Whispers

by Dean Koontz

  about half of those outlets. The windows were framed with heavy timbers, dark and rustic, as if this were the casa of some great and rich terrateniente; but the ugly factory-window glass was webbed with wire. There were loading docks where the verandas should have been. The walls were straight, the corners sharp, the overall shape boxlike—quite the opposite of the graceful arches and rounded edges of genuine Spanish construction. The place was like an aging whore wearing more refined clothes than was her custom, trying desperately to pass for a lady.

  “Why did they do it?” Tony asked as he got out of the unmarked police sedan and closed the door.

  “Do what?” Frank asked.

  “Why did they put up so many of these offensive places? What was the point of it?”

  Frank blinked. “What’s so offensive?”

  “It doesn’t bother you?”

  “It’s a laundry. Don’t we need laundries?”

  “Is anybody in your family an architect?”

  “Architect? No,” Frank said. “Why’d you ask?”

  “I just wondered.”

  “You know, sometimes you don’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Tony said.

  In the business office at the front of the building, when they asked to see the owner, Vincent Garamalkis, they were given worse than a cool reception. The secretary was downright hostile. The Vee Vee Gee Laundry had paid four fines in four years for employing undocumented aliens. The secretary was certain that Tony and Frank were agents with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. She thawed a bit when she saw their LAPD identification, but she was still not cooperative until Tony convinced her that they hadn’t even a smidgen of interest in the nationalities of the people working at Vee Vee Gee. At last, reluctantly, she admitted that Mr. Garamalkis was on the premises. She was about to take them to him when the phone rang, so she gave them hasty directions and asked them to find him on their own.

  The enormous main room of the laundry smelled of soap and bleach and steam. It was a damp place, hot and noisy. Industrial washing machines thumped, buzzed, sloshed. Huge driers whirred and rumbled monotonously. The clacking and hissing of automatic folders put Tony’s teeth on edge. Most of the workers unloading the laundry carts, and the husky men feeding the machines, and the women tagging linens at a double row of long tables were speaking to one another in loud and rapid Spanish. As Tony and Frank walked from one end of the room to the other, some of the noise abated, for the workers stopped talking and eyed them suspiciously.

  Vincent Garamalkis was at a battered desk at the end of the big room. The desk was on a three-foot-high platform that made it possible for the boss to watch over his employees. Garamalkis got up and walked to the edge of the platform when he saw them coming. He was a short, stocky man, balding, with hard features and a pair of gentle hazel eyes that didn’t match the rest of his face. He stood with his hands on his hips, as if he were defying them to step onto his level.

  “Police,” Frank said, flashing ID.

  “Yeah,” Garamalkis said.

  “Not Immigration,” Tony assured him.

  “Why should I be worried about Immigration?” Garamalkis asked defensively.

  “Your secretary was,” Frank said.

  Garamalkis scowled down at them. “I’m clean. I hire nobody but U.S. citizens or documented aliens.”

  “Oh, sure,” Frank said sarcastically. “And bears don’t shit in the woods any more.”

  “Look,” Tony said, “we really don’t care about where your workers come from.”

  “So what do you want?”

  “We’d like to ask a few questions.”

  “About what?”

  “This man,” Frank said, passing up the three mug shots of Bobby Valdez.

  Garamalkis glanced at them. “What about him?”

  “You know him?” Frank asked.

  “Why?”

  “We’d like to find him.”

  “What for?”

  “He’s a fugitive.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “Listen,” Frank said, fed up with the stocky man’s sullen responses, “I can make this hard or easy for you. We can do it here or downtown. And if you want to play Mr. Hardass, we can bring the Immigration and Naturalization Service into it. We don’t really give a good goddamned whether or not you hire a bunch of Mexes, but if we can’t get cooperation from you, we’ll see that you get busted every which way but loose. You got me? You hear it?”

  Tony said, “Mr. Garamalkis, my father was an emigrant from Italy. He came to this country with his papers in order, and eventually he became a citizen. But one time he had some trouble with agents from the Immigration Service. It was just a mistake in their records, a paperwork foul-up. But they hounded him for more than five weeks. They called him at work and paid surprise visits to our apartment at odd hours. They demanded records and documentation, but when Papa provided those things, they called them forgeries. There were threats. Lots of threats. They even served deportation papers on him before it was all straightened out. He had to hire a lawyer he couldn’t afford, and my mother was hysterical most of the time until it was settled. So you see, I don’t have any love for the Immigration Service. I wouldn’t go one step out of my way to help them pin a rap on you. Not one damn step, Mr. Garamalkis.”

  The stocky man looked down at Tony for a moment, then shook his head and sighed. “Don’t they burn you up? I mean, a year or two ago, when all those Iranian students were making trouble right here in L.A., overturning cars and trying to set houses on fire, did the damn Immigration Service even consider booting their asses out of the country? Hell, no! The agents were too busy harassing my workers. These people I employ don’t burn down other people’s houses. They don’t overturn cars and throw rocks at policemen. They’re good hardworking people. They only want to make a living. The kind of living they can’t make south of the border. You know why Immigration spends all its time chasing them? I’ll tell you. I’ve got it figured out. It’s because these Mexicans don’t fight back. They’re not political or religious fanatics like a lot of these Iranians. They aren’t crazy or dangerous. It’s a whole hell of a lot safer and easier for Immigration to come after these people ’cause they generally just go along quietly. Ahh, the whole damned system’s a disgrace.”

  “I can understand your point of view,” Tony said. “So if you’d just take a look at these mug shots—”

  But Garamalkis was not ready to answer their questions. He still had a few things to get off his chest. Interrupting Tony, he said, “Four years ago, I got fined the first time. The usual things. Some of my Mexican employees didn’t have green cards. Some others were working on expired cards. After I settled up in court, I decided to play it straight from then on. I made up my mind to hire only Mexicans with valid work cards. And if I couldn’t find enough of those, I was going to hire U.S. citizens. You know what? I was stupid. I was really stupid to think I could stay in business that way. See, I can only afford to pay minimum wage to most of these workers. Even then, I’m stretching myself thin. The problem is Americans won’t work for minimum wage. If you’re a citizen, you can get more from welfare for not working than you can make at a job that pays minimum wage. And the welfare’s tax-free. So I just about went crazy for about two months, trying to find workers, trying to keep the laundry going out on schedule. I nearly had a heart attack. See, my customers are places like hotels, motels, restaurants, barber shops . . . and they all need to get their stuff back fast and on a dependable schedule. If I hadn’t started hiring Mexicans again, I’d have gone out of business.”

  Frank didn’t want to hear any more. He was about to say something sharp, but Tony put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently, urging him to be patient.

  “Look,” Garamalkis said, “I can understand not giving illegal aliens welfare and free medical care and like that. But I can’t see the sense in deporting them when they’re only doing jobs that no one else
wants to do. It’s ridiculous. It’s a disgrace.” He sighed again, looked at the mug shots of Bobby Valdez that he was holding, and said, “Yeah, I know this guy.”

  “We heard he used to work here.”

  “That’s right.”

  “When?”

  “Beginning of the summer, I think. May. Part of June.”

  “After he skipped out on his parole officer,” Frank said to Tony.

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Garamalkis said.

  “What name did he give you?” Tony asked.

  “Juan.”

  “Last name?”

  “I don’t remember. He was only here six weeks or so. But it’ll still be in the files.”

  Garamalkis stepped down from the platform and led them back across the big room, through the steam and the smell of detergent and the suspicious glances of the employees. In the front office he asked the secretary to check the files, and she found the right pay record in a minute. Bobby had used the name Juan Mazquezza. He had given an address on La Brea Avenue.

  “Did he really live at this apartment?” Frank asked.

  Garamalkis shrugged. “It wasn’t the sort of important job that required a background credit check.”

  “Did he say why he was quitting?”

  “No.”

  “Did he tell you where he was going?”

  “I’m not his mother.”

  “I mean, did he mention another job?”

  “No. He just cut out.”

  “If we don’t find Mazquezza at this address,” Tony said, “we’d like to come back and talk to your employees. Maybe one of them got to know him. Maybe somebody here’s still friends with him.”

  “You can come back if you want,” Garamalkis said. “But you’ll have some trouble talking to my people.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Grinning, he said, “A lot of them don’t speak English.”

  Tony grinned back at him and said, “Yo leo, escribo y hablo español.”

  “Ah,” Garamalkis said, impressed.

  The secretary made a copy of the pay record for them, and Tony thanked Garamalkis for his cooperation.

  In the car, as Frank pulled into traffic and headed toward La Brea Avenue, he said, “I’ve got to hand it to you.”

  Tony said, “What’s that?”

  “You got more out of him quicker than I could have.”

  Tony was surprised by the compliment. For the first time in their three-month association, Frank had admitted that his partner’s techniques were effective.

  “I wish I had a little bit of your style,” Frank said. “Not all of it, you understand. I still think my way’s best most of the time. But now and then we run across someone who’d never open up to me in a million years, but he’d pour out his guts to you in about a minute flat. Yeah, I wish I had a little of your smoothness.”

  “You can do it.”

  “Not me. No way.”

  “Of course, you can.”

  “You’ve got a way with people,” Frank said. “I don’t.”

  “You can learn it.”

  “Nah. It works out well enough the way it is. We’ve got the classic mean-cop-nice-cop routine, except we aren’t playing at it. With us, it just sort of naturally works out that way.”

  “You’re not a mean cop.”

  Frank didn’t respond to that. As they stopped at a red light, he said, “There’s something else I’ve got to say, and you probably won’t like it.”

  “Try me,” Tony said.

  “It’s about that woman last night.”

  “Hilary Thomas?”

  “Yeah. You liked her, didn’t you?”

  “Well . . . sure. She seemed nice enough.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I mean, you liked her. You had the hots for her.”

  “Oh, no. She was good looking, but I didn’t—”

  “Don’t play innocent with me. I saw the way you looked at her.”

  The traffic light changed.

  They rode in silence for a block.

  Finally, Tony said; “You’re right. I don’t get all hot and bothered by every pretty girl I see. You know that.”

  “Sometimes I think you’re a eunuch.”

  “Hilary Thomas is . . . different. And it’s not just the way she looks. She’s gorgeous, of course, but that’s not all of it. I like the way she moves, the way she handles herself. I like to listen to her talk. Not just the sound of her voice. More than that. I like the way she expresses herself. I like the way she thinks.”

  “I like the way she looks,” Frank said, “but the way she thinks leaves me cold.”

  “She wasn’t lying,” Tony said.

  “You heard what the sheriff—”

  “She might have been mixed up about exactly what happened to her, but she didn’t create the whole story out of thin air. She probably saw someone who looked like Frye, and she—”

  Frank interrupted. “Here’s where I’ve got to say what you won’t want to hear.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “No matter how hot she made you, that’s no excuse for what you did to me last night.”

  Tony looked at him, confused. “What’d I do?”

  “You’re supposed to support your partner in a situation like that.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Frank’s face was red. He didn’t look at Tony. He kept his eyes on the street and said, “Several times last night, when I was questioning her, you took her side against mine.”

  “Frank, I didn’t intend—”

  “You tried to keep me from pursuing a line of questioning that I knew was important.”

  “I felt you were too harsh with her.”

  “Then you should have indicated your opinion a whole hell of a lot more subtly than you did. With your eyes. With a gesture, a touch. You handle it that way all the time. But with her, you came charging in like a white knight.”

  “She had been through a very trying ordeal and—”

  “Bullshit,” Frank said. “She hadn’t been through any ordeal. She made it all up!”

  “I still won’t accept that.”

  “Because you’re thinking with your balls instead of your head.”

  “Frank, that’s not true. And it’s not fair.”

  “If you thought I was being so damned rough, why didn’t you take me aside and ask what I was after?”

  “I did ask, for Christ’s sake!” Tony said, getting angry in spite of himself. “I asked you about it just after you took the call from HQ, while she was still out on the lawn talking to the reporters. I wanted to know what you had, but you wouldn’t tell me.”

  “I didn’t think you’d listen,” Frank said. “By that time, you were mooning over her like a lovesick boy.”

  “That’s crap, and you know it. I’m as good a cop as you are. I don’t let personal feelings screw up my work. But you know what? I think you do.”

  “Do what?”

  “I think you do let personal feelings screw up your work sometimes,” Tony said.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You have this habit of hiding information from me when you come up with something really good,” Tony said. “And now that I think about it . . . you only do it when there’s a woman in the case, when it’s some bit of information you can use to hurt her, something that’ll break her down and make her cry. You hide it from me, and then you spring it on her by surprise, in the nastiest way possible.”

  “I always get what I’m after.”

  “But there’s usually a nicer and easier way it could be gotten.”

  “Your way, I suppose.”

  “Just two minutes ago you admitted my way works.”

  Frank didn’t say anything. He glowered at the cars ahead of them.

  “You know, Frank, whatever your wife did to you through the divorce, no matter how much she hurt you, that’s no reason to hate every woman you meet.”

  “I don’t.”
<
br />   “Maybe not consciously. But subconsciously—”

  “Don’t give me any of that Freud shit.”

  “Okay. All right,” Tony said. “But I’ll swap accusation for accusation. You say I was unprofessional last night. And I say you were unprofessional. Stalemate.”

  Frank turned right on La Brea Avenue.

  They stopped at another traffic signal.

  The light changed, and they inched forward through the thickening traffic.

  Neither of them spoke for a couple of minutes.

  Then Tony said, “Whatever weakness and faults you might have, you’re a pretty damned good cop.”

  Frank glanced at him, startled.

  “I mean it,” Tony said. “There’s been friction between us. A lot of the time, we rub each other the wrong way. Maybe we won’t be able to work together. Maybe we’ll have to put in requests for new partners. But that’ll just be a personality difference. In spite of the fact that you’re about three times as rough with people as you ever need to be, you’re good at what you do.”

  Frank cleared his throat. “Well . . . you, too.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Except sometimes you’re just too . . . sweet.”

  “And you can be a sour son of a bitch sometimes.”

  “Want to ask for a new partner?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Me either.”

  “But if we don’t start getting along better, it’s too dangerous to go on together much longer. Partners who make each other tense can get each other killed.”

  “I know,” Frank said. “I know that. The world’s full of assholes and junkies and fanatics with guns. You have to work with your partner as if he was just another part of you, like a third arm. If you don’t, you’re a lot more likely to get blown away.”

  “So I guess we should think seriously about whether we’re right for each other.”

  “Yeah,” Frank said.

  Tony started looking for street numbers on the buildings they passed. “We should be just about there.”

  “That looks like the place,” Frank said, pointing.

  The address on Juan Mazquezza’s Vee Vee Gee pay record was a sixteen-unit garden apartment complex in a block largely taken over by commercial interests: service stations, a small motel, a tire store, an all-night grocery. From a distance the apartments looked new and somewhat expensive, but on closer inspection Tony saw signs of decay and neglect. The exterior walls needed a new coat of stucco; they were badly chipped and cracked. The wooden stairs and