The Coldest Mile (14 page)

Durrell bopped up behind him, no longer smiling, hovering too close like he wanted to put his hands on Chase but was afraid to do so. Trying to escort him along, keep him from leaving. It was weird and Chase just didn't get it.

“Look, Durrell,” Chase said, “I've already had a bad night, okay? You and—and—”

For a second he couldn't remember the girl's name and almost said Sherry Lynn.

Sherry Langan was weighing on his mind, he had to focus.

“—Betty Lynn boosted me for two c's, that should make you happy. Don't push it.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about, sir.”

Chase liked the afterthought “sir,” like that made everything better. This kid was going to scam the wrong person one of these days and this motel would become a slaughterhouse. “You need to rehab, that shit is making you way too sloppy.”

They hit the front counter together, Durrell still doing the dancing no- touch body- block thing, his awful breath wafting into Chase's face. The stink of rotting teeth was so powerful that it made Chase cough.

“Sir, I really do think you should settle.”

Chase nearly smacked Durrell just to get the punk off him. “Settle, huh? Is that what you call it?”

Betty Lynn and her pimp walked in from the back room. Chase rubbed his forehead. It was clammy to the touch and his front curls were damp with sweat. He thought of the dream where his unborn sibling had told him that he was sicker than he thought. Chase wondered if it might be true.

Now this setup made sense, all that bopping and weaving Durrell had been doing. The pimp had probably told him not to let Chase leave yet. Why? Betty Lynn had gone through his wallet, they could see he had no other cash or credit cards on him. Was
it the car? Chase looked out the front window to see if they'd fucked with the Goat at all, but from here he couldn't tell. Maybe they'd gone through the glove box and seen there weren't any papers. Fig ured he was on the run and they could squeeze him for something more.

On second glance Chase decided, no, the guy wasn't a pimp, just her twentysomething boyfriend pretending to be worldly and tough. He had some meat on him, big through the chest and shoulders but with sagging jowls. Looked like a fallen football hero from the same high school, got hooked on the same shit, and was degrading at about the same rate. His face was also scarred and pitted from the meth sores and scratching. Why anybody fucked with this drug was beyond Chase's understanding.

“That's him,” Betty Lynn said.

Chase looked around. Weren't there any other guests in this place? Or was he really the only one taking advantage of all this innate charm and Southern hospitality at the Winston- Salem Motor Court?

The boyfriend stomped up. Chase took the initiative and said, “What's your name?”

It took the mutt off guard. “Huh?”

“Your name. What's your name?”

The guy didn't know what to say. He blinked at Chase.

“You don't know your name?”

“Of course I know my damn name. Augie.”

“Okay, now we're getting somewhere. What do you want, Augie? What do you want from me?”

Augie didn't respond. He was too busy trying to resettle himself, get dug back in, play the hard- ass. Chase thought, It must be me. I do something to lure them to me.

Betty Lynn moved around the counter and said, “We want money. What else would you think we'd want, sweetie?”

“You stole all my money.”

“I was right. You were awake. You were watching me. I knew it. But you didn't say anythin’. Now why is that?”

“You planted the cash,” Augie said. “You're so loaded you don't even care that she took a hundred dollars off you.”

“She took two hundred,” Chase told him. “She's holding out on you. But hey, she lies to everybody. She told me she liked my lonely eyes. And I do care, I just don't care enough. I have other troubles on my mind.”

Augie squared his shoulders and tightened his fists, trying to get the veins pumped on his forearms. It wasn't working. “I'm going to give you even more.”

“You've got a lot of problems yourself, man. You want to add to them?”

Chase thought, I can pull the switchblade. I can stomp his foot and drop him. Or I can work out some of the kinks and get ready for the upcoming show.

He swung the gym bag around his good shoulder and said, “You any good?”

“What?”

“Augie, listen. Focus here, son.” Snapping his fingers under Augie's nose. “You any good? You had any training? I don't want to waste my time, I've got miles to make today. You know how to fight or are you just big and rude?”

Durrell felt the need to cover for his buddy. “He can fight. I seen him once knock a man down with one punch.”

“And I was only half- trying,” Augie added.

Chase said, “Yeah, but did the guy get back up and kick your ass?”

As he often did, he figured that the real trouble would lie with the woman, who seemed a little sharper than these mooks and probably still had the rusty straight razor on her.

“You've only got one good hand,” Augie said. “How you gonna fight with—”

Chase fired two sharp jabs into Augie's nose and dodged left so the spurting blood wouldn't splash him. He right hooked the mutt to the temple and then elbowed Durrell in the chest as the kid came running forward, his hands up in the wrong position, not even protecting himself. Durrell's breath blasted out of him as he went down and Chase almost broke into a coughing fit, from the stench back in the air. He spun and right hooked Augie to the temple again, enjoying the solid thunk of his knuckles smacking bone. Augie let out a sound like a dying camel and collapsed to his knees.

With his back to Sherry Lynn—goddamn it, with his back to Betty Lynn—Chase hoped she'd draw
the razor and try to use it. He presented the target and waited for her to take the chance.

But she didn't. He wheeled and she was standing there, trembling but with a weird, knowing grin. She was hugging herself and he saw the fresh fingernail scratches bleeding down her arms.

She said, “Take me with you.”

“Christ no.”

“Please, I'll be good to you, I'll make you feel good, I promise. I can do things that—”

The cold sweat poured off him as he made it out the door. He almost smiled for a moment until he thought, This was just stupid. This wasn't getting ready for Jonah. This didn't prove anything except you're scared.

He'd taken down the crew that had killed his wife. He'd been shot to shreds and managed to come through. He'd watched a man get gutted a couple weeks ago. He'd brawled with an ace shooter. And now he was going to let a fucking
Augie
get under his skin?

No cool, no calm.

Once in the Goat he peeled out of the parking lot, trying to let the machine steady his nerves and work its power into his guts, waiting for the thrum of the engine to quiet his mind, but after a hundred miles he was still thinking of Betty Lynn's grin, wondering what it was she knew about him that he still hadn't realized himself.

T
he world darkened to that blinding Southern ruby
red by noon, and the temperature topped a hundred and two. One thing Chase hadn't checked in the Goat before hitting the road in Jersey was whether the air- conditioning worked. It was a stupid mistake and he suffered for it the entire morning and into afternoon.

He decided not to push himself and found a higher- class hotel in north Florida. Untaped the fingers and flexed them, thinking it might be all right to leave them free now, at least for a while. Ordered room service, used the pool and the workout room, did some easy weights. The left hand held out. Stayed in the steam bath until exhaustion set in and it felt like he'd burned some of the poison out. He didn't want to dream tonight.

Settled into bed and started watching a bang-'em-up action flick on cable while he waited for sleep. He was out cold before the opening credits finished rolling.

The next morning Chase popped the plates off a nearby vehicle and switched them with the Jersey tags. He entered the city of Sarasota and was a little surprised that it was so quaint while still edging toward serious money.

He'd figured it would be a surfer area, shoddy, a lot of punk kids on the street. But everywhere he looked he saw clean, gorgeous beaches, parks, and private clubs. Lots of families out together picnicking, plenty of laughter and music in the air. People were swimming, jogging, sitting at rec benches before barbecues. Huge mirrored condos lined the face of the bay. Piers leading out into private lagoons. Botanical gardens. Moored boats rocked in the marina. Palm trees lined the old downtown Main Street heavy with foot traffic moving in and out of the shops.

He stopped off at Bayfront Square and watched children climbing across jungle gyms, everybody wearing sandals or flip- flops. In some ways it reminded him of Central Park, but with more intense colors. Action anywhere you looked—you had to keep on your toes or be mowed down by a runaway rollerblader.

Lila had never seen the ocean until the day they moved to New York. She loved going to Robert Moses and Fire Island, even though she was a little afraid to swim out more than twenty feet past the first breakers. The two of them spent a lot of time sitting in the surf, the tide dragging the sand around their feet.

It was time to find the girl, Kylie.

All he knew about Angie's sister Milly was that she was married to a professional surfer. Chase had thought that was sort of a dumb thing to do professionally, but as he gazed over toward the Gulf of Mexico and watched the white sands stretching before him, the waters a wildly dazzling green and the sunlight more vivid somehow than he'd ever seen before, he had a change of heart.

He asked around for where the best surfing in the area might be and was told North Jetty, at the south point of Casey Key. He got out his maps and drove over.

The ocean brimmed with muscular, golden-haired kids on boards. He sidled up to groups drying in the sun, lazily draped across blankets and drinking bottles of beer hidden inside Styrofoam holders. He hoped there weren't that many pro surfers from the area. They told him there were. They were wary and looked at him like he was a cop. Chase wondered exactly what the trouble was. A heavy drug undercurrent in the surfer world, smuggling shit in up from Miami in their board wax? He got a couple names and thought he should've brought a pencil and pad.

Nothing to do except keep talking to anybody with a board. He moved from group to group, most of the kids ignoring him and hitting the waves the second he showed up. He pulled out his cell and called information. He reached a few of the surfers and asked questions, trying not to sound too invasive.
Hey, you married to a girl named Milly? You got a kid named Kylie? He got yelled at and hung up on a lot.

It took about another hour to connect with the right person on the beach. He was relaxing in the shade of some boulders, watching surfers do their thing and thinking he might want to try it one of these days when a couple girls in bikinis with yellow lycra rash guards tied around their waists walked past. He asked the question and one girl said, “You don't mean Aaron Dash, do you? The guy who got murdered?”

“Yes,” he said, everything snapping into place at once, “that's who I mean.”

No wonder the kids didn't want to talk to him. The cops and reporters must've already rousted them plenty.

Chase imagined how it went down. Jonah showing up at the surfer's door, saying he wanted Kylie back. Milly asking about her sister. Jonah maybe even telling her the truth, explaining how Angie had shot him twice in the back because she wanted to get clear of him and keep him away from his own daughter forever. Looking into his dead eyes, Milly would know it was real, that her sister was gone and she'd never even be able to bury her. She'd scoop the kid up and make a run for it. The surfer standing there in his flip- flops, threatening to call the cops. Jonah slugging him two or three times in the gut, turning abruptly and driving his elbow backward
into Dash's face. The surfer in good shape, making the effort even though his nose was broken, clambering to his feet. Jonah thinking enough was enough and popping Dash once in the forehead with whatever he was carrying, probably a .32. Then making his way to the back bedroom where Milly and Kylie hid even before the surfer's corpse hit the floor. Chase grew frustrated with Milly, thinking, Why the fuck didn't you go out the back door? But people hated to leave their houses, their places of protection, even when they were invaded, he'd seen it a dozen times when he used to burgle for crews. Jesus, there'd be so much screaming, Kylie terri fied because Milly was, and Jonah, steel and stone, marching down the hall, kicking the door in, maybe taking the time to get the girl clear but probably not, raising the gun and icing Milly while Kylie was still in her arms. The little girl falling onto the chest of her dead aunt, watching the blood flow free from Milly's mouth. Turning to look at her father and Jonah, incapable of feeling what other men felt, no love inside him, grabbing the kid and taking her into the bent life, spatters of blood already on the side of her face.

“Any idea where this Dash used to live?” Chase asked.

T
he teenager didn't know, but now that Chase had a
name he called information and got out his maps. It took only ten minutes to get over to the Dash house, which was right on the water with a couple hundred feet of beachfront property.

There was crime- scene tape over the front door. Chase was surprised at how similar the place looked to homes down by the Great South Bay on the south shore of Long Island, in the high- end townships. Lots of windows, glass doors, and a couple screened-in sunrooms. Surfing wasn't a stupid profession after all.

He went to the front door, looked around. He noticed that the tape had been very carefully cut and then stuck back into place. The lock had no scratches on it. Either a pro had gone in or an amateur had been kept out. Chase had to wonder about that. Who else was coming by to check things over?

He faded back across the yard and moved to the side of the house, searching for the smartest point of
entry. Children's toys were scattered about. Little plastic cars you pedaled. A couple tiny tricycles lying on their sides.