The Dirty City (3 page)

I hastily concluded things with Jameson and showed him to the door, I didn’t want to waste any time on this. I was flagging a bit, having not had any sleep for over twenty four hours, but this was the nature of the job sometimes. If I cashed in here I could afford to take a few days off.

“Lydia, I gotta’ get back across town,” I said, gathering up my hat and coat.

“But it’s only 10.30, your car -.”

“I need a favour, sweetheart.”

“Oh come on, Johnny!”

“I promise I won’t do anything stupid, I’ll drive real careful, I swear.”

“You know if there is the slightest dent in my car I will cut off both your balls with a rusty knife then force feed them to you?”

She reluctantly handed me the keys – I gave her a cheeky wink, then hot-tailed it out of the door before she could change her mind.

*

Lydia was the only woman I knew at the time who could drive, let alone owned their own car. Her car was her pride and joy, and she kept it so pristine it was crazy, the damn thing gleamed!

I drove as fast as I felt I could get away with, terrified that someone would pull out dangerously in front of me at a junction, or slam into the back of me whilst stopped at traffic lights.

Eventually I pulled into the secluded road where the drug den was situated. Or rather, I turned to pull into the road and promptly had to stop dead before a police roadblock. Dozens of uniformed cops were manning the roadblock, with plenty more milling around behind. I backed up and parked a little way down the street, then headed back on foot to see if I could get a closer look.

The police barriers were a considerable distance away, but I could see what was going on, and sure enough, it was the drugs den that was the centre of attention. I could make out that unlike myself the previous evening, the cops had elected to kick the door in, so much so that it was hanging off the hinges.

As I stood at the edge of the street a bizarre scene was unfolding. I spotted three figures lying prone in the middle of the road, presumably having just been carried or dragged outside. None of them were moving. From my slightly distant vantage point I could make out that they appeared to be two guys and a girl, but no sign of Anton Jameson.

Then I saw someone who was very familiar to me, one Lt Joseph Wails – a former colleague of mine from my time on the force. We had a lot of history did me and Joe, he was one of the many colleagues I had who were quick to turn their back on me and ultimately let me carry the wrap for the incident that got me kicked out. Hate is a strong word, and I try not to use it too often – a life spent hating is a wasted life in my book, but let’s just say I deeply resented Wails – for what he did, for the fact he was still on the force despite being twice as dirty a cop as I ever was, and especially because I knew he simply didn’t give a damn - he’d never expressed an ounce of guilt or remorse about screwing me over like that. Which is why what happened next really brightened up my day.

Wails was inspecting the three prone figures, leaning over and prodding each of them – slapping their faces as if to try and rouse them. The girl and the first guy were definitely out of it, but upon his manhandling of the second guy, who I might add was of a very big and muscular build, he very suddenly reacted. The figure leapt to his feet, his eyes suddenly wide open and wild. He swung an absolute peach of a right cross into the Lt’s startled looking face and he went down like a sack of shit, his hands clutching at his bloodied nose. For a second the guy just stood there, appearing to admire his handy work, then four uniformed cops set upon him with batons. Rather impressively, the guy held them off for about a minute before they finally took him down, forcing him face down on the ground then getting cuffs on him.

“God damn it! Why in the name of God was this man not restrained!” Bawled Wails, spraying a mix of saliva and blood as he shouted.

“Sorry, lieutenant, we assumed he was unconscious like the other two,” offered one of the uniforms, feebly.

“Does that son of a bitch look unconscious to you, asshole?”

“No Sir, I-.”

“Do unconscious people make a habit of assaulting officers of the law?”

“Sir-.”

“No, they
fucking
don’t, Officer! Get this piece of shit down to the station, and if he gives you trouble you break his motherfucking balls, do you understand me?”

“Yes, Sir!”

The officers dragged the man away and the drama was over. I watched as Wails headed in my direction. On his way he was joined by another old familiar of mine, Sgt Scott Glenn. This was a good sign, he was a decent guy, a good cop – and one of the few people in the squad who didn’t line up to put the boot into me when things went bad. While Glenn was checking the Lt over to see if he was alright, I noticed that another figure was being led out of the drug den in cuffs. It was Newt, the dealer. If Anton Jameson wasn’t here anymore, Newt might be the one person who could tell me where he might have gone. I knew I had to speak to him, only problem was between me and him was a police barrier, dozens of uniforms and...

“Jerome! What in the name of damn are you doing here?”

“Hey, Lt. Scotty.”

“Hey, Johnny, how’s it g-.”

“Shut up, Glenn! Jerome, this is proper police business, you ain’t got no place being here.”

“I’m on a case, missing person, possibly a patron of that there little establishment that your boys are tearing apart. And I must say, what a pleasure it’s been watching you in action. Although, you got a little blood there on your shirt, by the way.”

“Shut your mouth, wise-ass. So, you’re still doing that private eye bullshit? I hear most of that kind of work is spying on cheating spouses while they fuck their secret lovers in seedy motels. That true?”

“Sure is, Lt. Speaking of which, how is Mrs Wails these days?”

“Why, you son of a bitch-!”

“Easy, Lt, why don’t you go see the medic, get yourself checked over properly, eh? Let me sort this out.”

Had to hand it to good old Scotty, he had a way of dealing with Wails. It made me kind of glad that I wasn’t on the force anymore, I’d have shot that bastard long ago!

“You get him out of here, you got that, Sgt? You hearing me, Jerome, you go look elsewhere for your missing druggie, this place is off limits.”

Finally, and to my great relief, Lt Wails departed. Now I could go to work.

“Thanks, Scotty. So what’s the crack here?”

“Dope house bust.”

“You know about the heroin, right?”

“Ain’t found any yet, but that ain’t what we’re looking for, we’re here for marijuana.”

Strange as it seems, but at the time that was the line of thinking at the very top. Dope was deemed to be the biggest threat to our society, those
darn communists
were flooding the country with it to turn us into a nation of hopelessly stoned idiots, no doubt with the long term plan to invade and conquer us while we were all shitfaced. Meanwhile, the French Connection was in full swing and heroin was coming in right, left and centre and seemingly no-one gave a shit.

“The Mayor is up for re-election next spring, so he wants to be seen to be tough – he’s picking up the official line from Washington and looking to wipe out the scourge that is dope from our fair streets. So here we are.”

I could see Glenn wanted to wind up the friendly small talk.

“Anyway, Johnny, it’s been good to see you, but you heard the Lt.”

“Scotty, I need a favour.”

“The hell you do-.”

“That guy over there, the dealer, I need to speak to him.”

“You gotta’ be shittin’ me, Johnny?”

“C’mon, two minutes, that’s all I’m after.”

“But Wails-.”

“Screw Wails!”

“Easy for you to say, you don’t have to work with the asshole.”

“I’m going to give you something of use here, Scotty. Last night I was here. Different case – missing girl, Santa Justina PD failed to find her, Michelle Masters, you familiar with that one.”

“Sure, someone brought her into the hospital last night, was that you, Johnny?”

“Sure was, she was in a very bad way, massive heroin OD, but she just about made it. Whilst getting her out of there I spotted a kid passed out on the kitchen floor, turns out he is the son of some hotshot lawyer, who just happened to turn up at my office this morning hoping I could find him. That’s why I’m here, but it seems the kid ain’t here no more, and that guy you got cuffed up over there might be the only lead as to where he’s at now.”

“That’s your case, Johnny, not ours, I don’t see what-.”

“Look, no doubt there was a small bit of dope dealing going on in there, but that place was being geared up for heroin. Hopeless addicts, guaranteed repeat business, it’s a dependable and profitable racket at the moment.”

“But so far we’ve found next to nothing. A few reefer butts in an ashtray, a hung over dealer and three – well, actually two unconscious customers and one with a penchant for playing dead then punching police officers, but no sign of any dope or any heroin.”

“Those two unconscious customers – from here they look like they’re in a similar state to the girl I rescued last night. If I was a gambling man I’d say they’ve panicked when your boys started kicking in the door and swallowed their stash.”

In later years, when the true danger of heroin was realised and taken seriously, this kind of calamitous situation would become a thing of the past. But for now, I had to accept the cops naivety and give them a few pointers every now and again.

“Meaning, Scotty, that unless you react, fast, you could end up with two fatalities on your hands.”

“Oh shit!”

“And while you’re reacting, seeing as I gave you this little heads up, you’re not going to notice that I’m going to cross this here barrier and go and have a chat with our dealer friend over there, right?”

“Two minutes, Johnny, and you better be gone when Wails heads back this way.”

And with that, Glenn turned tail and ran to find a medic.

*

“Well, well, Newt, we do seem to meet in the most bizarre of circumstances, do we not?”

In the light of day Newt looked younger but at the same time somehow more haggard. I put it down to having his beauty sleep interrupted by a police raid. The cops had cuffed him behind his back and then unceremoniously dumped him down on the kerbside.

“I’ve not slept since we met last night, had to rush that girl over to the hospital, and then it’s just been one thing after another – but you, you look like crap, do you know that?”

He finally raised his head a little and squinted in my general direction.

“Hey. You. You’re that private dick who showed up last night.”

“Yep, now I’d love to waste time chatting but the clock is counting down. There was a guy, crashed out cold, in your kitchen last night.”

“Was there? Lots of people pass out in my kitchen, you can’t expect me to make a mental log of them all, can you?”

“This was the guy, I’m sure you’d remember him, he was probably a very good customer of yours, he may well have had turned up at yours with a significant amount of dough to spend?”

I held the photo out in front of him.

“You know what they say about a fool and their money, Mr – shit, what was the name again?”

“Jerome. And I don’t need riddles, Newt, I need to know where he went.”

Newt looked at the photo again, this time there was the light of recognition in his eyes.

“Oh, its Anton, Mr ‘My daddy is a hotshot lawyer.’ The poor little rich boy.”

“Great, so you know him, do you know where he might be staying?”

“Fucked if I know, Mr Jerome, my customers don’t usually tell and I’m not interested enough to ask. As long as they got the green I couldn’t give a rats ass if they live on Mars.”

My heart sank, time was almost up and it didn’t seem like Newt had the answers I wanted. But then he said something that re-ignited the trail.

“Anyway, Anton didn’t exactly leave my establishment by his own volition last night.”

“What do you mean?”

“About an hour after you took the girl, some guys turned up looking for Anton.”

“What kind of guys?”

“Mob guys. I thought they were delivering me more stash, but it turned out they were after him. As you saw, he wasn’t exactly in any position to resist.”

“And you have no idea where they took him, or why?”

“If I was you, I’d go find that little bitch whore you dragged out of here last night and ask her, she was real keen on Anton. She might know something.”

So Michelle Masters and Anton Jameson were close, perhaps even lovers. That made it all the more fortunate that I had saved her life last night because she was my main lead now.

“Hey, Mr Jerome. Did you tip off the cops about those chumps over there swallowing the heroin?”

“It was an educated guess. How much did they have?”

“Shit, enough to kill a God damn horse I reckon. They all panicked when the heat started kicking in the door, they just got rid of it the fastest way they could think of. But did you see Rudy, though?”