“But not legs like this one’s got,” Alston said. “I’d like to lick my way up those legs all the way to the crotch, starting with the toes.”
She was coming back to their table now. High heels clicking on the asphalt tile floor. Long stride on her. Proud of those magnificent legs.
“Anyone for more coffee?” she asked.
“You got a sister for my friend?” Alston asked, and winked at Warren.
The girl smiled. She didn’t know quite how to handle this. Salt-and-pepper team at the table here, what could she say? She played it safe.
“Anyone for more coffee?” she asked again.
“You might want to hotten mine a bit,” Alston said, and winked at Warren again.
“Mine, too,” Warren said.
The girl poured coffee into both cups. She was truly very plain except for those legs. And those legs probably had brought her the wrong kind of attention ever since puberty. Men equated legs like those with sexuality. It was a fact of life, not entirely discouraged by television commercials and magazine ads. But she sure knew she had those legs. Head high, she clicked away from the table like a racehorse.
They watched her go.
“Mmmm-mmmm,” Alston said.
“Indeed,” Warren said.
They sat there sipping their coffee. The fat lady got up and walked to the cash register.
“I like mine better than yours,” Alston said.
Both men grinned like schoolboys.
“I meant what I said, you know,” Warren said.
“Okay.”
“You ever feel like talking to somebody, give me a call.”
“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I mean it.”
“I hear you.”
“Good.”
“What do you need from the computer?” Alston asked.
“What does a tattoo mean to you?”
“Armed robber,” Alston said at once.
“A lot of them, anyway,” Warren said, nodding.
“Most of them,” Alston said. “In fact, every one of them I ever come across had a tattoo one kind or another.”
“I’m looking for whatever you’ve got on a man named Ned Weaver. San Diego may be a place to start.”
“What else can you give me? The computer likes the more the merrier.”
“He’s in his late twenties, big guy around six two, two twenty or thirty, looks like he’s done some weight lifting. Red hair, green eyes, no visible scars. The tattoo’s on his right forearm. Big-titted mermaid with a long, fishy tail. He says he wasn’t in the service, but you may want to check the FBI files anyway.”
“I’ll go down the Building soon as we finish here.”
“Let me know how much time you put in, will you?”
“Why?”
“So we can figure out…”
“Don’t be a jackass,” Alston said.
“On the phone, you told me…”
“That was then, this is now.”
Warren looked at him.
“Okay?” Alston said.
“Okay,” Warren said.
Jimmy Farrell was bent over the open hood of a Chrysler LeBaron convertible when Matthew came into the garage at eleven that morning. He had called ahead, and Farrell was expecting him. But he took his own sweet time straightening up. Matthew disliked him at once. It had to have been his looks because the man hadn’t yet opened his mouth.
He was bearded and bald, five-ten or — eleven inches tall, a bit shorter than Matthew, but much more solidly built. He was wearing a red T-shirt with the Shell company’s yellow scallop logo across its front. The shirt rippled with well-defined pectorals, and muscular biceps bulged below the short sleeves, one of which was rolled up around a package of cigarettes. He had dark brown eyes and shaggy brows that matched the full beard, altogether a very hairy fellow except for the entirely bald and undoubtedly shaven head. He looked as if he ate spark plugs and spit out pistons. He looked like one of those phony wrestlers on television. Matthew was willing to bet he went hunting a lot.
“Matthew Hope,” he said. “I called.”
He did not extend his hand; Farrell’s hands were covered with grease.
“Does he know the Cad’s ready?” Farrell asked.
“Yes. He was going to talk to his wife about it. Or his brother-in-law.”
“That turd,” Farrell said, but did not amplify. “When’s somebody gonna pick it up? I got limited space here, and also I wouldn’t mind getting paid for work already done.”
“The man’s in jail,” Matthew said evenly.
“Tough,” Farrell said. “He shoulda been more careful, he wouldn’t be in jail.”
“Mr. Farrell, I wonder if you can show me where you keep the keys to the cars you service.”
“Why?”
“It might be important to Mr. Leeds’s case.”
“He thought he was still in the jungle, didn’t he?” Farrell said. “Where it didn’t matter shit what he did. He forgot he was back in civilization.”
A Vietnam vet, Matthew realized. Just about the right age — thirty-nine or forty — and in his eyes a look Matthew hadn’t noticed earlier. A bitter, cynical look that said he and others like him had done things luckier mortals hadn’t been forced to do.
“I don’t think he killed those men,” Matthew said.
“If he didn’t, he should’ve,” Farrell said. “Only with a little finesse. I still don’t know why you want to see the key box.”
“Is there a box?”
“Hanging right there on the wall,” Farrell said, and pointed to a long grey metal box screwed to the wall just inside the door that led to the office. The panel door of the box was standing wide open, a key jutting out of its lock. There were perhaps half a dozen sets of car keys hanging on hooks inside the box.
“Is the box open like that all day long?” Matthew asked.
“Nobody here but us,” Farrell said.
Plus whoever wanders into the garage, Matthew thought.
“When do you lock it?”
“When we leave at night.”
“But all day long the key just sits there in the lock, is that it?”
“Safest place for it,” Farrell said. “Might get lost otherwise.”
“Where do you put that key when you lock the box at night?”
“In the cash register.”
“What time do you normally leave here?”
“Around six.”
“Everybody?”
“Usually. Every now and then, somebody’ll be working on a car, he’ll stay a little later. But we stop pumping gas at six. That’s it. Life’s too short.”
“Do you know what night the murders took place?”
“Couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it?”
“The thirteenth. A Monday night.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you remember what time you left here that night?”
“Around six, I guess. Same as usual.”
“Did you lock that box when you left?”
“I did.”
“Was Leeds’s key ring in that box when you locked it?”
“I guess so. No reason to have taken it out.”
“Do you know what keys are on that ring, Mr. Farrell?”
“Yep. I called about it, in fact. Spoke to that dumb fuckin’ brother-in-law of his, told him I wasn’t gonna be responsible for all those keys on the ring, looked like a house key and what-not. He said he’d stop by to pick them up. Do you see him here?”
“Mr. Farrell, who else knows there’s a house key on that ring?”
“You mean people working here?”
“Yes.”
“If you’re thinking somebody used that key to get into the Leeds house…”
“I’m thinking that’s a possibility, yes.”
“I’m thinking it ain’t.”
“I’d still like to talk to anyone who had access to those keys.”