The Deader the Better (3 page)

“And?”

“And I do what I always do then, I
pulled my joystick outta my pants.” He held out his other hand,
palm up. He now held an imaginary Narva in one hand and an imaginary
dick in the other. “His Majesty’s sitting right there in the palm
of my hand; I’m tryin’ to stick her face in it and you know what
that crazy bitch says?”

“What?”

He looked down into his own palm as
if confused. “She look down and say, she say…” He wiped the
corner of his mouth on the shoulder of his suit. He was beginning to
giggle. “She say…‘You know…that look just like a penis, but
much, much smaller.’”

We burst out laughing together. I
nodded.

“Your dick ought to have one of
those warning labels about how maybe things appear to be bigger than
they really are.”

He waved me off. “Don’t start
that racial envy shit with me. I seen that pathetic little string of
yours.”

We kept bonding until Narva emerged
from the shadows and began walking toward the car. She got in behind
me, slid her way to the center and handed the picture back to G.

“Darlene says she saw the girl last
night.”

She kept her eyes glued on G as she
spoke. “She says one of those little farm weekends is going on over
in Bellevue. Says she went last night with a john. Says that’s
where she saw the girl.”

“Farm?” I said. “What’s a
farm weekend?”

They passed meaningful looks before G
took over. “It’s like a little private something for the exotic
trade, if you can dig it. Every once in a while, this rich
motherfucker name of Spooner likes to stage what they call a ‘power
exchange weekend.’ Very exclusive. You got to know Spooner or some
body who knows somebody. Got to call ahead and make arrangements,
so’s they can have whatever weird shit you want ready for you.”

I must have looked blank.

“You know, man,” he continued.
“Like bondage, S and M, that sorta Gothic shit. You name it, the
farm got it. They don’t got it, they’ll send out for it. You want
a big mama in leather to stuff her panties in your mouth while she
beats your ass wid a canoe paddle, you go to the farm. You want a
prune juice enema from a transvestite wearing a red pig mask, you
wangle youself an invite to the farm.”

“Don’t trivialize what those
people do,” Narva said quickly. G began to sputter. “Don’t
what? What you say? Trivia. What kinda shit is—”

She ignored him, speaking instead to
me. “They do all that Gothic scene stuff.” She shot G a look that
would have killed lesser men and then returned her eyes to mine.
“What he’s not telling you is that if you’re on the guest list
and what you happen to want is a twelve-year-old boy”—she made a
gesture with her hand—“who, say, you want to bugger and then
brand with your family crest…they’ll get you one of those, too.”
She reached over the seat and snatched the picture from G’s hand.
“Or a thirteen-year-old girl who you maybe want to—”

I couldn’t help myself; I
interrupted. “How in God’s name would a kid end up in a place
like that?”

“Might have trolled her up off the
streets,” G suggested. Narva sneered at the idea. “Darlene said
the girl’s tricking for Angel Monzon. Says Monzon leased her out
for the weekend.” She made a disgusted face. “He probably wasn’t
satisfied with her work. Maybe she wasn’t making her quota, or
maybe she wasn’t coming across with what the customers wanted and
he figured she could use a little attitude adjustment, so he sends
her to spend the weekend at the farm.

Figures after a weekend in there,
she’ll be more of a happy and contented camper.”

“Doan put me in wid those people,”
G protested. “I ain’t never loaned one of my bitches to those
folks. Never.” He threw a hand at the windshield, at the back of
Darlene wobbling her way out of the darkness and into the light out
by the highway. “Not even that no-good ho there,” he protested.
“I turn ’em down every time.”

“Yeah, G…you’re a prince,”
Narva said.

“Who you—”

“Only reason you don’t rent your
girls is because you’re too goddamn cheap to pay their medical
bills afterward,”

Narva snapped.

“What?” G sputtered.

As they sniped at each other over the
seat, I tuned them out and thought it over.

“How solid is Darlene’s
information?” I said finally.

“She a no-good, crack-smoking—”
G began. Narva cut him off. “If Darlene says the girl was there
last night, then she was there last night.”

I turned to G. His face was a knot.
He waved a finger in my face.

“Don’t be givin’ me that look.”

“What look?”

“The ‘you owe me’ look. That’s
what fuckin’ look.”

“I’m not giving you any look,”
I protested.

“I’da beat that rap. With or
without your help.”

“You’da done fifteen to
twenty-five,” I countered.

“Arnold woulda done the right
thing. He’da come around, told the cops I didn’t have nothin’
to do with that shit.”

“Yeah…that’s how come I found
him hiding out in a roach motel in Sarasota, Florida. How come I had
to take him across three states in the trunk of the rental car, so’s
he’d know I was serious. How come he sat in County for eightyfive
days before he’d talk to the grand jury. Oh, yeah, old Arnold was
just dying to get your moldy ass off the hook for murder. Chomping at
the bit, he was.”

G looked like he was about to swallow
his lips. We sat in silence.

“Ain’t no problem either way,”
he finally declared. “You ain’t got a reservation, you just flat
don’t get in that motherfuckin’ place. Period. End of story.”

“You could get us in,” Narva
said.

G peered over the seat at her. “You
hear what you sayin’here, girl? This here ain’t no college girl
shit. Can you dig what I’m sayin’?”

“Can you?” I asked.

“Can I what?”

“Get me in there.”

“No motherfuckin’ way. You
shittin’ me?” He chuckled.

“Trust me, Leo. You a badass
motherfucker and all, but, you don’t mind me sayin’, you just
don’t come off as the Gothic scene type.”

“I’ll go in with him,” Narva
said from the backseat. G’s voice rose an octave. “What is it wid
you and this thing, girl? This ain’t no shit of yours.”

She turned her green eyes my way. “If
G can get us in, can you get us back out?”

“Depends on the layout of the place
and what kind of security they’ve got inside.” I looked over at
G. First he tried to pretend he didn’t see me; then he said, “Got
this legbreaker name a Gunter. Drives his car for Spooner. Big ugly
motherfucker wid a funny lip. Handles the door. That’s all the
security I ever seen.”

It made sense. That sort of scene,
most anybody was gonna need was an occasional bouncer. Last thing in
the world they wanted was any serious noise.

Narva thought it over and shrugged.
“Get us in,” she said to G.

First he claimed he couldn’t. Said
it would make him persona au gratin. Then he claimed he wouldn’t.
For our own good, you know. Finally, with a great show of reluctance,
he pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket, shouldered the door
open and stepped outside. In three long strides he was ensconced
under the wraparound eaves of the building, shaking his big head,
dialing.

As G leaned against the diner with
the cell phone pressed to his ear, the beads of water on the side
window outlined Narva’s profile like sequins as she stared
impassively out into the darkness.

“G’s right,” I said. “This
could be dangerous as hell.”

“I heard him,” she said.

I pressed. “I don’t want you to
think I don’t appreciate your help here, but…you know…G owes
me. You don’t.”

“I can take care of myself,” she
said.

“I wasn’t suggesting you
couldn’t.”

She turned her stony gaze my way.
“What, then?” she demanded. “Should I make up some personalized
sob story, so’s the great big private eye will feel all warm and
fuzzy?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Let’s give
it a try.”

She moved her attention back toward
the window. “Let’s just say I draw the line at consenting
adults.”

“I appreciate that,” I said. “And
I feel the same way, but…it’s like G said. This is some serious
shit.”

“Listen to me,” she began.
“Leo…that’s your name, isn’t it?” I said it was. “You
have any personal experience here?”

she asked. “Ever been abused by
anybody? Anybody in the family?”

When I told her no, her expression
said that was what she’d figured.

“How many people do you trust,
Leo?” she asked suddenly.

“I mean implicitly, with no
reservations.”

I mulled it over. “Maybe three,”
I said.

“Not many, is it?” Before I could
answer, she said, “Imagine what the number would be like if the
people who were supposed to be protecting you when you were a kid
turned out to be abusers.”

“I try not to think about that,”
I said. “Finding kids is hard enough without putting myself inside
their heads.”

“You got lucky with Darlene here
tonight,” she said. “Most of the street girls are so zoned they
wouldn’t recognize their own mothers.”

She picked up Misty McMahon’s
picture. I watched as her eyes traveled down the kid’s face, from
the outlandish radar bangs down over the freckles to the thick row of
railroad tracks crossing her teeth.

“Could be it’s already too late,”
I offered. Narva didn’t disagree. We sat listening to the sound of
the rain on the car, as G pranced up and down under the diner’s
overhang, phone pressed to his ear, free hand flapping about like he
had a nervous disorder.

“G said you’re getting your
master’s degree.”

“G talks too much,” she said
quickly.

“What in?”

I heard her take in a great breath
and then let it out.

“Business.”

The passenger door popped open. G
held the phone tight against his chest. He took us both in. “Y’all
are sure?” he asked. “You fools really wanna do this shit?”

When we said we were, he turned his
back, spoke briefly into the receiver and then snapped the tiny phone
shut. Nobody said anything as he got back into the Explorer and
fastened his seatbelt. As a matter of fact, nobody said a word for
the better part of twenty minutes. Until we were out in the middle of
the bridge and the silence had begun to wear on me, when I piped in
with, “So…you guys never answered me…why do they call it a farm
weekend?”

G coughed into his fist. I could feel
Narva’s gaze on the back of my neck.

“You don’t want to know,” she
said.

Something in her tone told me she
might be right, so I let it go.

“PULL OVER HERE,” G ORDERED.

I slid the Explorer to the curb. The
street was empty. Somewhere in Medina. Old-time Boeing money, no more
than a couple of miles from where Bill Gates was building himself a
little five-acre shack down on the shores of Lake Washington. Houses
way back from the street. Massive oaks and maples forming a low arch,
completely blocking the sky, creating the illusion of a tunnel.

“Kill the lights and the engine,”
G said. After I followed directions, he grabbed the door handle and
limped out into the street. I followed him up to the front of the
car. He pointed. “See them lights up there in the middle of the
block?” I said I did. “Spooner’s house. Other side of the
street is all this horsey shit he got. Pastures, barns, stables, that
kind of crap. You park over there and walk across.”

I walked around to the rear of the
car. Opened the hatch and then the tailgate. Pulled out my old blue
gym bag from high school. The ornate first letters had long since
worn away. The bag read: RANKLIN IGH CHOOL.

Narva was out of the car now,
standing to my left as I pulled the Glock .-caliber from its plastic
holster and stuck it in my pants at the small of my back. Next, I put
one foot up on the bumper and strapped on an ankle holster. Just
above the ankle bone. Tight. The little Beretta .5-caliber slipped
right in. I snapped the safety strap in place and put my foot on the
ground. Stomped it hard once. Still tight. I reached into the bag,
rummaged around, pulled out a police special . and offered it to
Narva. “Just in case,” I said.

She made a face. “I have a
philosophical problem with guns,” she said.

I knew better than to ask G. He
didn’t go to the bathroom without his little custom-made . auto.

“Wadda ya think?” I asked him.

“I think this is dumber than shit,”
he replied. When I failed to respond, he pointed up the street. “I
can’t be going in there wid you two fools. You know that, don’t
you? Ruin my business. I’d be a piranha.”

“Nobody’s asking you to go in,”
didn’t satisfy him. He clapped me on the shoulder. “I could, I
would, you know that, Leo.”

Behind his back, Narva was bobbing
her head up and down as if to say,
Oh yeah, sure you would
. He
reached into his inside jacket pocket, pulled out his cell phone,
pushed a series of buttons and then listened. He handed the phone to
Narva and then pulled a pager from his belt. More button-pushing. He
handed me the pager.

“You push that red button, I’ll
have the car outside the front door in thirty seconds.” He snapped
his long fingers. “You got the best camouflage on the planet, man.
Standing next to Narva, here, most folks won’t even know you in the
fuckin’room.”

It was sad but true. As if to
emphasize the point, Narva unbuttoned her raincoat, slipped it from
her shoulders and handed it to me.

Imagine my irritation when she
reached down to the hem of the matching blue silk dress and pulled it
completely over the top of her head. She handed the dress to G. Must
have been blue night. Everything matched…little see-through
panties, garter belt, half bra, stockings. Everything baby blue with
little bows all over it.