Chapter Three

With the money promised, they sat back down and I got some more stuff about the cute couple.  He a writer, she a dancer, they said.  There was some money out there - a parent, I figured.   And we went a little deeper into the ex: exactly where he was (Governor's Harbour, in a place called the Pink House), what he did other than take drugs (not much), who would be with him (at least one female and usually a couple of moocher buddies.)   Exchanged numbers, emails, etc. then I slid them out and on their way, back onto the hot streets of St. Louis, my dream city.

At this stage, a new gig, the first thing I do is go for a drive.

My home town is on the west bank of the Mississippi, the first bluff down from the Missouri, the first city in the West, settled by French, ruled by Spanish, slave-holding before the war but Union, under martial law, throughout.  A big, complicated place then, and now, spilling west all the way to St. Charles, where the Missouri loops down and then further west.

But when you drive east from St. Louis, across the Eads Bridge, into Illinois and through the ruin that is East St. Louis, down Route 3 past the chemical plants, suddenly you are in the country and you can think.

There won't be a legal answer here, at least not one with a sheriff on your side.  This will be self-help, a repo operation where you've got to be exquisite with the cargo.


The father's a junkie and strapped for cash.  But thinks he's a rich kid and acts that way.  Probably smart, lazy, entitled, selfish, lost.

The mother's got a bunch in her background.  Maybe a dancer, but no one's chorus girl, at least not any more.

Jamie seems like a straight-up guy.  Which means I have to be ultra-careful.  The sketchy ones are easy, you keep your guard up anyway.  The nice guy, he's the one who keeps a knife in his boot.