Skinflick

by Joseph Hansen

  “What are you doing?” Dave said.

  “I want to look nice,” she said. Water splashed.

  “Dear God,” Dave said. “Charleen, come on. There’s no more time.”

  “I’m coming,” she snapped. “Just wait a minute.”

  “Why did he kill Dawson?”

  “For corrupting me,” she said through the door. “He warned him first, Sunday morning at the church. Jerry says get lost. So then the next day he phoned Mrs. Dawson what was going on with Jerry and me and for her to come get her husband. I didn’t know that till afterwards, didn’t know he was hid in my closet when they come—her, and the preacher, and Bucky boy. He was in there before Jerry and me got there. Must’ve killed him hearing me and Jerry in bed.” Something happened to her diction. She was brushing her teeth and talking with the brush in her mouth. “My heart like to stopped when he jumped out of that closet after Bucky boy left. I didn’t know him for a minute. He’d shaved off his beard.”

  “Yes, why did he do that?” Dave asked.

  “To fool that old nigger-man guard,” she said.

  Dave tried the door. Locked. “Charleen, you’re wasting time. We have to get out of here.”

  “Just one more minute,” she said, and water ran hard.

  “Why did Billy Jim stop at only two men? What about Fullbright? Wasn’t he the one who started this whole thing?”

  “Billy Jim never let me get to telling him about Jack. And when I seen what he done to Jerry and Mr. Odum, I wasn’t about to tell him. That fancy boat, marijuana, cocaine, him taking them dirty pictures of me—he’d want to kill Jack Fullbright twice. I was so scared that night, I almost—”

  She screamed. And it wasn’t about memories. It was about now. Glass shattered. A male voice spoke words Dave couldn’t make out. There was a heavier crash. He recognized that one. The top of the toilet tank. Billy Jim was dragging her out through the window. Dave ran across the meager living room and out at the door with the broken pane. The big, blocky pickup truck stood twenty steps off, engine rumbling, headlights dark. Of course. Billy Jim had seen the house lit up, seen the Triumph in the yard, known something was wrong. The trail down here wouldn’t have been strange to him. He could drive without lights all the way from the ridge.

  He appeared under his cowboy hat from around the corner of the wind-rattling house, dragging the kicking, screaming, stick-thin little girl toward the truck. Cowan was right. He was stocky like Bucky but bigger. Heels clattering, Dave ran along the porch. You’re not too young, she said again inside his mind. And he launched himself at Billy Jim Tackaberry. Not bad for an old man. He got both legs just at the knees. The knees buckled. All three of them rolled in the dust. But Dave couldn’t hold on. Tackaberry got a leg free and kicked Dave in the head. Hard. Dave didn’t see anything or hear anything. Then he heard a gonging sound. Something had banged the body of the truck. He heard grunts, squeaky cries. His head hurt.

  He groaned and moved. He got to his hands and knees and collapsed again. The truck door slammed. The big engine roared. Dave staggered to his feet. The truck came at him. He threw himself out of its way, tumbling among crackling brush. The truck hit the porch. A metal prop gave, the roof sagged with a shriek, the metal flooring buckled. The truck rocked. Its big gears clashed and ground together. The truck shot backward. The wide tires grabbed at the dirt. Dust kicked up and the wind ripped it away. Dave scrambled for the house, stumbling, falling, on his feet again. The truck skidded in a half-circle and chopped to a halt. Dave turned in the doorway. Light from the truck’s instrument panel glinted along a shotgun barrel. Dave fell down, arms over his head. The explosion was big and bright. His sleeves shredded. His arms felt as if he’d stuck them into fire.

  The truck roared off.

  24

  HE TRIED TO TELL his father, “You can’t criticize me. I only did the same thing you did.” But his father was dead. And he couldn’t form the words anyway. He heard the sounds he made. No more than mumbling. His father faded into the dark. Dave heard a squeak of rubber soles. A door clicked open. Light struck his eyelids and he opened his eyes. The light was hard, dazzling, painful. It glared off white walls. A big bottle hung above him with blood in it. A tube drooped down to him from the bottle. The bottle glittered. He shifted focus. A nurse, plump, middle-aged, no makeup, rimless glasses gleaming, looked at him from the foot of a white bed. Then another face came between him and her, a ginger-moustached young man in a tan uniform.

  “Brandstetter? Who shot you?”

  “Passed out and drove off the road, did I?” The words came out of him very faintly but his diction was back. “Tackaberry, Billy Jim.”

  “Loss of blood,” the officer said. “Tore up your arms. What did you get blood all over your car for? That’s a beautiful car, brand new. Why didn’t you phone for help?”

  Dave raised his arm to look at his watch. The arm was wrapped in white. The watch wasn’t on it. “What time is it? Dear Christ, how long have I been here?” He tried to sit up. The nurse made a sound. The officer pushed him back on the pillows. “Where am I?” Dave said.

  “Estaca,” the officer said. He read his own watch. “How long—two hours, two and a half?”

  “Ah, no,” Dave said.

  “The doctor had to sew up your arteries. That’s why you have to lie still,” the nurse said strictly. “You lost a great deal of blood.”

  “I need to phone,” Dave said. A telephone crouched on the table next to the bed. His bundled forearms lay on the blanket. Only the fingers stuck out of the bandages. He worked them. That was all right. “Los Angeles. Lieutenant Jaime Salazar. LA County Sheriff’s homicide bureau.”

  “You’re in good hands here,” the officer said.

  “I believe it,” Dave said. “But Tackaberry’s going to kill somebody down there.” He rolled on his side, started to reach for the phone. The nurse put his arm back. There was no pain. “They used locals,” he said to her. “Was I that far out? What did I do, hit my head?”

  “You should have worn your seat belt,” she said.

  “I’ll phone for you,” the young officer said.

  “It’s in the building on Temple Street,” Dave said. “If he’s not there, get them to patch you through to his home. Tell him—”

  “You can tell him.” The officer nodded at the bedside phone. “After I get him. Who’s the target?”

  “Jack Fullbright. He lives on a boat at the marina.”

  “Salazar?” the officer said. “I’ll try.” He went out of the room, and a tall child dressed like a doctor came in. He cocked an eyebrow, turned down the corners of his mouth approvingly. “You look okay for somebody who almost bled to death.”

  “Good. Then I can go. It’s urgent.” Dave tried to sit up again and was pushed back again. The doctor put the cold round circle of a stethoscope to Dave’s chest. He shifted it. Again. He took the ends out of his ears. He pulled up the lid of Dave’s left eye, right eye. Dave said, “It’s a matter of life and death.”

  “You’re a private investigator,” the tall child said. “That’s pretty romantic.”

  “It’s life and death just the same,” Dave said. “Two men are already dead because an Army hospital let a soldier out of the rubber room before he was ready. Tonight he tried to kill me. And he’s on his way to—”

  The door opened and the officer with the ginger moustache came in. “Salazar isn’t at his desk. And your name isn’t on the list of people they patch through to him at home. So who else?”

  Dave told him about Ken Barker. “There’s an address book with phone numbers in it in my jacket. Have you got my jacket?”

  “What’s left of it,” the officer said.

  “Well, if you can’t reach Barker,” Dave said, “please call John Delgado. He works with me.”

  The doctor took the telephone off the table and carried it to the windowsill and left it there. He said to the officer, “You do all the phoning—not him.”

  “I’m leaving,” D
ave said, “when that bottle’s empty.”

  The doctor said, “You have a concussion. I’ll want you here till Saturday.”

  “Splendid,” Dave said. He looked at the ginger-moustached youth. “Okay. Please tell Barker to get down to the marina and arrest Jack Fullbright. He’s got drugs on that boat. He’s probably in bed with an underage kid. The idea is to get him into jail where Billy Jim Tackaberry can’t get at him.”

  “Has this Tackaberry got a license number?”

  “It was too dark,” Dave said, “and I was busy. You can get the number, can’t you? And will you hurry and get Barker, please? LAPD. Homicide division.”

  “Right. We’ll get the license number too. He tried to kill you, right? And you’ll swear to that, right? So I’ll put out an APB.”

  “Good,” Dave said. “Only get Barker first, okay?”

  But he couldn’t get Barker. Barker had gone on a trip.

  “So I tried your man Delgado. Nobody answers.”

  Dave looked at the bottle. The blood was dripping into him very slowly. The nurse touched the bottle. She touched the place where it was taped to the inside of his arm just above the bandages. Dave said to the officer, “There’s another number in there. Amanda Brandstetter.”

  “That’d be your wife. You want me to tell her what happened to you? You want her to come and get you?”

  “What’s the matter?” Dave said. “Won’t my car run?”

  “It’s all right,” the officer said, “if you don’t mind all the blood.”

  “Don’t tell her what happened to me,” Dave said. “Just tell her I got tied up here. Ask her to find Johnny Delgado and get him down to the marina. For the purpose I’ve already outlined, all right? To get Jack Fullbright off that boat and hidden someplace where Tackaberry can’t blow him up with that shotgun. Tell her Johnny will be in a bar someplace near the Sea Spray Motel in Santa Monica.”

  “That doesn’t sound like it would work very well,” the boy with the ginger moustache said.

  “Then you make an official connection to the LAPD,” Dave said. “They’ll act for you when they wouldn’t for a PI—not even a PI who’s been shot.”

  “You don’t know Tackaberry’s really going there.” The boy looked uncomfortable. “I’d have to clear it with the chief. Tackaberry could be running for Mexico.”

  “Forget it,” Dave said. “We wouldn’t want to get the chief out of bed.”

  “If he got LA all upset and nothing happened, it could be embarrassing for me,” the boy said.

  “There’s another number in my book. Randy Van. Tell him I got smashed up. He’ll go down and warn Fullbright.”

  “Has somebody named Randy Van got muscles?”

  “Enough to pick up the phone,” Dave said.

  “I did put out the bulletin,” the boy apologized.

  “It’s all right,” Dave said. “Just phone Van now.”

  The boy went and the doctor looked in. “Nurse? I want him to have something to make him sleep.”

  She left, rubber soles squeaking. Dave detached the tube from his arm. His watch, wallet, and keys were in the drawer of the table that had held the phone. His clothes weren’t in the closet. He pulled back the loosely woven yellow-orange curtains at the window. Estaca looked as lively as when he’d come through earlier. Trees tossed shaggy in the wind, silhouetted against a streetlight. A step sounded in the hall. He went into the bathroom and turned the lock. Knuckles rapped. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  And he was. Out the window. The short, starchy hospital garment tied in the back wasn’t what he’d have chosen to travel in but it was all there was, and the citizens of Estaca weren’t looking. By now they’d have switched off the TV and gone to bed. He rounded a sharp stucco corner of the one-story hospital, and there was the parking lot. In the moving shadow of a tree, the Triumph waited for him. The blood on the leather bucket seat had dried in the hot wind. It crackled when he sat on it. The carpet under his bare feet was spongy, sticky. Blood had splattered the instrument panel and the windshield. The steering wheel was crusty with it. He drove into the street. The swinging traffic light showed red but he ignored it.

  The big waterside restaurants loomed up dark out of their spotlit landscaping, wide windows glossy black mirrors. The condominiums stood up tall and black against the stars. His watch said it was almost three. He was dizzy and sick and his arms hurt. It was cold here and damp, and he shivered. He stopped the car at the gate to the parking lot where the live-aboard people left their cars. The candy-striped steel pole across the entry was snapped off. He looked at the little white gate house. He thought no one was in it and then he saw the big foot that stuck out the door. He left the Triumph. The guard’s hat was over his face. He was folded awkwardly on the cramped floor. His hand was on the butt of his holstered revolver. A bloody hole was in his chest. Dave stood over him and used the telephone.

  Then he ran across the parking lot. He ran out the pier. The tender soles of his feet kept picking up pebbles and making him limp. He kept brushing them off. The boats all slept dark on their tethers, lifting a little and falling a little with the lift and fall of the tide. It was deadly quiet. Light streamed up out of the companionway that opened from the deck of Fullbright’s power boat Dave swung aboard. He went down the companionway. No one was in the room with the couches and the bar. But the door in the bulkhead was open to the sleeping cabin. He saw the blood first and then Fullbright’s body naked halfway into the washroom where no light burned. He touched the body. It was almost cold. He turned to get away from the blood smell, the slipperiness of the blood underfoot. And he heard splashing. He went up the companionway.

  Below, over the side, someone feebly coughed. Someone retched seawater. Someone tried to call out. It came to Dave as a moan. He peered down into the water. Light fell from the portholes of the forward cabin but it only wavered in the water and showed him nothing. The weak splashing came from farther astern. He went back there. The light that reached out here from the parking lot was just bright enough to make the black water hard to see. He blinkered his eyes with his hands.

  “Where are you?” he shouted.

  “Help!” A white thing floated below. A rope lay on the polished planks. He lowered it. “Help!”

  “Can you grab that?” He wound it around an upright and knotted it. “The rope. Grab it.” But nothing was happening. Even the feeble splashing had stopped. He heard bubbles break. He went over the rail. The water was cold. The white thing drifted near him, sinking. He groped out for it. Cold human flesh. He grappled for a hold, found limp arms, a hard round skull. He needed to breathe and he let go and surfaced and heard far-off sirens. He smiled, filled his lungs, and went under again.

  This time he got hold of the white figure and kicked and the two of them shot to the surface. His arms were around the ribcage from the back and there was no sign of breathing. Clumsily, one-armed, he pushed at the water, bumping the slippery curved hull of the boat, trying to reach the pier. The water deafened him. He heard the sirens. The water deafened him again. The water had soaked through the bandages. The pain from the salt was bright and fierce. He struck a piling with his head. He grabbed the piling and clung onto it.

  He took a deep breath and shouted.

  And he felt the pier shake with running feet.

  It was Randy Van in a soaked white eyelet dress with a long smear of tar on it. He lay on the white pier planks and looked pale green and dead. Except for his legs. The flesh of his legs was lacerated and oozed blood. Paramedics worked over him in green coveralls, nightmare figures in the light from the open hatch of Fullbright’s boat. One of the paramedics, a plump black with rolls of fat at the back of his neck, had his mouth over Randy’s mouth. A white one in shell-rim glasses sat astride his hips, pressing hands to his lower chest. Somebody wrapped Dave in a blanket and asked him what was funny. Dave couldn’t tell him how Randy would enjoy the situation if he kn
ew about it. Dave’s jaws seemed to be locked. It was cold. He was shivering so hard it felt as if his joints would come apart. He wished they had more blankets.

  Randy made a sound. Water came out of his mouth. His eyelids fluttered. The torn legs kicked weakly. The black and the boy in glasses put him on a chrome-plated gurney and ran pushing it up the pier past staring people in bathrobes toward the parking lot where lights winked amber on and off atop police cars, and a light spun round and round atop an ambulance. The one in the green coverall who had put the blanket around him pushed him down. He was weak and he went down easily. He tried to say that he could walk but the shuddering wouldn’t let him. He was pushed flat His legs were hoisted. Then came another blanket and that was fine. He shut his eyes and the little wheels jarred over the planks. It went on so long it put him to sleep.

  Amanda said, “My God, look at his arms! Dave!”

  He opened his eyes. She was kneeling beside him. She had on a little pearl-gray derby. He said, “What the hell are you doing here? I only asked you—”

  “To find me.” Delgado swayed above her, unshaven, eyes bloodshot, shirttail out. His speech was thick. “To get me down here to rescue Fullbright. Only I couldn’t find the fucking boat. All I did was get lost. I’m sorry, Dave.”

  “Not half so sorry as Fullbright,” Dave said.

  Ken Barker said, “They caught Billy Jim and Charleen in Chatsworth. It was the APB from Estaca that did it.” He wore a sheepskin coat, leather side out “I’m sorry they shunted your call off. I wasn’t on any trip.”

  “I’m glad everybody’s sorry,” Dave said.

  “Why didn’t you say you were hurt?” Amanda said.

  “I’m all right,” Dave said. “It was two hundred miles from here. What could you do?” They were wheeling the gurney. Toward the gaping doors of the ambulance. The legs folded with a mild clacking sound and for a half second he was airborne. “Stop looking so scared,” he called back to her.