Fire Lake (19 page)

"Thelma," she said to the other kid. "Get
your ass out of here."

Thelma made a sour face, but she got up and walked
slowly out of the room.

Renee stared at us for a moment. "Cal's coming
down," she said in a forbidding tone of voice, as if we'd
awakened a monster. She turned on her heel and followed Thelma out of
the room.

"You ain't no social workers," she said
over her shoulder. "You're fucking narcs."

"Who told you that?" I asked her.

Renee walked down the hall without answering me.

I turned to Karen and asked her the same question,
"Who told the kid we were narcs?"

Karen shrugged. "When you do junk, every
stranger's a narc." She pointed to the tin ashtray. "You
know what that shit is?"

I shook my head.

"You've got to filter junk, Harry," Karen
said authoritatively. "After you cook it up, you've got to
filter it before you shoot--to get rid of the impurities. Most of the
time you use cotton balls as filters. You draw the junk up from the
cooking spoon through the cotton into the syringe. If you don't have
enough cotton, though, a cigarette filter will do the job nicely."

I stared at the ashtray and felt a wave of disgust
pass over me like a flash of heat. "Those kids are junkies?"

She nodded. "The one with the
sweater--Renee--has got railroad tracks on her right arm. She was
trying to cover them up, but I caught a glimpse when she went
upstairs."

I shook my head in despair. "This Cal must be a
real charmer."

"He's probably just another user, Harry,"
Karen said coolly. "He pushes enough on the street to keep
himself high and to pass out a few bags to his girlfriends--in return
for favors rendered. It was no different in our day. You just didn't
see it."

I stared at her for a moment. "I'm glad I didn't
see it," I said angrily. "I'm fucking proud of it."

Karen wasn't impressed by my indignation. "Grow
up," she said. She glanced around the corrupt little room. "This
is the real world. It always was."
 

26

 
As Karen and I stood there staring at each
other, a tall, skinny, black-haired man walked into the room. We both
turned toward him. He looked like a mean Harry Dean Stanton--long,
thin redneck face, deeply grooved on either side of his tiny mouth,
heavy-lidded blue eyes, sharply hooked nose, uncombed coal-black hair
that fell in thick locks across his forehead. He was wearing jeans
and an unbuttoned checked shirt that gave anyone who was interested a
good view of his sallow, hairless chest and pudgy little belly. I put
his age at about forty--the same as mine.

He stared at us for a moment, then passed a hand
through his black hair and smiled. His mouth was rotten-looking -long
decayed teeth, red-rimmed gums.

"You looking for Norvelle?" he said in a
thick Appalachian drawl.

I nodded. "We're friends of his."

Cal laughed a nasty little laugh. "You told them
girls you was his caseworkers."

When I didn't answer him, he said, "Well, which
is it, mister?"

"Friends," Karen said quickly. "Norvelle
used to play in a band with my husband."

"And who would he be?" Cal asked. "Your
husband?"

"Lonnie Jackowski. Lonnie Jack." Cal shook
his head. "Never heard of him."

"You don't know where Norvelle is, do you?"
Karen said. "I hope he's dead," Cal said. "I done
kicked him out of here about a month ago. I got tired of that nigger
freeloading on me. Eating up my food and shit."

"Do you have any idea where he might have gone?"
Karen asked.

"Might try K.T.'s Barbershop on Forest. Norvelle
used to hang out there."

Cal wasn't the kind to volunteer information, so I
assumed he was lying. "We heard Norvelle was still living with
you," I said, throwing him a hard look.

The look didn't faze him. He was used to that kind of
look.

He bounced it back at me, with a little extra spin of
his own.

"You heard wrong," he said icily.

"What if I wanted to look around?" I said.
"How'd you feel about that?"

Cal tossed his head back and laughed--a single,
contemptuous bark of amusement. When he leveled his head again, he
stared right at me--his mean blue eyes full of fight. "You're
welcome to try," he said in a whisper.

"Harry," Karen said nervously. "Maybe
we better get out of here."

"She's right," Cal said in that same
whispering voice. "You better get out of here."

"Tough guy, huh, Cal?" I said, smiling at
him.

"Don't you press it, mister," he said,
smiling back at me.

"We'll check out the barbershop, Cal," I
said, guiding Karen toward the door. "But if I find out you were
lying to me . . . I'll be back."

"I'll be waiting," he said, with his rotten
grin.

It felt good to get out in the cold again. I took a
deep gulp of the snowy air and breathed it out in a cloud of steam,
as if I were breathing out the corrupt atmosphere of that dirty
living room. Karen ran down the walk ahead of me. She had already
started the motor up by the time I got to the passenger-side door. I
glanced over the car roof at the screened-in porch. Cal was peering
out the front window, watching me closely.

"Why did you push him like that?" Karen
said irritably, once I'd gotten in beside her.

"He's a junkie who runs a chicken ranch," I
said to her. "Why should I coddle a piece of shit like that?"

"Aren't you forgetting that you're hurt?"
she said, giving me an aggravated look.

"Hurt or not, if I can't take Cal, it's time for
me to hang it all up."

Karen shook her head disgustedly. "That kind of
macho bullshit may impress the hell out of your other girlfriends,
Harry, but I think it sucks. That was a bad scene in there, man.
Don't you know that a guy like that has nothing to lose?"

I smiled at her, soothingly. "I know more about
guys like that than you think."

"I wonder," she said coldly. "I don't
want to get killed so that you can prove a point about your manhood.
I used to live around fuckers like Cal, and they are not fooling
around. He's not another Lonnie, Harry. He doesn't mule for dope, or
cash bad checks to score a bag. That man is a stone-cold dope fiend,
for chrissake! He makes his buy money by ripping people off. Even
other junkies are scared of him. He'd murder his mother for a big
score. Man, he likes his work."

"You're really scared, aren't you," I said,
patting her shoulder. "I'm impressed."

"You're crazy," she said, shaking off my
hand. "And you're not listening."

Karen pulled out onto Cross Lane and turned around.
"Are we going to try K.T.'s Barbershop?" she said in a
calmer voice.

"Might as well," I said. "But I think
the bastard was lying to us."

Karen nodded halfheartedly. "I do too."

I stared at her for a second. "If he was lying,
you know I'll have to come back here."

She bit her pouty lip and sighed. "Maybe we'll
get lucky. Maybe Leanne'll come through for us. Or maybe we'll find
Norvelle on our own."

"Maybe," I said. "But don't count on
it."

"Do you have a death wish or something?"
Karen said.

I laughed. "Just picking up after Lonnie,"
I told her.
 

27

K.T.'s Barbershop was located on Forest, about a half
block from Burnett, in a part of South Avondale that had once been a
prosperous Jewish neighborhood. The area had long since gone
downhill. The houses and apartments, those that were still standing,
were dilapidated turn-of-the-century buildings, red-brick and frame,
with sprung porches, peeling paint, and broken doors and windows.
Many of the oldest structures had been torn down and replaced with
two-story, tar-papered storefronts. K.T.'s Barbershop was one of the
storefronts. It stood in the middle of the block--a little concrete
building spackled with windblown snow.

From where Karen had parked across Forest, I could
see halfway into K.T.'s through its plateglass front window. The shop
looked deserted--the old-fashioned leather and steel barber chairs
standing empty on their porcelain pedestals.

This time I managed to talk Karen into staying in the
car. She took one look at the run-down tar-board building and nodded
at me.

"I'll wait here. But for my sake, Harry, please
be careful." I told her I would.

I got out of the Pinto and walked across Forest,
through the ankle-deep snow. As I got closer to K.T.'s front window,
I could see farther into the shop. It wasn't completely empty. A
middle-aged black man in a white smock was sitting on one of the
barber chair at the back of the room. He was resting his head against
the headrest and was holding an Ebony magazine tented above his face.
A second black man was sitting in a cracked leather chair across from
the barber. He was an old man, in a tattered topcoat. A beat-up felt
hat was tipped back on his head. He was staring stupidly at the
checked tile floor, his hands cribbed between his legs.

I went up to the shop door and walked in. The mirrors
behind the row of barber chairs were chipped and cracked; in several
spots, they'd been worn down to the black mica under the glass. The
porcelain toiletry counter underneath the mirrors was worn away in
black spots too. The tile floor beneath it was thick with grime and
unswept clippings. A half-dozen patchy armchairs sat on the left side
of the room, with stacks of dog-eared magazines piled between them
for waiting customers. The room smelled of hair oil and sweat.

As I came in the barber put down his magazine. He was
a middle-aged man with processed hair, a trim black mustache, and a
shiny, acne-scarred yellow face. He didn't make any move to get up.
He just stared at me from where he sat in the chair. The old man
stared at me too. His face was deep black and heavily wrinkled. His
bloodshot eyes looked unfocused, as if he were very old or very
drunk.

"What can I do for you?" the barber said,
as if he knew perfectly well there was nothing he could do for me.

"I'm looking for an old friend--Norvelle
Thomas."

"Don't know no Norvelle Thomas," the barber
said.

"Cal told me I could find him here," I
said, with a smile.

"Don't know no Cal," the barber said. "You
sure you in the right place. K.T's Barbershop?"

"That's where Cal told me to look," I said,
with an exaggerated sigh. "Norvelle used to play bass in a band
that I managed. I was thinking of using him again. I mean, if he's
straight and I can find him."
 
The
barber stared at me for a long moment. "You a promoter?"

"Something like that."

"Don't look like no promoter." He glanced
at the old man. "He look like a promoter to you, Lyle?"

The old man shook his head savagely. "Uh-uh,"
he said. "Don't look like no promoter I ever seen."

I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out my
wallet. "I think I have a card in here," I said. I opened
the wallet wide enough to let the barber, and the old man, get a look
at my stake. "I guess I ran out of cards."

I pulled a couple of twenties from the wallet,
instead. The old man licked his lips.

"I sure would like to find Norvelle," I
said, holding the money out.

"I sure would like to help," the barber
said. He eyed the bills for a moment and shook his head sadly. "But
like I told you, I don't know no Norvelle Thomas."

I was certain that he was lying. But then I was
certain that Cal had lied to me too. There was no sense in muscling
both of them. I figured Cal was the better bet. I thanked the barber
for his time and walked back out into the snow.

As I started across Forest to the car, the old man,
Lyle, came scurrying out of the barbershop.

"Whooa up, there!" he shouted at me, over
the wind.

I stood on the curbside as Lyle came up to me. I
figured he was going to hit me for a handout--to buy a drink or a
fix. I'd seen the way he'd looked when he spotted my bankroll.

"Heard what you was saying in there," he
said, working his lips slowly, as if he were trying to get some spit.

A sudden gust of wind lifted his hat off his head. He
pinned it in place with his right hand and tried to hold the skirts
of his tattered topcoat together with his left. The wind kept blowing
straight at us, kicking snow up like a passing truck. It made the old
man's eyes tear and his black face tighten into a grimace, as if
someone were yanking on his hair.

"You know where Norvelle Thomas is?" I
asked him.

"I maybe might," Lyle said.

I pulled the two twenties out of my pocket. The
breeze made them snap in my fingers like pennants.

"Oh, Lord," the old man said. "Don't
let them blow away." He laughed hoarsely, but it wasn't a joke
to him. He wanted to reach out and grab them before the wind did, as
if they were his own children.