Flamingo Lane, page 15
Not that I know of.
Kershaw pauses. He has to be careful not to offend her, not to push her over the edge.
I’m sorry, Faye, but what does that mean, not that I know of.
It means I went to all kinds of places, she snaps. Immediately embarrassed by her outburst, she lowers her eyes and takes a deep breath to control her anger, her frustration, her mounting fear.
They kept moving me around, she resumes in a calmer voice. Sometimes I didn’t know where I was. Coulda been Juarez. Coulda been Tijuana.
I’m looking for the connections.
But you’re off track, Dave. You gotta understand something. Mestival has people everywhere. Everywhere. And not just in Mexico either. Guatemala, Belize, Honduras. Right here.
Here, as in Florida?
Florida, California, New York.
You know this for a fact.
New Orleans. LA. Wherever.
She’s lost her appetite but not her thirst. If she had her druthers, as her father used to say, she’d drink the heart right out of this perfectly awful afternoon. She feels Kershaw’s eyes on her as she drains the glass of wine.
He’s seen it before, every cop has. The glazed expression, flat affect, shock of disbelief giving way to despondency. Sometimes they checked out on you right before your eyes. I’m sorry, he tells the woman in the doorway, but your husband’s dead, ma’am. Your daughter. Your boy. Going through the motions, because she doesn’t know what else to do, the widow who refuses to admit that she’s a widow invites you into her house for a cup of coffee. Or gently, very gently, shuts the door in your face.
The Patti Belle bounces back into her line of sight, powering through the chop, through the lemon light that floods the water and the azure bands that continue to lengthen, slicing through the crowns of the palm trees out on Christopher Key.
What a difference an hour or two makes. The elderly gentleman standing in the screened lanai who waved at her that morning was holding, in his other hand, a book by Shelby Foote. Or a tumbler of aged whiskey. When she returned his wave, did it a spark a moment of happiness, a sudden memory of the afternoon he strolled through an apple orchard in southern Indiana with the first girl he ever loved?
Faye?
She’s smiling now, freefalling through that dark space that isn’t quite shock but isn’t quite not shock either. Limbo.
We need to talk about this, okay?
Fine. Talk.
In Mexico, in that village, did you and Chance ever, you know . . .
Have sex?
Yes.
No. He wanted to—believe me, he wanted to—but I didn’t think of him in those terms.
But he did, right? Think of you in those terms?
Oh yeah. He was all in. Head over heels.
Since Kershaw hasn’t touched his beer in the last five minutes, she picks up his glass and chugs it, then signals their waitress for another round.
Mindy?
Yeah, Mindy. Did he ever mention someone named Mindy?
She thinks about it for a minute. Then mutters, sarcastically, his first girlfriend. His famous first love.
When Faye excuses herself to go to the restroom, Kershaw pores over his notes, reviewing the day he just spent assembling a preliminary file on Albert Chance. Running the plates on the Monte Carlo and the credit card Chance used at the Gibson and discovering the discrepancies. Calling the detective out in Eugene. And finally talking with Dieter. At some point Patty Jones flounced into the precinct room, flopping down at the one desk she damn well knew he couldn’t help seeing when he glanced out his office door. Spinning slowly in the chair until she faced him, her knees drifted apart. Flustered, he had picked up the phone again and dialed the Gibson.
That receipt you mentioned the other day, Henry, the one from the Drury Inn. You didn’t happen to notice the town it was from did you?
Matter of fact I did. Let’s see now. Oh yes, here it is. That property’s in Terre Haute. On South Third Street.
Uh huh. South Third Street, Kershaw repeated, jotting it down.
Would you like a copy of it, detective?
A copy?
Of the receipt.
You made a copy of that too?
Dieter wasn’t buying it. Forget it, Dave, he said over the phone. I mean he may—well okay, he is—apparently following her, maybe even stalking her. But sent down there to kill her? There’s no way. He’s the wrong man for the job.
Why?
Because Albert Chance is a phony, a fake. He used to follow the Vietnam vets around that village like a puppy, lapping up their words. Especially Parrish. And pretty soon he developed one of those classic delusions of grandeur, this harebrained idea that he’d turn himself into some kind of mystical warrior, a Shaolin warrior. Said he was gonna wander the desert for forty days and nights, like Jesus. I mean that’s how he put it, okay? Like Jesus. Until he found The Way. That’s Way with a capital W. He’s a whack job, Dave, a loose wire. But a killer? I don’t think so.
We have reason to believe that he’s been working for Pablo Mestival.
As the seconds ticked away Kershaw waited, in no particular hurry, for Dieter’s response.
In what capacity?
Surveillance. Tailing rivals, enemies. Taking photos. Setting up blackmails. That kind of thing.
Okay, I can see that. He was a camera buff, and work like that would feed his fantasies. He could imagine he was James Bond. But that’s a long way from assassin, Dave. Besides, he was crazy about her, loony.
About Faye.
Yeah, Faye.
Kershaw consulted his notes.
He ever talk to you about someone named Mindy?
His girlfriend in Oregon? Yeah, sometimes.
Ever mention why they broke up?
He did. Apparently she was screwing around with other guys. With a lot of other guys.
Kershaw flipped to the next page in his notebook.
So there’s this detective out in Eugene, okay? I just got off the phone with him. He thinks Chance killed her.
Killed who?
Mindy.
Another long pause, the weight of Dieter’s silence again.
She’s dead?
Fell off a cliff on the Oregon coast a few years ago. Hiking with you know who.
Kershaw can almost see the stunned expression on the writer’s face.
Dieter? You still there?
Maybe I better come down.
No, that isn’t necessary. We’ve got this under control.
When Faye returns from the restroom, Kershaw assures her that it’s just a precaution.
But what about Dieter? What if he calls?
I already talked to him. This morning. I told him you and Sunny were gonna spend a few days out at the lake until this all blows over.
Blows over huh.
Listen, Faye, every cop in this town, and in a few neighboring ones too, are looking for that Monte Carlo. And sooner or later it’ll turn up. I just think it’s better for you to lay low until that happens.
While Faye packs, Kershaw walks out to the patio, remembering how Jack Maguire once told him that a cop can’t afford to become emotionally involved in a case. You have to keep your distance, Maguire cautioned. Because if you don’t, and it all goes wrong, you’ll blame yourself for the rest of your life. Isn’t that what happened to your dad?
I don’t know, Kershaw answered. He doesn’t talk about it.
Of course he doesn’t. They never do.
Maguire was right, of course, but it was already too late for that kind of detachment. The players have assumed their positions. The plot, real or imagined, has been set in motion. The game is on.
Maguire
Maguire looks terrible. Jowly, unshaven, the sleepless pouches under his eyes as dark as dried blood. While Kershaw fills him in on the details, the detective sergeant’s gaze drifts over to the family photo on his desk, Mabel and the two boys on the Chris Craft. There’s been talk of trouble at home.
Kershaw begins at the beginning, recounting how Dieter initially sketched in Faye Lindstrom’s recent history—her confinement and eventual escape from Quintana Roo—before asking Kershaw if he would stop by the house and introduce himself when she got into town.
To put her mind at ease, Maguire says.
Right.
If she had any questions or concerns, she’d have someone to call. That kind of thing.
Exactly.
Fine. So you went to the house and introduced yourself.
No, we met by accident. In front of Nirvana.
Maguire doesn’t reply. He looks bored, distracted, preoccupied. Beyond the closed door Kershaw hears a telephone ring in the precinct room and a muffled voice answer it. Sensing that he’s losing his boss’s attention, he skips ahead.
Cased the joint?
Kershaw shrugs, apologetically. His words, he says. Henry Gold’s words. He likes old movies.
Maguire shakes his head in bemusement. The day he was promoted to detective sergeant no one was particularly surprised, or even remotely resentful. Least of all Kershaw, who still considers Jack Maguire a friend, a mentor, and the finest cop he has ever worked with. Lately, though, Maguire’s marital issues have put a strain on their relationship. On a lot of Jack’s relationships.
You got nothin’, Dave.
Surprised and offended by Maguire’s brazen reproach, Kershaw waits a few beats, determined not to lose his cool.
Nothin’? Really?
Less than nothin’, Maguire insists, refusing to back down. Look, I’m not certain of the finer points of the law here, but I’m pretty sure Henry Gold stepped over some kind of legal line when he started casing, to use his word, that room.
Inadmissible. That’s what you’re sayin’, right? Inadmissible?
That’d be my guess. If there was an actual case here, that is. Which there isn’t. By the way, who gave you authority to put out an APB on that Monte Carlo?
Excuse me?
Maguire tilts his head back and looks up at the ceiling. Then he lifts a weary hand, conceding. Fine. Whatever. You wanna put out an APB, put out an APB. But I gotta tell ya, what you’ve given me so far doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
What about the gun, the .380?
Lots of folks carry guns, Dave. When you go on vacation, you carry a gun?
’Course I do. But I’m a cop.
Not when you’re on vacation.
Kershaw hesitates, trying to regain his footing. So what about the photo then? Why would he lie about Dieter? Why would he claim he doesn’t know him, never met him?
Maguire rubs his eyes, the weight of the world on his back. There was talk of trouble at home, Mabel hitting the bottle hard then slurring her way through certain social functions she was required, as the detective sergeant’s spouse, to attend.
We can’t bring a guy in just because he lied. Everyone lies. You know that.
That detective out in Oregon. Guy was adamant, Jack. Said there was no question in his mind that Albert Chance killed his girl-friend.
Then why didn’t they charge him? Why’d they rule it an accident?
’Cause there was no evidence, and no eyewitnesses. They didn’t have any choice.
Maguire glances up at the clock on the wall. Drums his fingers on the desk, impatient for Kershaw to leave. But Kershaw isn’t finished.
Cops that interviewed him right after the incident? Including that detective I talked to? Said he didn’t flinch. Not once.
So?
Gotta be a hard-ass to stay calm and collected like that right after your girlfriend tumbles off a fucking cliff.
Yeah well, there’s no law against bein’ a hard-ass. There was, we’d have to lock up half this town.
Spotting Betty through the office window, Maguire holds up his empty mug. According to the rumor mill, Maguire’s marital woes went beyond his wife’s drinking. Mabel and another man, other men. Seedy encounters in a cheap motel in Panama City. At one time their marriage had seemed rock solid, a template. What in the world, Kershaw wonders, went wrong?
What else you workin’ on these days, Dave?
Jessie Smith.
The missing witness?
Yeah.
What else?
That 7-11 thing. And Tommy Bouchard.
Bouchard? The biker?
Right.
When Betty brings in his coffee, Maguire takes a sip and cringes, burning his tongue. Bouchard, he spits. What a derelict.
No argument here.
You know what I think? I think a couple of those Angels from Oakland take that guy out they’d be doin’ us a favor. They’d be doin’ the whole world a favor.
So what are we sayin’, Jack? You want me to drop it?
What we’re sayin’, me, Maguire responds, mocking his Cajun protege, is that maybe you should take a couple days off. Hang out on that boat of yours. Do a little fishin’.
Kick back.
Exactly. Kick back with your lady friend out there. I’m sure she’d feel better if someone was with her.
I’m sure she would.
Maguire’s gaze floats over to the family photo again. Better days, the boys still at home, Mabel happy. Then he turns back to Kershaw with a weak smile, signaling a truce.
Look, you keep your eye on Faye Lindstrom and I’ll dig around a little bit on my end, all right? See what I can find. But I’m tellin’ you, Dave, I gotta have something more substantial than what you’ve given me so far to commit any more resources to this.
Maguire’s tired eyes follow Kershaw as he shuffles toward the door. Mr. Gold, he mutters darkly. The guy with the most, how should I put it, active imagination in town? This is your source, right? Oh excuse me, I forgot, you have two sources, Mr. Gold and our friend Dieter. A snoop who watches too many old movies and a guy that gets paid to make shit up.
Kershaw starts to respond but Maguire, switching his attention to an open file on his desk, waves an impatient hand, shooing away a fly.
Go catch some specks, you. I got work to do.
Maggie
They drove into Bloomington to see a dark, artsy movie called Shoot the Moon because the film’s screenwriter, Bo Goldman, Dieter claimed, was one of the few writers in Hollywood who knew what he was doing. Unsurprisingly the movie was indeed well written, for Maggie’s taste too well written. A bleak, brutal meditation on the collapse of a marriage, it trained an unflinching camera on the wounds husbands and wives inflict on each other over time. The husband, played by Albert Finney, is a successful writer, and as Maggie sat in the dark watching the depressing images swim across the screen, she wondered why Dieter had chosen this, of all movies, to take her to. Was he trying to tell her something? Was that final devastating scene, when the writer, in anguish, calls out his wife’s name, meant to represent Dieter’s plea to her to help him mend their crippled marriage?
After the movie they went to Nick’s English Hut, a campus institution, for a beer and a bite to eat. The booths were dark, the beer Belgian, the burgers grilled to perfection.
You can’t make it up, Dieter said.
Can’t make what up?
It’s one of those things we used to say down there, you know? You can’t make it up. Someone would start to juggle some tangerines or Dennis Hopper would stroll into the Yucatan Café and we’d all look at each other. And someone would say, you can’t make it up.
Maggie severed a french fry with her front teeth. She had the impression that this seemingly random remark, like so many of the seemingly random narrative threads in Dieter’s books, was leading somewhere specific. True to form, he told her about Kershaw’s phone call.
Who’s Chance?
Guy I used to know, we all used to know, down in Mexico.
And Dave Kershaw thinks he followed Faye to Crooked River?
Yep.
I see. So what about you? Is that what you think?
I don’t know what I think. I haven’t got a clue.
Maggie chewed another french fry, pensive now.
Was that true by the way?
Was what true?
That Dennis Hopper walked in? Just like that? I mean you’re all sitting around that bar or cantina or whatever you call it down there and Dennis Hopper walks in?
What can I tell ya, Dieter said with a shrug. You can’t make it up.
But of course you can, Maggie thought. And you do.
Years later, when she reads Flamingo Lane, she realizes that the evening they went to see Shoot the Moon was the evening Dieter’s literary dream finally came true, the evening fiction and real life merged into one cohesive narrative pattern and the book he was working on more or less finished itself. The same evening, it turns out, that Chance, who had tailed Kershaw and Faye out to Lake Baylor and established that she was going to be staying, at least for the time being, at the cop’s house, drove back out to the fish camp on the Wakulla River. He planned to spend one final night there, retrieve his belongings, and pick up the rifle Harvey Bellum, after a perfunctory phone call on a private line, had secured for him. Deer rifle, Bellum confirmed. 30-06. With a scope. That do the job?
The next morning Ellis, the guy who owned the fish camp, walked out to the Mirada as Chance was shoving his duffel into the trunk. Neither his appearance—stringy black hair, unkempt beard, dungarees stained with oil—nor his manner were reassuring. He told Chance to pull around back.
The room behind the front office was in shambles: newspapers scattered across the floor, ratty curtains hanging limp from a broken rod, surly pit bull lying in the shadows watching Chance’s every move. Ellis reached under the bed and retrieved the deer rifle, which was wrapped in brown paper. He handed it to Chance and led him back outside.
You don’t know me, he growled as Chance reopened the Mirada’s trunk. Anything happens, you don’t know me. Never seen me. Never stayed at this camp.
Dieter put down his burger and took a sip of beer.
The guy in the movie, he said, the writer?
Yeah?
Not exactly a flattering portrait.
