The Smart Money

by Lia Matera

  There was always a chance, of course, that Bean had been killed with a different gun, and that my cousin had taken away Bean’s gun.

  If Hal had the gun, I’d strangle him for putting me in the untenable position of withholding information from the police. But at least I’d be able to get the thing back, wrap it in a handkerchief, take it to Captain Loftus, and grovel before him, apologizing for having “forgotten” to mention disarming Bean the night before.

  I practically broke the sound barrier, speeding to my cousin’s hovel.

  And, in his usual unaccommodating manner, Hal was nowhere to be found.

  His front door was unlocked, so I walked in. It was dark inside, with thin ribbons of daylight filtering through gaps in the boarded-up windows. I left the door open, to let in the pale light of an overcast morning.

  The place looked like it had been recently swept, and the few tattered furnishings were spread with clean-looking blankets. But these efforts only accented the gloomy impersonality of the room, its absence of memorabilia. Even transients in flophouses tack up pictures, set out treasured objects, scavenge a few favorite magazines. Hal had done none of these things.

  I wandered through Hal’s house looking for some trace of him, but I found only the essentials of survival: in the kitchen, jars of food, bottled water, cheap wine; in the bedroom, a cot with no mattress or pillow, two thin blankets, a few piles of clothing; in the living room, a transistor radio, chairs, a few crate tables. There were kerosene lanterns here and there, but I had no reason to light them; there was nothing to see, nothing to do, in Hal’s house.

  It took less than five minutes to search for the gun. I got a flashlight out of my car and looked under the cot, in all the cupboards, in all the closets (now repositories for mouse droppings).

  I was leaving when I thought of one last place to look. Since Hal had no key, he was forced to leave the front door unlocked. If he had any valuables, they’d certainly be hidden away.

  I walked back through the house, shining my flashlight up at the ceiling. In the hallway, I found what I was looking for. Like most modern houses, this one had a ceiling panel that could be pushed aside for access to the rafters. I pulled a chair into the hall, tested it to see if it would bear my weight, and stood on it. I shifted the panel and shone the light up into the hole. On one side, I saw what looked like a sack. I tugged on it, and it fell down, nearly knocking me off my chair.

  It was an army duffel bag, stenciled with Hal’s last name. I carried it into the living room, and in the light of the open door, began looking through it.

  Hal’s army clothes were in there—a hat, a uniform, fatigues. It was in the uniform jacket that I found the Purple Heart. I pulled it out and held it up to die light: a heart- shaped medal with George Washington’s profile on purple plastic. We’d never been notified, any of the family, that Hal had been wounded in the war. I wondered where, and how badly.

  There were some papers under the uniform. I flipped through them. Topmost were two handwritten addresses: a veteran’s hospital in Boston and the disability claims department of the Social Security Administration. The handwriting was loopy and feminine, definitely not Hal’s.

  The rest of the papers appeared to be photocopies of income tax returns, with W-2 forms attached. Over the years my cousin had been a bean picker, a janitor, a stable boy, a gardener, a quarryman, and just about every other sort of laborer, it seemed. Whatever his wartime injury, it obviously hadn’t left him physically disabled.

  I also learned that his yearly income had averaged four thousand dollars, that he’d never stayed long at one job, and that he’d traveled around the country a good deal. For some reason, laziness presumably, Hal had not filled out his own tax returns. Each was signed at the bottom by a different accountant in a different town.

  Also in the duffel bag was an expired driver’s license, showing Hal as he’d once been—plumper, with dimpled, uncreased cheeks and glossy black, well-cut hair. The license had expired in 1978, but a four-year extension, the kind they send you automatically if you don’t get any tickets, was taped to the back. Apparently he hadn’t gotten a second extension.

  I groped around the emptied bag, and found one last object.

  It was a small container, the kind used for prescription drugs. It was full of round, yellow pills. I had just enough time to read Hal’s name on the label, to read the words Thorazine, 500 mg: three times daily before the container was snatched out of my hand.

  I looked up to see Hal glowering at me, gripping the pills in chafed, white-knuckled fingers.

  I stared up at him, too shocked to speak. Thorazine. They’d given Wallace Bean Thorazine at the state hospital. I’d asked the doctors about it and they’d explained that it was a powerful antipsychotic drug, used to sedate violent or uncontrolled patients. Bean’s dosage had been 300 milligrams.

  Hal’s nostrils flared. His face, flushed from the cold morning, went slowly white.

  For the first time in my life, I was afraid of my cousin. I stood hastily and backed away from him.

  “Damn you,” he whispered. He threw the pills against the wall so hard that the container shattered. “What the hell are you doing, snooping through my things?”

  “I was looking for the gun, Hal. That’s all.” My god, what had happened to the good-looking, ordinary boy whose face had smiled at me from the old driver’s license?

  Hal frowned at the pills as they rolled and bounced across the floor, then he looked at the army uniform and the stack of papers beside the duffel bag. There was something about his face, something tired and wounded and plaintive, that undercut his anger.

  “Hal?” I took a step toward him, extending my arm.

  My cousin backed off. “What gun? You said you were looking for a gun.”

  “Wallace Bean’s gun. Hal, did you take it?” I willed him to say yes.

  Instead he said, “No. Why would I?”

  “Keep it safe? Protect me?”

  His smile was malevolent. “You don’t need protecting, Laura. Or deserve it.”

  I sank into the nearest chair. “Well, if you’re in the mood to see my life fall apart, you’re certainly in luck.”

  Judging by the look on his face, he was indeed in the mood.

  13

  Hal didn’t kick me out, and I made no move to leave. There were probably reporters on my doorstep by now. And if I went to my papa’s house, I’d resume worrying that he’d tried to run over Gary Gleason.

  I sat in Hal’s armchair, brooding and shifting my weight to avoid broken springs.

  Hal perched on a nearby crate, watching me and doing some world-class brooding of his own. He waited a good long time before breaking the silence. “So the gun’s gone, is it?”

  “Yes, the gun’s gone is it.”

  White, Sayres & Speck was fussy about their attorneys staying out of trouble. They might not want me back if the state bar initiated a disciplinary proceeding. And if my license was suspended, even for a short time, I was out of work for sure.

  “So maybe Bean came back for it. Why don’t you go ask him?”

  “Meaning, why don’t I get lost and leave you alone?”

  The corner of Hal’s mouth twitched, and he pressed his fingers to it. “Did I say that, Mowgli?”

  “Stop this Mowgli crap, will you?”

  I wondered if Hal might be lying about the gun. Maybe he’d taken it and gone after Wallace Bean. Maybe Hal hadn’t liked having a gun pressed to his spine, maybe the war had made him a vengeful sort of person.

  “What did you do last night after I passed out?”

  Hal looked amused. “Nothing untoward, my dear. Did you think I’d been peeking under your sweater?”

  “You didn’t go out anywhere, did you?”

  “I slept on your bed, if you must know. It seemed easier than carrying you upstairs so I could s
leep on your couch.”

  “So you were upstairs. You weren’t in the living room.” I stood up and began pacing. “Someone, probably Bean, walked right into my goddamned house and took that gun.”

  “Too bad. It’s a collector’s item. You could have sold it and got a few precious bucks for—”

  I whirled to face him. “A collector’s item? You know what kind of gun it was?”

  Hal nodded, looking mildly surprised by my reaction. “A real cowboy special. A Buntline Scout.”

  “What caliber?”

  “Twenty-two. Why the interest in—”

  “A twenty-two! I knew it, I just knew it.” I could hear the tears in my voice. “They might as well rip up my law degree right now.” I regarded Hal suspiciously. “How come you know so much about guns?”

  “Spent a lot of time in the Southwest. Around a class of people you don’t mix with.”

  “Bean pickers and janitors?”

  Hal bristled. “I’ve had worse jobs than that, Laura.”

  “And I’ve defended poorer folks than you, Hal.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “I thought it took big money to pay your fees.”

  “Big money or no money. I do a lot of pro bono work.”

  Hal did not look convinced. “A girl who likes cash as much as you do?”

  “I’m a workaholic, cousin. I like to keep busy. Did Bean look affluent to you?”

  Hal smiled. “Well. Surprise, surprise.”

  “Come on! Get up! We might as well go bite the bullet.”

  Hal stood up. “By all means. But what bullet are we—”

  “We’re going to the police.”

  Hal sat back down. “I thought lawyers weren’t supposed to rat on their clients.”

  “Rat on— Oh, I see. Didn’t I tell you that Bean is dead?” I was relieved to see stark shock on Hal’s face. “Probably murdered with a gun that was stolen out of my house while I was five feet away emitting vodka fumes. Now come on, Hal, because I didn’t mention the gun to the cops this morning, and the longer I wait, the worse it’s going to look to the state bar.”

  Hal shook his head. “You’re losing me. The state bar?”

  “Is going to discipline me for failing to keep the weapon in a safe place. For letting a maniac waltz in and take a loaded gun out of my desk drawer.”

  “When you say discipline—”

  “I mean draw and quarter, mop up the floor with, get revenge upon.”

  “Why revenge? I thought you were a big, important lawyer.”

  My patience was wearing thin. “Where have you been the last year, Hal? Sure, people admire my skill in getting Bean off scot-free, but they also hate me because they think I subverted the system. Christ, after the trial, the state legislature passed a law expressly prohibiting lawyers from asserting the TV-syndrome defense. You should read the legislative history, the floor debates. They make me sound like—” I cast about for an apt analogy, “Richard M. Nixon, for godsake!”

  Hal smiled, the biggest smile I’d seen on his face in thirteen years, probably. “I’ll be damned.”

  “Yeah, me too, Hal.” I clutched his arm and tried to pull him off his crate. “Now, come on. I like being a lawyer, and the quicker I put on a hair shirt, the better my chances of remaining one. So let’s get going.”

  Hal remained seated, still smiling up at me. Gripping his arm, I became aware of a prodigious bicep.

  In seventeen years of family dinner parties, I couldn’t remember ever having noticed Hal’s physique, only his obnoxious disparagement of my interests (ranging over the years from paper dolls to peace marches).

  I released his arm, turning away. It had been too long since I’d slept with a man. I wished Sandy—

  “Sandy!” I shrieked, looking in vain for a clock on Hal’s damp walls. “I forgot about Sandy!”

  “Who’s Sandy?”

  “My detective. He’s been at the airport since nine.”

  “Your what?”

  “Detective. For my law firm. Come on, hurry. We’ll go get Sandy, and then we’ll go talk to John goddam Loftus’s father.”

  14

  It wasn’t much of an airport, and that’s being charitable. There was a flight in every morning from San Francisco, and one out every afternoon, to San Francisco. There was also a flight in every evening from San Jose, en route to Seattle. The airport was on the foggiest hill in the county, so that no plane ever left or came in on time (my Uncle Henry had lobbied for this location, making some of his land-speculator friends in the Elks Club very rich). The building itself looked like an extra-large campground bathroom—all cement, very dark. It contained a ticket counter, a car rental concession, and an alcove of vending machines.

  When Hal and I got there at eleven-thirty, it also contained one bored detective named Sander Arkelett.

  Sandy was gazing out a window at wisps of fog, yawning. He was a very tall man with bad posture, a long face, sleepy blue eyes, and sand-colored hair. He’d become extraordinarily thin and pale since he’d been knifed in the belly six months earlier. He’d been chasing a purse-snatcher, and the boy had turned on Sandy and carved up his stomach before getting away. That’s why Sandy was here now. He was still employed by the detective agency that White, Sayres & Speck used. But the agency, on a doctor’s recommendation, had confined Sandy to delving through dull corporate records, and Sandy had gotten restless. It hadn’t been hard to talk him into taking a leave of absence so he could sit in my showcase of an office and make my ex-husband envious.

  When he saw me and Hal approaching, he glanced at his watch and shook his head.

  “I’m sorry, Sandy. You’ll forgive me when you hear—”

  “Sure I will,” he agreed, his eyelids drooping and the corners of his mouth lifting. His expression clearly broadcast his affection for me.

  It brought Hal up short. He stopped, looking disconcerted.

  I slipped my arm around Sandy’s waist and began propelling him toward the door, explaining that Bean had been shot, and that I’d spent the morning with the cops.

  Sandy crooked his arm around my neck and pressed my face against his lean rib cage. “You don’t mind if I bring my bag along?”

  “Oh. No.” I waited for him to go back to where he’d been standing and retrieve his soft-sided leather case. As he walked toward me with it, I noticed the girl at the car rental booth flash him a big, warm smile. Sandy wasn’t handsome, but he had that effect on women.

  Hal noticed the smile too, and looked at Sandy appraisingly.

  Sandy’s shirt was rumpled and his trousers were baggy. His belt was wound to the tightest notch, with the end dangling. Desert boots and a worn anorak reinforced his air of languid shabbiness. And in spite of it—maybe because of it—Sandy was sexy.

  I was the one who’d initiated the sexual part of our relationship. Sandy was the one who’d confused things by falling in love.

  “Okay, Wallace Bean,” Sandy prompted, falling back into step with me.

  As we walked out to the car, I told him the story, dwelling unhappily on the missing gun. It didn’t occur to me to introduce Hal until it came time for the three of us to pile into my two-seater.

  The two men shook hands, looking at one another with some interest and much wariness. My mind took a snapshot of their linked hands. Sandy’s was long and smooth and pale, with a bit of smudged ink near one knuckle. Hal’s was wide and rough and red at the knuckle. It made me angry. Sandy had been wounded too; he’d been quite ill while his stomach healed. But he hadn’t grown morbid and unhinged. He hadn’t given up using his brain, he hadn’t limited himself to menial jobs.

  I told Hal to drive.

  I settled myself on Sandy’s lap, and my cousin roared out of the parking lot, tires squealing.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  “We’ve got to
go tell the police about the gun.”

  Sandy wrapped his arms around me and nuzzled my neck. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much about the gun, Laura.”

  I hunched my shoulders, twisting around to face him. I was in no mood to be nuzzled. “I lost the damn thing, Sandy. It was in my house last night, and there’s a good chance it ended up killing Bean. And who the hell knows where it is now?”

  Sandy smiled lazily. He looked sleepy, but then, he usually did. “Nothing you tell the cops is going to help them find that gun. Comes right down to it, you don’t know when it left, who it left with, or where it went … much less if it’s the same gun that killed Bean. And when the police do find it, how’s it going to help anybody, knowing you had it in your—”

  “It’s got all our fingerprints on it, Sandy. We all handled it last night, me and Hal and Bean and my goddam ex-husband’s girlfriend. If they find it, and I haven’t already—”

  “If your fingerprints survived Bean—or whoever— taking that gun and carrying it around, and then survived someone else firing it—” Sandy stroked my hair with a gentle hand. “No, I say forget it. Save yourself the aggravation.”

  I settled back into his lap and watched the scenery fly by; extravagantly tangled hillside on one side, waist-high dune grass on the other. A fierce wind chased away the fog, flattening the grass and blowing sand onto the two-lane highway. Hillsdale’s evening (and only) newspaper would call it “a beautiful spring day.”

  Maybe Sandy had a point. I didn’t really know anything that could help the homicide investigation. And if I kept my mouth shut, I might avoid the wolves at the state bar.

  I glanced at my cousin and found him smiling with ironic amusement. “I wouldn’t get too comfortable, my dear,” he murmured. “I don’t think Kirsten Strindberg would mind seeing you squirm a little, do you?”