Crooked Little Vein

Chapter 11

I parked outside the address, a well-kept place that’d had the front yard cemented over into parking spaces. This was a guy who had a lot of friends. His neighbor had an old Impala rotting in the yard next door. It looked like God had shat in it—the roof punched in, the interior filled with earth and weeds. A brown sneaker poked out of the bottom of the dirt in the doorless passenger side. The sneaker looked worryingly full.

My guy’s door chime was blandly anonymous. We waited out there for a couple of minutes, not talking. I was on the verge of giving up when I heard heavy footsteps inside the house. The door flew open and there was a large mahogany man wearing a purple towel standing there, grinning widely.

“You’re the guy who called earlier?”

“Yeah. I’m Mike, this is Trix.”

“Yeah? Very cool eye art there, miss. C’mon in. Bit of a rush here.”

The air inside was warm and salty. The place was pin-clean and retrotasteful, like someone had embalmed my grandmother’s house in 1976. He walked ahead of us, muscles moving under his skin like cats under a satin bedsheet. He was heavily built, and the weird artificial-looking mahogany brought out his muscle definition. He brought us into an old lady’s living room, laid a spare towel over the sofa, and sat, inviting us into big armchairs that smelled of old potpourri. He gave that big open grin again, big white teeth gleaming in his shaven mahogany head.

“I’m Gary. You got to excuse my look, I just got back from a bodybuilding show. No time to shower.”

He pressed his fingertip into his forearm and drew a line down it, exposing white skin.

“Body stain. Brings out the shape under the lights. I compete.”

“Did you win?” Trix smiled.

“Ah, second place. Three hundred bucks. I do it for the extra cash, and three hundred’s better than a kick in the ass, right? I got this great trainer, English guy, but he’s pissed at me because I don’t stay in the gym all damn day. He’s got this picture he carries around with him from when he competed himself. Him in first place, some other guy in second, Arnold Schwarzenegger in third. He says to me, ‘I got first and lived on nothing but fresh pussy for the next two years. Arnie got third and lived in the gym and worked his guts out. And now he’s the governor of California and I’m training you, you arsehole.’”

I don’t know what was wrong with me. I just wasn’t in the mood to make friends. Stupid, really. I was sick of it already, or sick of myself, or all that tangled up together.

“I just want to know where the book is.”

Gary grinned that big happy fucking stupid grin, teeth like Scrabble tiles glued into a coffee table. “Sure, I know. Sounds like you guys are on a real weird gig. What is that book, anyway? I mean, the guy told me it was valuable. I did okay out of it—made enough cash to fix up the house and the yard and had a few parties, you know? I’m interested now.”

“It was stolen from important people, a long time ago. Where is it?”

“Well, it ain’t here. Sold it, like I said.”

“Who to?”

“I got a receipt someplace. Damn sure it’s not worth the paper it’s written on, though, right?” Wide friendly grin. Every time his face gaped open I wanted to break a chair in it.

“Just give me the fucking name.”

“Mike,” Trix hissed.

The grin shut down like someone threw a switch. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

“You know what? I just started this case and I’m already sick of uppity perverts. The name.”

Gary stood up. He didn’t have much height, but he was wide and solid. “Oh, is that what I am? Well, here’s the deal, private eye. I’ll give you the name. After you’ve partied with me and my friends a little. Or you can take a walk. Or I can kick your scrawny ass clean from here to the airport and you can fly back to where the weenie vanilla straight boys hide.”

The doorbell rang.

“That’s my friends,” Gary said. “They’re bringing the needles.”

Big evil grin.