Eye of the Burning Man: A Mick Callahan Novel (The Mick Callahan Series) (23 page)

"So my life is riding on his curiosity."

"In a way."

"You're giving him an awful lot of credit, Mick," Darlene said. "Jerry has a valid point. Some of these pimps wouldn't be interested. They would just blow us the fuck away without missing dinner."

"He won't."

Jerry flopped back on the bed and put his hands behind his head. "What makes you so sure?"

I had closed his eyes. "Darlene, you take first watch, okay?"

She glanced at the time. "Four hours?"

"Good enough. Wake me at two and I'll take the second."

"Wake me when it's over," Jerry said. He covered his face with a pillow then threw it across the room. "This thing stinks," he complained. "It smells like blowjobs and cheap perfume."

"So enjoy."

"Up yours."

Time crawled. I tried to meditate; breathed slowly and evenly, but did not sleep. I heard Darlene check the locks on the windows and the door. She went into the bathroom and washed her face.

"Mick?"

"What, Jerry?"

"I have to ask you something."

"Shoot."

"Did anything . . . happen between you and Mary when she stayed at your place?"

"No."

"That's not why she didn't want to see me?"

"I told you the truth, Jerry," I said. The lie burned, but came easier the second time. Don't they always? "Nothing happened. I think you're letting your imagination get to you."

"I'm acting bonkers, man. I'm sorry."

"That's okay."

"I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm drinking too much. I don't usually get high all the time. I'm not a . . . you know."

"I know. Forget it."

"Yeah. Okay."

"Get some sleep, Jerry."

A lie of omission or misdirection is a lie just the same,
I thought.
Was that love?
A few moments passed. Darlene flushed the toilet. She turned out the lights before leaving the bathroom, returned to sit quietly on the floor with the gun in her lap. I could see her face in the gloom. After a while she closed her eyes, but my instincts told me she was awake.

Eventually, Jerry started snoring. Voices passed in the hallway, two men arguing. I opened one eye. Darlene was already at the door with the gun pointed down at the floor. The men passed by and she returned to her sitting position. I couldn't rest.

"You okay?"

Darlene nodded. "Fine, go back to sleep."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"What?"

"It's the shrink in me," I said softly. "I just can't help but wonder why you're so down on men."

Darlene leaned closer and patted my hand. "Not very tactfully done, Mr. Therapist. I'm sure you already figured it out."

"I have my suspicions. Your sexuality is intense, but it blows hot and cold. You seem to have what we call an approach-avoidance conflict going on. From the vibe I get, I'd say someone was inappropriate with you when you were little."

She chuckled, bitterly. "If you call molesting a girl who is only eight acting inappropriately, I guess that's true."

"Okay, thanks for telling me."

"What do you care?"

"I just wanted to understand you better."

"Go back to sleep."

Time crawled. Some people entered the room directly above, took a noisy shower together and had aggressive, loud sex. The springs creaked, the headboard pounded the wall, and a man grunted repeatedly. Finally he groaned and the couple fell silent. Against all odds, I tried to empty my mind.

At two o'clock, Darlene started across the room to wake me. I waved her back and nodded. She made a pillow out of a bath towel and stretched out flat on the floor, the gun at her side.

She closed her eyes. I yawned and closed mine, too.

Scratching sounds startled me. Something like a rat, moving somewhere in the wall? I opened my eyes again. The room was velvet black and the cheap alarm clock was not showing the time, so the power had been cut. I eased forward out of the chair and down onto my knees. The scratching came again.

The window slid open, almost silently.

A figure rolled over the sill and down onto the carpet, slick as a long cobra. I kept my eyes fixed on the window, looking for more shapes, but nothing else moved.

The man began to crawl across the carpet, moving towards Darlene and her weapon. I saw the tip of the long blade of a hunting knife, glinting in the moonlight; probably held between clenched jaws. I gauged the distance, jumped out of the darkness and onto his back, rammed a knee down into his spine.

The man arched in pain and tried to roll away. I grabbed for the handle of the knife. I guessed wrong and cut my fingers, grabbed hair and twisted, then tried again. My fist closed over a forearm. I realized I'd surrendered too much leverage and started to change positions.

A flashlight blinded us. "Freeze, motherfucker," Darlene said. "Let go of the knife and put your hands flat on the floor, or I'll blow your brains all over this carpet."

"Don't shoot."

Jerry turned on the lights. "The fuck?"

Another white guy working for Fancy.
He was in his early twenties and had long, greasy blond hair. He had dropped the knife. Darlene held the 9mm pressed against his forehead. She reached out and took the hunting knife and slid it away, under the bed. The mattress squeaked as Jerry moved again.

"The fuck is going on?"

The phone rang, then rang again. I released the man and went back to the chair, closed and locked the window as the phone rang a third time. I used my shirt to stop my two fingers from bleeding, reached over and picked up the telephone. I didn't say anything.

"You're awake, I see. Is my man still alive?"

I cleared my throat. "We haven't killed him yet."

"How courteous of you." A rich voice with a clear English accent. It was Fancy. "I would prefer that you didn't, even though he has proven to be something of a disappointment to me."

"Okay. We won't, then."

"I assume you wish to meet?"

"Yes. Do you know why?"

Fancy laughed. "My dear Mr. Callahan, you must think me an uncultured fool."

"You know me?"

"But of course. Incidentally, I quite enjoyed that special you did on the crystal methamphetamine laboratories in northern Nevada. It was quite informative without being unduly sensational. Top notch work."

"Thank you," I said, a bit dazed. "Perhaps you'd like me to autograph an eight by ten photo?"

"We shall see. Now, do not panic, Mr. Callahan. And please tell your lady friend not to shoot."

Darlene was still pressing the 9mm down into quivering flesh. She raised an eyebrow.

I shrugged. "He said don't panic and don't shoot."

The door burst open. Darlene tried to bring the gun up. Two large kids, clearly gang-bangers, entered the room. Each had an AK47. One covered me and one aimed his directly at Darlene's face. Darlene considered and rejected several options, all in a heartbeat. She sighed, lowered the pistol, and sat back against the ripped wallpaper.

"Well," she said to me, sarcastically, "looks like your idea is working out just great so far."

The gang members stepped further into the room. One moved past the bed, his gun trained on a trembling Jerry, and backed away into a far corner.

Fancy entered the room. His chiseled features seemed darkly amused. He wore a mink coat despite the sweltering heat. Even though I towered over him, he was more impressive in the small, crowded room than he had seemed weeks before. His jewelry glinted. He clicked off his cell phone with his good hand. Feeling foolish, I put the hotel phone back in the cradle.

"You recognized me the first time?" I asked, with a dopey smile on my face. "Man, do I feel dumb."

Fancy smiled and I noticed that one front tooth was made of solid gold. "Of course I did, Mr. Callahan. And it was simply fascinating to watch you in action, I might add. One hears the stories, but . . ."

"Do you know why I came back here tonight?"

Fancy shrugged. "I suspect you'll tell me soon enough." He gestured to his followers. They cocked their weapons and aimed. "Now, at the risk of stating the obvious, please do what I tell you to do or these men will kill you. Is there any part of that instruction you need me to repeat?"

"We got it."

Fancy faced Darlene, then Jerry. "Miss Hernandez? Mr. Jover?"

I blinked. "All our names, too? I'm impressed."

"I get information because I pay well. This way, please." He turned his back, strode out the door and down the hallway.

I got to my feet. The white kid with the greasy hair gave me a dirty look and stepped back. I helped Darlene stand. Jerry was pale as he rolled over on the bed and swung his feet down to the floor. I went to the doorway and motioned for him to follow.

When I stepped out into the hall, Fancy was standing several yards away, near what appeared to be a utility door. It had DANGER ELECTRICITY, writ large in block letters. I turned around. Jerry came out first, followed by Darlene and then the two gunmen. When I looked back, Fancy had unlocked and opened the door. It led out into a bricked-up fire escape. We followed the small man down the metal frame, our footsteps ringing like wind chimes.

The secret passageway led down into the alley, but Fancy kept walking. The rest of the steps led into an expanded sewer area below the street. Someone had cleaned and painted the walkway. I noticed that drainpipes had been placed below the grates so that the area would be undetectable from above. In fact, the workmanship was impressive. Electric lights made the passageway feel less claustrophobic.

Several yards later, I gauged we had crossed beneath the busy street packed with hookers and johns and gone under what had appeared to be a deserted warehouse. Fancy went up some cement steps. He was whistling to himself. I looked back. The armed guards were trailing us, weapons still at the ready. I followed Fancy up concrete steps.

We entered an immense workspace. Extraordinarily bright lights were flaring in one far corner and professional grade video equipment was running. Four naked people were having loud and noisy sex before cameras, while a man circled around them with a hand-held unit for close ups. Jerry stopped in his tracks. He watched until the guard poked him from behind with the barrel of an AK47.

Fancy was already opening another door. He walked into a plushy furnished business office. Security cameras banked one wall, a huge entertainment system another. The longer walls were covered, from floor to ceiling, with books. I recognized what appeared to be first edition copies of American classics such as Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" and Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls."

"Would you care for a drink, Mr. Callahan? Oh, excuse me. Of course it is well known that you no longer imbibe. What about your friends?"

"No thanks," Darlene said.

"Well, I could use a beer," Jerry said. "In fact, I could use a few."

Fancy chuckled. He nodded to one of the gang members, who went to an oak bookcase, pulled and opened a hidden refrigerator. He extracted a German beer and opened it for Jerry, who chugged half in one gulp. Fancy took off his fur coat and dropped it over one end of a plush leather couch. He wore a tight white knit shirt, made of some expensive fabric. He had the sleeves rolled down, as if to cover his withered left arm.

The small man motioned for his three prisoners to be seated. I sat down directly opposite the desk, in a straight-backed wooden chair. Jerry and Darlene sat on the couch. The gang members kept us covered.

"Well, well." Fancy drummed his good fingers on the desk. "What are we to do with you three?"

"I'm here for Mary." I watched carefully. Either Fancy was a gifted actor, or he really was startled.

"If memory serves me," Fancy said, "you're the one who took her out of my care a few weeks ago."

"She's gone."

"I see." Fancy sat forward and the chair squeaked. "And so you decided to come here to beard the lion in his den?"

"Something like that. I tried to call, but you weren't listed in the phone book under P."

Fancy frowned. "That kind of cheap shot is beneath you, Mr. Callahan, and may I say that it would not be wise to annoy me any further."

"Okay. I'm listening."

Fancy pursed his lips. "I am no angel. I think I've already made that perfectly clear. I have committed my share of felonious actions. But I have also never made a bird stay with me that wanted to fly away."

"You tried to stop the two of us."

"Not at all!" Fancy laughed. "Or you would be dead. I let her go with you, Mr. Callahan, because I recognized you. Since I knew you no longer did drugs, so you were probably telling the truth."

"I was."

"I also knew that you had some money of your own. I thought you had come merely to help the girl."

"I did. So why didn't you let us go without a fight?"

"When you stood up to my boys, and acquitted yourself so very well, I felt vindicated."

"Because?"

"It was obvious that you were capable of protecting her from her enemies. And so you both lived, and you were allowed to drive away."

I was puzzled. "Her enemies, or yours?"

Fancy stroked his chin with his right hand. His left lay on the table as if tortured to death. "As I said before,
her
enemies."

"Who are you talking about?"

"That I do not know, Mr. Callahan," Fancy said. "The girl came to me seeking protection and gainful employment as a prostitute. She claimed she had some people after her. I hear these things all the time."

"And you try to help?"

"I do my best."

"I'll just bet you do," Darlene said. Her voice dripped venom.

Fancy started to address me again, but then broke off to confront her. "Young lady." His cultured voice was heavy with irony. "Please spare me the cynicism. You may choose to believe it or not, but I am merely a good businessman. I protect my girls, and if anyone hurts them I see to it at once. This girl Mary had heard of my reputation. She sought me out, I did not pursue her."