“You have a theory as to how?”
“Ligature,” he said.
“How long before she would have lost consciousness?” I said.
“Ten, fifteen seconds,” he said.
“And death?”
“Minutes,” Dr. Cristalli said.
“So you’d need to keep the pressure on even after the vic loses consciousness,” I said.
“If it’s death you’re after,” he said.
“So can it happen accidentally?” I said.
“Sure. We regularly get people who strangle themselves playing choking games, usually masturbatory.”
“You can tell?” I said.
“That it was masturbatory?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“It’s usually pretty obvious at the death scene,” Dr. Cristalli said.
“It is?” I said. “Like how... Never mind.”
“Never mind?” Cristalli said.
“I can guess, and it’s all I want to do,” I said.
“Anyway,” Cristalli said. “In this case, EMTs told me there was no sign of it.”
“She was fully dressed,” I said. “Lying on her back on the bed.”
“That’s what they told me,” he said.
“Presumably she’d been having sex,” I said. “Odd that she’d be fully dressed.”
“I didn’t check,” Cristalli said. “Once it was clear that she wasn’t coming back, she became a problem for the ME.”
“So you don’t know if she was having sex or not,” I said.
“Nope,” he said. “But there are a couple things about that, and I admit I wouldn’t have registered it. One, she wasn’t wearing a bra.”
“Not everyone does,” I said.
“Nurses insist that she would have.”
“Well-endowed?” I said.
“Excessively, I would say, but it is, I suppose, a matter of personal preference.”
“What’s the other thing?” I said.
“Her underpants were on backward.”
“Backward,” I said. “I’m not sure I could tell.”
“That’s what they told me,” he said.
I nodded. We were quiet. Outside the exam room, a stretcher came in and stopped at the desk.
“Somebody dressed her,” I said.
“The thought occurred,” he said.
Zebulon Sixkill V
The deal was, Pat Calhoun said, “I take care of the money. You take care of the football.”
Zebulon nodded.
“Well,” Pat said. “You’re not taking care of the football no more.”
They were sitting in the red-leather front seat of Pat’s silver Mercedes in a parking lot in Garden Grove.
Zebulon was silent.
“Looking back, I realize,” Pat said, “that I’m at fault. I promised your grandfather I’d look after you, and... hell, I guess I trusted you too much.”
Zebulon shrugged.
“You stopped running your sprints. You stopped pumping your iron. You weren’t focused on the game. Hell, Harmon says you forgot half the plays; it’s the same offense you ran in last year.”
Zebulon nodded. Pat shook his head.
“Too much booze, too much dope, too many prom queens.”
“Just Lucy,” Zebulon said.
“Sure,” Pat said. “Too much fucking.”
“Don’t talk about Lucy,” Zebulon said.
“Right, sorry,” Pat said. “Anyway, you’re out of shape, you’re off the team, and I am not paying your way anymore.”
“How do I pay tuition?” Zebulon said.
“Ain’t that a good question,” Pat said. “How you gonna eat, for crissake?”
“Need a job,” Zebulon said.
“You do, and because I feel guilty, like I let your grandfather down, I’m gonna give you one. I own a club in Hollywood. They can use a bouncer. Big, tough guy like you. Good-looking don’t hurt with the ladies. Don’t know what they’re paying, but I’ll see to it you get enough to keep you going.”
“How about the condo,” Zebulon said.
“Gonna sell it,” Pat said. “I’ll give you a month to find another place.”
“Where’s the club?” Zebulon said.
“Sunset, west of Highland.”
“What time?”
“Tomorrow night, nine o’clock. Wear black pants and a black T-shirt.”
Zebulon nodded.
“Okay,” he said.
19
Harvard Stadium looked like a smaller version of the Roman Colosseum. Z and I were in the stadium, on the empty football field. We who are about to kick off salute you.
“How far can you sprint?” I said.
“I can run a ways,” Z said.
“How far can you do it full-out, like you were running the hundred.”
“We did forties when I was playing football.”
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll run some intervals. Sprint one hundred yards, walk two hundred. Sprint one hundred, walk two hundred. See how it works out.”
Z shrugged. We walked to the goal line.
I said, “Go,” and we sprinted for the other end zone. At the fifty, Z began to flag. And I was waiting for him in the end zone when he came slowly across the goal line, breathing very hard.
“Now we walk back, and then walk back here, and then sprint another one hundred,” I said.
“Sure,” Z said.
We walked the two hundred at an easy pace. And sprinted one hundred. And walked two hundred. After the eighth sprint, Z threw up.
“Hey,” I said. “You’re in Harvard Stadium.”
Bent over with his hands braced on his thighs, he gasped, “Outta shape.”
We sat in the empty stands for a bit while Z’s health returned.
“I thought I was in shape,” Z said. “I thought I could fight.”
“Confusing,” I said. “You sure you’re a Cree Indian?”
“What they told me,” Z said.
“Good,” I said. “If you were Irish, Sixkill would be a really funny name.”
“Sounds better in Cree,” he said.
“Lemme hear,” I said.
He said something.
“By God, you’re right,” I said.
“What about that girl?” he said.
“Know anything?”
Z shrugged.
“I was in the living room,” he said. “Jumbo opens the bedroom door, tells me to call.”
“He have many guests like that in his room?”
“Every day,” Z said.
“Always girls?”
“Girls, boys,” Z said.
“Not choosy,” I said. “And great natural charm.”
“They wanna fuck a star,” Z said.
“Dawn like that?” I said.
“Ready to play any game Jumbo wanted.”
“He play games?” I said.
“Kinky stuff?”
“Yes.”
“Whadda you think?” Z said.
“I’d rather not think about it,” I said.
“He used to carry sex tools in a gym bag,” Z said.
“Was Dawn Lopata his standard MO?”
“Sure. Had them scheduled, like regular. Days ahead.”
“Any trouble before?” I said.
“Not much,” Z said. “Couple pregnancies. Paid them off.”
“And the boys?” I said.
“None of them get pregnant.”
“The press?”
“They write about him, his lawyers go after them hard, and they get sort of discouraged. But what does get printed is Jumbo pretending.”