Baby, It’s Murder

Chapter Eight

When Mikki came home later that afternoon, we were ready, or as ready as anybody could be. Velda had said to me, “Let me handle this,” and I’d agreed to that. Promised not to go ballistic even if I felt like the countdown had started.

Then the girl came smiling in the door, looking fresh and innocent and as wholesome as Sandra Dee, all baby-blue sweater (long-sleeved), pink bellbottoms and open-toed sandals. Her eyes were dark and bright, her long black hair brushing her shoulders, her lips a frosty pink. There she was, Miss Teen America.

I was standing at one end of the couch and Velda the other and in front of us was a low-slung coffee table...

...with the baggie of the girl’s “works” — syringe and tubing and scorched spoon and Bic lighter and aluminum packets of H — set out there like the accusation they were.

Her smile froze as her eyes took in the junkie’s kit and then dissolved into something slack yet filled with fear and dismay and a thousand other emotions.

Velda gestured to the couch. “Have a seat.”

Mikki didn’t move for ten long seconds, then shut the door, but just stood there as she said, “I can explain.”

I said, “You heard your sister. Sit down.”

Velda gave me a little take-it-easy look but it was hard for me. I was boiling.

The teenager came over and sat in the middle of the couch and Velda sat next to her on one side and I did so on the other. Velda’s hands, almost prayer-like, were in her lap. My hands were in my lap, too. Fists.

“Just listen,” Mikki said, her voice soft, serious. “A girl friend of mine at school... I don’t want to say her name, I think you’ll understand... I’m keeping those things for her. That’s the start and finish of it.”

Velda said nothing.

I said nothing.

“Look,” Mikki said, and her gaze swung from Velda to me and back again, “she’s really a nice girl and she’s trying to quit using that stuff and that’s why it’s with me and not her. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s the truth, really, it’s the truth. I would never do that kind of thing. You can’t believe that about me.”

Velda pulled back the right-hand sleeve of her sister’s sweater and revealed the tracks, the bruising, the red spots. The girl gasped at the sight, as if seeing those telltale marks were a surprise to her.

Then the child hung her head. Her hands were on her thighs, trembling. Her voice was small. “All right. It’s mine. It’s mine. That stuff is all mine.” Then she raised her head and leaned toward Velda. “But I’m not an addict! I’m not!”

“We’re not going to judge you, honey,” Velda said, taking one of the girl’s hands.

I was ready to judge the little brat. I was ready to put her over my knee and blister her ass! But this was Velda’s show, not mine.

“I was depressed,” Mikki said in an apologetic, Principal’s Office way. “My grades were bad, probably because I was spending all my time on my tennis. Eating nervously. And then I started losing games... I’d gotten so, so, so very fat... I tried some pills and they didn’t work and then somebody, do not ask me who, suggested China white. He said it was like heroin but safer, and I could just use it sparingly, to help me lose weight and give me a boost when I needed it. And I’m not hooked, Vel! Mike, I’m really not!”

“You have to quit,” Velda said.

She nodded and nodded some more. “I know. I will. I’ll quit right now!”

I said, “Who is the somebody who suggested China white? What’s his name?”

The girl’s tortured expression begged me. “Mike, I can’t tell you. I don’t want to get anyone else in trouble. I’m... I’m sure he was just trying to help.”

“Damnit — you need to tell me.”

“No, Mike. I can’t!”

On the other side of her, Velda was giving me a look and shaking her head. I backed off. But I was trembling as bad as the girl was.

“I’ll stop right now,” Mikki said. “We’ll flush that stuff and the rest down the toilet! Okay? Are we good?”

“Not that easy,” I said.

Velda said, “We’ve lined up a place for you to get better. A kind of hospital.”

She shook her head, all that long black hair shimmering. “No. No. Rehab? I don’t need it. I’m not that bad. Just an occasional user. Not some kind of... of addict or anything.”

“You’re going,” I said.

“No! No...”

Velda put her arm around the girl, saying, “It’ll be all right, honey.”

Finally came the tears — a torrent of them accompanied by racking sobs. She waved loose, dismissive fingers at the “works” on the coffee table. “I don’t need that! I don’t want that! I’m not some kind of low-life junkie or anything. I’ll stop, I’ll stop! You have to believe me, I’ll stop!”

I said, “You wouldn’t like cold turkey.”

That alarmed the girl. “What?”

Velda gave me another look. “Sweetie, you won’t have to go cold turkey. You’re not looking at terrible withdrawal pains. This is a kind of hospital. They’ll ease you off. They’ll help you. They’ll get you back in shape again. You’ll be back on the tennis court before you know it.”

Mikki’s eyes and nostrils flared. “I don’t want to play fucking tennis! You’re terrible! You’re both terrible! I thought you loved me, Vel! But all I am is an embarrassment to you.”

“Honey, we do love you,” Velda said. “We’re going to get you help.”

Mikki’s lower lip, the pink gloss gone, was trembling. “Well... if... if that’s what you think is best...”

Through my teeth, I said, “Who gave you the China white?”

She screamed. It was like something out of a horror movie. Truth is, it scared me a little.

Velda frowned in my direction and said, “Never mind that. Mike’s just a little upset about the idea of anybody leading you astray.”

Astray? Somebody had turned this sweet kid into a junkie, and by God, whoever he was, I’d give him the kind of quick death that was merciful considering the slow death he’d been peddling.

Velda asked, “You cool, Mike?”

“As a cucumber,” I said.

Mikki was settling down, drying her eyes with a tissue, when Velda said to me, “I’m going to help Mikki pack some things. Then we’ll drive her out to your friend’s clinic.”

“It’s a plan,” I said.

Velda helped her sister out of the living room and into the hall and the girl’s room while I sat there clenching and unclenching my fists.

They had been in there maybe five minutes when I heard the screech of wheels outside, sounding so close to the house a vehicle might have crashed through the front door. I ran to our guest room and grabbed my .45 from the nightstand and ran into Velda in the hall.

“What is it?” she asked, eyes wide.

The gun was in hand, pointing up. “Not sure. Stay with the kid. She might go out a window or something.”

Velda nodded and went back into Mikki’s bedroom while I headed outside.

Second’s gold Corvette was the apparent source of the screeching wheels. It was angled up over the curb and onto the sidewalk and into the yard somewhat, easily trumping the time that Ellis kid had parked his bike on the lawn.

The rider’s side door seemed to fling itself open and Second stumbled out. I went to him quickly and prevented him from taking a header onto the sidewalk.

He was a mess.

A bloody mess, his floral shirt and white jeans rumpled, torn, dirt-smudged, scarlet-splotched. He wore only one shoe, the remainder of a pair of expensive running trainers, his other foot bare. His eyes were swollen almost shut, the right eye blackened, his nose trailed red, his lips puffy.

Somebody had beaten the ever-loving shit out of him.

I shoved the .45 in my waistband and slipped my arm around his shoulder and steadied him. “Let’s get you inside, kid.”

He didn’t argue.

I drunk-walked him up the front walk and the short flight of stairs and over the stoop into the bungalow — I’d left the door open. Helped him in, gesturing to the couch where Velda and I had sat with Mikki.

“No,” he said, and he raised a hand with skinned, puffy knuckles in protest. “I’m... I’m on my way to the emergency room.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll drive you.”

“No, no need. Just give me a minute. I... I wanted to warn Mikki.” He looked toward the couch where the junkie stash on the coffee table made a profane centerpiece. “You... you know about Mikki, then.”

“I do. Sounds like you did, too, Second.”

The boy was trying to look at me, but lifting his head up enough was a chore. “I... I’ve been trying to... trying to get her to quit. But she wouldn’t hear of it. Mikki’s hooked but doesn’t think she is.”

“I think she may be getting the picture now.”

“Really?” His eyes came alive in their puffy settings. “That would be great. That would be fantastic.”

“Why did you head here, Second? Somebody obviously gave you a hell of a beating.”

“I... I wanted her to go to the cops about her old boyfriend.”

I frowned. “Ellis. Brian Ellis is her connection?”

Second nodded.

Not a surprise.

“Him and some of his biker buddies waylaid me and did this to me. Half a dozen of them. I fought back, for what good it did me. I wanted to warn Mikki she might be in danger from him. He might’ve heard her talking about trying to kick the stuff.”

“You think he’d give her a similar makeover?”

His eyes popped in the puffing. “I think he might kill her! If he thought she might rat him out to the cops, he would, no question! He’s got half a dozen kids at the high school dealing for him — he was the biggest pusher around when he was going there. Somebody’s got to stop that bastard!”

“Where can I find him?”

“There’s a biker bar in downtown Sidon. That’s where I tracked him down, and that’s where Ellis and his buddies beat the crap out of me in the alley behind. Fucking cowards, four of them to one lousy me.”

“These the biker crowd he hangs with?”

“Well, they’re dealers under him. At biker bars and near high school and college campuses. They don’t wear their leathers and such peddling at those last two venues.”

Velda came out from Mikki’s room. “Is everything okay?” she asked from the mouth of the hallway. “Second! Are you all right?”

“He’s on his way to the emergency room,” I told her. “Go back and ride herd on Mikki. I don’t want her seeing him.”

Velda nodded and did that. She’d been in charge where Mikki was concerned; but she knew this thing had taken a turn into my territory.

With a row of Harleys along the building’s side wall, Wallace McBeery’s looked to have been part of the Sidon downtown strip long enough for its name to have once resonated. That exterior wall of the corner joint was gray-painted brick, the front darker gray clapboard. A sign advertised LIVE MUSIC but wasn’t specific, and the single, rather small window said HAMM’S and suggested things might be happening inside that shouldn’t be seen from the outside.

I went in anyway.

The joint, no darker than your average closet, had a narrow layout, as if it had once been two lanes of a former bowling alley, with a barely raised stage at the far end. The floor was part pine, part cigarette ash, all broken dreams. You could get a blow job here or get rolled or maybe shot and nobody would mind, long as you kept it to yourself. Moving past the ancient wooden bar, you could make out the razor blade lines indicating more than one kind of Coke got served up here for those not interested in the warm beer or watered liquor.

The bartender was the only female in the place at this slow moment, a gal of thirty who looked forty with red hair permed sometime this century and a nicely filled black bra under a denim vest, sleeveless, to better show off the Tweety Bird tattoo on her left arm and Sylvester the Cat tattoo on her right arm. I stopped and bought a bottle of Miller from her; her smile was as yellow as Tweety but the rest of her would do in a pinch. Christmas lights, ample wood paneling and a few bar games completed the picture.

On a weeknight, around six in the off-season, the place wasn’t doing much business. Half a dozen bikers in well-worn leather jackets and denim jeans and boots were leaning against the bar, which had no seats and made them look like they meant business. That business, I figured, was almost certainly selling smack and other nasty goodies. It occurred to me I could unload my .45 on all six of them and the future of Western Civilization would not suffer for it; maybe improve.

I was in a mood.

The booths past the bar hugged the walls to make room for an excuse for a dance floor, though I had a hunch that area mostly showcased fights. Well, one man’s entertainment is another man’s autopsy report. Those booths would sit two comfortably and four if you weren’t picky about who you rubbed against. Brian Ellis was in one, nursing a bottle of Pabst.

That he’d been in a fight was apparent, but that he’d given better than he’d got also seemed evident — some bruising here, a contusion there, on his boyish, slightly bearded face. That was about it. His hair was out of the ponytail and hanging straight now, giving him an Indian vibe. His leather vest and long-sleeve t-shirt and denims did have a rumpled look, but nothing like Second’s.

“Don’t say I oughta see the other guy,” I said, sliding in, having to speak up over heavy metal rock playing on a jukebox. “I already have. And you and your buddies gave him a hell of a beating.”

Whole lotta love, the jukebox screamed.

Ellis cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. “What buddies, Mr. Hammer?”

Was he shitting me?

I said, “This is a funny fucking place to be calling somebody ‘Mister.’”

“You have the wrong idea about me, Mr. Hammer. You really do.” He shrugged; he seemed depressed. His right hand held onto the bottle of Pabst; his long-ago injured limp left arm hung.

“Maybe,” I said, “I got the wrong impression seeing the kind of place you frequent.”

He gestured with the hand he still had. “They treat me like a human being here. And it’s the only place in Sidon where a guy like me can get served.”

“What kind of guy is that?” I asked. “It’s not like you’re under-age.”

“Just what you see, Mr. Hammer. A long-haired fucking freak. A would-be outlaw biker.”

Born to be wild, the jukebox said.

I looked at him carefully. Something was off here. My brain started working.

“What happened,” I said, pressing him, “between you and Second?”

“What do you think? I kicked his ass.”

“Not easy with one hand and without six buddies.”

He shrugged. “Nobody helped me. I have a good right. And two steel-tipped toes. Also, Second’s a wuss.”

That actually got a smile out of me. “Any special reason why you kicked his ass?”

The boyish face frowned into something older. “What do you think, Mr. Hammer? Because of what he’s done to Mikki.”

I leaned forward. “What has he done, Brian?”

He snorted a laugh; chugged some beer. “Like you’d believe me.”

“Try me, kid. If you think I never rode a Harley, you’d be wrong. Hell, I used to race stock cars.”

His eyebrows raised in skepticism. “You raced stock cars?”

“Till I crashed one and almost bought the farm.”

He laughed, not that there was much humor in it. “You don’t seem like a Hell’s Angel type, Mr. Hammer.”

“I’m not. Like I said, stock cars were my passion, till one almost killed me. But I was a motorcycle cop once upon a time. Before I got assigned to a desk for being too big a hard-ass.”

Ellis was looking at me the way a dog tries to understand its master. “Are you saying you don’t assume I’m the bad guy in this?”

I smirked and there was little humor in that, too. “Maybe I did until... I don’t know. I’ve been in the P.I. game a long time and I learned early on not to take things at face value.”

That amused him, but bitterly. “You mean, like a nice kid like Mikki Sterling can sometimes be a hype. Notice I say ‘hype,’ not ‘doper,’ ’cause she’s moved way past grass and a few diet pills.”

Bad moon rising...

“You were seen arguing with her, Brian, more than once. You’re saying you were trying to stop her using? To stop her... from what? Seeing Second?”

His nod came slow. But sure.

“Goddamnit, he’s the dealer,” I said, and slammed my fist on the booth top, making our bottles of beer jump. “Somebody told me once not to judge a book by its cover.”

Someone wise named Velda.

Ellis shook his head, once. “Second’s not a dealer, exactly. He’s the supplier, but more than that. He’s the boss of a... a network of young-looking guys who pose as high school students.”

I frowned, trying to process that. “Young enough to hang around school yards, you mean? And not get noticed?”

The young man waved that off. “Oh hell, no. Second gets them enrolled under fake names with detailed documentation. Phony transcripts, background info, the works.”

I was still having to talk above the jukebox. “If you knew all this, why didn’t you go to the authorities? Or, hell — come to me, once I got to Sidon?”

Now he was emphatically shaking his head. “Mr. Hammer, how am I to know what authorities to trust? This is a widespread enough deal that some cops on the take just must be involved. And as for going to you about it — no offense, but you didn’t come off as being real open-minded or anything.”

...evil ways...

“I guess I didn’t,” I admitted, not proud of myself. “Listen, son — I have contacts in law enforcement, reliable ones I can guarantee aren’t bent. I can work this from my end and get Second and his entire network of dealers exposed.”

Now he was leaning forward. “What can I do to help, Mr. Hammer?”

I raised a lecturing forefinger. “You can lie low till you hear from me. Write down your phone number and address on a napkin and I’ll be in touch.”

He did that, and asked, “I guess I lost my temper, beating Second up like that. It was all I could think of to do. Sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” I said. “I’d have killed him. I still may.”