“So she’d get his money,” I said. “And be with Gary Eisenhower.”
“And why Boo?” Zel said.
“She didn’t know anybody else,” I said. “She tried Tony Marcus, didn’t work.”
“She thought it would?” Zel said.
“She had a lot of faith in sex,” I said.
Zel nodded and stopped twirling his bottle long enough to drink some beer.
“So Boo goes for it and pops Jackson,” I said. “And she gets his dough and moves in with Gary and Estelle.”
“Three of them,” Zel said.
“Yep. I guess Estelle kind of liked the idea.”
Zel shrugged.
“But it didn’t work,” I said. “Pretty soon Beth wants all of Gary, and Estelle don’t like it.”
Zel was twirling his bottle again. He hadn’t drunk much of his beer. I hadn’t drunk any of mine.
“So,” I said. “Beth calls in Boo, and with the same gun he used on Jackson, he pops Estelle for her.”
“Dumb,” Zel said, and shook his head sadly. “Dumb.”
“So there’s Beth, thanks to Boo, right where she wants to be. Money, Gary”-I raised my hands-“what could be better.”
Zel drank some beer.
“But…”
Zel nodded.
“But Boo thinks that he’s done her these two huge favors,” I said. “So she’s supposed to love him.”
“Boo never been with any women but whores, I think,” Zel said.
“And Beth thinks that since she bopped him several times, she’s done him several huge favors,” I said, “and wants no more to do with him.”
Zel nodded. His beer was gone. He got up and got another one from the refrigerator, looked at my bottle, saw that it was full, and sat down.
“They had a confrontation a week or so ago,” I said. “He tries to talk with her, she shoves him and runs inside. Middle of the day, Boo stands for a while and walks away.”
“You was following him?” Zel said.
I shook my head.
“Had a guy on her,” I said.
“So you been thinking about her for a while,” Zel said.
“Yes.”
“Was the guy watching tonight?” Zel said.
“Was through for the night,” I said. “And having a drink in the Taj bar. When he comes out, he sees Boo heading away from Gary’s apartment and calls me.”
“And you figure Boo went over there, kicked in the door, decked her boyfriend, and beat her to death?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“Why tonight?” Zel said.
I shrugged.
“Love unrequited,” I said. “The pressure built. He drink?”
“Some,” Zel said. “I tried to keep him from drinking much, but he’s hard to control.”
“Bad when he’s drunk?”
“Yes.”
“Will he come back here?” I said.
“Sooner or later,” Zel said. “Except I can shoot, I ain’t much, and Boo’s less. But we been together a long time.”
“He’s killed three people,” I said.
“He can’t do no time,” Zel said. “I tole you that.”
“I can’t let him walk around loose,” I said.
Zel looked at his beer bottle for a moment.
“I know,” he said.
We sat for a moment. Then I stood.
“Thanks for the beer,” I said.
And I left.
Chapter 67
BOO CAME HOME about two-thirty this afternoon,” I said to Susan.
“You have someone watching?” she said.
“Vinnie,” I said. “And Hawk. Vinnie’s there now.”
We were in Susan’s living room, upstairs from her office. Susan usually had a glass of wine after her last patient, and when I could, I liked to join her. In honor of that, Susan had stocked some Sam Adams Winter Ale, which I was especially fond of, and I was having some while she sipped her wine.
“Did Gary wake up yet?” Susan said.
“He’s coming around, Belson says. But he’s still foggy.”
“What are you going to do about Boo?” Susan said.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You don’t want to turn him in,” Susan said.
“He’s not right in the head,” I said.
“And Beth exploited him,” Susan said.
“Yes.”
“You can’t let him go,” Susan said.
“I know.”
“So,” Susan said. “Basically you’re stalling.”
“I am,” I said.
“What do you hope will happen?” Susan said.
“Mostly I’m hoping you’ll stop asking me about it,” I said.
Susan looked at me silently for a moment.
Then she said, “Wow. This is really bothering you.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t want to talk about it,” she said.
“No,” I said.
Susan stood and went to the kitchen. She got a second bottle of Winter Ale from the refrigerator, popped the cap, brought the bottle back, and set it on the coffee table in front of me. Then she kissed me on the top of the head and went back and sat down on the couch. Pearl, who was sleeping at the other end of the couch with her head hanging over the arm, raised her head up for a minute and looked at Susan, saw that there was no food forthcoming, and put her head back down.
“We won’t talk about Boo,” Susan said.
“Good,” I said.
“But we could talk about Beth and Estelle and Gary,” Susan said. “And their circle.”
“Sure,” I said.
“In one way or another, they all earned what happened to them,” Susan said.
“None of them earned getting murdered,” I said.
“Does anyone?” Susan said.
“Sometimes, maybe,” I said. “I don’t want to generalize.”
“No,” Susan said. “You almost never do. But at the heart of all this is their own behavior.”
“Especially Gary,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Boys just want to have fun,” I said.
“This boy exploited the pathologies of women,” Susan said.
“And it caught up with him,” I said.
“Pathologies are pathologies,” Susan said. “They don’t go away when you’re through using them.”
I nodded.
“Thing is,” I said. “He probably had no intention that any of this would happen.”
“No,” Susan said. “Probably not. He’s just careless. And he went around spreading his careless good times.”
“And making money at it.”
“Yes, that makes it a little worse,” Susan said. “But I suspect that was just a nice side effect.”
“Like a guy likes to go to the track,” I said. “He likes to hang around the paddock when the horses come out. He likes to look at them. Likes to handicap. Likes to watch them run. And if he happens to win some money, even better.”
“But if he doesn’t win, he still goes to the track,” Susan said.
“Yes.”
“Fun-loving Gary,” Susan said.
“And three people are dead,” I said.
Susan smiled sadly.
“And what do you think of your blue-eyed boy now?” she said.
Chapter 68
I SPENT THE NIGHT with Susan, which improved my frame of mind, as it always did. She had early clients, so I was in my office at eight thirty-five the next morning. Neither Hawk nor Vinnie had seen any sign of Boo since he’d arrived home yesterday.
I was pouring my second cup of coffee when Quirk came into my office and shut the door behind him.
“Coffee?” I said.
“Yeah,” Quirk said.
He took off his overcoat and folded it carefully over the arm of Pearl’s sofa, then came and sat in a chair opposite my desk. I gave him a cup of coffee and went around my desk and sat down.
“Gary Eisenhower’s awake,” Quirk said.
“Uh-huh.”
“He don’t remember a thing,” Quirk said.
“Who hit him?” I said. “Nothing?”
“He remembers the front doorbell,” Quirk said, “and opening the door.”
“That’s it?”
“So far,” Quirk said. “Doctors tell me it may come, may not. I guess he took a couple good shots to the head and probably hit the back of his head when he fell.”