Page 55

CHAPTER 55

THE PILE OF WEEDS Arthur had dumped beside the rusted gate of 101 Waterway Street was bigger than the crouched man himself. Baby could just see the old dude’s wicker sun hat bobbing as he worked. Before she was halfway across the street, Mouse charged off the porch and ran to the gate, eyes aflame, to ascertain if she was who she appeared to be or an afternoon snack. She nodded toward the porch, and the dog lifted his chin, turned a wary circle, and trotted back up there.

Mouse was easy to train — she entered commands in his brain, and, like a computer, he performed them. But she wasn’t surprised. Baby had learned that with dogs, it was all about incentive, and she had two incentives to offer him. The first was snacks, a previously foreign concept to the abused and neglected hound. And the second was a life free of beatings. Baby had no intention of ever raising her hand to the dog, but she could tell from the way he winced whenever she moved too suddenly that the dog wasn’t sure of that yet. Mouse was probably on the longest beating-free streak of his life, and she guessed he was eager to keep it that way.

As Baby neared the old man, she saw he was concentrating on pulling out a three-foot-tall flowering weed. It made a ripping sound as it came free of the dry soil and sent up a puff of delicate seeds. Arthur, on his knees in the dirt, spotted Baby’s heels, moved his gaze up to her legs, then squinted at her face.

“You look nervous,” he said.

“I’m not nervous,” Baby scoffed. “Why would I be nervous?”

“Because you just made a move,” he said. He grabbed the base of another weed, gave it a wiggle to test its grip on the earth. “You’re dressed to kill. I’m guessing you just went to the Enorme people to give them what for.”

“Even if I did,” Baby said, “what makes you think I’d leave all rattled?”

“I’ve seen their work.”

Baby snorted.

“I’m thinking about just taking that money and getting out of here, Barbara,” Arthur said. His shadow was small on the cracked concrete path. “Your sister coming around here reminded me that you got people. I don’t. What you’re doing for me and this house, it’s nice. But it’s not worth it. I should cut my losses.”

“Arthur, you’re not doing that,” Baby said.

“Why not?”

“It’s like this, okay?” she said. “Su Lim Marshall hired some two-bit thug to come after you. Chris Tutti is a loser. He lives with his grandmother. He’s been in and out of jail since he could walk. He’s a career fuckup. Su Lim Marshall hired him only because he was there. He was convenient. A guy who doesn’t have what it takes to maintain a fish tank is the person she hired to run a scare campaign against an elderly man and off him if necessary.”

Baby waited. Arthur said nothing.

“You know why she did that?” Baby asked.

“No.”

“Because she’s lazy,” Baby said. “She’s complacent. Do you know how a person gets lazy and complacent about killing people?”

“How?”

“By doing it a bunch of times,” Baby said. “I’m positive that Su Lim Marshall has done this before. And if we shut up and take the money, she’ll keep doing it. We’re here, now, dealing with this because the folks before you shut up and took the money and cut their damn losses.”

Arthur put his hands on his knees. He stared at his own shadow, which was imperceptibly growing.

“We’re going to find out who the last guy was,” Baby said. “And the guy before that. And the guy before that. That’s how we take these people down, Arthur.”

A car pulled into the street, about six abandoned and fenced-off houses away from where Baby stood. Mouse growled, came trotting down the porch steps again. The car was a huge black Escalade with tinted windows. One of the windows rolled down when the car was two houses away.

Arthur got up and stood beside her. The car approached, its darkened interior impenetrable in the afternoon sun. Baby felt sweat break out on her upper lip.

As the car passed, Mouse let out a hellish round of barks, throwing his weight at the rusty gate, making it rattle in its frame. The window of the car slid up again. The car drove on and disappeared around the corner. Baby realized she’d been holding her breath.

“Okay,” she said. “So maybe I’m a little nervous.”