Nightwork (2 page)

“What happened to you?” he said.

“My husband was killed,” she said. “He was just a young man. He was doing nightwork, trying to earn extra money to help out my parents, and it killed him. A man can’t drive all day and all night too. You have to have sleep. I kept telling him. So what happened? He fell asleep at the wheel and drove off the road, and now he’s dead. And how is that going to help anybody?”

“Did you bring the check?” Molloy asked Dave.

Glass shattered outside. Dave turned to the window. Through the slats, he saw the fat boy with the skateboard in his hand. He stepped back and watched while the muscular boy reached in through the broken window and opened the door of the Jaguar. “Damn!” Dave said, and lunged for the house door. He twisted the bolt and yanked. The door stopped with a jerk on the end of its short chain.

“Don’t go out there.” Molloy grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms.

“Listen!” Angela Myers ran to the window.

A siren wailed. Not far off. Dave shook free of Molloy. He pushed the door to, twitched the chain out of its slot, pulled the door wide, was stopped by the screen, scrabbled at its little lock. The Edge youths ran back to the Mustang. The fat one still had the skateboard in his hand. Did the muscular one have the radio? He couldn’t. There hadn’t been time. They fell inside the Mustang and slammed the doors. Dave stepped outside. The Mustang’s engine thrashed to life, its tires screamed. Behind its blind eye sockets, it sped off up the street, swerving wildly. Dave ran down the walk. A Sheriff’s car came up the street, gold and white, an amber light flashing on its roof. It rocked to a halt beside the Jaguar.

“They went that way,” Dave said.

T
HE SHERIFF’S CAR DID
not go that way. A brown man and a black man in suntans and sunglasses stepped out of it. They were young. The black one looked overfed. He eyed the Jaguar and turned his opaque gaze on Dave. He shook his head and smiled sadly. “This yours?” And when Dave nodded, “Not your smartest move. Beverly Hills where this belong.” With a careful finger he touched a splinter of glass sticking up in the window frame. “They get anything?”

Dave bent and looked through the hole. The Blaupunkt was still in the dash. “I don’t think so. I think they wanted the radio.”

The Latino deputy scratched his chest and looked off up the bleak street where now nothing moved. “You take what you can get. You know what the unemployment figures are for teenage blacks around here? Sixty percent. Did you get a look at them? If we catch them, would you be willing to testify in court?”

From her front door, Angela Myers said, “No, he wouldn’t. You know how they make life hell for you.” She came at a soft-soled run down the walk. “They telephoned all night. They broke our windows, killed our dog, scared the kids so they couldn’t go out and play.”

The black deputy said, “He don’t live around here.”

“They’ll find him,” Angela Myers said. “You know that.” She looked at Dave. “Paul, my husband—he testified against Silencio Ruiz. For a supermarket holdup. Other people saw it, but Paul was the only one brave enough to testify.”

“Dumb enough.” This was Molloy. He had put on faded blue jeans. A cigarette burned at the corner of his mouth and jumped when he spoke. “What did he think was going to happen? The Gifford Gardens gang would give him a medal?”

“He did the right thing,” the black deputy said.

“What made you come here?” Dave said.

“Mr. Gifford called us.” The Latino pointed. The Gifford mansion shone white in the sun behind its big trees. The windows glittered in the sun. “De Witt Gifford. He lives up there.”

The black deputy chuckled. “Ain’t much gets past old De Witt. Mind everybody’s business. Like he was the King in his High Castle. Watches out that tower with binoculars. Nothing else to do.”

Dave looked at the cupola. Maybe he imagined it, but he thought he saw a wink of reflected sunlight sharper than that off the curved window glass. The lenses of Gifford’s Bausch & Lombs?

“Told the dispatcher some boys was after your car.”

Dave said, “I’ll have to go up and thank him.”

“You’ll have a hard time.” The Latino deputy walked around the Sheriff’s car to the driver’s side. “He’s got more chains and locks and burglar alarms than you can count. Guard dogs too. Nobody gets in there.” Across the roof of the car where the amber light still winked, he said, “Those boys will be back at the Mustang garage, probably. You want to drive with us, point them out to us?”

“Don’t do it,” Angela Myers said.

“Don’t worry,” the black deputy said. “I ain’t going in there. No way.”

“I’ll call for backup.” His partner dropped into the Sheriff’s car and reached for the dashboard microphone.

“We’ll need the marines,” the black deputy said.

“It only adds up to a broken window,” Dave said. “It’s not worth risking life and limb for. I’ll let it pass. I have work to do in this town.”

“Get yourself another car,” the black deputy said. “Look like you could buy a fleet for what this one cost.” He stroked the lustrous dark brown finish. “You want one, if they remove certain parts it don’t much matter.” He grunted when he dropped onto the seat of the Sheriff’s car. He closed the door. “I’m serious.”

“I take every man who wears a large gun seriously,” Dave said. “Thanks for coming. Thanks for your advice.”

“Mrs. Myers?” This was the Latino deputy. He bent his head and peered past his partner. “Silencio. Ruiz. He hasn’t been bothering you, has he?”

“What do you mean? He’s in San Quentin.”

“I mean your face. It looks like somebody beat you up. It wasn’t him, was it?”

“I had a fall.” She touched her swollen eye. “At the restaurant where I work.”

“He’s out on parole,” the deputy said. “A week already. That’s why I asked. Your husband—has Ruiz been bothering him?”

“My husband is dead,” she said.

“I’m sorry to hear that. If Silencio bothers you, that will constitute breaking the provisions of his parole. Don’t let him intimidate you. Call us right away, okay?” He smiled briefly, raised a hand, and the Sheriff’s car rolled off down the empty morning street. The amber light was not winking anymore.

“I have to get to work.” Angela Myers hurried toward the house. “I can’t afford any more days off.”

Gene Molloy started across the brown grass toward two narrow strips of cracked cement that were a driveway. “I’ll drop you off.”

“So you’ll have the car to run around to bars all day, wasting gas?” She jerked open the screen door. “Like hell you will.” Dave was right behind her. She marched for the rear of the house, and so did he. In a kitchen that smelled of burned toast, and where spoons leaned in cereal bowls on a steel-legged table with a yellow Formica top, she snatched up a soft leather handbag from a yellow Formica counter beside a steel sink, and reached for the back door.

“Please wait,” Dave said. She swung around sharply, surprised and annoyed that he was still here. He said, “I have bad news. Call your brother and sit down, all right?” He turned a steel-legged chair with yellow plastic padded back and cushion out from the table. Crumbs strewed the seat. He brushed them off. She didn’t move. She glared at him. He said, “Your husband didn’t fall asleep. What happened to him was not an accident. Any more than what happened to your face was an accident.”

She said, “Look, mister, I don’t know who you think—”

Molloy appeared at the back screen door. “What’s going on?” He came inside, glanced at angry Angela, scowled at Dave. “Listen, friend, this is my sister.”

“Sit down, please.” Dave hooked another chair by the leg with his shoe and swung it out from the table. “The Sheriff’s lab men have been examining the wreckage of Paul Myers’s truck. It’s taken a week, but now they’re sure. He didn’t have an accident. Someone attached an explosive device under the cab, and blew it up.”

“No.” Angela clutched Molloy’s arm, as if her legs wouldn’t hold her. She was more than surprised. She was frightened. She looked up into Molloy’s unshaven sulky boy face, as if he could change the truth. “They wouldn’t do that. Why would they? He was tired. He drove off the road.”

Molloy regarded Dave. “You sure about this?”

“The technicians are sure. It was detonated by remote control. Someone followed him and set it off when he reached that particular curve. They meant for it to look like an accident. Trucks have gone off there before.”

“Silencio,” Molloy said. He helped Angela to a chair She collapsed onto it. She was shivering. Molloy said, “I’m calling the cops.” He moved to leave the kitchen.

“Save your dime,” Dave told him. “They’re on their way. Lieutenant Jaime Salazar, Sheriff’s homicide.” He checked his watch. “He was supposed to meet me here. Is there any whiskey?”

“Huh?” Molloy gaped. Dave nodded at Angela. Molloy looked at her and understood. “Yeah, sure.” He climbed on a chair and from a high cupboard brought down a fifth bottle with a red label,
SLIM PRICE
.
He unscrewed the cap and poured from the bottle into a glass that had held orange juice. He pushed the glass at Angela. “Here. This will make you feel better.”

“I can’t go to work with liquor on my breath.”

“You can’t go to work anyway. You have to tell them about Ruiz in the courtroom, what he yelled when the judge sentenced him. He was going to kill Paul. Isn’t that what you told Mom? He was going to kill Paul when he got out?”

She leaned back in the chair, sighed, shut her eyes. “They get excited and say crazy things. Mexicans.”

“Angie, it had to be him. It happened just after he got out. You heard that deputy.” He took her hand, folded the fingers around the glass. “Drink that, will you? You look like you’re going to pass out.” She opened her eyes, drank, made a face, shuddered. Molloy said to Dave, “Who in hell else could it be? Didn’t it have to be him?”

“It was a sophisticated device,” Dave said. “I understood Ruiz was a street punk.”

“There’s training shops in prisons,” Molloy said.

Dave sat down. Angela sat with her eyes closed, the whiskey forgotten in her hand. He reached out and gently touched her arm. She opened her eyes.

“Mrs. Myers—who beat you up?”

A corner of her mouth twisted. “Who always beats women up? Husbands. You look old enough to know that.”

Dave looked up at Molloy. Molloy seemed surprised. Dave said, “Didn’t you do anything about it?”

“Me? I wasn’t here. You think he’d let me live here? Forget it. Not for years.”

“He wouldn’t let you live off him,” Angela said dully.

Molloy told Dave, “I came after he got killed. Has to be a man in the house. In Gifford Gardens? You better believe it. Anyway, Angie always wanted me here. It was Paul that hated my guts.”

Angela found Molloy’s hand and smiled up at him with gentle reproach. “He didn’t. He just wanted you to stand on your own feet. As long as you could live here with us, free meals, free rent, pocket money, you never would. He did it for your own good. Just like Daddy and Mama.”

“Oh, boy.” Molloy gave a sour laugh and asked Dave, “Can you figure that? Just out of high school. Your folks kick you out, your brother-in-law kicks you out. No job, no money, no place to sleep. And they call it love.”

“They call a lot of things love,” Dave said, “and some of the most unlikely ones turn out to be just that.”

Molloy snorted. Cigarettes lay on the table. He pulled out a third chair, sat on it, shook a cigarette from the pack, lit it with paper matches whose print urged him to complete his high-school education at home. He blew out the flame with a stream of smoke and asked Dave, “Does it make some difference to the insurance company if he was murdered or died by accident?”

“It could. In either case, I’d be here.”

“What for?” Angela said. “I already told the police all I know. I don’t know anything. Gene’s right. It has to be Silencio, doesn’t it? Ruiz?”

“Sometimes,” Dave said, “we know things without knowing we know them. Paul Myers went for years without life insurance. Then, suddenly, a month ago, he took out a policy for a hundred thousand dollars.” Dave glanced at the shabby kitchen, faded yellow paint, scuffed vinyl tile, crooked cupboard doors. “That’s expensive. What happened to make him do that?”

She shrugged. “Ossie Bishop died. It scared Paul. It happened so fast. No warning. He didn’t want to leave me and the kids and my folks high and dry.”

“Ossie Bishop!” Molloy jumped up, making the movement noisy, scraping the chair legs. He went to the stove. A glass coffeepot stood there, half full, over a low flame. He turned up the flame. Anger was in the sharp twist of his wrist. “He’d have that jig in the house. He wouldn’t have me—his wife’s own brother.”

“Ossie was Paul’s best friend,” Angela told Dave. “I didn’t like having one of them in the house, but he wouldn’t hear a word against Ossie. And that wife of his, Louella—big, fat, black thing. Always trying to be friendly, asking me to go to that nigger church with her, wanting our kids to play together. Paul didn’t see anything wrong with it, but I don’t believe in it. I wasn’t raised that way.”

“This is a mixed town,” Dave said. “Surely, in school—”

“I don’t let them go to public school. White kids get mugged and knifed and raped at public school in Gifford Gardens. That’s the reason I waitress. So I can pay to send them to the Kilgore School.”

“Was Ossie Bishop an independent trucker too?”

She nodded. “It was him who told Paul about the nightwork. He was doing it trying to save up enough to buy a second truck so his oldest boy could drive it when he got out of high school.”

Molloy banged mugs onto the table among the milky cereal bowls, whose spoons tinkled from the jar. “Jesus, have you told Dad that? That even a nigger thinks of his own flesh and blood first? I’m sure as hell going to tell the old bastard.”

“Gene,” she said wearily, “that’s all past and gone. It’s no good eating yourself up inside over something that can’t be changed. He’s sick, anyway. Leave him alone. You never wanted to be a truck driver.”

“I sure as hell never wanted to be a carpenter.” Molloy brought the coffee pot and filled the mugs. “Not for free, for Christ sake. He paid his other apprentices. I was his kid—so I didn’t get paid. Beautiful.” He set the coffeepot back on the stove.