Sunset Express

by Robert Crais

  “Are you Mary Mason?”

  She smiled nicely. It was a friendly smile, relaxed and personable. “No, I’m her sister, Maggie. I spoke with you earlier.”

  “Ah.”

  “Come in and I’ll get Mary.”

  The living room was tastefully decorated with minimalist Italian furniture, a spherical saltwater aquarium, and custom bookshelves lining three walls. The bookshelves were African teak and must’ve cost a fortune. Maggie Mason said, “Wait right here and I’ll get her.” She was bright and cheery, not unlike a Girl Scout troop leader from Nebraska.

  I waited. The house was so quiet that I could hear neither street noise nor passing cars nor the sound of Maggie Mason getting her sister. I looked at the books. Short fiction by Raymond Carver and Joan Didion. Asian philosophy by T’sun T’su and Koji Toyoda. Crime novels by James Ellroy and Jim Thompson. Science fiction by Olaf Stapledon and Jack Finney. Eclectic and impressive. I had finished reading the titles on one wall and was starting on a second when Mary and Maggie Mason returned. Twins. Both were tall, but where Maggie was dressed in the teddy and the fishnets, Mary wore a smartly tailored business suit and conservative low-heeled pumps. Her face was very white and her lips were liquid red and her black hair was cropped short and oiled to severe perfection. I said, “Mary Mason?”

  Mary Mason sat next to the aquarium, crossed one gleaming leg over the other, and said, “Four payments. I want the first payment now, another when there’s an arrest, the third on arraignment, and the final on the first day of the trial. That’s the only way I’ll do business.”

  I said, “Business?”

  Her sister smiled politely. “If you’ll excuse me, I have something to take care of.” She left without waiting for either of us to respond.

  Mary Mason leaned toward me. “I hear things.” She arched her eyebrows, which, like the rest of her, were perfect. “I know the identity of James X. I can help Teddy Martin.”

  I gave her the same news that I’d given Floyd Thomas, that there would be no money until a conviction.

  Mary Mason said, “Bullshit.” When she said it, a muffled crack came from the back of the house.

  I looked past her. “What was that?”

  Mary Mason leaned closer and put her hand on my knee. “Pay something as a sign of good faith. Five thousand dollars, and I’ll give you a physical description. How about that?” There was another dull crack and then a whimpering sound.

  I looked past her again. “I can’t do that, Ms. Mason.”

  She squeezed the knee. “Three thousand, then. Teddy Martin can afford it.” She ran her tongue along glistening lips, and then a man in the rear of the house moaned something about being called a dog. The voice was muffled and far away, and I thought that maybe I’d heard him wrong. Then the man howled.

  “Thanks for your time, Ms. Mason.” I walked out, wondering if it were too late to change professions.

  It was twenty-eight minutes after ten when I left the Mason twins and dropped south out of San Marino to San Gabriel. I pulled into a strip mall, made two more calls, and on each of the calls got an answering machine. That meant I was back to James Lester, who may or may not be awake. I called his number again anyway, and this time a man answered. I said, “Mr. Lester?”

  A woman was shouting in the background. Lester shouted back at her, “Just shut the fuck up, goddammit,” and then he came on the line. “Yeah?”

  “Mr. James Lester?”

  “Who wants to know?” One of those.

  I told him who I was and what I wanted.

  “You’re the guy from the lawyer, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay, sure. C’mon over.”

  I went over.

  El Monte, California, is a mostly industrial area north of the Puente Hills and south of Santa Anita, with small working-class neighborhoods to the south and west. James and Jonna Lester lived in a poorly kept bungalow on a narrow street just west of the San Gabriel River in an area of postwar low-income housing. The lawn was patchy and yellow from lack of water, as if the Lesters had given up against the desert and the desert was reclaiming their yard. Everything looked dusty and old, as if there were no future here, only a past.

  I left my car on the street, walked up across the dead yard, and a guy I took to be James Lester opened the door. He was average-sized in dark gray cotton work pants, dirty white socks, and a dingy undershirt. His hair was cut short on the sides and on top, but had been left long and shaggy in back, and he looked at me with a squint. He was thin, with knobby, grease-embedded hands and pale skin sporting Bic-pen tattoos on his arms and shoulders and chest. Work farm stuff. I made him for thirty, but he could’ve been younger. He said, “You’re the guy who called. You’re from the lawyer, right?” A quarter to eleven in the morning and he smelled of beer.

  “That’s right.”

  I followed him into a poorly furnished living room that wasn’t in any better shape than the yard. Stacks of magazines and newspapers and comic books were piled around on the furniture, and no one had dusted since 1942. A tattered poster of the Silver Surfer was thumbtacked to the wall, four darts growing out of the Silver Surfer’s chest. Lester dropped into a battered, over-stuffed chair and pulled on a work boot. An open can of Hamm’s was on the floor by the boots. “I gotta get ready for work. You wanna brewscalero?”

  “Pass.”

  “Your loss, dude. I can’t get going without it.”

  A barefoot woman with a swollen, discolored lip came out of the kitchen carrying a sandwich in a paper towel. She was wearing baggy shorts and a loose top and her skin was very white, as if she didn’t get out in the sun much. She dropped the sandwich on a little table next to the chair as if she didn’t give a damn whether he ate it or not. She looked sixteen, but she was probably older.

  I smiled and said, “I believe we spoke earlier.”

  She said, “Well, whoop-de-doo.”

  James Lester pulled hard at his bootlaces. “I need another brewscalero, Jonna. Go get it.”

  Jonna Lester shot a hard look at her husband’s back, then stomped back into the kitchen. Pouty.

  James said, “She don’t do nothing but run around with her friends all day while I’m bustin’ my ass. That’s why it’s such a sty in here. That’s why it’s a goddamned shithole.” They didn’t have air conditioning. A couple of ancient electric fans blew hot air around the room, one of the fans making a slow, monotonous chinging sound. Jonna Lester came back with a fresh Hamm’s, put it down next to the sandwich, then stomped out again. I hadn’t been in their house for thirty seconds and already my neck was starting to ache.

  I said, “I’m here to follow up the call you made about Susan Martin’s kidnapping and murder.”

  Lester finished tying the first boot, then started on the second. “Sure. That guy I spoke to on the phone, he said someone would come talk to me about it. That’s you, I guess.”

  “I guess.” Mr. Lucky.

  He looked over and grinned when he saw my eye. “Hey, you and Jonna kinda match, doncha?” He laughed after he said it, huh-yuk, huh-yuk, huh-yuk. Like Jughead.

  I stared at him.

  James Lester killed what was left of the first Hamm’s, then popped the tab on the second. “I think I met the guys who did it.”

  “Okay.”

  He took another pull on the Hamm’s, then had some of the sandwich. When he bit into the sandwich he jumped up and opened the sandwich as if he’d just bitten into a turd. “Goddammit, Jonna, what in hell is this?”

  “That’s your potted meat!” Yelling from the kitchen.

  “Where’s the fuckin’ mayonnaise?”

  “We’re out. I gotta get some.”

  “Where’s the little pickles?” Now he was whining worse than her.

  “I’m gonna go get some, all right?” Screaming, now. “Do you think I’m your fuckin’ slave?”

  His face went sullen and his breathing grew loud. He had more of the Hamm’s. He had
more of the Hamm’s again. My neck was hurting so bad I thought it would go into spasm.

  “Tell me what you know, James.”

  He stayed with the loud breathing a little longer, then closed the sandwich and took another bite. You’d think it was killing him, having to eat his sandwich without the mayonnaise and the little pickles.

  I said, “James.”

  He went on with his mouth full. “A week before it’s on the news about her gettin’ killed I stop in this place for a couple of brewscaleros. There’s these two guys, one of the guys, he was wearing a Shell station shirt had the name ‘Steve’ sewn over the pocket.”

  “Okay.” I wrote Shell station on my notepad. I wrote Steve.

  “We were talkin’ about how shitty it was, havin’ to work for a livin’, and this guy, he gives me the big wink and says he’s got her whipped. I’m all, whaddaya mean you got’r whipped? He goes, hey, a guy with the ’nads could snatch one of these rich Beverly Hills bitches and score enough fast cash to retire in style.”

  I said, “Steve said that?”

  “Unh-hunh.” He stuffed the rest of the sandwich in his mouth and washed it down. “I tell’m that sounds like a fast track to the gas chamber to me, but he goes, all you need is a layout of the house and a slick way in and out, stuff like that.” He swallowed hard and let out a gassy belch.

  “The other guy say anything?”

  “Nope. Just sat there drinkin’.”

  “What’d they look like?”

  “Steve was kinda tall and skinny, with light hair. I’m not sure about the other guy. Shorter. Darker.”

  A phone rang in the kitchen and we could hear Jonna Lester answer. James’s face clouded and he yelled, “That better not be one’a your cunt friends!”

  She yelled back, “Fuck you!”

  I said, “James.”

  He turned the cloud my way.

  “ ‘Cunt’ is an ugly word.”

  He squinted at me as if he wasn’t sure what I’d said, and then he shook his head. “All she does is yack with her friends. All she does is run around the mall while I’m bustin’ my ass.” Like that should explain it.

  I said, “Steve and the dark guy say anything else?”

  He sucked at his teeth, getting rid of the last bits of the sandwich. “I hadda pee so I went to the head. When I come back they was gone.”

  I stared at him, thinking about it. Seven interviews so far, and his was the only one that seemed to be worth checking out. It would probably add up to nothing, but you never know until you know. “You remember the bar?”

  “Sure. It was a place called the Hangar over on Mission Boulevard. I go there sometimes.”

  I wrote it down. The Hangar.

  “Last thing the guy says before I go to the head, he says he knows just who to grab, too. He says she’s a one-way ticket to Easy Street.”

  “Steve said that?”

  “Yeah. Steve.”

  “He say a name?”

  “Unh-unh.”

  Jonna Lester reappeared wearing strap sandals and carrying a small purse. She’d made up her face, but the lip still looked puffy. He said, “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

  She pouted the lips at him, giving him attitude. “I gotta go to the store. I got things to buy.”

  “You think you’re gonna run around with your cunt friends while I’m bustin’ my ass? You think you’re gonna spend my dough in some fuckin’ mall?”

  “We’re outta mayonnaise. We’re outta those little pickles.”

  He jumped up and grabbed her right arm. “You’re gonna stay here and clean this fuckin’ rathole, that’s what you’re gonna do!”

  I stood.

  She tried to twist away from him, screaming, “You piece of shit! I’m not your fuckin’ slave!” She pounded at him with her left fist, pretty good shots that nailed him on the head and face and chest until he was able to grab her left arm, too.

  “James.” The ache in my neck had moved up to my scalp. Never a good sign.

  She said, “You’re hurtin’ me, you asshole!”

  “James. Leave go of her.”

  James Lester said, “Fuck you. This is my house. This is my wife. She’s gonna do what I say or I’ll give’r a fat lip!”

  I held up my right index finger. “Watch the finger, James. I want to show you something.”

  His eyes went to the finger, like maybe it was a trick, only he couldn’t figure out what the trick might be.

  “Are you watching my finger?”

  “Suck my ass.” She was watching my right finger, too.

  I hit him flush on the nose with a left.

  He yelled, “Ow!” and grabbed at his face with both hands. He stumbled back and tripped over the little side table. Jonna Lester leaned over him, wiggled her butt, and yelled, “Ha-ha, asshole!” Some wife.

  James Lester was on his back, eyes watering, blinking at me. He said, “You piece of shit. You wait’ll I get up!”

  I put my notes in the manila envelope, then went to the door. Lucy was probably in the midst of her negotiation right now. Ben was probably watching Jodi Taylor shoot a scene right now. The world was turning on its axis right now.

  I said, “Thanks for the statement, James. If anything comes of it we’ll be in touch about the reward.”

  “You better not jew me out of that reward! I’m gonna call the cops, you hear? I’m gonna have you arrested!”

  I left them to their lives and walked out into the sun. You want to do the right thing, but sometimes there is no right thing to be done.

  Another day, another moron. And to think, some people have to work for a living.

  12

  The Hangar was a small, bright hole-in-the-fence-type bar wedged between a place that sold balsa-wood rocket kits and another place that repaired appliances. They were doing a pretty good lunch business when I got there, selling chili tacos and grilled sausages to people swilling down schooners of beer. Both of the bartenders were women in their fifties, and neither of them knew a blond guy named Steve who worked for Shell. I didn’t expect that they would, but you never know. The older of the two women called me ‘sweetie.’ The younger of the two didn’t like it very much. Jealous.

  I bought a grilled sausage with kraut, a schooner of Miller, and asked if they’d mind letting me use their phone book. The older one didn’t, but the younger one warned me not to walk out with it. I assured them that I wouldn’t. The younger one told me to be careful not to spill anything on it. The older one asked the younger one why she always had to make such a big thing, and the younger one said what if I ruined it? I assured them that I’d buy them a new phone book if I ruined the loaner. The older one said, “Oh, don’t you give it another thought, sweetie,” and the younger one went down to the far end of the bar and sulked.

  Half the schooner later I had addresses for the nine Shell service stations located in the El Monte/Baldwin Park/West Covina area. I finished the sausage, thanked the older one for her help, and made the round of the Shell stations. At each stop I spoke to the manager or assistant manager, identified myself, and asked if a tall blond guy named Steve had worked there anytime in the past six months. At the first four stations I visited, the answer was no, but at the fifth station the manager said, “You mean Pritzik?”

  “Who’s Pritzik?”

  “We had a fellow named Steve Pritzik.” The manager was a Persian gentleman named Mr. Pavlavi. He was short and round and stood in the shade of his maintenance center with his arms crossed. His maintenance center, like the rest of his service station, was polished and gleaming.

  I said, “Was he tall?”

  “Oh, yes. Very tall.”

  “Was he blond?”

  “Oh, yes. Very blond.”

  I said, “Mr. Pavlavi, is he employed here now?” Just because a tall blond guy named Steve worked here didn’t mean it was the same tall blond Steve. Maybe it was just a coincidence.

  Pavlavi frowned. “Not in a very long while. He q
uit, you know. One day here, the next day not, never to return.” He sighed as if such things are the stuff of life, to be expected and therefore no great cause for anxiety or resentment.

  “About how long ago was that?”

  “Well,” he said. “Let us see.”

  He led me into the air-conditioned office and took a ledger from his desk. The ledger was filled with page after page of handwriting that, like the service station, was immaculate. “Pritzik was last here exactly one hundred two days ago.”

  “Hm.” Steve Pritzik had last been in four days before Susan Martin’s murder.

  “I owe him forty-eight dollars and sixteen cents, but he has not been in to collect. I will keep it for exactly one year, then give it to charity.”

  “Mr. Pavlavi, would you have an address on Pritzik?” He did, and he gave it to me.

  Steve Pritzik lived in one of a cluster of six small duplex cottages in an older neighborhood at the base of the Puente Hills, not far from the Pomona Freeway. The duplexes were single-story stucco and clapboard buildings stepping up the side of the hill and overgrown with original planting fruit trees and ivy and climbing roses.

  I parked at the curb, then made my way up broken cement steps, looking for Pritzik’s address. The steps were narrow, and the heavy growth of ivy and roses made them feel still more narrow. Pritzik’s apartment was the western half of the third duplex up from the street. Each side of the cottage had its own little porch, separated by a couple of ancient orange trees and a trellis of roses. The eastern porch was neat and clean and decorated by a small cactus garden. Pritzik’s porch was dirty and unadorned, and his mailbox was heavy with letters and flyers. I rang the bell and could hear it inside, but no one answered. I listened harder. Nothing. I went to the mailbox and fingered through gas and phone and electric bills. They weren’t addressed to Steve Pritzik; they were addressed to a Mr. Elton Richards. Hmm. I walked around the orange trees and up onto the adjoining porch and rang the bell. You could hear music inside. Alanis Morissette.

  A woman in her late twenties opened the door. “Yes?” She had long dark hair and great floppy bangs and she was wearing cutoff jeans under an oversized man’s T-shirt. The T-shirt was blotched with small smears of color. So were her hands.