Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 02 (9 page)

To watch or imagine the theft of innocence racked Hickey with fury. The girl’s virginity didn’t concern him. Only the scars that a tumble with somebody like Charlie Schwartz would etch into Cynthia’s heart.

He needed to stall her until he ferreted out the truth. Tomorrow he’d go back to see Henry Tucker, push the old man harder. Or maybe Laurel would come clean.

When Hickey stepped out of the office, Cynthia was singing her encore that asked the people to dream about her. She finished in a strange tremolo he’d never heard out of her before, one that implied she was saying nighty-night for good. She took her bows, blew a kiss around the room, sauntered off the stage coolly as ever. As soon as her feet touched the floor, her strides doubled, to the coat check for her wrap, a red Mexican shawl. She turned toward the door and got waylaid. Hickey stood beside her, squeezed her limp, sweaty hand.

“We’re in public, dear,” she cooed sarcastically.

“Yeah,” Hickey said. “Here’s the deal. My cash is tied up in the club. Tomorrow I’m gonna talk to Castillo, see what I can get out of the business account. How’s that?”

“Thanks, Tom.” Her eyes darted around him as she leaned, kissed his cheek, coyly pulled her hand free, and glided outside. “Night night.”

At the curb sat a white Chrysler limo Hickey didn’t recognize. The driver, a lanky young black fellow in mechanic’s clothes and a brown baseball cap, sprang from where he was leaning on the fender. He approached Cynthia and whispered, then he opened the rear door and guided her into the limo. She was alone there.

Hickey dashed through the club and out back to his Chevy. He skidded out of the parking lot on the Fourth Street side, raced up to Broadway and scanned both directions until he spotted the limo waiting at a light a couple blocks toward the harbor.

Past the Santa Fe depot, the limo turned north on Pacific Coast Highway. He stayed a block behind. A white beast like that couldn’t disappear quickly on a night as star-and moonlit as this one. It cruised up the highway past Con Air, made a left on Barnett, into a traffic jam. There was a brawl at the main gate to the marine depot. Probably a gang of drunken recruits had jumped the guard. A shore patrol wagon came screeching to the rescue. The limo turned left on Rosecrans, headed alongside the Naval Training Center onto Point Loma. A couple miles down, it turned and sped to Catalina, where it jagged across and started up on Canon Street, then Point Loma Avenue past hillside cottages and the Moorish villas higher up, where the tuna barons lived, where Elizabeth would go for a party next weekend. The crest of the hill overlooked the seacoast. Tonight the Pacific looked flat black and crinkled.

The windward-side homes and cottages were slums compared to those that overlooked the harbor. The hillside appeared dry, mostly barren, except the one garden spot, on the cliff a mile south—the grounds of what used to be Otherworld, with its rows of giant palms, olive and mulberry groves, the mosque’s bronze dome, the cliffside amphitheater.

Where Point Loma Avenue met Sunset Cliffs Boulevard, the limo cut south a hundred yards or so and rolled into a vista point. No other cars in the lot.

Hickey pulled to the curb a few blocks up the hill. He watched the chauffeur ease out, saunter around, and help Cynthia from the limo. She walked out of the parking lot and hoisted herself over the guardrail to stand on the very edge of the cliff and stare down into the waves that broke an instant before they battered the cliffside. The chauffeur had gone to his limo, which pulled out of the lot after a minute or so.

Watching the girl alone down there, it took all Hickey’s will not to rush after her. It felt as if something evil like a ghost or big wind might heave her off the cliff. He watched the coast road both ways. No cars. Nobody at all. Cynthia paced along the trail, staring down. Five minutes passed.

A man came walking from the south. He wore a dark overcoat and hat. He got within a couple yards before Cynthia jerked around to face him. They were equally tall, given the man’s hat, which he tipped and replaced. They didn’t touch. Squared off, an arm’s length apart, they talked for several minutes, until a taxi approached on the coast road from the north side. As if that were a signal, the man turned and strode off, back the way he’d come. The taxi pulled in to the lot. Before the cabby could get to her door, Cynthia opened it and climbed in.

Hickey let the cab go. The man walked the dirt shoulder, then crossed the road and got into a convertible roadster, top down, half hidden behind a stand of palm trees. Hickey let his car roll down the hill until the roadster, a Buick, pulled onto the coast road.

Hickey fired his engine and timed his descent to reach the intersection just after the roadster and file in behind it. But the roadster inched along, as though its driver were savoring the moonlight. If Hickey’d slowed any more, he figured it would give him away. He made the intersection first and stayed there, fingering his pen, a notepad on his lap, until the roadster crept by. The man had an arm sprawled across the seat as if a woman sat beside him. But he was alone. His sprawled arm rose, the hand dropped and came up with a pint flask. As he put it to his lips he must’ve caught sight of the Chevy. He turned his face that way, scowling at the Chevy as though it belonged to a traffic cop. When he saw that it didn’t, he looked back at the road, took a long pull from the bottle, and cruised on toward Ocean Beach.

Hickey didn’t write down the license number. He knew the man. So well that if the guy had sneered, Hickey might’ve rammed the Buick, plowed it into the sea. If he’d reacted quickly enough—instantly absorbed what that meeting told him about Cynthia Tucker—he might’ve rammed it anyway.

Donny Katoulis. Hickey’d known him since Donny was a kid, when he started busting heads for Arnold Rimmer. A year later, at seventeen, Donny killed an old Mexican fellow who’d welshed on his bets. He got arrested and walked. A gift to Rimmer from the DA, in appreciation. In 1929 the kid snuffed a pal of Hickey’s, a waiter who used to play trombone with Les Butterfield. Everybody knew the shooter was Katoulis. Accuse him to his face, he wouldn’t deny it. He walked. Insufficient evidence.

One night at a card game, a foursome of drunken cops drew lots to see who got to waste the punk. Tom Hickey won.

Chapter Ten

Hickey wasn’t sleeping anyway. The past few hours he’d been lying on the hammock on his screened back porch. He watched the moon drop behind the fence of sailboat masts at Santa Clara Point across the bay. The water looked like a dark window. A wandering soul passed by, kicking up splashes and spray along the shoreline. All night, insomniacs or dreamers had walked the beach. Maybe the clarity of the moon and stars, after yesterday’s storm, had gotten people thinking too much about heaven, or the crap you had to wade through on the way there.

Hickey rose and walked outside, in pajamas and bare feet, across the sand to his pier, a low one that ran only fifty feet into the bay. Just far enough so the ketch he hoped to buy someday wouldn’t plant its keel too deeply when summer’s low tides fringed the bay in mud flats. He sat on the end of the pier, his toes flicking the water, shoulders hunched against the chill, his neck hardened with the anger that had rippled through him ever since he’d seen Donny Katoulis.

Eleven years ago he might’ve iced the guy and earned a commendation, a pay raise, and drinks and cheers from every cop in L.A. If Hickey’d shot when he was supposed to, the way they’d planned, in the alley behind the Chi Chi Club, by now the punk would’ve been only a smudge in Hickey’s memory, and no telling how many fewer people would’ve died over the past eleven years. Donny wasn’t one of your cold-blooded thugs who mostly knocked off welshers and bad guys feuding with other bad guys. He was a gun strutting around. A rookie aiming to lead the league, make the hall of fame. Like John Wesley Hardin, a desperado Hickey’d read about, who blasted a fellow in a bunkhouse because he snored too loudly.

When the phone rang—Hickey assumed it belonged to a neighbor—he was recalling the last line in Cynthia’s book: “Evil survives because good people don’t have the heart to kill evil ones.”

“Tom!”

The second time Madeline yelled, Hickey shouted, “Out here.” He got up slowly and started for the house while Madeline stomped across the porch and out onto the sand in her nightgown, hair flying wild, eyes like roadside flares. She skidded to a halt a yard in front of him, far enough so she didn’t have to crook her neck back to glare into his eyes.

“Two grand. A little extreme, lover,” she snarled. “A hundred bucks’d get you the tastiest whore in town, and she’d treat you better. Miss Moon’ll just lie there wanting you to tell her what a dreamboat she is.”

“Whoa.”

“You got a phone call, baby.”

“Cynthia?”

“No. The lucky girl. She calls here at four
A.M.
, I pluck her eyes out and serve them in martinis. Tell her for me, will you?”

Hickey dodged around her and trudged across the porch into the living room, with Madeline stalking him from behind. Flopping onto the sofa, he grabbed the phone. “Yeah.”

“Good morning.”

“Castillo? What the hell?”

“That’s the same I’m asking you. Few minutes ago, I’m having the best dream, I’ll tell you when I’m not so damn mad, the Cynthia girl calls. Tells me you say she can have two grand that she’ll get from me.”

“Swell. What’d you do?”

“Don’t you got manners, Tom? How about an apologize?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I told her I’m giving her nothing until I have a long talk with Mr. Hickey. Then I hang up and call to yell at you.”

“Look, call her back—she give you a number?”

“No. She’s calling me again.”

“Okay, stall her. Make her think you’re getting her the cash tomorrow, say midafternoon. She say what she wanted it for?”

“She says you know.”

“Yeah, I think I do. I’ll tell you someday.” Hickey’s voice deepened into a growl. “What I’m wondering now is, you call to talk to me, why’d you blab the whole deal to Madeline?”

After a few rough breaths into the phone, Castillo said, “You and me going to talk, this morning, at Rudy’s, first thing.”

“Sure, boss.”

Hickey slammed down the phone, stared at his feet then up at Madeline, who stood over him. If she’d held one hand behind her, he would’ve bet she was holding something to conk him with. He pushed himself up, mussed his hair, and raked his fingers through it. “You and the Cubano…you his confidante?”

“Nice try, Tom, but I’m not letting you wipe dirt on me just to get it off your own mug. Spill it, baby,” she hissed. “What’s with you and your songbird and two grand?”

Hickey stood, rubbed his brow, kneaded his petrified neck, thinking how strange it was that after fifteen years he understood Madeline less fully than he’d thought he knew her the first week. People are so damned complicated, he thought, a bright fellow could study a lifetime and barely get acquainted with his best companion. Fifteen years, yet Hickey couldn’t say whether Madeline, if he told her about Cynthia and Katoulis, would use the knowledge to ruin the girl and get rid of her, out of jealousy.

“Don’t give me any confidentiality crap, any lies about you took her on as a client.” Madeline grabbed a clump of her hair, on the side, as if she might rip it out and lash him. “One word like that and I’ll raise such hell the neighbors’ll think Tojo parachuted into my bedroom.”

“Remember Donny Katoulis?”

Her right hand let go of her hair, made a fist, and dropped to her side. “Sure.”

“Cynthia met him tonight, on Sunset Cliffs. Earlier she was having a drink with Charlie Schwartz. My guess is, she’s arranging a hit on somebody.”

“Who?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure.”

Madeline paced around the table. She started for the kitchen, then turned back and leaned against the archway. “So why get the two grand from you, when she knows you’re snooping on her?”

“Let’s say there’s nobody else she trusts that can deliver two grand.”

Madeline slapped the wall hard, two slow bars in four-four time. “Yeah, and let’s say why in the hell do you give her the cash so she can pass it along to Donny Katoulis so he’ll waste some poor sap you don’t even know who it is? You’re feeding me a line, Tom.”

What Hickey wanted was to grab her neck and squeeze, he felt so betrayed that she wouldn’t believe him. The one person besides Elizabeth whose trust he needed leaned against the wall glaring at him as if the sight made her flesh crawl. He rested one knee on the sofa and gripped on top of the backrest with both hands. “If I don’t give her the money, she goes to Charlie Schwartz for it. Guess why he gives it to her.”

“Oh God. Cynthia loses her virtue. What a tragedy,” Madeline wailed. “You’d have to share her with a gangster.”

His eyes pinched shut; hands knitted together to keep them inert, Hickey dropped himself onto the sofa. He didn’t see Elizabeth walk in. “What’s the deal, Madeline?” he said hopelessly. “What is it makes you want so damned bad to think I’m playing house with Cynthia?”

“Go to bed, Lizzie,” Madeline snapped.

Hickey jumped up, saw his daughter’s fists bunched together covering her chin and mouth. He started around the sofa, to comfort her, but Madeline beat him there. She threw an arm around Elizabeth’s waist, pushed her into the hall, guided her to her room and followed her in, slammed the door.

Hickey stood a moment trying to think of some magical word. There wasn’t any. All he could do was try to fix this Cynthia business, get it over before Madeline steeled her heart against him. He went to the bedroom and dressed. He shaved, brushed his teeth. As he walked out, he heard his wife and daughter talking in low tones. They sounded like angels singing a two part lullaby.

The moon was gone, the stars paled. It was almost 6:00
A.M.
Layered strips of rose and alabaster crossed the horizon. He drove across the Ingraham Street bridge, cut down Frontier and Rosecrans to the Coast Highway, doubled back, and stopped at Milly’s for hash, eggs, and enough coffee to make his brain whiz too fast to hold steady on the image of Elizabeth clutching her head so it wouldn’t explode, her eyes dripping silver tears and staring at him as if he were a storm trooper.

He walked out into daylight and drove away. Failing to let his Chevy warm up, he sputtered away with the choke out. He sped along the Coast Highway, through Old Town, and up to Kensington, took El Cajon Boulevard past the trolleys and jalopies full of dreamy-eyed welders, riveters, engineers in felt hats on their way to build ships and bombs.

The only signs of life on Wisteria Court were two boys trying to make a football spiral and a young veteran in khaki trousers who limped and used a cane, out walking his dog. Hickey parked across the street from the Tucker house. A maroon DeSoto sat in the driveway. The sign on its door read
MURPHY AND ASSOCIATES
. Hickey figured waking her up wouldn’t be the route to Laurel Tucker’s confidence, especially if she was the hothead Leo claimed. He thought of driving to a pay phone and calling Leo, getting a tail on Cynthia. But Laurel might scat while he was gone.

His mind felt chopped in two, and no matter which way he turned, he got stumped. If he could talk sense to Cynthia, clue her that he knew about Katoulis, it might spook her enough so she’d give up on murder. More likely, though, she’d lie, slap his face, and disappear. He could notify the law, ask his pal Thrapp to lend a gang of cops to swarm around the girl and Katoulis, so at least she’d have to fall back and regroup. Whoever she meant to put to sleep might survive another month or two. Meantime, he could snoop, maybe find the fuse and snatch it away.

In return, he’d probably lose Madeline. The only chance he saw to keep her was to lavish her with time and attention without letting his bank balance decrease noticeably. Which meant he’d keep playing ball with Castillo, and tell Leo—after nine years, when the old guy was scrambling for loot to send Magda, his youngest daughter, to Stanford—to find a new partner, go it alone, or retire.

Either give up Madeline or become a louse. Then a louse he’d become. Losing Madeline would be like siphoning the blood out of his heart and filling it with acid. If she ran off and took Elizabeth, he’d walk around as dead as Henry Tucker.

Once he’d decided, he got anxious to certify the deal. To call Madeline and vow he’d give up the detective business, as soon as he’d taken care of the girl and Donny Katoulis. On impulse his hand reached for the key in the ignition. He might’ve driven to the phone, except that he saw a curtain rustle in the Tucker house.

Rolling the manila envelope and stuffing it into his coat pocket, he jumped out of the Chevy and crossed the street, climbed the porch steps, and knocked on the door. It flew open so fast his hand was still up and fisted.

“Sock me, mister, your life will be one long regret.”

The voice was steady, rich as an orator’s. The woman stood almost as tall as Hickey, a couple inches higher than her sister. She had Cynthia’s pale but rosy coloring, eyes closer to blue than green, a mouth that looked ready to bite or kiss, depending on your next move. Except for the five or so years between them, she and Cynthia might’ve been twins raised by different parents, the younger pampered and cultivated while the elder got trained with a belt and a backhand. Laurel had rounder hips than her sister, the same tiny waist. Her hair was darker with only traces of auburn. Her breasts stretched the terry-cloth bathrobe she wore.

“I wasn’t going sock anybody, except the door,” Hickey said. “You’re Laurel Tucker.”

“In person. Yourself?”

“Tom Hickey. Friend of Cynthia’s.”

“Friend, huh?” She backed off a step and looked him over. “You won’t find her around here, fella. She doesn’t like me. Ha, tell the man true, Laurel. Right now she might be toying with her rosary, praying for an earthquake to swallow me. I’m surprised she hasn’t cursed me to you.”

“I’m not looking for her. I came to talk to you.”

Laurel grinned coyly. “She must’ve showed you my picture.”

“Maybe she did,” he mumbled.

“Huh?”

His eyes scanned her while his hand felt for the manila envelope, lifted it out of the pocket, and bent it flat. “I smell coffee. Got an extra cup?”

“Not the timid kind, are you? Aw, c’mon in.”

She led him through the edge of the parlor. There was a dusty piano, a window seat stacked with papers the size of deeds and magazines, a white leather sofa and chair, two impressionist seascapes in muted colors. Hickey read the name Joshua Bair in the corner of the one he passed by. The kitchen was small and cluttered. A small table sat in a nook by the porch window, across from the sink, beside a knickknack shelf where Hickey laid the envelope. Laurel motioned to a chair, fetched them each a teacup of black coffee, and sat across from him.

“Here we are.”

“You and Sis just got back from a trip, right, two pals out having a good time?”

“Funny man. Cynthia rode the bus there to visit our dear friend Emma, and naturally to torment our mother as she always does. Mother called, though, with the news that Cynthia was converting, becoming a sister in the
Nezah
Society. I had business up there, so I used the opportunity to drive up and attend the ceremony…but it was a funeral I attended.”

“Emma Vidal’s,” Hickey said, and waited a respectable time. “I forget how she died.”

Wetting her lips with her tongue and leaning closer, as if to unnerve him, catch him off guard, and steal a glimpse into the depths of his eyes, she said mournfully, “Buried in an avalanche, on Mount Shasta, the day of Cynthia’s purification. Do you know anything about the
Nezah
Society?”

Hickey shrugged. The less he knew, the more she might enlighten him. “You one of them?”

“Not so much in faith as in loyalty. Mother is fervent, she can’t understand disbelief. To keep harmony in our family, it’s wiser to join. I believe—don’t you?—religions only serve to give us passions we can share, common enemies and objects of worship. Otherwise, we couldn’t live in the same house, could we?”

“You worship Master What’s-his-name?”

“Pravinshandra.” Her eyes had narrowed, the brows furled and darkened while the rest of her held eerily still. “Are we just chatting? I’d rather you tell me exactly what you want to know. A policeman came here the other day looking for Cynthia. I’m a little worried. It’s why I let you in.”