against the lit transmitter. “I don’t know about this. I better check with the chief.”
“Go ahead,” Phil invited. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind at all being woken up at one in the morning by a dispatcher who doesn’t even have enough initiative to inquire about any daily SOP changes.”
“Asshole,” she said, glaring through blond bangs.
“Hey, that’s my middle name. Look, you go ahead and do what you want. Call the chief, call the mayor and the town council. You can even call the Little Mermaid and Steven Spielberg if you want, but I’m 10-6 to Sallee’s.”
“Don’t forget your radio.”
Phil held up the Motorola portable. “What’s this look like? A toilet tank cover? Log me in 10-6,” he snapped and left the station.
God, she gets on my nerves! Phil got into his Malibu, updated his DOR, and pulled out. How come she hates me? the question nagged. Sure, he was new, and cop folks routinely took a while accepting new hires, but—Christ, she acts like I pissed on her dog. Must be a permanent case of PMS.
Or—
Maybe it’s me, he considered. Maybe it’s my karma or something. Phil could recognize no reason at all for Susan to treat him with such ill-will, but he had to admit women seldom took to him, and he never knew why. He’d had his share of relationships during his time on Metro. Yeah, and they all went bust, with me looking like the heavy. But maybe he was the heavy. The longest one had lasted maybe eight months, and by the end of it they were arguing worse than the schmucks on Crossfire. Be real, Phil, he ordered himself. It was easy to be real about one’s self when driving alone at just past 1 a.m. Self-realization, man. There’s something about you that rubs women the wrong way. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I am an asshole.
On that note, he decided that self-realization might not be the best thing to ponder right now. Why rub your face in your own shit if you don’t have to? he reasoned. Worry about Sallee’s, Natter, the PCP ring—that’s what you’re here for. Not to bellyache to yourself about why women act like you’re the Boston Strangler.
Around the next bend, the great lighted sign flashed: KRAZY SALLEE’S. Gravel popped under the tires as he pulled into the lot and hunted for a strategic place to park. Certainly the beat-up Malibu wouldn’t be conspicuous, but some guy parked right up front with a portable police radio would be. He edged into a space toward the back which afforded a pretty wide survey of the building and the lot.
Plates, he reminded himself. All he wanted to do the first few nights was get a log of all the vehicles that remained in the lot till past closing, descriptions, tag numbers, physical makes on the owners, then compare them at the end of the week and see who the regulars were. He also wanted the tags of any out-of-state vehicles. This would be slow, but slow was the only way to start.
Pickup truck paradise, he thought. Half the vehicles occupying the lot were, unsurprisingly, pickups in various states of bad repair. The rest were equally beat cars like the Malibu, and a smattering of souped hot rods. No, this ain’t the parking lot at the Hyatt-Regency, he joked and began jotting down tag numbers with his lit CRP “NitePen.” He’d also brought a tiny pair of Bushnell 7x50’s with a zoom for the plates out of eyeshot. This didn’t take long, which left him with nothing to do but watch blue-jeaned and T-shirted patrons come and go. He guessed last call would come at about one-thirty, then the lot would clear out and he could see what was left. Weed out the louts, he thought. Whoever’s still here are the folks to check out.
Boredom set in quick.
Undecipherable C&W boomed through the lot each time someone left. Most who left were clearly drunk, harping about the “hot babes.” Many saw fit to urinate between cars before leaving. If I had a nickel for every redneck I’ve seen piss in public tonight, Phil reflected, I could probably fill my gas tank with high-octane. He tried to divert his thoughts, but every time he did, they kept roving back to himself: the topic of the evening.
Working in Crick City would never earn him a silver star, but at least it was a job and one that fit his college and career goals. So he supposed he should be grateful. Beats sudsing fenders at Lucky’s Carwash. Despite Dignazio’s frame at Metro, Phil realized things could be worse—a lot worse. It didn’t even matter that no one here would ever believe he’d been set up. At least he was working, at least he was getting a paycheck for something more fulfilling than punching a clock at the yarn factory. Lots of people these days didn’t have jobs at all.
So what am I moping for?
Like an undertow, then, his thoughts took him back to earlier contemplations. Women. Relationships. I’ve struck out more times with women than Boog Powell struck out at the plate. Maybe he’d never taken things seriously enough. Maybe he’d taken things for granted. Human compatibility wasn’t supposed to grow on trees. It can’t all be me, he, well, pleaded with himself. To think so was quite a condemnation, wasn’t it? Shit, he thought. Two more rednecks staggered out of Sallee’s. They both relieved their beer-strained bladders before piling into a primer-red Chevy pickup and driving off.
What the hell’s wrong with me? Phil thought.
Vicki had been his only genuine, long-term relationship. He knew that he’d loved her—he’d loved her more than anything. Only on my terms, he regretted now, and then his thoughts turned mocking. Yeah, the woman of my dreams. Only thing she didn’t do for me was change her whole fucking life. What a dick I am.
But why think of this now? Ancient history. This was over ten years ago, and here he was doing stakeout in a redneck strip joint parking lot, and all he could think about was some girl he dated through high school and college, and who probably hadn’t thought about him since Three’s Company was still on the air.
Get your head together! You haven’t been back in town two days and already you’ve turned into a moron!
Again, he tried to refocus, on his job, on the stakeout. And on Natter. How well had the guy held up over the last decade? Phil had only seen him a few times in his life, and that had been a while back. Must be uglier than ever now, he concluded. Natter was an inbred—a Creeker—yet the man, despite his physical deformities, also spoke with great articulation and seemed keenly intelligent. Was Natter’s car here now? And was he himself in Sallee’s this moment? These were things that Phil should’ve considered previously, but he hadn’t. It was getting close to two— closing time; the cars in the lot had begun to clear out. Christ, Phil thought. I should have at least asked Mullins if Natter was still driving the same car…
More locals stumbled out, jabbered, and drove away. “Man, that back room’s somethin’, ain’t it?” one frightfully large redneck remarked, expectorating a plume of tobacco juice.
His companion, even larger, did a rebel yell. “Man, those chicks got me all fired up,” he replied. “We’se comin’ back here ever’ night!”
Please don’t, Phil thought. They were just stoners, not dope dealers. And what had they said? Something about a back room? I don’t remember any back room, Phil thought. They must’ve expanded the place—
Then…
Here we go.
Phil jerked alert and raised the tiny pair of binoculars. Only a few vehicles remained in the lot now, a couple of pickups (one of which looked absolutely ancient) and a fully refurbished ‘63 Chrysler Imperial, an eerie dark, dark red.
And next, in the building’s front entry, a figure appeared. There he is, Phil realized. There could be no denying the identity. Faces like that you don’t forget, and Phil actually gave a quick shiver when he focused the Bushnell’s. Inhumanly tall and thin, Cody Natter stepped out into the lot, dressed in jeans, an embroidered button shirt, and a black sports jacket. The bastard must spend a fortune on custom-made clothes, Phil thought. Forty-five-inch inseams weren’t easy to come by at Wal-Mart. Slivers of gray looked like webs of frost in the man’s shoulder-length black hair—of course, all Creekers had black hair—and they all had red eyes too, irises as red as arterial blood, which momentarily glinted now as Phil squinted on through the binoculars. Then a second shiver traipsed up his spine, like a procession of spiders, when he took his first good, hard look at Cody Natter’s face…
It looked runneled, warped; waxpaper skin stretched over a gourd of jutting bone; Phil swore he could actually see veins beneath the thin sheen of skin.
Lips so narrow they scarcely existed formed a mouth like a knife-cut in meat; a sprawl of uneven teeth outcropped from the depressed lower jaw. One big earlobe hung an inch lower than the other, and seemed to depend in a way that reminded Phil of a shucked softshell clam. Several crevices ran across the enlarged brow, deep as gouges made by a wood chisel, and, lastly, the four fingers on each of Cody Natter’s hands each displayed an additional joint.
Christ, what a living wreck, Phil observed.
