“Good. Turn around.” The bouncer patted me down professionally.
“Inside jacket pocket,” he growled. I held the right side of my jacket open for him.
“It’s a handheld computer,” I said. “Lift it out and check it.” He slid it out carefully, spun it in his hands until he found the release button, and opened it up.
“Huh. What does it do?”
“Email. Games.”
“Okay.” He handed it back to me and then checked Trix; no attempt to cop a feel. The guy had been trained properly, somewhere official. I wouldn’t push my luck with him.
Satisfied, he asked if we knew what Muppet looked like.
“No,” I said. “You already worked out we’re not local. We talk to him and we leave. That’s the whole deal.”
“Good. Far end of the bar, red hair, eyes like you never saw on a human being before. Buy a drink, no acting out, and I don’t got a problem with you being here.”
I thanked him and we headed to the bar. The guy the cops called Muppet was there, all right. Hair like red yarn, red eyebrows that you’d need a whip and a chair to put in their place, eyes that stood out of his face like someone had slipped boiled eggs into his sockets. Wearing a wifebeater so old and thin that you could see his ribs through it, so scrawny you could practically see his heart behind his ribs. Jogging pants covered in tiny little burn holes and stinking of dope, and shiny new running shoes.
We ordered drinks and watched him for a little bit. I wanted to get his measure. Every few minutes his pocket played the riff from “Axel F,” and he fished a cell phone out from it. It always came out with scraps of tissue stuck to it by velcro snot. He’d rattle off numbers in a reedy voice and then shove it back. Take a few deep pulls of beer. Repeat.
The fifth time the phone went back, I approached him. Muppet immediately fixed me with awesomely bloodshot eyes.
“You’re Muppet?” I said.
“Muppet,” he agreed.
“Cop,” he said.
“Private detective. There’s no trouble here. I’m looking to talk with Tim about buying something he recently came into possession of. Straight business deal, no cops, no angles.”
“Tell Muppet. Muppet tell him.”
“I get to talk directly to him tonight, you get a finder’s fee. My client authorized five grand.”
His red eyes wheeled about in his head. “Fifteen.”
“Ten.” Which was the number I was going to start with, before I got a look at him.
“Now.”
“When I’ve got what I want. I can’t get the cash out of the client otherwise.”
“Now.”
“Can’t do it.”
“Now.”
“Forget it,” I said, and turned away, collecting Trix’s hand in mine.
“Where you going?” Muppet whined.
“Cops,” I said. “I was keeping them out of it, dealing on the level. But if you’re going to be a prick about it, I’m going to talk to a couple of friends on the force. They’ll pick him up on a bogus charge and put him in a cell long enough for me to talk to him. My buddies will split eight grand, which leaves two for me as a little bonus. And when Tim asks exactly who fucked up to the extent that he’s spending a night in a cell with some AIDS-infested assrapist, I’ll tell him it was you. I’m dealing straight with you, but I’m not going to be fucked with.”
Muppet folded in on himself, scowling. “Muppet sad.”
“Have a nice night,” I said, and started walking.
“Okay,” he piped, pulling his phone.
“You’re funny when you try to be a hardass,” Trix whispered. I trod on her foot.
Chapter 39
Christ, I want a gun,” I heard myself say.
The address Muppet gave us, after an interminable time on the phone where he explained the situation to Tim Cardinal in the style of fucking Sesame Street, appeared to be an abandoned water utility plant. Huge filthy pumps stood dead, there wasn’t a light on in the place, and it all felt like trouble.
“You think he’s maybe a touch paranoid?” Trix smiled.
We found the open door to the main building, as described by Muppet. There was a heavy flashlight laid on the floor waiting for us. I switched it on and lit up a place that looked like it’d been abandoned with two minutes’ notice. Mugs of coffee still on tables, overflowing with vivid green mold. In the messroom, fungus crawled off plates left midmeal, skewed cutlery half-buried in the moss. Here and there, coats still hung on hooks.
We had our instructions. We went down. Rusted metal staircases rung dissonantly. The wet stone floors
