Julie rested back on his hands. “Don’t like your humor about drugs,” he repeated. “Reminds me of when you first moved in.”
I tried to recapture that era, then didn’t want to. “Nah. I’m not depressed, just quiet. Working the malls, all that bullshit.”
His head shook almost imperceptibly. “I beg to differ, Slumlord. It’s one thing to be quiet, another to be dead.”
As if to prove I was still breathing, I sat upright, reached onto the coffee table, lit two cigarettes, and passed him one. While I was there I took a small hit off the steamer. Finally I said, “The malls can do that to you.” I put it back on the table as I thought of my meeting with Blackhead. “Anyway, my meet in the Wagon Wheel may have brought me something different to do.”
His half-mast eyelids lifted a fraction. “What can The End bring besides trouble?” “It’s not so bad. I worked there when I first got to town.”
“The Wagon Wheel?” “Hell, no, The End.” “How long ago was that?” “About twenty.”
“Shit man, you weren’t no older than a kid. What the hell were you doing in the Wagon Wheel tonight?”
He seemed surprised I’d made it out of the bar intact. I felt my stomach growl and tasted the Wheel’s whiskey. Sort of intact. I ran down Emil’s request. But, by the time I finished, my earlier suspicions of Blackhead and his job nipped at the elastic in my sweat cuffs.
Julius’ response didn’t make it any easier to shake them off. “This here case sounds like bullshit. And you ain’t too stupid not to smell it.”
I thought of doing another day at another mall, drinking another twelve cups of bad coffee, and felt a dose of annoyance cloud my high. “Easy enough for you to say ‘Go spend your days playing guard dog on the swells side of the track.’” Then I felt silly paraphrasing Blackhead, and reached for the pipe.
Julie waited quietly then helped himself to the dope. I lay back down on the floor and felt my petulance dissipate. “The story doesn’t feel right to me either, but the thought of more malls is ugly. On top of that, Lou may visit.”
“Since when is Bhwana Lou a bummer?”
“Since the fucking reno was finished. He’s been picking at me like I was a scab.” “Since the renovation, or since you be in Chi for the funeral?”
“I don’t know, man. If he comes you can ask him.” I didn’t want to know. The whole subject made me feel bad.
Julie took another pull at the steamer as I rolled to my side and reached toward him. He handed me the pipe; but he didn’t let go until he said, “You don’t want to be forgetting your roots, Matt.”
By now my lungs had no problem with the size of my appetite. I exhaled another long drag, and said, “I had weeds, not roots. It’s taken me a lifetime to pull ‘em out.”
Julius shook his head. “You’re not getting it down, are you?”
“Getting what down?” But my mind was already drifting. I suddenly saw Bhwana Lou’s bulky body squeezed into every inch of my apartment.
I came back to the last echo of his words. “What did you say?” I asked.
It took a long time for him to answer. “I said you don’t seem bothered by that idea.” “What idea?”
“Damn.”
I watched as he stood. “What’s the matter, Julie?” “You be too high to talk.”
“I am not! I’m not that high. I just didn’t hear what you said.” “I said The End is a helluva place to try and hide.”
I stood, felt a little dizzy, and sat down on the couch. “I’ll probably just look up some old acquaintances to see how they made out.”
Julius frowned down at me. “You’ll surely find them. That place is a one-way ticket.” “Hey, I got out.”
“If you call you out,” he said, watching me hold on to the arm of the couch. “Anyway, you weren’t born there.”
Julius leaned over the table, lifted the steamer, and inspected it to see if anything was still alive. With a shrug he tapped the dottle into the ashtray and started toward the door.
He was halfway out when I said, “You forgot the hash, man.”
He turned back to me. “You keep it, Slumlord. Something tells me you’re going to need it.”
The next day began later than usual. It tried to start at its regular hour, but I pulled the couch’s pillow over my head to block out the telephone’s morning wake-up call. By the time the phone tried again, I was up and moving—albeit slowly.
“Were you taking a shit or something?” Blackhead’s whining grate clanged through my brain. “I tried calling you earlier but there was no answer.”
Had I known it was him there would have been no answer this time either. “I was sleeping.” “Sleeping? I didn’t know detectives kept executive hours.”
I flashed on consulting detective Harry the Mole. “I’m an executive detective, Emil. What’re you calling for? I said I’d ring you.” I reached for my cigarettes and lit one. “What time is it anyway?” I asked.
“It’s ‘Miller Time.’”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. We’re fucking finished. I was out of my mind to ask you for help in the first place. You don’t ask no one for help that kicks you in the ass.”
I started to interrupt, but his words sizzled like steam escaping from a broken pipe. “From the moment we ran into each other you been pissing on me. You fucking choked me! Forget I asked you for anything! Just stay on your damn side of the street. We got enough assholes here.”
I heard him gulp, waited for an added assault, but all he said was, “I ain’t gonna pay for another.”
I couldn’t blame him but still felt disappointed. “Last night you seemed pretty eager for my help.”
“That was last night. I can’t believe I threw my money at you.”
I almost offered to do his job on the house, but reeled it in before it hit air. No way I was going to beg. “You’re sure, man?” Well, I wasn’t going to grovel, anyway.
“What’s the matter with you? Of course I’m fucking sure.”
I started to talk, but he stepped on my words. “I don’t want you messing in my business. Do you understand?”
I hid my chagrin. “Yeah, I understand. But don’t I get a thanks?” “Thanks? For what? For insulting me, grabbing my neck?”
I felt myself get stubborn. “How about for cutting the deal in the mall?”
“That fat fuck.” He caught himself and lowered his voice. “Okay, asshole, thanks.”
I stared at the dead telephone. I’d gotten my thanks; ain’t I special? I felt my stomach growl, remembered the empty refrigerator, and stood cursing. I was antsy, hungry, and felt like I’d just missed my bus. I walked over to a window and thought about going out to eat, but it looked too raw. Or was it me who was too raw?
I heard my stomach complain again and caught myself staring at the wall that used to hold Mrs. S’s call contraption, missing her repeated intrusions. There were times when taking care of her took me out of my skin. And into some home cooked food.
I found something presentable to wear, grabbed my tool case, and hiked upstairs. I could always pretend it was the old days and fix something of hers in exchange for a meal.
Later that evening, I realized my visit with Mrs. S was a moment of idealized nostalgia for my pre-detective days. So was the entire afternoon tinkering with my Bakelite radios, something I hadn’t done for a year. The problem was, it wasn’t the old days. Mrs. S, though feeding me, had nothing for me to fix, and I couldn’t get any of the plastics to work.
I stood, flicked on the television, turned it off, and anxiously prowled the house. I looked out my office window, past the alley and into the parking lot. I kept staring, until I saw a down coat trot by, breath steaming from nose and mouth. I retreated to the closet and zipped the lining into my leather jacket. I pulled it on, grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a joint, and went out to my car. It was difficult to start but, with a little gentle encouragement and a nasty slap on the das
h, the engine turned over.
Driving around aimlessly and watching the city’s lights shimmer behind the languid movement of traffic and the carbon monoxide haze, I lit the joint but it did little to alleviate my anxiety. A grieving, live-in Lou, with only malls for escape, was too much for even dope to offset.
I had nowhere to go, including home, a feeling that reminded me of my marriage to Megan. During its stretch run we lived on the second floor of a converted coffin factory. I hated to return from work and begin the long march up the stairs. Never wanted to go there, but didn’t have anywhere else.
A loud squawk from the snout of a space-age van shook me from my drift. I turned at the next corner and aimed the car toward The End. I had no job or reason, but my curiosity made a visit seem better than nothing. When I got to the neighborhood’s edge I looked around until I found a parking space under a street lamp. The car was old but, hell, it was paid for.
Even at night you could see people on the street talking to themselves. We used to bet on the number per block, and the head count always topped our predictions. But, as I walked down Wilson, I was staggered by the number of people curled in entranceways. A substantial portion of The End’s population had always squatted in abandoned buildings, but I didn’t recall this many sidewalk sleepers.
It was impossible to walk a block without being aggressively accosted for money. After the first three or four encounters, I found myself growing hostile. My surprise about the homeless— and my hostility—told me I was more integrated into the Nineties than I cared to admit.
I walked past block after block of substandard housing. Twenty years ago I’d seen living space as a challenge—the literal battleground between good and evil, rich and poor. Now it all just looked like dilapidated buildings. I turned left onto Rutledge and was surprised by an oasis of middle-class tranquility. If housing stock was indeed a battleground, the well-to-do had gotten themselves another toehold.
I felt less comfortable staring at fancy rehabs than rundowns. I turned, walked back to Wilson, and automatically gravitated toward the building that had headquartered most of my community organizing. When I got to the block I stopped, lit a cigarette, and paused on the corner. I was a little surprised to see the storefront standing, much less lit.
A group of teenagers were pushing their way out of my old building. They didn’t appear strung out, or even particularly intent on shit-kicking; they actually flashed a spark of healthy life in the middle of dark, dead concrete. I flipped my butt and moved slowly toward the storefront. By the time I was directly across the street, the group had rambled away. There was a bus-stop bench and, despite the cold, I hunkered down and watched the storefront door.
Every once in a while a couple of kids would leave, usually laughing, looking as if they were enjoying themselves. Often they carried books. It seemed like an anomaly; I tried to remember if I’d ever seen anyone in The End carry a book.
I lit another cigarette, rushed a beggar on his way, and let myself float back in time. These were the corners on which I had stood, the buildings in which I had organized. This was the neighborhood where I had looked for people to help. Looking in some unconscious way for myself.
I stood, ground the cigarette under my heel, and headed toward the storefront. Twenty years later, a little more conscious, I was back.
The door swung open before I had a chance to grab the handle and I stood facing a dark-skinned teenager. Although he held the door and nodded, his gaunt face looked defensive, as if I was about to hit him. As I entered, I tried to relax his fear and my own discomfort. “I was walking around and saw the lights.”
He closed the door, but gazed at me with the same stricken eyes. I tried again, “I used to work here, a real long time ago…”
He looked over my shoulder, and I turned to see a medium sized woman with blonde hair and wire-rim glasses walk down the long thin hall. Although her arms swung loosely at her sides, she conveyed an undercurrent of determination. She nodded to the kid, and he slid behind the large desk by the storefront’s plate-glass window.
Despite her severely pulled-back hair, there was a softness to her face. She barely glanced at me as she politely launched into a memorized monotone. “You don’t have to explain. You’re new to the precinct and are wondering what we do here? Every week another new policeman is assigned to The End. And every week they are around here asking about us. Why doesn’t the Captain put up a sign?”
There was nothing hostile in her manner, just automatic. I stuck up my hands. “Whoa, I am interested in what happens here, but I’m not from the police. I worked out of this storefront about a hundred years ago and got curious.”
She took off her glasses and dropped them into the breast pocket of her dark blue chamois work shirt. She wore no makeup, but then, she didn’t need to; her skin was smooth and, even under the harsh fluorescent light, lovely. Lines suddenly creased her forehead, but her voice stayed pleasant. “We are an alternative learning center for dropouts who won’t go near traditional schools. Perhaps you’ve heard of Hope House? We’re part of it.”
Hope House had been the largest and most conservative social agency in The End. “I’m surprised. I thought the only thing that interested Hope House was training case workers.”
She began to look closely at my face. “You really haven’t been here for a while. Things are very different these days.” She grimaced and raised her eyebrows. “It’s unusual to suddenly get curious after how many years, really?”
“Twenty.” I smiled. “Really.”
She shook her head. “That’s long enough, but you do look familiar.” “Probably not, my name is Matt Jacob.”
Her blue eyes widened and the worry lines deepened. “Jake,” she gasped.
I had this crazy thought that fear crossed her face, but the moment passed as soon as my embarrassment for not remembering who she was caught hold. “I use Matt these days,” I said sheepishly. “I’m sorry, but my memory is lousy and I don’t recognize you.”
A small resigned smile played at the corners of her full lips. “Melanie,” she said, “Melanie Knight.”
Though the name Knight had danced through my head since my conversation with Blackhead, I hadn’t conjured up a clear image of Peter, much less his sister. Melanie noticed my difficulty because she said, “You probably remember my brother, Peter Knight.”
“Not really, twenty years is a long time,” I replied lamely.
“But you remember him better than you remember me, I’m sure.” Her smile seemed forced. “Maybe a little,” I admitted.
“You left just before he died.”
I was surprised by her clear memory.
“You knew he was dead, didn’t you?” Melanie’s voice was tight, and she rubbed her hand across her face wiping away the smile. “He drowned in Quarry’s End.”
“Yes,” I said, “I knew that.” But I really hadn’t. I’d known about a “dead body” whose name was Peter Knight. Standing there, faced with someone to whom the loss meant something, put a real person in the quarry. Just like I had a real wife and a real daughter twisted in the torn metal remains of an automobile.
“I’m sorry.” There was more to say, but those were the things I wouldn’t say to myself. “I’m sorry,” I repeated.
“So was I.”
The air between us grew tense. Before I lifted my eyes from our shoes, a voice from the rear of the storefront asked people to return to their seats. I looked toward the back where some teenagers stood in the doorway of the large open room that flared out at the end of the hall. A couple of them wore “fuck you” looks. It bothered me that people mistook me for a cop.
I turned my attention back to Melanie. “You’ve grown up.”
“I don’t ever remember not being grown up,” she said quietly. A small frown crossed her face and she looked back at the group of kids. “Come on, guys,” she said in a friendly but firm manner. “He’s not a cop. Why don’t you get back to work?”
As the ki
ds disappeared into the back room, Melanie turned toward me with a rueful smile. “Why don’t we reminisce in my office?”
I nodded, glad for the privacy, and followed her into the first of the row of partitioned stalls on the left-hand side of the long corridor. There was barely enough room in the cubicle for a desk, filing cabinet, and two folding chairs. Melanie sat in one chair and motioned me to the other. A small glass-framed diploma hung on the otherwise bare, institutional, green walls. Melanie took her glasses from her pocket, reached over to the desk, and placed them on a stack of forms. Our knees almost touched and, despite her thick shirt, her breasts attracted my attention. I quickly shifted my eyes to her face. “Is this a bad time to be here?”
“Why would it be a bad time?” Her voice was quiet, her face neutral. “I don’t know. There’s a lot going on.”
“There’s always a lot going on. Don’t you remember what The End is like?”
The mention of The End generated a force of its own and, though she sat there calmly, I had an image of someone inside beating on a glass enclosure. I didn’t know whether that someone was Melanie trying to escape The End, or me still trying to get away from my death images.
Nervously I broke the silence. “I thought I remembered The End. But I’ve been in the neighborhood for about an hour, and now I’m not so sure.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Things seem worse, if that’s possible. Do you mind if I smoke?”
She pointed to an ashtray overflowing with stubbed-out filter-less cigarettes. “Does it look as if I’d mind?” Melanie raised her eyebrows. “And what made you think it wouldn’t be worse? Nothing’s trickled down to this part of town. Including people,” she said pointedly.
I lit two cigarettes, gave her one, and reached for the ashtray. “Twenty years is a long time, isn’t it?”
She stared at me and folded her arms. Instead of shielding her chest, the posture just made it more difficult for me to keep my eyes on her face. “I mean, hell, the last time we saw each other we were still kids. Like them.” I poked my thumb toward the back room.
The Complete Matt Jacob Series Page 33
