The Big Ugly (8 page)

"Would you like to have a seat?" he asked.

"Sure."

I sat down in the creaky wooden chair on my side of the desk.

As Kluge settled into the chair on his side, he asked, "Forgive me for beginning with a question which will doubtless sound more than a little presumptuous, but do you know who I am?"

"No, sir."

He lowered his chin to his tie for a moment before he said, "I'm a small businessman who has dealings with various moneyed interests around the state. Not all of these moneyed interests are card carrying members of the chamber of commerce, you understand. Since you were in Eastgate, I almost certainly know some of the same people you know."

"Okay."

He nodded. "I understand that you've been looking for Alexis Kravitz."

I folded my hands on my lap. "Okay."

"Okay, yes-you-are?"

"Okay. Yes, I am. You seem to know that. Do you mind if I ask how you know?"

"Osotouy City is just a small town pretending to be a city, Miss Bennett. Word gets around. And I'm the sort of man that the word eventually gets around to."

"Okay," I said. "I'm looking for Alexis."

He nodded. "May I ask why?"

I didn't have time to consider my options or to ask myself what the hell this man wanted from me, but there was a sickness in my gut that told me to keep my mouth shut.

I just smiled politely.

When he wasn't talking, Kluge's mouth hung open a bit. As he thought, the tip of his gray tongue darted out between his dentures.

"May I speculate, then?" he asked.

"Sure."

"Someone hired you to find Miss Kravitz. You were chosen for the task because you were both a former guard and a former inmate of Eastgate Penitentiary. The person or persons who hired you for this job were connected, in some form or fashion, to Jerry Kingston. Am I chasing a wild goose here, or am I on to something?"

"What can I do for you, Mr. Kluge?"

He lowered his chin to his tie again and regarded his yellowed fingernails. "I am prepared to pay you to tell me where Alexis Kravitz is. I'm prepared to pay you even more to take me to her."

"Why do you want to find her?"

"That's my concern, and I don't propose to pay you to ask me questions. Do you know where she is?"

"No, sir, I don't."

"Do you know how to find her?"

"Maybe."

"You are looking for her, then?"

"You know I'm looking for her. I'm guessing it was either Mule or Hastings who contacted you. Your people had already been around to see them both, and when I showed up looking for Alexis, one of them probably called you up to see if you'd kick him a few dollars for the information."

Kluge's tongue darted out twice before he said, "How much is Kingston paying you?"

"Five thousand dollars."

He smiled at that. He probably knew I was lying, but I had the strong hunch that Kluge spent most of his time talking to liars about money.

"I'll give you ten thousand dollars to find this woman for me."

I felt a lightness in my chest. I don't know if it was greed or fear. Maybe both.

"Why do you want to find her, Mr. Kluge?"

He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and texted something as he asked, "What reason did Jerry Kingston give you?"

"I didn't talk to Jerry Kingston."

"Then what reason did some associate of Jerry Kingston give you?"

"They said she became a Christian and kicked drugs, but that she'd fallen back into her old life and run off."

He put his cell phone back in his pocket. "Did you believe that?"

"I believed the money."

He nodded. "Only a fool would believe anything else."

I stood up. "I'll need a retainer."

"I've just taken care of that. Vin in the hallway will see you down and give you five thousand."

I jerked my head at the doorway to indicate Vin in the hallway. "He cracked in the head or something?"

Kluge smiled. "Well, I reckon he's got his own particular perspective on the world. Don't we all. Good bye, Miss Bennett."

I left him sitting there flicking his tongue. Vin in the hallway saw me down. We didn't say anything until we got to the front door of the building. He pulled out hundred dollar bills in a roll as thick as toilet paper.

"Hold out your hands."

I held out my hands.

He counted off ten bills. "One." Another ten bills. "Two."

As he counted out the rest of the cash, I watched the stack get bigger in my hands. When Vin got to the last hundred, he waded up the bill and stuck it in his mouth. Then he chewed it into a wet ball, pulled it out, and dropped it on the stack.

"And a cherry on top," he said.

"What the fuck?"

I shook the ball off. Vin only smiled and walked back to the elevators. After he was gone, I stood there, just staring at the damp wad of money on the ground.

Outside, I turned up the sidewalk and walked a few streets over to the river. At the base of a bridge—an old railway bridge that had been repurposed into a pedestrian bridge during the last downtown beautification—there was a little green park that sloped down to the water. I kicked off my shoes, sat down on the grass and thought things over.

The logical place to look for Alexis was among our fellow ex-inmates at Eastgate. They were a rough bunch, but I knew one I could trust.

Sholonda Effervescence Jackson was a career criminal, and the broads at Eastgate called her Effervescence, or Big F, or Jack. No one called her Sholonda. She was about thirty-five years old, and she'd spent five of those years at Eastgate. Although Jack was a cool operator, a serious thief who took her time, did the planning, and stayed clean in between jobs, we all have to work with somebody, and she'd knocked over a bank with a couple of partners. After the job was done and everyone was in the clear, one of her partners got pinched for breaking and entering and attempted rape. It only took him about five minutes to flip and give up his whole crew for the bank job. Without anything else to tie her to the heist, Jack dodged the robbery conviction, but they nabbed her for conspiracy to commit.

She'd been my prisoner for three and a half years and then my block-mate for nine months. We'd always gotten along pretty well. I'd treated her fairly when I was a CO, and when I was an inmate, even though Eastgate divided up along racial lines, we'd done each other favors on the yard. When I heard that some pissed off white broad was planning to attack her in her bed one night, I tipped her off. Jack was waiting when she got jumped and she beat her attacker senseless with a piece of wood she'd snapped off a rake handle from the garden. I don't actually think the white chick intended to kill her, but Jack said I'd saved her life.

She'd gotten out of Eastgate before me, and I wasn't sure if she'd stayed in town, but I did know how to find out where she was. It was a risk, but I decided to take it, anyway.

As I watched a young father chase his two little girls around the park, I dug out my cell phone and called Eastgate.

An automated operator gave me a list of options. I pressed 1 for a directory. When the number for Thaxter came up I punched it in.

A crusty voice said, "Tony Thaxter."

"Thax, it's Ellie Bennett."

"Ellie … Hi. How are you?"

"I'm okay. How about you?"

"Oh, you know. This place is like a prison."

Just to butter him up, I gave him an appreciative laugh.

"How are you?" he asked again.

"I'm doing pretty well. Working for my brother. Right now, I'm downtown at Riverside Park just watching the river go by."

"Well, that sounds nice. I'm glad to hear everything is well with you …" He drifted into a silence that invited me to come to the point.

"Yeah, listen, Tony. I need to ask a favor."

"I'll do it if I can," he said. They knew the
if I can
was a buffer against any possible illegal shenanigans.

"I was wondering if you could give me Effervescence Jackson's address. I owe her some money, and I want to pay it back."

There was a silence on the other end of the phone. Tony Thaxter had one of those fleshy, worried faces that always looked ready to get bad news. I could practically see him running his fingers through his cigarette-yellowed hair.

"I don't know, Ellie."

"Ah c'mon, Thax. I just need to pay her back. She did me a favor inside, and I want to I pay my debt."

"This … We're not talking drugs here, are we?"

"No. Of course not."

"And we're not talking reprisals or anything? Some beef between you two."

"Tony …"

"I'm just," his voice lowered, although I was sure he was alone in his office, "I'm just saying, I could get fired if it was a deal like that."

"It's nothing at all like any of that," I said. "Jack and I are friendly. No bad blood at all. And it's not drugs or anything like that. I've never touched drugs, and I'm pretty sure Jack doesn't have anything to do with them either."

"But she's a criminal, Ellie. You know what I mean. You did time, but Effervescence Jackson is a straight up criminal. Not the kind of person you should—I'm not your PO—but she's not the sort of person you should be associating with now that you're out."

"Thanks for the advice and thank you for the concern, Thaxter, but could you please just give me the fucking address?"

I hadn't meant to snap at him, but he was starting to piss me off.

He grumbled, but I heard him clacking on his computer.

"537 Business Street. North Osotouy."

"537 Business Street."

"Yeah. North Osotouy."

"Thanks, Thax."

"Yeah. Bennett?"

"Yeah."

"Don't fuck me on this."

North Osotouy City spread out across the river. Business Street was a long road that ran from the baseball park to the big Phillips-Anderson Cookie Factory, which had been churning out cookies as long as I'd been alive. In between, there were some little shops and restaurants, but I didn't see any housing.

I couldn't find 537 for a while. The numbers alternated odd and even across the street. So 537 should have been between 535 and 539. 535 Business was a black barbershop. 539 was a head shop that was closed for the day. No 537.

I parked along the street and went into the barber shop.

Four men of varying ages sat in chairs along the wall watching a football game on an old television on top of a filing cabinet. The barber was a tall, thin man with big eyes. He wasn't dressed like any barber I'd ever known—he wore a yellow silk shirt over a green T-shirt and baggy yellow jeans. He stopped what he was doing when I came in, but for that matter so did everyone else.

"Hello," I said.

With a nod he said, "Hello."

"I was wondering if you could help me. I'm looking for 537 Business?"

I couldn't help but glance at myself in the mirror that covered the entire wall over the barber's station. Ellie Bennett, hell of a gal.

"How come you looking for it?" the barber asked. He didn't seem hostile, but he didn't seem in a hurry to answer my question, either.

The men along the wall waited for my answer. No one seemed to care one way or the other, but no one was watching the game anymore, either.

"I'm looking for Effervescence Jackson. I'm a friend of her's."

The man in the barber's chair was a large, older guy with weary eyes. He turned around in the chair to look at the barber.

The barber asked, "You ain't got her number? You can't call her?"

"No."

He thought about it. I glanced at myself in the mirror again. In my outfit I looked a little official.

I said, "Me and Big F are friends. Really. She'll be happy to see me. I promise."

He pointed his scissors at the ceiling. "537 up top. You go round back and up the stairs. She home."

"Thanks," I said. I told the guy in the chair, "Looking good, sir. Gonna be a handsome cut."

They all laughed at that, and I left.

I went around back to a flight of unpainted, graying wooden steps that led up to a balcony with three doors. 537 was written on one door in magic marker. Beside the door was a short statue of a bulldog smoking a cigar.

I knocked.

Footsteps approached the door.

A woman's voice barked, "Who dat?"

I couldn't tell if it was her or not.

"Big F? This is Ellie Bennett."

A moment passed and then the door opened.

The big in "Big F" was misleading. Actually, she was a trim woman a couple of inches shorter than me. The only thing big about her was her wide, full mouth. When she opened the door, she was already smiling.

"Ellie Bennett! What you doing, woman?"

"Thought I'd drop by. Is this a good time to visit?"

"Yeah. Sure. Come on in."

She opened the door wider, and I walked past her. A short hallway with a narrow closet door, a doorway into a kitchenette, then a den.

The den was spacious and warm. Sunlight poked through the curtains over a large window on the far wall, throwing some rays across a cream-colored sectional sofa. Some magazines were fanned out across a glass-topped coffee table facing a flat screen television.

"Cute place, Jack," I said over my shoulder.

She followed me into the room. She wore gray yoga pants and a blue T-shirt with the neck cut out.

"Thanks."

"It's good to see you," I said.

She leaned against her doorway and crossed her arms. She gave me a polite smile, but her dark brown eyes were serious. "It's good to see you, too."

"Bet you're wondering why I'm here."

"Well, I'm glad to see you," she said with another polite smile, "but … yeah. You and me don't exactly run in the same social circles."

I walked over to her sofa and nodded at it as if to ask if it were okay for me to have a seat.

She nodded.

I pushed a folded Afghan out of the way and sat down. "Well," I said, "I don't know about social circles. We were inside together."

"I guess. But you did a year for fucking up a prisoner—"

"Allegedly."

"And I did five for
allegedly
jacking up a bank." She smiled for real this time. "You see the difference?"