A Firing Offense by George P. Pelecanos Read Free Book Online

cupped in his hand, and wore black motorcycle boots, jeans, and a T-shirt. A shock of hair hung down over his left eye.
    I felt a faintly painful blade of recognition slide into my stomach. Though the T-shirt had changed from Led Zeppelin to Minor Threat, this was me, over a dozen years ago.
    “This is how he looks now?” I asked.
    “Everything but the hair. He shaved it off a couple of days before he disappeared.”
    I put the photos in my jacket as we left the room and walked towards the front door of the apartment. The old man grabbed my arm to slow me down.
    “I took the liberty of calling some private detective agencies this morning,” he said. “The average going rate seems to be two hundred a day plus expenses. That will be my offer to you.”
    “I’m not a private detective,” I said. “And anyway, I could run into him tonight. We’ll settle later.”
    “Yes, of course,” he said halfheartedly. He looked small standing in front of me. My sight lit again on the VCR wires lying unconnected on the floor.
    “You want me to hook up that recorder for you before I go?”
    “No, thank you,” he said. “Jimmy brought that to me, and he can hook it up, Mr. Stefanos. When you bring him home.”
    The old man’s eyes were still on me as I closed the door and stepped out into the hall.

FIVE
    M ALONE SAID , “Where you been, Country? I done closed two deals while you were gone.”
    “I had to see a friend.”
    McGinnes was nearby, waiting on a compact stereo customer. He turned to me, cupped his hand around his tie, and began stroking it feverishly, his eyes closed and face contorted.
    Louie was moving slowly down the center aisle, his short arms propelling him forward as they swung across his barrel chest. I could hear his labored breathing as he approached.
    “Call your girl from the
Post,”
he said.
    “You mean Patti?”
    “Yeah. She sound nice. She look good too?”
    “Too young for you, Louie. You’d stroke out.”
    “Never too old to gyrate,” he said, and demonstrated briefly with his hips. “Matter of fact, I’ll be headin’ over to Van Ness in a little while to take care of business. Might take the evening off.”
    “Fine with me. Who’s on the schedule tonight?”
    “Lloyd just came in. He’s on till six. Malone’s on till six too. Lee takes afternoon classes, but she’ll be back to work on through. That means you, her, and McGinnes will close tonight. That okay?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Hey, Nick,” Malone said. “Check out our boy Void today. He lookin’ good.”
    Lloyd was absently bumping into displays as he attempted to light his pipe while making his way to the front of the store. The pipe was a Holmesian prop, an Anglophilic symbol that he believed suggested intelligence, but Lloyd was a pale, painfully thin man with a frighteningly deathlike grin, whose appearance more accurately reflected the high school outcast who hears voices from beyond as he clutches his hall locker. Today his woodgrain crucifix hung on a rawhide string over a lime green polyester shirt, hooked up with forest green bellbottoms.
    The boys used Lloyd to run errands and as the butt of their practical jokes, while Louie kept him around to fill in odd hours on the schedule. As a stockboy I had been continually demeaned by him in the presence of customers, when he wasn’t critiquing my heathen lifestyle or trying to convince me of his close personal relationship with Jesus. His full name was Lloyd Danker, though all of us, Louie included, called him Void Wanker.
    Lloyd looked me over in that way of his that always expressed superiority. The corners of his mouth spread into a sickly smile, and he yanked his pipe out to reveal a cockeyed row of yellow teeth.
    “I see management’s been good to you, Nick. You’ve come a long way.”
    McGinnes’ customer, who was walking, reached the front door, turned his head back, and said, “Thanks.” McGinnes, waving to the customer, said, “Thank
you.”
And then, still