by Jeff Johnson
She was in her late thirties, her black hair pulled back tight enough to make her hard face even more severe. Blue windbreaker. She held up her badge and she didn’t smile.
“Lopez,” she said, then pointed out at the neon sign with edge of her ID. “Did you want to show me something? I was going to jump you tonight anyway for dissing Dessel, but if you did, this is a definite ‘meet cute.’”
“Jesus Christ.” I gripped the wheel and looked forward. “I’m having the worst fucking luck with women today.” Then I looked at her again. “You are a chick, right?”
“Pressman is retiring,” Agent Lopez said. “I’m the new guy.” She looked away, out the windshield. “I read your file twice, Holland. The first time because it’s my job and I like horror movies in my personal life, and the second time because it’s fascinating, and I need more dark Coen brothers imagery in my soporific reading. Smoke?”
“No, thanks.”
“I mean gimme one.”
I shook two out of my pack and we lit up. Lopez was hard to read in the bad light, but her motions and tone were calm. Calm is not good in feds.
“How are you still alive?” she asked finally. She continued before I could answer. “It’s like hell rejected you. Just like the judicial system.” She patted my knee and I almost jumped. “Rejected by everything but the high-speed gutter running through Old Town. And that gutter is drying up.”
“Okay. I get it. You’re cooler than Pressman. Let’s start there.”
“Fine. Let me put it all together for you, Holland. Someone is ghosting you, and whoever it is has professional skills. We know that now. However you caught wind of it in the first place, maybe through your network of escapees from the Island of Misfit Toys, was a test of some kind. You activated your federal monitors to see what we might flush out, and here we are.”
“Did you hear my fishing story?”
“Listened to the recording, read the transcript.”
I sighed. “Then I might as well tell you. I caught wind of this ghost myself. Sort of felt it, I don’t know how. And then I found boot prints outside my bedroom window. Someone knows my schedule. When I’m home, when I leave. How to hide around my house. And that someone knows how to remain unseen. You read my file, Lopez. I was a paranoid guy before all the shit that came down in the last few years. Now? Ghosting me is like stalking an insomniac deer with six eyes. Close to impossible.”
Lopez laughed then, and I smiled in spite of myself. She turned in the passenger seat to face me fully, and the neon lit one side of her face. The smile dropped.
“You arrogant fucking jackass. You think some phony spook is big game for us? The goddamned overtime for your ignorant—”
“Use your head muscle, Agent Martinez,” I snapped.
“Lopez.”
“Whatever. Agent Lopez, roll with me on this. So far, every move I’ve made up the food chain in Old Town has caught the attention of a monster. It’s what I do. And that makes me federal bait. Have you talked to Dessel? I mean, actually listened to him?”
She said nothing.
“What we have here is the new bad thing, and I’m hoping that ‘third time is the charm’ shit is just another dumbass bumper sticker. So yeah. I tipped you guys off. And you should be happy I did, too. Dessel wants to be the next J. Edgar Hoover by the time he’s old enough to drink and I keep scaring his big scores away.”
Lopez snorted at the Hoover thing, but soured fast at the end.
“We think you killed Nicholas Dong Ju.” She watched my reaction carefully. I grimaced.
“I never killed anybody, dummy.” I was on a roll because she blinked first.
“We still don’t know how you made Oleg Turganov return to Russia.”
“Maybe I drew him a really convincing fake treasure map. With my art skills.” I’d airmailed him in a transmission box after I rufied him.
“He died in prison. Five months ago. Never talked.”
“Good for him.” We were back to a staring match.
“The Russians would have killed you to pieces by now if this was some kind of retaliation.” She shrugged with her eyebrows. “Since you and me are friends now, why don’t you tell me who it is you pissed off this time. Save us all some trouble.”
“That’s the thing!” I was genuinely exasperated. “I don’t know. No fucking idea, lady. What we do know is that I’m being ghosted and you can’t figure out who it is and neither can I. That’s a fact all by itself. Agent Dessel is way fucking smart. So is my Delia. I can see someone getting past one of them, but both?”
Lopez thought about that. I watched her do it. Finally, she crushed out her cigarette and put her seatbelt on.
“Drive.”
“Where to?” I started the engine.
“Who cares. I just don’t want to stare at this dump.”
I took a left and headed for the freeway. Lopez stayed quiet as she went over her impressions and added to the list of shit to be used against me, sorted and catalogued and filed. I almost turned on the radio, didn’t. When I finally hit I-84, I drove toward the airport.
“I needed to talk to you for all kinds of reasons,” she confessed after a while. “Pressman and Dessel, they have this raging boy boner for you. Never seen anything quite like it. Right now you’re red hot in so many ways. Money, but no one can figure out where it is. Prosperity, even, but the foundation is like a mirror. You look at it, all you see is yourself looking. It’s driving them crazy, and with Bob set to retire and me taking his place? They want you on the shelf before the band breaks up.” She made a tsking sound. “You’re their last gig as Tenacious D.”
“I so love that band.” I took the airport exit.
“I knew you were going to say that.” Lopez sighed. “Your profile suggests that you’re the type who would go for a rainy drive at night with a curious fed to feed your own intuition. That you’ll read me like a comic book, and that it will make you more confident as you move forward.”
I didn’t say anything. I took the airport exit and turned into the cell phone waiting area and parked. Two other cars. The distant maintenance runways were lit up. A squat little cube of engine with tiny wheels was towing a plane. Slow. I turned to Agent Lopez, who was watching me.
“Lopez, look into my eyes. Do it like you’re trying to read my mind.” She did. “Now, you try this kind of shit with me one more time, ever, and I will shut you out. You don’t get back in. In my book you’re already one step in on the bad side of the equation, so I’m being really, really nice here. There are motherfuckers in this world so goddamned awful that even breathing their air is unhealthy, and yet here you sit, playing games. With me. If you were worth half a shit you would be out there kneecapping human traffickers, the shithead dog fighters and all the rest, but you’re not. And you’re not even very smart. We’re all alone in the loneliest place in the entire city. Together. In the dark.”
Her hand didn’t move to her gun. I’d forced her to measure my threat level, and in that instant we really did read each other’s minds. When her hand didn’t move, we both noticed. Her eyes flashed in awareness. I smiled thinly.
“You fucker—” she began.
“Yes,” I interrupted. “I just dug around in your head. Just like my profile said I would, so thanks for the idea ’cause I’m not really that enterprising unless I get a few hints. You already know I’m not the bad guy, and now I know you know. You’re welcome. And I say that because what I mean is that I find you to be one rung lower on the fed ladder than your new buddies, and that’s a ladder no one should be climbing. Says something about you.”
Agent Lopez didn’t say anything. We sat there, eyes locked, until she finally cocked her head, but it marked a conclusion.
“You’re a bad man, Holland. Just not in the way people think. You come in tomorrow and talk to the guys, understand? Tomorrow. They have a line on something and they want you to connect the dots. You don’t? I find you again and drag you downtown.”
I s
tarted the engine.
By the time I finally got home it was after midnight again. I expected another note, or even Dessel himself, sitting on my porch and drinking one of my beers, petting one of my traitorous cats, but the street was quiet. The house was dark and there was no one waiting. I didn’t even have any mail. I let myself in and turned on the lights, cringing inwardly, but there was no blood sprayed all over the walls, no body in the middle of the floor. I was greeted by the cats instead. They blinked at me and then went back to napping, waiting for the sound of the can opener.
I fed them and then sat down on the couch with a pint of tap water. A late dinner would have been nice, but I was too tired to chew. Too wiped out to get drunk. I took my boots off before I was too tired for that, too. Then I lay back and looked at the ceiling.
Surveillance had pulled way back on my house, so they had either dropped it or they’d found something and they knew it wasn’t right on top of me. Neither scenario was particularly good. Connect the dots could mean anything, but it most likely meant identifying a photo of Oleander, the Mineral Man, Chester G. Goodwin, Robert Gold. Trevor Connor, late of room 7119. The guy with all the names Santos and I had buried at the edge of the party field. I didn’t feel like doing that. If I didn’t know who the guy’s boss was yet, I doubted Dessel did either. He’d always been two or three steps behind me and there was no reason to think that had changed, especially with Pressman halfway out the door and the new chick on the fence about everything.
So I’d put them off until I needed them to do something else. It was as simple as that. That left me free to think about Suzanne. I drank the water and went and refilled the glass, drank the second pint right there at the sink. I didn’t even want to consider it at the moment, but I forced myself to try.
Move to the magical land of wherever at long last. It sounded good, but there was a catch, of course. She wasn’t asking me to move as much as she was asking me to change. Suzanne had been trying to transform me into the perfect guy since the morning after the night we met. If I was honest with myself, I’d tried to do the same thing in some way to her, but I’d given up almost instantly. She hadn’t. I knew what she wanted, and what she wanted was in no way a bad thing, either. She thought I’d be happier if I was happy, and that’s a very, very confusing notion.
I carried the water back to the couch and sat hard. My legs felt like clay bags. I closed my eyes and pictured Suzanne’s face. She was frowning.
What made her happy, content even, was fixed in her marrow. Suzanne liked nature, travel, immersing herself in the interior definition of giant buzz words like “culture” and “philosophy.” Which made her a tourist in almost every single way imaginable. And there was nothing wrong with that. I just wasn’t willing to get in the cruise boat and wear the shorts and sunglasses. Her version of the American Dream had much in the way of dreaming about it, and as delusional as it sounded, even to me, my way of life was closer to the ground and seemed more real to me because of it.
The truth was I didn’t know what the hell to do. Life was one crisis after another, and while it was true that I kept winning as far as the bank was concerned, only the worst sort of cretin defined success in life with numbers. The daily bread, the Art of the Moment, that was more my speed, and I wasn’t any good at it anymore. Now I was bluffing. I’d spent one too many nights drinking in an alcove in front of a shoe repair place.
Still, it was possible. What Suzanne proposed was flexible in many ways. If she could get used to the fact that in my marrow I was a criminal, and accept that I didn’t have a problem with her obedience dilemma, then there was a good chance that shit could work out, long term.
The lies I tell myself never go down without booze, and at that moment I was too tired to get up. But I did have the juice left for one last thing. I took my phone out and dialed.
“What’s up? I was just getting into my Underoos. Batgirl.”
“You dipstick. Hank there?”
“In the bathroom. What in the world would you—no way! Operation Tuxedo!”
“It’s a go. Can he meet me at the shop at eleven? In the morning, just so we’re clear.”
“You bet. Gomez was asking for you earlier, so you can kill two birds with one stone.” Delia sounded relieved. Happy. Bubbly.
“Know what? That might take a while, hate to get Hank all tangled up in shop shit. On your way to work tomorrow, drop him off at the Commodore. We can grab a quick beer, then hit the tuxedo place. By then it’ll be lunchtime. We can hit up the taco cart row on Second.”
“Thank you, Darby. Don’t screw this up, I mean. Remember the penis skinning, wiping my parts speech.”
“How could I forget? And don’t call me every ten minutes. And text me the address of the tuxedo place.”
“You’re the best.” She was yelling the good news at Hank as she hung up.
Fury. It gave me just enough energy for a nightcap after all.
In the morning the Alfa wouldn’t start, so I pulled it into the garage and hooked it up to the charger. It was raining and the windows had leaked, so the car smelled like mildew and motor oil. The Prius tail was nowhere to be seen. I smoked and waited a few minutes, then started the engine. The cats watched from the window, saddened by their grounded status, as I pulled out and revved the engine to build the charge a little more. Then I was off to deal with Hank Dildo.
Meeting at a bar was a good idea, I thought. I’d slept in till nine, and after eight hours of sleep and breakfast, the morning workout, I wanted to beat him to death without preamble. But in a bar setting we both stood a chance. I’d been banned from the Commodore once already, for a period of five long years, and I wasn’t keen on getting back on the 86 list. Plus, the first few beers usually had a mollifying effect on me. Sometimes they didn’t, and that was a chance Hank was just going to have to take.
I still had an hour and a half to kill, so I drove to O’Reilly’s and traded in the old battery for a new one. It would still bleed out, but it would take more than a week. I swapped them out in the rain with a wrench they loaned me, and by then I was ready.
Hank was alone at the bar when I walked in. A hundred and ten pounds, five seven and change, wearing diseased-looking combat boots and jeans held together with duct tape, an orange T-shirt under a black Levi’s jacket festooned with band patches. Bleached white crew cut. He was regaling the bartender, Tom, with a comic exploit. They both turned when I came in and the happy vibe evaporated. Hank clammed up because I had that effect on him. Tom just plain didn’t like me.
“Darby,” Hank said. He glanced nervously at Tom. “I, ah, I started a tab, man. Delia said it would be okay.”
“Darby Holland,” Tom drawled. “Just walked in and you already owe me ten bucks and a tip.”
I sat down on a stool next to Hank. We didn’t shake hands.
“Dildo,” I said, by way of greeting. “Tom. I’ll have a draft, shot of well bourbon.”
“You remember the rules, Holland?” Tom asked. He poured anyway. He knew I did. I turned to Hank.
“We can’t play pool. In case you wanted to.”
“Holland here can never play pool at the Commodore again,” Tom said. He set the glass down in front of me and picked up the plastic bottle of well bourbon. “Ever. We do let him in, but not into the back room where the tables are. Ever. Isn’t that right, Holland?”
Hank looked on expectantly.
“Don’t ask,” I said. Tom sat my shot down and I gestured at Hank. “He wants a shot too.”
“Holland here was banned for five years,” Tom continued. “And he got the pool room ban indefinitely. Wanna know why?”
“Tom,” I began, “we took care—”
“It’s educational,” Tom interrupted. “The kid here needs to know these kinds of things. Right, kid?” He looked at Hank, who had the presence of mind to shrug.
“Sometimes,” Hank said, “when, I mean. There was this one time—”
“Darby here, he’s in one night playin
g pool with this fat guy with beady eyes, this Big Mike. Ever met him?”
Hank nodded.
“What a pussy, but there they were, drinking beer like they had hollow legs and playing pool. Holland here? He’s kind of a pool shark, and the fat dude is getting his ass handed to him. Pitiful. It was like watching a barracuda eat a sofa cushion. Anyway, the big skinhead at the next table over, you know the kind, with a trashy mall girlfriend, he decides he’s gonna get in on the action, starts making fun of Holland’s pet dumbass.”
“Here we go,” I said.
“Yep. The place is packed but I had my eye on ’em. This great big skinhead? He has his flight jacket draped over that stool right there at the end of the bar, saving it for himself.” Tom pointed. “I let him. Real monster, this guy. No point in fucking with him, if you’re rational. If you think about it.” He glared at me. Beside me, Hank giggled nervously.
“So the guy comes out for another pitcher of beer and sits down to wait while I pour,” Tom continued. Incredibly, just telling the story was making him mad all over again. “I look up and what do I see? This Big Mike guy, red faced, headed for the door. I look over at the poolroom and here comes Holland, smiling to himself with this shitty evil smile, and as he passes the big skinhead guy? Guess what he does?”
Hank opened his mouth and closed it.
“He grabs the back of the guy’s shirt and yanks. Pulls this giant off his stool and it was like watching a tree fall over. His big bald head? That great big fucking cannonball hit the edge of the table behind him and it catapulted every last drink on that table right into the bar! That’s right! In one move Holland here used a guy’s head to destroy three thousand dollars’ worth of booze on a Friday fucking night!” Spit flew out of Tom’s mouth.
I turned to Hank. “True story.”