Dead Ringer

by Ken Douglas

  “She have a husband? Someone we should notify?”

  “Nick Nesbitt.”

  “The news guy?”

  “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “He at home now, you think?”

  “He wasn’t earlier. Maggie was upset about it.” He paused. “Why’d you clear the cops out?”

  “I have to spend some time alone with the dead. Get a feel for them. Her.” He nodded toward Maggie. “It makes them real. I need that for me to do my job.” He handed her hand back to Gordon, then brushed the hair from her eyes. “She was beautiful.”

  Gordon turned away from her, sad that he had to see her this way, afraid this was the way he was going to remember her. “You’re going to get him, this monster?”

  “I am. Now, before they come back, tell me all you can.”

  And Gordon did, finishing with Maggie coming into the Whale and telling them about the two men, Virgil and Horace with the ferret face, who’d chased her and the homeless men under the pier who’d rescued her, Darley Smalls and Theo Baptiste.

  “She remembered their names. Both the ones from the store and the men under the pier?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you remembered, too?”

  “Yeah, I remembered, too.”

  “Most people would have forgotten the second they heard it.”

  “I’m a bright guy.” Blood rushed to Gordon’s face.

  “Sorry. Don’t take anything I say personally. I have to ask. You understand?”

  “Yeah.” Gordon took in a long breath, calmed back down. “My IQ’s off the chart and I have a photographic memory. Show me a page in book and I can read it back a month later.”

  “That’d be great for my line of work.”

  “For me it was a curse. I learned to hide it.”

  “Why?”

  Gordon was still holding onto Maggie’s hand. The warmth, what there had been, was gone now. She was getting cold. Gordon shivered. “Being gay wasn’t a good thing when I was growing up. It’s easier now. I was in the closet and didn’t want to draw attention to myself. If people knew how bright I was, they’d want to know why. They’d snoop, find out.”

  “You think?”

  “I know. There was this guy in San Francisco. An ex-marine. He knocked the gun out of Squeaky Frome’s hand as she was popping caps at President Ford. Saved Ford’s life. A hero for a day, till the press found out he was gay. Dragged him out of the closet.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Truth.”

  Wolfe looked back at Maggie, nude, lying broken by the trash. “What did you think of her story?”

  “I believed it. Every word. I wanted to go home with her, but she didn’t want me to leave my chess game. Jonas wanted to drive her, but she insisted she’d be safe. She was going to run straight home, not leave the sidewalk. She made it there. I know, because we talked on the phone. She said she was going to bed, but she must’ve changed her mind, gone back out for some reason.”

  “Who do you think did this?”

  “Not those characters under the pier. If they were that kind, they’d have done her there and sent her body out on the tide.”

  “I’ll have to talk to them, but I think you’re right. It was the two who chased her. Virgil and Horace with the ferret face.”

  “Your head, why do you shave it?”

  “Is it relevant?” Wolfe said.

  “It is for me.”

  “Chemo. I had cancer. It’s in remission. I keep it off now because I don’t want anyone to know if it comes back. I was lucky, it was diagnosed early. I took a year off, told my work I needed time to get my life together. They don’t know.”

  “So, you know what it’s like to be in the closet.”

  “No, I don’t live in fear. If they find out, I lose a job. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.”

  Gordon looked into Wolfe’s eyes. “She’s cold.” He rested her hand on the pavement.

  “I’m good at what I do. I’ll get the ones who did this.”

  “Gordon Takoda.” Gordon held his hand out.

  “Billy Wolfe.” Wolfe took the hand, shook it.

  “No partner?”

  “No.”

  “You got one now.” Gordon forced himself to take a quick look at Maggie, brushed a hand against her cheek. He stood, dusted off his pants.

  “I work alone.” Wolfe’s rasp was cold, final.

  “I’m not just some guy who fell off the turnip truck. I put in twenty years with the FBI. I know my way around an investigation.”

  “How’d you do that?” Wolfe stood too.

  “Except for a gay pride parade in San Francisco in the ’70s, I was in the closet. I quit right after my twenty was up, for the pension. I came out the next day.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this straight off?”

  “I wanted to know what kind of man you were. If you were a jerk who shaved his head for some stupid macho reason, you know, like Kojack, I woulda had to find this prick myself.” Gordon turned away and started toward the crowd at the end of the alley.

  Horace looked at the gas gauge. He’d spent a quarter tank driving. Stupid. He was almost into L.A. Somehow he’d wound up on the Santa Monica Freeway. He took the Vermont off ramp and got back on heading south. Where was his mind? Nowhere.

  “Gotta keep it together,” he mumbled.

  He popped a Meat Loaf CD into the player, cranked it up loud. Keeping it together wasn’t gonna be easy. Not with that smell back there.

  He kept the van in the right lane, chewing up the interstate. He cruised onto the Long Beach Freeway, tapping his finger on the wheel as Meat Loaf made love by the dashboard light. He punched the repeat button. He loved that song.

  He got off the freeway in Lynwood, drove to one of those car washes he knew about where you do it yourself. Something had to be done about the smell. He backed the van into the middle stall, so nobody could see in when he opened the back doors.

  Chopped Harleys lined the curb in front of the biker bar across the street, but Horace wasn’t worried about them. They’d be sucking ’em up till last call and then some. He had plenty of time.

  He got out of the van, fed quarters to the coin box. He turned the knob to extra soap, then opened the back doors. His brother was covered in blood and stunk like shit. Horace shook his head. Poor bastard.

  He went for the hose. It had a gun-like handle with a yard long nozzle. Horace held it like a range shooter, arm extended, and imagined he was picking off rattlers in the desert. Virgil loved that. Not anymore.

  Horace climbed into the passenger seat, dragging the hose. On his knees, facing into the back, he held the hose out.

  Virgil was lying, head toward the back door, feet facing Horace. He jerked on the trigger and soapy spray shot out of the hose. Aiming at his brother’s shoes, he blasted the soles, moved up to the legs, shooting blood, shit and the woman’s clothes out the back of the van.

  He kept it up till the money ran out, then surveyed his handiwork. Virgil lay on his side, Moby Dick, whiter in death, his whiteness contrasting with the metallic black paint on the inside of the van. Black floor, roof, walls. White Virgil, white and dead.

  Across the street a couple of bikers wearing Angels’ colors came out of the bar. Time to wrap it up. Horace put away the hose, picked up the shoes and clothes, tossed them in the trash. One of the Harleys rumbled to life, then another. Horace started the van as they roared off in the direction of the freeway.

  Gordon waited at the end of the alley while a police photographer shot a couple rolls of film. The lab men filled baggies with blood samples and bits of evidence from around the site, a lot of it irrelevant, but they were leaving nothing to chance. The coroner’s wagon backed up the alley. There were more people out now. It was a quiet crowd, but somehow the neighborhood knew, as if death’s quiet voice traveled from house to house, waking them, letting them know he’d come calling.

  “You wanna take a ride with me?” Wolfe took Gordo
n by the elbow, moved him away from the gawkers. He led him to a nineteen eighty-something Chevy, opened the passenger door, closed it after Gordon got in.

  Gordon watched the night roll by as Wolfe drove. He picked a teddy bear off the floor. “Yours?”

  “My boy’s. He tossed it up from the car seat in back. Got an arm on him like Sandy Koufax used to have.”

  “Dodger fan?”

  “That your IQ at work?”

  “You ever see them play in the Coliseum?” Gordon looked in the back seat. There was a baby’s car seat back there. It looked like a permanent part of the car.

  “Before my time.”

  “What are you, thirty, thirty-five?”

  “Old enough to vote. Look, I’m supposed to be the one asking the questions.” Wolfe was on Second Street now. He pulled up in front of the twenty-four hour coffee shop across the street from the Lounge, shut off the engine.

  “This isn’t the police station.”

  “You are sharp.” Wolfe got out of the car.

  The restaurant’s apple pie flavor seemed out of place in the Shore. Two hours before sunup and the place was doing a brisk business. Gordon had never been in before, probably a mistake, this many people didn’t come to a place this early unless it was good. He ordered the country breakfast, he was going to need his energy. The cop ordered eggs over easy, bacon and toast.

  “Tell me about yourself,” Wolfe said.

  “You interrogating a suspect?”

  “No, interviewing a partner.”

  Horace snuck into the house at 3:30 in the morning, shoes in hand, so as not to wake Ma. Virgil had always been her favorite. No more back rubs for Ma. No more pedicures. No more whatever else Virge did for her.

  “Why do you sneak into this house like a thief?” She was up. Horace squinted, eyes getting used to the dark. She was sitting straight backed on the couch with that quilt she’d made when they were kids wrapped around her. She looked like a squaw.

  “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “We keep decent hours here.”

  “Sorry, Ma.” He had to be careful. A wrong word could bring on one of her fits. She’d had the epilepsy her whole life, but the tumor made it worse. Any little thing could set it off.

  “Where’s your brother?”

  “He didn’t come home?” Horace felt his asshole pucker up. Nothing he could do about it. He didn’t want to hurt her. The lung cancer and the brain tumor were bad enough, she didn’t need to know Virge was never coming home. She didn’t have long and the end was gonna be painful enough without that. “He got a girl.”

  “Really?”

  “They went to the movies. She had a car.”

  “What kind of girl?”

  “A teacher at Long Beach State. I didn’t get to meet her, you know how Virgil is about stuff like that.”

  “That’s nice.” She started drumming her fingers in her lap, like she did when she was happy. “He’s a good boy, it’s about time.” Then, “Where you been?”

  “Looking for a girl myself.”

  “Jealous of your brother?” She was smug. If she only knew what he’d had to do to get the money for her doctor and the hospital. It wasn’t right. It shouldn’t cost so much money to die.

  “A little, I guess.” It couldn’t hurt to let her think that. He sighed. Now he could see pretty good in the dark room. She was wearing that satisfied smile she used to wear when she could see. He turned away, padded toward his room in stocking feet.

  “That man’s been calling,” she said.

  “What man?”

  “That so called friend of yours who calls whenever he wants. Don’t he know better than to call in the middle of the night?”

  “I hope you were polite.” Horace hustled into his room, grabbed the phone, pushed buttons. That’s all he needed, Ma talking to Striker.

  “Yeah.” It was Striker.

  “I did the Kenyon woman.” Horace wanted to get out the good news before Striker had a chance to complain about how long it took.

  “Is it gonna come back on us?

  “No way.” Horace talked low, hand cupped over the mouthpiece, so Ma couldn’t hear. “I couldn’t do it like you wanted, so I made it look like a sex crime. She had this faggot boyfriend nobody knew about. I dumped her behind this gay bar he was at.” It didn’t sound too bad the way he said it, maybe Striker wouldn’t mind.

  “Just so there’s no come back.”

  “You call the tune, I do the dance.” He wanted to ask about the money, but Striker might take it as an insult.

  “I got another job for you. Can you get over to Catalina in that plane of yours?”

  “Any time you want.”

  “Sunup.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It’s an old woman, should be a piece of cake.”

  Horace almost puked again as he listened to Striker tell him. Christ, another killing and it was another woman, an older woman. But there was nothing he could do right now, except close his mind to it.

  He went to the bathroom and stripped off his bloody clothes. The shirt was ruined now, the pants too. He rolled them up, went naked and barefoot out to the kitchen. No one to see, Virgil wasn’t coming home and there wasn’t any reason to dress for Ma. She was already in her room anyway, happy like a rat in the trash. Her boy got a girl. Ma was nuts. He got a garbage bag from under the sink, stuffed the clothes in it, then stuffed the bag in the trash can outside the back door.

  Back in the bathroom, he got in the shower, turned the water as hot as he could stand it. Steam filled the bath. Striker wanted him to do another woman, the thought busted into his head. He didn’t want to do it, didn’t know if he could. In the end it was the anger that got him through the Kenyon bitch. She’d just stabbed Virgil, after all. Killing her didn’t feel premeditated. He turned the water even hotter, punishing himself.

  When he could take it no longer, he got out of the shower, changed into another pair of baggy pants, a denim work shirt and slipped on his leather bomber jacket. He faced the mirror, closed his eyes and forced the thought of the old woman he was supposed to do to the back of his mind. Time to be cool. He opened his eyes and looked at himself. “Cool to the max.” He turned away from the mirror and left the house.

  The van still smelled, not as bad, but the taste of shit lingered on the air. He’d have to get one of them air fresheners in the morning. It started to rain when he entered the on ramp, a slight drizzle. God’s tears, Horace thought, then he cried. Snot drizzled down his nose, mingled with salty tears on his lips. Horace didn’t get control of himself till he got off the freeway on Lakewood Boulevard by the Long Beach airport.

  He turned into the airport, drove to Condor aviation, passed the flight school and drove onto the line. He parked next to his Cessna 172, with the van’s sliding door facing the passenger door of the plane.

  No one challenged him, the place was deserted, the planes lined up like soldiers in the night. He shut off the engine and listened to the quiet. Off in the distance rolling tires hissed by on damp pavement as late night travelers journeyed home.

  Out of the van now, he slid open the door, then opened the passenger door of the plane, glad he had sun protectors covering the windows. The body had moved during the trip. Now Virgil was on his back. Horace pulled the body to the door.

  He squatted, slid his arms under it, careful to keep the belly wound away from the expensive bomber jacket. The body was limp and that surprised him. He’d expected rigor to set in like in the movies, but it hadn’t. With strength he didn’t know he had, he stood, got his balance, then staggered to the open door of the plane and slid his dead brother into the passenger seat.

  Trying not to look, he pulled on the shoulder harness, cinching the seatbelt tight. Finished, he closed and locked the door. Now all he needed was a motel room, so he could get some rest away from Ma for a couple of days and some cement.

  Chapter Nine

  Maggie rolled over, rubbed her eyes again
st the light sneaking in the bedroom. She pulled the blankets up to her chin, scrunched herself up in their warmth, pulled her knees to her chest.

  “Nick,” she mumbled. Again, “Nick.” She wanted him to pull the shade, the way her father used to come and turn out the light when she was a little girl and too comfy to get out of bed and do it herself. Her father had always been there, but Nick wasn’t, and all of a sudden last night came pouring back.

  She ran her tongue over dry lips. She was thirsty. She had to pee. And Nick still hadn’t come home. She pushed the blankets away, forced herself to sit up. “Ouch.” She put her hands to her temples. Her head hurt. She felt like she could drink gallons. She felt like she could pee gallons.

  She checked the digital alarm clock on the nightstand. Quarter to seven. The last time she’d looked it said 4:45. Great, she’d only managed to get two hours of fitful sleep and now she had a hangover. And Nick hadn’t come home at all. He’d never done that before. Then it hit her. Yesterday was Saturday. How could he film a high school drug bust when there wasn’t any school?

  “If it’s that redhead.” She dropped her legs over the side of the bed, stood and closed her eyes to keep the room from spinning. “Never again.”

  She took a deep breath, steadied herself, padded into the bathroom. The toilet seat was down. There was the proof. He really hadn’t been home. Bastard. She sat, peed, then at the bathroom sink she lowered her head and drank.

  The water was a river in her mouth, flooding through the cracked desert of her lips and tongue. So cool. She sucked it down, animal-like, greedy. She stopped after a bit, wanting more, but she’d get sick if she continued.

  She studied herself in the mirror. She slept in the nude and nude she was. So she hadn’t been so drunk she couldn’t get undressed. She put a finger to the welt on her forehead. It looked like it should hurt. She poked it. It did.

  She cupped her hands under the running water, splashed some on her face. It wasn’t enough to make her feel human, so she stepped into the shower, ran the water cold, to wake.

  Images from last night rushed through her mind.