Skinflick (22 page)

“I didn’t know how hard it would be. I didn’t know much. But some girl I met says you could meet all kinds of show-business people on the Strip. You know where that is? And I did. And I was going to be in a picture, too—if Billy Jim hadn’t come found me, I never thought he’d do that. He hated the city, any city. Scared him to death.”

Dave chinned himself from the coffee table this time. But the little light didn’t show him anything. He dropped.

“I know most of the story,” he told her. “What I want to hear from you is how he killed Gerald Dawson.”

“I had this apartment.” She laid the plate in the sink and opened the refrigerator again and brought out a milk carton. From it she filled a glass. “Real beautiful.”

“I saw it,” Dave said. “Charleen, we can’t stay here any longer. If that shotgun isn’t here, then he’s got it with him. And that could be very bad news.”

Carrying the glass of milk, she went out the front door and stood on the long tin porch. “If he was coming, I’d see him. A long way. Clear to the top of the ridge.” She stepped back inside. “You want the shotgun so you can take him back too—is that right? To keep him off you with his hands. To keep him from doing to you what he done to Jerry?”

“Where did it happen? In the bed?”

“In the kitchen.” She went back on the porch. “Took hold of him, twisted his head somehow. You could hear the snap, and he was dead. I tried to run out of there.” The wind was too loud for him to hear the next sentence. “Way he was hitting me, I thought he’d kill me too. I kicked him and ran out on the balcony but I was dizzy and my legs wouldn’t hold me and he yanked me back inside.”

Dave threw the cushions off the sofa. He groped inside for the mechanism that let it open into a bed. He found it and moved it. Sheets, blankets, two pillows. No shotgun. He looked around. “I went to that apartment. The sheriff’s men went there. There was no sign of his having been murdered there. There should have been a mess.”

“There was,” she said. “I didn’t know that happened to dead people. Billy Jim made me clean it up. It made me sick to my stomach. I kept having to run to the bathroom and throw up.”

Dave went out past her. He stepped down off the porch, crouched, shone the little light under the porch.

She said, “But Billy Jim kept after me. Made me mop it twice and clean up all the signs where I washed the mop out, you know. Then he says, ‘Now wax it.’ And I laid wax on it while he was wrapping Jerry in a tarp from the truck and pulling and hauling his body out the kitchen window. Then I had to help him get it up the hill to the truck. He cut a hole in the fence so we could get through. To the street up above there.” She said, “I don’t know why. It’s not cold. But I’m cold. I have to get a sweater.”

There was nothing under the porch. Dave looked toward the dark ridge between this scoop of night valley and the highway. He went in after her. She wasn’t getting a sweater. She was in the bathroom. She’d taken down the pipe that crossed the door and barred it when it hung in the bright brackets Billy Jim had screwed into the frame.

“What are you doing?” Dave said.

“I want to look nice,” she said. Water splashed.

“Dear God,” Dave said. “Charleen, come on. There’s no more time.”

“I’m coming,” she snapped. “Just wait a minute.”

“Why did he kill Dawson?”

“For corrupting me,” she said through the door. “He warned him first, Sunday morning at the church. Jerry says get lost. So then the next day he phoned Mrs. Dawson what was going on with Jerry and me and for her to come get her husband. I didn’t know that till afterwards, didn’t know he was hid in my closet when they come—her, and the preacher, and Bucky boy. He was in there before Jerry and me got there. Must’ve killed him hearing me and Jerry in bed.” Something happened to her diction. She was brushing her teeth and talking with the brush in her mouth. “My heart like to stopped when he jumped out of that closet after Bucky boy left. I didn’t know him for a minute. He’d shaved off his beard.”

“Yes, why did he do that?” Dave asked.

“To fool that old nigger-man guard,” she said.

Dave tried the door. Locked. “Charleen, you’re wasting time. We have to get out of here.”

“Just one more minute,” she said, and water ran hard.

“Why did Billy Jim stop at only two men? What about Fullbright? Wasn’t he the one who started this whole thing?”

“Billy Jim never let me get to telling him about Jack. And when I seen what he done to Jerry and Mr. Odum, I wasn’t about to tell him. That fancy boat, marijuana, cocaine, him taking them dirty pictures of me—he’d want to kill Jack Fullbright twice. I was so scared that night, I almost—”

She screamed. And it wasn’t about memories. It was about now. Glass shattered. A male voice spoke words Dave couldn’t make out. There was a heavier crash. He recognized that one. The top of the toilet tank. Billy Jim was dragging her out through the window. Dave ran across the meager living room and out at the door with the broken pane. The big, blocky pickup truck stood twenty steps off, engine rumbling, headlights dark. Of course. Billy Jim had seen the house lit up, seen the Triumph in the yard, known something was wrong. The trail down here wouldn’t have been strange to him. He could drive without lights all the way from the ridge.

He appeared under his cowboy hat from around the corner of the wind-rattling house, dragging the kicking, screaming, stick-thin little girl toward the truck. Cowan was right. He was stocky like Bucky but bigger. Heels clattering, Dave ran along the porch.
You’re not too young,
she said again inside his mind. And he launched himself at Billy Jim Tackaberry. Not bad for an old man. He got both legs just at the knees. The knees buckled. All three of them rolled in the dust. But Dave couldn’t hold on. Tackaberry got a leg free and kicked Dave in the head. Hard. Dave didn’t see anything or hear anything. Then he heard a gonging sound. Something had banged the body of the truck. He heard grunts, squeaky cries. His head hurt.

He groaned and moved. He got to his hands and knees and collapsed again. The truck door slammed. The big engine roared. Dave staggered to his feet. The truck came at him. He threw himself out of its way, tumbling among crackling brush. The truck hit the porch. A metal prop gave, the roof sagged with a shriek, the metal flooring buckled. The truck rocked. Its big gears clashed and ground together. The truck shot backward. The wide tires grabbed at the dirt. Dust kicked up and the wind ripped it away. Dave scrambled for the house, stumbling, falling, on his feet again. The truck skidded in a half-circle and chopped to a halt. Dave turned in the doorway. Light from the truck’s instrument panel glinted along a shotgun barrel. Dave fell down, arms over his head. The explosion was big and bright. His sleeves shredded. His arms felt as if he’d stuck them into fire.

The truck roared off.

H
E TRIED TO TELL
his father, “You can’t criticize me. I only did the same thing you did.” But his father was dead. And he couldn’t form the words anyway. He heard the sounds he made. No more than mumbling. His father faded into the dark. Dave heard a squeak of rubber soles. A door clicked open. Light struck his eyelids and he opened his eyes. The light was hard, dazzling, painful. It glared off white walls. A big bottle hung above him with blood in it. A tube drooped down to him from the bottle. The bottle glittered. He shifted focus. A nurse, plump, middle-aged, no makeup, rimless glasses gleaming, looked at him from the foot of a white bed. Then another face came between him and her, a ginger-moustached young man in a tan uniform.

“Brandstetter? Who shot you?”

“Passed out and drove off the road, did I?” The words came out of him very faintly but his diction was back. “Tackaberry, Billy Jim.”

“Loss of blood,” the officer said. “Tore up your arms. What did you get blood all over your car for? That’s a beautiful car, brand new. Why didn’t you phone for help?”

Dave raised his arm to look at his watch. The arm was wrapped in white. The watch wasn’t on it. “What time is it? Dear Christ, how long have I been here?” He tried to sit up. The nurse made a sound. The officer pushed him back on the pillows. “Where am I?” Dave said.

“Estaca,” the officer said. He read his own watch. “How long—two hours, two and a half?”

“Ah, no,” Dave said.

“The doctor had to sew up your arteries. That’s why you have to lie still,” the nurse said strictly. “You lost a great deal of blood.”

“I need to phone,” Dave said. A telephone crouched on the table next to the bed. His bundled forearms lay on the blanket. Only the fingers stuck out of the bandages. He worked them. That was all right. “Los Angeles. Lieutenant Jaime Salazar. LA County Sheriff’s homicide bureau.”

“You’re in good hands here,” the officer said.

“I believe it,” Dave said. “But Tackaberry’s going to kill somebody down there.” He rolled on his side, started to reach for the phone. The nurse put his arm back. There was no pain. “They used locals,” he said to her. “Was I that far out? What did I do, hit my head?”

“You should have worn your seat belt,” she said.

“I’ll phone for you,” the young officer said.

“It’s in the building on Temple Street,” Dave said. “If he’s not there, get them to patch you through to his home. Tell him—”

“You can tell him.” The officer nodded at the bedside phone. “After I get him. Who’s the target?”

“Jack Fullbright. He lives on a boat at the marina.”

“Salazar?” the officer said. “I’ll try.” He went out of the room, and a tall child dressed like a doctor came in. He cocked an eyebrow, turned down the corners of his mouth approvingly. “You look okay for somebody who almost bled to death.”

“Good. Then I can go. It’s urgent.” Dave tried to sit up again and was pushed back again. The doctor put the cold round circle of a stethoscope to Dave’s chest. He shifted it. Again. He took the ends out of his ears. He pulled up the lid of Dave’s left eye, right eye. Dave said, “It’s a matter of life and death.”

“You’re a private investigator,” the tall child said. “That’s pretty romantic.”

“It’s life and death just the same,” Dave said. “Two men are already dead because an Army hospital let a soldier out of the rubber room before he was ready. Tonight he tried to kill me. And he’s on his way to—”

The door opened and the officer with the ginger moustache came in. “Salazar isn’t at his desk. And your name isn’t on the list of people they patch through to him at home. So who else?”

Dave told him about Ken Barker. “There’s an address book with phone numbers in it in my jacket. Have you got my jacket?”

“What’s left of it,” the officer said.

“Well, if you can’t reach Barker,” Dave said, “please call John Delgado. He works with me.”

The doctor took the telephone off the table and carried it to the windowsill and left it there. He said to the officer, “You do all the phoning—not him.”

“I’m leaving,” Dave said, “when that bottle’s empty.”

The doctor said, “You have a concussion. I’ll want you here till Saturday.”

“Splendid,” Dave said. He looked at the ginger-moustached youth. “Okay. Please tell Barker to get down to the marina and arrest Jack Fullbright. He’s got drugs on that boat. He’s probably in bed with an underage kid. The idea is to get him into jail where Billy Jim Tackaberry can’t get at him.”

“Has this Tackaberry got a license number?”

“It was too dark,” Dave said, “and I was busy. You can get the number, can’t you? And will you hurry and get Barker, please? LAPD. Homicide division.”

“Right. We’ll get the license number too. He tried to kill you, right? And you’ll swear to that, right? So I’ll put out an APB.”

“Good,” Dave said. “Only get Barker first, okay?”

But he couldn’t get Barker. Barker had gone on a trip.

“So I tried your man Delgado. Nobody answers.”

Dave looked at the bottle. The blood was dripping into him very slowly. The nurse touched the bottle. She touched the place where it was taped to the inside of his arm just above the bandages. Dave said to the officer, “There’s another number in there. Amanda Brandstetter.”

“That’d be your wife. You want me to tell her what happened to you? You want her to come and get you?”

“What’s the matter?” Dave said. “Won’t my car run?”

“It’s all right,” the officer said, “if you don’t mind all the blood.”

“Don’t tell her what happened to me,” Dave said. “Just tell her I got tied up here. Ask her to find Johnny Delgado and get him down to the marina. For the purpose I’ve already outlined, all right? To get Jack Fullbright off that boat and hidden someplace where Tackaberry can’t blow him up with that shotgun. Tell her Johnny will be in a bar someplace near the Sea Spray Motel in Santa Monica.”

“That doesn’t sound like it would work very well,” the boy with the ginger moustache said.

“Then you make an official connection to the LAPD,” Dave said. “They’ll act for you when they wouldn’t for a PI—not even a PI who’s been shot.”

“You don’t know Tackaberry’s really going there.” The boy looked uncomfortable. “I’d have to clear it with the chief. Tackaberry could be running for Mexico.”

“Forget it,” Dave said. “We wouldn’t want to get the chief out of bed.”

“If he got LA all upset and nothing happened, it could be embarrassing for me,” the boy said.

“There’s another number in my book. Randy Van. Tell him I got smashed up. He’ll go down and warn Fullbright.”

“Has somebody named Randy Van got muscles?”

“Enough to pick up the phone,” Dave said.

“I did put out the bulletin,” the boy apologized.

“It’s all right,” Dave said. “Just phone Van now.”

The boy went and the doctor looked in. “Nurse? I want him to have something to make him sleep.”

She left, rubber soles squeaking. Dave detached the tube from his arm. His watch, wallet, and keys were in the drawer of the table that had held the phone. His clothes weren’t in the closet. He pulled back the loosely woven yellow-orange curtains at the window. Estaca looked as lively as when he’d come through earlier. Trees tossed shaggy in the wind, silhouetted against a streetlight. A step sounded in the hall. He went into the bathroom and turned the lock. Knuckles rapped. “Are you all right?”