Steve Davis hung up the pay phone outside the Palms Café, lit a Marlboro, took a deep drag. His heart was pulsating, but he had to see this through. That investigator woman said she’d be here in fifteen-twenty minutes.
“Hey, Stevie.”
The voice caught him by surprise, made him spin around.
Frank Madrid. What the fuck? Steve took a nervous hit on his cigarette.
“Hey, Frank,” he said, stamping his feet on the sidewalk as if he were cold and needed to move on. Good thing Frank hadn’t caught him on the phone with Colleen Hayes. “What are you doing down here?”
“About to ask you the same thing.” Frank came up to him, gut out in a T-shirt under his open work shirt. Probably couldn’t get the damn buttons done.
“Just hanging out,” Steve said. Inside the club, the band was in between numbers. Someone did a drumroll.
“Here?” Frank said. Several others milled around outside as well. A couple of skinny guys decked out in tight leather and spiky haircuts. “In this fag neighborhood?”
Steve smoked, nodded at a girl—totally wasted, in a torn Sex Pistols T-shirt—trying to get her purse shut. Showing some side boob.
“If she’s a fag, Frank, count me in.”
“Plenty of ’em around here, Stevie, all I’m sayin’. Polk Street is their turf.” Frank gave a nod of approval at the girl, then patted Steve on the shoulder with his big meaty paw, a little too hard to be friendly. “Thought you might be keeping your mom company tonight. She needs you at a time like this.”
“I’m doing my bit,” he said, smoking. “I just needed some time off for good behavior.”
Frank’s hand still on his shoulder. “Your old man gets killed by vagrants and that’s all you can come up with? ‘Time off for good behavior?’ Christ, Stevie, I expected a little more out of you.”
Steve bit down on what he wanted to say. “Yeah, Frank, you and everybody else.”
The band started up inside with a bellowed one-two-three-four, followed by buzz-saw guitars and pounding drums. The singer started screaming that John Wayne was a Nazi.
“Jesus, Stevie. How can you listen to that shit? Go on home already. Be with your mom.”
Stevie took a puff. “In a while.” He was getting tired of Frank’s hand on his shoulder.
“Remember that little situation we took care of for you, Stevie?”
Getting caught receiving stolen property. “How can I forget? You only bring it up every time I see you.”
Frank gave him an ugly smile. “You might want to watch your lip, pal.”
Steve’s heart rattled as he took another puff. “Want to get your hand off my shoulder, Frank? In a neighborhood like this, people are bound to talk, right?”
Frank shook his head. “Always the smart mouth.”
“You follow me here? Or are you out cruising for guys?” He grinned.
“I know what you’re going through, Stevie. Your dad was my best friend. My partner. It’s like losing a brother.”
Steve wondered about that. No, he didn’t wonder. He knew about Frank.
Frank dropped his voice. “Your old man ever talk to you—about the old days?”
“Nonstop.”
“Well, that makes you one of us, Stevie. The son of a cop is as good as, in my book. And I’m sure he told you about the code. We don’t talk out of school. None of us. No, sir.”
Frank was staring directly into his eyes. Hard.
“Hell,” Steve said. “I stopped listening to my dad’s shit a long time ago. Never-ending. After a while I’d just nod my head, so as not to hurt his feelings.”
Frank rubbed his face. “That woman hasn’t tried to contact you, has she?”
Steve took an uneasy hit on his cigarette. “What woman?”
Frank squinted. “That investigator. Colleen Hayes. Your mom said she’s been to the house a couple of times—asking nosy questions.”
Steve did his best to feign confusion as he sucked in smoke. Then he said: “Oh—her.” He shook his head. “I wish she’d call.” He raised his eyebrows. “She’s not bad, huh?”
Frank smiled. “She’d put you in the hospital, pal.”
Steve smoked. “But it’d take the docs three days to get the smile off my face.”
Frank laughed. “Stick to the teeny-bops. Man, I wish I was in your shoes. There’s gonna come a day when you don’t know what you had.”
Like my father, Steve thought bitterly. I had one of those not too long ago. “Hell, she’s out of my league, Frank.”
Frank nodded, his face serious. “You’re a good guy, Stevie. And you got your old man’s friends to look out for you.”
Did he? He knew what his dad had told him, in drunken confidence, about Frank. Some fucking friend he was.
Frank patted his shoulder one more time, this time gently. “Go on home now, buddy. She needs you. You can scramble your brains this weekend. Your mom’ll be better by then. Do me a favor. And I’ll remember I owe you one.”
It really wasn’t right, he knew, leaving Ma alone. Frank wasn’t gonna let up until he left anyway. Steve didn’t need that woman Colleen showing up while the two of them were standing there having a heart-to-heart that looked like it was going to go on all night. And she might show any minute. He couldn’t risk that.
“Yeah,” he said, flicking the tail end of his cigarette out on the street where it skidded and popped red embers. “I hear you.” He got out his car keys. “I hear you, Frank.”
* * *
Not long after, Colleen drove past the Palms Café. No Steve Davis waiting out front by the phone. She circled the block, made sure there weren’t any suspicious cars, parked half a block down, got out of the Torino. Grating music wafted down Polk. She crossed over, headed toward the club. A couple of head bangers in black leather were making some kind of illicit trade out front, not too discreetly, although they probably thought they were.
Still no one at the pay phone next to the black door. Colleen gazed up and down Polk.
Maybe Steve Davis was inside the club.
She went inside, punk music deafening. Kids jumping up and down like pogo sticks. Some of them doing a facsimile of playing football in the middle of the dance floor, crashing into each other, knocking each other back and forth. One girl in a torn yellow T-shirt diving off the stage, landing in a crowd of kids who, thankfully, caught her, dipping to the ground. The place was hot and damp, like a locker room.
No Steve Davis.
“Five-dollar cover,” the guy at the door said, not that she could hear him—reading his lips. He was wearing one black glove.
“I’m just looking for a friend,” she yelled. “I was supposed to meet him outside.”
“It’s still five bucks,” he shouted.
She got out her money, unclipped it, peeled off a five, held it up like it might be used toilet paper. The guy took it.
She wasn’t too shy to go into the men’s room where one poor slob was heaving his burrito dinner into the sink. No Steve.
She went back out, stood at the bar, ordered a shot, despite parole. The shot went down fast. She pushed the empty shot glass at the bartender. He poured another. She downed that, too, went outside, got back in her car, smacked the steering wheel with the heel of her hand, and let loose a few choice expletives.
Then she waited.
* * *
Two a.m. Colleen watched the punk rockers stumble out of the Palms Café.
Steve was a no-show. It would not have bothered her so much except that she sensed he really wanted to talk.
She drove back home, wide awake. She parked inside the gates, went through the rigmarole, grabbed the flashlight from under the seat, did a quick check of the fence where the hole was. Had the pallets been moved? No, she didn’t think so. She’d do a quick patrol before she hit the sack.
She headed back to the far side of the facility, the employee entrance, when she heard water running. Inside the plant.