John Ray Horn 2: While I Disappear (Jerry eBooks) by Edward Wright

Author:Edward Wright [Wright, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jerry eBooks
Published: 2013-12-20T05:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

HORN DROVE TOWARD downtown. He had to meet Coby, the police detective, and he wanted to make another stop first.

He took Sunset east, keeping the Hollywood Hills to his left. As he approached downtown, he could see clouds and bright haze layered over the City Hall tower, the sun making a futile effort to punch through. The Andrews Sisters were jiving their way through “Rum and Coca-Cola” on the car radio. Everyone had gotten to know the song’s goofy lyrics during the war. The tune seemed curiously old and silly now. It was as if the war, even with its blood and loss and despair, had also been the last manifestation of a kind of innocence that the country had now left behind, along with “Kilroy Was Here” and Rosie the Riveter and movies about patriotic Americans pulling together for a common cause.

He parked in front of the Follies, across the street from the Anchor mission. The figure of Ruby Renfrew, the Detroit Firecracker, loomed overhead. Up close, her red gape of a smile seemed no longer good-natured but depraved. Her eyes stared right down at him. Do you want to know how all this is going to turn out, cowboy? they asked him.

Yes, he said silently. Tell me, Ruby.

Not till the end of the movie, the eyes said. But if you’re looking for a happy ending, you wandered into the wrong theater. Then she went back to being just a big, garishly painted thing atop a marquee.

Inside the Anchor, he asked for Emory Quinn. The beaten-down man sitting behind the desk, only a few steps removed from the sidewalk himself, told him he hadn’t seen the pastor for a while but thought he might be in his office. Horn made the now-familiar journey down the corridor. This time the door to the office at the far end of the chapel was closed. Horn knocked and, when he heard nothing, opened the door.

Quinn lay on the sofa, mouth open and hanging slightly askew. Horn was alarmed at first, but then he saw the empty half-pint bottle lying on the floor and caught the sour smell of alcohol permeating the room. As he stepped closer, he heard soft snoring and saw spit glistening on the man’s chin.

“Quinn.” He leaned over and nudged him, but got no response. He tried again, none too gently this time. “Wake up, Quinn.”

The other man opened his eyes and looked at Horn, but there was no recognition in them. His hands were clasped loosely over his chest, and Horn noted that the knuckles were taped like a fighter’s and the tape was stained with patches of dark red.

Horn got up and looked around the room, as if searching for a reason for Quinn’s stupor. Noticing a light in the storeroom, he looked in there. A heavy body bag, worn by years of punching, hung suspended from the low ceiling. Its midsection was wrapped in layers of adhesive tape to preserve the life of the bag. On the tape, Horn saw a few smears of blood.

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