Fire Lake (23 page)

"Who?" she said.

"Sonny Carter," I said, glancing around the
room. I pointed to one of the tables in the distance.

"Isn't that Sonny?" I glanced at Karen.
"Isn't that Sonny over there, hon?"

Karen pretended to peer through the haze. "I
don't know," she said, swiping at the smoke. "I can't make
him out."

The barmaid shook her head. "That ain't Sonny
over there.

Sonny's up in the corner with Duke."

"Which corner?" I asked, looking confused.
She pointed to the right.

I sighted across the room, my hand over my brow. "Oh,
yeah!" I said cheerfully. "I see him now."

The barmaid glanced at me and Karen uncertainly. "You
all friends of his?"

"Yeah," I said, smiling at her. "Me
and Sonny go way back." The bartender came up and slapped four
margaritas on the barmaid's tray.

"Go on," he said, giving her a stern look.
"You got tables to wait."

She snarled at him, picked up the tray, and wandered
off into the maze of tables.

I pulled Karen away from the bar. "What do you
think?" I said.

She stared at Sonny--a big, bearded lummox in a
sweatshirt, grimy blue jeans, and a chained leather vest.
Twenty-five, twenty-six years old. Six-two. Two-hundred-eighty
pounds. Lank, uncut black hair that hung down to his shoulders.
Porcine face. Teeth missing on either side of his mouth. Huge,
bulging belly. Huge arms, dripping fat like an up-turned skillet.
Tattoos on either forearm. A folding knife hanging from a chain on
his belt. He was a prize.

Karen shook her head. "He's a monster."

"Yep," I said. "And probably mean as a
snake."

"What do you think?" Karen said.

"Well, we've got to get him out of here--that's
for sure. He's enough of a handful on his own. We don't want his pals
stomping us too."

Karen glanced back at Sonny. "If he does have
all that crack, maybe he'd be willing to sell some to me." "To
a stranger?" I asked dubiously.

"I don't have to remain a stranger," she
said, giving me a wink.

I stared at Karen. "You'd make a play for . . .
that?"

"I've done a lot worse," Karen said
casually.

"I don't think I want to hear about it," I
said.

"Tell you what," Karen said. "You go
out to the car. In due time, I'll come out with Sonny. I think that
one's up for something kinky. Maybe we can get him to take us home
and feed us some crack. You think you can play it by ear?"

"Play what?" I said.

"A swinger," she said with a laugh. "I
mean, it's casting against type, but . . ."

"Jesus, Karen," I said, "I don't
know."

"You have a better idea on how to get him out of
here-alone?"

"I guess not," I said.

"Then leave it to mama." She unzipped her
fur jacket, roughed up her hair, unbuttoned the top two buttons on
her blouse, and walked off toward Sonny's table.

I watched her for a time from the bar rail. Karen sat
down at Sonny's table and started talking to him. I couldn't hear
what she said, but after a minute or two, Sonny called the barmaid
over and ordered a couple of drinks. Karen kept talking to Sonny,
leaning across the table to give him a look at her breasts. A minute
or two after the drinks arrived, Sonny told his friend Duke to blow.
Duke, a biker as skinny as Sonny was fat, grinned salaciously and
took his drink to another table. Sonny scooted over toward Karen,
patting her hand with one of his paws. She smiled at him
encouragingly.
I started to feel a little
sick.

When I couldn't stand to watch him drool over her
anymore, I walked out of the bar into the cold. I stood in front of
the door for a long time, counting seconds like a timekeeper. When
Karen didn't come out right away, I wandered back to the car.

I wouldn't have gotten in the car, if the cold hadn't
been so fierce. But ten minutes of shivering made my back start to
ache. I climbed in the front seat, behind the wheel, turned on the
engine, and turned the heater up to high. I opened the vents and sat
there, with the heat pouring over me, until I broke into a sweat. And
still she didn't come out.

I glanced at my watch. It had only been twenty
minutes. I knew I was behaving like a kid. I knew she was only doing
whatever she was doing in there for me--to get me off the hook with
LeRoi. But some chauvinistic fold of my brain simply couldn't handle
the thought of Sonny Carter touching her, even if it was only an act.
The longer she stayed in that bar, the angrier I got. By the time she
and Sonny came out the door, I was livid. I wanted to tear that fat
cocksucker to pieces--to cut off his hands and nail them to the
fucking wall.

Karen came bouncing over to the car, a half-dozen
yards ahead of Sonny. She knocked on the window, and I rolled it
down.

"We got us some real action here, Harry,"
she said, loudly enough for Sonny to hear her.

Then she took a look at my face and whispered, "What
the hell is wrong?"

"I don't like this game," I said through my
teeth.

"Don't be an asshole, Harry. Play along. I've
got the bastard hooked."

I took a deep breath and nodded. But I was still
gritting my teeth.

Sonny came ambling up behind Karen. He pulled her
back to him and ran his huge hands up the front of her blouse to her
breasts, squeezing them tightly. Karen laughed, as if she were drunk.
Glancing over her shoulder at me, Sonny said, "I hear you're
into threesomes."

"Is that what you heard?" I said coldly.

Karen gave me a warning look. "Lighten up,
Harry," she said. "Sonny's going to party with us."

Sonny gave me a long look. He had piggish eyes, and
what I could see of his mouth through the curly black beard was red
and wet. For a moment, I wondered whether he'd remember me--from
Friday. But there wasn't a hint of recognition on his stupid face. He
was just staring hard at me because he liked to stare hard at
strangers--because he was big enough to do it and to get away with
it. I started to wonder why Jordan considered him a key witness. If
Carter didn't know me, and he didn't seem to, then I had no idea whom
or what he'd seen at that motel.

Sonny kept staring at me coldly. "If you're not
man enough to handle this scene, maybe I'll just take her off on my
chopper." He squeezed Karen's breasts so hard, she winced. "This
bitch is hot."

I forced my mouth into a smile. "I'm ready to
party. Any time. Any place."

Sonny grinned and wiped his red, dripping mouth with
the back of his hand. He said to Karen: "Let's go back to my
crib. Get naked. Do some bad things." He turned her face to him
roughly. "I got a video camera back there, baby, and a
fourteen-inch dildo your ass will just love. We can make movies."

"I want to get high," Karen said with a
pout of her pouty lip.

"I told you," Sonny said. "I can
handle that too. I got a connection."

Karen got in the backseat and Sonny piled in behind
her. The car shook when he got in, as if someone had dropped a
boulder in the bed of a pickup truck.

"Let's go, boy," he said.

"Where?"

"Just a few blocks up the road. Miamiville
Apartments."

"What about your chopper?"

"It ain't going anywhere. Let's move."

I started the car up and pulled out onto Wooster
Pike. It was only a couple of blocks to the apartment complex, like
Sonny had said. Just the same, I didn't dare look in the rearview
mirror on the way.
 

33

Carter's pad was on the third floor of one of those
jerrybuilt apartment complexes that promise you wall-to-wall
carpeting, equipped kitchens, balconies with a view, and
air-conditioning--all for under two hundred dollars a month. What
they are, are dry-walled rattraps, with Astroturf on the floor, a
disposal bolted under the sink, a two-foot by four-foot balcony
overlooking a highway, and an 8000-BTU air conditioner rattling in
the wall.

I followed Sonny from the parking lot to a concrete
stairwell and then up to the third floor. He'd kept Karen with him,
as if he'd taken possession of her for the night.

When we got to the door of his apartment, he let her
go for a moment. While he was fiddling with the locks, she gave me a
sick look, as if to say, "What now?" It was clear that she
was as tired of the game as I was. Plus she was getting frightened.
It was party time, and Sonny wasn't likely to waste much time on
foreplay. He'd had foreplay in the backseat of the Pinto.

Sonny unlocked the door, opened it, and grabbed for
Karen's arm.

I pulled her over to me before he could get a grip.
"Easy, Sonny," I said with a smile. "Let's take this
slow."

He gave me a vicious look. "I don't know if I
want to party with you, boy. You're too square."

He stared at Karen, cowering behind me. She was
looking scared; she just couldn't hide it anymore. And Sonny could
see it. He wasn't a smart man, but he was street smart. And Karen and
I were beginning not to add up.

"I don't know if I want to party at all,"
he said slowly.

"I want to get high," Karen squeaked, from
behind my back.

"We all want to get high, lady," Sonny
said.

He stood in the doorway to his apartment-his hand on
the knob-squinting at us for a long moment. "Uh-uh," he
finally said, looking directly at me, "you ain't party
material."

He turned his back to us and started to close the
door.

Before he could shut it completely, I braced my hands
against the wall behind me, raised my right leg, and kicked Sonny in
the small of the back--kicked him as hard as if I was trying to kick
down the door itself. The kick hurt me as much as it did him, sending
a fierce pain shooting up my spine. But it had its effect. Carter
fell forward through the doorway with a thud, landing on his
face--hands outstretched, arms outstretched, as if he were lost in
the desert.

In spite of the ache in my back, I followed him right
through the doorway, pulling the Gold Cup from my coat pocket. After
the way he'd pawed Karen, I wanted to hurt the son of a bitch. I
wanted to castrate him.

Luckily the only light in the room was coming from
the hall, and it was illuminating the spot where he was kneeling. He
couldn't see me, but I could see him fine. He started to get to his
knees, huffing and blowing like a walrus, and I cracked him on the
temple with the gun barrel. The first shot just seemed to make him
mad. He snarled and swung one of his huge arms out at me blindly. I
wrapped both hands around the gun barrel and whipped the butt across
his face like a baseball bat, breaking his nose. He spit out some
blood, wobbled on his knees like a tenpin, then fell over on the
carpet, in the middle of that square of light.

I raised the gun a third time and Karen cried out,
"No!" I turned toward her with a snarl of my own.

"I'm going to kill the fucker," I said.

"That's going to do us a lot of good, isn't it?"
she said. For a second I felt like hitting her. Karen could see it,
too, and she took a step back toward the hall.

"Harry?" she said in a frightened voice.
"You're scaring me."

"I hated that whole scene in the car," I
said fiercely. "I mean I hated it."

"You think I didn't?" she said, staring at
me with a shocked look on her face. "You're the first man I've
felt anything for in two years, you crazy bastard. Or do you think I
was born to swing?"

I felt my heart sink. "I couldn't stand to see
him touch you," I said.

"A lot of guys have touched me, Harry,"
Karen said, giving me a softer look. "I thought you understood
that."

"I guess I didn't," I said heavily.

"Can you live with it?"

I nodded.

But she didn't look convinced. "We're pretty
different, you and I. More different than I thought. I'm not the
person you think I am, Harry. I've been around the block--more than
once."

"It wasn't you. It was him," I said,
staring at Carter's bloated body. "I'm never going to let that
happen to you again. I shouldn't have gone along with it in the first
place."

She shook her head. "My bodyguard, huh? You're a
square, you know that? And a chauvinist."

"So?" I said without apology.

"So . . . I don't know. Under the circumstances,
I guess I can handle it, but with that attitude, I honestly don't
know how you ever survived the sixties."

Karen reached over and flipped on a wall switch. A
lamp on a table by the door came on, lighting up the tiny living
room. It was just what you would have expected from a guy like Sonny.
A velvet hanging of a naked siren above a black plastic sofa. A pine
end table littered with beer cans and brimming ashtrays. A couple of
cardboard boxes full of oily motorcycle parts. A video camera set up
by a dilapidated color TV. The room smelled equally of cigarettes,
beer, and forty-weight.