Charlie Huston - Already Dead

Phil stares at the card.

– Wow, where the hell that come from?

– Where's the girl, Philip?

– I don't-

– Where?

– I don't-

– Phil, don't make the mistake of thinking I give a crap about you. I don't. At the best of times I don't like you. And right now I'm pissed. Pissed and really fucking hungry. Where's the girl?

– I don't-

I stuff Dobbs's toupee in his mouth.

– Mlumph. Mlph.

I reach in my back pocket, pull out my switchblade and thumb it open.

– I'm gonna do it old school, Phil. Poke one of your arteries, cover the hole with my mouth. It's like hitting from a beer bong.

My mouth starts to water as I talk about it. I don't want to suck on a scumbag like Philip, but I'm getting hungry enough to seriously consider it.

– Or I could haul you up to the roof, dangle you over the side and if I don't like the answers I get, I can just drop you. Let some bottomfeeder lick you off the sidewalk. You get the picture, Phil?

-Ylmph.

– So where's the girl?

I pull out the now slimy toupee.

– I swear, Joe, I swear!

I start to shove the toupee back in his mouth.

– No! Mlph. Nlmph. I swearmph.

He's trying to keep his lips pressed together so I can't get the toupee all the way in.

– Didn'tmph. No onemph. Said. Mph. About. Girlmph!

I yank it out.

– Who said what?

– They didn't say nothing about no girl!

– What did they say, Phil?

– Nothing. They said take a look, take a look around is all.

– Who, Phil?

– I don't-

– Predo?

He jumps like a cat with a cherry bomb up its ass.

– Yeah, Phil, that's what I thought.

He gets dressed and I toss the rest of the office and find nothing that helps. Dobbs was an old-timer, probably had his prime back when I was hanging with Terry and the Society. I've heard of the guy in the way you hear about people that are in similar lines of work. Dobbs was mostly a straight-up skip tracer and window peeper, but he did a little rough stuff; push a guy around, collect a debt, that kind of thing. There's no reason to think he knew much about what goes on, and no reason why the Hordes would have hired him in the first place. Take it a step further, when I look in his file cabinet there's no Horde file at all. And while Dobbs may have been old school, there's an extra phone line sticking out of the wall that's not attached to anything, and an empty laptop case in the closet. Figure whoever did the choke job took his laptop so they wouldn't have to worry about any files on the hard drive, along with whatever hard copies were in the cabinet. But the asshole missed the bank card. Or didn't know about it.

– Phil.

He sticks his head out of the bathroom where he is once again resurrecting his pomp.

– Yeah?

– What say I buy you a drink?

We go across 14th to the Beauty Bar.

We needed to get out of that office, never a good idea to hang around too long with a dead body.

A corpse in an office is going to lead to cops sooner or later. And cops are a problem. Cops get ahold of you and you're in their system: go where they tell you to go, when they tell you to go. Cops nab you and it's impossible to control your environment. Try telling a cop you're allergic to the sun and he'll make you stand outside at high noon with a tanning reflector held up to your face just to teach you a lesson about smarting off. More to the point, try getting some blood from another con in a holding cell and that's it, game over. So no cops. Ever.

At the Beauty, I take the double bourbon and the fancy Scotch to where Phil is sitting in one of the chairs with the old-fashioned hair dryers mounted on the back. I pass him his drink and sit on a stool in front of him.

– Thanks, Joe. Sure I can't have my stash back? I could sure use a little boost right about now.

Stash. We'd all like our stash back. I got his in my pocket. God knows when and where I'm gonna get to take care of mine.

– Later.

– Whatever you say, Joe.

He takes a sip of his whiskey and I take a gulp of mine.

– So what's the deal, Phil?

– Deal?

I reach in my pocket and pull out Phil's baggie of pills and the bindle of crank. I fish out one of the pills, a little white tablet stamped with a number. It'll be Dexi-something, pharmaceutical grade from the look of it. Definitely a step up from the cheap black beauties he was carrying the other night.

I show him the pill.

– Yeah, Phil, what's the deal, as in what did Predo tell you?

He jumps again.

– Jeez, Joe, you know better than to use that name. 'Specially down here where the man ain't so popular.

I squeeze the pill between my thumb and forefinger and it pops into dust. Philip's eyes bug.

– Joe!

I hold up another pill.

– I'm going cold turkey, Phil, courtesy of Mr. Dexter Predo. I thought you might want to join me.

I pop the pill. He bounces in the seat.

– Joe! Joe, God, ya ain't even askin' me any questions.

I pop another one.

– Joe! I! Whaddya?

Pop.

– Ohhhhh, maaaaan.

He slumps back in the seat, his head ducked under the hair dryer.

– Said, Go take a look. That's it, man.

I hold another pill before his sad eyes.

– When?

– Morning. Morning for me, Joe. Like four this afternoon. Got a call. Man said, Go to this place, take a look, don't touch nothing.

– Then what?

– Then what, nothing. Take a look. Period, Joe. Peer-e-ud.

– When you supposed to report?

– Said they'd call me.

– When?

– Soon.

I drop the pill back in the baggie.

– Well you better go to ground, Phil.

I stand up, drop the baggie in his lap.

– You can keep those.

He grabs the baggie and goes to stand up, but bonks his head on the dryer. He plops back into the seat and rubs his forehead.

– I gotta be home when he calls, Joe. Worth my life if I ain't home when he calls.

– Find a hole, Phil. Find a hole, crawl in and pull it in after you. If you don't? I find out you been talking with Predo about this? I'll get you a hole. I'll dig it myself.

On the walk home I look over the ATM receipts from Dobbs's wallet. The four digits of the card number printed on the receipt match the last four on Amanda Horde's card. I look at the withdrawal amounts and I get it. Cagey kid.

With my face stuffed in the receipts I don't see the limo in front of my place until I'm right next to it. I look up. She's standing there next to my front door.

– Good evening, Joseph. May I speak with you for a moment?

I stay where I am on the sidewalk.

– I think that might be a bad idea.

– What would be a bad idea?

– You and me talking.

– Where did you get a silly idea like that?

– From your husband.

She smiles.

– All the more reason for you to invite me in.

She puts a hand alongside her mouth and stage-whispers.

– So as to avoid prying eyes.

I open the door. She follows me in.

Marilee Horde has been drinking. And she doesn't want to stop.

– Are you going to offer me a drink, Joseph?

– Bourbon's all I have.

She smiles.

– Of course it is.

She wanders around the apartment while I get the bottle and pour the drinks. We're on the ground floor. The trap that leads to my real digs is sealed. She's peeking in the bedroom. I leave dirty laundry strewn about and the bed unmade; everything meant to look lived in and well used. I hand her a drink.

– Thank you.

My senses are dull, but I can smell that she's not wearing the lavender oil she had on when we first met. She's scrubbed and clean, wearing a low-cut, sleeveless black blouse, short black skirt, and knee-high black leather boots. The uptowner's uniform for a trip to the East Village. Her bare arms are lean, cut muscle. She's not just toned by yoga classes, but hard, conditioned by hours of weight lifting. A sharp vein rides the edge of her right bicep. I can almost see the blood pumping through it. She walks to the secondhand couch and drops onto it, some of the whiskey sloshing onto her leg.