One More Body

by Josh Stallings

  “Burner. Time to step into the twenty-first century.” He was right. Pay phones had disappeared, landlines were rare. First an iPod, now this. Evolve or die, that’s what the shrink said. Not that these were mutually exclusive ideas.

  Gregor had the grace not to ask where I was going. I didn’t tell him about the dead Mexicans or Sunshine’s assessment that I was being hunted by MS-13. I carried my own water and hoped what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

  FOR ONCE, JASON was happy to see me. “Dude, that newspaper guy was a mess. Wept. I mean snot running down his chin wept when I hooked up the Porsche.”

  “We square?”

  “More than.”

  “Good, I need wheels.” His smile dropped.

  “Of course you do. One-man demolition derby. What kind of car you want to fuck up this time?”

  “Fast. American.” He bitched about the value hike in domestic muscle cars. He whined and moaned, but when he showed me the ’67 Tempest he looked as proud as any papa.

  “Bear-Tex disc brakes, Morrison suspension, rack. Has the original 326, four-barrel. Blue printed. Four hundred ponies at the rear, before nitrous, which you won’t be using or you might blow this engine up. Tremec manual 5-speed, Hurst shifter.” It was a gearhead’s wet dream. When I was a kid I would have been drooling along with him. Now I just cared if it would rock and roll.

  “Lucky it’s a four-door. All the twos have been butchered into GTO clones. Looks good, right?” The paint was faded and airbrushed to look like it was rusting out. The seats were more duct tape than vinyl. The dash was cracked. The trim was either missing or pitted beyond recognition.

  “Looks perfect.” He gave me a rash of shit about its supposed value, told me I’d owe him twenty large if I trashed it. But his heart wasn’t really in it. Odds were squarely on me turning his classic into scrap metal, but he knew I’d make him whole sooner or later.

  IT WAS THREE a.m. when I hit Burbank. I parked across the street from Rollens’s last known address. The salmon-colored apartment building was ten years past needing a new paint job. Admiral Fallow was in my earbuds. Nika was right; I liked their sound. Peaceful. Wouldn’t go to war with it, but maybe not everything was a war. Cry from the bedroom, spend your time wishing back an act that is thankless. Fuck, that nailed me.

  There was also a sexual older/younger element to the song, made me worry. Straight-up, Mikayla was half right. I felt proud of how Nika looked at me. Hated myself, but I found her touch on my hand electric.

  Idiot, second floor.

  “Were you this rude when you were alive?”

  Fucked if I know. I think you made me up.

  That is what the shrink would have said if I’d told him I was in a car arguing the existence of a dead assassin with her ghost.

  On the second floor, number twenty-four, nothing moved. I waited another ten minutes before heading in. The camera above the security gate hung uselessly down on torn cables. I found Rollens’s shitty Honda in the parking lot. Climbing up onto her rear balcony, I stepped over a hibachi. The sliding glass door’s lock took some gentle prying before it popped. I pulled the monster Ruger, cocked the hammer and moved in past the faded curtain.

  As my eyes adjusted, the 1970s appeared from the shadows. Shag carpet. Popcorn ceiling. Harvest gold appliances. This was no retro cool choice. This was detritus of a life unpaid.

  On a low sofa, Rollens was snoring. She was dressed only in a slightly too big, and very faded, San Diego Chargers t-shirt. For a short woman, she had a great set of legs. Within arm’s reach on a coffee table were a Glock and a bottle of Vicodin. Like an old friend, the white pills called. Just one. What harm could one do me? I picked up the Glock instead.

  Her eyes fluttered into focus as I pressed the .454 Casull between them. She was dope-slow, her words slurred. “What the . . . McGuire, hell you doing?”

  “Focus. Your lies got my dog killed. No more bullshit or pow and I walk away.”

  “Ok. Wait.” She slowly pushed the revolver off her face. I let her. I could always shoot her later. “Hold on, let me think.” She sat up. Her face was covered in cuts and bruises, an ace bandage held her left arm pinned to her side. “Your bitch,” she indicated with her head, “is in the bedroom.”

  “What?”

  “That fucking horse.”

  I cleared the room in two steps. Angel lay on the bed. She wasn’t moving, but she was warm when I knelt and rested my hand on her side. Slowly her chest rose as she inhaled.

  “I gave her a Vicodin.” Rollens was leaning on the door jamb.

  “What?’

  “She was a wreck.”

  Angel lifted her head. Her left eye was missing, the lid sewn shut. One ear was shortened and taped up. Seeing me, her tail gently slapped the bed. She struggled to rise, but hadn’t the strength. I leaned in, let her nuzzle my face.

  “Are you crying, McGuire?” Rollens’s voice was full of disdain.

  ROLLENS TOLD ME she’d served as a medic in the National Guards, and she’d stitched Angel up. After the accident, she dragged Angel out of the car. She got the guns and was going back for me when the rollers showed. That was what she said. “My niece, she is real. I lied about being on the force. I was. Now, more like freelancing.” We were drinking Folgers instant coffee.

  “Stop. You never were a cop. Married to one, he died in Mexico.” Her eyes went rabbit in the headlights. “You saved my dog, that buys you the right to talk. Bullshit me, you’re a grease stain on the carpet and I’m in the wind.”

  She looked confused, fought to reorder her lies without fully knowing what I knew. Her eyes looked everywhere but into mine. “This coffee sucks. How many spoons did you put in?” she asked.

  “Three. You’re stalling. It takes no time to come up with the truth.” I dropped all the shells save one from the Ruger. Snapping the cylinder shut, I gave it a spin. “Ever seen The Deer Hunter?”

  “What?” Her eyes were pinned on the revolver.

  “The Deer Hunter. ‘Di di mau.’ No?” I pushed the barrel against my temple and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell heavy on an empty chamber. “Your turn.”

  “You’re fucking crazy, McGuire.”

  “No, I have been certified sane and not a danger to myself or others. Truth or dare, choose.” I put the gun down in front of her. She let out a weak laugh. She picked up the gun. Almost had it to her head, set it back on the table.

  “I was a social worker. Got fired when I ran over a pimp who was threatening one of my girls.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s the truth. When Bobby, my husband, went to work for the DEA, I . . . I was a social worker.”

  “You’re trying to roll the dice on what I know and don’t know. Big mistake.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Mexico? Sanchez?” Her eyes twitched, almost imperceptibly. I grabbed the Ruger, pointed at her face and pulled. Another dead chamber.

  “What fuck, McGuire? I’m talking.”

  “Not fast enough.” I thumbed the hammer back.

  “Ok, I wasn’t ever a cop. My stepdad was, my husband was. I used his old badge, made the fake ID at a copy shop.”

  “Mexico?”

  “My husband’s old partner in the DEA, he got me in contact with Sanchez. Sanchez is working with them. I needed him to get to you.” Part of that was true. Badge or no, nothing got done in Ensenada without Senior Sanchez’s nod. She told me growing up with a cop she learned to handle a gun. Said the bit in the National Guard was real.

  “As a social worker, I saw what happened to girls in the life. The part about running over a pimp? That was real. Freedom? She is real. When she disappeared I panicked. An old friend on the force, she told me about you, about Lowrie. Would you have helped me if I told you the truth?”

  “We’ll never know.” Standing, I put my back to her. Poured what was left of my coffee down the kitchen drain. “You’re right, tastes like shit.”

  “Do you believe me now.”

/>   “Does it matter?”

  “Not if you find Freedom.”

  I nodded. That was true. I picked up the Ruger, opening the cylinder. I let her see the bullet in the chamber. It was important for her to be clear I wasn’t fucking around. If she was impressed, it didn’t show.

  “Can I get dressed now?”

  I nodded, stepped onto the balcony and dialed.

  “Hello, Moses.” Sunshine picked up on the first ring. “Couldn’t go seven hours without hearing my sexy voice?”

  “Something like that. How’d you know it was me?”

  “You’re the only one has this number.”

  “My own personal Batphone?”

  “Don’t get too engorged, big guy, numbers are cheap, free actually.” She let out a husky laugh. She sounded good, tired but good.

  “You get any sleep?”

  “I’m in bed right now, all tucked under a quilt my grandmammy made me. Feather pillow.” She was filling my head with pictures and she knew it. Not that I minded. “Wanna join me? You know you do.” Nothing I would rather do.

  “Rain check.” I went for smooth indifference.

  “Fuck you, McGuire, you know you want me.”

  “Fact. But right now, I need an address. Pimp named Titan, works girls out of Capone’s, a strip joint in the Valley.”

  She let out a long sigh, “Fine, give me ten minutes I’ll text it to you. Anything else? Coffee, latte, quick hand job in the back seat?” I could hear the smile in her voice.

  “Woman, you’re making it hard to get to work.”

  “Long as I’m making it hard.” She had all the flirt of a seasoned pro, yet it felt real. Maybe she was better at the game than most. But why hustle me? Then again, why not hustle me? I didn’t know the game I was stumbling along in, let alone who the players were.

  “I need intel.” I looked through the sliding glass door. I was alone. “Name’s Evelyn Rollens, widow of Robert Mayers, LAPD slash DEA.”

  “Widow? Sexy. She your squeeze?” The pout came through in her voice.

  “You care?”

  “Not really.” She laughed. Quick. Real. “I do care how you are going to pay for this information.”

  “You tell me.”

  “Goodwill, and you owe me. Godfather style.”

  “Works for me.” I hung up before she could say another word.

  Her too? Mikayla was leaning against the Formica counter. You want to fuck her?

  “All of them. But, yes, her too. Maybe her most.”

  “What?” Rollens called from the bedroom.

  “Nothing.”

  And her? Mikayla lifted her chin in the direction of the bedroom. Why?

  “Maybe she . . . fucked if I know.”

  Mikayla was shaking her head sadly, then she was gone.

  ROLLENS CAME OUT of the bedroom dressed in jeans and a hoodie draped out of a leather blazer. She did look good. She pulled my duffle from a closet. Shotgun, 1911, boxes of ammo, what clothes I owned.

  I pulled on a clean Clash t-shirt and we were ready to rumble.

  CHAPTER 21

  “This is Helen. If you are calling for me or Jules, we can’t come to the phone because we are fucking, or reading, or screening your call.” Even her voice sounded happy. I called twice before giving up and heading toward Gregor’s.

  Somewhere down the Hollywood Freeway, a tremor started in my hip. I couldn’t figure out if I was having the DTs or withdrawal from the Vicodin. The vibration was joined by a low buzzing noise.

  “You gonna answer that?” Rollens asked.

  My new cell phone was buzzing away in my pocket. I pulled over and tried to figure out which damn buttons to push.

  “Give me that, McGuire.”

  “I got it,” I lied, not sure why. My fingers felt like massive sausages on the small touch screen. Finally, a text appeared. It was from Sunshine, an address in the Valley and a note that said, BE CAREFUL OF THE OTHER QUESTION. DIGGING DEEPER. No cute salutations. No xoxo. All business. Clear. Solid intel. I wondered if Kenny had sent it.

  “We good?” Rollens asked.

  “Old contact, sent me Titan’s address.”

  “Then let’s go nail the son of a bitch.” Her face was hard, locked looking out the windshield. I wondered about the wisdom of giving her back the Glock. It was too late now.

  I DROPPED ROLLENS at a Chevron station down the hill from Gregor’s home. She didn’t need to know how to find my people.

  GREGOR HAD TO keep his mother from burying a butcher knife in my back when she saw Angel in my arms. She shouted in Russian.

  “She said you don’t deserve the dog. Says you’re a careless son of a bitch,” Gregor translated.

  “Yeah, got that.”

  “She’s wrong.”

  “No, she’s not. Least not about my mother.” He was about to say more. “Lighten up, she loves the dog and that’s a good thing.” After all we’d seen and done, that he worried his mother might hurt my feelings made me smile.

  Gregor made Angel a bed in his mother’s room. As I lay her down she gave me a dopey lick then fell back asleep.

  As I was leaving, Anya came out, baby at her breast. Rumpled, tired, in a bathrobe, childbirth had softened her dancer’s body, adding a softness to her curves. She was stunning. She could still raise my pulse, probably always would. She saw me and her eyes went to ice. She handed the child to Gregor. “I need to speak to Moses, alone.” He didn’t ask. Took his son and walked into the house.

  “He is a good man. My Man. You must leave him, us, out of whatever this is you are in. You saved my sister. You saved me. We will never forget you. But my son needs a father. I need a husband. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” I did. Gregor did his tour and then some. It was time for him to live in the world. Anya might have once cared about me, or maybe it had all been a scam to get me to rescue Nika. Didn’t matter. She was Gregor’s woman now. He’d been fighting a war without end since he was a kid in Eastern Europe. He deserved a fierce woman, a warm family, peace. I hoped I could keep him clear of the shitstorm I was stirring up. I also knew he was a soldier and would make up his own mind.

  DARK CLOUDS HID the rising sun when I picked Rollens up. Mist haloed the gas station sign. I dropped a hundred plus to fill up the Tempest. Jason had expanded the gas tank, pushing it up into the trunk. It now held twenty-four gallons. She was a thirsty beast, but worth every gallon.

  Hitting the 101, I opened up the engine. The Quadrajet carb sang. Dual pipes rumbled. She sank down onto her racing suspension, fixed to the asphalt as if by magnetic force. I could learn to love this car. I really hoped I could keep her from a fiery death. Doubted I could, hoped nonetheless. An old AA guy in lockdown at Pelican Bay once told me, “Hope is just disappointment delayed.” I was drunk on pruno at the time so I didn’t pay him much mind. Knew he was right, just didn’t see the strength of dwelling on the obvious.

  “You have a new plan?” Rollens asked as we headed into the Valley.

  “Same plan, smarter execution.” I slipped in my earbuds and turned up “Tommy Gun.” Strummer and the boys drowned out any objections Rollens had.

  THE ADDRESS WAS a condo off Woodman Boulevard. Parked across and a block down the street, we drank bitter gas station coffee. Rollens had a military spotter’s scope and we took turns watching. A cab pulled up and a tired looking woman stumbled out. Sexy dress now stained and rumpled, makeup mostly gone leaving only faint smears of color, she carried her stilettos, bare feet swollen and red in patches where the cheap shoes rubbed. If johns could see what their dolls looked like at eight a.m. after a hard night of being pumped, they might think again . . . but I doubt it.

  A second cab arrived. The two girls getting out didn’t speak. They paid the cabbie and walked toward the condo. The whole deal reminded me of a strip club after last call, when the lights came up, the glamor gone, evidence of shabby sex and broken hopes littering the floor. The men’s room trash can overflowing with condoms. Money trade
d for making a man come and forget his life. A whore’s promise. Seconds after you bust a nut the self-loathing rolls back in, washing away any semblance of romance. Nothing more romantic than a man wanting pussy, nothing more cynical than a man who just got some.

  The wilting flowers punched a code in the security gate and disappeared into the complex. It was three two-story condos with shared walls. Behind the gate a small common lawn ran the length of the property. There was underground, gated parking. It was upscale. Not lawyer or stockbroker rich, but definitely upscale.

  After a full hour, only six girls. Always the same, tired, used-up look. I knew after a day’s sleep, a shower and the soft lights of a strip club, they would be beautiful sirens. Even in hard times they had to break a grand a night. I’m no mathematician, but any way you count it Titan was banking large.

  “Looks like he owns all three houses.” Rollens passed me the scope. “They enter number one, down on the end. After a few minutes they leave. Four have gone into number two. Two into number three. Are you writing this down?”

  “Nope.” Cops wrote facts down, building a case. Cons, we wrote nothing down. Why help them bust us?

  THE LAST VEHICLE to show was a black Escalade. Three of the strippers from Capone’s stepped out. The girl who promised me the prettiest pussy in town was holding hands with the girl she had been laughing at. As the SUV waited for the underground parking gate to open, I saw the driver. It was my good friend Jeremy, a.k.a Atlas. “Stay put,” I told Rollens and was moving before she could give me any bullshit. I ran low, keeping parked cars between me and the Escalade. I followed it down, the gate scraping against the cement as it locked behind us.

  “Hey, buddy.” I was glad to see he was still above ground. One less ghost to come calling.

  “That motherfucking . . . no, damn no.” His eyes searched for any way away from me.

  “How are you, Jeremy?” His leg encased in a plastic brace, he leaned against the truck for support. His face was puffy, the bruises faded to yellow. Seeing no escape, he got angry.