Mike Reuther - Return to Dead City (10 page)

I motioned to Myrna for another coffee and sat down. He seemed real pleased about that. For a few moments he just sat there across from me, his good eye giving me the once over. He was some package all right, like some creepy creature straight from hell.

“I’m not a bum Jack,” he said.

I nearly choked on that. “Yeah right. And I’m Jane Fonda in drag.”

That neither amused nor angered him. He merely sat there with that one-eyed stare. “I don’t panhandle unless I have to.” He suddenly reached under the table and brought out a plastic garbage bag. It was still wet from the rain. “I collect cans and bottles Jack.”

“Oh I get it. That keeps you outfitted in Rolex watches and Brooks Brothers suits.”

He let that one go. “I don’t want you to get the idea I’m this street guy you can’t trust.” He leaned toward me and gave me a twisted smile. Myrna put down my coffee and gave us each a curious glance before heading back behind the bar.

“You got information. Let’s hear it.”

He held up a hand. “Not so fast Jack. My services don’t come cheap.”

“What kind of information are we talking about?”

“Information you could use Jack.”

“First of all. Let’s cut the Jack crap. I once knew a guy named Jack who got his kicks hanging around grade schools. He ended up doing time for child molestation if you get my drift.”

His looked turned hard. “Okay. Here’s the deal. You slip me some money
,
and I’ll give you some interesting dope on the stabbing.”

I shook my head. “I don’t work that way.”

“Yeah right.”

By now I’d had enough of the guy. I threw two bits on the table for the coffee and tossed a dollar on his lap.

“Use the bill to fit yourself for some new dentures,” I said.

I was to the door when he called out to me. But it didn’t matter. I had things to do.

Chapter 6

In Centre Town you’re better off walking. The cab drivers charge scalper’s prices
,
and the city buses run on a time schedule from somewhere out of the horse and buggy days. I waited for the bus at the corner of Fourth and Campbell until the bus showed up a good twenty minutes late. It wouldn’t have been so bad if not for the rain. The only shelter from the drops I could find was in the doorway of the Salvation Army’s Rescue mission.

Naturally, a puddle the size of Australia had found its way there from the rain, and my feet got good and sloshed - which in a sense was what I wanted to be.

By the time the damn bus brought me to Mick’s Gym I was ready to assassinate all members of the Centre Town City Transit Association. Mick wasn’t a candidate for the Happy Fellows Society about this time either. It probably had something to do with the sight of me trudging with wet shoes across the wrestling mats toward his office. I had no sooner darkened the doorway of the place when one of the gym’s exercise grunts dropped his weights and sauntered over to find out my business. As before, the gym was full of young and sweating muscleheads struggling with the iron or preening before one of the room’s many wall mirrors.

This particular Rock of Gibraltar was a real specimen. I have to say that. Very tall and very wide with this Max Headroom look. A creation from the cloning laboratory for Scandinavian Olympiads you might say. I don’t know if the clone even knew how to speak. For the longest time he just stood before me staring into my eyes as if unsure whether to attempt conversation with me or to bench press me.

“That’s all right Ingemar. I’ll take care of this.” It was Mick.

I think Ingemar grunted next. Either that or I’m not up on the mating habits of giant Swedes who wrestle reindeer in their spare time. Ingemar stepped aside, and I sloshed my way toward Mick.

He stood in the doorway of his office with his big chest stuck out and his thick tenderloin arms crossed, flexing the biceps. He looked like a bouncer in some night club ready to pounce.

“What do you want this time Crager?”

“I found something in Lance Miller’s room shortly after the murder.”

“Yeah
?
”

“Yeah.”

Mick didn’t say anything. He just stood there still flexing his biceps.

“You know anything about steroids?”

“I might.”

“Interesting little pills,” I said. “Makes the muscles grow big.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

I followed Mick as he turned away from me and went into his office to go behind his desk. He threw open a drawer, grabbed some papers and tossed them onto the desk top. We both stood on opposite sides of the desk looking down at the document.

“What’s this? The Dead Sea Scrolls?”                             

He picked it up and threw it across the desk at me.

Steroids: The Wrong Approach to Body Building
was
the title of the thing, a 40-some-page manuscript authored by none other than Mick Slaughter. I took a few moments to leaf through it without really digesting anything. It was a double-spaced, typewritten manuscript with some of its pages given over to graphs and charts and tables. Really kind of impressive actually, and more than what I would have expected from someone like Mick Slaughter. Apparently, Mick had done this little bit of research for a class. Some brief comments had been scrawled in red ink in the back by a Dr. Robert Heberling, who had seen fit to give Mick a B plus for his academic efforts.

“Pursuing a little higher education? I didn’t know you could read let alone write.”

“Aren’t you a barrel of laughs. I was thinking about getting a degree in health and physical education. Maybe do some teaching. But then I opened this place.”

I tossed the manuscript on the desk. “So where did Lance get the pill?”

He fell down into his chair where he sat shaking his head. “You just don’t get it do you? I don’t mess around with no growth hormones.”

“Oh. I get it. And that little paper you wrote shows how you’re doing your part in the fight against drugs. Everyone in here just says No. Is that it?”

He got up slowly from his desk. “Come with me.”

I followed him across the wrestling mats to the bench press
to
two young men. One of them, stretched out on his back along the length of the bench, was in the midst of repeatedly lifting a bar of weights from off his chest, while the other one stood to the rear of the apparatus ensuring that the bar didn’t come crashing down on his buddy. The lifter was really grunting and huffing and puffing. After about the sixth or seventh time the guy pushed the bar up he bellowed out the sort of noise a dog makes while trying to rip off meat from a steak. He arched his back and wiggled beneath the bar, but he couldn’t get his arms to do any more work. It was like the damn bar was frozen.

Finally, the spotter and Mick rushed in to grab the bar and got it back up on the rack. The kid just remained there stretched out, the blood quickly rushing from his face.

“Don’t try to put up more than you can handle Billy,” said Mick, giving the kid a pat on the leg.

He was sitting up on the end of the bench, a lopsided grin creasing his baby-smooth, boyish face. God, he looked young. No more than eighteen probably. But he looked as if a few of those years had been used to build up his upper body. His buddy, on the other hand, apparently wasn’t out to transform his own body into a walking model for some muscle beach magazine. He was tall and lanky and even in his sweat pants and long-sleeved shirt you could tell he was no muscle head. He had a hard look about his face though, like he’d suffered knocks tougher than a long, minor league baseball season gives out.

“Crager,” Mick said. “I want you to meet Billy
Hanson
and Jack Walter, a couple of ballplayers with the Centre Town Mets. Walter looked me up and down like I’d just come up with four aces to beat his full house.

“Billy here has been coming to my gym all season. He’s put a little muscle on his body too. Eh Billy.” He reached out with a hand to give Billy’s beefy shoulder a healthy squeeze.

Billy looked embarrassed if anything. “I been working out with weights since I was a wrestler back in high school.”

“What position you play Billy?” I asked.

“I used to be a second baseman, but the Mets organization switched me to third.”

He shrugged. “I’m a better hitter than fielder, especially now that I’m hitting with more power.”

“The weight-lifting do that?”

“Yeah. I’d say so. The program I’m on now has helped.”

“The program you’re on now?”

“Sure. Mr. Slaughter’s got me on a program that puts on the weight. That’s what I need to hit more homers.”

“But you’re the one who puts in the work Billy,” Mick said. He was staring hard at the kid.

“Ever do any steroids kid?” I asked.

The kid nearly choked on that one. He glanced quickly to Mick and back to me.

“No sir,” he said.

“Forget it Crager,” Mick said. “My boys are clean.”

I turned my attention to Walter. “No one is going to mistake you for some steroids project.”

Walter allowed himself a cool grin. He was everything Billy wasn’t: cocky, defiant, the kind of kid who’d probably given teachers at his high school the shits until they’d given him the boot.

“I’m a pitcher,” he said. “Too much weight-lifting knots up the arm.”

Just then a couple of young guys carrying athletic bags bearing the Mets logo entered the gym. “Yo, Stiles, Medwick.” The two stopped long enough to acknowledge Walter before moving off toward the locker room.

“Ballplayers?” I asked.

Walter nodded.

“Hell. Half the damn team comes here,” added Mick. “And why not
?
This is the best place in town for a good workout.”

“What do you got here besides some weight-lifting machines and a bunch of dumbbells?” I threw Mick a silly-ass grin. “Present company excluded, of course.”

“Of course,” Mick said. “Downstairs I got Nautilus, some treadmills, two racquetball courts…”

“Racquetball’s my thing,” Walter said.

“Yeah,” I said. “What else is your thing Walt?”

The young pitcher glared.

“I also got a sauna and some whirlpools in the place,” Mick added.

“That’s nice Mick. You got a real state-of the-art facility here.” Walter and I exchanged glares. “What can either of you guys tell me about Lance Miller?”

Billy was leaned forward on the bench, his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes on the floor. He glanced at Mick before lowering his eyes again.

“He helped me a lot with my hitting,” he said. “Lance was always there to help you out when you needed it.”

“How do you mean Billy?”

“Like if I wanted to go out to the park early to get in some extra hitting, he’d be there to throw to me.”

“From what I’ve heard Lance was out at the park early a lot of days anyway.”

Billy sat mulling that one over for a moment or two. “I guess that’s true. Thing is, he’d stop whatever he was doing to give me some help.”

The activity in the gym had grown quieter by this time. In fact, I could see more than a few of the goons had paused from their lifting and were looking our way.

“You guys lift together too?”

“Sometimes.”

“Lance worked pretty hard at that too huh?”

Billy grinned. “He didn’t even know what a bench press was that first day he came in here.” It brought smiles to the faces of Mick and Walter.

“Lance had never lifted before?”

Billy shook his head.

“Yet the guy had become quite a physical specimen in just
…
what
…
a couple of  months?”

“Come off it Crager,” Mick said. “The guy built his body up a little. He wasn’t going to win any body-building contests.”

“What about it Billy?” I asked.

“Lay off him,” Walter said.

Billy’s eyes found the floor again. He began holding with his left hand the bicep of his right arm as he flexed it. “I don’t know. He just worked out real hard.”

“Come on Billy. He was doing steroids wasn’t he?” I brought my face down close to his. He looked helplessly from Walter to Mick.

“All right Crager. That’s it.” Mick grabbed my one arm and stood me up, spinning me in a semi-circle to face him.

“Listen asshole,” he said, his finger stabbing my chest. “You start harassing my customers, you’re reaching into my pocketbook. You got that.” He slammed his fist into my chest. One good poke was all I needed to find out just how strong the guy really was.

But then he began pounding me in the same spot a few times for good measure. Each time he pounded felt like an iron spike being nailed into me. It caused me to crumple up at his knees where he could have kicked me like dog shit. And I felt sure he would. Instead, he stood glowering over me for a few moments before walking away and leaving me there. I was face up, the room was swirling
,
and I was hacking like an asthmatic. The throbbing in my chest felt like I’d just come out on the losing end of a sword
-
swallowing contest.