Cross Current - Kling Christine - Страница 35
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“We’re looking for a fellow by the name of Gil Lynch. I understand he lives round here.”
The older woman had been lifting her beer can to her lips, but she stopped, left the beer hanging in midair. “Who’s asking?”
I dropped my business card on the table in front of her. “I’m Seychelle Sullivan. I own the tug Gorda. My business is Sullivan Towing and Salvage.” I didn’t think Mike’s credentials as a former FLPD officer would go over big with this crowd.
The gray-haired woman drank from her beer and then slid my card into the front pocket of her T-shirt. “I seen your boat around.” She reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table and shook one out. With the cigarette dangling from her lips, she asked, “Red’s your pa?”
“Yeah. He died a couple of years ago. I’m running the boat now.”
“Sorry to hear that,” she said, struck a match, and inhaled long and deep.
I nodded. “I understand Gil used to know Red, and I just wanted to ask him some questions about my dad.”
She took the cigarette from her mouth with two cracked, callused fingers, then she thrust her other hand out to me. “I’m Pattie Dolan.” I tried to shake her hand with the same strength and assertiveness that Wonder Woman had used on me, but Pattie’s grip turned mine to putty. She turned from me and spoke to the man with the jug ears. “Go git the truck.” He slid back his chair and started for the once white Ford Ranger parked in the dirt lot opposite the trailer that served as an office.
I rested my hand on Mike’s shoulder. “Pattie, this is my friend, Mike Beesting.” They, too, shook hands. Pattie made no attempt to introduce the others at the table.
“Odds are Gil’s down at Flossie’s this time of day. Jack’ll run you down there. It’s only ’bout a quarter-mile down the road.”
“I know where it is. Thanks.”
The truck pulled up, and out the open window Jack jerked his thumb toward the back. Mike pulled down the tailgate, and we slid into the truck bed. After a short drive down Ravenswood Road, the truck pulled into a parking lot that stretched along the side of a drab-looking two-story cinder-block building. Downstairs was the dirty glass entrance to Flossie’s Bar and Grill. Upstairs, an outdoor corridor ran the length of the building where the late Flossie had sometimes rented rooms out to her patrons. The parking lot was halffilled with older pickups and a handful of bikes, mostly Harleys. Leaning against the wall of the building was a rusty old beach cruiser bicycle with high, wide handlebars and a plastic milk crate tied behind the seat with a sun-faded polypropylene line.
We slid out of Jack’s truck and waved our thanks as he headed back to Pattie’s. “I’m sure glad I locked up the dink and outboard. I don’t think any of them back there would be above helping themselves.”
“I’m sure you’re right about that,” I said as I pushed open the door and nearly gagged on the cigarette smoke. My ears were assaulted by the sound of Garth Brooks singing about how much papa loved mama. The bar was so much darker than the bright sunlight outside that I stood in the doorway a few seconds, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Mike came in behind me, hooked his arm in mine, and led me past the couple of pool tables to a pair of empty stools on the far side of the bar.
I’d driven by Flossie’s probably a hundred times in my life, but I’d never been inside. I knew about the place because it had been a landmark for thirty-some years, and both my brothers had boasted to me when we were in high school that the bar’s owner, Flossie, never checked IDs. They often came over here to drink and practice being men. The dominant decorating themes went from Nascar to Budweiser, from neon signs to inflatable oil cans to a full-size picture of Dale Earnhardt on the storeroom door. The place was very crowded, although I counted only two women other than the bartender.
I didn’t spot Gil as I surveyed the crowd, but I wasn’t surprised to see Perry Greene sitting at one of the bar-height tables by the door. He was wearing a white mesh baseball cap stuck backward on his head, the straggly ends of his long hair curling around from the back of his neck. Smoking a filterless cigarette no more than an inch long, he squinted across the bar and sucked on the butt, and I was surprised the red glow didn’t bum his fingers.
After Mike secured us a couple of beers, I pointed Perry out to him.
“Check out my competition over there.” I squeezed the lime down the neck of the bottle and took a couple of swallows.
“Interesting,” he said. “Think we ought to mosey over and see who’s smoking that other cigarette burning in his ashtray?”
I hadn’t noticed the smoke rising from the ashtray. “Think he’d tell us if we did?”
“Probably not.”
I told Mike about the tow of the Italian yacht O Solo Mio. “Perry seemed to be very proud of his connections to those big boys. I’ve always thought of Perry as just a sleaze ball— a user, yeah, but not a dealer. A guy not above some smalltime crime if the chance presented itself, but not a big criminal. Do you know anything I don’t know?”
“Not really. I know he’s been busted for drunk and disorderly a few times, and he does sell a little weed to his friends. That’s it, far as I know. I think he’s probably just bullshitting, but then again, I wouldn’t put it past him, trying to hook up with some kind of big-time score.”
“That’s just it. I don’t think anything's beneath Perry.”
Mike laughed. “Yeah, he’s definitely a bottom-feeder.”
The beer tasted fresh and clean. My throat already felt scratchy from the cigarette smoke and from trying to shout over the noise coming from both the jukebox and the inebriated crowd. I turned around on my stool and watched the game of pool at the table behind us for a few minutes.
“Doesn’t look like Gil’s here,” Mike said, and I could tell he understood how disappointed I was.
A heavyset, ponytailed white man at the pool table was accusing a younger black man of having cheated by moving the cue ball. Ponytail was a biker type with a huge gut and various chains hanging off his belt. On the table, the striped balls grossly outnumbered the solids, and I suspected the accusation was a way of trying to make up lost ground.
I turned around and reached for the last of my beer. “Let’s get out of here.”
At that moment the door to the men’s room opened and a large man walked out, his hands still fumbling with his fly. His belly, stretching the fabric of the faded black T-shirt, was third-trimester size, and his head bobbed as he struggled to get things situated in his trousers. When he stepped into the red glow of the neon Bud Light sign, I saw the wide handlebar mustache and the scarred, off-kilter face. Although the skin was etched with deep crevasses, there was now more to the unbalanced look than just the eyebrow. In person, Gil Lynch looked positively insane.
Gil saw us just as he came abreast of our bar stools, and when I opened my mouth to speak to him, he bolted for the door. The move caught me off guard, his quickness remarkable for such a heavy man.
Mike was off his stool and heading for the door before my brain was able to process what was happening. He turned to me and shouted, “Come on,” his cop instinct just like a dog’s—the sight of a man’s back only whetted his appetite. As my feet hit the floor, I identified the source of my confusion: I couldn’t comprehend why or how Gil would know that we were looking for him. To my knowledge, I’d never met the man before.
I was no more than a few seconds behind Mike, but he had stopped and was holding the door, staring out toward the street. Just before I went through the door, I saw Perry cover his face with his hand. Seemed nobody wanted to have anything to do with me today. Outside, I looked to my right and saw the bike and its rider in a faded black T-shirt turn south in the direction of Pattie’s.
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