The Complete Matt Jacob Series

by Klein, Zachary;

  After jimmying his building’s entrance door, I arrived at Blackhead’s apartment, knocked quietly, and waited. He moved behind the door then demanded my identity. Since I’d spent most of my life wondering about the same, I couldn’t do the question justice standing in a corridor rancid with cooking grease and ammonia. Emil unbolted and opened the door a chain’s width. My shoulder, fresh arm scab and all, powered it the rest of the way.

  Blackhead stood staring glassy-eyed at the dangling latch. “I keep forgetting the Nazis won the war.” He spoke in a drugged-out drawl.

  “What’re you high on, Emil?”

  He slapped the door closed and sprawled back onto the couch with his legs outstretched. “You called me Emil.” His brown, crooked teeth exposed themselves. “You either want me for something, or you’re riding the rag. I ain’t heard nothing about your 4×4.”

  I sat down on the ugly purple mohair. “It’s impossible for you to tell the truth, isn’t it?” Blackhead’s bloodshot eyes drooped into my own. “You want to get high, don’t you?” His grin grew wider and his eyes sparkled. “I’m smoking some serious Sinsemilla, man.” He reached into his pants pocket and tossed a ball of tinfoil at me. “Try not to spill none, okay?”

  My fingers searched for the seam to open the foil. I stared down at the large buds but forced myself to set the package gently down on the floor. Something was wrong. Emil was too calm.

  Blackhead watched with heavy eyes. “You like being ugly?”

  I sat deeper in the chair to get away from the tantalizing aroma. “You sound pretty sure of yourself today, Emil.” I kept my tone conversational.

  He slouched further into the couch. “Confident, like you’re in the catbird’s seat.” He shrugged.

  “Like you expect a promotion.”

  That caught a bit of his attention and his face began to shut down. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Well, Lonny said…” I saw concern flash behind his haze. “How much of that did you smoke, Blackhead? Maybe you don’t recognize the name. Lonny Prezoil. Do you know who I’m talking about now?”

  “What do you want?” His high had slipped into sullen.

  “Sorry Emil, all that work and you still aren’t going to get the job.”

  I watched him try to connect me and Prezoil. The confusion never left his face, but he realized I wasn’t bluffing. “How do you know Lonny?”

  I cross-ruffed. “You don’t seem concerned about the police catching on to your method of career advancement?”

  “Why would the police give a shit about me setting up some private Peeping Tom?” He pulled himself out of his slump and stood. “I’m going to wash my face.” He turned sideways and sneered, “Aren’t you afraid I’ll try to sneak out the back?”

  I showed him the gun. “That would give me an excuse to shoot.”

  He stumbled toward the bathroom, and I heard the water run. Straight or stoned, he should have been more worried about Darryl’s death. Or else Emil was made of stronger stuff than I’d credited.

  I sat forward in my seat, reached down, and tore a bud from the pack. I’d just put it between my teeth when Emil suddenly appeared over my shoulder.

  “You won’t get high with me, but you’re not above stealing my dope.” He walked back to the couch, sat, and said, “Maybe we ain’t so different.”

  “How’d you get the red out of your eyes, Emil?”

  “?Visine, Bloodhound. You figured I rolled you to Prezoil, huh?” I nodded.

  “How’d you get it?”

  “Followed you to the parking lot.”

  He clenched his fist and looked at the tinfoil at my feet. “Goddamnit.”

  I shrugged, then watched his face crunch with thought. “You fucked my play with him, didn’t you?” he accused.

  “No. You fucked your play with him. I’m fucking your game with me.”

  A sly look crossed his face. “Maybe you’re here for a piece of the action. Maybe you never talked to him.”

  I smiled at the forlorn hope in his voice. “Sorry, Blackhead. I want a piece of you, not your fantasy action.”

  “It wouldn’t be no fantasy if you had butted out when you were supposed to.” “Don’t kid yourself. Prezoil wouldn’t give you the time of day.”

  “Ahh shit.” He shook his head. “I got nobody to blame but myself. If I hadn’t asked you for help, I might be sitting pretty.” All of a sudden his hand sprang up and grabbed at his beard. “Did you tell Lonnie it was me that… Ahh, I’m fucked.”

  His face darkened. “You’re a bringdown, Jack. Why don’t you get out of here? You did your job and saved Lonny a rotten conversation. Just give me back my dope.”

  I tried to bolster my own sagging spirit. “Does it bother you that Darryl’s dead for no damn reason? Or that I intend to turn you in?”

  “Turn me in for what?” He started to inhale deeply. “Wait a minute.” His mouth gulped for air. “Wait a minute. You’re pissed about me using you, but that’s no reason to railroad me.”

  I nodded. “I got to hand it to you, Emil, you’re good. Very good. I took you for a lizard in a leisure suit—no balls, no brain. But you lie real, real good.”

  He half-rose from the couch. “You vicious prick! I asked you to check something out for me. I was scared and made a mistake.” He waved his hands wildly. “Okay, I saw an opportunity to use my mistake and get in good with Lonny. That’s all, man. I didn’t have any idea they’d pull a runover. Shit, you didn’t even get hurt. Now you want to stick me for D’s death? No way man, D’s death was an accident.”

  I didn’t want to believe him. He’d lied to me since we met. “You have a solid alibi for the night Darryl died, right?”

  I watched as he ransacked the musty files in his head. His voice was shrill. “How do I know? I was probably here.”

  “That ought to go well in court.”

  This time he made it completely off the couch. “Darryl scared you with a truck so it’s okay to run my ass to Walpole?”

  Doubt dragged at my determination, but I ignored it. “I don’t like you dumping someone into a quarry to get more turf.”

  He paced through the load of dirty clothes and bags of junk food on the floor. “No way, man. I didn’t do anything to Darryl, I’m not gonna do time.”

  “Blackhead, the only way you could deal coke was to get rid of Darryl. Or so you thought.” He stopped his pacing. “I don’t want to sell coke,” he pleaded. “I don’t even use it; it makes me too jumpy. All I did was take advantage of knowing about the transfer. I knew they’d want you out of the neighborhood. Shit, my reward for turning on you had nothing to do with D’s turf. You’re chewing on it.”

  “You want to sell coke, Emil. Darryl wasn’t cold before you hustled for his job.”

  He shook his head vigorously. “Not coke. I want to sell bigger pieces. I got no one to sell coke to. No one I know has that kind of bread.”

  He looked at me. “I don’t know if you believe this shit or you’re just trying to get even. But this ain’t even…”

  “Why are you so worried if you had nothing to do with it?”

  He walked into his dirty kitchen and poured a glass of water, forgetting it as he returned. “I’ve seen too many people busted for things they didn’t do. Pigs want clean records. No one is gonna believe me. They’ll use your bullshit to close the book. And if that fucking letter writer shows I’ll really be dead meat.” He looked at me imploringly. “Why do you want to do this to me, man?”

  I brushed aside his words. “I have someone who said you sold coke. You’re already dead meat.”

  “Whoever told you that is lying,” he almost shouted.

  I bit back the growing dread in my belly. “You lied to me from the beginning. Now I’m supposed to believe you?”

  His head bobbed eagerly up and down. “That’s right, man. That’s exactly right.”

  “That’s exactly wrong.” My voice was harsh and flat. If he wasn’t lying someone else was. “Is this
payback, Matt?”

  A half-formed idea forced its way through my stubbornness, and I didn’t trust my voice. I nodded grimly.

  “You really believe I did D to take over selling his coke?” “Sounds right to me,” I said tonelessly, my conviction gone. “You check with Lonny! He’ll tell you what I sell!”

  Emil’s proof wouldn’t convince anyone from a jury to a broken down detective, but he had begun to convince me.

  One way or another, it was time to close the book. But I had to be certain there would be no more lies. I pulled the gun from my holster and placed it on the table. “Were you behind the beating? The one from Sludge and his boys.”

  He looked at the .38.

  “You don’t have to worry unless you lie.”

  He stared at the gun. “Yeah. I hadn’t figured the Lonny angle yet and wanted you to go away. Inviting you into the neighborhood was a bad mistake. I tried to talk you out but you wouldn’t leave.” He looked at me accusatorially. “If you listened I wouldn’t have needed Sludge. Shit, the truck thing would’na happened either.”

  I felt my face blanch as a terribly different picture of the last two weeks finally burst through my resistance. “Emil, I want to know about the letter.”

  He looked suspicious. “Jesus, man, you jump around like a flea. The letter scared me and when you sprung me from the bounty hunter, I wanted you to check it out, that’s all.”

  “What was in that letter?”

  He caught his breath, eyes shifting away. “I already told you.” “You told me some of what the letter said.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I dropped my hand to the gun’s grip. My head was splitting, and my stomach was nauseous with heavy foreboding. I scraped the gun along the table.

  For a moment I thought he was going to run. Instead, he leaned forward and breathed his garlicky grass breath. “Whoever wrote the letter knew things no one shoulda known. I never told nobody this shit before. Nobody. That’s what made the letter so fucking weird. Like someone else was at the quarry.”

  I forced the question out of my mouth. “What happened that night, Emil?”

  “Man, it was twenty years ago but it’s clearer than yesterday. It was hot, real hot. Lonny tells Pete he’s got some very clean acid.” Blackhead suddenly stopped short.

  “What is it, Blackhead?”

  A dirty smile crossed his face. “Lonny. He was a real chickenhawk.” “Chickenhawk?”

  “Young girls. Lonny made sure Pete brought Melanie.” “Peter didn’t mind?”

  “Why should he mind? She wasn’t gonna fuck Lonny. You know her, she don’t fuck nothing.” Another dirty smile crossed his face. “I always figured she was closet.”

  I gritted my teeth and nodded.

  “Anyhow,” he continued, “it was the cleanest acid ever. Lonny said he got it direct from Owsley. He had this fancy stereo and all sorts of good music. We probably listened to Vanilla Fudge fifty times.” Blackhead looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “But Pete got bored and wanted to go swimming. So we split.”

  His face clouded. He had finished the comfortable part of his story. “Keep talking, Emil. What happened at the quarry?”

  He surprised me and continued without more prodding, “We left Lonny’s…” “The three of you?” I interrupted.

  He looked confused. “The three of us?” “You, Peter, and Melanie.”

  “Melanie didn’t come with us. She stayed at Lonny’s.”

  I guessed it coming but it still felt like a knee to my groin. I felt my shoulders slump. “Go on.” “We got to the quarry and went swimming.” Emil grew flushed and uncomfortable. “It was hot like I said. So after the swim we were laying on the rocks and Pete told me about the saint.” “The saint?”

  “Fucking Jon-a-than. Pete’s thing with Barrie was crazy. Pete was top drawer at b&es, but when he worried about getting busted he’d sell his ass.” Blackhead shook his head. “He was going down on Barrie for free. Free. I didn’t get it. Why the fuck free?”

  Homophobia crawled off his skin like a river of maggots. “Then Pete told me he was moving out. He and Melanie were going to move in with the saint.” A brooding, hurt look crossed his face and he spoke in a whisper. “Pete said he loved him.” Another ugly look, then he sneered, “That’s it, man. We’re through.”

  “Finish the story, Blackhead.” “That’s it, I’m telling you!” “You’re lying.”

  He looked at the gun, then forced the next words in a hoarse voice. “He tried to mess with me.”

  “Mess with you?”

  “He tried to go down on me, okay?” All the nervous energy had drained from his body; he almost fell down on the dirty floor.

  But I wasn’t finished. “What did you do when he tried to fuck you, Emil?”

  His head shot up. “I ran, goddamnit! I grabbed my shit and ran.” His face worked furiously and, to my shock, I saw tears roll from his eyes. “Don’t you see? I fucking ran away! If I stayed he wouldn’t be dead! I could have been able to help!”

  He tried to stop the flow of tears, failed, and broke into loud heaving sobs. I sat back in the chair numb with the belief that Emil spoke the truth.

  He finally stopped crying, staring at me from wet-splashed eyes. “Maybe this is why I hired you in the first place,” he panted, chest moving rapidly.

  “What do you mean?”

  It took him another moment to catch his breath. “I think after I got the note I had to tell somebody about all this. I kept everything inside for a real long time; maybe I couldn’t take it no more.”

  We sat quietly in the middle of his disheveled living room. I actually felt sorry for his twenty years of hidden guilt and grief. Then I felt sorry for myself. Emil’s mourning was coming to a close, mine was just beginning.

  I waited a few more minutes before I spoke, though my skin was already cringing from answers I didn’t want to hear. But the same demand that had pushed Blackhead to hire me, the inexorable drive to finally close old wounds, pushed me to break the silence.

  “Emil, you’re certain Melanie didn’t leave Prezoil’s with you and Peter?”

  He looked at me. “Sure I’m certain. I told you I can remember every detail. That’s what was making me batty.”

  I felt the perverse lure of a major depression and almost asked for rolling papers. Instead, I pulled my cigarettes from inside my pocket, lit two, and handed him one. “Where did you go after you left the quarry?”

  He took a long drag. “Home. I went home.”

  “Was Melanie there?” I felt my body tense while I waited for his answer. Everything in the room seemed farther away. Like my eyes had sunk to the back of my head.

  “No, she didn’t get home ‘til after I downed out. I don’t know what time.” He hunched his body in my direction. “Why do you keep asking me about her? And why do you want to know about that night anyway?”

  I skipped the first question and lied about the second. “I’m just curious,” I said. “What the fuck for?”

  “I said I’m curious, that’s all. Where would she have crashed if she didn’t stay at home?” “You’ll have to ask her. We weren’t exactly tight, you know. Never really got along. We didn’t fight or nothing, mostly stayed away from each other. She never liked that Pete and me were close.” He frowned and some of his earlier sadness returned. “After Pete’s accident she always blamed me for not coming home with him.”

  “You ever wonder whether she sent you that letter?”

  “How could she? We left her at the party and the letter had details. Anyhow, I think she crashed at Lonny’s with everyone else.”

  “He tell you that?” “Sort of.”

  “What do you mean ‘sort of’?”

  “Look, Matt, you have to understand what was happening. Lonny knew the pigs wouldn’t bother too much about Pete. But the less they bothered the better. He said I shouldn’t talk to him or no one about that night. He’d see what he could do to quiet things down
. By then, the cops had already questioned me once. Anything that would cool things out was fine by me.”

  His voice dropped. “I figured Lonny didn’t want to deal with giving acid to kids. Also, if he did get in Melanie’s pants, and she bitched, that would mean more trouble. She was still jail bait.”

  His words made my skin crawl, but I wasn’t getting angry; a wall was building inside, insulating me from my feelings. My body was stiff, cold, and uncomfortable, but my head was clear and alert. “You don’t make it sound like Lonny had much of a chance.” It was hard to imagine, but I fervently hoped they’d spent the night together.

  “Who knows? Lonny don’t usually strike out. You never can tell about things, man. Everybody wants to keep their crap secret, man, you know what I mean? Melanie stuck to Pete like a fly on sugar, but she didn’t know he hustled. If people don’t want you to know something, they find a way to keep it quiet.”

  “Pete kept quiet about his hustling?”

  “Yeah.” Hurt filled his face. “Pete said one of the things that made him decide to move in with Jonathan was that he could stop doing the street. If he needed to lay dead, he could always get bread from Barrie.”

  I sighed and put the gun back into the holster; it was time to leave. Time to be alone. I stood, shrugged into my leather, and stared at the tinfoil ball of dope. I sighed again and lit a cigarette.

  “You aren’t still gonna set me up, are you?” Blackhead pleaded. “I told you everything, man. More than everything.”

  I stood by the dangling door-chain and looked at him. There wasn’t much to see. I rubbed my eyes and briefly wondered how he had managed to crawl so deeply under my skin. “Don’t worry, Emil, you’re out of it. Completely out of it.”

  Skin and all.

  I fought against the wind as I headed toward my car. As soon as I got inside I tore the stick-on clock off the dashboard and threw it on the floor. I wasn’t quitting until everything was done.

  Up ‘til now I’d seen my time in The End as a fruitless circle of frustration. Now, staring into the night, I knew it to be a sphere of tragedy. And I was somehow part of it.