Bleeders, page 14
part #27 of Nameless Detective Series
Kerry’s voice echoed in my mind. You can’t keep on doing the things you did twenty or thirty years ago.... The hunter, always the hunter.... Can’t you understand I need you, Emily needs you—alive safe?
And Ben Duryea’s. Christ, some days. I’m getting too old for this job.... My problem is, I never learned how to relax. Maybe guys like us can learn, though.
And mine to Duryea: Maybe we can. And mine to Kerry: Maybe you’re right.
Maybe, maybe, maybe....
Ten o’clock. Cars rolled into the lot, faces appeared and then disappeared inside the Alamo. A parade of unknowns. A wasteland of strangers.
Ten-thirty.
Ten-forty.
And another car entered the lot, this one moving a little too fast so that its tires squealed on the turn and when the driver braked on the blacktop. I watched its lights swing away from where I was, loop around to the side, and then come back again. Looking for a parking space, finally finding one in the row behind me. The driver hopped out, passed alone between two cars twenty yards to my left—into the garish light from the neon and one of the floodlights.
Charlie Bright.
Tall, thin, red-haired, wearing a Western-style shirt and Levi’s and sharp-toed cowboy boots. Unmistakably Charlie Bright.
He was in a hurry, almost running. Man with a purpose, heading straight for the club entrance. Briefly I thought about going in after him, but it would have been a mistake; too many people in there, too much chance of him either making trouble or disappearing on me. Wiser to wait out here, brace him when he returned to his car ... no matter how long it took.
Didn’t take long at all, as it turned out. Less than ten minutes. And there he was coming through the club entrance, still in a hurry, moving on a line toward where his car was parked. But I didn’t get out and brace him as I’d planned because he was no longer alone.
The guy with him had a fireplug build, wore a black hat and a fringed suede jacket. He moved at an almost leisurely pace, forcing Bright to lag back to keep from outdistancing him. When they passed parallel to me, I heard Bright say in an agitated Texas drawl, “Come on, man, let’s don’t take all night,” and the fireplug answer, “Stay loose, will you,” and Bright again, fading, “ ... told you, I got to have....”
I adjusted the rearview mirror, couldn’t see them, and put the window down and fiddled with the side mirror until I picked them up in the shadows alongside Bright’s wheels. Two blobs doing something that I couldn’t make out, but it did not take much imagination to figure what it was. Drug deal, money and methamphetamines or some other controlled substance changing hands. From the snatch of dialogue I’d overheard, it seemed Bright was the buyer.
I started the engine, put on the lights, crawled out of the space and around toward the street exit. From the edge of the row where Bright was parked I could see that the two of them had finished their transaction; the fireplug was backtracking to the club and Bright was getting into his car. I stayed put, idling, a wait of no more than five seconds. He fast-backed out of the space, came flying past me and aimed for El Camino when he cleared the lot.
The red light there slowed him up, gave me time to roll close behind and get a good look at what he was driving. Ford Taurus, light-colored, newish. The license plate was dirt-smeared, and in the uncertain light I couldn’t tell if one of the numerals was a three or an eight. The light changed; he was off again, not quite jumping it, into a left on El Camino.
I repeated the Ford’s plate number aloud half a dozen times, committing it to memory with both a three and an eight in sequence. Half a mile north, another red light caught Bright, but an SUV slid in behind him before I could get there. I drew up alongside him, going slow. The angle was wrong for a clear reading of the Ford’s plate.
He led me straight up El Camino through San Carlos. Still driving fast, but not recklessly—not with drugs in the car. Red light again at the San Mateo line; I couldn’t maneuver in behind him there, either. I hung back in his lane this time: changing lanes and speeds is an effective way to keep a subject from spotting a tail.
A few streets beyond the Hillsdale Shopping Center, Bright made a sudden sharp left turn without either slowing or signaling. The move caught me fifty yards back; and I had to wait for a couple of sets of oncoming headlights to clear before I could swing after him. He was two blocks away by then. As I accelerated, the Ford’s taillights flashed and he went sliding around another corner, pointing north once more.
When I got there and started my turn I saw him again—making an illegal U-turn in the middle of the street. My first thought was that he’d spotted me after all, was going to try some crazy stunt to elude me or force a confrontation. But that wasn’t it. A parking place was what he was after, in front of a four-story apartment complex that took up the entire east side of the block.
Along the west side was a solid line of parked cars; there was nothing I could do but keep on going, past where Bright was now jockeying the Ford into the space—the only damn space on the entire block. I had to go all the way to the next corner before I could pull off, and at that I had to park illegally in front of a fire hydrant.
On foot I cut across the street, not quite running. When I came onto the sidewalk I could see Bright leave the Ford, head up the front walk to the apartment building’s main entrance. Seconds later he was gone inside. By the time I got there, there was no sign of him in the lighted lobby.
The banks of aluminum mailboxes lining both vestibule walls totaled twenty-four on each—forty-eight apartments. All but two of the name slots were filled, and none of the names was Bright. Living in one of the unmarked apartments, or living here under another name, or visiting one of the tenants, or holed up with one of the tenants. And I had no good way of immediately finding out which. You can’t start ringing door buzzers at eleven o’clock at night and expect to get cooperative responses.
I went back down to the curb and found the Ford Taurus. The street was empty; I tried both doors. Locked. Naturally. Even screwed-up parole violators locked their cars nowadays. At the rear I squatted to check the license plate. The one numeral in question was an eight.
Bright’s car? Or somebody else’s that he’d borrowed? Unless I wanted to hang around for another, almost certainly futile stakeout, I’d have to wait until tomorrow for the answer. And to find out what, if anything, Charlie Bright knew about the bald man.
Tomorrow was soon enough, I decided. I’d waited this long; I could wait a few hours longer.
A Department of Motor Vehicles check used to be a simple proposition. The names and addresses of California’s registered vehicle owners were a matter of public record and could be accessed by anyone. That all changed some years ago when a TV actress was murdered by a stalker who’d gotten her address through the DMV. The new antistalking laws, which included the sealing of DMV records to the general public, are necessary and laudable, and I wouldn’t have them any other way, but they do make my job more difficult. Even with Tamara and her computer skills and a cultivated DMV contact, it takes a while for a detective agency to get a plate number run and the particulars on its owner.
I sat in the office, fidgeting, waiting for Tamara to lay the necessary groundwork. It was one of those cold, gray, bleak mornings that give vent to indecision and self-doubt. The fact that I was tired and headachey after a dream-plagued night didn’t help matters any. I kept wondering if I’d have been better off going straight to San Mateo and staking out the apartment complex and the Ford Taurus; calling Tamara for the DMV check instead of coming here to the office. What if Bright was gone when I finally did get there? What if the name of the Ford’s owner didn’t match any of the building’s tenants? What if, what if.
I called Eastside Meat Packers, to find out if Bright had gone to work today. Negative. This time he hadn’t even bothered to call in and it had cost him his job. So if what I’d witnessed last night was in fact a drug buy, it could be that Bright was too stoned or strung out today to drive to Emeryville, which in turn made it likely that he was still somewhere in that San Mateo apartment complex. The thought made me feel a little more positive.
As I watched Tamara at her Mac computer, it occurred to me that if I wasn’t so damn stubborn and technophobic and rooted in the old ways, and had learned computer skills myself long ago, I could run DMV checks myself instead of having to rely on her all the time. I could be sitting down there in San Mateo with a laptop doing two things at once, not killing time but making good use of it. Too late for this old dog to learn new tricks? Probably, given my disposition and temperament. The world wasn’t mine any longer; it belonged to Tamara and her generation. And that included the detective business ... her business now as much as mine. Why not step aside then, let her take it all the way into the twenty-first century? She was fully capable of making it grow and prosper in the new millenium as I never could.
I was brooding on that when she said, “Got it. Want me to print it out for you?”
“No. Just read it off.”
“Ford’s registered to Kirsten Sabat, S-a-b-a-t, nineteen-o-nine Third Avenue, San Mateo.”
Nineteen-o-nine Third Avenue was the address of the apartment complex. I worked my memory, but I couldn’t recall if Kirsten Sabat had been one of the names on the mailboxes. Too many names, too late at night, and I’d been too focused on Charlie Bright.
Tamara asked, “Want me to run a driver’s license and employment check on her?”
“Might as well.” I was already on my feet, shrugging into my overcoat. “But it’s low prority. Dingo, Jackie Spoons, Annette Byers’ background first.”
“Right. I should have something pretty soon on the father of her bastard kid. You going to San Mateo?’
I nodded. “Keep me updated.”
“You do the same, hear?”
Tamara called sooner than expected, and not for the reason she’d indicated. I was still in the city, just climbing the entrance ramp to 101 South near the city’s best new construction in years, Pac Bell Park, when the car phone buzzed.
She said, “Man just called for you. Nick Kinsella.”
“About time. What’d he say?”
“Wants to see you. Said he’s got something for you.”
“Tell you what it is?”
“Wouldn’t say.”
“Where is he? Blacklight Tavern?”
“Yup.”
“Change of plans then,” I said. “The Blacklight and Kinsella first, then San Mateo.”
SIXTEEN
“MAN, YOU’RE IN SOME BIG HURRY,” KINSELLA said. “I figure it can’t be more than ten minutes since I talked to the girl in your office. What’d you do, fly over here?”
“I was in the neighborhood. What’ve you got for me, Nick?”
“Dingo, that’s what I got.”
“What about Dingo?”
He made his chair creak and groan, leaning back. His desk was strewn with more food remains—Chinese takeout, probably from the previous night—and the butts and ashes from a couple of dozen dead black stogies. The air in his office was dead, too, murdered by tobacco smoke laden with carcinogens. We were the only two people in there trying to breathe it this morning.
He tore the wrapper off another stogie, bit off one crooked end, fired it with a gold-and-platinum lighter. Taking his time, enjoying himself. That was Kinsella: fat, sloppy, corrupt, with a flair for the dramatic and a vicious streak on the one hand, a tempering one of generosity toward people he liked on the other. I didn’t prod him. When you dealt with Kinsella, you played down on his level, according to his rules, or you didn’t play at all.
“Ah,” he said when he had the stogie drawing to his satisfaction. “Nothing like a good cigar. ’A woman’s just a woman, but a good cigar’s a smoke.’ Who was it said that?”
“I’m not sure. Kipling, maybe.”
“Who’s Kipling?”
“Long-dead British writer.”
“Yeah, a limey. Figures.” He made the chair creak and groan again. “So like I said, Dingo.”
I waited.
“I figure maybe he’s your shooter,” Kinsella said.
I could feel myself go tight, inside and out, all at once. “Bald? Bushy eyebrows? In his forties?”
“So I hear.”
“Who is he?”
“Nobody much. One of these shit-for-brains guys, apes walking around on two legs. Like Bluto, you remember Bluto from the other night? Big guys, tough, but zombies from the neck up.”
“What’s his real name?”
“That I don’t have. Nobody seems to know.”
“His connection to Jackie Spoons?”
“Word is he worked for Jackie awhile,” Kinsella said, “about a year ago. They had some hassle over money—Jackie figured Dingo screwed up on a collection, tried to hold out a little for himself. Beat the crap out of him, busted his leg. What I told you, he’s crazy. Jackie, I mean.”
“Where can I find Dingo?”
“You figure I’m right, he’s the guy almost put you in a pine box?”
I said between my teeth, “I’ll know that when I see him.”
“You figure on putting him in a pine box?”
“Where, Nick?”
“Beats me. Beats everybody I talked to.”
“Who knows him besides Jackie?”
“Nobody knows him, me included. He’s what you call your mystery man.”
“Maybe Jackie knows where he is.”
“Uh-uh. He ain’t had nothing to do with Dingo since the hassle; he can’t help you. Stay away from him, you know what’s good for you. That’s from him as well as me.”
“Is Dingo a crankhead?”
“What you think? He worked for Jackie, even Jackie uses what he peddles.” Kinsella shook his head. “Drugs, they’re for the apes and the schmucks and the losers. You got to keep a clear head, you want to climb up on top and stay there. No drugs, no booze. No broads, either, except once in a while. Just a lot of good cigars.”
“Anything else you can tell me?”
He shrugged, blew smoke at me, shrugged again. “You got your favor, my friend,” he said. “You got all I got. Like they say, now the ball’s in your court.”
The Ford Taurus was no longer parked in front of the San Mateo apartment complex. Nor anywhere else in the vicinity; I drove around two full blocks to make sure the car hadn’t been moved to another spot.
It bothered me a little, but not as much as it would have before I talked to Kinsella. I found a place to put my car and went to have another look at the mailboxes in the building’s vestibule. Kirsten Sabat—Apt. 411. That was something, anyway.
I was about to ring the bell when two young women wearing flight attendants’ outfits and dragging wheeled suitcases emerged from the elevator inside. San Francisco International was not that far from here; a lot of the apartments were probably occupied by airline personnel. These two were in a hurry. They came out through the entrance doors without a glance my way or a backward look as they clattered down the steps. Sometimes problems get solved before they develop, and this was one of them. I caught the door before it shut and slipped inside with the same straight-ahead purpose, as if I belonged there as much as the stewardesses.
The elevator deposited me on the fourth floor. Number 411 was an inside unit, no doubt facing on an inner courtyard: the complex was built in a massive enclosed rectangle. There was a bell push and one of those one-way magnifying peepholes; I laid my thumb on the button, kept it there for three or four seconds with my face arranged into a hopeful salesman’s smile. I needn’t have bothered. That ring and two others brought no response.
The door had two locks-push-button snap variety on the knob, a deadbolt above. I rotated the knob, pushed and pulled just enough to tell that the deadbolt was off. Another problem solved in embryo. Snap locks are an open invitation; a preteen can loid one with a little knowledge and a little patience. I got out a credit card, made sure I had the hall to myself, and went to work. It took about four minutes to get the plastic positioned just right to snick the bolt free. Just like on TV, only not as fast.
The apartment was a mess. At first glance it appeared to have been ransacked, but sunlight streaming in through the open drapes showed me that the clutter was cumulative—a slob’s paradise of male and female clothing, disarranged furniture, dirty dishes, overflowing ashtrays, and general disorder. The acrid scent of marijuana flavored the air; half the butts in the one ashtray I glanced at were dead roaches. There was also what looked to be a rock of methamphetamine, at least two grams. Charlie Bright and Kirstan Sabat: soulmates.
I made my way through the obstacle course to have a look at the other rooms. The kitchen invited ants, rodents, and a case of disinfectant. A short hallway gave access to a bathroom on one side, a bedroom on the other. The bedroom door was open; I started in there. And pulled up short one pace across the threshhold.
Somebody was lying facedown on the bed.
Covers pulled up to the neck, male, red hair—Charlie Bright.
The last person I’d come across lying facedown on a bed had been Carolyn Dain. That thought and Bright’s stillness built cold tension in me as I advanced to the bed. I caught an edge of the stained blanket, drew it down halfway, and then let breath hiss out between my teeth. Bright was alive, unhurt. Sound asleep. Up close, I could hear the kind of wheezing that comes from clogged sinuses.
I dug fingers into his shoulder and shook him. Did it twice more, hard and rough. It was like shaking a rubber dummy; the only response I got was a couple of faint grunts. I gripped his other shoulder and flopped him over on his back. No response to that, either. The red hair was long and tangled, his skin grub white where it wasn’t spotted with freckles, and he was thinner than he’d looked in the photo, almost anorexic. You could see each of his ribs, the shape of his breastbone above a concave belly. He couldn’t have weighed more than 120, even though he was nearly six feet tall.
