When Last Seen Alive by Gar Anthony Haywood Read Free Book Online Page B

overheard.”
    “Sure. How long ago did this happen?”
    Lilly thought about it, said, “Two, three months ago. Maybe a little longer.”
    Gunner asked her if that was it, and Lilly nodded her head, said she’d told him everything there was to tell.
    “I guess you goin’ out there now, huh?” she asked, as Gunner slipped off his stool and pushed a ten-dollar bill toward her side of the counter.
    “Yeah. You wanna tell me to be careful?”
    “I wanna tell you to bring somethin’ for his ass this time. That’s what I wanna tell you. You go messin’ with that fool again without a gun in your pocket, you askin’ to get cut up.”
    “I hear you, Lilly.”
    “Don’t hear me, Gunner. Just do what I’m tellin’ you, all right?”
    The giant black woman snatched the ten off the bar, shoved it into an apron pocket, and left him to take care of another customer.
    “Well, well, well,” Johnny Frerotte said. “Ain’t this somethin’.”
    He’d gained a few pounds in nine years, and the only hair left on his head was growing long and unmanageable in the back, but other than that, he was the same smooth, fearsome character Gunner remembered. He had an office overlooking the gaming tables up on the Royalty Club’s second floor, and Gunner had been shown to it only after a guard downstairs had called ahead to announce his arrival. What the hell the Gardena card casino called itself doing, hiring a sociopath like Frerotte to head its security staff, Gunner couldn’t imagine, but there the big man sat: feet up on his desk, a drink in his right hand and a TV remote control in his left, eschewing the huge observation window at his back for a talk show playing on a television set just off to his right.
    “What’s up, Jack,” Gunner said, making a herculean effort to be polite.
    Frerotte sat up in his chair, used the remote control to turn the television off. “Aaron Gunner. Man, I thought I’d never see your tired ass again.” He smiled.
    “Yeah, I know. I was beginning to think the same thing about you.”
    “Been what? Ten years since we last saw each other?”
    “Nine or ten. Something like that.”
    Frerotte laughed, said, “That was the night I cut that boy’s nose off, huh? Over at the Deuce.”
    “Yeah, it was. Look, Jack—”
    “What was that fool’s name again? Somethin’ with a C …”
    “Cowens,” Gunner said.
    “Yeah, that was it. Cowens. I heard the doctors put his shit back on. You hear that?”
    Gunner just nodded his head, finally realizing his host wasn’t going to hear anything he had to say until he was all done reminiscing.
    “Somebody seen him after, I don’t remember who, told me they fucked it up. Boy’s nose was all crooked an’ shit. My man said he’d’a been better off leavin’ the fuckin’ thing on the floor where he found it.” He laughed again.
    Gunner watched him and waited.
    When Gunner’s silence became too much for him, Frerotte said, “So. What you want with me after all these years? You ain’t lookin’ for a job, are you?”
    Gunner shook his head, said, “I’ve already got one, thanks. As a matter of fact, that’s what brings me here today.”
    “Oh, wait a minute. You were some kind’a investigator, right? A private investigator?”
    “Yeah. You remember.”
    “Yeah, I remember. I remember a lot of things.” He showed Gunner his teeth again.
    “That’s good. Maybe you remember a brother named Elroy Covington, then.”
    The grin froze on Frerotte’s wide face, betraying an effort on the big man’s part to project unfamiliarity. “Who?”
    “Elroy Covington. He disappeared from a Hollywood motel last October. I’ve been hired to find out what happened to him.”
    “Covington?” Frerotte shook his head. “Never heard of nobody named Covington.”
    “Maybe it would help if I told you the name of the motel. The Stage Door. It’s on Sunset, just west of Vine, the south side of the street.”
    “Don’t know it. Somebody said I been