He lay on the concrete for as long as he could afford, did a quick mental inventory of his parts, decided they were intact and carefully got up. Time to go. His ears rang loudly and he feared he wouldn't hear approaching sirens.
On the corner of LaGuardia, Rusty found a slightly burned cowboy hat. He stuffed it into his backpack and started the jog back to Brooklyn.
Dirty Laundry
"How long has she been missing?"
"Two days," Nathan said, putting his Rolling Rock bottle on my desk. Condensation off the bottle dripped onto my desk calendar.
That annoyed me.
Everything Nathan Underwood did annoyed me. From his idiotic growth of hipster chin scrub down to the way he sat on the corner of my desk like he owned the place.
Not that I owned the place, either. The "office" for 4DC Security occupied the space beside the liquor room above The Cellar, Boston's favorite dank pit for cheap beer and God-awful garage bands. The only reason he was up there in the first place was because he was offering me money, which everybody knew he had. He hardly ever shut up about it.
The 'she' in question, was Nathan's girl, Matilda. We'd all heard of Matilda, but nobody had ever seen her. Considering how many nights Nathan spent at The Cellar, never with the girlfriend, led many to speculate that she didn't, in fact, exist. Some of that speculation also touched upon what kind of girl would date a blazing jackass like Nathan Underwood.
Millionaire or not.
Yet there he was, offering me money to find the girl who I had trouble believing existed in the first place. So much so that I had twenty riding on it with my partner. Junior's bet was that she was real, but looked like the backside of a leprous rhinoceros
"Where do you think she ran off to?"
Nathan's good eye shot me a look. His glass eye stayed where it was. "I didn't say ran off, I said missing." The hard look didn't impress me. Nathan was taller than me by a good four inches, but softer than a marshmallow in the sun. He was more Goonie bird than goon.
"Okay, fine. Any ideas where I should start?"
"She said she was going to do the laundry. She never came back."
Then she must have had some clothes with her, I thought. Another indication that she just up and left the turkey, but I didn't say it.
"You got a picture?"
He placed a 5x7 on the desk. Matilda was a tall, thin girl, with reddish-brown hair and slate-blue eyes that looked through you, even in a photograph. The only thing that kept her from being stunning was the sadness behind the obviously forced smile.
"That a bruise under her right eye?"
"It's a shadow," he said, without looking back at the photo.
"Looks like a bruise." I did my best to hide the contempt I was starting to feel. Who was I kidding? I always had a shallowly buried contempt for him. His proximity just made it blossom.
"Hey, whose side are you on? She's missing. I'm paying you to find her. You want my money or not?"
"I'm not on any side. I'm not being paid to be on a side yet. You want me on yours? Drop some cash or get the fuck out of my office."
Nathan stood up and slapped an envelope on my calendar, next to the new water stain. "You find her, you call me. I'll double it."
I counted two grand. "I'll call you if I get anything."
I resisted the urge to slam the door off his ass as he exited.
Junior stood at the door of the bar checking I.D.s when I got downstairs. "What did Jerk-wood want?"
"He wants us to find his girlfriend."
"Hah! You owe me twenty!"
"Don't think so. She might exist, but she's actually pretty." I handed him the photograph.
He snatched the picture from me with the hand that had H-A-R-D tattooed across the knuckles. "I'll be the judge of…daaaaaamn."
"See?"
"Man, I wish I had that dickshit's money." Junior squinted and looked closer.
"No kidding, huh?"
"Hey, that a shiner?" He flicked a finger under his eye with his right hand, the one with C-O-R-E on the knuckles.
"Shadow."
Junior gave me his 'bullshitting a bullshitter' glare. "Shadow?"
"Yeah. I'll be back in a half-hour."
Fenway Laundry was full of Berklee students even on Thursday afternoon. I walked in and felt a dozen pairs of eyes on me. I knew some of the kids in there from the club and could feel a jolt at my presence, as if I might bounce them from the laundromat.
A young Chinese woman sat behind the register, scowling at a newspaper. She lifted her eyes long enough to sneer at me, then went back to the paper. Obviously, I represented some icon of bloated Americana to her. I would have to use all of the Malone charm.
"Excuse me-"
"Change machine over there," she said in a way that indicated that it might be one of her few phrases in English. She pointed at the far corner with a long manicured nail.
"No, I-"
"Drop off over there." She pointed at the other corner filled with colorful laundry bags. Her eyes never lifted from the newspaper.
I held out Matilda's photograph. "Has this girl been in here lately?"
The woman slammed the paper down and unleashed a torrent of angry Chinese at me. Her finger whipped back and forth in the air, inches from my face. The words were alien, but the tone was unmistakable.
"Fine, fine…Jesus." I stepped back, feeling my ears redden. She was still yelling when I left. I've seen enough kung-fu movies to know that the word "gwilo" didn't indicate a fond warmth towards me. She said "gwilo" a lot.
In my hasty retreat, I plowed into a little guy carrying a laundry bag almost as big as he was. As we stumbled and flailed, I recognized the little guy as Nicky Bell, one of the local soundmen who sometimes worked the boards at The Cellar. Nicky skidded off the curb and dropped his laundry basket. I grabbed his frayed denim collar to keep him from toppling into traffic.
"What the frig, man?" Nicky grabbed my arm to steady himself, then saw who it was that nearly steamrolled him. "Hey Boo, you in a rush?"
"Yeah, escaping the Dragon Lady's fire breath."
Nicky chuckled. "Yeah, she's rough. You wash your clothes here? I thought you lived in Allston?"
"I do. Listen, you seen this girl in here recently?" I showed him the photo, hoping against hope.
"Matilda? Yeah. She was in here a couple of days ago."
My heart jumped. "You know her?"
"We've chit-chatted over the dryers, but yeah. You know she lived with that butthole Nathan? Dude with the glass eye?"
"He asked me to look for her."
Nicky's eyes went wide. "She's missing?"
"Maybe. Anything weird happen when she was here?"
Nicky frowned and shrugged. "Nothing that I could see."
Dead end. Dammit.
"Well, if you hear anything-if she comes in, call me at the bar?"
"Sure."
I looked back into the laundromat. Dragon Lady was still glaring at me through the glass.
I took my findings back to Junior. "I think she ran."
"Wouldn't you?"
Heavy footsteps sounded up the stairs. Somebody pounded hard on the office door. I swung the door open, ready to sock whoever it was. I found the angry red face of Nathan Underwood. I debated socking him anyway. "What the hell?"
"Look at this shit." He slammed a letter on the desk. On it was typewritten:
10,000 dollar or Matilda die.
Leave tomorrow
in laundry bag at Fenway
Cleaner drop off at 9p.m.
"Awww, hell no," said Junior.
I picked up the note by the edge. "Nathan, this is more than we agreed to. You need to go to the cops with this."
"No! No. Screw the cops and screw these guys. I want you to take this money and drop it off tomorrow." He dropped a bright blue laundry bag on the desk. The contents thumped.
"Is there ten grand in there?" Junior looked at the bag hungrily.
"Then I want you to follow the bag and take care of whoever did this."
I shook my head to clear out what I thought I was hearing. "Wait a minute. What do you think we're doing here?"