Breakdown - [Nameless Detective 19]

by By Bill Pronzini

  Beside me, Eberhardt said, “This place depresses me every time I come out here. You know what I mean?”

  “Too well.”

  “I used to go into the Bayshore Yards when I was a kid,” he said. “One of the wipers in the roundhouse was a friend of my old man’s and he’d let me hang around sometimes, watch the work that was going on. I had a thing about trains in those days. Wanted to be a gandy dancer.”

  “Track worker? You?”

  “Yeah, well, I was a kid. Eleven or twelve. Go out on a handcar, swing a nine-pound sledge like John Henry, repair track . . . hell, it seemed like a pretty exciting life.”

  “Sure. Hard work, low pay, and a high risk factor.”

  “Just like being a cop,” he said wryly.

  “You made the right choice, Eb.”

  “I suppose. But man, the yards were really something in those days. Now look. Nothing left but rats and weeds and junkies wandering in to shoot up. Vandals don’t even bother with it anymore. It’s a crying shame the SP doesn’t do something about it.”

  “Seems I heard they’re trying to sell the property.”

  “Who to?”

  “Anybody who’ll buy it, I guess.”

  “You’d think the city would be interested. Or San Mateo County. Or both together. They could clean it out, put in a park maybe. Cheap housing, if nothing else.”

  “The city’s deeper in debt than the federal government,” I said. “San Mateo County too, for all I know.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Shit,” he said.

  Containers, Inc., was at the far end of Industrial Way—a large corrugated-iron building that housed the manufacturing plant and shipping facilities, with a much smaller structure built onto the near side for the office staff. From a distance, the whole thing had the appearance of a squared-off metal igloo. There was no fence around it, but at night the grounds were lighted by sodium-vapor arc lights, and the entire building was protected by an alarm system; a private security patrol also cruised the area after dark. It was that kind of area.

  Opposite the office wing was a small parking lot, jammed now with a couple of dozen vehicles. I pulled in there, found an empty slot and filled it.

  The death of Frank Hanauer, the murder charge against Thomas Lujack, and all the publicity surrounding the affair did not seem to have had any adverse effect on the factory’s business. Over on the far side, where the loading docks were, trucks jockeyed around and men and forklifts worked busily; the steady thrum of machinery came from inside the big building. Not that the activity surprised me at all. Nothing much interferes with the grinding wheels of industry these days, not where a product-in-demand is concerned. Everybody needs boxes to put things in, commercial establishments in particular; and in a consumer society, the product is all that matters. Who cares who makes the boxes—illegal aliens, space aliens, even murderers—just so long as they get made.

  We went into the main office, a good-sized room divided in half lengthwise by a waist-high counter. On our side were some uncomfortable-looking visitors’ chairs and a closed door; on the other side were four desks occupied by three women and one man, two of the women working computer terminals, the man talking on the telephone. The third woman, whose desk was nearest the counter, didn’t seem to be doing much of anything; and she evidently didn’t want to be disturbed while she was not doing it. I had to call to her twice before she deigned to acknowledge our presence.

  Her name, according to one of those little wood-and-brass identifiers, was Teresa Melendez. She was young and dark and buxom and ripe-looking, the kind of woman who would weigh two hundred pounds someday if she was not careful about her diet. She said, “What can I do for you?” in a bored monotone with not too much accent. This was the first time I’d been here, but Eberhardt had paid a couple of previous visits; if she recognized him, she gave no indication of it.

  “We’d like to see Thomas Lujack,” I said.

  “He’s not here.”

  “Has he been in today?”

  “No.”

  “How about Coleman Lujack?”

  “You have an appointment?”

  “I think he’ll see us without one.”

  I gave her one of the agency cards with both Eberhardt’s and my name on it. Ms. Melendez didn’t even glance at it. She put her back to us and went away through a doorway, not hurrying, showing off her hips under a tight leather skirt. Eberhardt watched with considerable interest, until I said, “And you engaged to be married soon, you old lecher.” Then he scowled and looked at a spot on the wall, pretending he didn’t know what I was talking about.

  Ms. Melendez came back pretty soon and said that Mr. Lujack would be right out, why didn’t we have a seat. So we each had a seat. The chairs were as uncomfortable as they looked. “Right out” translated to five minutes; then the near inner door opened and Coleman Lujack favored us with his presence.

  He was not much to look at—a drab, rabbity version of his brother, who by most standards qualified as dapper and handsome. Coleman was in his early forties, a couple of years older than Thomas; slight of build, sparse of hair the noncolor of lint. His brown suit didn’t quite fit him properly, his blue shirt was wrinkled, and the knot in his tie was crooked. If he’d had ink-stained fingers, you would have sworn he was a minor company clerk.

  He greeted us diffidently, put dampness on my hand when he shook it, and ushered us inside to his private office. It was small and windowless, and as disheveled as he was. Judging from a couple of sporty prints on the walls, and a carved and painted mallard decoy on one corner of his desk, shooting ducks was what he liked to do in his spare time. Trying to shoot ducks, anyway. As nervous as he was, I would have put my money on the ducks. I would also have been afraid to hunker down in a blind with him and a loaded shotgun.

  Coleman removed catalogs from one of the two visitors’ chairs, mates of the ones out front, and plunked them down on top of a boxy piece of furniture that pretended to be a solid-block table but was actually a common variety of floor safe. He said, “Sit down, sit down,” and then went behind his desk and did the same himself. He lit a cigarette before he said, “Why are you both here? You find out something to help clear Tom?”

  I said, “No, not yet.”

  He waited for me to go on, and when I didn’t he asked in his nervous way, “Well, then? What can I do for you?”

  “Your brother didn’t come in today. Why?”

  “He had an outside appointment.”

  “Who with?”

  “One of our suppliers in Emeryville.”

  “What time was the appointment?”

  “Eleven this morning, with lunch afterward.”

  “You talk to him today?”

  “No, not since last night. Why are you—”

  “You saw him last night, after work?”

  “At my home, yes.”

  “Social occasion?”

  “We had business matters to go over.”

  “What time did he arrive?”

  “Around seven—I don’t remember exactly.”

  “How long did he stay?”

  “Until nine.”

  “You’re sure it was nine? Not eight or eight thirty?”

  “It was nine. He mentioned the time, said he’d better be getting home. He called Eileen to tell her he was on his way.”

  “Was anyone else there?”

  “Working with us, you mean? No. But my wife was home.”

  “Did she see your brother? Can she verify that he didn’t leave until nine?”

  “Yes, sure,” Coleman said, frowning. A long ash broke loose from his cigarette and fragmented on the desk; he brushed it off agitatedly. “Why are you asking so many questions? Has something happened?”

  “Well, for one thing,” Eberhardt said, “Nick Pendarves was almost run down and killed last night. Outside the bar he frequents. He says your brother was driving the car.”

  Coleman gaped at him. “You ... are you serious?”

  �
�Don’t we look serious, Mr. Lujack?”

  “But my God! You can’t believe that Tom . . .”

  “Not if he was with you at nine o’clock.”

  “He was. I told you he was. Pendarves didn’t tell the police Tom tried to kill him . . . ?”

  “Not as far as we know,” I said. “What he did do was make some veiled threats. I was there; I heard him.”

  “Threats? What kind of threats?”

  “The nonspecific kind.”

  “Christ. He wouldn’t do anything violent, would he?”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  “Tom . . . does he know about this?”

  “I tried to call him last night. From what you tell us, he was at your home. I told his attorney about it this morning.”

  Coleman shook his head. “You’re sure Pendarves is telling the truth? He really was almost run down?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he claim he actually saw the driver of the car? If he does, then it proves he’s an unreliable witness—”

  “He doesn’t. He’s assuming it was Thomas.”

  “The same sort of assumption he made three weeks ago,” Coleman said bitterly. “Damn the man. Damn him.”

  Eberhardt said, “That’s not the only reason we’re here, Mr. Lujack. There’s another little matter we’re interested in.”

  “I don’t . . . what matter?”

  “Illegal aliens.”

  There was a silence. From the factory came the steady hum and whine of machinery, a voice yelling something in Spanish; in here, the only sound was the quickened rasp of Coleman’s breathing. He had quit looking at Eberhardt and me. His eyes followed the movement of his fingers as he removed another cigarette from the pack, lit it from the butt of the one he had burning. The office was already thick with smoke, and what he added to it now made me cough. I swatted at a drift of the pale death, sent some of it back his way.

  “Well, Mr. Lujack?”

  “What about illegal aliens?” he said to his hands.

  “You or your brother should have told us you were employing them.”

  “Why? It has nothing to do with your investigation.”

  “Maybe it does,” I said. “It’s a can of worms anyway— one Pendarves might just open up on you.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Something he said last night. He knows you’ve got a factory full of undocumented workers, and he’s got a mad-on against your brother. He might decide to blow the whistle to the INS.”

  “Christ! As if Tom and I don’t have enough problems ...”

  Eberhardt said, “Nobody forced you to hire illegals.”

  Coleman spread his hands defensively. “A lot of small businessmen do it these days. It’s a matter of economics—”

  “It’s also against the law.”

  “I know that. But companies like ours have to cut costs to stay in business. Our profit margin—”

  “We’re not interested in your profit margin or your excuses,” Eberhardt said. “All we’re interested in is how it affects the job we were hired to do. Somebody killed Frank Hanauer, and that somebody had to have a reason.”

  “It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with our hiring practices.”

  “No? What makes you so sure?”

  “It just couldn’t, that’s all.”

  “Did Hanauer approve of employing illegals?”

  “Of course he approved.”

  “No trouble between him and your brother about it?”

  “No. None.”

  “Trouble between Hanauer and an illegal?”

  “Not that I know about.”

  “Your brother and an illegal?”

  “No. I told you before—Frank got along with everyone and so does Tom. Neither of them had any enemies here.”

  “Hanauer had one somewhere,’“ I said.

  “Well, it wasn’t Tom.”

  “Big turnover rate among the illegals, is there?”

  “They come and go.”

  “But some stay on. Some have been here a while.”

  “We always try to keep good workers.”

  “Rafael Vega one of them?”

  “Rafael? He isn’t an illegal.”

  “But he is in charge of hiring them?”

  “. . . Yes.”

  “You give him carte blanche on who and when and how many?”

  “Mostly. He’s the shop foreman. And he knows those people; he lives among them.”

  Those people. “So maybe he also knows something you don’t—something that’ll help clear your brother.”

  “He doesn’t,” Coleman said. “If he did he would’ve come forward by now.”

  “Unless he doesn’t know he knows it,” Eberhardt said. “Maybe nobody asked him the right questions. How about if you send for him and we’ll see what kind of answers he gives us.”

  “He isn’t here.”

  “Off work today, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Called in sick?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “Uh-huh. Lot of people off work today. Your brother, Vega, Pendarves.”

  “Coincidence. You can’t make anything out of that.”

  “Maybe not. Tell us about Vega.”

  “Tell you what? He’s an excellent worker, very dependable.”

  “Except for today.”

  Coleman didn’t say anything.

  “How long’s he been working for you?”

  “Seven years.”

  “How does he get along with the undocumented workers?”

  “Very well. How many times do I have to tell you that we’ve never had any trouble here at the factory?”

  “Just one big happy family,” Eberhardt said sardonically. “You wouldn’t mind letting us have Vega’s home address, would you?”

  Coleman crushed out what was left of his second cancer stick, nibbled at his lower lip like a rabbit working on a piece of celery. “I’ll tell Ms. Melendez to give it to you,” he said, and reached for the telephone, and then paused with his hand on the receiver. “Is that all? If there’s nothing else, I have work to do.”

  “Another good worker,” Eberhardt said. “No, there’s nothing else. Not right now, anyway.”

  We got on our feet. Coleman said,“You don’t intend to report us to the INS, do you? I mean, it would do Tom more harm than good. . . .”

  “That all depends, Mr. Lujack.”

  “On what?”

  “On what we find out about Frank Hanauer’s death. But by then it might not matter. By then Pendarves may have already turned you in.”

  Out front, Ms. Melendez stopped doing nothing much long enough to provide Rafael Vega’s home address. That was all she gave us; no smile, no good-bye. None of the other office staff did any smiling, either. Working at Containers, Inc., was a bundle of fun, all right.

  On the way through the misty rain to the car, Eberhardt said, “Coleman’s some piece of work.”

  “Yeah. He grows on you—like mold.”

  “I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Could be he wasn’t as chummy with Hanauer as he’d like us to think. Could be he had a reason to want Hanauer dead.”

  “It’s buried deep, if so.”

  Eberhardt grunted. “Kind of a bust, talking to him. But at least we know Thomas is all right.”

  “Not necessarily in the clear, though. Family alibis aren’t worth a damn. Let’s see if Glickman’s made contact with him yet.”

  We got into the car. While I was punching out Glickman’s number on the mobile phone, Eb said thoughtfully, “Funny that both Pendarves and Rafael Vega didn’t show up for work today. Might be a coincidence, like Coleman said. Might also be some connection between those two, huh?”

  “We’ll go over to the Mission and ask Vega. Or one of us will if Glickman and Thomas are ready to talk.”

  They were, it turned out. Eb and I tossed a coin to see which of us would go where. He got the Mission, I got Glickman
’s office downtown.