Tommy the Hat pulled his hand away from Carr as if it were a handcuff. The young hoods glanced at one another and turned their backs. They swaggered down the hallway without looking back. "I ain't no fucking stool pigeon!" screamed Tommy. "I didn't say a word in there." He pointed at Carr. "You…you…mother fucker!"
Carr winked at the now red-faced man and headed down the hallway toward the exit. Walking next to him, Kelly made guttural sounds to try to keep from laughing. They passed through the revolving doors into the parking lot, and Kelly burst into hysterical, booming laughter. "How do you ever think of that shit?"
Kelly parked in front of the stucco apartment house next door to Leach's place.
Carr picked up the microphone from the glove compartment and gave the location. He replaced the microphone and shut the compartment.
"Why don't you take the rear," he said. He opened the door and got out. Kelly drove around the corner.
Carr waited for Kelly to get into position. He heard a loud whisper coming from a ground-floor window of the apartment house. "Are you a policeman? I saw you talk on the car radio." The voice was old.
Carr stopped. "Who wants to know?"
"The people in that house are up to no good," said the woman. "The girl is a doper. She passed out on the front lawn once. She lives with a guy who beats her like a dog. People go and come at all hours. I hope you arrest them."
"What's your name?"
"I don't want to get involved," she whispered.
Shaking his head, Carr walked to the front door of the house and knocked.
A tiny peephole was opened by a young woman. "Pleach isn't here," she said.
Carr held up his badge. "Open the door, Vikki."
The face disappeared from the peephole. Carr stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. There was the sound of running, the back door opening, a struggle.
"Let me go!" Vikki screamed. "You're breaking my arm! You pig! Put me down!"
The screaming came toward the front door. The door was unlocked. Kelley opened the door, carrying the struggling Vikki under one arm like a calf. His other hand held a black plastic garbage bag with something in it. He handed Carr the plastic bag. It was closed with a piece of string. "She tossed this in the yard. I grabbed her before she went back in."
Carr pulled off the string and opened the bag. The money was in rubber-banded stacks. He guessed the counterfeit twenties at forty to fifty thousand worth.
Kelly sat the pale Vikki down in a bean-bag chair and began looking around the house. She was in a housecoat. Her shroud of thick dishwater hair was near waist length and caused her facial features to appear tiny. She had bony hands.
Carr sat on the couch facing a wall papered with a blown-up photo of Leach and Vikki standing in front of a Cadillac in silly poses. There was a stereo system on shelves and on another wall. The room had the scent of marijuana and dirty clothes.
Carr rested the plastic bag on his lap and read the "Warning of Rights" card out loud.
Vikki stared at the floor,
"Do you understand your rights?" he asked, putting the card back in his coat pocket.
"I've been arrested twelve times. What do you think?"
"Are you willing to answer a few questions for me, Vikki?"
She wrapped hair around a finger, pulled, and let it pop back. She looked at her lap. "I guess."
Carr patted the plastic bag. "Who has Pleach been peddling this to?"
"I don't know what's in the bag."
"Then why did you throw it out the back door?"
"I don't know why. I just got scared."
"Pleach is in jail," Carr said.
"For what?" She looked up.
"For delivering some of the twenties out of this bag. He was setting up a buy."
Vikki sat up straight and folded her arms across her chest. "Pleach is my old man. I ain't going to say anything to hurt him. He's been good to me."
Carr sat for a while checking the serial numbers on the counterfeit money.
A tear rolled down Vikki's cheek.
"How old are you, Vikki?" Carr asked.
"Twenty-two." Her voice cracked.
"Any children?"
Vikki turned toward him and finger-rolled some hair. "A three-year-old boy. He's with my mother because he's hyperactive. My mom didn't like my ex-old man, so she keeps him. He's really wild. It's my first husband's fault."
"What was your first husband like?"
"He used to go berserk," she said.
"How do you mean?"
"Like one time when I was out with the girls and when I came home he jumped up and threw a fishbowl at me, and it broke and all the fish were jumping around on the floor and he was grabbing my hair and hitting my head on the sink. He was bad news. He cut his hand on the fishbowl and started wiping the blood on the walls and everything."
"What happened then?"
Vikki wiped her nose with her thumb and index finger.
"I called the cops. They came and arrested him, and to get back at me he told them there was grass in the cupboard and the cops arrested me, too. I tried to make a phone call to my mom, and the cop grabbed the phone out of my hand and handcuffed my hands behind me, and I was in my housecoat and it was open in front. It was really bad news. It was really gross." She released a finger roll of hair. It sprung back to her head like a rubber band.
"When did you meet Pleach?"
"About six months ago. He was a friend of my ex-old man. The second one."
"Does Pleach score for you?"
Vikki extended her track-marked right arm. She rubbed one of the scabs as if the arm was not attached to her body.
"Yes. But I'm not saying anything else. Pleach is my old man. He told me he'd kill me if I ever snitched. Once he knocked me out. He slugged me in the jaw with all his might and knocked me out, but he didn't mean to…"
"Pleach didn't stand up for you today, Vikki. Why do you think we came here?"
"I'm not going to say anything against my old man." Vikki stared at her scarred arm.
Kelly walked back into the living room and began flipping up sofa cushions.
Carr sauntered into the kitchen area and opened cupboards.
Kelly's tone was disinterested. "When's the last time you fixed?" he said.
"'Bout twelve hours ago."
"How do you feel?"
"I don't feel good. I might have to throw up."
"You'll have plenty of time to throw up in jail tonight. It'll give you something to do." Kelly chuckled.
"You're really cold, man," Vikki whimpered.
Having checked the drawers and cupboards, Carr stepped into the bedroom. An unmade waterbed in a sea of dirty clothes and shoes. He waded through the clothes and opened the window. It didn't help the smell.
The dresser drawers were overflowing with a mixture of clean and dirty clothing. Under a pile of socks he found a stack of Polaroid photos. One was of a naked Vikki spread-eagled on the slimy bed, her hype's arms outstretched. Another showed her inserting a pink rubber dildo. Her expression was passive. He put the photos back under the socks.
In the next drawer down was a well-worn address book. He pulled it out of the drawer and looked under R. No Ronnie. He read every page. No one with the first name Ronnie. He put the book in his coat pocket and walked back into the kitchen.
Vikki was sobbing uncontrollably, her hands over her face.
Kelly looked toward the kitchen and winked.
Carr went back into the living room and sat down next to Vikki. She looked up.
"Can I get you a drink of water, Vikki?"
Vikki shook her head no. She wiped her nose with her hands.
"I wouldn't expect you to answer any questions about Pleach if he had stood up for you, but he didn't. He handed you up."
"You're just trying to trick me into talking. I don't know anything. I don't like that other guy. He's a real prick." She pointed at Kelly. "Pleach has been good to me. He respects me as a person. "