Goldstein turned a page in his notebook, squinted, adjusted his glasses. “Now you’re gonna ask me about the spent twenty-five and forty-five calibre shells you found, aren’t you?”
“What about them?” said Willows.
“Like we figured, the guns were automatics, a Star and a Colt. But other than that, nothing.”
“No prints on the shell casings?”
“They were clean.”
“Not even a partial? Were they wiped clean?”
“I’d say so, yeah.”
Goldstein removed his glasses, peered worriedly at the lenses.
“Problem?” said Parker.
“Last time I wore these was in pre-med. They’re scratched all to hell, and I can’t pick up my new ones until tomorrow afternoon.” He put the glasses back on. “You found a witness, I heard.”
Willows cocked an eyebrow.
“The bag lady,” said Goldstein. “The woman living in the Cutlass.”
“She was deaf, Jerry, and half-blind. She saw no evil.”
“Not that she’d admit to.”
“You know something I don’t?”
“From what I heard, you could’ve pushed her a little harder, that’s all. Maybe dragged her down to detox, let her spend a couple of nights in the tank.” Goldstein smiled. “Put a hook on her mobile home. Squeeze her a little, see what comes out.”
“I’ve tried squeezing people like her,” said Willows. “What comes out are tears, Jerry.”
“Hey, it’s your case.”
“That’s right,” said Parker. She gave Goldstein a look: worm in apple.
“Just trying to help, that’s all. I mean, you don’t have a victim or a suspect. But you seem to think you can toss me a hank of hair and a piece of bone, stand back and wait for another miracle on Main Street. Well, let me tell you something, I’m a forensic scientist, not the goddamn Wizard of Oz.”
“Thanks for your help,” said Willows.
Goldstein slammed the door behind them. The glass panels shivered, but held.
“What was that all about?” said Parker.
“His wife’s pregnant,” said Willows. “She had an amnio. It looks like twins.”
“Really?”
“They were going to go to Europe this summer. Trip of a lifetime. They’ve been saving for years.”
“And now it’s off?”
Willows nodded.
“The poor guy,” said Parker.
Willows gave her a puzzled look.
“What? What is it?”
“I thought you’d be all over him for not anticipating the thrill of fatherhood.”
“What is he, about thirty-five?”
“Thirty-nine.”
“By the time the kids are old enough to travel, he’ll be in his mid-forties. Probably by then they won’t be able to afford the trip in the first place, but even if they do manage to go, it won’t be the romantic holiday they wanted. He’ll spend the whole trip listening to the twins tell him what a rotten time they’re having.”
“You sound as if you’ve given it a lot of thought.”
“When my parents took my sister and I to Europe,” said Parker, “I was so bored I thought I was going to die.”
Willows checked his watch. “Want some lunch?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“All the better. It won’t cost as much to feed you.”
They walked up Main to Keefer, turned right and went past one of the BC Tel booths that had been made to look like somebody’s idea of a miniature Chinese pagoda. “The Green Dragon all right?” said Willows.
“It’ll do.”
They strolled side by side down the sloping sidewalk, past clothing and jewelry stores, several restaurants. A row of barbecued ducks hung in the window of a butcher’s shop, their slick brown bodies kept at a temperature the city’s health inspectors periodically insisted was certain to result in food poisoning. So far, after more than a century of good eating, no one had complained.
Willows pushed the restaurant’s glass door open, held it for Parker. A waiter wearing baggy pants and a white shirt led them to a booth. Willows sat facing the door. The waiter dropped menus on the table and started to wander off. Willows called him back.
“Chicken Chop Suey, for two. Diet Cokes. A bowl of steamed rice.”
“You want chopsticks?”
“Please.”
“Tell me again,” said Parker. “What is it about this place that you like?”
“The ambiance.”
Parker glanced around. The walls were painted a dull, scabrous green. The linoleum was so badly worn she couldn’t even tell what color it was. Although it was late August, last year’s Christmas decorations still hung from the bile-yellow ceiling.
The waiter returned with the chopsticks and cans of Coke, a couple of red and white striped straws.
“Could I have a glass, please?” said Parker. She turned to Willows. “You want a glass, Jack?”
Willows grunted. Had there been two killers? Or had the .25 belonged to the man who’d been shot? If the gun had been fired in self-defense, maybe it was the guy with the .45 who’d been hit. Willows popped the tab on his Coke, sipped thoughtfully. Goldstein was right. He needed a body. Until he had a body, he had nothing.
13
“Tell me what happened, Randy.”
“I already told Frank. Didn’t he tell you?”
Gary said, “How’d you get those cuts on the back of your head?”
“Shaving.”
“What kind of razor you use?”
“I dunno. Those ones you use two or three times, throw ’em away.”
Gary nodded, waited for more.
“Bright orange,” said Randall. “In a four-pack, wrapped in plastic. You can get ’em anywhere ... the corner store ...” He searched his mind for the right word, found it at last. “Disposable.”
“You’re bleeding. Did you know you were bleeding, Randy?”
“Sometimes I cut myself. It happens. But it don’t bother me, I got a high pain threshold, half the time I don’t even know it happened.”
“What is it you got stuck on there, toilet paper?”
“Kleenex,” said Randall. He sounded hurt, as if Gary had insulted him.
“When’d you last do that to yourself?”
“Do what?”
“Shave.”
“This morning, about ten.”
“And you’re still leaking blood? What’s the problem, can’t stop picking at the scabs?”
Gary stared at Randall DesMoines for a moment, and then sighed and looked away, into the orange and red depths of the gas flames dancing in the fireplace. Was hell really like the inside of a great big furnace, all hot and scorchy? Maybe he should tell Frank to stick Randall’s bald head in there, burn a little sense into him.
“Frank?”
“Yeah, Gary?”
“Forget it.” Gary sipped at his Molson Lite. Beside him on the couch, Samantha was busy peeling an orange. Gary watched her split the rind and then use her thumbnail to bulldoze the white gunk that clung to the inside skin.
“Frank?”
“Yeah, Gary?”
“What’s that white gunk called, that she’s digging at with her fingernails?”
“Beats me,” said Frank.
Gary watched her segment the orange. Take a big bite. Juice, sticky and cold, squirted out of her mouth and across Gary’s arm.
“Hey, baby, I already had a shower.”
Samantha leaned over, took his arm and held it up to her mouth, licked him clean. Gary liked, really and truly liked, the feel of her tongue, febrile and wet, as it glided smoothly across his skin, flattening the coarse black hair on his wrist. He smirked at Frank but Frank was studying the ceiling.
Gary turned his attention to Randall, small-time drug dealer and part-time pimp, full-time halfwit. “You’re right, Randy. You told Frank and he told me. But now I want to hear it from your own sweet lips. Then, if I feel like it, I can t
ell Frank. And we’ll all have had a turn. See my point?”
“Sure thing, Mr Silk.” Randall cleared his throat, sipped at his gin and tonic.
Gary could see he was a little confused, needed a cue. “You got a call from the nightclerk at the hotel,” Gary said. “Then what happened?”
“I went over there and up to a room and met this guy who said he wanted three women. For research. Told me he was a writer, doing a thing on dope addicts. I asked him what he really had in mind. Said he had some smack he wanted to sell, there was a sample stashed down the hall in the ...”
“Wait a minute, hold it. Why the broads?”
“It’s hard to figure,” said Randall. “I think his idea was that most hookers are junkies, so it was a way of making a connection.”
“Fucking idiot. What happened next?”
“Told me he had a stash hidden down the hall, in the john. About half an ounce. I sent my woman after it, Moira. You ever met her?”
Gary shook his head, no. And he probably didn’t want to, come to think of it.
“While she was gone, the guy started getting antsy. After a couple minutes he decided to take a walk.”
“And you tried to stop him. So he shot you.”
“In the leg, Mr Silk. Twice.” Randall touched his bandaged knee.
“You’re a tough cookie, Randall.” Gary shook his head in apparent admiration. Frank had told him about the wounds. Randy’d caught the first bullet, a .22, in the fatty part of the thigh. Through and through, nice and clean. The second round had grazed his knee; he’d lost some skin but that was about it. Gary wasn’t too impressed. He’d never been shot himself, but he didn’t imagine it hurt all that much. Frank, on the other hand, had been hit on two separate occasions, the first time in the small of the back, second time in the chest. Both rounds had been big-bore stuff — a cop’s .38 wadcutter and the one in the chest a .357 Magnum fired by some clown Frank had never seen before or since, who’d taken down a poker game on the one night out of a thousand Frank had been a winner. Gary had noticed the wounds in the hot tub. Puckered white flesh, shiny and hard with scar tissue. The .38 had been the bad one, collapsed a lung. Frank hadn’t wanted to talk about it but Gary had drawn him out. Gary stared at Randall DesMoines, who’d spend the rest of his life bragging about what a hard-ass he was. Slimy little creep. Probably his idea of a good restaurant was some place where you could find lots of gum stuck under the table.
“After you got shot,” said Gary, “then what?”
“The guy went out the window, climbed down the fire escape. My boys went after him. I gave the room a quick toss and got the hell out of there.”
“You didn’t think it was a good idea to stick around, see if he might come back?”
“Like I told you, I’d been shot. Was bleeding all over the goddamn place.”
“Still are,” said Gary. He gave Frank a wink.
Randall took a hit from his gin and tonic and snuck a quick look at Gary’s girlfriend, the cute blonde with the tight sweater and loose mouth. Her name was Samantha but Gary called her Sam. Why would Gary change her name so it made her sound like a boy? Weird. “Even a small-bore handgun makes a hell of a racket, Mr Silk. I figured somebody must’ve called the cops.”
“Okay, you left the hotel. Then what?”
“I went back to my place.”
“Where’s that, Randall?”
“China Creek. I got an apartment there, a condo. Two bedroom and den, top floor. Nobody walking around on my head. Quiet.”
“Cable TV, too, I bet.”
Randall nodded, hesitant.
Frank chuckled softly.
“So you went home and watched an old Bogart movie, is that it?”
“No, I watched Moira do the dope.”
“Shoot up the free sample from the Vance.”
“Yeah, right.”
“You weren’t worried it might turn out to be baking powder, icing sugar or whatever. Lye, maybe?”
“Moira gave it a taste. Said it tasted good.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet it did.” Sam had broken a wedge of orange in half and was rubbing it across Gary’s arm, the back of his hand, his fingers. Her tongue flicked at him, slurp slurp. He moved away from her. His gold chains clinked softly. He said, “Gimme ten minutes, go take a shower.”
“Okay,” said Samantha.
Gary watched her walk out of the room and then turned back to the idiot. “So Moira shot up, yes?”
“Right,” said Randall. “She was dead inside of, like maybe five minutes. I found her in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet. It’s a narrow space in there, between the toilet and the tub. She’s leaning against the wall, eyes wide open, staring up at the goddamn light fixture.”
“Died of an overdose, you’re telling me?”
“A hot shot. The junk hadn’t been stepped on, was pure as Ivory Snow.” Randall glanced at Gary. “She had a big smile on her face, I’m pretty sure she died happy.”
“That must be a relief.”
“We were together a long time, me’n Moira. I’m gonna miss her.”
“The guy who popped you, what happened to him?”
“We lost him down by the waterfront.”
“He had a car?”
“No, he was on foot.”
“But your guys had a car, didn’t they?” Gary smiled. “Big shot like you, Randall, I hope you didn’t tell them to take the fucking bus.”
“There was four of them, Mr Silk. Three on foot and one in my Lincoln. The guy was jumping fences, running in and out of buildings. It’s warehouses and all that shit down there. Dark.”
“Tell me at least that you almost had him,” said Gary. “Tell me it was close.”
“It was really close,” said Randall. He drained his gin and tonic and stared at the empty glass. Gary didn’t say anything. Frank looked solemn, distracted. Randall tilted his glass and chewed on a piece of ice.
“Tell you the truth Randall, I’m a little pissed off.”
“I’m sorry, Mr Silk. I did the best I could.”
“Being sorry doesn’t make it better. Right, Frank?”
“Absolutely.”
“On the street, that dope is worth eighty million dollars,” said Gary. He went over to the bar and grabbed a can of Lite out of the fridge, poured the beer into a clean glass, sipped, watched the bubbles. “Frank, go get a flashlight.”
Frank pushed away from the mantel and went out of the room. He left the door open behind him. Randall could hear his footsteps, heavy and measured, fading down the hall. He guessed Frank’s height at about six foot six, his weight at maybe three hundred pounds. Randall had heard rumours that Frank had done at least five people for Gary, including a twelve-year-old kid who’d happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d seen a Crimestoppers thing about the kid on TV, reenactment of the crime. Kid had been doing his paper route. It was something like six o’clock in the morning, just after Christmas and still pretty dark at that time of year. The way Randall heard it, the guy Frank had done was a musician, played tenor sax. Out all night and Frank had waited up for him, shot him dead while he was singing in the shower.
Then Frank had come out of the apartment and the kid was standing there with a canvas bag of newspapers under his arm. Frank had strangled him with the bag’s shoulderstrap. The reward had hit thirty grand, but Frank worked for Gary, and what was the point of getting rich if you were too dead to spend it?
Randall sucked on his ice cube, stared at the rug and wondered why Gary Silk wanted a flashlight. He glanced up and caught Gary staring at him, went back to studying the carpet.
“Tell me about Moira,” said Gary.
“Like what?”
“How’d you meet her?”
“I dunno.” Randall rubbed his chin, inspected his nails. “At a club.”
“Where was she, at the bar?”
Randall frowned, trying to remember. He shook his head. “No, not at the bar. It was at Lucy’s, you know wher
e that is?”
“Over on Haro, that the place?”
Randall nodded. “She was sitting at a table with a guy I knew. I went over and introduced myself. Turned out we had mutual friends. One thing led to another — you know how it is.”
“She an addict at the time?”
“Light,” said Randall. “Couple spoons a day.”
“So what happened, you took her back to your place, jumped her bones ...”
Randall grinned despite himself, remembering the moves he’d made.
“At the time, was she hooking?”
“Had a job at a radio station. Receptionist. Sat at the front desk and typed and answered the phone, shit like that.”
“Rode the jockeys,” said Gary. “When’d you start living together?”
“That first night she came over, she never left. I mean, she never went back to her apartment. It was near the end of the month and the rent was due, but I told her to forget it. She left all her clothes, the food that was in the fridge, her jewelry. I gave her money so she could buy a bunch of new stuff, replace what she’d lost. She quit her job.”
“You bought her some flashy new clothes, put her out on the street?”
“It was the best thing for her, believe me. She was bored, sitting around the apartment. Also it was costing me a bundle, all the goddamn dope she was sticking into her body.” It was hot in the den, but Randall held out his hands to the fire. “Besides, it was the thing she did best. She was a natural, why not take advantage?”
“You keep sleeping with her?” said Gary.
“Well, yeah. Sure.”
“Weren’t you afraid of ... disease?”
“She was careful. Took precautions, know what I mean? All the time I was with her, the worst thing she caught was a cold.”
“And you trusted her?”
“Trusted her?”
“In the sack.”
Randall frowned.
“When you were doing it,” said Gary, “did you believe her when she seemed to be enjoying herself. Or did you worry it might be an act, that she was faking it like she did on the street?”
“She never had to fake anything,” said Randall. He thought about her for a moment, tried to remember exactly what she looked like. Orange hair streaked through with green, or was it blue? The pinhead diamond she liked to wear in her nose. Surprising how tough it was, to bring her back. “I already told you, she was a natural. Made that Xavier Hollander dame look like Mother Teresa.”
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