Waltz of Shadows (26 page)

“What about dental records?” I said.

“What about them?” Price said. “Had a positive I.D. on him from the only relative ever had anything to do with Tommy Ray. Cousin ought to know him. Right? It was near Busby, Fat Boy’s territory. No one questioned him. They took him at his word.”

“Sounds to me,” Virgil said, “you know Fat Boy’s methods pretty well for someone yesterday didn’t know nothing.”

“Fat Boy could do what he wanted long as he didn’t track shit in my house,” Price said. “He’s got it on my rug now.”

“Who was the body they used for Snake?” I asked.

“Someone who hasn’t wrote home lately,” Price said. “Or they dug a fresh corpse out of the cemetery and burned it. No telling. That’s not our problem. That doctor you told me about. The plastic surgeon. We’re going to his place. A little late call.”

“All of us?” I asked.

“You said have a plan, so I got a plan,” Price said. “You gonna play or not?”

“We’ll play,” I said.

“You didn’t bring the dog, did you?”

“It’s his night off,” Virgil said.

“Good,” Price said. “I hate fucking dogs.”

   Price drove us there in his Plymouth. We arrived after midnight. We parked at the curb and went up the walk with Price in the lead. Price rang the doorbell. It took a while for the porch light to come on. There was a voice contraption in the door and a voice talked to us through that.

“Who is it?”

Price took out his identification and held it up so it could be seen through the spy glass in the door.

“Doctor Benjamin Parker?” Price asked.

“Yes,” said the voice.

“Open up,” Price said. “Police.”

While we waited under the glow of the porch light, I took a good look at Price’s suit to pass the time. It fit beautifully. It was dark blue. The shirt was grey. The tie was dark blue with thin gray lines. It had a knot tied in it about the size of a plum. He wore expensive gray socks. The shoes had a bluish cast to them. A moth, perhaps attracted to the mousse on his hair, circled his head a few times then dove for the porch light and fluttered.

Doc opened the door. He was dressed in a black silk robe and black house shoes so stylish he could have worn a tie with them and gone to church.

Price pushed past Doc and went inside. We followed. Doc closed the door, said, “What’s this about? Have I done something?”

A young woman with sleepy eyes, wearing a shorty, white, silk robe well filled by her breasts, stepped out of an open doorway. She also wore pink bunny slippers, with ears. She looked as timid as a deer. She called the Doc’s name. He said, “Go back to bed, sugar. It’s business.”

“Emergency nose job,” Price said.

“Oh,” said the young woman, and went away.

“Time to change her diaper?” Price said.

“What?” Doc said.

“How old’s she?” Price asked.

“Nineteen,” Doc said. “She looks young for her age.”

“Yeah, like maybe she just got off the baby formula,” Price said. “’Course, those tits are plenty mature.”

“Look, Chief,” Doc said. “That’s right, isn’t it? Chief? The girl’s nineteen. Check it out. Someone’s given you a bum steer, if they’re telling you she’s underage.”

“That isn’t it,” Price said. “Let’s go somewhere and sit down.”

Doc looked at me and Virgil, trying to determine our part in all this. We didn’t offer to fill him in. He said, “This way.”

The room he took us into was the room Bill had described. The one with the long table and the big windows. There was a huge piece of plywood covering one of the windows. Price noticed that, looked at me and Virgil. I presumed Virgil had told Price everything he had gotten from me, about how Bill had escaped and all, and Price was puzzling it together.

Price nodded at the ply board, said, “Redecorating?”

“Golf ball.” Doc said. “I was putting a few along the room here, and one got out of hand. Bounced and went through.”

“Big golf ball,” Virgil said.

“Are you officers, too?” Doc asked me and Virgil.

“They’re not,” Price said. “They don’t have to be. They’re with me. Sit down over there and shut up, would you, Doc?”

“I don’t have to do any of this,” Doc said. “I got a lawyer.”

“Who doesn’t,” Virgil said.

“Just sit down before I rough you up,” Price said.

“I could have your job for that,” Doc said. “I got connections all over.”

Price slid across the room as if he were on a camera dolly. His fist shot into Doc’s stomach and Doc went to his knees. Price reached down and slapped Doc on the ear.

“Take a seat,” Price said. “We’ll discuss your connections later.”

Doc got up and sat on the couch, held a hand to his injured ear. Price said, “Little thing like your wife getting murdered hasn’t stopped your sex life, has it?”

“I haven’t made any secret of the fact I was cheating on my wife,” Doc said. “She wasn’t true to me either. We had a strained relationship.”

“Strain is off now, though, isn’t it?” Price said.

Doc’s answer arrived by banana boat. “I suppose you could look at it that way.”

“Can we look at it another way?” Price said. He pulled a chair from beneath the table and sat on it backwards, his arms resting on the backrest. “Can we look at the part about you having her killed? And please, don’t say, ‘what are you talking about?’ ”

“I have to say that,” Doc said. “I don’t know anything else to say.”

Price slipped out of the chair and took two fast steps to the couch, grabbed Doc by the front of the robe and jerked him up and kneed him in the nuts and sat him down on the couch. He slapped the Doc on the other ear. Doc grabbed his head with one hand and stuck the other between his legs. He fell sideways on the couch and made a noise.

“Don’t do that,” I said to Price, but I’m afraid I didn’t sound as if I really meant it. Price ignored me. This was his play: a deep well thought out plan. Beat the shit out of Doc.

Price got hold of Doc and pulled him to a sitting position on the couch. “Want to go for a broken nose?” Price said. “And don’t say ‘you can’t get away with this.’ I can get away with it. Want to test me?”

“No,” Doc said.

“Good,” Price said. “Here’s the exclusive. I got a guy working for me you probably know as Fat Boy. Aha, saw your eyes light up on that one. Fat Boy he’s got a guy working for him he calls Snake. They worked for you one night. Night this man’s nephew showed up with some other fools to put a scare in you. You weren’t here. Fat Boy was.

“You hired him to kill your wife, and he did, and he pinned the murder on the nephew. I don’t know your wife. Just her picture in the paper. Maybe you had a good reason to get rid of her. Maybe she had pussy stank like a dead fish. Maybe she was a dyke or had a dick on her. I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s not her murder I’m worried about. It’s Fat Boy’s dealings concerns me. Him working for me, and him doing what he did for you. This comes out, it makes me look bad. See how frank I am, Doc? I want you to be frank with me, now. I want you to admit you hired Fat Boy to do your wife in. I want some particulars.”

“I haven’t got a clue,” Doc started, and Price slapped him again, this time on the jaw.

“Talk to me,” Price said.

I went out into the hallway and closed the door.

The girl came out of the bedroom again. “Is everything okay?” she said.

“It’ll be all right,” I said. “They just argue like this sometimes. Go back to bed.”

She swallowed. “All right,” she said, and went back into the bedroom and closed the door. A moment later I heard the door lock.

The hall door behind me opened and Virgil came out. He said, “Come in here. Doc wants to chat.”

I went back inside. Price had helped himself to some brandy from the Doc’s liquor cabinet. He stood by the cabinet sipping the drink. He didn’t look as if he had exerted himself at all. His shirt wasn’t even wrinkled. Doc was on the couch. Blood was running out of his nose and the corners of his mouth and it had dripped onto his beautiful robe. No wearing it to church now. There was a lump above his right eye. He reached up with his right sleeve and wiped the blood away.

I felt very small and very ill.

Price held up the glass of brandy and said, “Anyone else want some? Doc? I bet you could use something.”

Neither Virgil nor I said anything. Doc said, “Yeah.”

“Brandy?” Price said, as if he were accustomed to bartending.

Doc nodded. Price set his glass aside and lightly poured Doc a brandy from a large decanter and brought it to him. Doc took the glass carefully, as if expecting Price to hit him with it.

Price smiled at him. Doc sucked the brandy down and gave the glass back to Price. “More,” Doc said.

Price said, “That’ll do you.” He went back to the liquor cabinet and set the glass next to the brandy decanter. He picked up his own glass and sipped. He said, “Now where were we?”

   “I admit to what you say I did,” Doc said, “what’ll happen to me?”

“They’ll strap you to a gurney and stick a needle full of poison in your arm,” Price said. “Unless I set things different. I can do that. I would do that, provided I get the stuff to see Fat Boy and Snake go down.”

“You can do that?” Doc asked.

“I can do any goddamn thing except lick my own balls,” Price said.

“I’m going to talk,” Doc said. “I’ll need another drink. Something stronger. Switch me to Scotch.”

“All right,” Price said. He poured Doc two fingers of Scotch and gave it to him. Doc drank half of it and melted into the couch. “Our marriage was a sham,” Doc said. “Tara had a kind of mental cruelty you can’t dream of. She…”

“Hey,” Price said, “you’re breaking my heart here, but what I what’s the skinny on Fat Boy and Snake. Give me that and save the harp music.”

Doc sucked in a slug of Scotch and moved it around in his mouth. He swallowed. When he spoke, his words were as dry as an emery board, “All right. I hired Fat Boy and Snake to kill her.”

“How’d you set it up?” Price asked.

“An accident really,” Doc said. “You see I have a special interest in certain things. Things that bother some people.”

“We playing charades here?” Price said. “I’m tired of prodding. Talk like you know some English, or you and me, we’re gonna dance again.”

“I like them young,” Doc said.

“Like the big tittied heifer,” Price said, nodding toward the hallway.

“I like that,” Doc said. “But I like them even younger. I haven’t acted on that, mind you. I just like to think about it now and then. Thinking isn’t doing any harm, is it? Just thinking?”

Suddenly the child pornography angle Fat Boy had brought into all this clicked. “You like children,” I said.

“I like to look at them,” Doc said. “You know, naked. Well, a little more than naked, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” I said.

“I just look at the pictures,” Doc said. “I mean, I haven’t touched any children. It’s just the fantasy, you see. Looking at the pictures and thinking about it. Where’s the harm in that?”

“Just connect the dots,” Price said. “It’s past my bedtime.”

“Guy I knew out of Houston who came to me now and then for a little work was my connection to Fat Boy,” Doc said. “His name was Jake. Into oil or something. He came to get some tightening around the eyes, mouth, that sort of thing. He used to do a little fishing around here now and then, and he got to thinking all the money he was spending on me made us buddies. I went fishing with him a few times, because he was talking about a breast implant job for his wife. I figured the money was good enough, and he could pay a little more than was needed, so I went along with him. Kind of a business investment.

“One time we’re out on his boat fishing, and Jake starts talking about his daughter. I’m thinking it’ll be the usual thing. You know, how smart the kid is. The braces on her teeth. Her athletic ability. Stuff you hear parents say. And it started off like that, him telling me she’s ten, and he thinks she’s going to be a real beauty, you know. He talked about how she liked to sit on his lap and kiss him. How he liked to set up the camera and take a few pictures of her naked. Keep in mind, this wasn’t some scumbag. He had money, a good home and job. An attractive wife. He said his wife didn’t mind he took the pictures. She knew he liked to fool around with the kid some, and the kid didn’t mind that much either. They didn’t see it as a big deal.”

“Who’s telling you she didn’t mind, that it isn’t any big deal,” I asked, “this asshole Jake?”

“Cork yourself,” Price said to me. “Keep singing,” he said to the Doc.

“The more he talked, more I sorta, you know, you liked it,” Doc said. “The idea, I mean. I had experienced those kinds of thoughts now and then. You know how it is. See a naked kid in a photograph. Out swimming at the pool, wearing little bathing suits—I’m not talking about boys, understand. I’m not talking anything strange.”

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “You’re some special project.”

“I
don’t see the big deal,” Doc said. “You’re making a big deal.”

“You were saying,” Virgil said to Doc.

“I asked the guy a few questions, and pretty soon he’s telling me all of it. How he’s been showing the girl that love between a father and daughter, sexual love, isn’t so bad. Explaining how it’s a special relationship… I can see that, can’t you?”

“No,” I said.

Neither Virgil nor Price said anything. Price looked bored, and Virgil had on his lawyer expression, which could have meant anything or nothing.

Doc looked at his drink and lifted the last of it to his mouth and tossed it back. “Next time he came up, we went out on his boat, and he had a few pictures of him and the daughter. You know, doing it. They were really tastefully photographed.”

“That makes me feel better,” I said. “I’d hate to think they were grainy or blurred or something.”

“Go out in the hall again, Small, you can’t shut up,” Price said.

It was tempting, but I felt I needed to know all this. I had already fallen into the sewer by accident, I might as well spend a few more minutes bobbing about with the turds.