Leave Her Hanging: A Noir Thriller

Chapter Ten

Raj held out the photo he’d printed off from Facebook. “That’s your guy. His name’s Malcolm Barker.”

I sat down on the fence next to him and took the photo. Students were piling out onto the field, sitting in small groups while they ate their lunch, but Raj and I were off on our own, near the bike racks again.

I studied the pixelated image of the guy Raj said Ella had been going out with. He was a good-looking guy in that traditional square-jawed, shirt and tie, five o’clock stubble kind of way. Short dark hair, eyebrows that looked like they’d been shaped by Michaelangelo himself. I disliked him on principle.

“Smarmy looking bastard, ain’t he?” Raj said as he peered over my shoulder.

“You got an address?” I asked.

Raj shook his head. “He’s a bit of a shadow. He’s got more than his fair share of friends, but he likes his privacy. If you want I can probably dig up a phone number, but I take it you want a face-to-face with him.”

“Yeah. I want to see his eyes when I’m talking to him.” I glanced at Raj. “You’re not going to tell me what a bad idea this is again, are you?”

He grinned. “You know it’s a bad idea. But there’s nothing I can say to change your mind, is there?”

“No.”

“Then I might as well tell you where you can find our friend. You know Longhouse on Ponsonby Road? Word is our buddy Malcolm goes there for a couple of drinks most Friday nights. Gets there around eleven or twelve. Meets up with some friends, hangs out, whatever.”

I rubbed my jaw. “Longhouse, huh? They have bouncers?”

Raj nodded. “It’s a pretty nice place. Careful about their ID checks. You’re still seventeen, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Got an ID?”

I shook my head.

“Sneaking in will be tough,” he said. “Maybe you could hang around outside, hope you catch him before he gets in a taxi or you get picked up for loitering. Or…” He spread his hands.

“Or what?”

“Or maybe I know a guy who knows a guy who knows how to make a pretty passable fake ID.”

I sighed. “How much this time?”

“You want it by tomorrow night?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, considering it’s a rush job, I expect it’ll run you about four hundie.”

“Jesus Christ, Raj. Where the hell am I supposed to get four hundred bucks?”

“It’s called a job,” he said. “You haven’t got savings? You’re gonna be out of school in a year. You gotta start treating money more responsibly, bro.”

“Piss off.” I’d had a part-time job before everything went bad, just stock room bullshit at the Warehouse. But that was gone now, along with everything else.

“So can you get the money?”

I put my head in my hands. Sure, I could get it. It’d mean doing things I didn’t want to do, but I could get it. And I didn’t have a choice. Time was ticking away, every second giving Ella’s killer time to cover his tracks. I needed to follow the trail. And I wasn’t going to have a better chance than this to corner this dimple-chinned son of a bitch and see what he knew.

“Yeah,” I said. “I can get the money.”

“Meet me back here after school tomorrow. Don’t worry about a photo, my guy will pull one off the school records.” He reached out and patted my cheek. “Pity you’re so baby-faced, eh?”