Jackpot (Nameless Dectective) (15 page)

“But he didn’t?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t he go with you?”

“He said he wanted to play some blackjack.”

“At the Nevornia?”

“He didn’t say which club.”

“When did he tell you about finding the money?”

“After we got back. Late that night.”

“He show you any of it?”

“No. Just the suitcase.”

“It was in a suitcase?”

“Big leather one, yeah.”

“You think he knew then it was Mob money?”

“I warned him. So did Janine. You work in the clubs, you get to know about that kind of thing. All that cash in a suitcase ... I
told
him it might be skim or payoff money. But he wouldn’t listen. He just laughed and said it didn’t make any difference because there was no way anybody could find out he had it.” She tried a bitter laugh, but pain turned it into a groan. “Well, they found out and now he’s dead. We could
all
be dead. Jesus, why do I always hook up with assholes and losers?”

I had an answer for that but I didn’t offer it. I said, “Did anyone tell you how the Mob found out?”

“No.”

“Dave didn’t warn you or the others that they were on to him?”

“Not me or Janine. We found out the hard way.”

“You get in touch with him after the Mob came down on you?”

“Bet I did. I called him right away.”

“What did he say?”

“He wouldn’t talk about it. Hung up on me.”

“Was that the last time you talked to him?”

“Yeah. Then a week later Jerry got in touch and told me he was dead. You know something? I didn’t feel a thing. It was like some stranger was dead ... just like some stranger ...”

She was tiring; her eyelids were heavy and her words came more slowly. Subject the body to physical abuse, and once the shock wears off completely and the pain eases, it craves sleep to begin the healing process.

“Wendy, where can I find Scott?”

“Scott? Fuck him.”

“Where does he go when he’s all worked up? A bar he hangs out in, maybe?”

“He doesn’t drink.”

“One of the casinos? A movie, a friend’s place?”

“Maybe back to work on the boat he’s building,” she said. “Boats ... that’s all he cares about.”

“Where is he building this boat?”

“Where he works. Pope Beach.”

“Adams and Conley Marine?”

“Yeah.”

“Just one more question. The house Janine is living in—what’s the address?”

“You going to see her?”

“Yes.”

“Tell her I said thanks a lot. Tell her she can go to hell for all I care.”

“The address, Wendy.”

“Sweetwater Drive in Paradise Flat. I dunno the number. Last house at the end, right on the lake.”

I got to my feet. My knees and joints were stiff from kneeling for so long. I flexed both legs before I asked, “You have a friend who lives close by, someplace you can spend the night?”

“No. Why?”

“You can’t stay here alone—”

“Don’t worry, he won’t hurt me anymore. He’ll be all sweet and sorry when he comes home. He always is.”

“Just the same, I’d feel better if you’d let me take you somewhere.”

“Where? There’s no place.”

“No friends, relatives?”

“Nobody,” she said. “I don’t have anyplace to go.”

I stood looking down at her for a few seconds. I did not want to leave her alone, but the only other choice was to take her with me and that was out of the question. Finally I said, “At least let me help you into bed.”

“No, I’ll be okay here. If I’m in bed when he gets home, he’ll try to get in with me.”

Her eyes were almost shut now. The lines of strain and pain had smoothed out of her face, leaving it in pale repose beneath the marks of her beating. She looked so young ... and at the same time, so old. One of those people already battered by life in their mid-twenties, like a doll in the hands of an indifferent and malicious child—a doll destined for more abuse, until she was used up and tossed away.

I backed off a couple of steps, being quiet about it, but she wasn’t asleep yet. Without opening her eyes she said, as much to herself as to me, “I guess that’s why I haven’t left him. I guess that’s why I never will.”

I didn’t say anything. There was nothing more for me to say to her.

“I just don’t have anyplace to go,” she said.

POPE BEACH was out off Highway 89, not all that far from the turnoff to Fallen Leaf Lake. When I saw the sign I turned and followed the road down along the Tahoe shore. After what Wendy had told me, and after what Scott McKee had done to her, I wanted a talk with McKee as much as I wanted one with Janine Wovoka and Jerry Polhemus. If he was at Pope Beach, fine; otherwise I would drive up to Paradise Flat from here and track him down later.

The road ran between a long stretch of beach and boating facilities and the Truckee Marsh, down toward Tahoe Keys. Adams & Conley Marine was near the end, on the lake side—a biggish complex composed of a retail store, a fenced-in boatyard, a warehouse-type building, and a row of boat slips. The retail store was closed and there was nobody out and about in the yard. Both halves of the yard gate were shut but they weren’t locked. And parked inside, near a sailboat up on davits, was McKee’s primer-patched Porsche.

I parked to one side of the gate. It was cool here, this close to the lake; would have been chilly if the wind hadn’t died down. After six o’clock now, and most of the pleasure-boaters had brought their craft in for the day. But there were still a few boats moving here and there, smoke-dark specks on a surface as bright and shiny as sheet metal.

Inside the yard, I picked my way through a clutter of small boats and trailers, hoists and other equipment. When I got near the closed doors to the big building I could hear the soft buzzing whine of a power tool being used inside. Metal handles were mounted vertically on both door halves; I tugged on one and the half bumped open. I walked in.

Gloomy interior, lit by shielded lights on long dropcords suspended from ceiling beams. Pleasant, mingled smells of sawdust and paint and linseed oil and turpentine. Most of the concrete floor was occupied: stacks of board lumber and plywood sheets and wooden forms; rows of shelving laden with marine supplies; lathes and drill presses and table saws and workbenches; a pair of skeletal shapes on davits that would one day be boats. And just one man in the midst of it all, hunched over one of the lathes, shaping something that I took to be a spar. He was wearing a pair of protective goggles but there was no mistaking his size or his blond curls.

He was half turned away from me and the noise of the lathe kept him from hearing my approach. I was within thirty feet of him when he finished shaping the spar and switched off the machine. In the sudden silence that followed, my shoe made a small scraping sound on the concrete; it brought him around in a jerky, startled movement. He must not have been able to see me clearly through the goggles because he yanked them up on his forehead. Even then it took five seconds of narrow-eyed staring for him to place me—and while he was staring I kept walking until I was close enough to him to smell the sour odor of his sweat. And to see the scrapes across the knuckles of his right hand, the scratches on his forearm where Wendy had marked him.

“What the hell you doing here?” he said.

“Looking for you.”

“This is private property, man. You’re trespassing.”

“You want to try throwing me out?”

Either the words or my tone made him nervous. He tried to cover it by glaring at me and saying in a hard voice, “What you want, huh?”

“You, Scotty.”

“I got nothing for you.”

“Sure you have. You’ve got plenty for me.”

“The hell,” he said. Then he said, “You’re no goddamn trailer repairman.”

“That’s right, I’m not.”

“What are you, then? Another of that bitch’s lovers?”

“What would you do if I was? Try to beat me up like you beat her up tonight?”

Now he was more than nervous; now he was anxious. He licked his lips, ran his hands up and down the legs of his jeans as if they had gone damp. He didn’t say anything.

“How about Jerry Polhemus?” I said. “You beat him up too? Hurt him real bad, maybe?”

“I dunno what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do. Monday night, remember? You followed Wendy to Polhemus’s cabin at Fallen Leaf Lake. You sat around outside for half an hour, while she was in there with him, and when she left you went in and confronted Polhemus. Isn’t that the way it was?”

“No. She tell you that?”

“She told me a lot of things. Not that it was easy for her to talk with her mouth all bruised and bloody.”

“She had it coming. She’s a fuckin’ whore.”

“And what are you, Scotty? A tough guy? Beating up on girls and cowards makes you tough?”

No response.

“How’d you like to try beating up on me?” I said.

No response.

“Come on, give it a try. I’m more than twice your age. You ought to be able to kick the crap out of an old guy like me.”

“What are you, crazy?” I had him good and worried now. He backed up a step, as if he thought I might jump him—or maybe pull a gun or a knife.

“Tell me about Polhemus.”

“I already told you, I don’t—”

“Did you kill him?”

“What? Jesus, what—”

“Beat him to death? That what you did?”

“No!”

“Knocked him around, though, didn’t you? Drew some blood?”

“What if I did? What the hell business is it of—”

“How bad did you hurt him?”

He shook his head, backed up another step.

“How bad, Scotty?”

“Leave me alone. You get out of here and leave me alone or—”

“Or what? You’ll call the cops? Why don’t you go ahead and do that? Then I’ll tell them what you did to Polhemus Monday night and what you did to Wendy tonight.”

His eyes flicked left, right, left, right—looking for a way out.

I said, “Where’s Polhemus now? Where’s he been the past three days?”

Headshake. Eyeflicks.

“What’d you do with his body? Dump it in the lake?”

“I never killed nobody!”

“Tell me what you did do, then.”

“You’re crazy, man!”

“Maybe it was self-defense. He pulled that Saturday night special of his, you took it away from him, there was a struggle, the gun went off with him in the way. That how it was?”

“No!”

“How, then? What happened between you and Polhemus?”

I took a step his way, sudden and quick. It broke him: he lunged sideways to the lathe, going after the spar. I got there first and swiped it away from his clutching fingers, sent it clattering to the floor. He reeled back the other way, stumbling, heading for the nearest of the workbenches. I went after him, reached him just as he fumbled up a wooden mallet and started to swing around with it. I took it away from him without much effort, hurled it down, then caught a handful of his shirt front and leaned into him, hard. Our faces were inches apart; his breath came out ragged and sour, spraying a mist of spittle. He tried to wrench loose, and when that didn’t work he punched at my rib cage with his right fist, not getting much force behind the blows. I put a stop to the slugging by jamming him farther backward over the bench with the weight of my body, pinning both of his arms. He twisted, struggled, made little noises of mixed terror and rage, but I had him locked down, exerting pressure all along his spine. He wasn’t going anywhere until I let him go.

“You’re hurting me ... Jesus ...”

“Like you hurt Polhemus and Wendy, huh?”

“They had it coming, they both had it coming—”

I let up on him just enough so that I could slap his face with my free hand. Not too hard—just hard enough to sting. He struggled again, and I slapped him a second time, and he quit squirming. I slapped him a third time anyway. And a fourth for good measure. His eyes had gone wet; it’s degrading to be smacked openhanded that way.

“Let me go!”

I slapped him again instead. “Tell me about Polhemus. What did you do to him?”

“... Hit on him a few times, that’s all, I swear that’s
all.”

“Because you thought Wendy had been seeing him on the sly.”

“Yeah. A whiny little bugger like him ...”

“Did he pull his gun on you?”

“Gun? I never saw no gun—”

“How bad did you hurt him?”

“Busted his nose, maybe ... he was bleeding ...”

“What’d you do then? After you finished hitting him?”

“Left him there ... went home ... Jesus, let me loose, you’re breaking my back!”

“Where was he when you left the cabin?”

“On the floor, lying on the floor.”

“Conscious?”

“Yeah, conscious. Bawling like a woman.”

“You see anybody else around when you left?”

“No.”

“You been back to his cabin since?”

“No. Why would I go back there?”

“See Polhemus since? Have anything to do with him?”

“No. No!”

“So you don’t know where he is now?”

“I swear I don’t. Ahh, shit, let me
up
...”

“Not yet. When Janine called tonight, did she say anything about Polhemus?”

“Janine ... what?”

“You heard me. Wendy’s friend, Janine. She called tonight and you answered the phone. That’s why you beat up on Wendy, because of what Janine told you.”

“Yeah, yeah, Janine ...”

“She say anything about Polhemus?”

“No.”

“Didn’t mention his name?”

“Once ... maybe twice ...”

“What did she say?”

“She was crying her head off ... I couldn’t understand half of what she was saying.”

“What did she want? Why was she calling Wendy?”

“Wouldn’t tell me. Only Wendy. Didn’t have nobody ... nobody else she could talk to. That’s what she said.”

“She say what happened, why she was upset?”

“Nothing that made sense.”

“What’d she say that did make sense?”

“She wished they’d never met Dave and Jerry ... her and Wendy ... never spent so much time with them. Everything was Dave’s fault ... something about money and a suitcase ... stuff that didn’t mean nothing to me.”

“Is that all?”

“All I remember. I was crazy mad by then ... I heard Wendy’s car, I hung up quick. Her and some dude named Dave, fuckin’ around while I was down in San Pedro working my ass off ... when she came in I lost my head, I just laid into her....”

“Where was Janine calling from?”

“Dunno. She never said.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure ... unnh, my back ... chrissake,
please ...”

I held him a couple of seconds longer, but there was nothing to be gained in hurting him any more; he was talked out and so was I. I released my grip on his shirt and shoved back off of him. He rolled over sideways, grimacing, moaning a little, and then slid down onto one knee and knelt there with one arm crooked behind him, massaging his spine.

“You damn near busted my back,” he said, but there was more self-pity than anything else in his voice and he wouldn’t look at me as he spoke. He’d had enough of me.

I said, “You’re not hurt half as bad as Wendy. But I can fix it so you’re hurt twice as bad if you lay a hand on her again. You understand me?”

Headshake. But it was a reflexive movement, not a denial.

“I mean it, Scott. Hurt her again, I’ll find out about it and I’ll come back and kick the hell out of you.”

“... Who are you, man? What you get out of all of this? A piece of Wendy?”

“Say that again and I’ll break your arm. Right now.”

Silence.

I said, “I’m somebody you don’t want to mess with, sonny boy. You believe it?”

Still nothing.

“I asked you a question.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I believe it.”

“Good. Here’s one more thing for you to think about: Treat Wendy right from now on, she won’t run around on you.”

“She won’t want nothing more to do with me, not after tonight.”

“You’re wrong about that. She’s not going anywhere and neither are you; you’re stuck with each other, for better or worse. Treat her right, she’ll treat you right. You believe that?”

“Sure. Yeah, sure.”

“So long, Scotty. I hope we don’t see each other again—for your sake.”

“We won’t,” McKee said. He still hadn’t looked at me since I’d turned him loose.

I went away from him, taking my time about it, glancing back once to see if he was going to try anything. He wasn’t; he stayed on one knee, rubbing his back and looking at the floor. Waiting for me to be gone.

Outside, I stood for half a minute to let what was left of the wind dry my sweat. I felt dirty, the way I had when Carl and Jimmy brought me back from Arthur Welker’s place. Some men, some detectives, thrive on the rough stuff; I’m not one of them. I don’t like hurting or humiliating people—even when they’re the kind who deserve it, and especially not after I’ve been humiliated myself. But sometimes it’s necessary; sometimes there is no other way to get information or accomplish an objective. Sometimes life is a sewer. You don’t have to spend all your time in the sewer, though, or enjoy yourself when you’re forced to wade through it.