Before The Killing Starts (Dixie Killer Blues Book 1) (3 page)

Chapter 5

The talk of kid brothers
and kicking them into shape brought back some memories that Dixie didn't want
to think about right now. About the day his own kid brother killed himself. But
he couldn't blame Chico, he wasn't to know about that. He'd been working
ridiculous hours—nothing new there—and hadn't been back to his apartment for a
couple of days, just grabbing a few hours sleep wherever and whenever he could.
And when he'd finally got back home there were two messages waiting for him on
the answering machine.

Hey, it's Remy. I
need to talk to you. Want to get some breakfast this morning?

And then, the voice a
little more strained:

Me again. I guess
you're really busy. How about a beer later? Call me.

But Dixie never got to
make the call, because by then he already knew his brother was dead. If only
he'd called him on his cell? Why call the house for Christ's sake?

All Remy had wanted was
a quiet drink with his brother; maybe ask his advice on something that was
bothering him, who knows, but his brother was busy—nothing new there. What are
you gonna do? You can't find anybody to talk to about your problems, you might
as well make them go away for a while—so he'd
had a drink with Charlie
instead,
because
Charlie
was always there for you.

The medical examiner
said there was no evidence of long-term abuse—it was just one of those things.
Apparently you didn't need a history to choke to death on your own vomit. Like
that made it easier to accept.

He still saw Remy from
time to time. He'd be sitting up at the bar and see a movement out of the
corner of his eye. He'd turn to look and there would be Remy turning away,
disappearing into the crowd. The first times it happened he'd jump up and chase
after him, but he'd be gone, of course. He'd push his way through a crowd of
people and then stand there in the middle of the floor, head frantically
turning, everybody staring at him, their faces softening as he changed from a
rude drunk into an object of pity.

It didn't happen so
often now and he never tried to catch him up anymore, but every now and again
he'd sense movement . . .

Chapter 6

Evan pushed open the
door to Kelly's Tavern and stepped inside. He'd spent a lot of time in
different bars over the years and, like anyone else who's a regular bar-goer,
it didn't take any longer than that for him to get the feel of the place.
There's a difference between a tough, blue-collar bar and a white-trash dive
and although he'd never been in the place before, Evan knew he was in the
latter. Maybe it was the clientele—men with too much time on their hands and
too little money in their pockets who came in to try to forget about what
they've lost or never had in the first place. Men who feel comfortable in the
knowledge that they're unlikely to come across reminders of all the good things
they've been missing, all the things they can never have. Or maybe it was that
indefinable smell—a subtle mix of strong beer, sweat and stale cigarettes with
an aftertaste of vomit. Whatever it was, you couldn't miss the fact that the
place was a dump.

The bartender looked up
briefly as Evan came in and went back to watching the TV. They probably got a
lot of people come in, take a quick look around and head straight back out
again. Evan would normally have been one of them. Coming in from the bright
sunlight outside, it took his eyes a minute to adjust to the darkness. It was
still early and the place was almost empty. There were three inbred-looking
guys at the end of the bar drinking beer, talking and laughing loudly, another
two shooting pool in the back and a couple more sitting at a table who somehow
didn't look quite so much like losers as the rest of them. Maybe they weren't
regulars.

The inbreds stopped
talking and laughing and watched Evan as he walked up to the bar. Evan would
have liked a few more people in the place, perhaps some loud music to drown out
his questions. As it was the whole bar would be able to hear every word he
said. Somehow he didn't get the impression that more pairs of ears meant more
chance of somebody being able to help him. One thing was for sure—he knew why
Ellie hadn't wanted to come to the place herself. Why she wanted to find somebody
who chose to come here on a regular basis was a different matter.

The bartender turned his
back to get a better look at the TV as Evan sat down on a stool at the bar.
Evan was surprised by his sudden interest in world affairs—he looked like the
kind of guy who's normal attitude to anything going on in the outside world was
who gives a shit?
He was heavyset with a crew cut and even though he was
in his fifties you could see he still thought he had it in him. Maybe he did.

Use short words, Evan
thought.

He gave it a minute and
then ordered a beer from the bartender's back. With an exaggerated sigh the guy
turned away from the TV and pulled Evan's beer. Then he walked down and started
talking to the three guys at the end of the bar. That sort of put an end to
Evan's plan of having a quiet word in his ear. He might as well jump up onto
the bar, clap his hands and ask for everyone's attention.

He heard the rattle of
ice cubes in a glass beside him and turned his head. One of the guys from the
table behind him had come up to the bar and stood a couple of feet away,
swirling the last of his drink before tipping it down his neck. The bartender
came back down and started serving him and Evan took the opportunity to get a
better look at him. He was tall and obviously Hispanic, and Evan knew his first
impressions were right; he definitely wasn't one of the regulars—one, he wasn't
a loser and two; this place was strictly white trash. You could feel he was
confident walking into a dive like this knowing there was nothing in here that
he couldn't deal with. If the guy had bottled it, Evan would have bought some.
The guy looked across and gave him a small nod, then carried his drinks back to
his table.

The bartender was about
to rejoin the guys at the end when Evan called him back. Automatically he
picked up Evan's glass, then saw it was still half full. He looked at Evan with
an
aha
look on his face:
now we'll get to the real reason . . .

'I'm looking for
somebody,' Evan said.

'Uh huh.' He cocked his
head like he didn’t understand what that information had to do with him. 'Isn't
everybody?'

'I think he comes in
here.'

The bartender gave what
he probably thought was a smile, his bright, mean eyes crinkling at the
corners. 'I suppose there's more chance of me knowing him than if he'd never
set foot in here in his life.'

The inbreds at the end
had stopped talking again and were paying close attention to the conversation.
The bartender looked down at them and winked. They grinned back. They looked to
Evan like they'd have trouble spelling
gum
and chewing it at the same
time.

'His name's Richard
LaBarre.'

The bartender creased
his forehead and tugged his chin as if he was giving it some serious thought;
his eyes flicking sideways to the inbreds, then shook his head. 'Never heard of
him.'

There was a titter of
laughter from the end of the bar. The bartender gave Evan a big
up-yours
smile.

'Everybody calls him Dixie,' Evan said, feeling stupid as he said the name.

The bartender gave a
half-hearted nod. 'That's nice. Still never heard of him.' He started to move
away.

'I've got a photo of
him.'

The bartender made a big
fuss of stopping in his tracks and turning around. He came back and stood in
front of Evan and spread his hands on the bar. He wore a couple of heavy rings
on each hand, the knuckles criss-crossed with faded, and not-so-faded, scars.
Evan assumed the display was for his benefit and felt like pointing out that
the liver spots that were starting to appear spoiled the effect somewhat. He
got a powerful draft of stale cigarettes. It made him think, between the guy's
fists and his breath, he'd go for the fists every time.

'I've got you,' the
bartender said. 'His name's Richard something, everybody calls him Dixie but I'—he jabbed his thumb at his chest—'might know him as Bill or George?' He looked
at the inbreds at the end of the bar and got a bunch of
you-tell-him
head
nods.

Evan wanted to come back
with some equally smart ass reply but it wouldn't get him very far. Not that
being nice as pie was getting him anywhere, either. The bartender was just one
of those guys who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.

'Just take a look, will
you?' he said wearily, pulling the photo out of his pocket.

The three guys at the
end were really paying attention now. Evan couldn't blame them—in a place like
this, when somebody puts their hand into their pocket it normally comes out
with a switchblade.

Evan put the photo on
the bar top. The bartender looked at it as if Evan had placed a steaming dog
turd on his nice clean bar, but then his curiosity got the better of him.

'It's been cut in half.'

Evan slapped the heel of
his hand against his forehead. 'I was wondering what happened to it.'

The bartender looked up
from the photo and gave Evan a withering look. 'No need to be a smartass.'
Clearly that was his job.

'Do you recognize him?'

The bartender took
another quick look and pushed the photo towards Evan. 'Sorry.' Evan didn't
think he looked sorry at all. 'Why do you want to find him anyway? You don't
look like a cop.'

'No, I don't suppose I do,'
Evan said.
All your customers would be long gone if I did
. 'I'm a
private investigator.'

The bartender nodded as
if that explained a lot. 'You working for his wife?'

'No, just someone who
wants to find him.' Evan got out his wallet and pulled out one of his cards.
'Can I leave this with you?'

Evan could see him
thinking it looked a bit small and inflexible to wipe his ass with but he
didn't say it.

'What? In case a guy
I've never heard of or seen in my life just happens to pop in one day?'

Evan looked around the
bar and smiled. 'Who knows? Even if he doesn't, one of your customers might
want to hire me.'

The bartender walked
away and laughed over his shoulder. 'I think you'll find the people who come in
here have their own way of dealing with problems.'

Chapter 7

Evan sat at the bar and
wondered what to do next. He picked up his glass and was just about to down the
rest of his beer when a shoulder slammed into him, sending the glass flying.
One of the inbreds from the end of the bar continued on his way to the men's
room without looking back. Behind him, Evan heard the others laughing. He
turned to look at them and one of them raised his glass in an
up-yours
cheers
towards him. He felt a hot little worm of excitement in his gut and reckoned he
had about a minute—long enough for the guy to take a leak but not long enough
to wash his hands—in which to decide what to do. He only really had two
options; he could get up and leave or he could wait and deal with what happened
when the guy came back.

The bartender walked
slowly down the bar making a tut-tutting sound and made a big point of bending
over and picking up the broken glass. He straightened up and his gaze snapped
back toward Evan, his lips curled into a smile, eyes full of gleeful
anticipation, like a fat, spoiled kid on Christmas morning.

Evan decided to stay; he
didn't want to disappoint the guy. Apart from the damage to his pride if he got
up and left with his tail between his legs, they might decide to stop him from
leaving anyway. Besides he'd never been one to let prudence or reason cloud his
judgement.

He kept his eyes
straight ahead as he heard the door to the men's room open and swing shut.
Along the bar, the remaining inbreds had stopped laughing, although they still
had the stupid grins plastered across their faces. The pool players in the back
had paused their game. The two Hispanic men sitting at the table weren't paying
the slightest bit of attention.

Evan took his right foot
off the rail and placed it squarely on the floor, bracing himself. He could
feel the adrenalin sledding through his blood as he locked his right arm solid
on the bar and tensed. The guy walked up, an ugly smile on his lips, and swung
his shoulder into Evan on his way past. Or that's what he tried to do, because
this time, instead of knocking Evan into the bar, he bounced off and stumbled
against one of the tables. The shock on his face turned quickly into anger as
his friends sniggered again, but this time at him.
What a fun afternoon it
was turning into
.

Evan sat on his stool
staring ahead as if nothing had happened.

The guy looked over at
his friends—for moral support, presumably—then stuck his face into Evan's
personal space. Evan kept his eyes front, the smell of beer and potato chips on
the guy's breath washing over him.

'What the hell do you
think you're doing?' the guy said.

Evan ignored him. He
didn't want to antagonize the guy unnecessarily by pointing out that he was
having a beer. Or had been.

'I said, what do you
think you're doing?'

Evan knew it wasn't going
to end well; maybe he'd made the wrong call. The guy was getting more confident
now, taking Evan's lack of response as fear.

'Look at me when I'm
talking to you,' the guy said and poked Evan with his finger.

Evan tried not to dwell
on where that finger had just been—the guy definitely hadn't had time to wash
his hands.

The guy jabbed again. 'I
said look at me.'

Evan took a deep breath
and swivelled on the stool to face the guy. He had long, greasy, dirt-blond
hair and smelled of beer and body odor and something else Evan couldn't and
didn't want to place. There was a dark smiley face of perspiration under his
left armpit, but not on the other side, as if he'd run out of deodorant half
way through his morning ablutions. That must make him left-handed if he sprays
his right armpit first, Evan thought as he lowered his left foot to the floor
so that he had both feet firmly on the ground.

'You were in my way,'
the guy said, jabbing Evan with his finger for a third time. Whatever might
have been left on his finger was now transferred to Evan's jacket. He looked
down at it but couldn't see a visible stain. That didn't mean every dog in the
neighborhood wouldn't be sniffing around it.

'Don't do that,' Evan
said pleasantly enough.

The guy smiled like he'd
finally got what he'd been after.

'Or what? You want to
make something of it?'

Evan shook his head.
'No, I just want you to stop doing it.'

The guy turned round to
his friends, a massive grin on his face. 'D'you hear that? The big tough
detective wants me to stop, but the pussy's too yellow to do anything about
it.'

Evan raised both hands
in appeasement. 'Okay, okay, it's my mistake; I shouldn't have been in your way—'

'Ha. Will you listen to
this yellow . . .'

'—but I didn't know you
were going to the men's room.' He shrugged an apology. 'I couldn't see your
momma here to hold your little peepee so I thought you were going to wet your
pants like you normally do.'

The guy's finger stalled
on its way for another jab and his mouth dropped open in astonishment. It opened
and closed a couple of times but nothing came out, his eyes bulging in their
sockets, like they were trying to escape.

At the end of the bar
his friends howled with laughter.

Evan grabbed the finger
in mid-air (he'd been right, the guy was left-handed) and bent it sharply
backwards, snapping it cleanly at the knuckle. He felt a hot, mean satisfaction
right in his belly as he heard the sweet crack of bone followed by a loud
scream. He jerked his hand downwards feeling bone grate against bone in the ruined
finger. He kept pushing down forcing the guy to lean in.

The guy was making an
ah,
ah, ah
sound, but a lot louder than that. Evan grabbed his chin with his
other hand, digging his nails in and squeezing the flesh along his jaw to draw
his face close. He let go of the finger and hammered the heel of his hand down
onto the bridge of the guy's nose. Bang. Bang. Bang. Same as the number of
finger jabs.
Fair's fair, after all.

He stood up, feeling the
pull of something sticky on the seat of his pants, and snapped his arm out
straight sending the guy staggering backwards into the tables and chairs behind
him. Funny how he couldn't hear the inbreds laughing any more. He looked at the
guy in front of him, trying to disentangle himself from the furniture.

Enough now?

Not a chance.

He bent and picked the
heavy stool up by its legs, spun around and swung it through the air, catching
the guy solidly on the side of the head, sending him sprawling into a heap on
the floor. He kept the spin going like a hammer thrower in a track and field
competition and let it loose at the remaining two inbreds. It missed by a mile
but you can't win them all. He'd never been any good at track and field.

Behind him, one of the
pool players was coming on fast, the pool cue reversed in both hands. Before
Evan had a chance to react, the Hispanic guy who'd nodded to him at the bar
stuck his leg out and tripped the guy, sending him crashing headlong to the
ground. The cue flew out of his hands and clattered across the floor, coming to
rest by Evan's feet. The pool player tried to get his legs under him but the
Hispanic guy jumped out of his chair and kicked him hard in the balls. Game
over. He looked round at the second player and wagged a finger at him. The guy
showed him his palms and backed away.

Evan bent and picked up
the cue and backed towards the door but nobody else was up for it. He got to
the door, pushed it open with his butt, slipped out and pushed the cue through
the two door handles. It wouldn't hold up against a good kick but it was better
than nothing.

Way to go, Evan, way
to go.