by John Lutz
“It’s not very interesting work,” she said. “So what do you do? No, let me guess. You’re a cowboy. A real one.”
“Unemployed like a real one,” he said. “What I been doing is driving around Missouri in my truck, looking for work.”
“What kinda work?”
“Any. And I mean any. Jobs are scarce out there.”
“So I heard.” They danced silently for a while. “Listen,” she said. “I’ve got a little influence at Arch.” Very little. “I can at least let you know when there’s an opening and put in a word for you.”
He looked down at her as if he could hardly believe her. “You’d really do that for me?”
That and more. “Sure. Why not?”
“Because you barely know me.”
“I’ve got a good feeling about you, Link.”
“Like I’ve got about you.” They danced slower and slower, until they were standing locked in a simple embrace, and then he kissed her.
Beth changed her mind about leaving the 66 with her friends. After the music stopped, she made her way over to the table and told May Ann and the others they could go without her. She had her own car, anyway, and thought she might leave early.
She could feel their eyes on her as she walked out of the 66 with Link Evans.
They sat in his dusty and dented pickup truck for a while and kissed and talked and kissed some more. Then he pulled her close and she felt his hand move up beneath her blouse and onto her right breast. His fingers danced over her nipple and then gave a slight pinch.
God! He knows what he’s doing.
As he began unbuttoning her blouse she realized that he’d felt her sudden involuntary resistance.
He released her immediately.
“I don’t want to rush things, Beth. Not with you.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that. Well . . .”
“If you’re not in the mood, that’s reason enough for me to wait.”
“There’s something you oughta know.”
“What? You’re married?”
“No. Divorced.”
“So?”
“I’ve got a fourteen-year-old son.”
He sat back as if he needed a little distance to take her all in at a glance. “No kidding?” He reached for a pack of cigarettes on the dashboard and lit one, coughed, and flipped the cigarette out the window. It made a glowing arc in the night, like a miniature shooting star. “Gotta quit those damned things.”
“His name is Eddie.”
“Well, Eddie’s a lucky boy, with you as his mom.”
“What about you, Link? Are you lucky?”
He laughed. “Well, I gotta admit I just now was trying to get lucky.”
“You know what I mean. Does what I just told you change things between us?”
He seemed puzzled, but only briefly. “Changes this. I’m very much looking forward to meeting Eddie.”
They kissed again, and she felt his fingers tugging at the material of her blouse. This time she helped him with the buttons.
Later, in Link’s motel room just off the Interstate, Beth lay wondering what she and Link had just begun. He was a wonderful, gentle lover, and he seemed more than pleased with her.
But Beth was worried. What was happening to her, and to Link, would take a measure of commitment. She had a hunch he was capable of it, but she wasn’t so sure about herself.
Somebody clomped around in the room upstairs and then was quiet. The only sound in the night was the distant whine of trucks on the highway, downshifting to make the turn on the dark Interstate instead of heading straight for Edmundsville. Beth thought it might be the loneliest sound she’d ever heard. It almost made her cry.
Hank Williams, what have you started?
Six weeks later they were married in Las Vegas and spent a week in luxury at the MGM Grand. Most of the time Beth felt she was trespassing. Link spent an hour at a slot machine and won almost a thousand dollars. He kissed her and told her it meant their marriage was starting off lucky.
The rest of their time there they didn’t gamble. That was the only way you could beat a casino, Link said. Beth agreed with his decision, figuring if they stopped gambling, their luck couldn’t change.
54
New York, the present
Whoever answered the phone at Sweep ’Em Up told Quinn that Jock Sanderson was at an uptown YMCA with the rest of a cleanup crew, making fresh again an auditorium where an author had spoken last night about his book on how television pundits were poisoning American society.
“I think I read that one,” Quinn said, and told the woman on the phone that if Sanderson happened to call, it would be best if she didn’t mention her and Quinn’s conversation.
“He’ll be too busy with his mop and push broom to call,” the woman said. “Anyway, once the daytime cleanup crews are out on the job, nobody calls here except maybe people like you.”
“Did Sanderson work last night?”
“No. It was his night off. That’s why he’s on this daytime job. It’s cheaper for our clients if we clean during the day, and venues like the YMCA don’t hold events so often that they’re in a big rush to clean up afterward.”
“How long’s it usually take to clean up after something like an author lecture at a YMCA?”
“You mean what time will Sanderson get off work?”
“You’re ahead of me,” Quinn said.
“They didn’t start all that early, so it’ll probably be pushing five o’clock. You want to talk to him, you might be able to catch him when he’s on his lunch break around noon. It’d be better for him if the boss and the rest of the crew didn’t know the police were visiting him.”
Quinn told her that was a good idea, but the moment he hung up he left to drive to the YMCA where Sanderson was working today. He wasn’t in the mood to give a damn what Sanderson’s boss or his fellow employees thought about the law questioning him.
The YMCA was a modern gray and glass cube on a block of old buildings being renovated. Quinn was directed by an Arnold Schwarzenegger look-alike in a too-tight shirt to the auditorium.
After walking down a hall with glass windows looking in on a swimming pool, an indoor track, and a room full of people working out on exercise equipment, he pulled open a wooden door with a pneumatic closer and stepped into a small lobby. He used an identical door to enter the auditorium.
It was dim and, even without people in the seats, it didn’t seem all that large. It smelled musty, in the way of empty auditoriums. Quinn estimated it would accommodate about five hundred people. He wondered what kind of turnout the author of the TV pundit book had spoken to last night. He guessed it would depend on whether the speech was free.
A man and woman in gray work coveralls were moving things from the small stage to an area behind some curtains. Two others, both men, were using long-handled push brooms to sweep the gray painted concrete floor between the rows of seats. One of the broom pushers fit Sanderson’s description. Quinn walked to the end of the row he was sweeping and waited until Sanderson looked up and noticed him. He held up his ID and motioned for Sanderson to come to him.
As if grateful for the break, Sanderson propped his broom between two seat backs. He sidled toward Quinn in a way that suggested the seats were occupied and he was worried about stepping on toes. Quinn saw why. The seats hadn’t been raised yet on that end of the row to allow room for sweeping beneath them.
Sanderson stopped and stood in front of the end seat, looking expectantly at Quinn. Up close, Sanderson looked shorter than he did at a distance, but he was solidly built—well set up, as old cops used to say. Quinn was disappointed to see that there were no scratches on his face. Weaver had clawed the man who attacked her, and had done so hard enough to come away with his flesh beneath her fingernails.
Quinn identified himself.
“I already talked to another cop—officer,” he said. “Pearl somebody or other.”
“That’s all right,” Quinn said, as if
Sanderson had been seeking reassurance. “I’m here about something else. A woman was badly beaten last night, not far from where you live.” He watched Sanderson’s reaction. He’d know the beating took place a long walk or subway ride away from his apartment.
Sanderson maintained his poker face and shrugged. “Well, it ain’t the safest neighborhood. I’m thinking about moving.”
Quinn stared at him. “Let’s talk about this out in the lobby.”
“Sure. But remember I’m working. We’ve gotta finish this up in another few hours.”
“This won’t take long.”
“That’s what they tell you when they hang you.”
Quinn guessed that was a joke and managed a smile. He remembered a woman who’d hanged herself in her bedroom years ago and hadn’t done a good job. It had taken her long, agonizing hours to die in a noose that was too loose, at the end of a rope that was too short. He thought that people who killed themselves had a responsibility to give it some thought first. They owed it to whoever was going to find the body.
The lobby was angular and carpeted in red. Though there was enough glass to qualify it as a greenhouse, the brightness was intensified by overhead track lighting. There was a low black sofa along one wall, but neither man moved to sit down. Quinn got what he wanted, a close look at Sanderson’s face in good light. There was no sign of scratches or gouges, or of makeup covering any. This wasn’t the man Weaver had clawed.
But that didn’t mean he hadn’t had something to do with the assault.
“We gotta have time to get those restrooms cleaned,” Sanderson said, pointing to a door with the international symbol of a woman in a skirt standing squarely as if she were in a snit.
“You’ll have it,” Quinn said. “Where were you between seven and ten last night?”
Sanderson rubbed his chin, making a show of trying to remember. “I don’t know if I could tell you exactly, but around seven-thirty or so I went out for a walk. I was gone quite a while.”
“What’s a while?”
“I dunno. Maybe two, three hours.”
“You’re quite a walker.”
“Yeah. It helps to get rid of stress.”
“What’s stressing you?”
“Same things stressing lots of people. Getting by, getting around, stretching a buck, holding on to a job because it’s not easy to get another one if you’ve spent time behind the walls.”
“Woman trouble?”
“Huh?”
“You didn’t mention woman trouble.”
“Right now, I ain’t got any. Not that I didn’t have lots of it once. But you know all about that.”
“Not all, maybe.”
Sanderson shrugged one shoulder beneath his gray uniform. “Well . . .”
“Anybody see you during this walk?”
“Sure. Hundreds, I suppose. You know New York. But I doubt if any of them would remember me.” Sanderson smiled. “I mean, I don’t remember any of them, do I?”
“Did you go in someplace and get a cup of coffee? Maybe stop to buy a newspaper or magazine?”
Sanderson took a long time to answer, putting on another show of searching his memory. “No, I didn’t stop or do anything that anyone might remember.”
“These walks you take, do you have any sort of destination when you set out?”
“Never. That’s part of why they relieve stress.”
“Do you ever pick somebody at random and follow them? Just for something to do?”
Sanderson appeared shocked by the conversational swerve. “Follow somebody? No, that’s nutty.”
Quinn smiled. “Yeah, I guess it is.” He held out his hand for Sanderson to shake. “You can get back to work. Thanks for your time.”
“Sure.” Sanderson shook the proffered hand.
But Quinn didn’t let go. He tightened his grip slowly and powerfully. Not as tight as he might. Just letting Sanderson know he could easily crush all his fingers. “You wouldn’t have anything to do with a woman getting beaten up last night, would you?”
Sanderson was too proud to show any sign that his hand hurt. He’d learned in prison not to reveal vulnerability. “It wasn’t that cop, Pearl, that got worked over, was it?”
“Why would you think so?”
“I don’t think so. I’m asking ’cause I don’t know. I kind of liked Pearl, is all. She was nice. I wouldn’t wanna think somebody beat the shit out of her.” He took a deep breath and let it out, but still didn’t change expression. “Say, you wouldn’t mind letting go of my hand, would you?”
Quinn acted surprised that he was still clasping Sanderson’s hand. “Oh, sorry.” He turned the hand loose.
Sanderson grinned. “I need that hand for work.”
“And, since you don’t have any woman trouble right now, not just for that.” Quinn winked and turned to leave.
“Thinking about Pearl,” Sanderson said.
Quinn felt a stab of anger and turned back around.
“You never answered me whether it was Pearl that got beat up last night,” Sanderson said.
“Somebody else,” Quinn said.
“Good. If something happened to Pearl, I’d wanna know myself who had a hand in it.”
Quinn stared at Sanderson, wondering if the little bastard was quicker off the mark than he seemed.
“I better get back to sweeping up,” Sanderson said.
Quinn nodded. “That’d be your best bet.”
As he left the YMCA, Quinn had a better understanding of why Weaver thought Sanderson might be worth watching.
However, Weaver was probably wrong. There was no doubt about Sanderson’s alibi for the night of Judith Blaney’s murder. And for that matter, no doubt that he wasn’t the man who assaulted Weaver. Sanderson was just another smalltime ex-con with a devious streak and a healthy skepticism, probably a fraction as smart as he saw himself.
Weaver had been right in her suspicions but wrong in her conclusion.
Exactly what Quinn had spent much of his life trying to avoid.
Still, Quinn had respect for intuitive reasoning, and Weaver had demonstrated that quality in other investigations.
It might be a good idea to put a tail on Sanderson for a while.
To make sure.
55
Verna Pound was past the point of waiting until no one was looking. She simply walked up to the wire trash receptacle, which was chained to a light pole at the corner, and began poking through its contents. She saw a roach skitter away from a white foam box. It was the small kind that wouldn’t accommodate much food, but well worth a look.
She scooted the roach farther away with the backs of her fingers, and opened the box.
It contained half a hamburger and another cockroach. This cockroach took its leave even before Verna could brush it away or whisk the chewed hamburger and bun from it.
She was grateful. Even if she found nothing more, this was enough food to hold her until breakfast tomorrow morning at the chapel.
She hunched her body around the foam container and limped away from the trash barrel. Her plan was to find a safe place to sit down, eat her meal along with the third-full bottle of wine she’d bought from a friend, and then walk across town to the shelter. She’d rest a few blocks from the shelter and see if she could beg a few more dollars. It was best to get a jump on her tomorrows, assuming she could hide the money safely from the thieves that came in the night. That was a problem at the shelters. That and sex. Why any of those sickos would want to force sex on the sorts of poor and battered women who slept in such places was beyond Verna’s comprehension. And it was absurd that any of the street women would want anything to do with the homeless and hapless—and bathless—men who bedded down at the shelters. Dirt and desperation were mood breakers. Not to mention hunger.
There were exceptions, of course. On her better days, Verna liked to think of herself as one. And perhaps inside his ragged clothes and dirt-smeared exterior was a man worth knowing. One who could see beyo
nd Verna’s exterior to the beauty inside.
Some women—or maybe all women—never gave up hope.
Verna remembered the man who’d given her a five-dollar bill earlier that evening. That was the money that made possible the shelter bed. He seemed genuinely interested in her. His suit had been old and threadbare, but his scuffed shoes weren’t too worn. A guy maybe just beginning the long and steepening slide. He so obviously couldn’t afford to spare the five dollars he’d given her that Verna for a moment felt like returning it. For only a moment.
She’d watched him as he strode away. Viewed from behind, at a distance, he appeared as if he possessed some wealth. Not prosperous, but maybe a guy with a job.
She was thinking about the generous donor when a black sedan pulled over to the curb slightly ahead of where Verna was walking.
Her heart jumped. Police? I’m not staying in one place, panhandling. I’m not dressed so bad that I look like a street person. What the hell . . .
She decided the car had nothing to do with her.
But as she walked past it, picking up her pace and staring straight ahead, a man called her name.
She looked over and saw the generous guy standing by the car with the driver’s side door open.
“Verna Pound,” he said again. He was grinning.
“Do I know you?” Verna asked.
“Five dollars’ worth.”
Now she understood what he expected for his money. “I’m not selling,” Verna said. “Only borrowing.”
“I don’t expect to be repaid, Verna. Gifts aren’t meant to be repaid with something of more value. I only want to talk with you.”
Verna had been moving slowly forward, and was now about ten feet away from the man. “How do you even know my name?”
Instead of answering, he slammed the car door and cut across the sidewalk so he could be next to her, walking with her. Casually, he aimed his key fob behind him, and the big car’s lights flashed as its doors locked.
“You do remember me?”
“I remember the five dollars,” Verna said. She didn’t tell him about her cataracts. Now that he was close, the man was something of a blur to her.