'No. C'mon.'
'Swear. I knew she was tired, but she got up and put in the thing and said, Okay, honey, and then I get on her-I mean, it's not like I didn't work the whole day, either-and I'm doing it and then I see she's asleep.'
'Sort of killed it for you.'
'I pulled out, she didn't even know.'
The truck door slammed.
'How much you paying Horace these days?'
'He gets thirty a week, twenty extra anytime his stuff is decent.'
'He knew this guy was no good?'
'The guy wanted to hide the truck-that's interesting enough. Horace'll try to sell anything he's got.'
'Bocca coming in and out once a day, maybe.'
'He doesn't know what he's doing,' Peck said disgustedly. The other truck door slammed. 'He's fucking around, he's getting close to finding that girl. He's making contact with Verducci's people, making them mad. That's all I care about. He'll get mixed up in it. He'll call me again, say he doesn't know where she is. But he's going to find her. It's just a matter of time.'
'You think they know where she is?'
'Don't know exactly what they know. I'm not on the exact inside here. My job is to keep an eye on this guy.'
'They want to get them together first.'
'They want something, yeah.'
He lay motionless on the oily floor for ten minutes after they left. He'd have to call Paul now. He hadn't wanted to do it, but now there was no choice; Paul would figure it out. He rose and moved through the shadows to his truck, the doors of which Peck had left unlocked. Nothing seemed to be missing, including the money in the antifreeze reservoir, and the truck started right up. What did Peck want from him? Get out of the city, Rick. He summoned the elevator, opened the gate, and backed in the truck. Horace had sold him out for thirty bucks when Rick was paying him seventy-five a week. Unwise, my brother. He felt his breathing quicken, his hands getting nervous, just like in grade school before something bad happened.
A minute later, he had the truck idling in front of the cement-block booth. Seeing him through the booth window, Horace turned off the television.
'Good afternoon, my brother. I didn't see you come in.'
Rick put the truck in park and got out with the baseball bat.
'Wait, I said, 'Good afternoon, my brother.''
Red, the world was red. 'Hey, fuck you, my brother.'
It was no use pretending anything. 'They know where I live, man, they-'
Rick swung the bat and shattered the booth window. With the next swing he destroyed the door. Horace leapt under the desk, holding the phone. The phone wire came right out of the cement block, and Rick swung the bat down on that, snapping it loose, yanking the phone set off the wall.
'Yo, man!' cried Horace, his breath raspy. 'Don't fucking do it.'
Rick hit the door again. It broke in two. He took a step inside the booth. Almost no room to swing. The cash register was full, but if he touched it, the police would care what happened. Up to now, it was a personal incident, of no official interest.
'Don't hit the television.'
He hit the television, shutting his eyes as the bat met the screen. Wrecked. But he was not satisfied, not nearly. With one swing he could break Horace's knee, then drag him out from under the desk.
'You fucking sold me out!'
'I had no choice!'
'Get up.'
'You going kill me,' Horace croaked.
'Get up!'
'I said you going kill me.'
Think, he told himself. Don't do the stupid thing. You already did one stupid thing. He saw the key box on the wall and pushed it open. Row upon row of keys, each on a hook, corresponding with spaces in the garage. The lowest three rows of ten were marked basemint and included many sets with Lexus and Mercedes emblems.
'Where's my key?'
Horace was gulping breath. 'Bottom left.'
He retrieved his spare set, then unhooked a handful of other keys, seven or eight sets.
'You can't do that!'
'The fuck I can't. I'll be taking these keys. You can explain to the owners.'
'Oh, man, my brother, that puts me in a world of shit. That gets me fired. They hear their keys are gone, they going get me fired, at the least.'
'You should have thought of that.'
Horace's eyes were full of terror. 'I can't move no cars around without them keys!'
'You should have thought of that, too.' He noticed a framed photo of a Little League baseball team in blue- and-white uniforms. 'What's this?'
'What? What?' Horace looked around, glass in his hair.
'This.'
'That? That's my two boys, their team!' wheezed Horace despairingly, keeping his head covered.
Rick picked up the photo: twenty little black boys in neat baseball uniforms kneeling on a scuffed infield; in the background, smiling, stood Horace, an assistant coach of sorts. The guy was just trying to make a living-you could see it that way, too; the man had a shitty job eating exhaust and was working whatever extra angles he could to make a little money for his sons. Contributing to civilization. Rick put down the photo, threw the other keys to the floor, and left.
It was past 3:00 P.M. when he stepped into the Jim-Jack, and he could see that the lunch crowd had ebbed, only one waitress working the tables, the Mexican busboys idle. Behind the bar stood the bartender, an older blond woman with too many rings garbaging up her ears. The pay phone hung on the wall next to the first stool of the bar, placed rather cleverly so that you could sit at the bar and talk on the phone. This, he figured, was where Christina had called her mother. He sat down next to the window and the busboy came over. He nodded. 'I'm looking for a friend of mine, name's Christina.'
The busboy did not commit to an expression. A lot of Indian in his face, the eyes almond-shaped. Mexicans hated whites, the conquistadors. Were into butt-fucking white girls as revenge, he'd heard. But that wasn't his problem. 'I think she's been around here, man. Pretty tall, dark hair. On the slim side.'
The busboy wiped the table, looked over his shoulder. 'Let me check.' He retreated to the back of the restaurant, whispered something to the bartender, who lifted the bridge of the bar and walked forward.
'You ready to order?' she asked.
Rick nodded. 'Let me have the bean burrito plate. A tomato juice, orange juice-and Coke-no-ice.'
'Thirsty guy.'
He nodded.
'Right.' But she wasn't quite done with him. 'You were asking about somebody?'
'Yeah-a friend. A woman, long dark hair. Kind of tough-looking. Maybe she used this phone a few times. I heard she was around, so I thought I'd just stop in.'
'Pretty?'
'Yes.'
'A friend?'
'Old friend, yeah.'
'How old could she be?'
'Not as old as me.'
She looked at him. 'You don't look that old.'
