by Jan Burke
“So you say.”
“You think I’m bluffing? Okay, fine. I’m picturing a boat with a group of men on it. You’re one of them.
There’s a young woman named Nadine Preston.”
“Shit.” Afraid, not angry.
I pressed my advantage. “Oddly enough, this isn’t about fishing. It’s about buildings. And about a man being cheated out of his future. And other things. It hasn’t been easy on you to be a part of it, has it Keene?”
“No! It hasn’t!” He paused. “I’m surprised you still think enough of me to figure that out.”
“I do have faith in you, Keene, or I wouldn’t be trying to get you to tell me your side of the story. Sooner or later, someone is going to talk to me. It can be you, or it can be someone else. But the first one to get this off his chest has the best chance to tell it his way. You want one of the others to give me his version instead?”
“No.”
“You want to talk to me, Keene?”
Even over the noisy connection, I could hear his sigh. “Believe it or not, yes, I do. This has gone far enough. Moffett just called me a few minutes ago. Madder than a wet hen. Bastard thinks I’ve already talked to you.”
I thought of how quickly word seemed to pass between the members of this group. “Are you on a cellular phone?” I asked, wondering if I was acting a little paranoid.
“Yes, I’m in the car. Are you having trouble hearing me?”
“No, and I’m afraid someone else might not be having any trouble hearing us. Cellular phones aren’t very secure.”
“Oh, I see what you mean. But the odds—”
“Too many people around here have been unlucky lately.”
“I’ll call back from a pay phone.”
He called back just when I was sure he had been mugged or shot or dispatched by some other means. “Goddamn, it’s hard to find a public phone that works around here!” he said.
“Just glad to know you’re safe. What are you doing in town?”
“Had to check up on a property I just acquired.”
“The Angelus?”
He grunted. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you already know that, but I am. Yes, the Angelus. I was going to talk to you about it anyway. I saw my kids today and—well, never mind, I’ll explain all that later. Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
“I have to do this my own way.” There was a silence, then he said, “Why don’t you meet me at the little park on the corner of Twentieth and Laguna?”
I wasn’t too familiar with that area, but I had seen the park and supposed I could find it easily enough. “When?”
“Two-thirty okay with you?”
I looked at my watch. It was one o’clock. I figured I could make a phone call, get over to Ray Aiken’s office, and still have plenty of travel time to spare. “Sure.”
“See you then.”
I CALLED FRANK, told him about my morning, and gave him Nadine’s Social Security number. When he’d asked the coroner about heart medications, Carlos had told him yes, they’d thought of that, and to be patient, the toxicology work would take at least another week.
“Jeff McCutchen?”
“It’s really weird, I know, but sometimes these guys at the police department—my lieutenant, people like that? They like to look over at my desk and see me doing work on the cases they’ve assigned to me.”
“Sorry. I know you’re busy. Thanks for all you’ve done—I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the day.”
“Don’t you dare. I’m just saying it might take a little time, okay?”
“Okay. And I do appreciate it. I’ll try to think up some suitable reward for you.”
“Extra innings?”
I laughed. “Sure. But what are we going to do for you?”
We talked for a while about household matters—what was needed from the store, who would pick up the dry cleaning, and was the bank deposit made.
“I called a couple of repair places,” he said, and quoted a range of prices, naming the two shops which were most reasonable. “Which one do you want to take your car to?”
“You didn’t have to do that on top of everything else you’ve got on your plate,” I said.
“I knew you’d put it off,” he said with annoying accuracy. “They’re saying there’s a chance of rain tomorrow. Let’s get your window fixed today.”
“Don’t know if I’ll have time.”
“Take the car in. I’ll pick you up after work.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
That didn’t make him happy, but he got another call, so we said good-bye with the understanding that I’d phone again a little later in the afternoon.
My phone rang a few minutes later. As soon as I picked it up and identified myself, I got an earful.
“Are you trying to kill him? I don’t know what the hell you think you’re up to, but I won’t stand for it!”
“Jerry?”
“My father’s relationship with that woman is none of your business. I won’t have him upset. Do you understand?”
“Jerry, I called you, not your father. I’m not trying to harm him. I just want to know about Nadine Preston.”
“No good will come of this,” he said. “Leave us alone.”
He hung up.
I was disappointed, but figured his father’s illness had placed him under a strain. Maybe he’d settle down and talk to me later.
I took my pager out, saw that it still had Ivy’s old message on it, along with all the others I had received. I tried to clear them. All the functions on the pager were handled by pressing two buttons, both made for someone with fingers the size of a chipmunk’s. I pushed the buttons in frustration, ultimately succeeding in my task by default—I have no idea which combination of button-pressing did the trick.
Feeling that unparalleled sense of satisfaction that comes to a conqueror of electronic devices, I dropped the pager into my purse. (The manufacturers should give out karate-type belts: yellow belt, can use memory dial on the phone; brown belt, can use all the functions on a VCR; black belt, can install peripheral devices on home computer.) I told Lydia where I’d be, grabbed the fax envelopes, and took off.
“HERE YOU ARE,” Charlotte said, handing me a section of black fax ribbon that was about two feet long. “Ray said that if you could make anything of this, you were welcome to it. I just think it’s sad, myself.”
I held the ribbon up to the light. The first page was a cover page with Ben Watterson’s letterhead on it. Written in the same handwriting I had seen in his calendars was a brief note:
Here it is.
Now what will you do, Allan?
I don’t believe I can bear to learn the answer.
The next page was the note to Ben from Lucas, the one I had already seen, saying that what followed was Jeff McCutchen’s note.
McCutchen’s note began in a tight, careful hand and ended in a loose, erratic scrawl:
After all he has done, I should want revenge. I don’t. I wish I did. It would be something to look forward to. Alas, I’m nothing more than a miserable son of a bitch who can no longer afford nor find pleasure in his vices. A sad state of affairs, my friend. I can’t feel a thing. Starvation without appetite. Emptiness. Worse than pain.
I just want out.
Don’t blame yourself for any of this. I’ve always had less courage than you, Lucas. If I
had any courage, I would have told you about him a long time ago.
I owe you something for that.
I watched from a distance the last time you were betrayed by him. It only cost me a quarter. Jeff McCutchen, Budget Spy.
What good is the truth if you don’t have the power to make anyone believe it? I don’t have to tell you the answer to that one. And I don’t have the truth. I just have a guess. My curiosity is gone, Lucas. Here’s my last guess about anything:
33 44 30
118 9 36
I won’t make this easy for you, simply
because I believe you would be better off not knowing. But my judgment is notoriously poor, so if you decide you must know, this hint should be enough.
Maybe this will never do anyone any good. Am I Judas if he is not Jesus?
Will the dead rise again?
You’re good at math, Lucas, but how are you with numbers?
Charlotte was watching me. “You’re right,” I said. “It’s sad that anyone should have ever felt this way.” I didn’t say more because I didn’t want Charlotte or her boss to believe they were giving me something important. No matter how rambling or affected by drugs Jeff McCutchen’s words were, these were his last. I’ve yet to read an unimportant suicide note.
I tucked it into the envelope which held the other section of fax ribbon, asked Charlotte to give Ray my thanks, and left.
I thought about the note as I drove to meet Keene Dage. “How are you with numbers?” McCutchen had asked. What could they represent? A pair of combinations for a safe? Was the second set “118 and 9” or “11 and 89”? Perhaps these were some kind of computer passwords. If Ben Watterson had so quickly understood their meaning perhaps they were terms of a loan, or dollar figures. But what had only cost a quarter? The more I thought about the note, the less sense it made to me.
“WHAT HAPPENED to your window?” Keene asked when I stepped out of the Karmann Ghia. I told him and he shook his head. “Supposed to rain tomorrow. I know a guy not far from here that does good work. Reasonable. Come on, follow me over there and we’ll get it fixed.”
I was about to protest, but figured the time I’d save in answering questions about my broken window would make up for whatever it’d take to drop the car off. Besides, I didn’t want to start out on the wrong foot with Keene.
He was right, the shop was close by, and the one he had in mind not only specialized in VWs, Porsches, and Audis, but was in a sort of minimall of repair shops, including a glass shop. One way or another, I’d get a new window. “I built this place,” Keene said, with not a little pride. “Lots of special considerations in this kind of building, but the auto guys appreciate the thought that went into it. I never have vacancies here. Minute a shop opens up, someone wants to rent it.”
The owner greeted Keene like a long-lost cousin, quoted me a price that was just above being suspiciously low, and said he could have it ready for me the next day. I called Frank, but he was out, so I left a message on his voice mail saying where the car was and taking him up on an offer for a ride home.
“Come on,” Keene said, after I had signed the paperwork. “I want to show you my city.”
“WHAT’S IN THE ENVELOPES?” he asked as I settled them under my feet in the big Mercedes.
“Some stuff for work,” I said.
He laughed. “Not exactly a two-way street with you reporters, is it?”
“No, so don’t take it personally.”
That seemed to amuse him, too.
He started talking about O’Connor, the man who had taught me most of what I know about reporting. They were drinking buddies, Keene said, which put him in a group that might not fill a stadium, but which would probably sell enough tickets to allow a home game to be shown on TV.
“That was before I quit drinking,” Keene said, “almost thirteen years ago. I still spent time with O’Connor—early on he let me know he wouldn’t try to tempt me. He’d call me up and say, ‘Let’s have lunch, you rich and sober son of a bitch. You buy the sandwich, I’ll buy the water.’ Good man. Everybody knew it. Had his faults, but he was a good man.”
He was silent for a time, and I didn’t ask him any questions. I was thinking my own thoughts of O’Connor.
He took me downtown, and until he drove past the paper, I worried that he might have changed his mind about talking to me, that he was going to take me back to the Express and go home to Fallbrook. But about half a block past the Wrigley Building, he started pointing out his work.
“Corbin Tyler did a great job on that restaurant design,” he said, pointing to a popular eatery. “My company did all the work. Lovely building to start with—a Schilling. You don’t know of him, I suppose, but he was very popular in his day. Lots of work in Las Piernas. Corbin studied all of the old prints, drew his lines to complement the original design. Owners were pleased.” He pointed to the monolith that was the BLP. “We did the new bank building, of course. There was an abandoned drugstore there before. And here—this clothing store? That was a massage parlor. Not much of a building there before, so we didn’t save it. The masonry was unreinforced, so it probably would have cost a fortune to bring it up to code.”
Cars were passing us, drivers giving him dirty looks, but Keene paid not one bit of attention. He was so preoccupied with looking up at buildings, for a time I worried that he would rear-end somebody. But he seemed to have this style of driving down to a science, and I began to relax and enjoy the show. He pointed out building after building, some new, some remodeled; some for Roland Hill, some for other developers; a favorite here or there, a story behind each one.
“Do you remember what it was like before?” he asked, when the tour seemed to be over.
“Yes. The skyline was lower, and many of the buildings were getting run-down, but—”
“Run-down! Twenty-five years ago, downtown Las Piernas was a pukehole! It was the three Ds—dirty, dangerous, and dying.”
I didn’t argue. He was right, but still…
“You miss the old buildings,” he said, reading my mind. Or maybe my obstinate look.
“Not all of them, but yes, there was a charm and beauty to them that I just don’t find in the BLP build-ing—no offense.”
“None taken. I’m with you.”
“What?”
“I just build them the way they tell me to build them. Unless I’m the owner, there’s only so much say a construction man has over a project. Don’t get me wrong—I take pride in my work—every nail and brick of it. But would I have destroyed the Gergans Building? Never.”
He was referring to a beautiful old building that had been near the shore. The Gergans was one of the battles preservationists in Las Piernas had lost. I had been in it once or twice before it was torn down, seen the carved woodwork and marble, the loving detail work that had graced every corner of it. To some it was probably made in a cluttered style and hopelessly busy; to me, it seemed to say “I’m filled with visual pleasures and surprises. You could work within me day after day, and still you would find something new to see and discover.” The photos, all that remained of it, never would do it justice.
“If you’re trying to tell me there are no easy answers—”
“Oh,” he said, “you know that already.”
“Then why the tour?”
“Bear with me. Bear with me.”
I hoped I could. I was fairly sure I knew where he was driving now, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to see the Angelus again.
But we were about a block away from the old hotel when Keene pulled his Mercedes over to a curb and stopped the car. He looked down the filthy street and asked, “What do you see here?”
“Nothing too lovely,” I admitted, looking at the decaying, boarded-up buildings that lined the block.
“A long row of shitholes, is what you mean.”
“Maybe if the people who lived here a few years ago had been allowed to stay, it wouldn’t be like this. Maybe it wouldn’t have become a place where only rats could survive.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but I don’t picture them having the kind of bucks it would take to paint one of these places, let alone do the earthquake work.”
“Well, if they’d had the kind of bucks the city gave to Hill and Associates, if someone could have taught them how to bamboozle limited partners out of ready cash, if Ben Watterson had loaned money to them on a handshake and at a big discount, hell, who knows what they could have done to the place?”
His mouth flattened into a tight line, but then he sighed and said, “You could be right. Who am I to say? Maybe t
his neighborhood wouldn’t have gone into the crapper like it did—or, I should say, could have crawled out of the crapper it had already become. But you’ll forgive me if I say I don’t think it would have been so simple to save it, either.”
“No,” I admitted. “We started out saying there weren’t easy answers, right?”
“Right. Well. Let me tell you what else I see here—”
“We could call your vision ‘economic opportunities,’” I interrupted, “and fight over whose opportunity, or we could settle for ‘convention center.’”
He looked surprised, then started laughing. “Shit. Are you the kind of person who calls up the birthday girl and says, ‘I can’t make it to your surprise party?’”
“No,” I said, smiling, “I just enjoy pissing off rich, sober sons of bitches.”
“God, you’re good at it,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. When he looked over at me again his expression was grim. “Well, no use taking up more time. I just bought a building that looks like a damned church. It’s as good as any place to make a confession.”
He started the car again and pushed the automatic door locks.
33
UNLOCK THE DOORS,” I said as we turned a corner. “Unlock them now.”
“Why?” he said, glancing over at me.
I reached for the button on my side, hit it. The door unlocked. No problem. I was still staring at the button, wondering why I had expected it to remain locked, when Keene pulled the car over to a curb.
“Here we are,” he said. “You’re right. Probably silly for such a short trip—probably silly not to walk. But you mentioned rats and there are lots of two-legged ones around here. You wouldn’t believe the character my security man kicked out of here earlier. I told the guard we’d be coming back here, and he promised to run off any other weirdos. The place should be safe enough now.”
We were at the Angelus.
It looked different. The sagging fence had been replaced, as had the broken windows on the bottom floor. I glanced up and heard him say, “We started on the lower floors. The window your friend broke hasn’t been replaced yet.”