Port of Sorrow (19 page)

“Come on,” Julia insisted. “It’s been a bitch of a day. I hate to drink alone.”

Charlie hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Just the one, though.”

Houndstooth’s was empty when Charlie and Julia walked through the door, shook the rain off their slickers, and found a table in the corner. Charlie held up two fingers as he sat down and Houndstooth immediately began pouring a couple of drafts.

When the beer arrived, Charlie let out a heavy sigh, pulled it to his lips and drained the top half in one long swallow. He relaxed immediately as though no longer having to fight an unquenchable need.

“How long you been married?” Julia asked, sipping her own beer.

“Ten years.”

“Long time.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Doris is a wonderful cook and mother.”

“Are you happy?”

“Sure. Happy as I expect to be, I guess.” He drained his glass and held up two more fingers.

“You gone for the cancer test yet?”

Charlie shrugged. “I’ll go tomorrow. Don’t much care for doctors and such.”

“Hope Gilles likes them,” Julia said with a smirk. “He’s surrounded by enough of them now.”

Charlie nodded, but said nothing as the beers arrived. The frosty glass was in his hand and heading to his lips before the condensation had time to dampen the table.

“How long have you and Gilles been partners?” Julia prodded.

“Twelve years. We graduated high school at the same time, went to the academy together, and wound up as partners back here.”

“Is he a good partner?”

“What’s that mean?” Charlie’s eyes narrowed.

“Nothing,” Julia answered quickly. “I was just wondering what it’s like to work with one. I don’t have a partner yet, but I’m sure I’ll be assigned one soon enough.”

Charlie relaxed again. “Having a partner is great,” he said, “especially one like Gilles. Oh, he can get cooked some nights and go a little crazy, but in the middle of a tense situation there isn’t anyone I would rather have watching my back.”

“I take it you’re the calming influence?”

“Sure, that’s one of my roles,” Charlie nodded. “And Gilles respects that. He knows he can lose it on occasion, but he always listens to me.”

“Like when you took down that gunman on the beach the other night?”

Charlie grinned. “Gilles would have popped that sucker right there and then if he’d been alone, but he listened to me and we brought him in nice and peaceful. It was tense there for awhile though, especially since the victim’s kinda a pal of his.”

“Huh?” Julia kept it casual. “They hang out together?”

“Yeah, sometimes. I kinda knew him back in high school, too. Wells was younger so I didn’t pay him much attention, but him and Gilles get along okay. They both like to get a little crazy some nights and relive the wild days.”

“That must be a party.”

“You ain’t kidding. Doris won’t let me go to them anymore, especially when she found out about the booze and the women and ....” His voice trailed off when he realized he was talking too much.

Julia raised two fingers for a third round even though she hadn’t touched her second yet.

“You don’t go to the parties anymore?” she prodded when the beers arrived.

“Sometimes I call in,” Charlie answered with a snicker, his eyes locked on the fresh beer. “I just tell Doris I’m pulling an extra shift.”

“Who else goes?” Julia asked carefully.

“Just the guys and a few choice women. I don’t know where they come from, but boy are they wild. If the high school parties were anything like these ones, I missed out on a hell of a lot.” Charlie laughed nervously and drained half his third beer.

“Maybe I could come to one,” Julia joked.

All the humor left Charlie’s face and a film of ice glazed over his eyes. “You ain’t been listening,” he hissed. “Those parties are . . . not for you.”

Julia cringed, knowing she had pushed too far.

Charlie’s voice became as cold as his eyes. “I don’t know what game you think you’re playing, but you’re stepping on some dangerous toes here.”

Julia, shocked by the change, tried to object, but Charlie slammed both his fists on the table to silence her.

“Don’t stick your nose where it don’t belong, girl,” he said, his voice rising uncontrollably. “They’ll eat you alive and pick their teeth with your bones. They don’t like outsiders.”

“Charlie, we’re just having a friendly drink.”

Charlie shook his head in anger. “You don’t know what they make you do, how they pick on you, humiliate you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Damnit!” Spit frothed on his lips. “You don’t have a fucking clue. You can’t even see what kind of monster you’re trying to catch, but you better watch out ’cause it’s all teeth and doesn’t care who it devours.”

Charlie stood up, grabbed his mug of beer, drained it, and stormed out without another word.

When he was gone, Julia looked down at her hands. They were trembling.

AT THE DESERTED
station house, Agent Cryre Rayne pulled a crumpled piece of paper from Julia’s wastebasket and began to read.

Her deductions made him smile.

He had spent a fruitless day linked to the computers in Washington, searching for any sign that the missing rape victim, Andrew Wilson, had shown his face somewhere outside of town: Seattle, Portland, San Francisco. It would be understandable for the young man to seek an escape from the humiliation of his attack, to go somewhere where nobody knew him.

But he had come up empty.

Cryre neatly folded Julia’s note and placed it in his pocket. It was time, he decided, to have a one-on-one with Deputy Gilles.

CHAPTER
40

Finn finished packing his clothes inside an army green duffel bag before turning his attention to Selene’s wardrobe. Her body had been all woman, but her taste in clothes hadn’t progressed much beyond the dress-up Barbie phase of the hooker princess.

He didn’t have a clue what he should do with it.

Selene’s parents wouldn’t want anything shipped to their Washington home; the stench of sin would be too strong to hide from their lunchtime Martini friends. It made him wonder what they would make their silenced daughter wear on the day they buried her. Probably something in white, buttoned to the neck, allowing the lie of her attendance at a European college to flourish.

Finn shook his head, thinking not for the first time that a love based on such strict rules could be so much worse than no love at all.

With a brave face, Finn packed everything inside a navy blue duffel bag, and hefted both bags onto his shoulders.

Leaving the door unlocked and a small bag of supplies on the makeup table, he rode the elevator to the ground floor. Outside, he locked both bags under the sidecar’s Plexiglas canopy. The rain was heavy as it lashed out of the sky, and a crackle of lightning played tricks with his eyes.

“Where we going this time?” Selene always asked before each trip. “New York, Paris, Venice or Milan?”

Finn would chuckle in reply, “To the moon, baby. This time we’re heading to the moon.”

Wiping the rain from his eyes, Finn darted back inside the hotel and returned to his room. There, he sorted through his supplies and began another transformation.

An Ernest Borgnine nose was glued easily in place along with two wiry gray eyebrows and a pair of padded cheek lifts. Next, he disguised the prosthetics with a flesh-colored pancake base, adding red capillary veins to cheeks and nose with the light touch of a sharp lip-liner pencil. A tan eyebrow pencil, softened on the tongue, brought his natural crows feet and wrinkles to prominent attention. Everything was blended and sealed with non-reflective powder.

With the ancient mariner’s face in place, Finn slipped into his ratty Saturday Morning TV pants — complete with broken zipper — a bulky woolen sweater, and padded jacket with the elbows cut out. He covered his hair with a treasured tweed cap that still contained the smell of his grandfather’s pipe.

Plastic teeth placed over top of his own made his lips curl and ruined the clarity of his voice. He practiced walking with a stoop and talking with a worn-out rasp before being convinced it would work.

Finn stuffed the leftover supplies in a plastic bag, tucked it under his arm and walked to the elevator. On the ground floor, he dumped the bag in the trash before wandering into Tequila Shooter’s. He seated himself at a table near the back where he could watch most of the room without turning his head.

He spotted the reporter, Willy, hunched in the corner. He was scribbling in a notepad, two empty highball glasses on the table, and his eyes alive with the degradation around him. The reporter found life in the decay of others.

Mona was on stage, gyrating to the music. Lifeless strands of peroxide-blonde hair clung to her scalp as she worked the dance pole. What she lacked in talent and rhythm, she more than made up for in booty. With her assets in the spotlight, Mona had every man drooling into his beer. No one noticed her lips counting off each step or the falseness of her smile. None of the patrons knew the secret pain that broke her heart. She once told Finn that he was the only man she had hugged since leaving home at seventeen. At the same time, she only hugged him when he was dressed as Veronique.

As Mona finished by doffing her G-string to reveal dark pubic hair shaved in the silhouette of a cat’s head, Finn studied the crowd. A group of college kids were taking up five tables to his left. The remainder was filled with regulars and a small scattering of strangers.

The announcer asked for another round of applause for Mona, which the crowd returned, before he introduced Jasmine. The regulars stuck fingers between their lips to release a flurry of high-pitched whistles and coyote calls.

Jasmine didn’t have half the enhancements of Mona, but she worked her body like a precision machine. Gymnastics and dance were combined to fill men with fantasies they couldn’t possibly accomplish if given the chance.

The first number started out slow: a flash of thigh, breast, buttock, all teasingly covered again in the blink of an eye. Jasmine was one of the few exotic dancers Finn had met who actually loved her job. Her boyfriend worked on the oilrigs and was gone for months at a time. When he was home, so was she; the same applied when he was gone.

As a teenager she tried out for the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team, but didn’t make the cut.

Finn noticed Wells as soon as he entered through the door. All the tables were occupied and Wells looked nervous as he approached the bar.

Finn waited until Wells was beside him before kicking out one of the two empty chairs at his table.

“Sit down, boy. You’re distracting me,” he said gruffly.

Wells studied him closely before nodding his thanks and sitting down. He ordered two beers at a time with a glass of tomato juice on the side. After taking a large gulp of the first beer, he topped it up with the tomato juice.

“What in damnation do you call that?” Finn asked, pointing at the bloody drink.

“Red eye,” Wells answered with a grin. He picked up a shaker of salt and sprinkled some on top.

“They should call it 28 Days,” said Finn.

Wells stared at him blankly.

“Time of the month, you know?”

Still nothing.

“A woman’s time of the month?”

“Oh, yeah,” Wells said finally, “on the rag. Good one.” He slurped his drink with vigor.

Finn shuddered, which seemed to please Wells all the more.

As Jasmine started her second number by stripping down to a micro miniskirt and transparent bra, Finn noticed Wells’ eyes focus on the group of college students. Trying not to be obvious, Finn leaned back in his chair to get a better feel of exactly who was being marked.

The young man sat slightly apart from the crowd, his eyes locked onto Jasmine’s body, his mouth open slightly as though he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. A can of beer was tick-tocking into his mouth to the beat of the music. The other boys at his table were laughing and hooting, but he stayed uncomfortably quiet.

Finn knew why. The boy didn’t fit in because his pubescent acne had never cleared up and he wasn’t a good enough liar to join in the sex fantasy gossip that bonded the group together. Everyone there knew he was a virgin and they weren’t about to let him forget.

Jasmine unclasped her bra and dropped it to the stage. All the boys cheered and whistled, but the one Wells was eyeing merely gulped.

For her third song, Jasmine stripped completely. Unlike Mona, Jasmine loved the freedom of being naked and she left the most stunning routines for this part of her act. Finn had long admired the sensual beauty she brought to her performance, and he could tell that the boy was falling in love.

Wells waited until Jasmine finished her act before sliding out of his chair and moving closer to the group of boys. Finn kept his eyes glued on him and his ears strained to eliminate all exterior noise.

It didn’t take Wells long to strike. First, he ordered the same brand of beer the boy was drinking. Then he took two big swallows before crushing a tiny blue pill between his fingers and sprinkling it into the can.

Opal arrived on stage to a wild Jamaican beat, and while all eyes were on her, Wells expertly switched cans.

Finn felt his stomach tighten, but it was too soon to act. He needed to find out who Wells was doing this for.

Once the boy had taken a few mouthfuls of the drugged beer, Wells tapped him on the shoulder and produced a lace bra from his pocket. It was nearly identical to the one Jasmine had been wearing. The boy’s eyes opened wide, and although Finn couldn’t hear what was going on, he could easily imagine the seductive lies.

The boy grinned as he stuck a forefinger into his own chest and gulped more of his beer. Wells nodded and pointed to the door on the far side of the room that led to the lobby.

The boy nodded and glanced at his watch. Wells pushed his way through the crowd, exiting at the lobby door. After Wells disappeared, the boy drained his beer and rose to his feet. He swayed slightly, giggling at his own ineptness, before following Wells’ path.

Finn let him get a little ahead before following behind.

In the lobby, Finn watched the boy head to the back door where he was met by Wells. The boy giggled again as the back door clanged shut behind them. Finn dashed for the door and quietly cracked it open. He could hear them talking as they headed to the side alley.

“She’s going to ride you like a wild pony,” said Wells.

“But why are we outside?” the boy asked. “It’s raining.”

“Relax,” said Wells. “This girl is so hot for you, she needs the rain to stop from bursting into flames.”

“I-I don’t know about this anymore.” The boy’s voice revealed a sudden surge of panic.

Finn slid out the door and crept closer. The moon was hiding behind black clouds and the night enveloped him.

“I want to go back,” the boy said and turned around to head back inside.

“Wait a minute,” Wells shouted.

Finn froze in place, but it was too late. Wells had spotted him.

“What the fuck do you want?” Wells asked as his hand clamped tight around the boy’s arm.

“Let the boy go,” Finn said calmly.

“I’ll whip your butt, old man,” challenged Wells.

“I’m not as weak as I look,” Finn answered, his eyes searching for any sign of the second man. The rain was melting through his face powder, stinging his eyes with makeup.

Wells pulled a handgun from the pocket of his coat. “You ain’t Superman,” he laughed.

Shit! Finn hadn’t expected him to have a gun.

“There’s no need to shoot,” said a voice behind Finn. “He won’t cause us any trouble.”

“But he’s seen my face,” Wells protested.

Finn could feel the new arrival walking up behind him, but he couldn’t judge the distance over the clatter of rain.

“Who cares?” answered the man. “You’re leaving town soon, and who’s going to believe anything an old rubby like him says?”

The man was closer now. Finn had one chance. He pivoted, his vision blurred by melting makeup, but before he was even halfway around the butt of a shotgun smashed into the side of his face. A loud crack echoed inside his skull and he crumpled like a rag doll.

Mud splashed over Finn’s face and air gushed from his lungs as he hit the ground. A choking fog swooped down like a vulture and his stomach churned. He reached out with his hands, trying to drag himself up, but a second blow to the back of his skull rattled his brain and sent his mind screaming into a long, dark tunnel. His limbs were frozen, his eyes were shut, his mouth was filling with mud and rain.

“We should kill him,” Wells said, his hand clamped tight over the mouth of the wide-eyed boy.

“Nonsense,” Big Brother replied. “He didn’t see me and we wouldn’t want to upset my little present anymore than it already is. Besides, from the looks of him this weather may just finish him off naturally.”

“I still think—”

“Don’t!” Big Brother commanded. “If you want to kill someone, you’ll get the chance later tonight. Once my present is secure at home, you’ll pay a visit to the lovely Deputy Rusk.”

Wells grinned. “Do I get to do her alone?”

Big Brother chuckled. “Yes, you can do to her whatever you like, so long as she ends up dead by morning.”

The two men walked into the alley with the frightened boy struggling between them. Finn heard the muffled roar of an old truck starting up and driving away.

Alone in the night, Finn felt the puddle around his face grow deeper, fed by the unrelenting storm. In panic, he tried to lift his head, but the muscles wouldn’t respond. The filthy water rose to cover his nose and mouth. And with it came darkness.

FINN’S HEAD WAS
tilted to one side and a pair of slim fingers pushed into his mouth.

A blockage of mud and gravel was scooped out of his throat before he was turned onto his back. A hot mouth pressed against his and warm breath rushed into his lungs, filling them. Absently, as though it was happening to someone else, Finn felt the air leave, its warmth gone, and his lungs deflate. Again the warm breath entered his mouth and mixed with the water in his lungs, but this time it sent his body into a series of violent spasms.

Hacking and coughing, Finn spewed muddy water from his lungs and gasped in deep breaths of moist air. His eyes sprang open but they were unable to focus.

“Jesus, his nose fell off,” said a small voice.

“Hush now,” answered a woman’s voice. “That’s not his real nose.”

“You sure? It looks real,” said the small voice.