17

Not all that far from the trio of former henchmen, Harvey Bullock idly scratched his whiskered cheek. As usual, he was dressed in a rumpled suit several years out-of-date, the lapels stained with his recent meal of chili dogs and nacho fries. The suit looked like something he slept in.

In his other hand he held a flask, and he took a sip of bourbon. He stood in the small back room behind the counter of the Aparo Motel. Venetian blinds offered a view of the parking lot, and beyond that cars and trucks zoomed past on the expressway. The Gotham City skyline loomed even further away, past the park that held the statue of Judge Solomon Zebediah Wayne, a nineteenth century Bible-thumping abolitionist who had helped turn a fishing village into a modern-day center of commerce.

A cheap cracked mirror sat on a wobbly table near two hard-backed chairs. There was also a threadbare couch, and a smaller table upon which sat an ancient black-and-white television. On the screen the Gotham Knights played the Star City Rockets baseball team, the volume down low. On the mirror resided the remains of some green powder, next to a razor blade and cut-off straw from a fast food joint. Thea Montclair used the blade to chop and line up the narcotic.

“Damn,” she said, admiringly, “that’s some primo giggles.”

Bullock took another swig from his flask, leaning against the back of a chair. His shoulder rig was draped over the chair, holding a department-issue three-inch-barrel revolver. His badge in its leather holder was clipped to the holster. He leaned forward as he talked to Montclair.

She sat in another chair, her foot tapping a beat on the floor. She was dressed casually in jeans and a flannel shirt, a bit of cleavage showing that Bullock tried not to zero in on too much. Montclair was the night manager of the motel. Once upon a time, however, she’d been a Calendar Girl.

Not the sort who wore a skimpy bikini and held up a beer bottle. She’d been a henchwoman among a plethora of henchmen. The Calendar Man had come up with the bright idea to recruit females for his gang, as he tried to differentiate himself from the other low-level villains. Julian Day also came to believe that the women on his payroll dug him, and he couldn’t keep his creepy hands off of them.

One by one they departed.

Despite years of hard living and hard drugging, Montclair’s body was toned and athletic. She’d begun working out when she was a member of Day’s crew, and she’d kept it up ever since. Her face, though, was a lined testament to the things she’d endured after running away from an abusive foster home at age fourteen.

Bullock admired her dedication. He still did dumbbell curls on occasion, so there was some muscle tone in his arms and chest. His beer gut, however, sagged over the edge of his elastic waistband.

“You clear-headed enough to go over this again?” he said, “or does the allure of that shit have you in a rapture state?”

Without a word she rose and, in the tiny adjoining bathroom, theatrically upended her compact, watching doe-eyed as the green powder fell like alien snow into the toilet bowl. She flushed the commode and came back to sit in the chair. There was still some powder on the table, but she’d made her point.

“Sharper than a skeeter’s peter, Harv,” she said. “Lay it out, baby.”

Shifting his gaze from the TV screen back to Montclair, Bullock scratched at his tangle of salt-and-pepper whiskers again.

“The main thing is what your girl Suzi told us,” he replied. “That she knows for certain Python Palmares has his operation set up in the old Novick Novelties factory.”

“She’s sure of it.” Montclair nodded firmly. “She went through there about a month ago. Palmares brought up a buncha girls for a big party he was throwing. Booze, drugs, chicks flashing their ta-tas, the whole shebang. It was on the top floor, in his office outfitted to be all swank.”

“You sure she wasn’t so high that she got it all twisted around in her head?”

“No, Harvey, she wasn’t,” Montclair replied. “Palmares was puttin’ on the dog to impress this Intergang guy, Mannheim. You know, lookin’ to get more financing to expand up and down the eastern seaboard. His crew met Suzi and the girls on the ground floor by the stairs, ’cause the elevator wasn’t working. When they passed the floor below Python’s office, it was all closed off and there were guards in chairs, stationed in front of some metal doors. She said she could hear fans going, only she was cool, and didn’t let on she knew anything.”

Montclair and her friend Susan Klosmeyer, two girls from the hard-bitten Narrows who’d met in the foster care system when girls—had been high on Giggle Sniff when Suzi had gossiped about Palmares and his base of operations. Klosmeyer was really high back then, and that was the night Montclair knew she had to clean up her own act.

Susan had gone on about how Palmares liked to throw his money around, and was using Giggle Sniff as a stepping stone to bigger things. He’d talked about taking over all the rackets in Gotham.

Bullock nodded. The fans were used to disperse the smell of the chemicals, so as not to call attention to what was supposed to be an empty factory.

“Okay, good,” he said, moving his holster to the table and sitting down.

“Are you sure you can pull this off, Harvey?” she asked, glancing over at the remaining emerald-colored powder, licking her bottom lip.

“I’m taking a page from that bat-eared freak’s playbook.” Bullock chuckled mirthlessly. “First I dug up the blueprint of the factory, from the building department. Then I figured out how to cause the distraction I’ll need to take him down.”

Montclair stood up again, bending over the table slightly and using the edge of her hand to sweep the Giggle Sniff onto a paper napkin. She balled the paper up and wiped the residue off her hands, sending it falling onto the beige shag carpet. He pictured a cockroach sucking up the drug and getting his mind blown, skittering all over the place.

“But won’t he be keeping his money in a safe or something?” she asked, moving to the bathroom.

“Yes, he probably does, sugar tits,” he replied, “but I’m going to make him move that money, and that’s when the snatch will happen.”

“Yeah?” she said brightly. She went into the bathroom again and flushed the balled-up napkin. When she returned she sat on the couch and sank into its listless cushions.

“Oh yeah,” he responded.

She smiled crookedly. “Aren’t you the smart one?”

He let his gaze linger again on that wonderful cleavage. “Don’t smart boys deserve, you know, a reward?”

“I’m flattered, but I’m not that high, big boy.” She grinned, a greenish tinge to her gums. “Let’s keep this strictly business.”

Bullock sighed and took another pull on his flask, watching the baseball game. The Knights were ahead by a run.