Two Days Gone (Ryan DeMarco Mystery #1)(80)

“Uh-huh,” DeMarco said. He poked his head into the first bedroom. A tangle of sheets and a green wool blanket on the mattress, the thick scent of farts and old sweat. Dirty clothes on the floor, a soup bowl filled with and surrounded by broken peanut shells and dust, an open bottle of Lake Erie Rhine wine beside the bowl, four inches of wine remaining.

Unless that’s his piss jar, DeMarco thought. He was careful not to touch the bottle when he knelt beside the bed to look underneath. Three balled-up socks and what appeared to be the twentieth-year reunion of a large class of dust bunnies.

“There’s nobody else here if that’s what you’re looking for.”

The other bedroom was filled wall to wall with cardboard boxes and white garbage bags crammed with empty wine bottles. Moby said, “Those are all going to the recycler when I can get somebody to haul them away for me.”

“Good to see you’re living green,” DeMarco said. He took a quick glance in the bathroom, winced, and turned back toward Moby, who backed into the living room as DeMarco approached.

Moby said, “Aren’t you supposed to have a warrant or something before you can look around in a fella’s place?”

“I just came for the pleasant conversation,” DeMarco answered. “And to admire your talent for interior design.” He put two fingers against Moby’s shoulder and pushed him down onto the sofa. DeMarco sat across from him on the edge of the orange vinyl banquette bench. He felt the little mobile home shiver on its foundation. He felt the fragility of Moby’s life.

When DeMarco leaned forward, Moby leaned back. DeMarco said, “So as far as you know, the guy your sister has been banging for the past, what, seventeen years or so if you count the conjugal visits, is a guy named Snyder?”

Moby looked at him and blinked.

“Don’t even try to fucking bullshit me,” DeMarco told him. “She’s your sister and she’s been taking care of you most of your life. I understand that. I also understand that a guy who looks and smells the way you do has a liver that’s only going to last a couple more years if he’s lucky. A couple more years you’d probably rather not spend in a little concrete room where the only wine you’ll get to drink is what comes squirting out of some fat prison guard’s dick.”

“Prison for what? I didn’t do anything.”

“How about as an accomplice to murder? Multiple homicides, to be specific.”

“Bullshit.”

The man’s surprise seemed genuine to DeMarco. “Maybe you’re not in the loop on those, but you know what? Tough shit. You withhold knowledge of your sister’s whereabouts, you’re still going to spend your last days sipping golden wine through a hairy straw.”

“Look, she told me to call him Snyder if anybody asked. And that’s all she told me.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

Moby scratched beneath his chin. “What day is this?”

“It’s Saturday, the original Sabbath. I should be sitting in a church pew singing praises to the Almighty, but thanks to you, I’m sitting in this tin shithole instead, and I don’t much feel like singing. So I swear to God, I’m going to drag your scrawny ass out to my car in about five seconds if you don’t stop scratching and tell me what I want to know.”

“She brought me home after we closed up Thursday. Then yesterday morning, her and Fuckhead come by to tell me they had to go somewhere for a couple days.”

“They came in Bonnie’s car?”

“I was in bed, man. Barely awake. They let themselves in and came to my room and told me.”

“A couple of days.”

“That’s what she said. Said she’d be back in a couple fucking days. At most.”

“And what did Fuckhead have to say?”

“Told me to keep my mouth shut or he’d twist my balls off with a pair of pliers.”

“And yet here we are, chatting like this.”

“Hey, nobody said nothing about there being murders involved. I don’t believe in hurting people.”

“But you know that Fuckhead believes in it, don’t you?”

“I know how he treats my sister.”

“And you too, I bet.”

“I couldn’t care less how he treats me.”

“Still, you probably wouldn’t mind much if I were to give him a nice room of his own far away from here for the next hundred years or so.”

“All I care about is that you fix it so Bonnie can’t hear from him or know where he is. When it comes to fucking up your life, I don’t have much room to talk, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out why a woman ever lets herself be suckered by a piece of shit like him.”

“It’s a mystery, no question about it.”

“That place where I work?” Moby said. “Why do those girls do that to themselves? I mean some of those girls are so fucking sweet.”

“They do it for the money, I guess.”

“Hell, man. Women could own this whole planet if they wanted to. They lock up their pussies long enough, every red-blooded man alive would be on his knees within a couple months.”

“Maybe so. Or maybe human nature is a little more complicated than that.”

“There’s no complication to it. Men want pussy and they’ll do whatever they have to, to get it.”