Psycho Save Us (19 page)

“They didn’t
give that side o’ the story,” Pat said.  There was something else in his eyes
now.  Admiration, perhaps?  Spencer thought so.

“You’re damn
right they didn’t.  It’s gotta be pretty embarrassing when you opened the door
an’ let the bad guy walk right out.”

“I’m sittin’
here listenin’ to ya say it, but I ain’t hardly believe it m’self, man.”  He
pronounced that last word
main
.

“Believe it or
not, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.”

Pat nodded.  “Okay. 
Just one question.  You said ya got the metal necessary for the tie clasp in
the shape of handcuffs from two guys from A cellhouse.  You said they gave ya
want ya needed an’ you gave them what they
wanted
.  What did ya mean by
that?”

Spencer smiled. 
“That’s enough story time for tonight, Patty.  I came here tonight for a job. 
And for any other contact information you might have on Basil.  Now, I paid for
my part here with my tale.  Time to pony up.”

Pat sighed.  “I
s’ppose you want some green fuh that piece o’ shit Ford minivan you got parked outside.”

“It’d be a
start.”

The chop shop
owner took on a bargaining face that only a long-time businessman could
summon.  “I can’t take somethin’ like that so soon after it’s been taken, an’ I
presume you
did
take it pretty recently.  We’re old friends, podna, but
how do I know that car ain’t too hot to handle?”

Spencer had seen
this coming, and admitted it made good business sense.  “All right then.  I’ll
get you another vehicle tonight.  Any kind, your choice.  I’ll have it to you
before sunup.”

“Befo’ sunup?”

Spencer nodded.

Pat considered
him for a moment.  He leaned back in his squeaky chair, rocking back and forth,
unknowingly in time with a few short bursts of drills out in the garage.  “A
Dodge Dart,” he said.

“We talkin’ 60’s
or 70’s?”

“The 2013 model.”

Here, Spencer
had to laugh.  “Bullshit.  They’re barely even out yet.”  Pat just looked at
him.  “You got a peg on one?”

“Sho do.  Rich
muthafucka up on West End, in one o’ those gentrified neighborhoods.  He got
exactly what I need.”  Pat tilted his head back, and scratched briefly with one
finger underneath his chin.  His eyes wandered for a moment before looking back
at Spencer. 

“But?”

Pat shook his
head and
tsk
ed.  “Electronically locked.”

Spencer nodded. 
“I see.  Can’t be hotwired the standard way.  Gotta have an RFID key to unlock
the steering column, right?”

“Word.  But I know
where to find an RFID chip from the manufacturer that’ll work.  It doesn’t come
attached to any key, but…”

“Then what’s the
problem?  I’ll go get it, hotwire the Dart an’ tape the RFID chip to the side
of the steering column.  That’s worked before.  So what’s the—?”  Spencer
caught himself.  “The chip isn’t anywhere that’s easily accessible.”  To this,
Pat nodded silently.  “Then why even go for it?  It’s just another shiny
four-door compact sedan.  Gotta be easier targets worth the time.”

“I got people
with specific, uh,
needs
.  Ya feel me?”

Spencer believed
he did.  Pat’s clientele no longer included shitty street punks.  Now, he
catered to the kind of people who had acquired tastes.  Such newer cars relayed
a certain validity that made them the least likely to be searched under various
circumstances.  As well, there was probably something to the Dodge Dart that
Pat wasn’t telling him just yet, some specific feature that made it ideal for
creating hidden compartments (perhaps convenient hollow areas near the rear) in
which one could conceal various types of contraband.

“Alright,”
Spencer said.

“Alright, what?”

“Alright, I’ll
do it.  Tell me where the RFID chip is an’ I’ll go get it.  Then I’ll go an’
get the goddam Dart.  But since this is a two-parter my fee is double for the
doubled risk.”

Pat spun back
and forth in his squeaky chair, cogitating.  Finally, he consented.  “A’ight.”

Spencer leaned
forward, elbows propped up on his knees.  “Where’s it at?”

“You gonna tell
me what’choo did to get the tie clasp an’ the clipboard?”

For a few
seconds, Spencer considered telling him.  Then shrugged.  “I can’t be expected
to spill
all
my secrets.  Must leave some ambiguity.”  He added, “That
means vagueness, uncertainty—”

“Fuck you,
then.”  He shook his head laughing, but had the look of a man who wanted to capitulate
but needed a good reason.

Spencer leaned
in closer.  “Pat.  This is me askin’.  You know I can get this ride. 
Now—where—the—fuck—am—I—going?”

Pat hesitated a
moment longer, then took a deep, deep breath, and let it out slowly.  He told
Spencer where he had to go and what he had to do.  After that, Spencer stood up
and went to the door.  “Guess I got my night cut out for me.  Oh, hey, contact
info for Basil?”

“That muthafucka
three blocks up on Maple.  Hillside Apartments.  Number fo-fo-eight.”

“Thanks, Pat. 
You’re the best nigger a cracker ever had.”  Spencer turned to leave.  Then, something
struck him.  He couldn’t say what it was that brought it suddenly to mind, but
he just had to ask.  “Hey, I saw these guys earlier drive up fast in an El
Camino and an Expedition.  They snatched up some people an’ drove off.  One guy
was white, had a tattoo of a red bear on his right arm.  You know him?”

Now, Pat took on
an entirely different look.  All humor evaporated from his face and he teetered
somewhere between pissed and frightened.  “You seen the
vory
snatchin’
up somebody an’ they didn’t shoot yo ass?”

“Who’re the
vory
?”

“The
vory
? 
The
vory v zakone
?”  It sounded like
voreev zakonya
.  “They the
only ones I know wear them tattoos.  They’re Russians.  It’s a Russian bear,
done in red because o’ they flag.  The top captains have a sickle tattooed
below the bear’s head.  You never heard of ’em?”

“I can’t even
pronounce them,” Spencer laughed.  “Who are they?”

“Some
muthafuckas you don’t wanna mess with.”  He pointed to Spencer.  “You ain’t
mixed up with ’em, are ya, money?  ’Cause if you are just tell me now an’ we’ll
dissolve this fuckin’ partnership right here.”

“Pat, I was just
asking.  No harm in asking, right?”

“Depends on who
you ask,” he said, perhaps unaware of that sentence’s double entendre.  Pat
looked him up and down, maybe reconsidering for a moment, then said, “Now gawn. 
Get my fuckin’ Dart.”

Spencer left out
with only a nod to the three grease monkeys, who were just now putting some new
hubcaps on the Lincoln.

Out the front
door and into fresh air.  The city was dead. 
Not a creature was stirring,
not even a mouse
, Spencer thought as he glanced up and down the street.  The
rain he’d heard pounding against the roof earlier had since tapered off.  The
air was still damp, though, as was the street.  He stepped around a pothole
that had gathered most of the water and hopped inside the minivan.  He sat
there for a moment, thinking about everything he’d told Pat.  He started the
van up using the wires again, then turned on the radio and found a news
station.  There wasn’t anything on Baton Rouge, at least not at the moment.  Just
some B.S. about an anthrax scare at a post office somewhere in San Diego.

He put the van
in drive, and started to pull off.  He considered going back inside and asking
Pat what had him so frightened about these
vory
fuckers, but decided
that that wasn’t necessary.  If he went back in Pat might just decide that it
wasn’t worth the trouble having ol’ Spence back, or he might push him for more
information about how he escaped Leavenworth.

You wanna know
how I got what I needed from the metal shop boys, Pat?  Marty
. 
Alone
. 
In the shower
.  How could Spencer explain that he had given Marty a
sympathetic ear, then used him like currency with five guys from the metal shop
who wanted his sweet white ass?  How could he describe setting Marty up to meet
him in the showers on a certain day at a certain time, and then leaving him to
the jackals that tore him to pieces?  If Spencer told Pat that, then how long
would it be before Pat realized he was also just a tool for ol’ Spence, the
Loony of Leavenworth?

Some secrets are
best left untold
. 
That piece of advice had come from Marty’s very own lips late one night in
their cell when Spencer had dared to ask him just how many children he had
actually raped.  “Some secrets are best left untold,” he’d whispered so that no
hacks could hear their late-night conversation.  “If anybody knew everything
about everybody, then nobody would ever have any friends.”  For all his faults,
Martin Horowitz had been right about that.

Spencer checked
his rearview mirror.  A black sedan was coming right down the street from
behind.  He waited for the sedan to move on ahead.  The man in the driver’s
seat was a boulder.  He took his parking spot along the sidewalk, and switched
off his lights.  Spencer turned on his headlights and pulled away, heading west
for Maple Street.

There was a
puddle for Leon to step in as soon as he opened his door.  Even though there
hadn’t been much rain, this pothole had retained a great deal.  The street was
cracked and sloped, all the water running down into this hole like a clogged
drain.

He waved to the
minivan as it went by, but the streetlights and the water on the windows
obfuscated the driver, so Leon didn’t know if he or she ever waved back.

He checked his
watch.  It was 1:09
AM
.

Someone hollered
up the street.  Leon checked on the noise but never broke stride.  A simple
glance showed him a man fifty yards up the street spilling his shopping cart
full of pots, pans, plastic jugs and other assorted scavenged goods from the
day.  Another man had stepped out from the shadows and kicked the cart away
from where he was sleeping in an alley just off the road.  This was the area of
the Bluff where the homeless began to gather.  Public interest in aiding the
homeless had waxed and waned like the phases of the moon.  Lots of condemned or
destroyed buildings from those various projects, and the gentrification of
other neighborhoods, had pushed the homeless farther into the Bluff.  Some ended
up in the homes offered by the local Baptist church; most were anywhere but.

Somebody
hollered from up the street.  Someone else hollered back.  There was joined
laughter echoing up and down the vacant alleys.

Pat’s shop had a
few lights on in the back, and some of it illuminated the front lobby where
customers would enter during business hours.  He heard the drills going on in the
back of the shop, so he went around back and knocked loudly on the big red door
that said
EMPLOYEES ONLY
.  Someone inside stopped drilling for a moment
and said, “Hey, Pat!  Somebody knockin’ at this door, holmes!”

Then
all
the drilling stopped.

A few seconds,
then a piece of metal on the door at eye level slid to one side.  The eyes
looking at Leon regarded him with a species of mistrust.  No words were
exchanged but there was final consent in them.  The peephole was closed and
then the door opened.  “God damn,” Pat sighed, looking up at the much taller
Leon.  “Who tha fuck else gonna come up in this piece tonight?  You comin’ with
a warrant?”

“No, Pat.  No
warrant.  No one else.  Just me.”

“What’choo doin’
here then, nigga?”

“Can you step
outside for a minute?”

Pat blanched. 
“Outside?  It’s chilly as a muthafucka out.”

“Pat, if I see
anything inside that makes me, I don’t know,
suspicious
?  I wouldn’t
have any sort of plausible deniability.”

This changed his
tune.  Pat perked up and hollered back inside, “Hey yo, I’m steppin’ out fo’ a
minute.  Get that shit cleaned up.”  He stepped and closed the door.

Hands in his
coat pockets, Leon walked away from the shop.  His brother-in-law followed in
behind, and remained silent.  Once they got far enough away from Pat’s Auto
that they could no longer make out the sound of pneumatic drills at work, Leon
cleared his throat and said, “You and Melinda still tight?”

“Yeah.”  Pat put
his hands inside his pants pocket and shrugged.  “Well, kinda.  She mad right now,
stayin’ with ya moms right now, but, ya know, we still talkin’ on the phone. 
She be back.”

“What are you
guys fighting about this time?”

There was ample
derision in his voice.  “You know yo sista,” he complained.

Leon nodded. 
Yes, he knew her.  But that wasn’t why he came here, so he wasted no more time
and got right to business.  “Came across a Toyota Tacoma tonight, Pat.  Black. 
Plates from Troup County.  Stolen less than a day ago.  Hotwired by a pro.  What
might you know about that?”