W Is for Wasted (31 page)

Linton said, “What’s the reporter’s name?”

“What difference does it make?” Pete asked, irritably.

“I’m asking you a simple question.”

“Why don’t you go ask her? She’s the one in cahoots with him.”

Linton backed up a step and raised his arm. The weight of the weapon caused his hand to wobble ever so slightly. “I’m warning you.”

“Hey, fine. You win. Guy’s name is Owen Pensky for all the good it’ll do you.”

He thought Linton might put the gun away since his demand had been met, but the good doctor wasn’t ready to concede. It was possible he didn’t know how to make a graceful exit. Pete was trying to figure out how to resolve the standoff before it got out of hand. Pete was close enough that if he’d kicked upward, he might have been able to propel the gun from Linton Reed’s grip, but his Marfan’s made such a move impossible. Whatever he intended to do, he knew he better do it quickly before Linton had time to think. If the gun’s safety was still off and Pete made a move, there was a chance Linton’s trigger finger would tighten reflexively, causing the gun to fire, but Pete couldn’t worry about that.

He stepped to one side, put his hands together like a club, and brought it down abruptly on Linton’s outstretched hand. The blow failed to break his hold on the gun, but it did catch him by surprise. Pete swung a fist and Linton stepped aside more quickly than Pete thought possible. Pete swung again and missed, only this time, he stumbled into Linton and his momentum took both men down. Pete’s fall was buffered by his landing on the other man while the doctor’s fall was cushioned by his heavy coat. His right hand went down, the butt of his gun hit the pavement, and the impact jarred the gun loose. The weapon flew off and landed on the path three feet away. As Linton rolled over onto his side and stretched to retrieve the gun, Pete lunged across him and knocked it out of reach.

Pete pushed himself upward. Staggering to his feet, he pulled the Glock from his shoulder holster and aimed it squarely at Linton’s chest. “Leave it where it is.”

Linton caught sight of the Glock and paused. Pete doubted the good doctor could even identify the Glock as such, but he must have recognized the ease with which Pete handled it. Linton pulled himself together awkwardly and stood up, brushing at his pants.

Pete said, “Back up.”

Linton stepped back a pace. Pete moved to his left, bent down casually, and picked up the errant handgun, which he holstered for safekeeping. His own gun he kept pointed at the doctor. Now that Pete was in control, he felt better. He had both guns; Linton’s weapon in his holster, his own held loosely in his right hand. He didn’t want this to escalate because the odds weren’t that good for either one of them. He was older and more experienced, but he was poorly coordinated and unaccustomed to physical exertion. Linton was the shorter of the two—five nine to Pete’s six foot two—and heavier by fifteen pounds, his stocky build a sharp contrast to Pete’s long-boned frame.

Linton said, “Give me my gun.”

“Kiss my ass. I’ll mail it to you at the lab.”

“Give it to me! I told you it belongs to my father-in-law. I have to put it back.”

“Not my problem.”

Linton snatched at Pete’s sport coat. Pete brought the butt of his Glock down on Linton’s wrist and then gave him a one-armed push. Linton righted himself and launched a sharp two-handed blow that knocked Pete to the ground. Still hanging on to his gun, Pete scrambled forward and wrapped his arms around Linton’s legs, leaning into him. Then Pete took him down. It wasn’t a tackle so much as a slow toppling as Linton was thrown off balance by the weight dragging at him like a bag of sand. Inadvertently, Pete’s trigger finger contracted as Linton went down. The weapon fired and the casing ejected into the dark. The shot had gone wide, but Pete’s ears rang with such intensity he was rendered momentarily deaf.

Linton took advantage of the moment to punch Pete in the side of the head. Neither man was in shape for a fight, and their clumsy blows and kicks left both floundering. In reality, they fought for less than two minutes, though from Pete’s perspective, the fistfight seemed to go on forever, his own responses weakening as Linton continued flailing. He managed to shove Pete away from him, then lashed out with a savage side kick to the knee.

Surprised by pain, Pete lost his grip on his gun. He heard it hit the pavement, but he was off balance and was dismayed to find himself falling into the shrubs. Grimly, he extracted himself, aware of how ridiculous the entire encounter was. He knew no good would come of it. He might not lose, but neither would he win.

Linton stepped back, as though declaring a momentary truce, which was fine with Pete. He was winded. He hurt. His lungs burned with every heave of his chest. He made a dismissive gesture and leaned forward, head hanging while he rested his hands on his knees. “Whoo. Forget it. This is nuts. I’m outta here,” he said.

He righted himself and dragged a hand down his face, feeling grit and sweat. He wiped his damp hand on his pants and straightened his jacket.

Linton said, “Look what I got.”

Pete didn’t catch the words. His scarf was missing and he was intent on finding it. He spotted it lying on the path behind him, picked it up, and hooked it around his neck, and then turned toward the street where his car was parked. There was no shame in withdrawing from a battle that was pointless from the get-go and had already played out. That was it for him. He was bushed. It would take him days to recover as it was. He hadn’t gone four feet when he heard the shots.

He looked down with astonishment. A fiery arrow of pain pierced his left side. Pete didn’t see the muzzle flash because his back was turned when Linton fired. Someone looking on might have caught that quick flame of superheated incandescent gas emerging from the barrel in advance of the slug, that small penetrating missile followed by the sudden intense burst of light as gas and oxygen ignited. A pungent smell hung in the air.

Pete turned to Linton with amazement. “Why did you do that?”

He saw that Linton held the Glock, which he must have snatched from the path while Pete’s attention was diverted. He shouldn’t have taken his eyes off the man, but he couldn’t worry about that now. He tallied his wounds, neither of which seemed devastating. Linton had shot him once in the side. A second bullet had grazed his right calf. It wasn’t his injuries, but the insult that stung, the violation of the rules of fair play. He’d given up. He’d thrown in the towel. You weren’t supposed to go after a guy once he’d done that.

Pete shook his head, looking down at himself and then at Linton. “Help me out here. I’m hurt.”

Linton gave Pete the once-over, his glance taking in the blood seeping through his pant leg. Even to Pete, the bleeding from the wound in his side didn’t amount to much.

“You’ll be fine,” Linton said. His tone was light, with a touch of condescension, the sort of reassurance a specialist might offer a patient with a medical condition of no real consequence.

He slipped the gun into his coat pocket and turned away, strolling toward the parking lot. His pace was measured. He wasn’t hurried. There was no panic that Pete could make out, though it seemed clear he wanted to get out of the area in the event someone had heard the shots and dialed 911. Pete could conceive of Linton as a man who’d always wondered what it would feel like to shoot another man down. It must have crossed his mind, the idle thought of someone who’d never done much of anything except pull the wool over other people’s eyes. It made a certain amount of sense. If Linton had been good at what he did, he wouldn’t have had to cheat. The gun established his superiority, making him better than he was. It was as simple as that.

Pete felt a fine sheen of sweat break out on his face. He wasn’t sure he’d be fine at all. His early outrage had drained away and he wondered what kind of trouble he was in. Just like that, his vision crowded in on him and he toppled. The arms he flung out in front of him to slow his fall were useless. When his face hit the pavement, he registered little if any pain.

Dimly, he realized he’d broken his nose. He hadn’t believed the good doctor would shoot him and yet here he was, down on the asphalt, a hole in his side and a stinging gash on his calf. His leg was the least of his concerns.

When the bullet tore into him, a fragment of jacket lining had traveled into his flesh along with the slug. A large temporary cavity had bloomed and collapsed. That same slug had struck his rib cage, shattering bone before it veered off at an angle, taking a ragged zigzagging path through his descending colon. The trajectory of the lead had scarcely slowed when it nicked a far-flung tributary of his superior mesenteric artery no bigger than a piece of string, which began to pump out blood in a series of tiny spurts. Even if the bleeding had been caught, the resulting spill of fecal matter into his abdominal cavity would have overwhelmed his system soon afterward. None of this—the nomenclature, the knowledge of anatomy, or the acquaintance with the consequences of internal rupturing—was part of Pete’s thinking as he puzzled the sensations besetting him. He was intimately aware of the savage and destructive tunnel the pellet had plowed as it whipsawed through his organs, but he lacked the language necessary to express his dismay. It would fall to the coroner to translate the damage into its myriad elements, reducing fierce heat and sorrow to a series of dry facts as he dictated his findings, days later, in the morgue.

Pain was a bright cloud that danced along Pete’s frame, expanding until every nerve ending jangled with its flame. He wondered where the other gun had gone. He’d pulled his Glock, thinking to deter the doctor, though the sight of it might well have egged him on. He felt something press against his ribs and he wondered if the gun was under him. He closed his eyes. Mere seconds had passed when he heard the doctor’s car door slam. Headlights flashed across his eyelids, receding as Linton Reed backed his turquoise Thunderbird out of the space, turned the wheel, and pulled out of the parking lot.

Pete rested. What choice did he have? All of his faculties were shutting down. He lost a moment, like nodding off and jerking awake again. When he opened his eyes, he saw boots. He angled his gaze, taking in the big fellow with his red baseball cap and his red flannel shirt. Pete longed to speak, but he couldn’t seem to make himself heard. This was his chance to say Linton Reed’s name, putting the blame for the shooting where it rightfully belonged. Tomorrow, when the panhandler read about his death, he could go to the police and tell them what the dying man had said.

The big man hunkered beside him. His expression was compassionate. He knew as well as Pete did that he was on his way out. He leaned closer and for a moment, the two were eye to eye. The man reached out and slid an arm under him. Pete was grateful, thinking he meant to lift him and carry him to safety. It was too late for that, and Pete knew instinctively that any jostling would waken the pain that had faded to almost nothing. The man fumbled, turning him over onto his side. Pete wanted to shriek but he didn’t have the strength. He was aware of his watch sliding over his wrist. He felt the man pat his pants until he found the square of his leather wallet and slipped it from his pocket. The last conscious thought that registered was the man lifting the handgun from the holster, tucking it into the small of his back. Pete watched him amble away without a backward glance.

There was no way Pete could rouse himself. Who knew dying could take so long? He was bleeding out; heart slowing, belly filling up with blood. Not a bad way to go, he thought. He heard the beating of wings, a nearly inaudible whisper and flutter. He felt quick puffs of wind on his face, feathery grace notes. The birds had come back for him, hoping he had something to offer them when, in fact, every kindly impulse of his had fled.

The six hundred dollars Dietz had surrendered to Pete’s landlady netted us an additional fifteen banker’s boxes, too many to fit in Dietz’s little red Porsche. The expenditure should have been classified as “throwing good money after bad,” as he was now out the six hundred
plus
the three thousand dollars and some odd cents he’d already been cheated. I called Henry for assistance and he obligingly backed the station wagon out of his garage and drove to Pete’s former office building. We’d brought the boxes down on the elevator and stacked them at the curb. It took no time at all to load up the rear of Henry’s vehicle, after which I rode home with him while Dietz followed in his car.

We all pitched in transferring the boxes from the station wagon to my living room and there they sat. Henry said he’d lend a hand examining files, but we vetoed the idea. We knew what paperwork had already passed through our hands. We also knew what we were looking for and there was no point in stopping to educate Henry on the fine points of Pete’s filing system. We thanked him for his transportation services and I assured him I’d check in with him later in the day.

This left Dietz and me sitting cross-legged on my living room floor, pawing through more boxes. “I spend an inordinate amount of time doing shit like this,” I remarked.

“We don’t turn up something soon, I’m bagging it,” he said. “No point in spending more time trying to collect for a job than I devoted to the job itself.”

“You worked four days. We’ve been chasing your fee for one.”

“True, and I’m already bored.”

The first box I opened the contained the contents of Pete’s wastebasket, which Letitia Beaudelaire must have upended and emptied with one mighty shake. Here, in layers going back for weeks, was an accumulation of overdue notices, judgments, legal warnings, dunning letters, threats, unpaid bills, and bank statements showing countless checks returned for inadequate funds. It appeared that Pete, when he had his back pressed to the wall, would send off a bad check as a means of buying himself a few days’ time. The plan always failed—how could it not?—but he was too busy putting out fires to worry about the ones that flared up again.

Dietz said, “At least he was sincere about the river cruise. Take a look at this.”

He leaned forward and handed me a glossy brochure that featured a color photograph of a sleek boat on a body of water. This was not a 2,600-passenger cruise liner tracking the Norwegian fjords. This was river travel. A village was laid out along the shore, with a low rolling mountain beyond. The bell tower on the church was reflected like a shimmering mirage at the water’s edge. Everything about the image was inviting, including the sight of passengers on the upper deck where a swimming pool was visible. “I could learn to live like that,” I said.

“I told you money has its advantages.”

“For sure. I just couldn’t picture anything I wanted. Now I’m getting it,” I said. “It’d be nice if he’d set aside some cash to pay for the trip. I’m sure Ruthie could use the getaway.”

“You think she’d go without him?”

“Not really. I think if she had the money, she’d pay off his creditors before she did anything else.”

I watched Dietz pick up a sheaf of papers. As his eyes traced the lines of print, he let out a bark of outrage. “Son of a bitch! Look at this! What the hell is he doing here?”

I took the typewritten pages and glanced at the first. “What am I looking at?”

“My report. He stole the whole damn thing. Retyped it and dicked around with the language, but essentially it’s my work, with all my receipts attached. I’ll bet he was reimbursed for everything, including my time. This is my original. Look at that.”

I leafed through both reports, keeping the two documents side by side for comparison purposes. Pete had rewritten Dietz’s account on his own letterhead, embellishing in places, altering the wording so it sounded more folksy. Attached were invoices showing two sets of round-trip tickets from Santa Teresa to Reno, trips he’d certainly never made. He’d done a clumsy job of substituting his name for Dietz’s in the hotel bill, but he probably thought his client wouldn’t know the difference. I couldn’t think why he’d kept Dietz’s original. He’d have been smarter to destroy it unless he’d hoped to lift details to fashion a follow-up report. I doubted he had any intention of paying Dietz at all and what options did Dietz have? Trying to collect in California for work done in Nevada would have been an exercise in frustration. Taking Pete to small claims court would have been time consuming, and even if Dietz had won a judgment, what was he to do with it? Pete was flat broke.

“I hope he made good use of my photographs while he was at it,” he said.

He opened the manila envelope that bore his return address and removed the pictures he’d taken.

I peered over his shoulder. “That’s the gal you were hired to spy on?”

“Mary Lee Bryce, right.” Dietz shuffled through the prints while I looked on. “This is her when she first arrived at the hotel and this is Owen Pensky, the high school classmate she met with. Here’s one of her with the boss she was supposed to be having the affair with.”

“No love lost there,” I remarked.

“Unless they’re really good at faking it.”

“I bet Pete collected up front and in cash. He wasn’t the type to bill after the fact.”

“Depressing, but you’re probably right.”

“So if Willard Bryce has already paid Pete, there’s no point in asking him for the money. He’d turn you down cold.”

“When you said Pete was a scumbag, I thought you were exaggerating.”

“I should point out that
you
had a better motive to shoot Pete than any armed robber did. All that guy got was an empty wallet and a cheap watch.”

Dietz tossed aside the manila envelope. “You know what bugs me? Here I was so worried his death was connected to the job I did. If I’d known he was ripping me off, I wouldn’t have given it another thought.”

“He did provide a great excuse for spending time with me.”

“Well, there’s that.”

I checked the receipts for the two sets of plane tickets. “You think he actually paid for tickets? These are copies of copies. I wonder what happened to the originals.”

“He had to pay for ’em or he wouldn’t have tickets in his possession in the first place. I’m sure he didn’t make two trips to Reno. Hell, he didn’t even make one.”

“Maybe he has a refund coming.”

“Maybe he collected the money and spent it all. Who cares?”

“I’m sure Ruthie would appreciate the windfall.”

“Fine. Give her the file and let her figure it out.”

“Such a grouch,” I said.

Dietz was dropping files back into the banker’s box he’d placed in front of him. “What time is it?”

I checked my watch. “Ten fifteen. Why?”

“I told Nick I’d be back in time to take him to lunch.”

“It’s the middle of the morning. We have eight boxes to go!”

“Not me. I’ve had it.”

“I don’t want to do this on my own.”

“Then don’t. Nobody’s paying you.”

“Come on. Don’t you have any curiosity at all about who else he might’ve been working for? Suppose he had half a dozen other clients who were all set to pay?”

“He didn’t. That Bryce fellow was the only one.”

“But suppose there was another one?”

“What if there was? If I’d done business with Pete and heard he’d been shot dead, I’d count myself lucky and lay low.”

Dietz hauled himself to his feet. I extended my hand and he pulled me into an upright position.

He stepped into the kitchenette to wash his hands. Mine were as filthy as his, but I planned to go on working, so there wasn’t any point in being dainty.

He picked up his car keys, looking way too cheerful for my taste. “I’ll check with you later. Why don’t you plan on having dinner with us?”

“You better chat with Nick first. He may have other ideas.”

“You think?”

“Dietz, so far he hasn’t been here one full day. He came to talk to you about his plans and from what you’ve said, he hasn’t even told you the whole story yet. You need to pay attention to these things.”

“How complicated could it be?”

I would have laughed, but he hadn’t meant to be funny. I said, “Forget about tonight. Find out what’s on his mind and we’ll get together some other time.”

Once he was gone, I turned my attention to the remaining eight boxes, which I confess didn’t have quite the same appeal. Doing a tedious chore in the company of a friend makes the labor seem less onerous. These files had been packed haphazardly without the benefit of Pete’s casual organizational skills. This was the work of his landlady, who was already annoyed with his bounced checks and probably not that sorry to hear about his unhappy fate. On the other hand, I was feeling slightly more charitable about the man. He might have been a skunk, but he wasn’t a malicious skunk; just someone with a tendency to deceive. Nothing wrong with a lie or two when the situation demanded it.

I sat down again and started to work. Ruthie was right about his being a pack rat. In the next box I tackled, the topmost file caught my attention. I opened the folder and had a quick look, leafing through photocopies of various articles related to a diabetes study and some to an NIH grant for a clinical trial being run out at UCST. All of it pertained to Linton Reed—the clinical trial, his educational background, his CV, and numerous scientific papers that made reference to a drug called Glucotace. I was curious about Pete’s sudden passion for medical matters. When I knew him, he seldom pursued a subject unless he smelled some monetary benefit. Clearly his interest in Linton Reed went beyond any suggestion that he was in a relationship with Mary Lee Bryce. That theory had been knocked flat. I set the folder aside, placing it on top of the one that contained Dietz’s surveillance notes and his photographs.

Next layer down, I came across a thick cross-section of signed contracts, surveillance logs, typed reports, and confidential client information from the old Byrd-Shine days, material Pete shouldn’t have had in his possession. I couldn’t imagine how he’d managed to get his hands on the files or why he’d held on to them all these years.

Tucked in one end of the same box, I found a pen mike and a handful of tape cassettes, along with his tape recorder, crude and clunky looking by today’s standards. I checked the window in the lid, where I could see a cassette still in place. The Sony Walkman had been his pride and joy. I remembered running into him years before when he’d first bought it. He was excited about the technology, which he considered cutting edge. He’d given me a lengthy demonstration, crowing with delight. At this point, the device seemed ancient. New cassette recorders were half this size.

Pete had a penchant for illegal wiretaps. He was a big fan of planting mikes behind picture frames and slipping listening devices in among the potted ferns. I guess we all have our preferences. I put the tape recorder where it had been, replaced the lid on the box, and marked it with a big X. I’d chat with Ruthie and explain why I wasn’t returning it. Even a decade later, Byrd-Shine business was confidential. The contents should either be shredded or permanently consigned to my care.

I did a cursory search of another five boxes before I lost heart. Dietz was right. I wasn’t getting paid, so why bust my butt? I suppose I’d been hoping to find a fat manila envelope filled with spare cash, but apparently among the treasures Pete clung to, money wasn’t one. It wasn’t noon yet, but I was hungry. I was also grubby enough that I longed for another shower. There’s something about used paper and old storage containers that leaves you feeling chalky around the edges. I trotted myself up the spiral stairs, stripped down, and started my day all over again, emerging from the hydrotherapy feeling happier. I swapped out my sooty jeans for fresh and pulled on a clean turtleneck. I knew Rosie’s would be open for lunch, so I grabbed my shoulder bag and a denim jacket and headed out. I was in the process of locking my door when I spotted William out of the corner of my eye.

He was sitting bolt upright in an Adirondack chair, wearing his customary three-piece suit, starched white dress shirt, and a dark tie, carefully knotted. He had his face tilted up to absorb the October sunshine, and his hands rested on the cane he’d propped between his highly polished wingtip shoes.

“Hey, William. What are you doing out here?”

“I came to visit Ed.”

“Is he here?”

William opened his eyes and looked around. “He was a minute ago.”

We both did a quick survey, but there was no cat to be seen.

“Where’s Henry? I’m assuming you’ve met his houseguest.”

“Anna’s your cousin, isn’t she?”

“A cousin of sorts. She lives in Bakersfield unless she’s decided on a permanent change of residency. I take it they’re off someplace.”

“A beauty-supply shop. They’ll be back in a bit. You don’t care for her?”

“I don’t. Thanks to her I got stuck with a huge bar bill and then she tried bumming a ride with me. I had no intention of driving her down here so what does she do? She takes a bus and now she’s moved in next door. Don’t you think that’s pushy?”

“Very. I don’t like pushy people.”

“Neither do I.”

I pulled over a lightweight aluminum lawn chair and sat down next to him. “How’s your back doing these days?”

“Better. I appreciate your concern. Henry’s bored with the subject and Rosie thinks I’m faking it,” he said. “Actually, now that I have you here, there’s something we ought to chat about.”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I just returned from a visitation and service at Wynington-Blake.” His tone had shifted at the mention of the mortuary.

“I’m sorry. Was this for a friend of yours?”

“No, no. I never met the man. I came across his obituary while I was waiting for my last physical therapy appointment. Gentleman named Hardin Comstock. Ninety-six years old and he was allotted one line. No mention of his parents or his place of birth. Not a word about hobbies or what he’d done for a living. It’s possible there was no one left to provide the information.”

“Who paid for the funeral?”