The Hard Bounce - страница 14

He’d been living above me for three years and I still didn’t know his name. Couple years back, I’d tossed him out of The Cellar after I busted him lighting a hash pipe. From that point on, I think he regarded me as a tool of the Man’s oppression.

He gave me a nod of acknowledgment as I passed him on the steps. I returned the nod and stopped. I pulled the picture from my back pocket and held it out to him. “You don’t happen to know this kid, do you?”

He lowered his sunglasses and stared blankly at the picture. He narrowed his eyes when he looked back at me. “Nope.”

Great. Now he had me pegged for a chickenhawk as well as a Fascist.

I hopped the Green Line train back into Kenmore. The Cellar didn’t open until three, but by the time the train got there, the bar would be ready for business. I knew Underdog would be inside as soon as the doors opened.

A few years back, Underdog was just another drinker at the bar. He was usually the first to show up and sometimes the last out at the end of the night. Pipe-cleaner thin, he would keep to himself in whatever part of the bar had the least light and steadily drink plastic pints of Busch. After a few weeks, he became a fixture and the staff began to feel sorry for him. The girls who work at the bar have a soft spot for strays like Underdog, and The Cellar was the type of bar that attracted them.

A year back, I’d made a rare daytime appearance at the bar. As I headed up the stairs to the offices, I heard a clattering from the well underneath the steps. I went to see what was going on, since the area was supposed to be off limits.

I got an eyeful of Underdog’s ass as I turned the corner.

And the long needle tracks along the pasty flesh of his inner thigh. The clatter I’d heard was a dropped hypo.

I felt duped, personally betrayed by a man we’d brought into our family.

A bloody haze fell over my eyes like a red-filtered Klieg light blazing at a thousand watts.

“Boo, I-” was all Underdog got out before my right hand clamped over his throat and squeezed off his protests. Feeble squeaks of alarm were all he could produce.

I crushed the syringe in my left hand, glass slicing into my palm.

I flung the shattered needle to the floor. With my bleeding hand, I went into his pockets while still choking him with the other. From his shirt pocket, I plucked a small bag of heroin. I dumped the beige powder on the floor, turning the baggie over right in front of his face. Underdog’s mouth started foaming at the corners, his oxygen-starved brain ordering his thin legs to kick at my shins. Unfortunately for him, a panicked hundred and twenty pounds doesn’t even register when I hit that wall.

And I’d hit that wall.

Hard.

Then his eyelids fluttered and he was beyond caring.

I felt through the front pockets of his jeans. A few loose bills. Keys. Stick of gum. Lint.

In the back pocket of his jeans, I found his badge.

My hand opened on Underdog’s throat, and he dropped to the floor, conscious by a hair. “You’re a cop,” I said, dumbfounded.

Dog lay at my feet, clutching his neck and wheezing asthmatically. He slid himself into the crevice under the stairs like a wounded animal.

“You’re a cop,” I said again. The answer-the gold shield in a leather case-was already in my hand. I was just trying to push the information into my brain. It didn’t want to go.

“Vice,” he squeaked from his corner, almost too softly to hear. Then he started weeping deep, heaving sobs like a child.

“Vice,” I repeated. I stared stupidly at the ID tucked into the flap of the wallet. Sure enough, it read: Brendan Miller, BPD, Detective-Vice Division-Narcotics. Then I looked long and hard at the photo. Any bouncer will tell you, the best way to spot a fake picture on an ID is by focusing on two things that don’t change on a person between license photos: the distance between the eyes and, barring breakage or surgery, the nose. Brendan Miller had an academy crew cut.

Underdog had a shoulder-length mousy tangle.

Brendan Miller was clean shaven, skin gleaming.

I’d never seen Underdog with a decent shave.