The Hard Bounce

Chapter Twenty-One

Junior’s words struck Kelly like an open-handed slap. She ran to the bathroom, and I could hear her crying behind the door. Junior kept clearing his throat and stalking back and forth in the room.

I wondered where my anger was. It should have been there, coursing through me. Empowering me. It was there for Seven. It was there for Derek. Hell, it was even there for Underdog. Why wasn’t it there for Cassie?

A demon whispered in my ear. You’re used to losing women.

Of course. Of course, she’s dead.

You were supposed to be her hero, Boo.

Could you ever have been her hero? Anyone’s?

No, my demon said. You never saved anyone. You never could.

And you never will.

“What happened?” I finally asked.

“She ran away again. Two kids found her in the Dutch House. A step let loose or something and she fell. She must have broke her neck.”

“Did anyone see her?” My voice was as flat as a machine’s.

“See her what?”

“Did anyone see her fall?” I stared past Junior, to my front door, to the street.

Junior gave me a look. “No, Boo.”

“So if nobody saw-”

“Don’t do this. There’s nothing to figure. It’s a big rotting squat. You know that. Who the fuck knows if anybody saw anything? If they did, you can get yourself a nice list of junkies and degenerates as witnesses. Fucking place has been condemned as long as we’ve been in Boston.”

“Witnesses to what?” I turned away from the street.

Junior flopped down on my couch, slouched over. He stopped massaging his hands and paused. “What?”

“You said I could make a list of witnesses. Witnesses to what?”

“I was just saying-”

“Don’t bullshit me, Junior. You wouldn’t have said it if you didn’t think there might be witnesses to something.”

“To what? Witnesses to anything! To her falling! To somebody finding her. Shit, at the Dutch House, you’re probably likely to find more than a couple witnesses to alien abductions.”

“Try to find Paul. Ask him if he knows the kids who found her.”

“Boo, the cops already looked into this. Don’t make it into something it’s not. She’s the daughter of the goddamn DA. You think they didn’t look into every fucking detail?” There was no anger in his reprimand, just pity. Telling Ahab that there was no white whale.

“They didn’t know every detail. We do. We just yanked that kid away from a kiddie porn-no, a snuff porn-freak who’s the nephew of the most dangerous man on the Eastern Seaboard. We don’t know who had a copy of that movie. We don’t know what kind of maniac watched it and jerked off in his mother’s panties every time she died. Maybe… maybe one of them saw her walking down the street and… and…” I was reaching, and I knew it.

Junior knew it too. “You listening to yourself?”

“I don’t believe in three things, Junior: the Easter Bunny, a loving God, and coincidences. Just call Paul.” My failed breakfast experiment was drying into glue on my hand. In my numbness, I’d forgotten to wash it off. I nearly tore off the faucet head turning the water on.

Defeated or just too worn out to argue, Junior said, “Fine. We’ll look into this. But I’m only giving it a week, Boo. Our answering machine at the office is flooded. We’ve spent enough time with this. Curtis is pissed that you never called him back about last weekend, so we lost our Drop Bar account to Ironclad Security.”

I soaped up my hands and ignored him.

“We’ve got a dozen more waiting to hear back from us. I’m not losing 4DC over this. Our job ended when we handed her over. This is business I’m talking now, Boo. It’s a fucking tragedy and I’m sorry she’s gone but we have a goddamn business to run. One week.” With that, he marched out the door and drove off.

I drove Kelly back to her apartment in a heavy silence. We parted with the quiet intact, sorrow stripping us of our words.

Junior gave me one week. It only took two days.

I went alone that night to the Dutch House. A decade and a half ago, fire had gutted most of the old house. Not too long after, a local assemblage of homeless addicts, nutcase bums, and runaway teens moved right in. Some kids would just hang out there and get high, away from the street. A place they could call their own, burned, rat infested, moldy, and dangerous as it was. Since day one, Mr. Dutch always had a motley assortment of stragglers coming and going.

I knew the place all too well. I bunked there for a spell when I first came to Boston, jobless and homeless.

Mr. Dutch had probably moved himself in before the place stopped smoldering. Nobody knew Dutch’s full story. Since he lived at the house that bore his name, I guess he wasn’t technically homeless. Nobody knew how old he was or where he’d come from.

I found him across the street from the house, nervously twisting on his lanky, graying dreadlocks. For a vagrant, Dutch was always well-groomed and articulate. He spotted me as I walked down Brattle Street.

“That you, Boo?” Dutch cupped a hand to his mouth and blew out a long stream of marijuana smoke.

“It’s me, Dutch.”

“Well, hell’s bells, white boy. What you doing in this neck of the woods? You lose your lease?” He cackled and offered me his joint.

“No thanks,” I said, my eyes locked on the house across the street.

“Make your leg feel better.” He pointed the joint at the brace on my leg. “Help heal that shit up fast.” Dutch would tell you marijuana could cure everything from hepatitis to Republicans.

“No thanks. Got my own pills for it.”

“Got any more?”

“Sorry.”

“Whatever. Might at least help knock off that ugly gorilla face you wearing. Good for the heart and the mind.” He tapped a finger off his chest, then head. Dutch practiced what he preached. A lot. But he never seemed stoned. “Whatever did you do to yourself?”

“I got shot.”

“Mm-hmm.” He didn’t seem surprised at all, which bothered me. “You sure do know how to piss off the wrong people, dontcha?”

“Guess I do.” It was hard not to smile for Dutch, but I wasn’t feeling anywhere close to the humor he usually brought. “What can you tell me about the girl?”

He didn’t have to ask which girl. He knew.

“Aw, don’t tell me she was a friend of yours. That poor thing was just a baby.” Dutch shook his head and comforted himself with another toke.

“I knew her, yeah.”

“I’m so sorry for that, Boo. I guess the old stairwell just couldn’t hold no more.” Dutch shook his head sadly for his poor house falling down around his ears.

“Did you find her?”

“Nah. By the time I got here, there was cops and lights and shit all over the place. Thank God. Thing like that’ll stay with a man. Wish I could’ve been here to help her, but I sure am glad I didn’t find that poor child.”

“Was anybody there at the time?”

“Shit, if they was, they got themselves the hell gone when they saw the police coming.”

“Anybody say anything when they came back?”

“Nobody came back but me. Damn police scared away all my tenants.”

And odds were, those former tenants would be impossible to find even if I knew who they were. Finding a girl was one thing. Tracking homeless nomads in a city like Boston was another problem entirely.

“I need to see the house.”

Dutch pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I wouldn’t go in there right now.”

“Why not?”

“I got a double-crack in there right now, losing his got-damn mind. That’s why I’m out here.”

“What’s a double-crack?”

Dutch smiled, a little embarrassed. “A cracker crackhead. No offense.”

“How long has he been in there?”

“He just showed up today, looking for Louisa. Louisa ain’t been here for months. He’s flipping out, saying he won’t leave till she gets here.”

“I’ll be right back,” I said, crossing the street. From my backpack, I pulled out a thick Maglite flashlight and lit up the front of the house.

The front porch gave an ominous creak as I walked up the steps. Yellow police tape fluttered, broken in the breeze. I pulled a short piece off the rusted iron rail and stuck it in my pocket. I don’t know why I wanted it, I just did. The air wafting out the missing front door was heavy with dark odors of rot and waste. The smells brought with them overpowering memories of the time I’d lived here as one of Dutch’s tenants.

I moved aside the blue nylon tarp that covered the doorway and walked through. A plastic mop bucket that had been used for a latrine sat by the door. I gagged as I passed by and pulled my shirtfront over my mouth and nose.

“Louisa?” A gruff voice called out from the darkness toward the back of the house. My dealings with the chronically fucked-up have given me an ear for the difference between drinkers and brain-damaged lifetime addicts. The guy’s voice sounded like he’d made a career out of huffing any chemical he could soak in a sweat sock.

“Time to go, man. Louisa ain’t coming back,” I called out as I turned my flashlight his way. Roaches scurried away from the sharp glare cast on the floor.

“The fuck’re you?” the voice asked as my eyes detected a flicker of motion in what was once the kitchen.

I held the light low, so as not to blind the double-crack and freak him out further. He was wearing a grimy T-shirt reading Baby On Board and filthy cutoffs with sandals. His skin was so crusted with muck that it was difficult to tell where the dirt ended and the man began.

“I’m the fella who’s kicking your ass out of here. Now move it.” I flicked the flashlight toward the door, in case he’d forgotten how to get there. I hoped my no-bullshit tone would pierce his addled brain.

“I ain’t doing nothing until Louisa comes back.” He emphasized his point by waving a short piece of rebar menacingly in the air.

My thin patience snapped, and I brought the bright flashlight beam straight into his face. “Hey!” he yelled. He defensively brought the metal post up over his head. In one motion, I flipped my hold on the flashlight and brought the handle down hard on the knobby bone in his wrist. The junkie howled in pain as the rebar clunked onto the floor.

From behind, I slipped the flashlight between his legs, turned it flat against his thighs, and pulled back. I grabbed a handful of his slimy hair and pushed his upper body forward. Trick of the trade. A ten-year-old could pull off the move against an NFL linebacker. I had no trouble maneuvering a skinny crackhead. He was like a smelly marionette in my grip.

As I scooted him toward the door, he lurched sideways to escape. Not only didn’t it break my grip, but his aim was terrible. Using his own momentum, I dunked him head-first into the shit bucket. His screams quickly gurgled out as I held his face down in it.

“Oh, God! Lemme go! Please! I’ll leave!” he begged when I let him up for air.

“How long you been here, you fuck?” I snarled.

“I-I just got here this morning, man. I just wanted-”

I cut him off with another dunking. His screams gurgled up through the viscous fluid.

“Were you in here on Saturday, you dirty fuck? You like to put the hurt on little girls? Huh? Answer me, shitbird.”

Thick bubbles rimmed around his submerged head as he screamed. His arms and legs whipped around wildly, clawing for any purchase. He grabbed at my pants legs, my arm, my shirt. I held him down harder.

I stopped when I heard Mr. Dutch pleading, “Boo, let him go! He wasn’t here. He really did just show up today. He was in lockup.”

I let the crackhead go and he scrabbled into the corner by the door, turtling himself up, whimpering like a child waiting for the next blow. “I just want my Louisa,” he blubbered. “I just wanted to find my Louisa.” He rocked back and forth, clutching his knees close to his chest.

Dutch stared at me, horrified. There was only one crazy nutcase covered in shit in that room right then. Nobody needed to point fingers to figure out who it was.

Dutch led me out back, where a spigot and hose still gave water despite clanking a protest. I washed off the mess best as I could, but there was no amount of cleaning that would save my clothes. I was going to be walking around in a potato sack if I lost any more of my wardrobe.

“I’m sorry, Dutch,” I said, sick with myself.

“S’okay, Boo. You feeling a lot of hurt right now. I can see that. Jest don’t think poor George deserved to suffer from it.”

Knowing the crackhead’s name made me feel worse. “I just lost it, Dutch. I thought… I don’t know what I thought,” I said, turning the faucet off with a squeak.

“Like I said, it’s okay. At least you got George to hit the bricks. Probably don’t have to worry about him coming back, neither.”

Dutch led me back to the wide stairwell at the south end of the house. I remembered going up those stairs to the room I’d kept my sleeping bag in. The stairs supported me just fine back then. But ten years was a long time in a house that should have been demolished in the early 1990s. Stringy wisps of carpet remained tacked onto the edges of the stairs, fibers black from the flames that burned through the house. A wide hole opened like a gaping mouth three steps from the top.

Carefully, I walked up the first four steps. Cassandra couldn’t have weighed more than an even buck with all her clothes on and wearing wrist weights. The stairs creaked, but gave only a little under my two-thirty.

“Be careful, Boo,” Dutch said nervously. “No offense to you or that little girl, but the last thing I need is another dead whitey in my house. The damn police already put me through their suspicious-nigger line of questioning.”

“I’m all right,” I said as I made my way higher. One step below the hole and the stairs still held me. I was only eight feet off the ground floor, but I knew falls from lesser heights could kill, especially if you weren’t expecting the drop. I ran my fingers along the edges of the broken planks. The wood grains were swollen with moisture, but didn’t appear to be suffering any excessive rot.

That wasn’t what I was looking for. I was there to see if someone had marked his territory. Made it look like a collapse when it wasn’t anything. Maybe he’d dropped his wallet or carved “I killed Cassandra Donnelly” on the wall and signed it.

As one last test, I gave the wood on the side of the broken stairs a good stomp. The impact boomed an echo through the lonely hallways.

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Dutch complained. “Please don’t do that. No more dead whiteys, Boo! Please?”

I stared down into the hole. The cavity that swallowed Cassie’s short life. How long did she lie down there? Was she knocked out? Killed instantly? Or was she down there dying, alone, for hours? I couldn’t see through the darkness to determine what lay at the bottom. Basement? Closet? Was there blood? The hole just stared back at me, unconcerned with my opinion of it.

The wood held. I stomped three more times.

Bang bang bang.

Nothing. If it held me and withstood by best stompings, then-

Creak.

“Oh, Boo. Get offa there, please.”

With an earsplitting screech, the banister tore away from the wall, the entire stairwell collapsing under me. I was lucky enough to land on my good leg and roll when I hit. I bounced off the floor once, and Dutch screamed. I got the wind knocked out of me, but I was okay.

The same drop had been much worse for Cassie.

“Boo!” Plaster and ash floated thickly in the air, making Dutch wheeze.

“I’m over here, Dutch.” I called back, coughing in the chalky dust coating the inside of my mouth and lungs. I pulled the front of my shirt over my nose again as I ran for the door. Dutch was right behind me, gasping.

So the stairs weren’t up to code. So what? They stood long enough with my fat ass on them. They should have been able to take Cassandra’s weight without a squeak.

But they did collapse, what was left of my rational mind said.

But they should have held her, the irrational majority said.

But they didn’t.

But.

Ifs and buts.

I put on my one suit. My funeral blacks. It seemed death was the only occasion I had to put on decent clothes. It took me a long time to get the necktie knotted, since it had been about seven years since I’d last had to tie one. That, and I couldn’t use a mirror. When I caught my own eyes in the reflection, I saw the surfacing ghosts. A grief I hadn’t seen in many years. A grief I still couldn’t afford.

Junior and I waited at the New Cavalry Cemetery gates for the procession to arrive from the church. For reasons neither of us could touch upon, we didn’t feel it would be appropriate for us to attend the funeral mass, but we both wanted to be there for the graveside service.

I sat on Miss Kitty’s hood, leafing through the Sunday Globe. The story of Cassandra’s death had made the front page for a couple days, then been bumped to page three by the end of the week. Today’s article was about the funeral and Big Jack’s sudden spike in the polls. Sympathy made for a lot of votes, apparently. I doubted Mr. Donnelly felt the value of those votes versus what they had cost him.

“Here they come,” Junior said, spitting an empty sunflower seed into the street.

A long progression of black cars crept up the street, headlights on.

Cassandra’s casket was laid into the ground under a large willow tree, next to her mother. A good number of people were in attendance. Cassandra’s friends huddled together on one side, their pubescent emotions unchecked and on display. Two girls wailed their way through the entire service, the cries of kids who just got a sucker-punch of a reminder that they weren’t immortal. Their grief was a palpable presence, like currents of ozone before a thunderstorm.

Our sadness was for a recent loss. We’d barely known the kid. Our contact with her could be broken down into a matter of hours. So why was I hurting so bad?

Junior and I kept to the back. We didn’t belong, standing there in our cheap suits, barely knowing anyone there. I could feel the class line right there and then. Death may level all playing fields, but only for the dead. At one point, Kelly spotted us and lifted her fingers. I could see streaks of wetness underneath her sunglasses. I just nodded at her.

Jack Donnelly wasn’t so big that day. In fact, he was the smallest man I’ve ever seen, as though a sinkhole had opened in his chest and was pulling him inside out as the service progressed. His eyes never strayed from the copper-colored casket and the open grave underneath. At his side stood Barnes, looking like he was ready to take control if any control needed taking.

From our isolated spot, we couldn’t hear the priest’s words, but as he finished and the casket was lowered, the cries reached a crescendo and I saw Jack sway. In a heartbeat, Barnes curled his arm around his old friend for support. As the crowd parted, people cried on each other’s shoulders, held one another, shook hands, and went their ways.

I wanted to make my way over to Mr. Donnelly. I wanted to look him straight and say…

I don’t know.

That I was sorry.

A small procession of people before me were doing just that as Barnes led Donnelly back to his limousine. By the time Barnes got him there, I was a step away and found no words to say. I started to extend my hand when the levee of Donnelly’s grief broke. He bayed softly, crumpling onto the side of his car.

“Jack… Jack…” Barnes said in a calm voice to his friend.

“I killed her,” Donnelly wept. “I killed my little girl. I pushed her away from me, Danny. I pushed her, and she’s dead. She’s gone. Oh, God-”

“Jack, get in the car, please.” I heard Barnes’ voice crack as he opened the car door and placed Donnelly inside.

The mass of mourners looked away uncomfortably or cried harder for their friend’s daughter.

I just felt sick. I was physically ill at my own selfishness. I’d made Cassie’s death about me, my world. I’d placed my own bullshit existence into Cassandra’s death when I had no reason. No right. I realized that as I watched the collapse of Jack Donnelly, and I felt sick to my core about it. For him.

We went back to The Cellar after the funeral to drink death away.

“That sucked,” Junior said as he swallowed another mouthful of wine.

That pretty much summed it up.

Ginny was waitressing and came over to us. “What’s with the monkey suits boys? Somebody die?”

I gave her my eyes, and she realized her question wasn’t as rhetorical as she’d thought.

“Oh shit,” she said and put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“S’okay,” I mumbled. I patted her hand.

“Let me get you guys another round,” she said, and she quickly sauntered off.

“It’s done, Junior,” I said.

“Thank God.” Junior sighed with relief.

I gulped the rest of my bourbon. “You were right. I don’t know what I was thinking. She was the goddamn district attorney’s daughter-”

“You wanted to be sure, brother. I understand that much.”

“I know you do. Seeing Donnelly like that, I dunno, made me rethink where we stand in all this. For crissakes, the guy is the top cop in town. I don’t know what made me think I could do any better than he could.”

Junior shrugged. “What can I say? You’re an egotistical narcissistical motherfucker.”

I glared at him, and he laughed. Then I started. We laughed in the only way friends can when they’re at their worst. Ginny was all the more confused when she brought our drinks over.

When we stopped laughing, I said, “There is one more thing I’d like to do.” I cleared my throat. “For Cassie.”

Junior raised his wine. “For Cassie.”

“I wasn’t toasting, you fucktard.”

He lowered the glass. “Oh. What’s that, then?”

“What do you say we finish the job, get all those DVDs back? We find out who bought the videos from Sid, and we burn the DVDs in a big-ass bonfire?”

“Only if I can hurt the pervs. Lots.”

“Oh, lots and lots.”

“Joy.”

Junior went home, and I continued my search for God. I closed the bar and extended my search for The Almighty all the way into the bottom of a Beam bottle. I might have seen Moses in the peanut bowl, but I might just as easily have been fucked up. A jingle of keys at the front door stirred me from my religious questings.

“Mr. Boo,” Luke said with his usual reserved cheer. “You look nice tonight. What you get all dressed up for? You have yourself a date?”

“Had a funeral, Luke. Friend of mine died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Boo. It wasn’t that young girl, was it? The daughter of Mr. Donnelly?”

“As a matter of fact, it was. How did you know?”

“Saw a picture on your desk a while back. Saw her picture in the newspaper. Just made a guess.” Luke clucked his tongue and shook his head sadly, leaning on the ratty mop he’d pulled out of the utility closet. “Shame a young girl like that goes when there’s so many people who’ve lived their lives and wait, sick, for their turn to meet Jesus.” He said it like he was waiting on that day himself.

I nodded. “I just can’t figure out the whys of it anymore, Luke. I mean, I don’t know. I just can’t figure out the why.”

Luke sighed and looked off into a distance beyond the peeling lead paint on the walls. “Sometimes life goes wrong, Mr. Boo. Pure and simple. God has a plan. It don’t always feel right to us. Most of the time it downright hurts so bad you just wants to scream and curse His name, but that ain’t right neither. Sometimes, life just goes wrong.” He strolled off to the kitchen and turned on his radio, the same fire-and-brimstone preacher shouting out salvation into the night.

I didn’t find God that night, but I felt Luke’s words were as close as I was going to get. I said goodnight and went home.

The next day, Junior and I were ready to start back at the beginning. Junior would find Paul, I would go to Seven’s to smack any and all remaining information out of him.

When I got to Seven’s, I found an unlocked door and the apartment stripped to the walls. Seven had skipped.

I was back at The Cellar when Junior called my cell phone.

“What’s up?”

“I’m in Harvard Square. I haven’t found Paul yet, but some of the kids told me he was around. I’m gonna wait another hour to see if he turns up. And Boo?”

“Yeah?”

“A couple kids asked me if I was you.”

“What? Why?”

“They said Paul has been looking for you the last couple days and told the other kids to look out for you.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I’ll catch you in an hour.”

I sat in the office and finished my pack of smokes, waiting for the phone to ring. When it didn’t and the nic fits started, I decided to check in downstairs with Audrey.

Audrey smiled when I walked in, but her eyes never left her solitaire game laid out on the bar. “What’s up, Willie?”

“Have there been any kids coming in?”

Audrey’s attention lifted from the cards, her smile turned to indignation. “You know me better than that, Boo. I card everyone who walks in that door.”

“No, no. Have there been any kids coming in and asking for me? Skinny white kid? About fourteen? Dredlocks? Maybe smelled of weed?”

“Oh, yeah. Kid came in yesterday looking for you.”

“Did he say where I could reach him?”

“No, I told him to beat it.” Audrey winced. “I thought he was some kid dropping your name so I wouldn’t ID him. I didn’t know he was a friend of yours.”

“It’s okay, but listen-if he comes back, hold him here and call me right away.” I scribbled the cell number on a bar napkin.

Junior came walking in as I was heading out.

“You find Paul?” I asked.

“Not yet. Some new scrubs hit the Square and said he was gone for the night. I’ll run by tomorrow.”

“He was looking for me here, too.”

“What the hell for?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

Then it hit both of us.

“You don’t think he was at-”

“Maybe he was at-” Junior said simultaneously.

Neither of us finished our sentence. We both knew the last words were going to be “Dutch House.”

Junior shook his head. “Are we getting paranoid, Boo?”

“Even paranoid people have real enemies.”

“Where to now?”

“I was going to head over to Derek’s. See if he’s got a list of buyers.”

Junior was hurt. “You wouldn’t have gone back there without me, would ya?”

“Wouldn’t consider it.”

Derek’s apartment had a new door and new molding. I knocked hard, figuring it would make a nice change of pace from kicking in the door on his face. “Derek. Open up!” Considering our last visit, we still flanked the door. Just in case Derek had armed himself and would choose to shoot first, ask later.

“We’re not gonna kick your ass this time. Scout’s honor,” Junior yelled. Since Junior wasn’t ever a scout, the promise wasn’t worth shit.

I leaned over and pressed my ear against the unfinished wood. Nothing. “It’s quiet in there. Maybe he’s not home,” I whispered.

“Too quiet,” Junior responded, wiggling his fingers at me like a vaudevillian hypnotist.

I tried the knob anyway. It was locked, but the new door didn’t have a deadbolt installed yet. Junior took out his laminated Blockbuster card and slipped it in the poorly fit space between the door and molding. With a flick of the wrist, Junior popped the lock.

“That was easy,” I said.

“Too easy,” Junior said, wiggling his fingers in my face. I smacked his hands away.

The room was silent, and the air was thick with the smell of alcohol and dirty laundry. The plasma television sat shattered in one corner of the room, a number of smashed Wild Turkey bottles on the floor. The sink was full of dirty dishes, a cluster of flies buzzing over them.

“Jeez,” Junior said, pinching his nostrils. “Looks like he and Sid been trading housekeeping tips.”

I lifted my chin toward a closed door. Quietly as we could, we stepped over the glass and debris to the bedroom. I turned the knob and slowly pushed open the door. The hinges creaked like in an old Hammer film, sending chills down my back.

Derek sat on the edge of his mattress in a pair of dirty boxer shorts. Another half-full bottle of Wild Turkey was in his hand. He looked up woozily as we stood there.

“Wazzup?” he asked, like we were expected company. “You guys here to finish the job? You guys gonna kill me now?” He burped a wet one and scratched his privates. His face was swollen, splotched with purple bruises, his chest still sporting an angry red burn mark from Junior’s stun gun.

“We’re not here to kill you, Derek,” I said softly. “We just want some information.”

He swiveled his head back at us. “You can kill me-you know? I wouldn’t mind. I don’t care. I don’t fucking care no more.” He trailed off as he put the bottle back to his lips. Most of the slug dribbled down his concave chest, into his boxers.

I pulled the bottle out of his hand. “Hey!”

“Hey!” he protested back.

“Who buys the movies you make, Derek?”

He blinked his glazed eyes at me and shrugged. “I dunno. Buncha people.” He reached for the bourbon. I pulled it back. He was off by a foot but snapped his fingers like he’d just missed.

“I want names. We’re going to get the DVDs you sold. We’re going to get rid of them.” I wasn’t sure why I was telling him our agenda, but I felt he might care.

“Thas good. She deserves that at least.” He turned his head and something pinged inside my brain as I looked at his profile. Same as when I’d seen his uncle. Some resemblance that itched at me.

I pushed the thought aside. “Do you have a list of any kind? A list of buyers?”

He shook his head like it was resting on a pile of ball bearings. “Nah. Sid does all that distribution stuff. I just made ’em.”

It looked like another visit with Sid was going to be unavoidable. We turned to go.

“I really, really loved her, you know?” he said to our backs, his voice crumbling.

I felt the old warm violence creeping through me again. I felt the urge to beat him into a puddle again and ask him if it was love. Is it Derek? Is this the love you gave those girls? Instead I took a deep breath.

Derek barked a humorless laugh. “The only reason I made that other movie was so we could make some money.” He tried to stand and fell back to the mattress. “We were gonna run away together. I loved her. I really did.” His self-justification cut off as he started bawling.

I couldn’t help but realize that if I’d never found her, if Derek and Cassie had run away together, as fucked-up and flat-out wrong as it would have been…

She would still be alive.

Junior had no problem splitting our search. He went off to look for Paul again, and I went to Sid’s. Truth be told, I think Junior was a bit afraid of the woman.

I found Sid’s Vids closed two hours ahead of schedule. Suspecting another run for the border, I peered through the greasy windows. Everything was there. Then I heard the barking of the fat chihuahua. Sid must have closed up shop early to get a head start on dinner.

I walked around back to the residential entrance and found luck in the form of an already popped lock. As I inspected the busted deadbolt, rumbling thunder sounded above me in the clear blue sky. I fucking hate omens.

The dog’s shrill barking sounded frightened and alarmed. My nerves jangled further when I got to Sid’s door. The locks were splintered in five places, and the door was slightly ajar.

Not good.

Definitely not good.

Somebody wanted in before me. And wanted it in a hurry.

“Sid?” I whispered. No answer. I feared Sid would come leaping out of the shadows to attack-okay, maybe not leaping, and it would have to be one hell of a shadow-but I couldn’t hear Sid’s raspy wheeze. All I heard was the dog and the television.

Gently, I pushed open her door. My heart froze when I heard the clatter of tiny feet on linoleum. The fat dog jumped on my braced leg, licking at my fingers. The apartment still stank to high heaven, but there was something else. A primal smell. I closed the door behind me.

“Sid!”

Still no answer.

Still no wheezing.

Then I saw the foot sticking out.

I followed the mammoth foot around the corner to its leg. And then on to Sid herself…

… and the two neat holes where her nose and left eye used to be.

Blood spread out under her head along with chunks of skull and brain. A pathetically small, two-shot derringer was on the floor a couple inches from Sid’s outstretched hand.

Not part of the plan.

I had to call Junior. I needed him to pick me up and get me the hell out of here. There was no way I was going to hail a cab from the apartment of the murdered. My cell phone rang as soon as my hand touched it. Stifling a yelp, I juggled the phone, catching it before it dropped into Sid’s pooling blood, which seeped toward my shoe.

“Yeah,” I whispered hoarsely, “who’s this?”

Galloping through my brain was the thought that maybe I shouldn’t have answered. Could the cops peg where the cell phone was calling from? Was I marking myself as a suspect by putting myself at the scene of the crime?

Paranoid? Absofuckinglutely. It wasn’t the first dead body I’d seen, but it was the first one I’d found.

“Boo!” Junior’s frantic voice sounded in the tiny earpiece. “Where the fuck are you?”

What washe so frantic about? I was the one next to four hundred pounds of dead Sid. With a shudder, I took a step back so the blood wouldn’t touch my foot. Sid’s curtains blew in on a strong gust of air. I leaned to breathe in the breeze rather than the sickly odor of bodily evacuation that flooded the room.

“I’m in Sid’s.”

“I’m right out front. I’ve got Paul with me.”

“Listen to me, Junior, Sid’s-”

“He came to The Cellar. He saw somebody at the squat. Cassie didn’t get there on her own. You were right.”

The room spun like I was in a centrifuge when the callused hand of reality suddenly squeezed my nuts.

“Junior, wait a sec-”

Why was Sid’s blood still pooling?

A tiny wisp of gray smoke curled up from Sid’s brand-new nose hole.

That wasn’t a rumbling of thunder I’d heard; it was Sid hitting the floor.

The open window.

A hand reached around the open sill and started firing in my direction. I heard the fup-fup-fup of a silencer as chips of paint and concrete flew around my head. I dove for the kitchen and landed right on my bad leg. I screamed as the stitches tore, blood immediately seeping through the bandages, soaking my pants leg. A cloud of plaster dust filled the room, and the dog started yipping in fright again. I covered my head and stayed low.

The gunshots stopped, and the dust settled around me. The fire escape rattled as the shooter made his escape. Hobbling, I scooped up Sid’s pistol and got to the window just in time to see the door shut on a dark green four-door. I fired the pistol’s two bullets at the car.

Being the shot that I am, I managed to miss an entire car with the first bullet. The second one chipped off the windshield. The gun didn’t even have enough firepower to get through glass at that distance.

The engine roared to life as I grabbed onto the fire escape ladder and slid the floor and a half down. Jagged pieces of rusted iron sliced my palms.

I hit pavement just as the car sped toward the alleyway to the street. When my newly re-opened leg hit the ground, my nervous system short-circuited. Nothing but pure adrenaline got me back to my feet through the blinding pain.

I turned the corner just in time to see the taillights whipping away.

Paul stood at the end of the alley, waving his outstretched arms to stop the car.

“Paul! No!” I yelled. “Get the fuck out of the way!”

The car wasn’t going to stop.

Junior came out of nowhere and open-field tackled Paul. The two of them flew sideways across the mouth of the alley.

A second too late.

With a thumping crunch, the car plowed into them, launching them both into the air and out of my line of sight. The car screeched left, and I heard a second terrible crunch of shattering glass.

As fast as my gushing leg could carry me, I bolted down the alley. People were screaming. Tires screeched-the driver of the car blowing through a red light, missing the honking cross traffic by inches, then gone. In the melee, I couldn’t find Junior or Paul. In a panic, I ran to the closest assemblage of witnesses.

Junior lay in a crumpled heap against Miss Kitty, a huge dent in the driver’s side door where he’d hit. Paul had been launched through the window of the candy shop where Junior and I bought our Sno-Caps and jellybeans the night of our stakeout. A cascade of bright candy poured out around Paul’s mangled body.

Groaning, Junior pushed himself up with his left arm, his right arm bending at the bicep in an unnatural angle.

I ran to Paul.

All of Paul seemed to be pointing in wrong directions. His eyes were wild with fear and pain as I kneeled next to him, glass cutting into my knees. Red, green, and purple jellybeans ran onto the sidewalk, mixing into the small river of Paul’s blood.

Paul’s eyes locked into mine. “B-B-Boo?” His jaw hung awkwardly in his mouth. Wet gurgles stuttered every breath he struggled to take.

Then I saw the shards of glass sticking out of the kid.

“Oh God. Oh fuck,” I babbled. “Stay calm, kiddo. An ambulance… Somebody call a fucking ambulance!” I screamed to the rapidly building crowd, panic breaking my voice.

Too much blood.

“I… I shaw him, Boo.”

So much blood.

“Shh,” I said, my voice shaking. “Hold on to it, Paul. You can tell me later. Just keep cool.”

Paul began to squeal in pain.

The kid was dying right in front of me. In my arms.

I’ll never forgive myself for asking him, but I had to know. I couldn’t look at him when I asked, “Who, Paul? Who did you see?”

The kid was starting to arrest. Convulsions wracked his skinny body. “G-g-g-g-GAHP!” he screamed.

He gasped.

He gasped again.

He gasped once more and went limp.

“Oh no. Oh fuck me, no,” Junior said, stumbling, fighting his way through the crowd.

Junior placed a hand against his left ear, fingers coming away red. “Shit, that ain’t good.” The blood drip-dripped twice onto his shoulder before his eyes rolled up white and he collapsed hard onto the sidewalk.

The sirens sounded so far away.