THE FOURTH WATCH (36 page)

"Hey, get off your ass and get us two more,
willya?" Walter barked, his eyes never leaving the dishwashers
chest. The bartender poured two drafts and put them on the bar.
Skids brought them back to the table.

"Sox are gonna win it all this year," Skids
said, watching the game on the TV above the bar..

"Plenty of time left to fold," Walter told
him.

"Hey," Skids said, his head snapping around.
"Look at the rack on this!"

Walter followed his eyes. Across the room a
beautiful Asian looking woman in a tight sweater had come in
through the front door. She stood looking around for a moment, saw
her party and went over smiling. She had a wonderful
figure.

"Those ain't real," Walter said.

Skids blinked at him. ''Huh? What you figure
implants?"

Walter shrugged. "Maybe."

"What else?"

Walter sighted. "You know, you are a fucking
moron." He turned in his chair with his elbow on the table. "Let me
ask you something. You ever see a gook or chink or Jap bitch with
big tits? Course not. They're all slinky and small, you know. It's
a genetic thing."

Skids was nodding. "So you figure
implants?"

"Well, it could be. But the other thing it
could be is that she ain't a purebred. Now listen to me dip-shit
and you might learn something here. I'm talkin' genetics now, are
you with me?"

''Well..."

"Sure,” Walter told him. “WWII, right, The Big
One? We sent all these soldiers over to the Pacific to chase those
little yellow monsters back to Japland. And then, when it was over,
we left guys there to police the place. Same thing in Korea, am I
right? What you don't think these guys ain't dipping their wicks in
the local oil spots?"

"I never thought of that," Skids said, thinking
about it now.

"That's 'cause you're an imbecile. My brain is
dying just sitting next to you! See, here's the thing, when you
introduce a big buck niggra or kielbasi totein' Pollark into the
situation, the whole genetic pool gets changed around. Them hard
hats are burrowin' deep and leavin' their seeds, right? Next thing
you know, couple generations go by, and presto-changeo, you got a
big set of knockers growin' on a slope bitch." Walter took a drink
from his beer. ''It's all science."

"Yeah?" Skids said.

"Sure," Walter told him.

They sat with their beers and marveled at the
wonders of science.

*****

AT A QUARTER TO FIVE
Rick Wall came in with some people from the DA's
office. Wall went to the bar, noticed Walter and Skids at their
table and came over. ''Hey, dumb and dumber, what are you guys
waiting for the salmon to return to Capistrano?"

"Very clever," Walter told him, nursing his
beer. ''I was surprised you weren't out at the Whorley broads
funeral this morning kissing political ass with the rest of them.
Guy like you, spends his whole life sucking on the public tit,
ought not get behind on his boot licking."

Wall laughed. ''I'll keep that in mind." He
turned his attention to the bartender. ''Hey Jeff, give us three
Guinness, huh?"

"Comin' up."

"Walter, how's Mike doing?"

"Not so good." Walter said, looking up at the
television.

"Jesus, I'm sorry. Is he still out of
it?"

Walter nodded. “Yeah, no change.”

Wall put a hand on his shoulder. "What are they
saying?"

Walter shrugged the hand off, his anger
flaring. "What are they sayin'? They're sayin' that the fuckin'
cops should have done their job when old man Whorley got offed, and
maybe it wouldn't have come to this. They're sayin' that something
is starting to stink around this town. They're sayin' this whole
gang shootout bullshit is a bunch of crap. They're sayin that's
some kind of fuckin' coincidence a broad that thinks her father was
a victim of a violent crime, and the lawyer investigating it for
her, end up victims themselves. That kind of stuff."

"Get a grip, Walter. You know we got turf
battles all over the city. All the snitches are talking about it to
the cops! They're taking hardware like you wouldn't believe from
these gang-bangers. Mike and the Whorley woman could have ...
what?"

Walter's eyes had suddenly taken on a far away
look. He turned back to Wall, and then his eyes cleared. "Yeah," he
said. "Snitches."

"Sure," the DA said, looking at Walter
quizzically. "Well anyway, don't go off half cocked. Let the cops
do a little poking around on this."

"You're all set, Mr. Wall,” the bartender
said.

"Thanks Jeff." He picked up the three beers in
a two-handed triangle grip. "And

when Mike comes around, tell him I was asking
for him."

Walter nodded, staring into the
distance.

Wall looked at him for another second, then
made his way across to his table.

Snitches, Walter thought and looked across the
room at the Eurasian woman smiling and laughing with her
friends.

"What's up?" Skids asked, his eyes
narrowing.

Walter drained his beer. ''Nothing,'' he said,
''I gotta go."

*****

AGNES ROLLED HER HIPS
and bent down and looked back between her legs at
three guys sitting slack-jawed behind their beers on the runway at
the Titty Canoe. Agnes was wearing only a G-string that was so
brief it hid not a whisker. In was really nothing more than a cord
around her hips, where the strip joint patrons could hang ones and
fives to show their appreciation for her act. Agnes smiled, her
magnificent breasts defying gravity, and one of her fans reached up
and slipped a bill into the string, his hand lingering on her ass
just a fraction longer than appropriate.

Walter sat in the back chortling to himself as
he watched Agnes operate. Spectacular, he thought. It was almost
2:00 AM and the show was winding down. He finished his six-dollar
beer and went back out the front door and around behind the
building to the employees parking lot. He knew she had not been
able to see him back in the shadows, with the harsh lights above
the stage beating down on her. Walter hid himself behind a
dumpster, overflowing with trash. He doubted that she had a car,
but he assumed she would exit out back. Maybe do some
business.

Sure enough, twenty minutes later Agnes came
out the back door with a John. He was apparently a regular because
he had his car parked at the back of the lot. The two climbed into
the car and engaged in an indeterminate sex act that rocked the
springs and was over in less than ten minutes. Agnes climbed out of
the car, straightened out her outfit and said her goodbyes. Walter
ducked back in the shadows as the John drove away.

He followed Agnes down Main Street, which was
populated with a pitiful collection of miscreants at all hours,
past St. Peter's Church, and up a side street. He waited around the
corner while she went into a dope crib and made a purchase. When
she came out she was hurrying. Walter figured she had the need on
her. She went back out on Main for two blocks, and then turned up a
steep hill across from a vacant lot and went into the fourth
building up on the right. It was a run down six-tenement firetrap
with unpainted decks and clotheslines reaching out from them above
the street. When she went inside, Walter hurried up the hill,
watching for a light. It went on as he climbed the steps. Second
floor, left side.

He went quickly but quietly up the stairs,
stepping only on the sides of the risers and spotted her door with
a line of yellow light leaking out under it. She had turned the
radio on low. He gave her a few more seconds to get herself going,
then he tried the door knob. As he suspected she had left it
unlocked. The dumb bitch. He walked straight in.

Agnes was cooking heroin in a spoon over a
cigarette lighter at the kitchen table. Her works were in a Dutch
Masters cigar box with the lid up in front of her. Her eyes shifted
to Walter as he came in. They were watering and her hands trembled
at their task.

“No, no, no," Walter said scurrying across the
room, ''I don't think so." He slapped the spoon out of her hand and
snapped the lid down on her works. He picked up the box, and tucked
it under his arm. "That shit's not any good for you. You could get
addicted," Walter said and laughed at his little joke.

"Motherfucker," Agnes hissed, and leaped at
him, leading with her nails. Walter backhanded her across the
mouth, knocking her against the wall and tumbling her to the floor.
She looked up at him with glassy eyes; blood running from split
lips, her hair hanging like a frayed curtain in front of them.
Jesus, Walter thought, she's got it bad. She looks like she'd kill
me if I gave her the chance.

“Now listen up here Miss Mounds," Walter told
her. "I'm gonna to ask you a few questions ... nothing too hard ...
and you're gonna answer them, and if you get them right, you are
gonna win this here box of works and a chance to go back down the
drug shop and get another bag before you get too sick. Who knows,
you might have a spare around here and you won't even have to go
out."

''I got nutin' you little piece of shit. What
the fuck you doin' at my place like dis? Fucks ah matta wid you
wallin' on my ass?"

"I'd love nothing more than to wail on your
ass, but no time tonight. Meanwhile I'm pissed off because a friend
of mine got shot, and I think you know who did it, and I don't want
to bust up those nice blow job lips of yours anymore, but I will if
I have to, so listen real careful to the questions, you
hear?"

Agnes wiped some blood off her mouth. ''I don
know jack shit bout nobody bein' shot. You get da fuck out my
rooms, crazy little man motherfucker!"

"Missy, you got to work on your vocabulary. Now
here comes question number one. You ready? What did you hear about
Mike Knight being in trouble on the street?"

Her eyes narrowed. "The lawyer?"

Walter stepped in close and smashed her in the
face with the cigar box. The back of her head hit the wall and she
groaned. "I'll ask the questions please. What did you hear about
Mike Knight?"

"I don know what the ... "

Walter hit her again with the box. "Wrong
answer, and keep your voice down. You don't want to wake up one of
your neighbors ... not that any of these scum bags would call the
cops ... but I don't know how bad I'm gonna have to kick the shit
out of you before you tell me what I want to know, and I don't like
witnesses."

Agnes was holding her hands up in front of her
face now, fear creeping into her eyes. "I jus' hear dat he pissed
somebody off, dats it."

"From
whom
did you hear that Missy?"
Walter asked, his eyebrows climbing.

"I don know, jus' around."

Walter squatted down in front of her and looked
into her eyes. ''Pay attention. Who 'just around' did you hear it
from?"

Agnes' hands trembled in front of her face, her
eyes wild. "What, da fuck. Around, around ...cut dis shit
out!"

Walter backhanded her with his knuckles. Her
head hit on the wall and bounced back, blood starting in her nose
now. "Jesus," she said.

"Who?" Walter pressed.

"Tell Me, awright!...an' he gonna fuckin' kill
me if you say I said," she shouted at him.

"Keep your voice down I told you," Walter said,
but he was smiling.

'Tell Me' was the street name of a black pimp
named Othello Meehan that worked the Main South area with a squad
of whores that he controlled with fear and drugs. He got the name
from the cops, who had busted him once upon a time when one of his
hookers had the temporary guts to file a complaint against him,
after a particularly vicious beating. In her initial report the
whore said that Othello thought she was free lancing, not turning
in all the take, so he whipped the shit out of her with a length of
garden hose, all the while yelling "Tell me bitch, where my money
be at? Tell me where it be at!" The cops got a kick out of that.
The hooker later recanted the whole story, said it was all a
misunderstanding, and never showed up in court to testify, so
Othello walked, but what with his name and the story, they all
started to call him 'Tell Me'.

"What, pray tell, Missy, did Tell Me
say?"

Agnes had had enough. She didn't want to get
thumped any more. She wanted to fix and go to bed. "He jus' say dat
Mr. Mike be pushin' buttons on da wrong dude, dats all. He didn't
tell me who dat dude was so don' start askin' me and wallin' on me
cause I don' know. Jus' said a dude, dats it."

Walter thought about that for a minute.
"Listen, I don't want you to take offense at this, because I say it
with the greatest amount of respect, but why would Tell Me tell a
dumb slut like you that there was a dude after Mike
Knight?"

"Fuck do I know why dat psycho do da shit he
do?"

Walter hit her with the box again, more of a
love tap this time, but needing her attention. "Don't start with an
attitude now, Missy. Girl that sucks cock for a living got no cause
to give me attitude."