The Hard Bounce - страница 50

“Anyplace good around here?”

“Grinder shop down the street. Grab me a meatball parm?” Ollie began flipping through disks of software. “Just think. A couple years ago, I probably would have had to run a firewire through an AVID system to get this kind of video editing. Now it’s all inside here.” Ollie patted his computer like it was an old family pet.

“And you’d have to frammajamma interface with the hibbity-dibbity,” Junior said with a chuff.

Ollie found the right software and placed the CD into the computer tray. “Wouldn’t need a hibbity-dibbity for this.” Junior’s smile fell. Ollie shot Junior a wink, then reached behind the table and started reconfiguring wires.

An hour later, our stomachs full of greasy meatballs, we returned to Ollie’s. The door to his studio was open when we returned. He was nowhere in sight.

“Ollie?” I called out. No answer. I looked at Junior. He shrugged. I called again. “Oliver? You here?” A horrible sound came muffled from behind one of the wired walls.

Junior and I ran over to the wall. “Ollie? You all right?” The strangled choke came again. It was definitely behind the wall. I looked for a convenient place to put down the grease-soaked bag with Ollie’s grinder in it, but was afraid the wrong spot could cause a fire.

I dropped the bag on his desk chair, and Junior and I started moving sophisticated boards of God-knows-what and tangles of wire along the wall. About halfway down, under yet another colorful tangle, was a white doorknob. I pulled it and the thin door covered in shelves and bric-a-brac opened. Behind was a small bathroom. Ollie was sprawled on the tiled floor, face in the toilet. The horrible sound we heard was him emptying his stomach into the bowl.

“Ollie? You all right, man?”

“Jesus Christ, Boo!” was all he managed to say before his body spasmed over the toilet twice more. “You could have warned me a little more about what was on that fucking DVD before you left!”

I found a glass next to the computer and filled it up in the sink beside the toilet. I held it out to Ollie. He took it in a trembling hand.

Ollie was right. I should have given him a more specific warning regarding content. There’s tough and there’s hard. The Home made Ollie tougher than his exterior indicated. But he wasn’t ever going to be hard.

“Ollie, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t think. Junior and I have been looking for this girl and I just figured it was hard for us to watch, because, well… I dunno.” I did know. I couldn’t say it was because we knew her, because we didn’t. I couldn’t say it was because we cared about her, because as objective tough guys, we shouldn’t.

But I did. Or I was at least starting to, and that thought bothered me, because I knew why.

Unsteadily, Ollie got to his feet. “Boo, that video would have given Jeffrey Dahmer a nervous breakdown.” He walked over to his computer, typed for a second, and the screen shot appeared. The falling Cassandra. The pulled curtain. The sign.

“I still can’t make it out,” Junior said.

“I haven’t done the pixel rendering yet,” Ollie said, a little snippily. He looked at the bag on his chair. “What is that?”

“Your sandwich.”

Ollie’s gullet lurched audibly. “Ugh. Take it away.” I picked up the bag and stashed it in the mini fridge to the left.

Ollie sat at the desk. Again, his fingers flew over the keyboard faster than my eyes could follow. The capture focused, then enlarged. Focused and enlarged. A third time. The piece of the sign was clear. Distinctly, I could make out part of two words. They were all in caps, one word atop the other in red and yellow neon. APA above PANA.

Junior cocked his head at the screen. “What the hell does that say?”

“Apa Pana,” said Ollie. “Sounds Spanish. Either of you speak Spanish?”

“Un poquito,” Junior said. Unfortunately, I knew un poquito accounted for about a quarter of the Spanish phrases Junior spoke. The other three were filthy.

“I think it’s parts from two different words,” I said.

Ollie looked at the screen again, head cocked at the same angle as Junior. “Oh. Oh, yeah.”