A Week In Hel (3 page)

“
I think you’re hot. I’d
like to know your name before I decide to like you,” I said
soberly. It was hard to be sober curled up together like that. I
wanted to map every inch of her distracting beauty, but something
about her just didn’t figure.

“
Come to think of it, I
don’t know your name either,” she scolded.

I tried to pull my hand
away, but she held it harder and slid it up just enough to get my
attention. She turned her head and looked up at me, “so what is
your name?”

I tried to smile, but I
don’t think it looks natural so I don’t do it much. “My name is
Thurman.”

She nodded, “So Thurman, is
that your first name or your last name?”

She batted her eyelashes at
me. Damn this girl was sexy.

“
It’s my first name,” I said
slowly.

She nodded, “I suppose you
have a middle name and a last name, too?” she smiled up at me with
her big brown eyes and I wanted to take a swim in them. I must have
taken a moment too long to answer, because she asked, “Would you
tell me what they are?”

I nodded, “My full name is
Thurman Edward Dicke.”

She gave me a dry smile,
“Well Thurman’s Dicke, meet Candi Alice Pinkerton.” She offered her
left hand, keeping my other hand pressed just where she wanted
it.

We shook, almost
playfully.

“
Well, Candi Apple Pink,
since you don’t appear to be ready to talk to me about what went on
at White Walls, what would you say to something to eat?” I just
tossed it out there, mostly so I could watch her reaction. I wanted
to know where this evening was headed.

She giggled, “I didn’t say I
wasn’t ready, but I would love to go out to dinner with
you.”

I baited her. “Why’s
that?”

“
We been together most of a
half hour now and you ain’t pointed your gun at me, or hit
me.”

Could I really be hearing
this? “I only ever hit one woman in my life,” I told her in
earnest.

She swallowed hard, I
thought she was puttin’ it on, but she was serious. “Oh, who’s
that?”

“
My cousin, T.C. We were
five; she whipped my ass.” I embellished a bit. It was kinda even,
but she started it.

She tried to smile, but
another tear slipped down her cheek. “I thought you were serious. I
don’t like to get hit; seems like every man I get wants to hit
me.”

Maybe I said it a bit too
quick. “They weren’t much of a man were they?”

“
Thurman, are you trying to
rescue me and be my hero?” She said it in this tiny voice with
butter drizzled all over it.

Like I said, I shoulda kept
my mouth shut. I tightened the hand she held, and made to flex my
arm like I was pulling her closer. Like I said earlier, she just
unfolded. Before I knew it, she’d kissed my cheek again. “Y’know,
you probably shouldn’t do that.” I said, offering her a way
out.

“
Okay,” she said quickly,
“let’s go get something to eat.” With that, she bounced off the
couch and stood up, straightening her dress. “How do I look
anyhow?” she asked as she did a little twirl.

“
You are definitely a thing
of beauty,” I said. I wasn’t trying to pull her chain. She really
was one fine lookin’ lady.

“
Really?” she
demurred.

“
Oh yeah, you look great,
REALLY!” I reassured her.

“
You clean up pretty good
yourself,” she purred.

We cruised over to The
National Road Grille. I drove and she made small change about how
she wasn’t gonna work at White Walls forever.

“
How’d that dive get its
name anyhow?” I thought it was a nice small talk kinda
question.

“
Years ago it was a hot rod
joint. Long time before I ever wound up there.” She said it kind of
wistful.

“
Do you like hot rods?”
Seemed like a logical question.

“
The old man that owned it
then sure did,” she smiled.

We rode along for a couple
of blocks before I asked, “Friend of yours?”

She slid across the seat and
sat right next to me. “Was a friend of my aunt. She raised me; he
was always around.”

“
Sounds all right,” I said,
thinking about her legs, instead of the conversation.

“
My daddy was in prison for
some business with the Outfit. Mom whored and did heroin, until one
night, when a group of guys at the Wagon Stop decided to have some
fun with her. She was high out of her mind and they were a little
too drunk. They wound up down by the tracks. It was an unscheduled
train that killed her. I bet it was more like they raped her and
killed her, or killed her because she wouldn’t let them have her.”
She said it with a hard edge in her voice like, ‘what do you
expect?’

“
My Granddad and Dad were
both cops. Granddad worked district two his whole career. He never
wanted to get off the street. By the time he retired, he had
arthritis so bad in both of his ankles he couldn’t bend ‘em,” I
said trying to get her mind off her mother.

She laid her head on my
shoulder, “What about your dad?”

“
My old man was killed in
the line of duty,” I said quickly, “Out on Storm Creek. He called
in that some kids were pulling stuff out of a trailer. After that
dispatch couldn’t raise him. They sent out another guy to check on
him; found him lying there in the dirt.” I must have sounded
upset.

“
Oh, baby I’m sorry.” She
said it in that sweet mothering tone that usually gets on my last
nerve, but for some reason, with her it was okay.

“
Comes with the job
sometimes,” I said dryly.

“
Comes with the job.” she
mocked me, “You are a tough one ain’t ya?” She said it playfully
and it broke the somber tone.

I shrugged. “I don’t try to
be, but I’m a big man and with that are big expectations. My old
man held me to a high standard.”

I angled the car into the
lot at the grille and shut off the engine.

“
What about your mom?” She
asked, giving me the business with those big brown eyes
again.

I sighed, not really wanting
to get in to it. “Mom was a good woman. She loved Dad a lot and
when he died, she died right along with him. But, she didn’t lie
down; just kinda left even though she was still around.”

She squeezed my hand and
then we got out of the car to go inside.

The National Road Grille has
been a restaurant in some form or another since sometime back in
the fifties. It’s lived through a fire, several burglaries, and two
deaths, neither related to the food. Monday’s were usually dead, so
I was surprised to see a dozen cars on the lot.

Inside we were greeted and
taken to our table by a worn-out old shrew named Bonnie. She gave
me a motherly look, laid out the menus, and brought back glasses of
water.

Moments later our waitress
arrived, some kid named Kim. She bubble-gummed her way through
bringing our drinks, giving us the specials, and taking our order,
then left us to our own devices.

So Candi chatted me up. I
swear she had the gift of the gab. We chewed over the weather,
construction in the city, where all the factories went. I think she
was working her way around to corn prices when some guys came in
trying to look tough. She looked scared as hell, like she wanted to
melt out of her clothes and run down the nearest drain.

When I asked her, “What’s
got into you?” she didn’t answer, just puckered her lips and shook
her head a little. The guys walked past our table; one of them
paused for a second and gave one of us the eye. It don’t matter
which one, because what happened next was just
unbelievable.

Candi leaned across the
table, “Honey, I gotta go to the little girl’s room.”

I nodded and gave her half a
smile. Just as she started to get up some heavy shoved her back
down in the booth and slid in next to her, shoving her against the
wall—Hard.

I grabbed the beefy bastard
by his hair and was about to give him a taste of the table, when I
heard a hammer cock. I stopped that mug’s melon short of the table
through sheer force of will, but I didn’t let go.

“
This your new squeeze,
Candi?” It was a thick ethnic voice, from somewhere behind me, the
owner of the cocked heater.

I looked around casual like,
and nothing or nobody in the restaurant seemed the least bit wise
to what was going on. Some of these people looked like they were
trying not to see. Sheep, like if they didn’t see or acknowledge,
then it wasn’t happening.

“
He looks like a cop,” the
beefy one said from under my hand.

I turned my head to get a
look at the guy with the gun when Candi finally spoke
up.

“
He’s just a friend,
Antonio, you know I’d never date a cop,” she said with more than a
little disgust smeared on it. “Does your new squeeze know about
us?” he asked again in that thick ethnic voice.

I think it might have been
Italian, but he could have been Greek. It felt like he was moving
further to my left to stay out of my line of sight. “Let go of
Joshua,” he said firmly.

I was getting tired of the
game and I tightened my grip on Joshua, the beefy bastard, who
started to complain right off. I measured him for a second and then
let off. I figured if I was gonna get shot, I was gonna deserve
it.

I glanced at Candi and she
was trembling. She caught my look and shook her head slightly. For
some reason this girl loved being the victim. If traded looks were
a conversation, then we had our first argument at the National Road
Grille. This was going from a sure thing to hell in a hand-basket
in a hurry. All relationships have their problems I
guess.

“
Look, Antonio,” she spoke
up again, “I just met him. Don’t do this. I didn’t tell him nothin’
about nothin’, I swear.”

If there hadn’t been so much
honesty in the sound of her voice, so much pleading, I might have
gone along with the idea that this was some ex-pipe trying to flex
his ego. But the cop in me wouldn’t let it go, and the wolf
couldn’t abide that gun and its unseen owner any longer.

Swift as lightning, I
slammed that beefy meatsack’s face into the table. By the time I
heard his nose break I was on my feet and bringing up Roscoe, but
all that was left of the rat bastard with the gun was the trail of
disheveled waitresses and patrons.

Suddenly all eyes were on
me. What a time for the sheep to stop grazing and pay attention. I
started to follow, then remembered Candi.

“
C’mon, he’s getting’
away!”

She was wedged between the
table and the beefcake with the busted nose, so I grabbed him and
rolled him onto the floor, out of the way. I grabbed her arm and
half-pulled, half-dragged her out of the restaurant.

As we burst out the door, I
saw him racing out of the parking lot in the same Karman Ghia that
was parked at Candi’s place. I was pissed, and she had some
explaining to do, but for now...

We ran across the lot to my
ride. I raised my gun and did a quick peek at the back seat. All
empty. I unlocked it and slid in behind the wheel, started the car,
and jammed it into reverse. I was about to step on the gas, when
someone banged on the window.

Reflexively, I stomped the
brake and looked in the direction of the noise.

Candi was waving
frantically, and pointing toward the door of the
restaurant.

I glanced over my shoulder
and, much to my surprise, that beefy blond meat sack with the
busted nose was coming across the parking lot with a club, or a
table leg, or something. I clicked off the lock, and Candi threw
open the door and climbed inside.

The door slammed a second
later, as I stomped the gas. I spun the car out of the parking
space, and hit the brake as I jammed it in drive.

We shot out of the parking
lot right between a big damn truck and an old lady in a
Buick.

“
Where’d that son of a bitch
go?” I demanded. “I know you know, and I can’t handle any more
bullshit right this minute.” I stepped on the gas and stared at
her.

“
You don’t understand, these
guys kill people,” she said with a note of dread.

“
I’m a cop, let me help
you.” I wasn’t trying to sound gallant. I am a cop and generally
trying to help people is what I do.

She was hugging the door and
after we shot through the red light at Bechtle Avenue and North
Street, she reached for the seat belt. She looked around the car,
and out her window, then out mine. I think she was really scared,
wringing her hands and fidgeting. Just as she started to relax, I
saw that Karman Ghia about half a mile ahead.

I mashed the gas and the
Ford jumped forward. I slipped the car into the hammer lane and
rocketed past a tractor trailer at about eighty miles an hour. He
couldn’t have been doing more than about thirty. As I shot past, I
saw why.

The driver of the rig was
giving a respectful berth to a Champion City Police cruiser, which
was only doing thirty-five. “Shit, too late to hide now.” I had the
Ford running hot. I went straight on after that Karman.