The Black Echo

Arson’s hair was red and waxed into spiky flames. He wore black jeans and a dirty black T-shirt. He was smoking a Salem. He wasn’t stoned but he was hungry. Sharkey looked at him and then past him to where the third boy, the one known as Mojo, sat on the ground near the bikes. Mojo was shorter and wider, with his black hair slicked back in a knob behind his head. Acne scars marked his face forever as sullen.

“Give it a few more minutes,” Sharkey said.

“I want to eat, man,” Arson said.

“Well, what do you think I’m trying to do? We all want to eat.”

“Maybe we could see how Bettijane’s doing,” Mojo said. “She’ll have made enough for us to eat.”

Sharkey looked over at him and said, “You two go ahead. I’m staying till I score. I’m gonna eat.”

As he said this he watched a maroon Jaguar XJ6 pull into the convenience store’s lot.

“How about the guy in the pipe?” Arson asked. “You think they found him yet? We could go up there and check him out, see if there is any bread. I don’t know why you didn’t have the balls to do it last night, Shark.”

“Hey, you go up there by yourself and check it out if you want,” Sharkey said. “See who has balls then.”

He hadn’t told them that he had called 911 about the body. That would be harder for them to forgive than his fear of going into the pipe. A lone man got out of the Jaguar. He looked like late thirties, brush cut, baggy white slacks and shirt, sweater draped around his shoulders. Sharkey saw no one waiting in the car.

“Hey, check out the Jag,” he said. The other two looked over at the store. “This is it. I’m going.”

“We’ll be here,” Arson said.

Sharkey got off the wall and trotted across the boulevard. He watched the Jag’s owner through the windows of the store. He had an ice cream in his hand and was looking at the magazine rack. His eyes were constantly on the prowl as he looked at the other men in the store. Sharkey was encouraged as he saw the man head toward the counter to pay for the ice cream. He squatted against the front of the store, the grille of the Jag four feet away.

When the man came out, Sharkey waited for their eyes to lock and the man to smile before he spoke up.

“Hey, mister?” he said as he got up. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor?”

The man looked around the parking lot before answering.

“Sure. What do you need?”

“Well, I was wondering if you might go in and get me a beer. I’ll give you the money and all. I just want a beer. To relax, you know?”

The man hesitated. “I don’t know… that would be illegal, wouldn’t it? You’re not twenty-one. I could get in trouble.”

“Well,” Sharkey said with a smile, “do you have any beer at home? Then you wouldn’t have to be buying it. Just giving somebody a beer ain’t no crime.”

“Well…”

“I wouldn’t stay long. We could probably relax each other a little bit, you know?”

The man took another look around the parking lot. No one was watching. Sharkey thought he had him now.

“Okay,” he said. “I can take you back here later if you want.”

“Sure. That’d be cool.”

They drove east on Santa Monica to Flores and then south a couple of blocks to a townhouse development. Sharkey never turned around or tried to look in the mirrors. They would be back there. He knew it. There was a security gate on the outside of the property which the man had a key for and pulled closed behind them. Then they went into his townhouse.

“My name is Jack,” the man said. “What can I get you?”

“I’m Phil. Do you have any food? I’m kind of hungry, too.” Sharkey looked around for the security intercom, and the button that would unlatch the gate. The apartment was mostly light-colored furniture on an off-white deep pile carpet. “Nice place.”

“Thanks. Let me see what I have. If you want to wash your clothes, we can get that done, too, while you are here. I don’t do this very often, you know. But when I can help someone I try.”

Sharkey followed him into the kitchen. The security console was on the wall next to the phone. When Jack opened the refrigerator and bent down to look in, Sharkey pushed the button that opened the gate outside. Jack didn’t notice.

“I have tuna fish. And I can make a salad. How long have you been on the street? I’m not going to call you Phil. If you don’t want to tell me your real name, that’s fine.”

“Um, tuna fish would be good. Not too long.”

“Are you clean?”

“Yeah, sure. I’m okay.”

“We’ll take precautions.”

It was time. Sharkey stepped backward into the hall. Jack looked up from the refrigerator, a plastic bowl in his hand, his mouth slightly ajar. Sharkey thought there was a look of recognition in his face, like he knew what was about to happen. Sharkey twisted the dead bolt and opened the door. Arson and Mojo walked in.

“Hey, what is this?” Jack said, though there was no confidence in his voice. He rushed into the hall and Arson, who was the biggest of all four of them, hit him with a fist on the bridge of his nose. There was a sound like a pencil breaking, and the plastic bowl of tuna fish clumped to the ground. Then there was a lot of blood on the off-white carpet.