"O" Is for Outlaw (15 page)

"But what is all this?"

"I have no idea. Look, I know how his mind works. Mickey's paranoid. He tends to hide anything of value. I went through his apartment systematically, and this is what I found. I couldn't leave it there."

"The guns are stolen?"

"I doubt it. Mickey always had guns. In all likelihood, they're legal."

"But you don't know that for sure. Mickey didn't authorize you to do this. Couldn't you end up in trouble? "

"Well, yeah, but I can't worry about that now. I didn't know what else to do. They were locking him out. This stuff was hidden in the walls, behind panels, in phony bathroom pipes. Meanwhile, he's in the hospital, completely out of it."

"What happens to his possessions? Doesn't he have furniture?"

"Tons. I'll probably offer to have things moved into storage until we see how he fares."

"Have you spoken to the doctors yet?"

"They're not going to talk to me. The cops put the lid on that possibility. Anyway, I made a big point of saying we've been out of touch for years. I can't come along afterward and ask for daily updates like I'm so distraught. They'd never believe me."

"But you said you weren't going to get involved in this."

"I know. I'm not. Well, I am a little bit. At the moment, I don't even know what's going on."

"Then leave it alone."

"It's too late for that. Besides, you're the one who said I ought to check it out."

"But you never listen."

"Well, I did this time."

"Will you listen if I tell you to butt out?"

"Of course. Once I know what it's about."

"Kinsey, this is clearly police business. You can't keep quiet about this stuff. You ought to call those detectives, "

"Nope. Don't want to. I'm not going to do that. I don't like those guys."

"At least they can be objective."

"So can I."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really. Henry, don't do this."

"What am I doing?"

"You're disapproving of my behavior. It tears me up."

"As well it should."

I clamped my mouth shut. I was feeling stubborn and resistant. I was already in the thick of it and couldn't ball out. "I'll think about it some."

"You better do more than that. Kinsey, I'm concerned about you. I know you're upset, but this really isn't like you."

"You know what? It is like me. This is exactly who I am: a liar and a thief. You want to know something else? I don't feel bad about it. I'm completely unrepentant. More than that. I like it. It makes me feel alive."

A shadow crossed his face and something familiar seemed to scurry into hiding. He was silent for a moment and then said mildly, "Well. In that case, I'm sure you don't need any lectures from me."

He was gone before I could reply. The door closed quietly behind him. The plate of brownies remained. I could tell they were still warm because the air was filled with the scent of chocolate and the plastic wrap was foggy with condensation. I stood where I was. I felt nothing. My mind was blank except for the one assertion. I had to do this. I did. Something inside me had shifted. I could sense the muscles in my face set with obstinacy. There was no way I'd let go, no way I'd back away from this, whatever it was.

I sat down at the counter, propping my feet on the rung of the kitchen stool. I folded the newspaper neatly. I picked up the envelope and opened the seal. Inside were two passbooks for Mickey's savings accounts, six cash-register receipts, a Delta ticket envelope, and a folded sheet of paper. I examined the passbooks first. The first had once held a total of $15,000, but the account had been closed and the money withdrawn in January of 1981. The second savings account was opened that same January with a deposit of $5,000. This was apparently the money he'd been living on of late. I noticed that a series of $600 cash withdrawals corresponded to deposits in his checking account with the following discrepancy: Mickey would pull $600 and deposit $200, apparently keeping $400 in pocket change, "walking around" money, as he used to refer to it. I had to guess this was petty cash, used to pay his bar bills, his dinners out, items from the market. The six cash-register receipts were dated January 17, January1, February 7, February 14, March 7, and March 14. The ink was faded, but the name of the establishment wasn't that hard to read: the Honky-Tonk. I was assuming he'd sold his car sometime in the third week in March because he'd deposited $900 in his checking account. The loss of his transportation might explain the sudden cessation of visits after so many regular Friday-night appearances. Why drive all the way to Santa Teresa to have a drink when there were bars in his neighborhood? I set the question aside since there was no way to answer it. Before examining the last item, I pulled out my index cards and made some notes. There's always the temptation to let this part slide, but I had to capture the data while everything was fresh in my mind.

Once I'd jotted down what I remembered, adding the cash count, credit card numbers, passbook numbers, and dates of receipts, I gave myself permission to proceed, opening the Delta ticket envelope, which really interested me. The flight coupons had been used. I removed the itinerary and the passenger receipt. Mickey had flown to Louisville, Kentucky, by way of Cincinnati on Thursday, May 8, returning late in the day on Monday, May 15. This impromptu five-day excursion had cost him more than $800 in plane fares alone.

I reached for the remaining item, a folded piece of paper, and read the brief statement, which was dated January 15, 1981. This was a simple letter agreement between Mickey Magruder and Tim Littenberg, signed by the latter, in which he acknowledged receipt of the sum of $10,000, a no-interest loan with a five-year balloon payment due and payable five months ago January 15, 1986.

I packed up the guns and other items, hid them in a safe place, and grabbed my jacket and handbag.

The main drag in Colgate is four lanes wide, lined with an assortment of businesses ranging from carpet stores to barbershops, with a gas station on every other corner and an automobile dealership on the blocks between. Colgate, sprawling, eclectic, and unpretentious, provides housing for those who work in Santa Teresa but can't afford to live there. The population count of the two communities is roughly the same, but their dispositions are different, like siblings whose personalities reflect their relative positions in the family matrix. Santa Teresa is the older of the two, stylish and staid. Colgate is the more playful, less insistent on conformity, more likely to tolerate differences among its residents. Few of its shops stay open after 6 P.M. Bars, pool halls, drive-in theaters, and bowling alleys form the exception.

The parking lot at the Honky-Tonk looked much as it had fourteen years before. Cars had changed. Whereas in the seventies the patrons were driving Mustangs and VW vans painted in psychedelic shades, streetlights now gleamed on Porsches, BMWs, and Trans-Ams. Crossing the lot, I experienced the same curious excitement I'd felt when I was single and hunting. Given my current state of enlightenment, I wouldn't dream of circulating through the bar scene, barhopping, we called it, but I did in those days. In the sixties and seventies, that's what you did for recreation. That's how you met guys. That's how you got laid. What Women's Liberation "liberated" was our attitude toward sex. Where we once used sex for barter, now we gave it away. I marvel at the prostitutes we must have put out of business, doling out sexual "favors" in the name of personal freedom. What were we thinking? All we ended up with were bar bums afflicted with pubic vermin.

The Honky-Tonk had expanded, incorporating space formerly occupied by the adjacent furniture store that used to advertise liquidation sales every six to eight months. There was a line at the door, where one of the bouncers was checking IDs by running them through a scanner. Each patron, once cleared, was stamped HT on the back of the right hand, the HT of the Honky-Tonk apparently serving as clearance to drink. That way the waiters and bartenders didn't have to card each cherubic patron ordering rum and Coke the drinker's equivalent of the training bra.

Now sporting my ink brand, I walked through a fog of cigarette smoke, trying to get a feel for the age and financial status of the crowd inside. There was a large infusion of college students, fresh-faced, uninhibited, their naivete and bad judgment not yet having come home to roost. The rest were chronic singles, the same aging bachelors and divorcees who'd been eyeballing each other since I'd first buzzed through.

There was still sawdust on the floor. Between the dark-painted wainscoting and the pressed-tin ceiling, the walls were hung with old black-and-white photographs showing Colgate as it had been sixty years before: bucolic, unspoiled, rolling hills stretching out as far as the eye could see. The images were illuminated by gaudy beer signs, red and green neon tinting the vanished grasslands and sunsets.

There were also countless photographs of local celebrities and regulars, pictures taken on St. Patrick's Day, New Year's Eve, and other occasions when the Tonk closed its doors to the public and hosted private parties. I spotted two 8-by-11 photos of Mickey, Pete Shackelford, and Roy Littenberg. The first showed them in police uniform, standing at parade rest: solem-faced, stiff-backed, serious about law and order. In the second, they were seasoned, men who'd become cynics, guys with old eyes who now smiled over cigarettes and highballs, arms flung casually across one another's shoulders. Roy Littenberg was the oldest by a good ten years. Of the three, he was now dead and Mickey was barely clinging to life. I wondered if there was a way to conjure them up out of memories and smoke-three cops, like ghosts, visible as long as I didn't turn and try to look at them directly.

Two long narrow rooms ran side by side, lined with wooden booths. Each had its own sound system, waves of music pounding against the senses as I moved from room to room. The first held the bar and the second a dance floor, surrounded by tables. The third room, since added, was sufficient to accommodate six pool tables, all of them occupied. The guys played Foosball and darts. The "girls" trooped in and out of the ladies' room, touching up the eye makeup, hiking up their pantyhose. I followed them in, taking advantage of an empty stall to avail myself of the facilities. I could hear two women in the adjoining stall, one barfing up her dinner while the other offered encouraging comments. "That's fine. Don't force it. You're doing great. It'll come." If I'd even heard of it in my day, I'd have assumed Bulimia was the capital of some newly formed Baltic state.

When I left the stall, there were four women in line and another three in front of the mirrors. I waited for an empty place at a sink, washing my hands while I checked my reflection. The fluorescent lighting gave my otherwise unblemished skin a sickly appearance, emphasizing the bags under my eyes. My hair looked like thatch. I wore no lipstick, but that was probably just as well, as the addition would have played up the yellow cast in my aging complexion. I was wearing Mickey's black leather jacket as a talisman, the same old blue jeans, and a black turtleneck, though I'd traded my usual tennis shoes for my usual boots. Mostly, I was dawdling, avoiding the moment when I'd have to perch on a bar stool and buy myself a drink. The two young women emerged from their stall, both of them thin as snakes. The barfer pulled out a prepasted toothbrush and began to scrub. In five years the stomach acid would eat through her tooth enamel, if she didn't drop dead first.

I emerged from the ladies' room, passing the dance floor on my left. I ventured over to the bar, where I bought myself a draft beer. In the absence of available bar stools, I drank the beer standing by myself, trying to look like I was keeping an appointment. Now and then I'd glance at my watch, like I was somewhat annoyed because I didn't have all night. I'm sure many people nearby were completely fooled by this. A few guys assessed me from a distance, not because I was "hot" but because I represented fresh meat, waiting to be graded and stamped.

I deleted my ego from the situation and tried to scrutinize the place from Mickey's point of view. What had possessed him to lend Tim Littenberg the money? Mickey wasn't one to take risks like that. He kept his assets liquid even if he earned very little in the way of interest. He was probably happiest making deposits to the Curtain Rod Savings and Loan. Tim Littenbergor, or his dad, must have made a hell of a pitch. Nostalgia might have played a part. Lit and his wife were never good with money. They'd lived from paycheck to paycheck, overdrawn, in debt, their credit cards maxed out. If Tim had needed a stake, they probably didn't have the cash to lend. Whatever the motivation, Mickey'd apparently made the deal. The note had been signed and payment had come due. I'd seen no evidence the loan had been repaid. Curious. Mickey certainly needed the money, and the Honky-Tonk was clearly doing good business.

Near the wall, a bar stool became vacant and I eased into the spot. My eyes strayed back to the mounted photographs and I studied the one hanging next to me. The Three Musketeers again. In this one, Mickey, Shack, and Lit were sitting at the bar, glasses aloft, offering a toast to someone off to their left. Dixie was visible in the background, her eyes fastened on Mickey, a look both hungry and possessive. Why hadn't I seen that at the time? What kind of dunce was I? I squinted at the picture, taking in the faces, one by one. Lit had always been the best-looking of the three. He was tall, narrow through the shoulders, long arms and legs, beautiful long fingers. I'm a sucker for good teeth and his were even and white, except for one cuspid that sat slightly askew, giving his smile a boyish appeal. His chin was pronounced, his bony jaw wide at the apex. His Adam's apple danced when he spoke. The last time I'd seen him was maybe four years ago and then just in passing. His hair was thinning by then. He'd been in his early sixties, and from what Shack had said he was already in the midst of a struggle for his life.

I rotated slightly on the bar stool and scanned the area, hoping to see Tim. I'd never met Lit's son. Back when I was married to Mickey and hanging out with his parents, he was already grown and gone. He'd joined the army in 1970, and for the period in question he was off in Vietnam. In those days, a lot of STPD cops were ex-army, very gung-ho about the military, supportive of our presence in Southeast Asia. The public by then had lost patience with the war, but not in that circle. I'd seen pictures of Tim that his parents passed around. He always looked grubby and content, a cigarette between his lips, his helmet pushed back, his rifle resting against his knees. Lit would read portions of his letters in which he described his exploits. To me, he sounded reckless and defiant, a bit too enthusiastic, a twenty-year-old kid who spent his days stoned, who loved to kill "gooks" and brag about it later to his friends back home. He'd been brought up on charges after a particularly nasty incident involving two dead Vietnamese babies. Lit stopped saying much after that, and by the time of Tim's dishonorable discharge he'd fallen silent on the subject of his son. Maybe the Honky-Tonk was Lit's hope for Tim's rehabilitation.

Almost at once, my gaze settled on a guy I would have sworn was him. He was somewhere in his mid-thirties, close to my age, and bore at least a superficial resemblance to Roy Littenberg. He had the same lean face, the distinctive jaw and jutting chin. He wore a dark purple shirt and plain mauve tie under a dark sport coat, jeans, desert boots. I'd caught him in conversation with a waitress, probably a dressing down, since she seemed upset. She had straight black hair, very glossy in the light, cut at an angle, with a line of blunt-cut bangs across the front. She wore black eyeliner and very red lipstick. I pegged her in her thirties, though close up she might have been older. She nodded, her face stony, and moved away, heading in my direction. She gave her order to the bartender, fussing with her order pad to cover her agitation. Hands shaking, she lit a cigarette, took a long drag, and then blew the smoke out in a thin jet. She left the cigarette in an ashtray on the bar.

I swiveled slightly and spoke to her. "Hi. I'm looking for Tim Littenberg. Is he on the premises?"

She looked at me, her gaze dropping to my jacket and then quizzically to my face again. She hiked a thumb in his direction. "Purple shirt," she said.

Tim had turned to greet a fellow in a tweedy sport coat, and I saw him signal the bartender to comp the guy to a drink. The two shook hands and Tim patted his back in a friendly gesture that probably didn't have much depth. Roy Littenberg had been fair-haired. His son's coloring was dark. His mouth was pouty and his eyes were darker than his father's, deep-set, smudged with shadow. His smile, when it showed, never touched his eyes. His attention flicked restlessly from room to room. He must constantly estimate the status of his customers, gauging their ages, their levels of inebriation screening each burst of laughter and every boisterous interchange for the possibility of violence. Every hour the Honky-Tonk was open, the crowd became looser and less inhibited, louder, more aggressive as the alcohol went down.

I watched him approach the bar, coming within a few feet of me. Nearby, the waitress turned abruptly with her tray to avoid contact with him. His gaze touched her and then drifted, caught mine, veered off, and then returned. This time his eyes held.

I smiled. "Hi. Are you Tim?"

"That's right."

I held a hand out. "I'm Kinsey. I knew your father years ago. I was sorry to hear he died."

We shook hands. Tim's smile was brief, maybe pained, though it was impossible to tell. He was lean like his father, but where Lit's countenance was open and sunny, his son's was guarded. "Can I buy you a drink? "

"Thanks, I'm fine for now. The place really Jumps. Is it always like this?"

He said, "Thursdays are good. Revving up for the weekend. This your first time in?" He was managing to conduct our conversation without being fully engaged. His face was slightly averted, his focus elsewhere: polite, but not passionate about the need to socialize.

"I was in years ago. That's how I knew your father. He was a great guy." This didn't seem to elicit any particular response. "Are you the manager?"

"The owner."

"Really. Oh, sorry. No offense," I said. "I could see you keeping a close eye out."

He shrugged.

I said, "You must know Mickey Magruder."

"Yeah, I know Mickey."

"I heard he'd bought a part interest in the place, so I was hoping to run into him. He's another cop from the old days. He and your dad were pals."

Tim seemed distracted. "Three Musketeers, right? I haven't seen him for weeks. Would you excuse me?"

I said, "Sure." I watched him cross the room to the dance floor, where he intervened in an exchange between a woman and her date. The guy was stumbling against her and she was struggling to keep him upright. Other couples on the dance floor were giving them a wide berth. The woman finally gave him a shove, both annoyed and embarrassed by his drunkenness. By the time Tim reached them, one of his bouncers had appeared and he began to walk the fellow toward the door, using the kind of elbow grip employed by street cops and mothers with small children acting up in department stores. The woman detoured to a table and snatched up her jacket and her handbag, prepared to follow. Tim intercepted her. A brief discussion ensued. I hoped he was persuading her to take a taxi home.

Moments later, he reappeared beside me, saying, "Sorry about that."

"I hope he's not getting in a car."

"The bouncer took his keys," he said. "We'll let him chill out in back and then see he gets home in one piece. He tends to hassle people when he's like that. Bad for business."

"I'll bet."

His smile was directed somewhere to my left. He gave my arm a pat. "I better go check on him. Hope to see you again."

"You can count on it," I said.

There was only a momentary hitch in his otherwise smooth delivery. "Good deal. Anything you want, you can let Charlie know." He caught the bartender's eye and pointed at me. The bartender nodded and, with that, Tim was gone.