Everybody Pays (19 page)

FROM THE CROSS SERIES

THE CONCRETE PUPPY

“
D
o you know where the Red 71 poolroom is?” the woman asked, bending forward to speak through the open window of the cab.

The cabbie took in the woman’s wild mane of red hair, her heavily made-up face, and her spectacular chest. He swallowed hard, looking up.

“Lady, you don’t want to go there. That’s not a place for—”

“Look,” she interrupted, “you’re the fourth driver I asked. Two didn’t speak English; the other one wanted a street address. ‘Red 71,’ that’s all I know. And you, you
know
where it is. Come on, be a sport. I’m a big girl,” she said in a husky voice, drawing in a deep breath to showcase the proof. “I can take care of myself.”

The cabbie considered for a minute, then nodded toward the back seat. “Get in.”

The cab left the Loop, working its way uptown. The woman sat back, crossed her long legs. “Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked politely.

“I look like one of those kinda people to you?” the driver replied. “Go ahead, make yourself happy.”

The woman fired up, inhaled gratefully, watching the neighborhood change through the back window.

“Excuse me, lady,” the driver said, “I don’t mean to get personal or nothing, but are you . . . like an actress or something?”

“Something,” the woman replied, smiling.

The cab pulled up to the curb between the rotting hulks of two abandoned cars. The driver pointed to a length of chain-link fence topped by coils of rusting concertina wire.

“There it is, miss.”

“Where? All I see is the fence.”

“See? Over there. That’s like the gate, okay?”

The woman shot the driver a dubious look, deciding. Then she reached in her clutch bag and pulled out a pair of fifties. “Look,” she told the driver, “I’ll never get a cab to come to this neighborhood. Here’s fifty on a twenty-dollar fare—that’s pretty good, right? And here’s another, for coming back to pick me up in an hour.”

“Lady, you don’t have to . . .”

“One hour, okay? I’ll be right here. Thanks!”

The redhead stepped past the opening in the chain-link fence and carefully picked her way through a maze of debris, well balanced despite the spike heels, keeping her eyes on the “71” scrawled in fading red over a slab-faced metal door. When she neared the door, she could see that it had no handle, and was standing slightly ajar. She pushed, and the door yielded. Inside, she found herself on a stairwell, with another arrow in the same faded red paint pointing down.

She followed the arrow to the basement, where she encountered another handleless door. She pushed gently and stepped inside. The poolroom was murky, clouds of cigarette smoke mingling with darkness to create pockets of gloom. There was no overhead lighting; the only illumination was a series of shaded bulbs hanging low over each pool table. To her left was a battered wood counter. Behind it was an elderly man, watching a small black-and-white TV set from under an old-fashioned green eyeshade.

The redhead approached the counter, leaning forward, resting on her elbows, offering the same view that had so entranced the cabdriver. The elderly man didn’t turn his head.

“Excuse me?” she asked in a husky voice.

The elderly man turned slightly in his chair, ran his eyes quickly over the woman, then focused on the middle distance behind her. “What?”

“I’m looking for a man named Cross.”

“Nobody here by that name, lady,” the old man said, pressing a panel on the floor with his toe as he spoke.

“Yes, there is. I mean, I was told . . .”

“Sorry,” the old man said, turning back to his TV.

The woman whirled around, hands on hips, surveying the poolroom. She got a few looks in return, nothing else. The woman held her ground but didn’t attempt to move forward. Then she felt a gentle tap on her elbow and turned to see a short, pudgy man with a vaguely Oriental face regarding her.

“Miss, the way you came through? To get here? It’s pretty dangerous. Let me show you a safer way out, all right?”

“I’m looking for Cross,” the redhead said.

The pudgy man moved his head in a gesture almost too slight to be a nod, but when he moved off, the redhead followed. As they passed between two tables, the pudgy man said something to one of the players. It sounded something like Chinese, but the redhead couldn’t be sure.

Near the back of the poolroom, an enormous man was patiently practicing the same shot, over and over. Given his size, his movements were surprisingly delicate. As the redhead passed his table, the huge man turned to watch over one massive shoulder.

The pudgy man moved some strands of a steel-beaded curtain to one side, held them there for the redhead to precede him. As she stepped through, she saw a man seated on an old wooden barrel, as relaxed as if it were an easy chair. When he moved to take a drag from his cigarette, the redhead noticed a bull’s-eye tattoo on the back of his right hand. He was unremarkable-looking: medium height, medium build, medium face. If it weren’t for the tattoo, he would be lost in any crowd.

The pudgy man held up a palm. The redhead stopped. The pudgy man rolled out another barrel from a dark corner of the room, and bowed to the redhead. She climbed onto the offered barrel, letting her skirt ride up as she did. She crossed her legs, tried a tentative smile. The man seated across from her didn’t react.

“Are you . . . ?”

The man on the barrel made a
sssh
-ing gesture, finger to his lips. He took another drag on his cigarette, then stubbed it out in an inverted hubcap. The redhead noticed that most of the cigarette was still unsmoked. The man went off somewhere within himself.

The redhead understood this as some test of patience, pulled down the hem of her skirt slightly, and sat very still.

Minutes passed. Then a man with an outrageously hypermuscled torso, barely covered by a chartreuse tank top, poked his shaven head into the room. “Okay,” he said to the man on the barrel.

The man turned to the redhead. “What do you want?” he said.

“Are you Cross?” she replied.

“Sure,” he said, implying that if he wasn’t, he would do.

“I have a . . . problem. And I was told—”

“
Who
told you?” the man interrupted.

“Tabitha. She dances at the—”

“I know. Go ahead.”

She took a deep breath, making her white silk blouse flutter. If the man noticed, he gave no sign. “I have a foster child. His name is Romeo. He’s eight years old. I got him from . . . from a girl who used to work with me. She died. Of AIDS. She knew she was going, so we worked it out in front. Romeo—I’ve had him for years. He’s my son now. But I wouldn’t want the nosy social workers asking how—”

“What’s the problem?” the man asked, cutting her off.

“We live in a nice place. In the suburbs. Romeo has . . .
had
a puppy. Brutus. A little rottweiler. He was run over. By a car. Romeo saw it happen. He got the license number. Brutus was just screwing around. Romeo said he ran out in the street and just laid down. Like taking a sunbath or something. It’s a real quiet road, with this big hook turn, like. You can’t go over maybe thirty miles an hour. Romeo said the driver had plenty of time. He
saw
Brutus. And then he speeded up! He hit the puppy on purpose.”

“So . . . ?”

“So I went to the police. With his license number. They found the man. He said he never saw the puppy. And that was that.”

“What would you want me to—?”

“Romeo cried for days. Nothing I could say to him convinced him—he’s sure that the driver did it on purpose.”

“What difference would it make? The dog’s still dead.”

“It makes a difference. It makes
all
the difference. If he did it on purpose, he has to pay. If it was an accident, okay, but I believe my son.”

“And you want me to . . . what?”

“Not what you think. I want you to find out. If he did it on purpose. Can you do that?”

“Maybe.”

“I can pay. Whatever it costs.”

“Buddha will show you how to get out of here, take you back to where that cab dropped you off, all right? Give him whatever you have on the guy who hit the dog. And leave a number where I can get in touch.”

The redhead climbed off the barrel and followed the pudgy man through a back door out into another piece of the yard. If she was surprised that she’d been under observation since getting out of the cab, she gave no sign.

“What you think, boss?” Buddha asked, handing over a piece of paper covered with writing. “Looks like she already has most of it.”

Cross scanned the paper, checking off points to himself in a low voice. “Jon—no ‘h’—Rangel. DOB 2/3/50. Drives a black 1998 Ford Crown Vic. Lives in the Heights. Two speeding tickets last three years. No DUIs.” Cross scratched idly at his right cheekbone, where only a faint unnatural whitening of the skin revealed an old scar. “Got one of those giant street maps, Buddha? Let’s see if we can find his address.”

The bodybuilder parted the beaded curtain and noticed Cross and Buddha studying the huge street map they had laid out on the floor. “What’s going down?” he asked.

“See this?” Cross asked Buddha, ignoring the bodybuilder. “He was only maybe a mile or so from home when he hit the puppy. Look, there’s a long left-hand sweeper right about here . . .” he said, pointing.

“Hey, come on, you guys,” the bodybuilder pleaded.

“Cool your jets, Princess,” Cross told him. “We’re not done with this yet.”

Princess crossed his arms, accentuating his outrageous biceps, a pouty look on his face.

Another few minutes passed. Then Cross looked up. “Princess, get Rhino back here, will you?”

The bodybuilder did an about-face and disappeared. When he came back, the huge man who had been practicing billiard shots was with him.

“We got something?” the huge man asked, his voice an improbable high-pitched squeak.

“We got something all right, Rhino,” Cross told him. “We got a guy who ran over a puppy. Question is, what to do about it.”

“And we’re getting paid to—” Buddha said.

“He ran over a puppy on purpose?” Princess cut in, his voice gone quiet and cold.

“That’s the piece we don’t know,” Cross said. “That’s what we’re getting paid for. I’ve got to make some phone calls first.”