Timothy Hallinan: Everything but the Squeal

I accelerated.

“When they respond to the fire alarm,” Bruner said, giving me my reward, “they'll find a bunch of dead missing kids and two dead adults. One of them is a private dick who decided to go for big money instead of a fee you could count in pennies, and the other is a tub of lard who works at the place where the kids hang out. I mean, you couldn't ask for more perfect suspects. Case closed.”

The child's wail split the night again. I drove my fingernails into the palms of my hands.

“Don't slow down again,” Bruner said. “You want to measure your life in minutes, or in half an hour or so?”

“Fire alarm,” I said. “The kids are going to be dead. Then why are they hurting her?”

“Ahhh,” Bruner said, “some people know what's going on, and some people don't.”

We'd reached the door. It was closed.

“Hit the horn, Belson,” Bruner said. Belson ambled obediently toward the nearest car.

“Why, Max?” I asked, trying to keep him talking instead of thinking about searching me. “What happened? Al always said you were a good cop.”

“I am a good cop,” Bruner said. The Mountain made a small choking sound. “That's the problem. I'd bust the pimps and see them on the street the next night. I'd save the kids' lives and send them home and then watch them come back and turn into pimps.”

“This is bullshit,” I said as Belson gave a beep on the horn of a car behind me. “It can't be the lady. I mean, she's okay for someone with a lot of wear on her, but nothing to abandon your life over. She's got a neck like a leg of poultry.”

“Don't be silly,” Bruner said. “I've seen enough sex so that I don't ever want anything to do with it again. Anyway, I'm not the Mister that way. We stay away from each other. I'm what you might call the fixer.” There was a knock from inside the door.

“Knock twice,” Bruner said.

“It was the money,” I said, not knocking.

“It was a lot of things,” Bruner said, “and none of them matter worth an ounce of spit. Knock on the door two times or I'll shoot you in the back.” I hesitated. “Even better,” Bruner said, “I'll shoot Tubbo, here.”

The Mountain let out an involuntary moan. I knocked twice.

The door opened as Belson shuffled up behind us. It was like a dam bursting: light flooded through it and into my eyes, and I was blind.

“Well, Happy Easter,” said a familiar voice. “I must of been a good little boy. And, looky, the Mountain too.”

“Marco, you little shit,” the Mountain said.

“Congratulations, Marco,” I said, trying to focus. “Nice job on Junko.”

“Nothing compared to what I'm going to do to you.” He bared his cocaine-rotted teeth and waved the switchblade, his vitamin, under my nose. His pupils were the size of punctuation marks but less expressive. Marco was flying.

“Now that we've all said hello, Marco,” Bruner said in a voice that would have frozen vodka, “maybe you can get the fuck out of the way so we can get inside.”

Marco jumped back as though he'd been jerked on a wire.

“Max,” Belson said, “I think we-”

“Belson thinks,” I said desperately. “What a headline for the Times . On a par with mayor abducted by UFO or Elvis appears at summit meeting. Do you pay Belson to think, Bruner?” What Belson was thinking, I was certain, was that he should search us. “When was the last time a crustacean had a good idea?”

“God damn you,” Belson said. The Mountain hissed in warning, and a 747 flew into my right kidney. My head snapped back and I hurtled into Marco, knocking him flat on his back. I landed on my face next to him, feeling the concrete floor rip at the cut on my forehead. Something black and hot rose in the back of my throat and I turned my head and retched. In what seemed like the far distance I saw Belson blowing on his fist.

Marco scrambled away from me, swearing in a thin, chemically high-pitched voice. The next thing I knew, he was standing over me, grinding his foot into the back of my head and rolling my face back and forth in whatever it was that I had spit up. “Your turn, asshole,” he said. Then he increased the pressure of his foot and said it again. The Mountain was making a blubbering sound.

“You little jerk,” Bruner said viciously. “I'm telling you, get back inside and do what you're supposed to do. Or maybe you'd like to be on-line?”

Marco lifted his foot.

“I'm too old,” he said in a pleading voice.

“Too old for what?” Bruner said. “Get Tubbo inside, Belson, and close the door. Too old for handcuffs and a plywood table? Too old for John Wayne Gacy?”

“Jesus,” Marco said. The door slammed shut behind us. It sounded like a very heavy door. “You wouldn't do that.”

“There's all kinds of customers,” Bruner said.

“I'm going,” Marco said. “I'm going.” I heard his heels tap on the concrete, going away from me. Then I heard a door close.

“And you, Belson,” Bruner said, “keep your fucking hands to yourself.”

“But, Max-”

“You want marks?” Bruner said. “You want internal injuries? You want something to wake up some smart coroner who wants to run for governor? Or you want to go to work tomorrow and take early retirement in a couple of years and live to be a hundred?”

“Okay, sorry,” Belson said, “sorry, sorry, sorry.”

“You bet your ass you're sorry,” Bruner said. I'd made it to my hands and knees. My forehead was bleeding freely and something vile dripped from my chin. “You're about the sorriest thing I've ever seen,” Bruner continued remorselessly. “Just keep your ideas to yourself and your eyes on Tubbo. And you,” he said to me, “get up. It wasn't all that bad.”

I tried my legs. They worked, more or less. “It wasn't a weekend in Acapulco, either,” I said, wiping my face. More blood flowed immediately from my forehead. We were inside and we still hadn't been searched.

“What’m I, your travel agent?” Bruner asked. “You're not going to have a weekend anywhere. Now, stop dicking around and walk.” He reached into his jacket and popped some Maalox. I hoped he was digesting his backbone.

The Mountain was now weeping openly behind me. Great. All my life I'd fantasized having a sidekick, and the one I'd finally gotten had turned out to be the Cowardly Lion. I consigned him to the litter heap and walked.

There was a door inside the door, an arrangement like a low-tech parody of the airlock in a movie spaceship. Marco had closed the inner door behind him, or maybe it had closed of its own accord. The four of us-Bruner, Belson, the Mountain, and I-were now alone inside a brilliantly lighted room about twelve feet square. Now, if ever, was the time to make a move. Now, before we were inside the warehouse with a bunch of guys who looked like the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers.

My back was turned toward Belson, the Mountain, and Bruner. No one could see my hands. I forced a cough and then a chain of coughs, bent double, and put my right hand under my shirt. The grip of the gun felt cold and rough beneath my fingers. I was trying to tug it upward, free of my pants, when the coughs, to my surprise, became real and I bent forward against my will and retched again.

“Damn, you're messy,” Bruner said from behind me. I ignored him: I'd worked the gun up an inch or so. I could have gotten it out if I'd been able to straighten up, but another spasm seized me and I doubled up and spewed some horrid liquid onto the floor.

“Hey,” Belson said happily, “I hit the kidney.”

“The trophy comes later,” Bruner said. “Tubbo, open the door.”

I was still jackknifed forward, fumbling hopelessly at the handle of the gun, when the Mountain went past me and pushed the door open. Bruner or Belson shoved me from behind, and we were inside the warehouse. Without the door to muffle them, we could hear the screams.