The Hard Bounce - [8]

“Couple more questions,” I said. “What’s Cassie’s last name?”

He hummed the “I dunno” notes.

Swing and a miss.

“What about the Dutch House?” I asked. Junior looked at me.

“What about it?” It was no secret why kids went to the Dutch House. A big squat in Cambridge, just off the Square, it was a safe place for kids to get high, drink beer, and do anything else they didn’t want their parents catching them doing.

“Has Cassie been there?”

“Once or twice. I don’t think she dug it. She’s not into the scene that much.”

“What scene is that?” Junior said, sneering. “Future Junkies of America?

Paul smirked but his eyes reflected hurt. I shot Junior a “leave him alone” look. Junior scratched his chin at me. He forgot to use all his fingers.

“I don’t think she’s been staying there or nothing.” Paul looked at our business card. “What does 4DC stand for?”

“Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.”

He smiled. “Hunh, cool.”

“We’re done,” Junior said, dismissing him with a wave.

Paul started to go, but I grabbed his arm and slid a hundred from the envelope into his hand. He gaped at it. “Holy shit!”

“If you get me to her, there’s more. Cassandra’s not in any trouble, despite the cop. You’re working for 4DC now. You know what that means?”

“Uh… no?” His eyebrows met in confusion.

“What it means is you’re representing me. You’re representing Junior, here.”

Junior waved his hands in protest. “Oh, no, no, no. This little shit ain’t representing me.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re representing us. Nobody else needs to know. Anybody asks, you’re just wondering where Cassie’s gone off to. Got it?”

“Got it, boss,” he said with a crisp salute. He smiled so wide I thought the corners of his mouth would meet in the back of his head.

As he ran down the stairs, I yelled after him. “And if you use that money to buy weed, I’m gonna break your shins.”

I looked back at Junior, whose face was a mask of amazement. “Was that a hundie you just gave that little prick?”

“Yep. We’ve got a gig.”

I ran Junior through the basics, since basics were all I had. He sat on the corner of the desk and chewed his lower lip as he mulled the information. My fingers massaged the ache that roosts inside the lumpy cartilage of my nose when I think too much in one day. I’ve had my nose busted six times-one on Junior. Believe it or not, that bothers him competitively.

After a long silence, Junior said, “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Man, that’s not a lot to start with. A picture and a pothead.”

“True that.”

“This isn’t what we do.”

“I know, Junior. I told them that. They still want us to try. If they want to hand out money, why not to us?”

Junior thought that over. “That is a shitload of money, though.” He drummed his fingers, tapping out a cadence with the letters H-A-R-D tattooed across the knuckles of his scarred right hand. He rubbed his other hand, the one with C-O-R-E across it, over the pocket where he had deposited the twelve-hundred I’d just handed him.

The picture of Cassandra sat on the desk. Junior stared deeply at it, jaws tight. “Boo?”

“Yeah?”

“Who the fuck is this girl?”

We closed the bar at two, and Junior and I hung out shooting pool while the bartender counted out the receipts.

I nursed a beer and bourbon, since all us tough guys drink bourbon.

Well, almost all of us. Junior placed his plastic cup of wine on the lip of the table while he lined up his shot. The only vintages served at The Cellar could probably strip the barnacles off Old Ironsides. Plus most of the iron. I never understood his taste for it, but it was all he drank.

Junior viciously smacked the cue ball off the nine ball. With a hard clack, the nine and the cue bounced off the rails and both dropped. “Shit.” Not only did he scratch, but he was playing solids.

I took the stick and smoothly banked the cue off both bumpers without hitting any balls. “Shit.” Fewer people got as much as we did for our four quarters. If one of our matches ended in less than a half-hour, we were unusually hot.

Luke, the night porter, rattled the front locks. Somewhere between his sixties and his early hundreds, Luke had been the clean-up man at The Cellar ever since its doors opened twenty years earlier.

He looked over at me and beamed his five-hundred-watt smile. Luke had the darkest skin I’ve ever seen on a man, which only served to make his smile all the brighter. His face bunched up in a way that made it look like his wrinkles were smiling at me too. “Mr. Boo. How goes it?” he said with a tip of his faded Red Sox hat that looked like he bought it when Ted Williams was in Little League.

“It goes, Luke. It goes.”

He looked over at Junior. The smile dimmed a bit. “Junior.” A smaller tip of the hat.

Luke stopped calling Junior “Mr.” after Junior accidentally let loose with one too many curses while Luke was in earshot. That was Luke’s one serious and unforgivable pet peeve. All I needed was one good tongue lashing from him. From then on, I turned on my filter when he walked in.

“Luke,” Junior said, lifting his glass.

“Good night?” Luke asked me, while seeming deliberately to not ask Junior.