Little Elvises (20 page)

“Your friend with the daughter,” Paulie DiGaudio said. “She didn’t call me.”

“Um … what time is it?”

“Damn,” DiGaudio said. “You’re supposed to be working for Vinnie and you’re asleep at this hour?”

“I was up all night.”

“Breaking into some house, probably.”

“Working on the thing with Vinnie.”

“Yeah, well, get your friend into the station. Mr. Pivensey is now a person of interest.”

I said, “Oh, shit,” and sat on the edge of the bed. Ronnie mumbled something and threw out one arm. I looked at the curl of her fingers. “What happened?”

“We got
some
good cops,” DiGaudio said. “They’re not all like the clown who wrote up the report on Derek Bigelow. Yesterday up near Twentynine Palms, a Highway Patrolman saw a dog trot across the road with a bone in its mouth, and thought, that looks like a humerus from a human being. Humerus,” he said thoughtfully. “Home of the funny bone—think that’s a coincidence?”

I said, “Who gives a damn?” My stomach was cramping even though I knew we couldn’t be talking about Doris; no way she’d be skeletal in nine days.

“Nobody, probably. Anyway, our cop stops the car but he can’t catch the mutt, so he backtracks instead, follows a nice fresh set of prints in the sand, and about a quarter of a mile from the road he comes across some bones on the surface and a couple more sticking up out of a shallow hole, maybe two, three feet deep. Little bits of clothing around. The bones are pretty much scattered except for the wrists, which are still together, you want to ask me why?”

“Why?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“Because of the handcuffs. Anyway, it’s a female Caucasian, our missing waitress. Same age, same height, they found a ring matches one the waitress wore, same break in the same place on the left leg, sounds like the same dental work in the remaining teeth. I think your friend with the missing daughter should come in.”

“I’ll talk to her. For all I know, her daughter’s home by now.”

“Then I want to talk to the daughter. She might be the last person who saw him.”

“I’ll give her a call.”

“
Now
,” DiGaudio said, with some snap to it. “We went to that house you asked us about, and you know what we found in the garage? A box of handcuffs, that’s what. A bag of bloody clothes. I want to talk to your friend
and
her daughter now. I want a name and number before I get to five. One … two.…”

“You’re breaking up on me,” I said, and hung up. Within ten seconds, Sam started singing again. I turned off the phone and looked over at Ronnie, who had two pillows plumped under her chin and was regarding me with annoying clarity.

“Cops again?”

“Yes.” I got up and grabbed my shirt. “Get dressed. You can shower first, if you want. I need to go down and talk to Marge.”

“I’ll skip the shower and go across the street and get you some coffee. Marge is behind the office, right?”

“Right. One and two, the only rooms with numbers on them.”

“You’re cute without pants.”

“That’s what everybody says.”

She said, “Ouch. So how do you like it?”

I shrugged. “Pretty much the way you did it.”

“I meant the coffee.” She pulled the blankets up to her chin, shy by daylight, looking for her clothes. “Oh, right,” she said. “I should have remembered. You take it black. Men always like it when women remember how they take their coffee.”

“Men,” I said. “We’re so easy.”

“Nothing’s changed,” Marge
said. Her face was rigid with the effort it took not to let it cave in. “It’s some bones in the desert, somebody’s poor baby. But it’s not Doris. We knew yesterday what kind of guy he was.”

“I think you should go to the station.”

“I know what you think. Want a drink?”

“What time is it?”

“Little after one.”

“Early for me, but thanks.”

“Sit tight,” she said, getting up. She’d been on the couch and I’d taken the chair. “It was early for me, too, until a minute ago.” She padded into the tiny kitchen and opened a cupboard to reveal a large water glass and six or seven bottles of Old Igor’s. There was a knock at the door.

“I’ll get it,” I said.

“If anyone does, it’ll be you.” She pulled down a fresh bottle and waved it at me. “Sure about this?”

“Thanks anyway.” I opened the door and Ronnie blew at me across the rim of an open cup of coffee. Just the smell made me feel better.

“You’re a queen,” I said. “Want to join Marge in a glass of vodka?”

“Sure, if there’s room. Hi, Marge.”

“Sweetie,” Marge said, opening another cupboard and pulling out a second glass. “Heavy or light?”

“Same as you,” Ronnie said, coming in and looking around the room. “Gee. No Christmas junk.”

I swallowed hot coffee and said, “Decor. Down here, it’s referred to as decor.”

“It’s junk,” Marge said, pouring. “But Ed, old Ed really loved Christmas.” She picked up the glasses and toted them into the living room. “Biggest day of the year for Ed was December 26. All the Christmas stuff went to half off, and he shopped all day long.” As she handed a glass to Ronnie, she tipped the other to her mouth and knocked back a couple of good slugs. “If I got rid of it all now, it’d be like crumpling up Ed’s memory and tossing it away.”

“It’s
cheerful
junk,” Ronnie said, and then drank. She sat at the far end of the couch. “You know, we forget about the Christmas spirit most of the year, and seeing all that stuff reminds us—”

“You’re a sweet little thing,” Marge said, “but not much of a liar. Here’s to a better tomorrow.”

“No kidding,” Ronnie said, and the two of them drank.

“What’s your problem?” Marge asked her.

“Same old thing.” She lifted her chin in my direction. “Men.”

“Ahhh,
men
.” Marge brought down an open palm, batting the topic to the floor. “I used to think that when I got older, I’d stop letting them upset me. But here I am, I’m older, and all I’ve learned is how few tricks they know. It’s like having a dog. When you finally get through to it, you teach it to roll over and sit up, and you think
smart dog
, and then it’s ten years old and it’s still sitting up and rolling over, and you’re thinking,
Why the hell can’t it learn Spanish?
The big difference is that as you get older, you stop being pissed off about it and get bored instead.”

“Speaking of men,” I said.

She drank, and when she lowered the glass, her mouth was tight. “I don’t want to talk to the cops.”

“You’re not listening,” I said. “Pivensey’s killed one. They found the—”

“Who?” Marge asked.

“Pivensey. Lorne—”

“That wasn’t his name. You never said that name.”

I tried to remember our last conversation. “I don’t think I said any name. I just showed you his picture.”

“Lemme see it again.”

I was already fishing the folded printouts from my hip pocket. I glanced at them before I handed them to her. Sure enough, Paulie DiGaudio had cropped out the name and arrest number.

“That’s the little pecker,” she said. “No matter what he calls himself.”

“Pivensey,” I said. “Lorne Henry Pivensey.”

“Lemuel Huff,” she said. “No middle name, but I suppose Lemuel’s more name than anybody needs.”

“Can I see?” Ronnie held out a hand, and Marge passed her the pictures.

“There wasn’t any a/k/a info on his sheet,” I said.

“I don’t give a shit,” Marge said and glanced at Ronnie. “Sorry, honey, ’scuse the
Française.”
She came back to me. “He was Lemuel Huff to Doris, Lem for short, if you can believe that. Sounds like the guy you call to move the outhouse.”

“Spelled like it sounds? H-U-F-F? Or H-O-U-G-H?”

“Who knows?”

“Marge, they’re not going to leave me alone on this.”

“He’s got something,” Ronnie said. She was studying the pictures.

“Who’s not going to leave you alone?” Marge asked.

“The cops.” I turned to Ronnie. “What do you mean, he’s got something?”

Still looking down at Pivensey’s picture, Ronnie stuck out her lower lip and shook her head. “In his face. There’s something kind of sad and lost. I can see what some women would see in him.”

“What could they possibly see?” This was Marge. “A wood shop project? Like a broken chair?”

“Your daughter,” Ronnie said. “Was there any reason she’d be vulnerable to men who get, I don’t know, damaged or something?”

“Oh, honey,” Marge said, and suddenly tears were rolling down her cheeks. “Would she ever.”

“Well,” Ronnie said. “This is the guy who could bring that out.”

“Oh,
balls
,” Marge said, getting up so fast she almost knocked over the coffee table. She bolted into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her.

“What is it?” Ronnie asked.

“Cops found the bones of a woman who was probably killed by the guy who lived in that house. With Marge’s daughter.
That
guy, the one you can see something in.”

“Oh, no,” Ronnie said. “Are they sure?”

Through the closed door, I heard Marge blow her nose, a sound like the honk of a waterfowl. “Yeah,” I said. “And there are probably three or four more.”

“I’m so embarrassed. Talking about my pishy little problems.” She raised the glass and put an inch of vodka away. “Maybe I should just stay here and get drunk with her.”

“In the name of charity.”

“Well, sure. What are you going to do?”

“Marge was supposed to have pulled together a list of people who Doris might have talked to. If she’s done it, I suppose I’ll go find them. And think about poor sad Mr. Huff.”

“Kind of job is that?” Louie demanded around his cigar. “For a man of my skills, I mean.”

“Then get somebody else to do it. Somebody who looks like a straight, who can use, say, twenty-five bucks an hour.”

Louie tilted his head back and blew a cumulus cloud of stink that filled his car, which today was a 1995 Cadillac the color of an angry eggplant. We were parked on Sunshine Terrace in Sherman Oaks, just south of Ventura. After he’d emptied his lungs and taken a moment to appreciate the results, watching the smoke curlicue against the inside of the windshield like a Japanese painting of the ocean, he said, “Say thirty. Including travel time?”

“Sure.” I pushed the button to lower my window, but the ignition was off, so I cracked the door. “It’s a two, three-hour drive each way.”

“I know who.” Louie nodded in self-approval. “The girl your chick shook off. She looks like a librarian. Put her in glasses and one of those long skirts, she’s Jane Plain.”

“Fine. Think she can get up there and back without getting lost?”

“You want to be funny,” Louie said, “hire a writer.” He drew on the cigar.

“If you say she can do it, fine.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out five of the hundreds I’d stolen from Vinnie DiGaudio. “She can take this up front and keep track of her hours.”

“And she’s looking for.…”

“Property transactions in Los Angeles and San Bernardino County. Anything that was bought by Lorne Henry Pivensey or Lemuel Huff.” I gave him the alternative spellings. “And after that, parking and traffic citations in the same names.”

“You don’t think the cops’ll do this?”

“They might or might not. But I don’t think they’ll do it for Huff. They don’t know he used the name.”

Louie nodded. “How far back?”

“Five years. Six, make it six.”

“This is gonna take days.”

“Good, she can get rich. Anyway it’s all on computers now.” I reached back into my pocket and handed him the other seven hundred. “Tell you what. She can slip one or two of these to the underpaid civil servants who’ll be helping her. That’ll speed things up. If she needs more, you can front it out of your ridiculously large share of the five thousand Vinnie gave me.”

Louie tilted the cigar up at an optimistic angle and grinned around it. “Finally counted, huh?”

“You have no conscience.”

“You’re so wrong. I haven’t slept a wink. What do you think you’re going to get out of this?”

“The guy must have a place to go to ground. If he’s really a serial, he might own a place where he plays with the victims before he puts them away. The woman the cops found was in Twentynine Palms, which is San Bernardino County. There’s lots of nice, empty land up there. In fact, now that I think about it, she should start with San Berdoo and save LA for later.”

“Makes sense, I suppose.”

“Thanks for the enthusiasm.”

Louie opened his own door and dropped the cigar on the street. It hissed in the trickle of water running along the curb. “What else you need? I figure you got about six hundred left on my meter.”

“I talked to Irwin Dressler last night.”

Louie’s mouth dropped open. “You’re shitting me.”

“I was escorted there at gunpoint.”

He nodded in grudging appreciation. “Irwin Dressler, huh? How’d he look?”

“Old and dangerous.”

“What’d he need, a fourth at bridge?”

“He wanted to know about Vinnie DiGaudio.” I gave him a summary of the chat.

“Junior,” Louie said, “this ain’t good.”

“I’d worked that out for myself, actually. But why do you say it?”