Devil's Redhead

by David Corbett

“Not long before I met up with you and Ms. Beaudry.”

  Abatangelo considered this. It made sense, he supposed.

  She added, “It’s not an easy place to find.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  She cocked her head again. “You said—”

  “I have an address. I never said I’d been out there.”

  “Don’t insult me. I’ve got eyes. I’m not stupid. You and Lachelle—”

  “We just met.”

  Jill Rosemond sat back and laughed. “Not possible,” she said. “Not from what I saw.”

  “Appearances deceive. I’m sure, given your line of work, you’ve discovered that to be true.”

  “You seemed very protective.”

  “It’s my way.” He reached out his hand. “What other printouts did you get on this Frank character?”

  Jill Rosemond laughed again, a little less naturally this time. “Excuse me?”

  “A rap sheet,” Abatangelo said. “Or does that take longer than just a few hours?”

  She studied him. “You still refuse to give me your name?”

  We’ve been through this, Abatangelo thought. You didn’t like my answer. I’m new here. A stranger, just passing through.

  “Who I am isn’t important. Not yet.”

  “What’s your stake in this?”

  “This?”

  “The Briscoe murders.”

  “Not a thing.”

  “In Frank Maas, then.”

  The beaming counter girl appeared, bearing a coffeepot. Her braces gleamed, her eyes quivered, strands of hair erupted from under her hair net. Abatangelo accepted a warm-up for fear of making her cry.

  “Given what you’ve told me,” he said once the girl moved on, “given what I learned from Shel tonight, I’d say everyone involved has known happier times. I’m a firm believer in happier times. That’s my stake.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Later.”

  “Why not now?”

  “I need a better sense of what’s relevant, what’s not, before I say something that might drag her into your orbit.”

  “What orbit is that?”

  “Punishment.”

  Jill Rosemond smirked and waved her hand. “You sound like her now.”

  “You’ve got to account for two dead twins. You’re trying to tell me, if you find out who killed them, that’s it?”

  “It’s the end of the matter for me, yes. I don’t have any power to go beyond that.”

  “You hand it off to the law.”

  “That’s my client’s decision, not mine.”

  Abatangelo laughed.

  She said, “I asked what your stake is in all this.”

  “Like you won’t listen to what I have to say, regardless.”

  “I’ll listen to anybody. Your friend was right in that regard. It doesn’t mean I’ll believe them. Or say yes if they ask for money.”

  “I haven’t asked for money.”

  “I’m impressed. It’s saintly of you.”

  “That’s me. A true believer.”

  “In happier times.”

  “There you go.”

  “Even if you have to remove Frank Maas from the picture.”

  Abatangelo looked down, sipped his coffee. “I have no particular interest in seeing him suffer.”

  “Then nothing you’ve said here makes sense.”

  “I don’t recall saying much of anything.”

  “You’ve said enough. Believe me. Look, I need to speak with him. Frank Maas.”

  “I understand. I doubt you improved your chances given your performance tonight. You won’t have much luck getting any further following the same tack.”

  “Which means you might come in handy.”

  “Could be.”

  “Do you think he’ll run?”

  Abatangelo’s sense of Frank was that he resembled any number of goofs he’d come across over the years, in prison and out. The kind that never mean any harm but always end up making somebody suffer. The kind that always forget and never learn. Run? Hell yes. And take Shel with him.

  “I’d say that’s a distinct possibility.”

  “He won’t be doing himself any favors if he does.”

  “It’s been my experience,” Abatangelo said, “that the people who crow loudest about standing tall are the ones who’ve never had to do it.”

  “I’m not saying he’s a suspect.”

  “But he’ll do. Especially if he runs.”

  “What will it take,” she said, “to get you to tell me the rest of what you know?”

  “A little more time.”

  “How long?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  She sat there a moment, then gathered her keys and bag and rose from the table. Extending her hand, she said, “Next time, if there is a next time, please don’t go to so much trouble to lie to me. It only makes you sound like a loser.”

  He took her hand, gripping it cordially, but said nothing. She turned, then, and exited Zippy Donuts, crossing the parking lot to her car. It was a station wagon, several years old, the sort a mother would drive.

  It brought to mind the issue of children again. Not hers. Not the Briscoe brothers. He recalled what Shel had said, about her and Frank and a baby boy. A boy that got murdered. He pictured Shel holding the child, cradling him, and then discovering that the boy was dead, the body sprawled bloody and lifeless in her arms. Beaten with a hammer, he thought. Good God.

  He gathered his things. It was time to go; he had some pictures to develop.

  CHAPTER

  12

  Frank figured Roy would drive straight for Rio Vista to a veterinarian the brothers always talked about in the context of gunshot wounds. Frank chose a different route, taking back roads empty this time of night, and down which a bullet-riddled Mercedes diesel with shot-out windows, no taillights and only one good headlight would draw scant notice. Just under an hour later he arrived at the gate leading to the ranch house. No one was stationed there. All was still. Even so he parked the car in the culvert and slinked in, thinking he could dive into the grass and hide if he heard a car coming in or out. No one came. He reached the ranch house without incident and studied it from a distance for a while. It was dark, but that could mean anything. No one there. Everyone there, waiting. Waiting for me.

  But they think you’re dead, he told himself. They think Snuff killed you.

  He checked the yard for other cars, but none were there. The barn they used for a garage stood open, and only his truck was parked inside. Where was Shel? Getting closer to the house, he circled it twice, crouching beneath the windows, listening. No sound from inside. Finally, he went up the back steps and tried the door. It was locked. You don’t set up an ambush, he thought, then lock the door. He felt above the door frame where the extra key was hidden, found it and opened the door. The kitchen was dark. He was still fishing for the light switch when the phone rang.

  Run, he thought. Now.

  Instead, he turned on the light. No one came forward to kill him all over again, and on the tenth ring the phone went quiet. He staggered to the breakfast nook and collapsed.

  A newspaper cluttered the table, someone had tried the crossword, and beside it sat an ashtray filled with menthol butts. Rowena, he thought. Her and her boy, Duval, they must still be at their movie. Waiting for Roy to show up.

  A checkerboard and a cigar box full of chess pieces that belonged to Duval sat next to the newspaper. The boy was always going around asking everybody if they played chess. Frank had told him once, “I know how the pieces move.” The kid had said, “That’s jailbird chess.”

  The phone rang again. It occurred to Frank it might be Shel. She should be here, she was here when I left. Maybe it’s somebody who knows where she is. He crossed the kitchen, let the phone ring one more time, then reached out cautiously for the receiver, thinking: If it isn’t her, hang up.

  A car was coming. He stood there, one hand in the air, his head
turned to the sound of the car as headlights broke the hill. Lurching to the window, he pushed the curtains aside and saw at once it wasn’t Shel. A gun, he thought. You survived fucking World War III and never once thought to bring back a gun. He stood there, pounding the sides of his head with the heels of his hands as the car came to a stop outside and a single man stepped out.

  Frank looked for a place to hide. It was too late to turn out the light. He’d probably already been spotted through the curtain. To come this far, he thought, survive Roy’s killfire and Snuff’s manic blazing away and the sneaky drive home in the chewed-up Mercedes, only to be caught like a dog.

  The driver of the car eased the back door open, calling out, “Lonnie?”

  The voice was a stranger’s. Not Roy. Not Snuff or Tully. A stranger who seemed nervous. It was a setup. It was cops. Frank sat there, unable to get a word out.

  “Who’s … come on, hey,” the voice said.

  Frank cleared his throat. “Yeah?”

  The door closed. Hesitant steps sounded in the hallway to the kitchen, and then the man appeared. Young man. Frank had no idea who he was.

  “I was looking for Lonnie,” the guy said. He eyed Frank’s muddy clothing, his eyes darting around like hummingbirds. “Lonnie Dayball. He here?”

  Dayball’s supposed to be here, Frank thought. That’s what this means. Get out.

  “Lonnie ain’t here,” he said. “And you?”

  The guy said his name, still standing in the doorway. The name meant nothing to Frank, he forgot it instantly. He wondered if the guy was armed. The guy pointed across the room. “I know you?”

  This is it, Frank thought. He makes me, he runs out of here, finds Dayball.

  “No,” he said. “Don’t think so.”

  “I’ve hung Sheetrock with the brothers. You?”

  “Yeah,” Frank said. “Must be. Gotcha.”

  “You’re not …”

  “Not what?”

  The guy wiggled the finger he was pointing, like that helped him think. “There’s a guy lives here, name’s Frank Maas. You’re …”

  Frank grimaced and shook his head. “Not me,” he said. “My name’s Mick. Mick Spielman.” It was the name of a kid Frank had gone to grade school with. He’d died in a car accident in fifth grade. Frank had used the name on and off over the years, when the need arose.

  “Glad to meetcha,” the guy said.

  “Same.”

  “You know Frank? Frank Maas.”

  “Know him, no,” Frank said. “Saw him tonight, though.” Taking a risk, he added, “Don’t think he’ll be coming back here.”

  The guy laughed a nasty little laugh and relaxed a little. He leaned back against the doorjamb and nodded at Frank’s clothes. “So that’s it.”

  Frank looked down at himself, as though surprised at the state he found himself in. He said, “What?”

  “That thing with the nacho niggers.” There was a conspiratorial little wink in his voice. Like he wasn’t supposed to know. His eyes were eager.

  “Yeah,” Frank said.

  “And that fucked-up Mercedes out there.”

  Frank shrugged, thinking. “Couldn’t leave it behind,” he managed.

  “Damn,” the guy said with juvenile awe. “So tell me. How’d it go?”

  “Go?”

  “The Mexicans. Jesus.”

  Careful, Frank thought. He considered a dozen different ways to say it, then settled on, “Caught ’em in the killfire.”

  The guy nodded, grimacing with envy. “We come out okay? I mean, except for Frank, the lame fuck.”

  Frank stared. The guy stared back.

  “We good?”

  “Yeah,” Frank said. “Better than good.”

  The guy pumped his arm. Rooting for the home team. “That’s great,” he said. “That’s fabulous. Christ, no wonder you look wasted.”

  Frank leaned back, let his body sag. “Yeah.”

  “Listen,” the guy went on, “like I said, I’m supposed to connect with Lonnie Dayball. I’ve got his mobile number but the motherfucker’s outside range. Tells me to stay tuned, then this. I mean, really.”

  “It’s fucked,” Frank ventured.

  “Tell me about it. But that’s Dayball. Do what I tell you, and while you’re at it do what I didn’t tell you. Unless I shoulda told you not to. Round and around . ..”

  “Why look for him here?” Frank asked.

  The guy threw up his hands. “What else am I gonna do? Like I said, he’s outta range, the homo.”

  “He due here?”

  “I’m desperate,” the guy said. “He had me playing shads on Frankie Maas’s old lady. Never seen her before, either, but Dayball, you know how he is, says, She’s the only one out there. Anybody leaves, it’s her. Felix wanted her thinking she was cool but then told Dayball: Put a tail on her. So that’s my deal, I sat on the house tonight. And I got news. Oh yeah.”

  Frank sat there, head tilted like he hadn’t quite gotten the last part right. His throat clenched. The guy kept talking, but the blood pulsing in Frank’s ears drowned out the sound. All he caught was, “… any ideas?”

  Snapping to. “About?”

  “Jesus, what’s wrong with you? Where I can find Dayball.”

  “I can pass word on,” Frank said. The words came out without thought. “I see him, I’ll pass the word on.”

  The guy shuffled from one foot to the other, murmuring to himself. “Fine. Yeah. Hell. Whoever gets there first. Here goes. I sat out on the road, hidden in that bunch of trees down the road from the gate, like Lonnie said. Sure enough, not fifteen minutes go by, red Pathfinder pulls out and turns toward town. Woman driving, bingo. I give her a few minutes, I mean, there’s nowhere to turn off, right? I pull out finally, put the tail on. I find her about a half mile away, pulled to the side. There’s some guy pulled up behind her. Where he came from, I don’t know. Big guy, tall, well built, short hair. Mean anything?”

  Frank felt as though the top of his head was lifting off. “Big?” he said.

  “He’s standing there at her car, they’re talking. I slow down, I’ll get made. So I blow on by, keep going till the Oakley turnoff, pull in, can the lights, wait. Maybe ten minutes later, they go by, one then the other. Guy’s driving a fucking Dart. Again, I figure, don’t follow too close. I wait a couple minutes. But this time they reach the highway. I lose ’em.”

  Tall, Frank thought. Well built. A cop. In a Dart?

  “I must’ve driven up and down the highway two, three hours. I’m thinking Lonnie’s gonna have my head. Then I pull in to Rafferty’s, you know it? Friend of mine hangs out there. Turns out he saw Frank’s old lady and this big guy there just a little while back. They got pretty oily with each other.”

  Frank closed his eyes. “Tell me where again?”

  “Rafferty’s, by the water. They had a drink at the bar and then started in on the touchy-feely. What’s wrong, guy?”

  Frank shook his head, as though to snap it free from some invisible thread. His heart was beating fast. “Sorry.”

  “Then this woman who’s been around. This woman, she’s passing out handbills on the dead twins. You hear about that?”

  “No,” Frank said. Then: “Yeah, sorta, I heard.”

  “This woman, she says she wants to talk to Frankie, she gets pointed over to his old lady and they talk some, then everybody tippy-toes on out. Together. This was maybe two hours ago.”

  Frank only half-heard the last part. His mind was elsewhere. He saw a woman cocooned in duct tape, a drug-crazed man leaning over her, a clot of her hair in one fist, a hammer in the other.

  “Hey. You with me?”

  “Can do,” Frank said. “We’re good.”

  “Listen,” the guy pleaded. “You pass this on, please, the part about me bitching about Lonnie, that’s strictly you and me here talking, right?”

  “Got it,” Frank said.

  “And the part about me losing them for two hours.”

  “N
o problem.”

  It took another five minutes to get rid of the guy. Once he was gone, Frank stumbled back inside the house and to his room. A dime bag of crank was stashed in the wall behind a dummy light socket. He did five fast whiffs, rearing back his head with each snort. Shortly his spine crackled, his eyes cleared. His heart pounded like a fist inside his chest. The real me, he thought, banging to get out.

  He went hunting. Something told him to check the trunk of the Mercedes. When he did he found pay dirt: five rifles, plenty of shells. He grabbed a Remington pumploader, armed it with nine shot, pumped a round into the chamber and filled his pockets with extra shot shells. Then he got in the Mercedes, started her up, hid it out beyond the barn and went back to the kitchen.

  Right when I needed you the most, he thought. Ain’t that the way. Sorry little cheat. Liar and cheat. He wondered how much of it had been her plan all along. The setup with the Mexicans, it was just a ruse to get him killed with the chavos. Shel had decided to hand him over to Felix and the law and the Briscoe family all on the same night, pass him around to the highest bidder. Play them all against each other and slip away in the chaos. He’d never seen it all this clear. It’s not me, he thought. It’s them. Every goddamn one of them.

  But especially her.

  He sat with the gun across his legs, stroking the barrel like a cat and drinking from a bottle of Old Fitzgerald he held by the neck. I survive Roy’s killfire and come home to this. What can you say. One thing after another, then a kicker at the end. All of it fitting and fair.

  The sound of an engine drifted up the hill, approaching from the county road. Frank went to the window. In time he heard rubber on gravel, then watched as the headlights sprayed the grass beyond the bluff. This time it was Shel. He could tell that from the motor.

  She entered the kitchen and glanced at the clock. After leaving Danny she’d hurried back from the bar only to find Frank still gone, so she’d turned around, headed back out, driving around in a fury, hoping against hope to find him somehow. That was hours ago. After that she’d just given in, kept driving just to move, because staying in one place felt too much like waiting to die. Who knew where Roy and his brothers had taken Frank after their little episode, if they’d taken him anywhere. He might very well have been left there to die. It might already be over. She thought of Felix Randall telling her she ought to be married. In sickness and in health, till death. She thought of Jill Rosemond pressing her on where to find Frank, like some middle-aged Nancy Drew out to solve The Mystery of the Two Dead Twins. Everywhere, everybody, everything: death.