Almost casually, I asked, “Were you engaged to her, too?”
That brought him back. He sat up straighter. He didn’t seem to have any blood in his whole body, but something about his eyes suddenly made him look capable of spilling some.
“I saw what Haskell did to her,” he whispered fiercely, “and I felt sorry for her. I thought I might help her find another job, so I called the address she used when she worked for us. That was her parents’ home. They told me how to locate her. I think they were sick of worrying about her.”
But he couldn’t keep it going. He was in too deep. After a minute he sagged, and the truth came out.
“She took him so much to heart. I thought she might be able to explain Eunice to me. Help me understand. But I haven’t called her or gone to see her. Every day I promise myself that today I’ll do it. Every day I believe that I can’t bear any more. But I lack the nerve.”
Then, as if it were irrelevant, he said, “Her parents told me she’s living with somebody.”
I didn’t know what else to do, so I put my hand on his shoulder. “Maybe she’ll wake up,” I said. “It’s been known to happen.” Axbrewder on the verge of getting maudlin. “Maybe she’ll realize what she’s doing and come back to you.”
I thought he might say, I wouldn’t have her. But he just sighed. “That would be nice.”
With her hand, Ginny pinched the bridge of her broken nose, trying to keep her priorities straight. “Apparently, Mr. Canthorpe,” she said, sounding tired and a little beaten, “Reg Haskell isn’t a nice man. He still has a right to hire protection. Murder is murder. We do this kind of work because we want to reduce the number of victims in the world.”
I hoped that he wouldn’t try for a sarcastic comeback, but he just asked, “Is that all?”
She nodded.
He said, “Call me around four.” Then he got up and walked away. Through the window, I watched him return to the bank. He didn’t look back.
After a while, I asked, “Is Haskell really all that irresistible?”
“No.” Ginny sounded bitter and brittle, angrier than she knew what to do with. “Canthorpe’s just one of the victims. It makes him exaggerate.”
Outside the clouds looked too heavy to carry their own weight. The air was dead gray. Nothing had any color. Mostly to myself, I said, “Some days I love this job so much I could puke.”
12
That was the wrong thing to say. She was in no mood for it. She put her one hand flat on the tabletop, her palm against the Formica. “All this,” she said, pushing down so hard that her fingers splayed, “was your idea, remember? You wanted this case. Don’t tell me you’re sick of it. I don’t give a shit.”
Well, she had a point. The whole thing was my idea. But I hadn’t exactly enjoyed it so far. “Yes, sir, Ms. Fistoulari, sir,” I muttered sourly. “I disembowel myself in shame. Do forgive me.”
“All right.” Her voice was as white as the skin of her nose. “All right. Go over there”—she nodded at the bank—“and tell Haskell we quit. Then I’ll drop you off at the nearest bar.”
I stared at her. Maybe she was bluffing. But I couldn’t think of any way to call her on it I couldn’t risk flushing everything down the toilet. I just stared at her and held my breath and didn’t make any effort to hide the hurt in my eyes.
After a minute she sighed and looked away. “Either that,” she said, “or go back to the apartment and get some rest. You don’t look like you can hold your head up much longer.”
Slowly I scrubbed my hands over my face to pull what was left of my brains back together. I hadn’t shaved, and my whiskers felt like sandpaper against my palms. When I’d rubbed some of the anguish out of the muscles of my cheeks, I dropped my hands back onto the table.
“I can’t,” I said. “The cops aren’t going to sit on their butts while people blow up rented cars and kill innocent kids.” That was too much to expect, even from Puerta del Sol’s finest. “They’ll get our address off the rental contract. They’ll get Haskell’s by asking people at his club what I was doing there. If they get mad enough about the fact I’ve been avoiding them, they might stake out both places.” Eventually we’d have to tell the cops what we were up to. There was no way around it. But I wanted to put it off as long as possible. “If they catch me, they might hold me as a material witness.”
I didn’t point out the obvious. If the cops held me, Ginny would have to cope with this case all by herself.
“Besides,” I added, “I want to see Gail Harmon.”
Something about the way that came out told her more than I actually said. “What do you mean, you want to see Gail Harmon? What about me? What do you expect me to do?” She looked like she wanted to take the skin off my bones. “Spend the day the way I spent last night?”
“No.” I was too tired, and she was hitting too hard. Somehow I refrained from yelling at her, but I couldn’t keep my anger down. “I expect you to find proof that el Senor has nothing to do with this. You believe it, you prove it. Stop whining about it and do something.”
Then I wanted to turn my anger on myself and hack off body parts because she couldn’t conceal the way she flinched. Her mouth twisted like she was going to spit at me, but her voice wasn’t even sarcastic. “I suppose that’s fair.” Just dead flat. “I’ll try to disprove your theory while you tear holes in mine. What a great idea. When we took this case, I didn’t realize you were so eager to get away from me.”
A sharp intake of breath pulled her lips back from her teeth. She knotted her fist. “It’s so much fun working for you. This time I don’t even have a car.”
For a second there, I felt about as rotten as I deserved. Then I dug into my pocket and tossed the keys to the Continental onto the table. “I’ll take a cab back to Haskell’s house and use the Olds.”
She didn’t look at me. Her face was pale, and the expression in her eyes was faraway, harried, and miserable. For a moment she pressed the knuckles of her fist against her forehead.
“Brew,” she said in a tight voice, “when was the last time we actually told each other the truth?”
I hadn’t told her any direct lies—and precious few indirect ones. But suddenly, all the things I hadn’t told her made my pulse throb in my throat. Through my teeth, I gritted, “I am not going out to get drunk. You know me better than that.”
“No,” she muttered. “Not anymore. I don’t know you at all. You pressured me into taking this case. You won’t let me get out of it. But the only thing you do is figure out excuses to go off on your own. You want me in this case, but you don’t want me with you. What kind of sense do you expect me to make of that?” Frustration and pain turned her voice as harsh as the cut of a crosscut saw. “So far, I haven’t seen any sign that you’re drinking. That’s true. So what? Give me another explanation.”
She sounded so fierce that I stared at her, dumbfounded. “What do you mean, ‘another explanation’? I already gave you one. Weren’t you listening?”
“Oh, I was listening,” she snarled back. “I’ve been listening all along. You talk about the case. You insult and manipulate me. But you don’t say anything.
“Give it a try, goddammit. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t believe you and Haskell are doing this together.”
I couldn’t help myself. My mouth actually hung open. You and Haskell. I wanted to say, Stop it. Stop this. But the words stuck in my throat.
She didn’t stop. “Or maybe,” she said, “this is all just some clever way to get rid of me. You’re tired of taking care of the angry old cripple, so you’re using this case to solve the problem. Maybe get me shot by el Senor’s goons. I had my hand blown off for your niece, but that isn’t enough for you. You’re leaving me alone so I’ll be a better target.”
It was too much. The more I gaped at her, trying not to believe what I heard, the more she sounded like she was losing her mind. She looked so hurt, so abandoned, that I wanted to break my fists on the table just so that she wou
ldn’t be alone. I’d done this to her. And I was doing it deliberately. It was too much by a long shot.
I heaved myself out of the booth. I couldn’t face her accusations, even if they were justified—and completely wrong. “By my count,” I said, “we’re just about even right now.” Then I stomped away toward the phone.
By the time I got to it, I was mad enough to rip it out of the wall.
Luckily, I was housebroken at an early age. Instead of demolishing the phone, I used it to call a cab. Then I went out into the cold to wait.
Jiffy had a cab free in the neighborhood. I only had to wait a few minutes. Nevertheless, that was long enough. The wind wasn’t hard, but it came down off the mountains like the edge of a knife. The clouds were heavy as lead, overdue for snow. Without a coat, I didn’t have anything except my tired metabolism to hold out the cold. During those few minutes, I realized that I didn’t have any idea what Ginny was going to do.
Whatever she did might be as crazy as what she said.
When the cab arrived, I pulled myself into the blast of its heater and tried to absorb as much warmth as possible while the driver took me over to Foothill in the direction of Haskell’s house.
I wanted to stay in the cab forever. Just sprawl out on the back seat and sleep in the warmth and the lulling sound of tires on concrete until all my problems went away. Unfortunately, I had my job to do. That’s why they give us private investigators all that money and glory. Because we’re tough as nails, true as steel—and about as intelligent as overcooked turnips. I told the driver to stop at the corner of Foothill and Cactus Blossom, above the cul-de-sac, where I had a good view of the house. Before I paid him, I made sure that there weren’t any suspicious-looking vehicles parked nearby. Then I sent him on his way and walked down the hill toward the Olds in Haskell’s driveway.
Maybe I was getting sloppy in my old age. Maybe fatigue had eroded what few brains I had left. Or maybe I was just thinking too hard about not getting caught by the cops. I got into the Olds and turned the key before I remembered anything about spark wires and gas tanks.
Nothing happened. Haskell’s enemies hadn’t come back to check on their handiwork. I tried not to tremble or throw up while I cranked the engine. Then, devoutly careful, I backed out of the driveway and drove up out of Cactus Blossom Court.
So far, so good. I was awake, anyway, my heart stewing in useless adrenaline. And the cops hadn’t caught me yet. It occurred to me that I’d gone a little crazy around the edges, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it.
What I really wanted to do was go back to Granny Good’s and throw myself on Ginny’s mercy. Dependency cut both ways. I was fundamentally lost without her. But I hung on to the wheel with a kind of religious fervor and worked the Olds down through the Heights.
When I reached the beltway, I had the wind behind me. My pulse slowed down a bit, and I began to feel better. About as stable as a bottle of gin, maybe, but less like I was about to collapse. A few flakes of snow paced me along the highway, but most of them stayed in the clouds, considering the possibilities. A cop passed me without slowing down.
I was headed for the South Valley, where the people the tourists aren’t supposed to see live.
Funny how these things happen—the kind of funny that makes you question the future of human civilization. In all the history of Puerta del Sol, there was probably never a time when anyone sat down and actually decided, We’re going to put all the really poor people here—all the dirt farmers who’ve lost their land, all the wetbacks who never found work, all the hippies who gooned out on drugs in the sixties and never recovered, all the Indians who left their reservations and then started drinking too much—every ruined, degraded, or helpless sod in the city here, and then we’ll build the rest of the city so that no one ever has to go where these people live. But that’s the way it turned out. Pure social instinct put Puerta del Sol’s barrio in the South Valley and then encysted it, closed it off from everywhere else. If you live in the South Valley, the only way you can even hope to find work is if you have a car—not to mention money for gas. And if you have a car and money, you probably live somewhere else.
At least they don’t have organized crime in the South Valley. They’re too poor to be worth el Senor’s while.
From the beltway I found Trujillo and headed south. It was a long drive. I crossed a transitional region where every trucking company in the state had at least one warehouse, followed by an area where all the warehouses were abandoned. Then I angled onto Bosque closer to the river and began boring through layers of destitution toward the hard core of the barrio.
At one time a lot of cottonwood, juniper, and Russian olive grew that close to the river, before the trees were cut down for firewood by people who couldn’t pay their gas bills. The stumps remained, however, giving the city an excuse not to invest in sidewalks. The houses were built of cinder blocks or mud bricks—in which case only the exterior plaster kept them from washing away when it rained. At any other time of year, the bare dirt around them would have sprouted despondent little crops of tumbleweed, chamisa, and goathead. But winter and wind made the ground look like it’d been scoured down to hard clay.
The number Canthorpe gave me must’ve been more prosperous once, maybe fifty years ago. The house had at least three or four rooms, judging by its size, plus a pitched roof covered with actual tin instead of tarpaper shingles. The remains of a screened front porch stood along the front. But that degree of gentility hadn’t meant anything for decades. The wood of the porch frame was so far gone that only its own rot and termites held it together. The door hung abjectly from its one surviving hinge, and the screen looked like it had been used for target practice by half the shotguns in Puerta del Sol.
Gail Harmon had come a long way down.
I parked the Olds in the dirt beside the road. Got out. Made sure all the doors were locked. The cold cut into me again. Surreptitiously, in case I was being watched, I checked the .45. It was a pretty good bet I was being watched by someone. People who survive in barrios are good at looking out for trouble.
Trying to look harmless, I went up to the house. The boards of the steps and porch held my weight more out of habit than conviction. As I shifted the hanging screen door out of my way and crossed to the inner door, I made the whole front of the house shiver. It was as good as a burglar alarm.
Before I could knock on the cracked panels of the door, a man’s voice from inside barked, “Go away, asshole. I gave at the office.”
I could tell by his voice that he wasn’t Mexican or Chicano.
Well, Canthorpe had warned me, even if he hadn’t known what he was warning me about. Since I was being given the tough-guy approach, I took the same line myself. “Good for you,” I said. “Too bad that’s not why I’m here. I want to see Gail Harmon.”
I heard a rustling noise from the other side of the door. People changing positions. “Go away,” the voice repeated. Tough and getting angry. “I don’t know no Gail Harmon.”
Maybe he didn’t. But two could play that game. “Neither do I. What difference does that make? I want to talk to her.”
“You don’t hear so good, asshole. I said go away. I won’t tell you again.”
“Oh, come off it.” Ignoring the way the wood sagged, I leaned my shoulder on the frame of the door. “If I go away, you’ll never find out what I want to talk to her about.”
Another rustle. I figured there were at least two people on the other side of the door. The man thought about it for a minute. Then he said, “Tell me from there.” His voice was raw with the kind of stress you sometimes hear from burnt-out cops.
I decided to chance it. Nobody ever accused me of having too much sense for my own good. A bit more softly, I replied, “Reg Haskell.”
That got a reaction. A woman’s voice started to say something. Then a pair of heavy boots thudded down on the floorboards, and the woman yelped. I heard a particular clicking sound.
“Op
en it slow,” the man said, “or I’ll blow you in half.” For some reason, he sounded happy.
Blow me in half, I thought. Oh, good. What fun. I’d heard that clicking sound before. In spite of the cold, my palms ran with sweat.
Nevertheless I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t like the idea of what was happening to the woman in there. The knob rattled loosely in my hand as I unlatched the door and eased it open.
It let me into a living room about the size of your average jail cell. Tattered curtains stiff with grime covered the windows. The gas heater was working too hard, and the whole place stank like a witch doctor’s brew—cigarettes and dope, spilled beer, sweat, urine, and despair. There was only one chair. The rest of the furniture consisted of pillows on the floor. Between the pillows, the boards were littered with cigarette butts, beer cans, and magazines—Guns & Ammo, Argosy, Soldier of Fortune.
A man sat in the chair facing me. He was as thin as a bayonet, about as tall as I am. He wore combat boots, jeans, and a black T-shirt. One sleeve of the shirt was rolled up to hold a pack of cigarettes. A cigarette hung from his thin mouth, the smoke curling into his eyes. His skin resembled stained parchment, and both his arms were blue with tattoos—a naked woman on one biceps, a dragon curving down his left forearm, a rifle lovingly etched on his right. His face looked flat and heartless and a little crazy.
With his right hand, he held an M-16 pointed at my belly, its bolt cocked and ready. His left was clenched in the hair of a young woman, gripping her so that she whimpered on her knees beside him.
“Haskell?” he said. “Haskell? I knew Reg. I never knew Haskell. This I’m gonna love.”
The muzzle of the M-16 left my stomach in knots. But I still didn’t like the way he treated the woman. Carefully I closed the door. Then I faced the woman. “Ms. Harmon? My name is Axbrewder. I’d like to talk to you about Reg Haskell.”
The Man Who Risked His Partner Page 13