Billy Straight: A Novel (Petra Connor)

by Jonathan Kellerman

  I brush my teeth and look in the mirror. The scratches on my face aren’t too bad, but my chest hurts, my eyes are pink, and my hair looks nasty.

  I strip down to my underpants, get under the covers, and close my eyes. At first it’s quiet, then I hear music from Sam’s room. Like a guitar, but higher. A mandolin. A bluegrass band at the Sunnyside had one of those.

  He plays the same song over and over; it sounds sad and old.

  Then he stops and the snoring begins. I think of Mom. That’s all I remember till morning.

  Now it’s Saturday, and I wake up before he does and go into the living room. The curtains are closed and the house is dark. I pull a living room curtain aside and see a couple of metal chairs on Sam’s front porch, then a low wall, houses across the walk street. The sky is getting blue and some gulls are flying. It’s weird, but I swear I can smell the salt through the windows.

  The living room has more books than any place I’ve seen except a library. Three walls are covered with bookshelves, and you can barely walk ’cause of all the magazines on the floor. In one corner’s a couch with a knitted blanket thrown over it, a TV, and a music stand holding a song by some guy named Smetana.

  I sit down on the couch and dust shoots up. No morning stomachache. It’s the best sleep I’ve had in my life, and I decide to say thank you by making breakfast.

  In a box on the kitchen counter I find whole wheat bread and I toast four slices. There’s a coffee machine, but I don’t know how to use it, so I just pour milk and orange juice into glasses and set them out on the table, along with paper napkins, forks, spoons, knives. In the refrigerator are fruits and vegetables, butter, some sour cream, eggs, and a big jar of something silvery-looking, like out of a science lab. Pickled herring. I take out the eggs, hoping Sam likes them scrambled.

  They’re frying up when I hear him coughing. He comes in, wearing this light blue bathrobe, rubs his eyes, and pushes at his teeth. “Thought I heard something—what, you’re a gourmet?”

  “Is scrambled okay?”

  He turns his back on me, puts his hand to his mouth, and coughs some more. “Excuse me. Yeah, scrambled is great. Usually I don’t cook Saturday—it’s my Sabbath. I’m not that religious, but I usually don’t cook. Maybe ’cause my mother never did.”

  “Sorry—”

  “No, no, this is good, why should it apply to you?” He comes closer, looks into the pan. “Smells good. I could use something hot—you know how to make coffee?”

  “No.”

  He explains how to use the machine and leaves. When he comes back, the coffee’s poured and he’s dressed in a tan suit and a white shirt with the collar open; his hair’s brushed and he’s shaved. By now, the eggs are pretty cold.

  “Okay, let’s chow down,” he says, unfolding his napkin and putting it on his lap. “Bon appétit—that means ‘eat up’ in French.” He tastes the eggs. “Very good. Very gentlemanly of you to do this, Bill. Maybe there’s hope for the younger generation.”

  He finishes everything on his plate, has two cups of coffee, and lets out a big sigh. “Okay, here’s my schedule: I go to the shul for Saturday services, should be back around eleven, eleven-thirty, noon at the latest. You want to leave the house, I’ll keep the alarm off.”

  “No, I’ll stay here.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.” Suddenly my voice is tight. “I’ll read.”

  “Read what?”

  “You’ve got a lot of books.”

  He looks over at the living room. “You like to read, huh?”

  “Very much.”

  “You work and you read . . . I’m a reader, too, Bill. Once upon a time I wanted to be a lawyer. Back in Europe. No one in my family was a professional. We were farmers, miners, laborers. My father knew the Bible by heart, but they wouldn’t let us get an education. I was determined to get one, but the war interrupted—enjoy the books. There’s nothing in there a guy your age shouldn’t see.”

  He wipes his hands, carries his plate to the sink, and checks himself in a little mirror over the faucet. “Sure you want me to leave the alarm on?”

  “Yes.”

  “I just didn’t want you to feel like you were in prison.” He touches his shirt collar, smooths it out, pats his hair. “Here I go, ready for God. Hope He’s ready for me. If you get hungry, eat. I’ll bring something back, too. See you eleven, eleven-thirty.”

  He’s back at 11:27, pulling the Lincoln behind the house and getting out in a hurry, carrying something wrapped in aluminum foil. He opens the passenger door and a skinny old woman with red hair gets out. The two of them talk for a while and then they disappear.

  He comes through the front door fifteen minutes later. “Escorted a friend home.” He puts the foil thing on the table and unwraps it. Cookies with colored sprinkles on them. “Here you go.”

  I nibble one. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome—listen, I appreciate manners, but you don’t have to thank me for every little thing. Otherwise we’ll be standing around here like Alphonse and Gaston—two very polite French guys.” He puts one hand behind his back, the other over his stomach, and bows. “You first—no, you first. It’s an old joke—they’re so polite, they stand there all day, never cross the street.”

  I smile.

  He says, “So what’d you end up reading?”

  “Magazines.”

  Most of his books turned out to be fiction; the real stuff I found was mostly catalogs of sinks and toilets. The magazines were interesting, though—really old, from the fifties and sixties. Life, Look, Saturday Evening Post, Time, Popular Mechanics. Presidents back to Eisenhower, stories about the Korean War, movie stars, animals in the zoo, families looking happy, weird ads.

  “You hungry?”

  “No thanks.”

  “What’d you eat?”

  “The cookie.”

  “Don’t be a wise guy.”

  “I had some milk.”

  “That’s it?” He goes to the refrigerator and takes out the jar of herring. Pieces of fish are swimming around in this cloudy-looking juice. “This is protein, Bill.”

  I shake my head.

  “It’s fish. Don’t like fish?”

  “Not very much.”

  He opens the jar, takes out a piece, eats it, opens the refrigerator again, and looks inside. “How about some salad?”

  “I’m fine, Mr. Ganzer. Really.”

  He puts the herring back and takes off his jacket. “I’ll go out later, get us a couple of steaks—you’re not one of those vegetarians, are you?”

  “Meat’s fine.”

  “What an agreeable fellow—you play chess?”

  “No.”

  “So learn.”

  It’s basically war, and I like it. After six games I beat him, and he says, “Very good,” but I’m not sure he’s happy.

  “Another one, Mr. Ganzer?”

  “No, I’m gonna take a nap.” He reaches out to touch my head but stops himself. “You’ve got a good brain, Bill.”

  I read while he sleeps, getting comfortable on the dusty couch with the knitted blanket over my legs. A few times I get up, look outside, see a beautiful sky. But I don’t mind being inside.

  He wakes up at 6:15 P.M., takes a shower. When he comes out of his bedroom, he’s wearing another suit, brown, a blue shirt, tan shoes.

  “I’ll go get the steaks,” he says. “No, wait a second—” Opening the freezer compartment above the fridge, he pulls out a package of chicken. “This okay?”

  “It’s fine, Mr. Ganzer, but I’m not really hungry.”

  “How could you not be hungry?”

  “I’m just not.”

  “You don’t usually eat much, do you?”

  “I do fine.”

  “How long you been on your own?”

  “A while.”

  “Okay, okay, I won’t pry—I’ll defrost it and broil it, it’s healthy that way.”

  By 7:20 the chicken’s done, and I’m e
ating more than I thought I would. Then I notice Sam has barely touched the drumstick he put on his plate.

  “You need protein, Mr. Ganzer.”

  “Very funny,” he says. But he smiles. “I’m taken care of in the cuisine department. Got an appointment tonight for dinner—you going to be okay alone here?”

  “Sure. I’m used to it.”

  He frowns, puts the drumstick on my plate, gets up. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. Probably ten, ten-thirty. Normally, I might entertain here, but I didn’t figure you’d want to meet anyone. Right?”

  “It’s your house. I could stay in the bedroom.”

  “What? Hide like some . . . no, I’ll go over there. If you need me, it’s six houses down, the white house with the blue trim. The party’s name is Kleinman. Mrs. Kleinman.”

  “Have a nice time,” I say.

  He turns pink. “Yeah . . . listen, Bill, I been thinking. That twenty-five thousand. If it’s rightfully yours, you should claim it. That’s a lot of money for anyone. I could make sure no one swindles it from under you—there’s a fellow across the street, used to be a lawyer. A Communist, but smart, knows the angles. He wouldn’t take a penny from you, could make sure you’re protected—”

  “No one can protect me.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because no one ever did.”

  “But, look—”

  “No,” I say. “There’s no way they’d let a kid keep all that money. And I can’t help them anyway, I didn’t see the guy’s face, all I saw is a license plate—”

  “A license plate? Bill, that could be very helpful. They’ve got ways of tracing license plates—”

  “No!” I shout. “No one ever did anything for me, and I don’t care about any of it—and if you think that makes me a bad citizen and you don’t want me around, fine, I’ll leave!”

  I get up and run for the door. He grabs my arm. “Okay, okay, calm down, take it easy—”

  “Let me go!”

  He does. I reach the door, see the alarm’s red eye, stop. Here comes a stomachache.

  “Please, Bill, relax.”

  “I am relaxed.” But it’s a lie. I’m breathing fast and my chest is really, really tight.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he says. “Forget it, I just thought . . . you’re obviously a good guy, and sometimes when good guys don’t do the right thing, they feel— Ah! Who the hell am I to tell you? You know what to do.”

  “I don’t know anything,” I mutter.

  “What’s that?”

  “Every time I try to learn, something gets in the way—like with you and the war.”

  “But, look, you’re making it. Like I made it.”

  I want to cry again, but no way—no damn way! Words start pouring out of me: “I don’t know what I’m doing, Mr. Ganzer. Maybe I should call the police—maybe I’ll do it from a pay phone, tell them the license plate and then hang up.”

  “If you do it that way, how do you collect the money?”

  “Forget the money, they’ll never give me the money. Even if they do, my mom will find out, and then Moron—he’s the guy she lives with. He’s the reason I left. He’ll end up with it, believe me, there’s no way I’m going to get a penny and I’ll be right where I started from.”

  “Moron, huh? A dim bulb?” He taps his head.

  I laugh. “Yeah.”

  He laughs. I laugh harder. I’m not really happy, but it’s a way to get out the feelings.

  “A smart guy like you and a dim bulb,” he says. “I can see why there’d be problems— Okay, I’m gonna give you the alarm code. Just in case you want a breath of fresh air. One one twenty-five. Think of January first, 1925. My birthday—I’m a New Year’s baby.”

  “I’m not going out.”

  “Just in case.” He punches the numbers, the light goes green, and he opens the door. “Relax, take it easy—try the herring.”

  “Not a chance,” I say, and he leaves smiling.

  The chessboard is still out on the kitchen counter. I think I’ll experiment with different moves. See things from both sides.

  CHAPTER

  68

  Saturday morning at 6:46, the phone woke Petra. Schoelkopf’s voice played havoc with her brain waves.

  “Got comprehensive warrants on Balch’s office and home. You and Fournier go over both with a fine-tooth before we put a bulletin out on him. I’ve messengered the paper and keys to you, should be there any minute. Get it all done today so we can cast the net on the bastard.”

  “Why do we have to wait to cast?”

  “Because that’s the way upstairs wants it, Barbie. The fact that we came so close to tunnel-visioning on Ramsey scares them shitless. No more questions. Get moving.”

  “Does Fournier know about the assignment?”

  “You tell him.”

  The doorbell rang just as she was stepping out of the shower. Drying off frantically, she wrapped herself in a bath sheet, ran to the door, saw a patrolman through the peephole, and stuck her hand out through a crack in the door for the manila envelope containing the warrants and the keys. The uniform, a tall guy, grinned, checked her out, and said she’d have to sign a form.

  “Slide it under the door.” After I slam it in your face.

  She roused Wil at 7:15. He sounded half dead, and she thought she heard a woman in the background.

  “All right,” he said. “Where first?”

  “Up to you.”

  “Balch’s office is closer. How about . . . nine? Make that nine-thirty.”

  “Want me to pick you up?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. There was definitely a woman there, talking low and rhythmically, almost singing. “No,” he said. “I’ll meet you.”

  With no traffic, the drive to Studio City was fifteen minutes of morning breeze, and she had time to stop at DuPars near Laurel for takeout coffee and an apple cruller. In the lot fronting the brown building was a gray Acura but no signs of the driver. The license plate said SHERRI. She pulled up next to it and was eating in the car when Wil arrived in his civvy wheels—black Toyota Supra. He wore an off-white linen suit, black polo shirt, perforated black shoes, looked ready for a Palm Springs weekend; she’d put on the usual pantsuit.

  He looked at the building. “What a dump.”

  “Ramsey lives like a king but treated him like a serf. Maybe the guy finally exploded.”

  “Didn’t know you were a shrink,” he said. “Actually, that makes sense.”

  “Want more? This occurred to me last night: the way Lisa’s body was left out in the open, no attempt at all to conceal. Same with Ilse Eggermann. It’s as if he’s boasting—look what I can get away with. All his life, Balch is subservient to Ramsey, eating dirt, taking verbal abuse. What better way to undo that psychologically than by taking Ramsey’s woman, then discarding her and announcing it to the world?”

  “Taking her,” said Wil. “You think Balch and Lisa were making it?”

  “I think Balch wanted to. He’s no Adonis, but she dated him once, and we know she likes older men. Whether or not she agreed to start up again, only Balch knows. Unless we find something in there.”

  They had their guns in their hands as they approached the door. Basic procedure: Detectives did little shooting, but a good deal of it took place while serving warrants.

  Petra unlocked the door and went in first. Someone was sitting at the desk in the front room and she brandished her 9mm.

  A young woman in a budget power suit working the morning crossword. The sight of the gun painted her face with terror. Pretty brunette, very short hair, dark eyes, maybe Hispanic.

  “Who are you?” said Petra. Wil was behind her. She could hear him breathing.

  The woman’s voice dribbled out, nearly inaudible. “Sherri Amerian—I’m an attorney.”

  The Acura in the lot.

  “Mr. Balch’s attorney?”

  “No,” said Amerian. “I work for Lawrence Schick.” Stronger voice now, a li
ttle brassy with resentment, and the eyes had turned chilly. “Am I allowed to show you my ID? It’s in the purse over there. I mean, I don’t want to get shot in the process.”

  “Go ahead,” said Petra.

  Amerian produced a driver’s license and her business card from Schick and Associates. The license made her twenty-seven years old. Fresh out of law school. Doing Schick’s scut work on a Saturday.

  “Okay?” she said imperiously. Junior associate, but to look at her body language, she was arguing before the Supreme Court. Didn’t take long to get that lawyer ’tude going. “Will you please put those guns away?”

  Not waiting for a reply, she came around from behind the desk. Great figure.

  Wil holstered his piece. “What are you doing here?”

  “Representing Mr. H. Cart Ramsey’s interests, Officer . . .”

  “Detective Fournier. This is Detective Connor.”

  Amerian’s shrug said their names didn’t matter. “Our firm was informed that you intended to conduct a search of these premises related to possible evidence pertaining to Mr. Gregory Balch. May I see the warrant?”

  “Why?” said Wil.

  “Because the premises are owned by Mr. Ramsey, and we represent his—”

  “Here.” Petra slipped her gun back into her purse and gave her the Studio City paper.

  The young lawyer studied it. “Exactly right: material pertaining to Mr. Balch. Not Mr. Ramsey. This office contains numerous documents of a confidential nature pertaining to Mr. Ramsey’s finances, and we insist that they not be tampered with. As such, I’ll be remaining here while you conduct your search. In order to accomplish that, our suggestion is that we set up a procedure in which you indicate a given drawer and/or shelf and I review the contents beforehand—”

  “If I have to blow my nose,” said Wil, “are you going to review the tissue?”

  Amerian frowned. “I really don’t see the point of—”

  “Fine,” said Wil. “Cut to the chase. The top drawer of this desk first. And no chitchat or coffee breaks. Fold your puzzle and put it away.”