didn’t feel that way. Could be she was only looking out for herself, keeping her options open, trying to find some way out of the corner she and Driver had been shoehorned into. Far as Driver knew, Cook was still a player. No way Cook had the weight or stones for those hard boys come to collect, though. So he had to be fronting.
Making the question: Who was likely to show?
Any minute a car could pull up with goombahs inside.
Or maybe, just maybe, the bosses would quietly suggest, the way it sometimes worked, that Cook clean up after himself.
Nine-forty a.m. on the third day, every breeze in the state gone severely south and blacktop already blistering, arm hanging from his shoulder like a hot anvil, Driver thought: Okay then, Plan B, as he watched Cook in a Crown Vic circle twice on the outer ring and pull into the lot just past the Chevy. Watched him get out, look around, amble toward the parked car with key in hand.
Cook opened the driver-side door, slid in. Soon he emerged, went around back and popped the trunk. Half his body disappeared beneath the lid.
“Shotgun’s not much good anymore,” Driver said.
Cook’s head banged against the trunk as he tried to straighten and turn at the same time.
“Sorry about that. Blanche isn’t much good either. But I thought a few props might put you in a nostalgic mood, help you remember what went down. Show and tell.”
Cook’s hand rose towards the hoop in his right ear. Driver intercepted it halfway and struck with one knuckle just above the wrist, at a nerve center that shut down sensation and scrambled incoming messages. He’d picked that up on breaks from a stunt man he’d worked with on a Jackie Chan movie. Then, just like a dance step, right foot forward, slide the left, pivot on the heels, he had Cook in a choke hold. Same stuntman taught him that.
“Hey, relax. Guy I learned this from told me the hold’s absolutely safe on a short-term basis,” he said. “After four minutes, the brain starts shutting down, but up till then—”
Loosening his hold, he let Cook drop to the ground. Man’s tongue was extended and he didn’t seem to be breathing. M.E. would call the skin tone blue, but it was really gray. Tiny stars of burst blood vessels about the face.
“Always a chance I didn’t get it quite right, of course. Been a while, after all.”
Shafts of pain shot along Driver’s arm as he fished out Cook’s wallet. Nothing much of use or note there.
Check the chariot, then.
In the Crown Vic he found a clutch of gas-station receipts jammed into the glove compartment, all of them from the downtown area, Seventh Street, McDowell, Central. Four or five pages of scrawled directions, mostly unreadable, to various spots in and around Phoenix. Half a torn ticket from something called Paco Paco, a matchbook from “a gentleman’s cabaret,” Philthy Phil’s. An Arizona roadmap. And a sheaf of coupons bound together with crossed rubber bands.
_________________________________
NINO’S PIZZA
(RESTAURANT IN BACK)
719 E. Lynwood
(480) 258-1433
WE DELIVER
_________________________________
Chapter Seventeen
He always had his first few drinks of the day away from the house. There were two choices, Rosie’s up on Main, a long haul without a car, or The Rusty Nail at the corner. He had a car but the driver’s license had gone south years ago and he didn’t like to take unwarranted chances. Rosie’s was a workingman’s bar, open at six a.m. You asked for bourbon or whisky here, the barkeep didn’t have to come back with what flavor, there was only one bottle of each. Man didn’t have to put up with troublesome things like windows, either, since the place was a cave. The Rusty Nail, basically a titty bar, opened at nine. From then till three or so, when the girls started straggling in and the clientele changed (he’d got caught unaware more than once), it was inhabited by mechanics from a truck garage down the street and butchers from the meat-packing house
Making the question: Who was likely to show?
Any minute a car could pull up with goombahs inside.
Or maybe, just maybe, the bosses would quietly suggest, the way it sometimes worked, that Cook clean up after himself.
Nine-forty a.m. on the third day, every breeze in the state gone severely south and blacktop already blistering, arm hanging from his shoulder like a hot anvil, Driver thought: Okay then, Plan B, as he watched Cook in a Crown Vic circle twice on the outer ring and pull into the lot just past the Chevy. Watched him get out, look around, amble toward the parked car with key in hand.
Cook opened the driver-side door, slid in. Soon he emerged, went around back and popped the trunk. Half his body disappeared beneath the lid.
“Shotgun’s not much good anymore,” Driver said.
Cook’s head banged against the trunk as he tried to straighten and turn at the same time.
“Sorry about that. Blanche isn’t much good either. But I thought a few props might put you in a nostalgic mood, help you remember what went down. Show and tell.”
Cook’s hand rose towards the hoop in his right ear. Driver intercepted it halfway and struck with one knuckle just above the wrist, at a nerve center that shut down sensation and scrambled incoming messages. He’d picked that up on breaks from a stunt man he’d worked with on a Jackie Chan movie. Then, just like a dance step, right foot forward, slide the left, pivot on the heels, he had Cook in a choke hold. Same stuntman taught him that.
“Hey, relax. Guy I learned this from told me the hold’s absolutely safe on a short-term basis,” he said. “After four minutes, the brain starts shutting down, but up till then—”
Loosening his hold, he let Cook drop to the ground. Man’s tongue was extended and he didn’t seem to be breathing. M.E. would call the skin tone blue, but it was really gray. Tiny stars of burst blood vessels about the face.
“Always a chance I didn’t get it quite right, of course. Been a while, after all.”
Shafts of pain shot along Driver’s arm as he fished out Cook’s wallet. Nothing much of use or note there.
Check the chariot, then.
In the Crown Vic he found a clutch of gas-station receipts jammed into the glove compartment, all of them from the downtown area, Seventh Street, McDowell, Central. Four or five pages of scrawled directions, mostly unreadable, to various spots in and around Phoenix. Half a torn ticket from something called Paco Paco, a matchbook from “a gentleman’s cabaret,” Philthy Phil’s. An Arizona roadmap. And a sheaf of coupons bound together with crossed rubber bands.
_________________________________
NINO’S PIZZA
(RESTAURANT IN BACK)
719 E. Lynwood
(480) 258-1433
WE DELIVER
_________________________________
Chapter Seventeen
He always had his first few drinks of the day away from the house. There were two choices, Rosie’s up on Main, a long haul without a car, or The Rusty Nail at the corner. He had a car but the driver’s license had gone south years ago and he didn’t like to take unwarranted chances. Rosie’s was a workingman’s bar, open at six a.m. You asked for bourbon or whisky here, the barkeep didn’t have to come back with what flavor, there was only one bottle of each. Man didn’t have to put up with troublesome things like windows, either, since the place was a cave. The Rusty Nail, basically a titty bar, opened at nine. From then till three or so, when the girls started straggling in and the clientele changed (he’d got caught unaware more than once), it was inhabited by mechanics from a truck garage down the street and butchers from the meat-packing house
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