Free The Big Ugly by Jake Hinkson

PO—but she's not the sort of person you should be associating with now that you're out."
    "Thanks for the advice and thank you for the concern, Thaxter, but could you please just give me the fucking address?"
    I hadn't meant to snap at him, but he was starting to piss me off.
    He grumbled, but I heard him clacking on his computer.
    "537 Business Street. North Osotouy."
    "537 Business Street."
    "Yeah. North Osotouy."
    "Thanks, Thax."
    "Yeah. Bennett?"
    "Yeah."
    "Don't fuck me on this."
    * * *
    North Osotouy City spread out across the river. Business Street was a long road that ran from the baseball park to the big Phillips-Anderson Cookie Factory, which had been churning out cookies as long as I'd been alive. In between, there were some little shops and restaurants, but I didn't see any housing.
    I couldn't find 537 for a while. The numbers alternated odd and even across the street. So 537 should have been between 535 and 539. 535 Business was a black barbershop. 539 was a head shop that was closed for the day. No 537.
    I parked along the street and went into the barber shop.
    Four men of varying ages sat in chairs along the wall watching a football game on an old television on top of a filing cabinet. The barber was a tall, thin man with big eyes. He wasn't dressed like any barber I'd ever known—he wore a yellow silk shirt over a green T-shirt and baggy yellow jeans. He stopped what he was doing when I came in, but for that matter so did everyone else.
    "Hello," I said.
    With a nod he said, "Hello."
    "I was wondering if you could help me. I'm looking for 537 Business?"
    I couldn't help but glance at myself in the mirror that covered the entire wall over the barber's station. Ellie Bennett, hell of a gal.
    "How come you looking for it?" the barber asked. He didn't seem hostile, but he didn't seem in a hurry to answer my question, either.
    The men along the wall waited for my answer. No one seemed to care one way or the other, but no one was watching the game anymore, either.
    "I'm looking for Effervescence Jackson. I'm a friend of her's."
    The man in the barber's chair was a large, older guy with weary eyes. He turned around in the chair to look at the barber.
    The barber asked, "You ain't got her number? You can't call her?"
    "No."
    He thought about it. I glanced at myself in the mirror again. In my outfit I looked a little official.
    I said, "Me and Big F are friends. Really. She'll be happy to see me. I promise."
    He pointed his scissors at the ceiling. "537 up top. You go round back and up the stairs. She home."
    "Thanks," I said. I told the guy in the chair, "Looking good, sir. Gonna be a handsome cut."
    They all laughed at that, and I left.
    I went around back to a flight of unpainted, graying wooden steps that led up to a balcony with three doors. 537 was written on one door in magic marker. Beside the door was a short statue of a bulldog smoking a cigar.
    I knocked.
    Footsteps approached the door.
    A woman's voice barked, "Who dat?"
    I couldn't tell if it was her or not.
    "Big F? This is Ellie Bennett."
    A moment passed and then the door opened.
    The big in "Big F" was misleading. Actually, she was a trim woman a couple of inches shorter than me. The only thing big about her was her wide, full mouth. When she opened the door, she was already smiling.
    "Ellie Bennett! What you doing, woman?"
    "Thought I'd drop by. Is this a good time to visit?"
    "Yeah. Sure. Come on in."
    She opened the door wider, and I walked past her. A short hallway with a narrow closet door, a doorway into a kitchenette, then a den.
    The den was spacious and warm. Sunlight poked through the curtains over a large window on the far wall, throwing some rays across a cream-colored sectional sofa. Some magazines were fanned out across a glass-topped coffee table facing a flat screen television.
    "Cute place, Jack," I said over my shoulder.
    She followed me into the room. She wore gray yoga pants and a blue T-shirt with the neck cut