arm around like a retard while he tries to pass to a teammate that apparently only he can see. Aaaaand, it’s intercepted. Nice pass, ’tard! Now here’s Spartans fullback Derrick Simpson, pumping those nigger thighs down the field like pistons on a machine designed for cotton picking. Ooh, nice tackle attempt there, Freddy Mason! I bet you could tackle that fullback if he was made of
Danny didn’t get to read any more highlights, as the newscast abruptly switched back to a visibly shaken anchorwoman, who announced they would be right back. Commercial.
John clicked off the TV and I let out a long, resigned sigh. Without a word, we put on our jackets and walked out the door. We stopped by my toolshed.
THE MORBIDLY OBESE security guard at the Channel 5 building told us Wexler had left early. We almost gave up at that point, but got a huge break in the case when John thought to look up Wexler’s home address in the phone book.
After getting lost, briefly, we pulled into the lot of Wexler’s building and found a Buick with the license plate 5 SPRTS, which, after some debate, we decided must stand for Channel 5 sports and that it must be his.
“You still got the mints?” John asked as we strode up to the four-story apartment building. “You knock on the door and when Wexler answers, you cram some mints down his throat.”
“If he’s acting normal, we don’t do anything. Just find out what he knows. About Molly and, you know, everything else that’s happening. If it’s something we can fix with a mint then fine. If not, then we leave Dr. Marconi a voice mail and drive until we find a town that doesn’t keep showing up in books with titles like
I had my old-school ghetto blaster; John was carrying a satchel containing several items he collected from my toolshed. We didn’t have any holy water. Where do you even get it? Off the Internet?
We positioned ourselves on either side of the door to Wexler’s third-floor apartment. I set down the stereo, facing its speakers toward the closed door. John unzipped the satchel and pulled out a weapon he had made, a Bible wrapped around the end of a baseball bat with electrician’s tape. He brought it up to the ready. I pushed “play.”
The smooth-yet-screechy sound of Cinderella’s “Don’t Know What You’ve Got ’til it’s Gone” filled the hall.
We let it play for the duration of the song, one guy down the hall poking his head out of a door in confusion and then closing it quickly at the sight of John and his bat. Wexler’s door remained closed.
We shut off the stereo, listened. Nothing from the other side of the door. I tried the knob. Unlocked. I gestured to John and he ducked inside, Bible bat at the ready. My gesture had meant, “Wait, we should reconsider this.”
I followed John in, reluctantly. I left the door open behind me.
Wide open.
Lights on, but nobody home. The television was on and I jumped when I saw it was me and John on the screen. Then I noticed a tripod and camcorder facing us from across the room, aimed at the sofa in front of us. It was apparently positioned to tape whoever was sitting there, the TV set to show the live feed. The sofa was empty now.
We split up and quickly searched all five rooms of the small apartment, but the place had an empty feeling to it and my heart had slowed down by the time I peered in the last doorway. Nobody here.
The place was neat but cramped. Furniture too close to the TV, a kitchen table that would have to be pulled away from the wall if you wanted to seat more than two people. Movie posters in the bedroom. Bachelor pad.
“DAVE! IN HERE!”
I ran. I found John lying prone on the floor of the bedroom.
“JOHN! WHAT—”
At the sight of me he sat up and thrust both hands out. In one hand he held a large, folded envelope, ragged where it had been torn open. In the other hand he held a small, silver canister.
Just like mine.
He said, “Under the bed.”
I let out a long breath and said, “Oh holy mother of fuck.”
“Yeah.”
I sat on the bed. I shook my head slowly and said, “Man, we can’t go through this again.”
“Look.”
He gave me the envelope. I flattened it out, saw the address was written in an aggressive jagged scrawl that had to be a man’s.
“ATTN: KATHY BORTZ, REPORTER
CHANNEL 5 NEWSROOM”
. . . and then the P.O. Box number of the TV station.
John said he remembered her from the newscast earlier, said she was the lead reporter who did the nursing home story. So if you were a citizen and had something big to share with the world, such as a vial of a black, oily goo from Planet X, you’d mail it to a Kathy Bortz. Or, at least, that’s what James “Big Jim” Sullivan would do.
I can say that because his name was scrawled in the return address corner, followed by an address I had seen many times and had long memorized, always following the words, “
I rubbed my hand over my mouth, tried to think through it. I said, “Jim had the soy sauce.”
John shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Why didn’t he tell us?”
“For the same reason you haven’t told anybody else. That night, I was surprised Jim hung around as long as he did, even after the needle came out. But, maybe he was there because he
“Before he died.”
A shrug. “Probably.”
“Son of a bitch. I knew he knew more than he was letting on. We should have sweated him down and got some answers. So he got it from the Jamaican?”
“I guess.”
“Where’d the Jamaican get it from?”
“The wig monsters, right?”
“What, you think Robert Marley had a ranch full of them somewhere? No, I think saying soy sauce comes from those monsters is like saying Pringles come from Pringles tubes. The sauce has a mind of its own, those things are just carriers. And these little silver vials that keep turning up, you don’t buy these at the hardware store. No, somebody was supplying Robert.”
I found myself about to suggest calling Drake the Cop, but I stopped that in midthought. I pictured all sorts of questions about the Las Vegas trip, and the missing detective, and so on. Then I thought again about calling Marconi, but that felt hopeless. John had looked up a number for his office but it wasn’t like that was a red phone that rang at his bedside. We’d get some voice mail tree asking if we wanted to order a copy of his DVD.
I wandered into the living room and sat on the couch, seeing myself do it on the TV screen at the same time. I waved to myself. I looked depressed, rumpled and tired enough to sleep on a sidewalk. People would stop and put change in a cup for me.
John went and did something in the kitchen, banging around plates and opening drawers. A minute later he sat down beside me, carrying a sandwich and a soda.
I noticed a VCR atop the TV was recording the camera’s feed. I hit “stop” on the VCR and then “rewind.”
John reached over to an answering machine on the end table. He skipped through eleven worthless messages before we heard the unmistakable voice of Action Weather Watcher Ken Phillipe:
