Pain Management Read online

  “Check out the threads,” Gordo said, opening the front door.

  The interior was wall-to-wall gray . . . leather everywhere but the floor. The instruments in the dash and on the console were white-faced, with red numerals. It did look a little like the cockpit of a fast boat.

  “Got kicker speakers, flat-screen DVD set into the back of the headrests, GPS . . . anything you could want,” Gordo said.

  “Can it get out of its own way?” I asked, more to make conversation than anything else. For what I wanted, it could be as fast as an anchored rowboat.

  “For damn sure,” Gordo promised. “Sucker’s huffed. Got headers, and a chip, too, I think. Cruise all day at a buck and a quarter.”

  “It’d be perfect,” I said.

  “Listen, compadre,” Flacco said, pulling me aside. “Me and Gordo, we’ve been thinking. . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’ve been borrowing a lot of different rides. . . .”

  “I know. And if anyone’s beefed, I can—”

  “It’s not about that. None of our business, what you do. You bring the rides back same shape as you took them out, a little mileage on the odometer, nobody’s going to care.”

  “Then . . . ?”

  “Bullet holes, that’d be another story.”

  “I’m not doing that kind of work.”

  “You carrying, though.”

  “Just a habit.”

  “Bueno. You know what this ride cost?”

  “Seventy-five?” I guessed.

  “Double that, plus.”

  “I’m not bringing it to a gunfight, Gordo.”

  “Here’s what I think, man. What I think, Flacco and me, we should be careful about letting rides like this one go out without some insurance, you understand?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Flacco was standing next to his partner by then. He saw the look on my face. “¿No comprende, eh? What you think we’re asking for, man?”

  “Just a . . . deposit, I guess you’d call it.”

  “Nah, you don’t get it. What we’re asking is, how about we come along?”

  “Pretty swank,” Ann said, as I walked her toward the Cigarette.

  “I even got us a driver for the night,” I told her, so she wouldn’t spook when I opened the back door for her.

  “And got all dressed up, too,” she tossed back, making an approval-face at my dove-gray alpaca suit. Michelle had made me buy it before I went hunting for the man who’d changed my face with a bullet. It had cost a fortune, but everything she’d said about it was right. Maybe it didn’t transform my appearance, but it sure answered any questions about my financial standing.

  Flacco was behind the wheel, Gordo in the front passenger seat. Neither of them said a word, looking straight ahead. As soon as they heard the door close, they took off, slow and smooth. The big SUV rode like a taut limo.

  “Do you think—?” Ann started to ask, before I cut her off with a finger against her lips.

  She nodded that she understood. Flacco and Gordo had end-played me perfectly. Anytime a man offers to back your play, you’re cornered. So we went through this whole elaborate game where I’d tell Ann they were just hired for the night and they’d pretend they were really worried about me . . . instead of Gem.

  When Gem hadn’t even asked me where I was going, I knew I was right. I didn’t blame them for it. They were with her, not with me. She wouldn’t ask them to spy on me—besides anything else, it would be a real loss of face. But if they decided to ride along on their own, well . . .

  Flacco docked the Cigarette like it was a boat, backing it into a narrow slot between two other cars only a few yards from the front door of the joint. Once in, he moved forward so we could open the back door, making it clear that he’d be ready to leave as soon as we were, and that we wouldn’t have to look for him when we came out.

  I jumped down, held out a hand for Ann. She wasn’t wearing a streetwalking outfit, but her burnt-orange sheath was slit so deep on one side that it opened almost to her waist as she stepped down. A beret of the same color sat jauntily on top of long straight black hair that fell to her shoulders.

  If there was a doorman at the club, he stayed invisible. Two-fifteen in the morning; the place was moderately full, most of the attention on an angular brunette in a classy blue dress. She was singing “Cry Me a River” into a microphone that looked like it was out of the forties. The mike had to be a prop—the sound system was Now and Today all the way, draping itself over and around the crowd without a hint as to speaker location.

  The waitresses all wore French-maid uniforms with only a moderate amount of cleavage. This wasn’t a joint for jerkoffs or gawkers—players were expected to bring their own.

  I ordered a bourbon-and-branch, told her not to mix them. Ann asked for a glass of white wine.

  “You like her?” she asked me, making a little gesture with her head in the direction of the singer.

  “She’s no Judy Henske.”

  “Who is?”

  “You know her?” I said, surprised. Judy’s river runs real deep, but it doesn’t run wide.

  “I know her work. I caught her in L.A. Twice. She’s . . . amazing. What’s your favorite?”

  “ ‘Till the Real Thing Comes Along,’ “ I told her.

  “Amen,” Ann said, holding up her glass.

  The girl in the blue dress finished her set, walked off with a wave, glowing in the applause.

  “Pretty slick, huh?” Ann said.

  “What is?”

  “That girl, she’s one of Kruger’s.”

  “A hooker?”

  “A ‘performer’ is what he’d say. All his girls are stars. They want to be actresses, Kruger gets a video made, sends it on the rounds of studios. They want to be singers, he’s got a place for them to perform. And he’s got an agent, a legit one, handles their careers.”

  “It’s a scam, though, right?”

  “It is and it isn’t. That’s the secret of how he stays on top. Is that girl who just got off the stage going to get a recording contract? I don’t think so. But this town is loaded with great musicians who never get studio time, just work the clubs, building a following. And everybody knows that, so . . . is it really a scam? She is working.”

  “And the movie girls? Where do they end up? In porno?”

  “Some do,” she said, seriously. “There’s all kinds of porn, some of it real high-end. Kruger wouldn’t go near the ugly stuff. Wouldn’t let any of his girls do it, either.”

  “You sound as if you admire him.”

  “I admire anyone who knows how to work a system. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

  “With the pain-management thing?”

  “Yes. But now’s not the time to talk about it.” She turned to the hovering waitress, handed over one of her poker-chip business cards and a folded bill. “Would you please tell Kruger that my man would like to buy him a drink?” she said, smiling sweetly.

  The girl in the blue dress was just starting another set when the waitress came over, bent down, and whispered something in Ann’s ear.

  “Let’s go,” she said to me.

  I followed her as she made her way between tables, heading for a horseshoe-shaped booth in the far corner. When she stopped, we were standing before a man seated at the apex of the booth, a line of girls stretching out on either side. He was a mixed-breed of some kind. Small head, dark-complected face with fine features and very thin lips under a narrow, perfectly etched mustache. Dark hair worn very close to his scalp, tightly waved. He was draped in several shades of off-white silk: sports coat, shirt, and tie. A two-finger ring on his right hand held a diamond too big to be fake.

  “Well, Miss Ann,” he said, just a trace of Louisiana in his voice.

  One of the black girls on his left laughed at the crack. I kept my face flat, as if I hadn’t gotten it.

  “Kruger,” is all Ann said.

  He made a little gesture with his diamond. Every woma
n to his right stood up and walked away.

  Ann slid in first. I had to look past her shoulder to see Kruger, who turned his back on the girls to his left and squared up to face us.

  “So?” he said, smiling just enough to show a razor-slash of white.

  “This is Mr. Hazard,” she said. “He wants to talk to you.”

  “Why didn’t you simply come yourself?” he asked me.

  “You don’t know me,” I said. “I’m nobody. You’re an important man. It wouldn’t be respectful to just roll up on you, unannounced.”

  He measured my eyes to see if I was juking him.

  “What is it that you do, Mr. Hazard?”

  “I find people.”

  “Yes. Well, you found me. And . . . ?”

  “I’m looking for a girl. A teenage girl. Runaway. She’s—”

  “Oh, Miss Ann here will tell you, I wouldn’t have anything to do with—”

  “I know,” I cut him off. “The thing is, I’m not the only one who’s looking. A couple of the other people looking, they came to you.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. And it’s them I’m interested in.”

  He shifted his small head slightly. Said, “I didn’t think you liked men, Miss Ann.”

  “Some men,” she answered him, levelly.

  “You’ve got game,” he said. Approvingly, as if he was complimenting a kid on the basketball court.

  “I’m straight-edge,” she told him.

  “I don’t think so, Miss Ann. You’re all curves, girl.”

  Ann twisted her mouth enough to acknowledge the barbed stroke, said, “Something for something.”

  “What have you got?” he asked me.

  “I wouldn’t insult you with money. . . .” I let my voice trail away, in case he wanted to disabuse me of that notion, but he just sat there, waiting. “I’m out and about. A lot. I hear things. I could run across something that might be valuable to you. If I did, I’d just bring it. No bargaining, no back-and-forth, I’d just turn it over.”

  “You must be . . . an unusual man, I’ll grant you that. I’ve never seen Miss Ann here with a man before. Are you and she close?”

  “Is that what we can trade for? The rundown?”

  “Hah!” he snorted delicately. “That was just idle curiosity, Mr. Hazard. What is your first name?”

  “B.B.,” I said.

  “As in King?”

  “No relation.”

  “Maybe it stands for Big Boy,” a blonde on his left said, giggling.

  Kruger turned slightly in her direction. He didn’t say anything. The other girls got up.

  “I . . .” the blonde girl appealed.

  Dead silence.

  She slid out of the booth and walked away.

  Kruger leaned forward slightly. “It’s always difficult to determine what something is worth to someone else. A man like you, if a fly landed on the table, you’d probably ignore it. But if someone paid you, you’d slap your hand on that same table and crush it. The fly isn’t worth anything, do you follow me? But your time is.”

  “Sure.”

  “My time is valuable as well. And right now I’m afraid I can’t spare any of it. I’ve been quite preoccupied with this problem I’ve been having.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I am unsure as to the . . . dimensions of this problem, to be frank. But one aspect of it stands out rather clearly. He calls himself Blaze,” Kruger said, shifting his glance to Ann.

  She nodded at Kruger. Dropped her hand to the inside of my thigh, squeezed hard enough to get my attention, said, “Some other time, then,” and twitched her hip against me to tell me to get up.

  I held out my hand. Kruger made a “Why not?” face and shook it.

  Flacco and Gordo dropped us off on a quiet block in the Northwest. The Cigarette purred off into the night. We got into Ann’s Subaru.

  “I’ve got to go change,” she said. “I’ll tell you all about it there.”

  She hung the burnt-orange sheath carefully on a padded hanger, put the black wig on a Styrofoam head, and sat across from me. She crossed her legs as casually as if she’d been fully dressed.

  “You can smoke, if you want,” she said.

  I made a “Thank you” expression, fired one up, and put it in a heavy crystal ashtray.

  The smoke rose between us.

  “You’re not an impatient man,” she finally said.

  “It never changes anything.”

  “Yes, it does!” she whispered harshly. “Me, I’m impatient. Tired of waiting for the government to do the right thing. You know my name. Do you know what it means?”

  “Yeah, I know what ‘anodyne’ means,” I said. “I just look stupid.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “I don’t think you could. We’re just talking about a different kind of patience. You ever been on a flight where the take-off’s been delayed? You know, you sit out on the tarmac for an hour or two, you know damn well you’re going to miss your connection, and the pilot comes on the PA system in that fake down-home accent they all use and says, ‘Thank you for your patience.’

  “Some people get real angry at that. I don’t. That’s the kind of patience I have. When I got no choice, I wait. When it’s smarter to wait, I wait. But it’s not a religious thing. I don’t think people should wait for what’s theirs.”

  “Like civil rights?”

  “Or revenge.”

  “I’m done waiting,” she said. “There’s a new drug, Ultracept-7. It’s only been out a few months. Another form of morphine sulfate, but this one’s supposed to be the most potent of all.”

  “I never heard of it.”

  “Why would you? But you’ve heard of Paxil, right? And Zyrtec, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyone who’s ever watched TV has. Some drugs get advertised very heavily. Because there’s a big market for them. Anti-anxiety, impotence, allergies, baldness—lots of competition for those dollars. But pain? There’s no competition. Not much point convincing you to ask your doctor for a certain kind of medicine when it’s the dosage that’s your real problem.”

  “This new stuff . . .” I put out there, to try and stop a rant-in-progress.

  “It’s sensational,” she said. “Maybe ten times as potent as anything out there now. A tiny bit goes a real long way. But that’s not what’s so great about it. What’s so great about it is that I know where there’s going to be a lot of it . . . a whole lot of it.”

  “And that’s what you want.”

  “That’s what I want. It’s got a much longer shelf life—much deeper expiration dates—than anything else out there. I get enough of it, it could last for years. Enough time for things to change, maybe.”

  “I already told you—”

  “I know. And here’s what Kruger was really telling you. There’s a crew, nobody knows how big, moving on working girls.”

  “Trying to pull them?”

  “No. They’re not pimps. They sell insurance. Operating insurance.”

  “What tolls are they charging?”

  “Nickel-and-dime. Literally. They must be crazy. Even if they got every girl in Portland to pay, at twenty bucks a night, how much could they be making?”

  “I don’t know. But whatever they make from a lame hustle like that, it’s all gravy.”

  “It’s not a hustle,” she said. “The one who calls himself Blaze? He cut two different girls. He’s got a white knife. Supposed to be so sharp the girls didn’t even know they were cut until blood started spurting all over the place.”

  “He cut them for not coming up with twenty bucks?”

  “Yes. And he may have done more. He told one girl he was going to fire her up, for real. Showed her a spray bottle, said it was full of gasoline. Said that’s where he got his name. Scared her out of her mind.”

  “How come the local pimps don’t—?”

  “I don’t know what it’s like where you come from, but it isn’t
an organized thing here. Not many stables. A lot of girls freelancing. And for most of them, their pimp is their boyfriend. Probably even another addict like they are. Nobody’s exactly patrolling the streets looking for punks with knives.”

  “So why does Kruger care? They cut one of his girls?”

  “No. At least, not that I ever heard about. But nobody can be sure these guys can tell who’s who, and it’s got everyone nervous. It’d be good for his profile if he did something about it, anyway. His game is that he looks out for all the working girls.”

  “You know anything else about this Blaze guy?”

  “White. Young guy, but not a kid. Tattoos on his hands. Nobody got a close enough look to see any more than that.”

  “His car?”

  “No.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Not even a week.”

  “And two girls cut already?”

  “At least.”

  “There isn’t much chance of catching a guy who operates like that. Nobody can watch all the girls all the time.”

  “I know how to do it,” she said. “Let me show you something.”

  I was sitting at the kitchen table in Ann’s hideout, a streetmap of Portland spread out in front of me. Ann’s hand rested casually on my shoulder. Every time she leaned forward to point out something, her breast casually brushed my cheek. Thewhole thing would have been a lot more casual if she’d had any clothes on.

  “One girl was here,” she said, tapping a street corner with a burnt-orange fingernail. “The other was . . . here. And he confronted other ones here, here, and . . . here. You see it?”

  “A triangle.”

  “Right. And not a big one.”

  “He doesn’t have to be operating from inside the triangle. But it makes the most sense.”

  “Because he doesn’t have a car?”

  “I don’t know about that. But . . . yeah, that could be it. If those tattoos are jailhouse, it probably is.”