TWENTY NINE
HORTON WATCHED THE head moving up and down in his lap, and marveled that some women could leave the house under dye jobs as bad as this one’s. He knew she was just an economy street-walker, but even cheap whores should have some professional pride. Sure, she was passing good at giving head—she’d only nipped him twice—but he wasn’t even close to coming. She took him too deep and gagged, stopping to cough. The air filled with the odor of sour stomachs and ancient ashtrays. She cleared her throat and was about to recommence, but Horton stopped her.
“Okay, honey, that’s fine.”
She looked up and threw him a snaggled grin. One of her front teeth—what Horton’s mamma had always called “Rabbit Teeth”—was stained caramel brown. “You sure?” she asked. Her lipstick was the color of rotted plums, some of it smeared across her swollen lips, some marked Horton’s wilting pride. She gripped the base of his penis as if it might get away should she let go. “It costs the same whether ya’ cum or not.”
“Get off me.”
“Whatever,” she said, and squeaked over to the edge of the motel bed. She pushed breasts reminiscent of used teabags back into her halter. She stood up and walked to the mirror over the dresser, adjusting her hair. Her belly melted over the waistband of cracked leatherette pants.
Horton zipped himself up and pulled out a twenty. Had he really been hard up enough to rent the services of this…? God, he could hardly even think of her as a hooker. His experience with whores since his employ with Mason’s organization was of a higher caliber than Miss DyeJob. It’s what he got for being desperate in a shit-hole town like this one. The blip on the map named the burg where he finally fetched up as Forge, Home of the County Champion Girl’s Jr. Varsity Swim Team. Go Ingots! Horton put the twenty on the nightstand and pulled out a pack of smokes.
“You swim?” he asked out of the corner of his mouth as he lit the cigarette.
“Huh?” DyeJob looked past herself in the mirror at the bald faggot on the bed. The ones she couldn’t get off were all fags. They just didn’t know it about themselves. Not that she had anything against fags. It was like she said, costs the same one way or another. In fact, she liked fags. They were funny. And that straight guy make-over show with those cute little Queers from New York? Gawd, she freakin’ loved that show. She winked at Horton. “Didn’t getcha’, hon. Whadya’ say?”
“Nothing.” Horton blew smoke. “We said twenty, right?”
She showed him her teeth again. “Yep.” She stuck out a hip. “’Less you wanna’ try again. Maybe,” she gave herself a pat on one leatherette butt cheek, “you’re into something a little kinkier?”
“Maybe you should just leave it.”
“Whatever.” She walked over to the bed, the twenty made a crinkling sound and disappeared.
Horton sighed smoke and watched her gather up her bag then slip on her spike heels. He glanced at the clock; 3:03AM. Man, when had he picked her up? Felt like a week ago.
His head had dented the pillow ten minutes after he had first walked into the motel room, and he’d even managed to sleep for a few hours, before the dream sped him into consciousness again. He’d been going at it with Mr. Mason’s sometime bed warmer, that black chick from the restaurant, but it wasn’t really him. He was just hitching a ride inside Calvin’s body. When Horton woke up he had a hard-on like a steel spike (Go Ingots!) and a certainty: Calvin had taken Mason’s woman as well as his son. Horton didn’t believe in any of that psychic-friend bullshit—used to laugh his ass off when Robbery-Homicide would give up and bring in one of those horoscope writers to help them find a missing person—but when he opened his eyes, he knew what he knew. Hell, he hadn’t believed in demons or possession either.
Horton had given up on trying to sleep and decided to do something about his psychic stiffy. He’d slid the Lotus through the burned-out streets of Forge until he found the right stretch and opened the door to the first pro who’d offered.
Now, he couldn’t wait for her to leave.
“You a dealer?”
Horton looked up.
“I mean with that slick ride. You, um…” She trailed off, eyes jigging around the room, settling on one point or another, then taking off like she was tracking a fly. Horton kept his mouth shut. He knew what was coming. “Cuss’ I could really use a fix, you know?” She spoke to his crotch. “I could try to get you off again, if you’re holding.”
He stubbed out his smoke. Cheap hookers were not his favorite people. Cheap hookers who were also shucking, jiving junkies scored even lower on his personal worth meter. She had started that bopping back and forth from one foot to the other routine they always fell into, like she was some little kid who had to go pee-pee.
“Please,” she begged his crotch. “If you’re holding you could do whatever you wanted to me.” She shoved her hand into the front pocket of her pants and pulled out the twenty. “I’d even pay you.” She held out the bill. “With this.”
Officer Horton had seen a thousand women like this. He’d even shaken down his fair share of their pimps in his day, the girls watching from the corners, half-smiles quivering the herpes sores at the corners of their mouths. He knew them well. They were mean-spirited, craven, like you’d imagine a crow or some kind of scavenger would be. Do anything it took to get a shiny, to get a fix. He was a little surprised DyeJob had lasted this long. Most of the street crows expired early in life.
“How old are you?” he asked.
She blinked. “Huh?”
“How old are you? You know, think back to the year your mother pushed you out and try to guess how many years have passed since then.”
“Huh?”
“Oye.” He rubbed a hand over his head. He needed a shave up there, people would start thinking he was a fucking jarhead. “Listen… What’s your name?”
“Del.”
“Real name or street name?”
“Real.” When they asked for her name it meant they were getting personal and maybe that meant he liked her. He wasn’t such a bad faggot after all, maybe. “Short for Delilah.”
Horton was about to use her name in telling her to get the fuck out of his sight—old cop trick, using a person’s name usually had more of a punch—when something changed. It was the way she’d said it, Delilah. Like her hair had become cleaner, or she’d stopped the junkie dance for a second; come into focus as a human being. Horton pulled out another twenty and handed it to her. “I’m not holding, but here.” He turned his back on her. “Maybe you can score off that.”
Horton heard the twenties crinkle as they went back into her pants pocket. She muttered something, might have been “thanks”. Could as easily have been “fuck you.” He listened to the doorknob work and the squeak of the hinges.
“Jesus!” Del blurted.
Horton spun around. An older man, probably big once, but now just big around the guts, darkened the door in a black suit. He chuckled. “Just his humble servant, young lady.”
Del flicked a glance off the white square at his wrinkled adam’s apple and stopped. She blushed, awash in confusion. “Sorry,” she said and pushed past him into the hall, out of Horton’s life forever.
Bishop Thom Neary stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. He glowered at Horton. “Saint Magdalene she was not.”
Horton offered a huge, disarming grin.
“You have five seconds to tell me who you are,” he said.
Neary’s eyes were deeply bloodshot. They flashed. “That implies a negative reaction should I fail to meet your deadline.”
“Time’s up.” Horton took his eyes off Neary just long enough to yank his Glock out from between the mattress and boxspring. When he turned back Neary was aiming a pistol the size of a railgun at Horton’s head. Horton stuck out his lower lip and nodded. “Desert Eagle,” he said. “You win.” He dropped the Glock and sat down on the bed. “I’ll go out
on a limb and guess that you’re a friend of Father Calvin’s.”
“Good guess,” Neary said. “You haven’t got the slightest notion of where he is, do you?”
Horton, completely at sea, decided not to give much of a shit about what happened from here on out. He just hadn’t had enough sleep over the past few days to be canny. “I lost him on a farm road about twenty miles north of here.”
Neary lowered the gun, but held it at his side, a dull gleam. “Would you like to know where he is?”
Horton sat up straight. “You know?” He shook his head. “Wait. Who the fuck are you, man?”
“I work with Father Calvin. Your employer told me how to find you.”
“ Mr. Mason?”
“You work for anyone else?”
“No, I mean… No.” Horton rubbed his face with his hands. They smelled like nicotine and Del’s hairspray. “How’d you find him?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Neary took a step backward and rested his backside against the dresser. “You want to get the kid back for your boss?”
“I want to find Jeremy, yeah.”
“Then your job description just changed a bit, Mr. Horton.” Neary thumbed the hammer on the pistol to safe and clunked the big gun down on the dresser. “You’ll be my assistant until we retrieve young master Mason.”
“What about his father?”
“He can have you back when I’m done with you.”
“The fuck does that mean? And are you ever going to tell me who the hell you are, or just hit me again with obvious stuff I already know?”
Neary considered for a moment. If he told Horton his actual name it meant that Horton would have to die. While Neary didn’t expect the bodyguard would survive the coming ordeal, he didn’t want to kill him outright either. Neary would need his help, at least at the beginning. And the big galoot hadn’t shit himself at the sight of Neary’s Desert Eagle. Retaining one’s composure in the face of a .50 caliber handgun had to count for something in this world, or why get up in the morning? Neary bet Calvin had liked this guy too.
“You can call me Father Bob if you like.” He nodded. Yes, that would do fine. “As for Frank Mason, he’s a benefactor of great importance, but he’s also a loose cannon. I don’t need him storming in with a goomba squad and blowing everything to Hades. You may call and inform him that I have acquired your services for the time being and that I expect to have his son returned to him in less than forty-eight hours. You may not inform him as to our location. Is that clear, Mr. Horton?”
“Fine.” It was so not fine.
“Good.”
“You said you know where Jeremy is? When do we go?”
Neary blinked, squinted at his watch. “Four hours from now.”
Horton stood up. “Why? If you know where they are…?
“Because I’ve just had a long flight followed by a drive through ugly country and I want a nap.” Neary picked up his pistol and moved toward the door. “I’m in the next room. Be ready to go in four hours. You’re driving.”
Horton nodded at the gun. He was never going to get used to the sight of a priest in uniform holding a gat. “How’d you get that on a plane?”
“It’d scare you shitless if you knew how easy it was. Four hours, Mr. Horton. Perhaps you should use the time to get some sleep yourself. You appear to need it.”
“Fuck you, Father Bob.”
Neary tossed a wink over his shoulder as he left the room. “God bless.”
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Sins of the Fathers Page 54
