by Tom Schreck
24
Al greeted me with his usual flair at the Moody Blue. He brought me the chewed-up remote and I couldn’t tell if he did that to flaunt how he wounded it, to present me with a gift, or just as some sort of pacifier he employed to calm himself when he felt overcome with joy at the sight of me.
Smitty was on the machine, wondering where I was. He had some sparring for me with some young heavyweight and it sounded like there might be some money in it. Monique called from the office, checking on me, and someone else called wanting to sell me some aluminum siding, which was interesting considering I lived in an all-metal Airstream.
I wanted to give Hymie a call, but realized, when I gave it some thought, that my story might not be believable. In a few days, things might sort themselves out and a call wouldn’t be necessary. I had no idea how that actually could happen, but I decided that’s what I wanted to believe.
Lifetime was showing a movie about a pair of pathological twins who seduced women and stole their money. Meredith Baxter Birney was resolving to not let them get away with it when I left the couch to change the station. ESPN Classic was showing Ray Robinson and Jake LaMotta and even though I’d seen it a hundred times, it was the best thing on and I didn’t feel like getting up to change the channel anymore. Tomorrow, I’d get a new remote.
It was after ten and between the day I’d had and the fact that the TV didn’t hold my interests, I faded off on the couch. Some nights I stayed on the couch, never making it to bed, which I usually regretted the next day when my back was all twisted into knots. Tonight, I didn’t care about what the morning was going to bring; I was content letting the day end quietly on the couch.
I was jarred out of sleep by a series of loud bangs followed by the sound of my side door flying open and banging against the wall. Next, I heard Al barking and growling like I’ve never heard him before. I was trying to get my bearings, still bleary-eyed from sleep, when I saw this huge form in front of me swing something. The form, which developed into man, was standing over Al and whacking him with something short and black.
I leaped off the couch and right into the swinging arm of whatever or whoever had invaded my home. In one motion, he whacked Al with the object and backhanded me right on the left temple. I saw a flash of white and a fiery pain went all through my head. I was on my knees. I could hear a half howl, half cry coming from Al when I felt a kick in the ribs. The guy was wearing steel-toed boots, and he kicked me hard three or four times in the floating ribs and a couple of times in the gut.
I rolled over on my back, struggling to breathe and not being able to, with a searing pain in my head, when whoever my visitor was knelt on my chest. The knee sent a convulsive flinch through my body. He was wearing a leather vest, old jeans, and big motorcycle boots, and he also wore a stocking mask over his bald head. I noticed tattoos on his arm. Everything was coming in and out of focus.
“Stay off the fucking Internet. You hear me?” He adjusted his stance and kicked me one more time for good measure. “Stay off the fucking Internet or the next time you’ll get more than a beating,” he said.
The beating stopped and he went out the door. I heard a car start up and I got up in time to see a white pickup truck pulling out of my front yard. Parked on the other side of Route 9R was the Crown Vic, and when the pickup pulled out, the Crown Vic fell in behind it. That was all I saw. I leaned into the wall, coming to the realization that it hurt to breathe. My mouth was full of blood and I was bleeding from the head. My concentration was rattled by the sound coming from the back of the Blue.
I found Al in the bedroom. He was shaking, convulsing really. He had blood coming out of his mouth and when he saw me, he let out a moan like I’ve never heard an animal make. He was in trouble and in a lot of pain.
I scooped him into my arms, which sent an excruciating pain into my ribs and a rush to my head that made me stagger. He cried harder from the pain of being lifted. I struggled to the car and laid Al down on the front seat. The moving around made his pain worse and he let out another one of those sick, pained howls.
I started the car and I had to drive hunched over because I couldn’t sit up right. There was an emergency vet clinic near the Y that was open twenty-four hours. I ran every light and made it there in just about ten minutes. I lifted Al out of the front seat and noticed his nose was covered in blood and a puddle of his blood had formed on the front seat. He yelped again as I got him in.
I handed him to an assistant and they rushed him somewhere to the back of the building. I was breathing fast but with very shallow breaths and I felt the dried blood crusting to the side of my face. I heard another assistant say:
“Sir, why don’t you sit down?”
“Will he be okay?” I heard myself say. Things were getting fuzzy.
“The doctor is checking on him. Sir, you’re bleeding.”
“Make sure my dog’s okay. Make sure he’s in no pain.” I felt nauseous and dizzy.
That’s all I remember.
I came to in a hospital bed with Rudy standing over me. Rudy was checking on some of his patients and had seen my name on the admissions list.
“What the hell’s going on?’’ I said.
“Don’t sit up,” Rudy said.
I ignored him, sat up, and puked all down the front of me.
“Where’s my dog?”
“What are you talking about?” Rudy said.
“Al, my dog, where the hell is he?”
“Duffy, you don’t even have a dog.”
“Yes I do. He was Walanda’s. He’s at that emergency vet.”
I swung my feet around to get off the bed and threw up again, this time on the floor.
“You’re not going anywhere. You’ve got a concussion and some cracked ribs,” Rudy said.
“I got to check on Al,” I said.
“No way-no fucking way am I discharging you.”
“Look, Rudy, I’m leaving. I appreciate you being here, but I gotta go. Hand me my pants.”
“No, you ain’t getting your pants. You’re not leaving.”
“Rudy,” I motioned at him with my finger. “Give me my fuckin’ pants.”
“Nope-you got no business leaving this hospital.”
“Fine. You should know me better. You think I need my fuckin’ pants to leave? Watch me,” I said.
I headed out of my room barefoot with that stupid half-dress thing they give you with no back. The nurses were a bit startled when I blew past them and I was all the way to the elevator when Rudy caught up to me with my pants, shirt, and shoes.
“Fuckin’ stubborn Mick-Pollack,” he said.
“I need a ride to that vet by the gym,” I told him.
“Let’s go,” Rudy said.
I puked in the parking lot just before climbing into Rudy’s SUV. I’ve been concussed before and I knew what to expect. The mid-morning traffic was making me crazy. We pulled into the vet’s lot twenty minutes later and I bounded in the door and went right to the counter.
“Where’s Al? Is he okay?” I said to a vet assistant. I didn’t remember her from last night, but considering my state then, that didn’t mean much.
“I’ll get Dr. Perkins to speak with you,” she answered.
I paced the small waiting room, waiting for the vet.
“Mr. Dombrowski?” the vet said.
“Is he all right?” I said.
“He’s going to be, but it’s going to take a while. He’s had some internal bleeding along with the cracked ribs. He also was hit on the head pretty hard. I think he probably has a concussion.”
“Can I see him?”
“Sure, he’s still groggy from the pain medication. We bandaged him up and he’ll be okay, but he’s going to be in some pain for a while.”
I walked into a small room off the examination room and there was Al in a small cage. His eyes were closed; he had a bandage on his head that was soaked through with blood, and his midsection was all wrapped up in gauze.
I got clo
se to the cage and put my fingers through to pet him. His eyes opened and he saw me. When his eyes could focus, he tried to get up but couldn’t. His tail started to wag, but then he started to whimper from the pain.
Seeing that hurt more than anything I’d experienced in the last twenty-four hours. Right there, I decided someone was going to pay dearly for this.
“When can I take him home?” I asked.
“You can take him now if you can keep him quiet, give him his medication, and watch him all day. If you want, I can get him ready.”
“Please,” I said.
I waited while they changed the dressings on Al and gave me his medications and directions for what I was supposed to do. The assistant up front, a cute blonde woman who couldn’t have been twenty-five, asked me if I’d be paying cash, check, or charge.
“I hadn’t even thought of that. How much is it?”
She slid the invoice in front of me and started to explain the bill item for item. I didn’t hear any of it. I was transfixed by the number on the bottom of the computer printout. It said $3,892.
“Um… what happens if I can’t pay this?” I said.
“Then we can’t release the animal,” she said.
“You keep the dog?”
“Sir, we will hold him until you pay and charge you for boarding.”
“Give me a second,” I said.
I went out to see Rudy. He was reading The New York Post and sitting behind the wheel.
“Hey Rude, I need a favor,” I said.
“What else is new?” he said.
“You got a credit card, don’t you?”
“How much is it?”
“Around four thousand dollars.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need it.”
Rudy walked me into the vet’s and handed them his Visa Platinum. They handed me Al in a carrier.
25
I stayed home with Al, spending most of the day in bed with him next to me. I iced the egg on my forehead and my bruised ribs and tried to do the same for Al. He slept most of the day, probably from his medication, and periodically let out whimpers when he breathed heavily. One time when I dozed off and rolled over, I bumped him and he yelped.
I ran the series of events through my mind. This is what I knew: The women on Walanda’s block suspected that Tyrone, her ex, the perverted pimp, was up to no good and that he had made overtures toward Shony in the past. I knew that there were three women linked by a tattoo in the jail and that they were all from around Forrest Point. I knew that the same design as that tattoo was featured on a website that also had photos of one of the women from the jail, probably Tyrone, and definitely Shony. I knew that the term “Webster” was used by Walanda and was the user name for the perverted pay site that featured a mother/daughter prostitution ring. I knew that some big bald-headed biker type gave me and Al an awful beating shortly after I put this all together. I also remember Laila, the woman from Walanda’s neighborhood, mentioning that Walanda took rides with a big, bald-headed biker guy. Then there was the fact that the guys in the park got beat up by a guy with the same description. Sure, the percentage of guys who commit hate crimes who are shaved-headed biker types might be skewed in such a way as to suggest that there may be more than one of them, but I didn’t like coincidences. Then, of course, there was the Crown Vic.
I didn’t know where they housed the women in the porn ring or who ran it. I didn’t know for sure how they got women to be part of it, but that was probably the easiest thing to figure out. People who get addicted to crack will do just about anything to keep using the shit. If it’s made available to them, they will keep doing whatever it is that makes it available to them. Most crack addicts don’t even try to stop until the supply runs out. If whoever was running this operation could keep the women who were tricking for them supplied, then they could keep the operation going endlessly. Add in the usual pimp mind games and abuse, and you got yourself a very captive audience.
I called Jerry to make sure he was okay. He told me that he had not been visited by the biker guy and assured me that he hadn’t mentioned anything to anyone about my Internet explorations. He also gave me an impromptu tutorial on Internet security or, better put, insecurity. Though it wasn’t easy, someone who cared enough could track who was visiting their sites and from what server. It meant being pretty vigilant, but if you’re running a kiddie porn site and facing years in prison with people who take a dim view on the mistreatment of children, you might go the extra mile with security measures.
So maybe they tracked my computer and sent the bald bastard to give me a calling card. That told me a little about how, but it didn’t address who or why. The women from jail were from Forrest Point, so I guess I could drive around Forrest Point looking for a child pornography/crack ring. There probably wasn’t a sign over wherever they were doing business that said “Child Porn ‘R’ Us,” and Forrest Point was mostly rural, so I could drive past a lot of forest and farmland and not see anything. I guess I could start knocking on farmhouse doors and if I turned anything up, it would put a particularly perverted spin on the old “farmer’s daughter” jokes.
I could look for Tyrone. Perverted pimps usually weren’t masters of disguise. There probably weren’t a ton of black people in Forrest Point, and I think he might have a tendency to stand out. I could also drive around looking for a bald biker-type guy driving a white pickup truck. That guy might stand out, but there were more than a few white pickup trucks in Crawford and even more out in the country.
I could also try to talk to the people at the Eagle Heights Jewish Unified Services. There was a high probability that someone involved in this horror show was mandated into treatment at some point for addiction, child abuse, neglect, or some other less-than-socially-redeeming lifestyle characteristic. Of course, I was on a five-day disability pass, so showing up at our sister clinic wouldn’t be cool. I thought about my irritable bowel syndrome diagnosis, and thought that maybe if I went there and shit my pants in the waiting room I could get away with it. I decided against that.
I needed a computer to use and my office was out. I figured if I checked out some of what Jerry had to say, it might jog my mind into doing something. Jerry had said that the password for the webcast site changed frequently, but I had to be sure. I couldn’t deal with one of those college “cyber cafes,” so I headed to Crawford Medical Center. They had a medical library on the third floor, and I had gotten a little friendly with the librarian there from my visits with Rudy.
Deborah Speakwell was a little bit of a strange bird. Don’t get me wrong-she was helpful in that librarian way. I always felt like librarians acted like all the books belonged to them and they were constantly wary about your intentions. Debbie had this weird compulsive disorder that had her perpetually grooming herself. She was either behind one of the shelves brushing her thick red hair or she was forever applying moisturizer to her hands from this gigantic container. She must have gotten the moisturizer at some sort of warehouse club because the thing was like an industrial drum. Whenever you entered the library, you’d here these fart noises coming from behind the shelves. I found it disturbing until I realized it was Speakwell depressing the moisturizing container top.
I said hello to Debbie, who was behind the shelves making fart noises, and asked her if I could use the computer. She yelled “okay” from behind the shelves just like a woman who was in the shower would. It was a bit risky checking out porn sites in the hospital library, but I figured I couldn’t get fired from a place where I wasn’t employed. Speakwell would be moisturizing and brushing the whole time so she wouldn’t be on my back.
I went to Yahoo! Briefcase and tried the password Jerry had given me. Unfortunately, Jerry was right about their security measures and the password had expired. I surfed around a bit, went to www.Xcracksterweb.com, didn’t see anything new, checked my e-mail and Fightnews. com, and signed off. I thanked Debbie and started to head out w
hen something dawned on me. I wanted to check out the links Jerry mentioned that were on the site to see if they might tell me something.
I signed back on and headed to the browser window to click on the Xcracksterweb address instead of typing it all in again. The window displayed the history of where the most recent surfers had been. The first four or five addresses were the ones I just looked up. Right underneath those were some strange websites.
There were: www.inthefeetofthenight.com, www.toesrus.com, www.stinkyfeet.com, www.Xcracksterweb.com, www.boobworld.com, www.alfinuu.org, and www.bankofcanary.com.
The position of www.Xcracksterweb.com was such that it looked like someone else had been there before me. Mine was up just below my e-mail site and above Fightnews. com. Unless the computer did something out of order, that had to mean that someone in the library was on www.Xcracksterweb.com in addition to what looked like a bunch of foot-fetish sites.
“Deb, can I ask a question?” I asked while she hit the top of the moisturizer.
“Sure, Duff-that’s why I’m here,” she said.
“The history displayed on the Internet browser goes in chronological order, doesn’t it?”
“It should go according to the order in which sites were downloaded, though sometimes it doesn’t record every site,” she said.
“But it wouldn’t skip out of order, would it?”
“It shouldn’t.”
“Who was on this computer just before me?” I asked.
“You’re the first one to use it today,” she said, brushing her hair.
“Who would have used it last night?”
“There’s only one doctor who generally comes in after hours.”
“Who might that be?” I asked.
“Dr. Gabbibb.”
26
My head was spinning. I kept trying to tell myself that the fact that Gabbibb was on the computer looking at www.Xcracksterweb.com was a coincidence. All it proved, along with his penchant for sexy feet, was that Gabbibb was an even creepier wack-job than I originally guessed. Just because the guy’s idea of a turn-on involved toe punk, it didn’t mean he was a kidnapping rapist. Not necessarily anyway.