Of Daughter and Demon (3 page)

“This ain’t the first little kid we found
like this, Harry. You know. In half and all. Last one was a little
boy about oh, a year or so ago. And this fella, he told me he’s
been conducting an independent investigation, for the church or
something.”

“For the church?”

“And he says to let him know we ever find a
kid like that.”

“Hang on, Bobby...the church? He a priest or
something?”

“Nah, I don’t think so. At least, he doesn’t
wear a collar or anything. Plus he drinks like a fish, has this
little flask, yeah? Takes a nip out of it every few minutes or
so.”

“So what is he to the church? And what
church? Catholic?”

Bobby just shrugged. “I get the feeling he
thinks it might be a priest that’s been doing it, but I can’t
really say. Plays his cards close, Mr. Dulouz.”

A priest maybe, was what Bobby said. This
fella thinks it may have been a priest. I never kilt a man a god
before, and I don’t want to start, but he can’t be a man a god if
he runs around doing things like what was done to you, Alice.

“So he’ll get in touch with me then?”

“Yeah, your number still good?”

“You called me on it.”

“Nah, the other one, at the bar.”

“Oh, yeah, you can reach me there. Tell him
to leave me a message if I ain’t in, they’re real good about doing
that for me, taking messages.”

“Will do, Harry, and again, I’m sorry about
what happened, we all are.”

“I know Bobby, and thanks. Tell the boys
hello, huh?”

Bobby nodded, picked up his hat and left me
sitting there. I switched over to his seat to put my back toward
the wall without thinking about it, same as breathing, really. The
waitress cleared Bobby’s plate and I ordered bacon and eggs and
another coffee, had a late breakfast and then went back out into
the world, wondering what it would hold for me today, hoping it
would be better than yesterday.

But anything would be better than that,
Alice, and no kidding around. I’d rather be beat all day and then
go to the dentist all night forever than have to go through
yesterday again.

I walk around a bit to get my head in order,
like I said, I need time to think things out, and I decided I’d go
find Gimpy again if I could, and if I couldn’t, I knew a couple
other pukes that might be able to tell me a thing or two.

I went to all his old hideouts, each one more
rotten and sleazy than the last, but Gimpy’s not around. These are
just the ones I know about though, every snake has a hole only he
can find, and I wouldn’t put it past Gimpy to have a couple.

Well, what the hell. None of the other
regular pukes are around today either, must be a puke holiday or
something us normal folk don’t know about. I walk back home and
check my machine, no messages, and I check downstairs with the bar
and they got nothing for me either. I have a quick bottle a beer,
not that I wanna get drunk, Alice, I’m just a bit thirsty is all
and sometimes water just don’t cut it. I leave Fifties Chick a four
dollar tip on a three dollar beer out of a keg I already paid for,
but when she smiles, Alice, well, it fills me with a kinda light
that makes me feel everything will be better somehow. I guess I’m
in love with her a bit, most everyone that comes in here is, but
here I am old enough to be her father. She don’t seem to mind
though, and it ain’t just for the four dollar tip, neither. She’s
helped me, Fifties Chick has, and I helped her before, too. We’re
friends is all, Alice, and other than the thought a finding who did
what they done to you, she’s about the only thing left that can
make me really happy, even for a little while. You got your own
troubles up there, though, don’t you? I guess you must, maybe
deciding which cloud is yours or tuning up that harp they give you,
maybe flying around on your new wings.

I get back in my car and drive down to the
dead house on the corner of 110th and River Way. There’s gotta be a
regular crowd a people that come here for whatever nasty business,
and maybe one of them seen something last night.

I take with me the same things as before, a
gun, a knife, a light, a pipe. I park the car in the better part of
a shitty neighborhood in hopes it won’t be picked clean by the time
I get back, and I’m just getting out when I see the same little boy
from last night, the one with the bike.

“Hey mister, you was in front of that house
last night, right?”

“Sure was, junior. I don’t want you going by
there any more though, OK? Not even in the day.”

The kid stared up at me and nodded, solemn as
a monk taking a vow.

“You goin’ back?” he asked.

“I got to.”

“Be careful mister.”

“Thanks, kid. You live around here?” The kid
pointed across the street to a little green and white house with
toys in the yard and peeling paint. “Hey, you watch my car here,
I’ll give you ten bucks if it’s still in one piece.”

“Ten now.”

Tough little bastard. “OK, kid.” I put the
bill on the hood of the car so he’d have to walk around and get it.
“You watch it good though, and buy your Ma something nice, OK?”

He nodded again and watched me walk off; I
could feel his curious little eyes on my back until I was around
the corner.

Ten minutes later I was at the house, and
this time I went in through the back. I figured it to be a little
less populated during the day than it is most nights, and I was
right. I thought it was empty until I heard a few mumbled voices
through a wall and the sounds of someone cooking up. I pressed my
ear to the wall and heard two guys talking about the shot they were
about to do, and then the shot they were doing, and then nothing
because they did the shot and all they could do was nod. I walked
into the room slowly, peeking in and smiling so as not to startle
‘em too much, because you never really know what a junky will do,
even when they’re on the nod. It’s like dealing with a doped up
wild animal...sluggish, maybe, but still full of sharp teeth and
claws.

“You a cop?” one asks. He’s got green hair
and tattoos on his face. He speaks slowly, but his tone is
alarmed.

“Nah, not a cop.” I say softly, calmly. “I’m
looking for a couple guys know this place pretty good though. I got
some money for ‘em.” With this I floated a ten dollar bill in
between them. The other guy, a scruffy pale kid wearing a baseball
cap, picked it up and looked at it.

“You those guys?” I asked.

“Maybe, man, whattaya need?” Tattoo
asked.

“You sure you ain’t a cop?” Shaggy asked,
eyeing me as best he could through the haze in his mind.

“Yeah, I ain’t a cop. I’m looking for someone
who mighta been here last night, say, couple hours before sunset?
‘Round three-thirty, maybe four?”

“Maybe.” Tattoo says. I drop a five. “Yeah,
we was here, we was gone by four thirty though.”

“You see anything funny?”

“Man, ain’t nothing I ever seen in here been
funny.” Shaggy said, and both a them laughed the slow, drugged
laugh a the doomed. Give me patience, Alice, patience to deal easy
with these knuckleheads.

“There was a little girl found dead
downstairs last night about five o’clock. I know you didn’t
have--”

“Mikey--” Shaggy said.

“Ssh!” Tattoo kicked him and Shaggy clammed
up.

“Why’d you say that? Who’s Mikey?”

“Mikey ain’t nobody.”

“He be somebody if I give you another
twenty?” They didn’t answer, didn’t have to. I dropped a twenty and
they looked at each other for a moment, then Tattoo shrugged.

“Fuck him.” Tattoo said. “Mikey caught up wit
us, round seven last night, scared, bad. I mean, dude shit his
pants. I smelt it before he was even in the neighborhood.”

Shaggy started to laugh then looked at my
eyes and stopped laughing.

“What was he scared of?” I asked.

“He wouldn’t say at first, said he just
needed a shot like never before, said he
needed
one,” Tattoo
said. “So we sold him a taste, and he cooked and shot and started
just cryin’, bawling like a fuckin’ baby. I ain’t never seen
someone on the nod cryin’, you know? Mikey, he said someone was
gonna kill’im cuz he seen ‘em, right? Kinda freakin’ us out a
little with this crying, I mean, I seen Mikey get stabbed once, and
he never cried then, didn’t really even piss him off that much, he
a big dude and all, and I ain’t never seen him like this. So we was
asking him, what’d you see, right? What’d you see, Mikey? And
finally he said he seen some dude, big black dude was what he
said--”

“
Huge
black dude,” Shaggy said.

“Right. He seen some
huge
black dude
goin’ downstairs with this little kid in his arms, said he thought
she was bleeding. Mikey was holed up in the corner, upstairs,
right? He was gonna wait til’ the guy went downstairs and then go
call the cops or something, that’s how we knew he wasn’t lyin’, cuz
Mikey wouldn’t piss on a cop his face was on fire, but here he was
practically cryin’ for one.”

“That’s when he was spotted?” I asked.

“Yeah, said the guy turn and look up at him,
right at him, like he already knew he was there and then Mikey just
ran off.”

I looked back and forth between them. “Either
of you is lying to me I’ll goddamn castrate you, you know this,
right?”

“Yeah, yeah man,” Tattoo said, looking at the
knife in my hand. “We know. We ain’t lyin’, least, we ain’t lying
‘bout what Mikey said, and we believed him.”

“Good enough. You know where I can find this
guy?”

“He lives in a boarding house up on 120th,
you know the one?” Shaggy asked.

“Yeah I know it. You know his last name?”

“Mikey D. Don...Don, Donaldson,” Tattoo said.
“Mikey Donaldson. Name’s on the buzzer.”

I dropped a twenty and another ten. “Why you
fellas come back here if you believe your buddy Mikey?”

“Well if it’s true, I figure the last place
the dude gonna show up is back here, right? Besides, I gotta
piece.” Tattoo lifted his shirt and flashed what looked like a
fifty year-old Luger that would explode when he pulled the trigger,
if it did anything at all.

“You oughta stay outta this place.” I turned
and walked back out. See, Alice? I told you something good would
happen. I got a lead here. It was a big black guy, huh Alice? Huge?
And black.
Black
black, you say? OK, yeah, I guess I seen
some pretty dark guys. That’s who I’m lookin’ for, but I think I’ll
pay Mikey D a visit first and see if he can tell me anything
else.

I knew right where the boarding house was and
it wasn’t any better a neighborhood than the one I was in. My car
was up around 100th or so, so I just walked the ten blocks south to
120th.

A huge black guy. Someone else thinks it
might be a priest. Sure, a huge black guy could be a priest. Why
not? But this didn’t feel right to me.

The two stooges told me their buddy Mikey was
afraid a being kilt so I figured I’d buzz him, he’ll either not
answer, or leave, or answer and then put together some kinda
ambush. I had the lead pipe tucked into the deep of pocket of my
Mack, and when I got to the boarding house, I checked the buzzer.
Donaldson, M. Apt. 2-B. Okay, second floor then. I make to jimmy
the lock but it’s already been jimmied so many times it don’t even
work no more, and I just walk in. I creep quiet like up to the
second floor without seeing nobody. When I got to 2-B I could tell
by looking at the door there’s at least three locks on it. Door
looks old though, and weak. I could probably kick it in easy enough
if I had to. I put my ear to the door and listen. There’s a radio
playing, real quiet like.

Hmmm. What to do, what to do? There’s no way
he’ll let me in on his own, right? A junky expecting to get gacked
by some huge black dude? No way. There is a peephole though, so
maybe if he could see it was me and that I ain’t black, maybe he’d
open up.

I stood in the hall tossing ideas back and
forth in my melon and the problem solved itself. I hear sounds of
movement in the room, and the radio shut off. Jingle of keys being
grabbed, and I stand to the side so he can’t see me if he looks out
the peep, which I can tell by the little glimmer of light inside
that he does. Then there’s the click-clack of locks being undone
and what opens the door is the biggest damn skinhead I ever seen. I
ain’t used to looking up at nobody, not to look ‘em in the eye, and
it took me off guard. I’m about 6'3 and Mikey was about six inches
taller than me, and about twice as wide. No fat, either. All
muscle. Arms like frigging bowling balls and covered in Nazi ink,
head huge and gleaming like pink chrome. Must take a fuckin’ gallon
of H to get this elephant on the nod. Close your eyes up there,
Alice, this is about to get ugly. And he didn’t say nothing, his
expression didn’t even change. He just belted out at me. I pulled
my mug outta the way quick enough to avoid being pulverized but his
rock-like fist caught me a good one in the side a the head, he
swung again and BAM, this time caught me square in the nose I heard
it break but it ain’t the first time, so I open my eyes wide
against the water that sprung into ‘em when he clocked me and I
take the pipe outta my pocket and knock him one right upside the
head. It rung his bell a bit, but he didn’t drop. I kicked big
Mikey D in the nuts and that slowed him down, enough for me to
charge him back into his shitty little room. I kicked the door
closed behind me and Mikey puked all over the floor, it steamed in
the cold and the stink was bad, but it seemed to be just what he
needed because his eyes cleared and he come at me again, and I hit
him again with the pipe, right above the eye, the skin broke open,
we’re both bleeding and the stench of this junky’s puke is enough
to gag me, he looks a little out of it again so I ring his bell one
more time with my pipe and he goes down, and Alice I swear to you,
the whole house musta shook.