by Dorien Grey
No word from Jared, which I assumed to mean he had heard nothing of interest on his rounds.
Bob called Thursday to set up a time for our dinner the next night, and said that Mario would be joining us. He was a bartender at Venture but had asked for Friday night off just, Bob said, so he could meet me. I was duly flattered, but I suspected Mario’s main reason was just to spend some time with Bob.
We agreed to meet at Napoleon, a small new restaurant in a former private home on the edge of The Central. The clientele was predominantly gay, and the food was reported to be excellent. Bob had made reservations for 8:30.
*
I arrived at Napoleon at 8:14 and was lucky enough to find a parking place within walking distance. I recognized the place immediately—it was a small bungalow modeled on the Seven Dwarfs’ house in Snow White that had fascinated me for years. It had somehow been spared the fate of its neighbors, which had been bulldozed and demolished as the area made the transition from residential to commercial.
The place still maintained the comfortable atmosphere of a home—what had been the living room was now a small, nicely appointed bar with a low ceiling and a working fireplace. I sat on one of the six stools at the bar and ordered an Old Fashioned, which had just arrived when Bob and Mario came in.
Mario was taller than Ramón, several years older, and could be described as more handsome than cute, as Ramón had been, but there were many physical similarities, and I wondered if Bob was consciously aware of it.
I got up to greet them, and Bob made the introductions. Mario’s handshake was strong and warm, and his smile seemed sincere and natural. I was favorably impressed. Bob ordered drinks for himself and Mario then excused himself to let the maître d’ know we had arrived. The drinks arrived before he returned, so Mario paid for them; and we moved to a group of chairs in front of the fireplace.
“This may be one of the oldest clichés in the book,” Mario said as we set our drinks on the small table between each set of chairs, “but I’ve heard a lot about you from Bob. You’re pretty special to him.”
“The feeling’s mutual, believe me,” I said. “And I’m really happy that he met you. It was about time.”
Mario smiled, a little sadly. “Yes. Bob doesn’t talk much about…some things…but I know what you mean.” Just then Bob rejoined us.
“Table’s ready,” he said.
Mario handed him his drink, and we followed him to where the maître d’ waited, menus in hand.
The main dining room was still relatively small, maybe eight tables in all, probably made by combining what had once been the dining room and one or two bedrooms. Nice, subdued lighting, lots of paneling, attractive individually lit pictures on the walls, crisp white tablecloths with red napkins and place settings. Our waiter stopped by to introduce himself and announce the specials then said he’d come back when we were ready to order, leaving us to finish our drinks at leisure. He and Mario had met, Bob explained, when he paid a typical bar-owner courtesy call to Venture, where Mario had been tending bar for nearly a year. The next night, Mario had come by Ramón’s.
“Purely by chance, I’m sure,” I said, and Mario gave me a wicked grin.
“Not exactly,” he said.
The conversation got around to Comstock’s murder and my whole involvement in the case, although I still didn’t mention O’Banyon’s role, and my mild frustration with not really being able to find out anything substantial.
“Did Jared tell you anything about Richie?” Bob asked, and the talk shifted to Richie’s death and my inability to fully accept the coincidence scenario.
“That’s kind of odd,” Mario said. “Did you see yesterday’s paper about the two guys who drove off the cliff coming down from the Hilltop?”
The Hilltop was a nice but slightly remote gay club located on the edge of the chain of bluffs running along the east side of the river. The shortest way up and down was McAlester Road, which wound precariously from Riverside at the bottom of the bluff to Cortez at the top, where the Hilltop was located. It was a general rule that if you were drinking, you didn’t take McAlester down.
“Yeah,” I said, “I saw that, but don’t remember the article saying anything about the Hilltop. Though, now that you mention it, it did happen on McAlester Road. Did you know them?”
“Yeah,” Mario said. “They were regulars at Venture until I eighty-sixed them the same night they got killed.”
“Why were they eighty-sixed?” Bob asked.
“Because I couldn’t put up with their shit any more—they really crossed the line.”
“How so?” I asked, curious. In the back of my mind, a little voice was saying Uh-oh!
“These were two old queens—and I use that term deliberately—who always hung out together. Not lovers—I don’t think they could have managed to put up even with one another on a steady basis.
“But there’s fun bitchy and there’s mean bitchy. These two were mean, mean bitchy. They’d sit there at the bar and get drunk and rip everybody to shreds—quietly, and to each other, so they wouldn’t get punched out, I’m sure. I tried to ignore them as much as possible, but they really pissed me off. Still, I never said anything because they were paying customers.
“But Wednesday night they were there, and Billy came in.” He looked at both Bob and me. “You know Billy, don’t you? Goes around to the bars selling flowers?”
Bob and I nodded. Billy was sort of a fixture in the bars along Arnwood and in The Central. A sweet, innocent guy, pretty severely mentally disabled, but he managed to support himself and his mother by selling flowers in the bars and clubs. The clientele of a lot of the places Billy had on his route aren’t exactly flower-type guys, but everybody likes him. And since his pride would never allow him to take money from anyone unless they got a flower in return, a lot of guys who never bought flowers bought flowers.
“Well, it was pretty busy for a Wednesday,” Mario continued, “and Billy came in and went around asking people if they wanted to buy a flower. I bought a couple, as always, and so did some of the others. Then he came up to the two queens at the bar, and they tore into him like a tiger after a lamb. They asked him if he was working his way through college, or if he’d written any good books lately, and then they’d look at one another and laugh at how clever they were. It wasn’t clever; it was cruel, vicious shit.
“Several of the other customers were getting really pissed. I told the queens to knock it off, but they kept it up. Poor Billy didn’t fully understand what they were doing, thank God, but even he knew they were making fun of him, and he stood there, not knowing what he should do. All he wanted was to sell his flowers.”
I could see Mario’s anger building as he talked, and I found myself getting angry by proxy. He stopped talking for a moment, as if to calm himself down, then continued.
“Then one of those fucking fruits took a quarter from the bar and threw it on the floor at Billy’s feet. ‘Here’s a tip for you, Einstein,’ he said, and that did it.” Mario’s eyes narrowed. “I had to hold up my hand to keep a couple of the other customers from moving in on them, and I told those fucking faggots to get the hell out of my bar, and that if they ever dared show their faces there again, I personally would come out from behind the bar and kick the shit out of both of them.
“They stormed out in a huff, and that was that. I told Billy not to pay any attention to people like them, and bought every flower he had out of my tip jar.”
Bob and I were both impressed, and I think we both decided then and there that Mario was definitely a keeper.
“Apparently,” Mario went on, not being privy to our thoughts, “they went up to the Hilltop, got even more smashed than they already were, then were drunk enough or stupid enough to try to take McAlester and lost control of the car on the way down. I guess what goes around really does come around.”
Are you starting to see a pattern here? I asked myself, but before I could answer, the waiter came by to see if we were ready t
o order. We were.
*
The niggling had started, and try though I might, I could not get the story of the two dead bitch-queens out of my head. I really hate it when I know something and my brain won’t tell me what it is. And something was telling me there was more to their deaths than met the eye.
But what possible connection could there be between them and Comstock? With Richie, there was obviously a direct link, since he knew Comstock and had appeared in his videos. Two queens, probably in their forties or fifties? What gave me any idea their deaths could be related to Comstock’s?
My mind didn’t know, but my gut did.
Early Saturday morning, I had the urge to get up early and take a drive to the Hilltop. I took the longer, less-winding route to Cortez, drove past the Hilltop then turned on McAlester and started down the bluff. There had been a sufficient number of accidents on this stretch of road over the years to prompt sporadic attempts to close it entirely; but it was the shortest way from Riverside to the top of the bluff, and the speed limit was set at 25 mph—which, unlike most speed limits, was pretty much heeded, given the road’s proximity to the edge of the bluff. It was a tricky road, but not really dangerous if you took it easy.
However, for someone drunk and going too fast…
There wasn’t much traffic that time of morning, so I drove even slower than the posted limit, watching the road carefully. About halfway down, I noticed a new section of guardrail at the start of a sharp turn. I pulled over onto the narrow shoulder on the uphill side of the road and got out of the car. Uphill of the new piece of guardrail there were about twenty-five feet of skidmarks.
Looking over the edge, I saw a badly broken tree and a scraped-clear area in the narrow strip between Riverside and the base of the bluff, about 100 feet below. Directly across from where the car had landed, on another narrow strip of ground, was a gas station. I got back into my car and continued down to Riverside, turning right to head for the station. I needed gas, anyway.
While I usually opt for self-serve, I pulled up to one of the full-service pumps. A teenager well on his way to being a pretty attractive hunk when his acne finally cleared up came out of the service bay, wiping his hands on a rag. I got out of the car on the pretext of stretching my legs.
“Fill it up,” I said, and the kid nodded. I motioned to the broken tree and scraped area across the street. “That where that car went over a couple days ago?”
The kid set the hose nozzle and squeezed the trigger to start the gas flowing.
“Yeah,” he said. “I saw the whole thing.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah, I normally work four to midnight. The only reason I’m here this early is because the regular guy’s off sick and I can use the extra money.”
“What happened that night?”
The kid topped off the tank then removed the nozzle and replaced the hose onto the pump.
“I was filling up some guy’s tank—it was just a little before closing—and I hear a couple pops then brakes squealing then the crash of the car going through the rail. I looked up to see these two headlights just soaring out into open air then arcing down toward the ground. It plowed through that tree there then landed on its roof.
“I ran in to call for help, but the guys inside were already dead when they pulled them out.”
“What happened to the car?” I asked, taking a bill from my wallet to pay for the gas.
“Marv’s Salvage came for it,” the kid said, handing me my change. “Guess it’s still at his yard.”
“Thanks,” I said, getting back into the car. I had a sudden thought from out of absolutely nowhere. “Oh, by the way, what kind of car was it?”
“It was a beauty—a classic fifty-three Packard Caribbean. Looked like it had been in mint condition until it hit the ground. A real shame.”
“Yeah,” I said, starting the engine.
“Have a good day,” the kid said, heading back to the service bay as I drove off.
*
A couple pops, the kid had said. What kind of pops? How many? What could they have been? Something told me I knew.
I pulled up at the nearest phone booth and looked up the address for Marv’s Salvage. Taking a chance they might be open on a Saturday morning, I drove over. Luckily, there was an “Open” sign on the chain link fence beside the open gate leading to the auto graveyard inside.
I pulled up to the small shed that served as an office and went in. It smelled of rust and motor oil. A short, heavyset man in grease-stained coveralls sat behind a battered desk piled high with bills and receipts, punching numbers into an equally battered adding machine.
He looked up when I entered.
“Help you?”
“Yeah,” I said, “I hope so. I’m planning on restoring a fifty-three Packard Caribbean and wonder if you might know where I can find one for parts.”
The guy got out of his chair, smiling.
“You’re in luck,” he said. “I just got one in the other day. Pretty good shape, except for the flattened top. Let me show you where it is.”
I followed him out into the yard, and he pointed down the makeshift road between rows of junked vehicles of all ages, sizes and descriptions.
“Almost to the end of this row, then turn right.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll go take a look.”
He nodded and went back into the office while I got back in my car and started down the long row of cars.
There’s something kind of sad about an auto junkyard—all those abandoned, once-shiny-new cars, trucks, buses and, for some odd reason, a vintage WWII tank with its tracks missing. All sitting there like they were hoping their owners would come back for them.
I drove slowly and, near the end of the lane, saw another short path to the right. As I came parallel with it, I saw a 1953 Packard Caribbean, top flattened almost to the level of the hood, doors pried open, looking much the worse for wear.
I backed into the narrow lane so as not to block the main road, turned off the engine and got out to look at the wreck. I went first to the driver’s side. A glance in through the pried-open door revealed a mangled seat with dark stains I preferred not to think about. I noted that both tires on the driver’s side were still fully inflated. Well, the car had landed on its roof.
However, when I continued to the passenger’s side, I saw that, while the rear tire looked perfectly normal, the front tire was shredded, as though there had been a blowout. That could easily have caused the car to veer to the right and send it through the rail.
I knelt to inspect it closer and found a large hole at the top of the tire from which long, wide strips of shredded rubber dangled. The front of the car was resting on something that raised the front tires off the ground. Out of curiosity, I rotated the tire to bring the hole toward the bottom. As I moved it, with some effort, I heard a slight sliding sound, as if there were a small stone inside the tire. I kept turning until the hole was at the bottom then reached into it with two fingers. I felt something.
Using my index and third fingers like a pair of pliers, I grasped it and removed it from the hole.
It was a spent bullet.
Chapter 5
I very carefully put it back into the hole and turned the tire back to the position in which I’d found it. Then I drove back to the office, where the owner was still at his desk, punching the keys on the adding machine.
“Find it okay?” he asked, not looking up.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. “I think I can definitely use some stuff off it, but let me check to see exactly what I need, okay?”
He nodded.
“It’s going to be right there for a couple days, isn’t it?” I asked.
“It ain’t goin’ nowhere. But if somebody else comes along wantin’ parts from it…well, first come, first served.”
“Understood,” I said, rationalizing that even if someone did want some pieces of the wreck, it wouldn’t likely be a blown tire. “I’ll get back to you
as soon as I can.”
I would have to wait until Monday to call O’Banyon’s office, but I badly needed to talk with him. I was convinced I was on to something that went considerably beyond Comstock’s murder, but since I was working on O’Banyon’s dime, I didn’t want to do anything more until I’d gotten his okay. And there was the little matter of the bullet.
While I couldn’t prove Richie Smith hadn’t died accidentally, there was no doubt in my mind the car with the two bitchy queens going over the cliff was neither an accident nor a coincidence, and the police should know about it. Obviously, they hadn’t considered it anything but an accident, but they’d sure as hell be curious as to what I was doing sticking my fingers into a blown tire.
The pattern I’d begun to see at dinner with Bob and Mario was taking on a far more definite shape, and I didn’t like the picture I could see emerging.
*
I called O’Banyon’s office at exactly eight-thirty Monday morning and told the receptionist it was extremely important I speak with him in person at his earliest convenience. She said she would see that Mr. O’Banyon got the message as soon as he came into the office.
Less than an hour later, Donna called to say he would be in court most of the day, but could see me at four-thirty. I thanked her and told her I’d be there.
I spent the rest of the morning finishing, then rewriting and rewriting again, my first official weekly report for O’Banyon. It was hard putting everything in words, since a lot of my suspicions were largely that—just suspicions and gut-level reactions, neither of which have extensive vocabularies. Hard facts, which are always easiest to work with, were in sadly short supply.
The specific investigation into Comstock’s death, which had been the reason I was hired in the first place, was going nowhere, and I was less than happy with myself.
Suddenly, I found myself wondering whether Comstock’s murder had merely been the first-identified link in a chain that could extend back in time for who knew how long, or whether his death had been the first act that set the killer off, and that now he was embarked on a personal crusade to rid the world of assholes.
