City of the Sun (17 page)

“He gave it to me.”

“Ciudad del Sol.”

“Yeah.”

“This where he wanted to take you?”

“No. Someplace else. Jalisco or something.” Then she shuddered and hugged herself. “You can keep that, I don’t want to remember what happened to him. It gives me the creeps.”

“Okay,” Behr said, and palmed the little key chain.

“Recently he was talking all about how he had to distance himself from Rooster, which was strange because the guy hadn’t even been around much for a long time. I thought maybe he was jealous because the guy would get all the attention from the dancers, but Tad said he was a bad person.”

“Really.” Behr nodded. “Anything else?”

She bit her lower lip in thought, causing it to whiten. Then she stopped and it reddened to the point of near bursting. “No. Guess not.”

They all stood and started for the front door.

“Menacing.” She stopped. “That’s the word I was looking for. That guy, Rooster, he was menacing.”

AFTER MIDNIGHT
Sebo’s Gym was populated almost exclusively by fags, bodybuilders, and psychos. If anyone had any misconceptions about Rooster belonging to one of those groups, he’d be glad to straighten it out for him. Anytime. The place shimmered under banks of fluorescent lights. Barbells and iron plates sang out in harmony with violent grunts. The air smelled of disinfectant and steroid-laden shits that wafted out of the men’s locker room, where juiced-up lifters dropped them in between squeezing the boil-size pimples on their backs and shooting their next dose.

Still, it was the only option in town for guys in serious training. Not pumped-up buffy boys with their show muscles, but those looking for power. Rooster had tried to stick to morning workouts for a while, in the hope of avoiding the degenerate crowd. He’d learned of a method: Do the most important task of the day first, that way you can focus on it, do it to the highest level of your ability, and there would be little chance of putting it off or skipping it. He couldn’t stay with the plan though. It just didn’t work for him. Daylight left him cold. He couldn’t generate the intensity required for power cleans before nightfall, regardless of how many Turbo Teas he drank first. No, for Rooster, the only way to find the purging, heart-pounding, iron-pounding force was late night. He was never one to skip his workouts, anyway. Especially now.

He was on the bench. It was an indulgence he rarely afforded himself. Most guys in the gym threw down on bench press every single workout, skipping more important stuff like legs and core strength for the ostentatious chesty look that benching gave. Rooster knew doing a series of rows and sumo squats would serve him a lot better in the long run. But at 1:00 A.M., a few days after a piece of business like that with Tad, nothing suited mind movies like bench press. Rooster crashed the bar, loaded with plates and memories, down on his chest. The stupefied look on Tad’s face when Rooster was suddenly standing in his living room was one that he would never forget. Rooster pushed his reps as he relived the moment.

The first shot had entered just below the sternum and it shook Tad all over. Rooster gave him the rest of a five-pack to the torso, taking the trouble to line up the front blade through the rear ramp sight between each shot. He saw Tad shimmy and fall forward, blood all over his tightie whities. He considered putting the last one in his dome, but stopped himself. Tad already had
X
s for eyes by that point, and Rooster figured he should keep an extra, without taking the time to reload, in case he ran into a looky-loo in the hall on his way out. He hadn’t, though, he hadn’t seen a single person, and now he regretted saving the round.
Oh, well
. His chest burned. His arms quivered. He racked the bar, ran a hand through his recently cropped hair, and breathed. He sat up and looked across the gym to the front desk.

Behr and Paul parked out front of a large corrugated-metal and cinder-block building that took up a city block. The place housed several businesses, a self-storage facility and a car wash among them.

“When she said the guy was the night-owl workout type it rang a bell,” Behr said, his words whitening the dark, frosty air. “There’s only a couple of places open all night,” he went on, entering the building, climbing the stairs ahead of Paul. “And this place is pretty special.”

Behr swung the door open and cleared the doorframe, allowing Paul his first look at Sebo’s.

“Je-sus,” Paul uttered softly. He felt like a high-order extraterrestrial discovering a strange savage Earth custom. Flesh, barely covered by tank tops, writhed on purple-covered workout equipment under harsh lights. There were guttural sounds and clanging, as would accompany a dog fight in a blacksmith’s shop. The air was bleachy and fetid, the humidity high enough to grow ferns. Paul’s eyes adjusted and he saw the place was merely a gym, full of muscled men applying themselves to force/resistance training.

They walked a small distance over black rubber flooring to a reception desk, where they faced a squat man with a neck tattoo. He worked a battery of screaming blenders, mixing pink and brown protein liquids. Another man, deeply tanned, in workout clothes, waited for his beverage.

“Membership cards?” the squat man said loudly over the blenders, revealing a hint of an Irish accent.

“We’re not members,” Behr answered.

“Single workout pass is six dollars,” the deskman said, his voice dropping as he cut a blender and began pouring a drink for the tanned lifter.

“We’re not here to work out,” Behr tried to explain.

“Hell, it’s not a fooking bathhouse—”

“Close enough,” Behr snarled back.

The man cut another blender and a bit of quiet crept over the counter.

“What do you cunts want, then?” The man folded his arms, trying to maximize his biceps, which were fairly maximal. Still, in Behr’s shadow, the man seemed shrunken. Paul wondered how handy Behr was with his fists or if he was merely a size-reliant big man.

“Us cunts” — Behr leaned forward over the counter—”want to know if you have a member here who goes by the name Rooster.”

“You’re the cops?” The man wilted a bit, rubbing his neck tattoo. It was a spider or tarantula on a web, as far as Paul could tell. All black. Badly done. There was a matching one on the man’s elbow, too.

“You want the police? Because that’s where we’re headed if you don’t stay with me. Rooster. He’s supposed to work out nights,” Behr said, his voice flat and uncompromising. He put his hands down on the counter with a meaty thud. Several of his fingers were bent and gnarled, his punching knuckles raised like acorns under the skin. The gym monkey crumbled some more at the sight of them. He finished pouring the drink and handed it to the tanned man, who hurried away.

“Look, I’m usually not on nights. Do you have his proper name?” The man rubbed his neck tattoo as if it would come off.

Behr nodded once at the new demeanor and backed off the counter. “No. He’s not tall. Red hair, longish. Wiry.”

“I dunno. You can check the member profiles. But they’re just names and addresses. We’re going to photo cards next month, but—”

“That’s all right. Mind if we look around?”

The man waved a hand toward the gym, giving them the run of it, relieved to be done with them.

“Some attitude on that guy,” Paul said as they stepped onto the floor.

“You run into all kinds in my business. The ones having bad days are real generous about sharing ‘em with you.”

They stopped near a rack of barbells and scanned the area. No one fit the description they’d been given. And then their eyes landed on someone familiar. Coincidence stopped them cold.

“Hey, that’s—” Behr began. He was looking at a bearded guy wearing baggy Umbro shorts and a knee brace, grinding out a set on the leg press.

“Bill Finnegan,” Paul said. It was the soccer coach. Behr beelined for him, but Paul was with him stride for stride. They were making their way across the gym, picking their way through equipment and burly men, when Finnegan saw them. He slammed the weight home, hopped off the leg press, and half ran for a door marked Exit on the far side of the dumbbell area.

They went after him, picking up their pace to a fast walk. When Finnegan hit the door and disappeared down the stairwell, they broke into a run. Paul considered himself fleet of foot, he’d been a runner for close to twenty years, so he was stunned to see Behr burn by him and reach the door first. Behr took the stairs, which were divided into switchbacks every sixth step, a full landing at a time. Paul covered them in threes and hoped he didn’t break an ankle. He reached the ground floor in time to see Behr cuff Finnegan in the back of the neck and send him sprawling into the door to the street. The coach’s shoulder and elbow echoed off the hollow metal door.

“Ah,” Finnegan said in pain, but managed to keep his feet.

Behr caught him by the collar and spun him around. Finnegan raised his hands, closed his eyes, and turned his face away. Paul was relieved he didn’t resist and that Behr pulled up short of beating him. He was now satisfied with the answer to his earlier question of the detective’s physical proficiency.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Behr asked, speaking the question in Paul’s swirling mind.

“Nothing. Nothing.” Finnegan breathed, high and reedy.

“Why’re you running?” Behr snarled at him.

“I … Nothing. Just working out. And I …”

Paul stepped forward and spoke in as even a voice as he could manage. “Hey. Bill. Hey. What’s going on?”

Behr let go of him and the soccer coach shifted around uncomfortably. “Hi, Paul. I come here. To stay in shape.”

“Uh-huh.” Behr appraised him.

“It has nothing to do with … anything. Really.”

“Bullshit. Give,” Behr barked. He put a hand forward and held the coach by his throat. He shifted his weight back as if he would punch.

“I’m gay. All right? I’m a gay man.” Silence fell in the stairwell for a moment as they absorbed the statement. Apparently, Finnegan felt compelled to go on. “But I never touched a kid. Not in my life.” That seemed to be all there was to the bombshell.

“Jesus, Bill, what the hell are you running for?”

“I coach
youth soccer
, Paul. This isn’t New York, you know? People around here wouldn’t like it. Goddamnit!” he shouted, his last word reverberating through the stairwell in frustration and humiliation. Paul looked to Behr and shook his head. Behr stepped back.

“I don’t want to lose my job.”

“Nobody’s gonna find out, Bill,” Paul said with reassurance. The coach’s breathing began to calm and he nodded and went out the door into the night. Paul and Behr walked back up to the gym and looked around for anybody fitting Rooster’s description, but no one was even close.

Rooster drove too fast and checked his mirrors every three seconds. Those guys at the desk had been cops, clear as day, and they’d been looking for him. He didn’t know how the hell they didn’t find him in the locker room, either. He took his chance when they were jawing with the desk guy. He grabbed a ten-pound plate and slipped inside the locker room, around the corner, next to the urinals, ready to lay out the big one first. But they never showed. He waited two minutes and then booked out the front door, and they’d missed him. They hadn’t been thorough, or he was damned lucky. He didn’t know which. He couldn’t imagine how they’d gotten on to him for the little visit he’d paid to Tad in the first place, but they sure as hell had.

Now he needed to regroup. He needed to chill and get in touch with Riggi. “Wait,” he said aloud. He couldn’t just call Riggi, get him rattled, too, or he’d be facing his own little visit from someone else. Riggi was always bringing in new help, looking for the proper situation in which to prove their chops. Maybe he’d better just keep the whole deal to himself for a while, Rooster thought. A sickening sense of the mundane traveled in the car with him. He’d prided himself on being a professional, and now one simple piece of trigger business and he’d come away dirty, like a two-bit gangbanger. He coursed through the intersection of June and Prosser, trying to outdistance the damp feeling of failure, the car’s shocks bunching as he hit a swale in the road. He caught a glimpse, through the top of the windshield, of the traffic signal going from amber to red.

Officer Stacy Jennings dropped the radar gun, hit her lights, and went after the El Camino doing fifty-seven on June Road.
Fifty-seven in a forty
. Stacy loved being a cop. She was twenty-four years old and had been on the force for eighteen months. She couldn’t believe how right the job was for her. Her friends were all secretaries or worked in banks or were in law school. All that seemed like slow death by boredom to her. Even though nothing beyond a DUI had happened to her so far, she still got all jacked up on traffic stops, each and every one. She knew that things could turn without warning and stuck to the procedure she’d learned at the academy. She’d move up on the driver’s side, keeping in his blind spot as long as possible, and stop about a foot and a half back of being even with him, so he’d have to crane around to see her once he’d opened his window. This way, she stayed out of the line of fire if the motorist pulled a gun. She knew danger rode in every car. It was this knowledge that made her blood surge, that amped her up, so that even after a routine shift she’d have to put in a hard half hour on the stair-climber her father had given her for Christmas just to wind down and tire out for sleep. Daddy was so proud of her, though he said he’d never stop being nervous now that she was on the force.

The El Camino neared Clairmont before she’d reached speed and for a moment it pulled away from her. She felt her pulse hum and her stomach elevator-dropped halfway before she caught it and stepped on the gas. She wondered if she had her first runner and grabbed for the radio to call for backup. But she began closing ground on the El Camino and its speed dropped below fifty, almost as if its will had flagged. The driver made a show of drifting into the right lane, as if carefully looking for a good place to pull over. At least she knew he’d seen her lights. Growing impatient, she fluttered the siren, two crisp chirps, and he finished pulling over. She stopped about ten feet back of him and put it in park. Her patrol car was rigged with a dash-mounted video camera that automatically taped her traffic stops after the flashers were activated, for her safety, for a review of her performance, and to protect motorists’ rights. She focused her mind for a moment, then got out.