I turned to Sammy. ‘Didn’t I just say to let me handle this? Put that gun away and mind your manners.’

  ‘Here they come,’ she sang out, glancing in the direction of the Colonnade.

  I looked. Maybe ten cops were headed our way.

  Sammy put away his gun.

  ‘Denny Bennet is a bad person,’ I announced.

  ‘And your friend has a gun,’ Cheryl countered. ‘That he threatened me with.’

  ‘Damn it, Sammy,’ I muttered.

  ‘We gotta go,’ Sammy said, watching the cops come our way. Then glanced at the kid. ‘Sorry.’

  I was already out the door. I walked slowly toward the rooms of the motel so the cops would think I’d just checked in if they saw me.

  It was a fairly typical motel arrangement. One-story rooms attached side by side, in a single row, a blacktop parking lot.

  Sammy sidled up to me. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Trying not to get arrested, trying to find Denny Bennet, and trying to get the hell out of Atlanta,’ I said softly. ‘In that order.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Good.’

  I didn’t want to look back toward the check-in for the motel because I could hear the cops gathering. I was hoping that the magic words please, thank you, and sorry had done their work with Cheryl. I didn’t feel like trying to outrun Georgia cops.

  I just headed for the closest room with a car parked in front of it. Because sometimes you get lucky.

  I knocked on the door, number seven, as urgently as I could without sounding like I was too much trouble.

  Nothing.

  ‘Denny?’ I called out in a hoarse whisper. ‘The professor from down at the bookstore sent me. Look out your blinds at the check-in. Somebody called the cops on you!’

  Nothing.

  Then the blinds parted just a little. He could see all the cops congregating around Cheryl.

  ‘Jesus,’ said a voice from the room.

  ‘You’ve got, like, ten seconds to come with me and Sammy,’ I said, a little louder. ‘After that we disappear behind the building and you go directly to jail.’

  It was a good bluff. I was certain Denny had done something or other to make him nervous about cops.

  And it worked. The door opened.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  Denny was five-foot-four with a pockmarked face and bloodshot eyes. His nostrils were rimmed in white powder, and he was wearing a torn pink Hawaiian shirt.

  ‘My name is Foggy Moscowitz,’ I said, ‘and I’m in from New York.’

  I figured he would interpret that however he wanted to, and it would mean something to him, because that’s the way a person’s brain works. It makes you see patterns even if there aren’t any there.

  ‘Oh. Jesus. New York.’ He opened the door all the way. ‘Lemme get my stuff.’

  I peered in. The motel room looked like some sort of performance art installation. ‘Den of the Degenerated.’ The bed covers had exploded everywhere, both lamps were on their sides, the phone was off the hook, the television was on, but it was only playing jangled static and white noise.

  Denny gathered his effects, a plaid cloth valise and a London Fog raincoat, and brushed past me at the door.

  ‘This is Sammy,’ I said.

  Sammy waved.

  ‘What do we do?’ Denny asked, wired, ignoring Sammy altogether.

  ‘Around in back and over there to the Colonnade,’ I said like I knew what I was doing.

  ‘The Colonnade?’ he snapped. ‘That’s where all those cops eat!’

  ‘We’re not going into the restaurant,’ I said, headed away from the cops. ‘We’re going to hide behind the dumpsters in back there.’

  I figured that any restaurant would have dumpsters in back. Plus, the cops weren’t really after Denny. And it appeared that Cheryl had been true to her word. They weren’t looking our way at all. A couple of them were even laughing. Good old Cheryl.

  But it was enough for Denny. He picked up his pace, I glanced at Sammy, he shrugged, and off we went.

  FIFTEEN

  There were, indeed, dumpsters behind the Colonnade. Behind the dumpsters there were trees. In front of the dumpsters there was cratered blacktop. And in the air, something I’d never experienced before.

  ‘What is that smell?’ I whispered as we got closer to the dumpsters.

  ‘Day-old coleslaw,’ Denny answered absently. ‘How long do we gotta stay here?’

  Sammy produced his Colt once more. ‘Just until you give us the money you owe Tree,’ Sammy said calmly.

  Denny looked at the Colt. Then he looked at me. Then he nodded.

  ‘Right. Tree sent you. Right. OK.’ He set down his valise. ‘I got it. I got it right here.’

  Denny knelt. He zipped open the valise. Only instead of money for Tree, he came out with the meanest looking automatic pistol I’d ever seen. He fired right away, and Sammy went down.

  I moved just as the first shots went off. I went to Denny’s left, then down. I was on my side on the blacktop and rolling into him. I hit his left shin hard just as the burst from his gun was finishing. He lurched forward, over the valise and nose down on the pavement.

  I kept rolling and managed to roll up behind Denny. But he flipped, lying on his back and aimed the pistol at me.

  I was close to his valise and I kicked it hard. All kinds of stuff went flying into the air and he was confused. He still shot, but the shot was wild.

  I jumped and landed on his leg; kicked him underneath his chin. I heard a crunch and Denny howled, but he was still waving that pistol around.

  I kicked again, trying to knock the gun out of his hand, but I lost my balance and ended up on my back right next to him.

  He sat up and put the barrel of the gun right on my cheek. I slapped it away just as the shots went off.

  He tried to stand, but his leg was wonky. I didn’t think I’d broken it, but it couldn’t have felt good.

  I scrambled up and grabbed the London Fog raincoat he’d dropped beside his case. I whipped it around and slapped his face with it, whirled it around and slapped his hand. Then I tossed it over his head and jumped to my right. He shot once more, wildly, with the raincoat covering his head.

  I was standing beside him, waiting for the hail of bullets to stop. When it did, I kicked his left leg out from under him and he went down, still tangled up in the raincoat.

  His hand was waving, and I guess he was trying to get off another round, but all I had to do was grab the gun out of his hand. I didn’t have to kick him in the side, but it seemed like the right thing to do under the circumstances.

  I took a couple of steps back and looked over at Sammy. He was sitting up holding his chest.

  ‘Samuel?’ I asked tentatively.

  ‘Vest,’ he gasped. ‘Hurts. Not shot.’

  He was struggling for breath, but there wasn’t any blood.

  ‘You’re wearing a vest?’

  He nodded. ‘Tree gave it to me.’ Big breath. ‘Said Denny might … might …’

  ‘OK.’ I shook my head. ‘So, thanks for warning me about that.’

  I looked down at the gun.

  ‘What the hell is this thing?’ I went on.

  ‘It’s a PM-63 RAK,’ Denny said, struggling to get out from under the raincoat. ‘I got it in ’Nam.’

  Sammy leaned toward me. ‘What the hell is that thing?’ he repeated.

  ‘It’s, like, a commando gun,’ Denny explained. His jaw was already beginning to swell and turn purple. ‘A hand-held automatic. Polish.’

  ‘You got this in Vietnam?’ I asked.

  Denny nodded. ‘I think you broke a rib.’

  ‘You’re a vet?’ Sammy asked.

  ‘Two years in hell,’ he said. ‘Look, keep it. Keep the gun. Sell it. You’ll get more for it than I owe Tree. Or, you know, see if Tree maybe wants it instead of his money. I used to think I needed it to protect myself. Obviously, that don’t work out for me too well.’

  ‘You don’t just have the money?’ Sammy asked. ‘It would be so much simpler.’

  ‘No,’ Denny answered, irritated. ‘I don’t just have the money.’

  I glanced over at his suitcase and the stuff that used to be inside of it. In addition to the expected socks and underwear, there were three large baggies nearly filled with powdered sugar. Only I knew it wasn’t powdered sugar.

  ‘That’s a lot of coke,’ I said.

  ‘Used to be a lot more.’ Denny bit his lip. ‘I’m my own best customer.’

  ‘Look,’ Sammy said, struggling to his feet. ‘I want to sort this all out, but we just fired off an automatic weapon and there’s an army of cops about a hundred yards away. In case they’re headed our way, shouldn’t we …?’

  I nodded, wrapped Denny’s gun in his raincoat, and tucked it under my arm.

  Denny was already gathering up the rest of his stuff.

  I looked around, scouting out our perfect exit. On the other side of the Colonnade and a quick jaunt down Cheshire Bridge, I could see a couple of massage parlors. Any port in a storm.

  We were gone in the next ten seconds, but the smell of rotting coleslaw came with us for a little while.

  Half a block down, and we ducked into a storefront called, apparently, ‘Girls-Girls-Girls-Massage-Fun!’ The reception area was only slightly larger than a closet and the walls had rose wallpaper on them. There was a half-dressed blond Asian woman at a counter and a gigantic, tattooed gentleman sitting in a chair behind her in the corner. He was fully dressed, but he was half asleep. Behind them both was a double doorway with a burgundy curtain in front of it.

  ‘Hey, boys,’ the Asian woman said. ‘Chaunt?’

  All right, then, she had the most southern accent I’d ever heard. I had no idea what chaunt meant, so I repeated it.

  ‘Chaunt?’

  ‘What do you want,’ Denny translated, whispering.

  ‘Oh.’ I nodded. ‘Would you happen to have three … um, rooms open at the moment?’

  ‘Salons are twenty-five dollars up front,’ she said amiably, ‘and the rest depends on what you select from the menu.’

  She tapped a laminated piece of paper on the counter in front of her. Just like a menu. Only it was filled with phrases that were written in English but otherwise held no meaning for me whatsoever in the current context. Half and half and Torn and Denial and Super Happy.

  Sammy was already shelling out seventy-five bucks.

  ‘Let’s see where the afternoon takes us,’ he said, smiling.

  The girl shrugged. The bouncer leaned back and closed his eyes again, and a hostess appeared from behind the burgundy curtain. She was barely over four feet tall and if she was eighteen then I was eighty. She was wearing a white bikini and flip-flops, and her hair was cut short, Twiggy short.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ she said in a hoarse voice.

  We followed her down a short dark hallway until we got to several doors. She stopped, so we did too.

  She tapped on the door to her right. It opened. Another teenager with long black hair, dressed in a sheer, short nightgown, stood there looking us over.

  After a second, she said, ‘Well, somebody come in.’

  I nudged Denny, he took a step, and I followed.

  ‘Two at once is extra,’ the hostess said.

  I nodded. ‘Understood.’

  Sammy stuck out his lower lip. ‘I’ll be across the hall.’

  The hostess tapped on that door, it opened, and Sammy went in.

  The room for Denny and me was only a little larger than the reception area. The walls had the same rose wallpaper on them. There was a fairly genuine massage table on one side and two comfortable looking vinyl chairs on the other, and a large, floor-to-ceiling cabinet in one corner. The hostess closed the door behind us, and the long-haired girl moved to take off the top of her nightgown.

  ‘Hold it,’ I said. ‘We actually just want to sit here and rest for a while.’

  She froze. ‘Are you two guys cops?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  Denny sat down in one of the chairs. ‘He works for Tree.’

  She relaxed. Almost smiled. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Mr Wonderful, here,’ I said, inclining my head toward Denny, ‘took some money from Tree and my friend and I were sent to retrieve it.’

  ‘Only I don’t got the money,’ Denny explained. ‘And there’s cops from the Colonnade over there at the Motor Inn.’

  ‘So we came in here to … rest,’ I concluded, ‘and think about what to do.’

  She relaxed all the way, readjusted her nightgown top, and leaned against the table.

  ‘I don’t do this all the time, you know,’ she said, only a little defensively. ‘I go to college. Georgia State.’

  I took a seat. ‘I never went to school. But I read a lot.’

  She almost smiled again. ‘I love to read. That’s my major, which is English.’

  ‘You already speak English pretty well to me,’ I cracked.

  ‘Ha-ha,’ she said, without a hint of mirth. ‘English Literature. I’m reading Chaucer now.’

  ‘Canterbury Tales,’ I said. ‘I read that. Took me forever.’

  She boosted herself up to sit on the table, folded her hands in her lap, and said, ‘Whan that Aprill with his shoures sote the droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote …’

  ‘Stop,’ I told her, smiling. ‘That right there, that’s what slowed me down. Middle English. I had to go back to the library and get the CliffsNotes to figure out …’

  ‘It just says, “When April showers drench March roots …”’ she explained simply.

  ‘Exactly.’ I sat back. ‘And after I finished the first couple of lines like that, I figured that the guy’s point, Chaucer’s point, is that after you’ve been cooped up in the house all winter, you get itchy to get out and take a nice long Spring walk, right?’

  ‘Exactly!’ Big smile at last. ‘Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages!’

  ‘What the hell?’ Denny exploded.

  We both looked at him.

  ‘I mean,’ he said, a little softer, ‘are we gonna get some action here or not?’

  ‘Not,’ I said instantly, leaning my head toward the girl. ‘My friend and I are trying to talk about literature. That’s it, get me?’

  ‘But … we already paid,’ he said, lost.

  ‘Doreen,’ the girl said.

  I turned to her.

  ‘That’s my name,’ she told me.

  ‘Ah. I’m Foggy.’

  She laughed. ‘That’s your name? Lordy.’

  I sat up. ‘It’s actually Fyvush, wise guy, but I’ve been called Foggy since I was three, so.’

  ‘Foggy.’ She shook her head.

  ‘We already paid,’ Denny repeated.

  I laid the London Fog raincoat in my lap. Denny knew his gun was in it.

  ‘We’re just going to sit here, Denny,’ I said, ‘until I think the coast is clear, and then we’re all going to where Sammy is staying, and we’re going to wait for Tree.’

  ‘I like Tree,’ Doreen volunteered.

  ‘Me too,’ I said.

  ‘Tree’s a psychopath!’ Denny complained.

  Before I could respond, there was a knock on the door.

  ‘Cops,’ Sammy whispered. ‘I can hear them up front in the reception area.’

  Doreen hopped down off the table. ‘Cabinet.’

  I nodded. ‘How do you mean?’

  She opened the door to let Sammy in. ‘This happens all the time. We have several … sensitive clients.’

  ‘Sensitive?’

  ‘A state senator and two judges, off the top of my head.’ She went to the cabinet and opened it. Then she fussed with something in the cabinet and she stood back.

  I peered in. The cabinet had a false back that opened, like another little door, into what looked like a dark narrow hall.

  ‘What’s that?’ Denny asked. His voice wavered.

  ‘It’s the way out,’ Doreen answered, a little impatiently. ‘Lets you out behind the building. Go across Welbourne Drive and through a couple of trees into Nino’s parking lot. Go in. Have a little nice Italian nosh, right?’

  I smiled at Doreen. ‘You’re kind of great, you know.’

  She smiled back. ‘Anything for a fellow Chaucer lover.’

  ‘Christ,’ Denny moaned.

  I muscled him in front of me and into the cabinet, then I followed. Sammy followed me. The unlit passageway was barely wide enough. Sammy had to turn sideways. But it was only maybe twenty yards to a dead-end.

  Denny panicked. ‘We’re trapped!’

  I reached over his shoulder and shoved on the wall in front of him. It clicked open and swung out. The sun poured in.

  ‘Move.’ I gave Denny a little shove.

  In seconds, the three of us were outside in the hot sunlight. A few yards away there was a street that ran into Cheshire Bridge. Across that street was a parking lot and Nino’s Italian restaurant.

  ‘I could go for a little something Saltimbocca,’ Sammy allowed.

  ‘In this humidity?’ I shook my head. ‘All I want is a gin and tonic.’

  Sammy headed for Nino’s. ‘Maybe they have a bar.’

  SIXTEEN

  Nino’s wasn’t open, and the sun was almost gone.

  We stood around in the parking lot looking conspicuous in the extreme, even in the dim light. I was about to rail significantly about the lack of cabs on Cheshire Bridge when Sammy started walking toward that very street.

  ‘It’s the bus.’ He pointed down the street and there it was, lumbering our way.

  ‘I’m not getting on the bus with a gun and a lot of cocaine,’ Denny complained.

  Sammy looked at him. ‘Why not?’

  He squirmed. ‘I got a weird kind of claustrophobia. Plus, the bus smells bad.’

  I shoved him toward the bus stop. ‘Couldn’t be any worse than that coleslaw smell.’

  The bus wheezed and began to slow down. We stood at the stop. Sammy reached into his pocket for a handful of coins. In short order we were headed up Cheshire Bridge toward Piedmont Road before we even sat down. And, in fact, it didn’t smell all that bad.

 

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