by G. M. Ford
The van was twenty yards behind and closing fast when I slid around Thirty-first Street and headed north again. Three orange-and-white barricades stood like urban hurdles halfway down the block. Two six-foot piles of light brown dirt bracketed the barricades like bookends. Dig we must. Instinctively, I lifted my foot. Immediately, the van filled my rear vision. I put my foot back down and sprinted down the street. The van was so close that I could hear the squealing fan belt over the roar of the engines.
As the front wheels of the Fiat rolled onto the dirt left behind by the backhoe, I crimped the wheel all the way to the left and stood on the brakes. The residual soil allowed the little car to slide effortlessly around to the left until I was facing directly toward the hurtling van. When I lifted my foot from the brakes, the car continued left, off the roadway, slamming into the pile of dirt collected by the curb. The Fiat embedded itself in the fine loam like a horseshoe buried in a much-used pit. Dirt and fine pieces of stone showered over the hood as the van slid by, locked wheels tractionless on the slippery dirt.
From the side of the rear window that wasn't covered with dirt, I watched as the skidding vehicle scattered the puny barricades like tenpins, crushing the center one beneath the frame, sending the other two flying toward the gutters.
The front of the van slammed into the far side of the ditch, centering just below the Chevy emblem, smashing hard enough to shake the ground beneath the car like a minor earthquake. The driver's foot still held the pedal to the metal. The engine, locked in some lower gear, screamed in protest. The rear wheels, in the air now, whined around at preposterous rpms. I sat and waited either for the van's door to open or for the engine to succumb to the abuse. No such luck.
I grabbed the 9mm from the floor where it had fallen and stepped out into the street. The noise was horrendous. I flicked the safety off.
A loud, electronically amplified voice boomed from behind me.
"Put the gun down. Put the gun down and put your hands behind your head. Now!" it screamed. Two SPD blue-and-whites blocked the street behind me, their doors thrown open, their uniformed passengers spread out, using cars for cover.
I held both hands above my head, making damn sure to move slowly.;
"Squat down. Put the gun in the street."
I did it.
"Back up. Stand back up."
I complied.
"Turn around."
Smoke was beginning to come from the engine area. The rear wheels were slowing down.
"Put your hands behind your head and back up toward me."
At about my fourth backward step, a young Asian officer worked his way around the front and picked up my automatic.
"On your knees," the voice boomed.
"I have an ankle gun," I said to Officer Park.
"On your knees," the voice repeated. Like hell. I stood still.
Two pair of hands grabbed my forearms, bent me forward at the waist, and forced my hands behind my back.
As they applied the cuffs none too gently, Patrolman Park removed my ankle gun.
"I'm a private investigator," I said. "Both guns are licensed. Copies of my licenses are in the glove compartment."
From the far side of the trench, two burly officers, vests worn over their uniforms, approached the van in combat stances. Park leaned into the Fiat and began rummaging around in the glove box.
One of my keepers, a thin African-American woman, released my left elbow and began to approach from the rear. Gun drawn. One slide step at a time. She put her back against the van and slid slowly up to the driver's door. Her gold plastic tag read B. Ferguson. The two cops on the opposite side of the ditch were aiming over the tops of the piles of dirt, directly into both doors. The one on the driver's side nodded.
Ferguson moved her revolver to her left hand and used her right hand to push the button on the door handle. Without warning, the door sprang open, bouncing on its hinges. A massive ball of pink plopped down onto the pavement, slid feet-first over the edge, and disappeared down into the trench.
Ferguson turned back this way. "Call for an ambulance."
I jerked my elbow loose and hustled over to the side of the hole.
Marlene Jolley lay faceup. Her chest rose and fell. A massive purple bruise had already begun to puff across her forehead. She seemed to be smiling.
From the rear, somebody threw a choke hold on me.
"You know this woman?" Ferguson asked.
"Sure," I rasped. "That's Adrian Jolley's mother."
"That big drug dealer got busted last year?"
"Yeah," I said.
Ferguson looked down into the ditch and then back to me. A smile spread across her face. "You the peeper she bit in the ass?"
"In the leg," I countered.
The grip on my throat disappeared. From behind me the voice said, "Guess she wanted another piece of you."
Ferguson hid behind her hand. I didn't bother with a response.
26
The last two cops finally dragged their asses out of Rebecca's house at three-fifteen. Three hours before, they'd let me make a phone call. I'd called George. "Round up the fellas and get up here," I said.
"Us? Miss Duvall's place? You sure?"
"You got any money left?"
" 'Bout forty bucks."
"Spend thirty on booze. Save ten for the cab. Tell the cabbie to wait. I'll have another job for you."
They arrived an hour later. I'd immediately slipped George another fifty and sent him out for more liquor. We now had enough alcohol to float a Danish cruise liner. The boys and Selena were partying it up in the kitchen. Duvall burst through the swinging doors, back into the parlor.
"Norman just ate the top of my cousin Francine's wedding cake. He found it in the freezer."
"You had other plans for it?"
"Her youngest is a junior at Stanford, Leo. It must be--"
"Normal's got the tract for it," I assured her.
Beth Goza had been asleep for an hour. Her impossibly red head rested on the arm of Rebecca's black velvet sofa. Her limp hands tugged the jacket tight about her. When she was asleep, it was easier to ignore the eyebrow rings, the pierced nose, and all the other crap and see somebody's | little girl somewhere in there. Duvall sat down on the arm of the chair next to me and began to massage my neck with _ one hand. '
"You okay?" she inquired.
"Fine," I said.
"You're awfully quiet."
"I'm thinking."
"About that woman?"
A gust of laughter blew through from the kitchen. I could hear George delivering the punch line: "So the father says to the kid, Son, you ever seen a bulldog eat mayonnaise?" This one left them rolling in the aisles.
"All she needed was some playmates," Rebecca observed.
"Yeah, Mrs. Jolley," I said. "What a weird deal. After all this time, she's still out for my " I shook my head. "What devotion."
"More like fixation."
"Changes everything, though," I said, closing my eyes, allowing her massaging fingers to begin to loosen my knotted neck.
"How so?" She was using two hands now.
"I've been thinking all along that we me and Jed have really been making some serious waves with this thing we've been doing for Selena. I figured we'd really been making some well-connected folk nervous. I was working up a pretty good set of conspiracy theories."
"And?"
"Hell, we've barely created a ripple. The only damn thing that's happened since we started all this crap is that somebody went around strong-arming drunks looking for Selena. That's it. We haven't amounted to a piss hole in the snow."
"Why is that significant?"
"Because it tells me that nobody is particularly nervous about what we've been doing, which is bad for two reasons. First, it means that they think their asses are covered. And because of that, I probably can't count on them helping me out by doing anything stupid. And that means whoever it was was looking for Selena is my only lead."
"Done
a good job of it, though." It was Ralph, trying to be nice. He'd wandered in from the kitchen, still holding a half-full beer bottle. He was wearing his uppers.
Through the door, Harold hollered, "Careful, Ralphie, that ain't the crapper." Peals of laughter rolled into the room.
"Good job of what?" I groaned as Duvall began to work the golf ball that was lodged at the top of my spine.
"Findin' Selena," he said. "Done a whole lot better than that old Charlie Boxer." He turned and pushed his way back toward the laughter. "I'll tell 'em to keep it down," he said over his shoulder.
I grabbed the arms of the chair and stood up.
"What?" Rebecca asked.
"George is right," I said. "Ralph is seriously off his feed."
I pushed through the double doors into the kitchen. Selena, for all her practice, was no match for the crusty quartet. She was curled up on the counter immediately to the right of the sink, snoring quietly.
"Just checkin' her eyelids for holes," Harold assured me, hoisting a water glass full of clear liquid. Normal and Ralph were sacking the refrigerator, peering expectantly down into ancient Tupperware containers, sticking their fingers into the glop, and then tasting.
George proffered a bottle of peach schnapps. I said no.
"George. I want you and Ralph to go find Judy and Big Frank."
"What for?" he demanded.
I told him, but he still didn't like it.
"And what if he did?"
"Then that's the end of it."
"And if he didn't?"
"Then I want you and Ralph to do a quick job on the square. You guys know everybody. See if you can find somebody who remembers."
He looked at the alcoholic wonderland with which he was surrounded and began to bleat. "Send Norman. Nobody bullshits Norman."
"I want Norman and Harold to stay here and keep" I nodded at the figure on the floor "Sleeping Beauty com- J| pany. I need you because I'm going to send you to see my aunt Karen."
"The one with the " He made a gesture with his hands.
"Yeah. That one. You remember where she works?"
"Eighth floor of the City Building."
I checked the clock over the sink. Four-thirty. "I'll call her. I'll have her wait for you."
"She's probably gone, man," he whined.
I crossed the room, picked the phone from its cradle, and dialed. I gave the switchboard operator my name and waited. George took a long pull and then appeared to be praying. Karen came on.
"What a nice surprise," she said. "Believe it or not, I was going to call you later this week."
"Well " I started.
"And you would have ignored me as usual, now, wouldn't you?"
"Probably," I admitted. "I was hoping " I tried again.
"No, no, no, Leo," she chastised. "Just this once, before we get to what you want, we're going to get to what I want."
"Okay," I said. George was smirking at me.
Before it was over I had solemnly promised to attend the wedding of Karen's youngest daughter Mary Alice. In Bremerton. In a suit. With a gift. A week from Sunday. Arrrrgh.
"Now it's your turn," she said amicably.
I told her what I wanted.
"The whole history of the license?" she asked.
"Why not?"
"I'll have it ready. It will be nice to see George again."
I assured her that George felt the same way, broke the connection, and dialed for a cab.
27
She rolled herself out from behind the bar; the veins in the backs of her hands crawled beneath the skin like thin blue worms. As she forced the wheels forward, her small features became tightly gathered in the center of her face, wired in place by strain and thin silver glasses. She wore a small print dress. The tartan plaid blanket thrown across her lap clashed horribly with the dress's print and seemed to be trying to escape.
Her eyes said worried. "We were just about to close, gentlemen," she said with a wan smile.
I didn't blame her. The sight of George, Ralph, Judy, Big Frank, and me walking into your place at five to two in the morning was surely cause for concern. All things considered, she was remarkably calm. Her stock immediately rose with me.
I quickly took the lead. "We're friends of Charlie's." I walked over and offered my hand. "My name's Leo Waterman."
Her grip was firm and dry. "Charlie said you'd been by." She beamed up at me. "Well, aren't you the fine, strapping young fellow? I knew your father, you know. Even bigger than you, he was. A fine figure of a man, if you don't mind me saying."
I let her ramble on about the old man and how, back in the sixties, he'd intervened on her behalf in a local sewer dispute. When she ran out of gas, she called out over her shoulder, "Charlie Charlie, you have friends out here." Her tone indicated that this was quite possibly a first.
It was a minute before Charlie came out from the back room. Same shirt. He stopped drying his hands on the white towel when he caught sight of me. His eyes flicked around the room, taking in the others, and then he slowly resumed his wiping, now one finger at a time.
He looked down at the woman. "Helen, this is "
"Oh, we've already introduced ourselves, silly," she chided. "You should have told me they were coming." She patted at her dress, straightening the fabric across her legs. "I would have "
"Musta slipped my mind," Charlie muttered.
She retold the story of the old man's stellar sewer stewardage as I leaned uncomfortably against the bar. Down at the far end, George threw a fifty on the bar, stepped around Charlie, liberated a bottle of schnapps and four glasses, and began to pour.
Charlie came around and stood holding the black handles of her wheelchair. His eyes were flat, telling me nothing.
"I was just gonna take Helen home," he announced. "She we just live a few houses down. I was gonna come back and, you know "
"Take her home," I said quickly. "We'll take care of things till you get back."
Helen started to object, so I stepped in, taking her hand.
"Real nice meeting you, Helen. It was a pleasure."
"I remember now," she said out of the blue. "You're a private eye like my Charlie used to be, aren't you?"
"Yes, ma'am, I am."
She looked up at Charlie. "Charlie doesn't do that work anymore. Just that one last time " She looked up into his eyes.
"Charlie's a legend in the business," I said. "Whenever I have a real tough case, I always like to get Charlie's opinion."
Charlie sneered over her head at me. As she looked up at him again, he made quick facial adjustments in a vain attempt to transform the sneer into a smile. He managed something transitional. A smile, maybe.
"A legend," she repeated.
Charlie began to move the chair forward. I reached down and straightened the blanket on her legs. "Good night," I said.
She boxed me on the arm. "Oh, I'll leave you to your detective talk. All very confidential, I suppose."
"Very," I confirmed.
She looked my way as she turned left toward the door. "You will come and see us again, won't you? When it's not on business, I mean."
I told her I would and instantly wanted a drink. Dull the pain. Dull...
He blinked her out through the door, and the place went silent except for the gentle hum of the coolers and the metallic swivel of the hula dancer's hips. George waggled the bottle at me. I shook him off.
Either they lived in the alley next door, or Charlie took her home in a full wheelie, because the old boy came barreling back through the door in less time than it took Norman to put down his first boilermaker of the day. Mere nanoswallows, as it were. All righteous indignation.
"You just can't stand it, can you? Just can't put it to rest mat you ain't never gonna be nothing but a shitty little shadow of your old man. That you're never gonna personally amount to shit. That all you're gonna end up with is what he gave you, and you'll probably fuck that up too."
"You see right through me, Charlie."
"So you come up here trying to fuck up my gig. You just can't stand it that "
"Charlie!" I shouted.
He clapped his mouth shut.
"Do us both a favor and just shut the fuck up."
He hustled past me, snatched the bottle from the boys, and replaced it behind the bar. "We're closed," he said. "I'll have to ask you to leave."
"We need to talk."
"I got nothin' to talk to you about. Told you everything I know." Before I could respond, he wagged a finger at me. "You know, it must skip every other generation. Your old man was never mean-spirited like you are, Leo. He was a gentleman. Gracious. I don't know what in hell's wrong with you. I could see it even when you was a kid. You had this little "
He searched for a word. I filled the gap. "You get straight with me, Charlie, and there's no reason you can't just go on with your life. I'm not the law. I've got no axes to grind."
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," he said flatly.
"Well, let me help you out, then, okay?"
"Have at it. Knock yourself out." He pointed at the clock.
"You've got four minutes."
"You told me the other night that the kid hired you to look for his mother, right?''
"Maybe you should have taken some notes."
I ignored him. "And that you legged the square and came up dry. Is that right?" He didn't answer. "I know you were actually down there, because you ran into Frank and Judy."
He held his face together well. "So?"
"So, how come you didn't ask either of them about Selena? Frank, I can maybe understand. Maybe Frank's not the most talkative guy in the world. But Judy... I mean, there's a woman who knows more about the--"
"Residentiary challenged," suggested Ralph.
"--who knows more about the residentially challenged community than just about anybody, and you don't ask her?" I turned to Judy. "He ask you about Selena?" She shook her head. "Frank?" Likewise negative. "So how come a legend in the business like you can't turn up a square regular in a whole week?"