Nightcrawlers: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Mystery)

by Bill Pronzini

  New thought: Don’t let him see you at this window.

  Tamara pulled the frying pan down, backed off quick. Scrapes and gouges on the wall . . . if he came in here, he’d know right away what she’d been up to. Nothing she could do about it, except try to keep him out of here.

  She ran into the kitchen, set the frying pan on the drain-board, splashed cold water on her sweaty face. There were a couple of raw scrapes on her fingers, too, she saw then. Make up an excuse if he noticed them. She washed away the dribbles of blood, used the dish towel to dry off.

  Lemoyne was out front by then. Through the kitchen window she saw him come into view, still carrying Lauren in that careless slung-up way. Maybe this time he’d just unlock the door and walk right in and she could cave in his skull with the frying pan. But she knew he wouldn’t, and he didn’t.

  She heard his key rattle in the lock. Then, “Come on out here, Dark Chocolate. Bring some mineral water with you. Two bottles.”

  She put the pan away in the drawer. He’d bought half a dozen plastic bottles of Crystal Geyser at the store, sucked on one all through lunch. She took two more from the fridge, opened the door, and stepped out onto the tiny porch.

  He’d set Lauren down on the bottom step, was standing off a few paces with a cancer stick hanging out of his mouth. The little girl sat slumped, her face sheened with sweat, the residue of what looked like vomit around her mouth. She perked up a little when she saw Tamara, scooted over, and clutched at her pant leg.

  “Kid’s sick,” Lemoyne said. But not as if he was concerned about it. Flat voice, no feeling in it at all. “She puked out there in the woods.”

  “I told you, man.”

  “Put the water on the step there. Then take her inside, put her to bed.”

  “She needs a doctor.”

  “No doctor. The hell with that.”

  “You want her to get worse, maybe catch pneumonia?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Don’t care? Your own daughter?”

  “She’s not Angie,” he said in that same flat voice.

  “What?”

  “She’s not my little girl. I don’t know who she is.”

  Tamara set the bottles down, scooped Lauren into her arms. Inside the trailer, as Lemoyne locked the door again, she took a closer look at the girl. No visible marks on her, no sign that her clothes had been messed with.

  “What’d you do out there in the woods, honey?”

  “Nothing. He wanted to play a game.”

  “What kind of game?”

  “Angie’s game. Naming things. Trees and things.”

  “He didn’t touch you or anything?”

  “Uh-uh. But he didn’t like it when I threw up. He yelled at me. I couldn’t help it, Tamara. I was dizzy, I couldn’t help it.”

  “I know you couldn’t.”

  “He yelled at me another time too, ‘cause I couldn’t play Angie’s game. I’m not Angie, I don’t how to play her game.”

  Tamara carried her into the smaller bedroom, put her down on the bed, and covered her. Cool enough in there now with the window open, air coming in.

  “I feel awful,” Lauren said. “Awful hot.”

  “Try to sleep, okay? You’ll feel better after you wake up.”

  “Can I go home then? I miss Mama and Daddy.”

  “I know, baby, I know.”

  All afternoon, Lemoyne left them alone. He spent a few minutes in the barn, the rest of the time on his ass under a shade tree on the creek bank, drinking bottled water and smoking and staring off into space. The tree was too close to the trailer, fifty yards or so, for Tamara to mount another attack on the window screen. She couldn’t use the frying pan without making some noise, and in the country quiet noise carried; the one time she tried, it brought him over quick. But all he did was stand out front for a few seconds and yell at her to knock off whatever the hell she was doing. Didn’t seem to be worried, or even to care much.

  That was bad. Another bad was him sitting over there like that, brooding. Third and worst was him not wanting anything more to do with Lauren, saying, She’s not Angie, I don’t know who she is, in that flat voice. Long as he’d believed she was his daughter, she’d been safe enough—they both had. But she couldn’t be what she wasn’t, and she’d gotten sick, and now his fantasy was busted and he’d lost interest, didn’t care about her anymore.

  A liability, that was all she was now. Same as Tamara Corbin, the Dark Chocolate Dick, had been all along. Two liabilities on his hands, and only one thing he could do about them.

  Question was, how long would it take for him to juice himself up to it?

  Bigger question than that, girl: Is there any damn thing you can do to stop him?

  20

  The 1100 block of Willard Street had more life to it at this hour, just past dusk. Lights in most of the houses, a guy watering his front lawn, a Hispanic couple walking a dog, a kid doing tricks on a skateboard. Number 1122, the house Tamara had been staking out, still appeared deserted—windows all dark, driveway empty. I parked in front, checked again to make sure my cell phone was on and functioning, then went up and thumbed the doorbell anyway. No answer.

  When I came back to the sidewalk, the Hispanic couple was standing nearby, watching their pooch take a leak on a curbside tree with all the rapt attention of a pair of scientists studying a laboratory phenomenon. I tried them first, but their English wasn’t good and my Spanish even worse and I had trouble getting across what I was after. The kid on the skateboard didn’t want any part of me or any adult; all I got out of him was a sneer and some slang phrases that were even less comprehensible than the Hispanic couple’s English. The guy watering his lawn was on the same side of the street, a couple of houses removed from 1122. I went on down there to see if he had anything to tell me.

  A little, it turned out. There were nightlights along the front walk and two more on a pair of gateposts, so when he came over I got a good look at him. In his upper seventies, lean, energetic, with a full head of wavy hair that didn’t seem to have much gray in it. And the friendly, gregarious type; before I was able to start unloading my questions, I knew that we shared a first name and that his last name was Powers, he was a retired production manager for Sikorsky Aircraft in Connecticut, and that he’d moved out here some years ago to be near his married daughter.

  “Oh, sure,” he said when I managed to steer the conversation to Tamara, “I noticed her. Parked across the street the past couple of nights. ‘Ninety-six Toyota Camry, probably red. Cars are a hobby of mine.”

  “Saw her as well as the car, is that right?”

  “Yep. I like to take walks around the neighborhood after supper. Helps me digest. She was crossing the street when I came out, on the way to her car. Passed under the streetlight up there, so I got a pretty good look at her. Nice-looking young black woman.”

  “When was this?”

  “Last night, around eight or so.”

  “And she was alone at the time?”

  “All alone. Nobody else around.”

  “How did she seem to you? Nervous, upset, anything like that?”

  “Nope,” Powers said. “Just walking across the street to her car.”

  “Coming from where?”

  “Didn’t see. Someplace on this side.”

  “What did you think? I mean, a young black woman, a stranger, sitting in a parked car two nights in a row.”

  “Figured she was waiting for somebody. Which is just what she was doing, so you told me.”

  “Didn’t make you suspicious?”

  “Nope. Why should it?”

  “Some people might’ve been.”

  “On account of her being black? Not me. I notice things, but I mind my own business unless there’s a good reason to mind somebody else’s. And I don’t judge a person by what color he is or what he looks like. Ethnic diversity’s one of the reasons I like living here—three black families on this block, Hispanic couple, Asian family in the next.�
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  “Too bad more folks don’t feel that way.”

  He showed his teeth again—good teeth to go with the engaging grin. “Won’t get any argument from me on that score.”

  “Three black families on this block, you said. Any of them mixed race?”

  “Don’t think so, no.”

  “Could any of the men be half Caucasian?”

  “Well . . . a couple are light-skinned, but a lot of African-Americans are. Why?”

  “Just checking possibilities,” I said. “Did you see the young woman again after eight o’clock?”

  Powers shook his head. “But her car was still there when I went to bed.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Oh, around ten-thirty. Can’t stay up as late as I used to.”

  “And she was in it at that time?”

  “Can’t swear that she was, no. Pretty dark at night where she was parked.”

  “Which was where?”

  “Under that bay tree over there, just up the block.”

  “The car was gone this morning?”

  “Yep. No sign of it then or since.”

  Ten-thirty was late for Tamara to be maintaining a surveillance. As much of a Type A as she was, she’d have had trouble sitting still that long. Still, if there’d been some reason for her to continue the stakeout, she’d have done it. One thing she’d never been was a quitter.

  I said, “The house she was watching is number eleven twenty-two. The white frame with hedges and Cyclone fence. Supposed to have been vacant the past three months.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Meaning it hasn’t been?”

  “Well, I’ve seen lights inside,” Powers said. “And a man there a couple of times recently, coming and going.”

  “Caucasian about forty, heavyset, mustache, longish brown hair?”

  “Sounds like him, except for the mustache. Clean-shaven.”

  “Stranger to you?”

  “First time I saw him he was. Unfriendly cuss—I said hello to him once and he looked right through me.”

  “What name is he using?”

  “Never heard it. Keeps to himself, doesn’t talk to anybody in the neighborhood. What’re you after him for?”

  “Nonpayment of child support in Oregon.”

  “Uh-huh,” Powers said. “One of those.”

  “You see any sign of him last night?”

  “Nope.”

  “Night before last?”

  “Nope. Not in three or four days.”

  “What kind of car does he have?”

  “Blue Plymouth Fury, last year’s model. I don’t know the license plate number, but you won’t need it.”

  “. . . I won’t?”

  “Your timing’s perfect,” Powers said. “That’s him and the Fury just pulling into the driveway over there.”

  I turned in time to see the car roll to a stop, the headlights frozen on the garage door as it started to swing up. I made a parting gesture to Powers, headed over there at a half trot. The driver—suit and tie, carrying a briefcase—was just coming out of the garage when I reached the driveway. He pulled up sharp when he saw me. The interior of the garage was lit from a bulb on the automatic opener; he had the remote in his hand and he pressed it and the door began to whir shut. But not before I had a clear look past him at the Fury’s license plate.

  As I neared him, he brought the briefcase up tight against his chest, holding it with both hands. Defensive stance: tense, wary, poised against attack. That told me something about him. Man on the edge, ruled by base emotions—the kind of survivalist capable of just about anything, if he were cornered, to save himself and preserve his freedom.

  “Who are you?” Fear put a thin crack in his voice. “What do you want?”

  I stopped a couple of paces away, manufactured a smile, and stood relaxed so as not to provoke him. I couldn’t see his face clearly, now that the garage door was all the way down, but there wasn’t much doubt that he was George DeBrissac. “Just want to ask a couple of questions.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “I assume you live here?”

  “What business is that of yours?”

  “I’m trying to find a missing woman, a young black woman who was in this neighborhood last night.”

  No reaction to that.

  “She’s about twenty-five,” I said, “driving a red Toyota Camry. I wonder if you might’ve seen her.”

  “I wasn’t home last night.”

  “Well, she might’ve been here pretty late—”

  “I haven’t been home at all the past three days,” he said. “Out of town on business. Can’t help you. Now if you don’t mind . . .”

  I stayed where I was, still smiling. “I’m really worried about her,” I said. “She’s a very responsible young woman—”

  “I told you I can’t help you. I’m sorry, good night.”

  He sidled away from me, his body half turned and the briefcase still up like a shield between us. Didn’t take his eyes off me as he crossed the yard, climbed the front steps, fumbled his key into the door lock. The defensive tension seemed not to loosen even after he got the door open; he took it inside with him.

  I retreated to the sidewalk without looking back. He’d be at a window now, with a corner of the curtain pulled aside, watching me; I could almost feel his eyes. Some DeBrissac. Some little deadbeat coward.

  But was that all he was? If Tamara had braced him and he’d realized somehow who she was and felt threatened enough by her, I could see him reacting with the sudden mindless viciousness of a trapped animal. And then frantically covering up to save his ass.

  Only I didn’t believe something like that had happened—didn’t want to believe it. Too many things argued against that kind of scenario. DeBrissac’s lack of reaction when I mentioned Tamara. His disinterest in who she was, who I was, and why I was looking for her. His claim that he’d been out of town the past three days—easy enough to check up on. And the fact that Tamara was seasoned enough not to have either alerted or provoked him; if she’d talked to him at all, she’d’ve done it with a ready excuse and only long enough to make certain of his ID.

  George DeBrissac wasn’t the cause of her disappearance. Somebody else, some other scenario. If I could just pin down the where . . .

  At my car I sat inside long enough to write down the Fury’s license plate number. My memory isn’t what it used to be; I’d repeated the number to myself a dozen times during and after the conversation with DeBrissac, to keep it fresh in my mind, but it wouldn’t stay fresh for long. Write it down or lose it: axiom for your sixties. DeBrissac had no good reason to run again if he’d had nothing to do with Tamara’s disappearance; my sudden arrival and the questions I’d asked shouldn’t be enough to spook him out of what must seem to be a pretty safe harbor. But if he did run, the Fury’s license plate number would make it easy enough to track him down again.

  I canvassed the rest of the block, starting at the far end. Three houses were dark, nobody home. Stranger-wary residents of one of the lighted houses wouldn’t answer the bell, and two others who did answer refused to talk to me. The halfdozen people who listened to my questions about Tamara had none of the answers I wanted to hear.

  Dead end, at least for now.

  After eight by then. How much longer before I heard from Mick Savage?

  Might be another hour or two. Dead end, dead time. I could either kill it hanging around the neighborhood, keeping an eye on DeBrissac’s hideout and waiting for the occupants of the dark houses to come home, or I could drive around again hunting for Tamara’s red Toyota. Both seemed like exercises in futility, but driving was better than sitting. At least when you were on the move you had the illusion of time passing more rapidly.

  I’d covered a four-block radius earlier in the day, so I doubled that to eight blocks. Trying to locate one dark-colored, common-model parked car at night is about as difficult a job as you can undertake. License plates, even the
personalized ones, are hard to read by headlights. Makes and models resemble each other, red colors aren’t easy to differentiate. It was a little easier on brightly lighted thoroughfares like San Pablo Avenue, but there you couldn’t go as slowly or look as carefully because of the traffic. It was an exercise in frustration as well as futility, and it had my nerves frayed raw by the time I swung into a Safeway parking lot on San Pablo, some seven blocks from Willard Street.

  And that was where I found the Toyota.

  It happens like that sometimes. You give up on a thing, you make a more or less unrelated move, and you get a surprise. Chance, divine guidance—call it what you want. I turned into the lot because the traffic was bunched up and I was ready to head back in the opposite direction and there was a stoplight at the entrance and I could make an easy U-turn in the lot. And while I was making the turn down one of the short aisles of parked cars, my lights picked out one by itself and a pole light nearby gave it added definition.

  Red Toyota Camry, Horace’s MR CELLO license plate.

  I hit the brakes so hard they almost locked and the tires squealed on the pavement. Inside of ten seconds I was parked and out and pawing at the Toyota’s driver-side door. It wasn’t locked. I sucked in a breath, dragged the door open, bent inside.

  The keys were in it. Not in the ignition—tossed on the passenger seat. Another piece of blind luck. If the wrong person had spotted them at any time last night or today, the car wouldn’t be sitting here now.

  I pocketed the keys, checked the seats, floorboards, shadowed rear deck for signs of violence. None, thank God. The contents of a trash bag hanging from a radio knob told me nothing. Neither did the usual items in the glove compartment or the armrest box where she kept her CDs. But I did find one other thing when I leaned down and swept a hand underneath the seats—Tamara’s purse, stuffed under the driver’s bucket.

  Her wallet was there, but money, credit cards, driver’s license were all missing. I couldn’t tell if anything else had been taken from the jumble of other stuff.