CHAPTER 16, EXCERPT 1
Approaching downtown Zenith, the northbound lane of the freeway was nearly empty, while on the southbound a long line of cars was angling off toward the Interstate Bridge.
Lemmings, Frank thought. His madness seemed to be receding but he could still feel the creature—or at least the memory of it—at his back, like a shadow. And the words JUDY, JUDY, JUDY, were burning behind his eyes.
Maybe the lunacy was just lying low.
“Where we going, Frank?” Waverly said, his first words since the Arrowhead Bridge. “Your place?”
“Go to the Underground, man. That goddamn coke of yours has got me shaky as an old lady. I need some booze to take the edge off.”
Glancing at the dashboard clock, Waverly gave him a look. “It’s after one, Frank.”
“Meagher’ll be there. He’ll let us in.”
The tendons in Waverly’s jaw twitched as he took the downtown exit off the freeway and veered onto Michigan Street.
After an hour and three or four bumps apiece, Frank and Keith stumbled out onto Michigan Street peering around for cops, Waverly looking extremely nervous. Meagher and Oberst hadn’t had much to offer besides Betty’s booze. And cocaine. Stuff was everywhere in this town, it seemed, and Frank wondered how people could afford the shit. Like ol’ jonesing Waverly there who bought fifty bucks worth from Oberst that seemed about a third of a gram. Frank had abstained and was congratulating himself even though he had a gnawing craving for the shit that surprised him. Jesus, his nerves were maximum raw and he felt like a shaved cat in a hailstorm, not that he’d ever had the experience. But he did have feelings—all of them bad—and real questions for which he had no answers. He was hoping if he got home soon he could pass out and take another look at things tomorrow in the sober light of day.
“Where to, Frank?” Waverly said, pulling open the driver’s door, the dangling side mirror banging against it. Keith’s voice was up an octave and his words sounded like he was gritting his teeth—because he was.
“Home’ll do me, Keitho. And thanks a lot for doing the chauffeur bit tonight. Without a car one can feel helpless, you know?”
“With a car like this one you can also feel helpless.”
Frank thought he should laugh or at least chuckle, but he couldn’t.
They got in the Olds and went up the hill, turned right and headed east on dark and empty Fourth Street. As they passed Third Avenue East Frank saw Artie Autry’s GTO coming down the hill. He craned his neck around and watched the worn Pontiac turn onto Fourth Street and head west.
Sonofabitch.
Farther up the avenue Autry just came down was Judy’s apartment building, the one Frank followed her to that first night. Seemed a long time ago. Would she still keep the place now that she’d married into the big bucks? Seemed pretty doubtful, but she hadn’t been married that long—so it was possible. You can never be totally sure, man, because once you think you know it all, you’re due for a rude awakening. But it could be a coincidence Autry was in the area; the asshole could know any number of people around here. It was the western edge of the Central Hillside neighborhood—Frank’s neighborhood—although Frank’s house was on the plush eastern end. Plush. What a joke that was. Christ, the Central Hillside was hundreds of small houses jammed together—most of them rundown—and a few aging brick apartment buildings. A goddamn oasis of squalor and broken concrete, shitty old cars, welfare families, slumlords and, not to be overlooked, the bulk of the city’s trade in hard drugs and stolen property.
Artie Autry’s comfort zone.
“I tell you what, Keith,” Frank said. “Just drop me off on the corner here. I need to walk off some of this booze before I puke.”
“Sure you’re not too drunk to walk, Frank? I am.”
“Nah, I’m all right, man. Just need a little cool air to revive me. It’s only a little ways to my place. And now you can just roll down the hill and get back on the freeway. Fly outta here before the cops take an interest in your cantilever side mirror and invite you in for a sleepover.”
“I hear you,” Waverly said, pulling to the curb in front of a large red stone building, Romano Center on a big white sign out front.
(To be continued)
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