Lulu, her eyes wide, shook her head.
“It ain’t.” Newt smiled. “It just seems that way, ’cause people are always finding bodies. The reason for that is, most major cities in America are on a river. You wanna get rid of a guy, all you gotta do is buy him a pair of cement overshoes and take him swimming. You look at a map of L.A., you’ll see a river. But like everything else in the city, it ain’t real. Ever been to L.A.?”
“Not that I remember.”
“The river’s lined with concrete, walls and bottom. Most of the time there ain’t enough water in it to drown a midget.”
Lulu’s eyes widened with amazement.
Newt said, “You didn’t know that, huh?”
“There’s a lot of things I don’t know,” said Lulu softly, giving him a quick shy look and then casting her eyes demurely down.
Newt said, “I could teach you, if you wanted … ”
Frank found the wine in a little alcove at the back of the store. Thirty-nine dollars and seventy-five cents a bottle. Me paid with a hundred. The clerk was in her low twenties. She had long red hair and was wearing a baggy green sweater and jeans so tight it hurt Frank just to look at them. Me counted the freckles on her cute little nose while she counted out his change, remembered as he was turning away to ask her for a dollar’s worth of quarters.
There was a phone booth across the street. Frank dropped a quarter and dialled information, asked for the number of the police department’s major crimes section. He waited a moment and then a computer with a voice like the Tin Man all grown up gave him the number. He wrote it down on the brown paper liquor store bag. The Tin Man gave him the number again. Frank said thank you, and hung up. His quarter dropped into the change slot. Me used it to dial major crimes. A woman answered. Frank asked for Parker. Detective Parker was out. Did he want to leave a message? Could he please speak to Detective Jack Willows? Willows, too, was out. When was he due back? The woman patiently asked him again if he wanted to leave a message.
Frank hung up, waited for a break in the traffic and then trotted across the street. There was a burger joint on the top floor of the building on the corner. He went inside and climbed the stairs, got a table by the window. He ordered a cheeseburger and onion rings, a bottle of Budweiser. The service was quick but he made himself eat slowly, biting off little chunks of time and grinding it to a pulp with his jaws.
By the time he got back to the phone booth, almost an hour had passed. He wondered how Lulu was doing. They were in a tight situation, and he knew she could go either way but that no matter what she did, she’d overreact.
He dropped a quarter, carefully dialled the major crimes number.
Detectives Willows and Parker were still unavailable. Frank tried to decide what to do, and failed.
Lulu rested her hand gently on Newts knee. She said, “What are you going to do about Frank?”
“Forget him. Wanna come back to California with me?” Newt struggled to think of the advantages. Disneyland. The tar pits. Hollywood.
“It sounds wonderful, but … ”
“But what?”
“My skin can’t take the sun.”
“Don’t worry about it. You and me, we ain’t daytime people, we’re … ” Newt struggled to find the words. He smiled like an octopus — his teeth, all jumbled together at the front of his mouth, seemed to swallow his face.
“Creatures of the night?”
Newt’s mouth opened wide to let the laughter spill out, and in the same moment, the door opened wide and a man with a brown paper bag for a head walked into the room.
Lulu relinquished her grasp on Newt’s trembling knee.
Frank put the bag down on the table by the window. He said, “The ice didn’t get here yet?”
“Any minute now” Newt reached for the phone. “I’ll give’em another call, and then I thought maybe the three of us could go somewhere nice for dinner.”
Frank patted his stomach. “I’m ready.”
Newt turned to Lulu. “You know this town better’n me or Frank. There a decent steak and lobster joint in the neighbourhood?”
“Coal Harbour, it’s down by the entrance to the park. There’s a place not far from there, right on the water. We could drive, be there in ten minutes.”
“On the water?”
Lulu nodded, smiling.
“Perfect.” Newt turned to Frank. “Sound good to you?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Newt said, “Then it’s all settled, ain’t it.”
The phone rang again. Frank picked up, listened for a moment and then handed the receiver to Newt.
Rikki said, “I’m at a phone booth. I got the wheels and everything’s all set. How’re things at your end?”
“Fine,” said Newt.
Rikki held the phone towards the street as a huge diesel truck roared past, then hung up and climbed back in the Cherokee and drove the two blocks to Parker’s apartment. He wished he had some tapes so he could try the tape deck. He ran the dial across the radio, fooled with the presets, turned the radio off and pawed through the Cherokee’s glove compartment and studied the manual. It was printed in English and another language that Rikki, after a considerable amount of heavy thought, figured must be French. He listlessly fiddled with the power windows and seat adjustment controls, sniffed the rich, brand-new smell of the Jeep’s leather upholstery. Where in hell was she?
Man, but he was bored.
An old woman wearing a grey sweatshirt and matching pants came out of the apartment with a marmalade cat in her arms. She walked out to the boulevard and lowered the cat to the grass. The cat was on a gold leash that terminated in a rhinestone-studded collar. Or maybe they were real diamonds, who could say? Rikki powered down his window and turned and watched the old lady follow her cat slowly down towards the far end of the block.
By nine o’clock, the light was starting to fade, and so was Rikki. He was hungry, had to take a leak, was out of cigarettes. He turned on the radio again. He found the CBC French-language station, and then, at the far end of the dial, Hindustani and Italian and Chinese-language stations. But no Spanish broadcast. Probably he was the only Mexican in three thousand miles. He grew homesick, bad-tempered. At twenty past nine a clown in a battered yellow Volkswagen Rabbit pulled alongside the Cherokee and asked was he leaving. Rikki snarled, and spat on his windshield. The clown drove away.
At nine-thirty, a light came on in Parker’s kitchen. Rikki peered up at the window. He couldn’t see Parker or anybody else in there. No sign of movement. Was she home, or did the light have an automatic timer? Rikki checked his watch. He was pretty sure the light had gone on at exactly nine-thirty. He got out of the Cherokee, urinated into the gutter, zipped up. The old lady with the cat had never come back — or if she did, Rikki hadn’t seen her.
It suddenly occurred to him that the apartment block had to have a back entrance, maybe even an underground parking lot. What was the matter with him? He stuck the Smith in the waistband of his shiny black pants and shut the Jeep’s door and trotted across the street.
Parker’s apartment was on the third floor, front. He hit the elevator button and the doors slid open and he stepped inside and punched tres.
The door to the lady cop’s apartment was sheet steel painted beige. There was a spy hole set into the metal on a level with the top of Rikki’s head. He got up on his toes and peeked inside, was rewarded with a fish-eye view of what was probably the living room. The apartment was quiet, still. Rikki knocked again, three times, hard enough to bruise his knuckles.
Nada.
Rikki pressed his ear to the door. Silence. He glanced up and down the empty hallway and then checked the locks. There was no way he could get in without busting something, leaving visible signs.
But it was getting tiresome waiting in the car. He knocked on the door again, and then stepped back and drew the Smith and pointed it at the spy hole.
Nobody home.
He took the elevator back down to the gr
ound floor and looked up the buildings supervisor in the tenant directory.
The super’s name was Bruno Grebinsky. He answered the door with a paper napkin stuffed into the open neck of his dark brown shirt and an empty fork in his hand.
Rikki said, “Mr. Grebinsky?”
The man nodded, chewed and swallowed. He was in his sixties, probably. Thin on top and thick in the middle. Gold wire-frame glasses. Rikki shoved the barrel of the Smith into his belly, backed him up until there was room to kick shut the door.
At the far end of the living room, there was a dining alcove. A woman sitting bolt upright at the table with her back to them said, “What is it, Bruno?”
Rikki said, “I need the key to apartment three-one-seven.”
Probably because she didn’t recognize his voice, the woman turned in her chair. Rikki pointed the gun at her, and then swung back to her husband. The woman said, “I told you it was a mistake, renting to the police.” Bruno handed Rikki the master key. He said, “I hope you know what you’re doing, young man.”
Rikki turned two of the dining-room chairs back to back. He tore the electrical cords from the toaster and a blender, tied Bruno to one of the chairs, and used the telephone wire to tie up his yackety wife. Bruno had eleven dollars in his wallet. He looked like the kind of guy who kept his life savings under the mattress. Rikki went into the bedroom and checked the bed. Bad guess. He went through the bureau. He’d done a lot of B&Es when he was a kid. It’d always given him a kick, poking around in other people’s lives, fingering through their tiny stupid secrets.
He found a thick wad of fifty-dollar bills hidden in a mismatched pair of socks in the bottom drawer of Bruno Grebinsky’s bureau. He stuffed the money in his pants pocket. There was some costume jewellery that he doubted even the marmalade cat would want. He went back into the living room. Grebinsky’s face darkened as he saw the socks dangling from Rikki’s hands.
Rikki said, “Open wide.” He stuffed one sock into Bruno’s mouth, the other into his wife’s.
Tears ran down the super’s face. His wife had told him not to rent to cops. And she had spent hours yelling at him about putting their life savings in a bank, where it was safe. God, he’d never hear the end of this.
Grebinsky spat out the sock Rikki had shoved into his mouth. He cursed Rikki and strained against the wire that held him.
Rikki said, “Watch yo’ mouth!” His thumb snatched at the hammer as he tried a fast draw on the Smith. He had practised the move for hours in front of a mirror, never had any problem. But this time it was different. This time, the Smith’s blade front sight snagged on his fancy silver belt buckle.
The muzzle blast singed Rikki’s pubic hair. He felt something tug at his stomach muscles, tear through him, rip him up inside. He sat down hard.
Mr. Grebinsky stopped shouting.
Rikki had dropped the Smith. He couldn’t seem to find it anywhere. He stared hard at Bruno Grebinsky. “What happened, old man?”
“You shot yourself, you fool.”
Rikki nodded. Yeah, that was his blood, all right. He should’ve known. He climbed slowly to his feet, wandered over to the sofa, stumbled and collapsed on to the soft pink cushions.
There was blood on the carpet. Blood on the sofa. He was soaked in blood from his waist to his ankles. How much blood had he lost? Lots. Too much. He fumbled with his shirt. The entrance hole was just below and to the left of his belly button. The hole didn’t look all that big, but there was a lot of blood, it was pumping out of him in a dark and solid river that overflowed his lap and spilled across the sofa.
Rikki remembered loading the Smith. How heavy and fat the .40-calibre bullets had felt as he’d pushed them into the magazine. And now one of them was inside him, deep inside him. He cleared his throat. He said, “You gotta get me an ambulance.”
Bruno Grebinsky said, “You should have thought of that before you pulled the phone out of the wall, young man.”
“I been shot … ”
“You want help, come and untie me.”
The wink of brass caught Rikki’s cloudy, wandering eye. The spent cartridge lay on the carpet three or four feet in front of him, in the path of a slow-moving delta of blood.
Rikki covered himself with his hands, attempting to staunch the flow. He tried to press down on the wound but had no strength. Blood trickled from between his fingers. He tried to yell for help. His screams were whispers.
Bruno Grebinsky said, “You were going to murder us, weren’t you?”
Rikki shook his head, no.
“Then why weren’t you wearing a mask?”
It was an easy question — he simply hadn’t bothered to think that far ahead. He’d always been the kind of guy who liked to take things one step at a time. He tried to explain all that to the dumb-ass super, but when he spoke, his lips failed to move, and nobody heard him.
Rikki’s head lolled on his shoulder.
Mrs. Grebinsky closed her eyes, but Bruno sat there in his chair with his beef stew congealing on the plate and watched Rikki die. He didn’t feel the least bit sorry for the man. The colder-than-an-icecube look in Rikki’s eyes when he’d shoved the big pistol in his stomach had erased any sympathetic feelings he might have had.
And there was the fact that the gun was right there by the sofa, partly hidden by a cushion but within easy reach, should Rikki happen to spot it.
Rikki watched out of the corner of his eye as the blurry puddle of blood crawled slowly towards the spent cartridge. The gun must’ve had a hair trigger, or maybe there was something wrong with it and that’s why it had been in the gunshop. What terrible damage the bullet must have done, to leave him feeling so numb, lifeless. After a little while, exhausted, he shut his eyes.
When he was sure that Rikki was dead, Bruno Grebinsky worked a hand loose and untied himself and then walked stiff-legged and trembling into the kitchen and dug a steak knife out of the drawer and carefully cut free his wife. Rikki had tied the wires a bit too tightly. Her wrists stung. He held her in his arms, spoke softly and reassuringly to her. The other phone was in the bedroom. When she had managed to get herself under control, he asked her to please go and call the police. As soon as she left the room, he retrieved his five thousand hard-earned dollars from Rikki’s pants pocket. A few of the bills were drenched in blood. He went into the tiny kitchen and rinsed his hands and the money under the tap.
From the bedroom his wife yelled that the police were on their way and she had to stay on the line until they arrived.
“Fine with me,” said Bruno under his breath.
Before they left the hotel, Newt left messages at the lobby, the bar, and both restaurants, so that if Rikki got back to the hotel in time, he’d know where to join them. While Newt was busy leaving messages, Lulu told Frank about the gun Newt kept under his pillow, and how it had come into his possession. Frank listened carefully to her whispered rush of words. He looked a little disappointed, but not at all surprised.
The Coal Harbour restaurant was right on the water, just as Lulu had promised. It was a big place, post-and-beam construction, lots of dark wood and seating for two hundred or more. The problem was there weren’t too many windows, and none that overlooked the water.
During dinner, Newt paused about every two or three minutes and gave Frank an odd look and said, “Where the hell’s Rikki?” or, “Where did that little Mex bastard get to?” or something along those lines. Frank varied his replies to the best of his ability but after a while he started repeating himself. By the time the main course arrived, he’d begun to feel stupid saying, “Beats me,” or “Wish I knew!” over and over again, and had reduced his response to a hunching of shoulders, an empty shrug.
Newt eyed Frank suspiciously as he wolfed down his dessert; a monstrous wedge of chocolate cake slathered in ice cream and imported strawberries.
A fresh bottle of wine arrived. Frank didn’t remember ordering it, but let it pass. Lulu took full advantage, trying to wash away the tension. Me
anwhile Newt continued to slaughter his dessert, showing it no mercy. The ice cream had turned to slush but he didn’t seem to mind. Frank noticed that Newt’s glass still only had the waiter’s fingerprints on it. He asked Newt if there was something wrong with the wine.
Newt, blinking rapidly, said he was saving himself for the champagne.
Frank figured Newt had another reason to stay sober. He was deeply saddened. He’d always been a good and faithful servant. Since the move to sunny California, in almost as many years as could be counted on one hand, he had never once let Newt down. Now, suddenly, he’d made three serious mistakes in a row: screwed up the hit and run, bled his borrowed credit card dry and met a woman Newt wanted to take away from him. He suspected the way he’d abused Newt’s credit card was by far the worst of the three offences — not that it made any difference.
The bottom line was that Newt was after his ass. And judging from the agitated way he was beating the last of his strawberries and ice cream to a mushy red pulp, he was in a real hurry to get the job done.
Frank drank some water. That was one of the things he liked about the city — you could drink the water right out of the tap; even though it was mildly chlorinated, it tasted pretty good. The things you took for granted. He realized his mind was wandering. Jesus. Sooner or later, it always came down to those three precious words — him or me. He glanced at Lulu, admired her profile; the way she sat in her chair, erect and self-possessed. She was wearing skintight high-gloss Lycra in vertical black-and-white stripes and had dyed her hair to match. Man, if zebras ever watched pornographic movies, she was what they’d pay to see. It had taken him awhile, but Frank had slowly grown used to the attention Lulu never failed to attract. When people first looked at her it was because she was an albino, pure and simple. But then, Frank knew, it was her stunning beauty and reckless nature that stopped them in their tracks, made them turn to sneak another look.
She was a gorgeous woman. He didn’t blame Newt for wanting her, or plotting to take her away from him. He almost spoke up, and told Newt as much.
Accidental Deaths (A Willows and Parker Mystery) Page 24
