Warpath

“They only said three things: Shortie did everything, we did nothing and we want lawyers.”

“So be it.”

Graham exhales long. “Richard, one thing though.”

I’m weighing the difference between a bacon omelet and corned beef hash, say, “Sure, buddy. One thing.”

“The gang bureau has already heard talk of retaliation. Hopefully the Messiahs blame Moss’s gang and they make our work easy. But just because I’m paranoid, I want you to keep that fat head of yours low until this blows over. Got me?”

“If they somehow figure I’m the shooter out of all the enemies they’ve ever made, let it come. But for you, alright, buddy. I’ll call this evening. I’m going to need some stuff from you.”

“Okay. Thanks again, Richard.”

“Hey. Every now and then one friend needs another to put some serious hurtin’ on two rival gangs. Don’t mention it.”

We hang up. My waitress comes and I order.

Next on the list: Carla Gabler, the rapist’s girlfriend.

8

0823 hours, Monday

I pinch another butt from my cigarette out the window and watch the house.

I parked across the street a few doors up. The neighborhood was blue collar back in the ’70s. Now, it’s ring-around-the-collar. Nothing fancy; matchboxes and one-story ranches up and down. Enough front yard to have a bad lawn, enough backyard to put a baby pool and chain up a pitbull.

Driveways big enough for two cars nose to ass, cracked sidewalks and concrete. Dreams to match.

Carla Gabler is standing at the edge of the yard as a sixteen-year-old girl hands her a toddler from the back seat of a still-running car. Carla receives the child and smiles, showers the little girl in kisses. The sixteen-year-old hands over a ratty diaper bag and leans ove

r to give a very fake kiss to Carla. Both their cheeks touch and I can see Carla mime a smooch into thin air before the sixteen-year-old hops back in the car. She lights a smoke before she guns it off the curb. No looking back.

I see Carla stand there for a moment, radiant with affection for the innocent package in her arms. The little girl gives the love right back. The sight of the two of them together against the backdrop of this shitty neighborhood, the four square feet of brown lawn Carla has with her rental shoebox, the overgrown dead tree in the neighbor’s yard, the twenty-pound piles of dog shit in the other neighbor’s yard, the ramshackle chain link fence that seems to endlessly divide one house after another, all the accouterments that scream white trash, those two together are love.

The little girl has a plastic grocery sack in her hand. I see blonde and brunette doll hair hanging out. The girl slings her arm through the handle loophole in the bag and pulls it up to her shoulder as if it were a purse. In Carla’s arms her feet dangle and she kicks them playfully.

Carla’s face shifts some and she turns the little girl over in her arms to examine her diaper. Carla finds something there and becomes upset. It’s not the look of a person who realizes they have to change a diaper, but rather the look of someone who realizes the diaper should have been changed an hour ago.

They go inside. I put my gear shifter to D and head out.

An hour later I knock on Carla’s front door.

It cracks open, limited by the security chain. I see a green eye poke around the wood. Immediately smell years of cigarette smoke.

“Not interested,” she says, her voice husky from all those cigarette smoke years.

“Ma’am, I’m not trying to sell anything—”

“Piss off.” The door shuts. I stand there for a moment. I hate it when this happens. I knock again.

The door swings back open and the green eye returns. “Just so you know, mister, this neighborhood doesn’t buy vacuums, magazine subscriptions or cookies and has no need for lawn care guys or a new roof. And some of these doors will just open and start shooting so you should just squeeze your linebacker ass back into whatever jalopy you came in and drive back north of the river where people got the money to have Vogue and mint cookies delivered. Got it? I’m doin’ you a favor here.”

I stick my card out. She doesn’t accept it. “Ma’am, I’m a private detective. You’re Carla Gabler, am I correct?”

Silence. The eye hovers, doesn’t blink. Then: “Get out. Whatever you want, you get out.”

“Ma’am, I’m trying to solve a rape. Occurred twenty years ago while you were still in Happenstance. I was just—”