I wasn't in the best of shape. I'd awakened twice in the night, escaping the dream vision of Junko's pimp on fire. My mouth tasted as though I'd been gargling with gasoline. After the second time I'd cajoled myself back into sleep, I had a nightmare about someone in a pig costume. It was one of those peculiar dreams where nothing frightening happens but the air is charged with the kind of low-voltage electrical hum that makes the hair on your arms stand on end before an electrical storm. The person in the pig costume slowly walked up a flight of stairs and into a room. I followed, and the pig stood with his-her-back to me, and that was when the hum started. Then the pig mask came off. When the big pink pig started to turn around, I woke up. I was wringing wet, and cold to the center of my bones.
By then the sky was beginning to pale, and some L.A. birds were coughing in the trees. I got up, thankful to have awakened alive, and made a quart of coffee. Half an hour later, Wyatt called for the first time.
In addition to the fact that I felt sleepy and lousy, I was pretty much out of things to do. It was only Wednesday, the second day of the four-day ransom period, and I'd done just about everything I could think of that wouldn't directly endanger Aimee, on the remote chance that her kidnapper actually intended to release her after he picked up the ransom that had been mailed-mailed? — to him. I didn't believe for a second that he would. I had to wait, but I felt like I was waiting for the second coming of a deity whose first coming I had never accepted.
So I sort of cleaned the house again and hoped that Morris would call to announce that he'd broken the code on Birdie's disks. He didn't, and I couldn't call him: I didn't have his number, and there were no Gursteins listed in Topanga. Since I was sitting by the phone, I called once more the three numbers that had been answered by some guy saying “Cap’n’s.” On the first two, I got the same response. I hung up. The third, the one in my area code, just kept ringing. Well, that meant that the various Cap'ns kept something like business hours, so I hadn't entirely wasted my time.
But I still didn't know what the Cap’ns’ business was. What do Cap'ns do, anyway? The one in California might possibly have been a nautical man, but it seemed unlikely that the Cap'ns in Arizona and Idaho discharged their duties on the breast of the briny deep.
I staved off my identity crisis for a few hours by pulling on my shorts and a pair of battered shoes and running about six miles on the softest Pacific sand I could find. The clouds were back and there was a chill in the air that was the meteorological equivalent of a horse laugh at the idea of spring. My calves were on the verge of cramping permanently when I headed Alice into the main entrance of UCLA, still clean and empty because of Easter break, and headed for the saunas. When I got back to Alice, whom I'd parked in one of the dim underground lots that the state built for the convenience of rapists, it was ten-thirty, and I was showered, gleaming, and as pink as the pig in my nightmare.
Well, I thought, since I'm in town anyway, let's drive the streets and soak up the atmosphere. Maybe it would provoke an idea. What it provoked was an almost suicidal sense of futility. Even at that hour, even in the cold, the kids were out on Sunset and Santa Monica, both boys and girls, their thumbs extended to snag twenty dollars, a beating, or a nice case of AIDS. Without thinking about what I was doing, I pulled into the Oki-Burger. Since I was no longer under cover, I parked in the lot.
“You're kidding,” the Mountain said, using his nauseating cheesecloth to swab at one of the many spots on Alice's fender as I got out of the car. He'd been standing forlornly in the center of the asphalt sumo ring, waiting for a fat guy to come along and challenge him. All the fat guys were still in bed, tucked warmly away in the gray morning, and he'd come over to the car the moment I drove in. “I haven't seen one of these since I rented LaBamba.”
“I wish I were kidding,” I said. I assuaged the twinge of disloyalty I felt by patting Alice on the driver's door. “She drives okay.”
“One of the players drives an old Chevy, too,” he said, wiping a headlight. “He's a real jerkoff.” I suddenly remembered Junko's pimp's car.
“Hey, Mountain,” I said in my best Wednesday-morning voice, which wasn't much, “how about I buy us both a burger?”
The Mountain lived on burgers, and he always wanted one or, more usually, two. Two it was. He set mine down in front of me and both of his in front of him, gave me a big yellow smile, and took the first burger like an aspirin.
“So?” he said around a mouthful of beef, bread, and onions. It actually sounded more like “Fo?” Some mustard landed on his plaid shirt, adding a nice touch to the edible Jackson Pollock that decorated it.
“What's his name?” I asked.
“Mark Intveld. A knife boy. Likes to call himself Marco. Got a little Okinawan girl. Tommy just about shit, first time he saw her.”
“Junko.”
The Mountain raised his eyebrows in acknowledgment.
“He's scared,” I said.
“Marco? Good. Hope he gets scared to death. He ever comes around here, I'll turn him inside out and use him for rubber gloves.” He amputated half his second burger in a single bite. “What's he scared of?”
“Me,” I said, “and this is between us.”
“Muumph,” he said, chewing.
“I'm serious. I'm not supposed to be talking to anybody. The truth is, I think I may need some help pretty soon.”
The Mountain made a gesture like he was zipping his lips closed and then realized that his mouth was wide open to take another bite. He lowered the hamburger with a supreme act of will and completed the gesture.
Although the place was empty, I leaned toward him and lowered my voice. “There's a bunch of people who are dealing in kids. Not street pimps. This is a real business, not a cottage industry. They put the kids through something called obedience school to break them, and then they pass the kids around somehow. Whatever they do at obedience school, it scares the shit out of the kids. They also mark them by burning them with a cigar.”
The hamburger remained in his lowered hand. His little pig eyes glowed. I could have seen them across a dark room. “Who are they?”
“I don't know, exactly. I mean, I think I know, but I can't prove anything. They've got the little girl I was looking for.”
‘The little blondie?”
“That's the one.” The Mountain started to say something and then looked up.
“Whoops,” said a throaty contralto behind me. “E1 copperino.”
I turned to see Velveeta and Tammy. Tammy had finally gotten something warmer to wear, a ratty thrift-shop chinchilla that had probably begun life as a small herd of musk-rats. They were out pretty early, for them, and they both looked like they'd had a bad night.
The Mountain got up. It was like Mount Fuji taking wing. “What do you two want to be called today?” he asked. “Boys or girls?”
“Girls,” Tammy said primly.
“Well, girls, scram. We're closed to pre-ops until four. New health rule.”
“Jeez,” Tammy said. “Not even coffee?”
“To go,” the Mountain said.
“Come on, Tammy,” Velveeta said, tugging at the fur. Some of it came away in her fingers. “We'll take our trade elsewhere. Who wants to eat with cops anyway?” The two of them wobbled on their high heels back into the parking lot. The Mountain turned his attention back to the remainder of his burger.
“I think they pretend to be talent agents,” I said. “They tell the kids they're going to make stars out of them, take their pictures, fill their heads full of stuff. Then, I guess, they put them through obedience school and use the pictures to sell the kids to whoever’s on the circuit. Listen, do you remember a little Mongoloid girl on the streets a few years ago?”
“Anita,” he said promptly. Something like pain squeezed his features. “Sheeze. Hispanic, but everybody thought she was Oriental. She was only here a few days. I got her to go home, but her parents didn't want her, can you believe it? She was back in a week. Kid was seriously mental.
Couldn't even get dressed right without help.”
“They got her too,” I said. “She did something wrong, and they killed her.”
The Mountain sat back and blinked heavily. He looked around at the empty tables as though he was trying to remember where Anita had sat. Then he picked up the remaining half-burger and threw it across the room. It hit another table with a flat, splatting sound.
“Fuckers,” he said. He reached up behind him, grabbed his greasy pigtail, and gave it a savage tug. The action seemed to center him. “You want help,” he said, “you got it. Anytime.”
“What do you know about the cops?”
“Like what?” His eyes were watchful.
“I've heard something about some of them being on the take. Do you know anything about that?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Kids talk. You know. I figured it was just an excuse not to get anywhere near them. Kids don't like cops.”
“What did they say?”
“That there were cops who weren't straight. You know, who were in the game.”
“Maybe they were right.”
“According to who?”
“Marco.”
“So you talked to old Marco.” He almost smiled. It wasn't a pretty sight. “You get his knife?”
“He'll get another one.”
“Yeah. Asshole can't pick his teeth with anything smaller than a bayonet.”
“I want to know if you hear anything else about the police.”
“That the help you wanted?” He looked disappointed.
“Only part of it. I may need you to kill some guys.” I was only half-joking.
“That's more like it.”
“So, now,” I said, “you've got something to look forward to.”
The Mountain put several chins on top of a massive palm and regarded me. “You're worried about the cops. That's why you're not going to them.”
“You got it,” I said.
“Hey,” a girl's voice said.
Apple hovered uncertainly over the Mountain's shoulder. “Hey, honey,” the Mountain said in an entirely new tone of voice.
“Have you seen Donnie?” Her enormous sweater was wrapped around her, but her lips were purple with the cold. She couldn't have weighed ninety pounds. Her hair looked better for the washing in the Executive Suites, but not much.
“Not since last night. He was in here last night.”
“He didn't come home.” She had a bruise on her cheek that hadn't been there the last time I saw her.
The hair on my arms prickled. “Was he supposed to?” I asked.
“He always does. This was the first night I slept alone.”
“Where did he say he was going?”
She spread thin, empty hands. “He didn't.”
“You had anything?” the Mountain asked.
“Couple of ups.”
“I meant food, Apple,” he said.
She looked gravely at him for a moment. “I don't think I could,” she said. “You can call me Nora, but it's a secret.”
“Jesus,” the Mountain said, mopping himself with the rag. “What happened to your face?”
“I fell down,” she said, too promptly.
“Under anybody I know?” the Mountain asked, looking grim.
“No,” she said.
“Well, you're going to have an orange smoothie whether you want it or not.” He got up to fetch it.
“He's sweet,” Apple said, watching him.
“Sit down, Nora.” She did, looking around as though she were afraid someone would tell her to get up again. “You don't know anything about where Donnie went?”
“He never tells me.”
“He didn't have any routines?”
“No. When there's a customer, there's a customer.”
“But he always comes home.”
She started to say something, and her chin suddenly broke out in a random pattern of dimples. She swallowed and, instead of speaking, she nodded her head. She turned one palm up and rubbed at it with the other as though she were trying to erase her lifeline. For the first time I saw the narrow gold ring, too big for her, on her index finger.
“Where’d you get that?”
She looked nervous. “I didn't steal it,” she whispered.
“Of course you didn't. It's very pretty, that's all. I was just wondering where you got it.”
“My mother's,” she said. “It was hers.”
“Was she pretty?”
“I don't know.” She looked at me, trying to figure out where the question had come from. “They say she looked like me.”
“Then she was pretty,” I said. Apple ducked her head as though I'd hit her and looked at the table. “Who do you live with, Nora?”
“Donnie,” she said in a very small voice. She didn't look up.
“I meant before.”
“Nobody,” she said. “They're all dead. Or they should be.”
“Aiya,” I said in an unconscious Cantonese imitation of Eleanor.
Apple looked at me, her eyes bright. “That's a funny thing to say.”
“It's a funny world.”
“No kidding,” she said, sounding fifty.
“Here,” the Mountain said, slamming down a cup that must have held a quart. It was filled to the brim with a thick, viscous, slightly orangish fluid. “You're going to drink it if it takes all day.”
“Okay,” Apple said submissively. She looked relieved to have someone giving the orders. It took both hands, but she lifted it and started to sip.
“Don't worry about Donnie,” I said. “He'll come here sooner or later.” I pumped my voice full of an assurance I didn't feel. For a moment I imagined myself as one of the idiots in a werewolf movie who are always telling the other idiots that there's nothing to worry about: go ahead, go outside and take a leak under the full moon. We'll keep your nice Middle European food warm until you come back.
“Anyway,” the Mountain said, watching her drink, “you're staying here.” He reached out a hand the size of a Smithfield ham and touched the bruise on her cheek, so gently that she didn't seem to feel it. She kept her eyes on the surface of her smoothie, now dropping almost imperceptibly in the cup.
“Jesus,” he said. “Dorothy was like this, you know?”
“Aimee,” I said.
“Aimee,” he corrected himself. “Just like her.”
Apple turned her dark eyes first to him and then to me. “Aimee,” she said in her little girl's voice.
“Anytime,” the Mountain said flatly to me. “Anytime you need help. Any kind of help. Anytime.”
19
The Steel Table
“Damn you,” Hammond said into the phone. He sounded as though he meant it. It was getting dark, and I'd just arrived home. Two messages on my answering machine had told me that Jessica hadn't come home yet. Hammond was number three.
“Damn me? Why? Is it something I've done recently, or some kind of general principle?”
“Yoshino,” he said.
I squinted into the past. “Who's Yoshino?”
“That's hilarious,” he said.
“Oh, Yoshino,” I said. “What happened?”
“More important,” he said, “what the fuck are you up to?”
“A1, I told you. Kansas City. I showed you her picture.”
“That was one girl. Kidnapping, I think you said. You didn't say anything about a serial murderer.”
“You've got another one?” A sense of futility, familiar by now, swept over me. “Don't say you've got another one.”
“Don't tell me what not to say. And you better get your ass in here. Some people in this here building are hopping.”
“Have you got another one?”
“Yes.”
I looked around the living room. I'd lighted a fire in the wood-burning stove, and the Mozart horn concerto I'd heard at the Gursteins’ was giving the room's acoustics a workout. The computer was on and blin
king at me, its dinky little fan whirring in a comfortable fashion.
“Blond?” I said.
“That'll wait until you get to the morgue.”
’Tm in the car.”
Rush hour had congealed on the freeways. The gods of weather had decided that a little sprinkle would grease the roads and slow the traffic, so Alice's useless windshield wipers were sweeping sarcastically back and forth when I turned into the neon-lighted parking lot under Parker Center, the cops' home base. I went straight to the morgue.
Yoshino let me in,looking slightly shamefaced. “Thanks,” I said nastily as she closed the door behind me.
The morgue was cold, but a lot warmer than Max Bruner's voice when he said, “She was doing what she was supposed to do.”
“Well, hey,” I said, “whatever happened to individual initiative?”
“It went out with the frontier,” Bruner said. He was wearing a cashmere jacket that would have made Miles Brand goggle with envy and a pair of fawn-colored wool slacks that proclaimed some kind of fashion statement with an Italian accent. I was almost afraid to look at his shoes. They were certain to be made of the skin of an unborn calf or something else you could wear only once without saying hello to your toenails.
“Looking good, Max,” I said, thinking about bad cops.
“Because of Al,” he said with an air of sorely tried patience, “I've agreed to let you see the body before we have our talk. Like I said, that's because of Al. If I'd had my way, we'd have put you up overnight with a bunch of vomiting DUI’s before we even said hello.” He reached into the pocket of his elegant jacket, pulled out a handful of loose Maalox, and tossed them back like popcorn.
“That's white of you,” I said. To Yoshino I said, “Figure of speech.”
“Four-one-two,” Bruner said to Yoshino as he chewed.
Her hair looked messed up, and I hoped her anniversary party had been a success. She tossed him an icy glance that said she already knew the number and went over to the wall, pulled out a drawer, and peeled back the sheet.
The stainless steel gleamed under the fluorescent tubes, but not enough to outshine Junko's face. She'd been opened from her throat to her hipbones.
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