The Incredible League of Goth Pizza Haters (RH)

Part 72

---Ricky---
The morning came like a fist upon my skull. After consciousness came I lay in bed for a while longer, pillow over my head as I waited for the aches to leave. They didn't and I wanted to take some aspirin, and maybe something else to help me get more sleep because I still felt so fucking tired.

Twenty minutes passed. An hour. I fell back asleep and woke up thirty minutes later to someone clawing on the side of the mattress. I wanted to throw a pillow and curse at Wally or Dex but I figured it was for the best. It was around eleven in the morning and I finally hauled my ass out of bed and to the bathroom for an over the counter painkiller.

Afterwards, I went back into the bedroom, pulling the blinds closed and laying down in the dark. Mena's shift ended at one-thirty. I should get a shower and something to eat. Drink water.

I sighed and headed back into the bathroom. Maybe I'd feel better after a hot shower.

***

There was a knock at the door as I was sitting in the living room eating strawberries. I took another sip of water and got up to answer it. I knew who it was, of course. Mena looked at me with tired but alert eyes.

"Ready?"

"Yeah." We started from the top of the list with her mother's house. The only one home was her brother, Nick, who let us in and stood with an apathetic expression as we checked her old room for any evidence of where she might be. There was nothing. We even checked the shed.

Then we stopped by the park near her mother's house, because it was the next closest thing. It was definitely a long shot and she wasn't there as we drove by.

Next came her old apartment building. We stopped outside but after speaking to the landlord he informed us he hadn't seen her, and that her old apartment had already been rented off to someone else.

Devil's Den. Mena and I decided to split up with our cars then. She would drive down there while I would check all the nearby hotels. The process was long and slow and only resulted in a heavy hopelessness that seemed to descend upon me with every sympathetic look, sad shake of the head and shoot down. Mena and I met up back at the house and decided to go to the city and to stop by Philip's club because it was on the way.

We parked in the lot of the Taco Bell, I was a bit confused until Mena explained it to me.

"It's what Via always did," she said, looking amongst the other cars in the lot, "To keep people from knowing she was at a club." I nodded. We inspected every car there but her's wasn't among them. We walked the block and a half to the club and knocked on the door. This was definitely before club hours but he had to be here, right? Someone had to be here.

We knocked on the door again, harder and heard footsteps.

A deep voice yelled out, "GO AWAY." We flinched but neither of us moved. Mena called out.

"We just need to ask you some questions!"

"I don't want to answer your fucking questions." the deep voice rumbled, now directly behind the door. Mena and I looked at each other. I had had a brief meeting with the owner of this building during Via's band's last show.. This did not sound like the voice of that lonely drunk. Yet, Mena didn't hold back.

"Listen, we need to speak to the owner of the building, Philip... Philip something. I know he owns this club and we need to talk." He said nothing, but she didn't take silence as a reply, "Okay, you can open the door now and we can talk. Or you can open the door a little later and talk to the police. And they don't give a fuck about whether or not you're in the mood to play Twenty Questions."

More silence, and then locks being opened. The man who opened the door was heavy set but not chubby, at least six-three and stared down at us with hard black eyes. He had a receding hairline and was dressed casually. There was a large medical bandage over his neck. He didn't smell of booze and definitely wasn't who we were hoping to speak to.

"I-Is Philip here?" Mena inquired. There was a slight twitch on the left side of his lip but his expression remained stone.

"No."

"Where is he? We need to speak to him about one of his clients... It's a missing person's case. It's serious." Mena said. His face twitched again.

"Philip's not here. I watch the building before and after hours. I'll make sure to tell him you stopped by." he moved to close the door but Mena placed her foot in the way.

"Wait!" he shot her a glare and she went on, "If you see her.. She's got white hair. 5'4 and wears a lot of black.. She.." he moved her foot from the doorway and closed it. We stepped back and I could see the stress building on her face.

"Hey," I murmured because I could tell how shitty she was feeling, "It's alright. We'll come back aft-,"

"Let's just go to the car." she walked away, sniffing from either the chilly air or maybe tears.

The last thing on our list was a shot in the dark, but the night was settling anyway. The streets weren't so crowded anymore, and we looked through the scattered people on the sidewalk and in the glass windows of restaurants. The warm lights of the town seemed to dim and grow cold. We drove deep into the night, eyes searching faces and benches and falling lost in all the city lights.