I’d better find out.
Grimacing, he shut his notebook and set down his pen and pushed his chair back.
The chimes rang again and again as he hurried through the house.
It’s either an emergency or somebody’s a real pest.
Stopping at the front door, he leaned forward and looked through the peephole.
The latter.
Chapter Thirty-one
Pete opened the door. “Hey, Jeff,” he said.
Jeff raised a hand in greeting, lifted his sunglasses so they rested atop his brush cut, and walked in. He was wearing a white T-shirt, faded jeans and cowboy boots. Though he was short and skinny, he walked with a tough-guy swagger.
“Come on in,” Pete said.
“You alone?”
“No, I’ve got a hot babe in my bedroom.”
“You wish.” He turned his thin, freckled face to Pete. “Did your folks go to Palm Springs like they planned?”
“Yep.”
“Cool. Wanta do something?”
No, Pete thought. I just want to be left alone.
But Jeff was his best friend.
And Pete was Jeff’s only friend.
“I guess we could do something for an hour or two,” Pete said. “Then I have to work.”
“On that book you’re writing?”
“Yeah.”
“Christ, you gotta do that on Saturdays?”
“Yeah, I sure do. But it can wait a while. What did you have in mind?”
“How’s the pool looking? Didn’t get wrecked last night, did it?”
“I think it’s okay.”
“Any trees land in it?”
“Not that I noticed.”
“Have you looked at it today?”
“Not closely.”
“Okay if we use it?”
“Use it for what?”
Jeff let out a bray of laughter. “Good one!”
“Wanta go for a swim?” Pete asked.
Jeff always wanted to go for a swim unless the weather was terrible. In awful weather, he preferred the hot spa. He lived in an elaborate house just down the road, but it had no pool or spa. Not anymore. They’d been removed a few years ago and replaced with a tennis court.
“Why’d your parents want to do that?” Pete had once asked.
“Ah, my stupid sister.”
“What sister?” Pete had asked, unaware that Jeff had any.
“The one that drowned. You ask me, if they were gonna take out the pool, they should’ve done it before she drowned. How smart is that? Now I’ve got no pool and I hate tennis. Only thing is, I can watch Mom’s friends play. Couple of ’em are pretty decent babes. But shit, if we still had the pool, they’d be frolicking around in their bikinis or something.”
“I’m sorry about your sister,” Pete had said.
“Yeah, well…Shit.” Jeff had shrugged his thin shoulders, tried to smirk, and added, “That’s the way the ball bounces, you know?”
His attempt to make light of her death with the old, childish saying had brought tears to Pete’s eyes.
From then on, Pete could never hear anyone say, “That’s the way the ball bounces,” without remembering how Jeff had said it that day about his sister.
And he never again used the adage himself.
“How about it?” Jeff asked. “Can we go swimming?”
“Did you bring a suit?”
“Got it on,” Jeff said, and patted the hip of his jeans.
Whenever Jeff came over to visit, he always wore his swimsuit underneath his jeans.
“Be prepared,” Jeff said. “That’s my motto.”
“I thought your motto was, ‘Kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out.’”
“That’s my other motto.”
“Anyway, I guess we can go swimming if you want to.”
“And then we can, like, lay around and catch some rays for a while, okay?”
“Sure.”
Jeff led the way through the house. In back, he set down his sunglasses on the table next to A Moveable Feast. Then he peeled off his T-shirt. “How about that wind last night?” he asked, hopping on one foot as he struggled to pull off a boot.
“Pretty strong.”
“Killed like nine people, you hear about that?”
“Huh-uh.”
“Yeah. Shit.” With one boot and sock off, he switched feet and started pulling at his other boot. “Got mashed by trees, most of ’em. But there were a couple of electrocutions, too. Plus a fireman got cooked in a brush fire over in Orange County. Pretty bad shit.”
“It didn’t seem that bad around here,” Pete said. “We never even lost our power.”
“No, but the phones went dead.”
“They did?”
“Oh, yeah.” Barefoot, Jeff pulled down his jeans and stepped out of them. “Phones were dead all night. Some places had their power knocked out, too. You know, like about half the valley was in the dark.”
“Glad that didn’t happen here.”
“Yeah. You all alone in the house. That would’ve been the pits, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Jeff pulled up his drooping trunks. They were the red, faded ones he always wore. “Maybe you could’ve gotten a story out of it, though. You’re always looking for experiences. That would’ve been a good one, huh?”
“Would’ve made things interesting.”
“You could, like, have a killer break into your house. And you can’t call anyone for help ’cause the phones don’t work. And you haven’t got any guns ’cause your parents are a couple of…” Jeff’s eyes widened. “Hey!” he blurted. “Whoa! Did you hear about those killings last night?”
“I saw something in the paper. Some sort of murder spree in West LA?”
“Yeah. They don’t know what the hell went on. Somebody must’ve gone berserk with a knife, nailed these people in some apartment building over there. I guess the guy’s in a stable condition, but the woman bought it. Stabbed to death. But get this, they found a severed fuckin’ head in the room.”
“You’re kidding.”
“And no body to go with it. Cool, huh?”
Pete laughed and shook his head. “Guess it’s cool if you happen to be a bloodthirsty maniac.”
Jeff grinned. “That’s me.” He stepped to the edge of the pool and frowned at the water. “It ain’t exactly pristine, pardner.”
Pete wandered closer to the pool. Squinting, he saw quite a few leaves and twigs scattered across the glaring surface. Other debris, waterlogged, seemed suspended partway down. Even the tile bottom of the pool was littered here and there with crumbs of sunken foliage.
“Damn wind,” he muttered. “I had the pool spotless yesterday.”
“Should’ve closed the cover.”
“I meant to. Oh, well, it’s not that bad.”
“Considering the wind,” Jeff said, “you got off lucky.”
“Yeah. Well, the wall usually keeps out most of the junk.” He nodded toward the six-foot high cinder-block wall at the far side of the pool area. Then he looked at the steep hillside beyond the wall and shook his head at the sight of all those weeds, all those leafy bushes and trees. “Too bad the wall isn’t about twice as high. I’d only have to clean the pool half as often.”
“What you oughta do is defoliate the hillside.”
“Good idea.”
“Hit it with some Agent Orange.”
Pete shook his head and suggested, “How about nuking it?”
“Get real.”
Pete gaped at his friend for a moment, then cracked up.
“What’s so funny?”
“You,” Pete said, and shoved him.
Jeff yelled, “Yah!” and went off the edge. In the next instant, he grabbed control of his body, streamlined it and turned his fall into a dive. He entered the water with hardly a splash. Below the surface, he darted the width of the pool. When he came up and twirled around, he shouted, “You’re goin’ down.”
??
?Think so?”
“I know so.” Jeff swung around and climbed out of the pool.
Grinning, Pete warned, “Don’t get carried away, Jeffrey.”
“They’re gonna carry you away.” He started running toward the corner.
“No running,” Pete warned.
“All rules are off! You’re a dead man!”
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m gonna waste your ass.”
“You and what army?”
“No army!” Jeff yelled, rounding the near corner and racing straight toward Pete. “Just takes one bad-ass mother like me!”
“Don’t lose your trunks.”
“You’d like that, fag.” But Jeff must’ve been able to feel that they were on their way down. Not breaking stride, he grabbed them with both hands. As he hoisted them up, Pete dived into the pool.
In midair, he heard Jeff shout, “Chicken!” Then he plunged into the water. The cold of it jolted him. It made him want to cry out in pain. A moment later, though, it didn’t seem so bad. A moment after that, he began to like the way it slid along his skin.
Like cold, liquid silver.
Liquid silver would have to be molten, but he liked the image anyway and hoped he could remember it.
When his fingertips bumped against the tiles, he lunged to the surface.
He turned around.
Jeff, standing by the table, picked up A Moveable Feast and faced him.
“Hey!” Pete yelled. “Put that down. You’re wrecking it! You’re all wet!”
Grinning, Jeff raised the book overhead. “Come and get it.”
“I’m serious. Put it down and dry it off.”
“Come on out and make me.”
“Man! You don’t mess around with a guy’s books!”
“Should’ve thought of that before you pushed me in.”
“Put it down, Jeff. Come on.”
Clutching the book by one corner, Jeff cocked back his arm and whipped it forward like a knife-thrower. But he didn’t let go.
“That’s not funny! What if it’d slipped?”
“Guess your book might’ve gotten a little wet. Just like I got a little wet.”
“You were going in the pool anyway, dipshit. All I did was speed things up.”
Grinning, Jeff said, “Dipshit? You called me a dipshit? Is that supposed to win me over?”
“This is not funny, Jeff.”
“I’m having fun.”
“If that book’s wrecked…if it has so much as a water spot on it…”
Jeff lowered the book to eye level. He frowned at its cover. “A Moveable Feast,” he said. “Do you s’pose it’s also a floatable feast?”
Pete shoved off and swam fast across the pool at an angle, straight for Jeff.
Who waited by the table, holding the book high and grinning.
Until Pete started to climb out.
Then Jeff dodged around the table and ran away, waving the book overhead.
“Damn it! Get back here!”
“Kiss my ass!” Jeff yelled. It was mostly bare at the moment. He reached down with one hand to hoist his drooping trunks.
As water spilled down his body, Pete stood on the warm concrete and pulled up his own sagging trunks. “I’m not going to chase you. Just bring the book back, okay?”
“Come and get it.”
“No.”
“Then I can’t be responsible for its fate.”
“You will be responsible. I’ll knock the crap out of you!”
“Oooo, big talk.” Jeff hurried the rest of the way to the cinder-block wall at the side of the pool area. He reached up and slapped the book onto its top. Then, hands free, he climbed the wall.
“Real cute,” Pete called.
“Ain’t that the truth?” With his usual agility, Jeff picked up the book and rose to his feet. He waved the book at Pete. “Don’t you want it?”
“Get down from there.”
“You come up.”
“Yeah, right.” Pete had no intention of climbing the wall, but he did start walking toward it. “Just come on down. I know you’re God’s gift to the world of gymnastics…”
“I’m no gymnast. They’re a bunch of fags.”
“Then stop trying to act like one.”
“I’m not. I’m a Great Wallenda!” With that, he started hurrying along the top of the wall, arms wide for balance.
“Wallendas fall and die, you dork.”
“Just once!”
“Get down from there!”
When Jeff reached the rear corner, he stopped. He used one hand to yank up his drooping trunks. Then he spread his arms again, stepped around the corner, and began to walk along the top of the far wall.
“I’m so impressed,” Pete called, striding past the end of the pool.
“Let’s see you do it.”
“You’re the show-off around here.”
“Have you ever climbed up here?” Jeff asked, continuing along the wall and not looking back.
“A few times.”
“Then let’s see you.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Tell you what, you come up here and I’ll give you the book back.”
“Screw you.”
He stopped and grinned over his shoulder at Pete. “If you don’t come up, maybe I’ll see how far up the hill I can throw it.”
“You do and you’ll be sorry.”
Jeff turned toward the hillside and cocked back his arm as if ready to hurl the book. But then his body seemed to stiffen slightly. He lowered the book, not even bothering to fake a throw.
“What’s wrong?” Pete called.
His friend stood there as if shocked into stillness.
“Jeff? What is it? What’s going on?”
Jeff swung his head to the side and called out, “I think you’d better climb up here and take a look at this.”
Pete ran to the wall. Leaping, he boosted himself up. Instead of trying to stand on the narrow top, he swung a leg over and straddled it.
“Right there,” Jeff said, and pointed his finger toward the hillside in front of them, his arm almost straight out.
For a few seconds, Pete saw only brown weeds and green bushes.
Then he spotted the body.
Chapter Thirty-two
It was slightly lower than Pete’s eye level, near the bottom of the slope and only about twenty feet away.
“See it?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“Looks like a stiff.”
“Yeah.”
The body was sprawled face-down, arms and legs spread out like a skydiver. But it wasn’t wearing a parachute.
It wasn’t wearing anything at all.
It looked filthy and bloody and battered.
“I think it’s a gal,” Jeff said.
“I don’t know. Look at the hair.”
The hair was very short. It seemed to be pale blond, but the head was turned away and most of the hair that Pete could see was matted down flat with blood.
“Look at the butt,” Jeff said. “That’s a gal butt.”
“I don’t know.”
“I do. Let’s take a look.”
“We’d better call the cops.”
“You call the cops, I’m gonna see what we’ve got here.” He switched the paperback book to his left hand and held it toward Pete. “This yours?”
Pete took it. “You’re not…?”
Jeff sprang from the wall. His leap carried him out toward the hillside as he dropped. He landed a small distance below the body. Knees bending with the impact, he fell forward and caught himself with both hands. Then he stood up and turned around. “Come on, man. Don’t you wanta see her?”
“You’re not supposed to go near a crime scene. You’ll screw up evidence.”
“This isn’t any crime scene.”
“You think she got like that in an accident?”
“Shit, no. Someone proba
bly raped and murdered her. But not here. This is just where she got dumped.” Jeff turned sideways and pointed toward the top of the bluff. “From up there on Mulholland, I bet.”
“Maybe.”
“Coming?”
“No. And you…”
Jeff started climbing the slope toward the body.
“Get back here!” Pete yelled.
Jeff ignored him.
Pete muttered, “Damn it.” He set down his book on top of the wall, then swung his leg over, shoved off, and dropped to the ground. “Wait up,” he called.
Jeff stopped, looked back at him, and smiled.
Pete chugged up the slope toward his waiting friend.
He felt very strange: shocked and disgusted and a little frightened at having a murder victim left behind his home, annoyed by Jeff’s refusal to leave it alone, dreading a closer look at a dead body but also excited because he’d never before seen one close up and he’d never before seen a naked woman in the flesh.
I don’t want to see this, he told himself.
But he trudged the final distance and halted beside Jeff. They stood side by side, huffing for breath, staring at the body sprawled in the weeds just above their feet.
“She’s got a nice bod on her,” Jeff said.
“Hey, shut up.”
“Well, she does. Too bad she’s so wrecked up.”
Afraid someone might be watching them, Pete scanned the hillside. He saw nobody. The road, high above him, was hidden from sight by the slope and scattered trees. There were no houses directly overhead. Those Pete could see were so far away and off to the sides that even someone up there with a telescope would have a tough time seeing much, especially with so many trees and bushes nearby.
Turning toward his house, Pete found that he could look down over the top of the block wall. If Mom or Dad were home, they would be able to view him standing here—maybe from the chest up—but not the naked body at his feet.
His house stood at the rear of a cul-de-sac. The homes on both sides were a fair distance away and set at angles that gave them almost no view at all of the area behind Pete’s house. Also, the house on the right was up for sale. Nobody had lived in it for weeks.
“The coast clear?” Jeff asked.
“I think so.”
“Good deal.” Jeff sank to a crouch beside the body.