“Shit, man, I’d forgotten I worked at that place. It only lasted a couple of weeks. Then I went to the Off-Ramp.” He stared at me again. “You looking for someone?”
“For you, actually,” I answered. “I wanted to ask you about someone you used to know.”
“Who’s that?”
“James Clark.”
He frowned and held the door wider. “I guess you’d better come in.”
We sat on the same brown couch that had been in the living room the first time I’d visited this house, fifteen years before. A couple of ratty afghans had been thrown over the back, their colors faded, the wool nubby. Rick sat in a chair, holding a can of Coke in his large fist.
“Man, James?” he began. “I haven’t thought about him in a few years.”
“It’s four years since he died,” I said.
“Is it?” He did the calculations. “Yeah, I guess that’s right. So why are you asking about him. The cops never found out who did it.”
“His father asked me.”
Rick nodded as if that made all the sense in the world. “He asked you ‘cause of that Craig Adler thing?”
“No, nothing like that,” I lied. “I’m just doing a favor for a friend who’s laid up right now.”
“Okay, that’s cool,” he agreed.
“So you knew James Clark pretty well?”
“Pretty well?” He mulled over the idea, then shook his head. “Not really. I knew him, that’s all. It’s not like we were best buddies or anything. He lived up in Everett, and I only saw him sometimes when he came down to Seattle. Not always, though. I’d often be working, you know.”
“You still on the door somewhere?”
“Over in Bellevue,” he replied dismissively. “It’s a gig, pays the bills, and they’re a bunch of pussies over there. Easy money.”
“I don’t even know what easy money’s like,” I laughed.
“It’s like East side frat boys trying to use fake IDs on a Friday night.” He chuckled. “You know, I thought James said he’d never known his daddy.”
“No, he didn’t. It’s one of those weird things. His father only found out a few days ago that James was dead. He wants to find out what his son was like.”
“Yeah, I guess I can see that.”
“So anything you can tell me would be good.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything you can tell me.”
He let out a long sigh and ran a hand over the pale stubble on his chin. “Like I said, I didn’t know him too well.”
“That’s okay,” I told him. “Just whatever you can remember.”
“He was a cool guy, once you got to know him. He was the kind who’d have your back without even saying anything, you know?” I nodded and waited for him to continue. “He could be pretty funny when he was in the mood. After we’d smoked some weed he’d get these riffs going, just cracked everyone up. Same when we’d had a couple pitchers of beers.”
Everything seemed funny when you were either stoned or a little drunk. That was how I remembered it, anyway. The world would take on a whole new shine.
“How’d you end up becoming friends, anyway?”
“Oh man.” He scratched his head and laughed. “I don’t even remember. I must have known him for about ten years before he died.” That would put it at 1980. “Just felt like I’d always known him.”
“Was he living in Everett back then?”
“Yeah. He was married.” He paused and shook his head. “Well, he told me he was, but I don’t think he lived with her any more. He liked it up there. Cheaper than Seattle, he said.”
That was certainly true. But I’d rather live in Seattle.
“What did he do? Did he have a job?”
Rick made a wobbling motion with his hand. “Hey, you know how it is. He sold a little weed, fenced some shit. Pretty much whatever he could do to get by, I guess. It’s not like we even talked about it that much. Sometimes he had money.” He finished his drink and put the empty can on the coffee table, staring at it as if it offered some deep knowledge. “There were times he was broke and I’d loan him a few bucks. That’s just how it goes.”
It didn’t sound as if there’d been a whole lot to James David Clark. The more I heard, the more insubstantial he seemed. I felt as if I was chasing ghosts and never catching more than passing glimpses.
“Were you there the night he died?”
“Yeah,” he answered slowly. “Me and another guy.”
“Who was that?”
“A guy called Kyle. We’d hang out together sometimes when James was around.”
Kyle Adams. The other name Carson had given me.
“I know it’s not easy,” I asked, “but would you tell me what happened? It’s so I can tell his father.”
“Yeah, sure,” he agreed, squinting as he tried to dredge up the memory. “There’s not a whole lot to tell. We met up where we always did, down at Pike Place Market, right by the pig statue there. You know where I mean? It was…I don’t know, six maybe, or seven. I know it was already dark.”
“What did you do?”
“Went off to the Mirror Tavern. Drank some Bud, shot a little pool, bullshitted. Jimmy hadn’t been down here for a couple of months, so we caught up.” He stopped. “I told all this to the cops already.”
“Come, on, I’m not a cop, Rick,” I said. “You know that.”
“I had to head off to work around eight-thirty, you know - drive across the bridge and park in Bellevue, so I’d be there by nine.”
“You left the pair of them there?”
“Yeah, and I didn’t know anything had happened. First I heard was when the cops came around the next day. I couldn’t believe it.”
“Did James seem worried or anxious?”
“Not really. I mean, he was usually kind of on edge, but nothing different that night. I’ve thought about it ever since, but there was nothing unusual.”
“What do you mean, he was he often on edge?” I pressed.
“About the last year I knew him, he used to figure people were after him.”
“Any idea why?”
“I thought he’d been smoking too much pot and it had just made him paranoid.”
“So what do you think? It might have been for real and someone caught up with him on Capitol Hill?”
“Who knows?” he said. “He’d started talking about all kinds of things. Like music. He’d started playing music.”
“I knew he had a guitar. His son has it now.”
“That’s cool,” he said. “He told me he had a boy. Must be tough to lose your pops that way.”
“James had been gone from home a long time. His son didn’t even really know him. What was with the music?”
“He had this idea he could do something with it,” Rick said. “He called me up a couple times, asking for advice. You remember how I used to be in those bands?”
“I do.” They’d been awful, a mess. Sloppy and uninspiring. They might even have been the first hardcore bands not to have started a mosh pit.
“He was looking to get into country music. Writing songs.”
The fruit maybe hadn’t fallen far from the tree, but I wondered how much James Clark actually knew about his absent father. Nothing more than Darlene Clark ever told him, that was certain.
“Was he any good?”
“I never heard him. He wouldn’t play for us.”
“Gigs?”
“He said he did a couple things up near Lynwood.”
“You didn’t go?” I asked. If it had been me, I’d have made time to support a friend who was performing.
“He never told me about it until later. I’d have gone if I’d known.”
I leaned back on the couch, feeling the wool of the afghans tickling my neck. I knew more than when I arrived, but I didn’t think Rick had too much more to tell me. There were just a couple last questions to ask.
“So why did someone kill him, then? You must have thought
about it.”
“Back then, yeah, I thought about it a lot. But I never managed to work it out. Maybe someone was after him because he’d burned them or something. Maybe he owed some money he didn’t have. I don’t know.”
“You never heard anything?” I wondered.
Rick smiled. “It ain’t like that, Laura. Just because I did a little time doesn’t mean I know all the criminals. It’s all in the past, anyway. I do my job, spend a lot of time here, hang out with some friends sometimes. I don’t even drink or do anything like that these days. Fifteen months clean and sober.”
“Really? I’m impressed.” When I’d first known him, Rick Deal would gobble speed like the days didn’t have enough hours for everything he wanted to do. He’d always be drunk, too. This was quite a change. It showed in his face, the skin clearer, the expression happier.
“It was part of the probation deal. Worked, too. I still go to plenty of meetings.”
“Good for you,” I told him, and meant it. Giving up was difficult. “So you and this guy Kyle both knew James. Anyone else down here?”
“I think we were pretty much it,” he answered after some reflection. “Like I said, he lived up in Everett. I never went up there, so I didn’t meet any of those guys.”
“If you think of anything else, can you leave me a message at The Rocket?” Rick might have changed for the better, but I didn’t want him to have my home number. I was unlisted for a reason.
Before I left, I took down Kyle’s address. Just in case.
It was enough for one day. Far more than enough. I tried to take the easy route home, back along Denny, through the side streets and on to 99 by the Battery Street tunnel. But the viaduct was jammed. Slow going, but time to play some music. I listened to Carson’s album again, and then, when that was done, I dug an old Crowded House cassette out of the glove box. I knew the songs well enough to sing along. There was no one to hear me and it passed the time.
Pulling up outside the house felt like sweet relief. I stretched, feeling my back creak with deep pleasure, and went in. There were small noises as Ian crawled around the corner and into the kitchen. He saw me and a huge grin crossed his face. It was the best homecoming I could imagine. I crouched and he sped along the floor toward me.
I swung him into my arms, kissing him and smelling that unique baby smell, so fresh, so young, so wonderful. In the living room, Dustin was putting pieces of plastic roadway away in a container. About twenty little die-cast cars were scattered across the floor.
“Looks like you two have had a busy day.”
“I’ve put this stuff together in so many ways I probably qualify for a degree in urban planning,” he said, pushing himself to his feet before kissing me. “How did it go? You were gone a long time.”
“Yeah.” I lowered Ian to the floor and watched as he scooted back to his cars. I reached into my wallet and pulled out a five-spot.
“I see.” He slid it from my hand and stuck it in his pocket. “So..?”
“I ended up talking to one of the guys who’d been with Carson’s son the night he died.”
“Laura…” he began.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “It’s someone I used to see around a lot. I’ve kind of known him for years. That’s the only reason I did it.”
“Did he help at all?”
“Not really.” I bent down and started picking up toy cars, dropping them into a box.
“What are you going to tell Carson?” he asked later. We were lying in bed, his arm around my shoulders. I was wearing an old tee shirt and sweat pants, cuddled up against his chest.
“Just what I found.”
“It won’t be enough for him, you know.”
He was right, of course. Carson would nod and agree, then give me that hangdog expression. He wouldn’t come out and ask, but the question would always be there, lurking.
“That’s all,” I said. Carson was sitting with his bad leg up on a stool in front of him, smoking a Marlboro and drinking a cup of coffee with a slug of bourbon in it. He’d listened without interruption as I told him about Rick Deal.
“And he doesn’t know what happened?” he asked finally.
“No one does,” I said patiently. “Remember, the cops would have cleared it all up by now if they did.”
“What about this other guy?”
“Kyle?”
“Yeah. He might know something he hasn’t told them.”
“Probably not. Even if he did, why would he tell you?”
“Because I’m James’s daddy, not the police.”
I shook my head. If Kyle hadn’t talked before, he wasn’t going to now.
“I’ll go over there as soon as I can,” he insisted.
“Just leave it, Carson. You’ve done what you can. Look in the mirror, you already got yourself shot.”
“Yeah, but…”
“But what? You know all there is to know now. The police up in Everett will be looking for whoever put that bullet in you. Count your blessings. You’re still alive.”
“I know.” He was shifting in his chair and looking restless. “It’s just that if I talked to this Kyle, I’d know for sure.”
“What you mean is that you want me to go over and talk to him, since you can’t.”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. I wandered over to the window and stared out a Puget Sound. The water was the color of battleships, the waves low. A grey sky hid the peaks of the mountains over on the Peninsula. Underneath the clouds they’d be covered with snow, staying that way well into June. A ferry boat crossed the water, and for a moment my mind flashed on the Young Fresh Fellows’ Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest record with the ferry on the cover.
“Well,” I asked, “isn’t that what you’re really saying?”
“I guess it is,” he admitted.
“If I do it, this will be the last thing. The very last, okay?”
“I’d be grateful,” he told me.
I was a fool. I knew I was, but I’d been pulled into this: The writer in me wanted to know and she wasn’t going to be denied. This was the final lead, anyway. If anything came out of it, I’d pass the information to the police, then stand well back.
“Right.” I pulled my keys from my jeans. “Just don’t get your hopes too high, Carson. I really don’t think there’s anything more to learn.”
“Look…”
“What?” I said. I knew I sounded angry. But it was at myself for being willing to do this after all that happened six years before. I might as well keeping hitting my head against a brick wall, for all I’d learned. And I was pissed off at Dustin for being right and knowing me better than I knew myself.
First Hill in Seattle was home to most of the hospitals and doctors’ offices. Pill Hill, we called it, and trying to find a parking space up there was like trying to find a needle in a damn haystack. The meters on the street were always full, all the other lots reserved for different buildings. It took fifteen minutes of circling and cursing before I finally found a place for the Horizon over by the Frye Museum, then another five to walk to the grey cinder-block building on Boren Avenue where Kyle Adams lived. His apartment was up on the second floor, overlooking all the loud traffic on Boren. The windows in the place were floor-to-ceiling, old brown drapes shut tight against the day.
I knocked and waited, then knocked again. Finally I heard a chain being drawn back and the door opened to show a guy in jeans and a tee shirt. It was two in the afternoon but he was barefoot, looking as if he’d just woken up and thrown on some clothes. There were tattoos on his hands and arms. Not ones from the expensive, arty studios downtown, either. These were the product of hours with a pin and ink, something to pass the time in jail.
“Are you Kyle?” I asked. “Kyle Adams?”
“Yeah.” He stared at me curiously, as if he ought to know me.
“My name’s Laura Benton. You used to know a guy called James David Clark?”
He scratched his head and tried to sti
fle a yawn. “James? Yeah. Why?” He sounded suspicious, one hand resting on the doorknob, ready to slam it in my face.
“It’s no biggie. I’d like to ask you a few questions about him, that’s all.” I tried to make it sound casual.
“I don’t know, man. He’s been dead for years.” The stale alcohol and cigarette smoke were strong on his breath as he spoke. He was close to forty, with ratty hair that was grey at the roots and fell greasily onto his neck. His clothes smelled musty and hung loose on a frame that was way too thin. He gave off the odor of predator.
“I know.” I paused. I wanted to sound convincing. “I’m working for his father.”
“His father?” He gave a small, disbelieving laugh. “James always said the dude had split before he was born.”
“It didn’t happen quite that way,” I told him. “There’s much more to the story. But he’s just found out his son is dead and he’s hoping for some answers.”
Kyle nodded like he understood that very well, even as his eyes took me in.
“So how’d you get my name?”
“Someone told James’s father. He’s injured at the moment, so I said I’d come and ask a few questions.” It was the Cliffs Notes version, and it was mostly true.
It seemed to satisfy him, anyway. “You want to come in?”
“Could we maybe meet and talk somewhere?” There was no chance I was going into that apartment. Not the hungry way he was now looking at me. “There’s a Starbucks down the street. How about that?” I suggested. “It’ll give you time to shower and stuff.”
“Okay,” he agreed reluctantly. I didn’t know for sure that there was a Starbucks nearby. But with all those medical people around it was a good bet.
“Thirty minutes? I’ll pay.”
“Sure.”
It took me five minutes to find the coffee shop. One thing about Seattle, there was always going to be one close by. I had time to kill, so I walked around the last old-style drugstore in the area, at Madison and Minor. It seemed like a museum piece among all the hi-tech, as if it had been deliberately left as a reminder of the old days, before medicine became big business. About the only thing missing was a soda fountain. Add that and it could have been a movie set. I picked up items and set them down again, strangely happy to see I could still buy a hot water bottle and liver salts.
West Seattle Blues Page 8