“What hint?” He looked at me like he had the night I’d first met him. As though he were expecting to be hit.
“Maybe you aren’t as hateable as you think.”
He grunted and averted his eyes. I opened the car door, then turned back around. “Do you know where Melanie is now, Therin?”
I didn’t expect an answer, so I was surprised when he said, “She stayed at Jonathan Barrie’s house. She spends holidays there.”
I wondered whether he’d gone with her. “Where did you go?” “I went to McDonald’s. It doesn’t have lines on the holidays.”
I rubbed the condensation off the windshield and stared at the bleak, silent neighborhood. Sleeping through a cold November night in a parked car was too similar to the alley Indian mounds for comfort.
What had begun as an attempt to mine for bits of history had me lumbering like a stuck bull. Smart money said split. To return home, face Lou, and resume some semblance of ordinary. If junk food, drugs, television, and malls are ordinary.
Only it wasn’t that easy. I took forever to get started, but once I did, I hated to let go. I wanted that truck driver. I just didn’t have enough cheeks to keep turning. One slap needed answering.
I glanced into the rearview mirror, and knew I wasn’t finished with The End. Megan’s laughter pealed from inside my head, and I saw myself clinging to a mouth that bit me. I shook myself, and flushed the picture from my mind.
I also swore not to lose it with Blackhead. Either he had intentionally set me up, or the rundown had been an inadvertent offshoot of the hire. There was only one way to find out. It would test my new-found commitment to self-control.
I let myself into his building, went downstairs to the basement, and barged through Blackhead’s unlocked door.
“Jesus Christ, man, you trying out for the Red Squad?” His tall, gangly body bent over, picking up his spilled breakfast of newspaper and pork rinds. He glared at me. “I oughta call the fucking cops. Watch them bust your ass.” His hands full, he stood straight and faced me. “You’re damn lucky I wasn’t holding hot coffee or I would call the pigs.”
Behind the hot words Emil’s face was pale. Next time he’d remember to keep his door locked. “I should have knocked. But it’s time for you to come up with the truth.”
“The truth about what?”
“About the truck with its big fat tires kissing my ass.” I lowered my voice, “Somebody has to answer for it, and I’m starting with you.” The tire image sharpened my edge of anger.
He peered at me with a mixture of confusion and disgust. “What are you talking about? What the hell do I look like, anyway? Your personal punching bag?”
“You don’t know what I’m talking about?” My voice was ice.
“Hell, no. I asked you for help, because twenty years ago you weren’t a total asshole. Okay, I get it. %ow you are.” He put the pork rinds back down on the floor and stood shaking his head. “Damn, man, what call you got busting in here? You’re supposed to be history.”
Any chance that Blackhead had been directly responsible for the 4×4 faded. He was scared, he was angry; but he wasn’t guilty. And he was still running his mouth about his request for help.
Blackhead stared at me. “Are you high, man?”
I grinned, but couldn’t get my teeth too far apart. “Two nights ago somebody tried to run me over.”
“Whoever it was missed,” he said glumly.
For a second my suspicion resurfaced, but the remark was just his pleasant personality. “Not by much, and only because he wanted to.”
“Somebody tries to run you over, and you come here to fuck with me?” Blackhead’s eyes suddenly widened. “Oh no. Don’t even think it.”
I smiled into his concern. “Too late, Blackhead, I already have.”
I’d tell him he was off the hook when the time was right. Maybe. He started to speak, but I cut him off with a wave of my hand. “If you don’t want me to believe it was you, then you’re going to help me discover who it was.”
“Every time something happens you come after me.” He sat back down in the chair and reached for the bag on the floor.
I kept silent, waiting him out.
“You didn’t get a look at him, huh?” He fingered the rinds nervously, then put them down.
I wanted to hit him, but stayed very still. “A hooded sweatshirt chased me around in a 4×4. The truck had some sort of floodlight, either on the side or on top. It was dark, and I didn’t get the plate. The tires came very close.”
His mouth curled up in a tiny smile, and he asked, “What color was this truck?”
“Maybe silver and black, but I don’t know. Everything happened fast. It was difficult to focus on the details.”
He stood and turned his back. I walked up behind him, put my hand on his shoulder, and spun him around. He had a look of pure pleasure on his face. “Well, I didn’t hear nothing, so I don’t know what you want from me,” he said.
“I want to know what’s funny, Blackhead. Do you know who owns that truck?” I dug my fingers into his shoulder.
He yanked his shoulder out of my grasp. “Fuck no, man, I don’t know who owns it. I was thinking what a lousy detective you are. You didn’t even get the truck’s color. You better not work on commission, like your fat friend.”
He sat back down without his look of pleasure. “I want to know how a big, fat bleeding heart becomes a fucking fascist?”
“And I want to know about your drug business.”
He was waggling his head “no” before I finished the sentence. “Why don’t you get off my back? You’re fucking obsessed. I’m starting to think you work for the Feds. Look around. Do I look rich? Jesus, you want to get high, ask.”
I was tempted, but it wasn’t the consumer side of the business that had my attention. Reluctantly, I backed away a couple of steps. “I’m not convinced you’re clean, Emil.”
“Look, asshole, I have no reason to mess with you. Except for doing the dope, I’m a law-abiding type. Why don’t you leave? I want my breakfast, okay?”
“You can eat after you tell me about your dope business.” He groaned, “Here we go again…”
I cut him off. “We don’t go again, we go now.” “You act like you want to be the Drug Czar.”
I moved a step closer to tower over him. “We have a problem here. If it wasn’t you, it was one of your business associates.”
He shook his head again. “You’re living in a fantasyland. I ain’t important enough to have associates. Conspiracy theories went out with Squeaky Fromme. Hell, don’t you think your so-called runover would worry me if you were right?”
“Look at me,” I hissed, unmollified. “If you’re so damn unimportant, you’re going to tell me who is. I don’t care if all you sell is powdered aspirin, I want to know who you buy it from.”
He sensed the damage an impatient me might do. “You got to understand—I just deal fingers and quarters.”
Selling joints for a living was barely curb-high from the gutter. “Who does your pieces?”
“Come on,” he complained, “you’re asking me to go out of business. I never did nothing to you, now I’m supposed to starve?”
I had a moment of irrational sympathy. “Okay, Emil, here’s the deal. You give me the name and if you’re clean, I won’t give him yours.”
My hard look silenced his protest. He rubbed his face, and said quickly, “Belchar, Tom Belchar. You happy?”
I walked around the room and found a pen and brown paper bag while Blackhead told me the address. I wrote down the information with Blackhead whining, “Please, man, don’t mention my name, okay? I gotta make a living!”
I was already out the door, but I turned around and pointed to his sloppy crib. “You call this living?”
I got to the car and stared at the brown bag. I’d recognized the name. Tom Belchar had been one of the kids I’d known twenty years ago. From the same group as Peter, Emil, and Mel.
It wasn’t h
ard to find his building. Getting to see him was. I was met by a five-year-old girl peeking up at me from under a latch chain when I knocked on Belchar’s apartment door. She wore a ripped pair of pajamas crusted with grape jelly. I heard a television in the background, along with voices of other children.
“Is your daddy home?”
She put a finger to her lips, and said, “Shh, my Daddy is sleeping.”
From the back of the apartment I heard a woman’s loud whisper, “Grace, stop playing with the door, damnit.”
“Is that your mother?” I asked.
Grace kept her finger on her lips and nodded silently. “Could you ask her to come here?”
The little girl shut the door without a word. It was a welcome relief from the odor of grease frying in the over-hot, steam heated apartment. As I was set to knock again, the door rattled and swung a chain’s width.
“It doesn’t make a goddamn difference whether you people show up in the morning or the middle of the night. We don’t have any money any time.” Her eyes looked frightened and defiant at the same time, her sallow skin cemented to her bones.
“I’m not here to collect bills,” I said.
Her look became guarded. “Who are you then? What do you want?”
Before I could answer, a kid’s cry pierced the apartment. The woman turned quickly, calling in a hoarse whisper, “Shut up, damn you. How many times do I have to tell you not to raise your voice when your father is sleeping?”
She left me alone at the open door. I looked past the chain into the room. The place made Blackhead’s apartment look kempt. Clothes and cheap plastic toys were strewn everywhere. I noticed a colorful metal top that reminded me of a Rebecca toy. I was grateful to have my memory interrupted by the woman’s return.
“We’re not buying anything,” she said, squeezing the door against my foot. “I’m not here to sell.”
Her tone sharpened with annoyance. “Then why is your foot in my door?”
“I’d like to speak with Tom. I’m an old friend.” It wasn’t a total lie. When I worked The End, Tom was everybody’s friend. Talented, popular. If he had attended high school, and had come from a different neighborhood, he’d have been a candidate for “Most Likely To Succeed.”
The woman shook her pinched face in a short vigorous burst. “Don’t bullshit me. Tom don’t have any old friends. Anyhow, friends don’t stick their foot in the door.”
“Well, ‘friend’ might be too strong a word. I knew him about twenty years ago.” She smiled bitterly. “You’d be better off with your memories.”
“Can I speak with him?” “Absolutely not. Are you a cop?”
“Absolutely not.” I tried a smile but she wasn’t having any. I paused, then asked again, “Why can’t I speak to him?”
“Look, Mister, there’s as much chance he’d belt me for waking him as there is of him talking to you. I ain’t willing to take that chance.” She suddenly looked down, and I followed her eyes. Holding on to her leg was a little boy. He only wore training pants. The woman shook him off her leg, and tapped his butt. “Get away from me. Go back and watch the TV. I’m busy.”
She turned back to me and said, “I don’t have time for this. The bastard works all night, sleeps all day, and I’m supposed to do everything around here myself. If you want to see Tom, do like everyone else and see him at the hotel.” Her eyes clouded; she nervously picked at her cheek with red, chapped fingers. “He don’t start work ‘til eight but he likes it there better than here.”
I didn’t have the heart to keep trying. “Hotel?” “The Leonard. In the Square.”
I knew it. It’s hard to miss a rundown, second-rate hotel in the middle of luxury. “What’s he do?”
“I thought you knew him?” she said. “He plays the piano in the damn bar,” she added miserably.
“What time will he get to the hotel?”
Her mouth twisted, and she laughed bitterly. “As soon as he can. He says he has to rehearse, but he means drink. No need to rehearse songs you’ve been playing five times a night for ten years, is there?”
I shrugged, thanked her, and turned. The door closed on my back and I left the building. Seeing Tom after all these years was not going to be fun. Standing on the stoop of a foul-smelling tenement, my dead daughter straining at the lid of the locked box of memories, wasn’t too terrific either.
I was tired, body-sore from spending too many hours in the car, frustrated by my inability to speak with Belchar. Not yet ready to engage in another round of Slumlord versus the Bwana, I stopped at The Leonard.
Where I was the only person in the bar. The camphor-like smell of urinal disinfectant drifted from the restrooms. The plastic cover of a small pool table was pulled halfway off, exposing the table’s dark green felt; I could see the cigarette burns from my seat. There was something comforting about the dark gloom of a tavern not yet filled with its patrons’ anguish.
Eventually, a tall stocky man in a battered red waiter’s jacket walked behind the oval formica. He nodded in my direction, and said, “We’re not open.” Then he winked, “What’ll it be?”
You didn’t have to tap kegs to know he was proposing an off register cash deal. Bartenders hate to put money in the box if they don’t own the bar. I enjoyed his look of anticipation when I said, “Information.”
“What kind of information?” He didn’t bother to mask his greed. “I want to know when Tom Belchar gets in.”
“I got a bad memory.”
I withdrew my wallet and handed him a five. “Throw in a bourbon. The answer is too easy for this.”
He stuffed the five, yanked the short-waisted coat down over the top of his belly, and poured a shot. “He plays at eight, but he’s usually here early.”
“Why early?”
A sarcastic look and smile crossed his face. “He don’t like kids.”
I dug into my wallet again and came up with a couple more fives. I put one under my fingers. “Double if I like your answer.”
Redcoat slid the bill out. “He meets with people.” The man sounded envious.
“You just made a few extra bucks,” I said, pushing him the five. “How does Belchar make his?”
The bartender’s head bobbed from side to side. “Don’t bother reaching for your wallet, buddy, I don’t know. Ask him yourself.”
I’d hit his limit. He wasn’t going to tell me Belchar sold drugs, and I knew better than to press. I thought for a moment and came up sideways. “Is there anyone he regularly meets?”
“No one I want to see busted.”
“I’m not asking about steadies. Someone who shows up once in a while, but doesn’t hang around or stay for the show?”
I watched his dubious sense of loyalty battle with his greed. I yanked out two twenties. It was lucky I hadn’t gone junking. Maybe I was doing it now.
He shrugged and said, “Some guy occasionally drops in. Drinks fucking Screwdrivers. Belchar calls him J.B.”
I gave him the money, killed the shot, and felt the cheap alcohol set fire to my esophagus. “Are you sure?” I asked.
The bartender turned his back and walked away. Since he’d already pocketed the money, his loyalty was unexcelled. That was okay by me; I was done paying.
I sat at the bar for another few minutes trying to make sense of what I’d been told. The sense I made disturbed me enough to drive me through the door.
Outside the hotel, the day after Thanksgiving shoppers were out in force. I melded into the crowd, walking slowly toward the car. I felt a delicious moment of anonymity engulf me; then it slipped away as I approached my parking spot. Suddenly dizzy from morning whisky and lousy sleep, I hoisted myself on top of the fender. Once the dizziness passed, I slid down onto my feet and slipped another four quarters into the meter. Boots lived only a few blocks away. Right then I felt better about knocking on an empty apartment door than going home to company.
I dry-mouthed when I heard her voice respond to the buzzer. After an initial inclination
to bolt, I managed to identify myself. On the elevator ride I cursed myself for not asking whether Hal was there. And, for imagining Boots wasn’t.
She was, he wasn’t. It was nice to catch a break. I walked in on her pouring two cups of coffee. She looked up and nodded, a grim smile across her face. “Have you been home yet?”
“What do you mean?” I was nonplussed; I didn’t look much more wrinkled than usual.
“Your father-in-law is worried sick about you. He said you hadn’t been home since yesterday. And you hadn’t done too well the night before that.”
I shrugged and drained my coffee cup. “I thought you were away. Do you mind if I take a shower?”
“Of course not. Why don’t you call Lou and let him know you’re all right.” She walked toward the telephone adding, “I got back early.”
I was already down the short hall to the bathroom. I turned around and looked out her wall-to-wall windows at the steady stream of cars cruising the Drive in front of the Esplanade.
“Did you hear me, Matt?” Boots asked, holding the phone in her outstretched hand. “Lou’s worried.”
“I heard you.” I turned, stopped at the built-in hutch and grabbed a towel. “I’ll be out in a second.”
It took longer than that. As the hot water washed away the grime and tension of the past few nights, I was filled with a physical weariness that occupied every molecular gap in my body: it was all I could do to lean against the wall of the shower and absorb the wet pelting onrush. I couldn’t even think of a drug that might help.
Once again my spontaneity faced its cost; Boots was probably waiting to talk. I imagined her in the other room, saw myself hugging the shower wall, and couldn’t guess what she was waiting for. There was nothing left.
The water turned cool before I finally pushed myself out. I dried off and walked back into the living room dressed in my slacks and undershirt, the rest of my clothes in hand. Boots was sitting on the couch, the phone at her feet. “Reporting in?” I asked.
She ignored my crack and spoke quietly, without annoyance. “You could ask how he is.” I nodded in agreement. “Is there more coffee?”
The Complete Matt Jacob Series Page 44
