“I suppose. I’d just like to know why Rose was spending time with him.”
“Maybe she decided she needed a lawyer.”
“Maybe. But why pick him?” Horn got up and headed for the door. On his way out, he turned and said, “Cassie wants to help find out who killed Rose.”
“God help us,” Mad Crow muttered.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When Horn was a young man, thumbing his way around the West during the Depression, working any job he could get and occasionally riding the rodeo circuit, he had become familiar with the places where the down and out would gather. Every big city had a skid row, each with its different character, its different meanness.
The one time when they all seemed alike was early morning. Gray light, stained sidewalks, shuttered stores, a kind of worn-out quiet. Few cars or people, and the people looked either furtive or exhausted, some huddled or crouched in doorways or stretched out on the sidewalks, others standing and staring at nothing, still clutching last night’s blankets.
It was a little after eight when Horn parked in front of the Anchor and got out of his car. Across the street, atop the marquee of the Follies, was a blown-up photo of Ruby Renfrew. Retouched in unlifelike colors that made her hair jet black, her skin almost orange and her lips, pasties, and G-string a blazing red, she gazed with an incongruously wholesome smile over toward the mission and those sprawled on the sidewalk in front of it.
At the desk inside, he asked for the pastor and was directed down the same long corridor, which he followed past the dining room to the chapel. That room, windowless but skylighted, was somewhat smaller than the dining room. It held several rows of folding chairs and, at the far end, a platform with a lectern and an upright piano that had once been painted white. A large wooden cross looked down on everything. The only person in the room was an elderly man wielding a mop down the center aisle. The odor of Lysol did battle with the leftover effluvium of last night’s congregation.
Behind the piano was an unmarked door, which stood slightly open. He knocked and called out, getting no answer. But he could hear sounds, so he opened the door and stepped inside.
It was a small office, furnished only with a scarred desk and a couple of straight chairs and a handmade bookcase holding an assortment of books and magazines. In the far wall was another door, this one also open, and it was from this doorway the sounds came—abrupt thuds, irregularly spaced, accompanied by explosive breathing. Horn knew the sounds. He called out again, and they stopped. A moment later, Emory Quinn came out. He wore a sweat-soaked gray jersey and nondescript pants. His face was flushed and his hair shone with sweat.
“I know you,” he panted, wiping his face with a towel that hung around his neck. “You’re the guy who didn’t need to eat.”
“John Ray Horn. I wouldn’t expect to find a gym in a place like this.”
“Just a big closet,” Quinn said. “Where we keep the hymn books and other stuff. But there’s room for a heavy bag.”
“Sounds like you were punishing the hell out of it.”
“We’re pretty evenly matched,” Quinn said. “Sometimes I beat the bag, and sometimes the bag beats me.”
“There was a Boston Quinn I saw fight at the Olympic about fifteen years ago. Middleweight. He lost a decision to a colored boy named Jace or something—”
“Everett Jacey,” Quinn said. “Best fighter I ever went up against. Couple of years later, he got in some kind of a brawl outside a club down in Watts. One of the other men had a gun, Everett didn’t.”
“Too bad,” Horn said. “Anyway, I thought it was close that night at the Olympic. Could’ve gone either way.”
“Nice of you to say so,” Quinn said. “That was my last pro fight. I knew it was time, I’d gone as far as I could.” He draped the towel back around his neck and sat behind the desk. When he turned his head, Horn could see that his left ear was slightly enlarged and misshapen, the mark of too many right hooks.
“I was a good counterpuncher, but one of the newspaper guys said there was something missing. The thing that makes you want to….” He stopped.
“The killer instinct?”
“Something like that.” Quinn shrugged. “Maybe the guy was right.” He motioned Horn to the chair across the desk.
“What brought you here from there?” Horn asked, taking a seat and laying his hat on the desk. He wasn’t particularly interested in Quinn’s history, but he wanted to get him started talking.
“The Lord,” Quinn said simply. “He decided I’d spent enough time sinning—drinking, whoring, profaning his name, trying to hurt other men with my fists for my own personal gain. When I began losing fights, I started drinking for real. One night I left a bar and wandered down this very street. I heard singing here, and I came right in. Do you know what happened?”
“I have an idea.”
“You’re a doubter; I can tell. I heard a sermon about committing your life to God, about being a fighter for Jesus. It was aimed right at me. I volunteered to help out here at the mission. Before I knew it, the old pastor who’d been here for years died, and the church asked me to take over his work.”
“Do you have any training?”
“You mean did I go to Bible school? No, this place is run by the Light of the Trinity Church. We believe that if the Holy Spirit is in you, it’s worth more than a truckload of degrees.”
Quinn nodded his head as he spoke, as if in agreement with his own words, his mouth set in a thin, curved half-smile. Horn thought he knew the man now. Not the individual, but the type. The reformed sinner. Burning with the fire of renewal, secure in the knowledge of his own salvation, impatient that others couldn’t see the same truth.
Quinn looked quizzically at Horn. “You mentioned the Beatitudes the other day. Are you a man of religion?”
“No. I just grew up in the house of a man like that.”
“Then you should be a believer, not a doubter.”
How would you know? Horn shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I didn’t come here to talk about me,” he said. “I was a friend of Rose. I was looking for her that day you saw me. I understand you were trying to protect her when you sent me away, and I don’t want to bring you any trouble now. I just want to talk.”
“Rose is dead,” Quinn said in a flat voice.
“I know.”
“So why do we need to talk?”
“You may not need to. But I’m trying to find out about everyone who knew her, who liked her and disliked her. I don’t think the police are going to try very hard to find out who killed her.”
“So you’ve elected yourself?”
“Something like that.”
“You got qualifications?”
“No.” No more than you.“Just curiosity.”
Quinn reached into a drawer and pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes. “One of my last vices,” he said almost apologetically. “Satan can be strong, and I’m no saint.” He held out the pack and Horn took one. Quinn struck a kitchen match on his thumbnail and lit both cigarettes, then pushed a chipped glass ashtray toward the center of the desk.
“The way people are talking,” Quinn said, “it was probably some drifter, the kind of lowlife who hangs around Bunker Hill looking for easy scores. He found her door open, came in to rob her, she fought back, he killed her. Something like that. He could’ve caught the next freight out of here.”
You sure don’t talk like a man of the cloth, my friend. Horn studied Quinn carefully. It was impossible to know if he believed the theory he’d just sketched out. “Could’ve happened that way,” Horn said. “Me, I just want to know for sure. How about you?”
Quinn had gotten his breath back and sat quietly, tapping one foot on the floor under the desk, reminding Horn of the nervous energy he had given off that time they had first met.
Finally Quinn spoke. “She talked about you once,” he said.
Horn waited.
“She said she had known you a long time ago, and she happened to see you at a bar on
Broadway. She said she was annoyed when you asked her too many questions. But I could tell she liked you.”
“I liked her too. And those questions—I finally got to ask some of them the day I came here looking for her. But I have a lot more, and that’s why I’m here now. So let me ask you again: Do you want to know who killed her?”
“Yes,” Quinn said quietly.
“Then tell me what you know about her. Especially if you know of anyone who had anything against her.”
“That’s hard to say,” Quinn said cautiously. “Rose told me about some of the people she knew, but I’m sure she kept a lot private. And I didn’t ask. That’s the thing about this place. People come here for some kind of help—a meal, a clean place to sleep, the word of God. I owe it to them to help them out without asking a lot of questions.”
“But she wasn’t looking for a place to sleep,” Horn prompted him. “She helped you. She worked here.”
“That’s right. A few times a week, she helped us serve the noon meal.”
“Why?”
There was pity in Quinn’s expression. “Is it hard for you to understand that some people want to help others?”
“Depends on the person,” Horn said curtly, unwilling to let Quinn lead him back into the topic of religion. “Do you know anything about this woman she called Doll?”
“She started coming around a month or two ago. I know she and Rose were good friends. I spoke to her a couple of times to thank her for donating clothing and other things to the mission. She’s been generous, and she’s never asked us for anything in return.”
“What’s her last name?”
“I never asked.” Quinn looked embarrassed. “We don’t always keep the most complete records around here. We only ask if someone’s heart is in the right place. Rose said her friend was generous and could afford to help us out, and that was good enough for me.”
“Back to Rose,” Horn said. “Did she tell you anything about her life?”
“Yes, but only what she thought I needed to know. She said she’d acted in the movies a long time ago but that her life had taken a wrong turn and she’d thrown away her success. She said she was a drunk, and it was too late to do anything about that or anything else. I think she came to the Anchor in order to try to make amends in some small way for her sins.”
“Did she call them sins?”
“That’s my word, I suppose. Rose wasn’t particularly religious, but I didn’t let that get in the way of our friendship any more than her drinking did.”
“What kind of friendship was it?”
Quinn glanced at his watch. “I’m going to have to start getting our people ready for the noon meal,” he said. “Rose isn’t here to help out anymore, and we’re stretched very thin.”
“What kind of friendship?” Horn repeated.
“Some things should be private,” Quinn said. “Especially if they don’t have anything to do with what you’re trying to find out.”
Never mind, Horn said silently to him. I got a pretty good idea from Madge.
“I’m sorry if I raised the wrong subject,” he said. “She told you her life took a bad turn. I got the same impression from talking to her, but she wouldn’t tell me any more. I’m thinking, though, that if I were Rose, you might be the one person I’d talk to. Who better than a minister? If she did, maybe you should talk about it now. She’s dead, you can’t hurt her by telling. And it just might have something to do with her death.”
He waited. Quinn said nothing, just sat with his foot tapping faintly under the desk. A single drop of sweat worked its way out from under his hairline at the temple and poised itself for the journey down his cheek.
“I think she’d forgive me,” he said.
Horn nodded.
“She killed someone.”
“What?”
“Years ago.”
“Who? How did it happen?”
Quinn shook his head. “She didn’t say. It came out one day when we were in the chapel, just the two of us. It was almost like a confession, except our church doesn’t have that kind of thing. But I could tell it made her feel better. She said she had never told anyone until then.”
“When was this?”
“A few weeks ago. She asked me what she should do about it. I said I couldn’t give her advice on that, but she shouldn’t have to carry the burden all alone. She started talking, almost to herself, saying maybe she should just tell about it, once and for all. Let it out. I thought she might be talking about going to the police and confessing, although she didn’t exactly say that. But as soon as she said it, it was like a weight being lifted off her. I could tell that she had made a big decision and was going to do something about it.”
“Telling somebody about it.”
“I think so.”
Suddenly, Rose hiring a lawyer makes sense, he thought. “Did she say anything else about the killing? Anything at all?”
“She said more, but I didn’t exactly understand it. Something about how it happened in the least likely place, surrounded by people and noise and celebration, a place where you’d never expect to find death. And how, in that instant, she lost everything.”
“That’s it? That’s all she said?”
“Yes.” Quinn got up from behind his desk. “I have to get back to work. Would you like to stay for the meal?”
“No, thanks, I’m meeting a friend. Do you know where Rose is buried?”
“She’s going to be buried by the county,” Quinn said harshly. “As soon as they finish the autopsy—maybe as early as today. There are no relatives. We had a memorial service for her yesterday, but this mission is poor, and we can’t afford to bury her privately. Not that it matters, really. Heaven is what’s important, not what happens to our body after we leave it.”
Horn considered asking Quinn if he believed that anyone who committed murder could end up in Heaven. Instead, he said, “Have you ever heard of a man named Jay Lombard?”
“Sure. Why?”
“I hear he goes to the fights a lot.”
“I used to see him around when I was fighting. We never met, but I knew about him.”
“What did you hear?”
“I try not to judge people anymore.”
“Come on, Quinn. I’m not just making conversation. This is about Rose.”
Quinn glared at him. If Horn had seen that look across the ring, he would have thought twice about going up against this man.
“All right,” Quinn said. “He’s a lawyer who likes to hang around the fights. It’s kind of a rich man’s hobby for him. But he doesn’t love it, the way real fight people do; he just dabbles. To me, he was the kind of person who spends a lot of money to get inside a sport and then ruins it from the inside. I heard he sometimes tried to fix bouts. Lombard used to own a lightweight, a man I knew. He tried to move him up too fast. In my friend’s last fight, he was so overmatched, the other man knocked him out for two hours. He was never the same after that. Sometimes, I see him on the streets around here, just wandering….” He stopped.
“Do you still go to the fights?”
“Every now and then,” Quinn said. “Maybe that’s another of my weaknesses. Understand, I don’t miss being in the ring; that life’s behind me. And I don’t wager. But I can still appreciate a display of courage in the midst of struggle. After all, we were put on this earth to struggle, weren’t we?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Horn had made plans to meet Dexter Diggs for lunch. But it was early, and Rook House was only a few blocks away, so he drove up to Bunker Hill and parked in front of the old building. Inside, he climbed a flight of stairs and knocked on Madge’s door.
“Who is it?” came the small voice.
“It’s John Ray. I just came by to say hello.”
She opened the door an inch, keeping the chain on and squinting upward for a few seconds, then released the chain.
“Glad you’re being careful,” he said. “How are you doing?”
&nbs
p; “I’m just going out,” she said, pulling on a heavy coat and covering her head with a wool tam o’shanter. “You want to sit out on the porch for a minute?”
Soon they were settled into the swing, looking out over the street at the other sad houses. A solitary figure, shoulders hunched against the chill, moved slowly along the sidewalk.
“You keeping your door locked?” he asked.
She nodded her head vigorously. “I’ve been talking to the others around here too, telling them to watch out for people they don’t know,” she said. “They remember I was an air raid warden. When I say be careful, they listen.”
“Happy to hear that.” He began to roll her a smoke. “Have you seen the gray man around here?”
“No,” she said. “Mostly the same old collection of people. But….” She seemed subdued.
“What’s wrong?”
“Well, used to be I knew just about everybody on this street. Nobody had much, but we all kind of looked after each other. Now I don’t recognize everybody. Some of ’em pick through our garbage at night. It seems people around here don’t care anymore. The owners don’t keep up the buildings. I saw a rat in the hallway the other day, bold as you please. We never had rats before. Somebody said the city is going to buy up everything around here, send the bulldozers and level everything.”
“That’s hard to believe, Madge.”
“I can believe it. I saw it. Back during hard times, people would set up camps out on the road, try to look after each other. And the locals would find some law they said we were breaking, and they’d give us one day’s notice, and then the bulldozers would come. I once saw a whole camp mashed down into the dirt.”
He tried to think of something encouraging to say, but failed. People like Madge, he knew, could not look for fairness in this world.
She took the handmade from him and accepted a light, then sucked in the smoke greedily.
“Ain’t you nice?” she said.
“My pleasure.”
“Oh, I forgot,” she said. “You know somebody’s already taken Rosie’s room?”
“Well, I hope they’re happier there than she was.”
While I Disappear Page 12
