The Big Bad

by Phil Beloin Jr.

  "You try and rape me and I’ll piss on you."

  "Last thing I want to do is screw a dyke."

  "Don’t call me that."

  "You got a better name for it?"

  "My name is Billie Joe, but everybody calls me BJ."

  "That don’t make any sense."

  "A lesbian called BJ? It’s supposed to freak people out, man."

  "I don’t think it’s funny."

  "You wouldn’t."

  "I need answers, Billie Joel," I said.

  "Like I haven’t heard that one before. You want me to sing for you?"

  I lifted my arms and shoulders up. "Where are you coming from?"

  "It’s Billie Joe."

  "I’m getting pissed here."

  "You called me Billie Joel."

  "Big fucking deal."

  She folded her arms and pointed out a hip. "You said you wanted some answers, man, so start asking some questions."

  "Are you and Pam sisters?"

  "No. Pam is Teddy’s friend. He talks about her all the time."

  "Friend? I thought they were brother and sister."

  "Teddy doesn’t have a sister."

  "You’re confusing me."

  "You’re the one asking the questions."

  I got out a cigarette, tapped the filter on the pack, and flicked my lighter.

  "I can’t believe you’re going to smoke in here," she said.

  "Let me think," I said, exhaling a stream of blue.

  "Jesus Christ," she said as a fan blew smoke right into her face. She stepped out of the path, waving a hand through the air.

  "You got any idea where Pam is?" I said.

  "I’ve never met her."

  "Then why did the landlady say you were Teddy’s sister?"

  "I sleep over sometimes."

  "That ain’t doing me any good."

  "The hag doesn’t let unmarried couples rent from her," Billie Joe said. "When I need a place to crash, Teddy lets me stay here. Homos have to stick together, you know?"

  "Teddy’s a fag?"

  "You got a problem with that?"

  "Not at the moment, no."

  "You look like a homophobe."

  "Forget it."

  "I bet you listen to fag tunes when no one’s around." And then she started to sing, swaying those fat hips in a circle. "I bet you’re a real man’s man."

  "Shut-the-fuck-up!"

  She stopped, put her hands on her hips. "You gonna get tough, faggot?"

  "Don’t push me."

  "Just because you snuck in here doesn’t mean I’m afraid of you."

  "You don’t have to be afraid, just aware that I ain’t fucking around." I lifted my shirt up to let her get a good look of the gun. Her arrogance dropped like a curtain over the final act. "I want to know where Teddy is," I said.

  "All right, all right," she said. "He’s supposed to be going back to work for this guy the next couple of days."

  "Computer stuff?"

  "Yep. That’s Teddy’s gift, working these machines," she said, gesturing to the two computers over her shoulder.

  "Who’s the guy?"

  "I don’t remember his name."

  "Think."

  "Only thing I know, Teddy said he was meeting him tonight around eight."

  By seven that evening I had my feet crossed at the ankles and resting on the receptionist’s desk, the little lamp on. I was early so I had fed Van Gogh and was letting him walk around; sniffing at everything he came across. He might have even smelled a faded scent of Mona and Lisa, assuming they had stopped by here with their commodities.

  Sitting there, I had some time to line up all my ducks. Pam had lied to Irv about Teddy being her brother. Had she lied about other things too? Why not? Ain’t no such thing as lying only once. Well, it seemed Pam wasn’t the perfect little angel that Irv had made her out to be. Or maybe Irv had made up some shit up about Pam. That guy’s mouth was coated in bullshit.

  No, I doubted it now. Irv was acting like a love struck fool. Prison had messed him up as much as the coke had.

  I hadn’t been told the truth either. I didn’t care for that one iota. I had a lot more questions and the answers would be coming through the door at eight o’clock.

  I checked my gun. Twelve in the clip and one in the chamber. Safety off. Smoked while I waited. Certainly one person would show. Maybe I’d get the bonanza and both would.

  Eight o’clock on the button and the door handle jiggled. I was walking over when the knocking began. A hazy shape was on the other side of the misty glass. Eddie wouldn’t be knocking at his own office.

  I threw the door open, grabbed the lanky shape by shirt, spun him around and heaved. He hit the floor hard, his eyes stunned open.

  "Hello, Terry," I said.

  My greasy pal from the girl’s apartment was on the floor. "You?" he managed to say.

  "Or should I say Teddy."

  He mumbled something I didn’t hear.

  "You lied to me Teddy."

  "I didn’t mean to."

  "You’re gonna tell me the truth or this time I put a bullet in your head." I pointed the .45 at him for emphasize. Teddy wrapped his arms and legs inward, forming into a ball. He looked weak and helpless. Right where I wanted him to be. "Tell me about Pam," I said.

  "Who’s Pam?" he said, his voice a peep.

  I pulled the hammer back with my thumb. "Strawberry blond, twenty-one or so. Big eyes, blue-green in color."

  "All right, all right. I know her.”

  "Let’s have it."

  "We grew up together in Norris."

  "Never heard of Norris."

  "It’s in Stitchfield County. It’s a very small town.”

  "You better not be fucking with me, Teddy."

  "I’m not. Listen, Pam and I went to the same schools, took the same buses, all the way through high school. I knew early on I was different..."

  "That you were a homo?"

  He nodded. "And that only made our friendship stronger. Both of us came from rich families—though her father lost everything. Mine is embarrassed by my sexual orientation and kicked me out and cut me off when I turned eighteen. Pam and I got a place together in the center of Stitchfield—you have heard of that town right?"

  "I think they mention that town on the weather reports, don’t they?"

  "Uh-huh. We struggled to get by, but we were happy together. Then she met some gangster while she was visiting her father in prison. The government nailed her father for some kind of stock fraud. Anyway, Pam said she was falling for this gangster. Irv Marquette is his name."

  Van Gogh sauntered out of the shadows and snuck up on Teddy, jumping on his side. Teddy flinched, but Van Gogh gripped tight with his claws.

  "Hey, Vincent," he said patting the black and gray fur.

  "Forget the reunion and keep talking, kid."

  "Pam moved out to be closer to the jail and Irv. I think she left because I let her know I didn’t approve of the relationship. Irv used to sell drugs, pimp out whores. All that nasty stuff. I heard he got out of jail recently."

  Tell me about it.

  "Right after she left Stitchfield, Pam and I lost contact," Teddy said, "but then I moved to West Oaks, getting some spec work for several different computer companies around here. I heard that Pam had moved in with Irv after his release, and I called her, told her where I was living, begged her to leave Irv and stay with me. She wouldn’t listen."

  "Any idea where Pam is now?"

  "I haven’t talked to her since that phone call, what, more than two weeks ago."

  "Would she go back home, to Norris?"

  "She doesn’t have one. Her mother is dead, and the house sold to pay off her father’s debts."

  "Shit."

  "Do you think Pam’s in trouble?" he said.

  "I don’t know."

  "Why you looking for her?"

  "I’m asking the questions, Teddy."

  "Did Irv hurt her? I’ll kill him if he does."

 
"Shut it." I scratched my lip with the barrel of the gun. "There’s nowhere in Norris or Stitchfield she’d run to?"

  "There could be a few places she might try."

  The thought of dragging Teddy around the foothills of Connecticut made my guts turn as if I had sucked down cheap bourbon on an empty stomach.

  Van Gogh hung his head over Teddy’s chest, and fell asleep. He was stroking the cat when he said, "I want to help you find her."

  "I don’t think I can trust you."

  "Really, you can."

  "You could be protecting her,” I said.

  "I’m not. She’s my very best friend in the world."

  I believed him. Scared into the fetal position, he had to be giving it up straight.

  "Did Eddie ever show up tonight?" he said. "I was supposed to meet him here."

  "Nope."

  "How are the girls?"

  Getting mixed up with Irv again, I had almost forgotten about them. "Mona and Lisa," I nodded.

  "Yeah. Who else?"

  "The same," I said.

  "Who the hell are you? This morning you were working for Mona and Lisa and now you’re looking for Pam."

  "Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. Wake up the cat and get to your feet."

  "Come on, Vincent," he prodded. Van Gogh opened his mouth wide and stretched out his front paws.

  The phone rang. The machine clicked to work during the fourth ring. "This is Edward’s Direct Marketing and Data. Leave a message after the beep.”

  BEEP.

  A female voice came on, panicky, racing through her words. "Hey, Eddie, it’s me. Where the hell are you? I tried you at home and you weren’t there. Now you’re not at the office. I’m here at the cabin tending to things. I can’t do all this shit by myself. You were supposed to be here first. I’m getting a little worried, you know? I’m in town using a payphone so don’t call this number back. My cell phone doesn’t have a signal on the mountain, either. Okay? Bye."

  The phone clicked off.

  "Oh my God!" Teddy said.

  "What?"

  "That was Pam."

  12

  The kid said Pam’s father used to own a large chunk of property overlooking Antler Lake, and Teddy had been to a cabin there a couple of times when he was thirteen or fourteen. Was that the same place Pam had mentioned in her message?

  "It could be," Teddy said. "It’s just, when the government seized her father’s assets, I thought he had lost that, too."

  "Maybe he did," I said. "She could be squatting."

  "True."

  "Either way," I said, "it could be the perfect place for Pam to hide."

  "Hide from what, though?"

  "From Irv."

  "Okay," Teddy said, "but then why did she tell Eddie about the place?"

  The kid —as usual—was filled with stellar questions.

  "We’ll have to ask her when we find her," I said.

  “Man,” Teddy said, “I didn’t even know Pam knew Eddie.”

  “It’s a small world.”

  We left the office; me following Teddy down the stairs and guiding him with my gun barrel to the Delta.

  "In back," I said to him.

  "Why?"

  I opened the door. "Get in now."

  He sat in back, whining away.

  "Put your hands up," I said.

  "What for?"

  I holstered the gun, grabbed his wrists and cuffed them around the handle above the door.

  "Come on, Nick, don’t do this."

  "Teddy, you and I are gonna have a serious problem if you keep this up."

  "Keep what up?"

  I considered taping his mouth shut, but I knew I would need better directions as we got close to Antler Lake. Teddy said the cabin’s driveway was almost impossible to locate years ago, it being on a steep and woody hill. Image the difficulty—the overgrowth Teddy said—all these years later.

  I shot the Beast back to the highway, 384 spitting us onto 84 West, heading towards the capital. First stop, a downtrodden market in the slum. Bars hung over the windows, glitzy ads for beer and smokes plastered the outside. Definitely my kind of place. I parked in a dark spot along the curbside, leaving Teddy in the car.

  "Where you going?" Teddy said out the crack in the window.

  "Keep your mouth shut," I said. "Keep the cat company."

  I crossed the street and went inside. The register was on my left, the towel head clerking stood by the cigarette displays and all the Connecticut lotto accoutrements, of which there were plenty, the state exploiting addicts just like Irv and I had.

  I heard giggling down an aisle; checked it. Never can be too careful in the ghetto. Two punks in do-rags were perusing a centerfold by the magazine racks. Other than that, no other costumers around. I went in the back to where the fridges buzzed, the kids hooting at the nudie pictures. I scanned the beer choice, found kingers—what a treat—and grabbed those beautiful tall cans, a chill caressing my fingers and twinkling the back of my head, just like a beer buzz.

  Coming back up the aisle, my stomach fired up a flare, an angry growl that needed immediate attention. I diverted to the pre-made sandwiches, tossing something that claimed to be a steak and cheese hoagie into the microwave. While it was heating, the punks were slinking towards the clerk.

  It happened as I was pulling my steaming meal out of the oven.

  "Give me all the fucking money in the register, man!"

  "Come on! Give it up! Give us the money!"

  A do-rag had a gun on the towel head. The other do-rag was unarmed, but his mouth was firing out threats. Jesus H. Christ. In that neighborhood and at that time of night, there was no way the towel head didn’t have a bazooka under the counter. If he let it go, he’d splatter them do-rags and probably nip me, too. I couldn’t chance getting shipped off to the hospital as a wounded bystander or getting detained by the cops as a witness. Only one thing to do.

  Get involved, Nick.

  I came up behind the punks, the clerk shaking his head, refusing to give up the drawer, his hands slipping down his sides. The unarmed one was asking the towel head if understood American and if he didn’t, how could he get a job like this, huh? I thought that was a pretty good question, probably something Teddy would have come up with.

  Using my barrel, I tickled the do-rag of the pistol toting fella.

  "You boys better get on outta here," I said.

  Three sets of eyes met mine.

  "Sheet," the one without the gun said. "This ain’t your bizness, man."

  "Yeah, you take off, cracker," the other one said.

  "Well, guess what?" I said. "I ain’t leaving because I haven’t gotten my smokes yet."

  "Get this man some cigarettes," the gunless punk said to the clerk.

  I noticed his cohort’s knees were quivering. "A carton," I said.

  "Get the mutherfucker what he wants," the do-rag said.

  Towel head was still moving his hands downward, towards the hidden artillery. I needed to move things along.

  I cocked the 45, the little adrenaline fellas doing the double quick through my system. I hadn’t felt a rush like this one in years. I missed it. "Leave the fucking gun on the counter before I send your brain for a ride over to the wall."

  The quaking worked its way up to the do-rag’s gun arm. He was only a kid, sixteen, seventeen years old. He didn’t want to die today. It was only a matter of time, him wondering, how long do I hold out, to save some pride?

  "Hey, you," I said to the clerk. "Stop moving your damn hands! I got this taken care of."

  His hands stopped moving but then his mouth took over, blabbering at the do-rags to listen to me, the gunless one saying he knew the towel head spoke American. The kid lowered the pistol to the counter and headed for the door, his buddy pushing him outside. When I turned back to the clerk, the barrel of the towel head’s shotgun was damn near scratching the tip of my nose. He was a quick one. Never saw his movement in my periphery.

  "You
no get the money neither," he said.

  "How ‘bout that carton of smokes now?"

  "You put gun away first."

  I placed the beer and sandwich on the counter and holstered the .45.

  "Happy?"

  "Okay, you good man," the clerk said. "You my friend."

  He scooped up the do-rag’s pistol and returned the shotgun to its hiding spot. Then he found the smokes and rang them up.

  "No sell beer now," he said. "After eight o’clock."

  "What?"

  "It the law."

  "I just saved your ass."

  "I get big trouble sell the beer after eight o’clock."

  "You get big dead if it wasn’t for me."

  He pondered this point. "Me no ask for you help."

  I was thinking about pulling the .45 again. He might of sensed this. "Tell you what, my friend," he said. "You give me twenty dollar for six-pack. I look other way when you walk out."

  "That’s fucking blackmail."

  "Didn’t black male just leave?"

  "No, no, you don’t understand what I’m saying..."

  "This is what I say to you; you want beer, you pay twenty-five dollar."

  "You said twenty before."

  "Now I say twenty-five. I said twenty when we not argue."

  "You’re a god-damn disgrace. You know that?"

  "You want chilly cold beer or no? I here to make money—not for health." He punched some more buttons on the register and waited for the total. "Okay, my friend. Fifty-five fifty for cigarettes and sandwich."

  I opened my wallet and feathered out three twenties, a ten, and a five. "We good?"

  He did the math in his head, then moved fast to put the beer in a paper bag. "We good. Have nice night, my friend."

  "Yeah," I said. "Turn your head. I’m about to leave with the beer."

  "No turn head on you ever."

  I didn’t rush out the door, making sure the do-rags weren’t hiding in the shadows. I didn’t see either of them or anybody else. As the last few minutes had proved, no sensible person would be hanging around here at this hour.

  When I crossed the street, I did notice someone leaning against the Beast near Teddy. Getting closer, high heels, bare legs, and a low cut skirt came into view.

  "You’re wasting your time, honey," I called out.