Gin Palace 01 - The Poisoned Rose

and a narrow, bony face. His smile was pleasant despite his yellowed teeth and shockingly pink gums. His face was unshaven, his bristles white and as thick as quills.
    We weren’t friends, really. We didn’t frequent the same places, we didn’t go out of our way to see each other or even say hello. But we knew each other. He was, being a cabbie, sometimes privy to things no one else knew. Sometimes he made a point of seeking me out and telling me things he thought I, for one reason or another, should know.
    So I knew by the fact that Eddie drove by my place and stopped that something was going down. My heart raced a little.
    “What’s up, Eddie?”
    His white bloodshot eyes were stark against his dark skin. His face was wrinkled, with deep furrows by his eyes and mouth. Between his teeth, sticking out from the right side of his mouth, was the stub of a cigar, unlit.
    “That little girl, that daughter of your friend, I saw her not long ago in town.” Eddie knew pretty much everyone on the East End. He had driven Augie home from my place several times when Augie was too gassed to drive. Augie had even used Eddie’s cab once during a surveillance job for Frank, and paid Eddie well for it.
    “Augie’s kid?”
    “Yeah, that’s her.”
    “What’s going on?”
    “I think she could use a friend right now.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “She was with some boys. High school, by the letterman jackets they were wearing.”
    “Where?”
    “By the library.”
    “Is she in trouble?”
    “Let’s just say the odds don’t seem in her favor, if you know what I mean.”
    I nodded and looked in the direction of the village. The library was a mile away; I didn’t know what I expected to see.
    I looked back at Eddie. “I’ll check it out. Thanks.”
    “No problem, Mac.”
    My LeMans was parked just a little ways down on the same side of the street. I took a step toward it, then stopped. I turned back to Eddie. “Hey, you haven’t by any chance seen Augie recently, have you?”
    “No. Can’t find him?”
    “It’s probably nothing. If you see him, though, let me know, okay?”
    “I’ll keep an eye out for him. A man like him would be hard to miss.”
    I thanked Eddie and continued on to my car. His cab pulled away from the curb as I unlocked my door. I climbed in behind the wheel and pulled the door shut, then cranked the ignition till the engine caught and shifted into gear and pulled into the street. I made a U-turn, turned left at the end of Elm Street onto Railroad Plaza, and then made the left onto North Main Street and followed that for a half mile into the village, heading toward the library.
    It was a quiet night in town. The shops were closed, the sidewalks empty. The restaurants I passed weren’t all that busy. Unoccupied tables and wait staff with nothing to do were visible behind large storefront windows. The library was around the corner, on Job’s Lane, but I parked near the end of Main, close to the corner. I could cut around to the back of the Village Hall and approach the library that way and not be seen on the street by anyone.
    My shortcut to the back of town was the alleyway that ran between Frank’s office and Village Hall. I hadn’t even walked past Frank’s place since the night I trashed it and Augie had to pull me out and take me home. The front window to Frank’s office was dark now, but I still didn’t like being so near it all that much. The sooner I was away from there the better.
    I got out of my car and stepped to the curb and listened. It didn’t take long for me to pick out the sound of laughter coming from somewhere behind the Village Hall. It sounded distant and thin, and I went after it, walking down the alleyway to the small parking lot used by cops. Once there I heard something other than laughter.
    A shriek sounded out and carried briefly, then was cut off, gone.
    I tried to place it but it was too brief. Beyond the cop lot was a municipal parking lot the size of two football fields. It was empty now. To the right of that, behind the library, was a small park surrounded by a cluster of fir trees and a cyclone fence. It was a tiny park, not much bigger than my apartment. But I looked toward it intently and waited. It was the only enclosed area around, and anyway I had a feeling about it.
    I stopped just outside the alleyway and held still and listened. The shriek had been such a brief sound that a part of me doubted now that I had heard it. But there also was a