Nightwork (6 page)

“I’d ride a ten-speed on the streets,” Kilgore was saying by way of apology, “but the only ten-speeds you’ll see in Gifford Gardens are the green ones that belong to the G-G’s.” He climbed off the machine and picked up a towel from a chair heaped with workbooks, wrapped reams of paper, a half-dozen boxed videotapes. “They’re our local Chicano gang.” He set the yoghurt cup on a corner of his paper-heaped desk, where the cup fell over and spilled its spoon. The spoon rattled on the floor. Kilgore ignored it and dried himself. “They discourage anyone else from riding bicycles. And if they weren’t enough, there’s our local black gang, The Edge.”

“Tell me about it,” Dave said. “They’ve already made a pass at my car radio and stolen my hubcaps.” He leaned out the door for a look at the Jaguar at the curb. It was all right. For the moment. “And I’ve only been in town for a few hours.”

“In Edge territory.” Kilgore threw the towel over the Exercycle and pulled on sweatpants, having a little trouble with the elastic at the cuffs getting caught on the jogging shoes. “The way they’ve laid out this community puts political gerrymandering to shame. ‘Turf’ they call the parts they rule. By terror. You never know where you are—not for long. The boundaries keep shifting. There are continual skirmishes. It’s like the Middle East.” He went to the door, blew a steel whistle, and called, “Okay. Time’s up. Back to class. Don’t leave the ball there. Somebody will climb in and steal it.” He waited and watched, the whistle dangling its black leather thong from his mouth, while the youngsters tunneled back into school. The last to go was Brian Myers, head hanging, with its shock of fair hair. Hands jammed into pockets, he scuffed his feet. Kilgore called, “Brian—you okay?”

The boy halted, turned, gave a wan smile. “I’m okay, Mr. Kilgore.” He went on through an open glass sliding door into the school. One of the gray striped cats bumped his legs, looked up at him, meowed. He bent and petted it for a minute. Then he glanced back at Kilgore across the empty yard, stood, and went on out of sight, still dragging his feet.

“Poor kid,” Kilgore said mechanically, returning to his desk, sitting down behind it, tossing the whistle into the litter there. “Just lost his dad.”

“Paul Myers.” Dave glanced at the Jaguar one more time, where it waited beyond the side gate. He came inside the office and walked to the desk. “It’s about him that I’ve come.” He laid his card in front of Kilgore. “Mrs. Myers was here earlier. I presume she told you what happened to her husband was no accident. That somebody blew him up with a bomb planted in his truck.”

Kilgore stared. His tan turned putty color. “Silencio Ruiz, but how did you—” He half stood up, and sat down again as if he hadn’t strength in those muscular brown legs of his. “Who told you she came here?”

“You’re close friends,” Dave said. “It’s no secret. You’ve been close friends for some time. The kind of close friends who visit one another late at night when the husband is away at work.”

Kilgore’s color darkened. Veins stood out in his short, thick neck. “It’s a lie. Your implication is a lie. Yes, I visit late at night. Look at this.” He spread his hands, palms up, above the cluttered desk. “You think I’ve got help around here? Think again. The last thing I am is principal of a school. I don’t know what comes first—janitor, accountant, secretary, fund-raiser, teacher? You decide. When the hell else do I have time to visit but late at night?” He picked up the card, glared at it, glared at Dave. “What business is it of yours, anyway?”

“Maybe none,” Dave said. “I don’t know yet. If it has something to do with Paul Myers’s death, it’s important, isn’t it? With what happened to him, why it happened, and who was behind it?”

“What do you mean?” Kilgore licked his lips. “Myers appreciated my looking in on his family. He had to be out of town a lot. He was a cross-country trucker. If he was going to earn a living, he had to leave them here, unprotected. And that’s not a figure of speech, either. After his testimony put Silencio Ruiz in jail, the G-G’s harassed them night and day. Ruiz was their leader.”

“Mrs. Myers told me,” Dave said. “She didn’t tell me it was you who made them stop.”

“First I tried the Sheriff.” Kilgore dug among the disorder on his desk, found a handball, and began squeezing it. He snorted. “Fat lot of good that did. Even after they smashed the windows, even after they shot the dog, the Sheriff wouldn’t put a guard on the house. Didn’t have the manpower, they said.” He switched the ball to his other hand and squeezed. Muscles showed in his forearm. “Then they started this program to get the gangs off the streets. They enlisted businesses, banks, churches, to start basketball teams, figuring the G-G’s and The Edge would get the same kick out of slamdunking as they do out of slaughtering each other with guns and knives and bicycle chains.” His laugh was sour. “It didn’t work, of course. I mean, you know what we’re talking about here—subhumans, primitives, savages. Jungle warfare. It’s in their blood, right?” Dave said wearily, “Is there a point to this?”

“There’s a rich old geezer out here,” Kilgore said. “Maybe you’ve seen his house. The old mansion on the hill with all the gingerbread work? De Witt Gifford. And this is the interesting part—he donated the jackets for one of the basketball teams. The Gifford Gardens gang, the Latinos. There’s no team anymore, but they still wear the jackets.”

“I’ve seen them. What’s interesting about it?”

“It didn’t add up. He never contributes anything to this community—not a dime. It’s named after his family, but he doesn’t give a damn what happens to it or anybody in it. So why the jackets for the G-G’s? I began nosing around, asking questions. About Silencio Ruiz’s trial. Now, normally he’d have had a public defender, right? And normally he’d never have made bail. He’d have sat behind bars for months, waiting for his day in court. Well, he didn’t. He made bail. And he had an expensive attorney. At first everybody kept their mouths shut. They’d been paid to. That’s what I figured. So I shelled out a little money myself. And guess what I found out?”

“Gifford put up the bail and paid the lawyer. You mean you used this to get him to make the G-G’s quit harassing the Myerses? Seriously? He worried about it being known? At his age? In his condition?”

“He was scared to death.” Kilgore flipped the handball into an empty metal wastebasket across the room. “I only went to him on a hunch. I was surprised as hell when it worked. He panicked. Gave me a five-hundred-dollar check for the school, and made me promise I wouldn’t tell anybody about him helping Silencio.”

“You’re telling me,” Dave said.

“All bets are off now,” Kilgore said. “Silencio killed Myers. The minute he got out of prison. Gifford didn’t prevent that, did he? It was him who told you I was seeing Mrs. Myers late at night, wasn’t it? He spies from one of those towers up there. Everybody knows it. He hates me because I won’t let Latinos in my school. Crazy old bastard. He wears dresses—did you know that?”

“Mrs. Myers has her brother to guard her now,” Dave said, “but you still see each other at night. Only now she comes to you. What about? The children’s grades?”

“I don’t have to answer your questions.” Kilgore got to his feet without trouble this time. “Get out of here.”

“Paul Myers doesn’t care if you’re sleeping with his wife—not anymore. Neither do I. If that’s all you have to hide, why not answer my questions?”

“You care. You’re implying collusion between us—me and Angie—Mrs. Myers, I mean.”

Dave raised his brows. “Am I?” He went to look out the door at the Jaguar again. No crime in progress. He turned back. “You mean I think you murdered Myers so as to marry his widow and share in the insurance money?” Dave gestured to indicate the school and its burdens. “You’re hard up. A hundred thousand dollars would hire a lot of help. No? You could ride your exercise machine all day.”

“Silencio Ruiz killed Myers,” Kilgore said.

“There are reasons to doubt that,” Dave said. “Where were you on the night Myers crashed and burned? You didn’t visit Angela Myers that night.”

“She was at her parents’ house,” Kilgore said. “Her mother needed her. The old man was acting up. She took the children and stayed there overnight.”

“And where did you stay?”

“Right the hell here,” Kilgore said. “And no, I can’t prove it.” He came from behind the desk, fists bunched. “And I don’t have to prove it. Not to you. I know what you’re doing. Trying to link Angie to Paul’s death so your company doesn’t have to pay. And you think you can get to her through our relation—through me. Well, the hell with you, mister. Just leave, all right? I’m warning you.”

Dave pointed to the wall. “That certificate says you graduated from the California School of Engineering. Did they teach you how to wire up an explosive device? And detonate it by remote control?”

Kilgore narrowed his eyes. “Do you carry a gun?”

“I’m licensed to carry a gun.” Dave smiled. “Why do you ask?”

“Because if you haven’t got a gun on you,” Kilgore said, “I’m going to beat the shit out of you.”

“Not bright,” Dave said. “It would draw adverse attention to your school. And the Sheriff’s department would wonder about your overreaction to a few harmless questions. Also”—he smiled again, and patted his ribs on the left side where a holster would be if he owned a holster, if he owned a gun to put into a holster—“maybe I have a gun. What was Myers hauling in his semi at night up in that canyon?”

Kilgore looked sulky. “How the hell should I know?”

“Angie Myers doesn’t know either.” Dave lit a cigarette. “Neither of you gave a damn about Paul Myers, did you? You had each other, after all.”

“Don’t smoke in here,” Kilgore said.

Dave said, “I’m leaving in a minute. She was beaten up about the time he was killed. That must have upset you, caring for her as you do. How did it happen? Who did it to her?”

Kilgore went back to his desk but didn’t sit down. “She wouldn’t say.” He picked up a stack of unopened envelopes and sorted through them, frowning. “Why wasn’t it Paul? He was nothing but a truck driver, after all.”

“You seem ready with your fists, yourself,” Dave said.

“And your face doesn’t look marked.” Kilgore let the envelopes fall. “Which is remarkable, considering the things you say to perfect strangers.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” Dave said.

A voice called across the play area. “Mr. Kilgore?” Kilgore muttered impatiently, rounded the desk, passed Dave. A fragile-looking young woman in big tinted spectacles stood in the open doorway of the complex under the rubber tree. Red paint had splashed the front of her skirt. “I’ve got a mini-riot.” She sounded on the edge of tears. “Can you settle it, please?” Kilgore sighed and jogged across the sunlit space. The two of them vanished into the building.

Dave left the office. He tried the door of the unit next to it. The door opened. At the rear of the room was a kitchenette with a breakfast bar and two stools. At the front stood a chair and a two-seater sofa in tough green and tan plaid. A low table held books, magazines, and two empty coffee mugs, one marked with lipstick. Stereo components occupied modular shelves that also held records. A door stood open to a bathroom. Dave went just far enough into the larger room to see that the bathroom had a door on its other side. This too stood partway open. And beyond it he glimpsed, in a band of sunlight, an unmade bed and the corner of a television set. He stepped outside again, pulled the door shut, and went quietly away.

T
ERENCE MOLLOY WORE A
new bathrobe but food had spilled down it and dried. He stood clutching the shiny bars of a walker, and screwed up his face against the bright hot daylight outside the screen door. His face was twisted anyway, mouth drooping at the left corner, left eyelid drooping. His thick gray hair had been slicked down with water, but his beard was bristly—he’d gone a couple of days without a shave.

He croaked, “Who are you? What do you want?”

Dave gave his name and stated his business. “I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Molloy. I know you’re not well. Is your wife at home?”

The street of clipped hedges and Spanish-style bungalows was quiet. Dave heard a toilet flush inside the house, heard footsteps hurrying. Faith Molloy appeared, a dumpy woman in a faded house dress. Molded shoes made her feet look big. Above them, her ankles were swollen. “It says no salesmen or solicitors.”

Her husband said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s about Paul. You always go off half-cocked.” He hiked the walker forward and fumbled with a trembling hand at the screen-door latch. “Come in.”

“Oh, sure,” Faith Molloy said. “I haven’t got anything to do but entertain strangers.”

“I won’t be long.” Dave pulled open the screen door and stepped inside. He told the old man, “Thank you.”

“Go crazy around here with only her for company,” Terence Molloy said. “My glad-hearted colleen. Look at her. Face like a sour apple.”

“He’s not himself,” Faith Molloy said.

“On the night Paul died,” Dave said, “did Angela bring the children and stay here with you?”

“I needed her. This one was acting up. Of course, I needed two more children. A sixty-five-year-old one isn’t enough.” Faith Molloy snatched up scattered sections of the morning
Times.
The furniture was puffy overstuffed covered in a yellow and pink flower print. She kneed the Off button of a television set. A game show quit in the middle. “Sit down. I suppose you’ll be wanting coffee?”

“Not if it’s any trouble.” Dave sat on the sofa.

“I wouldn’t know how to handle it, if it wasn’t trouble.” She went away with the crumpled newspaper.

Dave asked the old man, “Paul was working nights so he could help you out financially. Do you know what he was hauling, who he was working for?”

“He never said.” The old man shuffled in his shiny rack to the easychair that faced the television set. “And I wasn’t about to pry. None of my business.” He threw Dave a warning scowl. “No, don’t get up and help me, God damn it. I can manage.” He wangled the rack into position and dropped onto the sagging cushions. With his good foot, in a fake leather bedroom slipper, he pushed the rack clumsily aside. “Going to miss Paul. He was a real son to me.”