Jack headed straight for the downtown Greyhound bus station area. The bus stations in all large metropolitan areas are way stations and waiting rooms for those who have nowhere else to go. Houston was no exception. Besides the homeless and aimless, the real customers who were there to catch buses, and the bored taxi drivers hoping to give a lift to some old couple just arriving from Arizona, there were always the drifters, the riffraff, the winos, the pickpockets, pimps and addicts and droopy-eyed kids looking for easy adventure.
Jack parked in the lot across the street from the neon- lighted building and adjusted his shoulder holster beneath his jacket before getting out of the car. He knew his hair was too short and his eyes were too clear for him to pass for a member of the street people, but he had been careful about his dress and his attitude. He wore the oldest pair of jeans he owned, a threadbare, faded pair that clung to his hips and delineated the bulge of his crotch. He also wore a flannel long-sleeved shirt with one button missing and a torn pocket. Covering his shoulder holster was a bulky black padded jacket that he had worn for ten years. As for attitude, that meant an adjustment of his state of mind. It called for looseness, a certain slurring of his speech, a slouch in his walk, a way of looking at people that said, Don’t fuck with me. I don’t want your shit and I don’t want you messing with mine either. The right attitude usually made up for the short haircut. So far he had been accepted on the street.
"Hey man, how’s it goin’, you taking a ride?"
Jack let the spiffily dressed black man slap him on the arm once then stepped to the side and watched the plate-glass window as if looking for someone he was meeting. He felt the black’s measuring gaze on him.
"Fuck no, you kiddin’me? I don’t hump hounds, man. Buses stink, you know?" Jack replied, easing into his street role.
The black laughed and did a soft shoe over to the window. He squinted against the glare and bared huge white teeth that reminded Jack of a prehistoric carnivore. "You come lookin’ for sumpthing then," he announced. "You can tell me, man." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked ready to go into a routine. "They call me the wizard if that be what it is you lookin’ for.” Jack shook his head a little and glanced up and down the sidewalk. Just his luck he had to run into a wizard so early in the evening. They were not easy to shake unless you made it plain you did not want a fuck of any persuasion.
"I’m looking, but I ain’t looking for pussy right this moment." A fleeting expression of disappointment crossed the black’s face and his hungry smile faded. "Tell you what, though, I’ll keep you in mind, man, when I get around to that later.”
"All right! Peaches is my specialty, ask around. I get the freshest. " The glowing smile returned as he danced nearer Jack. "I get a new shipment every week, so to speak."
He nodded his head toward the interior of the bus station and left Jack to catch up with another lone man crossing the street without baggage.
Jack opened the door of the station and immediately was hit by the sickeningly sweet aroma of unwashed flesh, cigarette smoke, and fried foods. It was a busy night and the rows of plastic seats were filled with weary travelers waiting for their buses to leave Houston.
To Jack the bus station was a surreal place where zombies walked in dazes waiting for their lives to resume. Unlike the airport passengers, bus travelers rarely dressed to be seen and admired. They wore comfortable, loose clothing in anticipation of the long hours on the nation’s highways. They carried hampers or paper bags stuffed with fried chicken and pieces of chocolate cake from home. If they had children with them, they did not try to control their behavior. It was hard to sit still on the bus for hours, so stopovers and departure time were a welcomed break for energetic youngsters. Jack wondered if the travelers and the people who served them really felt as despondent and exhausted as they looked.
A sloe-eyed girl wearing a preteen bra that clearly showed through beneath a yellow nylon blouse sidled past Jack. She carried a movie magazine and a stuffed donkey. Behind her came the soft-shoe wizard with a wink and a leer that turned Jack’s stomach. Jack’s instinct took over and made him move before he thought about it. He was beside the girl at the luncheon counter before the black man could reach her side.
"Hey, what’chu doin'?" There was a steel edge in the black man’s voice.
"Later, man. This is my sister from Corpus Christi, all right?"
The wizard thumbed his nose and did a military turn.
The girl stared wistfully up into Jack’s eyes. "Am I your sister?" she asked in a piping voice. "I don’t remember having a brother looked as good as you."
"Are you in here alone?" Jack asked more severely than he had meant to. When were kids going to learn?
The girl turned her head away and sulked, one hand fondling the stuffed donkey in her lap.
"You just get into Houston?" Jack tried again in a softer tone.
"What business is it of yours?"
“Listen, kid, runaways get put into homes."
The girl’s spine straightened. She drew a glass of Coke closer and spoke around the straw in her mouth.
"You’re a cop," she said with confidence. "You can’t bust me. I ain’t done nothin’."
"I repeat runaways..." Jack was not sure what to say.
“I ain’t no fucking runaway, okay? I live down on Gray and I like to hang out here. Is that against the law?"
Jack shook his head and swirled around on his stool to make sure the wizard was gone. He stood up. He was seconds away from losing control. "You’re too young to be selling, kid. Goddammit, go home."
The girl pushed the Coke away and, grabbing her donkey and magazine, made a beeline for the door.
Jack sat back down and ordered coffee. He caught himself rubbing the scar on his cheek and slapped his hand onto the counter. What in the hell was he doing anyway? Maybe Mrs. Lawrence was right. He was wasting his time and destroying his health and his nerves.
"Hey man, you look kinda wiped out. You could use something to ease you outta pain, huh?"
Jack turned and saw a thin, pimply young man in dirty chinos and black T-shirt with a red Led Zepplin logo printed across the front. "You talking to me?" Jack asked. I have to play the game, he thought, no matter how bad I feel or how low I get.
"What the fuck, man, I know how you feel. This place is sick, you know? This whole fucking scene is sick. I seen how you helped that girl. The wizard, man, he’s nigger-bitching mean to his girls. You done right, I could see that. You got balls. I think I could do you a favor."
"What kind of favor could you do me?" Jack turned all the way around to face the boy. At least this one was talking.
"Like relieve your worries, man. How ’bout if we step into someplace private, like the john?"
Jack followed the boy into the men’s rest room and took up a position near the door with his back to the wall. "What you got?" he asked.
"I’m a little low, you know, but I still got some ’ludes and some grass, man, that’s laced sweeter than goose shit," the young man offered.
"I don’t want any freaking angel dust. How much for the ’ludes?"
"Oh man!"
Jack looked up, fearful of the deriding tone of the boy’s voice. He had made a mistake; it was not angel dust on the grass. The mistake could blow his getting any closer to the kid. The grass must be laced with strychnine. "Hey, you wanna sell to me or don’t you? I can take a hike right now if you’re not interested."
Jack snatched the door handle and smiled slightly when the boy’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.
"Okay, okay, wire yourself down. It don’t matter about the fucking grass. So you don’t want sweet Jesus anointing your head, that’s your business, jack."
Jack flinched at the use of his name until he realized the kid was using the word to mean "buddy."
"How much?" Jack kept a firm grip on his wallet and saw the kid’s eyes glaze over while he calculated.
"Will this do you?" He whipped out a twenty and the boy quick
ly reached into his underwear and handed over a tiny clear plastic bag of pills.
"There, that’ll take care of all your nigger bitching,” the boy said. "I forgot, but I got some crank too if you ain’t into anything too heavy, you know. It’s cheap, but it’ll pump you when you’re too far down."
"Not tonight, thanks." Not ever, he thought.
"You come down here often? I can get you most anything if you lay in an order, you know."
"Not often enough for that. What about you? Can I find you here every night?"
They moved through a clutch of Mexicans to the counter again and sat down. Jack wanted to keep the kid talking.
"I’l1 be around. Just ask for Stevie and I can pop up out of the blue for a good bill."
They both ordered Cokes and donuts. "On me," Jack said.
During the next hour, except for two interruptions from buyers who took Stevie off to the men’s room, Jack found out more information on the boy’s lifestyle and habits than he had bargained for. He was small time and his dope dealing went to supplement his meager daytime income as an alarm installer. He was hoping for more extensive drug territory and a greater stock for a burgeoning market, but so far his suppliers had kept him small and he was not making enough to quit work altogether. He lived in an alley apartment in the Heights with "a girl named Judy Lee who has hair down to her ass and legs all the way up to her shoulders."
"You must know a lot of people," Jack ventured, hoping the boy liked ego tripping.
"I know my share.”
"You hear about those killings we’ve been having here?" Jack asked casually.
“You mean that fucking madman, the one running off with fucking heads?" The boy shivered involuntarily.
"Yeah, that’s the one. I bet the street’s alive with speculation on that joker."
"Maybe. Maybe not. How come you askin’, man?" The boy licked his lips and looked around the crowded lobby.
"I’ll tell you something, Stevie."
"Yeah, you tell me, man. I got a feeling you don’t even do ’ludes and maybe all of a sudden I’m real busy and better move on, huh?"
"Wait a minute. Calm down. I ain’t the heat, what the fuck’s wrong with you?" Jack thought fast. "I’ll tell you what I am, though. You know that woman that got killed? That one in the apartment?"
"Down on Richmond?"
"That’s the one. Well, that woman, she was a friend of mine. A real good friend of mine, okay? And you know the fucking cops. They don’t know shinola." He managed to sound both angry and disgusted.
"They don’t know from nigger bitching."
"That’s right, and I figure, I tell myself, there’s somebody out here might know this motherfucker. Somebody might know the crazy sonovabitch."
"Me?" Stevie fidgeted on the stool. "I don’t know goose shit. I sell a little smoke, man; I don’t know the fucker."
Jack lit a cigarette and took his time drawing in the smoke and letting it trail out in a thin, languid stream.
Dead end, Goddamn dead end everywhere he went, everywhere.
"A guy I know at work now..." Stevie said. He thought of the mean Nick Ringer.
Jack turned to him to show his interest.
“This guy, he’s really sick, you know? He’s been talking. Every fuckin’ time I have to ride with him to do a job he’s talking shit."
"Like what?" Jack felt his skin prickle.
"Well, like how it don’t bother him none this fucker’s going around stealing heads, maybe they deserved stealing. You know--shit like that. Sick, this guy’s real sick, know what I mean?" Stevie pointed to his head and made a circle with his finger.
"What else does he say?"
"Oh man, just sick stuff like what he did in Nam, how he killed three gooks single-handed, like he’s some big hero. Then he gets into what he thinks the guy’s doing with the heads. Real sicko." Stevie looked around the lobby for potential customers.
Jack patiently smoked his cigarette and stared at the boy, silently urging him to talk.
"You know what he said last week?" Stevie asked suddenly.
Jack shook his head.
"He said maybe the killer’s shrinking the heads like with voodoo or something. I mean, shee-it, this guy I work with makes my balls crawl up my be1ly."
"Maybe I could talk to him. What’s his name? Where do you work?"
"You tell that motherfucker I sent you to him and he’ll skin me alive, man." Stevie drew away from Jack and looked ready to flee.
"I ain’t telling nobody nothing. I’m doing this for Marjorie, you understand? You won’t be involved," Jack said, quickly reassuring the young man.
"He’s a bad dude, man, I’m warning ya."
“Name?”
"Nick. Nick Ringer. Apex Alarm. But if you let on you know me..."
The boy hushed as Jack took out his wallet. He handed Stevie another twenty and slid off the stool. "See ya, kid. Thanks. You hear anything else you tell me when I come back by."
Outside the bus station a drunk walked by, talking to God. The wizard shot Jack an angry look and turned his back. A hack driver yawned and looked at his watch.
Jack flipped the butt of his cigarette into the gutter and strode across the street to his car.
It’s nothing, he told himself.
It’s all you’ve got in weeks, he argued back to himself.
This Nick is nothing but a degenerate, a waste of time.
But it’s all you’ve got.
One thing that Stevie had said stayed with Jack as he drove home. "Maybe they deserved stealing..."
Who said shit like that? Nick Ringer. Apex Alarm. And he had been in Vietnam. Please God, Jack prayed, let this be the break I need.
Chapter 23
EILEEN MCKENNA pulled her blue fox jacket closer around her shivering body. Ever since she had heard about the River Oaks’ murder on the six o’clock news she had felt chilled. A general malaise settled over her as she prepared for her appointment later that evening with a client in the River Oaks’ district. It was her first job since she and Jack had made love after Willie’s death, and she realized her hesitancy to keep the appointment involved more than a reluctance to be near the scene of a brutal murder. She did not want to go to another man’s bed out of an unreasonable feeling that it would be a betrayal of Jack.
Could this be the beginning of a new morality, she wondered? Anyone who knew her would have laughed.
Since when did Eileen McKenna believe in sexual devotion to one man, in monogamy? There was no precedent for this sudden urge of fidelity on the part of Houston’s most sought-after call girl. It was utter foolishness.
The doorman of her apartment house watched enviously as a chauffeur opened the rear door of a beautifully kept 1975 Silver Cloud Rolls Royce for her. Hal Winifred’s style extended even to his paid companions, Eileen thought uncharitably as she got in. When you were a middle-aged bachelor who owned a large interest in Astro-world and the Houston Oilers football team, you could afford to send one of your Rolls to pick up a gorgeous redhead in a blue fox coat. That you also were expected to pay highly for the services of this woman did not matter.
I’m being mean and petty, Eileen thought, but could not manage to throw off her uneasiness. She felt like sulking, and when she was in such a mood her professional manner took over. There was an unwritten law that prostitutes kept their private lives private.
The chauffeur, an old man with pure white hair, did not spare his passenger a single glance, much less the benefit of a friendly word. This made Eileen even more irritable. The unspoken message was painfully clear. They were both employees of Hal Winifred. They need not waste one another’s time engaging in the social amenities. He drove the car and she rented out her body. She might as well be a basket of flowers or a sack of groceries.
"Turn around," she commanded abruptly.
The chauffeur flinched and the back of his neck reddened. "Madame?"
"I said turn this car around and take me back to the St. John."
"But Mr. Winifred is expecting you." To the chauffeur this clearly settled the matter.
"Mr. Winifred will have to be disappointed. I don’t feel well and I wish to be taken home immediately.” For the first time since picking her up, the chauffeur twisted his head around to look at her. "But Mr. Winifred sent me--"
"You will simply have to convey my apology to your employer," Eileen interrupted. "I’m sure you’re well-trained in that regard.”
The utter contempt in her voice was not lost on the chauffeur. “Yes, madam. Whatever you say.” Eileen relaxed against the soft leather seat and formulated a plan in her mind. All she had been able to think about for the past weeks was Jack DeShane. It was time to be honest with herself. She loved him and she no longer liked her life as a woman surviving on her looks and sexual skills. She knew her recent sleeplessness and irritability were caused by a refusal to admit she was in love. She had been needed before by various men for various reasons, but never had she been needed as a total woman, accepted as a total person, unconditionally. Jack needed her and loved her. She had tried to deny that she needed and loved him the same way.
It would mean taking a chance on another person, opening herself to hurt, relinquishing the lifestyle she had so studiously created. The safety of the cold, empty place she had put herself in would be gone. Love meant risking the emotional stability that came from non-commitment. After all these years, could she respond warmly and honestly to true love--and return it?
Not that she had a choice. Look at what she had just done. Look at how she had put off all the appointments with men after the last night with Jack.
The Rolls slid smoothly to a halt before the entrance of the St. John. Without a word to the chauffeur, Eileen let herself out and walked into the lobby like a queen. She called for a taxi and within minutes was on her way to Jack DeShane’s house. All the way she prayed that he was home. They had not seen each other for over a week because of his searching the streets. Could she ever erase his agony over Willie?
SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set Page 17