"Bullshit," said Milo. "You were settled in for the night, work was the last thing on your mind."
"Bullshit, yourself, I'm a night owl, fucking Batman-Dracula, come alive when the sun goes down. The plan was perfect, only you screwed it by being too smart and switching cars, and now Delaware's out in the cold, man, and if you want to help him, there's only one thing you can do and you better do it quick."
Milo twirled Bosc around, clamped Bosc's gullet at arm's length, aimed the gun at Bosc's groin.
"Go ahead," said Bosc. "Do your thing. I'm gonna hold on to my dignity."
Staring back defiantly.
Sincere.
If the word could be applied to the bastard.
CHAPTER 40
Bert said, "Yes, Aimee, the world is nice. Now how about you and I go over to the café, see if we can bake up something."
Aimee smiled, kissed Bill on the forehead, and padded out of the room without a glance at me. Bert said, "We'll be back in a short while. I'll bring you a sugarless brioche, Bill. Alex, what can I get you?"
"I'm fine."
"I'll get you something. You may be hungry later."
I sat on the bed, opposite the wheelchair. "Good to meet you, Mr…"
"We're the Bakers, now," said Bill. "It was as good a name as any, and it made Aimee smile. Because one thing she could always do was cook and bake."
"Bill Baker."
He grinned and rolled his head. "Sounds like a rich white man, huh? Bill Baker, attorney. Bill Baker, businessman."
"It does have a ring to it," I said.
"It does, indeed." He grew serious. "Before we start, I need you to know something. My Aimee, she's like a kid. Always been different, always been scorned. I used to scorn her, like everyone else. Back when I was pushing dope and her brothers used to buy product from me. I liked selling to them because it was a nice change of pace for a South Central junkie. I'd meet them up in the hills above Bel Air, and it was so gorgeous, nothing like my usual transaction locales. I used to call it the scenic route. Make some quick money and get a tour of the way the other side lives."
The same hills where Bowie Ingalls had died in a single-car encounter with a tree. The boys agreeing to meet him in a familiar spot.
I said, "Did you have lots of clients on the Westside?"
"Enough. Anyway, that's how I met Aimee. Once in a while, the boys would bring her along. When their parents were in Europe or somewhere, which was a lot of the time, those parents were always gone. When they did bring her, they'd leave her in the car and make cruel comments. Embarrassed to be seen with her. To be related to her. I went along with the program. Back then, I had not an atom of compassion in my soul, was hollow, cold, manipulative, thinking only of me, me, me, and not very much of myself, at that. Cause if I'd really thought a lot about myself, I wouldn't have done the things I did."
He raised his arms with effort. Compressed his face and pressed his palms together.
"I was a very bad person, sir. I can't say that I'm a good person, now, and I don't give myself any credit for changing, because it was life that changed me." A slow smile split his head. "How much sin can a blind man with no feet get into? I'd like to think I wouldn't be bad, even with eyes and legs. But I can never be sure. I don't really feel sure of myself, here." One hand lowered laboriously and touched his belly.
He laughed. "Eye for an eye, leg for a leg. I ruined lots of lives, and now I'm paying for it. Almost ruined Aimee's life, too. Gave her dope- big dose of LSD, blotter acid. Her brothers' idea, but I didn't have to be talked into it. We forced her to swallow it, big joke, hahaha. She hollered and fussed and cried, and I stood around laughing with them."
He drew a hand over sightless eyes.
"Poor little thing, hallucinated for four straight days. I think it might've changed her nervous system. Slowed her down even further, made her life even more difficult, and believe me, life had never been easy for that girl. Next time I saw her was her fourth day of freaking out. Garvey and Bobo wanted to score some mushrooms, and I was the candy man and I met them up in the hills the way we always did and there she was, sitting in the back of the car, but not still, like usual. She was rocking and moaning and crying her little eyes out. Garvey and Bobo just laughed, said she'd been tripping heavy since we blotted her, tried to plunge her hand in boiling water, had almost jumped out of a second-story window, they'd finally tied her down to the bed, she hadn't had a bath or eaten. Laughing about it, but they were worried because their parents were coming home and even though their parents didn't like her, they wouldn't have approved. So I brought her down with barbiturates."
"Her parents didn't like her?" I said.
"Not one bit. She was different, looked it, acted it, and they were a nouveau riche family that made a big thing of looking good all the time. Country club and all that. Those boys were bad to the core, but they dressed well and combed their hair and used the right aftershave, and that made everyone happy. Aimee didn't know how to do any of that, couldn't be taught to fake it. She was less than a dog in that family, sir, and Garvey and Bobo took advantage of it. Did stuff and blamed it on her."
"What kind of stuff?" I said.
"Anything that could get 'em in trouble- stealing money, peddling dope on the secondary market to other rich kids, setting fires for fun. They killed a dog, once. Bobo did. Neighbor's dog. Said it barked too much, annoyed him, so he tossed some poison meat at it, and after it died, he and Garvey had Caroline walk by the dog's gate a bunch of times when they were sure the neighbor was watching. So the neighbor would assume. Stuff like that. They bragged to me about it, thought it was funny. They talked about her like she was dirt. I don't know why I started feeling sorry for her 'cause really I was no better than them, but somehow I did. Something about her… I just felt sorry for her, can't explain it."
"Obviously you weren't like them."
"Kind of you to say so, but I know what I was." He removed the mirrored sunglasses, revealed sunken black discs split by comma-shaped slits, scratched the bridge of his nose, replaced the glasses.
"You felt sorry for her and started baby-sitting her," I said.
"No, I did it for the money," he said. "Told the boys I'd hang with her when the parents were out of town if they'd pay me. They laughed, and said, 'You could turn her out, you should pay us, bro,' figuring I wanted to do sexual things to her or maybe I was going to pimp her. And that was agreeable to them. I started coming by the house in my old Mercury Cougar and taking her places."
"She just went along?"
"She was happy to be getting out. And she was like that- easygoing."
"She wasn't in school?"
"Not since fifth grade. Severe learning problems, she was supposed to be tutored but never really was. She still can't really read much or do numbers. All she can do is cook and bake, but man, does she do that good, that's her God-given talent."
"Where'd you take her?" I said.
"Everywhere. The zoo, the beach, parks, she'd keep me company when I did deals. Sometimes we'd just ride around and listen to music. I'd be high, but I never gave her anything again- not after I saw what that blotter did to her. Mostly, I'd talk- trying to teach her stuff. About street signs, the weather, animals. Life. She knew nothing, I never met anyone who knew less about the world. I was no intellectual, just a stupid junkie-pusher, but I had plenty to teach her, which tells you how pathetic her situation was."
He craned his neck. "Could I trouble you for another Diet Snapple, sir? Always thirsty. Sugar-diabetes."
I brought him another open bottle, and he finished it within seconds and handed me the empty. "Thank you much. The thing you should know is I never did anything sexual to her. Not once, never. Not that I get any credit for that. I was a junkie, and you being a doctor knows what that does to your sex urge. Then the diabetes took over, and the plumbing went south, so I haven't been much for sex in a long time. Still, I'd like to think it wouldn't have made a difference. Respecting her, you know? Not taking advantage of her."