Hair of the Dog, Gordon Carroll [top 100 novels of all time TXT] 📗

me. The only way they could have arrived at his place the same time I did was that they followed me. And I didn’t tell anyone about Jerome, which means the leak has to be on your side of the street.”

“Ok,” he said. “That makes sense. I’ll check into it.”

Senator Marsh looked over at Clyde. They were on the top floor of The Hilton Denver Inverness Hotel in the luxurious Presidential Suite. He’d finished a round of golf just before speaking with Mason, coming in at two under par. He was feeling good. Except for the talk of a leak.

“My man Mason thinks you are leaking information to the Bloods,” said the senator.

“I told you he’d be trouble,” said Clyde, setting his bottled water on the table beside him and standing up from the couch across from the senator.

Marsh motioned for him to sit back down.

“No hurry. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that he’s already got a new lead on Larkin and the girl. The man is incredible.”

“What clued him in on the Bloods?” asked Clyde.

“The fact that they showed up as soon as he found the girl.”

“Humph,” shrugged Clyde. “Not enough for anything.”

“Still,” said the senator, “the man is sharp.” Marsh grinned. “Not to mention you were wrong.”

Clyde’s big head swiveled toward him. “About what?”

“He found the girl, fought Larkin, and he’s still alive.”

“Didn’t get her though.”

“No,” said Marsh. “No, not yet. But my money’s still on him.”

“Maybe you should just forget her,” said Clyde.

Marsh’s eyes turned and Clyde knew he’d gone too far. The big man swiveled his head back toward the window and the incredible view of the mountains to the west.

“Don’t talk stupid,” said Marsh. “You know better than that.”

“It’s just that everything we’ve worked so hard for all these years is finally falling perfectly into place, and I don’t think this is the time for distractions.”

Marsh calmed himself and took in the same view as his old friend. “We tie up this one loose end and it will be smooth sailing from here on. But it has to be tied and tied tight, otherwise the whole thing could come unraveled.” Marsh saw an eagle or a falcon, it was too far to be sure, dive down at some prey on the ground. “I want a different detail on him. All different players.”

“Already done,” said Clyde. “The boys he took out we already sent back to Chicago. Don’t know that it will matter though. Another bunch of gangsters show up, your smart boy’s going to know something’s wrong.”

The bird swooped back into view, carrying some squirming rodent in its claws. Marsh smiled.

“I’ll let him keep thinking we have a leak.”

“If he lives,” said Clyde.

“Yes,” agreed Marsh. “If he lives.”

The sun was dipping below the mountains by the time I made it to Colfax. I met up with one of my oldest snitches, a black gentlemen whose street name is Ziggy. How he had survived this long, I couldn’t begin to know. Ziggy’s drug of choice is meth and he’s done a lot of it. I’ve tried to get him into rehabilitation programs more times than I can count, but he always refuses. He says the high is just too high, baby. For all the years I’ve known him he’s had this strange twitch, like a bird jerking about. His hands are palsied — they’ve been that way since before I met him — so I don’t know if it is a natural condition or a result of the drugs. Either way, Ziggy knows pretty much everything that happens in his little corner of the world, which starts at about Colfax and Havana and spiderwebs out to all the ratholes surrounding Denver and Aurora.

“Big man and a little girl,” said Ziggy as he set his coffee cup down, his hands shaking, but somehow not spilling a drop. “Ziggy will keep his eyes open, yes sir that he will do.” He looked up at me with that twitch and the beginnings of cataracts in both eyes. “Heard say that doggy of yours got hurt. That true?”

“Yes,” I said. “He took a bullet, but he’s going to be okay.”

“Pilgrim’s a good doggy. Ziggy always liked Pilgrim. He done et up some bad boys in his time, didn’t he?”

“That he has,” I said, my lips curving at the corners.

“Yeah, I did hear tell a time or two about him. Seen his handiwork once too. It were that Crip from the hood called. Slice. Ol’ Slice and Dice they used to call him. Dang if that doggy didn’t break his whole leg.”

“Yes, he did,” I said. “Broke his femur through and through.”

“Yes, sir, that he did. Ziggy seen it himself. Ziggy was in jail on account of buyin’ some crystal from an under, and he was in the same dayroom as ol’ Slice and he done shown me his self. The nurse was coming through for med run and she pulled off them bandages, on account of they couldn’t cast it yet because of the open wounds, and Ziggy is here to tell you, Ziggy ain’t never seen nothing like them bites. It were like that movie with the big ol’ white shark, the one where that man done scratched his nails on the chalkboard and about tore out Ziggy’s eardrums, yes he did. So when Ziggy sees them terrible wounds, Ziggy asks ol’ Slice if he would ever run from a police doggy again and Ziggy is here to tell you, it was kind of funny ‘cause ol’ Slice, he done gone nearly as pale as a white man and says to Ziggy, he says, ‘the thought wouldn’t enter my mind’. That’s how scared of doggies he were after that and Ziggy don’t blame him none at all. No, sir Ziggy sure don’t.”

I felt the smile growing. Those were good times, good memories. Pilgrim was a monster in his day. And Marla and Jolene were both still alive and we were a family.

After slipping