When Camel turned around the first thing Neffering said was, “What happened to your nose?”
“Broke it in a car wreck.”
“Yeah the reason I’m here, got a call about my car being in an accident … how bad?”
“Bad.”
“Totaled?”
“I don’t know, probably.” He handed over the keys which Eddie accepted like the personal effects of a recently departed loved one.
“You come from home or The Ground Floor?” Camel asked.
Eddie kept looking down at the keys.
Thinking of the trooper who was searching for him right at this moment, Camel said, “We got to get out of here.” He started walking, Eddie following slowly. “Come on we got to go now.”
When Eddie caught up he said, “I don’t know where Annie is.”
“It’s okay, she was out at Cul-De-Sac but Jake Kempis took her to your place.”
“She’s been missing since morning, I’ve spent most of the day looking for her … Jake took her to my house?”
“No, The Ground Floor.”
“Teddy I just came from there.”
Camel stopped, checked his watch.
Neffering asked him what’s going on.
“They’ve had plenty of time to get to The Ground Floor … you driving Mary’s Mustang? Where’s it parked?”
“You wrecked the Fairlane.” Neffering saying this to make sure he had it straight, to confirm it was really true.
“Eddie let’s get to Mary’s car, I’ll tell you on the way.”
“Can I see the Fairlane first, where is it?”
“No time.”
“You said Annie’s okay?”
“I thought so but she and Jake should’ve been at your place by now.”
“We got time to take a quick look at the Fairlane?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I just gave a state trooper the slip there in the hospital and any second now he’s going to be coming out here to grab my sorry ass.”
Eddie nodded. “Car’s over there.”
In Eddie’s wife’s new red Mustang, on the way to The Ground Floor, Camel explained some of what had happened … but not everything because he didn’t want to make Eddie vulnerable to an accessory charge.
When they got to the shopping mall’s parking garage Camel thought about showing Eddie the sheet of paper from the notepad, ask him to read it and give an opinion on how he thought Gray intended to finish the statement.
“How much trouble you in?” Eddie asked.
“Lots.” Camel decided he couldn’t let any of that trouble wash over on Eddie … couldn’t tell him about killing Gray. “Let’s go see if they showed up yet.”
Camel and Neffering went into The Ground Floor but Annie and Jake weren’t there, no one had heard from them.
“Something must’ve gone wrong after I left,” Camel told Eddie. “I need that forty-five … and the keys to Mary’s Mustang.”
Neffering looked away, his big brushy mustache drooping.
“I know, Eddie, I know. You went my bail, I wrecked your Fairlane, now I want your other car and your forty-five … I know I’m being a pain in the ass but this is important, I have to get back out to Cul-De-Sac.”
“I’ll come with.”
“Not possible. Now gimme the car keys or I’ll take a fucking cab.”
“Teddy you can’t make demands like that, not to the only friend you got in the world.”
“Then who can I make them to?”
Eddie shook his head. “I brought the forty-five from home, I’ll get it then I’ll walk out to the car with you.” He waited for a thank-you.
“Come on Eddie I’m in a hurry.”
Camel had the forty-five in one pocket, the keys to the Mustang in another … he and Eddie were just coming off the elevator when they both saw a little guy heading their way. He was five and a half feet tall, wearing a London Fog raincoat, had thinning dark hair, face like a well-groomed weasel.
“Weenie wagger,” Eddie said almost in passing because, with everything else that was happening, catching weenie waggers had fallen low on the priority list.
But Camel reacted differently, seeing the pervert galvanized him into action … running toward the guy, Eddie hurrying to keep up.
At first the weenie wagger looked scared then he realized these were the same two lugs around whom he had run circles last time they met up … the pervert smiling as he skipped backward and sang out, “If it ain’t Slow and Slower … see ya boys!” To mock Camel he shaped his thumb and forefinger into a pistol and pretended to shoot.
Camel raised the .45 and shot for real, two quick rounds into the concrete at the weenie wagger’s feet … made a hell of a noise there in that low-roofed garage, the pervert lucky the bullets didn’t ricochet up into his legs. In fact when chips of concrete peppered him the little guy thought he was shot, yelping and tripping backward to fall on his skinny ass.
Neffering said, “Jesus Teddy.”
Camel walked to the pervert. “You work around here don’t you?”
He didn’t answer, too busy checking his legs for blood, for bullet wounds.
“Better find another job,” Camel told him. “I don’t want to see you again, never again, because if I ever see you again …” Something in Camel snapped loose, he kicked the guy knocking him flat on his back. “I’ll fucking castrate you.” As if to perform that very operation with gunfire he shot repeatedly into the concrete between the pervert’s legs, chips and chunks flying everywhere, the sound deafening. In the echoing aftermath of all that gunfire Camel said, “Never again.” Voice of God, Old Testament.
Eddie grabbed Camel’s gun hand and raised it to point up at the ceiling before telling the pervert, “Better get out of here.”
He didn’t have to be told a second time, the little guy quickly on his feet, running without looking back.
“Like the bad old days,” Eddie said, releasing Teddy’s hand once the pervert was out of sight. “Camel’s back.”
He popped the clip and asked Eddie, “You got more ammo?”