“Oh, yes. Quite sure. Everything was accounted for. The surprising thing is that our poor boxes weren’t even tampered with, much less broken into. When people feel compelled to force themselves into a church, it is usually to, um, gain the contents of those boxes.”
“But that didn’t happen?”
“No.”
“Was anything done? Anything moved, or replaced? Anything at all out of the ordinary? A note, a stain, a footprint?”
“Definitely not,” said the priest.
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks for your help, Reverend.”
I turned to walk out of the place before he tried to convert me.
“The name is Peter,” he said.
“Rock on, Peter,” I called back.
My chat with Peter proved to be another strike against me, one of about a million I had accrued in the last few weeks. Just as I got home, the phone was ringing. I didn’t want to pick it up, but I just couldn’t help myself.
“Yeah.”
“Welfare can help with your bills,” said the voice.
“I’m going to welfare your fucking face.”
The man laughed, then hung up.
Made me realize that I still had a drink coming to me.
NINETEEN
The man with the broken nose turned when I tapped him on the shoulder. My right hook from hell sent him flying through the air like a kite. He landed on the edge of the pool table, then dropped down to the floor like a bag of wet clothes. His friend from the jail cell got a kick in the balls that brought him to his knees, and the other guy that did the job on me in the parking lot the night before got a left hook to the jaw. He dropped his weight down and brought his shoulder into my guts. The momentum carried me into the edge of the pool table, which screeched back along the floor. I dropped a double-ax-handle onto the back of the man’s neck, and he fell to his knees. A boot to the face left him sleeping on the floor. When I looked up, Curly was running toward the door.
I caught him in the parking lot. He was digging through the trunk of his rust-colored Mercury, and when he set eyes on me, he stepped back from the trunk with the tire iron in his hand. He swung with it once. I ducked under the arc, and then delivered an uppercut that sent him back on his heels. He dropped the tire iron. I grabbed him by the shirt and threw him headfirst into the open trunk, then retrieved the tire iron.
“You got me,” he said, his hands up.
“Give me the fucking keys,” I said.
He fished the car keys out of his pocket and handed them to me. Then I slammed the trunk lid shut. He pounded against it with all his might, but his efforts were futile. I got behind the wheel of the car, guided the car out of the parking lot and into the street, and then turned on the radio. “Take It Easy” by the Eagles was playing. I was always a big Eagles fan, so I turned the volume up as loud as it would go. The sound blocked the noise of the man trying to hammer his way out of the trunk.
The street sloped gently down to the south. With the car in neutral, I pushed it and got it going. After a few steps, the momentum carried it toward the center of town at a slow speed.
I strolled back into the Cowboy’s Cabin and took a seat at the bar on one of the stools. There was this real pretty college girl behind the counter, not the scumbag bartender from the night before. Her mouth hung open in a perfect O. I bet she’d never seen such work done before in her life. Her hair was short and dyed purple. She had on a really tight-fitting Rolling Stones shirt, which I was able to forgive her for because she had big tits. I loved the Eagles, but hated the Stones.
“Hey, darling, what’s your name?”
“Autumn,” she said softly.
“Autumn, I’d like a drink.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she said.
I laughed. “Please?”
A hand came down hard on my shoulder from behind, and a voice said, “Don’t worry, sugar, I’ll keep this guy out of trouble.”
I turned my head, ready to throw down, but it was Anthony Mannuzza, the asshole with the camera.
He was all duded up in black slacks and a crayon-green button-down shirt. The shirt was made of a shiny material, like silk, and hanging from his neck and one wrist were thin gold chains. He wore a gold watch with a sweeping second hand, and his dark hair was slicked back with sweet-smelling oil. His prettyboy Eurotrash face was perfectly shaved and preened, like a broad’s legs. He even pulled some of his eyebrows out to give them that regal look, and he would’ve been a ladykiller if he wasn’t such a goddamn fag.
“Well, if it isn’t Jimmy Olsen. Take any nice funerary pictures
lately?”
He smiled, said, “Oh, you saw that? I was trying to keep myself on the down low.”
“That was a man’s burial, prettyboy.”
“Well, hey, what’s the big deal? There were a hundred fucking guys taking pictures out there. Pearce must’ve been a popular guy.”
“You have no idea.”
“Believe me, I wasn’t taking pictures for me, man. I swear.”
“I know. For the book, right?”
“Right,” he said, smiling. “There you go.”
“Arright, well, I’m gonna have to hit you anyway
“ Autumn cut in with, “Aw, c’mon, don’t start now.”
I said, “Arright, darling. I’ll hold off. For you.”
She smiled. Anthony started breathing again.
“Marley, I think you need to relax,” Anthony said. “I know just the thing.”
I looked at him. He had fire in his eyes.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I said. “You tryin’ to get cute on me?”
We walked out of the Cowboy’s Cabin, and he led me to his Mach 1. I got in the shotgun seat, he got behind the wheel, and we took off.
“I saw what you did to that guy in the parking lot,” he said.
“And?”
“And you’re fucking psychotic. I like it.”
I smiled and lit a cigarette. “That was nothing. You should have seen me when I was your age.”
After about five blocks, we saw the twirling lights of a police cruiser up ahead. As we got closer we saw that the Mercury had plowed through a white picket fence and had come to rest against a parked minivan. The officer was apparently so distracted by the music coming from the stereo—it was “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas and the Papas now—that he didn’t realize a man was locked in the trunk. As we drove by, Anthony lost all composure and laughed so hard that he cried.
He brought me to this little place on the edge of town I’d never even heard of. We pulled up outside the place and there were maybe only three or four cars parked in front. Nice cars, not the usual Toyotas or Fords that dominated the roads of Evelyn. These cars were the few fancy cars in town, the BMWs, the Jaguars, the lone vintage Ferrari painted cherry red no doubt purchased by some pitiful millionaire going through a midlife crisis.
The building was a small log cabin tucked in behind the trees all the way at the end of Liston Street. An electric lantern hung from each side of the wooden door, and that was the only illumination. There was a wood plaque by the door where the mailbox would be. It said “Rose.”
“What the fuck is this,” I said, “a gay bar?”
“No, it’s not a gay bar. I’m not gay, man. I don’t know why you keep saying that.”
“Because you’re a fucking fruit, that’s why.”
“Whatever. I’m not going to argue with you, mister-fucking-violent.”
“Well, what’s the story with this place?”
“You’ll see. But before we go in, tuck that shirt in. They’re kind of picky about appearance.”
I was wearing a pair of dirty blue jeans, a white T-shirt with a pale denim shirt thrown over it. Work boots. “What, are they gonna try to make me put on a fucking jacket with a crest of arms on it?”