Family Values

by Ford, G. M.

  I didn’t hesitate. I kept my hands in sight and started backing up, moving as quickly as I dared toward LaTeisha and the driveway. My heart felt as if it were going to beat its way out of my chest and fly off up the mountain. There was enough blood rushing in my head to float a kayak.

  The second we backed around the corner of the house, I took her elbow and broke us into a run. I could hear my pulse slamming in my ears as we bounded across the parking lot like woodland creatures running before a forest fire.

  Her eyes were the size of hubcaps. I fished around in my wallet, found an ancient business card, and handed it to her. “You see anything out of the ordinary going on out here, you give me a call, okay?”

  She nodded and took off running.

  “They’re antipsychotics,” Rebecca said. “Clozapine is kind of old, but it’s still the drug of choice for treatment-resistant schizophrenia.” She pointed at the list. “Olanzapine, quetiapine, and ziprasidone. All of them are serious-ass schizophrenia meds.”

  “He didn’t seem psychotic to me. Confused, scared, not able to hold a thought for very long, sure, but nothing like crazy.”

  “And you’re certain those were the same two guys you saw at my house on the night that . . .”

  “The UPS brothers. One hundred percent.”

  “And you’re telling me Charles Harrington graduated from Lakeside?”

  “Two thousand twelve. Top quarter of his class.”

  “Way out of my mom’s tuition league,” Rebecca mused.

  “They wouldn’t take my ass” passed my lips before it passed my brain. The aggrieved sound of my voice told me, beyond doubt, that I’d been pissed off about the rejection for the past twenty-five years or so, and had never realized it until right then.

  “Somebody points a gun at you, you can always go to the cops,” Gabe said with a smirk. “Trust me. It’s illegal as hell.”

  I shook my head. “He said, she said. I say they did. They say they didn’t.”

  “Which leaves us where?” Gabe asked. “’Cause, you know, nice as it is to hang out with you two . . . I wasn’t planning on making it a career.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We’re just treading water here. We’re no closer to knowing what in hell is going on than we were before.”

  Gabe bumped off the kitchen wall. “We’re also no closer to eliminating the threat. According to you, the same two hitters are still around.”

  “We need to shake something loose,” Rebecca said.

  I thought about it for a long while. Then walked over to the fridge and got myself a glass full of ice and a San Pellegrino Limonata, most of which I swallowed in one pull.

  I stifled a belch and looked over at Gabe. “You up for a little late-night adventure?”

  Gabe grinned. “Ready Freddy. Whatcha got in mind?”

  “What a guy I know referred to as an Asian humpathon.”

  “Wouldn’t that be considered cultural appropriation?” Gabe teased.

  “No . . . I don’t believe it would. The humpathon part’s completely universal.”

  “Nothing’s completely universal,” Gabe chided.

  “Close enough for government work.”

  The growl of the city gets deeper after the bars close. You can hear the streets heave a sigh of relief after the last drunk loses his lunch and staggers home. When the chairs are banged up onto the tables and the floors get swept, things quiet down for a few hours as the city checks the mirror, runs a hand through its hair, and gets ready for another day in Jet City.

  The door on Jackson Street eased open at 2:37. Willard Frost poked his head out the door and said something into his phone. Half a minute later a big white Access van rolled around the corner. Twenty-seater they must have bought used from Metro. I could see where the METRO logos had been crudely painted over.

  Gabe and I watched silently as eleven girls marched out the door and into the van. I tried to block it out and just stay professional, but my sense of moral outrage was screaming in my ears like an air raid siren. For me, that’s never a good sign. Some of the most dumb-shit things I’ve ever done in my life have come at times when I was feeling self-righteous and didn’t think something all the way through because my blood was up.

  They kept the girls stored in a boarded-up three-story house in Little Saigon, half a block off Jackson. As the crow flew, it couldn’t have been more than a mile from the building on South Main. Doing their part for the commute, they were.

  Gabe and I watched from a block away as the van parked in the driveway, the door popped open, and the girls trooped up the front stairs and into the house, with the driver bringing up the rear. He checked the street before closing the door.

  “The old Metro van’s a nice touch,” Gabe said, just as the porch light went out. “Last thing on earth the heat’s gonna pull over late at night.”

  We waited about fifteen minutes. “You ready?” I asked.

  “How many times do I gotta tell you? We’re always ready,” Gabe said.

  I eased the car forward. Stopped right in front of the house. Both of us put on blue latex gloves, got out, and walked around to the back of the car. I’d borrowed a couple of armloads of firewood from Rebecca, some of which I’d split into nice, dry kindling. I grabbed an armload of wood and some newspaper from the back of the car and walked it over to the sidewalk directly in front of the house, where I crumpled up the paper, threw the kindling on top, and then added the bigger pieces.

  When I looked up, Gabe had muscled one of the wooden pallets we’d stolen from Dunn Lumber about an hour ago off the Tahoe’s roof rack and laid it on the pile. I went back to the car and fetched a new can of charcoal lighter and was dumping the stuff all over everything when Gabe added the second pallet to the pile.

  By the time I got the car turned around and had rolled it back out onto Jackson Street, the flames were twenty feet tall and I could hear the dry wooden pallets popping and crackling from a block away. No-tech mayhem at its finest.

  I pulled over, grabbed one of the throwaway phones from the glove box, and dialed 911. I reported a fire and gave them the address. Told ’em to send the cops because the joint was filled with undocumented aliens, then got out, put the phone in front of the tire. Made a nice solid crunch as I pulled back into the street.

  Must have been a slow night for emergencies, because a fire engine, a police cruiser, and an aid car all screamed past going in the opposite direction before we’d covered the mile or so back to Pioneer Square.

  I pulled the car to the curb on South Main and shut it off. George appeared from a darkened doorway and stumbled over to the passenger window. Gabe slid the window down. “He ain’t come out this side,” George said. “And Judy says nobody but the workin’ girls ever comes out over on Jackson.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Good job.” I handed him a fifty. “You guys get your asses out of here. Things are about to get interesting.” Didn’t have to tell him twice. I’d gotten him shot at a while back. The speed with which he crossed the street and disappeared down the alley suggested that, as I’d suspected, he hadn’t been too crazy about the experience.

  Gabe had that big automatic out again. Going over everything. Checking the slide and pair of extra clips from the coat pocket.

  “Let’s go.”

  Gabe bopped me on the arm. “Never too old to rock and roll.”

  I pulled a rusty four-foot crowbar out from under the seat. The thing had been hanging from the wall in my garage for as long as I could remember. Who bought it, why, and when were a complete mystery to me, but, having seen this particular door close up the other day, I intuitively knew the garage mystery bar would be just the ticket.

  We waited for a garbage truck to pass, then sauntered across the street, jammed the business end of the crowbar into the doorjamb, and both of us gave it all we had.

  Sucker snicked open with no more noise than a pop-top.

  Gabe pointed up the stairs and whispered in my ear, “Hall goes off to the left.
Stay way over on the right. Leave me a clean line of fire.”

  I nodded and started creeping up the stairs. I had my Smith & Wesson massaging the small of my back but was hoping like hell we wouldn’t need it. Downtown gunfights were considered extremely poor form, and I wasn’t looking forward to spending a night in jail before Rebecca could bail me out the next day. Again.

  I climbed slowly. One tread at a time. Straining my ears as I moved up, trying to catch any hint of movement or sense of alarm. A car passed in the street outside, and then another. I thought maybe I heard faraway voices but couldn’t be sure. I took another step. The old wooden stairs groaned. I stood still and listened. A dog barked. I kept moving up. Gabe was two stairs behind me as I stepped up onto the landing and peeped around the corner.

  Long hallway. A single bug-stained lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Looked like it used to be an old hotel. Probably from back at the Alaska Gold Rush period, when Seattle had been the jumping-off point for the Klondike. They’d slapped up any number of low-rent shitholes intended to accommodate the hordes of would-be gold miners. They’d stacked ’em in like cordwood, at five bucks a day, while they literally and figuratively waited for their ships to come in.

  I moved my feet carefully. These old buildings could be deathtraps. Back in the eighties, at the height of the Peruvian Marching Powder Period, coke dealers regularly cut holes in the floor as a way to discourage unwanted guests. A guy George and I both knew had met his death over on Yesler when he’d stepped in a hole, dropped four stories, and kebabed himself on a pile of hundred-year-old construction rubble.

  The dog barked again. Weird-sounding dog, like it had laryngitis or something. Coming from somewhere down at the end of the hall. I shuffled in that direction.

  I was standing directly on the other side of the door when the barking started again. Room 104. Gabe tiptoed past me and set up on the other side. We caught our collective breaths and made eye contact. I stepped away from the wall, raised one of my boots, and gave the door the full Monty.

  Gabe rushed in. I grabbed the Smith & Wesson from my belt and followed along. I knew immediately that the scene wasn’t something I was ever going to forget. Red velvet walls, big red velvet chesterfield couch, upon which an Asian woman in a leather garter belt lounged. Looked like a Victorian brothel, except maybe for the steel cage sitting on the floor in front of the couch. And the fact that Willard Frost was languishing, on all fours, stark naked, inside the cage. Willard and a big chrome doggy dish. FIDO in big green letters.

  The woman on the couch started to jump to her feet. Gabe took three quick steps forward and pressed the gun barrel to her forehead.

  “Don’t” was all it took to sit her back down. On a doilied side table, a cell phone began to ring. Gabe reached over and picked it up and lobbed it my way.

  I caught it on the fly. Even upside down, I could see the screen read Blocked. I had a feeling the caller was probably someone with news of what was going on over at the Little Saigon house. I walked over to the nearest window, bench-pressed the old-fashioned casement up a few tough inches, and dropped the phone out the window. There was just enough light for me to see it shatter on the cobblestones below. Evidently the phone wasn’t alleyproof.

  I closed the window and turned back toward the room. Apparently, phone loss was simply more than the Asian woman could bear. She came off the cushions like a rocket, long red fingers extended, looking to scrape my face off onto the floor. Gabe reached out and grabbed her by the hair.

  The black wig came off in Gabe’s hand. I ducked low and threw a shoulder into the woman’s onrushing chest. The force of the impact drove her backward. Wasn’t until she finished stumbling back onto the couch that I noticed the obvious. I was still at the staring-and-stammering stage when Gabe pointed and then said it out loud.

  “She’s got a dick,” Gabe said.

  “Aw . . . Jesus” came rolling out of my mouth.

  Willard was shaking the cage like a mad mastiff, trying to break out, but the door had a little silver padlock and was holding fast.

  I pointed at the person on the couch and said to Gabe, “Take care of that one while I have a few words with Willard here.” I walked closer to the pair.

  “Where’s the key to the cage?” I asked.

  Madame Woo reached down into his bodice, if that’s what one calls it, and fished out a chain that held two silver keys. “You assholes have no idea who you’re fuckin with here,” Suzie said. “I make a couple calls . . .”

  Gabe ground the barrel into Suzie’s forehead. The noise stopped.

  Woo opened his painted mouth again, only to have Gabe stuff it with the gun barrel. About the time Gabe jacked a round into the chamber, Madame Woo’s eyes got to be the size of pie plates. His red lips quivered around the black steel.

  Gabe threw an angry glance down. “And if you don’t get rid of that boner, I’m gonna blow the back of your head off.”

  Thing disappeared like it had hydraulics. Now ya see it, now ya don’t.

  I dropped to a knee in front of the cage. One key was bigger than the other. Looked to be about right for the lock on the cage. I slipped the Smith & Wesson back into my belt, figuring I was probably going to need both hands.

  Like I thought, he came out swinging. Tried to paw me in the nuts as soon as I pulled the door back, but I turned sideways and took it off the hip. He was about halfway out when I kneed him full in the face. No sense busting knuckles. The force of the knee toppled him back onto his haunches. Over to my left, Gabe broke out laughing. Willard was wearing plastic dog paws on his hands and feet and a pair of friggin’ doggy ears. And a horsey tail, one end of which seemed to be stuck up his ass. And a pink rhinestone collar . . . and . . . a little stainless-steel cage that was locked around his gonad package. I groaned.

  “What’s wrong with you assholes?” Willard wanted to know.

  I held up a restraining hand. “Lemme see if I’ve got this straight,” I said. “You’re inside a steel cage, wearing plastic paws, a dog collar, and dog ears, with a butt plug stuck up your ass so you can’t get it out, and you’re wanting to know what’s wrong with us.”

  “It’s just cosplay, man. Just cosplay. You got no right to—”

  “He’s my dog,” Suzie said.

  I pointed at Willard’s crotch hardware. “What the fuck is that?”

  “A chastity cage,” he said.

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “It’s a fetish, man,” Willard said, from the squatting position. “You know, man . . . pet play. Power transfer. It’s real big in San Francisco. It’s trending,” he said hopefully.

  He started to get to his feet. I pulled the Smith & Wesson back out of my belt and pointed it at his head. He sunk back into a deep squat. That’s when I realized he couldn’t sit all the way down because of the plug in his ass. I involuntarily smiled.

  “Here’s what we’re gonna do here, Rover. I’m going to ask you some questions. You’re going to answer me truthfully, or my friend and I are going to fuck you up so bad you’ll wish you’d gone to the great boneyard in the sky. You understand?”

  He nodded.

  “Lamar Hudson,” I said.

  He looked at the floor. I popped him on the head with the gun. He got the message. “Okay . . . okay . . . I was just tryin’ to make a little money.”

  “From who?”

  “Charlie’s folks.”

  “The Harringtons?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Money for what?”

  “Keepin’ my mouth shut.”

  “About?”

  “About Lamar.”

  I bopped him between the ears with the gun. He sat down, instantly regretted the hell out of it, and used his paws to push himself back into doggy-squat position. He had that same embarrassed look on his face that dogs get when they notice you’re watching them take a dump.

  “About where Lamar really was when that Charlie kid’s sister got killed.”

  “So . . . wh
ere was he?”

  “He was in juvie with the rest of us.”

  “Who’s the rest of us?”

  “Me and a guy named Terry, and some Latin guy named Gilbert something, and the Okie . . . that Lamar guy. Cops caught me rolling fags up in Volunteer Park. I was on probation at the time, so they threw me in the can for a week or so.” He doggy shrugged. “’Cept for that Charlie kid—he came in later. I heard they found him wid the dead girl.” He shook his head. “That motherfucker was fucked up. Rollin’ around on the jailhouse floor. Foamin’ at the mouth. Eyes rolling around in his head like a pinball machine. Soon as the cops figured out who he was, it started raining doctors and lawyers. That motherfucker was gone in a heartbeat.”

  I thought about it for a while. “So you’re telling me that at the time Tracy Harrington was killed, Lamar Hudson was in jail.”

  “Yep. You could check it out.”

  “What jail?”

  “Juvie. Like I told you. The kid jail, over by Seattle U.”

  “So . . . you make any money?” I asked.

  “Five grand.”

  “Who paid you?”

  “Charlie’s people. Coupla guys didn’t speak English so good brought me the dough. That’s when the whole thing . . . you know . . . that’s when the shit came down. That’s when we—”

  Suddenly car doors were slamming out in the street. The downstairs door banged open. I grabbed Willard by the hair and jerked him to his feet.

  “You’re gonna show us how to get out on the Jackson Street side. Let’s go.”

  I frog-walked him down the hall, with Gabe covering our backs, figuring that as long as he was out front, he wouldn’t be leading us into any deadfalls. We’d turned about three corners when the sound of shouts and feet pounding up the stairs began to ricochet off the walls. Two more corners and a long flight of rickety stairs and we were at the Jackson Street door. I pulled it open and pushed Willard out into the street.

  The door closed behind us with a thump.

  “Aw, Jeees . . . ,” Willard moaned. “I can’t get back in, man.”