Murder by Candlelight (3 page)

Fear would do that to you.

To add to his troubles,
his armpits were sweaty, the heat causing at least
some
of the moisture --
though 90 degrees wasn't bad for Kansas City on the
5
^th
of
August.

This was ridiculous! In the course of
his work, he'd been threatened by experts, chopped in the larynx
enough times to pound his voice to a whispered purr, and been
knocked unconscious. It hadn't been that long ago that he'd picked
up a slug in the lung that had nearly finished him, his old body
taking longer to heal with each new violation.

By contrast, today's "danger" was
nothing compared to the real threats of the P.I. business. All he
had to do was pry himself out of his faded blue Cavalier, cross the
cracked concrete sidewalk, and enter the park.

Z -- as he called
himself
-- wondered if
he was dressed properly. He'd done his best, putting on his medium
blue poplin short-sleeved shirt, the one Susan had given him for
his birthday. Also his light-weight black slacks, another present
from Susan.

If that didn't get it -- to hell with
them!

Now that he'd slid to a
gravel-crunching stop in the line of parking spaces flanking Macken
Park, the air inside the car was building to the heat of a brick
shithouse in July. Through the rolled-down window, he smelled
gravel and dirt and tar and bark and old, tired grass, and rusty
steel.

Looking to his left, Z saw men and
women climbing out of other cars. Old people for the most part. In
clothing that could only be called "deliberately
casual."

Just inside the park's six-foot chain
link fence, was a black asphalt path, farther in and to the left, a
rusty jungle gym, three pipe-bars to swing on, each at a different
height. Behind one of several white-bark trees with bug-chewed
leaves, was a silver-painted swing set, its chain swings with red
plastic seats, children in short pants and cut-down shirts either
pumping themselves into the hot blue yonder or yelling at harried
parents to swing them. Please!

Twenty feet more would get him to the
first of several open-sided pavilions, each with rusty,
brown-painted steel supports holding up a wood-braced roof, the
center one to be today's meeting place.

Beyond the park's people-worn grass
were ballfields, one with low bleachers.

Time for Z to go in.

And still he sat as others continued
to get out of cars; slam doors; cross the sidewalk to enter the
park.

Men. Women. The men dressed any which
way, the women in colorful silk skirts and loose, bulge-hiding
blouses.

Shorts and shirt people were
walk-jogging on the running path, one determined sixty-year-old
thumping along heavily as others passed him, his wrinkled upper
body a sheen of sweat, his face a pleasant shade of purple. A
nearly naked teenager with tiny earphones on his head flashed past
on black, in-line skates, skillfully weaving in and out of the
walkers, flipping to skate backwards, all the while fiddling with
his belt radio.

Far to the right, over the trees, Z
could just make out the tops of the buildings of his old school,
Northtown High.

A year or two as a high school
football star ... and they threw your bare butt out into a kick-ass
world.

Damn Susan, anyway!

In the first place, it was
Susan's fault he was here at all, in the second, it was her
miscalculation that he was here
alone
. (Not that Susan knew she'd be
called in to work today, though Z thought she could have told her
boss to stuff it if she'd wanted.)

Susan liked her job at the insurance
company. Imagine! A bright, beautiful girl like Susan working for
an insurance company!............

Z felt guilty.

He was lucky to have
Susan; any way, any time. Gorgeous Susan. Long legs that led right
up to heaven; figure of an "enhanced" starlet; full, red lips;
tousled black hair shining even in the moonlight. Teeth not too
daddy-daughter-sent-to-the-orthodontist straight. Hell, she was
even stunning with her clothes
on
!

Susan Halliwell.

What she saw in an ugly old man like
him, he'd never know, face all cracked to hell, eyes the color of
lukewarm spit.

She was too good for him on any day
he'd ever lived. A class act. Too bright, too stunning to be the
girl of a big, dumb fuck like Bob Zapolska!

Z felt another wave of
guilt. Z's Mother -- may she rest in peace -- wouldn't approve of Z
using language like that, or in this case,
thinking
language like that. Dead
all these years, Z's Mom still had a say in her son's life. All
Moms did.

Now, even his
hands
were
sweating!

High school reunions would do that to
you.

"You'll never forgive yourself if you
don't go to your reunion," Susan said. In bed at the time, Susan
had emphasized her words by "gesturing" with her hands. "I remember
my first high school reunion," Susan continued, her sexy low voice
like the rumble of distant thunder in his ear. "Seeing all my
friends. Remembering the good old days."

They'd already discussed
why this was Z's first reunion, Z explaining he and the other kids,
as a joke, had elected dumb Harry Jenner as class president.
Decades
was as fast as
Harry's brain could arrange a party.

Z's thoughts returning to
his oven of a car, Z looked left, then right, to see a number of
expensive automobiles parked down the line, luxury vehicles
that
had
to be
the "goin'-to-the-reunion" chariots of the successful members of
the class.

And there Z sat, in his old Cavalier.
Useful for surveillance work, but not for making the "right kind"
of reunion-impression.

On the other hand, if no one saw Z
slide out of the little blue econo-box, some might think he
belonged to the black Mercedes three cars down. Or the
British-racing-green Jag after that. Or the cherry red Caddy. Or --
my God! -- the silver Rolls!

Z had already mailed in his fifty
bucks -- far from loose change in Z's world -- the money paying for
today's catered lunch in the park and this evening's sit-down
dinner.

Saying he wasn't going without her
when Susan told him she'd been called in to work, she'd called him
a coward .....

And that
did
it!

Even cowards wanting
to
seem
brave.

Now or never, Z popped the door latch
and swung the door as wide as it would go, levering his leg out,
groaning like he always did when his foot hit the
ground.

Bracing his bad knee, keeping it
stiff, he eased his two-hundred-twenty pounds out and
up.

Grateful for what little breeze there
was, Z slammed the tinny door.

Better. He was feeling
better for having thought up a strategy. Though Z tried to tell the
truth -- part of the Zapolska code he'd made for himself to follow
-- a guy didn't have to go
overboard
in the honesty department,
the code allowing him to tell Susan he'd gone to the reunion
without saying how long he'd
stayed
at the party.

To hell with the lunch!

To hell with the dinner!

He'd get in, find a corner to hide in,
and get the hell out.

Behind him and to the left, Z heard a
heavy crunch of gravel, the smell of disturbed rock-dust coming to
him a moment later. Down the line, a black stretch limo was pulling
in, followed by a squeal of brakes and a bump as the huge car's
tires rammed the cement barricade between the parking and the
sidewalk, the car jolted to a stop with a heavy rocking
motion.

Hadn't Z seen that ... bus ... before?
Something about it ....

Johnny Dosso!

One of the Three Musketeers. At least
that's what Z's "gang" had called themselves back in high
school.

Big Bob Z. Johnny D. And Teddy
Newbold.

Good! Particularly since Z now had the
excuse of waiting for John to get out of the "stretch" before Z
approached the party.

While waiting ...
remembering.

Z had gone to grade school with
Johnny, Ted joining as the third musketeer when the three of them
went out for football their freshman year. As seniors, they were on
the winning Northtown football team: Johnny the quarterback, Ted
playing back, and Z where he was needed. In those days, you played
both ways, not the sissy platoon football favored by today's pros.
You think modern players got tired? Think they got hurt? They ought
to try playing both offense and defense!

It was in the Raytown game for the
championship that Z hurt his knee. More accurately, had help from
the Raytown players in hurting his knee. For Z was the Northtown
star. As a back. As a receiver. On defense. The kind of player you
took out any way you could -- when you thought you could get away
with it.

Those were the glory days,
Z less than a year away from a college football scholarship. At
least, that was the plan -- about the only plan a poor boy
had
of going to college
-- especially way back then.

It was something other
than the Raytown game that reminded Z of the three musketeers,
however -- though Northtown had won the championship; Z making the
difference, even though he had to be hopped to the sidelines late
in the fourth quarter, never to make another play in
that
-- or any
other
--
game.

It wasn't
football
that had united
the three of them, but the trouble they
almost
got into when they were
juniors. (Anyone who thought
today's
kids were dumb and dumber
... didn't know much about
yesterday's
kids.)

What made them the Musketeers -- all
for one; one for all -- was that day after football practice in the
fall of their junior year. Giddy-tired, they were helling around
the Northland in Ted's old car, looking for girls, wishing they
could get a beer without running the risk of being caught breaking
training.

It had been so long ago Z couldn't
remember whose idea it was; to fake a murder as a way of scaring
someone on the street.

To simulate a killing, of
course, they needed a gun -- which should have been the end of that
stupid idea. And
would
have, if any kid but Johnny Dosso had been
involved.

As it was, it hadn't taken Johnny five
minutes to go into his expensive house on Enrico and return with a
revolver, the gun's silencer having a lot to say about Johnny's
family.

Laughing like fools, they'd driven to
the seedy part of the northern Kansas City suburb of Riverside,
arriving just before dark, soon finding what they were looking for:
a family sitting on the front porch of a house near the road,
taking the air like folks did who couldn't afford air
conditioning.

As Z remembered, John and Ted had made
up the plan while Z drove, the three of them passing the family to
stop a half-block farther on to let Teddy out.

Z then turned the car around to wait
while Ted walked back down the block toward the family on the
stoop.

Ted drawing abreast of the family, Z
had come roaring back, screeching to a stop opposite Ted, Johnny
sticking the gun out the window and firing.

As planned, Ted crumpled to the
sidewalk, Johnny scrambling out of the car to drag Ted's "body"
into the back seat, Johnny jumping in the car, Z peeling out of
there.

A block later, Ted making a miraculous
recovery, the three of them drove off laughing fit to kill at
having scared the pee out of the people on the porch.

Good, clean, old-timey, stupid fun. To
be replaced -- the world going steadily into the shitter -- by
today's drive-by shootings.

Nothing like an "almost" crime to bind
the old "gang" together ... just dumb white boys, playing hit man
in the "hood."

Funny, how the three of them turned
out. Ted with the cops. Johnny with the robbers. Z ... somewhere in
between?

The past relived (wasn't that what
reunions were for?,) Z was still waiting for Johnny Dosso -- if
that's whose car it was -- the man in the limo still
inside.

Maybe it wasn't John after all; maybe
it was a successful lawyer, coming back to lord it over guys like
Z; probably screwing a teeny-bopper to get himself in the mood to
bugger the rest of them.

Damn, Z wished Susan was on his arm!
With something that juicy standing next to him, he could face them
all!

No help for it. Z would have to go it
alone.

Pivoting on his good leg, careful to
avoid limping on the bad one, Z stepped over the curb and crossed
the parking to the uneven sidewalk, there to step through one of
the entrances to the park.