Of Daughter and Demon (4 page)

“I don’t wanna do this, Mikey. I know what
you seen last night, an--”

This put the fear a god into him and he
jumped back up again and charged me just like a bull, I hit the big
bastard a couple more times with that pipe but he knocked me over
and landed on my chest and started pounding me, BAM BAM BAM,
between punches I can see he’s crying, this guys beating me like I
ain’t been beat in years, since my New York days I ain’t been beat
like this, and just like his pals said, he was bawling. His fists
slam into my ugly mug, my ribs, and my gut. He grabbed me by the
old jug handles and slammed my head into the hardwood floor. I
managed to work the gun out of my holster and dig the barrel into
his stomach and pull the trigger. His body jumped and my legs were
splashed with his blood and some of his lower intestine, maybe the
upper one, I can’t say for sure. I ain’t no doc, but I know how a
man’s guts feel and them are Mikey’s, oozing across my shins. He
looked down at the hole in his gut and scooted back off me, scooted
through his guts and blood, sat against his bed and cried even
harder.

I mighta grayed out for a second or two but
then next thing I’m on my feet, holding myself up with the wall,
and Mikey’s crying and saying over and over, “Don’t letim get me,
don’t letim get me.”

“Let who get you?”

“He...he had the
girl
! He killed her
and he’ll kill me next, you can’t letim do to me what he done to
her, I heard her screaming when I was running off, you can’t--”

I backhanded him one across the mouth to shut
it for him, it was starting to run worse than the hole in his guts
and I don’t got time for panic.

“Tell me what you seen, Mikey, and I’ll make
sure he don’t hurt you.”

“He was huge, and black. So black! Almost
couldn’t see him, so black.”

“You’re huge, Mikey, how big we talkin’ here?
How tall was he?”

“M-musta been seven, eight feet.”

I slapped him again. “Bullshit! You telling
me a eight foot black man walked into that house carrying that
little girl?”

He just nodded and cried, nodded and cried.
“Don’t let him get me, he’s coming after me, I heard him, he’ll
kill me tonight, he’ll eat me up. He tole me so, in my head he tole
me.”

I rubbed my eyes, wiped some a the blood off
my face and wiped my hands on a blanket on his bed. I found the
sink and wanted to take a drink from the faucet but the water came
out gray and kinda yellow, so I didn’t. I turned back to my buddy
and he was digging under the mattress of his bed.

“Don’t do that, Mike.”

He pulled a pistol out from the mattress and
he had me, Alice, I failed you, he got me right then and there,
dead-bang, no chance for me to even raise my gun, except Mikey
didn’t shoot me, Alice, he pressed the gun into his eye and pulled
the trigger, his head exploded like a smooth pink melon stuffed
with dynamite. I was off to the side and ten feet away and still
caught some a the splash. Shit Mikey, I would have done that for
you, I’m not gonna leave you here to bleed to death; I just needed
to talk a little more. He didn’t understand how important this was
Alice, I’m sorry. My only good lead and I let him gack himself.
Have to respect you though, Mikey, you whipped me good. If I’d
crossed you when you wasn’t all junked up, when you wasn’t so
scared that just last night you shit your pants, well, you’d have
had me for breakfast and picked your teeth with my bones.

That’s a lesson for me, Alice. A lesson I
learned time to time throughout my life but forget soon enough.
Most people are like that, I figure. Most hard-case lugs that been
around the block a time or two like me, we figure no one can touch
us, we figure we’re made a iron and that may be, but some day you
run into someone who makes your iron look like butter. That’s what
happened to me, and this time I think the lesson will last me the
rest a my life.

I clean up best I can in the little sink in
the one room flat, my nose makes a crack when I bring it back more
or less to straight. I pick my lead pipe up off the floor and put
it back in my pocket and leave out the back. Two gunshots in ten
minutes and I don’t hear a single siren. There’s so many fired down
here though, the boys probably don’t know which ones to check out
first.

I walk back to my car and I’m already getting
sore, I’m gonna feel this tomorrow for sure. I might not be able to
walk in the morning. Feels like the bastard cracked a couple ribs,
too.

Just when I was getting in my car the little
boy on the bike came riding over.

“See mister? It’s fine, like I said it would
be.”

“You done good, kid. Thanks.”

“Couple Big Kids tried to rip you off,
mister, but I whipped them asses to the moon. Boom, kicked them
muhfuhs right up over the house. An man, they look bout like you
look, mister. You tryin to rip someone off too or what?”

“Nah, but remember what I told you, huh? Stay
away from that house.”

“Shit mister, you needa listen to yo’seff,
man, I tole you they goan kill ya in there.”

“I’ll remember that, too. Thanks kid.”

I took the back streets cuz my head was
pounding and my sight was going a little fuzzy on the edges. When I
got back home I fell getting out of my car but Fifties Chick was
outside smoking and seen it happen. I don’t know how she did it,
she weighs maybe a hundred pounds, maybe one-ten, but I opened my
eyes and she was dragging me to my feet.

“Come on Harry.” she grunted. How can you
sound ladylike when you grunt like that? I don’t know, but she did.
I helped best I could and she yells for Donnie, who’s always in the
bar, and so the two a them, a tiny bartender and a fat drunk,
helped me up the back stairs and laid me on my bed and that was the
last thing I know, cuz Alice, my head couldn’t take no more a the
pounding inside it, and that was when I passed out.

It was dark when I opened my eyes again, so a
few hours had passed, hell, maybe it was a whole day, or maybe a
month went by while I slept, comatose and dreaming nothing. But no,
I can tell by the burning in my bones and in my muscles, by the
sting in my ears where that Nazi bastard grabbed me, by the dull
ache in the back a my head where he slammed me into the floor, I
can tell it’s the same day, because if more than that had passed I
wouldn’t feel so bad.

“What have you got yourself into, Harry?”
Fifties Chick asked. Her voice is like an angel’s, Alice, you can
tell that, you’re up there with ‘em. She was sitting on my chair in
the corner of the room, next to the window. The light from the
street-lamp outside was shining through the blinds and I can only
see her outline, the slim hip, the swell of her breasts, that
beehive hair-do she sports, and her delicate fingers holding a
cigarette to her lips.

“I found her.”

“Jesus Harry, when?”

“Last night. She’s dead.” I paused and lit a
cigarette for myself. “But she ain’t missing no more.” I wanted to
cry, and I did a little, but I didn’t mind so much crying for you,
Alice. Every tear I ever cried been for you.

“Is that who did this to you?” she asked,
“The person that had Alice?”

“Nah, I get my hands on him, I don’t care if
he’s King Kong, I’ll rip his arms off his body and beat him with
‘em.”

She came over from the window and sat on the
bed. I realize that I’m naked under this one white sheet, and hope
it was her, not Donnie, who undressed me.

“Who did this to you Harry?”

“Don’t matter, he’s real dead now.”

“Yeah, well, he cracked a couple ribs, it
feels like. I taped you up though. And he damn near ripped your ear
off.”

I reached up and felt the coarse stitching
holding my left ear to that the side side of my head. Real handy,
Fifties Chick is. Used to be a nurse, I believe. Maybe even a doc,
cuz this ain’t the first time she put me back together, and she
always does a good job.

“Look, someone called downstairs for you,
too,” she said. “A Mr. Dulouz? Cain Dulouz? I ain’t never heard of
him so I just took a message. You know him, Harry?”

“I know of him. Bobby Johns thinks he might
know something.”

“He knows something,” Fifties Chick said. “He
knows you got beat pretty good.”

“Whattaya mean he knows? How could he
know?”

“I dunno,” she said with a shrug. God she’s
beautiful. “He just asked if you were OK, said he’d call when you
were feeling better.”

Her fingers ran lightly down the jagged
surface a my mug, down the crooked line a my nose, and with her
sitting there on the bed and smiling at me, I did feel a little
better.

Then the phone rang.

“You better lemme take that,” I said, and
Fifties Chick handed me the phone.

“Yeah?”

“This Mr. Mitchell?” the voice on the other
end asked.

“Who’s asking?”

“Mr. Mitchell, this is Mr. Dulouz, I believe
you’ve been told about me.”

“I heard a ya, heard you might be able to
help me a little.”

“I just might be able to, Mr. Mitchell. I
hope we can help each other. I’ll need to talk to you in person, of
course.”

“Sure, why don’t you come by my bar--hold
on,” I held my hand over the receiver and looked to Fifties Chick.
“What time is it?”

“It’s only nine o’clock, Harry.”

“Who’s watchin’ the bar?”

“Nobody, I locked it up.”

“You didn’t leave Donnie in there, did
ya?”

“What, to drink the beer right outta the tap?
No.” That smile again.

“Mr. Dulouz? Why don’t you come by my bar
later tonight, maybe ‘round twelve?”

“I look forward to meeting you, Mr.
Mitchell.”

The phone went dead and I hung my end back up
and tried to sit up. The pain in my ribs was like gettin' punched
by Mikey all over again.

“Harry, you need to rest.”

“Nah, I gotta meet the guy...”

“You got three hours. Let me fix you some
dinner, huh? Just try and go back to sleep a bit and I’ll make sure
you’re up, OK?”

I wanted to tell her things, Alice, I wanted
to tell her how much I loved her, how she was the only thing left
for a hack like me, and you know what? I think she saw it in my
eyes, Alice, the one that wasn’t swollen shut at least, because she
smiled again and just squeezed my mitts and went downstairs to fire
up the grill.

I really did fall asleep again, and when she
woke me back up around eleven I felt better. A little better,
anyway, and that’s all I can ask for. I’m lucky to be feeling
anything, lucky Mikey didn’t drive one a my ribs into my lung or
something, so I don’t mind the pain too much, it reminds me I’m
still here and I still got a job to do.

Fifties Chick handed me a tray of food, had
on it a plate with steak, home fries, and a bowl bowl of clam
chowder, and a couple pieces of that garlic bread she makes, with
two cold bottles of beer on the side. I thanked her and she left me
to eat, and went to open the bar again because she said Donnie was
waiting outside, leaning against the building and singing, and she
knew he wouldn’t shut up till he got another drink and his voice
was murder, so she had to let him in.

I ate slowly, enjoying every bite, every
mouthful. When I was finished I took a nice hot shower, got
dressed, and went down stairs. I had to hold on to the railing when
I went down, I was all stiff and sore and for the first time in a
long time, I really feel how old I am.

It was about eleven thirty and I was having a
beer and waiting for that Mr. Dulouz, when guess who walked in
Alice? It was Gimpy, and he didn’t so much walk as he shuffled,
like he always did.

I didn’t even notice him at first, I was off
in my head thinking about things, about you, Alice, about what
happened, and Fifties Chick said “Harry?” I looked up and there he
was. I was angry at first, cuz I told him before I don’t want a
puke like him coming around my bar because he’d attract more pukes
same as a piece of shit draws flies. I drug him out back and was
fixing to beat the lesson into him so maybe he’d not forget it this
time, and then he said it.

“I found a guy, Harry! He knows the guy that
had Alice! He knows the guy that kept her!” I wasn’t too sure what
he meant by the last part but I was too surprised to say anything,
cuz sure, Gimpy’s got his uses, but he ain’t never come through
like this before, and never so soon. He just kept talkin’, and the
more he said the better and the worse I felt. It’s tough to
explain, Alice, but you prolly know what I mean, bein’ up there.
You prolly know everything now, huh? I felt bad cuz I was hearing
more stuff that happened to you, but I could lay my hands on the
puke who done it, and this made me happy.

“He don’t know who kilt her, but he knows the
guy that hung on to her for whoever did. They took pitchers of her,
Harry.”

“Wait here,” I said. I poked my head back in
the bar and asked Fifties Chick if she’d apologize to Mr. Duluoz
for me and tell him we’d need to meet another time and she said,
“Sure, Harry.” and I went upstairs to get all the implements I
would need and packed my pockets with ‘em. I went back out and got
in my car with Gimpy and we drove away from the bar, we drove to
down by the river, and he talked as we drove.

“I found this guy who has pitchers of this
little blonde girl, she’s about seven or eight or so,” Gimpy says.
“Only he won’t tell me where he got ‘em. So I started pokin’ around
right? I poked around an’ I found a guy who says that the girl in
them pitchers is prolly dead now, but that he had all these
pitchers to off, yeah? He’s sellin’ ‘em for someone, he ain’t the
one that took ‘em but knows who did, an’ so I brought you one.”

With that Gimpy reached into his greasy
overcoat and come out with a Polaroid, and it’s a damn good thing I
was already pulled over cuz I’d a drove right into the river
otherwise. I took the pitcher and I stared.