A Fistful of Collars (29 page)

Thad turned, jumped at the sight of us, his eyes clearing fast. He sat right up. “What the hell?” he said.

“What happened to the knife?” Bernie said.

Thad licked his lips. He looked very bad, dark purple patches under both eyes, his skin kind of pasty and waxy, like he’d gotten a lot older since the last time we’d seen him. But his eyes were clear now and he was wide awake. “Knife?” he said.

“The knife you used to kill April,” Bernie told him.

“No,” Thad said, shaking his head. “No, no, no.” He glanced around in that desperate way perps do when they’ve got a notion to book. “How did you get in? Where’s Jiggs?”

“Waiting for us to finish our conversation,” Bernie said.

“Jiggs knows you’re here?”

“No question.”

“But . . . but he’d never do that.”

“Maybe he’s decided it’s time to cut his own deal.”

“Deal?” Thad said. “He knows I’d give him anything.”

“Not a deal with you,” Bernie said. “I’m talking about the law.”

“The law?” Thad reached for the covers, pulled them back up, meaning . . . meaning it would be harder for him to book. At that moment, I knew one thing for sure: Thad was no perp.

“There’s no statute of limitations on murder,” Bernie said. “And from information we’ve developed it’s pretty clear that Jiggs was an accessory after the fact.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Thad said.

“Chet and I,” said Bernie. What was wrong with Thad? Wasn’t that obvious?

Thad’s gaze shifted to me, then back to Bernie. “Where’s Brando?”

Bernie shrugged.

Thad licked his lips again. They were all dry and cracked. He glanced at the bedside table. An empty water bottle lay on its side in a little puddle on the tabletop. “I need water,” he said. “Can’t think straight.”

“Try easing up on the drugs,” Bernie said.

And all at once, I was thirsty, too: funny how the mind works. I went over and licked up that puddle.

Meanwhile, it looked like Thad was starting to get angry. “A real feather in your cap, huh, bringing down a movie star?” he said.

“I couldn’t care less about that,” Bernie said.

Or something close, my mind getting stuck a bit back at the feather part. That feather on the gym floor, glossy black with the red markings, would probably look great in a cap, but Bernie never wore one. And just as I was thinking about the feather and how it
got to end up in the gym, from out of nowhere came Brando, sort of flowing across the room, up onto the bed, and settling down in the crook of Thad’s arm. Brando settled some more. He could settle like nobody I’d ever seen. Thad gazed down at him, then back at Bernie, and now the anger was gone.

“I knew it would be someone like you,” he said.

W
hat are you talking about?” Bernie said.

“Someone ruthless,” Thad said. “Who came to take me in. That’s what you’re doing, right? Arresting me? Aren’t you a cop or something?”

Bernie’s laughter is one of my great pleasures in life, but there’s one laugh he has that’s not so nice. Still pretty nice, since it’s Bernie, after all, and it’s not that I didn’t like hearing it. I just didn’t like hearing it quite as much, and I hardly ever did. But Bernie laughed that not-quite-as-nice laugh now, laughed it in Thad’s face.

“You think I’m ruthless?” he said. “Just wait.”

“For what?” Thad said.

“For what’s coming.”

Thad’s eyes shifted. “Maybe I should call my lawyer.”

“Who’s that?”

“I’ve got lots of lawyers,” Thad said. “Nan will know.” He glanced toward the door. “Where is she?”

Bernie shook his head. “You’re on your own right now.”

Thad pulled Brando in a little closer. Brando wasn’t in the
mood. He rose, sort of drifted off the bed, and vanished in the shadows.

“What about Felicity?” Thad said.

“You’re dealing with me,” Bernie said. “Me and Chet.”

Thad looked at me. For no reason at all, I chose that moment to bare my teeth; actually, it was more like my teeth chose the moment to bare themselves. Has that ever happened to you? But even if it has, so what—no offense—human teeth being what they are?

Thad turned quickly away from me and back to Bernie. “What do you want?”

“Start with the facts about April’s murder,” Bernie said.

Thad took a huge breath, let it out in a way that was almost a sob. “I was just a kid.”

“So was she,” Bernie said.

And then Thad did sob, one big teary cry that he muffled by putting his hands over his face. “I don’t even know where to start,” he said, or something like that, not too clear what with his hands like that.

“Start with the car wash,” Bernie said.

Thad peeked at Bernie through his fingers. I’d seen Charlie do the exact same thing. Did that mean Thad was some sort of child? What a thought! It disappeared from my mind, and not a moment too soon.

“How do you know about the car wash?” Thad said.

Bernie just gazed down at him. Slowly Thad lowered his hands.

“The car wash,” he said. “It was in Vista City. Jiggsy worked there. He’s my cousin, although nobody knows it, so I’m asking you not to . . .” His voice trailed away.

“You came from LA to visit him?” Bernie said.

Thad nodded. “Just for a couple weeks. It was my first time away from home. I was sixteen, knew nothing about nothing, except for surfing. Then one day April drove into the car wash.”

“Alone?”

“With her friend.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No. Her friend Dina.”

“And then?”

“I sort of became the boyfriend. It all happened so fast. And so intense. I was a virgin up until that time, believe it or not.”

“And April? Was she a virgin, too?”

Thad shook his head. “She was only a year older, but way more experienced. And kind of wild. I loved that about her.” He gazed toward the window, hidden by the dark curtains. “In fact, I actually just loved her, period.”

“So why did you kill her?” Bernie said.

Thad sobbed again, this time more than once; his eyes teared up, but they didn’t overflow. Bernie watched with a real cold look on his face. I raised my tail, high and stiff.

“I don’t know,” Thad said, shaking his head from side to side. “I’ve tried and tried and tried and . . .” He kept shaking his head like that, faster and faster. Bernie reached out and slapped him across the face.

Thad stopped shaking his head, looked real angry. He glared up at Bernie and his hands balled into fists. But then they unballed and those big blue eyes—kind of like a movie all by themselves—went dead. “Just kill me. Kill me now.”

“I’ll take a rain check,” Bernie said.

Uh-oh. That was a bit of a baffler since it never rains in the Valley. So did a rain check mean never? I’d been over this ground before, always with the same result, meaning zip.

“Right now,” Bernie was saying, “let’s get back to why you killed April.”

“I already told you—I don’t know,” Thad said. “I don’t remember a thing about that night.”

“What night?”

“That goddamn night. I’d never done drugs before, not even pot. I’d hardly ever been drunk.”

“You did drugs that night?”

“April was kind of wild, like I said.”

“What drugs?” Bernie said.

“Oh, man,” said Thad, “I’m one of those people that drugs just live for, you know?”

Bernie didn’t say whether he did or didn’t, whatever Thad’s question might have been. That was one of his interviewing techniques and this was an interview, no doubt about it, and not close to being the first one we’d done with someone or more than one someone in bed. In fact, that kind of interview often went well for us.

“Stick with that night,” Bernie said.

“I told you I don’t—”

Bernie cut Thad off, his voice rising. “Where were you?”

Thad kind of cringed, just at the sound of Bernie’s voice. “If you’re going to hit me again, don’t stop. You’ll be doing me a favor.”

“There’s no time for your dramatics,” Bernie said. “Where were you?”

Thad laughed, a harsh little laugh, quickly done with.

“Something’s funny?” Bernie said.

“The opposite,” said Thad. “I’ve trained myself to shut out the critics. Now you come along.” Bernie stared down at him. Thad looked away, turning again to the curtains; he seemed to be seeing something far away. “We were at Jiggs’s place,” he said in a
voice that got quieter and also stranger as he went along, almost like he wasn’t really with us, hard to explain. “Jiggs was living at his dad’s and his dad was usually gone—he worked in the oil patch out in Texas. This particular night was my last one. I had to go home the next morning for summer school on account of my lousy grades. I wanted April to come with me. She wanted me to stay. We had a little fight about that.”

Silence. We waited. That was another part of our interviewing technique. Bernie had explained why more than once, but it was one of those reasons that just didn’t stick. I tried not to worry about that; actually, I didn’t even have to try. I’m lucky that way.

One thing about this particular technique: there was no point in waiting forever. Just before we were about to hit forever, Bernie said, “What kind of fight?”

Thad glanced at Bernie, squinting as though Bernie was too bright. “Nothing physical, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said. “We argued a bit, that’s all. Maybe she cried. But then she came up with this idea to take LSD. Go on a trip together after all, kind of thing. I wasn’t that enthusiastic—we’d smoked some pot and we were drinking vodka, too. But I went along. All I remember—I still see them—were these terrible visions, in a tunnel, April and me, although we were actually in bed, and claws.”

“Claws?”

“Horrible long hooked claws, clawing and clawing at us.”

Big claws? I’d been up close to an angry mama bear, knew more than I wanted to about big claws. I started feeling kind of sorry for Thad, but not much, since I was getting the feeling he’d done something real bad long ago.

“And?” Bernie said.

“And nothing,” Thad said. “We just clung to each other,
shaking and crying. At least I was. She might not have even been there.”

“April might not have been there?”

“I don’t know.” Thad’s eyes turned deep and murky. He closed them. “I feel like—I felt like—I was all alone, clinging to myself.” His chest rose, fell, rose again. “April, April,” he went on, very softly. “But she won’t answer. Still mad? I have to go to school, babe. It’s my whole—” His eyes opened. He blinked a few times and his eyes returned to normal, if eyes like Thad’s could ever be called normal. Was he back in the here and now? I myself preferred the here and now at all times, maybe something we can go into later.

Thad tried to meet Bernie’s gaze and actually did. “But she must have been there,” he said.

“Why?” Bernie said.

“Because when I woke up she was right next to me.” Thad shuddered. “Blood all over her, all over me, and the knife was still in my hand.”

“What knife?” Bernie said.

“This ordinary kitchen knife.”

“From Jiggs’s kitchen?”

“I guess so.”

“How did it come to be in the bed?”

“I must have gotten up and brought it there.”

“Do you remember doing that?”

“I told you—I don’t remember anything.”

“Where was Jiggs this whole time?”

“Hanging with friends. He didn’t come back until morning. By that time, I was freaking out. He kind of took over.”

“In what way?”

“Handling the situation.”

“How did he do that?”

“Calmed me down, to begin with,” Thad said. “Getting me to understand that I hadn’t been in my right mind, like temporary insanity.”

“Making you not responsible?”

“Legally, right?” He gave Bernie a challenging sort of look.

“Your nightmares tell a different story,” Bernie said.

Thad hung his head. At that moment, I felt something soft move against me. I looked down, and there was Brando lying at my side, curling around my back legs. The feeling wasn’t the worst in the world.

“Whose idea was it to dump April behind the Flower Mart?” Bernie said.

Thad winced. “Jiggs’s,” he said. “It was meant to be . . . misleading, I guess you’d say.”

“I guess.”

“After that, we . . . we cleaned up the place, and Jiggs drove me to LA. He decided to stay when we got there. His old man didn’t care.”

“What happened to the knife?”

Thad shivered like it was cold, even though the AC wasn’t nearly as cranked up as it often is in Valley houses. “Jiggs cleaned it and put it back in the kitchen drawer.”

Bernie nodded like that made sense. “You got away with murder,” he said.

“I sure don’t feel like it,” Thad said.

“You’re too sensitive,” said Bernie.

Thad turned red.

“When did the blackmailing start?”

“How do you know about that?”

“Everything comes out eventually,” Bernie said. “In the real world,” he added.

“Christ, stop,” said Thad. “Just stop tormenting me. I already confessed. And I’ll tell you something—the only reason I took this pissy role was because of the location. My subconscious wanted to come back here, to—I don’t know—make things right.”

“By killing the blackmailer?” Bernie said.

“Huh?”

“Come on,” Bernie said. “You don’t know who was blackmailing you?”

“Of course I do,” said Thad. “It was this old boyfriend of April’s, Manny something, and a gangster pal of his. I kind of remember April mentioning she dumped him, but it turned out he was stalking her. He saw us that morning through the window.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they dropped in on me unannounced not long after
Ninety-nine and Forty-four One Hundredths
came out.”

“What’s that?” Bernie said.

Thad looked surprised. “My first film,” he said. “They wanted seventy-five grand, one time only. We paid, but of course it hasn’t been one time only.”

“When did you last see Manny?”

“That was it. The one time.”

“And his pal?”

“The same.”

“The pal’s name?”

“Ramon Cardinal, a real dangerous guy. Jiggs deals with Manny.”

“Heard any recent news about Manny?” Bernie said.