Fever nd-33

by Bill Pronzini

  At the middle house next door, slightly higher up, a woman wearing shorts and a dark green sun hat was doing some work in her low-maintenance, cactus-dominated front garden. She stopped and stood staring over at us, shading her eyes with one hand, as Janice Krochek and I got out. As soon as she recognized her neighbor, she started our way.

  Janice Krochek said, “Oh, shit, just what I need. Rebecca.”

  I said, “Your husband should be here pretty soon.”

  “Do I care? I’m not going to wait around.”

  “How’ll you get inside?”

  “Spare key on the patio.”

  She started away, but she was still shaky on her pins. She faltered after a couple of steps, nearly fell. I went fast around the car and got hold of her arm. She said, “I’m all right,” but she didn’t try to pull away.

  “Janice!”

  The neighbor, Rebecca, came hurrying up. Mid-thirties, dark wavy hair under the sun hat, attractive in a long-faced, long-chinned way. It was windy and cool up here, not much of a November day for wearing shorts, but once I had a good look at her legs I knew she was the type who would wear them in the middle of a rainstorm. Long, tanned, beautifully shaped. Even a happily married old fart like me notices and appreciates fine craftsmanship.

  Janice Krochek ignored her. Started forward again, dragging me with her. The neighbor changed direction so that she reached the drive just above us. “Janice, I thought you were gone for-” She broke off, her eyes going wide. “My God, your face… what happened to you?”

  “Mind your own business, Rebecca.”

  “Do you need any help?”

  “No.”

  “Mitch… does he know…?”

  “For Christ’s sake, just leave me alone, will you?”

  The dark-haired woman looked at me. I said, “We can manage, thanks,” and let Mrs. Krochek lead me over to the gate in the fence, through it, and across a short tiled patio to the front entrance.

  The spare key was under one of several decorative urns lined up along the wall; she told me which one and I got it for her and opened the door. She said, “Put it back where you found it.” I said I would and while I was doing it, she disappeared inside-no thank you for my trouble, not another word.

  I went back out through the gate. The neighbor was still standing in the driveway, waiting. She’d taken the sun hat off. She had a lot of hair piled up and pinned haphazardly, thick but very fine. Sunlight made the loose strands glisten like brown cornsilk.

  I smiled and nodded and started around her, but she didn’t let me finish the detour. She came over and put out a hand, not quite touching me. “I’ve never seen you before,” she said. “Who are you?”

  “A friend,” I lied.

  “Of whose? Hers?”

  “Both.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “An accident, she says. Fell down some stairs.”

  “Oh, crap. Somebody beat her up. Anyone can see that.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Because of her gambling. Is that how you know her?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “She’s a compulsive gambler. You know that, don’t you?”

  I was moving again by then, completing the detour, but I didn’t get halfway to my car before sudden noise put an end to the quiet. Motor, exhaust, and gearbox noise. A low-slung sports job, black and silver, came barreling along Fox Canyon Road and into the circle. Tires screeched as the driver braked and slid sideways into the driveway, forcing the neighbor and me to veer to one side.

  Mitchell Krochek hopped out. Dark blue sports jacket and slacks, no tie, and a harried expression. He looked at me, looked at Rebecca, looked at me again. “Where is she?”

  “In the house.”

  “All right?”

  “Able to get around under her own power, but just barely. She ought to see a doctor.”

  “She hates doctors.”

  “See if you can get her to one anyway.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that.” He looked at the neighbor again. “What’re you doing here, Becky?”

  “I was working in the garden when this man brought her home.”

  “Our neighbor, Rebecca Weaver,” Krochek said to me. Not as if he were introducing her, as if he were apologizing for her showing up at the wrong place at the wrong time.

  “I’d like to know what’s going on,” she said.

  “So would I. I don’t know.”

  “She’s been beaten up, for God’s sake. One of those people she associates with. What if they show up here?”

  “That won’t happen.”

  “It could. I’m here alone day and night, Mitch, I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “Jesus,” Krochek said. He looked and sounded half-angry, half-exasperated. “Nobody’s going to bother you or Janice. Just go home, okay? I’ll call you later if there’s anything you need to know.”

  “Will you?”

  “Yes, yes. Go on. Please.”

  The woman jammed her sun hat back on and went, reluctantly, with another distrustful glance in my direction. When she was out of earshot, Krochek said, “Divorced six months, not used to living alone. She got the house and a half-million-dollar settlement. If Janice divorces me, they’ll be like two peas in fucking luxury pods and I’ll be living in some rented apartment.”

  Nothing from me. I didn’t want to get into that with him again.

  “What happened to her?” he asked. “She tell you?”

  “Wouldn’t talk about it.”

  “No question it was a beating, though?”

  “Not as far as I’m concerned. Judge for yourself when you see her.”

  “You think it was that guy you told me about, the enforcer… what’s his name?”

  “Lassiter. Could be.”

  “Or else some lowlife fellow gambler she hooked up with.”

  “Ask her. Maybe she’ll tell you.”

  “Not if it’s about gambling debts, more of my money down the sewer. And what the hell else could it be?” He raked fingers over one cheek, hard, the nails leaving reddish tracks in the skin. “Suppose he does show up here, the guy who beat her up? What am I supposed to do, pay him off?”

  “That’s up to you. If he trespasses, or makes overt threats in person or on the phone, call the police.”

  “The police. More hassle, more upheaval.” He raked his cheek again. “Four years ago we were on top of the world, everything running smooth. Now it’s a goddamn nightmare. I don’t know how much more I can stand.”

  “She’s back home,” I said. “That’s something.”

  “Yeah, but for how long? A week, a month, then it’ll start all over again. I’m between a rock and a hard place-I can’t live with her anymore, but if I let her divorce me I get a royal screwing. What the hell am I going to do?”

  I didn’t have any answers for him. He wasn’t asking me, anyway.

  A big battleship-shaped cloud floated across the sun and the gusting wind was suddenly chill. It made Krochek shiver, snapped him out of his bitter reverie. “I’d better get inside,” he said. “Thanks for bringing Janice home. You didn’t have to bother and I appreciate it. Let me pay you for your time…”

  “Not necessary, Mr. Krochek. Just pay the invoice we sent you.”

  “Yes, I will, right away. Sorry about the delay. Sorry about what I said in the Ladderback last week, too, the crap about manufacturing evidence. I’m just not myself these days…” The words trailed off, blew away in the wind. He reached for my hand, shook it briefly, and trudged away up the drive, slump-shouldered, as if he were carrying a heavy weight on his back.

  Lives you’re glad you don’t lead, people you wish well but hope you’ll never see again.

  8

  JAKE RUNYON

  It wasn’t until late Monday afternoon that he finally caught up with Brian Youngblood.

  He’d stopped by the Duncan Street address once on Sunday, and called Youngblood’s number twice more, without ge
tting any kind of response. Away from home or ducking visitors and callers-no way to tell which. Most of Monday had been taken up with more pressing work. He’d had time for one call to the home number that went unanswered. Duncan Street was more or less on Runyon’s way to his apartment, so he made another pass by there shortly after five o’clock. And this time, his long lean on the doorbell produced results.

  The intercom clicked, made noises like a hen laying an egg, and a staticky voice said warily, “Yes?”

  “Brian Youngblood?”

  Long pause. “Who is it?”

  Runyon identified himself, said he was there at the request of Mrs. Rose Youngblood. No answer. Five seconds later the squawk box shut off. Thinking it over, maybe. He waited-two minutes, three. Then the intercom made chicken noises again.

  “You still there, man?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “All right. Come on up.”

  The door buzzed and Runyon went into a tiny foyer, then up a flight of carpeted stairs. Another door at the top swung open as he reached the landing. The young black man who stood peering at him through a pair of wire-rimmed glasses was thin, studious, with close-cropped hair that had already begun to recede. Nervous and ill at ease, too, but not necessarily for the same reason.

  “Mr. Youngblood?”

  Brief nod.

  The business card Runyon handed over seemed to bemuse him, make him even more nervous. “A private investigator?” he said. Without benefit of intercom static, his voice was as thin as the rest of him. “You didn’t say that’s what you were. Why would my mother send a detective to see me?”

  “She’s concerned about you, the trouble you had last week. She thought I might be able to help.”

  “How can you help? It was just a-”

  “Brian,” a woman’s voice called sharply from inside. “Don’t talk out there-bring him in here.”

  Youngblood winced, a small rippling effect along one side of his face as if the voice had struck a nerve. His expression shifted, took on an almost hunted aspect. He was no longer making eye contact when he said, “We’d better go in.”

  Runyon followed him into a big, open front room. Heavy drapes had been drawn across the windows and the room was darkish as a result, palely lit by a desk lamp and a table lamp. Computer equipment dominated it-a workstation that took up one entire wall, not one terminal but two attached to a pair of twenty-two-inch screens, two printers, all sorts of other high-tech paraphernalia, and CD storage shelves. The rest of the furnishings were nondescript: an armchair, a recliner, a sofa, and some chrome-and-glass tables. The beige walls were empty of the kind of religious symbols his mother favored, of any other kind of picture or decoration.

  A woman about Youngblood’s age filled the armchair, lounging on her spine. The tall, lean, slinky type. Long, frizzy, tangled hair dyed a henna red that seemed wrong for her light brown skin tone. Spike heels and black net stockings and a green dress stretched tight across high breasts. The hard type, too: bright crimson lipstick, false eyelashes, too much eyeshadow and rouge.

  Almost nothing surprised Runyon anymore, but Rose Youngblood had led him to believe her son’s taste in women was conventional and conservative. This one was anything but. Neighbor, maybe?

  Youngblood said, in a faintly embarrassed way, “This is Brandy. She’s… a friend.”

  Brandy. Right.

  Runyon nodded and said hello. Brandy gave him an up-and-down glance, batted her eyelashes, and without taking her eyes off him, she said to Youngblood, “Who’s he?” in a whiskey contralto-affected, not natural.

  He went over and handed her Runyon’s card. She looked at it and then made a little production of tucking it into the hollow between her breasts. ‘“Confidential investigator,’ now isn’t that something,” she said. “Good-looking one, too, for a white man.”

  “Brandy, please…”

  She mimicked him, “Brandy, please. Brandy, please. You’re such a little pissant wimp.”

  “Don’t say that. Why do you always have to get nasty?”

  “You just don’t want to hear the truth. Neither does that bible-thumping mama of yours.” The purple-shaded eyes slid over Runyon again. “She really hire you to stick your nose into Brian’s business?”

  “The agency I work for, yes.”

  “Where’d she get the money? Old bitch gives every extra dime to that church of hers.”

  Runyon said nothing.

  “Told her to mind her own business, didn’t you?” she said to Youngblood. “Told her to just leave you alone.”

  “Yes, I told her.”

  “So why doesn’t she listen to her little pussy-boy?”

  Some piece of work, this one. Runyon had dealt with her type any number of times when he’d worked Vice on the Seattle PD. The tough, domineering, pseudo-sexual pose was calculated to push buttons, force you to play on her terms. All pure ego. The one thing her type couldn’t stand was to be ignored.

  He said to Youngblood, “What kind of trouble are you in, Brian?”

  “You don’t have to tell him anything,” Brandy said.

  “I’m asking you, not your friend.”

  Youngblood wouldn’t look at him; his gaze was fixed on her. Runyon moved until he was standing between them.

  “Don’t stand in my way, sweetie.”

  “Talk to me,” Runyon said to Youngblood. “There might be something I can do.”

  “My… my mother shouldn’t have gone behind my back,” Youngblood said. “I don’t need a detective. I don’t need anybody’s help. It was an attempted carjacking, that’s all.”

  “You told her you were mugged.”

  Brandy stirred in the chair but didn’t get up. “Mugged, carjacked, what difference does it make?”

  “Where did it happen? When?”

  Headshake. You could see Youngblood trying to work up a lie. “Golden Gate Park,” he said when he caught hold of one. “Near, uh, Stone Lake. Two guys. White guys. I didn’t get a good look at them, it was too dark…”

  “At night, then. And you were alone.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What were you doing out there alone at night?”

  “I, uh…”

  “Leave the boy alone,” Brandy said. Then, with a leer in her voice, “Come over here and talk to me instead.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what really happened, Brian.”

  “I just told you…”

  “The truth this time. Something to do with your friend here?”

  “No.”

  “Your financial situation?”

  “… I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Sure you do. Debts. Serious money crunch.”

  Brandy said, “Who the hell told you that?”

  “How did you get in so deep?”

  “Don’t answer him. It’s none of his fucking business.”

  “She have anything to do with it?” Runyon asked him.

  “Brandy? No…”

  “Where’d you get the ten thousand to bail you out in August?”

  Youngblood said, “Oh, God.”

  Brandy said, “Come on now, leave the Mama’s boy alone. Can’t you see what a pussy he is?”

  Runyon had had just about enough cheap Brandy. He said, “She’s part of the trouble, all right. Any so-called friend with a mouth like hers is part of anyone’s trouble.”

  “Ooo, I like a man talks hard like that. The harder the talk, the harder the dick. Hey, white meat. How about some real pussy right over here?”

  “Cheap Brandy.” He said it out loud, not trying to hide his contempt.

  At first the phrase seemed to cut through the phony facade, kindle anger in her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her start to lift herself out of the chair, the bloody lips peeled back away from her teeth. Something changed her mind; she sank back, her mouth twisting into a grimace. And then she began to laugh, a high, shrill sound that had no mirth in it.

  “Is she the reason you got beat up
?”

  “No,” Youngblood said. “I told you, she… it had nothing to do with her.”

  “But it wasn’t a carjacking, and it didn’t happen in the park.”

  Headshake.

  “Come on, Mr. Youngblood. For your mother’s sake.”

  Youngblood had moved so he could look at the woman. His eyes were pleading. “Brandy…?”

  She stopped laughing and said loudly, “No! To hell with her. You say one word to him and you’ll regret it. I mean that, baby. You’ll regret it!”

  Now Youngblood looked scared as well as hunted and embarrassed. “You better leave, man,” he said to Runyon.

  “Is that what you want? You, not her.”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “What do you want me to tell your mother?”

  Brandy said, “Tell the Holy Roller to stay away from Brian. He doesn’t need her, he doesn’t need anybody but me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Youngblood said. “Just tell her… I’m sorry.”

  Outside, Runyon sat in the Ford for a time, letting his tamped-down anger release before he did any more driving. The scene the three of them had just played kept running around in his head. Now that he was out of it, it seemed to have a vaguely surreal, vaguely ludicrous aspect, like Brandy herself. At the same time its hard and nasty edge hinted at all sorts of hidden tensions, hidden meanings.

  She had some kind of hold on Youngblood-that seemed clear. Sex? Probably, but he had the feeling there was more to it than that. She seemed to hate his mother without even knowing her; if Rose Youngblood was aware of Brandy and her son’s relationship with the woman, she’d have said so. So why the animosity on Brandy’s part? And what was her connection to the beating he’d taken? Hell, maybe she was the one who’d done it. As hard and controlling as she seemed, she was capable of it.

  The address Tamara had pulled up for Aaron Myers was a little over a mile from Duncan Street, in Noe Valley at the edge of the Mission District. Nondescript building with eight apartments that would be about half the size of Brian Youngblood’s flat. Myers’s was on the first floor, rear. Runyon rang the bell, waited, rang it again, waited some more.