s*x, Death, & Honey

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Home was a small one-roomer near the port, larger than your average jail cell, but not a lot. It had a minuscule kitchen and a single enclosed rectangle of a bathroom with toilet, sink, and shower stall. In the rental market such units are called cabins, though this one had none of the homey, nostalgic appeal associated with the name. This is one of a dozen on Fair Street. The cabins were white, shabby, squatting between a gun repair shop on the Twelfth Street intersection and a flea market on the intersection of Thirteenth.

Mine was indistinguishable from the others on the outside, rundown on the inside. Dark wood panel walls, a mint-green linoleum floor that might have been installed about the time disco was born. No TV or radio, no pictures on the walls. The only photograph I owned lay face down on top of my small dresser. I kept it because I had to, but it had been a long time since I’d been able to look at the faces in it.

I am the only longtime resident of this stretch of West Paradise Valley skid row. It was my rock bottom, almost five years ago, and I’ve never felt the need to move on. The usual tenants are kids working their way up, or addicts and tough luck cases working their way down. The occasional drifter drops anchor here as well, usually to cool his or her heels for a few weeks before moving on to wherever.

I try to meet them all at least once, but only in passing, never more than that. I don’t make friends with them. We trade a few words, if they’re the sort of folks capable of idle chat. I get a feel for them, then leave them alone. I am not a naturally sociable fellow, or a naturally curious one, but I like to know who I’m bunking down next to. I like to know who to watch out for.

I’ve shared my neighborhood with junkies and alkies, crack whores, crazies, newly single women and young men who would live in a box if it meant breaking loose from parental tyranny. I spent a month with a serial killer for a next-door neighbor, but that kind of thing happens in the best of neighborhoods.

I checked my answering machine, found one message from Uncle Higheagle. The Washington State Police were auctioning off impounded vehicles in Spokane that coming weekend. We’d Greyhound it up together and drive back with new stock for his lot. Nothing about my fuckup the night before, which was good for both of us. Good for me because dwelling on the past is bad for one’s spiritual and mental health. I know this because shrinks have told me so. Good for Uncle Higheagle because his ability to overlook my fuckups saved him frequent disappointment.

I armed the security system, checked the clip and safety on my bedside piece, the latest model CZ 75 9mm, the rail-mounted light and laser sight as much for intimidation as accuracy. I didn’t have much of value in my cabin but I still valued my life enough to want to hold on to it a while longer.

I don’t find guns to be attractive objects, but I own a few and I shoot well. Lots of practice and a bit of training with my old gun-nut friend Posey. Posey loved guns the same way a satyr loves women, many and often, and whenever possible, publicly. He’s a state approved instructor, has won all the local shooter’s competitions so often that organizers opted to recruit him as a judge as a way to bar him from competition.

Posey picked all my guns and related accessories for me. The compact Ruger LC9 and pocket holster for discrete protection on the job, the CZ 75 with its flashy accessories for home protection.

I slid my home protection beneath my pillow, set the alarm clock for a nine pm wake up, and lay in bed.

I did not sleep right away, I never did.

After a while I gave into restlessness and decided to read for a while. Reading in bed was the only sure way to put myself to sleep. It was better than Benadryl. I slid the drawer of my little bedside desk open and pulled out the black portfolio. I propped myself up in bed and unzipped it. Inside were a half-dozen photocopied police reports, nearly one hundred crime scene photos separated by case and tucked into snug plastic pockets, and my own extensive handwritten notes.

I was not supposed to have these, but I have a friend in the local FBI office and when the feds took over the Redwolf case she made sure I got copies. Her name was all over my notes, and she was the subject of one of the files. Gina White, one of the toughest women I’ve ever known, a good friend to have.

Gina had gone through hell and come back alive. She understood.

I ignored the photos, the images were tattooed on my aching brain and I didn’t need to look at them, and read my notes for the thousandth time. It had been a long time since anything new went into my copy of the Redwolf files and I had most of the material committed to memory, but I read anyway.

While I read my body relaxed, trying to forget the minor indignities of the past few days and the major dishonors of a lifetime. My mind wandered and eventually shut down.

I dreamed about the first man I’d ever killed.

I remember the car, a late ‘90s Chrysler Neon, bad lines, no style. Not the kind of car I enjoyed driving, but I thought I was going to enjoy crashing it. It was my wife’s car, but she wasn’t going to need it anymore.

My passenger was a little man, bald, unimpressive on the surface, but beneath, something else. Roy Dickie. He wasn’t aware of our destination, but was still less than enthusiastic about the journey. He didn’t know the specifics, but got the general idea.

It wasn’t good.

“Who are you?” He’d pressed himself back into the passenger seat, as if he hoped to escape me through it. “What do you want?”

I said nothing, just put the gas pedal down a little harder. We were on the highway by the river, two lanes of twisting blacktop with little margin for error. The speed limit on that stretch just outside of Paradise Valley was sixty. I had it up to eighty-five, and climbing . . . but slowly. No style or balls, that car.

I was a fraction of a second slow on the next sharp bend and slid, tires squealing, passenger squealing as well, into the oncoming lane. For a moment I thought the ride was over. So did my passenger. The sudden, sour stench of piss filled the cab. When I was back in my lane and in control again I popped the center console open, found the little travel-size aerosol can, sprayed the little man beginning to blubber in the passenger seat.

New Car Scent, a mix of fresh upholstery and Armor All.

“Why are you doing thi-his?” He shouted, his voice breaking into fresh sobs on the last word. The sound of his blubbering made me angry.

The car wandered dangerously again as I reached for him, cupped the back of his head in my right hand and brought it down hard against the dash. The padded plastic split beneath his head. I hoped for a cry of pain, a satisfying splash of blood, but the inconsiderate bastard passed out cold.

I slowed to a sane sixty and a minute later pulled into a deserted rest area.

He needed to be awake for what was coming next.

It was important.

He wasn’t out for long, maybe another fifteen minutes, and as soon as he stirred I pulled back onto the highway, this time driving east toward the city.

“Wakey-wakey,” I said when his eyes fluttered open and he lifted his head again. There was a little blood I was pleased to see, just a trickle from the splitting skin stretched over a rising goose egg on his forehead. “Can we start over without all the crying?”

It appeared he could. I was grateful for that at least.

“Why are you doing this?”

“For Daphne and Beth Quick,” I said, and that was all.

I stomped the gas pedal down to the floor again, and I could feel myself grinning, inexplicably happy as the needle slowly climbed to illegal and dangerous speeds. Roy began to scream again, and I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it.

The needle hovered just below ninety, the road made a sharp left turn.

I turned right instead.

I think he must have figured it out at the last second because he lunged for the steering wheel.

But it was already too late.

The alarm went off and I woke with my customary good grace, reaching for the gun beneath my pillow before thinking better of it and settling for thumping the snooze button with more force than was strictly necessary. I went through a lot of alarm clocks.

I surrendered to reality. Got up, pissed, drank coffee, went to work. I had a Mustang to rescue.