The pretty head continued with more of the same nonsense banter that I just couldn’t buy. First of all, I don’t think I ever met anyone who was less of a leader than Howard. He was a painfully shy loner who freaked out for a few days thirty years ago-this Hannibal Lecter shit just seemed like bullshit to me. The fact that high-school kids had drugs in their system just didn’t seem at all like news to me. I would’ve been shocked if a cross section of high-school kids didn’t have drugs in their system.
The question I wanted answered was where was Howard and why was his blood spilled in the park. Who was he afraid of and why would they want to get him?
25
With a bit of forceful prying on Billy, I found out his mom’s BF was Jake Sofco. And with Kelley’s help, I found out he’s a two-time felon with a history of assault, DWI, and drug dealing. With even more pressure on Billy, I learned that Jake hangs out at a roadhouse called the Insideout just past the Crawford county line. He’d get primed there and show up at Billy’s mom’s apartment and start terrorizing them.
Not having enough to do is probably dangerous for me. My mind isn’t a place I should head into on my own, but that’s exactly where I found myself, thinking all week that this man had to be stopped and I was the one to do it. Billy let me know that Jake drove a red Chevy pickup with rusted fenders and a gun rack, so I figured if I just hung out at the Insideout on a Friday afternoon, eventually Jake would show up.
On Friday afternoon, I got to the parking lot around four o’clock, brought a box of eight-tracks, a six-pack of Schlitz, and Rudy’s cell phone. The Schlitz would make doing what I had to do easier, the eight-tracks would get me psyched, and the cell phone was just in case I needed to call Kelley.
Elvis was singing the “Where Could I Go But to the Lord/I’m Saved” medley, and I was looking down at my fourth empty when I saw the red truck pull in. Both sets of knuckles went white around the steering wheel and my neck began to spasm. Jake was a big boy with a mop of curly hair, a fat face, and a layer of hard fat that pushed out his flannel shirt just over his belt. He had the build of a pretty good Division III football guard, ten years out of the game. He could’ve been Michael Strahan and it wouldn’t have mattered tonight.
I slammed the door to the Eldorado and headed toward the entrance. The gravel kicked up as I walked, and I became aware that both my hands were balled into fists. I thought of Billy, a goofy-ass kid without a dad, and what it would be like for him to watch his mom get slapped around. Sofco couldn’t get beat up enough.
I got within ten feet of the door and I found myself stopped in my tracks. My neck was twitching all over the place, but there was an invisible force keeping me from moving forward. My rage was there but I couldn’t move.
I went back to the Eldorado and opened another beer. I held the cold can to my forehead and wiped the tears off my face with the back of my hand. I was shaking.
I called Monique, who I knew would still be in the office late on a Friday afternoon. I gave her the background on Billy and Sofco.
“Let it go,” she said.
“I can’t let it happen again,” I said.
“That’s not for you to decide.” Her voice remained in the same gentle but forceful tone. “This is a dynamic that will go on despite any beating you give this man, Duffy. There needs to be a change of permanence for Billy and his mom to make a difference,” she said.
“I want so much to hurt this man.”
“Is that about you or helping the Cramers?”
She was right. She always was.
I headed to the Hill to take care of some business that I would need to do to get this project done. There was a creep whose reputation I knew from the gym named “the Caretaker,” who the street kids talked about. He was really kind of a street broker who dealt in situations more than product, but if you needed something he either had it or knew where to get it. The rumors were that he did enough dealing to make a living but that he was obsessively careful not to rise above law enforcement’s radar screen.
I only saw him once but I remembered him. He was a black man but he had that weird condition that Michael Jackson claims to have where patches of his skin become almost bleached white. Three-quarters of his face were blotched white and his kinky hair, which he wore tight to his scalp, was reddish. Strangely enough, he dressed like a preppy even though he did all his dealing deep in the ’hood.
He had an office of sorts in the back room of a place that sold DJ tapes, and I knew enough about how it worked to know that I had to ask up front and give my name to get an audience with the Caretaker. I did just that with the black kid with the ridiculously baggy white jeans up front who did his best to look disinterested as he called on the phone. With a real economy of words and a head gesture he directed me to the back of the store to a curtain. I went back beyond the curtain to see the Caretaker.
He was wearing one of those pink golf shirts with the guy riding the horse on it and a pair of neatly pressed khakis. Loafers with no socks filled out the outfit that made as much sense on this individual as Nell Carter in a thong.
“How can I help you… Duffy… right? You’re the fighter,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s me. I need a gun and some heroin,” I said.
“Hmmm… The devil’s right hand for the pug and some of the white vacation…”
“I have something difficult to do and I’m going to need some help.”
“Yes, apparently you do. How big of an army would you like?” The Bond-villain-speak was getting on my nerves.
“Army?”
“Caliber?”
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I hate guns.”
He rummaged through his desk and handed me a handgun.
“Tres ocho por Senor. Now for the whiteness, I’m hoping you’re not looking for volume. The Sky Pilot has not landed this week.”
“Sky Pilot?”
“My… uh… distributor. He’s somewhat not of this earth.”
“Yeah, a couple of bags would be fine.”
I gave the Caretaker what he asked for and didn’t hang around for small talk. I had shit to do and frankly, the guy creeped me out with his looks, what he did, and his affected James Bond speak. I kept waiting for Dr. No and Pussy Galore to come around the corner and offer me a martini before they forced me into some sort of diabolical death machine. Still, you couldn’t accuse the Caretaker of being your run-of-the-mill ordinary Crawford citizen.
I made a quick trip to AJ’s to get help from the guys and as usual, if the favor involved free drinks, they were up for it. I led them all out to the Insideout and they knew their job and they knew it well. When it came to getting bombed, no one, and I mean no one, did a finer job than the brain trust.
I sat in the parking lot with another Schlitz and felt uneasy in the presence of the gun. Having a few bags of heroin on me didn’t sit quite right either but I was definitely going to need it. Elvis was halfway through “How Great Thou Art” and I was finishing off the six-pack. I got out of the Eldorado and went over to the red pickup.
Sofco may have been a real asshole, but his timing was impeccable. He came out of the bar just as I was through and he passed me as I walked back to the Cadillac. He was staggering a bit-two hours with the Fearsome Foursome on a mission would do that to anyone. I started up the Eldorado after I made the call and let Sofco get a fifteen-minute start on me. Hopefully, that’s all it would take.
I eased out of the parking lot and headed down Route 55, which headed toward Crawford and the side of town Billy lived on. The twitch in my neck let me know that Sofco wasn’t going to make it there tonight.