The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of (17 page)

“If it was up to them,” Dave said. “It’s not. It’s up to me. If the wrong man is convicted of that murder, my company drops seventy-five thousand dollars. I’m not going to let that happen.”

On the street below, a police siren moaned.

Lester Green said, “How can you stop it? Shit, man, they ran you out of town.”

“I left to find you,” Dave said. “No. Medallion Life is a big, powerful company, Lester. It hires big, powerful lawyers. All the La Caleta district attorney has against Cliff Kerlee is one piece of very suspect evidence. It was good enough for a grand jury consisting of the dead man’s friends. But a real lawyer will shred that case in a day when it comes to trial. I’m sending a real lawyer.”

“And then it’s my turn?” Lester said.

“That grand jury will never indict Anita Orton,” Dave said. “Figure it out. Who does that leave?”

“You,” Barker said. “All alone.”

“No way.” Lester yanked open the door. The uniformed officer looked at him from the hallway. He had soft brown Mexican eyes and a neat mustache. He closed a fist around the handle of his nightstick. Lester let the door fall shut. When he turned back there was a gray cast to his skin. “How is that going to save your seventy-five thousand dollars?”

“Anita was with you all the way,” Dave said. “That will come out at your trial if you never say a word.”

“She wasn’t due any insurance,” Lester said. “He wrote her off. When he found out about her and me.”

“But after he was dead,” Dave said, “her mother helped keep you hidden. Her brother destroyed evidence linking you to the murder. And helped you escape arrest. They were due insurance. No, they won’t lose out for murder. They’ll lose out for conspiracy to obstruct justice and to defraud an insurance company. And our only way to them is to nail you for the murder.”

Lester stared at him. He licked his lips. He moved his head from side to side. His voice came hollow. “No. I didn’t do it, man.” The hands he held out were shaking. “You’ve got to believe me. I didn’t kill him. He was already dead when I got there.”

Barker bowed his head and rubbed his flattened nose to hide a smile. He rose and took the thin arm in the honcho jacket and led Lester back to the chair next to Dave’s. The boy dropped onto it as if his knees had given out. Barker went back to the door, poked his head into the hall, and said something. He closed the door. “We’ll have coffee in a minute,” he said. “What passes for coffee around here.” He sat down. “So you did go there. By appointment—right? To collect the money.”

“No.” Lester’s hands lay on the table. He stared at them. But he plainly didn’t see them, didn’t even feel them. The cigarette had burned down between his fingers. Dave took the smoldering butt and rubbed it out in the little pan of chicken bones. The coal hissed in the grease. Lester said softly, “I went there to apologize.”

Barker made a disgusted sound. “You went there for twenty-five big bills and instead he pulled a gun and said he was going to send your black ass back to prison and you smashed his head in and ran away with the gun. It was a police gun you used in your hit on the liquor store.”

“I took the gun,” Lester said. “But he was already dead. Laying there with his head in a puddle of blood. It wasn’t any gun did that. His skull was busted in.”

Shadows of pigeons flickered across the sunlit window slats. “Your mother sent you, didn’t she?” Dave said. “When she found out about the note. You’d do what she told you but Anita wouldn’t and she didn’t go.”

“It was a joke to her,” Lester said. “Laughs, you know? To me too. I mean, sort of.” He moved his shoulders. “Well, maybe not a joke, exactly.”

“Not exactly,” Barker said dryly.

“We knew he’d guess where the note came from,” Lester said. “Who sent it and what for. Oh, we wanted the bread, all right. But we never thought he’d pay it for any fake kidnapping. He’d pay it to keep us from making him look like a fool to everybody. To shut us up, get rid of us.”

“Your mother didn’t think it was a joke,” Dave said.

“We told her we wanted to hide there because we’d gotten married and couldn’t figure out how to tell him.”

“I wondered why she let you sleep together.”

“Then he came looking for me, told her about the note, and soon as he left she was after me with a broom.” A small-boy smile twitched the corner of his mouth. “You better believe it. She never quits. Something evil—she keeps hitting it. I was to crawl to Ben Orton on my knees and confess to him with tears in my eyes and beg him to forgive me.” Lester whispered a wry laugh. “That’s how she said. How she saw it. Like some corny old movie.”

“But you went,” Dave said.

“She was right,” Lester said. “Look at me now.”

“This isn’t bad,” Barker said. “It can get a whole hell of a lot worse.” A shoe tapped the door. He got up to open the door. “And it probably will.” A black officer in uniform handed him a plastic tray with big paper cups of coffee steaming on it. Barker set the tray on the table. “Because when you found that body you didn’t step to the telephone and call the police.”

“Oh, man.” Lester closed his eyes and wagged his head. He opened his eyes wide. “The police was who set me up with that dope under my fender.” He tapped the tabletop with a strict finger. “They knew I knew that. How they’d think was—who had better reason to kill him? No, I didn’t call any police. I got the hell out of there.”

“And hid.” Barker set one of the paper cups in front of him. “Which makes sense.” He set a second cup in front of Dave. “What doesn’t make sense is that you kept hiding.” He set down his own cup and tilted the tray. Candy-stripe plastic stir sticks slid off it onto the tabletop with a delicate rattle, along with paper napkins and packets of sugar and powdered cream. He set the tray on the floor. “They made an arrest. They got an indictment. You had to hear about that.”

“They weren’t looking for anyone else,” Dave said. “They thought they had Cliff Kerlee dead to rights. Why didn’t you come out?”

Lester stirred his coffee. He blew at the steam. He said flatly, “Because I knew he didn’t do it.”

Barker tipped his coffee over. It spread hot across the table and splashed into his lap. He yelped and jumped to his feet. He grabbed up paper napkins and mopped himself. “What the hell do you mean?”

“I mean,” Lester said slowly and exactly, “I saw that body. I searched through the pockets of that body for that stupid note. I’m going to see that body in my mind for the rest of my life. And there was no tote bag by that body. No tote bag anyplace around there.”

“Ho,” Dave said softly.

“I’m into law—was,” Lester said. “And nobody had to tell me the case was shaky. He had a witness. All they had was planted evidence. He could get off. I wasn’t showing my face till he was convicted.”

“They did all right with planted evidence in your case, and any jury they picked would have seen him promise to kill Ben Orton on TV.” Barker left off trying to dry his pants, sat down, and slapped the soggy brown wad of paper napkins on the table. “Not good enough, Lester. Tell us the rest.”

The boy slumped in the steel chair and looked old. He sighed. “Yeah. Shit. All right.” He eyed Barker glumly. “I was seen.”

Barker showed smoky teeth.

Lester said, “Like I say, I ran. Slipped in the patio—it was wet. I ran up the hill. Fastest way out of there. Drop down the other side, there’s the highway. When I got to the ridge, I looked back. And a woman came out into the patio. It was too soon. No way she didn’t see me.”

“Has she said so?” Barker asked.

“Why should she?” Lester said. “Police didn’t take me. They took Kerlee. But if they ever did take me—”

Dave frowned. “Hold it. What woman? Mrs. Orton?”

Lester shook his head. “It was pretty far and it was starting to get dark, but it wasn’t Mrs. Orton. Too tall and thin. She had a manila envelope under her arm. And she was carrying a can, like a gasoline can, you know, only it was black. Anyway, she had red hair.”

O
N A SANGRE DE
Cristo side street, an orange rubbish truck opened steel jaws and a youth in orange coveralls heaved bulging green plastic bags of trash between the jaws from a grassy curb. Dave stopped the rental car. In hard late-afternoon sun glare, Cecil blinked at him.

“You don’t make it easy not to ask questions.”

Dave grinned. “You look great in that hat.” It was yellow, with a broad brim tilted up on one side and a fluffy cerise plume. Dave had bought it for him in Los Angeles, not far from the glass police building. Four hours and twenty-eight minutes ago. Dave flicked the brim of the hat with a finger, opened the car door, and got out.

The youth in orange coveralls used a clumsily gloved hand to yank down a lever at the side of the truck. Machinery whined, the steel jaws groaned closed, there was crunching and grinding. The youth gave a shrill whistle, the truck lumbered on, he jogged after it. Dave stepped out quickly and caught a greasy sleeve. “May I ask you a question?”

The boy stopped and tilted his head. “About politics? About products?”

“About these trucks,” Dave said. “How many are there? How many of you work them?”

“Two trucks, four of us.” The boy was gold skinned, blue eyed, and well spoken. He should have been playing badminton on a private beach in Malibu. “Except sometimes. Like today. Today one of the trucks has its insides all over the garage floor.” He checked a watch on a grimy wrist. It was an expensive watch. “Means the two of us have to cover two whole districts. That’s why we’re out so late.”

“When do you study for exams?” Dave asked.

“On my off days,” the boy said. “This is a good job. There’s a long waiting list for this job. Normally it’s only five, six hours, two, three days a week.”

From the high cab of the truck another blond youth stuck his head. “Come on, Kevin.” The diesel revved impatiently.

Kevin waved a glove. “What did you want to know?”

“Whether you remember picking up a charred gasoline can. About two weeks ago. On Cholla street.”

The boy in the truck blasted on its horn.

“I’m coming,” Kevin called. “Yeah. Not me—Paul. It had a police-department stencil on it. Didn’t look any good anymore but we turned it over to them anyway.”

Cecil came up. Dave asked him, “Do you know her exact address?”

“Two forty-one,” Cecil said.

“Along there somewhere.” The boy frowned. “Who are you?”

“Insurance.” Dave stuck a card into a pocket of the orange coveralls. “It’s evidence in an arson case.”

The diesel horn shouted down the street again. Dogs began to bark. Kevin ran for the next stack of trash.

News, or what Channel Ten chose to see as news, kept happening. It was close to six o’clock. The side room in the cinderblock building on top of the mountain was noisy again with typewriters and teletypes, and foggy with cigarette smoke the gale-force air conditioning couldn’t cope with. Telephones rang. Hiked shoulders held receivers to mouths and ears while pencils scribbled on yellow pads. No one paid any attention to Dave and Cecil when they edged their way between the desks. Daisy Flynn was marking copy again with the black felt-tip pen. She didn’t see them either—not right away. When she did, she yanked off her glasses and glared at Cecil.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“They stole my film, didn’t they?” Cecil said.

“You were supposed to be here at five this morning with an interview tape,” she said. “What? Yes—they stole your film.” She turned Dave a sour green stare. “They’re everywhere, aren’t they—the tentacles of a great insurance corporation?” She looked at Cecil again. “What are you doing with him?”

“As Scoop Harris of the Hoof and Mouth Bureau,” Cecil said, “nothing. As Cecil Harris, first grader, I’m learning the alphabet. But slowly.”

“I don’t know what you’re jabbering about.” She fiddled irritably with her digital watch again. “But you are up to your Afro in trouble around here.” She scrambled papers together off the desk. “Naturally, I telephoned your school. They couldn’t find you either, which didn’t make them happy. They phoned your home in San Francisco.” She got to her feet. “Your older brother then got on the horn to me. And if you think I’m overreacting, wait until he gets to you.”

“I brought everything back,” Cecil said. “Video and audio. They’re outside in my van.”

“We’ll sort you out later,” she said. “One torn and bleeding limb at a time. Meanwhile, I have a newscast to do.” She started off.

Dave stepped in front of her. “Give your sidekicks a chance for once. You and I need to talk.”

She looked him up and down sharply. “What about? You mean I get that interview?” She laid down her script and pulled open a desk drawer. “Channel Ten’s Newsdesk learns at last what you’re doing in the Ben Orton case and why?”

“You’re kidding,” Dave said. “You didn’t turn Cecil loose on me for Channel Ten’s Newsdesk. You turned him loose to keep me from getting my job done.”

“I didn’t turn him loose.” She took her little white cassette recorder out of the drawer. “I simply didn’t try to stop him. Why wouldn’t I want you to get your job done?”

“That’s what we need to talk about,” Dave said. “But I don’t think you’ll want that.” He touched the cold little box. “Because the subject isn’t going to be my part in the Ben Orton case. It’s going to be yours.”

She stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t want me to say it here.” Dave glanced at the desks that crowded close, the busy staffers at the desks. “Shall we step outdoors?”

“I’m stepping into the studio.” She dropped the recorder back and slammed the drawer. She snatched up her script.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She walked off.

He went after her. “I’m talking about a fire-blackened gasoline can marked ‘La Caleta Police’ picked up by the trash collectors around Monday the nineteenth at your address.”

She halted. He couldn’t tell whether she was pale or not. Her makeup was too thick. But the green eyes that stared at him through a fringe of false lashes were suddenly dull. So was her voice. “Wait a minute,” she said, and pushed out the door into the hallway. Cecil looked grave and afraid. Dave gave him a one-cornered smile and watched the red hand of a clock on the wall. It wasn’t a minute till she was back. Without script. “Come on,” she said.