You’re wasting time, I told myself. Besides, it wasn’t up to me to pursue the shooter’s identity. I’d avoided dealing with the authorities twice this week; I couldn’t do it again even if I wanted to. And I didn’t want to. I was in deep enough as it was.
I took the briefcase to my car, used the mobile phone to make the call.
* * * *
It was almost midnight before they finally let me go home.
Long, wearying sessions at Containers, Inc., and then at the Hall of Justice. Conversations with patrolmen, inspectors, a homicide lieutenant named Cousins. (Nobody from the INS, though, despite the fact that they had a strong vested interest. On weekends, especially weekend nights, government-agency bureaucrats are as hard to find as a Democrat in the White House.) I told them everything, with one exception. I had to own up about Vega, his attempt on my life and what had happened on Ocean Beach to cause his injuries; if I’d held that back, my story would not have hung together and they might have decided to lock me up. They might also have decided to lock me up if I’d admitted to shirking my duty twice in the span of a few days, which was why I kept quiet about being the first on the scene of Thomas Lujack’s murder. There was no reason they had to know about that anyway.
Early on I’d tried to call Eberhardt, get him down to the Hall to back me up, but he hadn’t been home. He hadn’t been at Bobbie Jean’s, either. Out somewhere together, the two of them. But as it turned out, I hadn’t needed his help to keep things from going badly for me. All I got from the cops was a lecture and a warning to play by the rules if I wanted to keep my license-what amounted to wrist-slapping. I’d lost my license once, a few years ago, but that had been under a different city administration and a different chief of police; the current bunch were more tolerant of private detectives. Also weighing in my favor was the currency in Coleman’s briefcase, a total of one hundred sixteen thousand dollars, and what they found when they searched his wife’s car: three packed suitcases, another ninety-seven thousand in cash, thirty thousand in bearer bonds, a jewelry case full of valuable pieces, and the name and address of a small flying service down near Needles-Coleman’s way out of the country, evidently.
I got a beer from the refrigerator and sat with it in the front room. I was so tired I felt numb, but I was not ready yet to ride my nightmares.
Who? I kept thinking.
Why?
I finished the beer and went in to use the toilet. When I came back through the bedroom I realized that the message light on the answering machine was lit. I ran the tape back- three messages-and pushed the PLAY button.
The first one was from Kerry. She sounded mildly frazzled but not unhappy. “It’s me,” she said, “and it’s midmorning. I’ve got some news I want to share in person. Call me. I’ll be home all day.”
Cybil, I thought. And the news was good, judging from her tone and phrasing.
The second message was from Eberhardt. A predictably angry Eberhardt. “So why the hell didn’t you show up? It’s seven o’clock and I waited the whole frigging day. Sometimes you piss me off royally, you know that?”
I smiled a little. Yeah, Eb, I thought. Sometimes I piss myself off royally too.
Number three was Kerry again. “All right, who is she? I’ll scratch her eyes out.” Making a joke-another good sign. “Call me, okay? As soon as you can. I really need to see you. And not for the reason you think, you horny old goat.”
I laughed at that. Just hearing her voice could make me feel better, a bad time easier to deal with.
I reset the machine, switched it off. Another beer? Something to eat? TV for a while, just for the noise? None of the above. A shower, I decided. Wash away the lingering smells of Coleman Lujack and Containers, Inc. and sudden death.
The shower made me feel even more tired and dull-witted. Enough so that I could sleep right away, maybe. I crawled into bed and held Kerry’s image close in my mind, like a crucifix against the night’s evil. And pretty soon I slept.
But not well and not for long.
* * * *
… Running, running, shadows lurking in shadows, guns firing, things behind me with claws that scratched the ground and jaws that snapped the air, dark places, cold places, dead men lying huddled in rows, dead men rising and chasing after me in a pack, raw terror, screaming, running in sand, caught, trapped, dunes with gaping mouths and green-and-brown witches’ hair, cold, cold, waves of blood lifting and crashing down, dark places, cold places, shadows lurking in shadows, and running running running …
* * * *
I was awake for good an hour before dawn. The bedclothes were gamy with my sweat, cold-clammy against my skin, and before long I got up and stripped the bed and lay back down on the bare mattress with just a blanket over me.
Kerry was no longer uppermost in my mind. Now it was the two questions, chasing themselves round and round.
Who?
Why?
By the time the first pale light showed at the window, I knew I wasn’t finished with it yet. Wouldn’t be finished with it until both those questions had answers.
* * * *
Chapter 20
I left the flat at seven thirty, before the media and other parties began their inevitable assault. Down on Lombard there are a number of interchangeable coffee shops … or maybe that’s a redundancy. I picked one in Cow Hollow, bought a copy of the Sunday Examiner-Chronicle, and scanned through it while I waited for coffee and orange juice.
The shooting of Coleman Lujack was a featured story on the front page of the Metro section. I was mentioned as an eyewitness, but the reporter didn’t dwell on my involvement — probably because the police hadn’t yet released certain pieces of information, such as the Lujacks’ connection with the coyotes and the particulars of Rafael Vega’s injuries. A rehash of Thomas’s death by carbon monoxide poisoning, and of the hit-and-run killing of Frank Hanauer, took up the last third of the article, with the correct implication being that the violent demises of the three partners were interrelated. Nick Pendarves’s name was trotted out as a possible suspect in Coleman’s murder. But “police sources” admitted that there was no direct evidence linking Pendarves-or anyone else-to the shooting.
It was a few minutes past eight when I finished reading that. I drained my orange juice and took my coffee back to the rest room area, where I used one of the pay phones to call Kerry. Before Cybil came to live with her, she would have been fast asleep at 8:00 A.M. on a Sunday morning; now she answered on the first ring, wide awake and a little edgy. As soon as she heard my voice she said, “Why are you calling so early? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I just didn’t want you to think the worst.”
“About what?”
“Haven’t you read the paper yet?”
“No. I just woke up a little while ago. My God, don’t tell me you’re all over the news again. …”
“Not exactly. There was some trouble last night and I got caught up in it, that’s all.”
“That’s all? If it’s in the paper …”
“Don’t read the Metro section, all right? I’ll explain when I see you.”
“I can be over there in an hour or so-”
“I’m not home,” I said. “And I have some things to take care of this morning. Later today would be better.”
“Well, I’ve got an appointment at one, but it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. Three thirty at your place?”
“Good. If I get hung up for any reason, I’ll call you there.”
“You’re sure everything’s all right? I mean-”
“I know what you mean. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t tell me not to worry. I started worrying when I didn’t hear from you yesterday.”