“David!”
“There’s no one there,” said Andrea.
The child stood rigidly still. His face was expressionless.
“David! It’s me, your father!”
There was no reaction. I shoved my way past Andrea, sprinted across the cove and hurled myself at the rock face.
15
The day after the double slaying in Carson Street, Charlie Freeman came by Grady to check on the surviving white victim. It was a routine follow-up to a case which another detective had initiated, and in which he himself took no particular interest. Freeman was a good old boy of thirty-seven from a remote stretch of Wilkes County who had never pretended to take much serious interest in anything except fishing, hunting and his dog, Reb.
He parked his pickup in a gimp slot right in front of the main door of Grady and walked on in. After lingering a little longer than was strictly necessary with the receptionist, a bottle blond with buns of steel and alluring eyes, Freeman took the elevator up to the twelfth floor. The duty nurse on the ward he’d been directed to was one of those Germanic types, as broad as she was tall, and looked like she could plow the upper forty without the help of a mule any day. She told Freeman that the patient’s condition had improved somewhat, but that he was still critical and could not be questioned.
“You get a name, anything?” asked Freeman.
“He hasn’t opened his lips except to take a sip of water.”
Charlie Freeman looked around him vaguely.
“Stuff he had on him, where’s that?”
“His personal belongings will have been bagged and taken to the depository.”
Freeman rode down with an extended black clan, all of them in tears except for one man who was fixating on something far beyond the modest dimensions of the elevator. Down in the basement, Freeman traversed a grid of aggressively lit corridors. On the far side of a pair of open double doors, a woman was mopping an empty operating theater.
“Hey, that place’s so clean you could do major surgery in there!” Freeman shouted, barking a succession of abrupt laughs.
The woman shrugged and said something in Spanish. Freeman continued on his way, scowling. Reason the country was going down the tubes, you couldn’t share a joke no more. They either didn’t get it or they disapproved. Pretty soon you’d have to run every gag past a committee of previously battered lesbians of color or risk a lawsuit. Well, he didn’t give a rat’s ass. Live free or die.
The depository was presided over by a black guy tall enough to have been a basketball player maybe ten, twenty years ago. Charlie Freeman flashed his ID and asked for the belongings of Patient #4663981.
“You got a warrant?” the clerk asked.
“This here is a murder case and the guy is a suspect.”
“I can’t release nothing without a warrant.”
It would take at least half a day to get a warrant, by which time Freeman would be off duty. Fine, it weren’t no sweat off of his balls.
“I can let you look at it, you don’t open the bag,” the clerk added, apparently intimidated by Freeman’s silence.
He disappeared into a room lined with lockers. Freeman stood whistling tunelessly and staring at a photograph on the wall, some forest scene. Saturday, he’d go to Pete’s, have supper, tie one on. They’d both get half a bottle of rye in the bag, then go jack-lighting Bambi’s mother in the woods.
The clerk returned to the window with a large transparent plastic bag sealed with a sticker labeled 4663981. Freeman picked it up and inspected the contents: a Smith amp; Wesson revolver, a wad of twenty-dollar bills, some small change, a bus ticket and a flat metal key crudely stamped CENTRAL. He mauled the plastic, trying to turn the key over.
“You break that seal, you’re in violation,” the clerk told him.
Freeman agitated the bag like a hound dog shaking a possum until the key flipped over. On the other side, the number 412 was engraved in the metal. He dropped the bag on the counter.
“Have a good one,” he said, turning away.
“You bet,” muttered the clerk.
Freeman walked up to the main floor, where he dished out another helping of intensive eye contact to that sweet thing behind the desk. Now there was a body built for the long haul. He fired up a Camel and walked over to his truck. The bumper sticker read MY WIFE? SURE. MY DOG? MAYBE. MY GUN? NEVER.
Freeman unhooked the car phone and called in to tell HQ he was heading over to the Central Hotel, where it looked like the white perp had been staying. The Chief liked to keep tabs on everyone since it got out that three of the boys had been spending their afternoons playing pinochle in the back room of a midtown bar when they were supposedly trying to find the torso to which four recovered limbs and a head had originally belonged.
“We have a further development in that case,” the sergeant told him. “Woman called in, wanted to know if either the guys involved was named Dale Watson. I tried to take her particulars but she hung up on me. Got the number off the tracer, though. She was calling from the A-l Motel on Ponce. Probably nothing to it, she sounded kind of screwy. But it might be worth checking out.”
“I’ll swing by there,” said Freeman, happy to have an excuse to stay out of the office. Anything beat riding a desk all day.
He shoved a Reba McEntire tape into the deck and cruised up Piedmont. One block before the corner of McGill, a Toyota four-by-four coming out of a side street did a California stop, then swung right across the oncoming traffic into the turn lane, forcing Freeman to brake sharply and thereby miss the light. He leaned out the window and gave the elderly Chinese driver an emphatic number one, but she didn’t notice that either, of course.
The Central Hotel was on Peachtree, a five-story block of fancy brickwork with white bay windows overlooking the interstate. It would have been demolished years before, except for a political dispute over the future use of the land. Freeman got out of the truck and field-stripped his cigarette, just like his daddy taught him to when they were out hunting. The lobby smelled of sweat and smoke and failure. A cadaverous bald man peered out over the desktop. Freeman shoved his ID in the guy’s face.
“Detective Freeman, homicide. One of your guests ended up catching a bullet last night.”
A perfect, comic-book curve of a smile split the man’s soft beardless face like a ripe fruit.
“Exit only!” he said softly. “Ped Xing!”
Charlie Freeman peered at him.
“Yeah,” he said. “So anyway, he’s hovering between life and death like they say over at Grady and I’m here to find out who the hell he is plus any other details that might rise to the surface, you with me?”
The man’s smile grew even wider.
“Wrong way!” he whispered.
“I see the register? Guy was in 412.”
The bald man stood up. His smile had completely vanished. He reached toward a bank of numbered pigeonholes, with hooks for keys, drew a slip of thin cardboard from the opening marked 412 and laid it on the counter. It was only now that Freeman noticed that the man’s right hand was a shriveled knob, a vestigial thumb drooping at an angle.
He picked up the card. It had spaces marked “Name,” “Address” and “Rate.” Underneath was written ROOM MUST BE PAID FOR IN FULL BY 12 NOON-NO CREDIT CARDS-NO OUT-OF-STATE CHECKS. The occupant of Room 412 was registered as William Hayley of Grand Rapids, Michigan, no street address. He had checked in on the ninth and had paid the $55 in cash for three days running, the last time being the previous morning. Charlie Freeman pushed the card back. The man behind the desk was gazing at him with a look of utter despair.
“It’s past noon,” said Freeman, “and this guy didn’t cough up his fifty bucks. I guess I’ll go check out the room. You got a pass key, something?”
The man extended his deformed hand toward the registration card. Grasping the edge with his dwarf thumb, he flicked the card away to reveal a flat metal key. Freeman looked at it with a frown. He was certain the key hadn’t been there before. When he looked up, the clerk’s uncanny smile was back in place, his whole face beaming with barely contained glee. He reached out suddenly and laid his stump on Freeman’s arm.