by Teri White
By the time he was through the pile of mail, Blue had finished a second drink and poured another, not bothering with ice this time. He thought blearily that probably some food would be a good idea, but the effort involved seemed too great, so he sat where he was, watching the lights and listening to the radio while he sipped.
When the phone rang, he jumped, startled out of the half-sleep that had wrapped around him. He set the drink safely out of the way and reached for the receiver. “H’lo?”
“This Blue Maguire?”
“Yes.” He shook his head slightly to clear the fog and erase the confusion. When he got a call at this hour, he always assumed that it was Spaceman. That this time it wasn’t his partner muddled him a little. “Who’s this?”
“Oh, you probably don’t remember me. That don’t matter. I just wanted to call and see how you’re doing. So, how’re you doing, old buddy?”
The voice rang no immediate bells with Blue. Male, not young and not old, maybe edged a little with booze, but then so was his. “I’m doing fine, but I don’t talk to anonymous callers.”
“At least you’re still alive. That’s good. I was afraid you might be dead.” The voice sounded sad. “A lot of people are dead now.”
Blue hung up.
He was shaking a little, not from fear, but from bewilderment. Weariness and alcohol made his mind feel numb, and the unknown voice talking about death had rattled him.
He reached for the glass again, then stopped himself.
Damnit to hell, he had to stop this. Too much booze lately, too many missed meals. Not enough exercise. Those were all bad signs. A lot of cops ended up in a pool of alcohol. Well, it wasn’t going to happen to Blue Maguire.
He took the glass to the kitchen and rinsed it out carefully. Then he picked up his discarded shoes, tie and jacket, and holster, and climbed the circular staircase to his bedroom.
6
“This is shit.”
Spaceman snapped closed the file on Sister Maria Dominic and tossed it toward Blue’s desk. It hit against a paper cup sitting there. The cup tilted, hung suspended for a fleeting moment, then gave up and fell on its side, spreading a sticky pool of Tab over everything in sight.
Blue jumped back just before the unrelenting wave of soda reached the edge of the desk and dripped onto his new white jeans. He grabbed a handful of tissues and tried hopelessly to clean up the mess. “Thanks a lot, you bastard,” he muttered.
Spaceman glanced up, surprised to notice the disaster. “Sorry about that,” he said absently.
“Damn.” Blue aimed the sodden wad of Kleenex in the general direction of the wastebasket and stalked out of the squad room.
Spaceman watched him go, slightly bewildered. His partner, usually the mildest of men, with a disposition so even that it could get a little boring, had been in a sour mood all morning. Something was bugging the guy and now Blue seemed to be blaming him for the fact that this case, which they’d been busting ass over for almost two weeks now, was still garbage.
And while Spaceman was willing to admit that everyone was entitled to an off day every now and again, it really wasn’t quite kosher for a man’s partner all of a sudden to start doing a Jekyll and Hyde on him.
“Kowalski!” A familiar deep voice rumbled through the squad room.
He groaned silently. Damn. Just what he needed at this exact moment, a chewing out from McGannon. He and Blue had successfully dodged the boss for several days now, but apparently that streak of good luck was over.
By the time Spaceman reached the lieutenant’s office, McGannon was already settled again behind his massive oak desk. His square phallic symbol somebody once called it. Behind McGannon’s back, of course.
“You rang, sir?” Spaceman said, dropping heavily into a chair.
“When was that suit last pressed?” McGannon said sourly.
“Couple months ago. Too much pressing weakens the threads, you know.”
McGannon snorted.
“Besides, we have a deal, Maguire and I. He looks good and I think good. It works.”
McGannon shrugged to indicate that he was done with small talk. “What the devil is going on around here?”
“Not much,” Spaceman replied cheerfully.
The lieutenant played with a letter opener that was a miniature Samurai sword. He looked like the idea of plunging the blade into the heart of a certain homicide detective was beginning to sound good.
Spaceman took a deep breath. It was sort of amazing the way his damned partner always managed to absent himself at times like this. “Well,” he said. “We have five working homicides.”
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you give me a status report? Just to satisfy my own unreasonable sense of curiosity, you understand.”
It was hard to believe that a man who kept pictures of all his kids and his apparently permanently pregnant wife in his office could speak so sarcastically.
Spaceman held up a fist. “The liquor store clerk was shotgunned by a couple of underage punks because he wouldn’t sell them a bottle of two-dollar whiskey. We are attempting to locate said punks from a description given by a very satisfied and very drunk customer of the store, who happened to be sitting on the curb when the shooting came down. According to him, both boys were black—but not real black—of average height and weight, with moderate Afros. Blue and I are scouring the city for two young males who fit that description.” He raised one finger from the fist.
McGannon snorted. “I’ll light a candle for you.”
“Thanks very much. To continue: The doper in the alley set himself on fire, in our expert opinion.” Finger two came up. “The woman on Wilshire was axed by somebody she picked up in a bar. Unfortunately, since her livelihood was, in fact, picking men up in bars, we have a wide field of suspects.”
“A hooker,” McGannon said distastefully. He did not approve of prostitutes; in fact, he frowned on anything that served to erode the almighty Catholic family structure.
“But still a victim,” Spaceman reminded him, wondering how a man with such a fastidious sense of morality had survived as a cop. Two fingers were still lowered. “We don’t have much on the mugger who knifed the French sightseer.”
“I’d like to see you wrap that one up.”
“Yes, I know, so would the Chamber of Commerce, I’m sure. Bad for the tourist business.” The thumb came up slowly. “We have absolutely nowhere to go on that nun killing.”
McGannon didn’t even want to talk about that case. Spaceman didn’t know if he was more bothered by the fact of the old nun’s bloody death or by the evidence that she had been repeatedly raped in the process.
He closed his hand into a fist again. “That’s our caseload.”
McGannon swiveled in his chair. After several moments, he made a gesture both disgusted and dismissive. “Dump the doper case,” he said. “Put the hooker and the liquor store clerk on the back burner.”
“Sure thing; they’ll never know the difference.”
“Concentrate on the nun and the French guy.” McGannon gave him a deathmask smile. “Until something new comes in. Then you can concentrate on that.”
“Thank you.” Spaceman, figuring that the meeting was over, pushed himself up from the chair and started for the door.
“It’s been about six months now, right?” McGannon said suddenly. “How’s this Maguire working out?”
Spaceman paused, wondering where the question was coming from. What did it really signify? Office politics were a quagmire he tried to avoid. “He’s okay,” was all he said and that was said carefully.
“Maybe he belongs back on the public relations lunch circuit.” It was almost a question the way McGannon said it.
Spaceman opened the door. “Why make waves?” he said. “Maguire is okay. We get along. We break the cases, usually. When they can be broken.”
McGannon nodded. “If you say so.”
Spaceman stepped out of the office, carefully closing the door. It oc
curred to him that he’d just blown the chance to rid himself of Maguire and be a free agent again. The thought bemused him a little.
Then he realized: What the hell? He was used to the guy. Better the devil you know, his father always said. Maguire was okay.
Blue was back at his desk, just hanging up the phone, as Spaceman returned. “Don’t bother sitting down,” Blue said shortly. “We’re rolling.”
Spaceman didn’t even take the time to ask what was going on. It didn’t matter. He just reached into the drawer for his gun and shoved it into the holster. As they headed out the door, Spaceman thought about McGannon’s smile and the prediction of a new case.
The son of a bitch had put an Irish curse on him.
By the time they arrived, the Little Saigon Café seemed to be filled with blue uniforms. By actual count, there weren’t that many officers inside, but the place was small, and anyway, it didn’t take too many hulking cops to make a crowd. Spaceman cringed, thinking about what all those hands and feet might be doing to any evidence at the scene.
The group quieted when he and Blue entered. “What the devil is this?” Spaceman said in a loud voice. “A frigging union meeting? Get the hell out of here, everybody except the ones who made the call.”
There was a general move toward the door, along with some muttered comments about hotshot homicide dicks. Two cops stayed behind, apparently the ones who had found the body.
The body in question was sprawled on the floor in back of the bar. He was—or had been anyway—a small man, Oriental, wearing dark slacks and a white apron. Whatever he had been, he was now nothing more than an object of mild curiosity.
As they took all that in, one of the zone-car cops stepped forward. She was bright-faced and eager, flipping open her notebook with crisp efficiency. “His name was Hua,” she said crisply. This here was a broad with her sights set on a gold shield, no doubt about it. “He was the owner of this place. Death, by my guess, occurred sometime late yesterday.”
“Is that your guess?” Spaceman said dryly. “Terrific. You won’t mind if we check that with the medical examiner, will you?”
“No, sir.” She glanced at the notebook again. “Cause of death apparently was a single gunshot to the back of the head. Execution style.” She said the last two words with relish.
Spaceman glanced at her partner, an old-timer, whose name he couldn’t remember. “You concur with all that?”
The grey-haired man shrugged. “Why not?”
She looked as if there might be more she wanted to say, but Spaceman turned away before she got the chance. As he knelt beside the body for a closer look, Blue checked out the bar. He picked up a menu and began to read. “Damn,” he said to no one in particular. “Seeing this makes me hungry for some of the food I had in Nam. Hell, he even has heo ram sot ca cha gio.”
Spaceman straightened. “I never got into that stuff much.”
“I expect not,” Blue said wryly. “No catsup. What’s this look like? Robbery?”
“If so, the perp screwed up. The stiff has a nice wad of bills in his pocket.”
“Maybe something scared him off.”
Spaceman shrugged. “Maybe. But if somebody came along and saw what was happening, why didn’t we find out before now?”
Blue had no answer for that. He tossed the menu onto the bar, ignoring the glare of a labman who was trying to get some prints, and leaned forward to peer at the empty beer bottle sitting there. “Christ, if Hua was serving somebody this stuff, no wonder he got killed. I’d call that justifiable homicide.”
Before Spaceman could respond, the door opened again and Sharon Engels came in. “Nice of the medical examiner’s office to show up at our party,” he said.
Sharon saw them and smiled faintly.
Blue nodded at her.
Spaceman watched the cool exchange curiously. “Trouble in paradise?” he asked under his breath.
All he got was a bland gaze from his partner, a look that gave away absolutely nothing. Spaceman grinned and then turned his attention back to the dead man.
7
Lars found the building he was looking for without any difficulty: Addison Gallery. A few tasteful prints were on display behind the shining front window. Lars was impressed. A classy building on the money end of Wilshire Boulevard. That bastard Conway was doing pretty good for himself.
He ran a hand through his hair to remove some of the tangles and buttoned the collar of his faded khaki shirt. Underdressed, for damned sure, but it couldn’t be helped. His schedule had been thrown slightly out of whack because he’d been forced to deal with the problem of the dumb broad, Wexler, sooner and more drastically than he’d intended. Now, not willing to risk staying in the motel and maybe facing questions about his missing roommate, he was living temporarily in the Ford. That made it hard to stay real tidy. At least, he’d shaved in the restroom of the gas station before coming here.
Luck seemed to be with him, because he had just the right change for the parking meter. The rental heap looked even worse than ever, surrounded by all the Mercedeses and Caddys cluttering the street.
According to the calligraphic sign on the door the gallery wouldn’t open for another hour, but he never believed what he read, and sure enough, the door opened.
Inside, everything was beige and ivory. Two of the walls were bare, awaiting an offering, but the others were dotted with photographs, all of which seemed to be of poor people someplace. He gave them a quick look, then ignored them.
It was much harder to ignore the ivory and beige woman who appeared as if by magic in front of him. Lars gazed at her in silent admiration. He was six feet tall, and she had a good two inches on him. The simple sand-colored suit she wore, with no blouse under the buttoned jacket, set off the whole length of her tanned body perfectly.
Lars wondered just what a man had to do in his life to get a chance at screwing a broad like this. It would no doubt be worth a couple extra years in purgatory for just one shot at her. Then it occurred to him that having a lot of money was probably the first prerequisite—this bitch wasn’t going to spread her legs for guy living in a rented Ford, for Chrissake—and that realization reminded him of his mission here.
The woman, meanwhile, seemed to be waiting patiently for him to collect his thoughts. She was probably used to having this effect on men. “I’m sorry,” she said finally, softly, “but the gallery isn’t open yet.”
“I know that, honey. I’m looking for Devlin Conway. He’s supposed to be having some kind of show here, right?”
“Mr. Conway’s photography exhibition opens in a few days”, she said. “But it happens that he is here now, talking with Mr. Addison about the arrangements.”
This was great. He’d hoped these people could tell him where to find Conway, and instead he’d found the man himself. Lars was only ordinarily superstitious, but he chose to view this break as a good omen. “I need to see Conway,” he said.
“This isn’t usual.…”
He dug his heels into the thick ivory carpet and waited.
She sighed. “Who shall I say is asking for him?”
Lars flashed a grin in her direction. “Just an old friend.”
Still looking doubtful, she nevertheless sat down at the desk and picked up the receiver of the ivory phone. “Mr. Addison? I’m very sorry to disturb you, sir, but there’s a … gentleman out here who insists on seeing Mr. Conway. An old friend who won’t give his name.”
Behind the polished smoothness of her voice, Lars could hear a slight tension. She didn’t quite know what she was dealing with here—an innocent, albeit slightly uncouth visitor, or a genuine Los Angeles nutcase. To put her at ease, he smiled and began a slow tour of the gallery, whistling softly.
She replaced the phone and busied herself, or pretended to, with some papers on the desk.
It was a few more minutes before a door at the back of the gallery opened. “Yes, what is it?” The voice sounded brusque and irritable, but it was unmistakable:
You could take the boy out of Australia’s sticks, but he was still an Aussie.
Lars turned around. “Mr.Conway, how the hell are you?”
Devlin stared for a moment, his mouth hanging open. “You bastard,” he said finally.
The broad looked from one to the other, still not quite sure what was going on.
“Smile when you call me that,” Lars said, grinning.
Devlin seemed to recover from the immediate shock and took control of the situation. Shortly, they were alone in Addison’s office. Addison himself, a tweedy man with thin lips and a nervous twitch, stayed out front with the broad.
When the door was closed, Devlin turned to look at him. “You bastard,” he said again. Then he stepped closer and they embraced tightly. Letting go, Devlin walked behind the desk to sit in the plush leather swivel chair. Lars sat across from him. “You might let a man hear from you,” Devlin said after they’d just looked at one another for a moment.
“I’ve been busy.”
“For three bloody years?”
Lars was genuinely surprised. “Jesus, has it been that long?”
“At least. Hell, I thought you were dead.”
“Me? No way, babe. You should know better than that.”
Devlin Conway hadn’t changed much in those three years. In fact, he still looked pretty much as he had many more years ago than that when they’d first met in Nam. He looked good, the dark hair almost untouched by grey and the lean face still mostly unlined.
“How’d you know where to find me?”
Lars shrugged. “I keep track. Besides, it was in the Times. About this show or whatever.”
“Whatever is right. My artistic pretensions.” He indicated a stack of photos. “We were just making the final decision about which ones to hang.”
Lars pulled the photographs closer and began to go through them curiously. Visions of another time and another place rose up to assault him. His baptism of fire. “Stinking little war,” he muttered.
“Aren’t they all? So what have you been doing since that night in San Diego?”
