Sunset Express

It was twenty-eight minutes after ten when I left the Mason twins and dropped south out of San Marino to San Gabriel. I pulled into a strip mall, made two more calls, and on each of the calls got an answering machine. That meant I was back to James Lester, who may or may not be awake. I called his number again anyway, and this time a man answered. I said, 'Mr Lester?'

A woman was shouting in the background. Lester shouted back at her, 'Just shut the fuck up, goddammit,' and then he came on the line. 'Yeah?'

'Mr James Lester?'

'Who wants to know?' One of those.

I told him who I was and what I wanted.

'You're the guy from the lawyer, right?'

'That's right.'

'Okay, sure. C'mon over.'

I went over.

El Monte, California, is a mostly industrial area north of the Puente Hills and south of Santa Anita, with small working-class neighborhoods to the south and west. James and Jonna Lester lived in a poorly kept bungalow on a narrow street just west of the San Gabriel River in an area of postwar low-income housing. The lawn was patchy and yellow from lack of water, as if the Lesters had given up against the desert and the desert was reclaiming their yard. Everything looked dusty and old, as if there were no future here, only a past.

I left my car on the street, walked up across the dead yard, and a guy I took to be James Lester opened the door. He was average-sized in dark gray cotton work pants, dirty white socks, and a dingy undershirt. His hair was cut short on the sides and on top, but had been left long and shaggy in back, and he looked at me with a squint. He was thin, with knobby, grease-embedded hands and pale skin sporting Bic-pen tattoos on his arms and shoulders and chest. Work farm stuff. I made him for thirty, but he could've been younger. He said, 'You're the guy called. You're from the lawyer, right?' A quarter to eleven in the morning and he smelled of beer.

'That's right.'

I followed him into a poorly furnished living room that wasn't in any better shape than the yard. Stacks of magazines and newspapers and comic books were piled around on the furniture, and no one had dusted since 1942. A tattered poster of the Silver Surfer was thumb-tacked to the wall, four darts growing out of the Silver Surfer's chest. Lester dropped into a battered, overstuffed

chair and pulled on a workboot. An open can of Hamm 's was on the floor by the boots. 'I gotta get ready for work. You wanna brewscalero?'

'Pass.'

'Your loss, dude. I can't get going without it.'

A barefoot woman with a swollen, discolored lip came out of the kitchen carrying a sandwich in a paper towel. She was wearing baggy shorts and a loose top and her skin was very white, as if she didn't get out in the sun much. She dropped the sandwich on a little table next to the chair as if she didn't give a damn whether he ate it or not. She looked sixteen, but she was probably older.

I smiled and said, 'I believe we spoke earlier.'

She said, 'Well, whoop-de-doo.'

James Lester pulled hard at his bootlaces. 'I need another brewscalero, Jonna. Go get it.'

Jonna Lester shot a hard look at her husband's back, then stomped back into the kitchen. Pouty.

James said, 'She don't do nothing but run around with her friends all day while I'm bustin' my ass. That's why it's such a sty in here. That's why it's a goddamned shithole.' They didn't have air conditioning. A couple of ancient electric fans blew hot air around the room, one of the fans making a slow, monotonous chinging sound. Jonna Lester came back with a fresh Hamm 's, put it down next to the sandwich, then stomped out again. I hadn't been in their house for thirty seconds and already my neck was starting to ache.

I said, 'I'm here to follow up the call you made about Susan Martin's kidnapping and murder.'

Lester finished tying the first boot, then started on the second. 'Sure. That guy I spoke to on the phone, he said someone would come talk to me about it. That's you, I guess.'

'I guess.' Mr Lucky.

He looked over and grinned when he saw my eye. 'Hey, you and Jonna kinda match, doncha?' He laughed after he said it, huh-yuk, huh-yuk, huh-yuk. Like Jughead.

I stared at him.

James Lester killed what was left of the first Hamm 's, then popped the tab on the second. 'I think I met the guys who did it.'

'Okay.'

He took another pull on the Hamm 's, then had some of the sandwich. When he bit into the sandwich he jumped up and opened the sandwich as if he'd just bitten into a turd. 'Goddammit, Jonna, what in hell is this?'

'That's your potted meat!' Yelling from the kitchen.

'Where's the fuckin' mayonnaise?'

'We're out. I gotta get some.'

'Where's the little pickles?' Now he was whining worse than her.

'I'm gonna go get some, all right?' Screaming, now. 'Do you think I'm your fuckin' slave!'

His face went sullen and his breathing grew loud. He had more of the Hamm 's. He had more of the Hamm 's again. My neck was hurting so bad I thought it would go into spasm.

'Tell me what you know, James.'

He stayed with the loud breathing a little longer, then closed the sandwich and took another bite. You'd think it was killing him, having to eat his sandwich without the mayonnaise and the little pickles.

I said, 'James.'

He went on with his mouth full. 'A week before it's on the news about her gettin' killed I stop in this place for a couple of brewscaleros. There's these two guys, one of the guys, he was wearing a Shell station shirt had the name "Steve" sewn over the pocket.'

'Okay.' I wrote Shell station on my notepad. I wrote Steve.

'We were talkin' about how shitty it was, havin' to work for a livin', and this guy, he gives me the big wink and says he's got her whipped. I'm all, whaddaya mean you got'r whipped? He goes, hey, a guy with the 'nads could snatch one of these rich Beverly Hills bitches and score enough fast cash to retire in style.'

I said, 'Steve said that?'

'Unh-hunh.' He stuffed the rest of the sandwich in his mouth and washed it down. 'I tell'm that sounds like a fast track to the gas chamber to me, but he goes, all you need is a layout of the house and a slick way in and out, stuff like that.' He swallowed hard and let out a gassy belch.

'The other guy say anything?'

'Nope. Just sat there drinkin'.'

'What'd they look like?'

'Steve was kinda tall and skinny, with light hair. I'm not sure about the other guy. Shorter. Darker.'

A phone rang in the kitchen and we could hear Jonna Lester answer. James's face clouded and he yelled, 'That better not be one'a your cunt friends!'

She yelled back, 'Fuck you!'

I said, 'James.'

He turned the cloud my way.

'"Cunt" is an ugly word.'

He squinted at me as if he wasn't sure what I'd said, and then he shook his head. 'All she does is yack with her friends. All she does is run around the mall while I'm bustin' my ass.' Like that should explain it.

I said, 'Steve and the dark guy say anything else?'

He sucked at his teeth, getting rid of the last bits of the sandwich. 'I hadda pee so I went to the head. When I come back they was gone.'

I stared at him, thinking about it. Seven interviews so far, and his was the only one that seemed to be worth checking out. It would probably add up to nothing, but you never know until you know. 'You remember the bar?'

'Sure. It was a place called the Hangar over on Mission Boulevard. I go there sometimes.'

I wrote it down. The Hangar.

'Last thing the guy says before I go to the head, he says he knows just who to grab, too. He says she's a one-way ticket to Easy Street.'

'Steve said that?'

'Yeah. Steve.'

'He say a name?'

'Unh-unh.'

Jonna Lester reappeared wearing strap sandles and carrying a small purse. She'd made her face, but the lip still looked puffy. He said, 'Where the fuck do you think you're going?'