By the look on Freeman’s face, I could see that Cresly’s questions had stumped him, too.
“Nope,” Cresly continued, picking up his beer. “Old Zane’ll hire someone like you, Rios, to cut a deal with the D.A. If he pleads to anything, he’ll walk with probation. Or maybe just continue the case until our victim there,” he jutted his chin in the direction of the bedroom, “disappears.”
He drained his beer and set the bottle down with a thud.
After Freeman and Cresly left, Josh and I made up the couch in the living room and got into it. We lay there in the dark. I thought of Jim Pears who said he was innocent, and was, and Irene Gentry who pretended to be, and wasn’t. Depending on what she knew she was an accomplice to at least two of the murders.
Now I let myself think about Rennie. She had played me for a fool with consummate skill. It was a flawless performance. Her task had been formidable: the seduction of a gay man. Since sex, the most direct avenue, was closed to her, she had had to resort to other methods. But she was a brilliant actress, keenly observant of the emotional states of those around her and capable of seemingly profound empathy. She understood me immediately from our first meeting when she told me I had the face of a man who felt too much. A born do-gooder. A rescuer. All she had to do was play a lady in distress.
Her role jibed with what she and Zane had planned from the outset, to divert the suspicion to Blenheim. They must have worked it all out months earlier, when I first came to town to defend Jim Pears. When Blenheim approached me about buying the rights to Jim’s story, what he really wanted was to find out how much Jim remembered and what I knew. The three of them had conspired together at first.
Then, later, Rennie and Zane saw their chance to get rid of Blenheim and close the book on the Fox murder once and for all. So Rennie made Blenheim out to be the bad guy. Fortunately for her I disliked Blenheim enough to be an easy convert. After that, it was just a matter of timing.
But now things had unraveled. Why? Rennie was fearless but Zane proved to be the weak link. Another fragment of remembered conversation passed through my head, the actress at the cocktail party who referred to the Zanes as the Macbeths. There was a crucial distinction, though. Lady Macbeth goaded on her husband out of her own ambition. Irene Gentry acted from love. The only time I had ever seen her break character was the day she told me she loved Zane. What a terrifying love that must be to lead her into such darkness.
“You’re thinking,” Josh said.
“I know. I can’t sleep.”
“Me neither,” he replied. There was a pause. “Do you want to make love?”
I kissed his forehead. “I don’t really feel like it.”
“Okay,” he said. “What are you thinking about?”
I couldn’t think of a way to tell him about the darkness, not yet, anyway, so I said, “Tom Zane told me he skipped out on a court appearance fifteen years ago. There’s a warrant for his arrest out somewhere. I’ll have to tell Cresly about it.”
There was a long silence and then Josh said, “Is that all you were thinking about?”
“No.” I turned and faced him, trying to make his face out.
“It’s about Jim, isn’t it?” he asked. “You feel bad because you didn’t believe him.”
I held him close, not answering.
“I feel the same way,” he whispered. “I feel terrible about him.”
“Not your fault,” I murmured. Then we were quiet again, each with his own thoughts. A long time later we slept.
Someone was tugging at my shoulder. I opened my eyes to Josh’s worried face and a sunny room.
“Robert’s gone,” Josh said.
I pulled myself up and stared at him. “What?”
“I got up and went into the bedroom to get to the bathroom. He’s gone.”
“Shit.” I swung my feet over the edge of our makeshift bed to the floor. I got up and walked into the bedroom. The bed was disheveled but empty. “What time did you come in here?”
“Just now. I mean, ten minutes ago,” Josh said, coming up behind me. “He took some things, too.”
I looked at Josh. “What?”
“All the money in my wallet. Some clothes.” He paused and sucked in air. “The leather jacket you gave me.”
“I’m sorry, Josh,” I said.
Josh attempted a smile. “He left me his.”
“Great.” The boy’s jacket, cheap vinyl, was tossed across a chair. “I’d better call Cresly. They might be able to find him.” “They won’t,” Josh said, softly.
I nodded and went to make my call.
Cresly and Freeman arrived just before noon. I put down the tuna sandwich I was eating and answered the door. Their faces were grim.
“No luck?” I asked, as they came into the kitchen.
Cresly’s eyes were at their iciest. “I can’t believe the kid just fucking walked out of here,” he said.
“We were asleep,” I said.
“Yeah,” he replied, accusingly. “Asleep.”
“Look, Cresly, if you’d put him in a hospital instead of bringing him here-” I began.
“Cut it out,” Freeman snapped. “The kid’s gone.”
“What about the warrant?” I asked, having earlier told Cresly about Zane’s flight from the robbery charge in Oklahoma.
He shook his head. “Oklahoma went on computer just a couple of years ago with warrants,” he said. “For fifteen years back they have to do a hand search. Could take weeks, if they still got the records.”
“So now what?” I asked.
Cresly and Freeman exchanged a look. I didn’t like it.
Freeman cleared his throat. “The cops want to set up a decoy,” he said. “Bust Zane in the act.”
“Put someone out on Santa Monica?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Freeman said.
“Those boys don’t wear many clothes,” I said. “You won’t be able to wire them for sound. Especially if Zane likes to cuddle before he beats them up.”
“That’s what the cops figure,” Freeman said. “Besides, they’re not going to get those kids to cooperate.”
Cresly, who had been ominously silent, added, “Yeah, look at the kid who was here last night.”
“So use cops,” I said.
“We plan to,” Cresly said, “but you know how it is. Put a cop in jeans and a tank top, teach him how to mince and lisp and he still looks, walks, and smells like a cop.”
I glared at him. “Do you think this stuff up in advance or does it just come to you?”
“He’s got a point,” Freeman said.
“What’s going on here, Freeman?”
“Maybe you noticed how much that kid last night looked like Josh,” he said.
“Oh, no,” I replied, shaking my head. “Absolutely not.”
Freeman said, “Look, Henry. I’ve watched Zane in action. Josh is exactly the type he goes for.”
“The cops get paid for it.”
“You want to get Zane or what?” Cresly said.
“Not that much.”
“Maybe Josh should decide,” Freeman said quietly. “Where is he?”
As if on cue, the front door opened and Josh walked in wearing the black jacket that Robert had left. He smiled, uneasily, and tossed the mail on the coffee table.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I’ll do it,” Josh said, simply, after Freeman and Cresly finished their pitch. We were sitting around the kitchen table again. The ashtray had filled with butts as the afternoon wore on.
“No,” I said, quietly. “You won’t.”
“I want to help,” Josh said, looking at me with his dark, serious eyes.
I shook my head in response. The others were silent.
“I owe it to Jim,” Josh said.
“Getting yourself killed won’t be doing him any favors,” I replied.
Cresly said, “No one’s gonna get killed here.”
I turned on him. “We’re dealing with a guy who’s already killed three people.”
Cresly lit a cigarette. The smoke curled upward into the frosty winter light. “We don’t know that he killed anyone yet,” he said. “Anyway, he don’t kill his dates. And we’ll be there.”