I like dogs.
I really do.
But for some goddamn reason—between Burrito, my own adopted Chihuahua, Pickles, and now these two—they were always trying to kill me. There wasn’t any time to feel bad about clobbering the murder dog, though. Its partner had found its footing and was ready to come at me again.
I found myself pleading with the hairy kill machines. “Heel!”
Didn’t work.
“Good boy! I like dogs! Please don’t kill me!” Didn’t work either.
I couldn’t remember what Bray’s order was for the dogs to stand down.
Wait…
“Stand down!” I yelled.
Both dogs immediately sat on their haunches, but kept growling a low rumble at me. I took a step toward the red car, and both dogs increased the volume of growl, stepping between me and the car. I was boxed in.
Where was Bray?
Then I realized why the shooting had stopped.
A loud grinding metal sound startled all three of us.
Bray had gone back inside the trailer.
And the gate was closing.
The loud noise of the moving chain link took the dogs’ attention off me for just long enough.
I ran first for the car, getting a few strides in before I heard the dogs’ paws scrabble frantically on the gravel in order to launch themselves back into the chase.
Twenty feet.
Ten feet.
Then the floodlights fired back on, blinding me for just enough time to miss the swath of thick ice that was right in front of me.
My eyes refocused one step too late.
And this was no slippery gravel that I could majestically parlay into a primetime wrestling move.
No siree.
This ice was thick, and wide, and boy-oh-boy was going to hurt.
I hit Mother Nature’s Slip’N Slide at top speed. My feet went up and over my head. I spun in the air at an angle of about 112 degrees and came down hard, all the breath knocked clean out of me.
And somehow, that was the luckiest thing that could have happened. Gray dog hit the ice running even harder than I was. If he wasn’t trying to turn me inside out with his fangs, the dog’s expression of panic and confusion might have been funny as it rocketed past me on the ice, down the hill, and out through the slowly closing gate.
Wheezing, I got to my feet and limped toward the comically tiny car with Omni written above the bumper.
The brown dog leaped for my throat as I reached for the handle. I held up the only thing I had to put in the dog’s mouth that wasn’t part of my anatomy. The dog’s teeth clamped down on the trumpet case with a crunch. He shook his head so violently, something popped in my wrist, but I managed to hang onto the handle of the case.
“Let go, you sonofabitch,” I yelled.
The dog went into another violent spasm, trying to wrest the case out of my hand, and I couldn’t help but think in the moment how glad I was that it wasn’t my throat between those teeth.
With one final pull on both our parts, the handle tore off the case, and one of the latches ripped off in the dog’s jaws.
The gray bitch came back around the car, snarling, as I tucked the case under my arm and reached for the door handle.
They had me dead bang. I wasn’t going to get in the car with all of my meat still attached to the bones.
Then two bullets smacked into the dirt between us, kicking up snow and stinging chunks of earth right up into the dog’s muzzles. The gray dog yipped in pain and surprise and scuttled away behind the other cars.
Bray was back, and his terrible aim had just saved my structural integrity.
Both dogs scattered for a second, giving me barely enough distance to get inside the car. I opened the door and dove in, chucking the murder trumpet onto the passenger seat. I got my door shut just as the gray dog smashed her whole body weight into it. She struck the car with enough force to knock the trumpet case onto the floor all the way over on the other side of the vehicle. Her brother ran around the passenger side as I popped the key into the ignition and prayed that I was in the right car.
The engine roared to life. Well, it felt like a roar. A roar of victory. It was an Omni, however, and the reality was that the engine came to life with a sound like an asthmatic twelve-year-old trying to play a tuba.
I roared with victory.
Then, through some goddamn doggie intuition, the brown hellbeast locked his teeth right onto the handle of the unlocked passenger door, yanking it open.
Fuck it.
I dropped the car into drive and stomped on the gas.
With more gravity and ice to propel it than actual horsepower, the car dropped down the hill toward the closing gate. The passenger door slammed shut, but the dog hung on tight like a streamer on a little girl’s bicycle handlebars.
What was left for an opening in the gate didn’t have enough room for the car and the dog.
Sorry, Fido.
The impact of dog-to-fence was sickening. I didn’t know what part of the dog hit the fence, but it popped him off the side, tearing the door handle off with it. In the rearview, I saw the brown furred assassin flopping end over end behind the car.
Then he got right up and resumed his chase.
What the fuck was up with these dogs?
I yanked the steering wheel hard onto the road with minimal drift.
Both hellhounds gave chase for three blocks before I put enough distance between us for it to break their doggy spirits.
I couldn’t believe I’d made it through all that with only a rapidly swelling wrist. It was unbe-fucking-lievable! I wanted to cheer and sing at the top of my lungs. I pounded on the roof of the car with my good hand and whooped at what was undoubtedly a change for the better as far as my fortunes were concerned.
I wanted music, and whiskey, and women. But since I only had the car radio, and a distinct lack of whiskey and women available in the car, I cranked the volume all the way up and let her rip.
Right onto a radio station playing Taylor Swift.
Good God, no.
And the tuner knob was busted.
Why have you forsaken me, oh Father?
The trumpet.
FUCK! THE TRUMPET!
I pulled the car off the road and behind a darkened Sunoco station by the on ramp. I shut the engine off and listened to the engine tick and groan as it cooled in the freezing air. Or maybe that was my heart going bugnuts off the adrenaline dump and terror that the trumpet had been rendered worthless by a goddamn dog.
If those teeth were strong enough to pull a door handle off, there was no telling the damage they might have done to my one possible bargaining chip. I didn’t have clue one about how these things were appraised, but I was sure that chew marks would dramatically lower the value of the thing.
The trumpet itself looked undamaged, thank Jesus, Buddha, Allah, and any other god or saint that looked after trumpets. I ran my fingers over the cold brass, feeing for indentations, but found none. Then I rubbed it two more times quickly just to see if a genie would pop out. For all I knew, I was in possession of the magical trumpet from Milo Davis’s Arabian Nights.
Nope. No genie. But if one had popped out, it wouldn’t have been the strangest incident of my week.
What my fingertips did find were a pair of deep fang grooves in the felt right at the point where the clasp had been ripped off. Where the felt met the plastic hardshell, one leftover canine—were all dog teeth canines?—jutted out from the bloody root. Yuck.
It left a pinkie finger-size hole between the board and the velvet. So, of course, I stuck my pinkie finger in it. I was only human.
Then the felt popped up.
As did the lateral half of the trumpet.
That’s right. Half.
It wasn’t a trumpet in there at all. Somebody had gotten industrious and cleanly cut a trumpet in half, made a small indent in the felt to make it look like there was space underneath, and then kept the bottom half empty.
Th
e felt backing was heavy, covering a metal plate of some kind. I guessed that it was lined with lead, to throw off x-ray machines in airports and the whatnot. Looking from the top, it sure as hell looked like a damn trumpet.
The million-dollar question: what was in the hollow bottom?
Whatever was being so carefully camouflaged was tightly wrapped in what appeared to be strips of black garbage bag, then bound with duct tape. Each brick was three inches deep and three by six inches across the top. Whatever was in there, it sure wasn’t going to improve my day.
I pulled out one package, which was snugly placed next to six more, side by side in the case. I tore a corner off the plastic and tore the duct tape along the length with my teeth.
Then I knew what Bray had tried to end me over, what a fake cop was willing to take out three people for. I knew why Byron had wound up on a Revere street corner with his skull staved in.
And boy, was I ever wrong.
What was in there improved my day. A whole fucking lot.
Each packet contained three wrapped bundles of hundred dollar bills.
That added up to…a buttload of money. It was too goddamn cold and I was too goddamn amped up to do the math in the moment.
I started hyperventilating.
I got out of the car and took deep gulps of frosty air as I leaned onto the still-warm hood. Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do when you hyperventilated? Breathe or not breathe? I didn’t know, but it wasn’t helping. I was going to wind up passed out in the parking lot if I didn’t figure it out soon.
Then red and blue lights started dancing between the trees along the side of the gas station.
A spotlight soon followed.
Looked like Bray had made a phone call to his cop buddies not long after I’d peeled out.
Then bad got worse when I realized I was quite likely parked behind the Sunoco where Officers R.J. and Stephanie had been playing moisten the nightstick.
I looked back at the money and realized it was also great. Really great.
I held my breath and stuck to the shadow of the building as the police car passed. My instinct to get the car off the road and not just pull over had been the right one. The years in St. Gabe’s had served me well. You doing something, anything you didn’t want people to see? You went to a place where they wouldn’t see you, even if it was in the middle of the night in Bumblefuck, Massachusetts.
The flashing lights passed, then moved toward the exit ramp ahead that I would have been heading for.
The glow from the arcing spotlight slowly moved away. Then they were gone.
I exhaled the breath I’d been holding, and my lungs felt better immediately. So there. Hold breath when hyperventilating. Learned something new every day.
I climbed back into the car and held the money up to my nose and breathed deeply. It smelled like most of the problems in my life taking the first bus out of Boosville.
Of all the contraband that could have been hidden in there, it was the one thing I actually knew what to do with. If it had been bags of coke, or pills, or state secrets, I’d have been screwed.
But what the hell was I thinking?
This was the reason Junior was in lockup. I needed to figure out whose money it was.
Problem was, it could be anybody’s money.
Just like it could be mine.
I shook my head.
No.
This amount was the killing kind. If I could find out where it was supposed to end up, or who it was coming from, then I’d most likely have a definitive bead on whoever took Byron out.
Mystery solved, me and Junior off our hooks.
Except I had no idea where to go from here.
It was just after 3 a.m. when I made it back to Boston proper. In that car, it was a miracle I made it at all. Every mile or so, the transmission would give a sickly whirr, then catch again. Each time, I found myself gently patting the dashboard and talking to the damn thing.
It was in those moments that I understood Junior’s relationship to Miss Kitty.
I hadn’t eaten a thing since the diner with Junior, which felt like a decade ago. I got a sack of Mexican goodness from El Triunfo in East Berkeley. While a 3:30 a.m. shrimp and bean burrito might not be the greatest gastrointestinal choice in your country club, it was either that or a microwave barbecue sandwich at Store 24. So don’t you fucking judge me.
I paid for my late-night snack with the hundy off the top of the open stack for two reasons.
One: I wanted to make sure that my enthusiasm wasn’t going to be cut down by finding out the hard way that I was dragging around stacks of counterfeit bills. The nagging voice in my head that had read too many Ed McBain novels needed to know.
Two: Whoever was the rightful owner of the money could suck my chode. I’d earned at least a burrito in payment for my recovery services. The voice that had read all of John D. Macdonald’s Travis McGee books told me so.
The Hispanic kid raised his eyebrow when I handed him the crisp bill, no doubt having seen his share of fake bills during the late hours. He held it up to the light, ran his thumb across the paper, then took out a counterfeit pen and drew a wide X across Benjamin Franklin’s face.
He rang in my tab on the register and gave me change.
Sweet bleedin’ eyes o’ Jeebus, it was all real.
***
I parked in the municipal lot behind the bar, stuck the burrito under my arm, and grabbed the trumpet case. The Cellar had been closed for two hours, so it was as safe a place as any for me to rest my head. My apartment was still off-limits until I knew who had targeted me there. My first thought had been Summerfield as the obvious suspect, but with all the current goings on, I couldn’t be so sure any more. At least The Cellar I could lock down.
I locked the door and turned directly into a flashlight beam shining in my eyes. Instinctively, I threw my hands into the air. The burrito hit the concrete with a wet splat.
“Where have you been?” yelled the man blinding me.
“Goddamn it, Underdog. Look what you did to my burrito.”
“I don’t care even the slightest about your freaking burrito. I’ve been looking for you all night.”
“Weren’t you the one who told me to go out and find a reason not to put me and Junior in jail?” I bent over to collect what remained of what was now a taco salad. “And shut off that fucking light.”
“I also told you to stay in touch with me.” He shut the Maglite off, then pointed it at my hand. “What is that?”
“It’s a trumpet case.”
“Why are you carrying a trumpet case? And what are you driving? Where is Junior’s car?”
“Any particular order you want me to answer those questions?”
“Do you really want to be a smartass right now, Boo?”
“You really want to be the cop right now? Or are you my friend? Hard to tell nowadays.”
Underdog sighed, his long exhalation frozen on the night air. His shoulders slumped back into their submissive position. Like the Hulk in reverse, Brendan Miller the police officer slowly shrunk back into Underdog. Sweet, needy, pliable Underdog.
My burrito-spurred appetite dwindled as guilt washed over me. Second time in two days I’d forced him into submission, when if I was a real friend, I should be doing everything I could to keep him strong. Underdog was a mess—a human trash fire. Brendan Miller was the man I wanted my friend to be.
It made me feel like shit, but I didn’t need another cop in my night. I needed Underdog. But if I was the type of guy who needed to knock a man down to where I felt he wasn’t an enemy, what did that make me?
I didn’t like feeling like a bad friend.
“You know?” Underdog said. “Every day, it gets easier to understand how people might want to shoot you.”
As a reminder, the cold was starting to crush my old knee wound with an icy vise. “Listen, can we at least get inside a car and talk?”
“Which brings me to my first question. Where�
�s the Buick?” Underdog opened the door to his sedan, gesturing for me to get in the other side.
“I don’t have it.” Not the whole truth. I needed to dodge lying where I could. I was bad at it. And the cop in Underdog would sniff it out right away. So I left it at that as I slid into his unmarked police car. I hoped it was the last time I would be getting into one for a long, long time
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying to me, Boo.”
Goddammit.
“There’s an APB on it, so it’ll turn up sooner or later. Why don’t you save us both the trouble?”
“I can’t.”
Underdog rubbed his eyes vigorously. “So, the car that is possibly going to be pivotal in a murder investigation is…what? Missing?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re supposed to be helping me here, Boo. This does not help. What’s in the trumpet case?”
“Something that might help.”
Underdog glared at me. Again, it wasn’t a full-on pants-on-fire lie, so it must have thrown his radar off. “You want to give it to me?”
“Not yet.” Probably not ever, said a voice in the back of my brain.
“Should I bother asking where you’ve been?”
“I wouldn’t suggest it.”
Underdog closed his eyes and slowly bellowed out his cheeks with a pained exhalation. “I can’t help but feel like you’re not taking this as seriously as you should, Boo. When they charge Junior—”
“When?”
“When. The homicide guys feel they got a slam dunk. So, when they charge him, they’ll be coming for you not long after. You understand that, right?”
“I understand that.”
“You also understand that it’s worse than just that. Why did Byron have Junior’s phone in his pocket?”
“I have no idea. We tussled. Confusion ensued.”
“Confusion ensued? That what you’re going to say in court?”
“How bad is it looking?”
“Almost as bad as it can get, Boo. They’ve decided to move forward with this as a hate crime. Your bad got worse.”
My suddenly dry throat clicked as I swallowed. “There’s no way to prove that one way or the other.”
“Well, with Junior referring to the victim casually as ‘the faggot’ three times during interrogation, I don’t think they’ll have to try too hard.”
Rough Trade Page 17
