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  “I'm going to need to read this,” I told Julia. “I know a diary's personal, so no one will see this but me.”

  “Well, I'm going to say it again,” Julia said. “I don't like it, but I guess it is necessary.”

  I looked through the other drawers and through Felicia’s closet and found nothing that you wouldn't expect to find in any sixteen-year-old girl's room. Then we went back to the living room.

  Julia led me to her front door in silence. We stopped there. I looked at her face.

  “I didn't like having to look through Felicia’s stuff,” I told her.

  “I didn't like letting you,” she said. “I've always respect Felicia’s privacy. But I guess I can't right now.”

  “I hope I can find something so I can get her back to you.”

  “I hope so too,” Julia said and I gave her a hug. Just a man comforting a woman with a lost child.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE COLD WORLD

  My car is cold.

  My world is cold.

  I cruise slowly down the streets of East St. Louis and I can't get the thought of Julia out of my mind. A good woman who trusts me.

  And what am I? If she knew me she wouldn't trust me.

  Julia is a woman who raises her child the best way she can. She fights against the cruelty and chaos of the world by just being who she is. A good loving mother.

  Me, I'm a part of the chaos. I make my money by removing problems that the police have no legitimate way of dealing with. When the police have a drug dealer, a murderer, a rapist or anyone who is so bad that he just has to go but the police can't prosecute him, they call me. They pay me to remove their problem. They don't care how; they just want it done.

  Morris West was a freebie. I just hated that son of a bitch and this is my neighborhood. But he wasn't the first and he won’t be the last.

  Julia felt warm in my arms. Warmth was all around her. In her skin, in her heart and in her home. A good place to live. A warm place to live.

  I live in the cold.

  My world is cold. It's where I belong. It's where I deserve to be.

  My first trash removal was a freebie too.

  * * *

  It was four years ago when I needed some money bad and my former methods of making money were closed to me. I didn't have the heart to deal anymore. Just couldn't make myself do it. The athletic commission took my boxing license after I axe-kicked a guy in a boxing match. So no prize fighting anymore.

  My rent was way overdue. The electric was close to being shut off. I had a funeral and a grave to pay for. They don't bury the people you love for free.

  What the hell was I gonna do? Go to work for McDonalds? The only thing I knew how to do good was kill and the army wasn't about to take me back.

  Then Marco Rios knocked on my door.

  We both sat down at my table and when my former supplier broke out a joint and offered it to me, I said, “I don't want any.”

  “That's all right,” Marcos said in his smooth Latin voice, “I understand. More for me anyway. Besides, I need it.”

  Then he proceeded to tell me about his daughter, Lisa, running away from home. He advanced me two thousand dollars to look for her, against ten thousand dollars for when I brought her home.

  It wasn't too much of a problem finding out where Lisa Rios had run off to. All I had to do was offer some money for information. I knew the guys she had been going around with so for about a hundred dollars, I was able to get hold of a phone number where she was at.

  Getting her home wasn't easy.

  When I called the phone number, I got a Paco (first name only) in a cheap hotel in Kansas City. He said that Marco’s daughter was with him.

  We negotiated.

  Paco agreed to sell her to me for one thousand dollars.

  We agreed to meet at an abandoned grade school in Independence, Missouri about twenty miles east of Kansas City. Like an idiot I agreed to every condition that Paco set and I played by his rules totally. I would never do that kind of thing again.

  After driving the two hundred and fifty miles to Independence, I parked my car a block and a half from Harris Elementary School. I hid my gun and five hundred dollars under the back seat. Then I went to the school with fourteen hundred dollars in my pocket.

  Harris School had a tall fence around it with barbed wire at the top. It looked like a deserted reform school with the wire mesh in the windows and the huge oak doors.

  On the door hung a condemned sign and “Keep Out” was below it.

  I entered the school yard at a section of the fence where wire cutters had been used to make a big hole. Trash was blowing around the school in little whirlpools of dust and cigarette pack wrappers, and I saw on the side of the schoolhouse a gymnasium where I had been told it would be.

  I walked to the gymnasium side door. The wind blew dust up in my face and I felt a lot like Jimmy Stewart in High Noon, except I left my gun in the car. I was feeling really naked without it.

  A saying I had used throughout my life was “Mamma Dark never raised no idiots”. Well with every step I took towards that gymnasium door with fourteen hundred dollars in one pocket and no gun in the other pocket to protect it with, I was feeling like I had been lying. But it was too late now.

  I pushed the door open. The metal door screeched like an old male cat getting his balls stepped on. I stepped into the big gymnasium hall. My footsteps echoed hollowly in the big room. They, five of them not counting Marco’s daughter, were sitting on fold out bleachers. They watched me approach. Two of them high-fived each other a loud slap.

  The five stood up simultaneously and formed a semicircle around me.

  Lisa Rios had a jittery frightened look on her face. Her eyes were red and swollen. Whether from crying or being slapped, I couldn't tell. She was small and looked to be around fourteen years old. She looked like she had a real rough time of it since running away. Bet she wished she were at home with good old mom and pops right now.

  “You told me we'd meet alone,” I told the leader of the band of merry men who I guessed was Paco.

  He laughed, “Well, I guess I ain’t as fuckin stupid as you are.”

  I guess he was right about that.

  Paco was a sweaty looking Mexican with a pock marked face and acted a hell of a lot like Al Pacino in Scarface. The other four, two Mexicans and two Blacks looked like escapees from a mental hospital that specialized in violent psychotics.

  I looked past Paco at Lisa Rios and she met my eyes. Tears had started leaking from the corner of her eyes and there was a silent pleading there. “You choose your playmates real well,” I told her.

  Paco spoke with a low guttural raspy voice, “Meet my playmate”. He pulled a chrome plated forty-five, shoved the barrel five inches from my face.

  Nice gun, I thought, who'd you steal that from.

  “Say hello to my little friend,” Paco hissed.

  I'd seen that movie too. "Can't you be more original,” I said.

  Paco smiled, he had rotten teeth and the breath to match.

  “Tie him up,” he said.

  One produced a cord from his pocket; two held my arms tight behind me while my hands were tied together.

  The gun was still in my face. I knew better than to even flinch. One finger twitch from Paco and my face would be undercooked hamburger.

  He lowered the gun when my hands were tied tight.

  “We can still do the deal,” I told Paco. “If anything happens to Lisa or me, Marco will have you killed.”

  Paco still had that smile on his face, “This is my jungle,” he said and kicked me in the balls.

  Pain exploded up through my body and I went to my knees. Someone punched or kicked me in the head and I went to the floor on my side.

  All five were laughing now. A psychotic giggling.

  “She says her Daddy don't give a fuck,” Paco said, then in a little girl's voice he sing-songed, “Momma don't love me, Daddy don't love me no more.” Then he said ha
rshly, “Bring the stupid bitch to me.”

  One of the others dragged Lisa by her hair down the bleachers and across the floor. She tried to walk but was jerked off her feet three times so he could drag her.

  Paco grabbed me by the hair and pulled me to a sitting position.

  “You are a stupid son of a bitch,” Paco said and punched me in the mouth. He couldn't hit hard; it was like something my grandmother might have thrown.

  I laughed. He punched me again. I laughed some more.

  He slung me by my hair sideways to the floor. “You fuckhead,” he yelled and kicked me in the back. It hurt like hell but I laughed anyway. I figured, he's gonna kill me no matter what, so I might as well piss him off. These little Hitler types were all the same. They gotta prove over and over again what bad ass big men they are because they don't really believe it themselves. So I laughed just to piss him off. And it worked.

  “You gonna laugh motherfucker,” he screamed at me, going red in the face, and kicked me again. I kept laughing and I noticed then that the cord I was tied with was rubber and it was stretching.

  Paco stepped away from me and handed the chrome forty-five to one of his boys. “Watch him,” he said. Then he walked to where Lisa lay sobbing on the floor unzipping his fly as he did.

  Paco reached down and grabbed Lisa by her hair and jerked her to her knees. “Suck my dick, bitch,” he barked at her. She hesitated and he slapped her hard, creating a loud pop that echoed through the gym. Then she did what she was told.

  The other four guy’s eyes were glued to what Paco was doing to the little girl.

  One of them said, “I wanna be next. I want me some of dat.” They started arguing about who was gonna be next.

  I tried to sit up working the cords as I did. I was kicked back to lying on my side.

  No one was watching me so I worked on my cords, straining and stretching them.

  The others, including the one who was supposed to be watching me, had formed a circle around Paco and Lisa and was cheering Paco on with “Fuck her face man! Yeah, fuck that bitch!”

  Paco was gripping the back of Lisa’s head and was shoving his dick at her so hard she was making gagging noises. Then one of the others said something about her having more than one hole to fill and they were ripping her clothes off of her. The girl was whimpering and crying but they didn't care. One of them started fucking her from behind and grunting as he was doing it like a hog.

  Then I got my hands loose. The first one that saw me on my feet was the one with the gun. But it was too late for him. I jammed a left jab in his Adams apple and wrenched the gun from his hand as I stomped on his foot. He grabbed his throat and bent forward. I shoved the barrel of the gun in his left eye socket and blew the back of his head all over Paco’s back.

  One of the two blacks, a short guy, hadn't been doing hardly anything but just standing and staring. Now he was just backing up with his hands in the air, mouthing a word I couldn't hear that sounded something like “Op, op.” But I'm no lip reader and he wasn't a threat so I went after the others.

  The one who had been fucking Lisa from behind was trying to hop away and put his pants up at the same time. I put a bullet in his ass hoping it would come out through his dick.

  The other one tried to rush me. I put a bullet in his throat. When he went to his knees, I made a big ragged red hole appear where his nose had been.

  Lisa was flat on her face covering her ears with her hands and Paco was standing staring at me with his mouth wide open and his dick hanging out.

  My ears were ringing but I was beginning to hear again. I realized right then that the loud shots from the gun had momentarily deafened me, but I couldn't even remember what they sounded like.

  I could hear good enough to hear the guy who had been backing off say, “I'm a cop.”

  I looked at him and he bent down and slowly took out of his sock a Police ID and held it out to me.

  “Now you take it easy,” he said.

  I saw the flicker of a shit-eating grin cross Paco’s face. I looked at Paco with his hands in the air and his dick hanging out.

  “Fuck you,” I said and shot Paco’s dick off. He screamed and went to his knees. The look of horror on his face was priceless. Then I shot him in the forehead.

  “Oh shit,” I heard the guy say who I now knew was a cop, "We got a big problem.”

  “Not me,” I told him, “You do.”

  * * *

  Right after I got Lisa Rios to her feet and dressed as well as we could with what was left of her clothes, four guys came bursting through the door with their guns drawn.

  “Hold it right there,” one of them yelled to Lisa and me.

  “You're a little late,” I said.

  "Put the gun down,” he yelled, taking a firing stance and pointing his gun at me.

  “Fuck you,” I told him, realizing I still held the chrome forty-five so I put it in my jacket pocket.

  Lisa was still sobbing. She put her face in my chest. I pushed Lisa behind me. Pointed my finger at the face of the idiot with his gun on me.

  “If you don't put that gun down,” I told him. “I'm gonna shove it up your ass.”

  I took a step toward him.

  “Stand down Franklin,” I heard a voice command and the cop put his gun away. Up stepped one of the four, a man with graying hair and a commanding presence.

  “Nash Graham,” he said and extended his hand. “DEA”

  “John Dark,” I said and instantly added, “Private Investigator.”

  “Ugly work,” he said smiling.

  “Always is,” I answered.

  He slapped me on the back, “There's always more work like this,” he said. “A talented man can make a lot of money. Are you interested?”

  “Yeah,” I told him.

  The guy I’d ass-shot moved and said he needed a doctor.

  “A problem,” Nash said, “We got a witness.”

  I took the forty-five out, took aim at ass-shot guy's head and blew a chunk out of it. He moaned no more.

  “Now we don't,” I told Nash.

  Nash laughed and said to the other DEA agents, “I like this guy.”

  So that was how I got into the shit I'm into now.

  How could a woman like Julia Richardson want to know a guy like me? Since that day in Independence, Missouri, I've killed more people than I can count on my fingers and toes and I like it. It gets me off like nothing else. As long as they pay me, I do the job. More for the harder ones but all of them are really just the same to me.

  How could a woman like Julia want me? Her of the warm home, of the warm heart. Me a burned out killer. Why would she want me and could she ever love me?

  Love? Fuck that. I just want to stick my dick in her. She don't know what's she's missing.

  CHAPTER 11

  POEMS AND PROSTITUTES

  I pulled myself enough out of my trip down memory lane to realize I was cruising about a block and a half away from Johnny's Bar and Grill. I decided to go there to have a look at the diary I'd found in Felicia Richardson's room. Then a bit of the past intruded upon the present again.

  It was Lisa Rios standing on the corner.

  She smiled and waved. I waved back. Now she could be had for twenty dollars or a rock of crack cocaine. You see, after I got her home, I found out dear old daddy, Marco Rios, had wanted her home for more reasons than to just be a good father to his daughter.

  Marco had been fucking his own daughter ever since she had looked big enough to be able to handle it. The next time she ran away from home she was over eighteen so the dogs weren't called out to chase her. By then it was too late.

  Now she just sells her body cheap and uses the money to buy crack to deaden her pain. A word like love doesn't exist for her because the one person she thought she could trust and love used her.

  She's offered to do me for free anytime I want, but I just can't bring myself to touch her. There's just too much sadness there.

  I guess I'd rather
remember the little girl who could still be hurt rather than know the confused woman with skin like steel.

  And for that psychological breakdown, Oprah Winfrey would be proud.

  So I got out of the car and walked into Johnny's. I really needed a drink and I really needed to read this diary.

  * * *

  "Oh shit," Johnny says as I walk toward the bar, "Here comes trouble, lock the doors."

  Then he leans to the side and takes a long look at my black eye.

  "Looks like trouble already found you," he says, "Woo- that looks pretty. You ought a get your ass whipped every day. Helps us not notice the rest of your ugly face."

  "Thanks," I said, "I needed that."

  "Just tryin to help ya," he said.

  I ordered a Budweiser, took a drink, sat on a barstool and took out Felicia's diary.

  Johnny and the same silent drunk that was in the bar yesterday was watching reruns of Leave It To Beaver.

  "How come you watch that shit?" I ask Johnny.

  "It reminds me how stupid white folks are," Johnny tells me. "Check this out. June Cleaver is always telling Ward, 'Hey go easy on the Beaver.' Shit, old June ain't bad lookin in an okeydokey sort of a way. If she were my old lady, she'd be beggin me to pound the Beaver morning, noon, and night. Wouldn't be no 'Take it easy on the Beaver,' if I was on the job."

  "You amaze me," I told Johnny, "You wanna fuck everything on TV."

  "That's right," he says, "I'll fuck em all."

  The drunk, who hadn't spoken in so long, I didn't know he could speak, spoke now. "His favorite show is Mr. Ed," he said clearly, even though he was falling off his stool drunk.

  I laughed and said, "Guess that horse looks pretty good."

  "Just like your mamma," Johnny answered and laughed.

  I started reading the diary, which started at the beginning of the year and ended the day before Felicia vanished. I skimmed through a lot of the stuff she'd written because it was just girl's stuff like - school, tests, what guys were cute, who was going with who, what girls had gotten pregnant and just general gossip.

  I came to a page that I found might have something useful about the same time that Johnny said he wanted me to watch the bar so he could bring back some food for us.