The Marble Kite (23 page)
Authors: David Daniel
My last phone call had been as much a shot in the dark as poking redial on Fred Meecham's phone earlier. I'd copied the number off of the yellow legal pad on his library table. Twice and I'd probably have called it coincidence, but three made me wonder. The first mention of the nightclub had been on the book of matches on Flora Nuñez's little hallway shrine, and in the Polaroid I'd taken from her bureau drawer. At her funeral, her friend Lucy Colón had revealed that she and Flora and some others used to go there of a late evening for drinks. And now the number on the yellow pad had been answered against a background of voices by a woman saying, “Viva!” I'd listened long enough for her to repeat it and then hung up. Maybe it was still just coincidence, but I wanted to know.
Viva! had become a cause célèbre several years back when some of the citizenry, who had been after the club owners for years, trying to pull their license, citing public nuisance and affront to public morality, had written enough letters to editors that it became news around New England. But the owners held firm. Between payoffs and the Constitution, it's easy enough to do.
The area by the bar was packed deep with patrons so I had to worm through and then wait while the several bartenders set up drinks for the
waitresses who jockeyed them out to tables. On the spotlighted stage, a slender Asian pole dancer was beginning her routine. When one of the barmen came my way, I asked him over the noise if Danielle Frampton was working tonight. He asked me why I wanted to know, and I said I wanted to see her. He sounded Greek or Albanian; he took me literally, glanced at a clock, nodded, and held up five fingers. If it had been more, I'd have tried to make myself clearer, but five minutes I could wait. In a shadowy corner I found a table the size of a pie plate. A fresh-faced young waitress wearing a black vest over a white blouse, black miniskirt, and fishnet stockings appeared, and over the noise I told her a Heineken. In a pocket of her apron was a microcassette recorder. When I asked about it, she tapped it with a finger. “The pad is for orders, this I use for ideas.”
waitresses who jockeyed them out to tables. On the spotlighted stage, a slender Asian pole dancer was beginning her routine. When one of the barmen came my way, I asked him over the noise if Danielle Frampton was working tonight. He asked me why I wanted to know, and I said I wanted to see her. He sounded Greek or Albanian; he took me literally, glanced at a clock, nodded, and held up five fingers. If it had been more, I'd have tried to make myself clearer, but five minutes I could wait. In a shadowy corner I found a table the size of a pie plate. A fresh-faced young waitress wearing a black vest over a white blouse, black miniskirt, and fishnet stockings appeared, and over the noise I told her a Heineken. In a pocket of her apron was a microcassette recorder. When I asked about it, she tapped it with a finger. “The pad is for orders, this I use for ideas.”
“What kind of ideas?”
“Stuff that occurs to me. Bits of conversation, characters I meet. Images. A Silly Putty face. That came to me the other night. See the assistant manager over there? By the office door? A Silly Putty face.”
“Bingo.”
She looked pleased. “Think so?”
“Nailed it. Writing your memoirs?”
“Screenplay. My mother thinks I'm nuts, a parochial school education and I'm walking around dressed like this. I quit Starbucks and came here because I wanted atmosphere.” She shook her head. “I've got to move on.”
“Don't let me keep you.”
“No, I mean L.A. maybe, or Vancouver. It's the same old same old here. Nothing exciting ever goes down. I mean you're probably here tonight because you're bored, right? Tired of four walls.”
“Pretty much,” I said.
“I'll be twenty-one next month. It's like I'm in an Indigo Girls song. My options are running out.”
“We're all being drawn down into the quicksand of time,” I said.
“So true. Heyâis it okay if I use that?”
“Sure, if you want cliches.”
“That's mostly what Hollywood stories are anymore. If you can retool them in just the right way, though, you've got a winner. Did you see
American Beauty
? You didn't miss much. It's nothing but clichés, with
a quarter-turn twist. It won Oscars.” She murmured the moldy chestnut about quicksand into her tape recorder. Then, to me, “What did you want to drink again?”
American Beauty
? You didn't miss much. It's nothing but clichés, with
a quarter-turn twist. It won Oscars.” She murmured the moldy chestnut about quicksand into her tape recorder. Then, to me, “What did you want to drink again?”
A few minutes later, another woman slid into the other chair. “Hello, Detective.”
It took me a second to recognize Danielle Frampton. She was wearing a thin robe, her platinum wig picking up faint highlights, despite the dimness. At my questioning look, she nodded toward the barman, who was watching us with potential menace in his dark eyes. She gave him a wave, and he returned his attention to making drinks. “So ⦠long time, Alex,” she said over the ambient noise. “Are you slumming?”
“Business trip.”
She pouted. “You didn't come to see me?”
“You're the first one I asked for. Drink?”
“Can't, I'm on next.”
We did a quick catch-up, and I asked about her son, who stayed with her mom nights Danielle worked. The blond wig and the stage makeup aged her a bit past her twenty-five or so, but there was something slightly different, and I wondered if she'd had cosmetic surgery. The Asian dancer had finished up to whistles and scattered applause, and a tall redheaded dancer with meaty thighs took the stage. “So what's the business?” Danielle asked.
“Information. I'm interested in someone who used to come in here.”
“His name?”
“Hers. Flora Nuñez.”
“I've never heard ⦠. Waitâthe one in the paper? Killed at the carnival?” Her expression looked troubled, and slightly evasive. “What's that got to do with here?”
“Maybe nothing. Is there someplace where we don't need megaphones?”
“If you can wait ten more minutes or so, I've got a break.” I gave the “OK” sign, and she tapped my arm and drifted away, dematerializing into the crowd. I was there, I might as well watch the show. I turned toward the strobe-lighted stage and nursed my beer.
Danielle was somewhere between acquaintance and friend. She'd evidently had her troubles with narcotics some years back but, as far as I
knew, had gotten beyond them. She was a single mother, devoted to raising her young son. A year or so ago, a man had taken to turning up at the club every night and pestering her to go out with him. Then the phone calls began, and on a referral she asked me for adviceâthough she didn't want rough stuff, she insisted. I checked the guy out and learned he was a basically harmless sad sack who worked in a muffler repair shop and lived with his widowed mother and spent his spare time hanging around Comic Book Heaven. Maybe he'd confused Danielle with one of the tawny, tights-clad sexpots who passed for superheroines in the comic books and had fixated on her, I don't know. Getting him loose was a relatively easy job: I turned the game on him. I was reasonable with him and said, “You wouldn't want your mother to know where you go nights, would you?” That was all it took. As far as I knew, he was back in Metropolis. As for Danielle, I admired her spunk, her desire to be a good person.
knew, had gotten beyond them. She was a single mother, devoted to raising her young son. A year or so ago, a man had taken to turning up at the club every night and pestering her to go out with him. Then the phone calls began, and on a referral she asked me for adviceâthough she didn't want rough stuff, she insisted. I checked the guy out and learned he was a basically harmless sad sack who worked in a muffler repair shop and lived with his widowed mother and spent his spare time hanging around Comic Book Heaven. Maybe he'd confused Danielle with one of the tawny, tights-clad sexpots who passed for superheroines in the comic books and had fixated on her, I don't know. Getting him loose was a relatively easy job: I turned the game on him. I was reasonable with him and said, “You wouldn't want your mother to know where you go nights, would you?” That was all it took. As far as I knew, he was back in Metropolis. As for Danielle, I admired her spunk, her desire to be a good person.
When the redhead finally got down to her gold hoop earrings and belly button lint, the lights winked out to wolf whistles and lusty cheers. A steadier light bathed the stage, and Danielle Frampton came on with barely a pause, her platinum wig sparkling like spun sugar. She didn't need the distractions of strobe lights or a pole. She was actually a very good dancer; she had a lithe bodyâno need for cosmetic surgery thereâand got away with a little more suggestion and less flesh. Still, by the time the set ended, there wasn't much I needed to imagine. I paid my tab, with a few extra bucks for the budding screenwriter. I waited by the door and soon saw Danielle coming my way, dressed in a faux leopard-fur coat and white stretch pants. We went outside and stood in the glow of the marquee lights.
I handed her the snapshot that I had found in Flora Nuñez's apartment. She looked at it and nodded. “I remember that. It was taken in the spring.” She pointed out the other three women sitting with her around the table. “There's like a crew of us that got to know each other.”
“And the guys?”
“They're off-duty cops.”
“City cops?”
She didn't miss my surprise. “I think so. They come in sometimes on their nights off. They're okay.”
“Do you know their names?”
“First names.”
“How about this one?” I indicated the guy lifting his glass.
“Bob, maybe. Or Paul?”
“How about Paul Duross?”
“That sounds right. I haven't seen him in a while. Or any of them, actually.”
I wanted time to think, to try to make sense of the details that were swarming like wet snow, but Danielle was restless to get back inside. She had begun to shiver in the cooling night. “What about Flora Nuñez? Did she come here often?”
“Only sometimes. I got to know her and some others when we took night classes. But this is the only other place I saw them. We weren't tight or anything.”
“Did she ever mention someone named Troy Pepper?”
“The guy who killed her? No, I don't remember her ever mentioning him. The newspaper is the only place I ever heard of him. Why? What's this about? Are you working on that case?”
“I don't know. I guess I am slumming.” I thanked her and touched her cheek. “Wrap up warm when you go home.”
The wind gusted fitfully, as though uncertain of what it might become if it put its mind to it. Maybe it had heard about its big cousin Hurricane Gus and was getting ideas; but except for some scattered clouds, the sky was clear. Above the silhouetted buildings, the moon was a smoky cat's-eye.
Short of waking up people with phone calls, there wasn't much I could do to get answers. It was that time of night when the city's aching heart could rest for a little while, and I knew that I should rest, too. Courtney had been right. The thought train had been gathering speed, building momentum, rising toward some sharp blind drop-off, but now I discovered that some time in the past hour my energy had begun to run down. Try as I might, I couldn't coax out a single useful thought. If I didn't get some sleep soon, I was going to start hearing the streetlights talking to me. I remembered that I still had groceries in my trunk, too. Yet I didn't want to go home to cardboard boxes, my plastic-sheeted window, and the same nonanswers I had now.
A twenty-four-hour diner on Dutton drew me. I strolled past the high swivel chairs at the chrome counter to a booth in the back and slid in on ruby-colored Naugahyde, already stirred by the aromas of food.
“Hi, hon,” the waitress greeted me, and though I knew I was one of
a thousand, it still felt personal somehow. She had STEL stitched in pink above the breast of her white blouse. “Coffee?”
a thousand, it still felt personal somehow. She had STEL stitched in pink above the breast of her white blouse. “Coffee?”
I dug a folded copy of the
Sun
from the corner of the booth and flopped it open and let my eye stray down the front page. There was an archive story on a demonstration from thirty-odd years ago, when university students had staged a peace march through downtown. Arriving in front of city hall, carrying Viet Cong flags and chanting “Ho ⦠Ho ⦠Ho Chi Minh,” they had been met by construction workers. It was a working-class Democrat city, but when that old chestnut “patriotism” was in the fire, everything took two steps to the right. The beleaguered police chief had to call in the National Guard to keep hard hats from beating up the kids and torching their flags. I put the paper down. Stel sidled over on tired feet with my coffee and her pad. I ordered corn chowder. It came in a thick white mug, and as I was about to dip my spoon, I noticed there was a faint lipstick ring on the rim that the dishwasher had missed. I was about to complain, but I paused, wondering if I should keep quiet, if it might be the closest I got to a woman's lips that night. The point was moot. One spoonful told me the chowder was a lot better as an idea than a reality. I pushed it aside. In the lull, Stel came over and sat on the edge of the bench across the table from me. She unsnapped a little cloth cigarette case and took one out. She looked at me. “Mind?”
Sun
from the corner of the booth and flopped it open and let my eye stray down the front page. There was an archive story on a demonstration from thirty-odd years ago, when university students had staged a peace march through downtown. Arriving in front of city hall, carrying Viet Cong flags and chanting “Ho ⦠Ho ⦠Ho Chi Minh,” they had been met by construction workers. It was a working-class Democrat city, but when that old chestnut “patriotism” was in the fire, everything took two steps to the right. The beleaguered police chief had to call in the National Guard to keep hard hats from beating up the kids and torching their flags. I put the paper down. Stel sidled over on tired feet with my coffee and her pad. I ordered corn chowder. It came in a thick white mug, and as I was about to dip my spoon, I noticed there was a faint lipstick ring on the rim that the dishwasher had missed. I was about to complain, but I paused, wondering if I should keep quiet, if it might be the closest I got to a woman's lips that night. The point was moot. One spoonful told me the chowder was a lot better as an idea than a reality. I pushed it aside. In the lull, Stel came over and sat on the edge of the bench across the table from me. She unsnapped a little cloth cigarette case and took one out. She looked at me. “Mind?”
“You're the one smoking it.”
“That seems to be a minority opinion these days. Lately I feel like a criminal, standing out there on the stoop.” She took a light from the match I struck, drew smoke, and I saw her relax. She was a pretty, faded brunette with drooping eyes. She told me about Tom Waits sitting in there in the wee hours, nursing coffee and a club sandwich and sweet-talking her in his three-pack-a-day voice. I didn't know if it was for real, but it made a good listen, punctuated in the pauses with the wind pulsing against the big windows. A party of two middle-aged couples came in, noisily debating something or other, and trudged to a booth. I squinted their way. They might have been people I'd gone to high school with, though it was impossible they'd look that old. Stel let them get settled, stubbed the cigarette, and rose, exhaling a silvery strand of smoke. “Don't be a stranger, hon.”
But wasn't that the appeal? A late-hours oasis where night travelers
could be strangers: sufficient unto themselves, without history or a future, just there in the bright fluorescent and chrome heart of the urban wilderness ⦠with lipstick on your cup. The city was full of waitresses on tired feet, looking for a snug harbor, however temporary, and some companionship to share the lonely stretches after a long shift, when they took off the uniform that still smelled of the foods cooked and eaten in the diner, someone there when they let her hair down, and a voice to sing them a lullaby till they dropped off to sleep. No one knew the night city better: not patrol cops, or the graveyard shift gas jockeys, or the hookers on Middlesex, those fallen sister-angels of the night. No one knew the empty sidewalks and the dim dawns as the waitresses did. Stel was pretty in a way that didn't hide the living, or feel it had to. Ah, Rasmussen, you're hopeless. When I pushed back into the night, the air had cooled considerably, and I was wide awake.
could be strangers: sufficient unto themselves, without history or a future, just there in the bright fluorescent and chrome heart of the urban wilderness ⦠with lipstick on your cup. The city was full of waitresses on tired feet, looking for a snug harbor, however temporary, and some companionship to share the lonely stretches after a long shift, when they took off the uniform that still smelled of the foods cooked and eaten in the diner, someone there when they let her hair down, and a voice to sing them a lullaby till they dropped off to sleep. No one knew the night city better: not patrol cops, or the graveyard shift gas jockeys, or the hookers on Middlesex, those fallen sister-angels of the night. No one knew the empty sidewalks and the dim dawns as the waitresses did. Stel was pretty in a way that didn't hide the living, or feel it had to. Ah, Rasmussen, you're hopeless. When I pushed back into the night, the air had cooled considerably, and I was wide awake.
I was turning onto Market when I saw the flashers strobe on behind me. I flipped the rearview mirror tab to keep the cycling lights from frying my eyeballs and drew the Cougar to the curb. I opened the window and waited. A cop approached, taking his time, and I was startled to see Duross. If he recognized me, he showed no sign. Already the twitching colors washing across the brick facades of adjacent buildings were bringing curious faces to windows.
“Sir, I'd like you to come with us.”
“Where? What's going on?”
“JFK Plaza.” In the glare, his breath smoked. “Detective Cote has some questions for you.”
And I've got one for you,
I thought.
About your uncle Frank Droney.
But I let it lie. “Have him phone me in the morning, I get to the office at nine.” I was irked at being late-night entertainment for insomniacs.
I thought.
About your uncle Frank Droney.
But I let it lie. “Have him phone me in the morning, I get to the office at nine.” I was irked at being late-night entertainment for insomniacs.
“Make it now.”
Duross's face appeared to be set in concrete. I suppose I could've told him where to go, provoked him a little, which would have given us both some options. But I didn't need anyone informing me of Miranda-Escobedo, even if he could do it without reading it off a card, as I suspected Duross could. “We'll follow you,” he said.
“I'll see you there.” I trod on the gas before he could protest, forcing him to jump back. I didn't like wearing a leash.
Headquarters wasn't far. Duross caught up to me in the lobby, but maybe the presence of other people spared me a hassle. At the desk, as instructed, I unsnapped my belt holster and handed over the .38, which the desk officer made a note of in a log and passed to Duross. Wordlessly, we went through a steel door into an inner stairwell. Down one flight were the cell block and booking area. We went up to the next floor. Roland Cote was waiting in an interrogation room, perched on the edge of a long table. He was in shirtsleeves, with suspenders, his legs crossed at the ankles. He gave me an eyebrow flash for greeting. Duross laid my holstered weapon on the table near Cote, gave me a heavy look, and went out.
“Okay, you've got my attention,” I said. “What gives?”
“What's your hurry? Take a load off.”
“It's two o'clock in the morning. You want to sit and talk?”
“Unless you prefer to have a lawyer present.”
I frowned and gave it a moment. “What for?”
“Interfering with an officer in the performance of his duties.”
“Did Duross tell you that?”
“Have a seat, for God's sake.”
I took one of the chairs at the table. Cote shifted position to face me. “I don't know why you're busting my balls on this,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“You've got a good thing, you know it? I mean, think about it. You solve a case, or even just take a case, help someone outâthe stuff I do routineâyou're a hero. You get your name in the newspaper, maybe collect a bonus. I do it”âhe shruggedâ“it's just part of the job.”
“Somebody call the twenty-four-hour diner on Dutton. I think I'm asleep in a booth there. I'm dreaming this.”
“Keep being funny.”
“Okay, sometimes I get kudosânot that often, but sometimes. But I'm also the one who gets my ass kicked. I'm here at this ridiculous hour on my own time, not on the clock, and I can't get an answer that's any straighter than what you're handing me? Forget funny. Now, what's this really about?”
“I ask the questions. You answer them to my satisfaction, you can call
your little sweetie and tell her to fluff up the pillows. You can't fluff up a jail pillow.”
your little sweetie and tell her to fluff up the pillows. You can't fluff up a jail pillow.”
“No,” I mumbled, “they're as thin as your honor. Ask your questions.”
Cote stood and walked around to the chair across from mine, his manner tougher now, as though he was determined to try another approach. The room was like rooms of its kind everywhere: as drab as a crow bar, nothing on the walls but paint. No clock. Time didn't matter in rooms like this. I couldn't tell if there was recording equipment in operation or not; I assumed there was. Cote said, “What were you doing out at the fairgrounds earlier tonight?”
“You seem to have the questions and the answers.”
“I can turn this into a bust if I have to. Try again.”
“This is beneath even you, Cote.”
He moved a shoulder. Words didn't have much zing after midnight; we were jousting with rubber lances. There was a sound of footsteps moving in a quick march down the corridor. Frank Droney came in and shut the door. He had his shield on a flap on his sport coat pocket. I sat up straighter and glanced at Cote. He showed nothing.
Droney leaned against the door, arms crossed in an attitude that gave an impression of casualness, but it didn't fool me. I'd worked for him. Casual wasn't part of his makeup. Strip the muscle and hard fat off him and you'd find rebar and steel cables, with only just a tincture of rust on them. The system's failure was in elevating men like him to positions of authority; its wisdom was in not allowing them to get all the way to the top. He nodded for Cote to resume.
“What do you know about a trailer being burned at Regatta Field the night before last?”
“Only what I saw in the newspaper.”
“You've been seen out there often lately. Why is that?”
“I'm working for the carnival owner,” I said.
“Were you in any way responsible for acts of vandalism or criminal trespass there?”
“What would be the point?”
“To put us off the scent.”
“That's me for you. Always trying to flummox the law.”
Droney pushed away from the door. “Cut the crap.”
“You cut it. You think I'd poison my own well?” I was angry now, fresh out of fun. “What's with the Hoover routine? I came in willingly. And how come I can't move without Duross stepping on my heels?”
Droney took a stride toward me. “I got it, Frank,” Cote said, moving between us. When Droney moved back, Cote said, “Things are getting crazy around the city. We had several people beat up last night, and someone tossed a brick through a window at the cable TV station with a hate note attached.”
“So now I'm responsible for the actions of other citizens of this town?” I flicked a glance at Droney. “Or are you looking to pin that on me?”
“Who says it was citizens? Maybe it was your carnival friends doing it.” I sat back, awed by their logic.
“Did you discharge a weapon at the fairgrounds tonight?”
Was that what this was about? Was I being set up for something? Guardedly, I said I had.
“Is this the weapon?”
“Yes. It's the only one I own.” A white lie; I wasn't about to cop to the sawed-off 12-gauge sitting on a ceiling joist in the cellar of my new house. “I shot it into the ground. There's empty brass in one chamber.”
Cote drew the .38 partway from the holster and looked at it, maybe recalling a day when the Special had been the sidearm we'd all packed, or maybe we'd ramped up to a .357. No more; it was all semiautomatics now, which in my book missed the point. Some people preached the wisdom of carrying semiautos for the increased firepower and ammo load, but it also meant more working parts to jam in a tight situation. Besides, if you couldn't take someone down with six shots, it was probably too big a problem anyhow. “Why?” he asked.
“To make an impression.” I told them the story.
“A torch? That's a pretty boneheaded move.”
“I never said it was brilliant, but it was the best I could think of at the time. It seemed to work.”
Droney reached and took the holstered weapon from Cote. “I'm tagging
this and hanging on to it for now. Evidence. Discharging a firearm within city limits is a crime.”
this and hanging on to it for now. Evidence. Discharging a firearm within city limits is a crime.”
“So level a charge,” I said.
When he got mad, Droney's heavy jaw grew lumpy, like a man with the mumps. “I may goddamned well do that.”
“Hold on,” I said, more reasonably. “I know the law, but I had to calculate the odds and take a risk. That friendly little band of citizens had already talked themselves into going out there in the first place, and they were hassling a young woman and an old man. I don't believe it would've ended there.”
“It's against the law to fire a gun,” Droney said doggedly.
“Sure,” I mumbled, “unless it's an officer shooting an unarmed suspect running from an order to halt.” As soon as I said it I felt the air in the room go frigid, but there was no taking the words back. And suddenly I didn't care. I was feeling the lateness of the hour, the fact that I hadn't slept in a long time, that my woman had dumped me, and that the lawyer who had hired me had quit. I was sick of being pushed around. “If you knew all this and you just got me in here to dance me around, bring a charge!”
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