The Last Bender, Chapter 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

          “I didn’t know you could be such and asshole,” she said, lighting up.  

          I was trying to pick my way through all these dirt roads circling through the woods. Cul de sacs, dead ends, washouts, whatever it was, they had it, sometimes in twos and threes. After a long silence, as I dodged the red and yellow eyes of nocturnal beasts, I said, “Things don’t always turn out like you want.”

          “Linda says I should trust you but I don’t. You’re doin’ me in public. It’s on my face. I ain’t your wife, Jack. Don’t treat me like one.”

          “I’m in a bind here, Helen.” The trees were becoming a menace. It was as if they were throwing themselves in the path of the car. I got confused and thought for a moment that I had gone off the road and was driving aimlessly about a suburban wood.

          “Who are you tryin’ to protect here Jack, Watts?”

          “Watts has nothing to do with it.”

          “You don’t believe that. Watts owns the whole operation. I say he just pulled out and that got somebody pissed. Watts has them right here workin’ for Urizen Corp. He nabs in the lab and yanks six or seven in the warehouse, and then it’s poof, out. You guys report it as a missing person. Why protect this guy? You should be blowing it out both ends, make a real mess yacking it up on the phone.”

          “My cunt’s not big enough for that,” I said, and then lost track of the conversation when I hit what seemed like a main road. It was paved, anyway, with a couple of fat new yellow lines down the middle. “Maybe it’s not him I’m protecting.”

          “Well besides yourself, who could it be then?”

          “You don’t go after Hubble Watts without evidence. Let it lie. I’ll take care of it.”

          “It still ain’t clear to you. I have the evidence. I’ve got you connected to Watts, and Watts connected to St. Claude. Now all I got to do is prove murder. Which would have been easier if you hadn’t blown up that warehouse.

          “Jack, you help me get to Watts I’ll forget about it, and call us partners. Otherwise I start trawlin’, and use you for chum. And my first stop will be Laraby. I wanna get a good whiff of his sweat.”

          I started to laugh. Then I wanted to be sick. “All right, let’s take a break. We’ll stop for a drink. My shout.”

          She shook and said, “Just drive and don’t stop till ya hit town.”

          I dropped to thirty on the town road. I wasn’t about to get popped for a speeding ticket. Everything was shut except the gas station where we had asked for directions, and the Mighty Morfin Donut shop. I slowed to a stop. There was a cop car in the parking lot. My arm throbbed. I looked in the cop car windows. It was him, the biter. Sipping on a cup of joe.

          “What are you doin’, Jack?”

          “See down there? That’s the cop who bit me.” I popped on the brights. He looked out the window, squinting, flashing those big teeth of his. “Hold on.” I opened the door. “Give me your nightstick.” I stepped out of the car and stood in the headlights facing him, holding the nightstick still at my side. I got to about ten feet and then he recognized me. But it was no more than a few steps to his car. I smashed the glass in and then I took aim at his mouth and swung. He hadn’t gotten his gun out. His teeth caved in and he coughed up blood. I walked back and drove off fast. When I was sure we weren’t being followed I slowed down and said, “I’m trying to protect you and Linda from a hit. There are bad guys involved, you know? Take the warehouse. That wasn’t our job.”

          “You sound just like Linda. She figures it for political. Leave the warehouse unsolved, let Special Investigations do the kidnapping. That’s what everyone wants. Linda sayin’, Ain’t been burned yet, not in seven years.“

          It was nothing but bad all around. Everywhere I turned someone was asking for money or smacking my face with a board. At least I got one back. As we drove along I imagined the Zamboni guy smashed into a tree, his chest crushed by the steering wheel, head shredded by the windshield, body spraying through the air. Why didn’t they just go away? I wanted to know the answer to that so bad I hit the accelerator and watched the double yellow lines pass faster and faster, now riding beneath the wheels, curves and dips vanishing before I could see them in the headlights. I had to start looking for a way out. That meant giving Helen something. I said, “There’s a private dick, Johnny Braque. He might give you some answers.”

          “Not you though. Johnny Braque.”

          “My job stinks, I agree. I want to know, if someone says to me, uh, Jack, your job stinks, I want to know, what do you do? Huh? Do I care about these people? Well I don’t.”

          She jammed out a cigarette and got a little loud. “Don’t think I don’t think. I put it together without your help. It’s nothing but fix, everywhere I turn. But you don’t know what it’s like when you walk into that room. The people are just gone to you. But I see where they go. All over the walls.

          “I seen things in the war Jack. But this ain’t that. You got a choice, my friend. And I ain’t buyin’ that your hands are tied. Name the little thing you got for me.”

          “You don’t understand. Talk to Johnny Braque. And watch out for Watts.”

          The Cyrus Van looped around town. Concrete supports divided the bay into frames that ticked by, hung with green and red lights.

          “All right,” she said. “Take me home. Division. Sidney and Division.”

          I pulled up in front of a four-story apartment house. The windows were mostly lit up. I looked at all the different colored shades and curtains and lamps. There were five entrances with black doors. It was a big parking lot. Kids ran around, in and out of the bushes. An old woman walked a pointy little tan dog with a smoosh face, its tail curled up like a cocktail shrimp. I felt myself crumbling into a dark hole.

          “That was a helluvu time Jack. Thanks.”

          “Yeah, well thanks for springing me.”

          “Good night.”

          “Good night.”