Nobody Bats a Thousand (19 page)

“You said she wasn’t a cop.”

“No, I asked you if she looked like a cop.”

“You better be back.” H
e looked at the half a hundred and stuffed
it
in into his jeans. “I’ll be around here or across the street.”

Bill nodded and smiled, rolled up his window and drove away.

“A
ll right, we’re on to something.
” Mary Jean hugged the back of the seat with her left arm as she brought her legs up underneath her.

“I d
oubt it. My guess is he’s lying.
” Bill glanced at Mary Jean, and then checked the traffic before he pulled back onto Hancock. “Oh, if he really knew something I’m sure he would have told us, but he came up with this BS so he wouldn’t lose out.”

“You
know
he’s lying?”

“I don’t know it, but I feel it. We can check it out soon enough. The night clerk at the London will tell me the truth. He somehow has the idea I’m a vice detective, and he’s scared shitless of cops.”

“Somehow has the idea? Like when you just made me a detective back there?”

“Hey, junkies are lying, conniving scumbags. When you deal with them you have to ge
t down to their level sometimes.
” Bill grinned so his whole face seemed like one big smile. “Like that phony bill, he’s feeling it in his pocket, racking his brain, trying
to figure out how he’ll cash it.
” Bill’s grin somehow grew; his eyes became bright and full of energy. “And it’s killing him because in his head he’s already got it spent. He’s already searching for a decent vein and feeling the warmth from the needle going into him and racing through his body. He’s already there, but it’s killing him trying to figure out how to cash that half a bill.”

“You seem to be enjoying this way too much. I hope he’s telling the truth.”

Bill’s demeanor calmed. “The London is right around the corner. We’ll find out soon enough.”

Bill was in and out of the motel quickly.
“Just like I said.
He was lying. They haven’t seen the Weasel around here for weeks,” Bill said right after he settled into the driver’s seat. He started the Buick and put it into drive.

“Well, what did you expect?  The guy’s addicted. He has a problem. You’d probably do the same thing if you were in his shoes.”

“Don’t compare me to that scumbag. When I
was

” Bill abruptly stopped talking, hit the button to
start Beethoven, then stared straight at the road.

“All I meant was the guy has a problem. He needs help, I mean
if

”

“Sure people need help when they are strung out,” Bill burst in to interrupt.  “There’s no way you can pull out of all that self-destructive shit by yourself. It’s too big of a mountain to climb. Hopelessness, it’s…
it’s
just pure horror w
hen you are in the middle of it.” H
e shook his
big
head while he paused.  “But that son of a bitch back there, he’s screwed over everybody who’s ever offered to help him, every
body who’s ever cared about him.
” Bill looked at Mary Jean with a menacing stare. “Like that cute little blond back there working the streets for him, sucking stranger’s cocks to buy him and her dope. Two years ago she was teaching pre-school. How do you think she got where she is now, by choice?  No, it was because that no good scumbag worked on her. He mentally broke her down, got her hooked, then turned her out. It’s just a business to him. It’s like a game, because he doesn’t give a damn about any living thing
.” A
gain he looked at Mary Jean. “Y
ou know you really shouldn’t talk about things you know absolutely nothing about.”

Mary Jean could feel the pre
ssure of tension fill the Buick.
She
had really struck a nerve without a clue as to why. Bill turned onto Broadway and cruised along slowly.

After a few minutes a notion slipped into MJ’s rapidly whirling brain. “Maggie told
me she had saved people’s lives,
she saved your life didn’t she? That’s what the big favor you owe is all about isn’t it? I bet you were strung out just like that creep back there. That’s why you know so much about it, and that’s pr
obably why you hate him so much.” S
he smiled. “T
hat’s it isn’t it? I don’t know how it all works exactly, but that’s what it’s all about isn’t it?”

Bill didn’t react other than casting a droll look. “Boy, you are quite the little detective aren’t you,
Queenie
. Quite the detective I must say. I bet you are a whiz at crossword puzzles.”

“I am. And I read a lot of mysteries.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what, Ms. Detective, since we’ve seemed to have reached a little impasse on this caper, I’ll let you call the next move…come on,
Queenie
, where do we go from here?” Bill smiled and ran his free hand across his baldhead.

Mary Jean was not about to back down from the challenge. She was looking out the window, trying to think, when she saw him sitting in a parking lot with his back against a building. “Go back!  Let’s talk to him,” she said pointing.

“Who, that bum in the parking lot? Come on, when
I

”

“Just go back there. You asked me what to do, and I’m telling you.”

“Don’t tell me you know him?”

“Just go back.”

“Bill made a U-turn, pulled into the parking lot so the Buick was parallel to the Monk against the wall. At first he seemed fearful. He stood and looked ready to run until Mary Jean rolled down her window.

The Monk smiled. “The blonde witch,” he said slowly moving toward the car.

“He does know you.”

“Shut up…no, not you,” she said to the Monk. “It’s me, Maggie’s friend.”

“I know. I had you in my dream.”

“Oh, please…”

“Not a sex dream,
amiga
, I dreamed you were coming to talk to me, and now you are here…or am I dreaming again? Sometimes I’m not sure.”

“Sometimes I think this might just be one big bad dream, but in case it’s not I need to
ask you if you know
a guy
named
.” S
he turned to Bill.

“Henry, Henry the Weasel.”

“Sure, I know Enrique,” t
he Monk smiled as if he had just won a prize.

“Have you seen him around?
Recently?”

“Very recently,
amiga
.”

MJ dug into her jeans and pulled out a five-dollar bill. “You can have this if you can tell me where I can find him.”

“Oh, I couldn’t

Okay.” H
e snatched the bill from her hand. “I saw him and his friends around a barrel fire behind the Ortega tortilla factory on my way over here not twenty minutes ago. I would have liked to join them around the warm fire,
but I do not like their company.” He smiled. “O
r probably
them
mine.”

“Do you know where that is?” Mary Jean asked Bill, who nodded his big shaved head.
“Gracias, my friend.
You’ve been a big help.”

“Okay witch. 
Hey.” He caught Mary Jean just as she was about to roll up the window. “You should take some advice,
amiga
. You know the Sleeping Prophet said this is all going to end soon anyway, so you shouldn’t be stressing so much. You should learn to just play it cool.”

“Yeah, right, I’ll give it some thought.” She pushed the button to close the window.

Bill pulled out of the parking lot and into the street.

“So this place can’t be far, right?”

“It’s not far.
” Bill sped down Broadway for a little less than a mile, made a left, turned off his lights, and slowly crept down a narrow dark street until he could see down a darker alley behind a row of old brick buildings. He sto
pped the Buick.  Fifty
yards down the alley
,
the darkness was broken by the faint glow of a dying fire, the light lifting up from a round container.

“There!  There!  There it is!”

“This is not the time to get frantic on me,
Queenie
. Take your friend’s advice would you, and just be cool, just relax.
When an animal goes in for the kill, that’s when they become the most peaceful and still.”

“He’s not my friend, just an acquaintance.”

“Now listen carefully. Look down that alley and study it as best
you can with the lack of light.
” Bill waited less than ten seconds before he lifted his foot from the brake and drove forward. A block away he pulled to the curb and set the Buick in park. “Now listen, this is what we are goi
ng to do,”
he went into a sixty second discourse about his plan, which ended with a question followed by a bit of advice. “Have you ever driven a car this big before? Just
remember
it’s not a damn sports car, don’t try to keep it revved up,
just
cruise.
You’ve got to
treat her gently.
” Bill drove around the block and again set the car in park. He reached across Mary Jean to pull something from the glove box, which MJ first thought was an electric razor.

“What’s that?”

“Just a little attention getter.
Now remember, don’t fool around. It should take me just about as long as it takes you to drive around the block to do what I have to do.”

“Are you sure you know what you are doing?”

“Think about it. Does anyone
really
know what they are doing? See you in a bit.”

As soon as Bill got out of the car MJ slid behind the wheel, put the car in gear and sped off.

A thin mist was playing with the darkness as Bill advanced on a trio of men, passing a bottle, gathered around the fading barrel fire. They saw him approach and stood firm and anxious, like predators welcoming new prey.

Bill began to push at a button on a device he had pulled from his pocket, and at each touch a rattling, crackling flash of light lit his path. The trio’s demeanor stiffened.

“I just need to talk with the Weasel there. I don’t want any trouble with yo
u two,” Bill said, and
after the quick negotiation the two strangers were history,
they disappeared
off into the darkness.

Henry the Weasel took but a few seconds to surmise the situation; he turned to sprint down the alley, away from Bill but had only made it twenty yards before he saw his path was about to be blocked by the shadowy figure of the huge black Buick, its headlights off, speeding towards him down the alley. Mary Jean hit the lights and stopped a few feet in front of Henry who, temporarily blinded, shielded his eyes with his arm as he quickly renewed his plans for escape. The Buick was effectively filling the alley with only inches between it and the buildings on either side. So, instinctively going with his final option, the Weasel was up on the hood and about to go over the car when Bill grabbed him by a leg and pulled him down hard, first violently banging his body onto the hood of the car then even harder onto the ragged asphalt.

Bill lifted the Weasel, jabbed his stun gun into Henry’s ribcage and gave him a surge, effectively ending any resistance before it could begin.

With his free hand, Bill grabbed Henry by the throat as he pushed him against a wall.  “Where’s the clock, Henry? Don’t lie. I just saw a tape of you walking out the backdoor of those kids’ store with it. I’ve got this gun set on high. If you don’t want another taste of it right in the nuts, start talking, and you better t
ell me something I want to hear.
” Bill pushed the stun gun against the Weasel’s privates.

“Okay, okay, I took it,” Henry said, his voice weak from the recent surge of pain, “but it was just a piece of junk.”

“Well then, give it back.”

“ I
can’t.”

“Don’t try my patience, Henry.”

“I
saw the poster offering a reward. I figured if anybody would pay money for anything that ugly there had to be something inside, but there wasn’t nothing in it. I swear. I swear to God.”

“I understand your sudden need for religion, but you are still not telling me what I need to know. One more time, where’s the clock?”

The
Weasel struggled to point and speak
with Bill’s thumb still digging into his wind
pipe. “There, there, the barrel.
” Bill lessened the pressure.
“I
tossed in into the fire not ten minutes ago, but I swear there wasn’t
nothing
in it.”

Bill switched the stun gun from the Weasel’s crotch to his temple and his grip from the front of Henry’s neck to the back of it as he led him twenty feet to the barrel where he kicked the heavy cast iron container over so its fiery contents spilled out onto the asphalt. As Bill kicked through the embers he could make out melted plastic stuck to small pieces of blackened wood.