Nightcrawlers: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Mystery) (21 page)

And that was where I found the Toyota.

It happens like that sometimes. You give up on a thing, you make a more or less unrelated move, and you get a surprise. Chance, divine guidance—call it what you want. I turned into the lot because the traffic was bunched up and I was ready to head back in the opposite direction and there was a stoplight at the entrance and I could make an easy U-turn in the lot. And while I was making the turn down one of the short aisles of parked cars, my lights picked out one by itself and a pole light nearby gave it added definition.

Red Toyota Camry, Horace’s
MR CELLO
license plate.

I hit the brakes so hard they almost locked and the tires squealed on the pavement. Inside of ten seconds I was parked
and out and pawing at the Toyota’s driver-side door. It wasn’t locked. I sucked in a breath, dragged the door open, bent inside.

The keys were in it. Not in the ignition—tossed on the passenger seat. Another piece of blind luck. If the wrong person had spotted them at any time last night or today, the car wouldn’t be sitting here now.

I pocketed the keys, checked the seats, floorboards, shadowed rear deck for signs of violence. None, thank God. The contents of a trash bag hanging from a radio knob told me nothing. Neither did the usual items in the glove compartment or the armrest box where she kept her CDs. But I did find one other thing when I leaned down and swept a hand underneath the seats—Tamara’s purse, stuffed under the driver’s bucket.

Her wallet was there, but money, credit cards, driver’s license were all missing. I couldn’t tell if anything else had been taken from the jumble of other stuff.

I backed out, taking the purse with me, and made sure all the doors were locked. My hands were shaking a little. Supposed to look like a robbery that had gone down right here in the lot, but not to me. Any thief will steal cash and credit cards, but none will take a photo ID out of its celluloid holder and leave the wallet behind. No, the Toyota had been driven over here and abandoned sometime during the night, the keys left in it in the hope that somebody would steal it. Driven from Willard Street, seven blocks away.

That was the
where
, all right. I had no doubt of it now.

I
was on a dark side street, heading back to Willard Street, when Mick Savage finally called. The dashboard clock, more or less accurate, said it was 9:20. I veered over to the curb before I answered the call.

“Got what you wanted from Tamara’s computer,” he said.

“Go ahead, Mick.”

“New file, untitled, made on Monday. Looks like a preliminary background check on a man named Robert Lemoyne. L-e-m-o-y-n-e. Mixed race, black father, white mother.”

“Address?”

“Eleven-oh-nine Willard Street, San Leandro.”

“That’s it. What else?”

Mick gave me a quick rundown on Lemoyne. Age forty-seven. Construction worker. Twice married, twice divorced. One child, a daughter, custody awarded to the mother four years ago. Evidently lived alone. No criminal record of any kind. No brushes with the law except for a couple of misdemeanors. No apparent history of domestic or substance abuse.

So?

I asked Mick, “Anything in the file about why she was checking up on him?”

“No,” he said. “And no mention of him anywhere else on her hard drive. You think he’s responsible?”

“Somebody on Willard Street is. I just found her car—abandoned in a Safeway parking lot a few blocks away.”

“Oh, man. There wasn’t . . . I mean . . .”

“No indications of foul play, no.”

“What do you think happened?”

“Can’t say yet. But this Lemoyne’s house is right near where she was staked out the past two nights.”

“So maybe he spotted her and hit on her or something?”

“That’s one possibility. Is there anything in his background about violence toward women?”

“Not in the file,” Mick said, “but Tamara didn’t go too deep
into it. Just preliminary stuff. You want me to do some digging myself, see what else I can find out?”

“Would you? But you must be pretty tired by now . . .”

“Nah. I’ll work all night if it’ll help find Tamara. I’d rather hack than sleep.”

“Thanks, Mick. Call me if you come up with anything I should know. Otherwise I’ll be in touch.”

I made it fast back to Willard Street. Number 1109 had been one of the dark houses; it was still dark now. I parked down the street, and with the lights off I unclipped the .38 Colt Bodyguard from under the dash, checked the loads, and slipped the piece into my pocket. Then I went up and leaned on Robert Lemoyne’s doorbell.

Empty echoes, empty house.

I checked the garage, found a window in back I could see through with the aid of my penlight. Empty garage.

Lights behind curtains made saffron squares of the two front windows in Bill Powers’s house down the block. I crossed over there and rang his bell. He was in pajamas and bathrobe, a book in one hand with a finger marking his place, a pair of silver-rimmed reading glasses tilted forward on his nose. He blinked at me from behind the lenses.

“Sorry to bother you again, Mr. Powers,” I said, “but I need to ask a few more questions. About another of your neighbors this time.”

“Sure,” he said. Then he said, “You look grim. Something happen?”

I brushed the question aside. “What can you tell me about the man who lives at eleven-oh-nine, Robert Lemoyne?”

“Bob? Quiet, friendly enough, but mostly keeps to himself.”

“Aggressive? Toward women especially?”

“Not that I’ve heard about. Doesn’t seem to be that type, but then I don’t know him very well. Just to say hello to.”

“Trouble of any kind associated with him?”

“How do you mean, trouble?”

“Disputes with neighbors. Excessive drinking, loud parties. That sort of thing.”

“Nothing like that,” Powers said, “Say, you have reason to think he’s mixed up in the young woman’s disappearance?”

I hedged on that. “No specific reason, no. Did you happen to see Lemoyne last night?”

“Don’t think so. Not last night.”

“But he was home?”

Powers thought about it. “Wasn’t when I went for my walk, but I seem to remember his lights being on when I looked out before I went to bed. Won’t swear to it, though. My memory’s not what it used to be.”

“He’s not home now. Any idea where he could be?”

“Not a clue.”

“Bar or restaurant he frequents?”

“Like I said, I hardly know the man. Might ask one of the other neighbors, but I doubt they’d be able to tell you any more than me.”

“So he’s not particularly friendly with any of them? One of the black families?”

“Never saw him hanging out with anybody around here.”

“He lives alone?”

“Yep. As long as I’ve been here.”

“Girlfriends?”

“Don’t remember seeing him with a woman, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t had his share.”

“Male friends?”

“Same answer.”

Quiet, nonaggressive, nontroublesome loner. If that was a true picture of Robert Lemoyne, what had he done to make Tamara notice him, run the check on him? And if he was responsible for her disappearance, what did he or she or both of them do to cause it?

I went back to the car, sat there with the cell phone in my hand. Call the cops—that was the right thing to do. Except that it wasn’t, not yet. No clear-cut motive and nothing but circumstantial evidence to link Lemoyne to Tamara’s disappearance—maybe enough circumstantial evidence to convince the local law to talk to Lemoyne, but not enough to convince a judge to issue a search warrant. Without any indication of foul play, the Toyota was just another car more or less legally parked in a supermarket lot. She hadn’t even been gone long enough for an official missing person’s report to be filed.

Not a damn thing the law could do, not tonight, not soon enough.

There was only one other person besides me who could do something—Jake Runyon. His number was the one I called.

“Hey, Tommy,” Bix said, “hey, man, you sure about this, huh?”

“Sure about what?”

“Doin’ this one so early, man. People on the streets, cars, lights in all the houses . . . suppose somebody sees us?”

“We been over that already, how many times? This Butter-field’s not like the other fags. He don’t go out much and when he does he drives.”

“The one up by the park had a car.”

“So what? He stayed out late couple of nights a week, that made it easy. This one don’t go out much at night and when he does he comes home early and brings some other fag back with him. Troy told us that, didn’t he? We checked him out, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Yeah but, yeah but. Come on, what’s the matter with you? You turning chicken on me?”

“Chicken?” Bix glared at him from under the bill of his Giants cap. “Listen, dude, I ain’t afraid of nothin’ or nobody. You call me chicken, I’ll kick
your
ass. You know I can do it, too.”

Tommy sighed. Problem with Bix wasn’t that he was chicken, problem was he had two fuckin’ brain cells and one of ‘em was always out looking for the other. You had to explain everything to him fifty times before he got it, and then half the time he forgot and you had to explain it all over again. It was worse when he was high. He was high now, all that crystal meth he’d smoked out at Finn’s crib in Daly City. High and wired, the way he had to get to give these lousy queers what they deserved. Not Tommy. One pipe, that was all he’d smoked. He didn’t need speed or anything else to get his juices flowing. Just giving it to those bastards, paying ‘em back for what they did to Troy, that was enough. Better than any drug he’d ever tried.

Troy. Stupid punk kid. Ten times smarter than Bix, maybe even had a few more brains than himself, but he was still stupid. Convincing himself he was gay, of all the goddamn things, then running off to the city, the Castro, Faggotville, and letting all those queers take advantage of him, stick their dicks in him . . . Christ! Made his blood boil thinking about what they’d done to an innocent seventeen-year-old kid like his little brother. Made him want to fix them real good. Not just hurt them, like the first three—put their lights out permanent so they couldn’t prey on any more underage dummies. Maybe that’s what he’d do with this Butterfield or the next one. Yeah, maybe. Why not? Felt so good kicking the crap out them, think how good it’d feel taking one all the way out.

“Tommy, hey, man, what time’s it now?”

“Quit worrying about the time. He’ll be here pretty soon, comes home from his work about this time every night.”

“Unless he goes out somewhere. What if he don’t show?”

“Then we’ll come back tomorrow night. Or the next.”

“I’m ready now, man. I’m hot to trot.”

“Just take it easy. Stay cool.”

“So hot I’m cool,” Bix said and giggled. “So cool I’m hot.”

Two fuckin’ brain cells.

They were parked behind a Dumpster across the street from Butterfield’s house off Twenty-fourth Street. Nice old shingled house, big, yard in front, garage built on to one side. Rich faggot, worked for some computer company, big executive or something. Screwed businesspeople during the day, screwed underage kids at night. Bastard. Lousy queer boy-fucking bastard. Well, he’d get his pretty soon, pretty soon. Wouldn’t be screwing anybody for a long time after tonight. Might never screw anybody ever again after tonight.

Cars came up the street, went down the street. None of them turned into the driveway over there, but Tommy had a feeling it wouldn’t be long now. Another five minutes, ten at the most. The Little League bat was on the seat between him and Bix; he pulled it over onto his lap, ran his fingers over the dented aluminum.

Bix had one of those little rubber balls that he kept squeezing in one hand or the other. He flipped it from his left to his right, made a fist and crushed it hard. Then he giggled again. Not because anything was funny, he always giggled when he was high. The more he smoked, the more he giggled. Damn irritating habit. Sounded like a girl. Sometimes he even sounded like a faggot.

Another set of headlights crawled up the street. Tommy sat
up straight. His head felt funny all of a sudden, like it’d just been pumped full of air. His ears started ringing. His pecker stirred as if a girl had just stroked it.

“That’s him,” he said.

“Hey, man, how can you tell that from—”

“That’s him, goddamnit, get ready to move.”

Tommy took a tight grip on the handle of the bat, shoved the door handle down on his side. It was Butterfield, all right—the car slowed, lights swept off into the driveway, garage door started to slide up. Tommy was out and halfway across the street by the time the door was all the way up and the car started slotting inside, Bix a couple of steps behind him. Nobody in sight, one other set of headlights but they were a block and a half away uphill. No problem.

Click, whir, and the garage door started down again just as Tommy hit the sidewalk running. Bix was right behind him as he ducked inside. The fag was half in and half out of the car—a Beamer, wouldn’t you know it—and when he saw them he tried to crawl in and slam the door, lock himself in. But Tommy got there first, yanked it out of his hand, and jammed it open with his hip. Butterfield’s face twisted up at him, more pissed than scared, and quick he jammed his thumb against the remote hanging from the visor. The garage door stopped halfway down. Hell with that. Wasn’t gonna do him any good, he wasn’t going anywhere except down for the count.

“What the hell’s the idea? Get out of my garage!”

Tough-talking fruit. Bigger than the others, over six feet, all decked out in an expensive suit and tie, ugly bearded face . . . how the hell could Troy let an ugly bastard like that screw him? Tommy felt himself swelling up with heat and rage and excitement, until he felt ten feet tall. He could’ve taken on the
biggest queer ever lived tonight, one on one. Didn’t need Bix, didn’t need anybody but Tommy Douglass and his little Louisville Slugger.

“You’re the one getting out,” he said. “Or we’ll pile in there and drag you out.”

“I know you. Gay bashers, breeder trash.”