The Butcher nodded slowly. "Yeah, we're all straightened out."
Brimley shook his head, stepped over to the fencepost, and lifted the Butcher down. He checked with Jimmy one more time, then unhooked the cuffs.
The Butcher stood there, rubbing his raw wrists.
Brimley waved the Butcher away with the back of his hand. "Go and sin no more."
Jimmy watched as the Butcher picked up his basketball and slowly dribbled back to the parking lot. He kept waiting for him to look back, but he didn't.
Brimley put an arm around him. "Let's go to my boat. I'll call off the locals and clean you up. You better get some ice on that eye, or it's going to swell shut on you."
Jimmy was going to argue, but it sounded like a good idea. Besides, he still wanted to talk to Brimley about Garrett Walsh. "Thanks, detective."
"No need to call me detective," said Brimley, helping him. "I'm retired and glad of it."
"Leonard, then."
Brimley chuckled. "The last person to call me that was Miss Hobbes in eighth grade, and I hated it then too. Leonard sounds like someone who starches his underwear. You're probably the same way-that's why you go by Jimmy instead of James."
Jimmy gasped as they went down a step. "What do you want me to call you?"
"Call me what my friends do." Brimley nestled Jimmy closer. "Call me Sugar."
Chapter 20
Jimmy leaned against Sugar as he hobbled down the dock, his ribs throbbing with every step. Seagulls floated overhead, screaming, and the sound cut right through Jimmy's skull.
"You doing okay, son?"
"Yeah," Jimmy gasped, and kept walking, the gray concrete dock stretching out before him. He focused on the next few steps, one foot after the other. The yachts bobbed gently on either side of him, the blue water shimmering with pools of oil and gasoline. Dizzy again, he clutched at Sugar and felt hard muscle underneath a cushion of blubber. The big man smelled of suntan oil, reassuring him somehow. He stared at the nautical flags patterned across Sugar's pink shirt, wondering what they meant-clear skies or storm warnings. "Thanks for what you did back there with… Darryl." He still had to work to remember the Butcher's real name.
"No problem." Sugar supported him, fitting his pace to Jimmy's. "That boy sure wanted to get your attention."
"It was my own fault."
Sugar chuckled. "Usually it's the man that got the worst of it who throws the blame."
"Darryl did get the worst of it."
"If you say so."
"I'm sorry if I caused you any trouble with the police. I'll make sure they know it was my idea to cut him loose."
"Don't worry about it." Sugar shifted his weight and drew Jimmy closer. "Besides, I like a guy who doesn't run to the cops with every little cut and scrape. Most cops won't admit that, but I'm retired, I can tell the truth. When I was in uniform, half the calls I used to get were strictly nuisance beefs: He hit me, she hit me, he called me names, his stereo is too loud. Total waste of time. Even when I became a detective, you'd be amazed at the cases I had to blue-sheet."
"Not Heather Grimm, though. That one wasn't a waste of time."
"No." Sugar shook his head. "That one broke my heart." He cradled Jimmy against his chest. "I thought that's why you were here."
"I'm doing a piece on Garrett Walsh. Sorry, I'm messing you up." Jimmy's nose had opened up again, and blood was dripping onto Sugar's Bermuda shorts.
"Heck, I been bled on before." Sugar brushed off his shorts, grinning as Jimmy disengaged himself, walking on his own now. "Besides, plaid hides everything."
"How-how much farther?"
"Almost there."
Jimmy glanced around at the sleek ocean cruisers on either side of the pier, waxed teakwood and chrome gleaming in the sun. "Nice neighborhood. Yacht city."
Sugar laid a hand on Jimmy's shoulder and caught him as he stumbled. " Yachts-that's a term only we commoners use. The people who pay the luxury taxes call them boats." He had a good laugh, deep and resonant; hearing it made you feel as if you were in on the joke with him, just a couple of old friends out for a stroll. "Here we are," he said, indicating a thirty-foot cabin cruiser, a solid but slightly shabby vessel, paint peeling, the chrome rails flecked with rust. He took Jimmy's arm, guiding him up the gangplank. "Careful. You trip, I'm going to get sued."
"Hello, Sugar!"
Jimmy looked over, saw three girls in bikinis stretched out on the deck of a large yacht-boat, whatever. It was at least an eighty-footer, with three decks and enough electronics gear to signal the Mars lander.
"What happened to your friend?" called a redhead in a polka-dot bikini, her sunglasses pushed up onto her forehead.
"Sports injury." Sugar gave Jimmy a wink.
Seeing the redhead's sunglasses, Jimmy thought of Walsh… remembered the last time he had seen him, the director floating face-down, maggots wriggling in his hair…
Sugar caught Jimmy as he fell and carried him up the gangplank in his arms while Jimmy mumbled apologies. Sugar told him it was no bother at all and laid him down in an aluminum chaise longue. "You rest. I'll be right back."
Jimmy closed his eyes, drifting… then jerked alert and saw Brimley hovering over him.
"Take it easy, I'm not going to hurt you." Brimley's eyes twinkled as he bent down beside Jimmy carrying a basin of water and an ice bucket, a clean white cloth slung over one shoulder, a couple of long-neck beer bottles poking out of his pockets. He pulled up a chaise, ignoring Jimmy's protestations, and began cleaning his face, gently working the edges of the cloth against Jimmy's nose, dabbing at his split lip. The water in the basin reddened as he wrung the cloth out over and over, his movements tender. When he was finished, Brimley emptied the basin over the side, then filled the cloth with ice cubes and handed it to Jimmy. "Keep that against your eye, otherwise it's going to swell shut on you." He opened one of the beers and gave it to Jimmy, then opened the other. He toasted Jimmy with the bottle and stretched out in the warm sunshine on his own chaise, the nylon webbing groaning with his weight. "Life is sweet, huh?"
Jimmy took a tentative sip. The beer burned his torn lip, but it was cold and soothing and he finished half of it in one long swallow. The taste of blood lingered.
"Those are the Whitmore girls," Sugar said, nodding toward the nearby yacht. "They just moved into Daddy's boat for spring break."
Jimmy looked around at the other boats, the sunlight shimmering off the water.
"Not bad for a retired cop, eh?" Sugar grinned at Jimmy, reading his mind. "Like I said, the marina cuts me a deal. Everybody hates to see a cop in their review mirror, but they love living next door to one." He sipped his beer. "What newspaper you work for?"
"Magazine," Jimmy corrected him. "SLAP."
Sugar lifted an eyebrow. "Never heard of it."
"We do lifestyle coverage mostly. Movies and movie stars, TV, fashion."
Sugar puffed out his chest, his teats jiggling slightly against his shirt. "You want to do a fashion spread on me? You should have warned me-I would have gone on a diet."
"Keep eating. I'm doing a retrospective on Garrett Walsh. I thought I'd look you up and see if I could get a new angle. You were-"
"A new angle? Like what? You going to write a happy ending for the son of a seacook?"
"Little late for that." Jimmy squinted in the sun, trying to keep Sugar in focus. "I've read through Walsh's bio, but there's not much information on the crime itself. His plea bargain short-circuited the coverage, so I thought I'd ask you about-"
"How did you find me?" Sugar scratched his belly. "I'm not trying to hide, but I keep a low profile. You must be a real bloodhound."
"Not me. We have people at the magazine who specialize in locating subjects. I don't know how they do it-I just put in a request."