“I said I didn’t recognize the name.”
“Then we’ll have to see if he recognizes yours.”
“Good evening, Mr. Carl.”
I stayed there for a moment more, watching him try to work. His head was down, his pen was moving, but the pain was still there, the stone was still working its brutal way through his system, and I sensed just then that it had been working its way through his system for many many years.
“Why do you stay with her?” I said.
He looked up, puzzled for a moment at the question, and then nodded his head. “You’re not married, are you, Mr. Carl?” he said.
“No.”
“Well, then, here’s some advice from an old married man. Don’t ever presume to understand what is happening between a husband and a wife. Nothing in this world appears more transparent, and yet is more inscrutable, than someone else’s marriage.”
Chapter 47
I DIDN’T KNOW I was in a race. If I had known I was in a race I wouldn’t have gone back to the office after my meeting with the justice. I wouldn’t have briefed Beth on what had happened to Rashard. I wouldn’t have called Rashard’s mother to tell her it was all being taken care of, that I had already taken her son’s problem to the highest levels. If I had known time was of the essence I wouldn’t have answered my mail and filled in my time sheets before showing up to ask my question. And that’s all I had, one question, a single question, whose answer I already knew.
The sign of the Chop Shop consisted primarily of a huge Harley-Davidson logo, with the store’s name in small block letters beneath the great orange shield. It was a storefront on a narrow road in a grimy commercial part of the city just a few blocks south of South Street. By the time I got there it was dark already and the stores on either side of it were closed for the night and the street was empty. I thought I might be too late, that Lonnie might be gone for the night, but through the bars protecting the plate-glass window I could see a dim light.
I pushed open the door. A cowbell jangled.
The narrow front of the store was a jumble of parts and accessories, exhaust pipes, saddlebags, gas tanks, tires, a row of handlebars fastened to the wall. The counter was piled with old engine fittings, loose papers, greasy rags, but it wasn’t the mess that struck me first when I entered, it was the reek, a strong and vile combination of ammonia and gasoline and the sharp acridity of methyl alcohol. It forced me to put a hand over my nose.
“Lonnie?” I called out. “Yo, Lonnie. You there?”
No answer.
I made my way around the counter, through a dark doorway into a large space, lit thinly by a soft glow emanating from the rear. The reek became stronger, like a noisome wall, and I gagged as I moved forward. In the shadows I could see parts of a grease-stained cement floor, cinder-block walls, workbenches, hulking motorcycles in various states of being ripped apart.
“Lonnie?”
No answer.
Beyond was a wide, closed door, which I assumed led to the alleyway in the back, through which the bikes were brought. He might be in the alley, I figured. I carefully made my way around the workshop and headed for the door. The foul stench grew stronger, thick and vile, overpowering, it burned my nose and throat, my eyes. I coughed and thought I heard another.
“Lonnie?”
I hurried my pace, tripped over something metal, headed for the alley and fresh air, and then, just as I reached for the door, I tripped over something else.
I stopped, turned to see what it was.
“My God.”
A body, faceup, lying half in-half out of a small office beside the doorway to the alley, a body lit softly by a flicker of blue fire. I reached into the office, felt around for a switch.
“Oh my God.”
It was Lonnie, of course it was Lonnie.
He was lying on the floor, between two workbenches. The benches were filled with beakers and burners and vials set up in the whole mad scientist configuration, flames shooting out here and there, and the smell in that room was murderous. Even as I fought to hold my breath, my skin itched and my eyes burned and the chemical reek was like a living thing fighting to keep me away.
I leaned over him. He was warm, still. His face was in a snarl, his hands were clenched, a wrench in one of them, and there was a small hole in his forehead. From the thick pool beneath his head I didn’t need to imagine what the back looked like. I turned to the side and threw up.
And over the brutal sound of my retching I heard something in the shop, a piece of metal spinning across the floor.
I leaped up, turned back to the shop, saw a shadow flit out of the doorway. I ran toward it. I ran toward it and something jabbed into my thigh and I flipped over. I fell hard onto my shoulder just as something heavy and metallic crashed beside me and a burning ran up my leg.
I tried to push myself up but I couldn’t, my leg was trapped by a fallen bike. I grabbed the edge of the seat, heaved, yanked my leg free, and started again toward the shadow, banging my hurt shoulder into the door. The pain spun me around and knocked me to my knees.
I grabbed hold of the doorjamb, pulled myself up, headed again through the dark passageway toward the front.
All I wanted was a glimpse, I didn’t want to stop him, I was willing to let him go, that fit my style, no heroics, let him go, absolutely, but I wanted a glimpse, I needed a glimpse.
I lunged for the door and pushed it open and as soon as I did the store behind me exploded.
Chapter 48
THERE IS SOMETHING perversely cheerful about a crime scene in the middle of the night, the pulsating red and blue lights, the great beams of white, the strobes of – aw, the hell with it.
There was nothing cheerful about what was happening outside the Chop Shop as it burned to the ground along with the two stores on either side of it. The fire trucks came with remarkable speed and the firefighters moved with the calm alacrity of men and women used to holding back the thin yet lethal edge of entropy, but there was not much they could do, what with all the accelerants, both legal and illegal, in Lonnie’s shop feeding the ferocity of the fire. It was Lonnie who had supplied meth to the gang twenty years ago, Lonnie with the wild burning eyes, and I supposed he had gotten back into the business.
Coughing all the while, I told a fire captain everything of what I had seen inside and he told me I should tell it to the fire investigators. I told the fire investigators everything of what I had seen inside and they told me to tell it again to the uniformed police. I told one of the uniformed police everything of what I had seen inside and she told me to wait for the police detectives to arrive.
“Get McDeiss,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow at me.
“Tell him Victor Carl is the witness. He’ll show.”
I stood off to the side, my arms tight around my chest, waiting for the detectives. And then at the edge of the crowd I saw her, staring at the scene with wet eyes, her pretty face drained of all emotion except pain. Chelsea. I walked over to her, lifted the yellow tape. When one of the uniforms started giving me a hassle I just stared at him for a moment and he backed off. I brought Chelsea away from the crowd, to a spot where the fire’s heat could still be felt.
“They said someone was dead,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Is it…”
“Yes,” I said, reaching out and pulling her toward me, holding her as she cried.
“Damn him,” she said, her tears hitting now the street. “Damn him.”
“Who?”
“I told him to stop. I told him it was crazy dangerous. But he missed it. All this talk about the old days. His time in the center of it was coming back to him and he couldn’t help himself. But it’s like Cooper says, the old road always ends in despair.”
“But it wasn’t just a fire, Chelsea.”
She pulled away, looked up at me.