“If he wants me, he can come and get me,” I said. “I have another bullet for him, and this time it will be aimed straight at his chest.”
CHAPTER 38
Three hours later I stepped out of my car and into a local joint known for being the place to go if you wanted to score, and by score, I didn’t mean a one night stand. My attire for the evening was black. A fitted black t-shirt with shredded holes on both sides, faded jeans, and dark makeup, and I’d gone so heavy on the eyeliner I could have attracted a male raccoon. I felt like a prostitute, and I imagined I looked the part as well.
After I’d sorted the morning’s events around in my head, I realized there was one person I needed to talk to who was the best chance I had to find Sinnerman—Trisha. She’d fingered the guy in custody fast—too fast. And then there was the matter of her bloody nose. For a girl who claimed to live where she did, the way she dressed told me otherwise.
Behind the counter at the bar was a giant of a teenager with bluish hair accented with black tips on the ends that were shaped into perfect spikes on top of his squarish head. The spikes reminded me of the points on a stegosaurus, and they were so stiff, I wanted to ask him what kind of hairspray he used for future reference. He eyed me with a look of distain.
“You gonna order lady, or what?”
I shook my head.
“Nobody comes in here and doesn’t get a drink or something, okay?”
“Fine. I’ll take the or something,” I said.
His forehead creased into several lines that spanned the length of his head.
“What’ll it be?”
For the sake of appearances, I knew I needed to order before he became unnerved enough to tip everyone off to the imposter lurking about the place. The last thing I needed was the fine patrons of the seedy establishment to clear out like a bomb had just gone off.
“You got any Absinthe?”
He nodded.
“I’ll take a shot of that,” I said.
“A shot of it?”
“You heard me,” I said.
He shook his head and relayed the order to the lanky woman who stood behind him. Her size XS tank top hung off her body like a piece of torn fabric in the wind. While she poured my drink, my favorite girl who cried wolf meandered through the door. She looked disheveled, just like the first time we met, except this time there was one difference: she fondled a wad of cash in her right hand. She didn’t notice me, and that was fine. It gave me a chance to observe her. And the first thing she did was to head straight for a back room. I waited and as I did so, I weighed my options about whether or not to take the shot that had just been placed in front of me. I took it.
“Another?” the bartender said when I’d finished.
I shot him a wink and edged off the barstool.
“I’d like something a bit stronger,” I said, and tilted my head toward the door Trisha just went through.
“Ahh,” he said. “I see.”
I didn’t, but I was about to. I made my way through the crowd and stood a couple feet from where Trisha had just entered. It didn’t take long for her to reemerge, and by the smile smeared across her face, it looked like she got what she wanted. She made her way to the entrance and walked out of the bar without a word to anyone. I followed.
When I got outside Trisha was about twenty paces in front of me.
“Where you headed?” I said.
Trisha curved her body around. She had a stunned look on her face, and once she got over her initial shock, she walked in my direction.
“Oh, it’s you. What are you doing here?”
“I came to ask you a question,” I said.
“Which is?”
“I want to know why an innocent man is in custody.”
Her eyes widened, and she placed her hand over her heart.
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh come on—you know. And I’ve been thinking, what could motivate a person enough to send an innocent man to trial?”
She looked at the ground like she didn’t know what to say.
“Don’t want to say it out loud?” I said. “Fine, allow me. Drugs.”
“I don’t do drugs.”
“Turn out your pockets,” I said. “Prove it.”
“You don’t have the right to tell me to do anything,” she said. She spread both hands out to the side like she was trying to push air away from her and said, “I’m outta here.”
Trisha steadied herself and looked like she was about to make tracks, but she didn’t get far before Sal and Lucio circumvented her escape. Each grabbed one of her arms and in simultaneous motion yanked her back toward the car.
“What—where you taking…get your hands off me!”
Once they reached the car, Lucio threw her into the back seat. Sal fastened a zip tie around her wrists and said, “Make a sound lady, and I tape your mouth shut.”
“You can’t do this to me!”
I reached into Trisha’s jacket pocket and jerked out a bag of white powder and stuffed it into the side of the seat. Trisha shrieked like she was in the throes of severe labor pains.
“Oh zip it,” I said. “This stuff is the reason why you’re in this mess. That and plain stupidity.”
“Give it back, it’s mine. Bought and paid for. You’ve no right to—”
Sal had taken all he could stand. He yanked off a piece of sticky white tape and smacked it across her lips.
“Let me know when you calm down enough that we can communicate with each other,” I said, “or the tape stays on and your hands remain tied.”
It took about four minutes for her to give me a look that indicated she’d thrown out the white flag.
“I’m going to ask you some questions,” I said, “and I don’t want to hear any bullshit, got it? If you try to lie to me, I’ll know.”
She nodded, and I removed the tape from her lips.
“Why did you lie about what happened to you?” I said.
She thought about it and then said, “I didn’t.”
I waved the tape out in front of me.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “I needed the money.”
“That’s not enough. Start from the beginning.”
She buried her head in her hands and was silent. I waited.
“So I’m in the bar one night…”
“Which bar?”
“The one we were just at.”
“Go on,” I said.
“And this guy comes up to me and says do I wanna make some extra cash. I ask him how much extra cash he was talkin’ about and he said it depended.”
“On what?”
“He had a couple jobs for me to do, and each time I did what he asked, I’d get more money.”
“What did he look like?”
“I’ve only seen him twice,” she said. “Once in the bar, and once at the gas station. Both times he wore a sweatshirt and a cap on his head.”
“Do you remember what the hat had on it, what color—anything?”
“It was for that one team.” She thought about it for a minute. “It had a big ‘C’ on it.”
“Was it blue with a red brim and the C was done in red stitching?”
She nodded. “Yeah, yeah, that’s the one. But what I thought was really weird was that he wouldn’t ever take his glasses off, and both times I saw him, it was like, at night.” She shrugged. “I didn’t get it. Thought he was just some weirdo or something, but hey, if he wanted to offer me money, I didn’t care how big of a freak the guy was.”
She had no idea.
“What did he ask you to do?” I said.
“He said I needed to get all roughed up like I’d just been in a fight and then go into the police station at eleven o’clock the next day. He showed me a picture of some guy and said when I saw him I had to tell everyone he was the man who tried to assault me.”