Strangers (18 page)

“Here, what's this?” he said. The near-black, fiery eyes held first on the uncompleted crucifix, then fixed accusingly on Oliver. “Neglecting the Lord's work, James?”

“No, sir.” The kid looked uncomfortable now, as if he'd been caught doing something wrong. “I'll have the cross done and mounted on time.”

“See that you do. Sloth is a sin. As is consorting with the devil's minions,” he added with heavy-handed meaning. His dark gaze shifted to me. “You're not welcome here.”

“I was just about to leave.”

“Do so. And don't come back. The righteous and God-fearing shun your kind.”

The righteous and God-fearing. As per his interpretation of the Bible and its teachings, with no room for error and not a glimmer of compassion or understanding for a viewpoint other than his own. He hadn't called me “brother” this time because I no longer qualified; in his eyes I had been revealed as one of the enemy. I'd met atheists with more Christian charity than Old Testament fire-breathers like Pastor Raymond. But I didn't argue with him. You could spend half a lifetime trying and failing to make a zealot see any kind of light but his own. I said to Oliver, “Thanks for talking to me, Jimmy,” and went and got into my car.

When I swung into a turn past the two of them, Oliver was bent over the wooden crucifix again and Pastor Raymond was standing beside him, knees and feet together, arms spread, head down on one side, like a living caricature of the Christ figure on the sawhorses.

 

17

Derek Zastroy lived on a street called Mountain View, half a dozen blocks from the Horseshoe Casino. Tamara, at my request, had located and provided his address in her e-mail. The building, of stucco and wood and arranged in a squared-off horseshoe with the closed end facing the street, was two stories of what an A
PARTMENTS FOR
R
ENT
sign on the façade announced were one- and two-bedroom units.

A cactus-bordered path led up to the front entrance, a set of glass doors that were closed but not locked. When I passed through, I was in a tunnel-like foyer that opened into a central courtyard. A scan of the row of mailboxes told me that Zastroy occupied 2-B. From the courtyard I could see that the apartment entrances opened onto wide concrete walkways, motel fashion. 2-B was in the near wing, second floor, with access by elevator or outside staircase. I climbed the stairs. Each unit was set off from its neighbor by short stucco walls that created a narrow little sitting area and gave the illusion of privacy.

A curtain was drawn across the window alongside the door to Zastroy's apartment. Before I rang the bell, I put my ear up against the glass. Sounds came from inside, muffled but loud enough to be identifiable. Either Zastroy was watching a porn movie on TV, or starring in a grunt, groan, and squeal version of his own. I couldn't help wondering as I jabbed my thumb against the bell button which Biblical passages Pastor Raymond would have quoted to condemn this sort of Saturday morning sinning.

The noise the bell made interrupted the other noises, then ended them when I kept my thumb on the button. Faint scrambling sounds and a string of male curses underlay the ringing. An angry fist thumped against the inside of the door: Zastroy looking through the peephole, recognizing me. I let up on the bell when his voice snapped out, “What the hell do
you
want?”

“Open up and I'll tell you.”

“Like hell I will. Go away, you know what's good for you.”

I laid into the bell button again.

“Goddamn it, all right, all right!”

A chain rattled, the door jerked inward, and Zastroy's angry face glared out at me. He wore an unbuttoned shirt and a pair of half-zipped Levi's, his naked chest sweat-slick and his dark hair damp and mussed. He said, snarling the words, “I ought to break your goddamn neck.”

“We've been through all that before. The tough attitude doesn't work with me, remember?”

“Listen—”

“I'm not here to see you anyway. It's Alana I want to talk to.”

He blinked at me. “What?”

“That's who you've got in there, isn't it? Alana Farmer?”

“How'd you know—?”

“Never mind that. Tell her to put some clothes on and step out here for a few minutes. Then I'll go away and you two can get back to what you were doing.”

“The hell I will,” Zastroy said. “You got no right—”

“You want to listen in on the conversation? That's all right with me. I'll talk to her inside then.”

I had him off balance; he didn't know whether to slam the door in my face or invite me in and get it over with. I helped him make up his mind by saying, “I'm not leaving until I see her. Close that door, I'll keep leaning on the bell until it opens again and she comes out or I go in. And if you give me any trouble I'll let Sheriff Felix know about it.”

“Sheriff?”

“You heard me.”

Pure bluff, that last threat, but it worked: Zastroy didn't want anything more to do with the local law. He made a brief face-saving effort to stare me down, then muttered something and spun on his heels, leaving the door wide open. I went in and shut it behind me.

From the bedroom, Alana Farmer's voice rose irritably: “For God's sake, Dee, what's going on? Who was that?”

I answered for him, telling her who it was.

Silence for a handful of seconds, then some rustling sounds, and the bedroom door opened and there she was, as rumpled-looking as Zastroy with a sheet wrapped around her. There was no shame in the steady look she aimed in my direction, or any other emotion I could read at a distance across the poorly lighted living area.

Zastroy said in sullen tones, “You don't have to talk to him if you don't want to.” He was over at a breakfast bar cluttered with dirty dishes, poking around in an overflowing ashtray. Cigarette stink dominated the air in there, with undertones of stale beer and fried food.

Alana ignored him. “What do you want?” she asked me.

“The answers to a few more questions.”

“About Cody? I already told you everything I know.”

“Not quite.”

“You don't have to talk to him,” Zastroy said again. He'd found a half-smoked butt and was match-lighting it, glaring at me over the flame.

She kept her eyes on me. “Is it important?”

“I think so.”

“Okay, then.”

“Don't come out here like that,” Zastroy said. “Put on some clothes.”

“I will. Dee, baby, there's no more beer in the fridge. Why don't you go get us another six-pack and maybe something to eat?”

“Later.”

“Now would be better,” I said. “I won't keep her long.”

He coughed up a lungful of smoke. “What the hell? You said I could listen to what you got to say.”

“Changed my mind. I'd rather talk to her alone.”

“Goddamn it, this is
my
apartment—”

Alana said, “Dee, it's all right, he's not gonna do anything to me. Just get us the beer and food, okay, baby?” She backed up and shut the door without waiting for an answer.

He stood glowering and blowing smoke, but only for three more drags; the butt was almost down to the filter by then. Viciously, he jabbed it out, spraying ash from the tray. He pulled a jacket off a hook by the door, shoved his feet into a pair of boots lying next to an armchair. “You better be gone when I get back,” he said, and went slamming out with his shirt still unbuttoned.

I paced around a little, waiting for Alana. The place was a typical bachelor's pad: cheap furniture and not much of it, unwashed dishes and glassware in the kitchen as well as on the breakfast bar, food stains and remnants on the thin carpeting. An old pink suitcase was propped against the wall alongside the bedroom door—Alana's, no doubt. Moving in? A recent decision, if so.

The door opened finally, and she came out dressed in jeans and a pullover sweater. For my benefit, or more likely for her own, she'd run a comb through her short blond hair. She stopped after a couple of paces, obviously with the intention of maintaining a distance between us, so I stayed where I was in front of a cigarette-scarred sofa.

“So I guess you think I'm a slut,” she said. Matter-of-factly, not defiantly.

“I don't judge people unless I'm given reason to.”

“Well, then you're about the only one around who doesn't. How'd you know I was here? I didn't tell anybody and neither did Dee … Derek.”

“Guessed it. The two of you were seen together last night.”

“I wasn't with him the first time I talked to you. Just the past couple of days. He used to be my boyfriend, before Cody.”

“So I've been told.”

“Uh-huh. You also been told the place where I've been living belongs to another girl and the bitch threw me out two nights ago?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah. Looks like I'm gonna lose my job, too.” She made a spitting mouth. “All on account of being the girlfriend of a guy arrested for rape. So … no money, no place to go. If Dee didn't still have a thing for me, I'd probably have ended up in a whorehouse someplace.”

Not a slut—an opportunist and a survivor at age twenty.

“It's not like I'm cheating on Cody,” she said. “I mean, we're all through anyway. He's gonna go to prison for those rapes, even though he's innocent. Isn't he?”

“Maybe not.”

“No? You find out something?”

“Some things, but not enough. I'm hoping you can add to the list.”

“Like how? What d'you want to know?”

“Cody had plenty of cash to spend the past few weeks,” I said. “Do you know where it came from?”

“No. What's that have to do with him getting busted for rape?”

“Maybe nothing, maybe a lot. Depending on where and how he got the money. Don't play games with me, Alana. Tell me what you know.”

“I don't
know
anything.”

“You know about the money. You're a sharp girl, you couldn't help but notice and you'd have asked him about it. What did he tell you?”

She ran a finger around one corner of her mouth, then the other. Finally she said, “Okay, I'll be straight with you. He had plenty of cash, that's right, but he was real secretive about where he got it. A deal he had cooking with somebody, that's all he'd say.”

“Somebody. Who do you think he meant?”

Shrug. “Could be anybody. He had a lot of friends.” The spitting mouth again. “Used to, anyway.”

“Which one did he spend the most time with recently, besides Jimmy Oliver?”

She thought about it. “Rick Firestone, I guess. Rick the Geek.”

“Oh? Firestone told me they didn't hang together much anymore.”

“They hardly hung together at all until a few weeks ago.”

“What started it then?”

“I don't know. Cody just laughed when I asked him.”

“How often were they together?”

“Well, not when he was with me. And that was most nights.”

“What did the two of them do?”

“Raced around in the desert. That's what Cody said.”

“You called Firestone a geek. Why?”

“You ought to know, you met him. He's a nowhere dude.”

“‘Nowhere' meaning what?”

“Oh, you know. Goofy. Mouth always hanging open, drool coming out like a dog slobbering. Big ugly dog.”

“Doesn't sound like somebody Cody would want to spend time with.”

“Well, they had cars in common, you know? Racing. Rick's a good mechanic, I'll give him that. He did some neat stuff to jazz up Cody's Jeep.” She frowned. “About that Jeep. I heard you got shot at out in the desert and now it's wrecked—”

I waved that away. “Does Rick have a girlfriend?”

“A smelly geek like him?” She laughed. “The only girl who'd have anything to do with him is one of the whores at Mama Liz's.”

“What did you mean by smelly?”

“Oh, you know. Body odor. Breath like a goat.”

“Breath like a goat. Cigarettes, booze? Does he drink a lot?”

“Yeah, I guess. He's usually about half shit-faced.”

“Was he drunk the night you and Cody picked him up near Eldorado Park—”

“Where?”

“Eldorado Park.”

“You mean the night that prick Stendreyer lied about seeing Cody running from the Oasis? It wasn't Eldorado Park we picked Rick up.”

“No? Where, then?”

“On Sunburst, west side of town.”

“Near the road to Chimney Rock, where you and Cody were earlier that night?”

“No, that's east, clear on the other side.”

“So what were you and Cody doing on Sunburst?”

“Picking up Rick. That's where he said he was when he called.”

“Called? He called Cody?”

“Yeah, on his cell. He said his truck had a flat and his spare was flat, too, and he needed a ride to High Desert to get a new one. So we went and picked him up.”

“
Was
he drunk that night?”

“Buzzed, yeah.”

“And so Cody drove him to the service station and then back to his car so he could fix the flat. And then took you home.”

“Right. Isn't that what Rick told you?”

“No. Did he say what he was doing on Sunburst at midnight?”

“No. Out goofing around, I guess. He was so buzzed he didn't even know it
was
midnight.”

“Is that what he said? He didn't know what time it was?”

“How could he?” Alana said. “He doesn't own a watch.”

 

18

Rick Firestone. Geek, liar, and the way I now saw it shaping up, a whole lot more. He owned a watch, all right, the flashy Omega that must have cost plenty more than a small-town mechanic and tow truck driver could afford on salary alone—a connection I should have made the first time I saw that damn chronometer on his wrist. One of several connections I might have made sooner if I'd asked the right questions of the right people as I had of Alana Farmer.