Nightlife (18 page)

“Just sit down. Sit. Both of you.” Her voice conciliatory. “And knock off with the visuals, okay, Nate? He doesn’t need those.”

They backed off from one another, and she settled into a chair at the end of the table. Peacemaker, arbitrator.

“Nobody’s accusing you of anything here,” she said.

“Could’ve fooled me.” Justin glared at Harris.

Espinoza’s dark eyes sought his own. Hinting toward warmth. “Was Erik a drug user?”

He fully knew the game they were running on him. Nice cop, mean cop. He knew, as well, that he was falling for it. Hook, line, and sinker. Anything so as not to have to talk to Harris.

“You guys searched the apartment, didn’t you?” To Harris: “What did you find? Two whole joints, right?”

“Yeah,” he grumbled. “That was it.”

“Wooo, impressive. Bet you’ll make captain on that one, for sure.” The sarcasm was irresistible, and Harris’s scowl was its own reward. Back to Espinoza. “He smoked a joint now and then. But that’s the extent of it.”

“He never sold?” she asked.

“Never. Not his style. And I’ve sworn off it for good, ever since last fall. I don’t know how many times I’ve got to say this before it sinks in, but I came down here to rebuild. Period. My whole life. There was
never
any intention of getting back into dealing. I screwed up, yeah, I admit that. If I could change that, I would. But I’m not going to make the same mistake again, come on.”

Justin wiped a wrist across his forehead. Slick, oily. He felt as awful outside as in. Maybe the worst was knowing that chances were nil that he could escape this even in sleep.

“Could you answer a couple of questions?” he said to her.

“If I can.”

“How did you get him ID’d so quickly? Was his wallet on him?”

She dug for a cigarette of her own, lit up. Looked curiously at the one he had requested and had hitherto ignored. “No, it wasn’t. But his—um—remaining hand was fingerprinted, and he was on file. Two years ago he was picked up for a DUI.”

I didn’t know that.
A minor shock to the system. So Erik had had his own little secrets. “Has anybody made the positive ID of his body yet? Or ... do I have to do that?” Espinoza shook her head. “It’s been done. His boss, from the photo studio.”

Justin nodded, felt himself wilting. The night without sleep, however fitful, taking its toll, compounded by loss and sorrow, topped off with Harris’s absurd insinuations. A potent concoction.

“Look. My best friend is dead.” Very low, very even. Very tired. “And I loved him a lot. I came down here because he was the only person I knew I could count on to help me get things back on track.” He shut his eyes, rubbed them. Opened. They felt as red as a stoplight. “Now. Unless you plan on charging me with something, I just want to leave. Erik’s gone. And nobody’s even given me enough time to cry about it yet. And that’s all I want to do now.”

He stood. They stood.

“Any objections?”

Espinoza shook her head. “Where can we get in touch with you, if we need?”

He gave them April’s name. Tried to reconstruct her address and phone number from memory. At least he hoped he could stay there. No way could he stay alone at Erik’s now. For more reasons than one.

“Might be a good idea if you don’t haul stakes and leave town suddenly. Okay, sport?” Harris again.

Justin frowned. “Erik’ll probably be buried in Ohio this week. I’m not going to miss that. But I’ll be back.” He glanced down to the tabletop, the pristine cigarette and water glass. Looked back up to Harris. “I don’t know what you think I am. Right now, I don’t much care.” Pause. “I don’t smoke, and I’m not thirsty. Get it? Appearances can be deceiving. I was in advertising, so I know that as well as anybody. So thanks for
all
your concern.” He submerged the cigarette into the water, pushed the glass before Harris. “Drink up.”

Harris merely glared, and Justin thought he caught the faintest tic of a smile in one corner of Espinoza’s mouth. She produced a business-style card and handed it to him. In case he came up with something more concrete regarding Mendoza. He pocketed it and was out the door. Into the hallway.

And a few paces later, in April’s arms.

They said nothing, just stood in the corridor as cops and civilians alike traveled in sporadic currents around them. He felt her body shaking within his arms, warmth and wetness from her face dampening the collar of the now-sour shirt he wore. Questions, nothing but tears and questions. And the hurt, oh, the hurt.

Justin knew he couldn’t hold on until they got to her car. And so let the floodgates fall.

Rene Espinoza watched Justin leave the interrogation room and briefly considered instincts.

She was thirty-four, had spent twelve years with the Tampa Police, the last four in homicide. Woman on a traditionally male turf, complete with the accompanying resentment from various sources. She held her own, gave no quarter.

Male or female, cops develop instincts to serve when facts are lacking. Honing them like surgical steel with the abrasion of years of experience.

Right now, instinct was telling her that Justin had laid it all on the, table for them, hoping for the best. And they were sending him off with less than a Band-Aid’s worth of hope.

Instinct said he was in
way
over his head.

“I hated that,” she said, barely a whisper. “I hated every minute of that.”

She watched Justin walk away, arm around a dark-haired girl who had gotten a head start on the tears. Misery loves company.

“At least you didn’t have to play the
real
bastard.” At the moment, Nate Harris looked a good decade older.

Fifteen minutes later, they were both standing in the office of their immediate superior. Lieutenant Chadwick was a slender, half-bald man, born to lead from behind a desk. She thought he had forgotten what it was like to look into the eyes of the constituency they’d sworn to protect and serve, only to regurgitate excuses. Excuses that, real or fabricated, boiled down to one thing:
No. I’m sorry. I can’t help you.

“I was watching through the mirror,” Chadwick said. “That was good work in there.”

Rene fixed him with a narrow gaze. A chilly voice. “We just hung that guy out to dry.”

“I don’t like sacrifices any better than you do.” Chadwick sighed. “But the captain was breathing down my neck about this thing even before the uniforms had that Gray character in the building.” Shook his head; he put on a good show. “The dope squad has spent the last fourteen months getting a guy into Rafael Agualar’s stable. Agualar is
this close
to trusting him—and when he does, that ugly warthog’s going down for good. It’s the kind of payoff that casts political careers in solid gold. But Agualar’s about as stable as a bottle of nitro. We start rousting somebody down on Mendoza’s level, for no more than Gray could cough up, and Agualar’s liable to clench his asshole and put a freeze on anything new.”

She concentrated on breathing evenly. It would be too easy to lose her temper, say the wrong things. Improper form for a team player. “Was it necessary to send him out of here feeling like
he
was the guilty one?”

Chadwick strolled to his window, overlooking a vast parking lot. He laced his fingers behind his back, rocked on his heels.

“C’mon, Rene, please,” Harris said.

“No, no. She’s right, in a way.” Still staring, as if all below were his toy cars. “But the more he’s convinced we think he’s in bed with people like Mendoza, the less likely he is to get self-righteous on us. We don’t need a crusader. Especially if he would think of going to the press, saying we weren’t doing our jobs. The dead friend—Webber, was it? He used to work for the
Trib.
So did the girl.”

“So do we even talk to Mendoza at all?”

Chadwick turned, stared evenly across the office. “What would be the point?”

Fists clenched at her sides. “I hope you take it this well when that guy turns up as a floater too.”

She left the office then, storming toward the bathroom. They had done it figuratively, now she might as well make it literal—

Washing her hands.

• • •

April ran the two of them back to Davis Island, late afternoon by now. The clear sky and sunshine of morning had given way to premature duskfall and a cloud cover that wouldn’t quit. Gray, everywhere you looked. Fitting. It held in humidity like a wet, steaming blanket.

The police were long gone from the apartment, and it felt as empty and lifeless as a crypt when they entered. Treading up those stairs had been one of the hardest things he had ever done.

“At least they didn’t leave too big a mess behind,” April said. Her voice tight and forced. It matched her face, red and blotchy.

Justin nodded, crossed the hardwood to sit on the edge of the couch. Longing to look up and see Erik draped into the love seat, wielding omnipotence with his remote control. April followed, rested a hand on his shoulder. He covered it with his own. Not up to packing his things yet. How final that would feel, dirt on a coffin lid.

“Maybe we should clean some things up,” he finally said. “For whenever his family comes down to get his stuff.” Justin pointed at the scattering of empty beer bottles on the coffee table. Elsewhere there should be a package of rolling papers. “Know what I mean?”

“Maybe we should.”

He sighed and got up, retrieved the trash can from the kitchen. They both pitched in empty bottles, and he found the rolling papers. April dampened a dishcloth and wiped up tabletop rings and places where his dusting had been lax. On bookshelves made from concrete blocks and boards, Justin found a few issues of
Penthouse
and scrapped them too. Mothers never understood such things, healthy boys’ curiosities. Folded onto a bedroom closet shelf was a silky pink teddy, still exuding whiffs of perfume. He wondered whose. In the kitchen, he readied the remaining Killian’s for transport to April’s, threw out the stuff that was likely to spoil before his parents’ arrival.

Justin lingered at the answering machine. Played the tape to see if any messages had come in lately. Only his own. Played Erik’s outgoing message, almost cried at the sound of his voice. April paused while dusting to listen. He couldn’t look at her, not right then. When it finished, he popped both tapes from the machine to keep. His last contact with Erik’s voice.

They had the place in reasonable shape in a half hour, cleansed of benignly incriminating stuff his parents didn’t really need to deal with. Let him retain
some
privacy in his life. They likely thought him an angel, so let it stay that way, without taint.

Justin cinched the trash bag, hauled it down and out of the building. Across the lot to the dumpster to pitch it in. Shut his eyes at the metallic thud. He’d heard that some people found intense cleaning after a death to be therapeutic. Not so here. He felt like a vulture, mopping up selective traces of Erik’s existence.

My fault. My fault.
This entire ghastly chain of events had been forged the moment he had decided to follow Mendoza at Apocalips. If only he’d just stayed put, kept his ass in that chair like someone with brains. If only, if only. The burden was immense, Atlas shouldering the globe.

On the way back, he lingered beside Erik’s car. The mighty Lynx. Laid a hand on the hood, remembering when Erik had gotten it several years back.

It had been just before a vacation from the
Tribune,
and Erik had driven it up to St. Louis. That first night of his in town, they had taken it everywhere they went. Eventually grabbing some road beer and wheeling north, no destinations in mind. Justin had already decided to call in sick to the agency in the morning, and this was before spousal curfews. They had wound up on some bluffs overlooking the Mississippi, and there they had stayed. Talking the night away. Some Phil Collins tape cycling endlessly thanks to the autoreverse of the in-dash player, Drinking until dawn, looking at life fore and aft. Discussing lost loves and lost causes.

Put it away,
he decided. For now.

On the way back to the building’s entrance, he hung close by the building. Passing the nose-ends of cars. Halfway along, he stopped. Peripheral vision; he stooped. On the ground, a familiar yellow rectangle the size of a business card, blown against the building’s foundation.

Erik’s membership card from Mind’s Eye Video. He feared he knew how it got there.

Justin pocketed the card. Keepsake. One more connection to Erik, product of a shared obsession. And fuel for the fires of a debt he could not let go unpaid.

April’s apartment was at a west central location, on Magnolia, south of Kennedy. Not too far from the University of Tampa, and maybe a twenty-minute walk from downtown proper. She had the second, and top, floor’s northern half of her building; somebody else had the southern. It still seemed vast to Justin, as it had earlier when they’d come to fix the picnic breakfast, then later after the sun was up. The rent was undoubtedly high, but since it doubled as office space, she took out a chunk of that as well as utilities every spring for tax deductions.

Except for the east end, into which had been built a separate bathroom and a pair of large walk-in closets, the rest was essentially one long room. Areas subdivided according to use. Her office at the west end, which merged into bedroom, which merged into living and dining areas, which merged into kitchen. Rattan partitions helped perpetuate the illusion of rooms, as did a spaced pair of brick support pillars. One-inch Levolor blinds hung over the bank of north-wall windows, and across the street was some trash-chic bar and diner with reddish-orange neon. She left the lights off as they entered, and the neon glow filtered through the blinds like slatted fog.

The rain had started by the time they arrived, gusts of wind rippled the blinds. A place this big, she had little use for air-conditioning. Watch the electric bill skyrocket. Live with it; she was a native. He wasn’t. Suffer.

He left his luggage sitting beside the couch, just sank into it. Tired, so tired. Conversation seemed as dead as the Latin language. He unbuttoned his shirt, left the short tail hanging out over his jeans. Sweat tickled along his breastbone.