Cold Desert Sky

by Rod Reynolds

  I was scrambling for an answer when Lizzie hooked a thumb in my direction. ‘He knows I’m sweet on cops. He likes to keep me away from the handsome ones.’ She winked at him. She accentuated the Texas in her accent.

  He looked from me to her with a straight face, but his cheeks reddened some. ‘All the dicks look the same to me. Marty’s no oil painting and he could stand to lose a few pounds. Stick with the boys in uniform.’ He let his gaze rest only on her now.

  But Lizzie had already turned to me, the pretence gone from her face and her eyes wide.

  *

  I left the cop with a false address and we fast-walked back to the car in silence, Lizzie making for the driver’s side again until she saw me holding the passenger door open for her. I closed it after her and slid behind the wheel.

  ‘You were right, then. He’s not who he’s claiming.’

  I checked over my shoulder and pulled into the street, shaking my head. ‘This whole situation stinks.’

  ‘Are you ruling out the notion it’s one of Siegel’s men?’

  ‘No. I just … I can’t see where it all joins.’

  She put a hand on my cheek. ‘You need to sleep.’

  ‘There’s no time. You go ahead and close your eyes if you need.’

  ‘It’s not one-way traffic. We could both benefit from some rest – even just for a short while.’

  I felt all the hours weighing down on me, and only then did it dawn on me she must be feeling the same. ‘You’re right. Look, what if we find a new motel? One more night.’

  She looked at me, finally nodding.

  ‘There’s just one thing I have to do first.’

  *

  I cruised down Fairfax until I found the place the tipster had pointed me to. The Regal was a broken-down movie theatre with its name in green neon letters across the front. There were bills outside for the new Jimmy Stewart flick, but it looked the kind of joint that trucked more in Z-grade fare.

  Lizzie had lost her fight with exhaustion as we drove and was passed out against the passenger window, her lips ajar. She stirred as I parked and opened her eyes just as I stole a glance at her. She jerked when she woke, realising she’d fallen asleep.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Last stop tonight, I promise. I’ll be back in two minutes, rest up.’

  I double-checked the photograph of the girls was in my pocket and opened the door before she could quibble.

  It was between show times, so there was no line at the ticket booth. The window had a crack running its full length and the seller behind it looked desperate for the dregs of his shift to be over.

  I pressed the photograph to the glass. ‘Sir, I’m looking for these two girls. I heard the one on the left may be working here.’

  He leaned closer to look.

  ‘I’m not a cop, she’s not in any trouble.’

  He flicked his eyes to me and back to the image, no expression. ‘This one looks a little like Virginia.’ He pointed through the glass to Julie Desjardins. ‘She’s one of the cigarette girls.’

  A spark ran through me. ‘Is she here?’

  He shook his head, collar gapping where the top button was undone behind his necktie.

  ‘What days does she work?’

  He scratched his neck, acting like he was having to think about it. ‘I’m not sure.’

  I took the photo away so he had to look at me. ‘Is there someone else to ask?’

  ‘I’m not allowed to leave the booth.’

  ‘I got a mouth, leave it to me.’ I gestured inside with my head.

  He’d scratched the skin on his neck red. ‘There’s only me left tonight, mister, why don’t you try another day?’

  I glanced over at the entrance, all the doors propped open, looking to see if anyone was at the concession stand. I couldn’t make it out so I started to make my way inside. I heard a shout behind me, muted by glass. ‘Hey, you need a ticket …’

  I shot through the entrance, but the concession stand was unmanned and there was no one else in the lobby. I heard another shout behind me, still muted. I threw open the door to the screen and walked to the front.

  The white glow of the projection lit the auditorium. I counted no more than a dozen moviegoers; no cigarette girls or employees of any kind. I turned to leave again, felt something hit my back. I looked down and there was popcorn scattered around my feet – thrown by some jerk in the seats.

  When I stepped back into the lobby, the ticket seller was standing in the open doorway of his kiosk. ‘You can’t be in there. I have to call the cops if you won’t buy a ticket.’ There were tremors in his voice and that told me I could squeeze him. After all the dead ends, I wasn’t walking out empty-handed.

  ‘Why are you holding out on me? All I’m interested in is the girl’s wellbeing.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘When do you expect her back?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I walked up to him, pointing. ‘Yes you do.’

  ‘I swear—’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’

  He backed into the kiosk and slammed the door.

  I stormed over and hammered on it. ‘Tell me, goddamn—’

  ‘Charlie?’

  Lizzie’s voice stopped me cold. She was standing to my left. She glanced over to the ticket seller, pressed into the corner of his booth, as far from me as he could get.

  ‘She works here,’ I said. ‘Julie D. He just picked her out, now he’s playing dumb.’

  She looked at him again. ‘I think perhaps you ought to take a moment.’

  ‘This is my first warm lead.’

  ‘We can come back.’

  ‘We don’t know that. What if—’

  ‘We can come back.’

  My wife held my gaze across the deserted lobby, the smell of popcorn and cheap hotdogs pervasive. Everything was red, I noticed then – the carpet, the walls, the lampshades. Even the uniform the ticket seller was wearing, and his dumb pillbox hat. I stepped back from the kiosk and went to Lizzie. She turned and walked away before I got to her.

  We crossed the street, Lizzie a half-step in front of me so I couldn’t see her face. I opened the car door for her and she got in without a word.

  I climbed behind the wheel stewing.

  ‘What’s gotten into you, Charlie?’

  ‘He was sitting on something. To come that close and then have the rug pulled out from under me—’

  ‘Causing a scene won’t help matters.’

  ‘Who’s causing a scene? We were the only ones there.’

  ‘He was a kid and he was terrified. He was fixing to climb the walls to get away from you.’

  I took a breath, let it out slow. ‘You know how important this is.’

  ‘I do, and I know why. But I’m afraid of what it’s doing to you. Seeing you like that …’ She shook her head and turned away to look out her window.

  ‘Speak your mind.’

  She shook her head again, still not looking at me.

  ‘You’re worried this is how I used to be,’ I said. ‘At the end, with Jane.’

  She didn’t look, didn’t speak. I could see the blurred reflection of my face next to hers in the window.

  The man I’d been before. The temper that’d cost me my wife and my job, derailed my life and left me in a hotel lobby in Texarkana begging to resurrect a marriage that was already dead. It wasn’t even a year since.

  ‘I didn’t say that. But I’ve never seen you act this way.’

  ‘I’m stretched, Liz. We both are.’

  ‘I understand that and it’s why you need to keep a cool head now more than ever. He was shouting about calling in the police. The last thing we can afford is you winding up in a cell for the night.’

  ‘He was just running his mouth.’

  ‘You don’t know how intimidating you are. If you could’ve seen yourself in there …’

  I squeezed the steering wheel, tempering my voice. ‘I know when someon
e’s lying.’

  She stared at me across the bench seat, the green lettering of the Regal sign reflecting in her eyes. ‘If we get through all this, I want the man I married to be there on the other side. Not some hot-head bully.’

  ‘Is that what you think of me?’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’ She reached out to cover my hand on the wheel. ‘But don’t lose sight of what makes you better than Siegel and his kind.’

  *

  We stashed ourselves in a budget flop on Wilshire Boulevard, paying cash up front for a no-questions-asked bed for the night. I tried to grab a few hours’ sleep, but it wouldn’t come.

  At first it was Lizzie’s words that kept me awake. The consequences of my temper were all too fresh in the memory, and when I thought back over that time with Jane, there wasn’t a specific point when the bottom fell out. My jeep crash was the start of it, for certain, but it wasn’t as though everything finished that day; it had been a gradual slide into anger and recrimination, finally coming to a head when I trashed our apartment and she ran out of the door terrified. After the first time, it became easier – a kind of mental permission slip signed and accepted – and I’d wrecked the place with increasing fury and diminishing release on three subsequent occasions. Thinking, each time, that it didn’t matter because I couldn’t hate myself any more – and each time having the truth rammed home when the aftermath brought a new depth of self-loathing.

  What worried me was that if I hadn’t recognised the descent before, how would I know if it was happening again? Or if it had already started?

  After an hour or more fretting those same questions, the present reasserted itself. I could barely hold a thought long enough to interrogate it, so many images and fears circling me. Rosenberg spitting in my face was more vicious than most, and with it in my mind, the feel of his saliva on my skin was as real as when he’d done it.

  At some point, I started thinking about our first meeting, his final threat ringing out – how I’d see a bullet, but I’d see it last. The implication was clear – and so was the danger to my wife, and maybe others. I’d come away from that room certain that they needed me more than they’d let on; it was that notion led me to think I could skate on not writing the piece exposing Bayless. But what if I was wrong? What if Lizzie paid the price for it?

  Then something else Rosenberg had said came back to me – a throwaway line from earlier that evening: ‘We’ll take care of our part.’ What was he referring to? Maybe setting up the next target, maybe not. The implication that I was caught up in a bigger scheme.

  I slipped out of bed and went to the window to crack the curtain. The traffic on Wilshire was light – too late for the party crowd, too early for the morning shift. Streetlamps ran as far as I could see in either direction, a blue liquor store sign still lit over the way. Too much relied on me staying, but I wondered if Lizzie could be safe anywhere in the city. I was sick to my stomach of running scared. Wondered if I had a counterpunch left in me.

  *

  By six, the sky was roiling with grey clouds, bands of rain coming off the Pacific and sweeping over the city. I made a crouched dash to the payphone down the block and called Buck Acheson on his home line. The man rarely slept anyway; he’d forgive the early call.

  ‘Christ, Charlie, you’ve had me worried sick. Are you still in one piece?’

  He was silent as I laid out to him what’d happened since my aborted call from the diner two days before. The only time he interjected was when I told him about them wanting me to use the Journal to run the smear on Trent Bayless.

  ‘Over my dead body.’

  ‘I said the same. Don’t worry, I didn’t call for that. It’s about Siegel himself.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You have any idea where I can find him at? I need to go around his lapdog, Rosenberg. And I need something to use against him.’

  ‘Charlie, I’m the last man to question you, but don’t you think you’re in over your head this time? Maybe you ought to speak to the authorities. There’s—’

  ‘Who would I speak to? You know how many cops Siegel’s got in his pocket – LAPD and County.’

  ‘Well, who’s this Detective Belfour? I was hoping it was you who’d involved him.’

  Hearing his name made me miss a beat. ‘Say that again?’

  ‘Detective Belfour – you know him? He left a message at the offices trying to reach you.’

  I took a breath, struggling to make sense of his words.

  Buck mistook the hesitation for something else. ‘Don’t worry, the secretaries told him you were out on the street, of course. They know better than to say anything more.’

  ‘Did he say what he wanted?’

  ‘Just left a number. I don’t have it with me, but call in and someone will furnish you with it.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’ The Santa Monica public bus roared past, spraying surface water, the noise drowning out the connection. I turned away until it passed. ‘Go back to Siegel – where can I find him?’

  ‘He keeps a place in the city, but I’m assuming you know that much from the papers.’

  ‘Can you get me the address?’

  ‘Shouldn’t be hard, but, Charlie—’

  ‘Don’t say it.’

  He exhaled slowly. ‘I try not to concern myself with thugs like Siegel, but everything I hear is that he is a man of unpredictable nature – in the worst way.’

  ‘Buck, I’m short on options.’

  He was silent a beat, leaving the desperation in my voice echoing in my ears. Then he cleared his throat. ‘If you really want to walk that road, leave it with me.’

  ‘Thank you, I appreciate it. I’ll call back later.’

  I hung up and tried the Journal, reaching one of the night-shift crew working overtime. He left me holding while he tossed the secretaries’ desks for the number, came back and told me he’d found it.

  I took my pen out. ‘Shoot.’

  I thanked him and cut the call, re-dialling the number he’d given me. No one picked up. To confirm my suspicions, I called the operator and asked her to connect me to the LAPD South Bureau. The switchboard girl there picked up right away, but when I read out the telephone number he’d left for me, she came back puzzled. ‘Sir, that’s not a line connected to this exchange.’

  I put the receiver back in its cradle and checked my watch, thinking. Iowa was two hours ahead, already past eight there. It was more than a week since I’d spoken to Nancy Hill’s mother; a hundred to one shot she’d returned home safe since. A desperation play but worth a coin. I picked up and dialled one more time, waiting while the operators made the connections to Luanne Hill’s party line and announced me.

  ‘Mr Yates? Do you have her?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, ma’am. I was calling to see if she’d returned on her own.’

  ‘Oh.’ I heard her swallow, her breathing turning ragged. ‘No. I’ve heard nothing at all. It’s—I can’t stand being so alone. And the farm, it’s already going to ruin but it’s just too much for me, and every morning I pray to god that …’ Her voice broke up.

  She hadn’t mentioned her husband when we spoke before and I’d taken the notion he never made it home. ‘Is Mr Hill …?’

  She sniffed, stopping herself. ‘Missing. He was with General Patton’s army in France.’

  It was chastening to be reminded mine wasn’t the only life had been turned upside down in short order.

  ‘We’re still hopeful,’ she said, ‘but now with Nancy as well …’

  I looked at the telephone, thinking I’d done more harm than good by calling. ‘I understand. I’m sorry to have raised your hopes.’

  She sighed, shaky. ‘Forgive me, Mr Yates, I appreciate all you’re doing.’

  ‘Ma’am, the woman I mentioned to you before, Julie Desjardins – she may have also gone by Virginia, does that sound any bells?’

  She thought for a beat. ‘None at all. I don’t know a Virginia. Or a Julie.’

  Belfour
was still on my mind. I suddenly wondered—‘What about the name Belfour? A tall man, slim-to-gaunt, sandy hair.’

  ‘No. That doesn’t sound like anyone I can think of. Who are these people, Mr Yates?’

  I felt deflated without cause. ‘Just names that have come up in the course of my enquiries. I’ve taken enough of your time, ma’am, I’ll—’

  ‘Mr Yates, you won’t forget about her, will you? Please. She’s my only child.’

  A lump in my throat like a golf ball. ‘I’ll do everything I can.’

  *

  I went down the street and bought two coffees and took them back to Lizzie. She was up and dressed when I walked into the motel room. Her makeup was immaculate and her blue tea dress looked freshly pressed, and I wondered at how a woman living out of a bag could keep it together so well. Still, that she’d been cheating sleep told in the redness of her eyes.

  She took the coffee I offered her. ‘The man calling himself Detective Belfour has been trying to reach me,’ I said. I told her about the messages and the telephone number.

  She perched on the edge of the bed and blew into her cup. ‘Do you mean to speak to him?’

  ‘I already tried calling, no one answered. It’s early.’

  She took a sip and looked down. ‘Are you sure it’s wise?’

  ‘I don’t see what choice I have.’

  She looked at me over the rim of her cup, then blinked in a way that seemed to indicate acceptance. ‘I think we should go back to the Regal this morning. If there’s any stones left unturned, we should address them. I think it would help with the rest of the decisions we have to make.’

  The way she said it told me she was wavering on her call to run – strengthening my own resolve. I set my cup on the bedside table. ‘Let’s go.’

  *

  We were outside the Regal by nine. The matinee showing was an hour off, so I figured someone had to turn up to open the doors before long. I asked Lizzie to keep watch on the place while I went around the block to a payphone, to try Belfour’s office again.

  This time, a man snatched up the phone after one ring. ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is Charlie Yates calling for Detective Belfour.’