"O" Is for Outlaw (17 page)

I returned to the phone and dialed the number again. When Terry answered, I asked the name of the school librarian.

"You mean Ms. Calloway?" she said.

"Oh, that's right. I'd forgotten. Could you transfer me?"

Terry was happy to oblige, and ten seconds later I was going through the same routine, only this time with a variation. "Mrs. Calloway, this is Mrs. Kennison with the district attorney's office in Culver City, California. A call was placed to this number from Culver City on May seventh, billed to last-name Magruder, first name Mickey or Michael, "

"Yes, I spoke to him," she said, before I could finish my tale.

"Ah. Oh, you did. Well, that's wonderful."

"I don't know if I'd call it wonderful, but it was pleasant. He seemed like a nice man: articulate, polite."

"Can you remember the nature of the query?"

"It was only two weeks ago. I may be close to retirement, but I'm not suffering from senile dementia not yet, at any rate."

"Could you fill me in?"

"I could if I understood what this had to do with the district attorney's office. It sounds fishy as all get out. What'd you say your name was? Because I'm making a note of it, and I intend to check."

I hate it when people think. Why don't they just mind their own business and respond to my questions? "Mrs. Kennison."

"And the reason for the call?"

"I'm sorry, but I'm not at liberty to say. This is a legal matter, and there's a gag order in effect."

"I see," she said, as if she didn't.

"Can you tell me what Mr. Magruder wanted?"

"Why don't you ask him?"

"Mr. Magruder's been shot. He's in a coma at the moment. That's as much as I can tell you without being cited for contempt of court."

That seemed to work. She said, "He was trying to track down a former Mate High School student."

"Can you give me the name?"

"What's your first name again?"

"Kathryn. Kennison. If you like, I can give you my number here and you can call me back."

"Well, that's silly. You could be anyone," she snapped. "Let's just get this over with. What is it you want? "

"Any information you can give me."

"The boy's name was Duncan Oaks, a 1961 graduate. His was an outstanding class. We still talk about that group of students."

"I take it you were the school librarian back then?"

"I was. I've been here since 1946."

"Did you know Duncan Oaks personally?"

"Everybody knew Duncan. He worked as my assistant in his sophomore and junior years. By the time he was a senior, he was the yearbook photographer, prom king, voted most likely to succeed "He sounds terrific."

"He was."

"And where is he now?"

"He became a journalist and photographer for one of the local papers, the Louisville Tribune, long since out of business, I'm sorry to say. He died on assignment in Vietnam. The Trib got swallowed up by one of those syndicates a year later, 1966. Now whoever you are and whatever you're up to, I think I've said enough."

I thanked her and hung up, still completely unenlightened. I sat and made notes, using the cap of the pen to scrape the peanut butter from the roof of my mouth. Was this an heir search? Had Mickey taken on a case to supplement his income? He certainly had the background to do P.I. work, but what was he doing and who'd hired him to do it?

I heard a tap at my door and leaned over far enough to see Henry peering through the porthole. I felt a guilty pang about the night before. Henry and I seldom had occasion to disagree. In this case, he was right. I had no business withholding information that might be relevant to the police. Really, I was going to reform, I was almost sure. When I opened the door, he handed me a stack of envelopes. "Brought you your mail."

"Henry, I'm sorry. Don't be mad at me," I said. I tossed the mail on the desk and gave him a hug while he patted me on the back.

"My fault," he said.

'No, it's not. It's mine. You're entirely right. I was being obstinate."

"No matter. You know I worry about you. What's wrong with your voice? Are you catching cold?"

"I just ate something and it's stuck in my teeth. I'll call Detective Aldo today and tell him what I've found. "

"I'd feel better if you did," he said. "Did I interrupt? We can do this another time if you're hard at work."

"Do what another time?"

"You said you'd give me a lift. The fellow from the body shop called to say the Chevy's ready."

"Sorry. Of course. It's taken long enough. Let me get my jacket and my keys."

On the way over to the body shop, I brought Henry up to date, though I was uncomfortably aware that even now I wasn't being completely candid with him. I wasn't lying outright, but I omitted portions of the story. "Which reminds me," I said. "Did I tell you about that call to my place?"

"What call?"

"I didn't think I'd mentioned it. I don't know what to make of it." I laid out the business about the thirty minute call from Mickey's place to mine in late March. "I swear I never talked to him, but I can tell the detectives didn't believe me."

"What was the date?"

"March twenty-seventh, early afternoon, one-thirty. I saw the bill myself."

"You were with me," he said promptly.

"I was?"

"Of course. That was the day after the quakes that dumped the cans on my car. I'd called the insurance company and you followed me over to the shop. The claims adjuster met us there at one-fifteen."

"That was that day? How do you remember these things?

"I have the estimate," he said and pulled it from his pocket. "The date's right here."

The incident returned in a flash. In the early morning hours of March 7 there'd been a series of tremblers, a swarm of quakes as noisy as a herd of horses thundering across the room. I'd woken from a sound sleep with my entire bed shaking. The brightly lighted numbers on my digital alarm showed:06. Clothes hangers were tinkling, and all the glass in the windows rattled like someone rapping to get in. I'd been up like a shot, pulling on my sweats and my running shoes. Within seconds. that quake passed, only to be followed by another. I could hear glass crashing in the sink. The walls had begun to creak from the strain of the rocking motion. Somewhere across the city, a transformer exploded and I was blanketed in darkness.

I'd grabbed my shoulder bag and fumbled down the spiral stairs while I groped in the depths for my penlight. I'd found it and flicked it on. The wash from the beam was pale, but it lighted my way. In the distance, I could hear sirens begin to wail. The trembling ceased. I'd taken advantage of the moment to snag my denim jacket and let myself out the door. Henry was already making his way across the patio. He carried a flashlight the size of a boom box, which he shone in my face. We spent the next hour huddled together in the backyard, fearful of returning indoors until we knew we were safe. The next morning, he'd discovered the damage to his five-window coupe.

I'd followed him to the body shop and an hour later I'd driven him home. When I'd returned to my apartment, my message light was blinking. I'd hit the REPLAY button, but there was only a hissing that extended until the tape ran out. I was mildly annoyed. I assumed it was pranksters and let it go at that. Henry was standing right there and heard the same thing I did; he suggested a malfunction when the power had been restored. I'd rewound the tape to erase the hiss and had thought no more about it. Until now.

As soon as I got home, I put a call through to Detective Aldo, eager to assert my innocence on this one small point. The minute he picked up the phone and identified himself, I launched right in. "Hi, Detective Aldo. This is Kinsey Millhone, up in Santa Teresa." Little Miss Cheery making friends with the police.

I was just embarking on my explanation of the March phone call when he cut me short. "I've been trying to get in touch with you for days," he said tersely. "This is to put you on notice. I know for a fact you violated crime-scene tape and entered that apartment. I can't prove it for now, but if I find one shred of evidence, we'll charge you with willful destruction or concealment of evidence and resisting a peace officer in the discharge of his duties, punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both. You got that straight?"

I'd opened my mouth to defend myself when he slammed down the phone. I depressed the plunger on my end and replaced the handset, my mouth as dry as sand. I felt such a hot flash of guilt and embarrassment, I thought I'd been catapulted into early menopause. I put a hand against my flaming cheek, wondering how he knew it was me. Actually, I wasn't the only one guilty of illegal entry. Mickey's phantom girlfriend had entered the premises at some point between my two visits, making off with her diaphragm, her necklace, and her spray cologne. Unfortunately, aside from the fact that I didn't know who she was, I couldn't accuse her without accusing myself as well.

I spent the rest of the day slinking around with my mental tail between my legs. I hadn't been so thoroughly rebuked since I was eight and Aunt Gin caught me smoking an experimental Viceroy cigarette. In this case, I was so heavily invested in Mickey's concerns, I couldn't afford to have my access to his life curtailed. I'd hoped clearing myself with Aldo in the matter of the phone call would net me information about the current status of his investigation. Instead, it was clear that his trust was so seriously eroded he'd never tell me a thing.

I used the early evening hours to pick my way through a plate of Rosie's stuffed beef rolls. She was pushing vese porkolt, which (translated from Hungarian) turned out to be heart and kidney stew. Remorseful as I felt, I was prepared to eat my own innards, but my stomach rebelled at the notion of vital piggie organs simmered with caraway seeds. I spent the hours after supper tending to my desk at home, atoning for my sins with lots of busywork. When all else fails, cleaning house is the perfect antidote to most of life's ills.

I waited until close to midnight to return to the Honky-Tonk. I wore the same outfit I'd worn the night before since it was previously smoked on and required laundering anyway. I'd have to hang Mickey's leather jacket on the line for days. This was now Friday night and, if memory still served me, the place would be packed with feverish weekend celebrants. Driving by, I could see the parking lot was jammed. I cruised the surrounding blocks and finally squeezed into a space just as a Ford convertible was pulling out. I walked the block and a half through the darkened Colgate neighborhood. This was an area that had once been devoted solely to single-family homes. Now a full third had been converted to small businesses: an upholsterer, an auto repair shop, and a beauty salon. There were no sidewalks along the street so I kept to the middle of the road and then cut through the small employee parking lot at the rear exit.

I circled the building to the entrance, where the line of people awaiting admittance seemed to be singles and couples in roughly equal numbers. I gave the bouncer my driver's license and watched him run it through his scanning device. I paid the five-dollar cover charge and received the inked benediction on the back of my right hand.

As I moved through the front room, I was forced to run the gauntlet of chain smokers standing four deep at the bar, shifty-eyed guys trying to look a lot hipper than they actually were. The music coming from the other room was live that night. I couldn't see the band, but the melody (or its equivalent) pounded, the beat distorted through the speakers to a tribal throb. The lyrics were indecipherable but probably consisted of sophomoric sentiments laid out in awkward rhyming couplets. The band sounded local, playing all their own tunes, if this one was any indication. I've picked up similar performances on local cable channels, shows that air at A.M. as a special torture to the occasional insomniac like me.

I was already wishing I'd stayed at home. I'd have turned and fled if not for the fact that Mickey'd been here himself six consecutive Fridays. I couldn't imagine what he'd been doing. Maybe counting drinks, calculating Tim's profits, and thus computing his gross. Maybe Tim had cried poor, claiming he wasn't making sufficient money to repay the loan. If Tim's bartender happened to have his hand in the till, this could well be true. Bartenders have their little methods, and an experienced investigator, sitting at the bar, can simultaneously chat with other patrons and do an eyeball audit. If the bartender was skimming, it would have been in Mickey's best interests to spot the practice and blow the whistle on him. It was equally possible Mickey's presence was generated by another motive, a woman, for instance, or the need to escape his financial woes in L.A. Then, too, a heavy drinker doesn't really need an excuse to hit a bar anywhere.

I did the usual visual survey. All the tables were full, the booths bulging with customers packed four to a bench. The portion of the dance floor I could see from where I stood was so dense with moving bodies there was scarcely any room to spare. There was no sign of Tim, but I did see the black-haired waitress, inching through the mob in front of me. She held her tray aloft, balancing empty glasses above the reach of jostling patrons. She wore a black leather vest over nothing at all, her arms long and bare, the V of the garment exposing as much as it concealed. The dyed black of her hair was a harsh contrast to the milky pallor of her skin. A dark slash of lipstick made her mouth look grim. She leaned toward the bartender, calling her order over the generalized din.

There's a phenomenon I've noticed when I'm driving on the highway. If you turn and look at other drivers, they'll turn and look at you. Maybe the instinct is a holdover from more primitive days when being the object of scrutiny might mean you were in peril of being killed and consumed. Here, it happened again. Soon after I spotted her, she turned instinctively and caught my gaze. Her eyes dropped to Mickey's leather jacket. I shifted my attention, but not before I saw her expression undergo a change.

Thereafter, I was careful to avoid her, and I focused instead on what was going on nearby. I kept picking up an intermittent whiff of marijuana, though I couldn't trace the source. I started watching people's hands, since dopers seldom hold a joint the way they'd hold an ordinary cigarette. The average smoker tucks a cigarette in the V formed between the index and middle fingers, bringing the cigarette to the lips with the palm of the hand open. A doper with a joint makes an 0-ring with the thumb and index finger, the doobie at the center, the three remaining fingers fanned out so the palm forms a shelter around the burning joint. Whether the intent is to shield the dope from the wind or from public view, I've never been able to determine. My own dope-smoking days are long since past, but the ceremonial aspects seem consistent to this day. I've seen a doper ask for a joint by simply forming that 0 and pressing it to his lips, a gesture that signals, Shall we smoke a little cannabis, my dear?

I began to circle the bar, moving casually from table to table until I spotted the fellow with a joint between his lips. He was sitting alone in a booth on the far side of the room, close to the corridor that led to the telephones and rest rooms. He was in his mid-thirties, vaguely familiar with his long, lean face. He was a type I'd found appealing when I was twenty: silent, brooding, and slightly dangerous. His eyes were light and close-set. He sported a mustache and goatee, both contributing to the look of borderline scruffiness. He wore a loose khaki-colored jacket and a black watch cap. A fringe of light hair extended well below his collar. He carried himself with a certain worldliness, something in the hunch of his shoulders and the mild knowing smile that flitted across his face.

Tim Littenberg emerged from the back corridor and paused in the doorway while he adjusted his cuffs. The two of them, the joint smoker and the bar owner, ignored each other with a casualness that seemed phony from my perspective. Their behavior reminded me of those occasions when illicit lovers run across each other in a social setting. Under the watchful eyes of their respective spouses, they'll make a point of avoiding contact, thus trumpeting their innocence, or so they think. The only problem is the aura of heightened awareness that underlies the act. Anyone who knows either can detect the charade. Between the man in the booth and Tim Littenberg there was an unmis takable air of self-consciousness. Both seemed to be watching the black-haired waitress, who seemed equally conscious of them.

Within minutes, she'd circled and arrived at the booth. Tim moved away without looking at her. The guy with the joint leaned forward on his elbows. He reached out and put a hand on her hip. He motioned for her to sit. She slid into the bench across from him with her tray between them as though the empty glasses might remind him she had other things to do. He took her free hand and began to talk earnestly. I couldn't see her face, but from where I stood she didn't seem relaxed or receptive to his message.

"You know that guy. a voice said into my right ear.

I turned to find Tim leaning close to me, his voice amazingly intimate in the midst of loud music and high-pitched voices. I said, "Who?"

"The man you're watching, sitting in the booth over there."

"He seems familiar," I said. "Mostly, I was trying to remember where the rest rooms are."

"I see."

I stole a look at his face and then looked off in the other direction, deflecting the intensity with which he'd fixed his attentions on me. He said, "Remember Mickey's friend Shack?"

"Sure. We talked earlier this week."

"That's his son, Scottie. The waitress is his girlfriend, Thea. In case you're wondering," he added, with a hint of irony.

"You're kidding. That's Scott? No wonder he looked familiar. I've seen pictures of him. I take it you're still friends?"

"Of course. I've known Scottie for years. I don't like dope in my bar, but I don't want to make a fuss so I tend to ignore him when he's got a joint."

"Ah. "

"I'm surprised you're back. Are you looking for someone in particular, or will I do?"

"I was hoping to find Mickey. I told you that last night. "

"That's right. So you did. Can I buy you a drink?"

"Maybe when I finish this. I'm really fine for now."

He reached over and removed the beer glass from my hand and helped himself to a sip. "This is warm. Let me get you a fresh one in an icy mug." He caught the bartender's eye and lifted the glass, indicating a replacement. Tim was wearing a dark navy suit with a dress shirt that was oxblood red. His tie bore a pattern of diagonal wishbones, navy and red on a field of light blue. The musky bite of his aftershave filled the air between us. His pupils were pinpricks and his skin had a sheen. Tonight, instead of seeming restless and distracted, his demeanor was slow, every gesture deliberate as if he were slogging his way through mud. Well, well, well. What was he on? I felt a faint ridge of fear prickling up along my spine, like a cat in the presence of aliens.

I watched a frosty mug of beer being passed in my direction, hand over hand, like a bucket brigade. Tim placed the mug in my hand, at the same time resting his free hand against the middle of my back. He was standing too close, but in the press of the crowd it was hard to complain. I longed to back away, but there wasn't room. I said, "Thanks."

Again, he bent low and put his mouth close to my ear. "What's the story with Mick? This is twice you've been in."

"He lent me his jacket. I was hoping to return it."

"You and he have something going?"

"That's none of your business."

Tim laughed and his gaze glided off, easing toward Thea, who was just rising from the booth. Scott Shackelford was staring down at the table, pinching out the joint, which was barely visible between his fingers. Thea picked up her tray and began to push toward the bar, studiously avoiding the sight of Tim. Maybe she was still pissed off for what he'd said to her last night. I didn't want the beer, but I didn't see a place to set it down.

I said, "I'll be right back."

Tim touched my arm. "Where're you going?"

"To take a whiz. Is that okay?"

Again, he laughed, but it was not the sound of merriment.

I pushed my way through the crowd, praying he'd lose interest during the time I was gone. The first flat surface I saw, I put the beer glass down and walked on.

The rest room was undergoing one of those temporary lulls where I was the only person present. I crossed to the window and opened it a crack. A wedge of cold air slanted in, and I could see the smoke drift out. The quiet was like a tonic. I could feel myself resist the notion of ever leaving the room. If the window had been lower, I'd have crawled on out. I went into a stall and peed just for something to do.

I was standing at the sink, soaping my hands, when the door opened behind me and Thea walked in. She crossed to the adjacent sink and began washing her hands, her manner businesslike. I didn't think her arrival was an accident, especially when she could have used the employees' lounge around the corner. She caught my reflection in the mirror and gave me a pallid smile as if she'd just that moment noticed I was standing there. She said "Hi" and I responded in kind, letting her define the communication since she'd initiated it.

I pulled out a sheet of paper towel and dried my hands. She followed suit. A silence ensued and then she spoke up again. "I hear you're looking for Mickey."

I focused my attention, hoping she couldn't guess how very curious I was. "I'd like to talk to him. Have you seen him tonight?"