Nightwork Page 5

  Kilgore stared. His tan turned putty color. “Silencio Ruiz, but how did you—” He half stood up, and sat down again as if he hadn’t strength in those muscular brown legs of his. “Who told you she came here?”

  “You’re close friends,” Dave said. “It’s no secret. You’ve been close friends for some time. The kind of close friends who visit one another late at night when the husband is away at work.”

  Kilgore’s color darkened. Veins stood out in his short, thick neck. “It’s a lie. Your implication is a lie. Yes, I visit late at night. Look at this.” He spread his hands, palms up, above the cluttered desk. “You think I’ve got help around here? Think again. The last thing I am is principal of a school. I don’t know what comes first—janitor, accountant, secretary, fund-raiser, teacher? You decide. When the hell else do I have time to visit but late at night?” He picked up the card, glared at it, glared at Dave. “What business is it of yours, anyway?”

  “Maybe none,” Dave said. “I don’t know yet. If it has something to do with Paul Myers’s death, it’s important, isn’t it? With what happened to him, why it happened, and who was behind it?”

  “What do you mean?” Kilgore licked his lips. “Myers appreciated my looking in on his family. He had to be out of town a lot. He was a cross-country trucker. If he was going to earn a living, he had to leave them here, unprotected. And that’s not a figure of speech, either. After his testimony put Silencio Ruiz in jail, the G-G’s harassed them night and day. Ruiz was their leader.”

  “Mrs. Myers told me,” Dave said. “She didn’t tell me it was you who made them stop.”

  “First I tried the Sheriff.” Kilgore dug among the disorder on his desk, found a handball, and began squeezing it. He snorted. “Fat lot of good that did. Even after they smashed the windows, even after they shot the dog, the Sheriff wouldn’t put a guard on the house. Didn’t have the manpower, they said.” He switched the ball to his other hand and squeezed. Muscles showed in his forearm. “Then they started this program to get the gangs off the streets. They enlisted businesses, banks, churches, to start basketball teams, figuring the G-G’s and The Edge would get the same kick out of slamdunking as they do out of slaughtering each other with guns and knives and bicycle chains.” His laugh was sour. “It didn’t work, of course. I mean, you know what we’re talking about here—subhumans, primitives, savages. Jungle warfare. It’s in their blood, right?” Dave said wearily, “Is there a point to this?”

  “There’s a rich old geezer out here,” Kilgore said. “Maybe you’ve seen his house. The old mansion on the hill with all the gingerbread work? De Witt Gifford. And this is the interesting part—he donated the jackets for one of the basketball teams. The Gifford Gardens gang, the Latinos. There’s no team anymore, but they still wear the jackets.”

  “I’ve seen them. What’s interesting about it?”

  “It didn’t add up. He never contributes anything to this community—not a dime. It’s named after his family, but he doesn’t give a damn what happens to it or anybody in it. So why the jackets for the G-G’s? I began nosing around, asking questions. About Silencio Ruiz’s trial. Now, normally he’d have had a public defender, right? And normally he’d never have made bail. He’d have sat behind bars for months, waiting for his day in court. Well, he didn’t. He made bail. And he had an expensive attorney. At first everybody kept their mouths shut. They’d been paid to. That’s what I figured. So I shelled out a little money myself. And guess what I found out?”

  “Gifford put up the bail and paid the lawyer. You mean you used this to get him to make the G-G’s quit harassing the Myerses? Seriously? He worried about it being known? At his age? In his condition?”

  “He was scared to death.” Kilgore flipped the handball into an empty metal wastebasket across the room. “I only went to him on a hunch. I was surprised as hell when it worked. He panicked. Gave me a five-hundred-dollar check for the school, and made me promise I wouldn’t tell anybody about him helping Silencio.”

  “You’re telling me,” Dave said.

  “All bets are off now,” Kilgore said. “Silencio killed Myers. The minute he got out of prison. Gifford didn’t prevent that, did he? It was him who told you I was seeing Mrs. Myers late at night, wasn’t it? He spies from one of those towers up there. Everybody knows it. He hates me because I won’t let Latinos in my school. Crazy old bastard. He wears dresses—did you know that?”

  “Mrs. Myers has her brother to guard her now,” Dave said, “but you still see each other at night. Only now she comes to you. What about? The children’s grades?”

  “I don’t have to answer your questions.” Kilgore got to his feet without trouble this time. “Get out of here.”

  “Paul Myers doesn’t care if you’re sleeping with his wife—not anymore. Neither do I. If that’s all you have to hide, why not answer my questions?”

  “You care. You’re implying collusion between us—me and Angie—Mrs. Myers, I mean.”

  Dave raised his brows. “Am I?” He went to look out the door at the Jaguar again. No crime in progress. He turned back. “You mean I think you murdered Myers so as to marry his widow and share in the insurance money?” Dave gestured to indicate the school and its burdens. “You’re hard up. A hundred thousand dollars would hire a lot of help. No? You could ride your exercise machine all day.”

  “Silencio Ruiz killed Myers,” Kilgore said.

  “There are reasons to doubt that,” Dave said. “Where were you on the night Myers crashed and burned? You didn’t visit Angela Myers that night.”

  “She was at her parents’ house,” Kilgore said. “Her mother needed her. The old man was acting up. She took the children and stayed there overnight.”

  “And where did you stay?”

  “Right the hell here,” Kilgore said. “And no, I can’t prove it.” He came from behind the desk, fists bunched. “And I don’t have to prove it. Not to you. I know what you’re doing. Trying to link Angie to Paul’s death so your company doesn’t have to pay. And you think you can get to her through our relation—through me. Well, the hell with you, mister. Just leave, all right? I’m warning you.”

  Dave pointed to the wall. “That certificate says you graduated from the California School of Engineering. Did they teach you how to wire up an explosive device? And detonate it by remote control?”

  Kilgore narrowed his eyes. “Do you carry a gun?”

  “I’m licensed to carry a gun.” Dave smiled. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because if you haven’t got a gun on you,” Kilgore said, “I’m going to beat the shit out of you.”

  “Not bright,” Dave said. “It would draw adverse attention to your school. And the Sheriff’s department would wonder about your overreaction to a few harmless questions. Also”—he smiled again, and patted his ribs on the left side where a holster would be if he owned a holster, if he owned a gun to put into a holster—“maybe I have a gun. What was Myers hauling in his semi at night up in that canyon?”

  Kilgore looked sulky. “How the hell should I know?”

  “Angie Myers doesn’t know either.” Dave lit a cigarette. “Neither of you gave a damn about Paul Myers, did you? You had each other, after all.”

  “Don’t smoke in here,” Kilgore said.

  Dave said, “I’m leaving in a minute. She was beaten up about the time he was killed. That must have upset you, caring for her as you do. How did it happen? Who did it to her?”

  Kilgore went back to his desk but didn’t sit down. “She wouldn’t say.” He picked up a stack of unopened envelopes and sorted through them, frowning. “Why wasn’t it Paul? He was nothing but a truck driver, after all.”

  “You seem ready with your fists, yourself,” Dave said.

  “And your face doesn’t look marked.” Kilgore let the envelopes fall. “Which is remarkable, considering the things you say to perfect strangers.”

  “Nobody’s perfect,” Dave said.

  A voice called across the play area. “Mr
. Kilgore?” Kilgore muttered impatiently, rounded the desk, passed Dave. A fragile-looking young woman in big tinted spectacles stood in the open doorway of the complex under the rubber tree. Red paint had splashed the front of her skirt. “I’ve got a mini-riot.” She sounded on the edge of tears. “Can you settle it, please?” Kilgore sighed and jogged across the sunlit space. The two of them vanished into the building.

  Dave left the office. He tried the door of the unit next to it. The door opened. At the rear of the room was a kitchenette with a breakfast bar and two stools. At the front stood a chair and a two-seater sofa in tough green and tan plaid. A low table held books, magazines, and two empty coffee mugs, one marked with lipstick. Stereo components occupied modular shelves that also held records. A door stood open to a bathroom. Dave went just far enough into the larger room to see that the bathroom had a door on its other side. This too stood partway open. And beyond it he glimpsed, in a band of sunlight, an unmade bed and the corner of a television set. He stepped outside again, pulled the door shut, and went quietly away.

  7

  TERENCE MOLLOY WORE A new bathrobe but food had spilled down it and dried. He stood clutching the shiny bars of a walker, and screwed up his face against the bright hot daylight outside the screen door. His face was twisted anyway, mouth drooping at the left corner, left eyelid drooping. His thick gray hair had been slicked down with water, but his beard was bristly—he’d gone a couple of days without a shave.

  He croaked, “Who are you? What do you want?”

  Dave gave his name and stated his business. “I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Molloy. I know you’re not well. Is your wife at home?”

  The street of clipped hedges and Spanish-style bungalows was quiet. Dave heard a toilet flush inside the house, heard footsteps hurrying. Faith Molloy appeared, a dumpy woman in a faded house dress. Molded shoes made her feet look big. Above them, her ankles were swollen. “It says no salesmen or solicitors.”

  Her husband said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s about Paul. You always go off half-cocked.” He hiked the walker forward and fumbled with a trembling hand at the screen-door latch. “Come in.”

  “Oh, sure,” Faith Molloy said. “I haven’t got anything to do but entertain strangers.”

  “I won’t be long.” Dave pulled open the screen door and stepped inside. He told the old man, “Thank you.”

  “Go crazy around here with only her for company,” Terence Molloy said. “My glad-hearted colleen. Look at her. Face like a sour apple.”

  “He’s not himself,” Faith Molloy said.

  “On the night Paul died,” Dave said, “did Angela bring the children and stay here with you?”

  “I needed her. This one was acting up. Of course, I needed two more children. A sixty-five-year-old one isn’t enough.” Faith Molloy snatched up scattered sections of the morning Times. The furniture was puffy overstuffed covered in a yellow and pink flower print. She kneed the Off button of a television set. A game show quit in the middle. “Sit down. I suppose you’ll be wanting coffee?”

  “Not if it’s any trouble.” Dave sat on the sofa.

  “I wouldn’t know how to handle it, if it wasn’t trouble.” She went away with the crumpled newspaper.

  Dave asked the old man, “Paul was working nights so he could help you out financially. Do you know what he was hauling, who he was working for?”

  “He never said.” The old man shuffled in his shiny rack to the easychair that faced the television set. “And I wasn’t about to pry. None of my business.” He threw Dave a warning scowl. “No, don’t get up and help me, God damn it. I can manage.” He wangled the rack into position and dropped onto the sagging cushions. With his good foot, in a fake leather bedroom slipper, he pushed the rack clumsily aside. “Going to miss Paul. He was a real son to me.”

  “Where was Gene that night?” Dave said.

  “He’s over there, isn’t he? At Angie’s? That’s where you come from, I suppose.” Terence Molloy looked at the small table beside his chair. The lamp was painted china with a fluted shade. Under it clustered pill containers and medicine bottles. He frowned. Then he began poking with his hand down between the chair arm and the cushion. He came up with a round snuff can, fidgeted it open, tucked snuff into his cheek. He looked anxiously over his shoulder, closed the can, tossed it to Dave. “Hide that. They want you to relax, but anything that would relax you—tobacco, booze—you can’t have those.”

  Dave pushed the can under the sofa cushion. “Where was Gene? Here?”

  “I wouldn’t let him through that door. Living off some woman, probably. His mother spoiled hell out of him. Angie always had a soft spot in her head for him. You watch, he’ll live off her the rest of his useless life.”

  “She seems to know how to handle him,” Dave said.

  Terence Molloy snorted. “He’s there, isn’t he? And Paul not cold in his grave.”

  “It wouldn’t be worth it to him for her wages as a waitress,” Dave said. “She’ll barely make ends meet that way for herself and the kids.”

  The old man’s attention wasn’t on him. He was staring blankly, slack-jawed, at the blank television screen. His nails needed trimming. With them, he was plucking at his beard stubble. Under his breath, he sang, quavery and off-key. Some old Irish song. “‘And in all me life I ne’er did see such a foin young girl, upon my soul…’” He looked at Dave with sudden sharpness, and said, “It’s for the insurance money. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? You said you were from the insurance company.”

  “It will be a lot of money if it’s paid,” Dave said. “Would Gene be sure enough of Angie’s taking him in to cause Paul to have an accident that would get him out of the way so he, Gene, could live happily ever after on the insurance?”

  The old man stared, mouth open. “Are you saying it wasn’t an accident?”

  Dave told him what it was.

  Faith Molloy came in with coffee in a cup and saucer, and bent to set it on a little table at Dave’s elbow. “Who would do such a thing?”

  “I was wondering if it could be Gene,” Dave said.

  Still half bent above the table, face close to the lampshade, white as the lampshade, Faith Molloy went still. For a moment her face was expressionless. Dave could see where Gene’s good looks came from. She must have been a beauty, forty years ago. At last she found her voice, enough to whisper, “Gene?”

  “It would be a fitting end,” the old man said. “The hangman’s noose.”

  The woman turned on him in fury. “He never harmed anyone in his life. He’s weak, that’s all. He’d never hurt anybody.” She looked at Dave. “It isn’t in him.”

  “Weak? He’s a liar, a thief, a gambler, a drunk, and a lecher. No morals. No scruples. No self-respect. What did you expect, woman?”

  “You shut your crazy old mouth.” Faith Molloy screamed this. She turned frantically to Dave. “Don’t listen to him. He’s sick. His mind’s gone. Half the time he doesn’t know his own name.”

  “Gene’s at your daughter’s now,” Dave said. “Where was he living before?”

  “I’ve got it written down.” She threw a savage look at her husband and left the room, muttering, “You wicked old devil. Your only son. Your flesh and blood. Name of your name.”

  Terence Molloy picked up a metal crutch from beside his chair, reached out, and with its rubber tip pulled the television button. The game show returned. Gold curtains flew open. A new blue automobile gleamed on a turntable. A young red-haired woman in green jumped up and down with joy and hugged the wrinkled MC, who raised his eyebrows in simulated surprise. Terence Molloy let the crutch fall. “I’d beat her with that,” he said, “if I had the strength. I was a strong man once. She wouldn’t have dared plague me then as she does now. Now all I can do to her is spill my food and piss in the bed.”

  “Here it is.” Faith Molloy came hurrying back in her clumsy shoes and pushed a scrap of paper into Dave’s hand. “Gene has a lot of
friends. He’ll have been with his friends. He likes to have a good time. They’ll have seen him that night. They’ll tell you.”

  “Thank you.” Folding the paper, tucking it away, Dave got off the sagging couch. “There’s nothing to worry about, then, is there?”

  “Oh, my dear man.” She shook her head despairingly. “I hope you never know how much there is to worry about.”

  “If you’d be quiet,” the old man said, “I could hear the television. This man doesn’t want to know your troubles. People have troubles of their own.”

  Dave moved toward the open front door, the screen with the sunlight glaring on it. Faith Molloy tagged after him and plucked his sleeve. “You won’t stop the insurance coming, will you?”

  “Not I,” Dave said.

  “Paul told us we wouldn’t have to worry if anything happened to him. He’d bought a hundred thousand dollars worth of insurance, and we were to get half.”

  “He sounds like a good man,” Dave said.

  “Oh, he was. Why is it the awful ones go on and on living?” She turned to glare at her husband. “Why does Our Lord always take the good?”

  “Because nobody on earth deserves them,” the old man shouted over the television racket. “No woman—that’s for sure.”

  The building was two-story brown brick, on a Hollywood corner opposite two filling stations and a hamburger shack with a tin sign: BIGGIE’S. Downstairs, the brown brick building housed a bar called Liza’s, with caricatures painted on its windows of a young woman with wide eyes, scarlet mouth, long black gloves, champagne glass in one hand, long cigarette holder in the other.

  Down the side street, near the back corner of the building, Dave found a door whose beveled glass bore the address that Faith Molloy had given him. He climbed narrow, newly carpeted stairs to a hallway of old closed doors. The air was hot and smelled of room deodorant. At the far end of the hallway, a window showed a slatted iron fire escape. But the inspectors hadn’t been here lately; across the window, shelves held trailing philodendrons.