Short Money (17 page)

“You’re a nurse?”

“Sort of. I’m a bodyguard.”

Debrowski laughed, then quickly stifled it when she saw his face color. “Hey, sorry! It’s just that that’s almost like being a cop. You don’t look like the type.”

“Too short?”

“Not what I meant.”

“I used to be a cop.”

“No shit? I’d never have guessed.”

The waitress topped off their coffees.

“Thank you,” said Crow to the waitress.

“You’re welcome,” said Debrowski. “So how come you’re not a cop anymore?”

Crow smiled, pressed a forefinger against his right nostril, sniffed.

Debrowski said, “Ah.”

“Actually, they got rid of me for other reasons, but the coke was there, making it happen. Like what I did to get fired wasn’t worth getting fired for, but I felt like such a piece of shit ’cause of all the dope I was doing, I just didn’t have the guts to fight it. On some level I figured I deserved it, you know? We balance our own set of scales.”

“No shit.”

Outside, a light snow had begun to coat the parking lot. Baker’s Square customers came and went. Crow and Debrowski ate pie and traded lives. At one point Crow asked her how long she’d been clean.

“I’m not clean. I still smoke cigarettes and listen to nasty music.”

Crow waited for more. He was guessing it was days, weeks at most. Her eyes were too tight, her words too sharp. She stubbed out her cigarette.

“I made it through today,” she said. “That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

Crow closed his eyes, opened them. Debrowski was intently tearing the cellophane off a fresh pack of Camels. “Is that a quote or something?” he asked. It sounded familiar.

She smiled, not looking at him. “It’s from a thing by this Brit dude. Died when he was twenty-six.”

“Drugs, ego, or love?”

“All three, Crow.” She lit a cigarette. “It’s like I was telling you: they go together.”

The digital clock on his dashboard read 9:49. Late again. The Rabbit started, reluctantly. Crow sat huddled over the steering wheel, shivering, waiting for the temperature gauge to show signs of life. Until the needle moved, he had discovered, the car would not. Put it in gear too soon, the thing would die and maybe not start again. He watched Debrowski pull away in her rusted yellow Honda, watched her taillights disappear.

In a few minutes he would be back at Orchard Estates, making life safe for a zebra-shooting, fat-sucking possible pederast. Instead of eight hours of sleep, he was running on five cups of coffee supplemented by a slice of French silk pie and a couple hours of conversation with Debrowski, first name Laura, fellow recovering dope fiend. He felt as if he’d had his first real conversation in months, maybe years.

The idling engine settled into a smooth roar. Crow put the Rabbit in gear and headed out of the parking lot, sliding a bit as he hit the street. The snow felt greasy under his tires, and the steering wheel was a few degrees off center, courtesy of Ricky Murphy’s Hummer. He drove carefully through the frosted streets, pulled up in front of Bellweather’s house a few minutes after nine. The windows were dark, and there was no sign of Nate’s beat-up Dodge wagon. It didn’t look as though anyone was home. Had Bellweather and his brother gone out? What was he supposed to do, sit outside and wait for them to return? Leaving the car running, Crow walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. Thirty seconds later, he pressed the button again, repeatedly, then returned to his car and waited, inventing reasonable explanations for Bellweather’s absence. He decided to wait until ten-thirty. He let his mind replay bits of conversation with Debrowski.

At one point, while he was finishing his third or fourth cup of coffee, Crow had mentioned that he was married. Without missing a beat, Debrowski had said, “That means we can both relax now, right?” It had been a good moment. Crow needed a friend, not a lover, and apparently Debrowski was riding a parallel track.

At ten-twenty, gazing idly at the dark house, Crow noticed the window. The juniper bushes that wrapped around the corner of the house obscured most of it, but when he looked directly at the window he could see that it was open. Crow felt his heart rate increasing, followed by numbness and a sense of unreality. He had felt this way often as a cop. He recognized fear. Don’t think about it. Go through the motions. He buttoned his coat and got out of the car. A set of footprints he had not noticed before led from the driveway across the front lawn to the window. The glass pane had been shattered, the window unlocked and raised. Crow peered inside. He brushed a few shards of glass from the sill, then boosted himself up and into the small guest room next to Bellweather’s office. The door was closed. Crow stood without moving for a full minute, listening. He could hear nothing. Easing the door open, he let himself out into the hallway and stood for another minute, listening.

Nothing.

Crow explored the house. Bellweather’s office had been slightly trashed. The bison head had been ripped off the wall, a chair was kicked over, a framed print lay shattered on the antique desk. It didn’t look as if the office had been searched but appeared more as if someone had had a temper tantrum. It had that Ricky Murphy feel to it. Crow reached under his armpit and touched the Taurus, turned his back on the office, and started up the stairs.

Bellweather’s bedroom looked like a decorator’s attempt to create a hypermasculine decor—everything was covered with ducks, dogs, lions, bears, and horses, from the framed reproductions of British fox-hunting scenes on the walls to the mallards embroidered on the pillows and bed skirts. Even the bedposts terminated in stylized lion heads. A row of bullets had shattered the ornately carved ebony headboard and ripped into the mattress. No blood. Crow stared at the perforated headboard, trying to make out the complex bas relief. A safari, he finally decided. A great white hunter, a file of native bearers, giraffes in the background. He went back downstairs and checked the garage. It was empty, the Jaguar gone.

One muscle at a time, he began to relax. He picked up the kitchen telephone, searched his mind for a number, punched it in.

The phone rang eight times before his sister Mary answered with a husky “Hello?”

“This is Joe.” He waited three seconds.

“Joe?”

“Joe your brother,” he said. “I need to talk to your husband.”

A minute later, Dave Getter came on the line. “What is it, Joe?” He cleared his throat. “What’s wrong?”

“Why would something be wrong?”

Getter took a moment to reply. “I was asleep.”

“Your friend has disappeared.”

“What friend? What are you talking about?”

“I’m at Bellweather’s. He’s gone. Nobody’s home, and there’s a broken window.”

“Why are you telling me this? Why don’t you just call the cops?”

“Do you know where he is?”

“No. Are you saying somebody broke in? What are you saying?”

“Somebody broke in, but I think Bellweather had already left. He hasn’t paid me a dime, you know.”

“I’m sure he’ll be back, Joe. In any case, this has nothing to do with me. All I did was introduce you two.”

Crow squeezed the phone. “What do you know about this guy?”

“Nothing. I’ve done some legal work for him. Look, if it’s not working out, I’m sorry. Maybe I can find you something else.”

“No, thanks. Tell me something, Dave. Does Bellweather have a taste for young boys?”

“What? No. Really?”

“According to George Murphy, Bellweather molested his son.”

“Well … you know how that goes. One wild accusation, and everybody goes nuts.”

“What kind of work did you do for him? Has he been in trouble before? Anything to do with little boys?”

Getter hesitated. “Uh, not to my knowledge. Our business had nothing to do with little boys. In any case, I don’t generally concern myself with my clients’ sexual preferences. Besides, don’t you think …” He paused, then began again in a deeper voice. “Looking at it logically, Joe, it seems to me that if that were true, he would have gotten into some other area of medicine.”

Crow was not tracking. “What are you talking about?”

“You have to look at the big picture, Joe. Your theory doesn’t stand up. In the first place, I just can’t see Dr. Bellweather as a child molester. And even if he was, wouldn’t he have gone into pediatrics or child psychology? Or become a minister, or a gym teacher? Something like that. He is, after all, an intelligent man. If he liked young boys, he would be in a profession that gave him access to kids. I mean, if you had a foot fetish, you’d open a shoe store, don’t you agree?”

Crow held out the telephone receiver, wrinkling his nose as though it had given off a noxious odor. Where was all this shoe store shit coming from? He hung up the phone, wondering why he had made the call in the first place.

He let himself out through the front door, got back in his car. The windows were already starting to frost over. He started the engine, put the car in gear, and took off. If Bellweather was still alive, he would be in touch. If he was dead, then Crow was out of a job. Either way, there was nothing he could do. He decided to go home. He would take a long shower, then go back to bed. If he was very deliberate about it, if he lay perfectly still, if he did not allow his imagination to stray, he might even get some sleep.

Crow opened the door to his apartment, turned on the light, and surveyed its bleak interior. The unfolded sofa bed, blankets a tangled mess, clothing piled on the floor. The cardboard moving boxes, fragments of his former life. Bare walls. The persistent smell of latex paint. He remembered that in another eighteen hours he would be going back to his home in Big River. Dinner with Melinda. The thought frightened him, but it was the only thing happening in his life with a hint of positive spin. He threw his trench coat on the bed and kicked off his shoes. The apartment felt cold.

He might be out of a job, but at least he had Ricky’s Ruger. He tugged the gun from his belt and examined it. Probably worth five or six hundred bucks. He could always sell it. That made him feel better. He laid the gun on the thin mattress, shrugged out of his coat, let it fall to the floor, unfastened his shoulder holster with the Taurus, let it drop onto the coat. He sat on the edge of the mattress and peeled off his socks. Toenails needed trimming. He took off the rest of his clothes, piled them on top of his coat and gun, went into the tiny bathless bathroom, stepped into the shower, and turned the water on, as hot as he could stand.

Twenty minutes later, he turned off the water and opened the plastic shower door. He knew immediately, without knowing how he knew, that something had gone wrong. He grabbed a towel and dried himself, keeping his eyes on the bathroom door. It was standing open a few inches, just the way he had left it. Had he heard something? No. It was a smell. Like wet leaves. He wrapped the towel around his waist, put a hand on the cool, wet doorknob, and pulled.

The smell was stronger. Crow leaned out the open doorway and looked across the sofa bed to the left, toward the kitchenette.

George Murphy was standing in front of the open refrigerator, perusing Crow’s collection of condiments, sour milk, and petrified pizza. He swiveled his head toward Crow and unleashed a demented grin.

“You don’t eat so good, Officer Crow,” he said. His blue baseball cap had a bright-yellow corn cob embroidered on the front.

Ricky Murphy stood against the wall, just on the other side of the bed. He was wearing a black canvas duster, the leather-lined collar turned up, his Stetson riding low on his forehead. A wad of tobacco distended his left cheek. The familiar-looking Ruger in his left hand was pointed in Crow’s general direction. Crow locked eyes with him for an instant, then looked back at George.

“There’s some ice cream in the freezer,” Crow said. “Help yourself.” Moving slowly, he stepped out of the bathroom. He wished he had a pair of pants on. His faded navy-blue twills were there on the bed, only a few inches away. He imagined himself reaching for them, saw himself die. He sensed that any sudden movement could get him killed. Ricky would twitch, and it would be all over. Under the circumstances, he decided to be a statue.

George had the freezer open. “Looks like you got a couple pizzas in here too.” He came out with a cylindrical container. “Chocolate. My favorite. Where are your spoons?”

“Look in the sink,” Crow said.

George found a spoon, wiped it on his coat, sat down at the short counter that served as a dining area, pried off the top of the ice cream carton. He winked at Crow, spooned a mound of ice cream into his mouth, rolled it around with his tongue until it softened, and swallowed.

“This is good ice cream.” He held up the carton, reading the label. “Haygun Days? I never heard of it. Ricky, you ever hear of Haygun Days?”

Ricky shook his head, his eyes never leaving Crow. A stringy glob of tobacco-laden spittle arced from his mouth and landed on the pillow. Crow noticed another glob nearby, soaking into the sheets. That was what he had smelled. Wet leaves. Ricky shifted the wad of tobacco to his other cheek with a deft contortion of his tongue. Crow looked away.

George treated himself to another spoonful of ice cream. “Take it easy, Crow. Why don’t you come on over here, have a seat? Let’s talk. You like to talk, right?” He pointed the spoon toward the stool on the other side of the counter.

Moving slowly, Crow walked around the bed, stepping on his pile of clothing, dragging his bare foot across it to feel for the Taurus. His toe hit something heavy. The gun was there, under his shirt, still in its holster. Not that it would do him any good. He noticed that the door leading into the hallway was undamaged. “How’d you get in?” he asked, not expecting an answer. The locks in this apartment building were so cheap they’d probably slipped it with a credit card. He sat down across from George, who smiled, his mouth full of chocolate ice cream. Crow heard Ricky moving, felt him come in close behind him. He decided that the best plan, if you could call it that, would be to ignore the gun bearer and focus on the ice cream eater.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.