HELLO BEAUTIFUL

Rating: NC17  for violence, murder, gunplay, adult themes. For safety’s sake, this will apply to ALL chapters. There will be no smut in this fic. There will be references, but references only, to rape, murder, mutilation in places

Copyright © December 2006 xxxevilgrinxxx

Ch 8

Whoever had done this had to have control not only of the trailer itself, but also of the people surrounding it, to pull off a killing there. Whoever had done it hadn’t been worried about noise, or about the neighbors talking. They hadn’t been worried about blood or clean up. That took control.

Amy had keys to her own trailer of course, but the trailer park manager would also have keys and access. If the manager and Amy’s ‘Rodriguez’ were the same person, it just gave him that much more control over the situation. Illegals weren’t likely to talk.

He would have control over the neighbors, especially if the neighbors were in the same sort of situation as Amy herself. He could send someone in to gut out the trailer and have it cleaned, all with good cause; it was part of his job to get them ready to be re-rented.

I wondered if Holloway knew about the Rodriguez connection or if he had just connected the dots the way I had, as to who had the most control of the area. I had already heard a little about Holloway, from Peters and from various informants that I had groomed over the years. Holloway was never a spotlight man, you never saw him up in front of the cameras giving the ‘for the good of the community’ speech. If it was a dirty case, one no one else would touch, I would hear Holloways’ name in it somewhere. Either he led the case, or it was something else; not exactly attached to the case but involved. Like I was involved.

He hadn’t braced me officially on this; he hadn’t flashed his badge or showed authority, he had approached me quietly. He was here for reasons of his own; with anyone else that would have worried me but I knew that Holloways’ reasons and my reasons might be connected, at least at the level of the women that had disappeared. He was an ally, and as one that had an in to the police department, he could prove to be a valuable one. This wasn’t my case. I had nothing official to protect me or back me up if things went south.

Holloway had done another vanishing act but there was no way for me to tell if he had gone, and if so, where. I didn’t pass his car on the way in, so he must have parked somewhere out of sight. I pushed Amy’s tin under my seat and moved my own car. For what I intended to do next it wouldn’t be a good idea to have to come back to Amy’s trailer for my car. I wouldn’t be able to come back here again.

I parked about a mile away, on the other side of a cemetery, on a street with dozens of other cars that looked just like mine. I pulled the Velcro strap that held the 9mm automatic to the underside of the drivers’ seat and, after making sure I had a full clip I hid it at the small of my back. Just in case. The back of the Hawaiian shirt easily covered the weapon and my appreciation for Danno’s taste increased, something I would never have said before. I had never thought of his get-up as practical.

I leaned against the side of the car and ran my hands over my face when my breath hitched. I had to get a grip of myself or there’s a chance I would never make it out of this. I needed to get cold. Just one last touch.

Sitting back in the car for a minute I reach across to the glove box, hoping they’re still there, that Danno had forgotten about them. A pair of his Elvis shades. He had left them on the dash one day and to keep the kids from playing with them I put them in the glove box and then forgot about them. They were still in there. It’s too dark now, so I put them in my pocket.

I was about to reach the point of no return. Up until now, no one but Holloway had spotted me. That was about to change and there would be no going back. I got colder; my family was out of the picture, my partner had been murdered. There was at least one woman with a fucking bill of sale that was dead, and I would bet money that the other women fared no better. I slipped through the cemetery and down through the patch of scrub and down the road, to the South Pacific.

It was close to one in the morning and the place was loud. A stereo pounded in a mind numbing blare that was out of place with the Styrofoam tikis and fiberglass palm trees. Dark and smoke filled, the place stunk of tequila and desperation as only a dive bar at an hour to closing can.

I move up to the long bar along the wall, and pick a spot where I can see the entire place in one sweep. Where I can be seen. Where I can get out in a hurry if it comes down to it. No one pays much attention; the eyes that aren’t fixed on the undulating body of the very young stripper up on the stage are paying attention to the waitresses.

A lot of waitresses, far more than would ever be needed for a place this size, no matter how busy it got. All of them are scantily dressed and unlike most waitresses I’ve ever had to deal with, these women don’t mind getting pawed at. My mind goes back to Amy’s slip of paper with the price of her life scrawled on it and I wonder how many of these women have little bits of paper of their own.

The bartender gives me a hard eye, his eyes taking in the loud shirt, the Elvis shades. I’m no Danno, but he doesn’t let on and that makes me interested, because there’s no way that this guy hasn’t met Danno. Danno is unforgettable, but for some reason he says nothing about it. A hard beer gut, aging, and not aging well. A sweat stained bowling league shirt with an embroidered nametag lets me know my bartender is Carl. He doesn’t ask me what I want, just stands in front of me until I ask him for a beer. He snorts at me, and pours me a shot of tequila from a row of identical bottles. It’s all they serve. I don’t complain.

The fiery explosion of cheap tequila wakes up the rum I had sobered up from earlier. A belt of courage that I know I’m going to need if I’m going to do this. I need to start rattling cages, to get noticed, to get attention. I need to be Danno, a man I don’t even know, except somewhere deep I know that’s not true.

I look up at the stripper on the stage and feel my heart die a little, knowing she can’t even be sixteen. “A lot of pretty women in here tonight, Carl.” Carl is going to be my new buddy, my new best friend and I let my face crinkle up into something that looks like a genuine smile. Carl isn’t buying it either; I was obviously a face he didn’t expect to see again, and yet there I was, a ghost.

I take another look around the dimly lit bar, taking note of two thugs on the far side near a corridor leading to the john. They’d definitely noticed me but for the moment they just stood there and watched. I looked back at Carl with my now empty shot glass and that high-pitched buzz in my ears, I’ve been in bad places before but this is a warning I ignore. I’m looking for trouble.

Carl finished pouring a round of drinks for one of the waitresses, no money changing hands, and walks back towards me. I play stupid drunk for all I’m worth, leaning in to him conspiratorially, looking around at the women. “Must be all right owning this place.”

He pours me another shot but doesn’t move off; the hard look on his face hasn’t gone. “I just work here.” It’s hard not to hear the bite of disgust in his voice as he says it and I get the impression he’s an observer, not a real player. His tattooed knuckles rest on the bar as he leans in towards me; Carl has done some hard time by the looks of some of the tags. “I didn’t catch your name, friend.”

Carl would have known Danno; Carl would probably have known the name of any regular, and probably a lot more, he was a man that observed everything, that missed nothing. My weight shifted, a tiny subconscious movement, to reassure myself that the gun was still there, nestled at my back, before I continued.

I lifted the shot glass halfway to my lips and then downed it. “Danno. Danno Jamieson.”

I slipped outside a few minutes after that, when Carl had returned to refill a tray of drinks. Outside, in the dark I waited, hidden from view to see if anyone would follow. One of the thugs that had eyed me inside came out of a side door and walked around the parking lot briefly and then went back inside but no one else came. I wondered if Carl had said anything, and then discounted it. If he had, I believe more would have come out after me, and sooner. For some reason Carl had said nothing.

I waited about a half of an hour, and then slipped back to my car and spent another half hour doubling back on myself in case I was being tailed.

I almost went back home, but there was no way I would go back there, not now. It wasn’t my home, I was Danno Jamieson now. I slipped in and out of sleep, on Danno’s couch. My gun out on the cushion beside me, waiting in case they followed me here.