Free West Seattle Blues by Chris Nickson Page B

want, I’ll go and talk to her. But that’s all I’ll do.” I’d help, at least a little, but I was going to be the one to make the rules. And none of them would put me in danger. Visiting Jim’s mom was going to be safe enough.
    “Sure,” he replied after a while. I could hear the narcotic fog in the word.
    “You have her number?”
    “I can get it from Jim.”
    “Do that and I’ll go talk to her.”
    “What about the other guys? The names I got?”
    “No, Carson,” I said firmly. “I’ll do this for you but that’s all. If you want to talk to them, you’ll have to do it yourself.”
    “I would but…”
    “Yeah, I know. Your leg. Then it’s just going to have to wait until you can get up and around again.”
    “Okay.” He sounded sullen, as if he was pouting.
    “Look, if you don’t want me doing this, I won’t.”
    “No, that’d be good. I’m sorry.”
    “I could at least find out more for you. Find out what he was like. She probably knew him as well as anyone.”
    “Yeah,” he agreed. “Listen…”
    “What?”
    “Can I just give you the names of these guys?”
    “Why?” I was instantly suspicious.
    “Just in case…I don’t know, in case something happens.”
    I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “For God’s sake, it’s just a flesh wound, Carson, you told me that yourself.”
    “I know.”
    “You just want to give me these names and hope I’ll change my mind.” He was silent for so long that I knew I’d hit it spot on. I sighed. “Look, if you want to give me the names, go ahead, if it really makes you feel better. I’ll keep them somewhere, in case you get amnesia or something.”
    “There’s Kyle Adams,” he began. “And the other one’s called Rick Deal.” He paused as I sucked in air. “What?”
    “Do you have an address for him?” I asked. I’d been knocked back to hear the name.
    “I don’t know. Why?”
    “I know someone with that name. Used to, anyway.”
    “Are you sure?”
    I was certain. I’d seen Rick Deal around Seattle for years. He’d been there in the early punk days of the Gorilla Room at the start of the Eighties, then in the clubs that sprang up and melted away overnight around Pioneer Square in the middle of the decade. He’d even sung in a few hardcore bands, channeling his inner Henry Rollins, but none of them stayed together more than a few gigs.
    The last time I’d seen him had been two years before. Dustin and I had gone to a show at the Crocodile, down at Second and Battery. Rick had been on the door, checking IDs and looking bigger and even more muscled than I remembered, like he’d taken to working out regularly. He’d nodded at me and stamped my wrist, but that was it. No ‘hi, how you doing,’ or anything like that. Three months later I heard he’d been fired, and ended up in court because he’d beaten up on someone at a club.
    “Could be a coincidence.”
    “Maybe.” I doubted it, though. Someone told me Rick had once done some jail time. I could imagine him knowing Carson’s son. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’m going to see him, right?”
    “Right,” he agreed reluctantly.
    “You get that number for me and I’ll take care of the rest.”
    He called back in less than fifteen minutes.
    “I talked to Jim. Her name’s Angela Donald these days. She’s off today and says you can go around anytime this afternoon.” He passed on the address.
    The woman lived in an apartment on North East Eleventh, off 155 th North East. It took me half an hour to find the place, after becoming confused by the way streets were laid out in Bellevue; it seemed there was no logic to it. Even though I’d grown up in Seattle, I rarely took the floating bridge across Lake Washington. I’d never felt the need. Just like Mercer Island, which sat smack in the middle of the water, the East side was where the rich lived, a world far removed from the one I inhabited.
    I found a space in the parking lot in front of the