—but to Kyle the back of her hand felt cool and soothing, until she pressed down hard and he felt a squirt of pain.
“Call it Darryl,” said Kyle, jerking his head away and feeling his cracked ribs shiver within his chest. He grunted and gritted his teeth until the pain turned into a dull ache. “I used to have a pet mouse named Darryl.”
“What happened to him?”
“My mom buried him in the backyard of my house, next to Swimmy the fish.”
“You want to tell me what happened?”
“I think the cat broke its neck.”
“I mean to you.”
“Not really.”
“Why not, baby?”
He smiled and it hurt, but he couldn’t help himself. “Baby?”
“Yeah, baby,” she said, leaning forward now, staring right at him so that Kyle could see the golden flecks in her pretty brown eyes. “That’s what I say when I see fear leaking out of some poor kid’s eyes. And right now you are such a baby.”
“Then that’s your answer right there,” said Kyle, turning his head aside, and it was. He wasn’t going to tell her what happened, because he was afraid, afraid if he started blabbing those comical goons would come back and finish the job.
The moment he had spied Vern with that baseball bat, he sensed how much trouble he was in. He spun around to run, but as he turned, one of the two squinty guys from the front, standing behind him all the time, threw a steel garbage can at Kyle’s feet. The can flipped his legs into the air and sent him sprawling to the ground, where the other fat man from the front stomped hard on his chest.
Kyle instinctively curled up like a pill bug as the kicks came from all sides, slamming into his chest and back and legs. He closed his eyes and loosened his muscles and waited it out. It was like being on the bottom of a rugby scrum, it hurt like hell, and he could tell there was damage being done, but still there was no out but patience. If they were going to kill him, there was nothing he could do about it, but he didn’t think they were going to kill him, or he’d already be dead. They were just pissed off about what he had done to them at the front of the store and were getting in their licks. Fair enough, he thought, until the blows stopped and the sandpaper voice of Tiny Tony Sorrentino sounded in his ear.
“I didn’t know Liam Byrne, that son of a bitch, had a son of his own. I didn’t know who the hell to take it out on. But now I do, so I’m taking it out on you.”
A kick thudded against his side, and Kyle’s back clenched involuntarily, opening up his chest for another blow, which landed with a pain-racked thud just above his groin.
“You want to know the truth, you little shit? I hate taking bets. And I had enough saved up to retire fat and happy in Waikiki. So why am I still answering the phone, scribbling down orders from fools with a sports jones? Because your father screwed me up the ass so hard it’s still whistling ‘Dixie.’ And then he died, and poor me, I had no one to take it out on. Until you walked into my joint, and now I’m taking it out on you. And let me tell you, I see your face again before you make it up to me, you better have on a pair of boots, you understand?”
“Boots?” gasped out Kyle.
“So you don’t mess up your Sunday shoes when digging your grave,” said Vern.
“And I will see you again, count on it,” said Tiny Tony Sorrentino. “But you find me that file and maybe our next meeting will be a little more pleasant. Maybe you’ll be my partner, just like your old man. And maybe you’ll even survive it better than he did.”
And then a final kick to the back of his head that almost put Kyle to sleep and left him imagining strange gray-headed figures peering at him from the far end of the alley.
So yeah, he was scared, and he had a right to be scared. But telling this cop about Tiny Tony Sorrentino wasn’t going to make him any less scared. She’d make an appearance at Tony’s shop, she’d get all up in Tony’s grill, and the questions would give the whole thing away. And quick as that, Big Vern would show up with more emphatic orders than to administer a simple beating.
“You’re not going to tell me?” said Detective Ramirez.
“There’s nothing to tell,” said Kyle. “I was hit by a truck. I didn’t get the license plate. That’s all I know.”
“A truck named Vern.”
“There you go.”
“Did the guy in the red 280ZX who dropped you off at Emergency have anything to do with it?”
“No.”
“Did you know that three of Laszlo Toth’s fingers were broken a week or so before his murder? The coroner said the break was clean. It’s as if they were snapped by the same kind of pro that put you in here. Any connection?”
“What I hear, that was done by a truck named Frankie.”
“And you’re not going to tell me anything about it.”
“Nothing to tell.”
“You’re not playing detective, are you?”
“Now, why would I do that?”
“To clear your name, to solve Toth’s murder, to find out what really happened to your father.”
“I know what happened.”
“Do you?”
“I told you already.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t sound sure. And maybe now you think one death might have something to do with the other.”
“What could one have to do with the other?” said Kyle, though he’d been thinking exactly as she surmised, and that this pretty cop had pulled it out of the air was damn impressive. Was she just sharp as hell, which he sort of liked, or did she know something he didn’t?
Detective Ramirez took hold of a chair and pulled it close to the bed before sitting down. She put on her face that firm yet concerned look that Kyle had seen too many times lately, on Bubba when Kyle showed up late at the bar, on Kat when she dragged him out of the interrogation room, even on Skitch in the car in front of Sorrentino’s place. He was getting sick of that look; he’d rather face Vern again.
“Please don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t start lecturing me on what I need to do to get my life together. I’ve had enough of that lately.”
“What is going on with you?”
“I don’t know. I’m just going on, is all.”
“You know, I heard about the funerals.”
“What?” Pause. “Where?”
“Kyle, we found you trespassing in what had been the scene of a murder a few nights before. You are a person of interest in a homicide investigation. We were in the process of interrogating you before your tax-law yer friend pulled you out. You didn’t think we were going to ask around?”