One of the Wicked: A Mick Callahan Novel (18 page)

"Yeah. Me, too."

"How old are you?"

"I'm almost thirty now."

"Your mom still alive?"

"She died of lung cancer when I was fresh out of high school."

"Did she keep anything of his? Anything I can see?"

"She might have had some stuff packed away, pictures or letters or something, but I doubt it. And whatever there is has been in a cousin's garage since then."

"If it's not too much trouble, someday I'd like to look through whatever you can find."

"Because it's starting to matter now, right?"

"Yeah, it is. I put the past away for a long, long time, but as I get closer to forty it's growing in importance for some reason. Like a map that would show me where I've really been all this time, you know?"

"That's why I had to meet you."

"I can understand that."

"I'd love to do some drinking with you, Mick. Unfortunately, you're one of those sanctimonious, sober AA dudes now."

"I don't think I'm all that sanctimonious, but I'm staying sober."

"I'm not. I drink and I've been known to stick up for myself in a fight."

"That's your business, not mine."

"Damned straight. And if we become friends or something, you'd best not start telling me what's up and how to live."

"Mary, I don't have the time or inclination."

"Mary sounds odd."

"You prefer both names?"

"Most people call me Katie, but to be honest, I've never much cared for that."

"How would you like to be called?"

"You're going to think this is weird."

"Try me."

"Let's have secret names, just between you and me, as if we'd had the chance to be kids together."

"If you ever call me Mickey I'll have to flatten your ass and start calling you Virgin Mary."

"Ha! Now we both have a secret weapon."

"What names shall we use?"

"Be patient, we'll pick them down the line somewhere, once we know each other better. Deal?"

"Deal. You know something?"

"What?"

"I say 'deal' a lot, too. Call the genetic engineers."

"Shit, we're both from Nevada, the land of the gambler."

"True enough. Mary?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you found me. I don't know what else to say right now, because this is all so damned bizarre, but that much I'm sure about. I'm really, really happy you tracked me down."

There must be a factory somewhere where they churn out the boob bars the owners euphemistically refer to as Gentlemen's Clubs. They all look like the dump where I met Bone. The same neon lights with garish lettering, dumb names, and watery drinks at stratospheric prices. The one called Gents was down an industrial side street, and right under a noisy flight path to LAX. It squatted behind the wire gate and tall chain-link fence like a pale green toad. I had stopped by my house to print out the grainy photos of Faber and Toole, and they were folded up in the back pocket of my jeans.

I pulled into the driveway and followed three businessmen in a taxi up to the front door. The joint actually had valet parking. The snotty kid who came to take my car had the veined, pink eyes of a stoner. He gave me an impudent sneer and enough 'tude to boil my blood, though the night was still young. I handed him the keys.

My nerves were a mess. I'd been unable to reach Hal, and suddenly wished I'd taken in a meeting instead of driving straight over the hill. My mind was spinning like a Frisbee in a hurricane. It began to dawn on me that not only had I let my AA program slip, but I'd slacked off on regular meditation as well. As a result this shock had thrown me completely out of whack. In some strange way I could not have explained, meeting Mary Kate had lifted my spirits at first, but then brought them crashing down again. I now felt stunned and almost unbearably sad. I wasn't sure why.

My father had at least one other child. Amazing. We'd lost so much time, could we manage to build a genuine relationship at this late date, or would we drift apart once the novelty wore off? And what if there were others? If so, what had their lives been like? How many, how old, what gender were they, where did they live? I honestly couldn't remember dreaming about having other family members. I'm sure I did as a child, but not once I hit my teens. My life with my stepfather, Danny, was so consistently miserable that I'd buried the idea.

And yet now one protracted conversation had thrown an entirely new world into my face and left me stupid with possibility.

When the kid came back from parking my car, I was still standing in the doorway with my hands in the pockets of my jeans. I'd gone into a fugue state of sorts, and was just staring at the planter. Something about my expression brought out the latent Homo sapiens in him. "You okay, dude?"

Adrenaline filled my system. I came to and almost took his head off, but snapped out of it just in time. "Yeah, thanks. I've just got a lot on my mind."

"Hey, go have a drink. Some pussy will do the trick."

The arrogant wisdom of youth.

I opened the door and went inside. The music was fainter than expected because the girls were working the floor instead of strutting on stage. A thin redhead was shaking it for a pair of guys in uniform. A tiny blonde was headed for the ladies' room. They both looked fifteen and were painted up like dolls from a horror film. I suddenly wondered if my sister had ever been reduced to stripping. For some reason that thought made me angry. A faint voice in the back of my head warned me to calm down and try to stay out of trouble. No confrontations. I was running on anxiety with a hair trigger and starting to see a red-tinged haze coloring my little corner of the universe.

The cover charge was the defense budget of some small African countries. I crossed the room quickly and found a stool. The bartender was a peroxide blonde with capped teeth, a plastic LA nose, and the kind of fake breasts that would be standing at attention after a nuclear war. When she asked me what I wanted, I froze and licked my lips.
It's been years,
my addiction said.
You could probably handle a drink or two now. Just have a couple to relax and go on home, no big deal.

No doubt about it, I needed to get back to the meetings.

"Honey, it's a two-drink minimum."

I blinked, stepped back, and ordered a five-dollar cola. I took my drink as far away from the action as possible, found a dark corner and sat down to hide. The grief had taken me totally by surprise. I felt excited, both melancholy and bittersweet.

I'm not accustomed to feeling truly connected to others, by blood or in any other manner. I have friends like Hal and Jerry, but usually tend to move through life the tiniest bit schizoid, detached in a nonmalignant way, generally just doing my best to be the kind of man I'd respect. If you don't count on other folks you're seldom disappointed. Danny Bell taught me violence and alcoholism, but some self-reliance as well. It had taken me a long time and a lot of false starts to get close to Hal, then Jerry, and eventually Darlene. I'd first had to experience and discard the false gods of machismo, alcohol and drugs, sex, money and power. Other than that, I was generally a pretty good guy.

Now meeting Mary Kate had changed everything. Here was a relationship automatic, born in blood. It felt inevitable. I nursed the cola and considered why. Certainly the resemblance was a factor; looking into eyes almost identical to my own. I'd never known that feeling, at least not as an adult. It was something I'd been missing without even being aware of an absence.

Now I could see that I'd only been a fragment of something larger, thus always incomplete. The moment Mary Kate had revealed her identity in my office, those pieces had come together with a force that weakened my knees. The feeling of attraction that wasn't sexual; the way I'd noticed her briefly by the radio station, watching me from her car, and found her so striking; the way she had a feminine version of my hands, a bit small for her body but strong, and the same kind of long, powerful legs. Her voice and other mannerisms made a powerful argument for genetics.

My gut told me Mary Kate could also drink most men under the table. And throw a punch. No surprise there, either.

Mary really had needed and wanted to drink, and when I continued to refuse, she left to get one on her own. We'd traded cell numbers and promised to meet again. Frankly, I don't think either one of us knew what to say, or even do, beyond that one simple act. We just ran out of words and ideas. Hell, it never even crossed my mind to ask for an E-mail address. We both needed time to regroup.

Now I chewed on some ice and looked around the dump called Gents, wondering what the hell to do next. I had the printed head shots of Joey Faber and Frank Toole and some cash in my pocket. Walking back to the bar and offering a bribe for information seemed like something out of a bad TV series, but at the moment it seemed like my only option. I took out the matchbook and played with it. Held it up to the light of the candle. The doodles were actually straight lines drawn through the G, N, and S of the name of the bar, leaving only the initials ET.

"Another?"

I looked up, startled. The waitress was a cute redhead. I had to get past her perfect breasts to see the blue eyes and freckles. "No rush, it's just cola."

"Smart."

"Why's that?"

She grinned. "Because the booze is watered down anyway, and the drunker you get the more money you'll spend."

"Wow," I said mildly. "I have found an honest woman, and in the most unlikely of places. Alert Diogenes."

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind. How much do I have to pay for you to sit down for a while?"

"First, I can't until I go on break in a few minutes and second, that depends on what you're after."

"I just want to talk, maybe ask a few questions."

"Twenty nets me fifteen. Fifty makes me look like a hero."

"Fifty it is."

"Then the second cola is on me."

"Deal. What's your name?"

"The one I use here? Tiffany. See you in a few."

I watched halfheartedly as she walked away, knowing management would expect me to act lascivious. I looked at the matchbook again, couldn't find anything else worth noting. I tore it into small pieces as if to pass the time, made one trip to the bathroom and dumped the scraps in the trash can under some wet towels. Threw some water on my face and stared at myself in the mirror above the sink.

Damn, Mary Kate really did look like a pretty version of me. Well, except for that perfect Irish nose. Hers wasn't broken.

A Hispanic man came into the men's room. He was shorter than me, but with a thicker chest and buff arms. He had a large scar on the left cheek and a shaved, bowling ball of a head. The guy looked right through me, went into a stall and fired up a joint. White dragons filled the air as he gasped and coughed. I waved the smoke away and went back into the bar.

Three inebriated businessmen came out of the VIP room grinning like sideways zippers. The dancers remained behind, and as the door eased shut I saw them toweling off with weary faces. Another wave of sadness came over me, an odd mix of disgust and pity. I'd been one of these customers only a few years before, a brash kid in search of the next high, on an eternal quest for distraction. I'd been so terrified, so alone. Avoiding one's life, and the reality of death, can rapidly become a soul sickness. In AA they say, "One's too many and a thousand's not enough."

This was no longer my element. The men, the girls, the loud music, the drugs and alcohol were collaborating to shake me up.

I pondered the initials ET and the meaning of life. Cleaned my fingernails, rubbed my neck. The waitress called Tiffany came back topless, perhaps fifteen minutes later, carrying my second soft drink. I made a show of handing her fifty dollars. She tucked the bills in her scant bikini bottom and sat down.

"You married, gay, or looking for your sweetheart?"

I smiled. "Guess I'm not fitting in as well as I'd hoped."

"You look bored. That stands out here."

"Thanks for the warning. I wouldn't want to get you in trouble."

"We'll be fine, long as you remember to stare at my boobs while you're talking. Well, at least some of the time, anyway."

I stared. "Wow. They're nice."

"Thank you."

"Okay, here we go. I have a couple of photographs to show you, Tiffany. I'm looking for two men."

She kept a smile frozen in place but shook her head. "Don't. Do anything like that and we'll both be in trouble. You a cop?"

"Nope. Look, I have two pieces of paper. How about I slip them to you and you take a peek when it's safe?"

She considered. Remembered the fifty bucks. "Slip them under the table, man."

"Mick."

"Don't get me fired, Mick. Do it nice and easy."

I kept talking, shifted my chair, all the while moving the folded papers from my back pocket to her hand. My body now screened her from the rest of the club. Tiffany took a quick peek at each page and slipped the papers back to me.

"Do you know either of these men?"

"Try to touch my tits."

It took me a second to catch on. I reached partway across the table as if to caress her. Tiffany backed her chair away and wagged a finger as if I were a naughty child. The charade must have satisfied whoever was watching, because Tiffany moved closer again. She kept a silly grin frozen on her face the whole time, although her tone was serious. I kept thinking of that old movie about an exorcist. The effect was pretty disconcerting.

"I've seen them around, but not in the last week or so. The first one calls himself Joey, can't remember much about the other one except that he's an asshole. Gropes the girls, tries to get out of paying for private dances, that kind of crap."