Chapter 17.
Ted’s room door opened – I was met by the love child of a Japanese Sumo wrestler and a Samoan cage fighter. His colossal arm blocked the doorway, while he held the door clamped in one of his shovel sized hands. His arms bore life-sized tattoos of dancing girls – like police outlines of women he’d devoured. His name was ‘Ochi’. Doolittle vetted me and the giant tattooed barrier was lowered. Ochi didn’t mince words. He looked like he was more used to mincing people. He didn’t need an introduction – he was terrifying.
“Harry meet Ochi and that’s Skynard,” Doolittle said, introducing me to The Toot Fairy’s other side-kick. Skynard, was tattooed road-kill stitched into a sleeveless t-shirt that read. ‘Only two things for sure – Death and Texas’. Thirty-five and going on sixty – a poster boy for anti-alcohol, drugs and sun damage, with a name that was conceived in the back of a 1970’s TransAm, in sweet home Alabama . He lifted his rusty looking face. His meth-ground yellow teeth greeted me.
“S’up Holmes?” he spat through his chipped snarl.
A small Filipina in silver toed cowboy boots with three inch heels clomped towards me.
“You’re number two? Correct?” he snapped.
“Number two?” I asked
Doolittle said, “You’re the second. Yes, he’s the second. He’s number two.”
The Toot Fairy stood between his two bodyguards. He stared me up and down.
“I’m Harry, I know Doolittle,” I said.
I offered the Hilton Hotel, shower cap of cocaine rubber eggs to the Toot Fairy.
“Give it to him. I have no desire to handle anything that just came out of your ass,” he lisped with disgust.
Skynard grabbed the shower hat of rubber pellets. He rushed them over to his shiny digital weighing scale. He stretched on a pair of surgical gloves and slid a short blade from a box cutter. He slit the outer membrane of the rubber package, holding the blade close to his thumb. He carefully peeled back the thin rubber until it snapped away.
The Toot Fairy, stood five-foot-two in his boots. His rib cage rested on a large turquoise belt buckle that yanked his jeans up, to falsetto levels. He parted his two heavies and clomped across the room with an intentional strutting sound.
“Where is number three?’ he demanded.
“I don’t know,” I said looking over to Ted. “What’s the latest with Betty, Ted?”
“I think she was in the bathroom the last time I checked on her.”
“When was the last time you spoke to her?”
“I haven’t actually spoken to her since she went to her room earlier. I did check on her after that and she was in the bathroom.”
“And you spoke to her? She spoke to you from the bathroom?”
“Well no, I didn’t hear from her but I assumed that when she didn’t answer she was in the bathroom taking care of business. Betty’s kinda shy like that. I didn’t want to interrupt her.”
“Ted, go and check on Betty,” I said.
Skynard continued slitting and peeling the cocaine packages. He tested tiny samples from each package with a hot electrode device. He took a tiny pinch of the white powder and placed it on a hot disc the size of a dime. As the green neon digits rose on the meter, his mouth stretched wider and wider into a content sneer. He emptied the packages into a stainless steel container, carefully scraping the residue from the rubber covers. He stole a rub of his gums, with a cocaine dusted finger, when the Toot Fairy wasn’t watching.
“It’s all good stuff so far boss,” he said lighting up a cigarette.
The Toot Fairy sat on the edge of the bedside locker and played on his IPhone.
“Take that fucking cigarette, out of your stupid mouth. I don’t want your stinking ash falling into my product. I’m not selling Hillbilly shit here,” he snapped at Skynard.
Skynard stubbed his cigarette out and shoved the butt behind his ear. Ochi looked like he was in deep meditation – two giant limbs were intertwined and rested on an undulating chest that bore the tattoo, ‘Don’t Fear God, Fear Me, I am the Messenger’. Doolittle sat next to a pile of broken plaster from Ted’s leg. He was nervously chewing the skin around his fingernails. Ted knocked on the door. Ochi held the door open enough for him to squeeze his worried face through.
“Harry can you come out. I need to talk to you.”
I looked to the Toot Fairy for permission to leave. He motioned for me to go with a shake of his phone. Ted rushed me towards Betty’s room. We crouched outside her room window and caught glimpses of Betty lying on her bed through a flapping closed curtain.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She’s just lying there on the bed. I tapped on the window but there was no answer,” he said.
I knocked on the window and called out her name. I moved to the door and banged hard on the wood. There was still no answer.
“We’ve gotta break it in,” I said.
“Is she going to be ok?” he asked.
“How the fuck do I know Ted? I’m afraid I left my doctors bag in Mexico,” I snapped. “She’s probably, be just out cold. One thing for sure, shitting out a kilo of coke, can take it out of you,” I said.
Ted broke his Blockbuster video rental card while attempting to slide the card between the door and the wooden frame.
“You’ve been watching too many movies. Stop fucking around,” I said. “Go find a piece of metal. Something that we can lever the door open with.”
I called to Betty again. Her silhouette didn’t move. A feeling of dread crept over me. I tried to force the door in with my shoulder. I could hear the dried wood in the door cracking. I tried calling to Betty again – to silence. Ted arrived back with a garden hoe.
“How’s that going to work?” I asked.
Ted snapped the wooden handle off the hoe and jammed the blade into the door jam. We both yanked the hoe blade and the door popped open.
“Not subtle but gets the job done,” I said.
We both rushed into her room. Ted shook her foot, holding his head back, waiting for a knee jerk reaction from a two-hundred-plus pound woman. I lifted her hand and shook it. I called her name.
“Harry she’s cold.”
I shook her. I called her name again. I slapped her face. Harder. Harder. She was as cold as stone. I couldn’t breathe.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What the fuck, Harry.”
Ted pushed me out of the way and attempted CPR. He cried her name as he assaulted her large chest, pressing down on her with all his weight. He spluttered air into her mouth and heaved on her ribcage, attempting to breathe life into her. Her final exhalation was Ted’s breath.
“Get off her you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. Call an ambulance,” I shouted.
Still straddled over her, he grabbed the phone – a frayed wire dangled, from an orphaned receiver. He leapt off of Betty.
“I’ll go get my cell phone,” he said.
He tumbled off the bed and ran out the door banging his head on the door jam. I knew she was dead – she was too cold for any possibility of revitalization. I lifted her head and cradled it in my arms. It felt heavy. I sobbed like a child. I had never cried like that in my life before, for anyone, or anything. It felt like a thousand blades slit through my consciousness – she was gone. I had caused the death of my best friend and life companion.