“Well, not really. She’s gone right now.”
“Did she and Avery go off together?”
“Who?”
I smiled briefly. “You can drop the bullshit, Eric. I saw the suitcase in the hall when I was here the first time. Are they gone for good or just for a quick jaunt?”
“They said they’d be back by the end of the week,” he mumbled. It was clear he looked a lot slicker than he really was. I almost felt bad that he was so far outclassed.
“Do you mind if I talk to your stepfather?”
He flushed. “She doesn’t want him upset.”
“I won’t upset him.”
He shifted uneasily, trying to decide what to do with me.
I thought I’d help him out. “Could I just make a suggestion here? According to the California penal code, grand theft is committed when the real or personal property taken is of a value exceeding two hundred dollars. Now that includes domestic fowl, avocados, olives, citrus, nuts, and artichokes. Also shotguns, and it’s punishable by imprisonment in the county jail or state prison for not more than one year. I don’t think you’d care for it.”
He stepped away from the door and let me in.
The old man was huddled in his wheelchair in the den. The rheumy eyes came up to meet mine, but there was no recognition in them. Or maybe there was recognition but no interest. I hunkered beside his wheelchair. “Is your hearing okay?”
He began to pluck aimlessly at his pant leg with his good hand, looking away from me. I’ve seen dogs with the same expression when they’ve done potty on the rug and know you’ve got a roll of newspaper tucked behind your back.
“Want me to tell you what I think happened?” I didn’t really need to wait. He couldn’t answer in any mode that I could interpret. “I think when you came home from the hospital the first time and found out the gun was gone, the shit hit the fan. You must have figured out that Eric took it. He’d probably taken other things if he’d been doing cocaine for long. You probably hounded him until you found out what he’d done with it, and then you went over to Rudd’s to get it. Maybe you took the L. C. Smith with you the first time, or maybe you came back for it when he refused to return the Parker. In either case, you blew his head off and then came back across the neighbors’ yards. And then you had another stroke.”
I became aware of Eric in the doorway behind me. I glanced back at him. “You want to talk about this stuff?” I asked.
“Did he kill Rudd?”
“I think so,” I said. I stared at the old man.
His face had taken on a canny stubbornness, and what was I going to do? I’d have to talk to Lieutenant Dolan about the situation, but the cops would probably never find any real proof, and even if they did, what could they do to him? He’d be lucky if he lived out the year.
“Rudd was a nice guy,” Eric said.
“God, Eric. You all must have guessed what happened,” I said snappishly.
He had the good grace to color up at that, and then he left the room. I stood up. To save myself, I couldn’t work up any righteous anger at the pitiful remainder of a human being hunched in front of me. I crossed to the gun cabinet.
The Parker shotgun was in the rack, three slots down, looking like the other classic shotguns in the case. The old man would die, and Jackie would inherit it from his estate. Then she’d marry Avery and they’d all have what they wanted. I stood there for a moment, and then I started looking through the desk drawers until I found the keys. I unlocked the cabinet and then unlocked the rack. I substituted the L. C. Smith for the Parker and then locked the whole business up again. The old man was whimpering, but he never looked at me, and Eric was nowhere in sight when I left.
The last I saw of the Parker shotgun, Lisa Osterling was holding it somewhat awkwardly across her bulky midriff. I’d talk to Lieutenant Dolan all right, but I wasn’t going to tell him everything. Sometimes justice is served in other ways.
non sung smoke
THE DAY WAS an odd one, brooding and chill, sunlight alternating with an erratic wind that was being pushed toward California in advance of a tropical storm called Bo. It was late September in Santa Teresa. Instead of the usual Indian summer, we were caught up in vague presentiments of the long, gray winter to come. I found myself pulling sweaters out of my bottom drawer and I went to the office smelling of mothballs and last year’s cologne.
I spent the morning caught up in routine paperwork, which usually leaves me feeling productive, but this was the end of a dull week and I was so bored I would have taken on just about anything. The young woman showed up just before lunch, announcing herself with a tentative tap on my office door. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, with a sultry, pornographic face and a tumble of long dark hair. She was wearing an outfit that suggested she hadn’t gone home the night before unless, of course, she simply favored low-cut sequined cocktail dresses at noon. Her spike heels were a dyed-to-match green and her legs were bare. She moved over to my desk with an air of uncertainty, like someone just learning to roller-skate.
“Hi, how are you? Have a seat,” I said.
She sank into a chair. “Thanks. I’m Mona Starling. I guess you’re Kinsey Millhone, huh?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Are you really a private detective?”
“Licensed and bonded,” I said.
“Are you single?”
I did a combination nod and shrug that I hoped would cover two divorces and my current happily unmarried state.
“Great,” she said, “then you’ll understand. God, I can’t believe I’m really doing this. I’ve never hired a detective, but I don’t know what else to do.”
“What’s going on?”
She blushed, maybe from nervousness, maybe from embarrassment, but the heightened coloring only made her green eyes more vivid. She shifted in her seat, the sequins on her dress winking merrily. Something about her posture made me downgrade her age. She looked barely old enough to drive.
“I hope you don’t think this is dumb. I . . . uh, ran into this guy last night and we really hit it off. He told me his name was Gage. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Sometimes guys make up names, you know, like if they’re married or maybe not sure they want to see you again. Anyway, we had a terrific time, only he left without telling me how to get in touch. I was just wondering how much it might cost to find out who he is.”
“How do you know he won’t get in touch with you?”
“Well, he might. I mean, I’ll give him a couple of days, of course. All I’m asking for is his name and address. Just in case.”
“I take it you’ll want his phone number, too.”
She laughed uneasily. “Well, yeah.”
“What if he doesn’t want to renew the acquaintance?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t bother him if he felt that way. I know it looks like a pickup, but it really wasn’t. For me, at any rate. I don’t want him to think it was casual on my part.”
“I take it you were . . . ah, intimate,” I said.
“Un-uhn, we just balled, but it was incredible and I’d really like to see him again.”
Reluctantly, I pulled out a legal pad and made a note. “Where’d you meet this man?”
“I ran into him at Mooter’s. He talked like he hung out there a lot. The music was so loud we were having to shout, so after a while we went to the bar next door, where it was quiet. We talked for hours. I know what you’re going to say. Like why don’t I let well enough alone or something, but I just can’t.”
“Why not go back to Mooter’s and ask around?”
“Well, I would, but I, uh, have this boyfriend who’s really jealous and he’d figure it out. If I even look at another guy, he has this incredible ESP reaction. He’s spooky sometimes.”
“How’d you get away with it last night?”
“He was working, so I was on my own,” she said. “Say you’ll help me, okay? Please? I’ve been cruising around all night looking for his car. He liv
es somewhere in Montebello, I’m almost sure.”
“I can probably find him, Mona, but my services aren’t cheap.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “That’s fine. I have money. Just tell me how much.”
I debated briefly and finally asked her for fifty bucks. I didn’t have the heart to charge my usual rates. I didn’t really want her business, but it was better than typing up file notes for the case I’d just done. She put a fifty-dollar bill on my desk and I wrote out a receipt, bypassing my standard contract. As young as she was, I wasn’t sure it’d be binding anyway.
I jotted down a description of the man named Gage. He sounded like every stud on the prowl I’ve ever seen. Early thirties, five-foot-ten, good build, dark hair, dark mustache, great smile, and a dimple in his chin. I was prepared to keep writing, but that was the extent of it. For all of their alleged hours of conversation, she knew precious little about him. I quizzed her at length about hobbies, interests, what sort of work he did. The only real information she could give me was that he drove an old silver Jaguar, which is where they “got it on” (her parlance, not mine) the first time. The second time was at her place. After that, he apparently disappeared like a puff of smoke. Real soul mates, these two. I didn’t want to tell her what an old story it was. In Santa Teresa, the eligible men are so much in demand they can do anything they want. I took her address and telephone number and said I’d get back to her. As soon as she left, I picked up my handbag and car keys. I had a few personal errands to run and figured I’d tuck her business in when I was finished with my own.
MOOTER’S IS ONE of a number of bars on the Santa Teresa singles’ circuit. By night, it’s crowded and impossibly noisy. Happy hour features well drinks for fifty cents and the bartender rings a gong for every five-dollar tip. The tables are small, jammed together around a dance floor the size of a boxing ring. The walls are covered with caricatures of celebrities, possibly purchased from some other bar, as they seem to be signed and dedicated to someone named Stan, whom nobody’s ever heard of. An ex-husband of mine played jazz piano there once upon a time, but I hadn’t been in for years.
I arrived that afternoon at two, just in time to watch the place being opened up. Two men, day drinkers by the look of them, edged in ahead of me and took up what I surmised were habitual perches at one end of the bar. They were exchanging the kind of pleasantries that suggest daily contact of no particular depth. The man who let us in apparently doubled as bartender and bouncer. He was in his thirties, with curly blond hair, and a T-shirt reading BOUNCER stretched across an impressively muscular chest. His arms were so big I thought he might rip his sleeves out when he flexed.
I found an empty stool at the far end of the bar and waited while he made a couple of martinis for the two men who’d come in with me. A waitress appeared for work, taking off her coat as she moved through the bar to the kitchen area.
The bartender then ambled in my direction with an inquiring look.
“I’ll have a wine spritzer,” I said.
A skinny guy with a guitar case came into the bar behind me. When the bartender saw him, he grinned.
“Hey, how’s it goin’? How’s Fresno?”
They shook hands and the guy took a stool two down from mine. “Hot. And dull, but Mary Jane’s was fine. We really packed ’em in.”
“Smirnoff on the rocks?”
“Nah, not today. Gimme a beer instead. Bud’ll do.”
The bartender pulled one for him and set his drink on the bar at the same time I got mine. I wondered what it must be like to hang out all day in saloons, nursing beers, shooting the shit with idlers and ne’er-do-wells. The waitress came out of the kitchen, tying an apron around her waist. She took a sandwich order from the guys at the far end of the bar. The other fellow and I both declined when she asked if we were interested in lunch. She began to busy herself with napkins and flatware.
The bartender caught my eye. “You want to run a tab?”
I shook my head. “This is fine,” I said. “I’m trying to get in touch with a guy who was in here last night.”
“Good luck. The place was a zoo.”
“Apparently, he’s a regular. I thought you might identify him from a description.”
“What’s he done?”
“Not a thing. From what I was told, he picked up a young lady and ran out on her afterward. She wants to get in touch with him, that’s all.”
He stood and looked at me. “You’re a private detective.”
“That’s right.”
He and the other fellow exchanged a look.
The fellow said, “Help the woman. This is great.”
The bartender shrugged. “Sure, why not? What’s he look like?”
The waitress paused, listening in on the conversation with interest.
I mentioned the first name and description Mona’d given me. “The only other thing I know about him is he drives an old silver Jaguar.”
“Gage Vesca,” the other fellow said promptly.
The bartender said, “Yeah, that’s him.”
“You know how I might get in touch?”
The other fellow shook his head and the bartender shrugged. “All I know is he’s a jerk. The guy’s got a vanity license plate reads STALYUN if that tells you anything. Besides that, he just got married a couple months back. He’s bad news. Better warn your client. He’ll screw anything that moves.”
“I’ll pass the word. Thanks.” I put a five-dollar bill on the bar and hopped down off the stool, leaving the spritzer untouched.
“Hey, who’s the babe?” the bartender asked.
“Can’t tell you that,” I said, as I picked up my bag.
The waitress spoke up. “Well, I know which one she’s talking about. That girl in the green-sequined dress.”
I WENT BACK TO my office and checked the telephone book. No listing for Vescas of any kind. Directory Assistance didn’t have him either, so I put in a call to a friend of mine at the DMV who plugged the license plate into the computer. The name Gage Vesca came up, with an address in Montebello. I used my crisscross directory for a match and came up with the phone number, which I dialed just to see if it was good. As soon as the maid said “Vesca residence,” I hung up.
I put in a call to Mona Starling and gave her what I had, including the warning about his marital status and his character references, which were poor. She didn’t seem to care. After that, I figured if she pursued him, it was her lookout—and his. She thanked me profusely before she rang off, relief audible in her voice.
That was Saturday.
Monday morning, I opened my front door, picked up the paper, and caught the headlines about Gage Vesca’s death.
“Shit!”
He’d been shot in the head at close range sometime between two and six A.M. on Sunday, then crammed into the trunk of his Jaguar and left in the long-term parking lot at the airport. Maybe somebody hoped the body wouldn’t be discovered for days. Time enough to set up an alibi or pull a disappearing act. As it was, the trunk had popped open and a passerby had spotted him. My hands were starting to shake. What kind of chump had I been?
I tried Mona Starling’s number and got a busy signal. I threw some clothes on, grabbed my car keys, and headed over to the Frontage Road address she’d given me. As I chirped to a stop out front, a Yellow Cab pulled away from the curb with a lone passenger. I checked the house number. A duplex. I figured the odds were even that I’d just watched Mona split. She must have seen the headlines about the same time I did.
I took off again, craning for a glimpse of the taxi somewhere ahead. Beyond the next intersection, there was a freeway on-ramp. I caught a flash of yellow and pursued it. By keeping my foot to the floor and judiciously changing lanes, I managed to slide in right behind the taxi as it took the airport exit. By the time the cab deposited Mona at the curb out in front, I was squealing into the short-term lot with the parking ticket held between my teeth. I shoved it in my handbag and ran.
The
airport at Santa Teresa only has five gates, and it didn’t take much detecting to figure out which one was correct. United was announcing a final boarding call for a flight to San Francisco. I used the fifty bucks Mona’d paid me to snag a seat and a boarding pass from a startled reservations clerk and then I headed for the gate. I had no luggage and nothing on me to set off the security alarm as I whipped through. I flashed my ticket, opened the double doors, and raced across the tarmac for the plane, taking the portable boarding stairs two at a time. The flight attendant pulled the door shut behind me. I was in.
I spotted Mona eight rows back in a window seat on the left-hand side, her face turned away from me. This time she was wearing jeans and an oversized shirt. The aisle seat was occupied, but the middle was empty. The plane was still sitting on the runway, engines revving, as I bumped across some guy’s knees, saying, “’Scuse me, pardon me,” and popped in beside Ms. Starling. She turned a blanched face toward me and a little cry escaped. “What are you doing here?”
“See if you can guess.”
“I didn’t do it,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Yeah, right. I bet. That’s probably why you got on a plane the minute the story broke,” I said.
“That’s not what happened.”
“The hell it’s not!”
The man on my left leaned forward and looked at us quizzically.
“The fellow she picked up Friday night got killed,” I said, conversationally. I pointed my index finger at my head like a gun and fired. He decided to mind his own business, which suited me. Mona got to her feet and tried to squeeze past. All I had to do was extend my knees and she was trapped. Other people were taking an interest by now. She did a quick survey of the situation, rolled her eyes, and sat down again. “Let’s get off the plane. I’ll explain in a minute. Just don’t make a scene,” she said, the color high in her cheeks.
“Hey, let’s not cause you any embarrassment,” I said. “A man was murdered. That’s all we’re talking about.”
“I know he’s dead,” she hissed, “but I’m innocent. I swear to God.”