8. Chapter 8
1425 Words
4
Nick yawned deep. He exhaled a high-pitched grunt as he closed his mouth and shook his head. Sleep had been a luxury over the past few weeks. It came in minutes rather than hours.
The dreams were never the same, but the cast of players remained unchanged. The tongueless vagrant with his neck nearly garroted through. A young Hispanic man in an argyle sweater hovering over him, eyes wild. His head explodes in slow motion. The taste of grey matter in his teeth. The face of the sultry redhead in the cemetery morphed into his mother’s hollow, dying eyes, accusing him of not being there when she passed.
Sunlight reflected off the concrete of the overpass and blinded him. He put a hand over his bleary eyes and looked at the complex built into the hollow formed by dirt and concrete. The cars overhead crawled through rush-hour traffic, slowed by the yellow crime scene tape a block away. Commuters hoping to get a glimpse of a gory detail they wouldn’t see on the evening news.
Nick vaulted the fence and started up the dirt incline. He stopped halfway up the hill. Nick didn’t want to get so high he had to crouch and couldn’t defend himself in case of attack. He’d learned the hard way to know where all the exits were.
Before he could say anything, a mountain of clothes pushed aside a tin door. Forno’s description of Zeke wasn’t far off. A parade float of dreadlocks cascaded from his head. Dark brown cylinders between the dull colors created enough negative space that it looked like Zeke was wearing a firework as a hat. His long grey beard grew down and around his face, with no clear division of where the hair ended and the beard began. He hunched down so far it looked like his head was growing out of the middle of his chest. He had a steaming mug of tea in his hands, holding it in front of him like it was keeping him balanced. The smell emanating from behind the tin doors let Nick know it was probably a homemade privy. That or another torn open girl was rotting inside.
“Shay ’bou dat girr,” Zeke croaked. Between the Creole dialect and Zeke biting down on his lower lip with loose-fitting dentures, it took Nick a second to parse out that he’d said, “Shame about that girl.”
“Didn’t see you down at that crime scene. You take a peek before we got there?”
Zeke laughed out a noise that sounded like a mix between a cough and a belch.
“News travealls fay,” Zeke said.
Nick wished there was a Google Translate for Mumblemouth.
“And who told you?”
“Word go by on’a win’ down here.”
Nick’s lack of sleep wasn’t helping his mind process Zeke’s dialect. He was going to miss something.
“The wind have a name?”
Zeke laughed again. “Naw. Not today. But, you DNA bawys done gon’ hay a feel day wit dat one.”
“What do you mean?” Nick asked, both for clarification and to make sure he’d heard Zeke right.
“Dat’un down ’ere a w***e how. w***e tent more like,” Zeke laughed.
“Street brothel?”
Zeke nodded affirmative.
“Any regular clients?”
“Oh, sure,” Zeke said, “You gazin’ on one here n’ now.”
“Had you been with that girl?”
“What I heard, too itty-bitty,” Zeke said, making a gesture with his coffee mug and other hand of a sizable ass in front of his face.
“Anybody you know who might’ve been with her?”
“Hafta see a pitcher.”
Nick pulled out his cell phone and crept up to where Zeke was standing. They looked like a unlikely pair standing there under the overpass in the early evening. Nick zoomed in on the girl’s face, hiding the other atrocious things done to her.
Zeke pulled out a pair of glasses. Both lenses were different sizes, one of them a bifocal. Tape held mismatching stems together. Nick got close enough to realize that most of the smell wasn’t just coming off the homemade privy.
“Looks like you need a new prescription,” Nick said.
Zeke laughed, “You funny, cop.”
He squinted at the picture, grabbing Nick’s wrist to move it out of the sunlight. Nick was going to have to remember to wash thoroughly. Zeke didn’t use any hand sanitizer coming out of the shithouse.
“Seen lotta girr come true here. She new.”
“Who owns the tent?”
Zeke took off his glasses and put them into the pocket of his ratted wool coat.
“Now ye askin’ d’rye question,” Zeke said, “What innit fo’ me?”
“New glasses?”
“These’ns work fine.”
“How about I let you keep your house intact?” Nick said.
“Whoa dere. You done gone from sweetie pie to meany poo rye quick.”
“I don’t like people using murder victims as bargaining chips.”
“Fair ‘nuff. Fair ‘nuff. Dunno who got the deed, but Applebox, he run ’nem girrs.”
“Applebox have a real name?”
“Sure ’nuff, but I ain’t know it.”
“You got a description? Where he holds up?”
“Now don’ go gettin’ all meany poo ‘geen, but cain’t say,” Zeke said, “You know how ’tis? Zeke no snitch. Ain’t never be. Ain’t never gonna.”
“You already told me his name. Isn’t that snitching enough?” Nick asked.
“That was fo’ the girr. She don’ need no mo’ dead end. She diffin’t.”
“Different how?”
“She Ayida Weddo’s girr.”
“Not Applebox’s girl?”
“Sho nuff. Dis here gonna get worse. You wanna know why I talk so right quick? Don’t nobody cross Ayida Weddo. Ears everywhere.”
“Where can I find this Ayida Weddo?”
“You don’t find her. She find you. She a ghost.”
Nick didn’t think he was going to get anymore out of Zeke. Once he’d started talking about the supernatural, there wasn’t much Nick could believe.
“Anything else you want to tell me?”
“One ting might hell you a bit. Applebox like ’em farmer’s marks.”
“Thought you weren’t a snitch?”
“Ain’t. Everybody like ’em farmer’s marks. Fresh fruit.”
“No detailed description for me, then?”
“I helpfoo, ain’t stupid.”
Zeke took a sip of his tea and went into his tent. A signal to Nick that the interview was over. For all Nick knew, Zeke could’ve been hiding Ayida Weddo in that complex, five feet from where they’d been talking. But Zeke had given Nick some valuable information and didn’t look like he had any plans to pick up shop and move.
Nick pulled out his phone as he made his way down the dirt and dialed Hsu.
“Hey. Float the name Applebox to Forno. See his reaction.”
“Got it,” Hsu said. “Anything else?”
“In your time in Vice, you ever heard the name Ayida Weddo?”
“Nope. But, I’ll run it through the system. Anything else?”
“That tent was a street brothel. Lots of clients. See if Forno was one of them. If we can get another girl, maybe we can I.D. our victim.”
“You heading back in?” Hsu asked.
“I’m going to see what else I can get out here. Is the tent’s owner stewing somewhere?”
“Naches is working on him,” Hsu said.
“Once they’re done cataloging and photographing everything, they’ll pack up the whole tent as evidence. If that’s his primary residence, he’ll either give his name to claim his property later, or move on and set up another one,” Nick said.
“If he’s smart, he’ll disappear,” Hsu said.
“We’re going to have a lot of disappearing witnesses on this one, huh?” Nick asked.
“I’m sure we’ve lost a handful already.”
“I’m going to wrap up here and make one more stop. I get any more witnesses, I’ll send ’em your way.”
“Where you headed?”
Nick heard Zeke cough something up and spit it out.
“Gonna go pick up some fresh fruit.”
- Writer
