The Sundown Speech (14 page)

 

EIGHTEEN

“Impossible.”

He was pacing again. The trailer felt like a tugboat entering the English Channel.

“That's what the cops say,” I said. “I haven't heard from the white coats, but I doubt you could quote them in a family newspaper.”

“No one can manufacture DNA, not even Jerry. I know you can't just mix it up in a test tube and inject it into a corpse and expect the police to think it's you lying there, and I flunked science.”

“Hey, me, too. Should we start a club?”

He stopped, his head bowed to keep from colliding with the curved ceiling. “Does murder always tickle you like this?”

“Depends on the murder. For the record, I'm with Lieutenant Karyl. Fingerprints have been around long enough to stand the test of time. Even then I'm not convinced that no two sets are alike until they print the entire population in the history of the world. I saw a snowflake last January that looked exactly like one I saw in 'seventy-eight.”

“So who's dead, if it isn't Jerry?”

“We'll ask him when we find him.”

“That's police work.”

“They're shorthanded. I help out where I can.”

“You wouldn't be sweet on this Holly character, by any chance?”

“Too young. I'd have to explain too much to her just to have an argument. I hired on to find Jerry Marcus. I don't know why I have to keep reminding people of that.”

“I guess you don't have to take your pants off after all to prove you're not a hypocrite.”

“Thanks, though I am proud of my legs.”

He looked at a watch strapped to the underside of his wrist. “Shit. I've got to bail out my model. All she's got on is a raincoat.”

I put a card on the low table, stood my water bottle on top of it, and got up. “Call me if you hear from Marcus.”

“I won't hear from him. After I turned him down, he topped off his getaway stake somewhere else. Otherwise he wouldn't have gone ahead with the murder. He wasn't—isn't—the impulsive type. Damn. Now I have to change my tenses all over again.”

“You better hope you're right. If what you said about blowing up the Michigan Theater wasn't just a fantasy, you're one of two witnesses who can tie him to a major crime—conspiracy, in your case. Sooner or later he's got to remember you might throw him to the wolves to save your own skin. He's a murderer now. He's got nothing to lose by finishing what he started.”

Moze fished his cap from the wastebasket and put it on, this time with the bill in front. He swept a long skinny arm around his portable developing lab. “I'm safe as houses. You might have noticed I attract crowds wherever I go.”

“Crowds don't scare him. He made his last move on a well-lit street just as the bars were emptying out.” I opened the door. “You wouldn't have that model's phone number, by any chance?”

“Waste of time. She's engaged to the coach of a girls' high school swim team.”

*   *   *

A tall female cop and a squat party in putty-colored coveralls carrying the logo of the delivery van I'd double-parked next to were standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the tow truck. The plainclothesman who'd been following me all over town had pulled his blue Ford into a loading zone to watch. I waited until the pair on the sidewalk were looking another direction, then slid under the wheel and drove away from the shouting with a fresh ticket flapping from under one of my wipers. The Ford chirped rubber catching up.

At a stoplight I put the Cutlass in park, got out, and walked back to the unmarked car, making a twirling motion with one hand. The window whirred down on the driver's side. He was an ex-Marine type, jarhead and all, with a tiny silver crucifix glittering on a thin chain around a neck as big around as a leg of lamb. The hand not resting on the wheel hovered near the lapel of his windowpane-plaid sportcoat.

“I'm going home to snooze,” I said. “Home being Detroit. You might be late for supper.”

His lower teeth showed in a piranha smile. “No problem, Mac. My wife left me for a CSI.”

I drove all the way back to Detroit with the cop trailing behind like the tail of a kite. I kept below the speed limit; the signs were blurring and shadows stood out from the pavement in 3-D effect, an optical illusion. My eyes scratched in their sockets. I felt like old copper extruded past its limit.

The house had a lonely feel, as if a large boisterous family had moved out ten years ago. I walked from room to room, swinging my arms and bellowing yawns. I was more tired than I was hungry, and I was as hungry as a rabbi marooned in a Bob Evans. But before I turned in I called Holly Zacharias.

“Dad's gonna be pissed,” she said. “I don't think he can get his money back on that plane ticket.”

“I'm glad the cops caught up with you before you gave up on me and called for a taxi. How many officers did they put on you?”

“Two in a car under my window. I'm not sure about the dude sitting at the bus stop. He's let two buses go past, but he could be OCD.”

“Keep your cell handy whenever you go out, okay? Having it out in the open can ward off trouble.”

“You really think I'm still in danger? ‘In danger,' God! I sound like one of those wussy teenagers in a slasher movie.”

“The more I find out about Marcus the worse he looks. Keep in sight of your escort, and stay off the front porch.”

“Sean's gonna think I threw him over for a couple of pigs.”

I didn't think that was such a bad trade, but I didn't say so. I told her I'd see what I could do about that plane ticket. I didn't say what. You never know who's listening.

I undressed completely and was asleep the second I drew the covers up to my chin. I dreamed I was running through a crowd of naked people who kept bursting into flame.

When I woke up it was light out. That was a surprise, because I felt as rested as if I'd been asleep for hours. I solved the mystery when I looked out the window and saw the sun was in the east toward Windsor. I'd been out halfway around the clock.

My belly button was scraping my spine; at last I knew what “peckish” meant. I found two cans of sardines in a cupboard, polished them off standing at the sink, and chased them with a quart of milk. Afterward I was still hungry, but less likely to take a bite out of the cop I knew was still waiting for me outside, unless someone had spelled him. I showered, shaved, and put on a suit. The man in the mirror looked like a defendant dressed by his lawyer to fool a jury. After the T-shirt, the necktie was like a choke collar, but at least I felt clean.

The commute had gotten to be a drag. I packed an overnight bag, put it in the car by way of the door from the kitchen, and then went out the front.

The vet in the blue Ford sat up straight. He looked alert, if rumpled. I hoped a night's sleep in the car hadn't wrecked his back. Our friendship was long-standing. I whistled at him and pointed at the garage. He nodded and started his motor. I swung up the door, drove out the Cutlass, went back to pull the door shut, and snatched the ticket from the windshield before getting back in. If I didn't start paying them soon I'd have to buy a car with a bigger glove compartment.

We headed west. The Athens of America it wasn't, but Ann Arbor had me by the short hairs.

Back on East Liberty, I passed the Michigan Theater. This time I paid closer attention to the Romanesque façade. It looked like a cathedral in some small Italian village owned by the Church. A Chinese film was playing that day, judging by the unfamiliar names of the actors. The electric bulbs chased the title around the towering marquee. It was a commercial feature aimed at the art-house circuit, but the visitor's guide had confirmed what Alec Moselle had told me about the Cinema Slam: For a few days each July, amateur movie critics could go in and watch the seminal work of fledgling filmmakers like Jerry Marcus and weigh in. They'd weighed in on Jerry, soundly enough to sour him on the city. He'd fantasized about destroying the theater, even taken steps to do it, then had fallen back on the relatively mild alternative of separating local investors from their money;
then
faked his own murder, using a real corpse.

So it had been a full week for him, and it wasn't over yet. Trying to predict the next move of a certified lunatic is like boxing someone else's shadow.

Whatever he did next, it wouldn't involve Holly Zacharias. I don't promise myself much, but I was going to hold myself to that, with or without the cooperation of law enforcement. To do that I needed the devil's own plan. Fortunately, I had just the devil in mind.

 

PART THREE

LOOP

 

NINETEEN

I'd trade the inconvenience of not owning a portable phone for the luxury of placing a call from the interior of a vintage booth in the Michigan Union. It's gone now, along with the others, with no plaque in their place to commemorate the fact that they ever existed. It was perfumed with oak, tung oil, and the ghosts of generations of good cigars, and the horsehide upholstery stuffed with down was like wearing a heat wrap around my back; all those trips between Detroit and Ann Arbor had my lumbar region shooting out little bolts of lightning like in a comic strip. The cozy little cells were too good to withstand the twenty-first century.

Barry's cell wasn't answering. I tried his landline at home. He picked up after three rings.

“I hope they're paying you in quarters,” he said when I told him who was calling.

“I just bought two rolls. This is going to take a lot longer than three minutes.”

“I never get tired of asking if there's anything for me.”

“Everything, if you'll sit on it till I say; and do me one more little favor.”

“Call me back and reverse the charges. The little guy with a pitchfork on my left shoulder tells me I can deduct them next April.”

I hung up and got the operator. At the end of a quarter of an hour, during which I told him what I'd gotten from Alec Moselle, I spent one of my coins on a much shorter conversation with Holly Zacharias.

*   *   *

The university tower was caroling four o'clock when she came my way across the Diag, carrying a camo duffel slung from its strap on one shoulder. She wore the student uniform: tank top, bell-bottoms, and sandals. Her hair hadn't grown out any, but something was missing. I figured it out while I was throwing the duffel in the backseat.

“You took the hardware out of your face.”

“I didn't want to set off the metal detectors.”

“You look fourteen years old.”

“Thanks. Like I don't get carded enough.”

“Same flight as yesterday?”

“Yeah. Dad lucked out. The exchange only cost him twenty bucks extra. He bitched about it five minutes. He's an okay dad, just cheap.”

“He's going to bitch some more.”

“What?”

“On the way. Any extra baggage?”

“No, just the—oh, you mean cops. I don't think so. I went into the parking garage on Thompson and ducked out the other side. I guess nobody told them I don't have a car.”

“It's okay. I brought along reinforcements.” I jerked my thumb back over my shoulder at the faithful blue Ford. “He's got a crush on me. I think it's my aftershave.”

She glanced at Captain America behind the wheel, shook her head. “Just when I think I got you old dudes figured out, you throw me a curve.”

“We get old for reasons. Buckle up. We're in for a bumpy ride.”

“Where do I think I heard that before?”

“The Michigan Theater, probably. Sooner or later they had to have got around to Bette Davis.” I let out the clutch, throwing her back into the seat. Every once in a while it's reassuring to impress youth with a virile show.

We drove down State Street. The blue Ford closed within a length. The point of the tail was to keep me from smuggling my passenger out of town, and my direction had Sergeant York upright with both fists on the wheel.

I lit a cigarette, flipped the match into the slipstream, and offered her the pack.

She shook her head.

“I don't really smoke. I only do it sometimes to make people disapprove. I don't guess you know why that's important.”

“It isn't. But it beats Sodoku.”

“Where are we going?”

I'd turned south on Main Street. “Airport. You have a flight at six.”

“Double back and take I-94. US-23's under construction near the interchange.”

“I know. I like to watch my tax dollars at work. A road crew in my block spent a month filling a pothole the size of a cereal bowl.”

“If it's backed up I'll miss my plane.”

“You're going to miss it anyway.”

She turned my way. Her window was open. The wind stirred the stubble on her scalp. “My dad'll shit if I don't show up on time at O'Hare.”

“Does anyone show up on time at O'Hare?”

She glanced back over her shoulder. “This have anything to do with the blockhead in the Ford?”

“This has everything to do with the blockhead in the Ford. For the record, he isn't a blockhead. I tried everything to expose him for one and he didn't rise. He's just a guy doing his job.”

“Stake me out like a goat. Cops,” she spat.

“They've got bills to pay, same as everyone else.” I tipped the butt out the window. It was like sucking on a lump of coal. “Zacharias. That's Greek, right? Studying ancient civilizations?”

“Minoring in Poli Sci,” she said. “So the answer's yeah.”

“Going to run for office? I mean after you turn loose Moby Dick?”

“Shamu. Gonna nail the ones that run. TV reporter.”

“Taking journalism?”

“Just one course. I dropped out when the instructor said the business of a newspaper is to make money.”