John Hart - Down River

“Danny got beaten up a while back. You remember?”

“He didn’t talk about it, but it was hard to miss. He couldn’t walk for a week. I’m not sure his face ever got over it.”

“I want to talk to whoever did that. Maybe he still owed. Maybe they came looking for him.”

“Well…” The word drew out, like there was nothing coming after it.

“I need them now.”

“Why do you care, Adam? Dolf admitted that he killed Danny. He’s going to fry for it. Fuck him, I say.”

“How can you even think that?”

“I understand that you see sunshine coming out of his ass, but there’s never been any love between me and that old man. In fact, he’s always been a pain. Danny was a buddy of mine. Dolf says he killed him. Why are you messing with that?”

“Do I need to come find you in person? I will do it. I swear to God, I’ll track you down if I have to.”

“Jesus, Adam. What the hell? Just chill.”

“I want the names.”

“I haven’t really had time to find them.”

“That’s crap, Jamie. Where are you? I’m coming there. We’ll go get them together.”

“Okay, okay. Jeez. Keep your pants on. Let me think.” He took more than a minute, then gave me a name. “David Childers.”

“White guy or black guy?”

“Redneck guy. Keeps a pistol in his desk drawer.”

“He’s in Charlotte?”

“He’s local.”

“Where?”

“You sure you want to do this?” Jamie asked.

“Where do I find him, Jamie?”

“He owns the Laundromat by the high school. There’s an office in the back.”

“Is there a back door?”

“Yeah, but it’s steel. You’ll have to go in the front.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“Don’t mention my name.” The phone clicked off.

The Laundromat filled a shady place between an apartment complex surrounded by hurricane fencing and a grand old home on the verge of decay. Nondescript and small, it was easy to miss. Glass windows threw back a rippled reflection of my car as I turned into the lot. I did not park in front, though. Instead, I slipped down the narrow space beside the building and parked where fencing sealed off the back. I climbed the fence, dropped to the other side, and crossed a litter-strewn square of pavement hidden from the street. The steel door stood open, wedged with a cracked chunk of cinder block. The gap was less than a foot wide, air still and damp. I smelled laundry detergent and something along the lines of rotting fruit. Bass-heavy music pumped through the crack in the door.

I edged to the door and looked in. The office was dim and paneled, papers stacked on cabinets, big cheap desk with a fat bald man behind it, swivel chair spun sideways. His pants hung off one ankle. Head tilted back, eyes squeezed tight in a red face. The woman was on her knees, head working like a steam piston. Slender, young, and black, she could pass for sixteen. He had one hand twined in her oily hair, the other locked onto the chair arm so hard I saw tendons popping through the fat.

A limp twenty hung off the corner of the desk.

I kicked the cinder block away and slammed the door open. When it clanged against brick the fat man’s eyes flew open. For a long second he stared at me as the girl continued to work. His mouth rounded into a black hole and he said, “Oh, God.”

The girl stopped long enough to say, “That’s right, baby.” Then she went back to work. I stepped into the room as he pushed the girl away from his crotch. I caught a glimpse of her face and saw the void in her eyes. She was wrecked on something. “Damn, baby,” she said.

The fat man wallowed to his feet, hands clutching at his pants, leg trying to find the hole. His eyes never left mine. “Don’t tell my wife,” he said.

Slowly, the girl came to realize that they weren’t alone. She stood, and I saw that she was no child. Twenty-five, maybe, dirty and bloodshot. She wiped a hand across her mouth as the man’s pants came up. “This counts,” she said, and reached for the twenty.

She smiled as she moved past me: gray teeth, crack-pipe lips. “Name’s Shawnelle,” she said. “Just ask around if you want some of the same.”

I let her go, stepped in, and closed the door. He was working the belt, tugging hard to get it closed up. Forty, I thought. Fifty, maybe. It was hard to tell with the sweat and the fat and the shining, pink scalp. I watched his hands and I watched the drawer. If there was a gun there, he had no intention of going for it. But he was firming up now that he had his pants on. The anger was in there, buried, but waking. “What do you want?” he asked.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said.

“Yeah, right.” There it was. “You working for my wife? Tell her she can’t get blood from a stone.”

“I don’t know your wife.”

“Then what do you want?”

I stepped in, closer to the desk. “I understand you take bets.”

A nervous laugh gushed out of him. “Jesus. Is that what this is? You should come in from the front, damn it. That’s how it’s done.”

“I’m not here to bet. I want you to tell me about Danny Faith. You take his bets?”

“Danny’s dead. I saw it in the papers.”

“That’s right. He is. Did you handle his bets?”

“I’m not going to talk about my business to you. I don’t even know who you are.”

“I can always talk to your wife.”

“Don’t call my wife. Christ. The final hearing is next week.”

“About Danny?”

“Look, there’s not much I can tell you, okay? Danny was a player. I’m small-time. I run football pools, handle the payoff on illegal video poker machines. Danny moved out of my league two or three years ago. His action’s in Charlotte.”

I felt a sudden, sickening twist in my stomach. Jamie lied to me. This was a wild-goose chase. “What about Jamie Chase?” I asked.

“Same thing. He’s big-time.”

“Who handles their play in Charlotte?”

He smiled an unclean smile. “You going to try this shit down there?” The smile spread. “You’re gonna get smoked.”

There was no back door sneaking at the place he sent me. It was a cinder-block cube on the east side of Charlotte, set back off an industrial four-lane that reeked of freshly poured tar. I got out of the car, saw sun glint off downtown towers three miles and a trillion dollars east. Two men loitered at the front door, a row of pipes scattered against the wall in easy reach. They watched me all the way in, a black guy in his thirties, white guy maybe ten years older.

“What do you want?” the black guy asked.

“I need to talk to a man inside,” I said.

“What man?”

“Whoever’s running the place.”

“I don’t know you.”

“I still need to talk to somebody.”

The white guy held up a finger. “What’s your name?” he asked. “You look familiar.” I told him. “Wallet,” he said. I handed him my wallet. It was still stuffed with hundreds. Travel money. His eyes lingered on the sheaf of bills, but he didn’t touch them. He pulled out my driver’s license. “This says New York. Wrong guy, I guess.”

“I’m from Salisbury,” I said. “I’ve been away.”

He looked at the license again. “Adam Chase. You had some trouble a while back.”

“That’s right.”

“You related to Jamie Chase?”

“My brother.”

He handed back the wallet. “Let him in.”

The building was a single room, brightly lit, modern. The front half was fashioned into a reception area: two sofas, two chairs, a coffee table. A low counter bisected the room. Desks behind the counter, new computers, fluorescent lights. A rack of dusty travel brochures leaned against the wall. Posters of tropical beaches hung at uneven intervals. Two young men sat at computers. One had his foot on a pulled-out drawer.