Frenzy

wonderment, digging a shallow grave as the jarflies and mosquitoes and frogs sang relentlessly.

Something cracked through the wall of insane concentration and for that moment the one called Spain realized where he was and his surroundings permeated the dense death haze that he carried with him now. He had impressive banks of information stored away. Trivial and important knowledge. Minutiae he'd accumulated in his half a lifetime such as the fact that the Indians had once made a tobaccolike mixture called kinnikinnick. It came back to him in that moment when his eyes observed sumac and dogwood bark, relaying the message to his brain cells, and in that flush of cognition he realized that all the rain had kept much of the green here. Ladue had been barren-looking when he left for the South. The thought, lonesome amid the rest of the screaming abnormality, fled, and he was pleased at the way the recent rains had left the earth easy to dig in.

When he had the grave he wanted, neatly rectilinear and ready for its occupant, he went back to get Johnny Picciotti, Blue Kriegal's bodyguard. He was lighter than he looked, Spain noticed as he dropped the man's mummied form into the shallow grave and began filling it carefully, tamping the pieces of broken brick in and then starting on the dirt. From time to time a muffled scream would be audible, but when the first layers of bricks and rock and dirt covered it, you couldn't hear much. Just frogs, mosquitoes, and the incessant buzz of the jarflies.

'Glad we could have this little chat,' he tells the silent earth.

The phone by the bedside table rang and the man picked it up, having to reach over the sleeping body of an inert young boy to lift it from the cradle.

'Eh?' he grunted into the phone, glancing over at the clock that had some kind of fancy numbers some decorator thought looked good and he could never tell what the fuck time it was.

'Boss?'

'Who d' fuck is this?'

'Boss, this is Blue.'

'What d' fuck ya doin' calling me dis time a' da fuckin' night?'

'BOSS! Walk up, f' shit sake it's important.'

'What?'

'Can I talk?'

'Fuck, I dunno. No. Whatd'ya want, goddammit?'

'I gotta talk to ya.'

'Fuck it. What?' He rubbed at the sleep in his eyes.

'Dey got Johnny.'

'Whadya fuckin' mean dey got Johnny.'

'Johnny. He's fuckin' disappeared. We got his car.'

'No fuckin' way, He's prob'ly wit' a broad. Fuck it. Go back ta sleep.'

'... f' shit sake, wake up, goddammit. They got him.'

'Who got him? Whatd' fuck ya talkin' bout f' the ten't damn time?'

'Rikla dat piece'a shit got him. We got d' car. Deres blood innit.'

'Blood?'

'Blood, gaddammit, on d' headrest thing dere. RIKLA he hit Johnny d' no good piece of SHIT his fuckin' children should DIE! Hadda be fuckin' RIKLA!'

'When?'

'Huh?'

'Whenja fina car?'

'Jus' now. Me'n' Gino found it.'

'How long has Johnny been gone?'

'Since las' night. I mean, we figured like you, ya' know, it hadda be a broad or a fuckin' game or sum'pin', but we finally go up dere to dat place where he lives an' look inna gargage and we checked inside d' car an der's the goddamn bloodstains'n' shit.'

'He could be hurt. Inside. Not answerin' d' phone.'

'Naw. We got the super guy to let us in. Nobody up der. RIKLA NAILED HIM, de fuckin' cock-sucker.'

'How do you know so fuckin' sure?'

'Who d' fuck else gonna be wit' de balls to hit Johnny Soldier, f' shit sake? Hit him where he lives like dat. You know it hadda be some fuckin' som'bitch wit' no respec' for where a man lives. Dat fuckin' Rikla garbage go inside an' clip a man where he lives. An one of US ain't gon' clip a guy where d' guy fuckin' LIVES, goddammit.'

'Yeah. Well.' The man sat up and yawned, rubbed his eyes again, looking at the thin boy asleep beside him or pretending to be asleep. 'Get Buck n' Lowenstein. You and Gino meet me at d' other place in about ...' He glanced at the clock again. 'Fuckin' goddamn shit clock it don' even tell the fuckin' time. Fuck it. Meet me over dere in half an hour. Bring ya tools 'n' shit. I don't guess we got to take dat fuckin' shit.'

One of the main reasons he couldn't concentrate was he had Ritafication on the brain. Tonight's the night, he kept thinking. It was amazing to him the way he could always revert to a sixteen-year-old kid mentally at the mere cross of a leg in a high-heeled shoe. I mean, healthy is one thing, but Holy Moly, Captain Marvel, gimme a break here.

So Rita Paul now Haubrich of the legs and the red hair was the way he rationalized it. Whatever the real reason, this case was still a jellied blur.

The whole day had been spent first with Springer and a couple of homicide and organized-crime guys trying to do a chalk talk which had him so confused he erased it from his slate and tried his own simplistic version on a legal pad. It began like so:

THE TWO TONYS GANG

Cypriot (gone/NY?) Dago (slams)

Rikla . . . Measure Russo . . . Venable

He said to a detective nearby. 'Hey, Glass?'

'Yeah?'

'Who is Johnny Picciotti?'

'Johnny Soldier. Punk worked for Measure's people. Blue Kriegal's bodyguard but it looks like the job's open. Appears he got himself snuffed.'

'But no body, right?'

'Yeah. He's in the foundation of some new condo out in Lake St. Louis.'

'Uh-huh,' T. J. Monahan said, 'or he's got compacted in the trunk of an old junker out at Used Car City.'

'Right. He's now the rear bumper of a Dodge Omni.'

'And Tony Tripotra. Was he with Rikla or Measure?'

'He WAS with Rikla. He's with the angels now. Dead muscle. A thief. Had a package behind ADW and an armed-robbery thing that he beat. I doubt if he ever made his bones even. Just a guinea moke for Rikla.'

'How did Blue Kriegal get the name Blue?'

'Blue movies,' somebody suggested.

'Naw,' Pat Skully said. 'It was because he blue so many little boys.' Eichord thought it had warmed up a little or maybe it was just that he'd become punchy with the information overload.

'EEEhhhhh,' Leech called out to him as he clomped through the squad room in his size-fourteen wides, 'How's the Capo di Tutti Frutti today?' He said to Eichord.

'Sweet as ever and never been kissed.' But fixing to remedy that situation, he hoped.

He shaved again for the date. Cut himself nicely, which was always a good sign, and looked at himself in a favorite sport coat and decided, No way. Ung. Not a shot in the world. He could feel his Right Guard going even as he pulled up in front of her place. She looked. What's the word? Gorgeous doesn't cover it. She looked like . . . Oh, let's be calm. Precise. We're a trained observer, he thought. She looks YIP P P P-EEEEEEE!