The Unwilling(67)

The pressure stayed on until tears sprang up in the bartender’s eyes. “What about you?” French swung on the drunks at the bar. One shook his head, terrified. The other fell off the back of his stool, then ran for the exit, stumbling twice before French tripped him from behind, and pinned him with a knee. “Why are you running? What are you so afraid of?”

The old drunk was thin and frail, but a creature had torn loose in French’s chest. “Look at the picture.” He shoved it at the old man’s face; caught the jaw, twisting it back. “I said, look at it! He was here, yes?” Fingers pressed on whiskers and brittle bone. The old man moaned in pain, but there were answers here, and French would tear them out if he had to. The bartender. The old men. In some dark place, he knew not even the girl was safe. “Was he here? Who was he with?” The old man began to cry. “I’ll ask you one more time…”

“Stop it, please! You’re hurting him!”

It was the girl, ashen and afraid. She had both hands on her heart, a slip of a girl.

“He can’t even speak. Don’t you see? He never has.”

She touched her mouth, and French looked down at the old man, seeing him for the first time, a frail old drunk, wild-eyed and afraid, moaning wetly as he worked a mouth with no tongue.

French stumbled back, horrified by the extent of his fear and rage, and by the creature that followed behind. He wanted to apologize, but knew there were no sufficient words. So he showed his palms instead, backing away until he found night air and the quiet and his car. From behind the wheel, he watched people flee the bar, the old men stumbling off together, the bartender leaving next, and then the young woman, who locked the building’s door before shaking out a cigarette and placing it between her lips. She didn’t notice the police car until half the cigarette was gone, then she started his way, and he watched her come. The narrow waist. The shadows for eyes. If she was afraid, it didn’t show. She put a hand on the roof, and looked inside. French was unsure what to say, so he spoke in cop. “You shouldn’t lock up alone in a place like this. It’s dangerous.”

“Normally, I don’t, but you scared the bartender pretty bad.”

Up close, the girl was pretty and younger than she’d first seemed, maybe only eighteen. “About what happened in there…”

“You kind of lost your shit. Yeah, I saw it.”

“Is he okay?”

“Old Tom? He’s tougher than he looks.”

“He’s a regular?”

“Like the rain.”

She smoked more, and studied him with a contemplative air. French thought something was happening, but couldn’t think clearly. The way he’d behaved, that blind rage. The girl was still watching him, her eyes either gray or dark blue. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Eighteen.”

“And your parents know you work in a place like this?”

“So what?” She frowned around the cigarette. “Now you’re the good cop?”

“I’ve pulled bodies from this place. Before your time, but more than once.”

She shrugged, quietly amused. “I think I’m safe enough.”

“You can’t know that.”

“My father is pulling a dime for the club. Central Prison.”

“So this place?”

“It’s easy money, and it’s like I said, no one touches me unless they want every Hells Angel in the state gunning for them.”

“This is a club bar?”

“Yes and no. A couple nights a week.”

“And the bartender?”

“A wannabe.”

French was feeling better now: slower thoughts, some kind of order. “It’s Janelle, right?”

“It is.”

“What can I do for you, Janelle?”

She looked away, and small teeth appeared as she caught her bottom lip. “That boy is really your son?”

“He was here, then. Did you see what happened?”

“I’m no rat. I noticed him, is all.”

“And…?”

“And he was my age and cute and kind of sweet-looking.”

“He almost died, right up there in the ditch, dumped like trash with his head kicked in.” She shook her head, then showed the same twilight eyes. “It’s just us, Janelle. All alone, no one around.” She hesitated, but French was close. “What would your father do if it were you, half-dead in a ditch? What would you want him to do? My son is only eighteen. He’s your age…”

“Okay, all right. Enough. Jesus.” She lit another cigarette. “Look, it’s like I said. I was working, and I saw him, and I paid attention. Good-looking. Kind of earnest. I couldn’t hear everything he said, but I know he was asking about Tyra Norris…”

“Tyra Norris. You’re certain about that name?”

“Hey, I’m no rat, but I’m not stupid, either. He was asking about Tyra Norris—I heard it plain as day—and before someone killed that bitch dead, she was the original slut-whore from hell. Bikers. Truckers. Even a few cops.” She pointed with the cigarette, one eye half-closed. “Maybe that’s what got your boy beat.”



* * *



In the driveway an hour later, French saw a light in Gibby’s room. He wanted desperately to see his son, to know he was okay, but also to push hard about Tyra Norris and the Carriage Room. But time, he decided, was a friend. Let the resentments settle, the angers fade. Going to his office instead, French poured a drink, and squared Jason’s military records on the desk, staring at the envelope until the drink was gone.