opened the door from his room and walked directly into the check-in booth. Kenny was elderly, but still had a full head of jet black hair. Probably because he never washed it. You could grease a skillet by rubbing it on Kenny Jen Bang Ko’s head.

  He appeared worried, and was stroking the long hairs growing out of the mole on his left cheek.

  “They were here,” he whispered, eyes darting back and forth.

  “Who was here, Kenny?”

  “Clan.”

  I smiled, trying to put him at ease.

  “I took care of them once. Twice is no problem.”

  “They were asking for you. Three of them. One had a gun.”

  I showed him my 9mm and the new AMT. “I’ve got two. Any messages for me?”

  “No messages. Here’s mail.”

  It was from the lab. My test results.

  “Be careful, Phineas. They come back.”

  I nodded, and walked back to my apartment, glass crunching underfoot like freshly fallen snow as I opened the letter.

  Positive.

  As I’d guessed, the cancer had spread.

  You knew I was back, Earl whispered in my head. What do you want to do? Go another ten rounds?

  More chemo and radiation. The cure was worse than the god-dancing disease.

  I crumpled up the letter and threw it aside.

  An image shot into my mind, of staring into the barrel of that gun.

  I didn’t find the image frightening. Not one bit.

  I wondered what I would do if it happened again.

  I pushed the thought from my noggin and entered my humble abode. Time to finally take that shower and brush those teeth.

  I winced as the hot steady stream beat against Earl. I definitely needed more codeine. Pasha and I would have to stop by the pharmacy before dinner.

  Where should we go for dinner? She was on a vegetarian kick lately. Not because she was concerned with animal rights, but because she wanted to lower her cholesterol intake.

  Me? I wasn’t too worried about eating right these days.

  I stepped out of the shower and used a thin motel towel to dry my dying body. Then I lathered up some shaving cream and went through the task of scraping the stubble off my head. I nicked my scalp and applied a small square of toilet paper on the spot. Then I found my way into a pair of boxer shorts, and went through my sparse closet in search of something suitable.