“My charm intimidates him?”
“Something like that.”
“So the best bet is come on strong with the bastard, bulldoze over him.”
“You got it,” I said. “Method acting.”
“The curtain rises,” he said. “Let’s boogie.”
We drove to Franco Gull’s office building, parked in an empty slot next to Gull’s Mercedes, and headed for the rear door. A janitor was vacuuming the ground-floor carpeting. All six doors to the Charitable Planning suite were closed, and the corridor smelled of inactivity and that same popcorn fragrance.
That same feeling of disuse, and I said so to Milo.
Milo hadn’t taken his eye off the janitor. Now, he went over to the guy. Skinny guy, midthirties, with the burnished skin of the hard-drinking homeless, a three-day stubble, lank brown hair, scared-rabbit eyes. He wore a UC Berkeley sweatshirt over baggy gray sweatpants and filthy sneakers. His fingernails were black at the edges. He kept his head down and pushed the vacuum cleaner, trying to pretend a big, hefty detective wasn’t heading his way.
Milo moved in that surprising, quick way he can muster, bending and flicking off the machine. When he straightened, he’d pushed closer, and his smile was all the man could see. “Hey.”
No answer.
“Quiet afternoon down here on the ground floor.”
The man licked his lips. Very scared rabbit. “Yeah,” he finally said.
“What’s Charitable Planning all about?”
“Beats me.” The man had a whiny, congested voice, the kind that makes everything sound evasive. His shoulders rose and fell, rose again, and remained bunched up tight around his scrawny neck. Broken blood vessels explored his nose and cheeks. His lips were cracked and dry, and tattoos snaked their way up his wrist.
Milo glanced at them, and the man tried to slide his hand back into his sleeve.
“UC Berkeley, huh?”
The man didn’t answer.
“Alma mater?”
Headshake.
“Work here long?”
“A while.”
“How long’s a while?”
“Ah… mebbe a… month, two.”
“Maybe.”
“I do a bunch of buildings for the owner.”
“Mr. Koppel.”
“Yeah.”
“Ever see anyone actually work at Charitable Planning?”
“Ah… ah…”
“That a tough question?” said Milo. “Required you to think?”
“I… ah… I want to answer right.”
“Truthful or right?”
“Truthful.”
Milo took hold of the man’s right wrist, slid the sleeve of the sweatshirt up a scrawny forearm. Grimy skin was specked with discs of scar tissue, most of it concentrated in the crook. The tattoos were blue-black sparked with intermittent red blotches, clearly homemade. Poorly rendered naked women with oversized breasts. A dull-eyed snake with dripping fangs.
Milo said, “Get these at UC Berkeley?”
“Nope.”
“What’s your real alma mater? San Quentin or Chico?”
The man licked his lips again. “Neither.”
“Where’d you do your time?”
“Mostly County.”
“County, here?”
“Here, around.”
“So you’re a short-term guy.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s your specialty?”
“Drugs, but I’m clean.”
“Meaning burglary and shoplifting and larceny.”
The man placed one hand on the stalk of the vacuum cleaner. “Never any larceny.”
“Any assaults or other bad stuff?” said Milo. “You know I’m gonna find out.”
“One time,” said the man, “I did a battery thing. But the other guy started it, and they paroled me early.”
“Weapon of choice?”
“It was his knife. I took it away from him. It was an accident, mostly.”
“Mostly,” said Milo. “You cut him bad?”
“He lived.”
“How about you show me some ID?”
“I do something wrong?”
“Perish the thought, amigo. Just being thorough- you know why we’re here, right?”
The man shrugged.
“Why’re we here, amigo?”
“What happened to the lady doc upstairs.”
“You don’t know her name?”
“Dr. Koppel,” said the man. “The ex-wife. They got along good.”
“Lovey-dovey,” said Milo.
“No, I… uh… Mr. Koppel always said just give her what she wants.”
“What she wants?”
“If there’s a problem. In the building. He said we should fix it fast, give her what she wants.”
“He doesn’t do that for all his tenants?”
The man was silent.
“So you’re trying to tell me not to suspect Mr. Koppel for killing his ex because they were still buddies.”
“No, I… uh… I don’t know nothing about nothing.” The man rolled his sweatshirt sleeve down his arm.
“Any ideas about who did kill Dr. Koppel?”
“Didn’t know her, didn’t hardly never see her.”
“Except to fix things for her.”
“No,” protested the man. “I don’t do that stuff, I call the plumbers, whatever, and they fix it. I’m just here to clean. Mostly I do Mr. Koppel’s buildings in the Valley.”
“But today, you’re on this side of the hill.”
“I go where they tell me.”
“They.”
“Mr. Koppel’s company. They got properties all over.”
“Who told you to come here, today?”
“Mr. Koppel’s secretary. One of them. Heather. I can give you the number, you can check it out.”
“Maybe I will,” said Milo. “Now, how about some ID?”
The man fished in a front pant pocket and fished out a wad of bills secured by a rubber band. He slipped off the band, thumbed through the money- grubby singles and fives- and drew out a California identification card.
“Roland Nelson Kristof,” said Milo. “This your current address, Roland?”
“Yeah.”
Milo scanned the card. “Sixth Street… this is right past Alvarado, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Lots of halfway houses there. That your situation?”
“Yeah.”
“So you still paroling.”
“Yeah.”
“How’d you get the job with Mr. Koppel?”
“My PO got it for me.”
“Who’s that?”
“Mr. Hacker.”
“Downtown office?”
“Yeah.”
Milo gave him back his ID. “I’m going to run you through, Roland. Because a halfway-house guy working a building where someone got murdered is something I need to check out. I find out you lied to me, I pay a visit to your crib, and you know I’m gonna discover something that busts your parole, you know I am. So if there’s something you wanna tell me, now’s the time.”
“There’s nothing,” said Kristof.
“You never had problems with women? No bad behavior in that department?”
“Never,” said Kristof. Until then his delivery had been flat, mechanical. Now a hint of outrage had crept in.
“Never,” said Milo.
“Never, not once. I been a junkie since I was fourteen. I don’t hurt no one.”
“Still on the junk though.”
“I’m getting older, it’s getting better.”
“What is?”
“The hunger,” said Kristof. “Days are getting shorter.”
“How’s your sex life, Roland?”
“Ain’t got none.” Kristof’s declaration was free of regret, almost cheerful.
“You sound happy about that.”
“Yeah, I am,” said Kristof. “You know what dope does to all that.”
“No drive,” said Milo.
“Zactly.” Kristof smiled wearily, flashing intermittent, brown teeth. “Something else not to worry about.”
Milo copied down his address and allowed him to resume vacuuming.
As we climbed the stairs to Pacifica-West Psychological Services and the roar of the vacuum cleaner faded, he said, “That’s one habitual con.”
I said, “Criminal burnout. Get to a certain age, and it’s too pooped to pop.”
“Wanna guess how old he is?”
“Fifty?”
“Thirty-eight.”
No one sat in the waiting room. Dr. Larsen’s session light was off. Dr. Gull’s shone red.