Damnation Street

  I could see the lobby through the glass. I could see the patients sitting in plastic chairs, waiting for their doctors. Their faces looked haggard. They looked pensive. They looked afraid. These were people, I told myself, who were kind and unkind to others in their lives, who cheated and played fair. They were people who worried about whether they were going to get promoted at their jobs and whether they were going to get home in time to watch their favorite television shows. They were people who argued over who was right and who left out the milk that had gone sour.

  I didn't think they were worried about the milk now or their promotions or their television shows.

  Which I guess brought my mind back to Bishop. Lying as I'd seen him, with that shocking, colorless face. And Weiss, too, sitting over him with his shoulders slumped and his wise, saggy features emaciated and gray. I thought about both of them and the things that had happened in these dramatic months since I had graduated university and come to work with them at the Agency. They were troubled men. I knew that. Weiss with his whores and his incurable solitude. Bishop with his penchant for violence, his cold heart. They were lost men in many ways. But I admired them. I admired them both.

  I sat in my Hyundai and thought some more about what makes a man admirable.

  Then, when Weiss came out of the hospital, I followed him.

  I couldn't tell him any of that now, here in the rest stop in the Arizona desert. But of course, it was always difficult to figure out how much you had to tell him and how much he already knew.

  In any case, he said, "Get back in the car. Get out of here. This isn't a story. You could get hurt. Go home."

  "I don't want to go home," I said. "I know it's not a story. Let me help you."

  "You can't help me."

  "I'm not afraid," I lied. "Let me do something. Please."

  I thought that was it; it was over. I thought he was going to jam me back inside the car like he was packing an overstuffed suitcase. I thought he'd grab me by the scruff of the neck, shove me behind the wheel, and kick my ass for good measure before he slammed the door and sent me on my way.

  To this day I don't know what was going through his mind. Maybe he understood what it was I needed from him. Or maybe he simply saw that he could use me for his purposes. I don't know. But to my absolute amazement, he nodded once.

  "All right," he said. "You wanna follow me? Follow me. Only stay right behind me this time, so you're not so conspicuous."

  He went stomping angrily back to his car. I jumped—eagerly—into mine.

  41.

  We drove north together out of Arizona. We wound through Nevada, through a glum wilderness, the sky gray the whole time, a long time, and nothing anywhere but dust and scrub and barbed wire. We stopped for gas in places that looked as if they rose out of the barren earth only once every century. We bought sandwiches wrapped in plastic, sandwiches made by people who had long since died. We never said a word to one another. We got out of our cars and gassed up and got back in our cars and drove on and never said a word. I kept the Taurus's rear bumper right in front of me. I hardly looked at anything else. I hardly saw the daylight rise and fall behind the clouds. I felt the night come quickly, but I wasn't sure when.

  The hours passed. I had been excited for a while and fearful for a while, but now I was just tired and dazed with driving. I noticed a glow in the distance, a low dome of light below the clouds at the vanishing point. I didn't think much of it at first, but it turned out to be a town. Soon the blackness at the car's windows was broken by a billboard, then a gas station, then a sign for a trailer park. Then the town rolled up over the edge of the land. Union City.

  It started to rain as we came off the highway. Weiss stopped the Taurus at a red light on the main drag. I pulled up behind him. I turned on the windshield wipers. Peered through the sweep of them at a desolate stretch of road. Mournfully bland restaurants and motels, hole-in-the-wall casinos, car dealerships, mini-marts. Block after block of them, side by desperate side. I stared down the narrowing corridor, wondering what would happen next, waiting for the light to change.

  The light changed, turned green. The Taurus edged forward. I followed. Weiss drove slowly. I could make out the shape of him through his rear window. He was scoping the buildings left and right, glancing down the side streets left and right. It was hard to see anything much in the rain.

  Finally, he pulled into a Mobil station. I pulled in behind him, although the Hyundai's tank was more than half-full. A leathery local in a straw cowboy hat was pumping gas into his pickup. Weiss buzzed down his window.

  "I'm looking for the House of Dreams," he said.

  The local smiled and pulled a toothpick from the side of his mouth. Pointed with it. "Over on River Lane." He winked. "They call it Damnation Street."

  Damnation Street. I've never forgotten it. It was a little lane around the corner from the last motel on the drag, at the edge of town. It was a stretch of broken pavement going nowhere. It was lined with brothels on either side.

  The brothels were shabby clapboards, with white walls and bright trim, bright red or bright blue. Most of them were built like houses. They had pitched roofs and covered porches outside the front doors. One was more in the style of a Western saloon, brown, long, flat, and low. Each had a neon sign of some sort, fizzing under the ridge of the roof or blinking in the window. Jenny's Place. The Pussycat Lounge. Isabelle de Paris... I remember I snorted when I saw that one. Isabelle de Paris.

  It was early yet. A little after seven. But the slanted parking spaces at the curbsides were nearly full. There were all kinds of vehicles slotted in them. A Jeep, an SUV, a Corvette, a luxury-model Ford, a clutch of Harleys. There was a separate fenced-in parking area at the end of the lane set aside for tractor trailers. That was crowded too.

  I was still looking the place over when I was startled by a knock on my window. Weiss. Standing in the rain, wearing his trench coat, the water running down the crags in his face. I opened the window.

  "I'm going into that one," he said. He stuck his thumb at one of the white clapboards with red trim. Its name was written in a window in pink neon script: The House of Dreams and Joy.

  I reached for the door handle.

  "No," he said, "you stay here. I gotta see a girl and she may not want to see me. These places share muscle. If there's trouble, reinforcements'll come in from one of the others. Stay in the car. I'll take care of things inside. You watch for any tough guys moving in on me."

  I nodded. I knew I was supposed to be grim and determined, but I was secretly thrilled. This was great. This was exactly what I was looking for. The real deal. Adventure. Experience. The sort of thing you could make a story out of at dinner parties.

  I said, "You want me to give you the heads-up when they come?"

  "No," he said. "I want you to stop them. Keep them out here till I'm finished."

  I meant to reply but somehow I didn't. I think I was going to say What? Or How? Or maybe just Huh? But somehow I didn't say any of those things. I just sat there, looking at him, with my lips parted.

  "I'll need about five minutes once the shit starts flying. Keep them out here as long as you can."

  "Uh...," I finally said.

  But by that time, Weiss was already moving across the pavement to the whorehouse door.

  42.

  Weiss stepped up onto the porch and pushed into the brothel.

  The House of Dreams and Joy was a dark tavern. Cheap paneling on the walls, a string or two of Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling. Horseshoes and metal cowboy cutouts hung here and there. There was a poster of a woman's lips. There was a painting of a naked woman on the bathroom door.

  In front of him, two steps down, there was a sort of lounge, sunk deep in shadow. He could make out a tattered green sofa, some stuffed chairs, a pool table in an island of light. There were a couple of bikers playing pool.

  There was a bar to his right. A hardcase cowboy was dealing beer from bottle to glass. A TV on the sh
elf behind him played Monster Garage, no sound. The mirror was rimmed with more Christmas lights.

  By the jukebox nearby, there were a couple of high round tables. Three ass-crack truckers, maybe four hundred pounds apiece, were sitting on stools at one of these tables, surrounding a pitcher of beer, clutching mugs. There was a small dance floor just beyond them, a raised platform with a metal pole for strippers. There was a whore there now, moving sleepily to the country music. She wore jeans cut off just under the crotch and a sparkly halter top. She was blond and not half bad looking, but no one paid any attention to her. She kept her clothes on. She kept her face expressionless.

  A woman approached Weiss as he let the screen door slip shut behind him. She was in her fifties, short, with a pinched, gnarled, and pleasantly vicious face under a curling red wig. She was wearing a colorless skirt and a dull brown cardigan. She had implants that made her breasts jut out from her like a pair of footballs.

  "Wow, you're a big one," she said. "All right, let's line up for the gentleman, girls."

  She gestured, and from the shadows in the lounge, the figures of women began to emerge, began to come forward toward the light where Weiss was standing. He caught the glinting of their eyes. He saw the drifting filmy fabric of their robes.

  He didn't like the setup.

  "If you don't mind, I'll have a drink first," he said. "I'll be at the bar." "Sure. Suit yourself." The woman gestured again, and the girls sank back into the dark corners.

  Weiss sat at the bar. The cowboy slapped a Rock in front of him. Almost at once, one of the girls appeared on the next stool over. That was more like it, one on one.

  She was a little creature, with mouse-brown hair and the pale, eager face of a vampire. She was wearing a sheer nightgown with a black bra and panties underneath. She was trim but flabby around the middle, he noticed. She'd had a kid at some point, maybe a couple of them.

  "Hi," she said. "I'm Eden."

  "I bet you are," Weiss said pleasantly. He raised his glass, smiled down at her, going through the motions.

  Eden went through the motions too, leaning forward, moving her hand onto his thigh. But now that she saw him up close, she caught sight of the cop in him. He could tell from her eyes. Their expression changed. They grew watchful.

  "I'm looking for Kristy," he told her. "I was here awhile back and we had a real nice party."

  Eden pretended to believe him. "Kristy's partying with a guest right now," she said.

  Weiss shrugged. "No hurry. I can wait."

  She lifted her chin. "Let me see if I can find out when she'll be ready for you."

  She slipped off the stool. Holding his beer, he looked over his shoulder, watched her black panties move as she receded into the shadows of the lounge. Something was wrong, he could feel it. The girl was too smooth, as if she'd been waiting for him, as if she'd been told what to say.

  Weiss sat at the bar, on edge. His eyes moved, taking in the lounge, the dancing girl by the table, the ass-crack truckers knocking back their mugs of beer. He didn't know what he was looking out for, but he was looking out for something. Everything seemed okay, though.

  Slowly, he faced front.

  The cowboy barkeep brought a broken pool cue whipping around at his head.

  The cowboy was tall and lean. He was wearing jeans and a white shirt with buttons the color of pearl. The sleeves were rolled up high. He had ropy muscles in his forearms. He had meanness carved deep into the lines of his face. He struck with sinuous speed.

  But Weiss was keyed up, ready. He saw the blow coming. He moved fast too, dodging back on his stool, his hands flying up at his sides. The pool cue hissed past his nose. It hit the glass in his hand and shattered it, sending a spray of yellow beer into the dim bar light.

  On reflex, Weiss slashed with the broken glass in his hand. The shard ripped through the flesh of the cowboy's forearm like a knife ripping canvas. The cowboy snarled and jumped back. He crashed into the shelf behind him. A red line sprouted between his wrist and his elbow. The pool cue dropped from his shaking fingers.

  Weiss lunged over the bar at him. He grabbed a handful of the cowboy's hair with his right hand and yanked him forward. With his left hand gripping the cowboy's neck, he shoved him down with all the strength he had. The cowboy's face smacked into the bar top with a heavy, liquid thud. The impact crushed the cowboy's nose. Blood squirted over the polished wood. The cowboy shuddered. He became a dead weight in Weiss's grip. Weiss released him. The cowboy slid off the bar and dropped to the floor.

  Weiss turned quickly. Was there anyone else? It didn't look like it. The truckers were watching him from their table. One of them scratched his chin. Another drank his beer. The girl on the stage behind them had stopped danc- ing and just stood there, expressionless as before, while the country music played.

  In the lounge, at the pool table, in the island of light, one biker leaned on his stick, frowning in Weiss's direction. The other knocked the nine ball into the far corner.

  Weiss let his breath out. His hand stung. He glanced at the mess of it. The broken glass had lanced the web between thumb and finger. The blood was rolling out of the cut. It covered his palm. He looked around for a napkin or a bar towel, something to stanch the flow. But now a movement in the shadows caught his eye.

  It was the madam, the woman with the red hair and football tits. She was peeking out of an office door near the entryway. She had a phone at her ear.

  "Ah, shit," said Weiss.

  He pushed away from the bar, his stool scraping over the floor. He came around the end of the bar until he could look out the window. Sure enough, two more cowboys had just come out of the Western saloon—style brothel across the street. They were striding through the rain toward the House of Dreams and Joy, kicking broken pavement and mud with their pointed boots.

  Weiss moved fast, heading deeper into the shadows.

  43.

  The minute I saw them, I knew they were the men I was waiting for: these two cowboys charging out of the saloon. Six feet apiece. Both in jeans and plaid shirts. One guy squinty and barrel-chested, the other with a shaved head on broad shoulders. They both had pale eyes, almost white eyes, glinting with a cruel delight in violence. They were moving fast through the rain toward the House of Dreams.

  I sat in the puke green Hyundai and watched them through the rain-streaked windshield as they came. I knew I was supposed to get out and challenge them, but it didn't look like a very good idea. Instead, I tried to convince myself that they might not be who they obviously were, might not be the enforcers Weiss had warned me about. Perhaps they were just customers of the local establishments, said I to my inner man. Perhaps they were just two jolly companions out for a harmless spree among the ladies of the evening. How can one tell, I inquired philosophically, who is a mere reveler and who is a murderous thug come to beat the living daylights out of one's friend?

  This is how intellectuals stay out of fistfights. They convince themselves the situation is complex. It's much safer than acknowledging the simple right and wrong of the thing, the need for immediate action.

  It's safer, but it's not admirable. And as I was there to become admirable, and as there was no room for me to become any less admirable than I already was, I somehow forced myself to push my way out of the car, to step in front of the porch of the House of Dreams and to plant my tremulous body between these two charging gorillas and the front door they were charging at.

  I won't discourse at length upon my fear. Suffice it to say there was a lot of it. My muscles felt gelatinous. My aforementioned inner man had suddenly assumed the stature of a crap-assed, squalling three-year-old. Still, I tried to bolster my confidence. I told myself all was not lost. How much of the outcome of such situations depends on a man's approach to them, after all? How much can be accomplished with the right attitude, a powerful facade? If I could put on a good front, if I could act, I mean, a bit like Bishop, cool and deadly like Bishop, or authoritative and just and inexorable like Weis
s, surely these men would hesitate before attempt- ing to get past me. If I could dominate them enough with my sheer presence, perhaps I could even keep them harmlessly at bay for the five minutes Weiss needed inside.

  So—quivering within though I was—I set my face as if my soul were made of iron. I hooked my thumbs in my belt. I smiled—I actually smiled a slow, easy, dangerous-looking Bishop-style smile—as the two men pulled to a stop in front of me.

  "Sorry, gentlemen," I said quietly. "I can't let you go in there just yet."

  Now here's an interesting thing some of you may not know about getting punched in the head. It is thoroughly unnerving. It's not just painful—though, take my word, it is extraordinarily painful. It also completely alters your world-view. In a single instant, you are transformed from a person of varied, multidimensional interests to a person whose sole interest on earth is not getting punched in the head ever again. A man's principles, a woman's virtue, a lifelong dedication to the good—all of them, I'm convinced, are susceptible to a good punch in the head. In fact, this is why head punching is generally acknowledged to be impermissible in a free society and why people who do it must, after civil discussion and agreement, be punched in the head back.

  Unfortunately, I was no longer in any condition to implement such retaliatory measures. Because one of these mon-keys—the one with the shaved head—had just socked me in the side of the face with a fist the size of a very big fist.

  I went reeling backward. My ankle hit the edge of the House of Dreams' raised porch. Down I fell, my backside landing hard on the wooden platform. The barrel-chested ape kicked me in the side for good measure. Then both men stepped over me, heading for the door.

  It was now no longer my goal to stop these guys or to help Weiss. My only goal was not to get punched in the head anymore. It was a good goal—I think so even today. But was it admirable? No, I couldn't say that it was.

  So I scrambled to my feet. I leapt upon the rear man—the barrel-chested man—grabbing him by the belt and collar. The attack took him by surprise—hell, it took me by surprise. Though my head was ringing like a church-tower bell, though my eyes felt as if they were rattling in my skull like dice, I was able to swing the bigger man around and hurl him off the porch so that he tripped and fell into the mud and concrete.