“‘ The Potty Is Your Friend,’ ” Ames said, looking at me.
“Let him out,” I said.
Ames sidled out of the booth, letting Blue get out and hurry toward the bathrooms at the rear. Ames got up and followed him. Then I heard Ames say, “He locked it.”
Two of the bar patrons looked toward the bathrooms. One was a shaky woman who kept blinking, the other a skinny man who tried to keep his elbows from slipping off the bar.
There was a window in the men’s room. It was high on the wall and narrow, but it was definitely possible for a man to squeeze through. I left my burger and called out for Billy to open the men’s room with a key. He got the urgency in the situation and moved quickly. So did I, but not toward the bathroom. I went past the bar and onto the street.
The red Jeep was parked half a block down, to my left. Blue Berrigan was racing for it and moving fast, fast enough to get into the car, make a U-turn, and be on his way before I got twenty steps, but not fast enough to keep me from seeing something move in the backseat of the Jeep.
Ames appeared at my side.
“Gone?” he asked.
“Gone,” I said.
“Know where?” asked Ames.
“I think so.”
We went back inside. I paid Billy, who said, “Always a pleasure having you. You bring a touch of chaos into an otherwise tranquil bar.”
I had the feeling he meant it.
I took my burger and led the way out the door and to my Saturn.
“Nice car,” he said.
“I bought it.”
“Needs help.”
“We all do.”
We got in, and I ate while I drove.
I came to three conclusions:
The Saturn would definitely not qualify for the Indy 500.
There was no radio in the car.
I still didn’t like driving.
Ames sat silently, jostled by what might be a weeping loose axle.
This was my kind of car.
Traffic wasn’t bad. It wasn’t snowbird weather, but as I tried to pick up speed I did pass three kids in a pickup truck wearing baseball caps. The kid in the middle had his cap turned around.
“Why do they wear their caps backward?” I asked Ames, who wasn’t likely to know but was the only other person in the car.
“Insecurity,” said Ames. “Want to look like millions of other kids.”
“Insecurity,” I said as I considered trying my Cubs cap backward. I decided not to. I already knew what a fool looked like.
“Only catchers behind the plate should wear their caps backward, to accommodate their masks,” I said.
I was in the right lane, going south on Beneva. The pickup pulled next to me. The kid in the window gave me a one-finger salute. Ames leaned over me and showed his long-barreled gun. The kids pulled away fast.
I tried for fast, too, and failed as the Saturn let me know that quick turns to the right were subject to grinding. We were on Wilkinson now. When we got in sight of the park I looked down the block at the parked red Jeep. I pulled in behind it and got out quickly, Ames right behind me as I hurried toward the yellow house after checking to be sure there was no one hunched down in the back of the Jeep.
I knocked at the front door of the yellow house. Ames was still behind me, his hand under his jacket. I knocked. There was a wheezing sound behind the door, which then opened.
The old woman who opened the door in an orange robe and slippers carried a yellow cup of steaming something.
“Blue Berrigan,” I said.
“Are you those paparazzi people?”
“No,” I said. “We’re fans.”
Ames gently pushed the door open and stepped in. I followed and closed the door.
“Don’t, for Jesus’ sake, sing me one of his songs, especially that one about the rabbits.”
“We won’t,” I said. “We just…”
“Mr. Nelson Berrigan isn’t here and he doesn’t give autographs or signed photographs to fans who seek him out. You’ll have to wait till his next public appearance. Besides, he’s not home.”
“His car is parked outside,” I said.
She looked at Ames with suspicion, took a sip of her brew, and leaned between us to look at the Jeep at the curb.”
“He’s still not here. No way he could get to his room without getting past me, no fucking way. Pardon my French.”
“Could he have gone around the back?” I tried.
“Yes, but there’s no way to get upstairs back there. Doesn’t the old guy talk?”
She wheezed mightily and fished an inhaler out of the pocket of her robe. A wad of tissues came with it and drifted to the floor. She caught them deftly without losing a drop of whatever she was drinking.
“Used to be a juggler,” she said, putting the tissue wad back in her pocket and taking a deep puff of the inhaler. “Long time ago. I suppose that’s how Nelson got the show business bug. His father was a tombstone carver.”
“He’s your son?” I asked.
“He is definitely not my son. He lived next door to us when he was a kid. Now I definitely want you the hell out of here. Good-bye.”
She closed the door. We turned and walked to the curb. I looked through the window of the jeep. Nelson Blue Berrigan was slumped over on the floor, legs beneath the steering wheel, head and torso on the floor near the passenger door. He was not taking a nap. The deep reddish black oozing wound on the back of his head felt like death, but I made sure by opening the door and reaching over to see if there was a pulse. There wasn’t.
We had been inside the house for no more than two minutes.
Maybe we should have gone back and told the old woman he was dead.
Maybe we should have called 911.
Maybe we should have looked for clues.
Maybe we should have looked for the killer. He couldn’t have been more than a few minutes away, but a minute or two was enough if he had a car parked very close by.
I slid into the backseat and looked at the floor. There were splatters of blood. On top of one of the splatters were two little pieces of plastic, one white, one red. I knew what they were, but I needed to get the answer to a question before I could decide what to do.
“We’ve got to go back inside the house,” I said. “Keep her busy.
Ames and I went back to the door. The old woman in the orange robe opened it a crack and said, “What the hell you want now?”
“I’ve got to call 911,” I said. “Berrigan is in his car. I think he’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“Where were you the last half hour?” Ames asked as I slipped by her and went to Berrigan’s room.
“Me? I didn’t kill him.”
I didn’t call 911 right away. First, I looked around. I didn’t see what I was looking for. I tried the closet. It wasn’t there. When I was satisfied, I called 911 and then went to get Ames.
The old woman was saying, “… a quiet man.”
“Sorry ma’am,” Ames said. “Can we get you anything?”
“You call the police?” she asked seeing me.
“Yes. I have one more question.”
“Question?”
I asked her. The answer confirmed what I found, or failed to find, in Berrigan’s room.
Ames and I moved to the door.
“You’re not staying till the police get here?” the old woman asked.
“Can’t,” Ames said gently. “Police will be here in a minute.”
She seemed bewildered as we opened the door. She looked out at Berrigan’s jeep, pulled a pair of glasses from her pocket and put them on, saying, “You sure he’s in there? I don’t see him.”
“He’s there,” I said.
We got in the Saturn and drove away, not quietly, but definitely away.
9
Half an hour later I was seated behind my desk, looking across the room at the Stig Dalstrom paintings on the wall. They were the only art I owned-four small paintings given to me by Flo Zink. They were of dark jungles and mountains at night with just a small touch of color, a single bird or flower, the distant moon.
Outside, Ames was working on the Saturn. He knew guns, machines, trucks, and automobiles, but it would take a lot of knowing to make the Saturn live again.