As they walked, Richard tried to sort out what had happened. Barashi obviously had tailed Khassem to the club and discovered a providential chance to eliminate not only the informant but the man who had exposed his lab. Revenge. Two for one. Marty must have been a target of opportunity. But why? If Barashi thought he’d eliminated me, then why grab Marty? Unless he’d recognized her from the church and decided to seek retribution for her deception there.
The thought shot a mailed fist into Richard’s gut. He doubled over, wobbled toward the curb, leaned over and retched. Nothing came up.
Chapter Twenty-Two
SOUTH METRO ATLANTA
FRIDAY, AUGUST 23
Richard pushed open the door of room 29, second floor, James Street Motor Hotel. He’d registered as Eddie Beauchamp, slipped a big bill underneath the bulletproof glass separating him from a disinterested clerk, and didn’t wait for change. No questions asked; no credit card required; no ID needed.
He stepped into the room. The reek of cleaning solvent and insecticide assaulted him. But there was something else that pervaded the room, something transcendental: a vague odor of despair, deceit, defeat. He flipped on the overhead light. It flickered and failed. He found a lamp by the bed. It struggled to life, illuminating a carpet with enough spots to make a leopard feel at home, furniture from the Eisenhower era, and a bedspread so threadbare it could have served as a juice strainer. He looked at the covering more closely and recoiled. The stains on it suggested directions he didn’t wish his imagination to follow.
A scuttling sound emanating from a corner of the hovel distracted him. The noise seemed to be coming from a Mr. Coffee perched on top of a scratched and maimed dresser. He stepped over to the little machine and peered into its water reservoir. A cockroach the size of his thumb had managed to squeeze through the plastic grating covering the top of the reservoir, but now was trapped on the bottom, unable to scramble up its slick walls to freedom.
“Yeah, me too,” Richard said. He covered the Mr. Coffee with a towel from the bathroom. The scuttling ceased.
Richard collapsed into a chair that creaked in protest and listed starboard. He stared out the room’s single, grimy window. Drifting smoke rendered a warehouse across the street a colorless monochrome. Sirens intermingled with the ambient industrial and automotive sounds that penetrated the motel’s flimsy walls.
He considered his situation. What the hell else could go wrong? A whacked out Arab—running around with some kind of virus that can kill half of America—murders Anneliese, shoots me, blows up a strip joint and snatches Marty. And I can’t even go to the police for help. Then there’s the female Jackal. If she isn’t working with Barashi, how does she fit into any of this?
He turned his head toward the trapped roach and said, “We’re both fucked, you know.”
In truth, he refused to believe that. He’d built his career on attacking his challenges, not letting them assault him. But he needed a starting place, a point to launch from, and he needed it quickly. Whatever Barashi was planning on attacking, he wouldn’t wait long to do it. And he wouldn’t wait long to take his revenge on Marty.
“He’s going after the tent—” Khassem had said. Tent. Richard remembered the piece of paper Khassem had slipped him just before Diamond Cutters erupted in a fireball. He pulled the scrap from his pocket and looked at the names printed on it. Elysian Fields. King’s Landing. Magnolia Heights. Crystal Corners. Nightingale Meadows. Willow Springs. Horseshoe Bend. Brookfield. Towns? Streets? Venues? He didn’t know. There certainly seemed to be no obvious connection to a tent.
But first things first. He needed to get cleaned up and change his appearance, to whatever extent he could, if he had any hope of operating with some degree of impunity in his pursuit of Barashi. He needed a weapon, too. Brains and fists weren’t going to cut it any longer, not in this looking-glass world of deception and terror.
As a young marine he’d taken an oath to protect and defend his country. Just because he no longer wore the uniform didn’t absolve him of that duty. But his determination to wade even deeper into a swamp rife with the stench of death went far beyond idealism. With Marty’s disappearance, the confrontation with Barashi had become personal.
He felt drawn to and responsible for Marty in ways he had no woman since Karen. But was there a genuine emotional connection between him and Marty? There seemed to be. Or were they only trying to recapture something more vivid and sensual in recall than reality? Lost youth? Lost opportunities? Could he be merely speaking for himself? It didn’t make any difference. He had to find Marty. And that meant finding Barashi.
An hour later, Richard walked along the sidewalk of a derelict, half-abandoned strip mall just west of the airport. He wore several new purchases: casual khaki slacks; a light blue, short-sleeved polo shirt; and a pair of overpriced tan and brown deck shoes. An Atlanta Braves baseball hat and cheap sunglasses hid much of his head and face. A disposable cell phone jounced in his pants pocket. He entered a gun shop, Bubba and Chuck’s.
The store sported a proliferation of glassed-in display cases containing shotguns, rifles and handguns. Richard had no idea what the laws were regulating handgun purchases in Georgia, but figured he’d find out soon enough.
A black man looking somewhat akin to a Volkswagen Beetle on harbor pylons waddled out of a side room to a position behind a sales counter. “He’p ya?” he said.
“I’d like to buy a handgun,” Richard responded, “but I have no idea if there’s a permit required, a waiting period, background check or what.”
The man grunted in response and spat something brown into a bucket underneath the counter. “Gotta crim’nal record?” he said.
“No.” Not yet, anyhow.
“Gotta driver’s license?”
“Yes.”
“Money?”
“Of course.”
“Ya gotta gun, then.”
“That’s it?”
The clerk nodded, wiped his arm across his mouth. “I run a fed’ral and state background check on ya through the so-called National Instant Check System, but, yeah, that’s it.”
Richard examined the selection in the display case. “Let me see the Glock, the 9mm.”
He felt comfortable with a 9mm. He’d qualified as expert with one in the Marines. But that was a long time ago and with his right hand. His skills now would be in question, and if he had to shoot, it would be with his left hand. His right shoulder remained sore and immobile.
The man lumbered over to the case, pulled a key from somewhere deep within the folds of his pants and unlocked the display. He withdrew the gun and slid it across the glass top to Richard.
“Superb weapon. One-piece polymer frame. Double action. Seventeen-round box. Parabellum ammo.”
Richard hefted it. “Nice,” he said. “I’ll take it. Box of ammo, too.”
“Driver’s license.” The man held out his hand.
Richard gave him his license.
The man looked at it, then Richard. “Mind takin’ off the hat and shades.” More of a demand than a request.
Richard removed them. The man looked again at the license. “Don’t look like ya.”
Richard’s stomach knotted. “I shaved my head.”
“Shitty job. Looks like Looseana cane field stubble.” The man hawked up a small tidal wave of something and jettisoned another chunky blob into the bucket. “Anyhow, cain’t he’p ya.”
“What’s the problem?” Surely this guy couldn’t know the police were looking for him.
“Cain’t sell to outta-state residents. Y’all need a Georgia ID.”
“I don’t have any alternatives, then?”
The clerk shrugged, which in and of itself seemed an effort. “I could sell ya a piece, but I’d have to ship it to a licensed dealer in...” He looked at the license again. “.
.. Ory-gone.”
Richard took back the license. “I know you’ve probably heard this before, but I need protection today. Someone’s trying to kill me.” He felt foolish saying it.
“Go to the cops.”
Richard put the license back in his billfold. “They won’t help.” He withdrew a $50 bill. “Where would a man from out of state go if he needed a handgun immediately?” He laid the bill on the counter.
The man cleared his throat. It sounded like something sloshing around at the bottom of a deep well. “Cain’t take no bribes, man. I’d lose my license, get thrown in the pen.” He ran his eyes up and down Richard as if assessing the possibility he was something other than what he said.
Richard laid another $50 on the countertop. “I’m not asking you to do anything illegal. All I’m asking for is a little help, a little information.”
“Ya think just cuz I’m black, I prob’ly hang with crim’nals and shit?” The clerk made no move to pick up the bills.
“I think because you run a gun shop you probably have your ear to the ground; know what goes on around here. Legal and illegal.” Richard plopped another bill on the glass. “It’s my ass that’s hanging out in the wind right now, not yours.”
The man eyed the bills, obviously weighing whatever pros and cons needed to be balanced. Without saying anything, he tapped the bills with his index finger. Richard added $50. The man tapped again. Another $50. The clerk forced a jowly smile and smothered the bills with a hand the size of a small ham. “I heard there might be a guy,” he said.
“Tell me,” Richard said. Negotiations were over. He stuffed the wallet back into his pocket.
“Street out front here? Turn right, go two blocks. Then left, three blocks. Ollie’s Bar. It’s on the right. Ask for a dude called Leatherhead.” The clerk slid the bills off the counter.
“Leatherhead?”
“Like ya said, it’s your ass hangin’ in the wind, not mine.”
“Thanks for your help.” Richard turned and strode toward the door.
The clerk wheezed and called after him. “Hey, man, don’t be walkin’ into Ollie’s with that wad on your butt.” He pointed at Richard’s wallet. “Y’all’d be safer trollin’ for sharks with your Johnson.”
Richard found Ollie’s after a fifteen-minute walk. The neighborhood surrounding it bore a vague resemblance to Baghdad at the height of the Iraqi war. A dead rat on the curb in front of the bar lacked crowd control for the flies swarming over it. A semi-functioning neon sign in the iron-barred window of the establishment advertised Bud_eis__ _eer. And the steel door marking the entrance to the facility looked as though it had lost an argument with an assault rifle.
The afternoon sun, naked and intense, burned down from a cloudless sky. Sweating profusely, Richard yanked open the door. A wash of chilled air laden with the essence of stale beer and dried urine rushed past him, fleeing the confines of the darkness within. He stood for a moment near the entrance, letting his eyes adjust to the dimly lit interior.
“Shut the goddamn door,” someone yelled.
Chapter Twenty-Three
SOUTH METRO ATLANTA
FRIDAY, AUGUST 23
In response to the crude demand to shut the door, Richard held up a hand in supplication, closed the door and stepped into Ollie’s. Once his pupils had dilated, he threaded his way through a maze of chairs and tables toward the bar. Most of the tables were empty, stained by food and liquor and scarred with cigarette burns. A couple of men at one end of the bar followed his progress. He moved away from them and plopped down on a bar stool with an eviscerated cushion.
The bartender, a middle-aged black man with an afro, gold incisors, and a patch over his left eye, stepped quickly toward him. “Hot one, huh?” he said.
“Too hot. How about a Coors?”
“Comin’ up. Call me Cozy, by the way.”
“Cozy? Like the old jazz drummer?”
“Yeah. Cozy Cole. You know him, man? One of the great ones.”
Richard nodded. “Played with Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong.”
“Among others.”
Richard, sensing an opportunity to connect with the bartender, asked, “Who else? My knowledge of the swing era is, well, kind of limited—a few dozen LPs inherited from my old man.”
“That’s okay. Most people don’t have a clue who Cozy Cole was. Yeah, he played with Jelly Roll Morton and Benny Carter, too.”
“Big names back in the day,” Richard said. He glanced in the direction of the two men who had watched him enter Ollie’s. One of them continued to fix him and Cozy in an intense stare.
Cozy retrieved a Coors from a cooler behind the bar.
“Say, maybe you can help me with something else,” Richard said, returning his attention to the bartender.
“Maybe. Always willing to help a brother, even if he ain’t my color.” He flipped an Atlanta Falcons coaster onto the bar, set the Coors on top of it.
“I was told I might find a man called Leatherhead here.”
Cozy stood with his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Don’t know no Leatherhead, man. ’Fraid you gotta bum steer.”
Richard made an act of fishing in his pocket. He pulled out another of the $50 bills from the cash he’d withdrawn earlier from Wells Fargo. “This is all I’ve got, Cozy. It’s yours if you can set me up with Leatherhead. Look, I’m not a cop, not a PI, not a bounty hunter. I just need to talk with this guy. I need his, well... assistance. How about it?” He put the bill on the bar but kept it covered with his hand.
“You don’t look like the kinda guy needs to be dickin’ around with someone named Leatherhead.”
“We’ve all got different needs.” Richard took his hand off the bill. “Whaddaya say?”
Cozy slid the money off the bar. “Hang around for awhile. I’ll ask some questions. No guarantees.”
Richard nursed his beer and waited. Cozy disappeared for a brief time, then reappeared and carried on a whispered conversation with the two men at the far end of the bar. One of them—sleepy eyes, stringy, bleached hair, and dark sinewy arms so heavily tattooed they looked like the sleeves of a patterned sweater—got up and sauntered toward Richard.
He didn’t smile and seated himself next to Richard. “Got a smoke?” he said. He kept his gaze forward, staring at the liquor bottles on the wall behind the bar.
“Don’t smoke,” Richard answered. “How about a beer?”
“Make it a shot.”
Richard signaled Cozy. “Black Jack for my friend here.”
“Ain’t your fuckin’ friend. Who the hell are you?”
“Call me Craig,” Richard said.
“Yeah. Well, okay, Craig. Why you lookin’ for someone called Leatherhead?” Cozy poured the shot. The man downed it in a swift gulp.
“I understand he might have something I’m looking for.”
“Like?”
“A gun.”
The man snorted. “Try a gun shop.”
“Didn’t work. I’m from out of state.”
“Yeah. Well, you’re shit out of luck, too.” The man got up to go.
But Richard knew negotiations were on. He signaled Cozy. “Another hit for my bar mate.”
The man sat back down. “My friends call me Halfcock,” he said, apparently failing to see the irony in his name.
“What should I call you?”
“Not that.” He tossed back the second shot. “Who told you you could find someone called Leatherhead here?”
“Street talk.”
“Bull shit. You wouldn’t know street talk from Shakespeare.”
“You’re right. But I’m here. I’m ready to buy. You know a vendor ready to do business or not?”
Halfcock, his eyes semi-glazed and struggling to focus, t
urned and looked directly at Richard. He inclined his head toward the restrooms at the rear of the tavern. “Step into my office,” he said, his breath foul with liquor and cigarettes.
“I may not know street talk from Shakespeare, buddy, but I’ve managed to stay on the turnip truck for quite a few years. We got business to transact, we do it right here.”
A vein pulsed in Halfcock’s forehead, and Richard hoped he hadn’t nudged the guy’s detonator.
“Gotta know if you’re carrying or wired, numb nuts,” Halfcock said.
Richard stood, placed his left hand on the bar, let his right dangle, and spread his legs. “Do your thing,” he said.
Halfcock did, probing for a weapon or hidden microphone. All he found was the motel key, cell phone and five fifty-dollar bills. He slapped the money onto the bar and counted it out loud. “Two-fifty,” he said. “Two hundred and fifty stinkin’ bucks. I thought you said you were ready to deal. This...” He picked up the bills, then let them flutter back down onto the bar. “... might work at Toys ‘R’ Us. Not here.”
Cozy looked at the money, too. “All you had, you told me. A Grant was all you had.” He helped himself to another $100. “Gratuity,” he snapped.
Halfcock’s eyes moved like goldfish darting around in an aquarium. Richard wondered if the guy was about to live up, or down, to his name, and decided he’d better try to gain control of the situation. He pushed off from the bar and spun to face his inquisitor.
“I’ve got the money,” he said. “You get me the seller.” He stuffed two of the remaining bills into Halfcock’s shirt pocket. “Finder’s fee,” he said.
Halfcock looked at his pocket, then at Richard. He started to say something, but had trouble forming words. His dancing eyes suggested chaos in his brain. He shuffled back to his friend at the end of the bar. The two talked in hushed, earnest tones, then Halfcock pulled out a cell phone and made a call.
Richard sipped his beer, his heart thumping like a woofer in a low rider. He hoped these guys didn’t realize how far out of his element he was. Halfcock certainly wouldn’t, he was in low orbit over Mars or someplace. But Cozy... As if reading his thoughts, the bartender plopped a jigger of whiskey down next to the coaster.
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