by Teri White
Beau shook his head. “Not only that. I came back mostly because I wanted to. Except …”
“Except what?”
He took a deep breath. “Please don’t make me do anything like that again.”
“I won’t.” Robert lifted a hand, only half-mockingly. “Scout’s honor,” he said.
“So I can stay?” Beau asked.
“If you want to.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
After a moment, Robert got up. “Come with me,” he said.
Looking curious, Beau followed him to the hallway. Robert unlocked and opened a door that hadn’t been opened before. Beau looked in. The room was a shambles—broken furniture, books thrown everywhere, drawers yanked out and emptied.
He glanced at Robert.
“Soon as we get the time,” he said, “we’ll clean this up. It’ll be your room.” He turned and walked away. “You want some fucking breakfast or not?” he added, not looking back at Beau.
16
1
Gar ordered a stack of pancakes, two eggs over easy, sausage patties, hash browns, and coffee. It was an old habit of his; the worse he expected a day to be, the bigger the breakfast he would eat. It was as if he needed to be fully stoked to face whatever was ahead.
He didn’t know why he thought that today was going to require the Lumberjack Special, but then again, the way this case was going, it seemed like a pretty safe bet.
He was still waiting for his food when the massive shape of Wally Dixon slid into the booth. “Bad habits never change, do they, Gar? You’re not a cop anymore. So how come you’re sitting in a grease factory like this at the crack of dawn?”
“I’m having breakfast,” Gar replied.
“Uh-huh. It’s pretty early.”
“Eternal vigilance,” he said. “That’s why I get big bucks from my clients.”
The waitress brought Dixon a cup of coffee. When she was gone again, he said, “You still on the same case?”
“Yes.” Gar decided not to wait any longer for his client to talk to the police. “I’m looking for a kid named Beau Epstein. Saul Epstein’s grandson.”
Dixon gave a low whistle. “You’re really playing in the big time now, aren’t you? I didn’t even know that old bastard had any family.”
“Well, I’m not quite sure that ‘family’ is the right word. He has a grandson who was living with him. But the kid took off.”
Dixon considered his coffee briefly. “I’m surprised the word hasn’t reached me. A high-profile case like that.”
Gar shrugged. “The old man wanted to keep things under wraps, but I finally persuaded him to go public with it. He should be filing a missing-person report any minute, or maybe he already has.”
Dixon nodded. “And the Epstein kid is the one who witnessed the hooker getting killed, is that it?”
“That’s it.”
Dixon was looking at him knowingly. They had been partners a long time. “What else?”
Gar waited as his breakfast was finally delivered. He poured warm maple syrup over the whole plate. “What else?” he repeated. Well, when there was nothing else to do, you went to the cops. “Just for starters, I think that maybe Beau was in Vegas when the Tony Drago hit went down.”
“That’s interesting,” Dixon admitted. “How old is this kid anyway?”
“Fifteen. No, sixteen,” he corrected himself, remembering the date Epstein had given him. “He just had a birthday.”
“Sounds a little young to be going around killing people.” Dixon snitched a slice of toast and piled apricot preserves onto it.
Gar frowned. “Beau isn’t killing anybody. The way I see it, he’s with whoever is offing these people. Your paid triggerman.”
“You think so? Is he going along willingly or unwillingly?”
Since Gar didn’t know the answer to that and he didn’t even want to think about it much, he didn’t say anything. He just concentrated on finishing the food on his plate. He was nearly done when Dixon’s beeper went off. The black man headed for the pay phone in the back of the diner. While he was gone, Gar had another cup of coffee.
Dixon returned to the table looking grim.
“Trouble?” Gar asked.
“Do I ever get beeped for good news?”
Gar wiped his mouth, “What?”
“Somebody just found a stiff a couple blocks from here. Guy found shot to death behind the Domino Lounge.”
“Gay bar, right?”
“Right.” Dixon picked up his coffee cup and took one last swallow. “You might be interested to hear that the deceased was shot once in the head.”
“Yeah? And was there a gun at the scene?”
“I didn’t ask that.”
But Gar had a bad feeling. “Would you have any objection if I followed you to the scene? Just out of idle curiosity.”
“You’ll do anything for a cheap thrill, won’t you, Gareth? But come on.”
He paid the check and followed Dixon from the diner.
The body was lying behind the trash bin at the edge of the parking lot. A middle-aged man with blond hair, nice clothes, and a face that, in the one quick glance he got, looked vaguely familiar to Gar. After that fast look, he stayed politely out of the way as Dixon did the things a lieutenant of homicide was supposed to do at a time like this. It all made Gar feel just a little nostalgic.
Dixon finally came over to where Gar was leaning against his car. Wordlessly, he held up a plastic evidence bag. Inside was a handgun. “Looks clean,” he said.
“The victim?”
“One Camden Hunt. Owner of an antique store down on Melrose. And a regular here apparently. He was in the bar last night.”
“Hunt?” Gar thought for a moment. “The guy was a fence, right?”
Dixon grinned. “Nice to see that your mind is as sharp as ever, partner.”
Gar returned the smile. Then, because he could read Dixon as well as Dixon could read him, he sobered, knowing that there was more. “What else?” he said wearily.
Dixon wasn’t smiling anymore either. “Hunt left the bar with a boy last night. Nobody knew him, and it looked like he was underage, but since the kid wasn’t drinking anything but Coke, nobody made a fuss. This is all according to the bouncer.”
“Can I show him the photo?”
“Be my guest.” Dixon turned to talk to a woman from forensics.
Gar made his way through the small army that had descended on the parking lot. A massive young man with a long ponytail was standing in the doorway of the bar, smoking nervously.
“Helluva thing,” he said to Gar.
“Sure is,” Gar agreed. “You told the detective that the victim left the bar with a young boy, right?”
“Yeah. I never saw him before and I know most of the hustlers who work this area.”
Gar didn’t really want to do it, but he held the picture out. “Is this him?”
The bouncer stared at the photograph, then nodded decisively. “That’s the kid. You don’t think this boy killed Mr. Hunt, do you?”
Gar just shrugged. “Anything else you can tell me?”
“Afraid not.”
“Well, thanks for the help.”
“Sure. Helluva thing,” he said again.
Dixon was still standing by the car. This time, he held up a bag with a switchblade inside. “Hunt tried to get the drop on his killer,” he said.
Gar didn’t say anything.
“So?” Wally said, with a nod toward the bar.
“He just ID’d Beau Epstein.”
Dixon shook his head. “This is getting pretty involved. For what started out as just another runaway kid.”
“This,” Gar said, “is a totally fucked-up mess.” They watched in silence as the loaded body bag was carried by. “Damn it,” Gar said to no one.
Dixon looked at him. “Your boy seems to have become a sort of Judas goat,” he said.
Gar just sighed.
Mostly because he couldn’t think of an
ything else to do at the moment, he followed Dixon again, this time to Hunt’s apartment. There was already a squad car in front of the building. The young uniformed officer got out and walked over to them. “We talked to the boyfriend,” he said with a mild smirk. “Seemed pretty broken up about it.”
Dixon just looked at him. “Thank you,” he said flatly.
Camden Hunt had liked to think of himself as a respected antiques dealer, and he lived the life to fit that image, including a fancy address. But that he hadn’t managed to cast off his roots completely became obvious when the door of his apartment opened.
The young man standing there looked about two weeks off the street. He was maybe twenty, wearing tight black jeans, a sleeveless black T-shirt, and a hostile expression. Whatever grief he’d felt at first hearing the news seemed to have diminished.
Without saying anything, he led them into the living room, They all sat on a vast curved velvet sofa. “What’s your name?” Wally asked.
“Jimmy Lee Hoskins,” he mumbled, lighting a cigarette. “That other cop already told me that Cam is dead. What else is there to say?”
“How long have you known Mr. Hunt?”
“Three months.” He glanced around the fancy living room and sighed. “Three fucking months of the good life. I guess it’s over now.”
Dixon smiled slightly. “Unless he put you in the will, Jimmy Lee.”
Hoskins snorted.
Gar hadn’t said anything yet.
“Do you know why anyone would want to kill your benefactor?” Wally asked.
“My what?”
“Your meal ticket.”
Hoskins shook his head.
“You do know about his business? Not the antiques, the other stuff.”
After a moment, Hoskins nodded. “But Cam was a good guy,” he said with sudden heat. “Nice, no matter what he did.”
“Just a nice neighborhood fence who took in strays, right?”
Hoskins shot Dixon a dirty look. “What the fuck do you know about it?”
Gar stepped in finally. He held out the picture. “Do you know this kid?”
A quick glance. “No. Should I?”
“Hunt left the bar with him last night.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t know the kid. And I don’t think Cam was up to what you think he was. Cam was getting everything he needed here.”
“Did he seem worried lately? Scared?”
“No.” Hoskins stared at the smoke trailing up from his cigarette. “There was one thing,” he added. “Some guy Cam used to know was bugging him. Cam told me the guy was just out of jail and he was trying to work some kind of a deal. Cam wasn’t very interested.”
“You know this old pal’s name?”
“No.”
Dixon asked a few more questions, none of which gave them much more than what they already had. Then Hoskins walked them to the door. “Shit,” he said. “When do you think I’ll have to clear out of here?”
Wally shrugged. “Talk to a lawyer.”
Hoskins didn’t seem too thrilled with that answer.
Riding down in the elevator, Gar took another look at the photograph. He was suddenly struck by how damned sad the face in the picture was. It seemed to him that a child this sad could get into a lot of trouble just trying to find a little happiness. Realizing that didn’t make him feel very good about how this case was liable to come out.
2
Beau had decided to start smoking.
Cigarettes, that was. “I used to do grass back home,” he said. “But my folks, they were really down on tobacco.”
Robert greeted the news with a shrug and pushed his lighter and cigarettes across the table. “It’s your funeral” was all he said.
Beau shook one cigarette out of the pack and lit it, then looked around the café to see if any of the other late breakfasters had noticed. No one had. “Actually,” he admitted, “they weren’t all that thrilled with me doing grass either, but they figured it was just a phase I was going through.”
Robert looked at him for a moment, then shook his head slowly and returned his attention to the newspaper. “I catch you smoking anything but tobacco,” he said mildly, “your ass is back on the street. Understand?”
“Yeah.”
He turned the page of the paper and instantly felt his heart fall to somewhere down around his ankles. “Jesus H. Christ,” he said.
Beau took the cigarette out of his mouth. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” Robert said grimly. “I’d say something is wrong.” He shoved the newspaper toward Beau. “They’ve got your fucking picture in here.”
“For real?” Beau smoothed the page. “Shit.”
“You didn’t tell me that your grandfather was Saul Epstein.”
“I didn’t think it mattered.”
“Oh no? Christ, he’s probably got the whole goddamned FBI out looking for you. He and J. Edgar were good buddies, I heard.” Abruptly, Robert shut up and looked around the small café. Nobody was paying them any attention at the moment. He took off his baseball cap and sunglasses. “Put these on,” he ordered.
Beau did.
“Now let’s get the hell out of here.” He paid the check quickly and they went straight to the car. Safely there, he opened the paper again for another look at the picture. “Jesus, Beau,” he said, “I don’t believe this.”
“I’m sorry,” Beau said in a low voice. “I didn’t know the old man would do anything like this.”
“Saul Epstein. Richer than God and just as powerful around here.”
Beau took off the sunglasses and looked at him with worried eyes. “What are we going to do, Robbie?”
Robert thought for a moment, then started the car. “Can’t do a damned thing about what’s already happened. But we can make sure nothing else does.”
He drove several blocks to a drugstore, told Beau to wait in the car, ignored Beau’s question about what he was going to do, and went into the store.
After a brief tour of the aisles, he picked up some brown hair color, battery-operated clippers, and another pair of sunglasses. At the last minute, he added a cheap baseball cap with a Batman logo on the front to his purchases. He also picked up a couple packs of cigarettes, figuring that if somebody else was going to keep bumming them, he’d run out pretty fast.
Beau looked very relieved when he got back into the car; what did the idiot think, that he’d been planning to duck out the back door? Not that it didn’t sound like a pretty good idea, in fact. “What’d you buy?”
“We’re going to transform you.”
“What’s that mean?” Beau asked warily.
“You gotta lose the hair, Tonto. And we’re changing the color.” He opened the sack and took out the sunglasses and hat. “And from now on, you don’t go out without wearing these.”
“Okay.” Beau pointed at the paper. “It says in there that some private detective is looking for me.”
“Yeah, well, some stupid rent-a-dick is the least of our problems.” But Robert wondered, hearing this, if maybe the sense of being observed that had come to him at odd moments over the last couple of days had to do with the fact of that detective. It made him nervous.
Beau leaned back, chewing on his lower lip.
At home, Beau stripped off his shirt and stuck his head over the kitchen sink while Robert poured the thick coloring gel onto his hair and rubbed it in. They didn’t talk much for ten minutes, waiting for the color to take, then Beau rinsed it out as Robert had a beer.
He emerged from the sink with dark-brown hair. A few reddish streaks. Already he looked like a different person. Maybe this was going to work. They went outside to the patio. A high row of shrubs gave them lots of privacy. Beau perched on a redwood chair and Robert applied the clippers to his nearly shoulder-length hair.
He had the haircut looking like something straight out of the 1950s by the time he finished. It was just at that moment that the silence was broken by the sound of a completely unexpected v
oice. “Hi, Bobby,” Maureen said.
He almost dropped the damned clippers, then recovered and turned to look at her. “Maureen,” he said in a neutral voice.
Beau just sat very still.
“You haven’t answered any of my messages or called, so I decided to just come by and see if you were okay.” She paused. “I guess you are.”
“I’m fine, yeah.”
“So I see.” She peered around him at Beau. “So, you working as a barber now in your spare time?”
“No.” Robert glanced over his shoulder. Beau, from somewhere, had produced the new sunglasses and slipped them on. With the short brown hair and glasses hiding his blue eyes, he didn’t look like himself at all—Robert hoped. “Go inside, Tonto,” he said.
Without a word, Beau disappeared into the house. His parents, weirdo hippies or not, must have brought him up right; most of the time, he obeyed orders.
“Who’s that?” Maureen asked.
Robert started to sweep up the hair. “Just a friend of mine.”
“Oh. I thought maybe he was another long-lost brother or something.”
Robert looked at her sharply. “I only had one brother. This is just a friend.”
She nodded and swept her hair back. “So you have a friend visiting. Is that why you haven’t gotten in touch with me?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been busy is all.”
She seemed to digest that. “Okay.” Her eyes moved over him slowly, thoughtfully, and finally she nodded. “I probably shouldn’t have bothered to come. Obviously, we’re a thing of the past. Right?”
Robert nodded. “This happens,” he said.
When she spoke again, there was bitterness in her voice. “Thanks for letting me down so easily.”
He didn’t say anything to that.
She gave a sniff and tossed her head. “You’re a real bastard, Bobby.”
“I’m sorry.” He realized that maybe he should have felt something—pity, at the very least—but he didn’t.
“No, I don’t think you are.” She smiled a little. “I’m sort of surprised that I never noticed that before.”
“What?”
“How cold your eyes are. You really do have very cold eyes.”
He only shrugged.
Maureen turned around and walked away.
Robert threw the shorn hair into the trash can before going into the house. He stopped in the kitchen long enough to take a can of beer from the refrigerator and then walked on into the living room.