Free The Bottom by Howard Owen Page B

them when all evidence put him at the scene of the crime.
    Before she hung up, I asked Cindy if she’d like to have dinner with me sometime.
    “Maybe,” she said, then told me she had another call coming in. I have not yet climbed back high enough in Ms. Peroni’s esteem to trump an incoming call. Tomorrow is another day.
    The information I have that Marcus and Kate don’t possess came from Peachy Love. It probably will soon be in the public domain.
    After my interrupted phone call with Cindy, I decided to drop in on Peachy. Maybe I was feeling a little miffed about my failure to get back in Cindy’s good graces. Maybe––stop the presses––I was horny.
    Peachy was home. It was one of those things where you tell yourself, I don’t really want to be bad, and if Peachy is out somewhere, it’ll be a sign that I should take Mr. Johnson home.
    “Well,” she said when she opened the door, glancing both ways to make sure nobody in a police car was nearby, “you did decide to cross the tracks, didn’t you?”
    We had a good time. We always have a good time. If I were smart, I’d probably try to be more than an occasional lover. But Peachy seems to want it that way, too. She has a guy. He works for the police up in DC, and she says maybe one day they’ll move in together. I asked her once if she loved him. She hesitated too long before she answered. It seems sometimes like nobody is ever going to get married again. I have mentioned this, gently I thought, to Andi, who reminded me that, between us, we’ve been married three times, which probably is enough for right now.
    At any rate, my occasional night with Peachy has to end before the sun comes up. If somebody recognizes me doing the walk of shame away from the police flack’s house, Peachy might be out of a job.
    While we were lying there in the dark, both of us smoking in bed, she told me the thing I now know that Sax’s lawyers don’t.
    When the cops were perusing the photographer’s digital porn collection, a face stood out to one of them.
    “Turns out,” Peachy said, “it was the girl at the station.”
    “The Caldwell girl.”
    “Yep. There she was, her or her identical twin, wearing her birthday suit and smiling for the camera and sucking on a pacifier with a stuffed toy between her legs. Trying to look even younger, I guess.”
    Peachy didn’t have to remind me that I didn’t get that information from her. I thanked her profusely for it. I didn’t mention, for some reason, that I might be talking with Mr. Sax within a couple of hours after I left her warm and welcoming bed. No sense in telling everything.
    “Come back anytime,” she said as she turned off the porch light and I slipped out the door at four thirty. I said I would. I really meant it.
    MARCUS GREEN SHOWS up at 7:05. He’s dressed to the nines, as always. Marcus might sleep in a three-piece suit. He glances at my jeans and pullover sweater and remarks that it’s too bad I didn’t have time to dress.
    I advise him to screw himself.
    Kate looks lovely, even if you disregard the fact that she’s recently given birth. She might weigh less than she did before she got knocked up. Her jeans make a much better impression than mine and elicit no comment from Marcus.
    “So,” I ask them, “do you have to blindfold me first?”
    Marcus doesn’t answer, just walks toward his Yukon with us following.
    He heads down Franklin Street and around the capitol, and I deduce that we’re headed for the Bottom.
    It never looks that great in daylight, since many of its finer establishments closed only a few hours ago and won’t open again until the afternoon. The broken beer bottles glint in the morning sun like cheap costume jewelry.
    Marcus turns left, and we go one block up and two blocks over, finally stopping at one of the many old brick buildings that are being repurposed as overpriced housing. This one probably sat for twenty years before someone saw its potential as something other than