THE CITY OF SEATTLE SPRAWLED LIKE A RIPPLE IN A POND. The outer limits were almost unnoticeable. Then farmland was replaced with strip malls. The buildings got bigger. Like the far-flung remnants of a great disaster, with trash and shards of blown-out tires beginning to blanket the ditches. There were more cars and trucks and soon the roadways were all clogged and there was nothing but brake lights.
I hate this town, Batey said.
Car horns were blaring. There were angry faces behind the windows. Batey stayed in the far-right lane and now and then someone flipped him off for going too slow. At some downtown exit Batey pulled off the interstate and Fielding pointed at a 7-Eleven and said, Pull in there.
Fielding got out and went to the phone booth and started scrolling through the phone book. When he found what he was looking for he tore the page from the book and folded it four ways and put it in his pocket. Back in the Bronco, he said, First Avenue.
First Avenue and what?
Just First. Rick’s Fantasy Land.
Rick’s?
First Avenue.
Coursing through downtown they saw the legions of street people huddled in their cardboard squalor. Their shopping carts of garbage and aluminum cans. Their prizes covered with tattered tarps. Some of them smoking the abandoned butts of cigarettes. Torn nylon jackets, wet from rain, draped across their shoulders and hanging like shredded Mylar balloons.
On First Avenue the words RICK’S FANTASY LAND burned in a small red neon sign behind the barred window. The front door looked like a sheet of metal. It was in a brick building. All the other windows were boxed out with newspaper and cardboard from within. It was a discreet place. If you weren’t looking for it you wouldn’t see it.
Batey parked the Bronco across the street. The rain fell and the wipers went back and forth, back and forth. Batey turned off the radio. Only the sound of the engine running and the rain on the hood and the wipers on the windshield.
So what are we doing here? Batey asked.
I’m goin a go ask if they have videos like the one we saw.
Why you going to go do that?
If they have some, Fielding said, they got to get them from somewhere. Someone’s got to be bringin them in.
Okay, Batey said. You know how you’re going to ask that tricky question?
No I do not, Fielding said.
The wet sidewalks were full of people. Only a few umbrellas. Men in suits and trench coats held newspapers over their heads as they raced in and out of buildings. Women ran in high heels. Taxicabs parked along the street, their doors opening and their doors slamming shut. There was a hooded sweatshirt in the back seat of the Bronco. Fielding said, Mind if I borrow that?
Be my guest, Batey said.
Fielding reached back and put on the sweatshirt and pulled the hood over his head. How do I look?
Like someone who doesn’t want to be seen going into Rick’s Fantasy Land.
Keep the truck runnin, Fielding said. I’ll be right back.
Fielding jogged across the busy street and pushed through the crowded sidewalk to the front door. Inside, the mat at his feet was wet and said WELCUM. CUM INSIDE. The place was lit in sallow fluorescent lighting that droned on like crazed insects. There were rows of videos and the walls were full of sex toys and novelty lingerie. A man in his early thirties was working the register. Behind him a television was playing an X-rated video with the sound just audible.
Fielding went to the counter and the attendant looked up from a gun magazine.
Yeah? he said.
He had a wispy mustache and bad teeth and his cheeks were full of acne scars.
I’m wonderin if yeh got somethin I’m lookin for, Fielding said.
The attendant was already annoyed and said, You got to tell me what it is, old man. I’m not a fucking mind reader.
What I’m lookin for is pretty extreme.
S & M or something?
Go further, Fielding said.
You got to tell me what you’re into, the man said. Got to give me a little direction here.
Let me ask yeh this, Fielding said. How far is too far?
The man had an odd look in his eye. He put aside the magazine.
You talking something like . . . he swiped his hand across his throat.
I might be, Fielding said. Yeh got anythin like that?
What you’re talking about sounds pretty illegal.
Talkin about it ain’t.
The man looked Fielding square in the eye.
You a cop or something? Cause you got to tell me if you are.
Ain’t a cop, Fielding said.
After a long second Fielding said, So? Can yeh help me or not?
Not in the store I don’t, the man said. But I can get one.
When?
Day or two. Isn’t cheap either.
How much?
The man said the amount. The amount sickened Fielding. His heart pounded in his chest. His jaw muscles clenched.
You okay, the man said.
I’m fine, Fielding said.
The man wrote down an address on a scrap of paper.
Meet me here. Thursday night.
Where is this?
A parking lot.
Can’t I come here?
What you’re asking for isn’t exactly legal, man.
Okay. Thursday night.
Back in the Bronco Fielding felt like taking a long hot shower. Batey sniffed at him.
You even smell funny, he said.
Think I need to burn my clothes, Fielding said.
Get what you need?
Thursday night, Fielding said. Little creep is goin a meet me here.
He showed Batey the scrap of paper.
Where is that?
A parking lot.
A parking lot.
Thursday night.
Better clear my schedule, Batey said.