'Okay,' Jimmy Devlin said, being very agreeable.
'You gave Reb four hundred bucks for bills, then two weeks later she tells you that you stink, sends you to the shower, steals two bottles of Jack and a hundred and eighty bucks out of your wallet.' Crease had a good memory too. It threw guys off, hearing their own stories word for word coming back at them. 'Then she lures you to the diner fifteen miles out of town, steals the plastic jug at the gas station, makes you an accomplice after the fact, then tries to ride off with a trucker. You slap her around some and she runs inside, meets me, has me work you over even while she's telling you to work me over. All this, and she's still your girl, you want her back. You love her. That right?'
The other three Jimmys looked at the fourth, waiting to hear his answer. Nobody could put the pressure on you like your best friends. Especially when they thought you were losing your manhood to a chick who treated you like trash.
Crease lit a cigarette and leaned back against the phone, letting their eyes do all the work for him.
Jimmy Devlin said, 'This isn't about her right now, it's about you jumping me the other night. Doctor's bill was eighty bucks and he couldn't do anything for me but tape my face up. I'm pissing blood from those cheap shots you gave me.'
Enough of the tension had dispersed from the situation. Crease walked up close. The Jimmys had a tough time holding their ground. They didn't move their feet but they reared their chins back. Jimmy with the. 32 stuck his chest out, like the pistol would protect him somehow even in his pocket.
Crease said, 'She's not worth the aggravation. You're a bigger man than that, Jimmy Devlin. Go on out with your boys tonight and they'll help you hook up with a real woman, one who won't treat you as poorly as Reb has. You deserve much better. Give your heart away more carefully, to someone who will value it.'
He'd been forced to say much more important things with a straight face before, but it had never been quite so tough. He stuck the cigarette between his teeth and champed on it.
Another Jimmy said, 'I never liked her much, to tell the truth. She always seemed to have an agenda, that one.'
Another Jimmy said, 'We're only thinking of you, man. You need somebody new. Wife material, like my Betty. She's got friends, I think we could probably fix you up with somebody nice, if you want.'
Jimmy with the. 32 said, 'Remember Lydia Miller? You always liked her. She's getting divorced and only has one kid. A four-year-old. They're not much trouble at that age. They usually sleep through the night.'
Jimmy Devlin said, 'Lydia's getting divorced? I didn't know that.'
'I told you.'
'You never told me.'
'I told you over at Bammer's house a couple of weeks ago, but you were stewing over Reb. It happened fast, Lydia and Stan breaking up. Stan had a gambling problem, was always at the Indian Reservation.'
'I saw him there a couple times.'
'He took a second mortgage out without even telling her and eventually lost his job. Pretended to go to work every day and would go to the strip clubs for their brunch buffet.'
'I didn't know that.'
'Lydia was in the dark until one day she answers the door and it's the bank, guy serving her papers. She packed up the kid and her belongings on the spot and went home to her parents. They got a nice basement apartment.'
Another Jimmy said, 'She's got to look after her kid's welfare. I bet a responsible guy would impress her-'
The music and laughter inside throbbed out an invitation. The parking lot lights snapped on, humming and burning. Beyond, the dark sky frothed over the final rays of the sun.
Crease finished up his cigarette, flicked the butt off into the dark, turned back to the phone and started dialing a number, thinking that the Greenwich Village boys definitely would've had a frickin' field day.
Chapter Eleven
Tucco's tech whiz kids weren't really in the loop so Crease figured it was safe enough to give them a whirl. The word that Crease was a cop probably hadn't filtered down yet, even though they're the ones who would've looked up his father's badge number. They had the info and didn't have the info, that's what the tech boys were so good for.
He got a whiz kid and gave him Sarah Burke's name and all the relevant information he had on hand, which wasn't much. It didn't have to be. Within two minutes the kid spit back the name of a state-run assisted living group home where she'd been shuffled off to after banging around mental hospitals for the better part of a decade. The kid MapQuested the address and gave Crease the directions. Turned out to be just over the New Hampshire state line in a town called Langdaff.
It would be after ten by the time he got there and he wasn't sure what the rules of the place would be. Did you have to call ahead and make an appointment? Could you walk up off the street? Did you have to be family to visit? He decided to give it a go anyway, and if need be, he'd find a cheap spot to stay overnight and try again in the morning.
The Jimmys were still dialoguing. Crease got in the 'Stang, gassed up around the block, drove out to the interstate and headed to New Hampshire.
The directions were perfect and went right down to the tenth of a mile when the next turn was coming up. He made it in no time, listening to an Oldies station, his mind a flat, empty lowland periodically broken by someone running by in the distance.
The group home was a converted Victorian house that on the open market would bring in one point two, one point three mil. A sign on the front lawn said it was the Sinclair Mayridge Home for the Needful. It sounded like a methadone clinic in Harlem.
Crease parked at the curb and stepped up. Several people sat on the porch conversing lazily. One guy was reading a paper, two women convened in the corner crocheting and discussing what sounded like a romance novel. A teenage boy leaned against the railing where he typed on a laptop, and a teenage girl sidled at his shoulder watching him. Nobody looked particularly needful. They all looked well-rested and happy as hell.
Crease climbed the stairs but wasn't sure what the etiquette was. If you were supposed to knock or if you just walked right in. He looked around wondering if anybody would make eye contact and give him a hint, but nobody seemed to notice him. He turned the knob and wandered inside.
More blithe folks sat in a living room watching television, pleasantly chatting. If anybody was in charge, he couldn't tell who it might be. He lit a cigarette and two middle-aged ladies playing cards told him in unison, 'No smoking here.'
He ground the butt out against his heel and said, 'Sarah Burke?'
'Upstairs. Room twelve.'
He took the stairs two at a time, feeling like a thief in the night. Strange it should be that way since nobody cared he was here. Still, he could just imagine someone leaping out of a chair and pointing at him, screaming hideously, falling into convulsions. Somebody might slip a dirty pair of panties in his pocket and send him up the river for a nickel.
Door ten was painted yellow. Eleven was green. Twelve orange. Flowers and bunnies and other cuddly creatures had been carefully depicted on each of them. Rainbows arced across the walls of the hallway, multicolored groups of children danced harmoniously across blue globes. Crease thought he could very easily bug out in a place like this.
Someone had snuck Jesus way up top, almost on the ceiling, smiling down upon the puppies and tulips. One of the needy could call a lawyer and start yelling about the separation of church and state, maybe walk out of this place with a laundry bag full of money.
He knocked on the door of room twelve. No sound from inside, and he got no sense of movement. He knocked again. He imagined the woman in there staring at the door, wishing lethal thoughts through the wood, into his head. Willing murder, demanding death, spilling blood from afar.
