He did.
Knew her from the description, remembered hearing her name. She had been there a week ago Tuesday, meeting a man who worked in movies, guy named Rocco, in the distribution end of the business. Dirty movies, the real hardcore stuff. Not a Christian like you and me, brother. Not yet, anyway. Right? God’s grace comes to all in time.
March nodded. He was getting so good at it.
They’d been talking about something, some project—not that he’d been listening, they just hadn’t been talking very quietly, understand?
“A movie project? A porn film…?”
Breydo shook his head. “I don’t know, it was confusing. Yeah, there was a movie, something about a movie, but also some political thing, maybe some radio thing? She kept talking about doing something on the air.”
“On the air?”
“That’s what she said. Her and these other people. She asked if he wanted to meet her crew, said they’d be meeting later on.”
Did Breydo know where…?
That had led him here, to the Iron Horse, in the same zip code as the Erotic Connection but a place of an entirely different stripe. No naked women on the walls here. This was a drinking establishment, and the people in it (and yes, it was relatively full already in the early afternoon) were established drinkers. It was blue collar and no-nonsense, though there was a university campus nearby, and as a concession to the student population there was a crowded bulletin board you passed on the way in, full of mimeographed sheets promoting local gigs and bands and protests and whatnot, all stabbed into the cork with pushpins. March flipped through a few layers. On the air, on the air… He pulled one flyer down, folded it, jammed it in his pocket, went on in.
The bartender at the Iron Horse looked like he’d been a bruiser once, but that was before he got a job that gave him access to free liquor. He wore a salmon-colored shirt and wore it open, to give his belly a chance to breathe.
“I think I remember her,” he said, leaning forward on his meaty fists. “Amelia. She was in three, four nights ago. With a tall guy? They sat here for a while, waiting for her friends to show. Drank bourbon martinis.” He said this last with a trace of distaste.
“Disgusting,” March said, though he wouldn’t have turned one down. “Was the guy buying?”
“He bought some, she bought some.”
“Don’t suppose they paid with credit cards, did they?”
The meaty fists rose from the bar, turned into crossed arms across the man’s chest. “As in, am I going to pull the receipts for you? Fat fucking chance.”
March dug in his pocket, held out a folded ten-dollar bill. Folded to look like a little origami shirt. Sometimes it helped to make ’em laugh a little.
“That’s very pretty,” the bartender said.
“I made it myself.”
“Yeah?” the bartender said. “I made this.” And he reached under the bar, came up with a carved wooden bat. Like a Louisville Slugger, only heavier.
March nodded, tucked the bill back in his pocket.
* * *
But there was more than one way to skin a cat, like March’s mother always said. Which had been pretty annoying, actually. She used that expression entirely too much. But here it applied. Anyway. If there were credit card receipts that might reveal another address for Amelia, or one for this Rocco, he needed to get his hands on them.
So: he was crouching in the alleyway behind the Iron Horse, next to a dumpster he assumed was probably reeking, but fuck it, he couldn’t smell a thing, waiting for the lights to go out and the steel gate over the front door to come clattering down. He heard it at last, then footsteps receding, and it was just March and the back door, alone together in the night.
The knob didn’t turn this time, that would’ve been too much to hope for, but there was a glass panel in the door, not even any chicken-wire reinforcement in the glass, and March figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to smash the thing in. That’s what they did on TV, wasn’t it? March looked in the dumpster, pulled out a scrap of cloth that didn’t look too dirty, started wrapping it around his knuckles. Noticed the writing on his hand again, You will never be happy, fainter than this morning but still there. We’ll see about that, honey. Gonna earn myself another bonus payment. And he smashed his wrapped fist through the glass.
No alarms sounded, just the tinkle of shards against the ground. This was the part where he was supposed to reach through the opening, turn the handle from inside, let himself in, find the box of receipts behind the bar, rifle through them by the glare of his penlight, pick out the two he wanted, maybe mutter Bingo under his breath, let himself out, wipe down the knob, and beat leather back to March Investigations HQ, aka home. But his wrist hurt.
He looked down. He was bleeding.
“Ow, shit. Shit.” He pressed two fingers of his other hand against his wrist.
Blood seeped through around them.
“Ow, ow, ow.” He pulled the rag from around his knuckles, wound it around his wrist instead. It soaked through instantly. “Whoa. Ow. Whoa. Lots of blood. Lots of blood. Okay. Okay.”
He glanced around the alley, staggered a few steps. He was feeling dizzy.
Goddamn, that was a lot of blood.
He shifted his grip on his wrist, and a literal jet of blood came spraying up.
“Okay. Ow. Wait, wait. Okay. Okay.”
He was teetering in a tight little circle. Or maybe it just felt that way. His eyes started to flutter. Blood all over the place.
The end of the alley wasn’t so very far, was it? How could it be that far?
Feet.
Come on.
Jesus.