by Teri White
Spaceman put the dead boy in Lompoc out of his mind.
Chapter 23
Blue was restless.
He paced the living room for a while after Kowalski left, decided to hell with it finally, and left the house. Maybe he could do something about finding the kid on his own. He’d seen the picture of Robbie and it couldn’t hurt to hit some of the places in Hollywood where runaways congregated. Hell, he could do some digging about the dead boys, too.
It would look very nice on his record if he somehow managed to catch the killers.
At the end of a couple hours, though, all he had managed to catch was a headache. He was allergic to marijuana, and just inhaling the smoke in some of the places he visited got his allergy raging. He found a drugstore on Sunset and went in to buy some antihistamines.
After swallowing a couple of capsules on the spot, he found a phone and called Sharon Engels.
She answered the call immediately, and said, in response to his question, that she wasn’t doing much of anything.
He suggested going out for a drink.
She said it was too hot.
He suggested that maybe he could just come to her place.
She said that tomorrow was going to be a very busy day, so it would have to be an early evening.
He said okay.
She said okay.
Before leaving the drugstore, he bought a quart of Rocky Road ice cream.
She answered the door wearing shorts and a thin tee shirt. No bra. Rocky Road, as it happened, was her favorite flavor.
They sat on the living room rug, eating ice cream and watching a Rockford Files rerun. The first time he kissed her, she tasted like cold chocolate. It was a good taste, so he kissed her again.
Sharon Engels apparently didn’t believe in playing games. She pushed herself up from the floor and carried both dishes into the kitchen, where she rinsed them carefully. Then she turned and stared at him thoughtfully. “I don’t usually go to bed with cops,” she said.
“Why not?”
“They usually don’t appeal. All bravado and bluster.”
“Does that apply to me?”
“I don’t think so.” She grinned suddenly. “Besides, rules were made to be broken. Come on.” She headed down the hall, pausing only long enough to put a record on the stereo.
Joan Baez began, sounding husky and filled with secrets.
The bedroom was cluttered with books, papers, mail. There was a refreshing lack of frills. Sharon smiled faintly as she slipped off the sandals and started to undress. “Well? I said tomorrow was an early day.”
“Right, you said that.” He tried not to hurry as he took off his clothes and joined her in the large bed.
Joan was singing about passionate strangers.
They spent some time just getting to know one another. Her body was lean and healthy, the body of a person who enjoyed exercise. She definitely enjoyed sex.
It was a very nice couple of hours. Baez kept singing the same songs over and over until Blue felt as if the words were permanently seared into his soul. There was no big passion sweeping them away. Instead, what they had was a lot of fun. He decided that they could come to like each other very much, even if they never again went to bed.
Although that would be nice, too.
Finally she sat up against the headboard. “You’re a good lay,” she announced.
He was a little startled, but then he smiled. “Thank you. I might say the same about you.”
“We’ll do it again sometime.” She reached for his jeans and threw them at him. “But for right now, get the hell out of here. I have a seven o’clock date with some stiffs.”
As he drove home, the sound of Joan Baez was still echoing in his head. He forgot the case and everything else, including his headache.
Chapter 24
Jody fell asleep in front of the television, but Tom was too keyed up to relax. He sat in a chair all night, staring out the window, working on two packs of cigarettes and a bottle of Old Grandad. He was thinking about Kowalski. The desire for revenge against the cop was a cold flame in his gut, but it was a fire without direction, like the ones burning in the hills. Kowalski had to pay, that much Tom knew, but the coin in which that payment should be made wasn’t clear yet.
Sometime near dawn he finally dozed off.
When he woke a couple of hours later, his mind felt muddled and more weary than it had before the sleep. A shower helped some, and so did brushing his teeth to rid himself of the taste of too many cigarettes and too much booze.
They went back to the Original Pantry Cafe for breakfast, and again he ate a huge meal. Jody picked listlessly at a couple of eggs, maintaining a strained silence.
He seemed to have a problem and Tom couldn’t figure out what it was. That worried him. Used to be, he could read Jody loud and clear. Now there seemed to be secret places where he wasn’t welcome. It wasn’t right.
When they got back to the motel, Tom fished the phone book out and looked up Kowalski’s name. It was just that simple. He rubbed the listing with the tip of one finger.
The flame inside flared a little.
At last, he became aware that Jody was pacing the room like a restless cat. Tom watched him for a moment, then threw a crumpled cigarette pack at him. “What’s up?”
“Nothing.” But the single word didn’t sound very convincing.
“Something’s wrong. Why don’t you just tell me?”
“I said, nothing’s wrong,” Jody snapped. He rubbed his forehead, as if it hurt. “I need a Coke. Want one?”
Tom shook his head.
“Okay.” Jody picked up a handful of change from the dresser and left the room.
Tom frowned. Jody was lying to him; something was wrong. He got up and followed his brother from the room. He stood on the balcony outside and leaned far enough over the iron railing to see the soda machine below. Jody wasn’t there. However, Tom could also see a phone booth and inside the booth, Jody.
Tom felt a tightening in his gut.
He walked lightly in his stockinged feet down the steps and across the small brick courtyard. Jody didn’t even know he was there, until Tom reached out with one hand and depressed the lever to break the phone connection.
Jody spun around to face him. He compressed his lips tightly, then slowly replaced the receiver. “That was a stupid thing to do,” he said.
“Who the hell were you talking to?”
Instead of answering, Jody pushed by him and walked to the soda machine. He dropped several coins in and took out a can of Coke. Still without speaking, he turned and went back upstairs.
Tom trailed behind.
Jody sat on his bed and opened the soda. Tom remained standing, looking down at him. “I asked you a question, Jody. Who were you talking to?”
“Don’t play Big Daddy with me.” Jody’s voice held a coldness that Tom had never heard there before. “I’m not fucking ten years old.”
“Who were you talking to? Please, Jody?” This time he spoke pleadingly.
“A friend of mine.” Jody spit the words out.
“What friend?”
“Just a goddamned friend.” He bent his head back and stared up at Tom. “For Chrissake, Tommy, do you think I don’t know anybody? After ten years? I’m not a frigging monk. I wasn’t locked up. I had a job and a home and some friends. Not many, but a few.”
Tom looked at him, trying to figure out who this angry man was. What had happened to his brother? “Okay,” he said finally. “I don’t give a damn. But did you tell this good friend where you’re at?”
“No. I didn’t tell him anything, because the line was busy.”
“Does he know about me?”
Jody shook his head. “I just told him I had some business.” He took a quick gulp of Coke. “I had to tell him something, after four years. I couldn’t just let him come home and find me gone. But he doesn’t know anything about what’s going on.”
“Why did you call him?”
Tom wanted this conversation to end; he didn’t like the ache in his chest. “Okay,” he said. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
Jody finished the soda and crushed the can.
Tom crawled under the bed and found his shoes. “We need to get busy.”
“You understand about the phone call?” Jody pressed.
“Yeah, sure, why not?”
Jody didn’t seem satisfied, but he didn’t say anymore.
The apartment building looked like a dump to Tom. He had thought that a fascist pig like Kowalski would have a better place to live.
They sat parked on the street in front of the building for a long time, watching the comings and goings on the block. “Come on,” Tom said finally, opening the car door. “Let’s go take a closer look.”
“What if he’s there?”
“Are you kidding? At this time of the day? No way. The supercop is out chasing the bad guys. He likes doing that better than anything else he does.”
“Maybe it’s his day off.”
“Shit, he probably never takes a day off. He’s only alive when he’s working. Kowalski is like that. Believe me, I know.”
Tom knew.
He knew because once upon a time he and Kowalski spent forty-eight hours together in an interrogation room. They got real close. Even more than those hours, though, Tom could remember the look on the cop’s face at the very moment they met.
Tom was hiding under the porch, listening to the roar of a sudden thunderstorm above. He was scared and crying. A car stopped nearby and he could hear the voices of men as they searched for him. They even had a dog.
But it was Kowalski who found him, who hit him with the glare of a powerful flashlight. Tom blinked, squinted through the brightness, and saw that face. The look was clear: the hunter victorious. It was a look he never forgot.
“Somebody else might be there. His wife or something.” Jody’s voice brought him back to the present.
“Then we won’t go in,” he said, exasperated. Jody should be showing a little more enthusiasm, he thought.
They stopped in the lobby to check the row of mailboxes. Jody spotted the right one; Kowalski lived in apartment 511. The hallway was empty as they climbed the stairs and found the right door.
Tom knocked a couple of times, but as he had expected, there wasn’t any answer. He smirked triumphantly at Jody.
A cop, he thought and told Jody, should have an efficient lock on his door. The one Kowalski had was hardly better than no lock at all. Within two minutes, they were inside.
Some unopened mail had been dropped on a small table just inside the door. Tom picked it up and looked through it quickly. It was boring, just bills and ads. No wonder Kowalski hadn’t bothered to open it. He dropped it back onto the table.
The living room was small, made even smaller by the clutter of old newspapers and cast-off clothes. Tom shook his head. Years of institutional living had given him an almost compulsive sense of neatness. This place was a real mess. Maybe crime didn’t pay, but neither, it seemed, did being a cop.
Jody picked up the framed photo of a kid and a woman who needed to lose some weight. “His family?”
“Must be.” Tom looked at the back of the picture and read the date penciled there. “Shit, this was taken the same year I got sent away.”
Jody wiped the frame with the edge of his shirt and replaced it on the shelf. He sat on the couch as Tom made a tour of the rest of the place. The refrigerator was almost empty. The bathroom was reasonably neat, but the small bedroom was another clutter of clothes, papers, and several used plates and glasses.
What a slob.
If Tom had still felt any fear of Kowalski, this apartment had ended it. Somebody who lived like this couldn’t be any kind of a threat to a man with a mind like his.
He went back into the living room and joined his brother on the couch. He lit a cigarette.
Jody sighed. “So?” he said. “Are we just going to sit here and kill him when he comes in?” The voice held only mild curiosity.
“You in some kind of frigging hurry?” Tom asked. “What’s the matter, can’t wait to get back to your friend? Is that it?”
Jody lowered his head. “It’s not like that.”
“You can cut out anytime, you know? I can get along without your help.”
“Don’t say that, Tommy. Jesus Christ, I’m doing my best. I’m trying to be what you want. I’m trying to be a good brother.”
“Yeah, well.”
There was a brief silence.
Jody sighed again and shifted position. “I only wanted to know what was going to happen next. That’s all. I was just wondering when we’d be able to start living a normal life again.”
Tom didn’t even know what a normal life was anymore. Didn’t Jody understand that? Could the two of them really go off someplace and be happy like other people? Even after all that had happened?
Even after the boys?
But all that was too scary to think about right now. He shook his head. “No, we’re not gonna kill him yet. That would be too easy. He has to suffer first. Just like he made us suffer.”
“Maybe. I guess so. But what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know yet. We’ll work on it. But for now, let’s get out of here before the bastard turns up.” They started for the door.
Tom saw a fat Magic Marker lying on the table next to the mail. He smiled as an idea struck him and picked it up.
Jody, standing by the door, watched. “What’re you doing?”
“Leaving a message for my friend, the pig. Just for old time’s sake.” He leaned close to the wall and printed the words in big purple letters.
When he was finished, he recapped the marker carefully and put it into his shirt pocket.
They went back to the car and sat there, waiting. Jody ran out once to the store on the corner for some beers and hero sandwiches.
It was hot.
Finally, late in the afternoon, a bright red and yellow Jeep squealed to a stop and a man jumped out.
It had been a long time, but Tom recognized Kowalski immediately. He was a little heavier, with a moustache that hadn’t been there before and a bit less hair on top, but it was him, all right.
Tom didn’t know what he had expected to feel at that moment, but it couldn’t have been the deep cold that was filling him now. There was the man who had ruined his life, dragged him away from home and Jody, sent him to ten years of hell. Tom thought he should have wanted to rage. But all he could do was watch as Kowalski disappeared into the building.
“You okay?” Jody asked.
Tom realized that he was gripping the beer can with both hands, crushing it.
“Tommy?”
He shook his head to clear it. “I’m okay,” he said. “I’m okay. But let’s get out of here. Back to the motel.”
Jody started the car.
“We have to hurt him,” Tom said suddenly. “I don’t even care so much about killing him. Just so long as we can make him hurt. Hurt bad.”
He threw the squashed beer can out the window.
Chapter 25
It was a nice day for a funeral.
There is a myth in some circles that a murderer will sometimes show up at the burial of his victim. Because of that belief, cops will often attend such services. In Spaceman’s experience, no one had ever once caught a killer that way. Myths, though, die hard.
Not many people turned out to see Peter Lowe laid to rest. A young black minister said the words and almost sounded as if he meant some of them. Listening were the representative of the cemetery, a reporter from the Times (young, brash, and new to the police beat, who was there hoping that the cops would put the drop on the killer right at the graveside, and she’d have an exclusive), Spaceman, and Blue.
That, at least, was the main group. Three others hung on the periphery. One was an old woman dressed all in black. Spaceman knew her. Her hobby was attending funera
ls and she cried very nicely.
Second was a young boy wearing dark shades that hid most of his face.
Finally, and hovering so far back that he might have been waiting for another service, was a fat man.
The old lady didn’t interest Spaceman and Blue. The boy did. Most of all, the fat man caught their attention. Even myths had to have some truth to them, Spaceman thought.
The coffin and flowers must have cost a bundle; it certainly wasn’t your hum-drum potter’s field burial. Perhaps impressed by the cost of the thing, the minister put all he had into the service. He read a poem about children dying that Spaceman had never heard before.
As the brief service ended, Spaceman moved toward the boy, and Blue trailed the fat man, hoping to get his license number.
The boy was nervous. Or maybe he just didn’t like funerals much. Spaceman offered him a cigarette, which he accepted with alacrity and smoked quickly; his movements seemed jerky, desperate. He was hurting bad.
“You knew Pete, did you?” Spaceman asked.
The boy nodded.
“Tell me about it. Starting with your name.”
“Martin.” That was all, not even any way of telling whether it was his first name or his last. Maybe it was neither. But Spaceman didn’t press the subject; he knew that it probably didn’t matter. “I just knew him, that’s all. You know people, don’t you?” Even his smartass tone had a listless quality to it.
“Yeah, I know people. Mostly I know other cops. You two in the same line of work, were you?”
Martin seemed to be looking at him, but there was no way of knowing for sure behind the glasses. “Hell, no. That’s not my bag.”
Spaceman wished he could see the boy’s eyes, but it wasn’t that important. Martin was trying to play it cool, but he was strung out. The kid would probably be buried himself within three months. “You have any idea who might have wanted Pete on ice?”
“Nope, nope.” He jiggled nervously. “Hey, you know, man, I just felt bad about him buying it like that. I seen in the paper that he was getting stuck in the ground today, and I thought that maybe somebody who knew him should be here.” The speech wore him out; he took a deep breath. “Pete was okay. He was okay, that’s all.”
