The Fallen
- Автор: Паркер Т. Джефферсон
- Год: 2006
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- ISBN: 978-0-06-056238-0
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Fallen». Краткое содержание книги:
In gangland’s code of honor, you answer a mad dog with a bullet. If you don’t, you’re not respected.
“Yeah, you owed him a bullet, didn’t you?”
He was already shaking his head. “Someone beat me to it.”
“What did Jordan and Garrett do that night you saw them together?”
“Drank at a booth in the back. Watched the people dance. About an hour, then he left.”
“Without her?”
“Alone, man. On the way out he came up behind me and whispered some shit in my ear.”
“What, exactly?”
“I just ran out of memory. What a time.”
We were on closed-circuit TV, of course. But I’d asked the sergeant at the Professional Visits window if I could offer the arrestee a small amount of cash to pay for material comforts in the jail. The sergeant had agreed.
“Here’s twenty,” I said.
“Forty.”
“Don’t get greedy, Junior.”
I folded the bill over twice and watched his hand closely as it unlocked itself from the bar, reached through, and took it.
“He said if I ever touched another Squeaky Clean girl he’d put a cap in my ass and dump me in the bay,” said Chupa.
“Wouldn’t that just be great?” I asked.
He gave me a confused smile. It’s funny how simple, straightforward sarcasm can throw a street-smart thug like Chupa Junior. But his smile quickly became genuine, full of mirth and violence.
“How many of those girls have you touched?” I asked.
He shook his head. “None. Don’t know where that pendejo got his ideas.”
“But everybody knows you smack the girls around when they get out of line,” I said.
“Man, I’m going to tell you what I’m going to tell you. I don’t know anything about Squeaky Clean girls. I don’t know anything about Squeaky Clean except that her name is Jordan and she pays me thirty an hour to keep the Indigo smooth, quiet, and making money.”
The red squares of deception rushed out of him. They were bigger than most I’d seen, and their sides were slightly dipped, concave, as if bowing from Chupa’s enormous weight. They just kept coming.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing, Chupa.”
“Call me Mr. Avalos.”
I looked at him. I like tough guys who give you trouble better than the weaklings who roll over and tremble and stab you when you turn your back for one second. With guys like Chupa, you always know where you stand and what your mission is.
“You weigh three hundred?” I asked.
“What do you care?”
“I just wondered, how much did you drink to blow a point two-four?”
“Most of a case of Bud.”
“Wow.”
“Couple shots of tequila.”
“Ouch.”
“Some bourbon.”
Chupa Junior gave me another flat, contained stare, then turned and went back to his cot. The flesh piled up on the back of his shaved neck like a folded set of bath towels. The steel bed squeaked with his weight.
“I worked the Indigo the night your boyfriend got his mind blown. Stayed around for drinks after. Girl named Dolly came home with me. She’s one of the waitresses. Ask Jordan. She was there.”
“I’ll be checking that story, Chupa.”
“You do that, man.”
“Vice would love to make you a deal for Squeaky Clean,” I said. “They’d make this DUI disappear in a hurry.”
“Roll over on a friend for a DUI? What kind of man does that? Jordan’s right. I got my own sense of right and wrong. Even if I wanted to lay her out for you, I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen a Squeaky Clean girl. Know what this Squeaky Clean shit really is? It’s what the hos make up on slow nights to give themselves a little shine. Makes them feel like they’re part of a secret organization and the organization has got this big mean fucker who’ll rip ’em up if they don’t follow the rules. Chupacabra, man, a goatsucker. It’s made up. It isn’t true. There’s no such thing. It’s the same as in the ’hood when you’re a kid, man — there’s always the monsters and the stories and the bullshit. It’s all a bunch of bullshit, man. You ought to know that.”
During the first part of Chupa’s monologue, the air was vibrant with his concave red squares. By the time he got to the end of it, they were gone.
“I guess the Squeaky Cleans I talk to are just swamp gas,” I said.
“And all you are is a sucker who laid out twenty for nothing. That’s all you’re going to get from me. Unless, you know, the situation is perfect.”
“Talk to me about perfect.”
“Some night when everything’s right, man, maybe I catch you alone in your car, reach in with a piece and do some window painting with your brains.”
“That’s a knee-slapper. Tell me another one.”
“Cost you forty.”
“My wallet’s as empty as your future, Chupa. Enjoy the hangover.”
I stopped by the office of San Diego Monthly magazine and bought the January issue, which had a photo spread on December’s “Fifty San Diegans to Watch” party. If that was really where Jordan Sheehan had lost the earring that ended up in Garrett’s Explorer, maybe I could figure out who had picked it up. The idea of a killer’s being among the Fifty San Diegans to Watch intrigued me but seemed highly unlikely.
Back at my desk, I looked at the pictures and read the article. I had been named such a person back in 2003, having miraculously survived the Las Palmas fall and been promoted twice within six months.
Gina and I attended the party at the end of that year, and we were treated wonderfully by the publishers of the magazine, the other “Fifty,” and the many partygoers. Gina pretty much stole the show away from me, for which I was thankful. She was at her best, simply beautiful, full of radiant nonchalance and smart-aleck attitude. When people found out she was a Salon Sultra stylist, many of them wanted to know what she would do with their hair. Stylists often run across this at parties, just as doctors are asked about ailments and stockbrokers for hot picks. So Gina delivered her hairstyle tips that night with plenty of chipper comments about who was cutting their hair now and what were they trying to accomplish — No, no, no, don’t answer that — but nobody took offense and over the next week Gina actually got several calls from society-type San Diego women who wanted her to style their hair.
My parents were there, though they huddled together in a corner almost the entire night, dazzled by the local celebrity. That was the only time I’d ever seen my mother too nervous to smile for a picture. I’ll never forget the pride in their faces as I was introduced as one of the Fifty San Diegans to Watch, though Mom told me later she was really just glad I was still alive. Dad said it was one of the top ten events of his life, and we had a revealing discussion one night about the other nine. Gina and I celebrated privately after the party in a suite at the Hilton, which cost us almost four hundred dollars and was totally worth it. She had arranged for a bottle of Dom Pérignon to be there waiting for us but that was the least of the pleasures I remember.
I looked out the window of the Homicide room and thought about that night. Because of what had happened at the Las Palmas, I was no longer surprised by how quickly things can change. John Van Flyke certainly had that right. But I thought of Gina at that party two years ago, and I thought of her now, and I couldn’t help but feel flabbergasted that something so large and precious and wonderful in her could have gone away in what seemed an instant.