by A. D. Miller
Searle nodded. “We had calls, too.”
“Calls about what?”
“Oh, the same things you’ve been talking about,” Searle said. “How we were somehow responsible for the Bell woman’s death. How Trujillo intended to make us pay.”
“I haven’t said anything about making you pay.”
Searle smiled. “But isn’t that what this is about for you? Exacting some sort of revenge?”
“No,” Nyman said, and rose to his feet. “That’s not what this is about.”
Telling Searle he would be in touch, he went out to his car.
Chapter 30
He stopped at a newsstand to buy a copy of the Times. A story in the local section said that a transient named Eric Trujillo had been found dead on San Pedro Street on Skid Row. The young man had died of apparent knife wounds; the police had made no arrests and were asking anyone with information to come forward.
He tossed the paper onto the passenger seat and drove east to the Mojave freeway.
In Barstow, he stopped for an early dinner at a roadside café and called Paul Lattimer to give him an update on the investigation. Later, reaching into his pocket to pay the bill, his fingers came across a folded cocktail napkin on which a man had written an address in Burbank.
He looked down at the address with a thoughtful frown.
* * *
Jets, their wings flashing gold and pink in the glow of sunset, circled Bob Hope Airport as Nyman walked along a sidewalk in Burbank. He climbed the steps of a stucco duplex and rang the bell of Unit B.
Through the screen door he could hear music and the tread of heavy feet. A barrel-chested man with a graying van dyke appeared behind the screen, squinting at Nyman as if trying to place him.
Nyman said: “The Green Door.”
“Oh, right.” The man smiled. “Tom, isn’t it? You always want to hear standards.”
Nyman nodded. “How’s the piano-playing business?”
“Underpaid, as usual. The name’s Ira, by the way. Come on in.”
The duplex smelled of dogs and pot and old records. A hi-fi beside the couch was playing a record Nyman didn’t recognize, seemingly for the benefit of the Chihuahua that lay beside the speakers.
Ira said: “Something to drink? There’s some beer in the fridge.”
“No thanks.”
“Something to smoke?”
“That’s all right,” Nyman said, taking the cigarettes from his pocket. “I’ve got my own.”
Ira made a permissive gesture. “The neighbors don’t mind.”
Nyman took a cigarette from the pack and sat on the edge of the couch, reaching down to pet the Chihuahua.
“That’s Angie,” Ira said, dropping into a chair. “She’s survived two ex-wives and the move from New York.”
“Pleased to meet you, Angie.”
The dog ignored him. From the speakers, above pulsing strings and the wordless rising tones of a choir, came the insistent wail of a tenor saxophone. Ira, leaning back in the chair, rested his head against the wall and asked Nyman if he liked the music.
“This is the first I’m hearing it.”
Ira smiled. “Yeah. Not exactly the kind of thing they like to hear at the Green Door.”
Nyman told him not to put much stock in what people liked at the Green Door. “A person’s taste deteriorates after the third martini.”
“Mmm. That’s the nature of the business, though. This sister-in-law of yours—the one who wants the lessons. She better know from the start that she won’t get to play the stuff she loves. The jobs I get, you play to the crowd.”
Nyman lit a cigarette. “I’m not sure she could make it through the lessons, to be honest with you.”
“I thought you said she had talent.”
“She does. Or she did. When I first met her, she was in the music program at Pacifica. I don’t think she’s played in years, though.”
“And her sister’s your wife? That’s how you’re related?”
For a time Nyman said nothing. Then, keeping his gaze on the smoke that rose from the cigarette, he said:
“Theresa’s sister went through some bad things over the years. Mental health things, I guess you’d call them. It all came to a head last year, and Theresa took it pretty hard.”
“Came to a head how?”
“The details aren’t important,” Nyman said, avoiding the other man’s eyes. “The main thing is that Theresa’s had a lot to deal with, and she hasn’t dealt with it very well. She needs someone to help her get straightened out.”
Ira walked to the hi-fi to turn the record over. “What’s she been using?”
Nyman said that he didn’t know. “Just pills, maybe. Or maybe something worse.”
“Probably a lot worse,” Ira said. “People tend to go as far as they can down that road. It’s what you might call the occupational hazard of being a musician.”
“She’s a good kid, apart from all that.”
“Aren’t we all?”
Nyman watched the slowly turning record. “If I could do something for her, it would mean a lot to me.”
“I don’t doubt it, Tom. You wouldn’t’ve come out here unless it meant something. Especially with those bruises on your face.”
Nyman waved a hand. “My own occupational hazard.”
“Yeah. Manny told me you were a cop or something.”
“A private investigator.”
“Mmm. You in the middle of a case?”
Nyman nodded. “Up to my neck. That’s why I wanted to talk to you now, before I get in any deeper.”
“You make it sound like life and death.”
Nyman said that he had a flair for the dramatic. “But I understand if you can’t help with Theresa. I know it’s an odd request.”
“A little odd,” Ira said. “Truth is, though, this is the kind of business that chews people up. The kid needs a thick skin if she’s going to make it, and even if she makes it she won’t make any money.”
“But you’re willing to give her a chance?”
“I’m not sure I’ll be much help. But you have my address. You can tell her I’m here on Sundays if she wants to talk things over. Not too early, though.”
Flushing, Nyman thanked him and said: “I won’t forget this.”
Ira shrugged. “The least I can do for a loyal listener.”
“You’re playing at the Door this week?”
“Like always. Any special requests?”
“Just the usual.”
Ira went into the kitchen for a can of beer. Coming back out and pulling the tab, he said:
“I’ve got a theory about those songs you like. Those old standards—so tightly structured. I think they appeal to people who’re trying to escape from something. People who want life boiled down to three-and-a-half minutes that make sense.”
Nyman exhaled a stream of smoke and said that it was an interesting theory. “I don’t know if it applies in my case, though.”
Ira smiled and took a drink. “Just a thought.”
* * *
Darkness had fallen by the time Nyman reached downtown. Passing the towers of the Financial District, he worked his way down Broadway and Main Street and into the five square miles of Skid Row.
The warehouses and storefronts were shuttered for the night and the single-room hotels were dark. Tents and tarpaulins covered the sidewalk and spilled out into the street. The air was hot and thick and fetid.
Midway down San Pedro a spot had been cleared among the tents and cordoned off with yellow caution tape. A few stray flowers and candles lay on the concrete; a square of cardboard bore an illegible message scrawled in black marker.
Nyman found a parking space a block away and walked back to the cordoned-off area.
In the center of the street a man was pushing a shopping cart filled with clothes and trash bags. He called out to the people he passed, most of whom were hidden inside their tents. The answering voices, when they came, were punctuated by laughs a
nd coughs and, from the next block, the sound of sirens.
A few feet from the cordoned-off area was the loading bay of a warehouse. A woman had set up camp in front of the shuttered door; sheets of plastic had been tied to the metal above her head, forming a makeshift tent that hung down around her shoulders and the box she held in her lap.
As Nyman came closer he saw that there were two blurred shapes in the box, soft and multi-colored. A passing headlight revealed two cats so young that their eyes hadn’t opened.
Nyman nodded to the caution tape and asked the woman if she knew anything about the murder victim.
She seemed for a time not to realize that she was being spoken to. Then, looking up, she saw Nyman standing above her, saw the bruises and blood on his face, and shrank back among the sheets of plastic, her eyes wide with fear.
Nyman moved off down the sidewalk. Pausing in the light of a streetlamp, he took the handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from his mouth.
In the street, the man had pushed his shopping cart over to the cordoned-off area and was standing beside the tape, looking down at the candles and flowers. He was in his sixties or seventies and wore a heavy corduroy jacket and pants too short to reach to his ankles.
He looked up as Nyman approached. His face, under a grizzled beard, had the expressiveness of an actor’s. Nodding to the tape, he said:
“Dead and gone. And practically a boy.”
“You knew him?” Nyman said.
“Not enough to know him by name, no. He didn’t live down here. Died down here, though, didn’t he?”
“How do you know he didn’t live here?”
“Because I know, that’s how. The kid got turned out.”
“Turned out?”
“Of an ambulance, most likely. Some hospital in Beverly Hills or something. They don’t want to take care of somebody, they bring them down here and turn them out on the pavement. Just like that.”
He snapped his fingers.
“But Trujillo was murdered,” Nyman said. “Surely a hospital wouldn’t have brought him down here.”
The changeable face became canny. “So you already know all about him. You a cop?”
“More like a friend of his. Or an acquaintance.”
“A cop, in other words.”
“A private investigator.”
“Mmm hmm. You say murder, but I bet you never seen a murder.”
“Only the aftermath.”
“Well, let me tell you something about murder. When it happens, it don’t happen to people. That’s a lie. Murder happens on its own, like a storm or something. Kid gets caught up in the storm and can’t get himself out.”
Nyman asked if he knew anything about the storm that had caught Trujillo.
The man shrugged irritably and turned back to his cart. “Who knows? You think I know everything about everything? This stuff I’ve been telling you—you going to give me anything in return?”
“I can give you some cigarettes.”
“What brand?”
Nyman told him.
The man cursed. “Guy like you, I figured you’d smoke Camels. But those’ll do.”
Nyman gave him what was left of the pack, keeping back a cigarette for himself.
Chapter 31
He smoked it on his walk down to Fifth and Wall, where the L.A.P.D.’s Central Community station covered the block. Aside from the desk officer, the lobby was occupied by a pair of E.M.T.s and a shirtless man who stood leaning against the wall, his twig-thin arm held in the massive hand of an E.M.T.
Nyman told the desk officer that he had information about the murder on San Pedro Street.
“What kind of information?”
“Details on the background of the victim. And on the people who might’ve killed him.”
She gave him an appraising look. “Are these the same people who beat you up?”
“Not exactly. I think there’s a connection, though.”
She nodded. “Have a seat and I’ll see what I can do.”
Nyman sat down. Fifteen or twenty minutes later a hatchet-faced man with an ambling, bow-legged stride introduced himself as Detective Timmons and invited Nyman back to his office.
The office was a glass-walled room in which three or four desks took up most of the space. Timmons waved Nyman into a chair in front of the largest desk and sat down behind it. Under the fluorescent lights, Nyman could see lines of weariness around the man’s eyes and the tremor in his hand as he reached for his coffee.
“Don’t think I’ve seen you before,” Timmons said. “You come around here very often?”
“I came in tonight from Vegas, as a matter of fact.”
“Yeah? What took you to Vegas?”
“The same people who might’ve killed Eric Trujillo.”
Nyman handed Timmons a copy of his license and told him about his investigation.
The weary eyes watched him closely. Timmons didn’t interrupt and didn’t move except to take a mechanical drink of coffee. When Nyman was finished, Timmons said:
“That’s quite a case.”
“I know it sounds unlikely. You can verify a lot of it with the coroner’s office and the Vegas P.D.”
Timmons moved a hand sideways, as if brushing aside the words. “I’m not saying you dreamed it up. As far as the Bell girl goes, it sounds like there’s something there. But the Trujillo thing seems a little theoretical.”
“It is theoretical, at the moment. I was hoping you’ve found something that could make it more substantial.”
The angles of Timmons’ face became sharper. “Sorry, Mr. Nyman. It’s an ongoing investigation.”
“I’m not asking for everything. Just an idea of what you’ve got.”
Taking a mechanical drink, Timmons said: “We’ve got a dead body with a hole in the chest. All that’s in the papers.”
“Only one hole?”
“Only one we noticed. Haven’t heard from the coroner yet.”
“Some people are saying Trujillo was dropped here after he’d already died. They say he wasn’t a local.”
“Yeah. I’ve heard that theory.”
“You don’t put any stock in it?”
Timmons made another brushing-aside motion. “Maybe; maybe not. Trujillo hadn’t been around for a while, but we knew about him. He did a little small-time dealing. You get lots of big-time dealers from outside the Row who come down here to prey on the addicts. My guess is Trujillo crossed one of them and they got rid of him.”
“It would be odd, though,” Nyman said, “for a dealer to take an interest in city politics.”
“Not if he was trying to impress a girl.”
“But the girl was already dead. She’d been dead two days when Trujillo started harassing Grace Salas.”
“Okay,” Timmons said. “Not trying to impress her. Trying to avenge her.”
“Maybe Salas didn’t like being the object of his vengefulness.”
“Maybe. It doesn’t seem likely, if you want my opinion, but stranger things have happened. I’ll make a note of it.”
“Just a note?”
Timmons glanced at a clock on the wall. “I got called out of bed on this sixteen hours ago, Mr. Nyman. I’m talking to everybody who’s got something to say and I’m taking notes on everything they tell me. Every tip will get followed up on, including yours.”
Nyman, after a silence, said: “Thanks for your time.”
“Don’t mention it. I’ll walk you out.”
When they came back into the lobby the E.M.T.s and the shirtless man were gone. Nyman gave Timmons a business card and said:
“You don’t have any evidence of a car dropping the body off, then?”
Timmons’ face darkened with annoyance. “We’ve got lots of stories, like I said.”
“Any involving a car?”
“Down here, people see cars, planes, and flying saucers.”
“What about an ambulance?”
“No. There was no ambulance. The ci
ty cracked down on hospital dumping years ago.”
“What about a private vehicle?”
“Ask somebody out there, and they’ve seen ten vehicles, all different colors, all with bodies getting rolled out of them.”
“Does one color get mentioned more than the others?”
Timmons rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Red, as a matter of fact. Three different people think they saw a red sedan. They were all high at the time, of course, but they all swear about the red.”
“Interesting.”
“Yeah. Fascinating. Now get out of here and let me get back to work.”
* * *
A quarter-moon hung low above the skyline as Nyman walked back to his car. The hot wind had died away; in its place was a thick, humid stillness. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead as he started the car and drove south.
The lights of the Hive were still burning. The bees and butterflies on its brick walls were made garish by ground-level floodlights. Nyman went into the vestibule and rang the intercom bell.
After a pause a woman’s voice said: “Sorry, we’re closed for the night. We open tomorrow at seven.”
Nyman told her who he was. “I came by a few days ago to ask about Eric Trujillo. I think you might’ve been the person I talked to.”
The pause this time was so long that Nyman looked at his watch to count the seconds. When the woman responded, her voice was tight with anger.
“I’ve already said everything I’m going to say to you.”
“Trujillo’s dead.”
“I’m aware of that. You really think I wouldn’t be aware of that?”
“There’s a good chance,” Nyman said, “that the person who killed him is the same person who killed my original client. There’s also a chance they’re planning another murder. I’m getting close to finding them, but I won’t be able to do it without your help.”
He looked again at his watch. After twenty seconds the intercom buzzed and the interior door clicked open. He went through into the large, cement-floored space that served as the Hive’s main room.
The T.V.s were turned off and the pool tables were deserted. A gangly teenage boy stood with a backpack on his shoulders and a laundry bag at his feet, watching as an older man talked to someone on the phone. In the air was a smell of mop-water and disinfectant.