“We? What I do, is I babysit our friend here. What you do is, you change the tire. That’s what we do.”
“Why’s it always me that’s got to do the hard stuff?”
“Yeah, why does he?” I asked. Not that I gave a damn who changed the stupid tire. I just liked the way the partnership was coming unglued, and I thought I’d help it along a bit.
Evans ignored me and glared at Stroud. “Why?” he said. “Because you’re a sneaky, lazy, stupid Rom who isn’t worth the powder to blow you to hell or the match to touch it off with, that’s why. Because you’ve screwed up this operation from day one, and you probably drove over something to blow that tire, too. And because if you don’t, I’m going to kick your skinny little ass around the block a few times, just to keep my foot from going to sleep. Is that enough ‘whys’ for you?”
I wondered what a Rom was, but I figured it wasn’t a good time to ask.
“Your time’s gonna come,” said Stroud. But his voice had no conviction, and he was already putting the key in the trunk lock.
“And when it gets here, I’ll kick your ass, then, too,” said Evans.
He had taken a step away from me, to intimidate his partner better, and I was considering what to do about that when Stroud popped open the trunk on the Chevy and got instantly sucked into it like a dust bunny into a vacuum cleaner pipe.
“What in hell…” said Evans.
I didn’t care what in hell. I clipped him in the back of the knee, the way I had wanted to do to Stroud on the stairs, and as he was dropping to the pavement, I pretended his head was a soccer ball and the car was a goal net. I didn’t know how hard I kicked him, and I didn’t care. Three seconds later, I was around the corner and running like a scared rabbit.
I turned into an alley a couple of blocks away and chanced a look back. Nobody was following me. I slowed down to a trot and then a walk, looking for a place to hide among the trash bins, piles of junk, and service doors. I liked what I saw. Lots of back doors in that alley, and lots of fire escape ladders. Too many places for a pair of pursuers to check by themselves, unless they already had a glimpse of their quarry.
The smell of fresh rain mixed with that of old garbage, plus something else that took me a minute to identify, something sweet and vaguely oily. Glycol, I decided. Antifreeze.
Parked tight to a brick wall a half block away was an ancient ton-and-a-half truck with the back of the cab cut off and a square, homemade, windowless van body crudely grafted to the frame. The sides were badly warped plywood, covered with faded-out slogans and biblical quotations, done in an amateur sign-painting hand. Or maybe they weren’t exactly biblical. One said, “He that bloweth not his own horn, Neither shall it be Blown.” Another was something, mostly unreadable, about strumpets sounding at “the crank of dawn” and the “Horn of Babylon” having something to do with the “Car Lot of Jerusalem.” Across the back was one that had been renewed several times, in several colors. It simply said, “Yah! Is My God!” The plywood looked grateful for any paint it could get. Near the front of the vehicle, green fluid trickled down onto the pavement and formed a small stream that meandered towards the center of the alley, producing the smell I had noticed. If the truck wasn’t already a goner, it was definitely bleeding to death. Yah, with or without exclamation mark, was clearly not the god of radiators. I decided the truck looked like a good blind, and I followed the slimy green path.
Sitting on what was left of the rear bumper was a black man who could have been any age except young, reading a battered paperback that had no cover, and absent-mindedly stirring a pot of something on a Coleman camp stove. He looked up at my approach, huge, fierce eyes peering through a tangle of dark locks.
“Praise Yah!” he said, putting plenty of breath into it.
“Yeah?”
“You pronounce it wrong, pilgrim.” His voice had a rich, melodic quality. It wasn’t strident enough for a preacher, but it definitely got your attention.
“There’s a lot of that going around.”
“You making fun of me, asshole?”
“No.”
“Lucky for you.” He grinned, the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen accenting his dense beard. Then he chuckled. “But you’re right, too. There is a lot of that going around. A lot of damn heathens in this valley of sorrows.” He took the pot off the fire and stood up, offering his hand. “I’m the Prophet,” he said. “No doubt, you’ve read my work.”
“No doubt.” His hand was frail, almost bird-like, but his grip was firm. “Listen,” I said, “I need…”
“I knew you were coming here.”
“Of course you did.” I turned to watch the alley behind me. I was still clear, but I absolutely did not have time for this kind of crap.
“Yah! told me.”
“Well he would, wouldn’t he? Listen…”
“A man in a shitload of trouble, said Yah! A man in need of sanctuary. A man with a riddle.”
“Right. I don’t suppose Yah told you what to do about him?” I didn’t bother to ask if Yah had told him all that before or after he saw me out of breath and looking over my shoulder.
“Yah! does not meddle in the affairs of Caesar.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Twenty bucks to hide in the truck for an hour.”
“Seems like sanctuary is a pretty good business.”
“It has a trap door in the floor and spy holes in all four sides.”
“Deal.”
While he unhooked the padlock on the flimsy door, I reached in my wallet and pulled out two twenties. “If trouble is still following me,” I said, “it’s going to be here a lot sooner than an hour. When that happens, I could use a bit of diverting bullshit, okay?”
“I am a prophet and a holy man, brother.” He straightened up and solemnly laid a palm against his breast. “Bullshit, I got.” He took the twenties and ushered me inside.
I stepped into a cluttered space lit by a tiny plastic skylight that doubled as a vent. When the Prophet closed the door again, I could see that each wall had not one, but two spy holes, one with a wide-angle lens, like a hotel or apartment door, and one that was just a plain hole. There was a four-legged stool on the floor, and I put it by the back door, planted myself on it, and looked out. The Prophet went back to reading his book and cooking his potion. When I didn’t see any other action for ten minutes or so, I looked around the interior a bit. The trap door was easy enough to spot, if you were looking for it. It was off to one side, presumably to miss the drive shaft. That’s if the truck still had a drive shaft. It looked like it hadn’t moved for several decades and if it did, about half a ton of junk would immediately wind up on the floor, along with the flimsy roof. It smelled like dust and brake fluid and old, damp paper. Somehow, that seemed right for an ersatz holy man’s cave.
I looked again at the spy holes. The plain ones were about an inch in diameter and just down and to the right of those with the fish-eye lenses. Just the right size and location for a gun muzzle, I thought. Did my man the Prophet go in for holy wars? I was about to turn away from the hole and have a closer look at the cabinets on the walls, when I saw something move outside.
The big Chevy nosed into the alley, bouncing heavily on its springs, stalking, sniffing. It straightened out and cruised straight at us, taking its time.
“Tally ho,” I said through the hole.
“Trust in Yah!” said the Prophet. “And keep your ass down.”
When the car got within twenty feet of my hidey hole, it stopped. The driver’s door opened and a shape emerged. And emerged some more. A bigger shape than the phony cop, by at least a hundred pounds. Apparently, Wide Track Wilkie hadn’t abandoned me, after all.
“Praise Yah!” said the prophet.
“What’s he done for me lately?” Wilkie wasn’t big on chit chat, as a rule.
“He has led you to me.”
“Yeah? Well, you better hope he doesn’t tell me to stay. I’m
looking for a guy might have run by here fifteen minutes ago.”
“Might have. You can build a universe on ‘might have,’ pilgrim. Perhaps you’ve read my theological work on islands of alternate consciousness in the bicameral…”
“Look into my eyes, asshole.” He came close enough for the man to do exactly that. “Do I look like a philosopher, to you? Do I look patient?”
“Up,” said the Prophet, backing against the truck.
“Up what?”
“A hunted man always goes up. It’s a primal instinct.” He stretched out a bony arm to point at the fire escapes on the other side of the alley, and Wilkie backed off a half a step.
“Which one?” said Wilkie.
“On the back of the locksmith shop.”
“That’s more like it.” He turned on his heel and strode away, his tent-like coat billowing out behind him like the wake of a garbage scow.
I decided the show was over, so I opened the door and stepped out. “Nice to see you, Wide,” I said.
“Hey, Herman.” He spun around and smiled. “I thought you looked like you didn’t like your blind date much, up there in Lefty’s, so I stowed away in the limo. Was that okay?”
“Much more than okay.”
“Glad you think so, because that was a really horseshit little space. I don’t know why they can’t make a vehicle with a bigger trunk.”
“Like a Euclid truck?”
“Just like that.” He came back over to the truck and gave me a bear hug that fractured a rib or two. “You all right, man?”
“I was, until you did that. Where’s my two new friends?”
“The big guy is having a little nap in the trunk. I took his gun and the other stuff out of his pockets, just so he wouldn’t be too uncomfortable.”
“Very considerate. What about his partner?”
“He took off, after I made him change the tire. Never saw a man so scared of a little bit of work.”
“You think that was smart?”
“Making him change the tire?”
“Letting him go.”
“Well, I thought if I bopped him one, he might just get chickenshit later on, and finger me for assault. He looked like that kind of wuss. And he isn’t going anywhere very far, right away. Seems to have lost all his clothes, poor bastard. Also his money and ID.”
“Shoes, too?”
“Hey, am I a thorough professional, or what?”
I laughed out loud at the image of Stroud padding down the sidewalk in his bare feet and skivvies.
The Prophet seemed to like it, too, and he added, “The wolves shall devour each other, and the loin shall lie down with the limb.”
“I got my twenty bucks’ worth of bullshit already, “ I said.
“Me, too,” said Wilkie. “Go preach to a stone, or something.” Turning to me, he said, “So, what’s the story, Herman? I could see you needed some cavalry back there, but that wasn’t your usual kind of action, to say the least.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. I filled him in on the high points of the day’s events. The Prophet also leaned into the conversation, as if he were an old conspirator. Wilkie gave him a dirty look now and then, but otherwise left him alone. I decided it couldn’t hurt to have a possibly crazy person listening in on a definitely crazy story, and I left him alone, too.
“What the hell is going on?” said Wilkie, when I had finished.
“Well put,” I said. “I haven’t a clue.”
“What’s in the trunk?” said the Proph.
“An unhappy camper,” said Wilkie. “The other stuff, I put in the back seat.”
“And it is…?” I said.
“Interesting,” said Wilkie. He led us over to the car and opened the back door.
“The little guy…”
“You mean Stroud,” I said.
“Stroud, my ass. The guy had a briefcase full of phony ID, some of it pretty good, and his own little printing press and art supplies for making some more.” He pointed to a pile of papers and cards in an open case. “He’s got more damn names than a downtown law firm. Look at this: James Stroud, Strom Jameson, Tom Wade, Wade Thomas—you see a bit of a pattern here?—James Cox…”
“James Cox? Are you sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure. That’s one of his better sets, even has a real-looking driver’s license. Is that important?”
“Son of a bitch,” I said.
“Which one?” said the Proph.
“That’s the name of the guy I wrote the bond for.”
“I take it, you don’t believe in coincidence,” said Wilkie.
“Do you?”
“Never,” said Wilkie.
“Always,” said the Proph.
“There’s more,” said Wilkie. “The little guy was carrying, a great big nine-millie Browning High Power, looks like it weighs more than he does. Only it’s a phony.”
“It’s not a real Browning?”
“Hell, it’s not even a real gun. All plastic, shoots gumball pellets or some damn thing. His badge is also phony, but it’s an awfully good one. A casting, probably. An exact replica of the one the big guy had.”
“I don’t think I like where this is going,” I said.
“You’re right. You don’t like it at all. As far as I can tell, your other guy, Evans, is a real cop. Real badge, real gun, and probably real mad when he wakes up.”
“Oh, shit.”
“That’s about it, all right.”
***
“How’s your workload these days, Wide?”
“You owe me two hundred.”
“How’s that, exactly?”
“That’s what I figure the Korean kid was good for, if I hadn’t had to leave the nine ball game early.”
Wilkie was a lot better pool player when he was figuring than when he was shooting, but I let it pass. Two hundred for an impromptu deliverance was a good deal, any day. We were sitting in the Chevy, me and Wilkie in the back seat and the Proph behind the wheel, pretending he was Yah’s road warrior, making motor noises in his throat. Nobody seemed to know what to do next. Is it the Navy, where they teach people, “Do something, even if it’s wrong?” One of those fanatical outfits, anyway. I was starting to feel that way. Somebody had sucked me into a game without telling me the rules, and it was pissing me off. I wanted to be the shooter, for a change, even if I couldn’t see the Zen line.
“I’ll tell Agnes to cut you a check,” I said.
“I like the other stuff better, if it’s all the same to you. The green stuff that the government doesn’t know about.”
“No problem,” I said. “You need it right away? If so, I’ve got to go run an errand.”
“Tomorrow’s good enough. Leave it with Agnes, if you’re not around.”
“Fair enough. Besides that, do you need a job?”
“Like checking up on a real cop who travels with a phony one?”
“Maybe.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You’ve worked for me plenty of times before.”
“Yeah, but only bounty hunting. Any fool can do that. But to do investigating, you need a PI license. A carry permit is nice to have, too. You get caught with an unregistered gun when you’re chasing a bail-jumping scumbag, they might not even take it away from you. But you get caught carrying heat while you’re investigating somebody, you’re in deep shit, dig?”
“For somebody who just stuffed a cop in a trunk, you’re awfully scrupulous, all of a sudden.”
“Hey, you’re the one who kicked him. Anyway, I’ve been officially warned, okay?”
“Ah. But only warned about doing PI work?”
“That’s it.”
“I’m hip.”
“Vroooom,” said the Proph.
“Shut up,” said Wilkie.
“So, how’s your workload?” I said.
“I could use some.”
“I’ve got some for you.
You don’t know anything about the fiddle or the phony-cop-real-cop affair, okay?”
“What affair is that?”
“Exactly. This is a bounty hunting job.”
“That’s what I do, all right. Who am I hunting?”
“Amy Cox.”
“Not her brother?”
“We seem to be able to find him, easily enough. Whether we want to or not.”
“Her, too. Isn’t she in the morgue?”
“You don’t know that, and you’re going to forget to look there. Assume that’s somebody else. I want the real Amy Cox. Find her and bring her in, and I’ll give you five thousand.”
“And if she can’t be found?”
“Then give me some progress reports, and I’ll give you a partial payment.”
“What kind of progress reports?”
“Detailed ones. What you found out along the way.”
“Written?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Herman, my man, you are definitely on.”
“Are you going to be wanting this car anymore?” said the Proph.
We thought about it for a minute.
“I got my own wheels,” said Wilkie. “Three blocks back. What about you, Herm?”
“I never did like Chevrolets.” I looked at the gleeful figure behind the wheel. “What are you going to do with it?” I asked him.
“There are some truths that even a pilgrim should not seek. Vroom!”
“I don’t think he trusts us,” said Wilkie.
“Look, Mr. Prophet…”
“The Prophet is only the Prophet,” said the prophet.
“Fine,” I said. “Listen, Prophet, I couldn’t care less what happens to the car, but I’m not going to be party to a murder here, of a cop or anybody else.”
“Trust in Yah!”
“I’d prefer a statement of intent.”
“The karma of the man in the trunk is mystically linked with the sidewalk in front of the emergency entrance at United Hospital.”
“Will his karma get him there?”
“If not, his car will. But it will not wait around to rejoice in his enlightenment.”
“That, I can accept.”
“He will learn much from it.” He quit making motor noises and nodded solemnly.
“What do you want to do with all this other junk?” said Wilkie.
Fiddle Game Page 4