by Teri White
Beau was quiet for so long that Robert thought he had fallen asleep. Then, suddenly, he spoke again. “You wouldn’t just go out and kill somebody good, would you? Like my parents?”
What to say? Robert sighed. “No, kid. I wouldn’t just go out and kill people like your parents.”
“Okay.”
That was all Beau said.
It took Robert a long time to fall asleep.
Beau woke up first.
It took him several beats to remember where he was. And why.
He rolled out of bed and went into the bathroom. As he peed, he wondered just how he ought to be feeling about all of this. And how he really did feel.
Probably he should be scared. But he wasn’t, really. Not of Robert anyway. Maybe the situation scared him a little. But if he wanted to be completely honest with himself—and Jonathan had always said that telling the truth to yourself was the most important thing—well, then, he had to admit that it was all sort of exciting.
Most of it, anyway.
Seeing that woman get shot hadn’t been a whole lot of fun. It brought back some very bad memories. But he could accept Robert’s reasons for why she had to die.
The rest of it was harder to understand.
Robert was a paid killer. It sure didn’t make any sense. But Beau decided that he just had to accept Robert’s explanation for why the people almost deserved to die. They seemed to be asking for it most of the time. Like this Drago. Dumb, very dumb.
Of course, Beau admitted to himself, what choice did he have but to accept what Robert said and did? Unless he wanted to find himself out on the street again, or back with Saul. Or maybe even dead himself. None of those things sounded good to him. So, if Robert said somebody had to die, deserved to die, then that was pretty much how he would see it, too.
After all, good people (like his parents, for example) got shot down every day for absolutely no reason at all. Why waste tears on jerks and creeps like this Drago?
Still, it was a scary thing. Robert wasn’t like the people who had killed his folks, was he?
Then Beau shook his head firmly. No. This was a much different thing. It was. What seemed real strange to him was that Robert—who was about as different from Jonathan as anybody could be and still belong to the same species—treated him much as his father always had. Like a person. Like somebody who mattered.
Beau went back into the bedroom. Robert’s eyes were still closed. The holstered Magnum was resting on the nightstand next to his bed. Beau walked over and bent down for a better look at the weapon. He touched it carefully.
“Don’t do that,” Robert said unexpectedly.
He pulled his hand back quickly.
Robert sat up. After a moment, he got out of bed and walked over to the window. Parting the draperies a little, he peered out at the sun-bleached scene. “God,” he said, “I hate this city. I want to find Drago today and get the hell out of here.” Then he walked into the bathroom and closed the door.
Beau didn’t touch the gun again. Instead, he turned on the television and watched “Scrabble” as he dressed in some of his new clothes.
“Now I know why you don’t like this city,” Beau said with a sigh. They had spent a very long day going in and out of bars and casinos looking for Tony Drago.
Robert just grunted. He was used to this kind of thing. There were easier ways to find people, but those ways were also more dangerous, because they called more attention to what was going on than was healthy. He crushed out the latest in a long chain of cigarettes. “Well, come on, Tonto,” he said. “We’re not done yet.”
He was trying to get a reading on just how Beau was feeling about what he’d found himself in the middle of, but it was hard to do. On the surface, at least, none of it seemed to matter to the boy. He was acting just as he had before finding out that the freaking Lone Ranger was a hired gun. But every once in a while, Robert would look up suddenly and see two very blue, very speculative eyes on him. It was unsettling.
Less than an hour later, he finally spotted Drago, who looked pretty much the way he had in his most recent mug shot. The man was fat and balding, with the few strands of hair he had left combed up and over his naked scalp. It didn’t help. Neither did the sport jacket he wore, which looked as if it would be more at home covering the back of a Kentucky Derby loser. Gold chains, of course, and a broad with more boobs than brains hanging on his arm. That was not a woman Robert would give up his life for. But Tony Drago was going to.
They watched the happy couple at the craps table for a while, then went back outside to the car. Beau was looking a little nervous now. “What next, Robert?” he asked, tapping on the dashboard.
“We wait,” Robert said, reaching for still another cigarette. “And hope like hell that Drago leaves alone.”
Their hopes paid off, because Drago and the woman parted company, with obvious anguish, in the parking lot. After all, he was a family man. Drago got into a shiny black Porsche and took off. Robert followed at a discreet distance.
Beau was tapping again.
Before very long, they had left the lights and glitz of the city behind and were driving through a quiet residential neighborhood. A nice place to raise a family, probably. It was at one of the largest houses on the block that the Porsche turned in.
Robert parked on the street, leaving the engine running. “You wait here,” he said quietly. “Don’t move, understand?”
Beau just nodded.
He got out and walked quickly up the driveway. Drago was still standing by his car, locking the door when Robert reached him. “Drago,” he said pleasantly.
Drago whipped around. “Jesus,” he said with a nervous laugh. “What you trying to do, asshole, give a guy a heart attack or something?”
Robert just smiled.
“Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“My name is Robert Turchek. Maybe you’ve heard of me?”
After a moment, Drago nodded. “I know who you are. But I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here.”
“Ah, man, think about it for a minute. Did you really and truly think that you could dip your wick into a bitch belonging to somebody like Nicky Whalen and just walk away clean? Are you that dumb?”
Finally it sank into Drago what was happening here. “Hey,” he said, “I got family in the house.”
“Maybe you should’ve thought about them before you started fucking Nicky’s girl.”
“What’re you gonna do to me?”
“You said you’ve heard of me. What the hell do you think I’m going to do?”
Robert brought the gun up from the shadows and fired.
A light went on inside the house. He wiped the gun quickly and dropped it on top of Drago’s body, then he turned and ran back up the driveway to the car. Beau was slumped down in the seat, hands covering his ears. They drove away at a moderate speed.
On the way back to the hotel, Robert stopped to buy a bucket of fried chicken and then a six-pack. At the last minute, he remembered Beau, waiting in the car again, and added some Coke to his purchases.
Back in the room, they sat on his bed and ate the meal while watching an old episode of “Barney Miller,” which was brand-new, of course, to Beau.
During one of the commercial breaks, Beau stopped chewing long enough to ask, “Can we go home now?”
Robert used a wadded-up paper napkin to wipe chicken grease from his chin. “First thing in the morning,” he said.
“Good.” Beau turned back to the television.
3
Robert stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around himself. He shaved quickly and opened the door to let Beau know the bathroom was his.
Beau was sitting huddled on his bed.
There were four men in the room. Robert knew only one of them by name but he was the only one who mattered very much, even though it was the other three who had guns, two trained on him and one on Beau.
Robert swallowed a couple of times and then forced a sm
ile to his face. “Well, hello, Mr. Marcello. This is a little early for a visit, isn’t it?”
“Maybe it’s a little late,” the old man corrected him gently. “When people come into my town and start eliminating my employees and I don’t know anything about it until after the fact, then maybe it’s a little late.”
Robert shrugged.
Marcello turned his cold gaze on Beau. “You take on a partner, Mr. Turchek?”
“No.”
“Get rid of him.”
“Tonto,” Robert said, “why don’t you go out and soak up some sun by the pool.”
After a moment, Beau got up from the bed. He pulled on his jeans and walked, barefooted, to the door. There, he stopped and turned around. “Robert?” he said.
“Go on, do like I said.”
He went out, closing the door very quietly.
Robert leaned against the desk and lit a cigarette. “You’re here about Drago,” he said.
“Of course. The tragedy that occurred in his driveway last night.”
“Yeah, a real heartbreaker, right? Maybe you ought to send flowers,” Robert said dismissively. “Actually, I was going to touch base with you this morning. I thought it would be a good thing to do.”
“You have always been a wise and cautious man,” Marcello said. “However, I am forced to point out that this is coming after the fact.”
Robert acknowledged that silently.
“It is a lucky thing, therefore, that the individual in question was of very little consequence.”
Now Robert smiled faintly. “I knew that ahead of time, sir.”
For just a moment, Marcello smiled, too. Then he got serious again. “Why?”
“It was a personal matter, sir, nothing to do with business. The man who contracted for the job had a grudge against Drago. He was fucking the man’s woman. Brought her to Vegas, in fact. Drago was really stupid, sir.”
Marcello nodded. “This was an isolated thing, then?”
“Yes, sir. I’m leaving town today.”
“Very good. And it would probably be better if you stayed away for a while.”
“I will.”
The old man glanced toward the door. “That boy,” he said. “He have a part in this?”
“No,” Robert said flatly. He straightened. “Life just gets complicated, you know?”
“Well, as long as I do not have to become involved in your private complications,” Marcello said.
“You won’t.”
That seemed to end the conversation. One of the goons opened the door and all four of them left.
Robert pulled on his jeans and walked out to the pool. Beau was sitting in a plastic chaise, watching an empty beer can float across the pool. Robert sat on the end of the chaise. “That old man,” Beau said, “was he like the godfather or something?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“He didn’t look like so much to me.”
“Right.” Robert glanced at him. “That man would have you killed in a minute if you aggravated him.”
“We didn’t do that, did we?”
“Nope.” Robert grinned at him. “I’ve been at this a long time, Tonto. Trust me.”
“I guess I have to, don’t I?” Beau said.
Robert looked at him for a moment and then nodded. “I guess so.” He patted Beau’s leg. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of this town.”
13
1
Gar was beginning to run out of ideas.
He’d been working hard, checking all of the usual places—the arcades, the beach, the shelters for runaways, even the freeway overpasses under which a lot of kids lived—and talking to the street sources that were usually the most reliable. So far none of what he’d done had moved him one step closer to finding Beau Epstein. The only lead he’d managed to discover so far, and it was pretty damned vague, was the tale of the bloodied kid coming into the coffee shop. Maybe it had been Beau and maybe it hadn’t, but whichever was the case, so what? The unknown man and boy, whoever they were, seemed to have dropped from sight.
Gar was having one last beer before calling this a (worthless) night’s work when a familiar face appeared in the midst of the crowd in the Touchdown Bar. After the woman had picked up her drink, Gar got her attention and waved her over to the table. With obvious reluctance, she joined him. “Evening, Kiki,” Gar said.
She took a ladylike sip of her pink gin drink. “Hi, Sergeant Sinclair.” The honorary title was a holdover from his days on the force. Back then, he had busted Kiki regularly. She never seemed to hold that fact against him, however, and sometimes she even came through with some pretty solid information.
“How’s business these days?”
“’S okay,” she said with a shrug. But she looked tired. No surprise; how easy could it be, after all, for a hooker pushing forty to keep pulling in the bucks?
“You ought to retire, honey,” Gar said. “Find a nice guy and settle down in the suburbs.”
“Sure. They’re lining up to marry me.” Her tone was characteristically self-mocking, but now that he looked more closely, Gar could see that it was more than simple weariness that showed in her face. It almost looked like fear.
She seemed to have forgotten that he was even there; her manicure was getting an intense examination. More from pure habit than out of real expectation that she would be able to help him, Gar took Beau’s picture from his pocket and dropped it on the table. “I’ve got a tough one here, Kiki. Maybe you can help me out. Have you seen this kid around?”
She glanced down automatically, blinked, then looked at the picture again. Even with the thick mask of make-up she was wearing, he could see the color drain from her face. The fear that had been subtle before was now obvious. Her lips trembled and she took a healthy gulp of gin.
“What’s wrong, Kiki?”
“Nothing. I ain’t seen the kid.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. What you think, I got nothing better to do than look out for some stupid kid?” Abruptly, she stood, “I gotta split. Bye.”
“Kiki, wait—” But she was gone.
Gar left his beer on the table and went after her. By the time he reached the sidewalk, she was already disappearing around the corner. He picked up his speed, which still didn’t mean he was going to break any records, but he did manage to catch her by one arm. Old whores didn’t move much faster than old cops. “Kiki, what the hell is wrong?”
She tried to pull away, then gave up with a sigh and leaned against the side of the building. “I don’t know anything about it,” she said in a nervous whisper. “Please, just let me go.”
Gar loosened his grip on her a little, but did not let go. “You don’t know anything about what?” he asked in exasperation.
“I didn’t even know that Marnie was dead until the next day.”
Gar felt as if the situation had slipped completely out of his control. “Kiki, I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about.”
Kiki didn’t seem to believe his protestations of ignorance, but she allowed herself to be talked back into the bar anyway. Gar ordered up two fresh drinks and they sat again. “Okay, honey, you want to tell me what the hell you’re talking about? Who’s Marnie?”
Kiki still didn’t want to talk, but she sighed and did. “Marnie was a friend of mine. Marnie Dowd. She got killed the other night.” Her eyes darted fearfully around the crowded room. “If you tell the cops I said anything, I’ll tell them you’re lying.”
“So you haven’t spoken to them about this?”
Her face turned scornful. “Who’s fucking stupid enough to talk to them about anything that matters?”
“I’m not a cop anymore, Kiki. And I’ll keep your name out of it if I possibly can. But tell me what you know.”
She was holding on to the glass of gin with both hands. “I had a customer, see, and he only wanted a quick blow-job. Not worth going back to the room for, right? So we found this doorway and tr
ansacted our business arrangement. Okay?”
Gar nodded.
“We get all done and he takes off. I was, like, having a quick smoke break there in the doorway. Just enjoying the dark and the quiet, you know? Until I heard the shot.”
“One shot?”
She nodded.
“What’d you do?”
She gave him a look that questioned his sanity. “What do you think I did? Stayed hiding right where I was. That’s when I saw them coming out of the alley.”
“Them?”
“Yeah. A man and a kid. They came out together and walked away. Marnie was dead back there and they just walked away. He was, like, dragging the kid by one arm.”
“And you think it was the boy in the picture?”
“It was him, yeah.” She sounded very sure of herself.
Now it was Gar who took a restorative gulp of alcohol. After swallowing a mouthful, he said, “You say he was dragging the boy. So the kid was trying to get away, is that it?”
After a moment of consideration, she shook her head. “I don’t think so. More like, he was just trying to keep up with the man.”
After getting what he could about the man—which wasn’t much, beyond the fact that he was just “regular,” whatever the hell that meant—Gar slipped Kiki a twenty and watched her leave the bar. His mood was not improved by what she had told him. He didn’t like this more than he hadn’t liked anything in a very long time.
But since it was late and there didn’t seem to be much he could do at the moment, Gar decided to go home to bed.
Just to wrap up a crummy evening perfectly, Mickey was out someplace and so he had nobody to sleep with except Spock.
2
It was still a sort of homecoming every time he walked into the cop shop. There were always a lot of new faces, of course, men and women who didn’t know Gar Sinclair from any perp in the place. But even so, there were still enough of the old guys around to shake his hand, slap his back, and talk bullshit about getting together for a beer one day real soon.
The next morning Gar made his way through all the buddy-buddy crap as quickly as possible and headed for Walter Dixon’s office.
