Koosje sat up and held me at arm’s length, her hands resting lightly on my chest. “What happened to truth, justice, and the American way?”
“You have me confused with Superman, but that’s okay; it happens all the time.” I drank some coffee. “That sort of stuff’s for the cops and the courts, mainly the courts. The private investigator’s job is to perform the task he was hired to do, in this case, finding a missing girl. Period. As it happens, that task is running parallel to the search for a suspected killer—all the other junk that’s going on must relate to that undertaking in some obscure fashion, I figure—but I’m trying like mad to remember it’s secondary. If my efforts help bring a killer to trial, great. If not, too bad. I’m not a seeker of justice, whatever it may be; I’m just a guy trying to do my job.”
Koosje had again rested her warm body against me. “I think you like to pretend that,” she said, “but I also think you’re a good deal more compassionate than you let on.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. Compassion’s in the job description, I guess. You don’t hire a private detective unless you’ve got problems, serious problems. Compassion helps.”
“How did someone like you ever become a private detective?”
“What do you mean, ‘someone like me’?” I laughed. “PIs aren’t all craggy-faced guys in aloha shirts or mustachioed millionaires with time and money to burn. In fact, I daresay very few of them are. Some of them have wives and kids and second mortgages, potbellies and no hair, thick glasses and backyard barbecue pits. And they get into the dodge the same way I did: circumstance. I never went to school with anyone who wanted to become a private detective. Most start out doing something else, usually in the public sector, and go private for any number of reasons. In my case, I was mainly sick of office politics, of idiotic and pointless gamesmanship, of blind by-the-bookery, of incompetence so deeply entrenched so high up that it might as well be on the organizational chart. Me, I don’t always know what I’m doing either, but I’ve never made the mistake of thinking that it’s a virtue, or that the situation can’t or shouldn’t be changed. Geez, what got me going? Anyhow, that’s the main reason I didn’t go back into newspapering after I got out of the army, and the main reason I didn’t stay in the army, and the main reason I eventually ended up freelance. End of report.”
“Well, you’re much better suited to being a writer. That beard makes you look literary”—she stroked it lightly—“or it will, someday—not at all detectivey. In fact, I don’t think you’re a detective at all; I think it’s just a line you use to impress women. I searched you very thoroughly and you’re not carrying a gun.”
“Packing,” I corrected, “us hard-boiled private-eye types always ‘pack’ guns. And it’s been years since I felt I needed one on a date. I prefer to use my animal magnetism to force women to do what I want.”
“Mm. What do you pack, then, a snub-nosed .38? A Colt .45?”
“You don’t want to know about that sort of stuff.”
“Of course I do,” she persisted. “I’ve never met a real-live private eye. What do you pack? A Beretta. A Walther PPK. A Luger. A—”
“I own two guns,” I sighed, “both revolvers, .38s; one I usually keep in the car, the other at home. I’m not a fan of snub-noses or, in general, anything with a barrel shorter than three inches. They’re less accurate, especially for someone like me who doesn’t put in a lot of range time. I like the four-inch police revolver with fixed sights. I used to own an automatic, but I traded it in for the second revolver because, by and large, I like them better. I think they’re safer, especially the single-action revolver, which is what I keep in the house. Having to pull back the hammer means having to think about what you’re doing. My coffee’s getting cold.” I reached for it.
After a momentary silence, Koosje said, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset. I just—well, in the first place, I don’t think of myself as a PI anymore, not primarily. If we had met at a party and you asked me what I did, I would have said I was a writer. As we got to know one another I’d’ve told you that I am licensed by the state to conduct private investigations and to carry a firearm and all that good stuff, but I would have automatically put that part of my life into the past tense because, mainly, that’s where it belongs, in the past.”
“Does it? Does it really? I mean, look at how we did happen to meet: Because you are involved in an investigation. No, let me finish. I know you said that you originally got involved partly as a favor to your friend Kennerly and partly because you needed the money. I can understand that. But what about the last case? And the one before that? And the one before that? Do you see what I’m getting at? You say you’ve closed the door on that part of your life, and yet really it’s standing open a good six or eight inches.”
I swallowed some coffee. “So what are you saying? That I should turn in my badge and ride out of Dodge?”
“I’m not saying that you should do anything; I just think maybe you’d be better off in the long run—happier—if you were honest with yourself, particularly about something as fundamental as your vocation. Personally, I don’t understand why you can’t pursue both careers; you do already; why not simply conduct yourself accordingly? Introduce yourself as a private investigator and a writer—or the other way around. The world’s full of writers who are also teachers, lawyers, doctors, accountants …”
“Even cops. That’s true; very few writers support themselves on words alone. But some do, and I think a person owes it to himself to believe that he can be one of the few, the proud, the Mar—no, wait a minute, that’s not right.”
She smiled indulgently. I cleared my throat. “I admit I’m holding the PI thing as my ace in the hole. What I ought to do is give it up—really give it up—and really give the writing life a fair chance. So far I’ve just been too chicken to completely close the door, as you say.”
“Is it that, or are you unconvinced that you want to close the door? I believe that if we truly want to do something, become something, change something, we will. It may not be easy, we may need lots and lots of help and support, but if it’s something we really crave, we’ll get it. And if we don’t, if we’re more in love with the idea of it, then we won’t.” She had been cradling her coffee in the palm of one hand; now she set down the cup. “That’s a horrible oversimplification,” she said with a shrug, “but so what? I’m off duty.”
She smiled up at me tentatively and I grinned back. “You see,” I said, shaking a finger of admonition, “this is why I don’t like guns: They get people into trouble. They are trouble, usually more trouble than they’re worth, and that’s why they’re not really a big part of the trade—contrary to what the direct-mail houses seem to believe. Every other day I’m getting an offer to subscribe to Shoot to Kill or Urban Paranoia Quarterly or some similarly bloodthirsty publication. But I’ve known veteran investigators who’ve never fired a gun in the field, and some who never even owned a gun. Stop looking at me like that; I know I’m changing the subject. Okay, what you say makes sense. I thought I had everything figured out, and I’d make my jump when the time was right. Maybe that was just an excuse, because the time’s never right. I don’t know. In any case, I think I should sleep on it—not that sleep is something I see in my very near future.” I took another look at my watch. “Time for me to hit that trail, lady.” I stood and retrieved my sport coat from the floor. Koosje remained on the couch, looking up at me speculatively.
“Will you have a gun when you go tonight?”
“Again with the guns? Doesn’t modern psychology have something to say about that?” I slipped into the jacket. “I don’t know. I’m feeling pretty paranoid these days, and it came in handy this morning. On the other hand, I didn’t have one last night and I got out relatively intact. Like I said, guns are trouble. You start waving one around and then the other guy thinks that’s pretty neat and he starts waving his around and in short order you have got a grade-A mess. I guess I’ll
decide when I get there.”
Koosje stood and came to me and we just stood, holding each other, for a long moment. “Will I see you again?” she asked at last.
“Probably in the morning, at the Castelars’.”
She went to the front closet, collected my parka, and helped me into it. When I turned toward her, her eyes were on the ruined pocket. They turned to my face. “Be careful,” she said very quietly.
We kissed, and she hid behind the door as she held it open for me. I slipped into the hallway, squinting at its relative brightness. The coast was clear. I turned back toward the door and glimpsed her face, shoulder, and bare left leg. “See you tomorrow.”
“Be careful,” she repeated, and the door closed.
It had snowed again during the past few hours, overspill from one or another of the various storms and fronts and low-and high-pressure cells percolating all around us, but the night was still and warm. Relatively. My car was covered by a thick quilt of white. I brushed it from the windows and lamps while the engine warmed, and thought. Not about anything in particular; I simply let the thoughts come, let the random associations wash over me as they would. It had been a long, long time since I had felt so comfortable with a woman so quickly. It had been a long, long time since I had met a woman like Koosje. If I probed my feelings the way you would probe a sensitive tooth, I could still locate the pain, the ache of longing that I felt—and, I supposed, always would feel—for Jennifer. The emotion that I felt now—infatuation, love, whatever—didn’t take away the pain, but it masked it somewhat, dulled it, the way a few drinks will handle a toothache.
For now, that would be enough. More than enough. And later … well, later I could worry about later.
I got into the car and drove.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Upstairs.”
“Nice to see you again, too,” I said. Bruno, of course, reacted in no way whatsoever. I shook and brushed and stamped snow from me, and surveyed the barroom, crammed to the rafters with armchair cowboys and their women, stinking of smoke and beer and sweat. Another fun night at the Bottom Dollar. I shoved my hat in a pocket, unzipped my parka, and moved along the bar.
Things looked innocent enough down here; upstairs, though … I had spent a long minute in the car debating the merits and demerits of coming in armed. And decided against it. If this was a setup—and I couldn’t make sense of that possibility—a single gun wasn’t going to make much difference against however much accumulated firepower might be waiting. And while the go-down-fighting bit sounds real swell, I’d personally rather not go down at all. When you carry a gun, you make people nervous; when the other guy’s got a gun too, you really don’t want him to be nervous.
I pulled open the wooden door and climbed the stairs.
Silence. Well, no, not silence—the gang downstairs was far too raucous for a few floorboards to mute them very much. Let’s say I heard no noises that originated on the second floor, even though I stood at the top of the stairs and listened for a good while.
Onward, hero.
As I had done last night, I paused at each door I passed in the narrow corridor, cocking my head, listening, waiting. No muffled sounds, no sounds of any variety came from behind the door panels. No hushed voices, no tinny AM radio music, no screech and scrape of bedsprings. A slow night. Or someone had rented the whole hall.
Bruno hadn’t said so, but it was reasonable to assume that “upstairs” meant the old gal’s office. I knocked my knuckles perfunctorily against the cheap wood and opened the door.
The first thing I noticed was the gun—us ace detectives observe little things like that right off—bigger than some foreign cars. Or so it looked, at least; even a palm-sized .22 looks like an antiaircraft gun when it’s pointed at you.
The second thing I noticed was that the gun did not repose in the delicate mitt of the Fat Lady, but rather in the brown and bony hand of a rangy and mangy-looking cowboy seated behind the Fat Lady’s desk. I forced my eyes away from the gun and up to his face, which appeared sallow, drawn. Maybe that was owing to the bluish light of the desk lamp, which provided only the barest illumination for the small, hot room—enough light, however, to see that it was Walt Jennings on the other end of the big-ass revolver.
I slowly lifted my hands up and away from my body, noticing that they trembled slightly, noticing that my stomach had dropped to my knees and my knees were turning to pancake batter. Still, I think I did a creditable job of keeping my voice steady and only three or four octaves higher than usual when I said, “I’m clean.”
“You’re late,” Jennings said in a slightly tremulous tenor that did all kinds of swell things for my masculine ego but very little for my overall sense of well-being. Like I said, when it’s the other guy holding the gun you want him to be calm and collected, so cool that penguins follow him home.
“The snow slowed me down. I didn’t leave enough time … It really snowed a lot, and it’s still coming down … I haven’t heard any weather reports, though …” I stopped. I was babbling. Babbling’s bad for the image.
“Get in here and close the door,” Jennings yipped. I did, elbowing it shut, keeping my hands in plain sight. “Put your hands on the desk.” He came around, keeping the unblued gun directed somewhat unsteadily at my midsection. The thought of grabbing the gun while Jennings undertook his clumsy pat-down flitted briefly and aimlessly across my mind, like a firefly on a summer night. Crazy ideas like that will occasionally take hold of me—ramming the son of a bitch who cuts me off on the freeway, planting a big wet kiss on a checkout girl, taking ukelele lessons, that type thing. Usually I lie down and wait for the feeling to pass. That being impractical at the moment, I settled for standing stock-still, trembling notwithstanding, and letting Jennings have his way with me. What I may lack in swashbucklery I make up for in sanity, sometimes.
The frisk was badly done. I could have had an entire set of steak knives taped to my shins; he didn’t pat any lower than my knees. I suspect Jennings conducted it because “Miami Vice” made him think he should. “Okay,” he said uncertainly when he thought he was done, stepping back a pace toward the door. “You sit over there.” He swung the gun toward the battered one-third couch crammed against the wall across from the desk. It was the second time in five minutes I could have taken the popgun away from him. I could have shot out my right arm and knocked the lamp from the desk, dropped and hit Jennings low, grabbed the thing out of his hand, shoved it into his sweaty face, and demanded some answers.
I went and sat on the couch. Save it for the typewriter, I thought.
He should have told me to sit on my hands or clasp them behind my head or keep them in my pockets or something else designed to prevent me from making the kind of quick moves he kept giving me openings for. But he didn’t, and I didn’t believe it was my job to tell him. So I crossed my arms and crossed my ankles and looked at him. He backed around behind the desk and sat in the Fat Lady’s armless chair, resting his right fist on the desktop and keeping the silvery gun extended toward me as if it were a crucifix and I Count Dracula.
“Okay,” he repeated. “What do you want?”
I raised my eyebrows, though I suppose the effect was lost in the semidarkness, and nodded toward the gun. “That makes it your party.” Swiped that line right out of The Thin Man.
Jennings didn’t notice. He sort of looked down at his fist as if he’d forgotten what was in it, swallowed—his Adam’s apple bobbed like a buoy—and looked back at me. It was hard to square this nervous little man with the mug shot the World-Herald had printed. That man had been smug, smirky; this man was anything but. And it was harder than ever to picture Kate Castelar with him, but I’d worked that one over so much already that it was turning to mush.
“Yeah,” he said rather dreamily. “Well—well, I hear you’ve been poking around, asking questions about me, looking for me.” He tried to sound defiant.
“Me and everybody else in the five-state area, as the TV we
ather guys call it. You’re not having the Fat Lady set up conferences with all of them, are you; that’d take forever. Incidentally, where is the old darlin’?”
“What do you care?”
“I don’t, a lot. It’s just that she organized this little soiree and I wonder why she isn’t in attendance.”
“This wasn’t her idea; it was mine. I had to twist her arm plenty to get her to go along with it. But … well, me and the Fat Lady, we do each other favors every so often, and I reminded her of some of them, and she let me go ahead and set the thing up. After she got herself about a million miles away. But look, who cares about her?”
“You’re right.” My confidence was increasing in proportion to my fast-growing conviction that every passing minute diminished the likelihood of Jennings’s using that gun. “There are other fish in the sea. The world’s full of women. Let’s talk about another one: Kate Castelar.”
Jennings looked at me blankly. “Yeah?”
“What do you mean, ‘Yeah’? Where is she?”
“What do you mean, ‘Where is she?’ How do I know? Home, I suppose.” He looked at me closely. “Isn’t she?”
“ ‘Suddenly he felt very cold,’ ” I said measuredly, trying to size up Jennings, trying to decide if his perplexity was genuine or a good act. I flipped a mental coin. It came up tails: a good act. So I turned it over real quick when no one was looking, because experience, intuition, all the little gut instincts told me that Jennings was in the dark. Kate’s absence had been kept from the press; the cops were keeping mum; and, at the family’s—which is to say, Kennerly’s—insistence, the FBI had not been summoned. Only a handful of people knew, some people I’d talked to, some people the cops had talked to, and anyone they had talked to; it was very possible that Jennings wasn’t among them. Not just possible; logical, too: I couldn’t make sense of his nocturnal visit to the Castelar house unless I assumed he was trying to communicate with Kate, something he wasn’t apt to do if he had killed her or kidnaped her. Unless he had a real bad memory.
Moving Targets Page 22
