I suppose there are worse ways to go than by dying of carbon monoxide poisoning, but when contemplating my journey to the Great Ferry, asphyxiation wasn’t at the top of my list. A slow lingering death as one of Jemima’s welcome guests would more probably be closer to the bottom, so maybe I should have had more empathy for the guy. Hell, the stuff would have gotten him sooner or later, so maybe he was just lucky.
He looked to be in his mid-fifties, Aztec cheekbones with hard honest lines on a tanned empty south Texas face. The generator sat in the corner, a quiet beast that had done its job well and had gone back to sleep. Next to The Beast were five stacks of Hawaiian rolls, freshly baked from the looks of it. MacDouglas clutched a single sweet biscuit in his left hand as if he’d intended on taking it with him to enjoy on the way, or maybe as a tip for a hungry ferryman. Behind his ears was a multicolored neon glow. Like I said, the carbon monoxide was probably a better way to go than the other things that were coming for him.
“Well?” asked my deceptively attractive sidekick. “Any thoughts I need to know about?” She’d given up on fake smiles now that I knew what she was. I shook my head.
“It looks like Mr. MacDouglas here lucked out.” I lifted an ear so she could plainly see the multicolored lights under his skin. They oozed just underneath his hide like persistent colorful pearls in a fleshy aquarium. They were going to need a bigger pond. And soon, too.
“He don’t look too lucky to me”, said Davis without empathy but a lot of attitudes. I glanced at her, unsurprised.
“Which would you choose?”, I asked her, genuinely curious. “Get eaten out from the inside like you were some rotting ear of corn, slow and sure? Or would you rather go quick with a bad headache like our friend here?” I didn’t expect an answer, and I was surprised got one.
“The gas generator, baby. You don’t even need to ask. If those were my only choices.” She cracked a bit of a smile that implied something dirty and fun. Either Ms. Davis was hanging around me way too much lately or maybe she was more of a comic than she’d let on. Either way, I was starting to enjoy her company more than was probably healthy. If I weren’t such a loner, she might be fun to have around when I got back on the road. Considering my history, she wouldn’t be my first psychopath. And knowing my weaknesses as I do, not the last. It was one of my many God-given talents.
The autopsy guys found the same things they did with most of the others. There was nothing special, no surprises. Still, I wanted to know his connection. Finding the Muffin Man was becoming more of a priority. Once I found him and gave him over to Ray, I could leave this hell hole behind me and go back to doing what I loved most. Making money and staying out of everyone’s way. When you work for psychopaths, those are all good things. Martha Stewart would no doubt agree, wherever the hell she was hiding. One day they’d track her biscuits down and put her back in the hole.
MacDouglas had a clean bill of health. No kids, single, no living relatives except for a sister in uptown. I checked her accounts, but everything looked like it fit. No surprises. No Lambo hiding in a garage in a Galveston beach house. Nothing I could tell going out any back doors. I decided to talk with her anyway. Sometimes average was a great way to hide the not so average.
Davis and I headed out to Cedar Springs in a ghost. She was quiet most of the way, which was how she always was when she was working. I watched her scan the streets like Arnold Schwarzenegger at the top of a tank during the apocalypse, watching for I’m not sure what except that I was starting to trust her more and more. I looked along the streets, wondering what I was supposed to be looking for. Davis turned and looked at me and held back a laugh with a slight snort. For once in a long while, I felt embarrassed and the bitch knew it, which made it ten times worse.
We parked the ghost on Cedar Springs and Raleigh In front of an unimaginative white and mauve stucco apartment building with bars on the windows and open stairways that looked like fire escapes. The building smacked of cheap big city, a growing eyesore in a patch of gentrification that wasn’t ready to quit. We climbed the stairs to the third floor and cop knocked on a red steel door with chipped enamel paint around the edges. The knock was hollow as you’d imagine. The walls smelled like the 70s, and I thought somewhere nearby someone was baking brownies.
Amy Nogales cracked the door open and peered at us with a pair of narrow, suspicious South Texas eyes. We could just as well have been a couple of rattlesnakes in the desert. She waited without words, so we flipped our IDs long enough for her to see our pictures and not long enough to make any unnecessary notes.
“Mind if I record this?” she asked in a surprisingly educated voice that fits with the neighborhood but not with her looks. She was old-time Tex Mex, with high cheekbones and a wide set face that bespoke Montezuma or Santa Anna or one of those guys. Did I mention I’m not much of a history buff?
Nogales was stone-faced and in her sixties but she looked younger and was still pretty. You could tell she’d once been a knockout, and maybe still was if you saw her in the right light and enough of the right kind of tequila. She wore a bright multi-colored shirt and a pair of black, straight legged pants with brown and blue snakeskin shoes that looked like they should have been boots. Her hair was braided in Indian pigtails and she held her head with a sense of I’ll kick your ass pride. One glance and you knew which camp she slept in. Who am I to judge? We are all here for just a short time. Some of us shorter than others. Most of the books around, even the ones from before Prohibition 2, liked to tell you what to eat and what not to smoke and who to get your love, they were also good at from telling you who to kill and why it was a great idea. So like I said, I don’t judge. Ray calls me a classical liberal. Most just branded me as amoral, but those were the same folks who didn’t know the meaning of the word or how to spell it. Social justice soy boys is what my buddy Ernie liked to call them. I suppose they’d be the same ones buying from my bosses before putting on their wigs and black and white robes before deciding which books to burn. For some reason, they always seemed to be the ones I was reading.
“Record away”, said Davis with her usual cop expression that was somewhere between a smile and a smirk. “Maybe you’ll see something you like.” She pushed her way in with yours truly sucked in by her wake just as Nogales opened the door a scoche. It was her way of posturing. That’s my girl.
“I’d offer you a drink but since you’re not staying, I probably shouldn’t bother”, said Nogales, not asking. There was a couch but we didn’t sit.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”, I began. She looked at me like I was so full of shit I had brown tubes coming out of my ears. I pressed on. “So we’ll make this short and direct so you can get back to enjoying your evening. We’re looking for the person or persons that killed your brother, and we’re hoping you might know something. Maybe something that you don’t know you know. ” I wanted to add, “I hope that’s direct enough for your cold ass”, but I’d gotten a bit better at my social skills over the years. It was one reason why I was still alive.
“You have a chance to question that generator yet?” she said snidely, looking at the two of us as if we were idiots. “Unless maybe it’s left town and you boys need to get some of the area sheriffs involved.” She looked directly at Davis when she said “boys”. Oh boy.
I’d more than halfway expected this. No soft shoes here. I reached into my inside coat pocket and saw her eyes grow very large for a second. I pulled out the photograph of her brother. It was less than flattering and caught him right behind the ears.
Nogales didn’t have a chance to relax as she glanced down at our homey portrait. The dayglow worms under Jericho MacDouglas’s skin were like those sour gummies that you buy in the bulk bins at Costco, but much thinner and shaped like tiny little string with dayglo balls at the tips. In the picture, though, they looked a bit like long, thin beaded nightcrawlers.
“What the fuck?”, she said. And then again, whispering the words. “What the fuck.” It was a statement.
“Exactly our reaction Ms. Nogales. Anything you can shed some light on for us? It won’t help your brother but it might help someone else’s brother.”
“I’d sure be grateful.”, said Davis, her head cocked and no expression on her face. Horny bitch. I looked at her as if to say, “Keep it in your pants.”
Nogales gave an “Oh please” under her breath and turned away from me in disgust. Good for her. Sad thing was, she was right. I wasn’t worried about someone else’s brother or sister or making things right with anyone other than Ray, and that’s because she was busy having the time of her week holding that gun to my head. I just wanted the case over with so I could be out and on my way. Nogales turned back and said, “I’ve never seen anything like that. What the hell is it?”
“We’re not sure. We haven’t seen it either, except behind the ears and under the scalps of a few dead hookers over by Oak Cliff and the Bishop Arts. And a couple of folks in the baking business whose dough has ceased to rise.”
Nogales smirked. Maybe there was hope for her yet. Then she shook her head and looked at Davis instead of yours truly. “I knew he used. But nothing specific.”
“He have a favorite that you know about?” asked Davis.
Nogales nodded and indicated for us to wait a moment. Less than a minute later, she came back from the kitchen grappling a couple of boxes in one dark-skinned, sun-weathered hand. She obviously had one hell of a grip. She handed the contra to Davis.
“These were his favorites. Personally, I don’t mess with the stuff, it gets me sick. Tried it a couple of times years ago but it didn't do anything for me. Never was one for sweets either.” She paused briefly and looked Davis over from head to toe and back. Davis smiled back. “Did he get them or did you buy them for him?”
“He could take care of himself. Different plugs. Mostly in short Oak Cliff and up in Park Cities. He liked me to keep them here for him when he came to visit.” I could hear her getting choked up. I wanted to leave. It was moments like these when I wondered why I’d ever decided to become a cop. Hey wait, I wasn’t a cop. You know things are getting out of hand when you start believing your own bullshit.
Nogales held the boxes out and said, “Please, take them. I don’t have any use for them.”
“Any idea who he bought them from?”
“You know Detective, I’m no snitch. If I did know, I wouldn’t tell you, I’d go and make things right on my own. But fact is, I have no idea. Jericho brought the stuff up sometimes when he came to visit. He asked me to leave it here so they’d stay fresh. He was building a house, you know.” I nodded.
“He ever ask you if you wanted to try the stuff. You know, to see if you liked it OK?,” asked Davis, studying the woman’s face the way an art student studies the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Nogales shook her head and began slowly rubbing the side of her neck like the woman in the old Anacin commercial. Davis and I glanced at each other and looked back at Nogales. She was feeling pretty good.
“Like I said, tried it with him a few times. He said it was harmless. That the only reason it was illegal was the Man hadn’t found a good enough way to make any money on it. But like I said, the stuff gets me sick. I don’t know ifs the sugar or the gluten. But if a cupcake or a damn Devil Dog or Twinkie or whatever you call it is going to put me in the hospital, well, thanks but no thanks. I have better ways to get my kicks”.
I looked down at the boxes in our hands. They were familiar all right. One was a collection of caramel cookie bars with a smiling freckle-faced kid on the box whose name and dark heart I knew too well and often wished I could forget. The other was a long white box covered with Ninnie Baird’s obnoxious blue ribbons. Inside, coddled like two beloved reptiles, were a couple of rock-solid donuts, one chocolate, and one crumb cake. If she was keeping them fresh it wasn’t working. My bet was she was holding out. I sniffed at the air but got nothing. Davis and I peered at Nogales, looking for some kind of clue. There was nothing. No desire. No doggy dinner bowl look. Davis and I glanced at each other, still sniffing. The doggie’s bowl was empty.
We returned to the station and dropped the contra off at the lab. Davis had a hot date with a young airhead from the Mayor’s office, and I had a hot date with a bottle of Laphroaig. I wondered which one of us was going to have a more enjoyable evening. My money was on Davis.