XXX Shamus (20 page)

Raised her eyes again. “Look, she didn’t tell me to do anything. I thought you felt the same thing I did the first time we met. I thought you wanted me.”

He turned away before grinning, not wanting her to see. “Like a little Nancy Drew, that girl. Probably scripted that for you, too. Get dressed. If you want to talk after, tell me the truth, that’ll be okay.”

Emily didn’t want to talk. She dressed quickly and left without even putting her shoes back on. She carried them on two fingers, stepped outside, and turned to face Hopper once more.

“Your loss.”

He shrugged. “For once, that’s okay.”

Hopper slammed the door. Wondered if Divinity would appreciate his abstinence. For the first time in years he had blue balls. But if that was what it took to win her back…

He figured the day couldn’t get any worse.

Then he checked his messages.

Yeah, it sure could.

Like he expected, most of the messages were from Violet. Two before the Vegas trip, and two after their fight. She screamed her way through the first one. The second, much more subtle: “I’m bruised pretty bad. You never know. If I
am
pregnant, you might have hurt the baby. That would be awful, don’t you think? I hope you’ll come check on me soon.”

He was about to throw the machine across the room when the next message clicked in. An old man’s voice hacked through a couple of words before Hopper recognized that it was Villeponteaux.

The old cop simply said, “Kid, time to talk. Call me.”

Time for that favor. Villeponteaux probably expected something equal to what he’d done with Figg. Torture, then feeding him to gators, and still making it look like an honest suicide. Hopper’s stomach twisted.

He picked up the phone and dialed.

Villeponteaux answered, “What?”

No words coming out.

“This isn’t some goddamn telemarketer, is it? I’ll trace this goddamn number and—”

“No, wait, sorry sir. It’s me, Hopper Garland. You called me.”

“Yeah, yeah, the kid.” A cough or a laugh, whatever. Pretty gross either way. “You been gone?”

“Had some business out of town.”

“Where?”

Hopper said, “Um…” while trying to guess if telling him would come back to bite him in the ass. “Las Vegas.”

“Good town. Lots of tradition. Kind of like here.”

“I’ve got a lot going on today. Any reason you called, in particular?”

“We need to meet, talk. I was hoping you’d do a favor for an old guy, just friendly, see.”

Oh god, it’s sexual
. Hopper gritted his teeth and mentally checked his savings balance. Could he squeak that plane ticket to Alaska, like, today? “Ah. Yeah.”

“Boy, let me read your mind. I’ve got my kicks off beating hookers and tying up skinny redheads. I’m too old to switch over to a tough youngster like you.”

“I see.”

“Listen, you know the Saturn Bar? Let me buy you a couple Dixies.”

Hopper almost said he didn’t care much for beer, then decided it was better to meet, sip, get this over with. “Tell me when.”

It was nearly ten that night. Hopper parked as close as he could, which was a couple blocks away. At least his crappy car blended with all the other crappy cars in the neighborhood, because it was a “bad area” of town, the tour guides would tell you. He’d done a lot of business all over, but coming here at night was like a dare. The bat was right inside the driver’s side door should he need it when he got back to the car. Otherwise, he was defenseless.

The long day he’d suffered through was still on his mind. He tried to call Divinity’s cell phone several times. Hung up when the prompt asked if he wanted to leave a message. He did, finally, once. Couldn’t decide if he should sound pathetic or generous or understanding or playful. Ended up sounding befuddled, not by choice.

He’d stood in line at his bank a few minutes before deciding to not deposit the check from Yasmin’s dad. Before doing that, he wanted to have a chat with the man, explain to him that maybe he should let Yasmin have the life she wanted to live even if he didn’t approve. She was young, but sometimes people end up worse if they hold it all in and wait until it’s too late. By then they’re trapped. At least Yasmin didn’t feel trapped in Vegas.

Lecturing a guy on the morality of letting his daughter stay in the porn racket. The voice in Hopper’s head said,
There’s just me and soup in this brain of yours, isn’t there?

Hopper made the call. The father didn’t let him finish an entire sentence.

“Yasmin told us what you did to her. I say best to cash that check and never bother my family again, understand?”

He hung up.

Emily wouldn’t answer her phone. D was MIA. And Violet…

Well, she didn’t call anymore that afternoon.

Hopper shook all the creepy-crawlies from his head and walked into the Saturn Bar.

It was a dive with style—outdated and dusty style. More like a thrift store, full of memorabilia, junk, old neon and jukeboxes and do-dads that had been piling up since the place opened. It was named after the Saturn space rockets. It looked stuck in that era, except for the rot. In spite of that, it didn’t lose one shingle or window during the hurricane.

The place glowed with weak lighting and neon. A song by the Monkees blared, one speaker blown. Hopper saw Villeponteaux in a cracked vinyl booth. He must have been the oldest person in the bar. It was a hipster magnet, drawing in the new-retro crowd. Hopper got the idea that this had been the cop’s regular hang-out for decades and didn’t let the new waves of patrons chase him away.

Villeponteaux waved Hopper over. There were already two bottles of Dixie beer on the table, sweating puddles. “I didn’t know you’d be late. I already ordered yours.”

Hopper checked his watch. It was five after ten. He slid into the booth, barely able to squeeze between bench and table, and took a swig of the beer. Pretty much lukewarm. Damn thing had been sitting out nearly a half-hour. The old man couldn’t tell time.

Hopper said, “Traffic slowed me down.”

“Yeah, well.” Villeponteaux shrugged. He seemed a little more able-bodied than the feeble man who had blasted Figg’s leg off. As if ten years had been erased. “Let’s get to it. You hear how I took care of that problem you brought me?”

Hopper swallowed hard. “Sure.”

“Want to know how?”

“That’s okay. No need.”

A smile, a chuckle. The guy had no soul. Might be a good thing, Hopper thought. Then maybe he wouldn’t feel so sick all the time.

“I’ve had a few rough days, so I hope you don’t mind if we hurry this along.”

Villeponteaux gave him a serious nod. “I feel for you, kid. I really do.”

Did he know what had happened in Vegas? Or was this just chit-chat?

Hopper said, “Stress, the job, all that. You need a favor?”

The old man raised his eyebrows and took a swig of beer. The jukebox switched over to “96 Tears.” Everything took on a red tinge. A foursome walked in and the air gushed in, chilled Hopper’s skin.

“First thing you’re wondering, did I make some deal with the devil?” Villeponteaux said. “How am I able to move around tonight like a younger man when last you saw I was nearly invalid?”

“It crossed my mind.”

“I’ll tell you, it’s no magic. It’s Parkinson’s. Same thing Ali has, man moving like he’s underwater. So, it’s going to take it’s toll.”

“That’s awful.” Hopper sounded really concerned. He was. Nobody deserved that type of end, especially all alone. “Terrible.”

“Hey, it happened. I’m an old fart, me. No surprise there. They’ve got some pills. Some days they work better than others. Today is a good day. Every day is a fight, though.”

The noise in the bar picked up. Hopper sipped enough beer to make it look like he was really drinking it. He’d only been here a few minutes and already thought this was taking too long.

“I might have a year of decent mobility left. After that, it’s a quick descent to a wheelchair, a hospital bed.” He shook his head. “Not good. Not what I want.”

Shit. He wants me to kill him
. Not the
worst
idea…no, no, can’t truck with that. Hopper hadn’t killed anyone—unless you counted Figg. That didn’t count.

“Shame,” Hopper said.

“I’m not asking you to kill me.”

A guy in the next booth turned to stare.

He’s a psychic. He’s a fucking mind reader
.

“And no, I’m not a fucking mind reader.”

Hopper coughed, beer down the windpipe. He cleared his throat, coughed again. It wasn’t going away. He tried to talk and couldn’t.

“I don’t want to die. I mean, not right now. That wouldn’t work with my plan.”

“Um, plan?”

Villeponteaux leaned forward, elbows on the table, waited for Hopper to mirror his posture. He did. Faces less than a foot apart.

The old cop said, “You heard about cryogenics?”

It was hard to keep from laughing. Hopper held back. “A little. Like freezing?”

“Sort of, yeah, sort of. Colder than ice. More like preserving, the way they found wooly mammoths and cave men, but again, colder than ice.”

“I didn’t think that worked all that well.”

“That’s only because no one’s been thawed yet. No one’s going to be thawed until science catches up. Ten years from now, a surefire cure for cancer, AIDS, Parkinson’s, one of those pops up, they thaw a guy, jump start his heart, and cure the son of a bitch!” Villeponteaux was like a teenager explaining it all, like this was big as the Beatles.

Hopper slumped back. Let everyone hear if they wanted to. This was crazy talk anyway. “The problem is you have to die first, right? It’s not suspended animation.”

“Close enough.”

Hopper’s turn to shrug. “If that’s what you want to do, here’s wishing you a long future. So how do I figure into this?”

Villeponteaux looked around. The bar patrons were busy posing. He flashed two fingers, waved Hopper back to the table. Hopper leaned in again and waited.

“Need you to get something for me.”

“What is it?”

“Stem cells.”

“Stem cells?”

“Fresh stem cells. See, it takes too long if I go the legal way, ask to be put on a list. Goddamn Republicans, getting all biblical with this shit. I’ve got a guy in Hong Kong can actually do the work. I need you to get me the aborted embryo that he can harvest the stem cells from.”

Hopper burped acid and beer into his mouth. He swallowed hard. Wanted to vomit.

Villeonteaux kept on. “The fresher the better, so it’s going to take a break-in. I’ll get you a list of good clinics.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Can’t?”

Hopper scooted towards the edge of his bench. “I need to hit the head. Be right back.”

“Think about it, though. I can’t get over this word you used. ‘Can’t.’ Seems to me that of all the words you can use, after what I did for you, ‘can’t’ is not on the list.”

Hopper thought of forty better ways to respond before settling on, “I’ll be right back.”

Standing at the urinal in the too-small bathroom, his jacket pressed against the stall wall on one side and the air dryer on the other, Hopper was running through ways out of this situation. Whatever power this old man had over his mentors, Hopper thought this was the place to snap the link. He was old, feeble, clinging to straws and sci-fi, so what leverage could he use?

Hopper told me to kill this porn director.

Prove it. In fact, he never said that at all.

I’ll kill you myself
.

Hopper was bigger, stronger, faster.

Just go on out there and tell him no. Not going to break into an abortion clinic and steal a fresh embryo.

Hopper got a half-decent stream going but was too amped to finish. He shut off the flow and zipped up, figured he’d find a McDonald’s down the road if the urge came back. Time to get free of whatever the hell he’d tangled himself in.

He hadn’t even opened his mouth back at the table, not even all the way seated yet, when Villeponteaux said, “There’s another way, if you’re not up for burglary.”

“Mr. Villeponteaux, I’m sorry. This isn’t right.”

“Here’s what you can do instead.” As if Hopper hadn’t said anything. “You find a woman, got herself in a bit of trouble. An unwanted pregnancy. Can’t do the abortion route for one reason or another. Her husband might find out. Or boyfriend. Maybe this pregnancy…there’s something
wrong
with it, you know?”

Hopper stared him dead on. That little grin on the old cop’s face teasing. How much did he know? How the hell did he know it anyway?”

“Keep going.”

“I’m saying a woman in that situation might be more willing to participate in my experiment. Or if not, at least you wouldn’t have to break and enter, right?”

Hopper. Dead silent. Not giving away any info.

“Solves a couple of problems at once, I’d think.”

Hopper sipped warm beer, didn’t register how awful it was. It was hot in the bar. The crowd started packing in. Hopper was suddenly scared of Villeponteaux. He’d been leery of him, even horrified by him. Now he was plain fucking scary.

Hopper looked down at the table, figured he could shoot over to his sister’s house, convince her to go on a vacation with him. Tell her he was really considering her offer about paying for school, if only they could get the hell out of New Orleans. She’d dump Colin in a snap, he knew that. The only reason she kept him around was to keep the drama alive. Tell her he wanted to apply somewhere out West, or try to convince her that Alaska would be the perfect place to spend the rest of their lives. A man had to protect his family, after all.