I made myself stand still, briefly, to listen for sounds of him moving. Useless; all I could hear was the wind and the stuttering beat of my heart. I went on, parallel to the string of dead cars, then out toward them. Power lines on spindly poles angled through the yards here, feeding the buildings on Industrial Way; I passed under them, still heading toward the cars.
Motion off to my right, toward the far end of the factory property: shadow gliding among shadows. I cut over that way, running now; stubbed my foot against a chunk of rock and went down on all fours, almost losing the gun. The shadows were still. I got up and bulled ahead, came off flat ground into a bumpy section clotted with grass and weeds and patches of sharp-smelling anise.
Ahead was a low cluster of trees. And beyond them was Industrial Way, the part of it where I had parked my car. I gave the trees a wide berth, plowing through tangles of vegetation, but they weren’t where he was. I knew where he was as soon as I saw the shape of another car drawn up in front of mine, one that hadn’t been there before.
Suckered me, led me out into the yards and then doubled back here to pick up his wheels. . . .
I yelled when his car jumped ahead—a roar of frustration that was lost in the howl of tires biting into pavement. He didn’t switch his lights on until he was out of range of my vision, if he put them on even then. I hadn’t been able to tell what kind of vehicle it was, just that it was shorter and more low-slung than mine. Shadow man in a shadow car.
Who?
Why had he shot Coleman?
I slogged through a puddle of water and the last of the high grass, onto the street next to my car. He was long gone by then. I had a crazy impulse to hammer on the hood with the butt of the .38. Controlled it and walked stiffly around to the driver’s door, put myself inside.
For a time I sat there, fighting off delayed-reaction shakes, putting a tight wrap on my. emotions. Tonight was not the first time I had been shot at, but like an earthquake, it is nothing you ever get used to. Each time is like the first; each time is bad, because once you begin thinking clearly again, you realize how close you came to dying and how fragile your life, all life, really is.
When I felt steady enough I started the car and got it under way. Drove slowly along the empty street . . . where the hell were the goddamn security patrolmen all this time? . . . and turned into the factory lot. Near the office wing, my headlights picked out the huddled motionless body on the asphalt. I stopped a few feet away with the lights bright on him.
Coleman lay where he’d fallen, ten feet or so from the entrance to the wing. I squatted, turned him a little. Shot at least twice, once in the belly and once in the middle of the chest. His eyes were open, staring glassily. I put my finger on the artery in his neck, to make sure he had no life left in him. There wasn’t a pulse, hadn’t been a pulse, I thought, since right after the first bullet hit him.
The briefcase was there, too, near one of his legs; I took hold of it before I straightened. The shooter may not have known what it contained, but even if he had, he might not have come back to pick it up. He’d been after Coleman, focused only on Coleman. His one shot at me had come after he was sure he’d bagged his quarry, and it had been designed to keep me down while he made his escape. If he’d cared about taking me out, he’d have fired at me again here or out in the yards. Revenge, then, or some other personal motive. I hadn’t been the only one hunting Coleman Lujack today. And chance had brought the three of us together here, on a convergent path within minutes of one another.
Somebody mixed up in the coyote operation, somebody I didn’t know?
Paco Vega?
Nick Pendarves ... if Pendarves wasn’t dead after all?
Teresa Melendez? Eileen Lujack? It could have been a woman, even though I’d kept thinking of the shooter as a man. A woman runs differently, uses a more fluid kind of stride, but it had been too dark, the period of time too confused, for me to be certain of anything about the person. . . .
You’re wasting time, I told myself. Besides, it wasn’t up to me to pursue the shooter’s identity. I’d avoided dealing with the authorities twice this week; I couldn’t do it again even if I wanted to. And I didn’t want to. I was in deep enough as it was.
I took the briefcase to my car, used the mobile phone to make the call.
* * * *
It was almost midnight before they finally let me go home.
Long, wearying sessions at Containers, Inc., and then at the Hall of Justice. Conversations with patrolmen, inspectors, a homicide lieutenant named Cousins. (Nobody from the INS, though, despite the fact that they had a strong vested interest. On weekends, especially weekend nights, government-agency bureaucrats are as hard to find as a Democrat in the White House.) I told them everything, with one exception. I had to own up about Vega, his attempt on my life and what had happened on Ocean Beach to cause his injuries; if I’d held that back, my story would not have hung together and they might have decided to lock me up. They might also have decided to lock me up if I’d admitted to shirking my duty twice in the span of a few days, which was why I kept quiet about being the first on the scene of Thomas Lujack’s murder. There was no reason they had to know about that anyway.
Early on I’d tried to call Eberhardt, get him down to the Hall to back me up, but he hadn’t been home. He hadn’t been at Bobbie Jean’s, either. Out somewhere together, the two of them. But as it turned out, I hadn’t needed his help to keep things from going badly for me. All I got from the cops was a lecture and a warning to play by the rules if I wanted to keep my license—what amounted to wrist-slapping. I’d lost my license once, a few years ago, but that had been under a different city administration and a different chief of police; the current bunch were more tolerant of private detectives. Also weighing in my favor was the currency in Coleman’s briefcase, a total of one hundred sixteen thousand dollars, and what they found when they searched his wife’s car: three packed suitcases, another ninety-seven thousand in cash, thirty thousand in bearer bonds, a jewelry case full of valuable pieces, and the name and address of a small flying service down near Needles—Coleman’s way out of the country, evidently.
I got a beer from the refrigerator and sat with it in the front room. I was so tired I felt numb, but I was not ready yet to ride my nightmares.
Who? I kept thinking.
Why?
I finished the beer and went in to use the toilet. When I came back through the bedroom I realized that the message light on the answering machine was lit. I ran the tape back— three messages—and pushed the play button.
The first one was from Kerry. She sounded mildly frazzled but not unhappy. “It’s me,” she said, “and it’s midmorning. I’ve got some news I want to share in person. Call me. I’ll be home all day.”
Cybil, I thought. And the news was good, judging from her tone and phrasing.
The second message was from Eberhardt. A predictably angry Eberhardt. “So why the hell didn’t you show up? It’s seven o’clock and I waited the whole frigging day. Sometimes you piss me off royally, you know that?”
I smiled a little. Yeah, Eb, I thought. Sometimes I piss myself off royally too.
Number three was Kerry again. “All right, who is she? I’ll scratch her eyes out.” Making a joke—another good sign. “Call me, okay? As soon as you can. I really need to see you. And not for the reason you think, you horny old goat.”
I laughed at that. Just hearing her voice could make me feel better, a bad time easier to deal with.
I reset the machine, switched it off. Another beer? Something to eat? TV for a while, just for the noise? None of the above. A shower, I decided. Wash away the lingering smells of Coleman Lujack and Containers, Inc. and sudden death.
The shower made me feel even more tired and dull-witted. Enough so that I could sleep right away, maybe. I crawled into bed and held Kerry’s image close in my mind, like a crucifix against the night’s evil. And pretty soon I slept.
But not well and not for long.
>
* * * *
. . . Running, running, shadows lurking in shadows, guns firing, things behind me with claws that scratched the ground and jaws that snapped the air, dark places, cold places, dead men lying huddled in rows, dead men rising and chasing after me in a pack, raw terror, screaming, running in sand, caught, trapped, dunes with gaping mouths and green-and-brown witches’ hair, cold, cold, waves of blood lifting and crashing down, dark places, cold places, shadows lurking in shadows, and running running running . . .
* * * *
I was awake for good an hour before dawn. The bedclothes were gamy with my sweat, cold-clammy against my skin, and before long I got up and stripped the bed and lay back down on the bare mattress with just a blanket over me.
Kerry was no longer uppermost in my mind. Now it was the two questions, chasing themselves round and round.
Who?
Why?
By the time the first pale light showed at the window, I knew I wasn’t finished with it yet. Wouldn’t be finished with it until both those questions had answers.
* * * *
Chapter 20
I left the flat at seven thirty, before the media and other parties began their inevitable assault. Down on Lombard there are a number of interchangeable coffee shops ... or maybe that’s a redundancy. I picked one in Cow Hollow, bought a copy of the Sunday Examiner-Chronicle, and scanned through it while I waited for coffee and orange juice.
The shooting of Coleman Lujack was a featured story on the front page of the Metro section. I was mentioned as an eyewitness, but the reporter didn’t dwell on my involvement —probably because the police hadn’t yet released certain pieces of information, such as the Lujacks’ connection with the coyotes and the particulars of Rafael Vega’s injuries. A rehash of Thomas’s death by carbon monoxide poisoning, and of the hit-and-run killing of Frank Hanauer, took up the last third of the article, with the correct implication being that the violent demises of the three partners were interrelated. Nick Pendarves’s name was trotted out as a possible suspect in Coleman’s murder. But “police sources” admitted that there was no direct evidence linking Pendarves—or anyone else—to the shooting.
It was a few minutes past eight when I finished reading that. I drained my orange juice and took my coffee back to the rest room area, where I used one of the pay phones to call Kerry. Before Cybil came to live with her, she would have been fast asleep at 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning; now she answered on the first ring, wide awake and a little edgy. As soon as she heard my voice she said, “Why are you calling so early? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I just didn’t want you to think the worst.”
“About what?”
“Haven’t you read the paper yet?”
“No. I just woke up a little while ago. My God, don’t tell me you’re all over the news again. ...”
“Not exactly. There was some trouble last night and I got caught up in it, that’s all.”
“That’s all? If it’s in the paper ...”
“Don’t read the Metro section, all right? I’ll explain when I see you.”
“I can be over there in an hour or so—”
“I’m not home,” I said. “And I have some things to take care of this morning. Later today would be better.”
“Well, I’ve got an appointment at one, but it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. Three thirty at your place?”
“Good. If I get hung up for any reason, I’ll call you there.”
“You’re sure everything’s all right? I mean—”
“I know what you mean. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t tell me not to worry. I started worrying when I didn’t hear from you yesterday.”
“I got home too late to call. What’s your news? Something about Cybil?”
“If I have to wait to hear yours,” she said, “you can wait to hear mine.”
“Fair enough.”
“Oh God, she’s calling me. ... I’d better go.”
“Don’t let her read the paper either.”
“She hasn’t looked at a newspaper since she’s been here.
She’s just not interested.” I could hear Cybil’s voice now, rising querulously in the background. “Three thirty,” Kerry said, and rang off.
I called Eberhardt’s number. Still no answer, which was just as well; I didn’t really feel like talking to him yet. We’d connect later in the day. He’d see to that, if I didn’t. He read every news item in every edition of the local papers, as if he were moonlighting as a researcher for a clipping service.
* * * *
I drove out to Daly City first. Teresa Melendez struck me as one of the least likely possibles; might as well eliminate her first if I could.
As usual, fog crawled over its hills and flats, put a shiny wetness on the streets: giant formless gray slug and its slime trail. I had to use my windshield wipers on the way across from 280 to Atlanta Street. Teresa’s Honda was under the carport, but I didn’t get a response when I rang the bell. I pushed it again, listened, heard nothing, and tried the door. Unlocked. Not smart, Teresa, not these days. I opened it and went in calling her name.
Silence.
On the floor near the couch was an empty fifth of vodka, lying on its side in a wet spot where some of it had dribbled out. An empty glass and an ashtray full of cigarette butts was on an end table. The place smelled of booze—and of stale tobacco and, faintly, of sickness.
I moved into the rear of the house. She was in one of the bedrooms, lying face down across a rumpled king-size bed, the same housecoat she’d worn yesterday bunched up over her hips. Dead drunk in a dried patch of her own vomit. I called her name again from the doorway; she didn’t stir. I went and leaned over the bed and shook her, hard. That got me a low mumbling groan. One of her hands came up, twitching, as if she were trying to brush away a bothersome fly, and then flopped down again. She didn’t wake up. Without help she wouldn’t wake up for hours yet.
Brew up some coffee, haul her into the shower? No. Instead I tugged the housecoat down over her hips and thighs, covered her with a tattered quilt that was lying at the foot of the bed. Then I set about searching the room and the rest of the house.
Coleman Lujack had been shot—and I had been shot at— with a 9mm automatic; that was what I was hunting for. I didn’t find it. Nor any other type of handgun. Nor anything at all that linked Teresa Melendez to Coleman’s murder.
Her car keys were on one of the kitchen counters. I took them out through the back door, over under the carport to the Honda. The driver’s door was open; I leaned in and looked through the glove compartment, under the seats. No gun. I unlocked the trunk and poked around in there. No gun. She could have gotten rid of it, of course, but I didn’t think so.
Back inside the house, I put the keys where I’d found them and went to look in on Teresa again. She hadn’t moved. Let her be, I thought. She’s not the one. If Coleman had come here, she might have tried to do what she’d said she would— cut his heart out and feed it to the neighbor’s dogs. But she wasn’t the kind to go stalking a man, even one she hated as much as her former boss, and then blow him away with a 9mm cannon. She was the kind to cry and wallow in self-pity and drink herself into a puking oblivion.
Not a killer, Teresa Melendez. Just another lost soul.
* * * *
South to the San Carlos hills. But it was an hour’s worth of wasted time and effort: Eileen Lujack was away somewhere again.
* * * *
Albert Alley was a little hive of activity this Sunday morning. The sun was out here—the Mission has the best weather in San Francisco—and so were the residents: young guys working on cars, kids playing ball, kids hanging out, well-dressed families on their way to and from church. Spanish music clashed with heavy-metal rock, each issuing loudly from an unseen radio. On one of the stoops, two men sat drinking beer out of cans and watching a pro basketball game on a portable TV.
There was nobody in the little garden f
ronting the Victorian where the Vegas lived, nobody on the stoop. I went up and worked the bell for more than a minute before I got results. When the door finally opened, it was Mrs. Vega who peered out at me.
Like Teresa Melendez, she, too, had spent Saturday night soothing her love for Rafael in an alcohol bath. Her face was puffy, her eyes bloodshot and sick with pain both physical and emotional. The smell of sour red wine blew off her like a bad wind. What was it about that son of a bitch that made his women grieve for him so intensely? Maybe he had admirable qualities underneath; maybe he was gentle and loving and kind to animals. Or maybe it was just that his women were lousy judges of men.
Breakdown - [Nameless Detective 19] Page 20