Burning Blue

“The Saloon?” Cherry said.

“Actually the Salon. Wonder where the second o went.”

“Oprah took it.”

“What do you think it means?”

“I’m gonna go with a saloon is an establishment that serves alcoholic beverages. Guessing. You’re thinking it’s not a saloon, though. You’re thinking it’s more of a salon. Why would they put a whorehouse in the middle of a godforsaken industrial wasteland where the only customers you’re going to get are-”

“Truckers?”

“Oh.”

Inside was crushed velvet, tassel-trimmed tables, dusty chandeliers. “Doesn’t it feel like we’re in that historical museum they have out in Vegas?” Cherry said.

“I haven’t been there.”

“I haven’t either. I just watch a lot of TV.”

A cocktail waitress played piano, Debussy, “Clair de Lune.” The dude behind the bar said, “Help you?” He was chipping ice with a mini-harpoon.

“We work for Steve,” I said. “At the newspaper?”

The dude squinted. He was the son of Captain Ahab and Captain Hook. I nudged Cherry to get her to stop staring at the man’s eye patch. She hid behind me.

“He wanted us to pick up the jacket,” I said. “Blue blazer, size fifty-two tall? Said he left it here a week or so ago?”

“What was the last name again?”

“Would he have told you his real last name?” I said.

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“Well, I mean, you know.”

The captain frowned. “My friend, this isn’t that kind of saloon.”

“Told you,” Cherry said.

“Steve Nazzaro,” I said.

“As in rhymes with Sbarro?”

“Exactly.”

“Oh, you mean Steve. Steve’s a sweetheart. So shy, you know?”

“That’s what we call him at the office,” Cherry said. “Shy Steve.”

“Yeah,” Ahab said. “He gets really nervous before he plays.”

“Plays?”

“The piano. We have these open mic nights, poetry, music, whatever you want. It’s a safe environment to experiment with new material or just to get yourself up in front of people. The truck drivers are a good audience, you know? They don’t expect Rachmaninoff, and they’ll clap sincerely for ‘Chopsticks’ too. Steve’s pretty good, though. He did just fine the other night. Seemed to be a lot more comfortable in front of the crowd. He’s in the newspaper business? I thought that business went out of business.” He gave us two sodas with cherries. We got hamburgers and left a big tip.

“Tell Steve I said sorry about the jacket,” that nice old pirate said.

Back in the car, Cherry patted my knee. “This must be very traumatizing for you. It’s not every day one finds out his father is actually a pretty nice guy.”

An hour and a half later, we were back in Brandywine. My boss had called to beg me to come in for a few hours to help stock the major shipment of Christmas crap that had landed that afternoon. I said yes because Jimmy did me a lot of favors with scheduling, and I was too out of my mind to hack anyway. I had no idea where to start looking for the person who contracted Angela to hit Nicole.

Cherry was going to drop me off at BJ’s, but when we stopped in at Starbucks to pick up her check, the girl working behind the counter was looking really sick, and Cherry covered for her. BJ’s was just a mile up the road, and I wanted to walk. I was hoping the fresh air would wake me up. I was about fifty feet from the warehouse entrance when a black BMW SUV pulled alongside me. The tinted window rolled down. “Heya Jay,” Dave Bendix said.

“Dave, I kind of feel like you’re following me.”

“I went into BJ’s, and they said you were on your way. Jay, man, I really screwed up. You’re the only person I can talk to about this. Nicole’s in trouble, and I need you to help me help her. We’ll grab a quick slice, five minutes of your time, max. It’s a life or death thing.”

I had this idea that if I nudged him just right, gently, I could get him to turn himself in; that maybe he wanted to turn himself in but just needed emotional support to get himself to go to the precinct. He was looking for a little compassion. I was ready to give it to him. He’d messed up, hooking up with Angela. They both had. He’d tried to cover his mistake. It was blowing up in his face now. He was coming clean and ready to accept the consequences. I respected that.

The shotgun seat was loaded with wrestling crap, a net bag filled with pads. Dave started to swing it into the back, but it was too big to squeeze over the seat back.

“I’ll get in the back,” I said.

“I’m really scared, Jay,” Dave said. “Word is you’re like this phenomenal hacker. Can you find out something for me?”

“Depends.”

“There’s this lie going around about me, and I want to know who’s spreading it. You heard it, right? That I was doubling on Nicole with Angela Sammick?”

I nodded, immediately regretting my yes. The theory that Dave and Angela were hooking up hadn’t gone public yet.

“That’s what I thought,” Dave said. His eyes flicked to the rearview. By the time I turned around to check the cargo spot, the arm was around my neck, and the chokehold was tightening.

Rick Kerns jerked me backward. My neck was pinned to the edge of the seat back. The BMW sped up and made a quick left toward the highway. I dug at Rick’s arm, but I couldn’t break the hold. I was fading out. It’s not the choke to the windpipe that takes you down. It’s cutting off the carotid arteries, the ones that feed oxygen to your brain. Rick was threatening me, Dave too. I kept hearing “if you ever” but that’s all I remember. When you can’t breathe, listening carefully to what people are saying isn’t exactly a priority.

Looking back, I can only assume they weren’t going to kill me. Dave had gone into BJ’s and asked where I was. He’s going to make me disappear an hour later? No. Then again, how could they just leave it at a threat? They actually thought I would keep my mouth shut about Dave and Angela? What could they have threatened? The only thing they could have said to make me keep quiet was that they would kill Nicole if I opened my mouth. Then again, that probably would’ve had me running to Detective Barrone. I really don’t know what they were going to do with me that night, and I never found out. But at that moment, my neck creaking, my lungs burning, I was sure they were going to kill me, and I panicked. With images of that childhood car crash blinding me, I drove my feet into and through the back of the driver’s seat.

My kick threw Bendix into the steering wheel. The horn sounded briefly as the BMW spun. I hugged the seat back as Kerns was thrown over the seat, into the windshield. The glass webbed around his skull. The car flipped over the guardrail and slid upside down into the gully. I don’t remember anything after that, until the ambulance lights. Somebody said, “Relax, buddy.” So I did. My eyes itched.

Dave had the airbag and made out okay. I was belted in and had the side bag and seatback. Kerns suffered a concussion and shattered a shoulder and both of his arms.

FIFTY-ONE

In the hospital that Wednesday night, or maybe it was into Thursday morning already, I was enjoying the painkillers too much to open my eyes, but I heard Detective Barrone just fine. “He admits to having sex with Angela