Lake Charles

by Ed Lynskey

“I’m drawing a blank where it is.”

  “You were too crap-faced to remember now where it is.”

  Herzog nodded at an upcoming package store. “We might get some directions.”

  “Good idea but you stay rooted, lawyer.”

  “Money?” I asked Mr. Kuzawa. My cab truck branched off, wheeled over the blue stone, and I braked. “I’m cleaned out, and we’re riding on fumes.”

  Mr. Kuzawa slapped a gob of folded twenties into my palm. “Boom times in timber,” he said, by way of explanation.

  “Boom times—that’s where I want to be.”

  Mr. Kuzawa and I made for the package store. The finicky Herzog, his handkerchief made into a glove, used the gas pump. This late in the day, we didn’t have to joust with the queues of motorists rabid to top off their tanks. Would this gas crisis ever lift? The rationing of odd-even license plates on odd-even days was a bitch. The package store’s interior walls smelled of fresh paint, and I strolled to the back.

  A pregnant blonde clad in a green jumper was stooping to inspect the shelves of refrigerated bottles and cans. She was barefoot. A brat bundled in a cruddy diaper fussed in her one arm. A lit Marlboro smoldered in her other hand. I eyed the six-packs of Falls City and Billy Beer behind the frosty glass doors as the distrustful blonde eyed me.

  Feeling self-conscious, I left without the six-pack. It was just as well. My alcohol stupor just gave Sizemore another advantage. A different girl, early twenties with a jeweled navel winking from under her midriff T-shirt and coiffed in the popular Farrah shag, worked the register. She read the total from the meter, and I paid her for the gas Herzog had pumped.

  Setting a fifth of whiskey on the checkout counter, Mr. Kuzawa using a handkerchief mopped his perspiring forehead. He smiled at her. “Whew.”

  “Hot as the hinges of hell, ain’t it?” she said, ringing him up. “It hasn’t slowed down everybody. Ten minutes ago, a Caddy rocketed into our lot. Just as our sign says, we don’t sell unleaded gas. So they cut a sloppy doughnut and bolted off.”

  Mr. Kuzawa nodded. “We saw the Caddy. Sky blue. A pair of tall, skinny jokers was inside it.”

  “No, mine was red with four guys, just as I told our sheriff’s deputy.”

  Her saying “sheriff’s deputy” clubbed me between the eyes.

  But Mr. Kuzawa didn’t react. “Are any cheap, good motels in the area?”

  “The out-of-towners seem to like the Chewink.”

  He caught my slight nod. “Sounds good,” he told her. “Some directions, please.”

  She told him as the pregnant blonde in the green jumper padded up and slapped down a six-pack of Falls City on the checkout counter. The cashier dished the blonde taking an unhealthy puff an oblique look and murmured something snarky. The blonde gave the cashier a glowering frown, but we didn’t stick around to ogle any catfight.

  * * *

  “Nope, I don’t know this boy.” Wrapped in a red muumuu, Mrs. Cornwell inclined her head at me. We’d sardined into the motel office smelling grubby with its liver-and-onion bouquet.

  I wanted to stuff her hearing aid down her throat. “I paid you a fifty on a forty-four dollar room.”

  “Let me think.” Her coppery hair upswept in a topknot slanted her eye corners, warping her face into a diabolic cast. Her five-and-dime store glasses dangled on the bead chain. “No, we’ve never met before.”

  I heard Mr. Kuzawa crinkling some paper. “Try again, ma’am. Isn’t this the same boy?” He pushed a folded Andy Jackson at her.

  “Well, he could be.” She palmed the bribe to tuck under her watchband, balanced the glasses on her beaky nose, and peered in at me. “In the better light, I can spot a certain likeness.”

  “Good deal. Now since he is, might Room 7 be open for a look-see?”

  The vain Mrs. Cornwell removed her glasses. “I can take you but only for a minute. I’m a one-woman crew, so I can’t run as fast as most. Managing an inn alone after Ike passed sorely tests the limits of my endurance.”

  “As a widower, I can understand your loss.” Mr. Kuzawa nudged back his cuff to bare the strap watch he wore on the front of his wrist, a habit of the war vets. “Time also runs short for us.”

  She fished a passkey from a cigar box she kept under the counter and ushered us into the courtyard. Heat waves shimmied off the blacktop, and we reached Room 7. Its scarred door swept in to let the others enter, and my first glimpse of the familiar wormy chestnut paneling, zinc bed, and green baize curtains triggered the replay of Ashleigh’s saucy entry.

  That girl glided in on pockets of air. The clingy fabric rustled over her sleek haunches. I thrilled. Pop the bubbly. Brendan is getting his ashes hauled tonight. It took long enough. The purple gown, sheeny as Christmas tinsel, unzipped at the back, but as I tugged at the gown to shuck it off her shoulders, she fussed at me.

  “Brendan, whoa there. You pull it over my head. That off-the-shoulder crap is for skanks and strippers. You’ll ruin my favorite party dress by stretching it out of shape.”

  When I did, her hair crackled with static. “My bad. I had better fess up. This is my first time. My first time in a motel, I mean.”

  “Then it should be special. That’s why I wanted clean sheets, not the car seat upholstery. Now be a love and skin us a joint. Grass is a natural aphrodisiac.” She doffed her panties like a fig leaf and lounged her tanned curves on the stale blue bed sheet.

  “Oh yeah, let’s get it on. Where’s your nickel bag?”

  “Oops, I forgot it. Check in my Jag. Let me dig out the keys. First, look in the glove compartment.

  “Good dope, too. What strain is it?”

  “Columbian Gold.” She arched a sophisticated eyebrow at me. “God’s weed.”

  “Oh yes, damn straight, you Yellow Snake crowd party hearty.” The prancing James Brown fired with soul on TV rapped out the bawdy lyrics to “Hot Pants.” His horn section blew the tightest arrangements on the rock scene.

  “Brendan, I’m frittering away.” She drew up the sheet to show a dimple of cleavage. “Just ignore the Luger. I scam shit off Ralph all the time.”

  “You steal from father?”

  She smiled, predatory and cunning enough to throw a fright in me. “Why not? He can afford it.”

  “But it’s not yours to take.”

  She pitied me as if I was a rube. “Sure it is.”

  “I’d never steal from my father,”

  “You’d be surprised what you’re capable of doing if push comes to shove. Are you circumscribed, by the way?”

  “I’m a Gemini.”

  “No, you’re hopeless. Go get us my dope, please.”

  “Yo, Brendan.” Mr. Kuzawa was juggling my elbow. “Is Room 7 the right joint?”

  “Yeah, we’re good,” I replied, back with them.

  “Don’t muss up anything. I just got done all the dusting and vacuuming,” said Mrs. Cornwell.

  “Just one more moment, please,” said Herzog as we bunched at the foot of Ashleigh’s deathbed. “What did you observe that morning, Brendan?” he asked in his cross-examination mode. “Take us through it, start to finish.”

  “Except for the dead gal in the sack, it was no different than waking any other morning.”

  “Well then, that makes it different,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  Herzog prompted me to tease out the details. “Which side of the bed—right, middle, or left—did you sleep on? Was the window blind up or down? Was the deadbolt on or off?”

  “She lay on the dark side the closest to the window and bathroom. I slept by the door for a fast getaway. It looked dim so I assume the bed table lamp was off, and the blind was down. No background chatter meant the TV had to be off. Or maybe we put on a movie and used the mute. I forget. The shower ran. See the water stain on the carpet?”

  “Right. Where’s the phone?”

  Herzog’s barrage of questions was a pain, but my night here in question came alive.

  “I told you the room had no phone.”
/>   She sighed. “The phone broke, and I took it out.”

  Herzog’s hand latched to my shoulder. “Recast it in your imagination. Okay, you ducked outside to get her pot. Look around you. Are any other vehicles in sight?”

  I reclaimed my shoulder. “The lot was vacant. Wait … I did spot a sedan in it. I believe it was wine-colored, but at night, it’s tough to know the color. It was definitely bigger than Ashleigh’s compact Jag. The sedan had a whip radio antenna fixed to its trunk.”

  “Interesting.” A memo pad emerged from Herzog’s game pouch, and he scratched down the notes. “Why didn’t this item surface before now?”

  “Obviously returning to the crime scene has jogged his memory,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  “Mrs. Cornwell, do you recall the sedan?” asked Herzog.

  “I better go eat, or I’ll faint from hunger.”

  “I’ll mark that as a no,” said Herzog.

  “Can you get us to Ralph Sizemore’s estate?” Mr. Kuzawa’s next twenty-dollar bribe primed her.

  “If it gets rid of you any faster, you bet I will.” Gesturing, she described the roads to reach Sizemore’s place, and Herzog took it down.

  I’d frisked the green matchbook off the dead archer, and I asked our last question. “Do you keep a supply of matchbooks in the office?”

  “My niece works in a match factory and gets them in bulk,” she replied.

  I was tempted to describe the dead archer and Edna and ask if they’d ever been motel guests. I also wanted her read on Ralph Sizemore, the local capo fond of his palm sap and cracking skulls. But she showed an old woman’s leaky memory, and I wasn’t convinced of her allegiance, so I stuffed my questions, and she guided us back to her smelly office.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  My cab truck idled at the entrance as I appraised the ramshackle Chewink Motel in the rearview mirror. A teenage Filipino maid waist-bumped her housekeeping cart out of a unit’s doorway onto the concrete apron. Suspicions prickled me.

  Did underpaid maids slip passkeys to sheriff’s deputies to steal into the motel units and plant key evidence to rig their frame jobs on suckers like me? But no maid would finger a corrupt sheriff’s deputy and expect to go on living in Yellow Snake. My chagrin to leave empty-handed was contagious.

  “Mrs. Cornwell’s evasion perplexes me,” said Herzog. “I’d love to know who drove that sedan.”

  “She’s an old lady and gets beaucoup cars,” said Mr. Kuzawa. “Sizemore’s place is just a few miles away.”

  “He can wait for the time being,” I said as we left the motel. “I believe J.D. driving the party van might know the growers.”

  “Sharp idea. Phone Kerns,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  A mile further brought us to a cash-and-carry store. We stopped in, and I jumped on the coin phone. A gruff Kerns back in Umpire grabbed my ring, and I detailed where we sat, and what we needed.

  “J.D. Nelson is nothing but a bum,” said Kerns, slurring the end ‘m.’ The daytime liquor turned him surlier, especially when talking about his nephew. “Got a pencil handy, Jimbo?”

  “It’s Brendan.” I let a tractor-trailer with noisy stacked exhausts rumble by on the state road and then said, “Lay it on me. I have a good head for directions.”

  Kerns gave me the route and said he’d call his sister as a heads up. I said thanks, reminded him I was Brendan Fishback, and rang off. I returned to the cab truck.

  “How did you make out? Did Kerns come through?” asked Mr. Kuzawa.

  “J.D. Nelson lives ten minutes away,” I replied.

  * * *

  “Good day, Mrs. Nelson.”

  “You can believe what you like.” A stout though pretty-faced lady, she touched at her brindle-colored hair put up in big, pink rollers. The dirty screen door separated us. “Are you Kuzawa?”

  “That’s me, ma’am. This is my friend Brendan.”

  I heard my cab truck’s idling grumble behind us and nodded at her.

  “Kerns called me. The drunk said I might help you. I rather doubt it.”

  “Might we step in off your porch? Your neighbors might get the wrong idea about us,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  She toed out the screen door. “Hurry. You’re letting in the stink bugs and deer flies.”

  Her foyer hemmed us in as a cozy trio. Surveying her mismatched furniture in the segment that I saw of her living room, I also smelled they’d eaten burned pork chops for last night’s dinner. Mr. Kuzawa eyes cutting over cued me to go first.

  “Is J.D. at home?”

  “Who’s J.D.?” She sent me a guarded once over. “If you’re smashed like Kerns gets, I don’t smell any booze on your breath.”

  “Brendan means your boy,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  “My boy? My son’s name is Victor. What’s it to you?”

  “Murder,” replied Mr. Kuzawa.

  “Murder? Jesus, what has he stepped in now?” Mrs. Nelson, belching, retightened the belt knot to her sack dress. She lifted her chin and bellowed. “Victor! Out here on the double.”

  A heavy object in a back room thumped on the floor. A door opened before a blade-featured boy surfaced from the corridor. Victor with his jaw-length blonde hair looked younger than I did. He didn’t appear stoned, just drowsy from just waking up.

  “What’s this J.D. stuff I hear? Named Victor ain’t good enough for you?” she asked.

  “Aw, get off it, Mom. J.D. was Ashleigh’s nickname for me.”

  “Ah right, Miss Rich Britches. I should’ve known. Your Uncle Kerns called and said you can lend these guys a hand.”

  Victor’s finger jab accused me. “Why isn’t he behind bars? The sheriff busted him for her murder.” He kept on pointing at me. I itched to bury my knuckles in his rodent teeth. “I never knew what she saw in him. Goat didn’t either. We don’t like him.”

  Goat had been the dude sucking on the ice hookah. “The feeling cuts both ways,” I said.

  “Her liking Brendan pissed you off, huh?” said Mr. Kuzawa in a leading way.

  “I never cared for it, no,” replied Victor. “She and I went steady until she dumped me.”

  “Did it anger you enough to kill her?” asked Mr. Kuzawa.

  Victor’s tent of hair couldn’t veil his shiny eyes. “Don’t put that on me. Brendan did that. Why is he free as a bird?”

  “He’s out on bail,” said Mr. Kuzawa. “He also didn’t kill her.”

  Anger at Victor crackled in Mrs. Nelson’s face. “We’ll take up later why you chauffeured Miss Rich Britches in my van. I guess you won’t anymore, but I’ll lock it in the garage just the same. For now, finish answering these questions. My patience is ready to snap.”

  Mr. Kuzawa bore in. “Did Ashleigh supply your dope?”

  “Everybody knew she was always solid to cop a score,” replied Victor. “Not that I ever did.”

  “Who was her dope pimp?” I asked. “Paco? Goat?”

  “They’re just pals. Her dope comes from her rich daddy,” replied Victor, eager to shift any blame. “Wasted one night, she told me he grows the ganja by the bushel up at Lake Charles. She crowed how she had all we’d ever want to smoke.”

  That news juiced my pulse rate, and a sweat not from my detox lined my palms. Mr. Kuzawa shot me a pleased nod. The pieces were starting to fit and lock in together because we’d just identified the big bug.

  “Why did you kill her?” asked Victor, back to surly.

  “Brendan didn’t harm the girl, and we’re trying to prove it.” Mr. Kuzawa eyed Mrs. Nelson. “That is if we can get a fair shake.”

  “You can ride easy because we won’t fink on you,” she said. “I hate Sizemore. This is the thing. You don’t come back here again, and you also accept Victor had no role in Ashleigh’s death.”

  “Deal,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  “Meanwhile Victor or J.D. or whoever he is now is grounded for two weeks. No, make it a month for smoking dope again.”

  “Aw, Mom …”

  We left them to jaw over it. Back
in the cab truck, we sat with the engine stuttering on the cut-rate gas. We repeated our conversation with Mrs. Nelson to Herzog.

  “Do Victor’s claims merit any credibility?” he asked.

  “Victor tells it straight,” said Mr. Kuzawa. “I’m convinced Sizemore is who grows the pot at Lake Charles. Brendan, your take?”

  “It’s pretty ballsy of him, but I can buy it, yeah.”

  “We’ll assume Sizemore took Edna and killed my boy. You and I both want to take him down.”

  I nodded. “Wrecking his precious plants was a good start.”

  My cab truck taxied out to the blacktop, and Herzog gave me the correct route numbers to Sizemore’s place. I thought I’d keep an eye out for Ashleigh’s red Jaguar parked there, but it was still probably in the sheriff’s impoundment yard. That brought up a question. “Did the police report list a Luger recovered from Ashleigh’s car?”

  Herzog’s reply was a negative headshake.

  Mr. Kuzawa was surprised. “Did she carry a Luger?”

  “She took it from her father and kept it stashed in the glove compartment, but I didn’t find the Luger in there.”

  “Why did she carry it?” asked Mr. Kuzawa.

  “She said she felt threatened and wanted to hire me as a bodyguard who could use the Luger.”

  “Why did she feel threatened?”

  I shrugged. “She never got into the specifics. I just wrote it off to her rich girl hysteria.”

  Mr. Kuzawa zippoed a Marlboro and forwarded the pack to Herzog who in turn fired one up, but I passed. Mr. Kuzawa’s hooded eyes acknowledged my refusal then shifted to study Herzog puffing away and striving too hard to fit in as one of the guys. If only I hadn’t given in to the easy temptation to see The Devil’s Own play live that night. Testy and regretful, I hammered the gas pedal. The engine raced as my thoughts did back to Kerns’ store on the eventful night in May. The party van sat in his parking lot just off from the service isle, and the crew invited me aboard.

  So I said, “Sure, why the hell not?” and wiggled into the van’s rearmost grotto where a black light gave it a surreal tint. Ashleigh lectured on astrology, Ouija boards, and tarot cards. Like my Uncle Ozzie who blew out his brains with a .44 slug, I was a superstitious cuss. She requested my zodiac sign, but I’d no idea and told her. She took my birthday, June 20th, and put me with her sign, Gemini. Her horoscope reading found us to dovetail in a nice fit.