Night Kills (7 page)

    "You're not telling me everything, are you, Mr. Brolan?"

    Brolan said, "Who was she?"

    For a time the man didn't speak. In the shadows Brolan could see that the man's gaze wandered away for a time. Brolan decided this was the best chance he'd have to slap the gun away. He lunged.

    The man raised the.45 and pushed it right against Brolan's forehead.

    Brolan's sweat turned chill; he felt as if he had a terrible case of the flu.

    He withdrew from the man. The man kept the gun pointed level at Brolan's heart.

    "She was the woman I loved," the man said. "Do you find that funny? That a man like me would love a woman like her?"

    "Why would I find that funny?"

    "Pathetic, then? Perhaps you find it pathetic, Mr. Brolan."

    "You loved her. That isn't hard to understand."

    "Then you can understand why I want to kill the man who killed her."

    Brolan paused. "You still think I did it?"

    "Yes."

    "But why? What motive would I have?"

    "That's what I want you to tell me, Mr. Brolan." As the man spoke, Brolan let his eyes roam the dark room. He saw a leather recliner to his right that he could dive behind if he were quick enough and lucky enough.

    The more the man spoke, the more aggrieved he sounded. For the first time Brolan began actually to believe that the man might well kill him.

    Brolan said, "We could help each other."

    "And how would that be, Mr. Brolan?"

    "We could help each other find out who really did it."

    "What is it you're not telling me, Mr. Brolan? You're like a little child. I can hear guilt in your voice, but I need you to be more specific."

    Brolan dove then.

    Without any grace, without any apprehension of injuring himself, he pitched his body to the right, aiming directly for the side of the chair that would shield him from any bullets. He lay there, panting, sodden with his sweat, waiting.

    No sound but the wind and the heaving of his lungs.

    The man said, "You were too quick for me, Mr. Brolan. It's the advantage of having a body capable of action." Brolan said nothing.

    The man laughed. It was a short, harsh sound. It almost seemed to pain him. He tossed something heavy to the floor. "It wasn't a real gun, Mr. Brolan. I bought it at a Republic Studio auction. Have you ever heard of Lash La Rue?"

    Getting up from the floor, Brolan said, "You little son of a bitch. You were holding Lash La Rue's gun on me?"

    

    

    HE LIKED THE DANGER. Oh, to be sure; he liked the sweet young sex, too, but it was the danger itself that was the real thrill. He'd once bought a girl here who said she was thirteen, but he suspected she was even younger. Happily.

    The place was Loring Park, not so far from the Guthrie Theatre. Despite the best intentions of the city council and various outraged civic groups, parts of Loring Park remained a meat market for a very special kind of shopper.

    Take tonight If you knew where to look, finding the kids willing to sell themselves for dope or food or yankee cash was easy enough. You drove to a certain section of the park, and there they were. Now, in the way of his headlights, they looked more than delectable. (Girls only. In his twenties, worried that he might be gay, he'd tried it once with a guy. It had neither excited him nor even shamed him especially. It just bored him. No; for him it was girls only). There were about a dozen girls ranging from the ages of perhaps fourteen to maybe sixteen or seventeen. Fat ones, skinny ones, white ones, black ones, clean-looking ones, dirty-looking ones. The boys, if you were interested, ran along the same lines. His own preference was usually the same-a short, thin girl with largish breasts. He even had a special preference in nipples. He liked smaller ones that came taut and erect quickly under his thumb. And one more thing: He liked innocent faces. In an era of breast-fuckers, mouth-fuckers, butt-fuckers, and God-knew-what-else, he considered himself still a romantic. He fucked faces. Sad little-girl faces especially.

    He saw her in the arc of his headlights as he went up a small incline. She stood this side of a copse of trees. He knew immediately she was the one. Not too scruffy, not Girl Scout clean. A wan, pretty face and a body that looked ripe beneath a blouse, denim jacket, and jeans. She had long blonde hair blowing now in the steady wind. She made no concessions to him-no whore smile, no whore jiggle of ass or touching of breasts or pussy. Had some self-respect. He liked that.

    He pulled up alongside her. He always did the same thing. Opened the passenger window and pushed his face out in a big grin. Then he waved the crisp new fifty-dollar bill in her general direction.

    "Is that really a fifty?" she asked. Judging by her voice, he'd put her somewhere around fifteen. A little more knowing than a real kid. Been around some but not too much. That was another thing he liked about her.

    "It sure is."

    "And it's for me?"

    "If we get along."

    "I think I've seen you before."

    "Oh?"

    "Uh-huh."

    "Aren't you cold out there?"

    She smiled. It was a halting smile and all the lovelier for its hesitancy. He tried not to notice how much dental work she needed. "Yeah, I guess so."

    "Why don't you get in, then?"

    "I got to tell you."

    "Got to tell me what?"

    "There's some stuff I won't do."

    "I'm a pretty normal guy."

    She grinned again. This time there was just a hint of irony in it. That part he didn't like so much. "If you say so," she said, "but I'm serious."

    "About the stuff you won't do?"

    "Right."

    "Well, you tell me what those things are, and I promise I won't ask you."

    "And I get the fifty?"

    "And you get the fifty."

    She got inside. She smelled of cold night air and cigarettes and just faintly of sweat.

    She shut the door.

    "What's your name?" he said.

    She looked at him oddly. "Are you a cop?"

    He laughed. "Hardly."

    "Then why do you want to know?"

    "Maybe I'm just being polite."

    She shrugged and looked out the window at the park that was quickly fading from view. "Denise."

    "That's a pretty name."

    "I don't want you to put it up my behind, all right?"

    He smiled at her little-girl crudeness. She was a find, was Denise. "All right," he said.

    "And no rough stuff."

    "You don't have to worry about that."

    "One guy really beat the shit out of me once. I had to go to the free clinic."

    "Anything else?"

    "Huh-uh. As long as you wear a condom, I mean."

    He smiled again. "I'm well supplied."

    She looked out at Hennepin Avenue. On this part of the strip all the houses and businesses looked as if they could qualify for urban renewal.

    "Mind if I ask where you're from?"

    "You sure ask a lot of questions."

    
Her sweet little pussy would more than make up for her sour attitude,
he thought. "Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe I like you, and I'm interested in you?"

    "Yeah. Right." They drove some more. She said, "St. Louis."

    "Beg pardon?" His mind had been drifting.

    "I'm from St. Louis."

    "Oh. That's a nice city. The Gateway Arch and all."

    "Well, I'm not actually from the city."

    "From a small town not too far from there."

    "Farm girl?"

    "Yeah. There somethin' wrong with that?"

    He smiled. "No; just asking." He drove a while longer, and then he said, "You don't like it, do you?"

    "Like what?"

    "You know. Having sex for money."

    "Seems like I don't have a lotta choice."

    "Can I be honest?"

    She stared out the window, shrugged.

    "That kind of turns me on," he said.

    "What does?"

    "That you don't like it."

    "I'm happy for you."

    "You should take that as a compliment. It just means you've got some dignity; some self-respect."

    "Yeah, I've got a lot of self-respect all right." He took her hand. At first she resisted; nothing obvious, simply held back. He took her hand and placed it on his crotch.

    "Feels good," he said.

    "Right."

    He smiled again. "You really don't like it, do you?"

    "Would you like it, mister? Somebody always pawing at you?"

    He started thinking very seriously about where it was going to happen. Where exactly he was going to kill her.

    She said, "I'm sorry I'm so down tonight. It's my mother's birthday."

    "That should make you happy."

    "She's dead."

    "Oh. I'm sorry."

    "So, it kind of burns me out. She was only forty-one." Then she said, "So, I still get it, right?"

    "Get it?"

    "The fifty?"

    "If you're a good little girl." She looked out the window again. It was time. They were nearly out in the country. He needed a dark road.

    He was getting excited.

    

    

    ONCE THEY GOT THE LIGHTS ON and started talking, both men calmed down. Greg Wagner even rolled his wheelchair out into the kitchen and got them a couple of Diet Pepsis. As Brolan sipped his, he decided that there wasn't much alternative to telling Wagner the truth. So, he told him all of it. Her throwing the drink in his face the night before the murder. Finding the body in the freezer.

    "She's in the freezer?" Wagner said.

    "Yes."

    "How about turning her over to the authorities?"

    "Right. And guess who they'd blame for killing her." Wagner stared at him.

    "I guess you're right."

    In any other circumstance Brolan would have been checking out this living room carefully. Especially the video library. Brolan enjoyed old movies. He'd read Norman Cousins's book about recovering from cancer, how once a day you had to treat yourself to pure enjoyment. For Brolan that meant putting his home phone on answering service and getting a big bowl of popcorn and a couple of ice-cold soft drinks and watching some old westerns. He liked particularly the Allan "Rocky" Lane pictures of his boyhood, even though Rocky had ended up rather ingloriously doing the voice-over for Mr. Ed.

    Brolan found himself smiling a lot He always did this around people with handicaps. He felt sorry for the guy and wanted to be sure the guy knew it At this point he was not able to see anything but the man's spina bifida. But all the movie icons in this orderly, beautifully appointed room told him a great deal about Wagner's soul.

    "I just don't like thinking of her in a freezer," Wagner said.

    "I don't, either. But I don't have much choice. Not until I find out who killed her."

    "You may have killed her, Mr. Brolan."

    Brolan stared at him. "Do you really believe that?"

    "I'm not sure yet" He paused. "Do you have any ideas?"

    "One very good one."

    "Who would that be?"

    "A former boss of mine named Richard Cummings."

    "Why would he kill Emma?"

    "So he could blame me. He hates me."

    "Why?"

    "I took one of his biggest accounts. We both own ad agencies."

    "For that he'd kill a woman?"

    "You don't know Cummings."

    As he spoke, Brolan watched as Wagner straightened himself in the chair. The pain inherent in the movement was obvious on Wagner's face. When he was straightened out, Wagner said, returning Brolan's blunt stare, "Why don't we get it over with, Mr. Brolan?"

    "Get what over with?"

    "Your questions about my condition."

    Brolan felt his throat constrict. "Why would I ask questions like that?"

    "Because right now a part of you thinks I'm a freak, and the other part of you is wondering why I talk so normally. For a freak that is."

    "No, I-"

    "I was born this way. Spina bifida."

    Brolan sighed. He could imagine the struggle life had been for this man. "I'm sorry."

    "So am I. Maybe if I'd had a body like yours, Emma would have fallen in love with me."

    Brolan laughed sourly. "I haven't done so well with women, believe me."

    Wagner offered him a grin. "You've probably done a little better than I have." He pulled himself up slightly in his chair. "There's no cure at present and very likely won't be one in my lifetime. I've gone against great odds just by living this long. I'm thirty-two, in case you're interested." He smiled again politely. "I'm sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable."

    "Well-" Brolan said.

    "If I irritate you, go ahead and get irritated. If you feeling like patting me on the shoulder, don't be afraid to touch. What I have isn't contagious, Mr. Brolan. And if you make an innocent slip of the tongue and say something you think might hurt my feeling-it probably won't. Not if it's innocent. I remember a next-door neighbour I had once. She was always saying why didn't I 'run over' and have a piece of cake. And then apologizing profusely because, of course, I can't run over. Not literally, anyway."

    "You're a hell of lot braver than I'd be. I'd be complaining all the time."