So instead of any of that I told her, “It’s good enough, we need to go,” and then I turned away because I wanted to keep staring.
“You think I need fishnets?” she asked.
She’d look awesome in fishnets.
“No need,” I said, walking away. “I’ll meet you at the register. I’m getting some Tylenol.”
Awkward, Phin. You sure Pasha is the one you’re in love with?
I silently told Earl to shut up, and went to find some painkillers.
Jack changed into her hooker outfit in the front seat of my Bronco, while I leaned against the truck, staring up at the stars in the night sky, wishing I smoked because it would have been a perfect time for a cigarette. It took her longer than I would have guessed, and when she was finished she knocked on the window to let me know I could get back in.
She had bought fishnets, which was distracting. Happily, she’d also applied enough make-up to work at Ringling Brothers. I wasn’t a fan of cosmetics. I thought it made women look unnatural, and kissing lipstick or foundation didn’t have the same appeal to me as bare skin. So Jack’s garish, glam look actually made her less attractive, which I was grateful for.
“I look okay?” she asked.
“Maybe more blush.”
“You sure? I don’t want to look like a clown.”
“A lot of guys dig it.”
So Jack went full Ronald McDonald, I was grateful for the reprieve, and we drove back to Parviz’s van. Pecker was now in a Hawaiian shirt—I assumed from McGlade’s personal collection. He didn’t look pleased, with the shirt, or the situation, but he brightened right up when Jack came in.
“Well, lookee here. Aren’t you just the sweetest little piece of—”
Jack jabbed a finger into his chest and got up in his face, cutting him off. “Shut it, you creepy old asshole. Right now I’m the only thing between you staying alive and this guy—” she jerked a thumb at me “—twisting your head off your body. Pretend to be a gentleman, or I’ll forget I’m a lady. Got it?”
Pecker nodded, his smirk falling away.
“Good job getting into character,” Harry told her. “Now slap me and make me lick your boots.”
“Don’t start, McGlade.”
“Did I ever stop?”
I hoisted Pecker up by his armpit, and Harry gave Jack a walkie-talkie.
“Keep an open channel live,” he said, then he stared at the Nazi. “Anything funny, and I show the world your dirty little pictures.”
The three of us left and got into my Bronco, Jack sitting between us. Pecker still had his hands cuffed, so Jack put on his seatbelt for him. Then she reached into her shopping bag for her clothes and came out with her .38.
“I forgot to buy a purse,” she said. “And obviously, I can’t conceal it in this outfit.”
She held it out to me, her look intense. “The amount of trust I’m showing here is off the charts. I need you to understand that.”
I reached for the gun, but Jack kept a hold.
“I hear you,” I said. “I understand.”
She released the firearm. I tucked it into my jeans pocket and said, “Emergencies only.”
The walkie talkie Jack had set on my dashboard let out a crackle of static. “Testing, one two. I swallowed an apple seed, and it came out when I peed, it was quite a sight to see, now my toilet has a tree. Are you reading me?”
“Roger that,” Jack answered.
“Would you like to hear more original poetry?” McGlade asked. “I’m choking on a yak! I’m choking on a yak! Someone please hit me! On the back! Yak yak!”
“Negative on more poetry, please go silent, we’ll keep the line open. Out.”
Then I started the truck and we got on our merry way.
I’d conjured up images of a Caucasian Nation training camp in my head, and imagined it look like some cross between a prison and a military base. Watchtowers, barracks, trenches, sandbags and razor wire, concrete bunkers, armed patrols.
Reality was much less impressive. We drove through dirt roads, through a cornfield, and there at was; an old football stadium surrounded by a shitty two meter fence topped with razor wire. There was a guardhouse—literally large enough for one man to stand up in—on the East side of the perimeter, and one on the West.
There were no other buildings around, just a large stadium in the middle of farmland.
“What’s the deal with the stadium?” Jack asked Pecker. When he didn’t answer, she gave him an elbow in the ribs.
“It’s from the MFL. Midwest Football League. Lasted from ’68 to ’73. Home of the Decatur Celts.”
“How many men are inside?”
“No idea. Few dozen, maybe.”
“Armed?”
“Could be. Their Second Amendment rights are their own business.”
“And the guards?”
“Armed. But they won’t give you trouble if I’m with you.”
“I’m putting my hand on your knee,” Jack told him. “You can only speak if I squeeze it. If I don’t squeeze, stay quiet. Got it?”
Pecker stayed quiet, and then Jack squeezed him.
“Got it,” he answered.
We rolled up to the guard post and I rolled down my window. The guard was a middle-aged white guy with a Dixie baseball cap and a large enough belly to rest a beer on.
“No women allowed. Oh, hi General Packer.”
“The General is breaking the rule to treat the men to a little special show,” I said.
“I didn’t hear nothing about this.”
“It’s okay,” Pecker said. “I cleared it with the SC.”
“The Supreme Caucasian? Oh, snap! And I’m stuck out here? When is it happening?”
“An hour,” I told him. “And it’s one helluva show. Hope you can make it.”
He frowned like this was the biggest disappointment of his life. And it might have been. “I got two hours on guard duty. Shit kitties.”
I shrugged. “We all gotta do our share.”
He nodded and got out of his little enclosure to open the gate. I began to pull up and he gave me the halt gesture with his hand.
“I know it’s you and all,” he told Pecker, “but orders is orders.”
None of us said anything. The man didn’t appear armed. Maybe he left his gun in his little hut. I considered the .38 in my pocket, considered how Jack would freak out if I drew it.
“Y’know,” the guy said. “The oath.”
I looked at Jack, and she squeezed Pecker’s knee. He cleared his throat and said, “I pledge allegiance to the Supreme Caucasian and the Caucasian Nation, and for all it stands. For our captive members, persecuted by Zog and unfairly incarcerated in prisons. For our children, who depend on us to protect so they may continue the white race. For our brothers and sisters, in every white community on the planet, united in the fight. One white nation, under a white God, indivisible, with liberty and justice, for all. Except for Jews, blacks, and schlammensch. Amen.”
The guard grinned, showing he’d likely never seen a dentist. “It’s so pretty when you say it, General. Y’all folks have a good night.”
He walked out of the way, and we pulled in.
The parking lot, its aged and cracked asphalt so overgrown with weeds it looked like a prairie, contained about ten vehicles, more than half of them pickup trucks. I parked facing the exit in case we had to beat a hasty retreat.
“We’re here,” I said into the walkie-talkie, clipping it to my waist. Then I got out while Jack assisted Pecker.
“Should we uncuff him?” I asked. “It’ll look funny if we don’t.”
Jack nodded. “He knows what will happen if he misbehaves.”
I fished out the handcuff keys, removed them, and put them in my back pocket. The parking lot was dark, so I found a flashlight from my glove compartment and lead the way to the stadium building.
The closer we got, the worse it looked. Though it had a bowl shape common to modern arenas, the exterior was beat
en and worn down and looked about a hundred years old. Broken windows, vines climbing the exterior, a grandstand that was partially collapsed, cracked walkways, graffiti over peeling paint.
“Nice place you got here,” I said.
Pecker didn’t answer.
We walked through the glass entry doors, one of which only opened halfway, and followed a string of overhead incandescent bulbs, leading up like breadcrumbs to the playing field.
When Pecker had called it a camp, he’d been on the nose. The two dozen or so men were literally camping, in tents, on the field. There were several campfires, a spirited offkey sing-along to Lynyrd Skynyrd, two guys drunk-screaming at each other, and empty beer cans and bottles everywhere.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Aryan race,” I said.
“Where’s Pasha?” Jack said. When Pecker didn’t answer, she squeezed his shoulder.
“To the right. The dugout.”
We marched over to it, roughly forty meters away, and not a single person noticed us. Jack stumbled and swore. Her boot heels were getting stuck in the decade’s old AstroTurf, forcing her to tiptoe. We had to go down a walkway to get to the dugout, and then Pecker took us through a door and down some metal stairs.
“Is she being guarded?” Jack asked, giving him a squeeze.
“I doubt it. Door is heavy. She can’t escape.”
I considered the drunk good ole boys above us. “If anyone touched her…” I warned.
“My men were under strict orders to leave her alone.”
“You’d better hope they know how to follow orders.” If he got the irony, he didn’t show it. “Where is she?”
“Bottom of the stairs, go right, follow the hallway, turn right again, last door.”
I picked up the pace, hearing Jack say, “Phin, hold up,” as I began taking the stairs two at a time. I reached the bottom, a damp, concrete corridor, a single overhead light giving it a haunted house vibe.
I went right, passed some open doors leading to empty rooms. There were puddles of stagnant water on the stone floor, and everything smelled like mildew. The hall ended in a T, I took another right, running now, calling Pasha’s name, coming up to the door at the end, steel with a heavy deadbolt.
I threw the bolt, tugged open the door—
—and saw an empty room.
HUGO
TWENTY MINUTES EARLIER
“Phin!” the woman screamed.
“Guess again,” Hugo said, grinning.
She fought, scratching, kicking, but once he got a hold of her broken finger she dropped to her knees and began to beg.
“If you don’t cut it out, I’m going to break your other nine fingers. Got it?”
Pasha nodded, tears streaking down her dirty cheeks. After choking back several sobs, she said, “Where’s Phin?”
“Your boyfriend is still alive. But you’ll see him, soon enough. Do you know anything about nerve gas?”
Pasha nodded.
“Good,” said Hugo, smiling his pumpkin smile. “We’ll have something to talk about on the way to the theater.”
PHIN
I stared at an air mattress, and a plastic bucket that reeked of urine.
Rage filled me. My hands began to shake. Jack and Pecker came up behind me, and I turned and hit the Nazi in the chest so hard we could all hear his ribs crack.
He fell to his knees, and I pulled out Jack’s .38.
“Where is she?” My ears burned, my vision going red, my teeth clenched so hard they threatened to shatter.
“Phin.” Jack warned.
“Back off, Jack.” I thumbed back the hammer on the revolver. “I’m counting to three. One…”
“I don’t know where she is. I thought she was here.”
“Two…”
Jack came closer. “Phin, I can’t let you do this.”
Pecker seemed truly afraid. “I swear I don’t know. She was supposed to be here.”
It was playing out just like it had in Hugo’s hospital room. Except this time, the hammer wouldn’t drop on an empty chamber. If Pecker didn’t talk within the next two seconds, I was going to kill the son of a bitch.
“Three,” I said.
The blow came fast and hard, connecting with the side of my neck, dropping me onto my ass. I blinked, trying to focus, and then my wrist was grabbed, my gun hand pinned under a knee. I gripped it tight, firing into the dirt floor, not knowing who hit me but refusing to give the gun up.
And then, above the sting of the punch and the ear-jangling roar of the gunshot slamming my eardrums in the enclosed room, I heard someone yelling at me.
Jack.
She’d punched me. Punched me as hard as I’d ever been hit by anyone. I let her take the .38 and looked around for Pecker, but the bastard had scurried off.
The rage flared again, but squinting up at Jack, the utter disappointment on her face, made all the fight go out of me.
She stared hard at me, eyebrows furrowed, mouth downturned, the weight of her disapproval burrowing into my soul, and then took off after Pecker. I shook away some disorientation and got up, four steps behind her.
We flew down the hall, she went left, I went right, my hearing still muted, my flashlight lost after Jack had hit me, sprinting until I reached a door at the very end, flinging it open.
A storeroom full of chairs, packed so full there was no place to hide.
I backtracked, my breathing catching up with my rapid heart rate, turned a corner, and ran into Jack.
We headed for the stairs, storming up them, and then we were in the locker room and Pecker was nowhere to be found.
“You let him get away,” I said, my words sounding hollow.
She shot me a look, and I thought she was going to hit me again. “I trusted you,” she snarled.
“He knows where she is.”
“And he wouldn’t be able to tell us if you blew his head off. And you wouldn’t be able to look for her if you were in jail for murder one.”
My hands became fists. “That’s what matters to you? You care about the law? What about Pasha, goddammit!”
We had a staring contest which I should have lost, but I was too everything. Too angry, too rattled, too hurt, too tired, too stubborn, too devastated.
“If you don’t have rules,” she said, her voice steady, “there’s no point to anything.”
“You want to follow rules.” I jabbed a finger into the air, pointing at the playing field. “Tell them. They don’t have any rules.”
“And that’s why we’ll win.”
Part of me wanted to punch a wall, part of me wanted to cry. Instead of doing either, I turned away, wondering what I was supposed to do next.
“Phin…” she put her hand on my shoulder. I didn’t turn around. “We have to go. If Packer is telling the men, there will be trouble. And I don’t have any jurisdiction here.”
“I know. All of your jurisdiction is in Chicago. Maybe you should have stayed there, Lieutenant. You’re a much better cop than you are a friend.”
Jack let her hand fall away. It took a moment before she answered, and when she did, she spoke softly. “You’re right. But as a cop, and as a friend, I wasn’t going to let you kill a man in cold blood.”
I walked away from her, through the dugout, onto the field, to the Bronco. She got in next to me, and neither of us spoke on the ride back to Parviz’s van. Harry was waiting outside for us when we pulled up.
“That was brutal,” he said.
“What’s our next step?” Jack asked.
“We already know your next step,” I told her. “Run home, go punch your clock.”
My words wounded her, I could tell, and she told McGlade, “I’ll ride back with you,” and got into the van.
“She hit me,” I said.
“I know. I heard everything.” He held his hand out for his walkie-talkie, and I handed it back.
“I’m going to stay. See what I can turn up.”
“That will put you in the hospital, or the m
orgue. The rally is tomorrow. Hundreds of Nazis, goose-stepping everywhere. And you know they’ll be looking for you.”
“I can blend in.”
“I’ve got Pecker’s cell phone. I can trace some calls, get some leads. And my Photoshop blackmail might still work, if I can get in touch with him. And I know you’re pissed at Jack, but she’s a good cop. She’ll have a better chance of finding Hugo than you will.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Get some rest. I’ll call you tomorrow. I got a plan.”
“What kind of plan?”
“When you want to kill a weed, you can’t cut it down. It will come back. The only way to get rid of it for good is to pull the root.”
“We had Pecker. We screwed it up.”
“Not Pecker,” Harry said. “The real root. I think we need to have a little talk with the Supreme Caucasian himself.”
I recalled what Jack had told me. “Bradford Milton?”
“The electronics mogul himself.”
“He’s rich,” I said.
“So? I’m rich.”
“He’s super-rich, Harry. Wherever he lives, you know it’ll be secure. Alarms, guards, dogs, the works.”
“Dogs love me. And I’m a private eye, remember? If I can’t bypass a few burglar alarms, what the hell good am I?”
I chose not to answer him. Instead I offered a weak nod, then headed back to my truck.
“We’ll find her, Phin,” he called after me. “Go home. Get some rest. We’ll get on this tomorrow.”
He might have been right. I couldn’t remember when I’d been this tired.
But as much as I needed rest, I no longer had a home.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever had a home.
I grew up unwanted, unloved. On good days, I was neglected. On bad days, abused. On really bad days…
It’s actually some sort of miracle I didn’t wind up like Hugo, a psychopathic Nazi who killed for kicks, or dead from an overdose or a bullet in the brain. The closest things I had to friends were driving away from me, into the night. And as much as I loved Pasha, and hoped she loved me, I was the reason she’d been taken. Exposing her to my life was like giving her a terrible disease that at best would scar her forever, at worst kill her.
Everybody Dies - A Thriller (Phineas Troutt Mysteries Book 3) Page 16