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“I called Brody. He made them up last night. Put them in my mailbox. Aren’t they righteous?”
Dear Lord.
Brody was a friend of ours, had been since high school. He was a computer dweeb, worked at home programming PC games, barely ever left the house and he made a shed load of money. He also barely ever slept. He lived on energy drinks and cheese puffs and shopped for groceries exclusively at open-all-night convenience stores.
We headed to the emergency contact of Rosie’s we hadn’t yet gone after, the one whose beauty sleep I’d disturbed the day before. Rosie had recorded his name in the employee file as Kevin “The Kevster” James.
The Kevster answered the door wearing a pair of filthy jeans, a black Hendrix tee so faded it was now gray over a thermal long-john shirt (even though it was firmly eighty-six degrees). He had scraggly hair of an indescribable color and it was pretty clear we’d found out who was looking after Rosie’s pot plants, with liberal sampling.
“Hey, dudettes,” was his greeting.
We introduced ourselves and he smiled. “Dig it! I heard about you guys.” He turned to me. “Rosie talks about you all the time, thinks you arethe shit. Best job he’s ever had, man, workin’ for a rock chick.”
I felt the first rush of warmth toward Rosie I’d had in two days.
“Hey!” Kevin asked. “What happened to your eye?”
“Got hit in the face by a bad guy,” I told him.
“Hope you kneed him in the nuts,” The Kevster said, leaning forward to look at my eye.
“I bit him.”
“That’s good, too,” he replied, though it was clear a knee to the nuts would have been the preferred form of retaliation. Unfortunately, by that time I was stun-gunned.
“We’re looking for Rosie,” I explained.
“Step in line, dudette. Everybody’s looking for Rosie. Ehv-ree-bud-ee. Had dudes here all day yesterday asking about him.”
“Who are these dudes? Do you know them?” Ally asked.
“Most of ’em, yeah. They want some product, if-you-know-what-I-mean.”
We nodded. We knew what he meant.
“Anyone else?” I said.
“Sure. First up a couple of guys I’m pretty certain were vice. You know, cool as shit, but still smelled like cop. Scared the bee-jee-zus out of me that they’d want to come in, but they weren’t interested in me. Then two sets of dudes who need to switch pharmaceuticals or their muscles will explode, like The Hulk.Ka-pow!” He clapped and then jiggled his hands in front of his chest.
I looked at Ally then back to The Kevster. The first ones were likely Lee’s men. The last ones were Wilcox’s boys.
“Two sets?” I asked.
“Yeah, one set, two guys came to the door, two sat in the car. Second set was only two.”
I had a gut feeling, so I described the shooters who started this whole fiasco, and he nodded.
“Yeah, man, that’s them. The set of four was steady, but the twosome was nervous-as-shit, looked like they needed sleep. Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t been to any of your parties. Rosie says your partiesrock. He says you have cashews and everything. I’ve never been to a party with cashews.”
Ally handed him a card. “If you see him or hear anything, let one of us know.”
“Wow! A Rock Chick Card. That’s the shit, man. Does, like, Axl Rose have one of these?”
“Not yet,” Ally said.
“Cool.” The Kevster nodded. “You wanna come in? I’m just about to slip inThe Big Lebowskiand light up a spliff. Would be cool to watch The Dude with a couple of Rock Chicks.”
I declined, though I wouldn’t mind watchingThe Big Lebowski. It was one of my favorite movies. So much so, it was a friend test. If you didn’t like The Dude andLebowskiyou could be a friend, but would never be a good friend. Ever.
