Slow Burn

by G. M. Ford

  George ignored him, instead slipping over by the far wall, leaning back against the blocks with his hands stuffed in his pockets. The white man’s section was just inside the door. Two long-haired rednecks about thirty sat side by side on the metal bench while a third lay snoring on the floor as I entered.

  “Ooh, you got you a bodyguard, huh, Gramps? He be guardin’ yo body fo’ you, old man?”

  The turnkey snapped the door shut behind me, but didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave. I think maybe he’d seen this particular movie before and had been looking forward to the sequel.

  From this side, Mr. Bigmouth was mostly flab. One hell of a lot of flab, but still flab. He was no more than a biscuit away from three and a quarter, but soft and out of shape. He had a big, square head and eyes that were nearly squeezed shut by the pressure of his blossoming cheeks.

  “How ’bout you?” He pointed a fleshy finger my way.

  “Got some fo’ you too, honey.”

  The jailer was still in sight, so I decided to take a chance. At least I didn’t have to worry about whether Lardass was armed. These days a guy can’t pick a fight with a nine-year-old, for fear that the little shit will have an Uzi in his backpack. Besides which, fighting in jail is like fighting in school. It tends to get broken up before it runs too far out of hand.

  I looked down at the nearest butt-rocker on the bench. He wore a tight black Metallica T-shirt, a pair of ratty jeans about two sizes too small, and yellow socks with holes in the toes.

  “Has that fat piece of shit been running his mouth all night?” I asked in a loud voice.

  The jailer stopped sauntering and smiled. George pulled his hands from his pockets and stood up straight along the wall. The redneck ran his eyes between Bigmouth and me and then back again, but said nothing.

  “What you say?” Bigmouth demanded. He looked out at his audience in disbelief. “That honky motherfucker call me names?”

  “Call you a fat piece of shit, my man,” somebody said.

  In order to drag his big ass up from the bench, Bigmouth had to reach up and grab the bars with both hands. Even so, his pants did all they could to stay behind. As he rose, his unbelted drawers slid down to reveal a section of ass the size of a car hood.

  He looked at the crowd, stuck his arms straight out, and cleared his hands of imaginary dust. The mob loved the show, dissolving into a series of whistles, waves, and high fives. The Mexican guys grinned and moved as far toward the back of the room as the bars would allow.

  He was still mugging at his boys when I stepped over the guy on the floor. “If you think your hands are clean enough now, fat boy, what say we get down to it, because no matter what, I’m here till about ten in the morning, and I’ve got no intention of spending the night listening to your big fucking mouth.”

  Not only did the room go silent, but the first sign of doubt crept into his narrow little eyes. This was not the way it was supposed to go. I was supposed to be hollering for help by now. And then the jailers were supposed to come and bail my ass out, and then he could bust our balls for the rest of the night. A beginning, a middle, and an end.

  “I bust you up, motherfucker,” he said.

  “Only if you fall on me, Lard Bucket,”

  He wasn’t sure anymore, but the expectant looks on his pals’ faces convinced him he had no choice. As he waddled forward in what I’m sure he imagined was a quick rush, I bobbed my head to the left and let his big fist sail harmlessly over my shoulder. While he was still coming forward, I hooked him hard to the side, just under the ribs, burying myself to the wrist in his torso. When he grunted and reached for the spot, I pushed off on my right foot, winging my right hand straight in from the shoulder, moving forward until I was standing on my left foot.

  It hit him right on the button. My whole arm went numb. Either this was National Hardhead Week or I was losing my stroke. He wobbled but stayed up, staggering a few steps and then slowly rubbing his hand over his face, checking for blood. While he stared stupidly at his palm, I shuffled in and gave him another hook to the ribs. This time the grunt was more of a scream, as he howled and bent toward the blow.

  I butted him up against the bars and worked his body like the heavy bag, doubling up on every other hook while he flailed away harmlessly at my back. In less than a minute, I had him moaning at every blow and desperately trying to slip his elbows into his hip pockets. As I felt him begin to slide down the bars, I took one step back and hit him in the forehead with the heel of my hand. His head snapped all the way back, banging off the bars with a muted clang.

  I gathered myself again as he stepped toward me. When I saw his eyes, I backpedaled into the center of the room. Bigmouth reached out as if to pull a lamp cord, twirled once in a pirouette, and collapsed onto the concrete floor. The turnkey waited to see what was going to happen next.

  “Anybody else?” I asked the assembled multitude. No takers.

  “You ladies settle down now,” the jailer admonished as he left.

  It took twenty minutes and a bucket brigade of water cups from the sink in the rear of the cell for the homeboys to get the big fellow over to his perch on the bench.

  “Little testy tonight, Leo?” George asked.

  “Assholes like that, it’s do it now or do it later,” I said, without believing it.

  It was eight-twenty. The rednecks rose and offered George and me the bench. At first we demurred, but when they insisted, we eventually had no choice but to acquiesce. We spent the night alternately watching each other’s backs and napping.

  I was swimming upstream in that river that flows between wakefulness and sleep, the place where the mind sorts out the day just past and prepares for the next, when they came for us. Everybody was issued a nifty pair of orange coveralls and a pair of little white booties, kind of like the slipper socks my mother had insisted on buying for me, right up until the day she died. That and a lovely pair of steel bracelets, and we were ready for court.

  George and I shuffled into courtroom number four at ten-o-six the next morning and walked out the door on bail at exactly eleven-twenty. Judge Ellen Gardner had not been amused by Martha Lawrence’s attempt to deny us bail. Jed had let her ramble on about what dangerous characters we were until the judge interrupted her litany.

  “You keep mentioning an ongoing murder investigation, Ms. Lawrence. Am I to take it that these gentlemen are to be charged in that investigation?”

  “We believe these men have material knowledge which is pertinent to—”

  “Are you charging them or not?” the judge interrupted.

  Lawrence took a deep breath. “Not at this time, Your Honor.”

  “Mr. Waterman is released on his own recognizance.” Bang.

  “Mr. Paris’s bail is set at ten thousand dollars.” Bang-bang. Rebecca was waiting with Jed when we came squinting out into the sunlight on Third Avenue. I availed myself of a handshake from Jed and a long hug and a kiss from Duvall.

  “Is the phone working in the new house?” I asked her.

  “As of this morning.”

  “What’s the number?”

  I wrote it in my notebook, then threw my arm around George’s shoulder and pulled him down the street, away from Jed and Rebecca. Jed was an officer of the court, and Rebecca worked for the county. The way I saw it, there was no sense compromising their respective positions.

  I wrote the new number on the back of one of my business cards and handed it to George. “Find everybody who worked yesterday,” I said. “Find out where everybody went and write it down. Then call that number and leave the info on the machine. Then—and this is real important—throw away whatever you wrote it on.” I pointed at the card in his hand. “That too. Memorize the number and get rid of that thing.”

  “How come the spy shit?”

  “In case either or both of us get picked up again, which I think is real likely.” I told him why, then reached into my pocket again and pulled out the rest of the cash. “Divvy up the money and get
lost. All of you. I mean stone-lost.”

  “Ain’t you worried about cops and your phone?”

  “It’s a brand-new number,” I said.

  “How come we gotta get lost?”

  “Because we know something the cops don’t. We know where all those people were all day yesterday. That’s our edge, my friend. That’s what we’ve got to trade.”

  He eyed me up and down. “Ya know, Leo, watchin’ you in the cage last night and listenin’ to you now, I got to say that the older you get, the more you remind me of your old man.”

  I never meant to break his nose. I just didn’t want to get hit by that damn cast. The sight of Lance standing at the rear of the lobby as I walked in, now sporting not just the cast but a crosshatched mask of tape and gauze, almost made me feel bad. Almost. Even from this distance I could see the deep discoloration around his eyes and the cotton packed in his nostrils. I waved as I headed for the reception desk.

  Marie wasn’t working today, but Molly was.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  I threw my electronic room key up on the desk. The magnetic strip was nearly peeled off and hung down, while the card itself had been remolded into a C-shape by the door lock.

  “I’m Mr. Waterman in nine-ten,” I said. “My key won’t work in the door.” I meant it as a little joke. Sort of an ironic comment on the dreadful state of the key. Instead, Molly took me seriously and began a detailed explanation of why and how electronic keys operated. It was my own fault, so I let her ramble on while she made me another. As she babbled, I was again reminded that technology divides people into those who care why and how the technology works, like Molly, and those who care only that it works, like me.

  “Thanks,” I said when she handed it over.

  “Remember,” she sang to my back, “the little brown plastic strip needs to stay connected to the card.”

  I decided against writing this down.

  I could feel Lance’s eyes on me as I pushed the up button and the doors to my immediate left slid open. I stepped in and pushed nine.

  On the ninth floor, I got off, watched as the doors closed behind me, and listened as the elevator hummed off. I pushed the up button. Twenty seconds later, the same elevator I’d just gotten out of reappeared. Shit. I needed the elevator on the right.

  I waited several minutes before pushing up again. This time the doors on the far left yawned open. No good. It took the better part of ten minutes before I was able to summon the elevator on the far right, and even then it was full of German tourists. I rode to the ground floor with them, ja, ja, and then quickly pushed the close-door button before an elderly couple could get on board. What a guy!

  On my way back up to nine, I checked the red-and-white sticker on the box mounted below the elevator buttons, which read, “telephone—In the event of emergency, insert your room key and lift receiver. You will automatically be connected to the operator.” I pulled my handy-dandy new room key from my pocket, inserted it in the slot, and as directed, opened the little door. Momentarily, I pondered the fact that, apparently, only guests were allowed to have emergencies in these elevators. George’s blue notebook was tucked inside the phone box, just where he’d left it, the golf pencil still stuck in among the spiraled wire. I pocketed it and stepped out.

  The next order of business was a shower. I have always had the same reaction to those infrequent occasions when my work has landed me in the pokey. I invariably have an incredible urge to shower and generally completely deplete the available hot water before I am able to stop. Today wasn’t a problem. I stood there with the steaming water rolling down my body for the better part of forty minutes without detecting even the slightest variation in water temperature. Let’s hear it for good hotels.

  By the time I stepped out of the glass shower stall, the walls of the bathroom were dripping like a rain forest, so I grabbed two towels and walked out through the bedroom into the sitting room with a cloud of steam dogging my trail.

  The digital clock read 12:58. I picked up the remote control and pushed power. The credits from a game show rolled by as I dried myself and began to dress.

  I was zipping up a pair of black gabardine slacks when the logo for Afternoon Northwest appeared on the screen. The cardboard cutout of Jack and Bunky was still front and center on the set. This was strange. Afternoon Northwest was usually on once a week, on Mondays, yet here it was, airing again on Tuesday.

  “…and now, ladies and gentlemen, your host of Afternoon Northwest…Miiiiiss Loooollla Kiiiiiing.”

  L-O-L-A Lola tromped onstage wearing pretty much the same thing as yesterday. Today the skirt was a deep brown and the cutaway jacket a watered-down yellow. Otherwise, it was the same. She must have found one she liked and taken it to a tailor and told him to make her forty of them. The crowd hooted and hollered.

  She was the color of old custard and had on her somber face. The one she used to use for airplane crashes during her brief tenure as a news anchor. “Before we continue our weeklong special on cruelty to animals, ladies and gentlemen, I feel it is incumbent upon me to state”—she shook her head for emphasis, like Nixon used to—“clearly and unequivocally, that neither this show nor this station endorses the views of yesterday’s guest, Miss Clarissa Hedgpeth.”

  The crowd gave her a tentative hand.

  “As our loyal viewers know, we make every effort to bring our audience, both in the studio and at home”—she looked beseechingly at the camera—“a wide variety of opinions on a wide variety of issues.”

  I had to go with her there. Who, after all, could ever forget programming like “Homicidal Postal Workers Speak Out,” “Espresso Ruined My Life,” or the immortal “Felching for Fun and Profit”?

  I lost what she was saying as I went into the bedroom in search of shoes. When I came back out, a graphic detailing the addresses and phone numbers of both Clarissa Hedgpeth and her organization, NUTSS, was on the screen, and Lola was doing the voice-of-doom narration. “Once again, that’s area code 206-328-6540 for those of you who would like to comment directly to Miss Hedgpeth.”

  Lola King looked to her left, got some sort of signal, and then plowed ahead. “Today, ladies and gentlemen, Afternoon Northwest will continue our investigation of animal rights issues. Our guest this afternoon is Steven Drew…president and founder of the National Vegan Society. Please, a big Northwest hello for Steeeeven Drewww.”

  I got the belt all the way through before I realized I missed a loop in the back. Arrrg.

  Steven was short, with a full head of corrugated hair pulled back into a thick black ponytail. When he turned to plant the obligatory peck on Lola’s cheek, I could see that the hairs on the back of his neck grew completely down into his collar, giving rise to the possibility that our boy Steve was completely haired over like a gibbon, a malady which I imagined at least subconsciously fueled his crusade on behalf of our furry friends.

  Lola beamed at the camera. “Can you tell our viewers, here and at home, exactly what a vegan is, Steve?”

  Steve gave a nervous smile and locked in on the wrong camera.

  “I certainly can, er, Lola,” he mumbled. “A vegan—pronounced vee-gun, by the way—is someone who does not consume animal products. While vegetarians avoid flesh foods, vegans also reject the exploitation and abuse inherent in the making of dairy and egg products, as well as clothing from animal sources,”

  “Well, isn’t that asking a lot of people, Steve? I mean, how many people are going to be able to lead a lifestyle like that?”

  Steve, who had by now found the camera with the red light, was nodding his head. “We understand that, Lola. While leading a purely vegan life may be difficult for many, we encourage those who strive toward this goal to consider themselves to be practicing vegans.”

  Kind of like Catholicism, I thought as I went to find myself a tie in the bedroom.

  It took me four tries to get a good knot in the tie, so I missed the introduction of the second guest, which turned out to
be something of a handicap since the guy was masked. He had one of those terrorist scarves wound around the lower part of his face and a pair of wraparound sunglasses covering his eyes. He was saying, “We encourage people to take action. To look around their areas for targets. They’re everywhere. Laboratories where animal testing takes place, factory farms, hunt kennels, meat-packing plants, fur shops, abattoirs.”

  Lola wanted to comment, but the guy was rolling. “ALF members in Michigan recently freed eight thousand mink from the farm of the president of the American Mink Association. There’s a seventy-thousand-dollar reward out for them right now, as we speak, Lola.”

  Lola tried again, “But, Konrad, isn’t it…”

  “I’ll tell you what it is, Lola. It’s flattering. When militants blew up those eight trucks in Sweden…it’s flattering, is what it is.”

  As I grabbed my jacket and looked around for the remote, Steven Drew managed to get a word in edgewise. “We see it as a matter of individual conscience, Lola. We believe that individuals can make a difference. Leading a cruelty-free life is—”

  Konrad Kramer jabbed a finger in Drew’s direction.

  “Hey, tofu boy. Where were you and your hippies when we were monkey wrenching the sea lion traps at the Ballard Locks? If it weren’t for committed ALF commandos, those poor devils would have been mukluks.”

  I spied the remote lying camouflaged on the bedspread and put an end to the dazzling repartee. I stopped at the gilded mirror on the wall and gave myself one last inspection. My forehead still had a puffy Neanderthal bulge, but other than that, I looked pretty good.

  The first elevator to stop was packed, but I got in anyway. The more the merrier. As the doors closed, I inserted my key for the security floors and pushed sixteen. As I’d expected, the rabble was struck dumb by my magnificence.

  Once again, Rowcliffe answered almost immediately.