Damnation Street

by Andrew Klavan

  He couldn't tell if the lobby was run-down or if it'd just been built to look depressing as hell. Yellow paisley walls. A long mirror with his large, paunchy figure and his sad-assed face staring out of it. A cheap table under the mirror with throwaway real estate papers and papers advertising escorts—whores. No elevator he could see. Threadbare runners on the stairs. Weiss started climbing.

  The Chalk woman's door was halfway down the third-floor hall. That was about the right place if she'd been the one at the window. Was she expecting him? Did Bremer call ahead to warn her the way Julie called to warn him? He knocked. No answer. But the door swung in. It was off the latch. As if someone inside was waiting for him to walk in. What the hell?

  He walked in. Nudged the door shut behind him.

  The place smelled. Cigarettes: new smoke and the old stuff that sinks into the furniture and stinks like vomit. other than that, the apartment was a dive. Sofas and chairs with corrugated upholstery. Framed magazine pictures on the cracked plaster walls. A kitchen through an archway, a bedroom beyond a door. Windows onto the street, one open. Traffic noise filtering through and a desperate trickle of damp Reno air. As far as Weiss could see, the dump was empty, but it didn't feel empty somehow.

  "Hey," he said. "Anybody home?"

  No one answered. He cursed silently. He moved slowly toward the bedroom door, looking all around him.

  "Hey?"

  He stepped into the bedroom. Small, tight space. The double bed filled the center of it. There were narrow corridors of wood floor on one side of the bed and at its foot. The blankets and sheets were in a jumble on the mattress. There were newspaper pages in the jumble too. on the bedside table, there was a pile of papers and manila envelopes. There was a brass ashtray full of butts. And there was a romance novel with a red cover. A Ring for Cinderella.

  The smell of smoke was stronger in here, not so stale. The smoker was around somewhere or had been recently. Behind that open closet door to the right of him—that was a good place for someone to hide. Then there was a bathroom ahead of him to his left. Someone could be hiding in there too.

  He guessed the closet. He went for it fast. He was light on his feet for a big man, and he crossed to it in a heartbeat. He flipped the door shut with one hand, the other hand ready to strike.

  "You're fucking dead," came the throaty voice behind him. Weiss sighed, annoyed with himself. It was the bathroom all along.

  He turned and faced her. She had a gun trained on his belly. Not your lightweight lady's toy either, but a Smith & Wesson 500 revolver. The recoil would probably blow her out into the street, but not before she'd put a hole in Weiss the size of a basketball.

  "You're so dead it's not even funny," she said.

  The kid at the hotel had been right about Adrienne Chalk. She thought she was something. Weiss could see it in the way she came toward him along the side of the bed, swaying her hips and keeping her chin lifted as if she were moving into the camera for her big close-up. She had dyed blond hair and a mean face. Maybe her face had been pretty once in a cheap kind of way, but now it was just cheap and mean. Her lipstick was too red, and she wore too much makeup on her cheeks and too much whatever that stuff was called—mascara—under her eyes. She wore a blue suit, skirt and jacket, that might've been meant to give her some style. It didn't. She had too much ass for it, especially the way she swayed.

  She came to the edge of the bed. She gripped the gun tight, kept it trained on Weiss's midsection. Weiss didn't like it. He had a temper. He got angry when people pointed guns at him. Guns, knives. They just pissed him off somehow. Chalk's smirky little smile didn't do much for his mood either.

  "Where do you want it, fat man?" said Adrienne Chalk.

  "Put that down or I'm gonna slap you," Weiss told her.

  Adrienne laughed. "Slap me? I'm gonna shoot you, you dumb shit. No court in the world'd convict me."

  Weiss slapped her—a good one with the back of his hand. She fell over onto the bed. He reached down and took the gun away from her.

  "You son of a bitch, you hit me!" she gasped.

  He slipped the gun into his jacket pocket. He kept his hand on it. "So what? You been hit before, haven't you? Sure you have. I'll bet you been hit plenty."

  "You bastard," said Adrienne Chalk. "How about I start screaming?"

  "You start screaming, I'll shoot you," said Weiss—which he wouldn't have, but how the hell was she supposed to know?

  She touched the side of her mouth. Looked at her fingertips. Either her lip was bleeding or her lipstick was smeared, Weiss couldn't tell which. Neither could she, it looked like.

  She sat up on the bed slowly. "Ya fuck," she muttered.

  Weiss shook his head. What a world. People pulling guns on you. Women pulling guns, for Christ's sake. He could never shake the idea that women ought to be better than that somehow.

  If anyone could've changed his mind, it would've been this prize piece of work. He stood, looking down at her. He searched her face for any sign that she could be Julie's mother. He didn't find any, but then he didn't want to find any.

  "All right," he said. He leaned back against the wall. He had his hands in his jacket pockets, one hand on the gun. "What is this?"

  "Aaah," she said, angry. She wiped her sore lip with the meat of her hand.

  "I mean it. You pull a gun on me?"

  "I should've shot you. I was going to. I just wanted to see you sweat first."

  "What the hell?" said Weiss with a laugh. "No, I mean it.

  What the hell? You leave the door open like that so I walk in and then you're gonna shoot me?"

  "I saw you coming. I saw you from the window."

  "So what? You don't even know me, you crazy bitch."

  "Aaah," she said again. "I know enough. I knew you were coming, didn't I? Someone like you. Some thug he'd send."

  Weiss made a ch sound, air between his teeth. "I'm a thug now? What is this?"

  "I know what you are." Adrienne Chalk looked him over. Meanwhile, she worked her jaw with one hand to make sure it still worked. Weiss was large and powerful, and he'd slapped her hard. "You're some private investigator type. Am I right? Ex-cop, you look like. I know. Nice, respectable people, they slip you an envelope, you make things go away. Anything that doesn't fit the nice, respectable picture—poof! right?—they pay you; it's gone. He'd like that, I bet. Mr. Nice Respectable. With his wife and kids and his house and his church and whatever bullshit. He'd like it if I just went away. Well, you go back and you tell him he can forget it. 'Cause guess what? I'm his memory. I'm all that's left of Suzanne, and I'm the price he pays for his nice respectable life. And if he don't like it, he can go fuck himself and so can you."

  Weiss listened, leaning against the wall. He looked at her. Sitting on the bed with her legs curled under her. Snarling at him with the fat lip he'd given her. What a skank she was. Was it possible she was talking about Andy Bremer? She thought Bremer had sent him to make her disappear, was that it?

  Weiss asked her. "You mean Bremer? You think Andy Bremer sent me? The Realtor guy from Hannock?"

  Chalk sneered and eyed him sideways. For the first time, she seemed unsure of herself. "What're you talking about? Obviously Bremer. I saw your plates, the California plates. Who else do I know in California?"

  Weiss cocked his head. "You see a lot, I'll give you that."

  "I knew what he'd try. Fuck you. You tell him: 'Fuck you,' I said. And fuck you too."

  She massaged her jaw with her hand some more. Weiss considered her. His temper had cooled now. He was sorry he'd hit her. But not that sorry. The skank.

  "So let me get this," he said. "Every two months you show up at the Hannock Super 8 and Bremer pays the tab. Now you figure he sent me to make you go away?"

  Chalk kept eyeing him, snarly and uncertain. "You trying to tell me Bremer didn't send you? How come you know all about him, then? Huh? Who are you? If he didn't send you, who did?"

  But Weiss was ahead of her. It was coming clea
r to him now. "I get it. You're blackmailing him, right? Is that it? All that stuff about you're his memory. You're the price he pays. You got something out of his past, and you're blackmailing him with it."

  "Fuck you. Who are you anyway?"

  "What is it? What've you got on him?"

  "What're you, a cop?" said Adrienne Chalk. "You're no cop."

  "Who's Suzanne? You said you were all that's left of Suzanne. Who's she?"

  Spit fizzled between Chalk's lips as she glared at him.

  Weiss made a noise. He pushed off the wall, straightened. He lumbered along the side of the bed, big in the narrow passage. Chalk scrambled away from him to the far side of the mattress.

  "You keep away from me!" she said.

  Weiss didn't answer. He went to the bedside table. He pushed the romance novel aside. A Ring for Cinderella, my ass, he thought. He lifted the first manila envelope underneath, opened it, looked at the papers in it. Sex stuff, money stuff, stuff from one of the strip clubs across the street. Femme Fatale was right.

  "You work in this place?" he said over his shoulder.

  "Yeah. So what?"

  "You blackmail the guys who come in here too."

  "So what?" she said. "Some of them."

  He picked up the next envelope. It hit the brass ashtray. The ashtray fell to the wooden floor with a clang. It spilled butts and ash over the floorboards. In the envelope, sure enough: photographs. Guys with topless women on their laps. Grainy printouts, from a phone camera probably. Addresses, web pages. All kinds of information on these poor hard-ons.

  "That's my shit," Adrienne Chalk protested. "I got copies. I got plenty of copies, believe me."

  "I believe you. Who's Suzanne?"

  Weiss went through the loose papers, tossing them aside. They floated down to the floor to lie on top of the envelopes. Finally the table was empty.

  He rounded on Chalk. "Come here," he said.

  "Stay away from me."

  "This is all small-time shit. Husbands getting lap dances. This is penny-ante shit. No one pays good money for this. If you think Bremer's coming after you, he's paying you good money. What've you got on him? Who's Suzanne?"

  "Fuck you. I don't have to tell you nothing."

  But she was scared. Her eyes moved. Weiss saw it. Her eyes moved to the cabinet on the lower half of the table. She was scared and she couldn't help herself. Weiss pulled the cabinet open.

  "Hey," she said. "Hey. That's my shit. I got copies."

  He found another bunch of manila envelopes in there. He pulled one out.

  "Gimme that," said Adrienne Chalk.

  She made a move to come toward him on the bed. Weiss cocked his hand at his ear as if he'd hit her again. He would have hit her again. He was well past ready. He'd had enough of her. She scrambled back out of his reach.

  He opened the envelope. He pinched the sheaf of papers inside, tugged it out. He scanned the paragraphs, lifted the pages, looked at the photos. He went over the whole story, his stomach churning. Jesus, he thought. Jesus.

  "Suzanne Graves," he said, reading the name off the newspaper printout. "What was she? Your sister?" He got no answer. He glanced up. "Listen, I'm sick of you. Don't fuck with me. What was she, your sister?"

  "Half," grunted Adrienne Chalk, sulky. She touched her hair as she said it. She shifted where she was sitting and sort of posed for him, arching her back, showing off her tits, which were all right. She must've sensed Weiss was looking her over, comparing her to the photos of Suzanne Graves. Graves was prettier, a lot prettier. Which gave Weiss another lurching pain in his belly. Suzanne Graves not only looked like Adrienne Chalk with her pinched, mean features; she also had the high cheeks and the fine complexion and the slightly uncanny gaze that made her look like Julie Wyant too. It was easy to see the truth. Adrienne Chalk wasn't Julie's mother. Her half sister was; Suzanne Graves was.

  "That's a crap way to die," said Weiss, rapping the printout with his knuckle. "Got her head caved in with a clawhammer, it says. That's a crap way to die."

  "While she was asleep," Chalk spat angrily. "He just crept up on her in her bed while she was asleep."

  Weiss read from the printout. "'Police are hunting the dead woman's husband, Charles Graves.'"

  "Look at the picture," said Adrienne Chalk.

  Weiss had already looked. He saw how it was. The photo—captioned: "Charles Graves, wanted for questioning by the police in the murder of his wife"—showed Andy Bremer as a younger man. So Bremer had been married to Suzanne. They'd had Julie together and another daughter too, according to the paper. Then, when Julie was maybe thirteen or so, Bremer had murdered the girls' mother in her bed. Crept up on her while she was sleeping with a clawhammer in his hand and pounded her skull until her brains burst out onto the pillow. Nice. Weiss thought about Bremer the way he was now. Doing the dishes in the kitchen. Joking around with his wife and children. Singing in church. Nice.

  "He killed her, huh," he said aloud. "He killed his first wife."

  "My sister. That's right."

  "In Ohio, this was?"

  "In Akron, yeah."

  "Seventeen years ago, it says."

  "So what? She's still dead."

  "Right. She's still dead."

  He tossed the envelope onto the bed. Adrienne Chalk seized it, clutched it to her breast protectively. Weiss walked back around the bed to the window. He looked out and down on the street of strip joints, the blinking signs. Femme Fatale. Gangster Pete's. What a world. He checked his gray Taurus, sitting at the curb, dull and dependable as an old nag under the blinking sign for The Black Hand. He scanned the faces of passersby, looking for that one face he could not remember.

  Finally, he turned to Chalk. Propped his butt on the windowsill. Looked her over.

  It made her nervous. "Who are you?" she said. "Who sent you, if Bremer didn't? What're you gonna do to me?" It was more than nervous. Weiss could see she was really scared now. She didn't know anymore what he was here for. Maybe he wanted to move in on her, shake her down, steal her stuff. Maybe he even wanted to kill her. She didn't know.

  Good, Weiss thought. Let her worry. It'd make it easier to get the whole story out of her.

  "You're something, all right," he said. "You're a real piece of work. I gotta hand it to you. Seventeen years ago, Bremer kills his wife and gets away with it. Runs off, changes his name, gets married again, starts a new life. And all that time, you look for him; you hunt him down. Seventeen years you wait for the chance to put the squeeze on him."

  "I didn't look for him," said Adrienne Chalk. She kept her eyes on Weiss all the while, watching him, scared, not knowing what he was here for, what he would do. "I wouldn't've known where to start. One of those things just happened. You know the way things happen sometimes? A couple of years ago, I saw Charlie's picture in the paper. Some kind of convention, some kind of charity thing. The Children's Charity, that was the name of it. People from all over the country were in Albuquerque for it, and there was some guy from Reno there. So they had him, the guy from Reno, they had him in the local paper. And in back of him—in the picture in back of him—there was Charlie, big as life. With one of those name tags, you know. Andy Bremer. So I went on the computer and found him. That was it. It just happened."

  Weiss laughed. "Beautiful. So the guy's giving to charity—you figure he must have money, right? You go to California; you find him with his new name and the wife and the house and everything. It's a perfect setup. Enough of this penny-ante shit, right? Bremer has to pay you real money and keep paying you or else you send him to the Graybar."

  Adrienne Chalk gave a jerky, nervous shrug, always eyeing him. "Well, why should he just get away with it? Right? All his Mr. Nice Respectable shit. Like you said. He's got the house, the wife, the kids. He's got money enough to give it away to charity. I mean, my sister's fucking dead."

  "Your sister's dead!" Weiss sneered. What a skank. What a piece of work. "Your sister's dead—you go to the police."

 
; "What good is that to me? The police. My sister's dead and he gets the good life? What're the police gonna do?"

  He shook his head. "You're something. You really are."

  "Look," she said. Her tone changed suddenly, went softer. "Look. Who are you? What do you want? You want money? I mean, we can work something out. I got this, I got a couple other things going. We could even work together on some of this." She lifted her chin. She posed her tits for him again. "You might like working with me, you know. There might be benefits..."

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Weiss. "You'll blow me; you'll cut me in—whatever. Fuck you. Here's what I want. This woman, your sister, Suzanne. She had two kids, right? Two daughters. The newspaper doesn't say their names."

  "The daughters?" Chalk said—there was a hopeful, calculating note in her voice. She hadn't been thinking about the daughters. She didn't care about the daughters. If Weiss was here about them, maybe it would be all right. "Mary and Olivia—Livy."

  "Mary and Olivia. What happened to them? Where are they?"

  Adrienne Chalk hesitated. Weiss could practically hear her thinking. Trying to figure what she could get out of him for this. "How would I know about that?" she said.

  "You know," said Weiss. "This didn't just happen. You kept tabs, kept watch. Sat on top of it until it broke right for you. You're the sister. The aunt. Bremer killed his wife and booked it, left the kids behind. It would've been easy for you to find out where they went, keep watch on them, in case maybe he got in touch."

  Chalk seemed about to lie again but must've given up on it. "You see a lot yourself, don't you?"

  "Where are they?"

  "What's in it for me?"

  "I go away."