The Hard Bounce - страница 34

“I’m going back home and sleeping. Way past my bedtime.”

Almost forty-five minutes later, Paul arrived, towing a squat Goth girl who was dressed in what looked like a black wedding dress. Their expressions gave me pause, the two of them wearing faces like a pair of slapped asses.

Black eyeliner had dried in streaks down the girl’s face, and I wondered if they were from her crying or had been drawn on intentionally. Enough goop was caked under her eyes to give her a vaguely raccoonish look.

They looked fucked up. “You two on anything?”

“What?” Paul asked.

“I’m not supplying you two with a munchie feast if you’re stoned, Paul.” Bad enough I was feeding Paul. I didn’t need to feed his chubby girlfriend, too.

“Yo, man. That’s messed up. Besides, Tammy’s straight edge.” Paul clucked his tongue. “I bring you news, and you act like my old man. That’s so messed up.”

“What have you got, Paul?” I sipped another mouthful of the dirty water in my cup.

The girl answered me with huge whooping sobs. “He hurt her so bad.”

I shook my head, her non sequitur throwing me for a loop. “What? Who? Who hurt who? Who’s he?”

The girl just wept harder. The waitress shot us a look, and I felt my face burn with embarrassment at the spectacle.

“Cassie,” Paul whispered.

My skin rose like an ice cube had been placed on the back of my neck. “Who did?”

The girl kept crying.

“Who hurt Cassie?” I said, a bit too sharply. I didn’t have the patience to play the crying game with an overwrought mascara case.

“I don’t know!” Her words were spaced by sobs. Fresh trails of makeup ran down her round cheeks. Black tears splashed on the table, pooling into an inky puddle.

“Where? Where is she?”

“Tammy saw her at a party last night,” Paul said.

“She saw Cassie at a party last night?”

“She saw a DVD. A movie at the party.”

Holy Shit at the Pearly Gates.

“What party?” My goosebumps decided to call some friends over.

Tammy couldn’t answer me. She was lost in her fear and pubescent anguish.

I jumped up from the table and ran back to the pay phone. With trembling fingers, I called the office again. The phone rang four times before the machine picked up. I hung up and called Junior’s apartment. His machine picked up immediately. “Junior! Pick up! Emergency! Yo, Junior!”

The phone beeped again. “What is wrong with you, man? Can’t a brother get some beauty sleep?”

“Is Miss Kitty back yet?” My foot was tapping impatiently. Screw the coffee, I was wide-awake now.

“Yeah. Just got her back yesterday. Why?” Junior yawned.

“I’m still at the diner on Mt. Vernon. Get here, ASAP.”

“What’s going on?”

“Now, Junior.”

“Don’t start barking at me, dickwad. I’m there.” Click.

You cost her, my mind kept repeating. You cost the kid while you were drinking like a fool and crashing on couches. I didn’t know what the price was, but I had the feeling the interest was going to be a bitch.

I forced some of the shitty coffee into both kids while we waited for Junior. Neither one of them seemed to enjoy it any more than I did, but they drank it. Tammy managed to calm herself down a bit, and the caffeine gave Paul some color back.

A screech of tires announced Junior’s arrival. I paid the tab, and the three of us hopped into the brown ’79 Buick that Junior called Miss Kitty.

Yeah, I don’t know why either.

“So, what’s the deal?” he asked, scratching at his morning stubble.

I turned to the back seat. “Where was the party last night, Tammy?”

She looked at Junior and me with the eyes of a caged animal. “I’m not going back there. That guy is a freak.” Her lower lip started to tremble. “He laughed. When he saw me watching, he laughed at how scared I was.”

I reached back and took her hand. “We need to go there, Tammy, and we need you to help us. Cassie might be in trouble, and the faster we get to her, the better her chances are. Please, sweetheart. Help us.” I squeezed her pudgy hand and tried to look concerned through the impatience I was feeling.

She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, just gazed into the air. “It was in Brookline. Just off of Boylston. I don’t know what street, but I’ll recognize it when we get there.”