Damnation Street

by Andrew Klavan

  "It wouldn't have started at all if you hadn't come."

  "Tough shit," said Weiss. "I came. It started. Now it's on."

  "You bastard. You dumb bastard." Weiss heard the other man swallow hard. That was all. Then the empty house was silent around them. It was silent and new and had a fresh, empty smell of wood and paint, and one day a family would come to live here. It seemed very sad to Weiss somehow. It weighed on him with all the rest. "It doesn't matter," Bremer said finally. Weiss saw his shoulders sag in the reflection. "I don't know anything. I don't know where she is. I don't have any idea."

  "You lie to me and I can't help you," said Weiss.

  "I'm not lying. She called me that one time, that's all. You said she called from Paradise. That's more than I knew. I don't even know the name she goes by."

  "What about the motel?"

  "What motel?"

  "The room at the Super 8."

  "What...?" Bremer started—but then he must've realized what Weiss had done. "Jesus Christ," he said again, disgusted.

  "What about it, Bremer? Is that where you meet her? Is that where you two get together when she comes? You must pay a lot for her to make the trip way out here. But, then, guys our age get stupid for her, isn't that what you said?"

  Bremer shook his head. Weiss saw it in the glass doors. "That's not her. That's not about her. The Super 8. That's something else."

  Weiss knew he was lying. And he could look at his face in the glass and he knew Bremer knew he knew. So all that high moral talk was bullshit in the end. All that squeaky-clean living. Making waffles for his kids, going to church. Every two months his favorite hooker came to town and he had her out at the old Super 8. That was Bremer.

  "So—what, then?" said Weiss. "She called you to say good-bye? Is that what you're telling me?"

  Bremer only nodded.

  "She called you to tell you she couldn't see you anymore."

  "That's right. Never again. She said she couldn't see me ever again."

  "And she warned you I might come. I might come or he might. That's why she couldn't tell you anything about where she was going."

  Bremer nodded again, swallowed again. "That's why she said she could never come back. She didn't tell me anything else, just that, I swear." Now he turned from the glass. He turned to face the detective. He let Weiss see the sneer straight on, never mind the reflection. "Look at you. You bastard. Going after her. Bringing him with you. You're twice her age. You don't even know her. You've never even been with her. It's all just daydreams. You're gonna make her die for your daydreams."

  Weiss sneered back. "What makes you any better? You'd do the same. And you're just as old as I am—you're older. What the hell makes your daydreams any better than mine?"

  Bremer's hard face seemed to go out of focus. His blue eyes went soft, looked lost. He turned back to the glass door. He looked out at the brown desert running to the blue-and-white mountains, all of it growing dark as the sun westered down.

  "That's not what it's like," Bremer said softly.

  "Yeah, yeah. The hell," said Weiss.

  "That's not what it's like," said Bremer. "I don't have any daydreams."

  Weiss was about to speak again, but he stopped cold. The truth came to him in that flashing way the truth had. Son of a bitch, he thought. He's not Julie's john. He's not her lover at all. He never knew how he knew these things, but he knew when he knew them and he knew this. Son of a bitch. He's Julie's father!

  The two men's eyes met on the glass—the reflection, the ghost of their eyes met on the glass with the desert visible behind them. Finally, they understood each other.

  "Now get the fuck out of here," Bremer said.

  16.

  It was dark by the time Weiss reached the Super 8. The motel was the last place in town, the last lighted spot on the four-lane before the pavement vanished into the desert night. Against the darkness out there, the motel sign stood out bright yellow with the neon vacancy sizzling bright orange underneath. From the parking lot where Weiss sat, the sign's light washed out the stars.

  The motel was a small single-story building, white, trim, well-kept. It was shaped like an L. The office and coffee shop made the base of the L, and the rooms extended along the edge of the parking lot in the L's arm. There were only five cars in the lot, six now with Weiss and his Taurus. There were lights on behind the white curtains in only three of the motel's rooms. The coffee shop was closed.

  Weiss stood out of his Ford. A cold wind was rising. It blew in out of the darkness. He felt it on his face, and he heard the flag on the flagpole behind the motel snapping somewhere above him. A Tv was playing in one of the rooms. He could hear that too: danger music, as if someone was watching a cop show or something.

  A truck rumbled past on the four-lane. When it was gone, Weiss heard the wind and the snapping flag and the music from the Tv and the vast silence of the desert that surrounded them.

  He walked toward the office, his hands in his pockets, his big frame hunched and huddled against the cold. He wasn't sure what he expected to find here. Bremer had said the place had nothing to do with Julie, but he knew Bremer was lying, so that meant it did. He figured maybe this was where Julie stayed when she came to visit her father. He figured she was his daughter by some first wife, and she had to come in secret so she wouldn't be seen by his respectable second wife. Something like that. He had wanted to ask Bremer about it. He had wanted to ask Bremer a lot of things. Julie had called her father to say good-bye because she had to run for her life. She had called to warn him that Weiss might come and the killer might come with him. Had she said anything else? Had she dropped any clue to where she was going? Was there anything in her past that might help Weiss find her? The questions had come into Weiss's mouth as he stood with Bremer in the empty house. They had come into his mouth—and he had swallowed them down.

  For some reason—maybe the second wife, maybe something else—Bremer's relationship to Julie was his great secret. That's what Weiss had understood when his eyes met the father's on the glass. It was his great secret, and if Weiss asked about it, he would balk, he would lie, and he would go on lying.

  And then the Shadowman would come.

  It was true what Weiss had said. He had a hold over the killer. He could stop looking for Julie and the killer would be lost. But that would only take him so far. If the specialist was convinced he might find her himself, he would step in. If he guessed Bremer was Julie's father, if he thought Bremer was lying and holding back, he would come not just for him, but for his wife and his son and his little girl—all of them until he had what he wanted. Bremer didn't know where Julie was, but the killer wouldn't know that. He didn't know things the way Weiss did. He would come to all of them until he was sure.

  Weiss had brought that with him. Weiss would bring that with him everywhere he went.

  So he did not ask his questions. He swallowed them down. He came here.

  He pushed through the glass door, into the motel office. An electric bell sounded as he stepped in.

  The office was neat and bright and soulless. There was a small sofa with flowers factory-stamped on the upholstery and a small Windsor chair and a wooden rack full of vacation brochures. There was no one behind the desk at first, but Weiss heard the TV playing through an open door back there. He heard ironic cartoon voices speaking.

  After a second or two, a kid came out, a boy in his teens or early twenties. He was tall and fit. He was wearing jeans and a button-down striped shirt, untucked. He had a round face, his hair sandy, his skin very pale except where it was splotched with red acne. He had earnest light brown eyes. They went over Weiss, up and down him. They looked wary, uncertain.

  "Can I help you?" he said.

  Weiss leaned on the counter. "I'm a private detective. You know what that is, right? You've seen that in the movies."

  "I never saw it in the movies, but I know what it is," said the kid earnestly.

  "You never saw a private detective in
the movies?"

  "No," said the kid, "but I know what it is."

  "All right," said Weiss. "Well, in the movies, there's always a scene where the private detective bribes a hotel clerk to give him some information."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. And that's just like this. I'm gonna bribe you, and you're gonna give me some information."

  The kid blinked, made a small helpless gesture. "I don't ... How does that work? What is that?"

  Weiss suppressed an irritated sigh. The trouble was no one made detective movies anymore. Everything was about these space aliens and superheroes. Kids never learned anything about real life.

  "What do you mean how does it work?" he said. "It works like I give you some money and you tell me what I want to know."

  "Is that honest?"

  "Of course it's not honest. That's why they call it a bribe." Idiot kid, he thought. "I'll give you twenty bucks. How's that?"

  "Cool," said the kid. So he wasn't a total idiot anyway.

  The kid let Weiss come around the desk and look at his computer. They found the charge to Bremer's credit card and then compared the room number to the registration records. The room Bremer had paid for was registered to a woman named Adrienne Chalk. She had a Nevada driver's license and an address in Reno. Weiss wrote the address down on a motel pad.

  "You remember this woman?" Weiss asked the kid.

  The kid shrugged. "I don't know. There's a lot of guests. I mean, it's a motel. Let me think about it."

  The kid thought about it. Weiss, meanwhile, went into his jacket pocket and brought out the photograph he had of Julie Wyant. He showed it to the kid.

  The kid looked down at the picture. "Wow. She's hot."

  "She might've had different hair when you saw her."

  "She would've had to. I would remember that hair."

  "Yeah, you would."

  The kid shook his head. "I'd remember her anyway, though. She's hot. I've never seen her."

  "Okay," said Weiss. So he was wrong. This wasn't where Julie came to see her father. But it was still about Julie somehow. He felt sure of that. He slipped the picture back into his jacket pocket.

  "I think I do remember this other woman, though, now I think about it," the kid said after a moment. "The woman who stayed here? This Adrienne Chalk? I think I remember her."

  "You don't have to say that. You get your twenty either way."

  "No, but it comes back to me. She was, like, older."

  "Older than what?"

  "Older than me."

  "Everyone's older than you. How old was she?"

  "Forty? I don't know. She was one of those women who always think people are looking at her."

  "Yeah? Was she hot too?"

  The kid gave a dull laugh. "She was forty!"

  "Right. Stupid question."

  "Anyway, she was kind of ... you know: cheap, whatever. All dyed hair and tight dresses. Wiggling around like every guy was gonna just, like, fall down for her, you know. It was kind of pathetic."

  Weiss was about to ask the kid if he thought the Chalk woman was a hooker, but he didn't. He didn't think the kid would know a hooker from the Virgin Mary.

  "Okay," he said, "thanks. Here's your twenty."

  "Cool," said the kid. "What did this woman do anyway, cheat on her husband or something?"

  "I thought you said you never saw this stuff in the movies," said Weiss. He saluted the kid and went to the door.

  As he stepped out into the parking lot, a car went past him. It went out the driveway, onto the four-lane, and turned left, back toward town. Weiss didn't get much of a look at the car, just a glimpse in the glow of the streetlamp above the lot. The car was navy blue, an American make, probably a rental.

  Weiss slipped his wallet back into his front pants pocket. He walked toward his Taurus. There were four other cars in the lot now, minus the one that just pulled out. There were still only three rooms with lights on behind the windows.

  It took another second for the math to kick in. If there were five cars when he arrived, including the kid's, shouldn't there have been lights on in four windows? There hadn't been—he remembered. There were only lights on in three windows, and there were still lights in three windows now. If one of the guests had just pulled out in that navy blue car, then one of the lights should've gone off. It hadn't.

  Weiss walked faster, pulling his car key out as he went. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe the car that just left had been driven by the coffee shop waitress or a maid or a janitor—except none of them would've been driving a rental. So maybe it was a guest and he just left the light on in his room.

  Maybe. Or maybe the specialist had just made a mistake.

  Weiss strode the last few steps to his car quickly and slipped in. The Taurus shot back out of the spot with a squeal of rubber.

  He had the gas pedal flattened as he hit the street. He took off down the four-lane in overdrive.

  17.

  There it was. A block away, at a corner, at a red light. Bathed in the white glow from the Shell station on one side and the car dealership on the other. Weiss got a quick glimpse of the license plate but couldn't read the number. Then the big car turned right off the four-lane onto a side street.

  Weiss never slowed, kept his foot on the pedal. Raced to the corner. Swung around it, the old Ford's tires giving a short, sharp scream.

  The navy blue rental was up ahead, cruising past a long, low building. Weiss recognized the place: the elementary school he'd passed coming into town. The rental's red brake lights flashed as it turned again, vanished again around another corner.

  Weiss barreled after it, barreled past the school, past a stop sign. He streaked through an intersection, trying to reach the spot where the other car had just disappeared. His heart was going like a cop pounding on a junkie's door. Sweat was breaking out clammy at his temples. This was the guy, the killer. He knew it. He felt it. Only yards away behind the rental's wheel. Invisible all this time, silent as cancer all this time, and now there he was, within striking distance. A mistake. That business with the cars and the lighted windows. The killer had made a mistake after all this time.

  It was all Weiss needed. He could get him now. He could end it here.

  And then the dark blue rental was gone. That quick.

  Weiss sped to a second stop sign, past the school. Braked not to stop but to take the corner. Took the corner and came around onto a dark street of houses. House light after house light glowed yellow in the shadows.

  But the red taillights of the navy blue car were nowhere to be seen.

  Weiss kept his foot on the brake, bore down. The Taurus moved slower and slower. It had happened too fast, he told himself. The car had disappeared too fast. It couldn't have reached the far corner before he'd made the turn behind it. Which meant it was still here. Somewhere. Somewhere on this street. That's what he told himself.

  The cold sweat trickled down Weiss's temples and fell. His eyes searched the shadowy block, left side, right side. Small houses, small lawns. Cars in garages and in driveways, cars parked nose to tail along the curb. Weiss's eyes went over all of them, one by one, looking for the navy blue rental in the dark.

  It was no good. Too hard to see. Weiss finally pulled the Taurus up against the line of parked cars. He opened the glove compartment. His .38 was in there, in its holster. He worked the gun out of the leather, slipped it into his jacket pocket.

  He left the engine running and stepped out into the street. The block was quiet. Above the hoarse whisper of the Ford's motor, he could hear the occasional car, the occasional truck going past on the nearby four-lane. Other than that, there was nothing, silence, not even a cricket in the night.

  Then—suddenly: a metallic clang behind him. Weiss caught his breath, spun around. His hand slapped against his gun pocket.

  But no, it was just a guy, some guy, a home owner, closing the lid of the trash can at the end of his driveway after tossing the bag in.

  "Hey," Weiss said.
He walked toward him.

  The home-owner guy hesitated, wary as the big detective approached him in the darkness.

  "You see a car just now, a blue car?" Weiss asked him. He got closer to the man, closer until he could make out his face in the dim light from the houses. The killer—his killer—had been in prison only once, in North Wilderness, a supermax, impossible to escape. The killer had escaped, but because he'd been there, there was a mug shot of him. Weiss had seen it. Seen the face. This wasn't that face. This was just a guy. Just a home owner in a brown suede windbreaker. Medium height, round head, dark hair. Weiss asked him again: "You see a blue car just now?"

  "What, you mean go by?"

  "Pull over, park somewhere on the street. A navy blue car, a big one."

  The guy looked up along the street as if he thought he might spot it even now. He slipped his hands into the wind-breaker's pockets. He frowned, shook his head. "I just came out to take out the garbage. I didn't see anything."

  Weiss nodded but went on standing there, looking the guy over. Just a home owner in a brown suede windbreaker.

  The guy shrugged. "Sorry."

  Finally, Weiss nodded. "Thanks."

  "Sorry I couldn't help you."

  The guy turned and walked up the path to his house, his hands in the windbreaker's pockets. Weiss turned away. He looked up the street. He scanned the driveways and the garages and the parked cars. It would be easy to miss the blue car here. Easy for the blue car to hide. Or maybe he'd been wrong—maybe the rental really had had enough time to reach the next corner, to get away. He wasn't sure anymore.

  Weiss walked back to the Taurus idling in the street. He climbed back in and popped it into drive. He cruised slowly along the street, reluctant to leave it, still turning his head back and forth, back and forth, scanning every driveway, every parked car, every open garage. It was a working-class neighborhood. The cars were family four-doors and pickup trucks and aging American sports models. The new American rental would've stood out, he told himself. Or maybe it wouldn't have. In this light, with all these models. He just couldn't be sure.

  He cruised to the next corner, stopped at the sign. He considered turning around, going over the block again. But it was no good. The killer was gone. He'd lost him. He eased down the gas and turned right. He headed back toward the four-lane.