by Sue Grafton
We got up together and bumped and thumped across the man’s knees, heading down the aisle toward the door. The flight attendant was peeved, but she let us deplane.
WE WENT UPSTAIRS to the airport bar and found a little table at the rear. When the waitress came, I shook my head, but Mona ordered a Pink Squirrel. The waitress had questions about her age, but I had to question her taste. A Pink Squirrel? Mona had pulled her wallet out and the waitress scrutinized her California driver’s license, checking Mona’s face against the stamp-sized color photograph, apparently satisfied at the match. As she passed the wallet back to Mona, I snagged it and peeked at the license myself. She was twenty-one by a month. The address was the same one she’d given me. The waitress disappeared and Mona snatched her wallet, shoving it down in her purse again.
“What was that for?” she said sulkily.
“Just checking. You want to tell me what’s going on?”
She picked up a packet of airport matches and began to bend the cover back and forth. “I lied to you.”
“This comes as no surprise,” I said. “What’s the truth?”
“Well, I did pick him up, but we didn’t screw. I just told you that because I couldn’t think of any other reason I’d want his home address.”
“Why did you want it?”
She broke off eye contact. “He stole something and I had to get it back.”
I stared at her. “Let me take a flier,” I said. “It had to be something illegal or you’d have told me about it right up front. Or reported it to the cops. So it must be dope. Was it coke or grass?”
She was wide-eyed. “Grass, but how did you know?”
“Just tell me the rest,” I replied with a shake of my head. I love the young. They’re always amazed that we know anything.
Mona glanced up to my right.
The waitress was approaching with her tray. She set an airport cocktail napkin on the table and placed the Pink Squirrel on it. “That’ll be three-fifty.”
Mona took five ones from her billfold and waved her off. She sipped at the drink and shivered. The concoction was the same pink as bubble gum, which made me shiver a bit as well. She licked her lips. “My boyfriend got a lid of this really incredible grass. ‘Non Sung Smoke’ it’s called, from the town of Non Sung in Thailand.”
“Never heard of it,” I said. “Not that I’m any connoisseur.”
“Well, me neither, but he paid like two thousand dollars for it and he’d only smoked one joint. The guy he got it from said half a hit would put you away so we weren’t going to smoke it every day. Just special occasions.”
“Pretty high-class stuff at those rates.”
“The best.”
“And you told Gage.”
“Well, yeah,” she said reluctantly. “We met and we started talking. He said he needed to score some pot so I mentioned it. I wasn’t going to sell him ours. I just thought he might try it and then if he was interested, maybe we could get some for him. When we got to my place, I went in the john while he rolled a joint, and when I came out, he was gone and so was the dope. I had to take a cab back to Mooter’s to pick up my car. I was in such a panic. I knew if Jimmy found out he’d have a fit!”
“He’s your boyfriend?”
“Right,” she said, looking down at her lap. She began to blink rapidly and she put a trembling hand to her lips.
I gave her a verbal nudge, just to head off the tears. “Then what? After I gave you the phone number, you got in touch with Gage?”
She nodded mutely, then took a deep breath. “I had to wait ’til Jimmy went off to work and then I called. Gage said—”
“Wait a minute. He answered the phone?”
“Un-uhn. She did. His wife, but I made sure she’d hung up the extension and then I talked so he only had to answer yes and no. I told him I knew he fucking stole the dope and I wanted it back like right then. I just screamed. I told him if he didn’t get that shit back to me, he’d be sorry. He said he’d meet me in the parking lot at Mooter’s after closing time.”
“That was Saturday night?”
She nodded.
“All right. Then what?”
“That’s all there was,” she said. “I met him there at two-fifteen and he handed over the dope. I didn’t even tell him what a shitheel he was. I just snatched the Baggie, got back in my car, and came home. When I saw the headlines this morning, I thought I’d die!”
“Who else was aware of all this?”
“No one as far as I know.”
“Didn’t your boyfriend think it was odd you went out at two-fifteen?”
She shook her head. “I was back before he got home.”
“Didn’t he realize the dope had disappeared?”
“No, because I put it back before he even looked for it. He couldn’t have known.”
“What about Mooter’s? Was there anyone else in the parking lot?”
“Not that I saw.”
“No one coming or going from the bar?”
“Just the guy who runs the place.”
“What about Mrs. Vesca? Could she have followed him?”
“Well, I asked him if she overheard my call and he said no. But she could have followed, I guess. I don’t know what kind of car she drives, but she could have been parked on a side street.”
“Aside from that, how could anyone connect you to Vesca’s death? I don’t understand why you decided to run.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “My fingerprints have to be on that car. I was just in it three nights ago.”
I studied the look in her eyes and I could feel my heart sink. “You have a record,” I said.
“I was picked up for shoplifting last year. But that’s the only trouble I was ever in. Honestly.”
“I think you ought to go to the cops with this. It’s far better to be up front with them than to come up with lame excuses after they track you down, which I suspect they will.”
“Oh, God, I’ll die.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll feel better. Now do what I say and I’ll check the rest of it from my end.”
“You will?”
“Of course!” I snapped. “If I hadn’t found the guy for you, he might be okay. How do you think I feel?”
I FOLLOWED THE MAID through the Vescas’ house to the pool area at the rear, where one of the cabanas had been fitted out as a personal gym. There were seven weight machines bolted to the floor, which was padded with rubber matting. Mirrors lined three walls and sunlight streamed in the fourth. Katherine Vesca, in a hot-pink leotard and silver tights, was working on her abs, an unnecessary expenditure of energy from what I could see. She was thin as a snake. Her ash-blond hair was kept off her face by a band of pink chiffon and her gray eyes were cold. She blotted sweat from her neck as she glanced at my business card. “You’re connected with the police?”
“Actually, I’m not, but I’m hoping you’ll answer some questions anyway.”
“Why should I?”
“I’m trying to get a line on your husband’s killer just like they are.”
“Why not leave it up to them?”
“I have some information they don’t have yet. I thought I’d see what else I could add before I pass on the facts.”
“The facts?”
“About his activities the last two days of his life.”
She gave me a chilly smile and crossed to the leg-press machine. She moved the pin down to the 180-pound mark, then seated herself and started to do reps. “Fire away,” she said.
“I understand a phone call came in sometime on Saturday,” I said.
“That’s right. A woman called. He went out to meet her quite late that night and he didn’t come back. I never saw him again.”
“Do you know what the call was about?”
“Sorry. He never said.”
“Weren’t you curious?”
“When I married Gage, I agreed that I wouldn’t be ‘curious’ about anything he did.”
“And h
e wasn’t curious about you?”
“We had an open relationship. At his insistence, I might add. He was free to do anything he liked.”
“And you didn’t object?”
“Sometimes, but those were his terms and I agreed.”
“What sort of work did he do?”
“He didn’t. Neither of us worked. I have a business here in town and I derive income from that, among other things.”
“Do you know if he was caught up in anything? A quarrel? Some kind of personal feud?”
“If so, he never mentioned it,” she said. “He was not well liked, but I couldn’t say he had enemies.”
“Do you have a theory about who killed him?”
She finished ten reps and rested. “I wish I did.”
“When’s the funeral?” I asked.
“Tomorrow morning at ten. You’re welcome to come. Then maybe there’ll be two of us.”
She gave me the name of the funeral home and I made a note.
“One more thing,” I said. “What sort of business are you in? Could that be relevant?”
“I don’t see how. I have a bar. Called Mooter’s. It’s managed by my brother, Ace.”
WHEN I WALKED in, he was washing beer mugs behind the bar, running each in turn across a rotating brush, then through a hot water rinse. To his right was a mounting pyramid of drying mugs, still radiating heat. Today he wore a bulging T-shirt imprinted with a slogan that read ONE NIGHT OF BAD SEX IS STILL BETTER THAN A GOOD DAY AT WORK. He fixed a look on my face, smiling pleasantly. “How’s it going?”
I perched on a bar stool. “Not bad,” I said. “You’re Ace?”
“That’s me. And you’re the lady P.I. I don’t think you told me your name.”
“Kinsey Millhone. I’m assuming you heard about Vesca’s death?”
“Yeah, Jesus. Poor guy. Looks like somebody really cleaned his clock. Hope it wasn’t the little gal he dumped the other night.”
“That’s always a possibility.”
“You want a spritzer?”
“Sure,” I said. “You have a good memory.”
“For drinks,” he said. “That’s my job.” He got out the jug wine and poured some in a glass, adding soda from the hose. He added a twist of lime and put the drink in front of me. “On the house.”
“Thanks,” I said. I took a sip. “How come you never said he was your brother-in-law?”
“How’d you find out about that?” he asked mildly.
“I talked to your sister. She mentioned it.”
He shrugged. “Didn’t seem pertinent.”
I was puzzled by his attitude. He wasn’t acting like a man with anything to hide. “Did you see him Saturday?”
“Saw his car at closing time. That was Sunday morning, actually. What’s that got to do with it?”
“He must have been killed about then. The paper said sometime between two and six.”
“I locked up here shortly after two. My buddy stopped by and picked me up right out front. I was in a poker game by two thirty-five, at a private club.”
“You have witnesses?”
“Just the fifty other people in the place. I guess I could have shot the guy before my buddy showed up, but why would I do that? I had no ax to grind with him. I wasn’t crazy about him, but I wouldn’t plug the guy. My sister adored him. Why break her heart?”
Good question, I thought.
I RETURNED TO MY office and sat down, tilting back in my swivel chair with my feet on the desk. I kept thinking Gage’s death must be connected to the Non Sung Smoke, but I couldn’t figure out quite how. I made a call to the Vesca house and was put on hold while the maid went to fetch Miss Katherine. She clicked on. “Yes?”
“Hello, Mrs. Vesca. This is Kinsey Millhone.”
“Oh, hello. Sorry if I sounded abrupt. What can I do for you?”
“Just a question I forgot to ask you earlier. Did Gage ever mention something called Non Sung Smoke?”
“I don’t think so. What is it?”
“A high-grade marijuana from Thailand. Two thousand bucks a lid. Apparently, he helped himself to somebody’s stash on Friday night.”
“Well, he did have some grass, but it couldn’t be the same. He said it was junk. He was incensed that somebody hyped it to him.”
“Really,” I said, but it was more to myself than to her.
I headed down to the parking lot and retrieved my car. A dim understanding was beginning to form.
I KNOCKED AT THE door of the duplex on Frontage Road. Mona answered, looking puzzled when she caught sight of me.
“Did you talk to the cops?” I asked.
“Not yet. I was just on my way. Why? What’s up?”
“It occurred to me I might have misunderstood something you said to me. Friday night when you went out, you told me your boyfriend Jimmy was at work. How come you had the nerve to stay out all night?”
“He was out of town,” she said. “He got back Saturday afternoon about five.”
“Couldn’t he have arrived in Santa Teresa earlier that day?”
She shrugged. “I suppose so.”
“What about Saturday when you met Gage in Mooter’s parking lot? Was he working again?”
“Well, yes. He had a gig here in town. He got home about three,” she said in the same bewildered tone.
“He’s a musician, isn’t he?” I said.
“Wait a minute. What is this? What’s it got to do with him?”
“A lot,” he said from behind me. A choking arm slid around my neck and I was jerked half off my feet. I hung on, trying to ease the pressure on my windpipe. I could manage to breathe if I stood on tiptoe, but I couldn’t do much else. Something hard was jammed into my ribs and I didn’t think it was Jimmy’s fountain pen. Mona was astonished.
“Jimmy! What the hell are you doing?” she yelped.
“Back up, bitch. Step back and let us in,” he said between clenched teeth. I hung on, struggling, as he half lifted, half shoved me toward the threshold. He dragged me into the apartment and kicked the door shut. He pushed me down on the couch and stood there with his gun pointed right between my eyes. Hey, I was comfy. I wasn’t going anyplace.
When I saw his face, of course, my suspicions were confirmed. Jimmy was the fellow with the guitar case who’d sat next to me at Mooter’s bar when I first went in. He wasn’t a big guy—maybe five-eight, weighing in at 155—but he’d caught me by surprise. He was edgy and he had a crazy look in his eyes. I’ve noticed that in a pinch like this, my mind either goes completely blank or begins to compute at lightning speeds. I found myself staring at his gun, which was staring disconcertingly at me. It looked like a little Colt .32, a semiautomatic, almost a double for mine—locked at that moment in a briefcase in the backseat of my car. I bypassed the regrets and got straight to the point. Before being fired the first time, a semiautomatic has to be manually cocked, a maneuver that can be accomplished only with two hands. I couldn’t remember hearing the sound of the slide being yanked before the nose of the gun was shoved into the small of my back. I wondered briefly if, in his haste to act, he hadn’t had time to cock the gun.
“Hello, Jimmy,” I said. “Nice seeing you again. Why don’t you tell Mona about your run-in with Gage?”
“You killed Gage?” she said, staring at him with disbelief.
“That’s right, Mona, and I’m going to kill you, too. Just as soon as I figure out what to do with her.” He kept his eyes on me, making sure I didn’t move.
“But why? What did I do?” she gasped.
“Don’t give me that,” he said. “You balled the guy! Cattin’ around in that green-sequined dress with your tits hangin’ out and you pick up a scumbag like him! I told you I’d kill you if you ever did that to me.”
“But I didn’t. I swear it. All I did was bring him back here to try a hit of pot. Next thing I knew he’d stolen the whole lid.”
“Bullshit!”
“No, it’s not!”
I said,
“She’s telling the truth, Jimmy. That’s why she hired me.”
Confused, he shot a look at her. “You never slept with him?”
“Jesus Christ, of course not. The guy was a creep! I’m not that low class!”
Jimmy’s hand began to tremble and his gaze darted back and forth between her face and mine. “Then why’d you meet him again the next night?”
“To get the grass back. What else could I do? I didn’t want you to know I’d been stiffed for two thousand dollars’ worth of pot.”
He stared at her, transfixed, and that’s when I charged. I flew at him, head down, butting straight into his midriff, my momentum taking us both down in a heap. The gun skittered off across the floor. Mona leapt on him and punched him in the gut, using her body to hold him down while I scrambled over to the Colt. I snatched it up. Silly me. The sucker had been cocked the whole time. I was lucky I hadn’t had my head blown off.
I could hear him yelling, “Jesus Christ, all right! Get off. I’m done.” And then he lay there, winded. I kept the gun pointed steadily at body parts he treasured while Mona called the cops.
He rolled over on his side and sat up. I moved back a step. The wild look had left his eyes and he was starting to weep, still gasping and out of breath. “Oh, Jesus. I can’t believe it.”
Mona turned to him with a withering look. “It’s too late for an attack of conscience, Jimmy.”
He shook his head. “You don’t know the half of it, babe. You’re not the one who got stiffed for the dope. I was.”
She looked at him blankly. “Meaning what?”
“I paid two grand for garbage. That dope was crap. I didn’t want to tell you I got taken so I invented some bullshit about Non Sung Smoke. There’s no such thing. I made it up.”
It took an instant for the irony to penetrate. She sank down beside him. “Why didn’t you trust me? Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”
His expression was bleak. “Why didn’t you?”
The question hung between them like a cobweb, wavering in the autumn light.
By the time the cops came, they were huddled on the floor together, clinging to each other in despair.
The sight of them was almost enough to cure me of the lies I tell.