Thursday's Child (20 page)

“Okay.” Beau leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms. Maybe it wouldn't take too long. The thing was not to think about what he was doing, but just to do it.

Robert smoked his way through half a dozen cigarettes as he waited in the car. He was feeling a little guilty again; hell, he was feeling a
lot
guilty over using Beau this way. It was damned unprofessional, for one thing. There were other ways to get at Hunt. He shouldn't have sent Beau into this place. He felt almost like a pimp and it wasn't a feeling he liked. What the hell was he trying to prove? Or make Beau prove?

Just thinking about it made him uncomfortable.

But sitting there he didn't have anything else to do but think about it. The question that was nagging at him was just how far would he go in using Beau? What came after sending him into a fag bar to pick up somebody like Hunt?

Robert didn't like to think that maybe he could be the kind of bastard who could hurt a kid. But who knew, until push came to shove?

When the door of the bar opened again, he watched without much hope. But this time, Beau appeared, followed closely by Hunt. Hunt had one hand on Beau's shoulder as they walked across the lot.

Robert reached under the seat and pulled out the gun he'd stashed there, just in case. He got out and headed after them quickly. They were standing by Hunt's car when he reached them. “Go back to the car, Tonto,” he said quietly.

“What's going on?” Hunt asked.

Beau hadn't moved yet.

“Back to the car, I said,” Robert ordered more sharply.

Beau glanced at Hunt quickly and then ran off.

Robert shoved Hunt more deeply into the darkness.

“I wasn't doing anything with the boy,” Hunt said. “He simply wanted a ride. Good Lord, he's just a child.”

“I know.”

Hunt was looking increasingly desperate. “He only wanted a ride.”

“I'll give him one.”

“No problem,” Hunt said.

Robert just looked at him. “I'm looking for Danny Boyd,” he said. “You being an old buddy of his, I thought maybe you could help me out. Wouldn't you like to do that?” He smiled.

Hunt shook his head. “I haven't seen Danny in a long time,” he said. “We don't run in the same circles anymore.”

“How come I don't believe you?” Robert said. He took the gun from his pocket and quickly stuck it under Hunt's chin. “Maybe you want to try again and this time try harder to convince me.”

Hunt didn't say anything. But he didn't have to. The sound of the switchblade clicking open said it all. Where the hell had the knife come from? Robert was irritated with himself for not having anticipated something like this.

“Bastard,” Hunt said tightly.

His arm and Robert's finger moved at the same time. Robert fired and moved back quickly; the knife blade just grazed his chest as Hunt pitched forward.

Robert wiped the gun on the front of his shirt and dropped it before running for the car. There, he just had time to slip into the driver's seat before the door of the bar opened and several men came out. They looked around, saw nothing, then seemed to shrug collectively, and went back inside.

Only then did Robert start the car and drive away slowly.

Beau was slumped in the passenger seat, his eyes squeezed closed. Both hands were over his ears.

Neither of them said anything.

When they got back to the house, Beau went directly to the bathroom. Robert, standing in the hall, could hear him throwing up. He didn't think it was the champagne this time. After a moment, he went into the living room and sat on the couch.

Beau finally emerged, pale and trembling.

“You okay?” Robert asked.

“No, I'm not okay,” he replied. “I feel like shit. I feel like it was me who killed that guy.”

“Well, it wasn't. I did it.”

“You told me it was only to talk to him. That's what you said.”

“Hey, the punk pulled a knife on me.”

“Yeah? Well, he seemed nice to me. He was going to give me a ride.”

“Right,” Robert muttered. “He wanted to do more than that, you know.”

Beau glared at him. “Maybe so, but he wasn't going to kill me.”

Robert was tired. “He might have killed me, though. Would that have made you happy?”

“No,” Beau whispered. “But couldn't you have just hit him or something?”

“That's not the way I play,” Robert said. “You want to see what his fucking knife did to me?”

Beau shook his head. “The thing is, Robbie, you make it seem so easy. Probably you could kill me just as easy. Maybe you will before this is over.”

“Don't be stupid,” Robert said angrily.

“I'm not stupid. I just don't like being made to feel like some kind of accessory to murder.”

And
he
didn't like the way Beau was looking at him. “Why don't you just go to hell, then,” he said in a tight voice. “Leave me the fuck alone.” He went into his bedroom and slammed the door.

It was only a moment later that he heard the front door slam, too.

3

Beau hitched a ride with a solitary tourist, a priest from Wisconsin. It turned out that back home, he ran a shelter for runaways. As they rode along, he tried to persuade Beau to leave the streets. To go home.

When they reached Hollywood, Beau thanked him and got out, promising to think about what the man had said. Which was a lie, of course, because there was no way he'd go crawling back to Saul.

He just walked up and down Sunset until it was very late and the crowd had dwindled down to the hard-core street regulars. Beau found a doorway that was empty and he crouched down there wearily. He didn't know what the hell he was going to do.

Finally, exhaustion took over.

He didn't know how long he'd slept when he was jerked from a restless dream by the feel of rough hands on him. “What?” he said, startled. He found himself peering up into a strange face, a face that was pale and sweaty and crazy-looking.

“Shut up,” the man said in a wheezy voice. “I want your bread. I want all your fucking bread. And your shoes. Gimme your bread and your fucking shoes, or I'll fucking kill you.”

Beau didn't move.

The man slapped him hard and his head bounced back against the door. “Give it to me.”

Beau was trembling so hard that he could hardly untie his Nikes. “Here,” he said, shoving them toward the man. Then he fished a few crumpled bills from his pocket and tossed them down.

The man clutched the shoes with one hand and grabbed for the bills with the other. “That all? That all?” he said, slapping Beau twice more.

Beau nodded. “Yes,” he whispered.

Instantly, the man was gone.

Alone again, Beau started to cry. He hated himself for being such a baby—Robert would never be this scared—but he couldn't stop the scalding tears that rolled silently down his face.

Robert was sitting on the couch, where he'd been all night. On the table in front of him were several empty beer cans and an ashtray overflowing with butts. He hadn't slept at all.

It was just after dawn when he heard the soft tapping on the door. He got up quickly and went to open it. Beau stood there, barefooted and dirty. His face was dirt-streaked and pale, except for a small bruise on his cheek. “I'm sorry,” he whispered.

Robert stared at him for a moment, then tugged him inside and into a hug. “It's my fault,” he said, pulling back. “I shouldn't have asked you to do that.”

Beau shook his head. “I owed you.”

“No, you don't owe me a goddamned thing. Everything I've done was because I wanted to. You don't owe me.”

They finally went and sat down.

“I'm glad you came back,” Robert said.

“Yeah, well, I didn't have any place else to go.” He wriggled his bare feet. “And I don't seem to do so well by myself.”

Robert lit a cigarette and looked at him through a cloud of smoke. “In other words, you're here because this is all there is.”

Beau shook his head. “Not only that. I came back mostly because I wanted to. Except …”

“Except what?”

He took a deep breath. “Please don't make me do anything like that again.”

“I won't.” Robert lifted a hand, only half-mockingly. “Scout's honor,” he said.

“So I can stay?” Beau asked.

“If you want to.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

After a moment, Robert got up. “Come with me,” he said.

Looking curious, Beau followed him to the hallway. Robert unlocked and opened a door that hadn't been opened before. Beau looked in. The room was a shambles—broken furniture, books thrown everywhere, drawers yanked out and emptied.

He glanced at Robert.

“Soon as we get the time,” he said, “we'll clean this up. It'll be your room.” He turned and walked away. “You want some fucking breakfast or not?” he added, not looking back at Beau.

16

1

Gar ordered a stack of pancakes, two eggs over easy, sausage patties, hash browns, and coffee. It was an old habit of his; the worse he expected a day to be, the bigger the breakfast he would eat. It was as if he needed to be fully stoked to face whatever was ahead.

He didn't know why he thought that today was going to require the Lumberjack Special, but then again, the way this case was going, it seemed like a pretty safe bet.

He was still waiting for his food when the massive shape of Wally Dixon slid into the booth. “Bad habits never change, do they, Gar? You're not a cop anymore. So how come you're sitting in a grease factory like this at the crack of dawn?”

“I'm having breakfast,” Gar replied.

“Uh-huh. It's pretty early.”

“Eternal vigilance,” he said. “That's why I get big bucks from my clients.”

The waitress brought Dixon a cup of coffee. When she was gone again, he said, “You still on the same case?”

“Yes.” Gar decided not to wait any longer for his client to talk to the police. “I'm looking for a kid named Beau Epstein. Saul Epstein's grandson.”

Dixon gave a low whistle. “You're really playing in the big time now, aren't you? I didn't even know that old bastard had any family.”

“Well, I'm not quite sure that ‘family' is the right word. He has a grandson who was living with him. But the kid took off.”

Dixon considered his coffee briefly. “I'm surprised the word hasn't reached me. A high-profile case like that.”

Gar shrugged. “The old man wanted to keep things under wraps, but I finally persuaded him to go public with it. He should be filing a missing-person report any minute, or maybe he already has.”

Dixon nodded. “And the Epstein kid is the one who witnessed the hooker getting killed, is that it?”

“That's it.”

Dixon was looking at him knowingly. They had been partners a long time. “What else?”

Gar waited as his breakfast was finally delivered. He poured warm maple syrup over the whole plate. “What else?” he repeated. Well, when there was nothing else to do, you went to the cops. “Just for starters, I think that maybe Beau was in Vegas when the Tony Drago hit went down.”

“That's interesting,” Dixon admitted. “How old is this kid anyway?”

“Fifteen. No, sixteen,” he corrected himself, remembering the date Epstein had given him. “He just had a birthday.”

“Sounds a little young to be going around killing people.” Dixon snitched a slice of toast and piled apricot preserves onto it.

Gar frowned. “Beau isn't killing anybody. The way I see it, he's with whoever is offing these people. Your paid triggerman.”

“You think so? Is he going along willingly or unwillingly?”

Since Gar didn't know the answer to that and he didn't even want to think about it much, he didn't say anything. He just concentrated on finishing the food on his plate. He was nearly done when Dixon's beeper went off. The black man headed for the pay phone in the back of the diner. While he was gone, Gar had another cup of coffee.

Dixon returned to the table looking grim.

“Trouble?” Gar asked.

“Do I ever get beeped for good news?”

Gar wiped his mouth, “What?”

“Somebody just found a stiff a couple blocks from here. Guy found shot to death behind the Domino Lounge.”

“Gay bar, right?”

“Right.” Dixon picked up his coffee cup and took one last swallow. “You might be interested to hear that the deceased was shot once in the head.”

“Yeah? And was there a gun at the scene?”

“I didn't ask that.”

But Gar had a bad feeling. “Would you have any objection if I followed you to the scene? Just out of idle curiosity.”

“You'll do anything for a cheap thrill, won't you, Gareth? But come on.”

He paid the check and followed Dixon from the diner.

The body was lying behind the trash bin at the edge of the parking lot. A middle-aged man with blond hair, nice clothes, and a face that, in the one quick glance he got, looked vaguely familiar to Gar. After that fast look, he stayed politely out of the way as Dixon did the things a lieutenant of homicide was supposed to do at a time like this. It all made Gar feel just a little nostalgic.

Dixon finally came over to where Gar was leaning against his car. Wordlessly, he held up a plastic evidence bag. Inside was a handgun. “Looks clean,” he said.

“The victim?”

“One Camden Hunt. Owner of an antique store down on Melrose. And a regular here apparently. He was in the bar last night.”

“Hunt?” Gar thought for a moment. “The guy was a fence, right?”

Dixon grinned. “Nice to see that your mind is as sharp as ever, partner.”

Gar returned the smile. Then, because he could read Dixon as well as Dixon could read him, he sobered, knowing that there was more. “What else?” he said wearily.