Warpath

I don’t know how hard I tried. Read: I asked around at a couple of bars and then bought a whore and stayed drunk for two months. That’s good enough, right?

Petticoat smirks at the hideous fulfillment of his scheme. Not what he wanted, but the double-edged sword of the deal he made nonet

heless cuts both ways. It took with one side, and gave with the other.

“Then all these years later, just like you said, I get an email out of the blue blackmailing me about that night. I paid because I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t call the cops, you know? Then the amount went way up. I needed help. And I remembered all those years ago working in the pen everybody there was afraid of you. The guys you put away, they’d wear a brave face but you get to know what fear looks like working in a prison. They’d talk about how rough you were. Some considered themselves lucky you were on the PD’s leash. They didn’t talk about what would have happened if they crossed your path and you were...a free agent, so to speak.”

“So you look me up and see that now I am a free agent?”

“Yes. It was a no-brainer.”

Again, all true.

“Ease yourself,” I say to him. “Mickey Cantu is dead. My guess is he got a third party involved in your house deal. He would have needed another hand with Carla still locked up and all that loot to take. Whoever he teamed up with must have killed him and made plans to rape your wife instead. Explains why you got home a half-hour late and he’s still waiting for you. That’s the guy we want. He’s preying on the fact that you still think it’s Mickey Cantu. He gets away scot-free and a dead guy takes the rap.”

“So we just tell him we’re onto him, right?”

“No. Absolutely not. That’s our upper hand. His guard is up anyways, but once he finds out we’re sniffing for him instead of Mickey Cantu, he’ll disappear. He’s too smart and too patient. Way too patient.”

“What then?”

“You meet him at the normal time and place, like he thinks you will. I’ll take it from there. Now, tell me about the meet.”

“Simple, really. I go to the bench at the northwestern corner of Macken Park and throw away a fast food bag into the trash bin there. Money’s in the bag. I go about a hundred feet away and pretend like I’m watching the geese on the pond for five minutes. I assume that he comes by and grabs the bag then. I never see him waiting for me to drop it off. I couldn’t describe him if my life depended on it.”

I roll my head on my neck. “I’ll think of something.”

Petticoat raises an eyebrow and gives me a half-smile. “We have time. Let’s use it.”

I light a smoke, say, “Famous last words.”

28

The Old Pinnacle Theater, otherwise known as the John Wayne Theater.

The 1920s. When the movies became a larger-than-life, steamrolling industry, they decided they needed theaters equally grand to house themselves. No mere building would suffice if it were to contain the magic of Hollywood. Becoming detailed, exotic and ornately decorated, the theaters were exciting places where stage pageants and motion pictures could be displayed the way they were meant to be seen: avant-garde.

Constructed at the height of the Roaring Twenties, the art deco styling of the Pinnacle Theater enjoyed a few years of a raucous and nearly garish existence before the Great Depression laid its withered fingers upon it. The Great Depression razed this city, leaving no stone unturned. The theater suffered just as great as its patrons and when the nation resurfaced after pummeling the Axis Powers, the theater limped along. By the start of the 1950s it eventually became known as the Old Pinnacle Theater.

It sat in disrepair for a while. It was a second-run theater for a while. Someone tried to make it a porno house for a while. Failed. In the ’80s a new owner spent every last dime to restore the place to its original glory. He went broke doing it and sold it to a company that has since used it for marathon film festivals. Continued to this day. For weeks on end it will play Westerns back-to-back, hence the John Wayne title. It also does marathons of Ed Wood, Universal Pictures’ Classic Monsters with guys like Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney living forever. There are some small art film shows, a festival or two.

Candy Man is four rows in front of me. Dark glasses and he’s always on the phone, that carjacker thug said. This guy meets the description. Only an asshole wears sunglasses in a movie theater. A Blues Brother this guy ain’t.

There are several patrons with us, all annoyed to varying degrees by the fact that Candy here is constantly on his phone. At the beginning of the movie he spoke quietly—though he never turned down the volume of his ringer. Now, an hour in, he laughs out loud and is profane. The ushers won’t come talk to him. Maybe they have before and he showed them his iron. Maybe they have before and he clocked somebody. Maybe they can smell thug, gangbanger and drug dealer and won’t chance it.

The Old Pinnacle Theater costs a whole dollar to get in. Candy hangs out near the rear entrance and exit. His customers must buy their ticket, come find him, buy their score and leave. I’ve seen some fellas come and do the drug deal handshake with him then sit down to enjoy the film. I’ve seen several turn on a heel and bolt. Why people pay to come buy drugs is beyond me. Maybe his shit is that good.

Candy gets up and walks out. I follow. I move slowly and watch him as he dials a new number on his phone, walks to the bathroom. Oh good. I bought a large soda before sitting down to start the movie. I drank half of it in a hurry to make room for whiskey. So I need to drain the lizard anyways. Two birds.

I give him some lead and then go in myself. He takes the one shitter and I take the one urinal so we wind up side by side with the thin wall of the stall between us. He’s obviously put the female on speakerphone so he can wipe. But then, I hear him pop open some kind of container. I hear him tap the container and then the quiet sounds of him chopping.

Sniff.

I zip up. Think about washing my hands first but decide it’ll be more fun to punch out this guy with dirty fists.

“Ronnell, you better listen to me!” The female voice, all demands and sass.

More sniffing.