Inherit the Dead (9 page)

“And what then? Did he ignore her, disdain her . . . ?”

“No. He came swaggering over and ignored me and planted a totally graphic kiss right on her lips.”

“And then?”

“And then it turned out that her car was just fine and I was driving off to lunch on my own and Angel was staying behind, sitting up on some kind of a mechanical thing, just waiting for her wretched grease monkey to be done with work—and done being a tough guy around his greasy friends—so that they could go off to
fornicate
wherever it is that the two of them go,” Lilith said. She repeated the word. “
Fornicate
. It does really sound dreadful, doesn’t it? Nothing like
making love.
But then, there is just a difference, don’t you think?”

“But you said that she was passionate.”

Lilith nodded. “Still, one should bathe, don’t you think?”

Perry lowered his head, escaping the question. “Lilith, this fellow’s name is Hyde. Randy Hyde, right? Can you tell me where to find him?”

“I can tell you where to find the garage—I’m sure you’ll find him there.” She stood up and walked over to one of her cabinets, drew out a piece of paper and a pen, and scratched down an address. Perry noticed that her hand was shaking.

“This is what you need, Mr. Christo. Angel is my friend. If she’s with any man—or if any man has held her . . . harmed her in any way—this is the one you want. He’s the only one she cared enough about to look for if she was in any kind of trouble. And as greasy and sweaty and rude and crass as he could be . . . there was something about her that made him keep coming back, too. I can’t believe that he’d hurt her—I won’t believe that he’d hurt her. But if anyone knows anything, and it isn’t me . . . you’ll want to talk to Randy Hyde.”

She handed him the paper.

He rose. “Thank you, Lilith.”

She nodded.

He walked to the door.

She called him back. “Perry?”

“Yes?”

“You are a beautiful man, Perry. Good luck. You may call upon me again, if you wish.”

He thanked her again.

Downstairs, without blinking an eye, Jeeves bid him “Good day” and saw him out of the house.

As he left the rich stone mansion, he looked up. Lilith stood in the window. The glass was frosted, making her image a bit askew, as it had been in the mirror.

She was still a beautiful woman.

And yet, even as he hurried to his car, raising his collar against the blustering sea wind and pouring rain, he couldn’t help but feel that he’d just escaped a scene from
Sunset Boulevard.

A butler. A goddamn butler! You almost laugh it’s so damn funny, so damn corny, the man standing there in the entranceway, in his tux.

You imagine yourself knocking on the door and the guy opening it and saying something like, ‘Good day, old chap,’ and you just smile as you get your hands around his neck and squeeze and squeeze while the woman screams and screams, all of it like some old black-and-white movie that your mind is spinning as you wait and wait, telling yourself it’s okay because it’s all going as planned and because you’ve waited so long that it feels right to be waiting a little longer, like you have been on some long winding road that you need to follow to get to the pot of gold, like you are about to win the goddamn lottery.

So you sit shivering in the damn rental car, eyes closed, envisioning all the great things you are going to have.

But then the pictures start: all the stuff you don’t want to see, don’t want to remember, your mind spinning again and you can’t control it, shivering so bad and it’s not because of the cold.

You tell yourself to stop. You squeeze your eyes so tight against the ugliness and pain, but you know the only possibility of stopping it, of surviving, is to do this, to make others suffer as you have, and to make them pay.

G
il’s Gas & Auto office windows were shining through the pelting cold rain. The garage bay doors were down, but that wasn’t surprising on a day as miserable as this one. Perry saw lights coming from the narrow windows in the bay doors, too. There were two trucks parked to the right of the building, and a Lincoln in one of the customer slots. Perry pulled the collar of his trench up, flung open his car door, and dashed to the entrance. A bell rang as he pushed open the door and practically jumped into the office.

Like every garage in the world, this place smelled of oil and metal and rubber, and it was none too clean. The coffee in the pot was past stewed, the Formica on the service counter was chipped, and the middle-aged woman leaning against it was equally past her prime. But she didn’t like to think so. She was retrieving the keys to the Lincoln from the extended hand of a man half her age, a tall and brawny stud in mechanic’s overalls.

The woman and the stud both turned startled faces toward Perry, whose trench coat was dripping copious amounts of rainwater onto the floor. The water could only improve the dirty linoleum, Perry figured. It was obvious from the woman’s body language and the way the mechanic was smiling as he handed over her keys that the two
had been in deep flirtation. The woman’s seductive slouch vanished like a raindrop in the desert as she turned to look at Perry. The mechanic’s face went completely blank. There was a moment of silence, broken only by the drip of the water from Perry’s coat.

Finally, the fortyish woman broke the little silence. Turning to the stud, she said, “Randy, when you get the part for the car, give me call. I’ll bring the car in myself.” She did everything but write her phone number on his hand.

“No chauffeur?” Randy asked. His overalls were tight, dark blue, and his name was stitched on his chest in red. He looked good in them, and he knew it. Even in the chilly weather, his sleeves were rolled up to exhibit muscular arms, tattooed with dark pseudo Japanese patterns.

“No chauffeur,” she said, looking at him in a very meaningful way. “I’ll come . . . in person.”

“I’ll call you,” Randy said, grinning. “That part should be here in a couple of days.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” she said, fluttering her fingers, and passed Perry in a waft of Blu. She picked up a Burberry umbrella propped by the door and, stepping out and snapping it open in one practiced move, she hurried to the Lincoln.

“Can I help you?” the mechanic asked. “I’m a little short-handed today. Our girl’s out, and we’re closing soon.”

Perry approached the counter. He could see now that there was a space heater on by the desk behind the counter. The office felt warm and cozy. To Randy’s right, a door was open into the service-bay area. A car was up on a lift, and there was another Gil’s Auto employee under it, looking up into the car’s workings. He was older and thicker than Randy Hyde, his hair graying. He was what Randy would be in fifteen or twenty years.

“I hope so,” Perry said. “I’m Perry Christo. I’m a private detective, and I’m looking for a woman.”

“Aren’t we all?” Randy laughed. “But I haven’t got a spare one. Only car parts.” Randy was handsome as well as brawny, which was maybe the answer to what Angel, a girl with money, was doing with a guy like this. The mechanic was blessed with absolutely regular white teeth, thick wheat-colored hair, and a jaw and nose like a Greek god’s. There was no denying that Randy exuded vitality. But his hands and nails were embedded with dark lines of grease that all the scrubbing in the world wouldn’t remove.

“Like I said,” Perry repeated, “I’m looking for a woman. A specific woman. If you’re Randy Hyde, I’ve heard you know her very well.”

Randy pointed to the embroidered name on his chest. “I’m the only Randy here. Like I said, I ain’t got a woman in the shop at the moment, but I do know a lot of women. And I know plenty of them
very
well.”

“I’m sure you do, but I’m trying to ascertain the present whereabouts of only one: Angelina Loki,” he said flatly.

The humor went out of Randy’s face, and he raised the flap to come out from behind the counter. The space suddenly seemed much smaller as the two men confronted one another.

“What makes you think I might know where Angel is?” Randy asked. He was close enough for Perry to see golden stubble on his cheeks. Perry was rooted to his spot on the floor.

“A little bird told me,” Perry said.

“I bet it was a little canary,” Randy snarled. “And I bet she’s named Lilith Bates.”

Perry shrugged. “Does it make any difference? I need to talk to Angel.”

“Why?”

“Not your business, grease monkey.” Perry tossed out the insult, hoping to get a rise out of the guy.

“Grease monkey—really? You want something from me, and this is the shit I get from you? Some detective.” Randy was sneering, but there was something else in his face. Maybe a trace of genuine hurt. But it was gone as fast as it had surfaced, and now Randy’s face showed only anger. It was clear Perry had touched the right nerve.

“Okay, I was out of line,” Perry said. “But I do have to find her. There are legal issues involved—I can tell you that much. And I understand that Angel and you have hooked up in the past.”

“Maybe we have before, and maybe we did two weeks ago,” Randy said. “But I haven’t seen her in a week. I can’t help you.”

“You can’t help me, or you won’t help me? I’m not looking to screw her up. This is all to her advantage.”

“Easy for you to say. How do I know what you want? You’re not from around here—I don’t know you. And Angel would have called if she’d wanted me to tell you anything. So unless your car’s thrown a rod, leave.”

“Not without your answering some questions. Angel hasn’t called anyone. She’s vanished off the face of the earth, as far as her family knows. That’s why I’m looking for her, and I need your help.”

Randy seemed to think about his next move for a minute. “Hey, Uncle Dirk,” Randy called, and the other mechanic ambled into the office from the bay. He brought a gust of machine smell with him. He closed the office door behind him and leaned on the counter. Up close, it was apparent he was even bigger than Randy, and had maybe two inches on Perry. He had a long scar around his neck, and a small, tight beard. His hair had once been as blond as Randy’s. The two men were obviously fish out of the same gene pool.

“You the owner?” Perry asked.

“That would be Gil, and he ain’t here. I’m the manager.” He angled his chin at Perry but spoke to Randy. “What’s this guy want? He don’t look like our usual clientele,” Dirk said, looking at the visitor with cold blue eyes. Dirk was tattooed, too, but his tats were probably prison ink. “Our customers can afford something better than that heap out front.”

“He’s looking for Angel; he says she’s missing,” Randy said. “How long’s it been since she called me?”

“That blond bitch with the legs?” Dirk said.

Randy nodded.

“She called you about two weeks ago, am I right? From that no-tell Memory Motel. You couldn’t figure out what she was doing in a place like that, no matter how famous it is.”

“See?” Randy turned to Perry. “She called me. I didn’t go looking for her.”

Perry didn’t understand why Randy thought that cleared him of any wrongdoing, but he appeared to believe if Angel had sought him out, he couldn’t be accused of harming her. “Did you join her?” The detective did his best to sound neutral, but the thought of the delicate girl in the picture in his wallet in a liaison with this sex machine in a jumpsuit . . . it made him sick.

“Sure.” Randy shrugged, a big movement from his broad shoulders. “I needed my chain pulled, you know?” He smirked at the two other men. “I didn’t go back to my place for a week, at least. That Angel knows tricks most pros don’t know.”

Perry’s fists clenched, a reaction that didn’t go unnoticed by Uncle Dirk or Randy. But his voice came out calm enough when he asked, “So all you did was have sex, for a week?”

Randy shrugged. His hand played down the front zipper of his overalls. “What can I say, Mr. Detective? I’d bang her in the morning, come to work, go to the motel for lunch, bang her again, and after
we ate some dinner at night we went another couple of rounds. I got stamina, and I got assets.” Uncle Dirk laughed and reached for a rag to wipe his hands.

“Did she get any phone calls that you can remember? Mention any plans?”

Those questions seemed to sober Randy. The facile braggadocio slipped away. “She really missing?” he asked.

“Yeah, she’s really missing.”

“She got some phone calls, sure. But she didn’t tell me who she’s talking to, and I didn’t ask. That’s her private shit. I know Lilith called her a couple of times, though, because Angel told Lilith what we were doing when the phone rang. She put in a lot of details. She wanted Lilith to be jealous.” His smile returned.

“You and Lilith . . . ?” Was Randy lying? Or was Lilith? Perhaps the woman had protested just a bit too much.

“Every now and then she needs her oil changed,” Randy said. “She gives me a call. We do quality work here at Gil’s Auto.” His leer was automatic.

Uncle Dirk said suddenly, “You going to tell this guy what happened? Her running out?” He seemed to take a malicious pleasure in that.

Randy swung to face him, and the warm, oily air in the shop office became tense for a few moments. Then Randy relaxed. And so did Perry, who’d been holding his breath without being aware he was doing so.

Randy turned away from his uncle and spoke to Perry. “Yeah, okay. If you’re really sure that Angel’s in trouble.”

Perry felt a frisson of excitement. Maybe now he’d get a piece of information that would lead to discovering the missing heiress.

“The last night we were together at the motel, a week ago,” Randy began. “She’d picked me up here at work. My truck was running
rough, but Uncle Dirk and me didn’t have time to work on it—we were too busy with jobs that paid.”

Dirk had poured himself a mug of coffee and was sipping it cautiously. He nodded, as if he was letting Perry know he confirmed Randy’s narrative. He still looked amused. Randy said, “About midnight, she got a phone call. We’d just gotten to sleep, so I didn’t catch everything she said. She went into the bathroom, left the door open just a crack. She sounded really upset.”