I said nothing. I didn’t want to open the door to Alana Legerman and possibly to Sally and possibly to who knows how many others.
“Treats her like a nine-year-old,” said Viviase, finishing his coffee and looking into the cup to see if he had missed something.
“She says Berrigan killed her father,” I said.
“Convenient,” Viviase said, looking into his empty cup for some answers.
He dropped the cup into the garbage can behind his desk.
“Williams and Pepper,” I said.
“You make them sound like a law firm, a men’s clothing store, or a mail-order Christmas catalog.”
Someone screamed down the hall, not close, but loud enough. I couldn’t tell if it was a cackle, a laugh, or an expression of pain.
“Williams and Pepper both have solid alibis for the times of death of both the Horvecki and Berrigan murders.”
“They weren’t each other’s alibis, were they?”
“I’m in a good mood, Fonesca. Truly. I don’t look it, but I’m in a good mood. My daughter, I’ve discovered, has not been fooling around with our heartthrob prisoner.”
“That’s good.”
“No,” he said. “She’s been fooling around with a high school senior. She assures me and her mother that ‘fooling around’ is all that she’s been doing, whereas if she were fooling around with Ronnie the words would take on a whole new meaning. So, I’m in a good mood. I’m waiting for a DNA report on Horvecki and the blood on the meat pounder.”
“You checking Berrigan’s DNA too?”
“We are.”
“I think the blood on the tenderizer is Berrigan’s, not Horvecki’s.”
“Why would our boy want to kill Berrigan?”
“Maybe he wouldn’t, but somebody else might and then hide the murder weapon where it was sure to be found in Torcelli’s apartment.
“Life is complicated,” I said.
“Life is uncooperative.”
“Yes.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“He doesn’t want to see you. He’s only talking to his wife and his lawyer-the lawyer courtesy of your very own D. Elliot Corkle and his daughter, the same daughter who put up the charming Ronnie’s bail.”
The first words Ames uttered since we entered Viviase’s office were, “We’d best go.”
“Fine,” said Viviase, turning to me. “Let me know if you and your sidekick find more of Ronnie’s or Torcelli’s wives or girlfriends kicking around.”
His eyes didn’t meet mine but I sensed something and that something was the name of Sally Porovsky.
Rachel didn’t want a ride. She asked the receptionist at the jail to call her a cab so she could be taken to the nearest hotel, which happened to be the Ritz-Carlton on Tamiami Trail just outside of downtown. The Ritz-Carlton was about a three minute ride from the jail. She told Ames, who was waiting for her, that her husband had reminded her she was rich and could now stay anywhere she liked and didn’t even need to pick up the clothes she had left at her father’s house.
“How did she seem to you?” I asked.
“Something on her mind wherever her mind was,” Ames said as he, Victor, Darrell, and I walked over to the pizza shop next to the Hollywood 20 Movie Theaters on Main Street.
“So,” said Darrell, “who killed those two guys and who shot at me and you, Fonesca?”
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“But you think?” said Darrell.
“Yeah,” I said.
Victor said nothing. Victor was extending his silence. He was waiting for something, something for me to say or do, or something he had to decide to do, or something that came down from heaven or up from hell.
“Movie?” asked Darrell as we all shared a large sausage pizza.
“Next week,” I said.
“When’s the last time you went to a movie, Fonesca?” Darrell asked.
It had been June 6, 2003. Catherine and I went to see Seabiscuit at the Hillside Theater. We both liked it. We usually liked the same movies. Since then the only movies I had seen were on videotape or television, almost all made before 1955, almost all in black and white.
“I don’t remember,” I said.
“We’re right next door to the fucking place,” Darrell said. “They’ve got Saw 8 or 9 or something. And you Ames McKinney, what was the last time you went to a movie in a real, honest-to-god theater?”
“Can’t say I remember,” Ames said. “Maybe forty, fifty years ago.”
“I need some help here,” said Darrell. “Victor, you, when? Or don’t they have movies in China?”
“I’ve never been to China,” said Victor. “I went to this movie the night before last.”
“That settles the issue,” said Darrell. “The Chinese guy who’s not from China and me are going to see Saw.”
“No,” said Victor. “I won’t see movies in which women or children are killed.”
“Fonesca, I’m pleading with you,” said Darrell.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll go.”
“I guess I will, too,” said Ames.
“Depends,” Victor said.
We spent two hours in darkness watching beautiful women with too much make up saying they were witches and trying to kill bearded guys who looked like Vikings by sending monkey-faced creatures riding on short but fast rhinos with short fire-spitting spears in their hands. Darrell drank a seemingly gallon-sized Coke and a giant popcorn.
When we got out, it was dark.
“Help that near-crazy lady,” Darrell said as we let him off outside the apartment building on Martin Luther King in which he lived with his mother.
I didn’t answer. Neither did Ames. We drove off with Victor.
“Someone beat Horvecki to death,” Ames said. “Someone killed Blue Berrigan almost in front of our eyes. Why? Who?”
“And someone shot Darrell in the back and put a pellet through the window of Jeffrey Augustine’s car,” I said. “Who? Why?”
Victor parked in the narrow driveway next to the house. We all got out.
“You’ve got some ideas,” said Ames.
“An idea,” I said.
“Partners, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“Ideas?”
I told him. He rolled his scooter out from under the stairs and drove back to his room at the back of the Texas Bar and Grill.
Victor took a shower and then settled into his sleeping bag in the corner of the office. I got into my black Venice beach shorts and my X Files black T-shirt and spent about an hour in bed, just looking up at the ceiling. I considered calling Sally. I didn’t. Sleep snuck up on me, as it usually does just when I’m convinced insomnia will have me waiting for the sun to rise.
No wandering preachers or wayward policemen woke me. No new great ideas came to me in dreams. I remembered no dreams. I woke up three minutes after six in the morning. My X Files shirt was soaked with sweat, though the room felt cold. I got up, dressed in clean jeans and a plain blue T-shirt, and picked up the Memphis Reds gym bag I had purchased for two dollars at The Women’s Exchange.
In the outer office, Victor was tossing on his sleeping bag. Half of him was on the bag. The other half was on the floor. I made it out the door without waking him and went down the stairs to retrieve my bicycle from the shed under the stairs.
The morning was cool, maybe in the seventies. The sky was clear and traffic on 301 was lighter than usual. The YMCA was on Main Street in the Mall next to the Hollywood 20 Movie Theaters.
I saw a few people I knew as I did my curls with fifteen-pound weights. It felt better after I got them done and began my second set. Then I did crunches, bends, and heartbreakers until my shoulders began to ache.
After I finished my workout, I showered, put on my clothes, and stepped out onto Main Street where someone took a shot at me.
I stood on the sidewalk for a few seconds, not quite registering what had happened. A trio of teens passed me laughing, noticing nothing. An elderly woman with a walker slowly crossed the street, looking forward and moving slowly. Nothing seemed unusual until the second shot fell short, pinging off the hood of a shiny new red Honda Accord a few feet away from where I was standing. I could see the small dent in the car showing silver metal under the red paint. With the second shot I held up my gym bag and bent at the knees. Something thudded into the bag I held in front of my face. I ducked for cover alongside the Honda, hoping the shots were coming from the other side of the street and not from either side of me.