Sunset Express

  She said, “Yee-uck! I ain’t touchin’ that mess.”

  “Your footprints are on the floor. There’s dried blood on your shoes.”

  Jonna Lester took another pull on the hash pipe. The hash nut must’ve gone out, because she frowned at the pipe and poked the bowl. “I hadda turn off the water.” One of the black flies worked its way through the screen and droned low across the slick floor. You could see its reflection in the blood.

  “The water in the sink was running?”

  “Yeah.”

  James Lester was wearing pants and the work boots, but no shirt. Both legs and one arm were crumpled in a kind of K on the floor, with the other arm and the upper half of his body hanging through the glass into the tub. There was water on the linoleum around the base of the sink where it had spilled over and mixed with James’s blood. A bar of soap and a Bic razor and a can of Edge shaving cream were on the sink, which was splashed with water, like maybe he had been getting ready for work and turned and slipped and gone head first through the glass. I said, “What happened, Jonna?”

  She shook her head. “I spent the night with my friend Dorrie, and he was like this when I came home. I guess he fell.” She made a big deal out of showing me her eye. “The prick did this to me yesterday. You see what he did?” She shook her head and her lips went wubba-wubba-wubba like a cartoon character. “Oh, man, doesn’t that smell just make you wanna vomit?”

  She went back into the living room, and we followed her. She tried stoking the pipe again, and I pulled it away from her. “Hey, whatcha doin’?!”

  “He’s dead, Jonna. A material witness in a murder case who stands to collect a hundred thousand dollar reward doesn’t just fall through a shower door.”

  Jonna Lester slapped at me and tried to push me away. “We had this big fight yesterday and I hadda get outta here! I don’t know what happened!”

  “Was he expecting anyone?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Did he mention anyone to you, like maybe he was concerned?”

  She put her hands over her ears. “I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know!” Shouting.

  I stepped back, breathing hard, and let her calm. I looked at Pike and Pike shrugged. I took a breath, let it out, then sat next to her. I said, “Okay, Jonna, what did you guys fight about?” Calm.

  “We fought because he’s an asshole!”

  “Was it because you blew the whistle to me about James being Stuart Langolier?”

  She froze for a moment, and then she squinted at me. Suspicious. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “C’mon, Jonna. I recognized your voice. Why’d you tip me about James’s real name?”

  She slumped back on the couch and stuck out her lower lip. Sulking. “James Lester was his real name. He changed it legally to get a fresh start when he gave up his life of crime.”

  I said, “Jonna.”

  “I did it to fuck him.” Her voice was soft and petulant.

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cause he was gonna cut me out. I know it.”

  “How do you know it?”

  “ ’Cause he said that when he got the big payday he was gonna blow me off and get a Bud Lite girl.” Her eyes were welling in a delicate balance at the edge of tears. The point of her chin trembled.

  Pike walked away. He has little tolerance for the vagaries of the human condition.

  I said, “Jonna? What else do you know?”

  “What do you mean?” She rubbed at her eyes. When she touched the bruised eye she winced.

  “He may not have been telling the truth. He might have made up the story about meeting Pritzik in a bar. I think maybe he planted the things I found in order to collect the reward, or someone else planted them and James was in on it.”

  She shrugged, even more sulky. “I dunno.”

  “Did he know Pritzik and Richards? Did he tell you how he was going to set this up?”

  She suddenly sat up, loud and animated. “Hey, I’m still gonna get the reward money, ain’t I? I mean, I get it now that he’s dead, right?”

  Pike said, “Forget the reward. You’ll be lucky if you don’t go to jail.” Pike, the Intimidator.

  Jonna Lester’s eyes filled again and this time the tears leaked down her cheeks. “Well, that’s no fair.” No fair.

  I said, “Tell me about Pritzik and Richards.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think he knew them. I mean, he coulda, but I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  Shrug. “ ’Cause he didn’t have any friends. Just this guy from the video store and Clarence at the transmission shop. Clarence is a Mexican.”

  I glanced at Pike, but Pike was staring out the front door. Intimidating the neighborhood. I said, “Maybe he mentioned a buddy who worked at a Shell Station or an ex-con he would have drinks with.”

  She shook her head. “He just went out with Clarence. I know ’cause I followed him.”

  “You followed him.” The detective using advanced interrogation techniques.

  She made the kind-of shrug again. “When he started all that talk about gettin’ a Bud Lite girl I got worried he might be doin’ more than drinkin’ when he went out.”

  “And all he ever did was go out with Clarence?”

  Her head bobbed. “Uh-huh.”

  “How many times did you follow him?”

  “Eight or nine.” She thought about it. “Maybe ten.”

  I described Pritzik and Richards. “You ever see him with guys like that?”

  Another head shake. “Nuh-uh. James and Clarence would just sit there and drink, and sometimes play video games.” Another big fly cruised through the room, this time passing between us before heading toward the bathroom. Jonna Lester watched it, realized where it was going, and made a face. “Oh, yuck.”

  Pike followed the fly and closed the bathroom door.

  I walked over to the front door, stared out at the hot earth, then went back to James Lester’s chair and sat. Maybe James hadn’t known Pritzik and Richards. It was still possible that he had, but if he hadn’t then he wouldn’t have been able to fake the evidence. He wouldn’t have known they were dead. He wouldn’t have known where to plant it. Maybe James had been telling the truth. Of course, maybe his dive through the shower glass was an accident, too.

  Jonna Lester got the hey-waitaminute-! look again, then frowned as if she was trying to see shadows within shadows and not having a lot of luck with it. She wiggled her finger in the air and said, “I take it back! There was another guy I saw him with.”

  I stared at her.

  “This time that I followed him, he went to the Mayfair Market over here and talked to this guy.”

  Pike crossed his arms and looked at me. Well, well.

  “A guy in the Mayfair?”

  “A guy in the parking lot. I thought he was going to the store, but he just parked there in the lot and went over to this other car. James just kinda squatted by the driver and talked through the window, and then this guy gives him a bag and James left.”

  “The man in the car gave him a bag?”

  “Mm-mm. Like a Mayfair bag. Brown paper.”

  “When did this happen?”

  Her lips made a tight line. Her eyebrows jumped up and down. Time sense distorted by all the hash. “A long time ago. Two or three weeks.”

  I looked at Pike again, and Pike’s mouth twitched. It could’ve been after Pritzik and Richards were killed and before James Lester phoned the hotline. Maybe we were getting somewhere.

  I said, “What did the guy look like, Jonna?”

  “Like a guy. I was behind them and he didn’t get out.”

  Pike said, “What kind of car was it?”

  “I don’t know anything about cars. It was little.”

  “What color?”

  She frowned. “Dark blue. No, waitaminute. I think it was black. A little black car.” She was nodding like she could see it.

  I said, “Did Jame
s ever mention someone named Elliot Truly to you?”

  She shook her head. “Who’s that?”

  “Truly was James’s lawyer in San Diego.”

  She shook her head again. “Nuh-uh.”

  I looked around their living room. I dug through the comic books and monster truck magazines, and looked under the couch. I finally found four days’ worth of the Los Angeles Times at the bottom of a plastic trash can in the kitchen. I found the one with my picture and brought it out to her. You could see Elliot Truly clearly behind me and Jonathan Green. I pointed at Truly. “Was this the man in the car?”

  Jonna Lester shook her head. “Oh, no. He didn’t look anything like that.”

  I pointed at Green. “Him?”

  “Oh, no. Not him, either.”

  I glanced at Pike and Pike shrugged. He said, “Could’ve been anybody about anything. Doesn’t have to relate to this. Maybe he was buying the hash.”

  Jonna Lester’s pout had come back, and now it was rimmed with petulance. “Look, I’ve been trying to help, haven’t I? All those news people said it looked like we were gonna get the reward, and I think we still should. I mean, even though he’s dead he’s still due the reward, and that means I should have it, right?”

  I stared at her.

  “Well, it’s only right. You’re only guessing that he made it up, and even if he did you can’t prove it. I don’t think he made it up at all. I think he was telling the truth, even if he was a lyin’ no good sonofabitch.”

  I said, “Jonna, in about two minutes you’re going to call the police. Do yourself a favor and don’t tell them how much you should get the cash.”

  The pout edged over into full-blown petulance. “Well, why not?”

  Pike said, “Because with all the remorse you’re showing, they’ll think you killed him for the money. You don’t want them to think that, do you?”

  Jonna Lester slapped hard at the couch, then threw the glass pipe to the floor. She stamped both feet. Mad. “Life really sucks.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “But think of it this way.”

  She squinted at me, and I glanced toward the bathroom.

  “Death sucks worse.”

  23

  Jonna Lester dialed 911, identified herself, and told them that she’d found her husband dead of an apparent bathtub accident. Jonna related the facts as I outlined them, and the operator said that the paramedics were on their way.

  I made Jonna dump her hash down the disposal and spray Lysol to kill the smell. Flushing it down the toilet would’ve been better, but I didn’t want anyone in the bathroom. Evidence. I had her wash her mouth with bourbon; if she acted goofy or giggly, they’d smell the booze and figure her for a drunk. The paramedics arrived first, then the police. A uniformed sergeant named Belflower shook his head when we told him who James Lester was and said, “Hell of a thing, ain’t it? Guy stands to collect a hundred grand and he gets his neck slit from slipping on a bar of Ivory.”

  I said, “You think?”

  He frowned at me. “You don’t?”

  We stared at each other until he went out to his squad car and called the detectives. Pike and I stayed until the police were satisfied that Jonna Lester had found the body on her own and that we had stumbled in later, and then they said we could go.

  We stopped at an Arco station two blocks away where I used the pay phone to call a friend of mine who works at the Medical Examiner’s office. I told him that James might’ve had help falling through the glass, and I asked if he might share his findings after the autopsy. He said that such a thing might be possible if I was able to share four first-base-side tickets to a Dodgers game. I said, “I don’t have first-base-side tickets to the Dodgers.”

  My friend didn’t say anything.

  “But maybe I can find some.”

  My friend hung up, promising to call.

  I dropped Pike off, and it was twenty minutes before seven when I arrived home.

  Lucy’s rental was wedged on the far left side of the carport, silent and cool in the deepening air. The far ridge was rimmed with copper and bronze, and honeysuckle was just beginning to lace in and around the musky scent of the eucalyptus. I stood at the edge of the carport and breathed deep. I could smell the grease and the oil and the road scents of my Stingray mixing with the smells of the mountain. I could feel the heat of its engine, and hear the dings and pops of the cooling metal. The house was quiet. A horned owl glided across the road and down along the slope, disappearing past the edge of my home. Insects swirled over the canyon, erased by the dark blur of bats. I stood there, enjoying the cooling air and the night creatures just beginning to stir and twilight in the mountains. Home is the detective, home for the night. Sandbagged, unemployed, and feeling more than a little suspicious.

  I let myself in through the kitchen. Lucy was on the couch in the living room, reading Los Angeles Magazine. Ben was on the deck, sitting cross-legged in one of the deck chairs, reading Robert A. Heinlein’s Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. There wasn’t much light, and he would have to come in soon. I said, “Another strange day in Oz, Lucille.”

  Lucy closed the magazine on a finger and smiled, but the smile was small and uncertain. “We got back around four.”

  “Sorry I’m so late.”

  “It’s okay.” She made a little shrug, and in that moment I wondered how much of the tension from last night was still with us.

  “Are you two starving?”

  Lucy made the uncertain smile again as if she recognized the tension and was trying to soften it. “I made Ben a snack a little while ago, but we could eat.”

  “How about I make spaghetti?”

  “Oh, that would be nice.”

  I went into the kitchen, popped open a Falstaff, and took a package of venison sausage from the freezer. I filled a large pot with enough water for the spaghetti, dropped in the sausage, then put on the heat. I heard the glass doors slide open and Ben yelled hi. I yelled hi back. I heard Lucy tell Ben that dinner would be ready soon and that he should take a bath. I heard the guest room door close and water run. The sounds of other people in my house.

  I drank most of the Falstaff, then examined the cat’s tray. Crumbs of dry food speckled the paper towel around his food bowl and a hair floated in his water. He’d probably slipped down the stairs during the day when no one was home, eaten, then made his escape. I tossed the old food and water, put out fresh, and wished that he was here.

  I finished the Falstaff, then opened a bottle of pinot grigio, poured two glasses, and brought one to Lucy. She was still reading the magazine, so I put the wine on the table near her. I said, “I meant to get home sooner, but Rossi’s in pretty bad shape, and the day just sort of grew from there.” I didn’t tell her about James Lester. Lester would bring us back to Green, and I didn’t want to go there. “I was hoping that we’d have more time together.”

  Lucy’s face grew sad and she covered my hand with hers. “Oh, Studly, I know you can’t be with us every moment. It’s okay.”

  “It doesn’t seem okay.”

  Lucy stared past me and the sadness grew deeper. She wet the corner of her mouth as if she were going to say something, then shook her head as if changing her mind. “There’s a lot going on right now, Elvis, but it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

  “Can we talk about it?”

  She wet the corner of her mouth again, but she still didn’t look back at me. She was staring at a point in midspace as if there was a third presence in the room, floating in space and demanding the weight of her attention. “I’d really rather not. Not now.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Up to you.”

  She looked back at me and made the little smile again, and now it was clearly forced. “Let me help you cook. Would that be okay?”

  “Sure.”

  We went into the kitchen and collected things for the spaghetti sauce and talked about her day. We chopped mushrooms and onions and green peppers, and opened cans of tomatoes and jars of oreg
ano and basil, and talked as we did it, but the talking was empty and forced, the way it might be if there was a distance between us and we had to shout to make ourselves heard. I asked how her meetings had gone and she said fine. I asked if she was finished with the negotiation, and she said that a final meeting tomorrow would do it. Ben came in and parked on one of the counter stools, but he seemed to sense the tension and said little. After a time, he went into the living room and turned on my Macintosh and went on-line.

  We had just put the spaghetti in boiling water and were setting the table when the doorbell rang. I said, “If it’s a reporter, I’m going to shoot him.”

  It was Joe Pike and Angela Rossi. Rossi looked ragged and uncertain, and there were great hollow smudges beneath her eyes. Lucy stared soundlessly from the kitchen, and Rossi glanced from her to me. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not.” I introduced them.

  Angela Rossi glanced at Lucy again, and in that moment there was something very female in the room, as if Rossi somehow sensed the tension and felt that she was not so much invading my space but Lucy’s. She said, “I’m sorry.” To Lucy, not to me.

  Lucy said, “We were going to eat soon. Would you like to join us?” She was holding the sauce spoon over the pan, frozen in mid-stir.

  Rossi said, “No. Thank you. I can’t stay very long.” She smiled at Ben. “I have children.”

  “Of course.” Lucy put the sauce spoon on the counter, then excused herself and took Ben out onto the deck.

  We watched the glass doors slide shut, and Rossi looked even more uncomfortable. “Looks like I’ve come at a bad time.”

  “Forget it.”

  Pike moved behind her. He hadn’t yet spoken, and probably wouldn’t.