In this chapter, Bea and Law search a miserable slum for Preston. Law thinks Preston is there, Bea thinks otherwise. I wonder who is right.
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Wasted Life a Law Edwards Mystery by Sam Stefanik
11 The Atlantic Refinery Slum
The idea that I'd had when I hustled Bea onto the Oregon Avenue trolley was that Preston could have taken refuge at the Atlantic Refinery Slum. At the western terminus of the Oregon Avenue trolley route was the great tangle of piping and tanks known as the Atlantic Oil Refinery. Across from it and huddled in the haze and the smoke from the refinery stacks was a miserable slum.
The slum had once been working-class housing for the men who built the refinery and stayed to operate it. As the refinery grew, so did the smoke it produced. The breeze from the river that the refinery abutted blew the smoke directly into the neighborhood. It eventually drove away the good people who lived there. Their flight changed the working-class neighborhood to a poverty-stricken slum. Those who remained to live in the smoke were universally impoverished. Like most impoverished areas, the slum became a haven for those on the fringe. Crime and addiction were rampant.
Because of the nature of the area, I was reasonably certain the government had not bothered to include those dwelling places in their stock of housing for the city. That meant Preston could easily have taken up residence there unnoticed. I assumed that both the anonymity and the easy access to cheap transportation that the slum offered would make it attractive to Preston as he seemed to be hiding from something.
I didn't share those thoughts with Bea because I didn't feel like arguing with her. I assumed that if I detailed the area we were headed towards, she would object for the entire journey. If I kept my thoughts to myself, she could only object once we reached our destination. We rode the trolley in relative silence for most of the trip.
We smelled the refinery long before we saw it. It announced itself as an acrid odor that burned my eyes and hung in the back of my throat. It reminded me of the kraut teargas from the Great War. The stink pervaded everything as we rode passed the trash strewn empty lots that separated the decent part of the city from the foulness of the refinery.
Bea and I reached our destination alone. The last of the other trolley passengers had abandoned the car at the Quarter Master Depot, the last regular stop before the emptiness that was between it and the refinery. We exited the car and paused to get our bearings. "What is that sound?" Bea asked.
I pointed her confused gaze to the great flare that burned above the refinery. The flame made a cracking sound like a sheet hung on a line in a windy day. Bea shook her head at the stink and the crackling flame. "Why doesn't it explode?" She asked.
I admitted that I had no idea. I turned us toward the uneven group of sagging, square, wood-frame buildings that made up the slum we'd come to investigate. The unpainted buildings crowded together like packing cases left for the trash.
We had almost stepped away from the trolley when the grey uniformed conductor called after us. "Young lady!" He raised his rasping, elderly voice to Bea. She went to see what he wanted. "I don't think you should get off here." The conductor said when Bea went close enough to hear his confidential tone. "This is not a nice place for a pretty, young woman. It's not a nice place for anyone."
Bea thanked the man and told him not to worry. She gestured to me. "Mister Edwards will look after me."
The conductor scrutinized me with wary grey eyes like he wasn't certain I was up to the task of looking after my young charge. "Mister Edwards?" He said to her as a question.
I jumped into the conversation that I'd heard enough of. I answered the old conductor's worry with a lie. "I'm her uncle. She'll be fine with me." I insisted.
The conductor nodded like he didn't believe me. He seemed to wash his hands of the situation as he pulled the lever that sent his car along the tracks in the opposite direction. As Bea's would-be savior trundled away, I pointed her attention across the street.
She looked and wrinkled her nose at what she saw. I couldn't blame her for her reaction. I didn't want to be there either, but I'd had an idea and we needed to follow it up. I set my steps toward the huddle of buildings and crossed the street away from the wire fencing of the refinery gates and wooden guard shack in the center.
Bea followed me as I plodded over the disintegrating macadam while a group of shrill, smeary-faced urchins played around me. They tossed an old baseball around as they seemed to play a combined game of keep away' and kill the man with the ball.'
Bea stared with youthful pity on the children who played while discarded newspapers blew around them like tumbleweeds. She pressed close to me when we stepped around a sleeping bum, his head wedged against a battered sidewalk mailbox, and a brown bag with a bottle in it cradled in his arms like it was a nursing infant. I led us to a building that resembled a tank town train station except for its red, white, and blue paint scheme.
I cocked my head at the front door to `The Blue Plate' diner. "It's passed my lunchtime. Let's get a bite and ask them about your brother."
"My brother wouldn't come here." Bea objected through a squeezed down look of disgust.
I didn't know if she meant the diner or the slum. Either way, she would have been wrong. My experience taught me that people in desperate situations do what they have to. I assumed Preston was desperate or he wouldn't have left a job that he needed and his nice, clean rooming house. I didn't bother to explain my reasoning. Instead, I told Bea the bare reality as I saw it.
"Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. The next trolley doesn't come for an hour, so we're stuck here for at least that long. We're not going to waste the time. We'll eat lunch and ask some questions. Your brother is almost six-foot-four-inches tall and has bright blond hair. Wherever he goes he'll stand out. A few questions at the right places, the diners and grocers, will prove either way. No matter where he is, he has to eat. Come on."
I led the way inside through the single swing door. Inside, the diner looked far cleaner and much better kept than its surroundings. I ignored the counter because I wanted the privacy of a booth. I asked a plump, grandmotherly waitress for one. She pointed, and we sat.
Bea tried to ask the waitress about Preston before we ordered. I shushed her. The old waitress seemed like someone who would open up if she learned that we could be polite and well-mannered. I reasoned that a good tip would help some too. We had lunch.
After the meal, I lingered over my second cup of coffee when the grandmotherly waitress came to settle up. "Ma'am, I wonder if you can help us." I said pleasantly and passed over too much money. I gave the waitress the same lie I'd given the trolley conductor and added to it. "My niece here had a letter from her brother asking her to visit. He lives in this neighborhood, but we don't know where. You see, she misplaced the letter."
The waitress scrutinized Bea over her half-glasses. Waitresses are told all manner of lies every single day. Most of them can spot a falsehood at fifty yards.
As the waitress hesitated, Bea added her own lie to help sell mine. "Stupid of me to lose the letter." Bea admitted. She folded her hands on the tabletop and slouched to look properly sheepish. "My brother looks like me. Very tall, blond..."
"And wears a grey pork-pie hat." The waitress said with the faded touch of a southern drawl. "I remember him. Tall drink of water. Well set-up. You look like him. Don't know where he lives, but I've seen him. He was in here for lunch beginning of last week, Monday maybe. Date stood him up, I think. He waited two whole hours, poor boy. Try Calvin's one down and two over." The waitress pointed at the corner of the diner like it wasn't there. "Calvin the grocer, only one that's decent these days. Calvin knows everyone."
Bea beamed elation at the old woman. It seemed we were getting close. I was proud of the way Bea had played along with my line of horseshit. Her agreement to my lie is what convinced the old waitress. If I'd been alone, the grandmotherly woman probably wouldn't have said a thing. No one ever believes someone can be looking for someone else for their benefit, especially if that someone looks like me.
Bea and I followed the woman's directions to Calvin's. We found Calvin to be voluble, friendly, gossipy, and knowledgeable. He pointed us down the block to a seedy hotel that looked as if it was either built of soft coal or had burned completely and somehow remained standing. The entire outside of the rambling two story flop house was flat dusty black. It had a flat roof, no signage, a wide-open front door, and two rows of curtain-less windows all open to varying degrees. No faces showed over any of the sills.
Bea and I went into a bare, squalid lobby that smelled of stale sweat and boiled cabbage. We went up to the desk to look for the manager. The reception area was just a square hole cut in a dull, yellow plaster wall with a wide board used as a bottom sill. Behind the hole in the wall was a bank of old-fashioned square hollows for room keys and mail. Most were full of nothing. There was no register book and no one on duty. There was also no bell. I rapped my knuckles on the counter for lack of other options.
My knock seemed to have initiated movement from somewhere. Sounds of sluggish plodding preceded the appearance of a bleary eyed, bleary faced man, with a slack expression. He was in his shirtsleeves and dressed even more carelessly than I was. He shuffled to the counter and leaned on it. He leaned with both hands placed wide apart, the fingers turned to the outside and his head hung down between his shoulders like a mule with poor posture. "Yeah." He said in a voice that sounded like it came from the bottom of a well.
"We're looking for Preston Arlott." I explained.
"Ain't here." The bleary man replied without so much as a glance to either of us.
I pressed him for more information. "He ain't here now, or you don't have anyone by that name?"
"Yeah." The bleary man said with no more meaning than his first utterance.
I didn't know if the guy was drunk or doped or something else, but I decided that politeness was getting me nowhere. I decided some quick action was needed to shake the man awake. I smiled and moved close to the counter. I stood perpendicular to it with my right side toward the man and my feet set wide apart, braced for what I planned to do.
I reached my left hand into my pants pocket and jingled the change there like I was looking for a bribe. The man craned his head a little further over the counter like he wanted to get closer to any money I might offer him. His loose black tie came away from his shirt and hung down toward the counter.
The hanging tie was what I needed. I grabbed it with my free right hand and hauled the man off his feet by pulling him toward me. I held him like that, off his feet and pinned to the counter. His arms flailed to brace him up, but they couldn't find purchase on the wood he was wedged against. My right arm burned with the effort and the thin tie cut into my hand, but I was well within my strength to hold the man as long as I needed to. The man's bleary eyes were white-ringed with fear. I knew I had his attention.
"See her?" I whispered and pointed with my unoccupied left hand. The man stilled his flailing arms and nodded as much as he could. "You got a kid here could be her brother?" I asked. The man nodded again.
I released his tie and felt its soiled, greasy texture as it slid through my hand. The man fell back and landed hard on his feet. The impact almost sent him reeling over backward, but he staggered and managed to stay upright. "What room?" I demanded before he was steady.
The man gripped the counter to keep from sinking to the floor. He looked behind at the wall of hollows to read a number and said, "twenty-six, second floor to the right," in a trembling voice. I dug in my left pocket, found a half-dollar by touch, slapped it on the counter, and thanked him.
I led Bea to the stairs and up. We were on the second floor when she remarked about what I'd done. "Why did you attack that man?" She asked in a small, unhappy voice.
"He needed it."
"Nobody needs to be treated like that." Bea objected. She wagged her head at me like I was a naughty child.
I told her the way I saw the situation. "I didn't hurt him, not really. His kind are impossible to hurt. I just scared him. We got the information I wanted, and he got a half-a-buck. Will you really care what I did to that poor excuse for a human being if your brother is in room twenty-six?"
Bea remained obstinate. "I'll be happy we found him, but I'll still be bothered by what you did. I didn't say anything when you knocked Allen Harris down. He should be able to take care of himself. That poor man doesn't have any defenses."
"You're not going to question me." I hissed and advanced on Bea to poke her shoulder. "Don't think that because I was a little nice to you, the rules have changed." My temper flared and forced me to give up my attempt to explain anything. "FUCK IT! It doesn't matter. If your brother is in that room, the case is closed, and you won't have to see me attack anyone ever again."
I knew it was pointless to try to make her see it my way. She couldn't because she didn't know what I knew. I'd spent two decades dealing with barely conscious dopers and drunks. That experience had shown me that a little violence goes a long way, and a lot of violence goes even further. Trying to make Bea see that with mere words was impossible.
She and I fell into an uneasy silence as we looked for and found room twenty-six. A `do not disturb' sign hung from the knob. I knocked and got no answer. Bea called through the door with the same result. I tried the knob, but the door was locked. Bea looked through the keyhole and saw nothing but a room.
There was no transom above the door, so I struggled to the floor to try to look under it. I saw two things through the large undercut. One was a key on the floor just inside the threshold. It sat like it had been dropped and kicked under. The other thing I saw was how severely the door sagged on its hinges. The hinge side of the door was a good inch-and-a-half above the floor while the jamb side was less than three-quarters of an inch.
I reasoned that the misalignment of the door equaled a similar misalignment of the lock. I stood up and rattled the door. It held fast. I grabbed the knob, lifted up on it, and pushed back toward the hinge side of the door jamb. I rattled the door again and it swung open.
Nothing moved inside the room, but that didn't mean it was safe to go in there. I cautioned Bea not to follow me. "Stay here until I look around." I said and went in carefully.
The open door let me into a short hallway with two doors on the right side and a blank wall on the left. The first door was open to a small washroom. It was empty except for the white porcelain fixtures. The second door looked like the closed door of a very narrow closet. I judged it to be too small to hide a man. Beyond the closet was an unmade bed. Opposite was a simple bureau with a narrow, upright mirror attached. At the end of the room, a ragged wingback chair faced the open window.
Preston was in the wingback chair, slumped down so his head didn't show over the chair back. A black-ringed bullet hole, smaller than a pencil eraser, was in his right temple. A small black pistol with a silencer screwed into the barrel was loosely held in his right hand that rested on the floor.
There was no blood. It looked like Preston had died instantly and had been dead for several days. His skin was as white as the porcelain fixtures in the washroom and had shrunk as the moisture left it. The boy looked drawn and old. There was nothing I could do for him, so I moved back through the room to stand in the entrance. I deliberately filled the doorway to block Bea from trying to shove passed me.
"Listen carefully," I said with deliberate calm, "go downstairs and call the police. Call from a booth, or better yet, go back to Calvin's and call from there. Wait with Calvin until you see the police drive up. Do not speak to the desk man or anyone else on the way out. Do you understand?"
"What's wrong in there?" Bea gasped. "Is he?"
"I'm sorry, Bea." I said and meant it more than I think I've ever meant it. "We only need the police. It's too late for anything else."
"My God, PRESTON!" Bea yelped and seemed to jerk every which way at once. I thought she was going to collapse or try to push into the room, but she did neither. Her body shook like a great battle raged within it, but only for a moment. The trembling stopped and the violent emotion left her. "I understand." She said stoically. "I will call the police from Calvin's and wait there until they come." She spun on her heels and strode away.
I turned the thumb wheel which unlocked the door, lifted it so it would clear the jamb, and forced it shut. I went back to memorize as much of the scene as I could before the police came and started asking questions. "What a fucking waste." I said to the corpse of Preston Arlott.
I leaned against the small bureau and rubbed my face. I felt miserable. I felt like I'd failed. I felt like I failed to help the poor boy in the wingback chair. I felt sad and useless. I felt like I'd felt when David was hurt.
The memory of David and the sight of poor, dead Preston did something inside me. My stomach lurched violently. All my muscles seemed to contract at once in a fit of violent cramps that forced me to my knees. The familiar flavor of bile rose in my throat as I fought against the flaming pain in my guts. I battled against the pain and tried to get my feet under me.
With great effort I managed to stand and face the mirror. Veins bulged in my flushed forehead and sweat stung my eyes. Another spasm clamped around my insides. I pitched forward and grabbed for the furniture. My sweaty hands slipped on the greasy wood. I fell. I cracked my head on the way down. Everything went black.