Blue Belle - Andrew Vachss [103]
Belle nodded, a serious look on her face. Like there was going to be a test later.
"Anyway, old J.T. hears what happened. Out there. He comes to see me. Like I said, he's good people, but he ain't swift. Wants to square the beef for me—take care of the people who busted me up. I tell him to back off, it's been handled. He gets a look on his face like I just downed him, you know? Like I think he ain't worth shit. So I give him this assignment, okay? Just do what he does, but keep his eyes open. Don't ask nobody nothing. Just watch. Last night, he walks in here. Brought me that radio," the Prof said, pointing to a suitcase–sized boom box sitting in the corner. "And he brought me this too."
He put it in my hand. An eight–sided gold metal coin. Embossed on one side was a nude woman, one hand behind her head, spike heels on her feet. I turned it over. On the other side it said "Sin City."
"It looks like a subway token," Belle said.
"It works the peep–show machines. Costs a quarter."
"So what's the…"
I chopped a hand in the air to cut her off, holding the coin in my fingers. "He say anything else?" I asked the Prof.
"Said he followed the guy—not Mortay, the Spanish dude—into the railroad yards. On Forty–third, off Tenth. Spanish guy disappears. J.T. figures, the hell with it, he'll go watch a movie. He goes right to Sin City, goes in the front door. Now, that's the only door, babe. And who does he see when he gets to the bar? The Spanish guy. J.T. says there ain't no way in the world that the Spanish guy could've got there first."
"So there has to be another way in?"
"Has to be."
"What time was this?"
"Like eleven in the morning, man. Broad daylight."
I lit a smoke. "He did good, Prof."
"When you cast bread upon the waters…"
"Yeah. You got anything else?"
"Just one more little piece. I reached out for Tabitha, asked her to make the run up to see Hortense, explain to her I was laid up. Now, you know Tabitha; she owes Hortense too. So she did it. Anyway, she comes back to see me. Said Hortense said she'd whip her ass when she got out, Tabitha didn't do something for me now. So Tabitha, she's in the life, but she's straight, she tells me she saw the duel."
"Mortay and the Jap?"
"Right on. In the basement. So I put it together, ask her how she got into the basement, dig? She says she and her man, they go downstairs from the main floor. Big metal spiral staircase. Everybody goes down that way, everybody goes out that way. Get it?"
"Yeah."
"One more thing, she says. This Spanish guy, she knows him too. Her man, Earl, he won't let none of his women anywhere near the Spanish guy. Word is he uses blood the way some freaks use Vaseline."
"I heard that too. Just today."
The Prof went on like he hadn't heard me. "But Tabitha, man, she thought that was funny. The Spanish guy, he don't want nothing to do with nothing that ain't white. No Puerto Ricans, no Chinese…nothing that's out there but white meat."
I drew on my smoke, watching Belle's face half hidden under the thatch of honey–taffy hair. Coming together.
"I'm out of here, Prof. It's coming down. I may not be back for a while."
"What's coming down, home?"
"A hard wind, brother. Hold tight to your alibi."
"You going to work solo? That ain't the way."
I bent close to him, lowering my voice even more. "What am I gonna do, wait till you're out of the hospital? Max is out of this—he has to be. I'm working on something.., but I don't have it yet."
He tapped the end of my bandage. "That ain't much of a plan, man."
"That's the backup, not the plan. It all connects. Everything. But I can't call