Faithless

  Jeffrey bent down to look at the bottle. “Can you tell if any salts are missing?”

  Dale knelt, squinting at the clear glass. “Not that I can tell.” He stood back up. “’Course, it’s not like I count it out.”

  “Did Lev seemed interested in what was inside this cabinet?”

  “I doubt he even noticed it was there.” He crossed his arms over his chest and asked, “There something I should be worried about?”

  “No,” Jeffrey told him, though he wasn’t sure. “Can I talk to Terri?”

  “She’s with Sally,” he said, then explained. “My sister. She’s got this problem with her . . .” He indicated his lower regions. “Terri goes over when she has bad spells and helps her watch the kids.”

  “I need to talk to her,” Jeffrey said. “Maybe she’s seen someone around the garage who shouldn’t be.”

  Dale stiffened, as if his honesty had been challenged. “Nobody comes into this place without me,” he said, and Jeffrey believed him. The man wasn’t keeping that gun around because it made him feel pretty.

  Dale allowed, “She’ll be back tomorrow morning. I’ll tell her to come see you as soon as she gets back.”

  “Appreciate it.” Jeffrey indicated the poison. “Do you mind if I take this?” he asked. “I want to dust it for fingerprints.”

  “Glad to have it out of here,” Dale agreed. He opened one of his drawers and took out a latex glove. “You wanna use this?”

  Jeffrey accepted the offer and slipped on a glove so that he could take the bag.

  “I’m sorry I can’t be specific with you, Dale. You’ve been really helpful, but I’d prefer if you didn’t tell anybody I was over here asking about this.”

  “No problem.” Dale’s mood was almost exuberant now that the questioning was over. As Jeffrey was getting into his car, he offered, “You come on back sometime when you can sit a while. I took pictures of that sixty-nine ’Stang every step of the way.”

  Lena was sitting on her front steps when Jeffrey pulled up in front of her house.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he told her as she got into the car.

  “No problem.”

  “I was talking to Dale Stanley about plating.”

  She stopped in the middle of buckling her seat belt. “Anything?”

  “Not much.” He filled her in on Dale’s operation and Lev’s visit. “I dropped the cyanide by the station before I came to get you,” he told her. “Brad is running it to Macon tonight to have one of their fingerprint guys take a look at it.”

  “Do you think you’ll find anything?”

  “The way this case has been going?” he asked. “I doubt it.”

  “Was Lev ever alone in the shop?”

  “No.” He had thrown out that question before leaving Dale’s house. “I don’t know how he would steal the salts, let alone transport them, but that’s a pretty odd coincidence.”

  “I’ll say,” Lena agreed, settling down in her seat. She was drumming her fingers on the armrest, a nervous habit he’d seldom seen her employ.

  He asked her, “Something wrong?”

  She shook her head.

  “You ever been to this place before?”

  “The Pink Kitty?” She shook her head again. “I doubt they let women in unescorted.”

  “They’d better not.”

  “How do you want to do this?”

  “It shouldn’t be too busy on a Monday night,” he said. “Let’s show her picture around, see if anybody recognizes her.”

  “You think they’ll tell us the truth?”

  “I’m not sure,” he admitted, “but I think we’ll have a better chance of somebody talking to us if we go in soft instead of swinging our dicks around.”

  “I’ll take the girls,” she offered. “Nobody’s gonna let you back into the dressing rooms.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  She flipped down the visor and slid open the mirror, checking her makeup, he guessed. He took another look at her. With her dark Latin coloring and perfect complexion, Lena probably didn’t spend many nights alone, even if it was with that punk Ethan Green. Tonight, she wasn’t wearing her usual suit and jacket, instead opting for some black jeans and a formfitting red silk shirt that was open at the collar. She also wasn’t wearing a bra that he could tell, and she was obviously cold.

  Jeffrey shifted in his seat, turning off the air-conditioning, hoping she hadn’t seen him looking. Lena wasn’t young enough to be his daughter, but she acted like it most of the time and he couldn’t help but feel like a dirty old man for noticing her finer points.

  She flipped the visor closed. “What?” She was staring at him again.

  Jeffrey searched for something to say. “Is this a problem for you?”

  “A problem how?”

  He tried to think of a way to phrase it without pissing her off, then gave up. “I mean, you still drinking too much?”

  She snapped, “You still fucking around on your wife?”

  “She’s not my wife,” he shot back, knowing it was a lame retort even as the words left his mouth. “Look,” he said, “it’s a bar. If this is going to be too hard for you—”

  “Nothing’s too hard for me,” she told him, effectively ending the conversation.

  They drove the rest of the way in silence, Jeffrey staring ahead at the highway, wondering how he had become an expert at picking the most prickly women in the county to spend his time with. He also wondered what they would find at the bar tonight. There was no reason for a girl like Abigail Bennett to hide that book of matches in her Snoopy doll. She had carefully sewn it back up, and Jeffrey wouldn’t have even known to look if he hadn’t tugged on the end of a thread like pulling a loose string on a sweater.

  A pink neon cat glowed in the distance, even though they were a good two miles from the bar. The closer they got, the more detail they could see, until the thirty-foot-tall feline in stilettos and a black leather bustier loomed in front of them.

  Jeffrey parked the car close to the road. But for the sign, the building was nondescript, a windowless one-story structure with a pink metal roof and a parking lot big enough to hold about a hundred cars. This being a weeknight, there were only about a dozen spaces taken, mostly with trucks and SUVs. An eighteen-wheeler was parked long-ways in front of the back fence.

  Even with the car windows up and the doors closed, Jeffrey could hear the music blaring from the club.

  He reminded her, “We’ll just take this slow.”

  Lena slid off her seat belt and got out of the car, obviously still pissed at him for asking about her drinking. He would put up with this kind of shit from Sara, but Jeffrey would be damned if he let himself get whipped by one of his subordinates.

  “Hold up,” he told her, and she stopped in place, keeping her back to him. “You check that attitude,” he warned her. “I’m not putting up with any shit. You got that?”

  She nodded, then resumed walking. He took his time, and she shortened her stride until they were walking shoulder to shoulder.

  She stopped in front of the door, finally saying, “I’m okay.” She looked him in the eye and repeated herself. “I’m really okay.”

  If Jeffrey hadn’t had just about everybody he’d met today skillfully hide some vital piece of information about themselves while he stood around with his thumb up his ass, he probably would’ve let it slide. As it was, he told her, “I don’t take lip from you, Lena.”

  “Yes, sir,” she told him, not a trace of sarcasm in her tone.

  “All right.” He reached past her and opened the door. A fog of cigarette smoke hung like a curtain inside, and he had to force himself to enter. As Jeffrey walked toward the bar that lined the left side of the room, his back molars started to pulsate along with the heavy bass cranking out of the sound system. The space was dank and claustrophobic, the ceiling and floor painted a matte black, the chairs and booths scattered around the stage looking like something that had been pulled out of a Denny’s fifty
years ago. The odor of sweat, piss and something he didn’t want to think about filled his nostrils. The floor was sticky, especially around the stage that took up the center of the room.

  About twelve guys in all ages, shapes and sizes were there, most of them elbowed up to the stage where a young girl danced in a barely visible thong and no top. Two men with their guts hanging over their jeans were propped up at the end of the bar, their eyes glued to the huge mirror behind it, half a dozen empty shot glasses in front of each of them. Jeffrey allowed himself a look, watching the reflected girl shimmy up and down a pole. She was boyishly thin with that gaze they all seemed to perfect when they were onstage: “I’m not here. I’m not really doing this.” She had a father somewhere. Maybe he was the reason she was here. He had to think things at home were pretty bad if this was the kind of place a young girl ran to.

  The bartender lifted his chin and Jeffrey returned the signal, holding up two fingers, saying, “Rolling Rock.”

  He had a name badge on his chest that said Chip, and he certainly acted like he had one on his shoulder as he pulled the tap. He slammed both glasses on the bar, foam dripping down the sides. The music changed, the words so loud that Jeffrey couldn’t even hear how much the drinks were. He threw a ten on the bar, wondering if he’d get change.

  Jeffrey turned around, looking out at what could politely be called a crowd. Back in Birmingham, he had visited his share of titty bars with other cops on the force. The strip joints were the only bars open when their shifts ended, and they had all filed into the clubs to wind down, talk a little, drink a lot and get the taste of the streets out of their mouths. The girls there had been fresher, not so young and malnourished that you could count their ribs from twenty feet away.

  There was always an underlying tinge of desperation in these places, either from the guys looking up at the stage or the girls dancing on them. One of those late nights in Birmingham, Jeffrey had been in the bathroom taking a leak when a girl was attacked. He had broken down the door of the dressing room and pulled the man off her. The girl had this open disgust in her eyes—not just for her would-be attacker, but for Jeffrey, too. The other girls filed in, all of them half-dressed, all of them looking at him that same way. Their hostility, their razor-sharp hatred, had sliced into him like a knife. He had never gone back.

  Lena had stayed at the front door, reading the notices on a bulletin board. As she walked across the room, every man watched her, whether in person or through one of the many mirrors. Even the girl onstage seemed curious, missing a beat as she swung around the pole, probably wondering if she had some competition. Lena ignored them, but Jeffrey saw their stares, their eyes tracing up and down her body in a visual rape. He felt his fists clench, but Lena, noticing, shook her head.

  “I’ll go in the back and check the girls.”

  Jeffrey nodded, turning around to get his beer. There was two dollars and some change on the bar, but Chip was nowhere in sight. Jeffrey drank from the mug, almost gagging at the lukewarm liquid. Either they were watering down their drinks with sewage here at the Pink Kitty or they had hooked up the taps to a bunch of horses they kept under the bar.

  “Sorry,” a stranger said, bumping into him. Jeffrey instinctively reached back to check his wallet, but it was still there.

  “You from around here?” the guy asked.

  Jeffrey disregarded the question, thinking this was a pretty stupid place to cruise for dates.

  “I’m from around here,” the guy said, listing slightly.

  Jeffrey turned to look at him. He was about five six with stringy blond hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks. Drunk out of his mind, he was clutching the bar with one hand, the other straight out from his side as if he needed it there to balance. His fingernails were edged with dirt, his skin a pale yellow.

  Jeffrey asked, “You come here a lot?”

  “Every night,” he said, a snaggled tooth sticking out as he smiled.

  Jeffrey took out a photo of Abigail Bennett. “You recognize her?”

  The guy stared at the photo, licking his lips, still swaying back and forth. “She’s pretty.”

  “She’s dead.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t stop her from being pretty.” He nodded at the two mugs of beer. “You gonna drink that?”

  “Help yourself,” Jeffrey told him, moving down the bar to get away from him. The guy was probably just looking for his next drink. Jeffrey had dealt with that attitude before. He had seen it in his father every morning when Jimmy Tolliver dragged himself out of bed.

  Lena made her way to the bar, her expression answering his question. “Just one girl in the back,” she told him. “You ask me, she’s a runaway. I left my card with her, but I doubt anything will come out of it.” She looked behind the bar. “Where’d the bartender go?”

  Jeffrey hazarded a guess. “To tell the manager a couple of cops are here.”

  “So much for coming in soft,” she said.

  Jeffrey had spotted a door beside the bar and assumed that’s where Chip had scurried off to. Beside the door was a large mirror that had a darker tint than the others. He guessed someone, probably the manager or the owner, was on the other side, watching.

  Jeffrey didn’t bother knocking. The door was locked, but he managed to bust it open with a firm twist of the knob.

  “Hey!” Chip said, backing into the wall with his hands up.

  The man behind the desk was counting money, one hand going through the bills, the other tapping out numbers on an adding machine. “What do you want?” he asked, not bothering to look up. “I run a clean place. You ask anybody.”

  “I know you do,” Jeffrey said, taking Abigail’s photo out of his back pocket. “I need to know if you’ve seen this girl around here.”

  The man still didn’t bother to look up. “Never seen her.”

  Lena said, “You wanna take a look and tell us again?”

  He did look up then. A smile spread out on his wet lips, and he took a cigar out of the ashtray at his elbow and chewed on it. His chair groaned like a seventy-year-old whore when he leaned back in it. “We don’t usually have the pleasure of such fine company.”

  “Look at the picture,” she told him, glancing down at the nameplate on his desk. “Mr. Fitzgerald.”

  “Albert,” he told her, taking the Polaroid from Jeffrey. He studied the image, his smile dropping a bit before he stretched it back out. “This girl looks dead.”

  “Good call,” Lena told him. “Where are you going?”

  Jeffrey had been watching Chip edge toward another door, but Lena had caught him first.

  Chip stuttered, “N-nowhere.”

  “Keep it that way,” Jeffrey warned him. In the light of the office, the bartender was a scrawny guy, probably from a serious drug habit that kept him from eating too much. His hair was cut short over his ears and his face was clean shaven, but he still had the air of a derelict about him.

  Albert said, “Wanna lookit this, Chippie?” He held out the photo, but the bartender didn’t take it. Something was going on with him, though. Chip’s eyes kept darting from Lena to Jeffrey to the picture, then the door. He was still edging toward the exit, his back pressed to the wall as if he could sneak away while they were watching.

  “What’s your name?” Jeffrey asked.

  Albert answered for him. “Donner, like the party. Mr. Charles Donner.”

  Chip kept sliding his feet across the floor. “I ain’t done nothing.”

  “Stop right there,” Lena told him. She took a step toward him, and he bolted, swinging open the door. Lunging, she caught the back of his shirt, spinning him around straight into Jeffrey’s path. Jeffrey’s reaction was slow, but he managed to catch the young man before he fell flat on his face. He couldn’t keep the kid from banging into the metal desk, though.

  “Shit,” Chip cursed, holding his elbow.

  “You’re fine,” Jeffrey told him, scooping him up by his collar.

  He bent over at the
waist, clutching his elbow. “Shit, that hurt.”

  “Shut up,” Lena told him, picking up the Polaroid from the floor. “Just look at it, you pud.”

  “I don’t know her,” he said, still rubbing his elbow, and Jeffrey wasn’t sure whether or not he was lying.

  Lena asked, “Why’d you try to run?”

  “I’ve got a record.”

  “No shit,” Lena said. “Why’d you try to run?” When he didn’t answer her, she popped the back of his head.

  “Christ, lady.” Chip rubbed his head, looking at Jeffrey, beseeching him for help. He was barely taller than Lena, and even though he had about ten pounds on her, she definitely had more muscle.

  “Answer her question,” Jeffrey told him.

  “I don’t wanna go back inside.”

  Jeffrey guessed, “You’ve got a warrant out on you?”

  “I’m on parole,” he said, still holding his arm.

  “Look at the picture again,” Jeffrey told him.

  His jaw tightened, but Chip was obviously used to doing what he was told. He looked down at the Polaroid. He showed no visible recognition on his face, but Jeffrey saw his Adam’s apple bob as if he was trying to stop his emotions.

  “You know her, don’t you?”

  Chip glanced back at Lena as if he was afraid she’d hit him again. “If that’s what you want me to say, yeah. Okay.”

  “I want you to tell me the truth,” Jeffrey said, and when Chip looked up his pupils were as big as quarters. The guy was obviously high as a kite. “You know she was pregnant, Chip?”

  He blinked several times. “I’m broke, man. I can barely feed myself.”

  Lena said, “We’re not hitting you up for child support, you stupid fuck.”

  The door opened and the girl from the stage stood there, taking in the situation. “Y’all okay?” she asked.

  Jeffrey had looked away when she opened the door, and Chip took advantage of the situation, sucker punching him square in the face.

  “Chip!” the girl screamed as he pushed past her.

  Jeffrey hit the floor so hard he literally saw an explosion of stars. The girl started screaming like a siren and she fought Lena tooth and nail, trying to keep her from chasing after Chip. Jeffrey blinked, seeing double, then triple. He closed his eyes and didn’t open them for what seemed like a long while.