Nightlife (26 page)

The Weatherman hit Tampa on Friday afternoon, and Lupo was there to receive him. They knew each other by sight from a previous meeting, which made matters simpler. Nods were exchanged, and that was about it for interpersonal warmth as they traveled to Baggage and then out to the Lincoln. Just a couple of professionals, doing their jobs. No need for trivial chatter.

Once this weekend was over, Lupo was going to breathe one huge sigh of relief. Things would be returning to their boxes, nailed up safe and secure. Two down in one fell swoop.

Leaving one, blond and riskier by the day.

Not that he wouldn’t miss Sasha. Tony’s generous offer of a couple nights ago had done wonders for bringing them closer. Loads of fun, making her writhe and squeal and kick her stilettos against the back-door glass. It had gotten her very hot to think about slipping Tony the old sexual backstab in the Lincoln’s rear seat. Parked at curbside in the heart of downtown, no less. Reflective glass—it didn’t matter. The whole scenario hadn’t hurt his own ardor as well.

He’d miss her, whenever Tony decided that enough was enough. Couldn’t let feelings get in the way though. The cyanide cocktail of vital business mixed with the wrong pleasure had brought down more than its share of great men. He would not join their ranks.

Lupo was a pro, took care of business. He would just as soon Tony delegated to him the responsibility for Justin and April. No sweat, they were anything but hardcases. Just a couple of grief-stricken newfound lovers. Bang-bang, bye-bye. But Tony’s logic for subcontracting was hard to argue with. It was going to look mighty suspicious—friends of Erik turning up dead a week after his own murder. Might lend credence to any possible accusatory fingers Justin could have pointed Tony’s way. Best, then, to have rock-solid alibis when it went down. They would have one, 125 miles away. It was Fort Myers this weekend.

While the Weatherman brought on the sunshine.

He looked like a real geek, this guy. Every native’s tourist of nightmares come true. He wore Bermudas and some yellow short-sleeve shirt with hideous paisley splotches. And some goofy narrow-brimmed hat that might have looked more at home on a fishing charter. He had skinny white legs and a junk-food belly and a roundish face. Very muscular hands and forearms, though, with a gaudy turquoise ring on one finger. He was one of those peculiarities of oddly indeterminate age. Could have been twenty and could have been forty. You took one look at this guy, thought for sure he was some virginal data-processing operator out of Dubuque down for his first vacation.

Until you heard him speak.

Then you thought maybe he was CIA, a killer bureaucrat. A voice like that, with its attendant chill, belonged to someone whose eyes miss little, if anything. Whose brain whirs even in sleep. And whose libido has more twists than a phone cord.

This guy was walking Death.

Tony knew how to pick them, and that was to his credit. Stress might have been weighing a bit too heavily on Tony lately. Yesterday morning’s wee hours, for example. Still Wednesday night as far as he and Sasha were concerned. They had found Tony sprawled asleep in the aquarium-room floor. Nothing too serious, he’d had a smile on his face.

And a mouse’s tail caught between a couple of teeth. Sasha hadn’t seen that; she’d already scooted off to bed. Lupo also found a dusting of green powder on the gold cigarette case, and from that point on, two plus two was easy to sum up.

Tony, man, you psych out on me, and I’ll have to kill you myself,
he thought at the time. Not entirely serious, not entirely kidding. One thing was certain though: Should Lupo ever go down in the proverbial flames, he wanted his own hand to have struck the match. Not someone else’s. Not even Tony’s.

Before taking the Weatherman to check into his motel—in whose lot sat parked a drab rental car with dead-end phony ID paperwork—Lupo wheeled him by April’s apartment. Same vantage point he had watched from earlier in the week. He parked, killed the engine. Left the power on long enough to whir down the windows. And then, nothing but traffic and birdsongs to keep them company.

“That’s where the girl lives,” Lupo said, pointing. “Second-floor loft. She’s got the lengthwise half facing us, somebody else has the south half. Only entrance is that stairwell at the east end you see there. Goes straight up to a first door, and on the other side there’s a little landing, and then the inner door. Both sturdy, and they both got hefty locks. She’s got no intercom.”

“Peepholes?” asked the Weatherman.

“Yeah. Good thing about the stairway is that it’s hers alone, doesn’t serve anybody else.”

The Weatherman nodded. “Pictures?”

Lupo frowned. “I got one of her. Not him. He’s new in town, been here less than two weeks. I’m hoping he’ll come out sometime this afternoon so you can see what he looks like. They’re probably both up there now. So far as I know, there’s just the one car between them.” Lupo pointed to the black Fiero parked beside the building.

“Let’s see her, at least,” said the Weatherman.

Lupo leaned across toward the glove compartment, opened it. Pulled out a half-size manila envelope. He slid out a single glossy, slightly blurry print.

“Meet April Kingston,” he said, and handed the picture over.

The Weatherman regarded it with neither reaction nor emotion. Heart of stone—commendable. It was tough to remain unmoved.

“A body like that in a shot like this,” the Weatherman finally said, “you show it to most guys, and they’d never remember the face.”

He had a point. The nudity and the graphic sexual content were very definite distractions. He frowned over the face for another ten seconds, then slid the print back inside. Replaced it in the glovebox.

“Don’t want to keep it?” Lupo asked.

The Weatherman shook his head. Tapped his temple. “That picture. Looks like it was taken off a film print. Am I right?”

Lupo nodded. “Yeah.”

“Good lighting.”

Nodded again. “Yeah.”

Apparently the Weatherman had nothing more to add, so they waited in silence. Just a couple of pros. How the cops kept their sanity on stakeouts, Lupo didn’t know. Well, given how many ate their guns before retirement, maybe they lost it after all. Brains turning cartwheels onto walls.

Two and a half hours later . . .

“Heads up,” Lupo said. “That’s him.”

The Weatherman whipped up a compact pair of binoculars he’d long since pulled from his single flight bag. Trained them on the lone figure emerging from the stairwell, then heading for April’s Fiero. The Weatherman looked like an owl, sighting in on a chipmunk before swooping down with splayed talons. Justin paused at the car door, looking toward a stand of willows and bushes close to the opposite end of the building. Nothing to see from here. Maybe nothing at all. Whatever, his attention was back on the car in two shakes. When he was in, Lupo switched on the power and rolled up the mirrored windows.

“Seen enough?” he asked.

The Weatherman nodded. “I believe you have half the cash up front for me?”

“In the trunk. You’ll get it at the motel.”

Lupo started up the car. The Weatherman nodded, then turned his roundly cherubic face toward the sky.

“I love this business,” he said.

Justin decided to cut out for a short while around four o’clock. Armed with April’s car keys and a general understanding of street layouts, he left the apartment and headed for her Fiero. Paused at the door to unlock it.

For a moment his attention was snagged by a glimpse of someone in the clump of trees ahead. Homeless, by the looks of the guy. Road-worn clothing—olive pants and a pale brown shirt. Definitely foreign, from south of
some
border. Eyes met, and Justin was the first to avert his. To have looked any longer might have been to invite panhandling, maybe worse. There was guilt though. The this-shouldn’t-happen-here-and-why-doesn’t-somebody-do-something sentiments that fell just short of making him take responsibility himself.

A lot of that going around these days. He wasn’t proud. So he hurriedly got in the car and moments later he was on Kennedy and rolling west.

They had been back a little over a day, and now, finally, it was time to set life on track again. Because life goes on. April’s career beckoned, needed tending. She had accumulated several messages on her business machine while in Ohio, was taking care of the missed days. Tonight she had a dinner meeting with the owners of the plant rental and maintenance firm to present her layouts and talk about future strategies.

His first night alone since moving in. Distractions were sorely needed.

So were plans for his own life. Justin had thought he’d have a little more time for wit-gathering. Erik wasn’t going to push him out the door toward employment until he was ready. April may well have been willing to grant just as many concessions, but he felt it vaguely impudent to expect her to. Because when it came down to it, he had forced himself on her as much as had circumstances.

He needed a car. A job. His own place to live should at least be suggested, and if she honestly vetoed the idea, then fine, his conscience was clear. But the wimpy little nest egg left once belongings had been sold and Paula given her share and lawyers’ fees taken care of—it wasn’t going to last long. A couple months, at most.

Then there was the whole matter of Tony Mendoza.

So what am I doing going out to rent videos?
He needed escape, yeah, that was it. A rationalization that should hold water awhile.

With Erik’s lost membership card in his pocket, he wheeled into the lot of Mind’s Eye Video. It was a large one-story flat-roofed place that looked as if it might have been a corner market a few dozen years ago. Saved from ruin by the video age.

He joined the other browsers inside. Singles, pairs. Those who spoke did so with the same sort of hush usually reserved for libraries. Justin wandered the aisles, scanning the titles of empty cassette boxes. Skirting the occasional heavy cardboard floor display. Timothy Dalton as the latest James Bond, tuxedoed and pistoleroed. John Candy, capable of blocking an aisle.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s
Leatherface, wielding his manicure equipment.

He found a couple of interesting titles to try tonight. Held on to the boxes to trade them for tapes at the counter. Gradually worked his way along until he got to the far side. Didn’t want to miss anything, some forgotten nugget of cinematic gold.

On the far side, Mind’s Eye had an X-rated section, within its own alcove. Maybe twice the size of the average walk-in closet. Only one customer was in there at the moment. A real nose-picker, he looked like, wearing a T-shirt insufficient to cover his rain-gutter waist or reach the squeezed-down top of his jeans in back. Crescent moon, milky white. The top of his butt-crack periscoped above the beltline.

Justin paused in the doorway. Hesitant.
Remembering.
And decided to go on in.

Lurid boxes greeted him, row upon row of empty passion, frozen moments to tantalize the lonely, the horny, into coughing up four bucks a night for the whole flick. Women, at least eighty percent women on those covers. Every conceivable angle, pose, and orifice, with no standards of censorship imposed on most. They bared pink souls to the camera, or attended living phallic symbols with enthusiasm bordering on worship. If this display of moist overkill wasn’t enough to frighten an impressionable young child away from sex, he didn’t know what would.