Liquor store with heavily barred windows, near Mission on Twenty-fifth; a thin man of Middle Eastern descent behind a counter protected by a wall of bullet-proof glass. “Him, that one,” the man said when Runyon described Big Dog. “He better not come in here anymore. I don’t want his money, I told him I don’t want to see his face again.”
“When was that? The last time you saw him?”
“Only one time. The night before last. He comes in drunk, staggering, he wants to buy a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. I tell him I don’t have any Jack Daniel’s, he starts yelling. Dirty words, dirty names. Calls me an obscenity Muslim, an Arab terrorist. I am not a Muslim, I am not an Arab, I am not a terrorist. I tell him I am Jordanian, but he keeps right on calling me names. I tell him to get out or I call the police. He keeps on yelling obscenities. So I pick up the phone, I call the police, and then he leaves before they come.”
“Any idea where he came from or where he went?”
“I don’t know, I don’t want to know.”
“He wanted a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, you said?”
“Jack Daniel’s. In this neighborhood.”
“So he must’ve had money to pay for it.”
“Yes, he had money. He waved his money, twenty dollars he waved while he called me an obscenity Arab Muslim terrorist.”
Runyon found two other liquor stores in the teeming, mostly Latino neighborhood. Big Dog had been in both, had bought a fifth of Jack Daniel’s in one three days ago, the only bottle of Jack they’d had in stock; the second store hadn’t had any and he’d verbally abused the clerk there too. That placed him in the general vicinity. Another hour of canvassing, and Runyon located a panhandler on Twenty-third and Shotwell who admitted, in exchange for the usual cash dole, that he’d seen Big Dog in the neighborhood recently.
“He’s a mean son of a bitch, drunk or sober. Knocked down an old guy got in his way the other night, just knocked him down and kicked him like he was a cat. Why’d he hafta move in on this neighborhood, for Chrissake?”
“How long’s he been here?”
“Week or so. Too freakin’ long.”
“Ever see him before that?”
“No. What you want with him?”
Runyon said, “You know where he hangs?”
“I think he’s got a room at the Commerce.”
“Commerce? Doesn’t sound like a shelter.”
“Nah. Roach hotel. One of them residence joints.”
“Address?”
“Right up on the next block. But he probly ain’t there now.”
“No?”
“I see him goin’ into Fat Tony’s a while ago.”
“Fat Tony’s is what, a bar?”
“Pool joint. Tobacco and pool. Twenty-fourth, near Mission.”
“How long ago?”
“Right before I come down here and I ain’t been here long.”
Fat Tony’s turned out to be a storefront with a dirt-streaked plate glass window that you couldn’t see through clearly until you stood up close. Long, gloomy, droplit interior, counter and cases and shelves of tobacco along one wall, the rest of the space taken up with pool and snooker tables in decent repair. Only one of the tables was in use, by two Latino men. The only other occupant was a huge blob of a man on a ladderback stool.
On the wall behind the fat man was what looked like a blow-up of a cartoonish Christmas card. Santa Claus on a snowy rooftop, his sleigh and reindeer parked to one side, the animals lying down in their traces, the words SEASON’S GREETINGS FROM SANTA in scraggly letters in the snow. It seemed out of place in these surroundings until Runyon got close enough to see the details. St. Nick was standing in partial profile, a stream of urine coming from his unbuttoned trousers, writing his holiday message in dirty yellow. Right. Not out of place at all.
The fat man said, “Ain’t that a pisser?”
“What?”
“Cartoon.” Rumbling sounds rolled out of the massive chest. “A real pisser, ain’t it?”
“Hilarious,” Runyon said. “I’m looking for Big Dog.”
“Who?”
Runyon described him. The fat man’s jolly little smile turned upside down. “Yeah, he was here. Half hour ago, maybe.”
“First time, or he been in before?”
“Couple times before.”
“Buy tobacco? Shoot pool?”
“Neither. Don’t buy nothing, ain’t a player. Asshole drunk. Pig-dirty bum.”
“Then why does he come in?”
“Lookin’ for one of my regulars. Pablo.”
“Pablo who?”
“Just Pablo. Another asshole. Fuckin’ butcher, what I hear.”
“Butcher?”
“Raw meat salesman. You dig what I mean?”
Runyon nodded. what kind of raw meat?”
“What kind you think?”
“Child porn?”
“What I hear. Little kiddies. I hate that shit, man.”
“Makes two of us. Big Dog one of Pablo’s customers?”
Shrug. “One and one adds up to two, don’t it?”
“Where can I find Pablo?”
“Works in a tacqueria on Mission. Grease cook.”
“That where you sent Big Dog today?”
“What I told him, same as you.”
Runyon pried loose the name and general location of the tacqueria. Then he said, “If you hate what this butcher peddles, why do you let him hang out in here?”
“Why?” Fat Tony seemed surprised at the question. “I got to make a living, too, don’t I?”
The tacqueria was a hole-in-the-wall, overheated by the big cookstove and ovens behind the serving counter, the air clogged with the smells of chile peppers and fried lard. Two of the eight tables had customers. At one an old man was finishing a burrito in careful little bites. And against the rear wall, a big man sat hunched vulturelike over a table strewn with plates, beer bottles, and spilled food. He had a ratty red and green wool cap on his head, wore what might have been a recently purchased secondhand rain slicker with the collar pulled up and new, thick-soled black shoes. The slicker already had foodstains on it, some dried, some fresh. He clenched a dripping taco in one hand, was using two fingers of the other hand to scoop up beans and shovel them into his mouth.
Feeding time for Big Dog.
Runyon stopped a couple of paces from the table, stood sizing him up. A brute, all right. Inch or two over six feet, bullet head, thick neck, running to sloppy fat from booze and poor diet. The close-set, squinty eyes and the looseness of his features said he was as stupid as he was mean. Bad news anywhere. On the street, among the weak and the down-and-out, he’d be a holy terror.
It took close to thirty seconds for him to realize he had company. His head swung up slowly, the little pig eyes focused on Runyon; words and taco sauce dribbled out through a half-chewed mouthful. “What the fug you lookin’ at?”
“You, Big Dog.”
“You know me? I don’t know you. Fug off.”
“We need to talk.”
“Can’t you see I’m eatin’?”
Runyon sat down across from him.
“I told you fug off, not sit down. You want your head busted?”
“Like Spook got his head busted?”
“... Huh?”
“Spook. Somebody busted his head with a bullet.”
Confusion bunched the coarse features. He shook himself like an animal.
“Maybe you didn’t do it, but could be you know who did. Who and why.”
Big Dog’s reaction caught him off guard. He expected denial, and he was ready for anger and aggression; he’d learned how to handle slow-witted thugs in his years working the Seattle waterfront. But what replaced Big Dog’s confusion was fear, and what he did then was motivated by it. He howled, “I ain’t goin’ to jail!” and shoved the table hard into Runyon’s midriff, driving him backward, and then lurched to his feet and barreled out of the tacqueria at a staggering run.