Pocket-47 (A Nicholas Colt Thriller) (14 page)

“A reward. That’s a good idea. How much—”

“Fifty grand. If she’s found unharmed. You don’t want to go public with it, though, like you see sometimes. I have a select crowd in mind. If it gets out in the local news, you’ll have every crackhead in town leading you down every goat path.”

“And if you find her by yourself—”

“I’m working for the fee I mentioned earlier. The reward’s not for me.”

“It seems like I could hire a whole team for the money you’re talking about,” Michael said.

“Then hire them,” I said. “It’s your money. Hire whoever the hell you want to. I told you my rate. It’s really not negotiable.”

I didn’t bother to tell Spivey I was dedicated to this case whether he paid me or not. I knew he could afford what I was asking, and the money would help, but I was determined to find Brittney on my own if I had to.

“You probably think I’m rich, don’t you, Nicholas? The fact is, my wife is very ill. She’s dying. We have very good insurance, but it doesn’t cover some of the alternative treatments we’ve sought abroad. This house is mortgaged to the hilt, and I’m having a hard time just keeping up with my own expenses these days. I want to find Brittney. We love her dearly. But I’m just not in a position to offer a reward of that size.” He held up an envelope. “Back taxes in
the amount of four hundred forty-three thousand, five hundred fifty-six dollars.”

I wondered what the square root of
that
was. “Does your wife have cancer?”

“Yes. It started with a little black mole on her shoulder. Turned out to be a melanoma. There’s very little hope now, and we’ve exhausted nearly all our resources. The barbeque today is a fundraiser. Not for Corina, specifically, but to open a research grant in her name. Some of my colleagues are making sizeable donations, and I’m auctioning some antiques later tonight, all proceeds to go toward the grant. We hope to raise a million dollars by the end of the day.”

“I’m truly sorry to hear about your wife,” I said.

Michael opened the leather binder, wrote a check for five thousand dollars and passed it across the desk to me. “Here’s your retainer,” he said. “It’s really all I can do right now.”

“I understand,” I said. “Are you involved in the cancer research yourself?”

“My practice is obstetrics and gynecology. Most of my patients are healthy young women. Have you ever witnessed a birth, Nicholas?”

“My daughter, Harmony.”

“It really is a miracle. I still have tears in my eyes, every time, and I’ve helped deliver over a thousand babies. Corina and I were never able to have children of our own, so we’ve been interested in adoption for quite some time. I guess it seems strange that we’re still interested, with Corina’s condition and all, but she wants me to go ahead with Brittney despite the fact that I’ll probably end up a widower.”

I ripped the check in half, passed it back to him. “This will be my donation,” I said. “I’ll find her, Michael.”

“That’s very generous of you,” he said.

I shrugged. “Even private eyes have a heart sometimes.”

A different freak show stood outside The Tumble Inn when Papa and I drove by Sunday night. Lots of leather vests and chains and heavy black boots and tattoos. A couple dozen shiny motorcycles were parked in the small lot adjacent to the club, and the fat kid named Shep was at the door checking IDs again. Joe’s pickup truck would have been about as inconspicuous as a diamond necklace on a squirrel, so we were in Papa’s Ford Explorer. I pulled to the curb.

“I’m going to check his apartment. Call me on my cell in a little while.”

“You got money?” Papa said.

I handed him two hundred dollars. “Don’t spend it all on whiskey now, old man.”

“Whiskey hell. I’m going to get myself a woman.” He laughed, got out of the car, and walked toward The Tumble Inn. He turned and looked back once but didn’t see the thumbs-up I gave him through the Explorer’s tinted window.

I traveled north on Roosevelt Boulevard and noticed someone tailing me. It wasn’t Roy Massengill this time. Probably another one of Fleming’s guys.

I let the tail follow me all the way to Duck’s neighborhood. I got lucky this time and found an open space across the street from the apartment building. It only took two tries at parallel parking. I was getting better. The car following me cruised on by. It was a Volkswagen Beetle. I jotted down the tag number. I had a feeling the driver parked nearby, waiting for me to move again. The car was black and shiny and reminded me of Darth Vader.

I rolled down the windows of Papa’s Explorer, turned sideways and leaned against the door. I sat there for a long time watching nothing happen at Duck’s place.

My arm hurt like hell. I took a Dilaudid tablet, even though it was an hour before another one was due.

I wished I had packed a Thermos. Of all the things to forget to bring on a stakeout. I remembered seeing a Krispy Kreme doughnut store on Roosevelt, but didn’t want to drive off and risk losing my parking place. I decided to walk. I had to have coffee. It was only two blocks to Roosevelt, and if I hurried I could be back to the truck in fifteen minutes. I locked the Explorer and walked a brisk pace toward Krispy Kreme.

My arm felt better by the time I got to the doughnut store. The pain wasn’t completely gone, but it was tolerable.

I ordered a large cup of black coffee and two jelly-filled doughnuts. I exited Krispy Kreme and waited for the traffic light at Roosevelt and Cedar to change so I could cross the street. A teenager wearing baggy pants and a Metallica T-shirt sat at the bus stop there, his eyes glued to some sort of portable video player.

“You gotta bump?” the young man said.

“No.” I stared at the traffic light. I had Joe’s .25 tucked in my pocket, but I didn’t feel like shooting anybody tonight.

“Gotta cigarette?”

I set my doughnut bag on the bench and handed the kid a Marlboro.

I took my doughnut bag and crossed Roosevelt. When I got half a block down Cedar Street, I heard two gunshots from the direction of Duck’s apartment.

I moved from the sidewalk into the shadows of moss-draped oaks. It was past midnight, and all the tidy bungalows along Cedar Street were dark and quiet. Crickets sang their lonesome songs in the moonlight. A cat moaned in the distance.

My cell phone trilled and startled the shit out of me. It was Papa.

“Hey,” he said. “One of the bartenders says he saw a cute young blonde in Duck’s car yesterday. Matches Brittney’s description.”

“I just heard gunshots,” I said.

“Where the hell—”

“I’ll call you in a few.”

I hung up.

I saw an orange glow above the treetops. I ran to the Explorer and set my coffee and doughnuts on the seat and gazed at Duck’s apartment building, which was on fire.

Plumes of black smoke rose and choked the moonlight. No alarms were sounding, but several of the residents were on the lawn in pajamas and housecoats. Duck wasn’t one of them. I called 9-1-1 on my cell and trotted toward the inferno while talking to the dispatcher. Help was on the way, she said.

A woman bolted out with an infant in arms and two older kids trailing behind. Duck’s Escalade was still in the parking area.

If what the bartender told Papa was true, Brittney was up on the second floor with Duck.

I had to get her out.

“Stop that idiot,” I heard someone shout. “Don’t go in there. You’ll get yourself killed.”

I didn’t stop. I’d been to Duck’s apartment before and knew the way. I figured I could get in and out in under a minute.

I took my shirt off and balled it into a wad. I filled my lungs with one last breath of fresh air, held the makeshift respirator to my face, and walked into the greasy black haze.

Wood crackled hotly overhead. I couldn’t see anything. The smoke was too thick. It was like trying to breathe motor oil, and the shirt wasn’t helping much. I felt my way to the stairwell and started to climb, my leg muscles already screaming for oxygen. I made it up to the second level. Duck’s apartment was right around the corner. I felt the door. It was locked and hot. Everything seemed eerily familiar. I’d been in this nightmare before. I tried to stay in the moment, but I couldn’t help thinking about Susan and
Harmony and my band, roasting in that goddamn airplane. I kicked the door, but it was strong and my legs weren’t. I rammed it with my shoulder, again and again, and finally felt the frame start to give. I took a couple of steps back to gather some momentum. I was going to make it through this time. I could feel it.

Then someone from behind grabbed my waist and pulled me away.

“You can’t go in there,” he said. “You’ll cause a back draft and blow us all to shit.”

“Fuck you. There’s a fifteen-year-old—”

He dragged me down the stairs and then outside. I tried to resist, but my oxygen-deprived muscles wouldn’t cooperate. I struggled to stay conscious, my peripheral vision rippling with swarms of psychedelic gnats. My lungs felt like they’d been bathed in acid. My face was coated with tears and snot.

The fireman slapped a mask over my mouth and nose. I pulled it off and tried to get up. He held me down, and I felt a needle pierce my thigh. Then everything went black.

I was treated and released from the hospital.

Papa had taken a cab to where his Explorer was parked. He picked me up, and we drove toward his house in Green Cove Springs.

“Can you roll that window up?” I said. I had the chills. My brain felt like it had gone through the spin cycle in a Maytag.

“Window’s not there anymore,” Papa said. “Someone shot it out.”

“Darth Vader,” I said.

“Huh?”

“There was a car following me,” I said. “Black Volkswagen. They must have thought I was still in here when they shot the window out.”

I stayed the night in Papa’s guest room. At five a.m. I switched on the television and watched the news. At six Papa came in carrying two coffee mugs. His hair looked like someone had taken a whisk to it. Scrambled hair.

“You couldn’t sleep either?” I said.

“You can’t sleep worth a shit when you get old. Have to piss about every two hours.” He handed me one of the cups.

“Want to go outside?” I said.

We sat on the porch. I lit a cigarette but my lungs were sore and I couldn’t handle it.

“Was the fire on the news yet?” Papa said.

“Yeah. Two people upstairs died. A man and a woman.”

“And you’re thinking it was Duck and Brittney?”

“I hope not.”

“So what now?”

“I don’t know. Can I use your computer?”

“Of course. What about that couple who was planning on adopting Brittney? The Spiveys.”

“I’m not calling them until I know for sure that it was Brittney who died in the fire. I’ll get in touch with Fleming some time today, see if the coroner has anything yet. And, I told Juliet I’d come over and get my stuff. That’s the first thing I’m going to do this morning. Right after I run these tags.”

Juliet’s car was in the driveway. Gas Man’s wasn’t. I still had my key to her front door, but didn’t use it. She answered a few seconds after I rang the bell.

“Please come in,” she said. She wore blue denim shorts and a bright yellow shirt with a western-style yoke, and a pair of purple socks with tiny yellow hearts and nickel studs at the top. I remembered her buying them when she coaxed me out shopping one time. Her olive cheeks burned with the kind of flush you associate with a fever.

“Is that my stuff?” I pointed to the plastic bag leaning against one wall of the foyer.

Juliet nodded.

“Is the tape in there?” I said.

She nodded again.

“I guess this is goodbye then.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Nicholas—”

“Don’t even.” I held my palms up, fingers spread.

Tears welled in her eyes, and a single one led a trail of mascara down her cheek. “That night with Martin, it didn’t mean anything. You’re the one I love.”

“I almost shot the son of a bitch,” I said.

“It wasn’t his fault. I told him I was single. He doesn’t even know about you, Nicholas. He flirted with me at the hospital one time when he was on my unit seeing a patient, but we never talked
much. He asked me to dance the other night at Lyon’s Den, and—”

“One thing led to another,” I said, finishing her thought. “What did you tell him when he left that morning?”

“That it was a mistake. A drunken mistake. Believe me, Nicholas, that’s all it was. And it’s not like I was cheating on you. We broke up, remember?”

She took a step my way, hands in her pockets, and buried her face on my chest. She sobbed against me, the warmth of her tears seeping through my shirt. I put my arms around her, felt her fingernails dig gently into my back. A chill rose and terminated on my scalp. Papa once told me that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. I hadn’t reached the indifference stage with Juliet. Didn’t think I ever would. Apathy is an emotion foreign to me. I care about things. I give a damn. It’s my nature. At that moment, I hated her.

I lifted her chin and covered her mouth with mine. Our tongues swirled like cyclones, deep and hard. I tore her shirt open, heard the plastic buttons dancing on the ceramic tile floor. I picked her up and carried her to the bedroom and we hurried out of our clothes, kissing and getting very busy with our hands.

But something was very wrong about it all. Before we went any further, I silently stood and walked to the window and gazed out to Juliet’s backyard. A hawk flew down and perched on the wooden fence. I couldn’t help thinking about her in the same bed with him. It gnawed at me. I didn’t know if I could ever trust her again, and without trust a relationship is a shaky and hollow thing. It’s like a fat figure skater, ugly and off-balance. It just doesn’t work.

I wanted to throw her down and fuck her. I wanted it to hurt. It was wrong.

The hawk flew away.

“Please come and make love with me,” Juliet said.

I talked to the window. “I can’t,” I said. “Not today.”

“Will you call me?”

“I don’t know.”

I put my clothes on and left her there naked and alone.