by Kirk Alex
Rudy and Felix both felt like vomiting themselves. There were needle marks along both sides of Ortiz’s neck. The guy was a walking shooting gallery.
They watched him tie the sleeves around his waist so that the rest of the shirt covered his genitals. Rudy was relieved. At least Ace’s butt wouldn’t be resting and rubbing against the seat.
Ortiz looked up. Lit his stogie. Successfully this time.
“I’m good to go. My connection should be back in town by now. I’m pretty sure I can cop a couple of balloons, at least, on credit. He knows I’m cool.”
CHAPTER 420
Rudy slid in behind the steering wheel. Felix climbed in the middle. Ace got his shotgun seat that he claimed earlier, blew smoke out the window, and another tooth dropped out of his mouth.
Rudy kicked the gas pedal. Spun a uie in the gravel, and continued to floor it down the road toward the exit.
“Puto Biggs always did have his eye on your woman.” Junkie puffed on his stogie. Ran his mouth between puffs. “Was always ogling, doing the eyeball number on her, always showing up at the greasy spoon with that halfwit nigger Marvin just to watch your old lady’s legs and culo when she had to bend over to clear a table, shit like that. Seen him doin’ it with my good eye. I got one eye. Can see better than most chumps with two good peepers.”
“Let up, Ace.”
“Tellin’ it like it is, Felix. What right did the bishop have to bang his old lady? I’m with you, Rudy: let’s bust into the maricon’s crib and step on his cojones.”
Rudy ignored them both.
“We got to call the cops.”
They reached the onramp to the 210 freeway. Got on.
Ortiz hated the idea of calling up the rollers for anything. Motherfuckers was usually useless anyway.
“Waste of time. We got no proof, we got nothing. Biggs’s neighbors been complaining about wild orgies at night and noise forever. Rollers never did nothing. Talk to the old nigger couple live on his left, and then go see the redneck and his fat bitch live on Biggs’s right—same thing. Dropped a roll of dimes on him. Waste of time.”
Felix saw a chance to jump in and rub homie the wrong way and couldn’t resist. “Besides, if pigs decide to show, Ace won’t be able to get his hands on Trusty’s cash and blow.”
“No, man. That’s secondary on my mind. I want to see Rudy and his fiancée hook up. That’s primary on my mind. Matters most. Rest don’t matter.”
“Sure, Ace.”
“The fuck’s with you, Monk? You seem to have a hard time agreeing with anything I say lately.”
“Yeah? Ever wonder why?”
“Could be you’re psycho like that phony padre: can’t decide what you want to do with yourself.”
“I’ve got to let my brother know what we found.” Rudy remained immersed in his own thoughts. “And somebody should call the cops one more time, just the same.”
“Pigs?” Ace glared at him, then turned away. “Don’t look at me when you mention pigs.”
Tears continued to stream down Rudy’s face. He kicked the gas pedal and had the speedometer reaching eighty-five miles per. Wanted it to go faster, desperately needed it to, only this was the best the straining old Ford truck was capable of.
CHAPTER 421
The note on the refrigerator door in the Perez kitchen had a way of descending an inch or two whenever the refrigerator door got slammed shut by either the grandmother or the grandfather taking out prune juice or milk or margarine or cottage cheese, an apple or vegetables—and the magnet with the folded-over note underneath continued to slide down toward the bottom on its own until eventually it dropped off the door and was accidentally kicked under the fridge by the old man.
By the time Monroe got home with his six-pack, went to the refrigerator to make a salami sandwich and sat at the kitchen table with a beer, the note was not visible at all, unless the white Montgomery Ward 21 Frostless door was opened and the one who had opened it happened to make a concerted effort to look down.
Roe asked his grandmother if she knew where his brother was.
“I think lately you drink too much cervesa, Monroe.”
“It relaxes me, Grandma. I put in a long day. Big Tony’s a real slave driver. I can’t wait to get out of there.”
His grandmother was shaking her head now. She looked none too happy about something.
“You should look after your brother. He’s with them good-for-nothing bad boys Jesus and Jose.”
Monroe stopped eating.
“Ortiz and Monk? You sure?”
“That one hombre who look like Columbo. Ju know him? With the blue glass over here.” She pointed to her left eye.
“I warned those creeps to stay away from Rudy. Where’d they go, Grandma?”
“He don’t say, Monroe.” His grandmother spoke from her rocker, stationed beside the one her dozing husband was in. “He left a note for ju.”
“Note? Where’s the note, Grandma?”
“Should be in the kitchen someplace. He said he would leave it in the kitchen for ju.”
Monroe got up. Looked at the cork board on the wall next to the phone. There were many phone numbers there belonging to people whose cars he and Rudy had worked on, addresses of auto shops, names of junkyards, business cards, etc., but no note left there by his brother.
He couldn’t find it. He checked the top of the refrigerator, and found nothing. Nothing on the counter among the plates and silverware, nothing by the toaster or behind it.
“Can you please remember where he put the note, Grandma. If he’s with those two bums I should know about it.”
“Refrigerator door.” It was his grandfather. Yelled his two cents from the living room.
“You sure?”
“Si. He put it on the refrigerator door with the yellow bird magnet.”
“I don’t see it.”
Monroe thought to get down on hands and knees and take a look under the Frostless, on the outside chance the magnet may have slid off the door and ended up under it.
There it was: the magnet, and the folded piece of paper.
He reached with his fingers. Retrieved the note. When he got to the part where Rudy asked for his forgiveness for having spent a substantial amount of their savings that they had set aside for their future shop on a ring for his girl Olivia, it pained him enough to be sure, even though deep down there was no denying that he understood.
Money could always be earned. What mattered was that his kid brother was happy.
“That’s where I’ll be.”
Monroe jammed the piece of paper into the napkin holder on the kitchen table. “Hold on to the note, Grandma. If you don’t hear from me in a couple of hours, call the police.”
He was gone.
CHAPTER 422
Rudy had yet to figure what was happening. Sure, he had Olivia’s ring, and she could have written the message on that tombstone, but the idea of having to get involved with a couple of certified bottom-feeders like Ace and Felix made him sick. Then, too, they’d been telling him things that were so incredible they made his skin crawl, the kinds of crazy things you saw in horror flicks.
He’d dialed the police station from a pay phone, not once, but twice. Their response both times? They knew about that 50-51 head case and his odd behavior, but that Biggs also ran a church, was a licensed bishop, and that in recent years had only been guilty of playing loud music; that they did not have the time nor budget to waste by sending their overworked, understaffed people out to that zealot’s place just because he liked his gospel tunes a little louder than some people. Having said as much, he promised to get “Detective McCann” on it. In other words: this latest complaint went straight into the trash can. Click.
The cop had hung up on him.
That had been the non-result of the initial effort.
Rudy had tried again.
“You don’t understand: there was blood on the tombstone. It was dry. Looked like blood to me. My girl’s ring was right there
on the ground. Found it right there, a ring I gave her.”
“What’s your girlfriend’s name again?”
“Olivia Candida Duarte.”
The man wanted to know what his name was.
“Hey, I told you all this already. Come on, will you? Who knows what that creep could be doing to her by now?”
“Why don’t you give me your name, sir?”
“I did give you my name. I gave you everything.”
Rudy heard the cop sigh. “Do you realize how many calls we get about that guy? From people who live next door to him? They think he looks weird, is somewhat on the odd side, so they call us to complain; they don’t like the fact the man owns a Rolls and a Cadillac, so they call to complain and accuse him of being a pusher; they resent the fact the man appears to have a few bucks and owns the property he lives on, so they call us to gripe about it. Mrs. Roscoe, his neighbor, doesn’t care for the way his many ‘girlfriends’ dress, so she phones us about once a week to moan about that. Mrs. Crust, who lives on the other side of Biggs, calls us to complain because she fears the man may be a ‘cult leader,’ and since she is a ‘true Christian’ it bothers her, so she rings us to tell us all about it. Without facts, mind you, to back any of it up. Did I leave anything out? Let me see. Here’s another one: She is also concerned, Mrs. Crust is, that the loud music, disco, I believe, might cause her husband’s pacemaker to malfunction—”
“Go to hell.”
And Rudy Perez had hung up on the cop this time.
CHAPTER 423
For all his brag, the only “dope” Ortiz was able to score was Alka-Seltzer. To Rudy and Felix’s great relief, however, the dealer had allowed the junkie to shower and given him clean clothes to wear. It was a while later that Perez and the unlikely amigos were across the street from Biggs’s place, in the former civil servant’s backyard.
Lloyd and Fontana Dicker’s house was a single story, three bedroom, Spanish-style stucco affair with a flat roof. It did not take long for Ace and the guys to convince Lloyd Dicker to okay access to his roof so that they might “eyeball” the bishop’s house for a bit. There hadn’t been any need for them to say anything about what they saw him do in the graveyard, either.
The highly decorated World War II vet had not only consented, but practically carried the ladder himself from where it had been lying against the side of the garage to the rear of his house, and even assisted in setting it up.
He’d kept on about the stench, how it reminded him of the dead bodies he’d been exposed to in France and Poland, and other parts of Europe.
“Smell of burning flesh is one smell you never forget, can never get out of your nose completely—no matter how long you’ve been around—and I’ve been around a long time. Maybe too long.”
In addition, Old Man Dicker suggested they use his field glasses with night vision capability, the same field glasses he’d used himself and kept trained on the reclusive preacher and his church for quite some time now.
“Only you’ll have to figure a way to get Wilburn to give them up.” Lloyd re-entered his house.
CHAPTER 424
Ace, Felix, and Rudy walked back there. This was a two-car garage. The main door was a roll-up. There was a side entrance on the left that was a conventional door with a peep hole and a brass knocker in the shape of a skull with crossbones and a warning handprinted in black marker: the word ENTER above the skull, AT YOUR OWN RISK below the crossbones.
They knocked. Wilburn answered in his boxers with images of various serial killers on them: male as well as female, and he had that black T-shirt on with the egg stains and Manson’s mug with the swastika carved into his forehead.
The walls inside had been painted red and decorated with posters of serial killers and serial killer art. It was safe to say the kid was obsessed. Suspended from the ceiling was a rotating specular sphere, glinting. Manson’s enraged face, on the teen’s T-shirt, appeared to glow in the dark, the eyes in particular. Demented. Intense.
Flinger was sucking on a joint. Felix wondered what it was.
“What you draggin’ on there, Wilburn?”
“Wicky stick.”
“Spare a hit?”
Ace shook his head.
“Get you. Knocks glue, but willin’ to do weed what’s got animal tranquilizer and been dipped in embalming fluid.”
“I don’t huff glue ‘cause it scares the shit out of me.”
“I don’t even want to hear it, Felix.” Ace was eyeing Wilburn and what he was toking on. “How about a puff, Finger-Lickin’?”
“How about if you go fuck a doughnut?”
“Didn’t come to insult nobody. We here to borrow the goggles.”
“Why?”
Rudy felt a need to cut in in order to ease the escalating tension. “We want to go up on Mr. Dicker’s roof. Can you help us out, Wilburn? This matters a lot to me.”
“To go up on my grandpa’s roof? What for?”
Ortiz was losing patience and didn’t care who knew it. “Gaze at the fuckin’ stars. He’s a closet astronomer. What’s it to you?”
“Better ask my grandpa. Field glasses are his—or leave a deposit.”
“We done asked. Now, do we get them—or do we take them?”
“Take this.” Wilburn flashed a middle finger. “For splitting my lip that day with the beer cans. Thought it was real funny. Well, suck on this assholes.”
“I never dissed you, Wilburn. You’re not right.”
“I got no bone to pick with you, Rudy. You’re right: you never fucked with me. They did. Seems to be everybody’s favorite past time.”
CHAPTER 425
Ortiz drew his gun. Stuck it in Wilburn’s face. Flinger did not seem deterred by it. He toked on the wicky stick, then passed it to a vaguely familiar, twenty-something Puerto Rican call girl whose presence only now became known to them.
Woman was in fishnets, four-inch stiletto heels, the briefest of black silk panties, garter belt, and black bra with the tip of the cones cut out so that her nipples stuck out through them. The woman had jet black hair and it was long. Heavy on the black eyeliner; the magenta lip gloss had been laid on generously. She was tall. On the meaty side. Not unattractive. And she held a cat-o-nine tails in her hand. She toked on the wicky stick, thoroughly unfazed by the proceedings.
Seemed Wilburn wanted Ortiz to pull the trigger. Or at least didn’t give a damn.
“Do it. Go for it—and get thrown back in that cage you crawled out of for the rest of your life. Maybe end up on Death Row with any luck, in a cell next to my buddy the Night Stalker. If they don’t fry your psycho ass, maybe we can arrange it for Richie to slit your throat.”
Ortiz cocked the hammer.
“Lookee-here. Would make me feel real good to drop a bitch like you.”
“Only bitch I know of is the one who squeezed a chunk-blower like you out of her rotting snatch.”
Felix felt that if he didn’t butt in the whole thing could go down in a bad way—for all concerned.
“Ace, you can’t. Let’s talk to Lloyd. He’ll take care of this.”
The call girl pushed her way into the fray. She had cause. Plenty justified.
“Boys, whatever you do—keep in mind the kid owes me money.”
Ace’s good eye was on her for the time being. “Good luck collectin’ from a stiff—what’s been buried six feet under.”
CHAPTER 426
As if on cue, Lloyd Dicker, having had his own German-made World War II Luger out, brushed past them. Holstered the pistol, grabbed Wilburn by the middle finger, twisted it, and yanked hard, pulling his grandson down.
“Wait a minute, daddy. Sonny owes me.”
Lloyd took notice of the prostitute for the first time.
“Who the hell is that?”
Wilburn was wincing. Managed to get the answer out. “Math teacher.”
“If she’s a math teacher, I’m the postmaster general.”
“Maybe you are.”
�
��What’s her name?”
Wilburn wouldn’t say. Lloyd put the question to the woman.
“Jill Hill, professional masseuse.”
“Like hell it is. You’re Mona Payne.”
“Mistress Mona, if you please. I’ll be happy to take care of your needs, gramps, as soon as I finish up with Junior. So, would you kindly release him and send his butt in here. I have other clients to see.”
“You’re talking out your butt-crack, sister. Vacate the premises, or I call the dog pound—and if that don’t impress you, I call the police.”
“I don’t leave until I see the rest of my money.”
Lloyd glared at his grandson, angry and disgusted.
“She’s the ding-a-ling Biggs kept in a plywood box a while back. She’s that whore.”
“Mistress Mona, or Madam Payne; not whore. That is so un-cool.”
“Call yourself whatever the hell you want, miss. Believe me when I tell you I’ll show you what ‘un-cool’ is if you do not vacate my property. Math teacher indeed.”
The woman collected up the tools of her trade: dildos, lotions, vibrators, a ping-pong paddle, etc., and dropped them in a large canvas tote bag.
“As a matter of fact, I used to be a teacher.”
“Ain’t you learned nothing? After what you been put through?”
“Yes. To charge more. My rates have doubled due to the publicity.”
“Your rates? That’s all that matters?”
“Try living on what a teacher is paid these days.”
“You’re full of it; all of you. I raised a family on a mailman’s salary. Paid this house off.”
“Like when? A hundred years ago?”
“I want you off my land. My grandson’s under age.”
“He’s eighteen. I saw ID.”
“He’s seventeen. And a dropout. He should be thinking about getting his high school diploma and how to get into a good college, not this.”
“I need to be paid for my time. I spent an extra thirty minutes, on top of the agreed upon time, massaging his wiener. I’m not leaving until I see my money. I can take care of you, if you like, Pops, as soon as I finish up with Junior, but I have to be compensated for my time.”