“You might be. What do I owe you?”
The old man rings Derrick up.
Derrick hands him a bill. “They live around here? The boys?”
“Down at the bottom of the mountain.” The old man counts out Derrick’s change. “Anything else?”
Derrick looks out at his car through the grimy window. Then tosses a coin on the counter. “A paper. And your phone book, if you got one handy.”
CHAPTER 39
~ There, I said it.~
The Long Drop Center is the first place you look when you go hunting for bums, especially if it’s wintertime and the bum’s a junky. So says Bogie. The staff makes a policy of not bothering to check the bathrooms when it’s cold out. Unlike most of the other charitable spots in Cincinnati, they’d rather bums get high on their toilet than turn into a icicle in some alley.
Inside, it looks like an ER waiting room on Christmas Eve, stocked with the suicidal and the deadly lonesome. The tile floor’s slick with filthy slush, heaving with reeking figures. Pike’s lungs contract at the shit and booze and vomit. He elbows his way to a moonfaced redhead behind the welcome desk. She sees Bogie and pulls a well-gnawed pencil out of her mouth. “I thought we found you a place.”
“You did.” Bogie smiles at her. “And I realized I never even stopped by to thank you.” He sidles up and leans an arm on the desk. “I even bought myself a bed. A real nice one, if you ever wanna stop by. You know ladies love outlaws.”
She snaps her pencil on the back of his hand. “Get off my damn desk.” She glares at him and sticks the pencil back in her mouth, chewing on it like a toothless hound after a piece of jerky.
Bogie flaps the wounded hand, looking around at Pike and Rory for sympathy. He sighs and steps out of the way. “Megan, meet Pike. He’s got a question for you.”
Pike shakes Megan’s hand. It’s like a greasy lukewarm steak. “What can I do you for?” she asks him.
“I’m looking for somebody.” Pike holds out the picture of Dana. “You know her?”
Her eyes trail the picture as he sticks it back in his pocket. “Are you a relative?”
Pike shakes his head. “Private investigator. Her grandmother died last week and left her some money. We want to make sure she gets it.”
Megan’s eyes narrow shrewdly. “I don’t believe you.”
“I can live with that. Where do you know her from?”
“I don’t think I should tell you.”
Pike leans forward a little. Her chair jerks backward, hits the wall. “No answer is not gonna be an option.”
“Is there a problem?”
Pike turns his head to find a blonde in a red and white snowflake sweater, with the plump look of a woman who’s yet to realize her good looks have long disappeared behind a layer of menopausal fat. “I’m Lisa Hatwell,” she says in a phlegmatic voice. “If you have something to discuss, I’m the person you discuss it with.” She points across the room at an office door. “Right there.”
Pike follows her in and sits in front of her desk. There’s a candy bowl in front of him. Bit O’ Honeys, with a thin film of dust over them, like no one’s yet had the nerve to take one. Lisa Hatwell doesn’t sit. She stands by her chair, white knuckles resting on the desk, her lipstick lumped lips working in a rage. “You don’t come in here and intimidate my staff,” she says, in a voice like sandpaper on Pike’s eardrums.
Pike puts the picture of Dana on her desk. “Do you know her?”
Lisa shakes a finger at him. “I fight like hell for my people. No one traipses in here and tries to intimidate them.”
Pike taps the picture. “Focus.”
Her eyes widen. “Am I not getting through to you?” Her voice quavers, rising. “You’re in my office. You’ll listen to me when I’m talking to you.”
Pike lights a cigarette and eyes her like a coffee table curiosity.
“You can’t smoke in here,” she squawks. Her face flushes gruesomely and her red lips twitch. “Jesus Christ.” She lifts the receiver of her phone. “I’m calling the police.”
Pike stands and takes the phone’s receiver out of her hand and places it back in its cradle. “I’ll bet you scare the hell out of your staff.”
His voice rumbles through the room. “Tell me where you’ve seen the girl, and I’ll leave.”
Her blonde hair helmet shudders. “Her name’s Dana. She comes in two or three times a week, for feedings.”
“Where do I find her when she’s not feeding?”
Lisa shakes her head. “I don’t know. There’s a man named Rondell who she’s usually with.”
Pike ashes in her candy bowl. “Tell me about him.”
“He’s an African-American. He has a mustache and he’s a Vietnam vet. His drug of choice is heroin, like her. That’s all I know.”
Pike turns to the door. “That’s all I need.”
He leaves her office, turning at the window for a last look. She stares after him, swaying a little like a thin fence post plugged into shallow dirt.
CHAPTER 40
~ I know what you are, too.~
Bogie chews his scarred bottom lip like he’s in thought, though all prior evidence should indicate otherwise. “Them Vietnam vets are weird. I don’t fuck with them much. They’re crazier’n hell, and they’d as soon scalp you as look at you. They’ve done it to one old boy, too. Took his whole scalp off.”
Pike pulls a baggie of heroin out of his pocket, taps it against the dashboard. The powder dances. Bogie tries to look nonchalant. His lips tighten over his teeth, his breath hisses out like a slow gas leak. “Mount Airy Forest. That’s where they hang out. Pretending they’re still in country.”
“You know how to find them?”
“Hell no. They’re like Tecumseh up there. Even the cops don’t fuck with them.”
Pike flips the baggie in his fingers like he’s inspecting it for quality.
Bogie’s eyes roll with the motion. He licks his lips. “Fine. Fuck you. There’s a bitch that used to date one of them. She hangs out over at the Dancin’ Bay. Right next to our hotel, matter of fact.”
Pike tosses the heroin to him and starts the truck. “Don’t even think about shooting it in my truck. Last thing I need is your blood splashing around.”
Bogie looks at the heroin, then pockets it. He raises his hand. “Can I ask something?”
“No,” Pike says.
“I want to know if I could maybe stop by and peek at my wife and kids? Seeing as how we’re right near the house.”
“No.”
“Goddamn, motherfucker. Please. There, I said it. Please.”
“No.”
“Come on. Five minutes is all I’m asking for. I won’t even say nothing to them. Peek in through the window is all.”
“Five minutes?”
“Five minutes. Motherfuckin’ please.” He looks at Rory. “C’mon, man. Help me out here. I know you got an old lady, you know what it’s like.”
“Sure, I got an old lady,” Rory says, “She’s a good old gal. Esmeralda Muckinfuch.”
“There you go,” Bogie says. “I knew you had a good one.”
“Can’t beat her when she’s sober,” Rory says, burrowing into the seat and closing his eyes. “Just got to when she’s drunk.”
“C’mon,” Bogie wheedles, “help me out.”
Rory waves him off.
“How’s about we make a trade,” Pike says. “I let you see your kids for five minutes, you shut your fucking mouth for an hour.”
Bogie doesn’t make it an hour. He doesn’t even make thirty seconds past pulling up in front of his place, a brick townhouse in a bank of six, set back in a Corryville hill, the foundation visibly sinking. “That’s mine right there,” Bogie says. “See, they’re outdoors, all of ‘em. I ain’t even got to ring the doorbell.”
Two toddlers, mummified by their snowsuits, are waddling and kicking through the soot gray snow out front of the townhome. The sky above them like something vomited over the cit
y. “They’re twins,” Bogie says proudly. Behind them a thin woman stands at the doorstep in a man-sized winter coat and slippers, smoking a long white cigarette. She’s blonde. Her face sags on her skull. Bogie’s face darkens. “And that’s her. Be lucky for her if I don’t cut her fucking throat and take a shit in her mouth.”
“Keep a handle on it.” Pike pulls the truck to a stop across the street from the townhouse. He rolls down the window and lights a cigarette.
Bogie rests his chin in his hand and stares out the window. “Goddamn, they’re something.” His voice breaks and tears clear trails down his filthy cheeks. “Goddamn motherfuck it. Not again.”
The woman peers at the truck, sucking on her cigarette. Then she turns around and knocks on the door and says something they can’thear. The door bursts open and two enormous men sprint out of the house, waving axe handles. “They got bigger sticks since I saw them last,” Bogie notes.
Pike steps coolly out of the truck, rests his right elbow on the hood, and levels his .357 at the closer of the two. “One more step and I’m putting a hole in you.”
They skid to a stop, the one in front hurling his stick over the truck. “Fuck y’all!” he yells, his mouth a black hole ringed with shards of teeth.
Pike smokes with his left hand. “He’s got about three and a half minutes to sit in the truck and blubber over his family. Then we’re leaving. You’re willing to get shot over it, that’s your business.”
“You don’t know what that motherfucker is,” the redneck says.
“I know exactly what he is. I know what you are, too. I can see it all over you, you redneck motherfucker.”
The redneck puts his hands on his hips and looks down at his work boots, thinking it over. Then he nods. “We won’t make no trouble.”
“I figured.”
CHAPTER 41
~ Use the tongs.~
The Dancin’ Bay grooves to Bruce Springsteen, the rickety metal horse over the outside entrance cantering to the vibration of the bass. Inside the air’s hot with bourbon fumes and cigarette smoke, the joint hustling and bustling with locals elbowing for position. “Goddamn,” Bogie shouts. “I love this motherfucking song!” He dashes through the door to the jukebox.
“Keep moving,” Pike says.
Bogie turns and bellows a line from the song into Pike’s face, his singing voice like a sick bull elephant. Pike takes him by the back of the neck, faces him down the bar. Bogie squirms free of Pike’s grip, turns on him. “You got no heart, man, that’s your problem. The Boss sings about real people. He cares about motherfuckers. Not like you.”
Pike looks at him. “The only time the Boss thinks about a shitheel like you is when he’s wishing all your kind had one neck. And he had his hands around it.”
“Fuck you, man. You don’t believe in nothing. That’s your problem.” Bogie pivots and heads down the bar. “Yell out if you see her,” he calls over his shoulder. “She’s about two hundred pounds. A big old nigger bitch.”
Rory smacks him across the back of the head.
“Ow. Shit.” Bogie rubs his head. “Look around you motherfucker. It’s almost nothing but niggers in here. Ain’t none of these motherfuckers care if I say nigger.”
“I might care a little bit,” says a wide black man with a patchy gray beard. He turns on his bar stool, grinning three teeth. “I might care a whole bunch.”
“Shut up, Lawrence.” Bogie whips out with a mock punch that snaps off an inch from Lawrence’s nose. “I might kick your ass.”
Lawrence slaps his knee. “Who you looking for?” he says, when he’s finished laughing.
“Chandra.”
Lawrence throws a thumb down the bar, towards the pool table. “Right there. She’s in a good mood, too, soaking a couple of young bucks out of their paychecks.”
“Told you,” Bogie says to Pike. “Hold up.” He sidesteps to the bar, pulls the cap off a glass jug of white and pink pickled eggs and fishes around, dirt and blood swirling off his filthy fist into the brine. He pulls two pink eggs out and stuffs one into his mouth, whole. Rory wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and feels a little faint.
“Goddamnit!” The bartender is a round white man wearing a Hawaiian shirt. “I told you about sticking your fucking hand in there, Bogie. Use the tongs.”
Bogie swallows the egg without chewing. “Aw fuck you, Jimmy. I ain’t dirty.”
CHAPTER 42
~ They ain’t nearly as well hid as they like to think they are.~
Rory can’t disagree on one point, Chandra is big. She towers over the pool table, the cue stick like a splinter in her hands. Two black kids stand behind her. The heftier of the two wearing a Griffey jersey, rolling his cue stick in his hands like he’d like to stick it in her eye socket. His skinny buddy sipping on a beer, trying not to topple under the weight of his afro. Chandra shoots, sinking the eight ball.
“A hell of a shot,” Bogie says. “I mean it. One hell of a shot.”
Chandra picks two fives off the side of the table. “I told you not to come around me when I’m shooting. You’re bad luck, motherfucker.”
“Then you’ll admire my timing, see? You ain’t shooting now.”
Griffey’s mouth twitches into a tough guy sneer. “You a cop?”
“We ain’t cops,” Pike answers.
Griffey’s head snaps towards Pike. “Was I talking to you?”
“He’s mine,” Pike answers. “You talk to him, you’re talking to me.”
“Settle down,” Chandra says to Griffey. “They ain’t cops. Or at least Bogie ain’t. He’s most kinds of fuck up, but not that kind.”
Griffey taps his cue stick on the floor, unconvinced.
“You better have a gun,” Pike says to him. He unholsters his and thumbs back the hammer. “And you better be real quick going for it.”
Griffey’s lips twist, and for a second Rory thinks he might make a move anyway. But he tosses the cue stick on the table and stalks down the bar, his buddy wobbling unsteadily after him.
Chandra points her cue stick at Pike. “I could’ve soaked them niggers all night.”
Pike holsters his gun and picks two twenties out of his wallet. He sets them on the pool table. “Bogie?”
“We need to know where to find them Vietnam motherfuckers that hang out in the Mount Airy Forest,” Bogie says. “I heard you been up there with them.”
Chandra’s heavy lips purse. “What do you want with them?”
“We’re looking for someone,” Pike says. “One of them knows where she is.”
“Well, I hope not. I went up there with a couple of them boys one night. All they talk about is scalping gooks. And camp wives. That’s it, for almost four hours. Those are some motherfuckers that are lost in history.” She looks from Pike to Rory. “You know what a camp wife is?”
Pike nods. Rory shakes his head.
“Gook bitches they’d kidnap out of the villages. They’d keep ‘em on leashes and drag ‘em around to do their dishes and suck their dicks and shit. When they wore one out they’d shoot her in the back of the head and pull another from the next village. They started talking up that shit with me too. One of them was trying to teach me Vietnamese and I was a little stoned, having fun saying the words. I mean they’re funny sounding, with all them vowels. But then I caught one of them motherfuckers beating off while he was listening to me. That’s when I knew it was time to get the fuck out of there.”
“How’d you get away?” Rory asks.
“Oh, hell.” Chandra booms a laugh. “I ain’t one of those little gook bitches.” She pats the front pocket of her overalls. “I carry a little .38 for just those kind of motherfuckers. I popped the hammer back and stuck it in the dude’s mouth that was teaching me. I didn’t take it out of his mouth until I was standing at a bus stop heading back downtown.”
“So where do we find them?” Pike asks.
“That’s easy. They ain’t nearly as well hid as they like to think they are. There’s an entran
ce off West Fork Road. If you got a piece of paper, I’ll draw you a map.”
CHAPTER 43
~ Superior firepower.~
It’s just where Chandra put it on the map, just how she described it. A dirt lot by the side of the road. A trashcan chained to a tree and a small hidden trail winding into the snowy woods. Pike pulls a box of .357 shells out of the glove compartment and stuffs it in his jacket pocket. “Still got your gun?”
Rory pats the front of his sweatshirt.
“Don’t I get nothing?” Bogie asks. “I’m a free white motherfucking man. I know how to use a gun.”
“The only thing you’re free of is sense,” Pike says.
“Fuck you.” Bogie taps his forehead. “I’m free if I say I am. This is America.”
Pike thumbs open the wheel of the .357, checks the chambers. “Did you know that Parisians rioted when the police tried to hang street numbers on their houses?”
“What the fuck’s a Parisian?”
“Somebody who lives in Paris. A Frenchman.”
“Well why the fuck didn’t you say Frenchman? Sounds like a fucking Frenchman. Ignorant motherfuckers. How in the fuck would anybody find anybody if there weren’t no street numbers?”
“That’s what I’m getting at. Freedom’s something the French have a history of. Something dumb fuckers like you never gave a shit for at all.” Pike pushing the wheel back into the frame.
Bogie crosses his arms. “You say that again and I’m leaving. I don’t care how big you are, neither. I’ll be done with your motherfucking ass.”
Pike laughs and opens the door. He steps out of the truck and stands, eyeing the faint trail. It rises away from them through the woods upthe side of Mount Airy, then disappears as the ground banks into a ravine. He sniffs the air and catches the hint of a wood fire. “Let’s walk.”
They swat their way through the spindly branches up the hill. Pike can’t see ten feet in front of himself for the gray underbrush. He keeps his hand on his pistol, thumbing at the hammer every time one of the snow laden branches snaps or a clump of snow thuds from a tree. Then the ground starts to grade down, and the unmistakable smell of a campfire lingers in the air. Pike sidesteps down a decline to a frozen stream at the bottom and shoots a glance over his shoulder to see Rory coming, his gun tight in his gloved hand, Bogie stumbling behind, snuffling uselessly at a stream of snot. Pike hops the creek.
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