Soul Circus

The buzzer rang from over by the phone. It was that buzzer from downstairs, said that someone was wantin’ to get in. She wasn’t expecting anyone, so she stayed where she was. Probably someone was down there hittin’ all the buzzers, just lookin’ to get inside.

She shook a Newport out of her pack and lit it. The menthol, it tasted good after you smoked some get-high. Olivia smiled, looking at the face Martin was making on the TV show. The music sounded good, too, coming from the stereo. She looked at the joint resting in the ashtray and considered picking it back up. But she was already trippin’ behind this shit, so she let it lay there where it was.

Chapter 11

SUE Tracy had met Qui

Silver Spring had beer gardens and restaurants within walking distance of Qui

Earlier in the evening they’d had di

They were a little high on red wine and beer when they got to his spartan apartment. Sue opened a couple of cold ones while Qui

“What do you want to hear?” said Qui

“It’s the Dismemberment Plan,” said Tracy. “And you don’t own any, so shut up. Why don’t you put on the new Dave Matthews?”

“Cute. You know I don’t get that guy. Music for old people who look like young people. It’s not rock, it’s not jazz. What the fuck is it?”

“I’m kidding.”

“How about some Neil?”

“Neil’s good.”

Qui

They drank off some of their beer. Sue removed her Skechers, put her feet up on the table set before the couch, and smoked a cigarette while Qui

“Anything on Linda Welles?” said Tracy.

Qui

“I appreciate it.”

“Her brother, he called the police, right?”

“Sure, but the police don’t get all that mobilized for a missing girl in the city.”

It usually was reported to Youth and Preventive Services and pretty much sat. Most were runaway and not criminal cases. The girls stayed local and moved quadrant to quadrant. So families went to people like Sue for help finding them.

“She could be shacked up with some older boy, has drug money, a nice car,” said Qui

“That’s right, she could be,” said Tracy, crushing her cigarette in the ashtray. “But we still need to find her.”

“I will.”

“My hero.”

Qui

“Don’t be so boastful.”

Qui

“You got oven mitts on or something?”

“I need a manual for this thing.”

“It’s a back-loader, Terry.”

“Oh.”

Tracy’s chest was flushed pink and her hair was a beautiful mess. She sat up, undid her bra, and pulled it free. Qui

“Gulp,” said Qui

“You look surprised.”

“I always am,” said Qui

They undressed quickly, “Cowgirl in the Sand” filling the room. Qui

“Damn, girl, where’s the fire?”

“You don’t know?”

“What I mean is, why the rush?”

“Quit fucking around.”

Soon he was all the way in her, her back arched to take it, her mouth cool on his, her damp muscled-up thighs flanking his sides. Qui

STRANGE picked up Greco at the office and drove the dog up to the row house on Buchanan Street. Strange had lived here for many years before marrying Janine. He was perfectly content and comfortable at Janine’s place and as certain as any man could be that their marriage was going to last. But he still spent time at his old house. The house was paid for, so there weren’t any issues with money, and he had not considered selling it.

He told Janine that he needed this place to keep his duplicate case files and to work away from his primary office. But there were other reasons for his reluctance to give up the Buchanan residence. It had been his first and only real-estate purchase, and the pride of home ownership was, for him, still strong. And of course he needed to know that there was always some other place he could go to, run to, some would say, when the space between him and Janine and Lionel got too close. He had lived with women briefly, but in those cases there’d always been an exit door. He’d been a bachelor his whole life and he had married in his fifties. This new life, this whole new thing, was going to take some getting used to.

Strange went down to his basement and did three sets of ab crunches, lying on a mat. He then did a dumbbell workout and put in fifteen minutes on the heavy bag with a pair of twelve-ounce gloves, more than enough to break a good sweat. Then he showered, fed Greco, and went on up to the second floor to his office.

He tore the shrink-wrap off a couple of soundtrack CDs he had purchased through the Internet that had just come to this address in the mail today. A Morricone import called Spaghetti Western, which held six tracks from the film A Gun for Ringo, among others, had arrived in the shipment. He slipped the CD into the CPU of his computer and sat down behind his desk. The music came through the Yamaha speakers on his desktop, and he nodded his head. This was exactly what he had hoped it would be. He had been looking for this particular soundtrack for some time.