by G. M. Ford
Cassie went all purple-faced and started to cry.
“You can’t be a victim in here,” Grace said. “If you don’t stand up for yourself, nobody’s going to do it for you. They’ll just kick your butt and take your stuff every day.”
“Are you advocating violence?” Teresa asked.
“I’m just telling her how it is,” Grace said. Again she pinned Cassie with her eyes. “It won’t stop with food. If they make you to be an easy mark, then sex will sure as hell be next. You’ll be taking some of the most unpleasant showers of your life.” She waved a hand. “There’s no end to it, Cassie. It’s not like they’re going to leave you alone if you lie on the floor and cry. To these people, that’s just blood in the water. When you’re inside, it’s real simple . . . you have to make it so it’s not worth anybody’s while to be messing with you.” She tapped the plastic shield. “Are you listening to me?” she asked Cassie. “You have to make it hard for them.”
Cassie nodded, clearly without meaning it. Her eyes said beaten dog.
Grace lowered her voice. “You knew what was going on, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Huh?” Cassie frowned.
“With your husband and the girls. You can’t live in the same house with something like that going on and not have a clue. It’s just not possible. I know . . . I’ve been there . . . on the girls’ end of it.”
For a second or so, Cassie tried to find the moxie to deny everything, but instead, after a frozen moment, her shoulders began to shake.
“Next time they mess with you, take all the anger you’ve collected over the years, the blame, the hate you’ve aimed at yourself for not doing more. Think about that husband of yours and that judge who awarded him custody of the girls, roll it all into a ball, and then go nuts on them. Even if you don’t win . . . they’ll start looking for somebody easier.”
“Please . . . Grace . . . you can’t . . .” Jennifer sputtered behind Grace.
Grace stood up. “Listen, I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate everything you guys do for women . . . because I do.” She threw a thumb back over her shoulder. “But what’s going on in there isn’t women’s politics, or gender neutrality, or any such Sunday-morning talk show shit. What’s going on in there is something neither of you know a damn thing about. It’s just not part of your worlds . . . and you know what. I were you, I’d keep it that way.”
By now, Jennifer and Teresa had the astonished-look thing down.
Grace turned back to Cassie.
“You’ve got to be your own hero in here. The cavalry’s not coming to the rescue. You’ve got to do it for yourself.”
Cassie blew her nose.
Grace nodded at Jennifer and Teresa and headed for the door.
The car was right where it was supposed to be. A shiny blue Buick, with dealer plates, sitting there under the elm trees in the two hundred block of Westminster Avenue. From a block away Mickey could see that they’d either stuffed a polar bear behind the wheel, or that was Gus Bradley in the driver’s seat. The passenger got out and held the door for Mickey. The immediate question for Mickey was whether or not to let on he knew who the passenger was. He was thinking it might be best to just play dumb and let it ride at that.
Teddy Hicks’s piss-yellow eyes were the last thing quite a few guys had ever seen. He’d spent twenty-five years as Sean Keenan’s crew chief and personal button man. You saw Teddy coming up your front walk, you knew the talking was over, and it was time to make out your will.
Teddy looked Mickey over like a dessert menu. “I knew your old man,” he said.
So much for anonymity. Mickey nodded, but didn’t speak.
“Far as cops go, he was a good man,” Teddy said. “Just did his job. Treated everybody the same. Didn’t take it personal.”
“Thanks,” was all Mickey could think to say.
“Whatcha need?”
Mickey told him.
“Happens I know a guy.”
He bent down, stuck his head in the car and spoke to Gus. “Take him to Sketchy and wherever else he needs to go. We’re along for the ride here.”
Teddy straightened up and ran those yellow eyes over Mickey again. “I put you with Gus ’cause you two already know each other from that little party out in the sticks with the Roysters.” He leaned in close. “Today’s different,” he said. “Anything you see today, doesn’t exist,” Teddy said. “Right?”
“Right.”
“Not now, not ever. Don’t matter whether it’s cop business or not.”
“I understand.”
He moved aside and let Mickey slide into the passenger seat. Mickey dropped an athletic bag onto the back seat and then buckled up. When he checked the mirror, Teddy Hicks was gone.
“What’s in the bag?” Gus asked.
“Change of clothes.”
“You got a date?”
“When I’m done today, this stuff I’m wearing is going to need to disappear from the face of the earth.”
Gus smirked. “That saggy-ass ghetto prince outfit oughta disappear,” he said.
“And here I thought I was the very soul of sartorial splendor.”
“I could get in them pants with ya,” Gus joked.
“Let’s not dwell on that thought,” Mickey suggested.
Gus turned off the car, pulled the keys from the ignition and handed them to Mickey. “Put the bag in the trunk,” he said.
Mickey did as he was told. As he buckled himself back into the passenger seat, Gus pulled an illegal U-turn and started west toward the river.
Three minutes later, Mickey found himself looking down into the black water of the Parker River as they crept across the Yale Street Bridge into Coaltown.
As they slowed to a crawl and squeezed through a serpentine series of lanes, he wondered how many bricks they’d used to build all of this. Millions, maybe trillions. Every damn thing was made of bricks.
What seemed like thirty-five turns later, Gus pulled the Buick to a stop under a stout brick arch. He looked over at Mickey and said, “Sketchy isn’t real talkative, but he’s the best there is. He did the paperwork for the Royster girls. You just tell him what you need, and he’ll take care of it.”
Gus popped the door and stepped out into the street. Mickey followed him down a flight of stone stairs, through a dank passageway and down to a serious steel door at the far end. Gus didn’t knock or ring or anything. He stood there until the door buzzed and then stepped inside.
Talk about stereotypes. Mickey had been picturing the classic forger dude from the movies. Three foot six, pasty complexion, green eyeshade, and sleeve garters. Except that Sketchy was an enormous redheaded biker type, damn near as big as Gus, and wearing a Hawaiian shirt that was undoubtedly visible from the space shuttle.
Apparently, Gus was right. Sketchy wasn’t big on greetings and salutations.
“What?” he said.
Mickey pulled the blue plastic bag containing the Royster file out from under his coat. “I need two copies of everything inside. Then I need it put back together so nobody can tell it’s been opened.”
“Is it clean? No prints.”
Mickey showed a latex-gloved hand. “There’ll be prints, I suppose, but none of them are gonna be mine.”
Sketchy nodded and then stalked off toward the door at the back of the room.
Gus wandered over to the nearest couch, sat down and started playing Angry Birds on his phone. Mickey turned the wooden chair around and sat on it backward.
Twenty minutes later, Sketchy reappeared. He handed Mickey a brown envelope.
“Two copies,” he said. And then the blue plastic envelope containing the Royster file. Mickey turned it over in his hands. Brought it up close to his face. The court seal was unbroken and the bag showed no signs whatsoever of having been tampered with.
“The wonders of polymer chemistry,” Mickey joked.
Sketchy shook his big head. “Seal-a-Meal,” he said.
Mickey thanked him.
“You gonna rain on that baby-raper’s parade?” Sketchy wanted to know.
“I’m sure as hell going to try,” Mickey said.
Sketchy looked over at Gus, who was reaching into his pocket.
“It’s on the house,” he said and walked off.
Grace was on her second latte when Roberto finally put in an appearance. A sweaty sheen lit his face. He was breathing through his mouth as he weaved between the tables and chairs and sat down beside her. “Sorry I’m late,” he huffed. “My wife . . . I . . .”
He looked up and checked the clock on the wall.
“Is something wrong?” Grace asked.
“No . . . no . . . nothing wrong. I was just . . . Could we go now?”
Grace got to her feet. “Where?” she asked. “Where we going?”
Roberto was moving now. Toward the door. “Come on . . . it’s not far.”
Grace moved in his direction. “Where’s the car?” she asked.
“It’s not far,” he said again, as he backed out the door.
Grace set her coffee on an empty table and stepped outside. In the half hour she’d been inside, the breeze had freshened and changed direction, coming in now from over the river, swirling the tops of the trees like ghostly dancers.
Roberto was halfway across the parking lot by then, waving her forward. She watched as he sidestepped between parked cars. “It’s not far,” he called again.
Grace walked out onto the sidewalk and looked around. Outskirts of town, anywhere USA. A Wendy’s burger joint, an auto body shop with a big impound yard, a plumbing supply house, and Crazy Terry’s Discount Tire City.
Half a block down, on the other side of the street, the Lucky Seven Motel sign flickered. VA NCY. Then further on down, an IHOP jabbed its blue spires into the threatening sky like daggers.
Roberto beckoned her forward and started across the street.
Grace stopped walking. “No,” she said.
Roberto came hustling back to her side. “Please,” he said. “I had to leave her alone.”
“Alone?”
“Last time . . . when we met . . . the old lady next door . . . she stayed with Sophia till I got back,” he said.
“Where’s your wife?” Grace demanded. “I’m not moving another inch until I get some idea where we’re going.”
“The old lady’s drunk. Passed out. So Sophia’s alone.”
“Where?”
He pointed across the street and the Lucky Seven Motel.
Grace’s jaw dropped. “That motel? You’ve got your wife in a roach motel?”
He nodded.
Child Protective Services was jammed to the rafters. The wretched refuse of our teeming shores was stacked six deep at the counter. Anger and frustration floated on the air like cannon smoke. Mickey picked his way through the writhing throng, got himself situated between the empty water cooler and the wall, and waited for the melee to thin out a bit.
About the time an entire Spanish-speaking family of five vacated the area directly in front of him, Mickey slid forward, like he was on wheels. The crush of the crowd pinned him in the corner, over by the empty box of tissues and long-dead pens.
Mickey checked the area. Waited and then checked it again. Picked a moment when Miss Goodbody had just finished up with a customer and everybody in the joint was trying to make eye contact with her so they could be next.
That’s when Mickey made his move.
He slid the blue bag out from beneath his coat and slipped it onto the counter. As he turned to leave, a big black hand latched onto his wrist like a Rottweiler. Mickey froze. Then looked to the right. The security guard was right up in his face, using his hip to cram Mickey deeper into the corner. Same guy, with the D. Williams name tag.
“You’ll have to come with me sir,” the guy said, pushing harder. His eyes were hard. His voice was low. Big pissed-off crowd like this wasn’t something you wanted to get excited, so he was trying to handle the situation with great discretion.
“I don’t think so,” Mickey said.
The guy’s eyes widened. He leaned on Mickey harder. Reached for his pepper spray.
“Sir . . . don’t make me . . .”
“Howsabout I don’t tell anybody about how you bang Miss Tightbottom on that desk over there every lunchtime.”
The eyes flickered. “No idea what you’re talking about,” he tried.
“Sure you do. How you turn off the CC cameras and take her over in the corner for a little poke in the whiskers when the place is shut down.”
Mickey took a chance. “And I’m betting Mr. D. Williams got a wife and a couple of kiddies stashed someplace, and I’m also betting his old lady really don’t want to hear he been doggin’ around on her.”
They stood there, leaning hard on one another, having a staring contest. That’s when the same guy started yelling again. “Hey . . . hey . . .”
Williams’s cheek twitched. Mickey watched a single bead of sweat form above his mustache. When he exhaled hard, Mickey knew his guess had been right.
The grip on Mickey’s wrist began to lessen. The guard checked the room, then glanced down at the file.
“How’d you get that?” he wanted to know.
“Question’s not how I got it, question’s how we can get it back where it belongs,” Mickey said, leaning closer. “When you close up tonight, you put that file back in that second file cabinet over there. Keys are in your little friend’s desk. Top drawer. The brass-colored key.” He nodded in that direction. “That way I get out of your life, and you get to keep on keeping on with your little cutie there.”
The guy let go of Mickey’s wrist. Checked the room again.
Mickey reached up onto the counter and pulled a dog-eared LIFE magazine over the file. Then threw a couple of Outdoor Lifes on top of the pile.
“I can’t . . .”
“Sure you can. Leave your gloves on. Under R.”
“No . . . I . . . no . . .”
Mickey pointed up at the nearest camera’s unblinking eye. “And it might be a good idea if this little piece of CC tape had an accident, too. Really no point in anybody seeing you and me chatting here, is there?”
He maybe wasn’t the fastest thinker in the world, but D. Williams wasn’t feeling suicidal either. Images of his wife changing the locks on his house and spending his pension check on Italian shoes did wonders for his moral pliability.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Nothing gets said. Ever.”
“My lips are sealed,” Mickey promised as he bumped himself off the wall.
D. Williams grudgingly stepped aside. His eyes were hard as gravel.
“The lavender drawers were a nice touch,” Mickey said as he passed.
Old-time cabins. Ten little separate units built in a U-shape, office at one end, coffee shop at the other. The Lucky Seven Motel’s office was open, its windows lined by green and red Christmas lights. The coffee shop was dark and still. The cabins looked mostly empty except back at the right rear, where it looked like somebody had rented adjoining units and was throwing a party.
Couple of beat-up Camaros, one of those mud-scarred pickup trucks with tires so tall you needed a ladder to climb into the driver’s seat. Three or four buttrockers with mullet haircuts and black rock-band T-shirts, stumbling drunk, milling around one of those barbecues with the big round lid, drinking beer, hooting and hollering, trying to convince themselves they were having a good time.
Over on the opposite side of the U, a gigantic food truck was parked diagonally across half a dozen parking spaces. Not the modern kind of food truck, where you could get a nice dollop of duck confit on a locally sourced brioche. The old-fash
ioned kind of truck. The kind that made a living showing up at construction sites every day, dispensing week-old egg salad sandwiches and pastries hard enough to pound nails. Known, in the vernacular of the trade, as “The Garbage Wagon.”
Thirty feet in front of her, Grace watched as Roberto ducked behind the truck, pulled out a key and opened the door to unit two. A soft yellow light spilled over the cracked concrete step. He motioned for her to follow.
“Hey baby,” somebody shouted from across the way.
Grace sighed and kept her eyes straight ahead.
“Hey Blondie,” another voice shouted. “Do the carpet match the drapes?”
A chorus of wild laughter echoed around the U. Somebody repeated the line, and another round of merriment bounced around the cinderblock walls.
Grace began to move toward the cabin door. The only window was festooned with thick burglar bars. Must be a lot like sleeping in jail, Grace thought.
“Got a cold one for you baby,” the first guy shouted, holding out a dripping can of beer and stumbling in her direction.
“I got a hot one,” the other guy yelled, sending the drunken throng into yet another frenzy of knee-slapping jocularity.
Grace followed Roberto into the room.
“Hey baby,” a voice shouted. “Doangoway . . .”
Roberto reached around her, bolted the door and set the chain.
“Get that thing outta here,” Gus growled. “I could pull fifteen for just being in the car with that thing.”
He was talking about the high-output electric lock pick Mickey had retrieved from the bag in the trunk, and he was right. This was an anti-private property device. Even a guy with a clean record like Mickey’s would probably do a bit of time for just having it on his person. America might be a free country, but you weren’t free to walk around with one of these babies in your pants. No siree.
Mickey’d liberated it from a professional car thief a couple of years back. Told himself he just wanted to see if the thing worked. Took a little practice, but after a few tries Mickey was able to open just about any lock other than a Medeco in ten seconds or less. Told himself it was the sort of thing that just might turn out to be handy someday, and decided to spare it the disconsolate life of the police property room.