The Bum's Rush (17 page)

"You hurt that boy," she accused.

"Not much."

Rasta Boy was one block down now, other side of the street, pointing a particularly vicious tai chi exercise my way. ^

"It's all my fault," she said, looking down at herself.

I took a chance. "You're pregnant, aren't you?"

She threw her eyes toward the sky. "I can't believe it," she said.

"Believe what?"

"That I'm pregnant, you dolt. He told me right
away. No kids. Said he had bad blood. Lukkas used to call himself the
Bad Seed. Like after this old black-and-white movie about a little girl
who--"

"I've seen it," I said.

"It's all my fault."

"No way."

"Way."

"It takes two to tango," I insisted.

"Or three, or four, or five," she mused.

"You didn't put that needle in his arm."

"In a way I did," she said.

"No way?"

"Way," she said. "See"--she pointed at me--"you're
just like the rest of them. Just because he's a certain age and a
musician, you just assume he must be some kind of drug addict. Just
like that" She snapped her fingers in my face.

"He had other needle marks," I said.

"Duuuh. Like migraines, retardo boy. Lukkas was
very tense, very tight. When he got stressed, he got these migraines.
He was such a wuss he couldn't even give himself the shots. Had to get
other people to do him up with the medicine. It was pathetic. Lukkas
Terry was the straightest mother on the planet, man. Lukkas fired
people for using drugs. I never so much as saw him have a beer."

"So what are you saying?"

"Duuuh. Don't you get it? You must have gone to school on the little bus, man. It was just too much for him."

"What was?"

"All of it. Moving out of Greg's place." Her
emotions began to slide toward sadness. "All that money. All that fame.
And you know what?" She didn't make me guess. "He'd never even had his
own place before. Never. We were gonna move in together '' She bit it
off.

"You found him, didn't you." I said it as a statement.

Another nod and the beginnings of tears. "I just
told him that night. You know, about being late and doing the test and
stuff. He went ballistic. He hung up on me. Took the phone off the
hook. It was still off when I you know."

"What time did you call him?"

"About seven-thirty."

"What time did you find him?"

"Around eleven-thirty."

I cocked an eyebrow at her.

"I kept trying to call him. I didn't know what else to do. Then I got dressed and got to the bus."

"The bus?"

"I don't drive."

"A cab?"

"I didn't have any money, man. Okay?"

"But Lukkas Terry " I started. "Lukkas never had a
dime, man. You gotta get that crap out of your head. All he had was
this credit card Greg gave him, and most of the time he didn't remember
to bring that. Greg just paid for whatever Lukkas wanted, which was
musical equipment and grilled cheese sandwiches. He didn't want
anything except to do his thing with his music."

Just short of maudlin, she snapped herself upright
and recited a much-practiced litany. "There was no accident. He killed
himself, man. He couldn't take the pressure, so he took himself out."

I changed the subject. "Trying to find his mother
how?" "He hired some dude. Some ancient ex-cop like you." I ignored the
insult. "What's this guy's name?" "Who cares? Lukkas got his name from
somebody. Some old fart looked like the dude in the Monopoly game."
"Big white mustache," I said. "Yeah," she agreed. "That's all I know."
That was all the info I needed. It had been so long since I'd laid eyes
on him, I'd assumed Charlie Boxer was dead. Charlie had operated for
thirty years as a Pl-cum-bunkoartist. The kind of operator who creates
his own clientele. When he wasn't extricating a customer from some mess
or other, he was out running some con game, getting somebody into some
mess or other so he could get them out of it later. For a nominal fee,
of course. All very smooth and dirty.

About five years ago, the last time I'd seen him,
he was sitting in a battered gold Buick; the aluminum bar running
across the whole center of the car held his legendary collection of
sport jackets. Scrunched hard together in bold plaids, abstract
patterns, and phosphorescent hues, they could have formed the
international symbol for bad taste.

I'd leaned in the passenger window and said howdy.
He'd looked bad. Wasted and wounded. Embarrassed for me to see him like
that, he'd made a quick joke about his fall from grace reckoning how
he'd gone from living on the Riviera to living in a Riviera and then,
without warning, he'd fed the peeling sled some gas and gone bouncing
off down Western, i s <

"Go on, take a hike," Beth said.

"No, I won't."

"You're so so " She finally settled on "old."

I could feel my blood rise again. "I am not."

She rolled her yellow eyes. "As if '' We stood in
sullen silence. "I can't believe you fucked this up for me," she said
as much to herself as to me.

"Way," I said.

She cast me a pitying gaze. "That's not where you
say 'way,' you retard. It's like when somebody says 'no way,' then you
" She noticed me grinning at her. "Oh, God." She held a hand to her
head. "You're soooo sixties."

"Who's paying your bills?" I asked.

"None of your busin " She caught herself. "What makes you think anybody "

"You've got a roof over your head. You're wearing
nice clothes. A brand-new pair of Doc Martens. What are they, a hundred
and a quarter, someplace in there, with tax? You sit around on your ass
all day drinking five-dollar cups of coffee. The money has to come from
somewhere."

"Maybe I have a trust fund."

"You can't even spell trust fund."

"If I tell you, will you go away?"

"Sure," I said.

"Okay, then, if you must know, Lukkas's manager,
Gregory Conover." She studied me carefully. "Even an antique like you
must have heard of Mr. Gregory Conover."

"I've heard of him."

"Unlike some people." She stared me down. "Mr. Conover is a gentleman. Unlike some people, he knows how to act. How to
treat a lady."

She actually tapped her foot while she waited. "Well?" she said.

"Well what?"

"Well, go away like you said you would."

"I lied."

"You're execrable," she hissed.

"I'll help you," I said suddenly.

She was dubious. "How could you possibly help me?"

"You might be surprised."

"Oh, here it comes," she said to the sky.

"Come on up to the coffee shop on the corner. Tell me your story. If you're straight with me, I'll be straight with you."

"Oh, let me guess. You want to work out your middle
aged hornies on me. It's the little plaid skirt. Something like that.
Maybe have me tell you about what a bad boy you've been?"

"Just talk," I said. "I'm just old, not blind."

"You should get so lucky," she hissed.

"I just want to talk," I said again.

She looked me over. "How do I know--"

"You don't. The only thing you know for sure is
that whatever deal you've had working up till now is history. First
thing tomorrow morning that all goes down the toilet. I was being
straight with you back there. Believe me, honey, it's time for plan B."

At first, I thought I'd crapped out. She brushed
past me and started up the hill. I stayed where I was and watched as
she banged open the coffee shop door and went inside.

I got her settled in a booth with a double mocha
decaf. She pulled her jacket tighter around her. "Where should I
start?" she said with a sigh.

"Howzabout back at the beginning."

"My parents live in Orem "

"Whoa, whoa," I said. "Too far back."

"When I began my career?"

"What career?"

"Rock and roll."

"You mean your career as a music groupie."

"God, I hate that word. It's sooo retro. What's
next, love-ins? Be-ins? We all sit on the ground and sing 'Michael Row
the Boat Ashore'?"

"Well, what do you call it?"

"I'm a professional musical companion," she said.

"Okay, start there." I sighed.

I got out my notebook. She took a moment to organize , her thoughts.

"Actually, Jesus was my first."

"Oh, Christ," I groaned.

"Not that one, you moron. Greasy Jesus. The band." She looked to me for recognition. "You're sooooo lame," she said.

"Greasy Jesus, eh?"

"Actually it was Wound."

"Wound?"

"The lead singer. That was just his stage name. He had ''

this scar on his side. You know, like where Jesus was sup- t m

posed to have one, only his wasn't from a spear or
anything; it was from chicken wire. His real name was Howie Dickman."
She checked the restaurant for spies. "That's strictly hush-hush, though. Like, nobody, but nobody, knows his real name."

"Your secret's safe with me," I assured her.

Three pages in, we were through a couple more lead
singers, a keyboard player, and a road manager and working on our first
drummer. I was wishing I'd taken shorthand in high school.

It was one of those What's-wrong-with-this-picture?
moments. An instant when the general order of the universe is
sufficiently askew to automatically command the eye. I was still
dodging traffic when I spotted the Speaker tramping in a solitary vigil
up and down the cul-de-sac that fronted Providence Hospital. The sight
brought me up short. The bright overhead lights surrounding the
driveway showed me that the cellular phone message was gone. He was
serious today. Today, both sides of his sandwich board read the same:
"Rehab Is for Quitters." He'd attracted other attention as well. A trio
Of security guards stood just outside the automatic doors, thick arms
folded over two tone blue shirts, eyes following his solitary shuffle,
desperately hoping he'd stray onto hospital property so they could
clean his clock. The Speaker, however, was way too sly, staying
exclusively on the public access strip between the sidewalk and the
street.

I stepped up onto the curb and watched as his board
covered back marched to the far end of the building, where he executed
a crisp military turn back in my direction. The sight of me waiting for
him suddenly spun him again like a shooting gallery bear. He wide-eyed
me over his shoulder as he hotfooted it back up the block and disappeared around the corner of the building.

The guard on the right, a balding specimen whose name tag read T. Parker, appeared at my elbow. "You know that schmuck?"

"I may have seen him around," I hedged.

"He seemed to know you."

"A lot of folks know me."

Before he could reply, the black plastic radio
pinned to his epaulet emitted a stream of static among which some
unintelligible verbiage seemed to float. Numbers maybe. Two
forty-three. Something like that. Whatever it was brought all three of
them to point. Without a word they rushed in through the automatic
doors and disappeared down the hallway to the left.

I stopped at the front desk. Whatever chicanery was
going on hadn't filtered down to the blue-haired volunteers at
reception. According to them, Ralph was in 509. I headed for the
elevators.

I was one step onto the fifth floor when I suddenly
knew what was up. Each end of the long central hallway was capped with
a white bench. Mary sat at one end, Earlene at the other, pretending to
read magazines, just like I'd taught 'em. Lookouts. Like the Speaker,
they took one look at my cherubic countenance and went scurrying out of
sight, heel-and-toeing it down parallel halls toward the back of the
building. I followed the signs to 509.

I stepped into the room and took inventory. The
room was empty. The bed was gone. On the nightstand, a blue plastic cup
with a bendable straw sat on a rumpled newspaper. An IV stand, its
plastic bottle of saline solution still hooked on top, lay sprawled on
the floor like a remnant pruned from some aluminum cybershrub. 

I turned to leave and bumped into T. Parker, who filled the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"They told me Ralph Batista was in this room," I said.

"Who told you?"

"The ladies at the front desk."

"You better come with me," he said.

"I don't think so."

He hooked a thumb in his cop belt. "You don't want
to be giving me a hard time now, do you, Sparky?" He gave me a big
shit-eating grin.

"Oh, I don't know," I said evenly. "I think maybe I do."

He began to fiddle with one of the snaps on his belt.

"You pull out that cute little Mace can and I'll give you a high colonic with it," I said with an even bigger smile.

He took two steps back. I kept pace, crowding him,
staying right in his face. We stood there, nose to nose, grinning like
a couple of idiots until a voice behind Parker broke the reverie.

"What's all this, Parker?"

"Got us a smart-ass here," T. Parker said without turning.

Either the new guy had a stethoscope fetish or he
was a doctor. Clad in blue disposable overalls, little white booties,
and a matching shower cap, he looked like an accountant caught in his
jammies. His bare arms were covered with thick black hair, giving the
impression that he was probably furred all over like a rhesus monkey. I
decided to take the initiative. "I'm here to visit a guy named Ralph
Batista. They told me downstairs that he was in this room. Where is he?"

I shouldered Parker aside and stepped in close to the doc. 

I stuck out my hand. "Leo Waterman," I said. He
glared at my hand like it was radioactive. I stuck it back in my
pocket. "Where's Ralph?" I said.

Parker and the doc passed meaningful glances but stayed mute.

"They move him to another room?" I tried. Nothing. "Where do I find an administrator?" I asked.