Shotgun Lullaby (A Conway Sax Mystery) (23 page)

Charlene felt pretty much the same way I did about Kaydee. But a friend's a friend, especially when your kid doesn't have many. And she sure as hell wasn't anorexic. That struck us as a good thing.

I said, “Where was your mother in all this?”

“Office.” Long pause. “I think she forgot I had a half day.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” Long pause. “It's just … they were
men,
you know? Not old high school boyfriends or anything. They had tattoos, and one had a beard, and when I came in they looked like they hated me. Everybody was smoking, and the men were drinking wine, and I'm pretty sure Jessie was too except she hid it when I walked in, and I was
scared
.”

“Don't blame you.” I looked at my watch. “Your mom'll be home soon. Did the men leave yet?”

“They all did. Jessie couldn't even look me in the eye, Conway. She told me to watch TV til Mom got home, and I swear she was almost crying, like she was making a mistake and she knew it but it was too late, and then she
left
.” Sophie talked fast, staying just ahead of tears.

My heart hurt. “I'll be there in twenty-five minutes.”

“No! Please don't. I want you…”

“What?”

“Can you find Jessie?”

“I doubt it.”

“They left in the men's truck. It had a bumper sticker that said QuinsInk.” She spelled it.

“Sounds like a tattoo joint.”

“It is. I googled. It's in Worcester, right on Lake Quinsigamond. Hence the name.”

“Good stuff, Sophie. But not much help. Anybody can get a bumper sticker.”

“I eavesdropped, and the men were talking all about tattoos. To impress Jessie and Kaydee, I think.”

“Well.”

“It was a green Dodge pickup truck. The huge kind, with four doors and extra tires on the back.”

“A duallie.”

“Yes! A duallie.”

“I'll get going. Text me the address.”

“Already got it. Ready?”

Sheesh. A force of nature. It was a side of Sophie I hadn't seen before.

“I'll do what I can,” I said. “But kid, keep in mind Jessie's an adult, and—”

“Chronologically, maybe. Please find her.”

Click.

*   *   *

I got to QuinsInk as fat raindrops began to fall.

A green Dodge duallie sat out front. On its front doors: magnetic signs for a house-painting outfit.

What do you know.

I parked across the street. Sighed.

If Gus'd had a heads-up sister like Sophie … well, who knew?

It was a poisonous thought, but I couldn't help but chase it.

What the hell was I doing, looking to bail out Jessie when I ought to be running down Gus's killer? I had no connection with Jessie. She'd resented me from the get-go, had done everything in her power to turn Charlene and Sophie against me. Then she'd hauled off and moved two thousand miles away. With my son. Giving us all the finger every way she could dream up.

I caught myself, felt embarrassed at the direction of my thoughts, took a deep breath.

Roy is not here. Gus is not here. Jessie is here.

I heel-rubbed my eyes, looked up and down the block. Lake Quinsigamond, which is built more like a wide river, slices down the eastern edge of Worcester, separating it from Shrewsbury. Leave it to Worcester to waste what ought to be primo lakefront real estate on a tattoo parlor flanked by dive bars. Charlene says Worcester could screw up a ham sandwich.

It hit me that I'd pulled a few Barnburners out of this place before, when it bore a different name. I don't understand why drunks always want to stumble off for a tat, but they do.

QuinsInk's windows were blacked out, and I didn't see anybody enter or leave. Maybe people were still too sober for tattoos. But the apartment above seemed occupied. Its window was cracked open, and what looked to be a beach towel served as a curtain. I thought I heard music, but couldn't be sure.

There'd be a staircase around back.

Why couldn't I haul myself out of the truck? I felt so … tired. Didn't want to see what I was pretty sure I was going to see.

“Goddamn Jessie,” I said out loud.

Hell. If I was going to do this, I ought to do it fast. I took three deep breaths and climbed out.

Two minutes later, having eased up an outdoor stairway and gentled the knob of an unlocked door, I piled in.

The smell of pot was dense, ugly-sweet. The music was hard, loud, angry, fast. The beach towel/curtain featured Buzz Lightyear upside-down.

I strode into the living room. Between the weed and the music, it took them a few seconds to notice me. I used the seconds to scope.

On the couch sat a doughy kid, maybe twenty. Round face, gray sweatshirt, painter's pants. Next to him was a guy ten years older, with a prison-seamed face and a cropped beard. Same sweatshirt, same pants as the doughy kid. An intricate, all-black tattoo crept from the sweatshirt's neck.

Kaydee knelt on the floor, lighting a Marlboro over a yard-sale coffee table. Next to her, Jessie was bubbling a hit from a green bong. She popped her thumb from the airhole, sucked smoke, held it in.

Then she looked at me for the first time. She was so high it didn't register right away that I shouldn't be here. She smiled and waggled her fingers.

When the beard finally noticed me, he didn't hesitate at all. He sized me up and reached for a Carhartt work jacket next to him. He was the one to worry about. He'd obviously done state time, and now he was going for a weapon he kept close by out of habit.

Taking the shortest distance between me and the beard, I giant-stepped onto the table, flattening it. Ashtrays, wineglasses, and the bong all tumbled. The beard scrambled in his jacket pocket. The doughy kid came out of a stoner dream and said, “Hey.”

I stepped again, onto the couch this time. Needed to crowd the beard, get between him and whatever he was scrambling for.

I knee-slammed his ear. His head bounced off the sofa's arm just as he pulled a three-inch lock-blade knife from his jacket.

Then time slowed in a good way—my brain clicked into some kind of animal mode I don't understand, all senses maxed out. I took in everything.
Everything
. I knew what had just happened. I knew what was happening right now, every movement of every player in the room, including the ones I couldn't see.

Best of all, I knew what was
going
to happen in the next few seconds.

Past, present, future: I saw it all.

I can't explain it any better than that.

I stood on couch cushions looking down at the beard, who was on queer street.

Under the music, the girls bitched about the mess, the spilled bong. Kaydee was whining at the doughy kid to
do
something, don't be a pussy. I felt bad for him. Kaydee and every movie he'd ever watched were nagging him to back up his pal, but his belly was telling him to run like hell.

His belly was the smart one.

As all this worked through my head, the beard shook his to clear it. He made a blind move for his lock-blade.

I'd been waiting for that. Hell, I'd been looking forward to it.

I pulled back until it seemed my elbow would brush the ceiling. Then I freight-trained a right into his temple. My allies were gravity, adrenaline, fury at the wicked knife, heartbreak over Jessie. To me, the punch felt like dropping a cinder block. From an airplane.

Don't know what it felt like to the beard, but something in his head cracked and his eyes rolled back.

I grabbed the knife and turned to the doughy kid.

Kaydee had convinced him, for a few seconds anyway, to stop being a pussy. He stood in what he probably thought was an Ultimate Fighting stance: bouncing on the balls of his feet, holding up loose fists in a southpaw stance.

I stared at him maybe ten seconds.

He stopped bouncing.

I flicked open the knife and used it to point at the door twelve feet behind him.

He looked at Jessie, Kaydee, the out-cold beard, the knife.

He looked at me.

Then he turned and walked out fast without looking back.

He'd listened to his belly. Smart kid.

With all threats gone, I thrummed and panted. I was adrenaline-jacked, with nobody left to hit.

I took it out on the music. Two fast steps brought me to a black component stereo. I kicked it, stomped it, killed the awful noise.

The quiet almost hurt.

Kaydee said, “You
prick
!”

Jessie, arms folded, stood by the sofa looking down at the beard. “I think you killed him.” She wore a ratty-ass bathrobe a foot too long for her.

Bathrobe?

My heart fell another inch in my chest.

Kaydee said, “You fucking
prick
!”

I looked at her for the first time. Her hair was in pigtails. She wore a white blouse with a black bra showing through. The blouse was tied off, showing soft pale midriff. She wore a plaid miniskirt, kneesocks.

My heart sank into my belly as I stepped down a short hall, knowing from the girls' getups what I'd find.

Sure enough, the apartment's only bedroom was rigged as a studio. Tripod, expensive still and video cameras, banks of lights. The queen-sized bed was covered by a little-girl spread. A dozen stuffed animals were parked against the headboard. Some of the animals still had price tags. Target.

I wondered if they took them back for a refund when the shoot was over.

Somehow, that was the thought that lit me off.

I'm not proud of it.

I wrecked everything. Destroyed the room, screaming while I did it. Cameras, tripods, reflectors, all other gear: out the window. I used the lock-blade to slash a giant X in the mattress. That wasn't enough, so I did the box spring, too. Stomped the bed frame, made it matchsticks. Picked up an old six-drawer chest, held it head-high, dropped it.

Again.

And again. Screaming, stomping, keening, losing myself in it, not knowing who I was or what I was doing.

Then I stood, panting and looking the room over.

“I call it good,” I said in a voice that didn't sound like mine.

On my way out, I grabbed another bathrobe from a chair I hadn't noticed before, one partially hidden by the door.

Then I chucked the chair out the window.

Then I snapped the door off its hinges and chucked it after the chair.

When I got back to the living room, both girls were staring at me with huge eyes.

Jessie pointed at the beard. “He's not dead.”

I went to Kaydee, shoved the robe at her. She folded her arms and let it drop. I picked it up, grabbed her, spun her, began to force the robe on.

She said, “Hey!”

I pushed her arm through a sleeve.

She fought me. “Copping a feel, pre-vert?”

I pushed her other arm, spun her again, cinched the robe. Kaydee stared at me and curled her lip in her version of a smile.

“Oh my God,” she said. “Are you
crying,
pre-vert? Jessie, the pre-vert is
crying
.”

Jessie said, “Shut up, Kaydee.”

It was the nicest thing I'd heard her say since she came home.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I managed to not punch Kaydee in the face during the ride to her folks' house. They weren't home, which spared me a tough decision—tell them or don't?—for now. On the one hand, she was twenty. On the other, she lived in her parents' basement when she wasn't clerking at a toy store. Or making porn vids.

Without Kaydee calling me a faggot and mocking me with
boo-hoo-hoo
noises, my truck was quiet.

“Remember the other night,” Jessie finally said, arms folded like she wanted to cut herself in half at the waist, “when you said I was breaking her heart?”

I knew who she meant. “I remember.”

“If you mention this, it really will.”

“Yes.”

“Bad memories. The acorn falling close to the tree.”

“Yes.”

We stopped at a light. The rain had settled in. Mental note: get new wiper blades.

“So,” Jessie finally said. “Are you?”

I said nothing.

“Going to tell her?”

“I knew what you meant.”

The light turned. I waited to make my left. I licked my lips. “How's Roy doing?” I said.

“Aha. Quid pro quo.”

“I don't know what that means. How is he?”

She said nothing.

“He doesn't return my calls,” I said. “My texts.”

“His silence speaks volumes.”

Traffic opened up. With my front tires cocked left, I hit the throttle harder than I needed to. On the slick road, the truck's back end jumped wide and stayed wide, and I spent a few busy seconds working the wheel and the gas to catch up.

“If you're trying to scare me to death,” Jessie said as I got us pointed more or less straight, “try harder.”

“For chrissake, Jessie,” I said in a voice that made her head swivel my way, “just tell me one thing.
The
one thing.”

She knew what it was.

She said nothing.

She was going to make me beg, make me ask out loud.

So I did. It came out raspy. “Is he using?”

We were in Charlene's neighborhood now, and the rain made for an early dusk. Between that and the wet roads and the excitement back at the traffic light, I was driving like an old lady.

But there was another factor. We were in a bubble. I had Jessie on my turf, or as near to it as I could hope. The second we pulled up and her door opened, the bubble would pop. She would hustle to her bedroom fortress and her phone and her laptop and her TV, and that would be that.

I drove slow and kept my mouth shut. And hoped.

Prayed.

Prayed she would tell me that one thing. Prayed that the goodness inside Jessie Bollinger—a smart, watchful, deadpan girl who'd served at age eight as a two-year-old's mommy—would trump the hate and darkness that'd steamrolled her these past few years.