Sammy two shoes, p.8
Sammy Two Shoes, page 8
But that thought evaporated when I heard a low growling coming up the stairs and Dr Short Pants appeared in the doorway with a baseball bat in his hands and a deranged look on his face.
No words; he just lunged. Once again, old instincts took over. I kicked the guy right in his short pants. Really hard. Twice.
When he went to his knees making a squeaky sound, I snatched the bat away from him and bopped him, just once, on the back of the head.
Seconds later two other denizens of the apartment below appeared. One of them had a gun. The other one had a fried chicken leg.
The one with the gun had wild eyes, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He had maybe a dozen needle marks on his stomach and plenty more on both arms. The guy with the chicken looked sleepy.
‘Sorry about your friend,’ I began.
‘You don’t know Tree,’ the guy with the gun announced.
‘What makes you think that?’ I asked.
Chicken leg glanced down at the unconscious Dr Short Pants. ‘He said.’
‘Plus, you dress like a queer,’ Gun guy snorted. ‘Tree don’t know no queers.’
I shook my head. ‘My suit isn’t fashionable enough to be seen on any self-respecting gay man that I know. But it’s good enough for a cop.’
I swung the bat backhanded, like a tennis racket, and knocked the gun out of the guy’s hand. It flew up, dented the ceiling, and cracked down on the hardwood floor just a few feet from the entrance to the kitchen.
The guy yowled like I’d chopped his hand off. Chicken leg just froze, staring.
Then he said, ‘Cop?’
I whipped out my Child Protective badge and then put it away really quickly. They were too far gone to have seen what it really was, and too experienced with law enforcement to give me any more trouble.
‘Come on in,’ I beckoned. ‘Have a seat on the sofa.’
They did, in kind of a daze.
I backed up, picked up the gun and put it in my suit coat pocket.
‘There was really no need for all of this,’ I explained to them. ‘I’m friends with the guy who is currently staying in this apartment. I came here from New York to see him. It’s important.’
Neither guy on the sofa said a word. Dr Short Pants groaned.
‘Do you know where he is?’ I asked.
‘Who?’ Chicken leg peeped.
‘The guy who’s staying here,’ I said, maybe a little impatiently.
‘Oh.’ Chicken leg looked at Gun guy. ‘Do we know where he is?’
‘Yesterday around four o’clock,’ Gun guy said, blinking like a strobe light, ‘he made a big bowl of yogurt and honey and brought it down to us. It’s so good.’
It made sense that Sammy had figured out how to make friends with his junkie watchdogs. Stood to reason. All the junkies I knew were partial to sweets, and yogurt’s good for the digestion.
‘My nuts,’ Dr Short Pants moaned.
I was beginning to see that it might be a bit more difficult to extract information from these boys than I might have thought. I backed away again and leaned the baseball bat against the wall.
‘All I want to know …’ I began again.
‘Tree’s gonna kick your ice,’ Gun guy muttered.
Took me a full three seconds to get that ice was ass.
‘Nice accent,’ I told him. ‘I guess you’re a Georgia boy.’
‘Valdosta,’ he told me.
I didn’t know what that was, and I didn’t care.
‘Well, Georgia boy,’ I said. ‘I already told the guy on the floor that Tree and I are friends.’
Gun guy laughed. ‘Guess we’ll see about that.’
He looked sideways at Chicken leg. Chicken leg looked down, a little smile on his face and said, ‘Any minute now.’
‘Tree’s coming here,’ I surmised.
‘It’s rent day,’ Chicken leg told me.
‘Tree collects the rent?’ I looked around. ‘I thought he was with that biker gang, the Outlaws.’
Chicken leg looked lost for a second. Then he repeated, ‘It’s rent day.’
Once again, I realized the futility of trying to get any real information out of these guys, and that reminder came just as I heard someone else coming up the stairs. I put my hand in the pocket with the gun, and then I heard the voice.
‘Y’all up there?’
It was the deepest human voice I’d ever heard. And it was followed by a vision. Suddenly standing in the doorway was Goliath. Goliath in jeans, and a T-shirt with a leather vest over it. And boots the size of a medium dog.
He was stooped over because he was at least seven feet tall, and the door frame had been built for people under six.
The boys on the sofa were looking down. The guy on the floor pretended to be unconscious.
‘Um,’ the giant said.
‘I’m Foggy Moscowitz,’ I told him steadily. ‘Shayna says hello.’
He grinned. ‘Shayna!’
He made his way through the door. It wasn’t easy.
‘I was just up here waiting for Sammy Two Shoes when these locals paid me a visit,’ I went on.
He nodded. ‘Yeah, that sounds right. Boys? Git.’
All three of the boys jumped like they’d been electrocuted and scrambled, a little like cartoons, past the giant and out the door.
‘May I call you Tree?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Everybody else does, little buddy. How you know Shayna?’
Little buddy. Right. I was extremely happy to be this guy’s little buddy.
‘She’s my aunt.’
‘No shit!’ He nodded.
‘How about you?’
‘Oh. Um. Business, I guess. Shayna knows Candice. Candida. Candida is associated, occasionally, with associates of mine. I never actually met her. Shayna, I mean. She’s, like, a ball of fire, right?’
‘She is,’ I confirmed.
‘I love talking to her on the phone.’ He nodded again. ‘So, Shayna’s your aunt, which means your mama was married to one badass Jew in Brooklyn.’
How did he know that?
‘That’s what they tell me,’ I said. ‘I never really knew him.’
‘Yeah. You got a nice rep yourself, though. Saving little kids. I like that. You’re like that guy … you ever read that book Catcher in the Rye?’
I was about to say something stupid, like, ‘Everybody’s read Catcher in the Rye,’ when Sammy appeared at the top of the stairs with a Colt Python in his hand. He was wearing the salt and pepper suit. He looked even more out of place than I did, which was an accomplishment.
Now, the Colt Python was a six-shooter and a popular gun in the movies. It made a nice first impression.
Tree just stared at it, smiling.
‘Hey, Sammy,’ I said, before anything got out of hand.
Sammy lowered the gun. ‘I heard voices in my apartment. Sorry. Hello, Tree. Hi, Foggy. What the hell are you doing here? I’m busy.’
I was in a hurry to get back to the city, so I abbreviated.
‘OK, this is the thing,’ I began. ‘You didn’t kill anybody. Emory was already dead when you stabbed her with the pencil.’
‘Jesus.’ Tree squinted. ‘I gotta hear that story.’
‘Maybe another time.’ Sammy put his gun away and looked at me with a lot of pain in his eyes. ‘What about Phoebe?’
‘That’s another thing,’ I said. ‘You really ought to come back to New York, like, immediately, because Phoebe’s lawyer said so. See …’
‘He’s not going anywhere,’ Tree interrupted calmly. ‘He’s got work here.’
I nodded. ‘Right, but, see, that work, it was just a ruse.’
‘A what?’ Tree asked me, still very sedately.
‘The work, whatever it was, only existed to support Sammy while he was here in Atlanta. Something Shayna set up, right? But since he’s going back to New York …’
‘He’s not going back to New York, or anywhere else, until he finishes his work here. I mean, I can see that from your point of view, his work may have been a ruse. But from my point of view, I don’t care. He’s got a job to do and until he does it, he stays here. Me and Shayna had a deal. That’s the end of the story, like.’
I took in a long breath. It was clear Tree meant business. And even if I was his little buddy, I had the impression that he wouldn’t hesitate to knock me into next week if I went up against him. The guy was a tank. A tank with a howitzer in each hand. Also, his implacable demeanor scared me. I knew guys in Brooklyn who had the same gestalt: cooler than a bushel of cucumbers because they knew they could kill you with one finger. No fear, no scruples, no remorse. In other words, by the time I let out my breath, I knew Tree was right. Sammy wasn’t going anywhere until Tree said so.
‘So, Sammy,’ I announced amiably, ‘what’s the job, and how can I help?’
‘There you go,’ Tree said happily.
‘No,’ said Sammy. ‘Foggy’s out of that world. He’s legit in the extreme, and I’m not gonna mess that up. He just came down here to get me, which was nice of him and I’ll thank him for that later. But he’d be out of his mind to get involved with this.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Tree said reasonably, ‘but, you know, if he wants to …’
‘Maybe you could both stop talking about me like I’m not here,’ I interrupted, ‘and, Sammy, maybe you could let me make up my own mind about my own mind, right?’
‘You don’t understand, Foggy,’ Sammy began.
‘What’s the job, Tree?’ I insisted.
‘OK.’ Tree settled. ‘How can I put this? A guy owes another guy some money, a lot of money, and the first guy has, like, split.’
‘And you wanted Sammy to find the guy who owes the money so that he can pay the other guy,’ I said.
‘Well, OK, the other guy is me. But the problem is that I’m, like, up to my ass in another situation, you know? I don’t have time to run all over town looking for some pissant welcher. Shayna says give this Sammy guy a job, so that’s the job.’
‘Find the welcher,’ I concluded.
‘Right.’ Tree nodded. ‘I already gave Sammy the name and, like, the places he’s likely to be. It’s an easy gig.’
‘There.’ I turned to Sammy. ‘How hard can that be? Especially if the two of us are working on it together.’
Sammy groaned like an old door hinge, but after that, he nodded.
‘What’s the welcher’s name?’ I asked.
‘Denny Bennet,’ Sammy said, resigned.
‘Works in one of Mike’s adult peep show stores on Cheshire Bridge,’ Tree added. ‘Mike, Shayna’s friend. Sammy’s boss. My boss.’
I nodded.
‘You got a car?’ I asked Sammy.
He shook his head. ‘But I know how to get there on the bus.’
‘The bus?’ I looked at Tree.
Tree shrugged. ‘I offered him a sweet little Harley. SR-750. Just come out.’
‘I’m gonna ride a motorcycle?’ Sammy asked me.
‘Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing either one of us would do,’ I agreed. ‘Which way to the nearest bus stop?’
Tree smiled and made his way out the door. I took a last look around Sammy’s digs.
‘Nice place,’ I told him.
He agreed. ‘When the guys downstairs are asleep, I feel like I’m at my grandma’s.’
I was out the door and halfway down the stairs before I thought to ask Sammy, ‘How do you know how to get to this adult entertainment place on the bus?’
‘Tree told me,’ Sammy said, ‘right after I wouldn’t get on his motorcycle.’
‘OK,’ I said, ‘let’s go nab the poor slob who owes Tree money.’
‘The original job I was offered,’ Sammy explained as we walked up Dickson Place, ‘was working the counter at the bookstore where this Denny guy also works. But I asked Tree if he had something a little less sedentary. Hence, nabbing the welcher.’
‘Ah.’ I’d wondered why Shayna had set Sammy up as a debt collector. But she hadn’t. She’d set him up in sales. And Sammy wasn’t much of a salesman.
FOURTEEN
The so-called ‘bookstore’ on the upscale-sounding Cheshire Bridge was one of the most depressing places I’d ever been. And I’d been in trailers owned by child abusers. And deserted Seminole villages where hundreds of people had been murdered in their sleep. And jail. That store in Atlanta had them all beat in the first three seconds. Low light, black walls, sticky floors, stale air, and porn. It was an overcast sunset outside; inside it was midnight in the unfinished corner of creation. Florescent lights didn’t help the gloom, and they blinked off and back on every once in a while.
There were only two customers. One was a pimply kid in a bowling shirt, the other was an older man in a cheap suit, who walked with a limp.
At the back of the store there was a door that said Peep Shows! 25¢!
Behind the counter was a beer belly attached to a bald smoking machine. The guy had one burning in the ash tray and another dangling from his lips. He was wearing a T-shirt that said ‘What?’ on it, and the shirt didn’t even try to cover his belly button.
He looked up from the book he was reading. ‘Hey, you’re Tree’s new guy. He told me you were too good to work here.’
‘Is this the guy?’ I asked Sammy. ‘Is this Denny?’
Couldn’t be that easy, could it?
‘This is Blay,’ Sammy said, shaking his head. ‘Tree told me about him.’
Blay glanced my way. ‘And?’
‘Gotta see Denny Bennet,’ Sammy said softly.
‘You and me both,’ Blay snapped. ‘He’s supposed to be working tonight.’
‘But he didn’t show,’ Sammy surmised.
‘Do you see him here?’ Blay was irritated.
‘OK,’ Sammy told him, ‘I’m gonna need his address or his phone number or something.’
‘Why?’
‘Tree said,’ Sammy answered, even softer.
Blay glanced up at the surveillance camera that was pointed his way. Then he slapped his book face-down on the counter and swiveled off his chair. I looked down at his book. It was Nausea by Sartre. When he came back, he had a torn piece of paper that he handed to Sammy without a word.
I couldn’t help myself. ‘You’re reading Sartre,’ I said to him, but I sounded more surprised than I’d intended to.
He paused, then grabbed some ferocious eye contact.
‘I taught World Literature at Georgia State University for eleven years,’ he growled, ‘until they found out I was also working with the local branch of the Weathermen.’
‘The radical left guys?
He nodded. ‘We were going to blow up the Muzak center here in Atlanta.’
I blinked. ‘Why?’
‘Because having to listen to that crap all day in an office,’ he explained, ‘is cruel and unusual punishment, and it was driving the straights crazy. We were going to do it for the workers, man.’
I nodded slowly because I didn’t disagree.
‘And I’ve read Nausea about a hundred times,’ he concluded.
‘A hundred times.’ I tried to sound impressed instead of sad.
He looked back down at the book. ‘Just keeps getting funnier every time I read it.’
‘One of my favorite lines of all time comes from that book,’ I said, thinking I might impress the guy, for some reason. ‘Sartre says, “I do not think, therefore I am a moustache.”’
He didn’t look up. ‘The only perfect refutation of Descartes.’
‘Can we go?’ Sammy said to me.
I stared at Blay for another second, going over the concept of judging a book by its cover, but in Blay’s case it seemed like too complicated an issue.
‘Yeah.’ I headed for the door.
Standing outside, watching the cars on Cheshire Bridge, Sammy stared down at the note he’d gotten from Blay.
‘What does it say?’ I asked him.
‘Cheshire Motor Inn,’ he told me, pocketing the piece of paper.
We looked up and down the street, and after a few minutes I saw the sign maybe a quarter of a mile away going west.
We walked by three more adult bookstores and two massage parlors until we came to The Colonnade, a crowded restaurant next to the Cheshire Motor Inn. There was a line just to get into the waiting room of the restaurant, but the motel looked nearly deserted.
‘Why don’t you let me take a crack at this,’ I told Sammy.
We got to the check-in at the motel, a little eight by ten room with beige walls and an indoor/outdoor rug. There was a young woman lounging behind the counter watching television.
I zipped up and flashed my badge. She stared, sighed, and stood up slowly.
She was in her twenties, wearing a blue tank top and white shorts with flip-flops. Her hair was in a ponytail and her eyes were framed by clotted mascara.
‘How may I help you?’ She wore a name pin that said Cheryl on it, and she had the most southern accent I’d ever heard. It took me a second to decipher it.
‘I need to know what room Denny Bennet is in, please,’ I said.
She tilted her head. ‘Please?’
‘And thank you,’ I added. ‘Cheryl.’
She gave me the once-over. ‘You are not a policeman.’
‘I’m an investigator for Child Protective Services,’ I said quickly, ‘and I need to know what room Denny Bennet is in.’
‘Child what?’ Cheryl said.
Sammy stepped up to the counter and showed the kid his Colt. ‘Denny Bennet. Now.’
Cheryl stared at Sammy’s gun with an impressive degree of composure. She blinked once, then looked down at something behind the counter.
When she looked back up, it was right into Sammy’s eyes. ‘I’ve just mashed the little silent alarm here. It’s a whole lot of cops over next door at the Colonnade? They love me. Whole bunch right there in the waiting room. I’d be surprised if it took more than two minutes for about a hundred of them to be here. If you walk out right now, I’ll tell my friends that it was a homeless man in here making threats, and you two can be on your way. Or stay right here, that little pistol in your hand, and get all shot up by some trigger-happy lawman.’
