The Second Girl(81)

I usually like the solitude, even the confinement that comes with conducting surveillance. But sometimes, like now, it triggers something in my brain, like a switch with a short, so I can’t do anything but yield to whatever my mind conjures up. I’m pretty good at blocking certain things out, but it’s getting tougher, especially after what happened with Leslie, and then losing Miriam.

In my line of work the most commonplace decision can destroy a life, or take it. I don’t worry about things like that ’cause it’ll cripple you. I do have worries, though, and never talking to Leslie again is one of them. I don’t even know what we are…or were. Two lonely people who need each other? Or just one lonely man who thinks he needs her?

These thoughts I’m having are more than likely the result of fatigue, too much alcohol, and not enough blow. But what can I do? Stop drinking?

God forbid!

Who the hell am I kidding? I’m too f*cking needy sometimes. Maybe I should blame my parents, and growing up in a broken family, like some of these messed-up kids I’ve been dealing with do. Or maybe just blame my mother, the one responsible for all the destruction. She killed herself when my older brother and I were nothin’ but kids.

At least that’s what our father told us.

Enough of this shit. I grab my flask out of the center console and take a hard swig, and then another for good measure. As far as the blow, sometimes the knowledge that it’s there when I need it is enough. So I control the urge to self-medicate further.

A couple of crackheads walk through the alley, coming up from Euclid, scoping out the garages and the cars on the other side for a quick hit. I tuck down and watch them pass. They slowly make their way to University, and walk right in the opposite direction of the house.

The evening fades into night. There’s a heavy darkness over this alley. The streetlamps that are here don’t work. The only light I get is what filters out of windows.

It’s 12:43 when I notice the headlights from a car entering the alley from the direction of Euclid. I lean back as it passes. It’s a newer-model Escalade. It drives slowly and then parks near the Lexus. The passenger’s side opens and a black man I don’t recognize steps out. He walks toward the rear of the vehicle and meets up with the driver. I creep up as best as I can to get a better look. They open the back of the Cadillac and the passenger pulls out a bag of groceries or something. When he steps back to allow the driver to close the hatch I can see the driver.

Fuckin’ Little Monster.

They walk toward University Place and then left toward the house.

All the training I went through as a cop tells me not to step out of the car and go after them.

I hit Luna on the cell, but it kicks into message.

I try Davidson and it’s the same thing.

“Fuckwads,” I say to myself.

As I’m searching for Millhoff’s number, my cell rings. It’s Luna.

“You’d better not be getting f*cking drunk,” I say.

“Hell no. I’m still working on the shooting. What do you need?”

“I’m sitting behind a house that your shooter, Little Monster, just walked in.”

“Fuck, you are kidding me?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s going to be in there for a while, but you might want to get surveillance set up on it ASAP so you can get an emergency search warrant.”

“And you’re sure about this?”

“Hell yeah, I’m sure. That mope almost killed me, too.”

“Where are you?”

“In the alley rear of the fourteen hundred block of Euclid, parked in a four-door Toyota alongside the only Dumpsters in the alley. The house is on the twenty-five hundred block of University Place. I didn’t get an address, so I’ll have to point it out. Don’t drive in the alley. Come on foot from the Euclid side. You know where I’m talking about, right?”

“Yeah, now you f*cking stand by and don’t go stupid. You hear?”

“Who do you think you’re talking to, partner? Now hurry up.”

I pull out my flask and take a nice hefty swig of Jameson to calm my nerves.





Seventy-three



It doesn’t take Luna more than a few minutes to show, probably because the area they’ve been working is only a few blocks away.

He’s dressed down for the occasion. Looks like a bum. I roll down my window.

“Hop in,” I tell him.

He walks around the rear of my car to the passenger’s side and enters.

“See the Escalade and the black Lexus over there?”

“Yeah.”

“Little Monster got out of the driver’s side of the Escalade along with another subject, who I don’t know, and they walked to University Place. The Lexus there belongs to Playboy, the driver of the hooptie.”

“Where’s the house?”

“Straight ahead. The light green house to the left of the redbrick row house. It has the chain-link fence.”

“Got it. I have to ask again, so don’t jump down my throat. Are you sure about this?”

“When was the last time I wasn’t?”

“I’m just saying, because we bust into that house and you’re wrong, it’s my ass that’s going to get spanked, not yours.”

“They’re in there, Albino.”