“Could be. Tucker likes broads too”-the dark and bitter thing touched his face again-“but Jacobs, he looked pure fuggin fag to me.”
The gospel according to O. Barnwell, philosopher and sage. But how much truth was in it? I put it away for the time being-until, if, and when I could find somebody more reliable to bear witness.
I said, “Were Jacobs and Tucker old friends or new friends? How did it look to you?”
He thought about it. “Old friends, I guess. Yeah, they knew each other a while.”
“From where? Here in Sacramento, someplace else?”
“I dunno. They never said.”
“Is Tucker a Sacramento native?”
“He never said that neither.”
“How long had he been living here when Jacobs moved in?”
“Few months. He’s the kind moves around a lot.”
“He tell you beforehand Jacobs was moving in or did Jacobs just show up?”
“He told me. Said he had this buddy needed a place to crash for a week or two, till he found a place of his own. Didn’t ask if it was all right, just told me Jacobs was comin. But what the hell, why should I care? I don’t own the fuggin building.”
“You talk to Jacobs much while he was here?”
“Nah, I don’t like fags.”
“Then how come you lied for him?”
Barnwell hadn’t been looking at me much, had done most of his talking to the floor or to spots to my left and right. But now his gaze slithered back to my face, held there long enough for him to say, “Hah?” and then went roving again.
“You told a woman at a Carmichael real estate firm that Jacobs lived here, had an apartment in this building. You told her he’d been here for some time, paid his rent promptly, had a steady job.”
“Oh yeah, that. Sure. But it wasn’t no big deal. He give me twenty bucks, so why not?”
“He tell you what his reasons were?”
“So he could get a place he wanted up there. Carmichael. Said the real estate outfit wouldn’t rent it to him if they knew he didn’t have an address and was out of work.”
“If he was out of work, where did he get the money to rent a place?”
“He never said.”
“And you didn’t ask.”
“Why should I? It wasn’t none of my business.”
“How long after that did Jacobs move out?”
“Couple of days. He must of got the place he wanted in Carmichael, hah?”
Yeah, I thought, he got the place he wanted, but not in Carmichael. “You ever hear from him again?”
“Nossir, never.”
“Or from Tucker since he moved?”
“Not me.” His mouth turned down at the corners: anger, bitterness, self-pity. “Maybe my old lady heard. You want me to ask her now? Or you want to?”
“You do it, in private.” It was easier that way. He could get things out of her that she’d be reluctant to tell a stranger, even a stranger playing the kind of role I was. Besides, if he was alone when he told her about me, he’d build me up into something pretty nasty-use me as a club to punish her for her real or imagined dallying with Frank Tucker. O. Barnwell, loving husband. “I’ll wait here,” I said. “One thing, though.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t call anybody while you’re inside. And don’t call anybody after I leave.”
“I won’t. Who would I call?”
“Because if you do,” I said, “I’ll find out and I’ll come back. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“Nossir,” he said to a point three feet on my left. “You don’t have to worry, I won’t want no trouble. I’m just a guy tryin to get along, that’s all.”
“Sure you are. Don’t be long, Mr. Barnwell.”
He went back past the ladder, moving sideways as if he were afraid to put his back to me, and disappeared inside the ground-floor apartment. A little time passed. I leaned against the wall next to the front door and smelled the building’s secretions and thought about Lawrence Jacobs and Frank Tucker. Names, just names. And meaningless descriptions that fit dozens of people whose paths had crossed mine at one time or another. Where did Jacobs fit into the short, unpleasant life of Jackie Timmons? And did Tucker fit into it at all?
Voices began to filter out through the wall from Apartment 1-loud voices that kept getting louder. Barnwell shouting, Maggie shouting back. Then there were other voices, something falling over, a yell of pain, a screech that evolved into the words “You stinking
Barnwell looked pleased with himself as he approached me: The fat worm had turned, and in the process had discovered he still had some sting in his tail. He was a sweetheart, he was. People like him… what made them that way? But I knew the answer; the answer was simple. Life made them that way. The hard, bad, sad, grinding task of living the lives they had constructed for themselves.
When he got to where I was he looked me straight in the eye. He had beat up on his wife and that had dissolved most of his fear, made him a man again for a little while. He said, “She had Tucker’s address, all right I knocked it right out of her, the two-timing bitch.”
“Well?”
“Two-ten Poplar Street.”
“In Vacaville?”
“Yeah. He called her with it after he moved. She said it was innocent, he just wanted us to know in case any of his friends come around or mail showed up for him. But that’s bullshit. He never had no friends except Jacobs and he never got no mail.”
“When did she last hear from Tucker?”
“Right after he moved, she said. Maybe that’s bullshit too. She might of seen him yesterday, for all I know.”
“One more thing. What kind of car does Tucker drive?”
“Chrysler. New one. I dunno the model.”
“What color?”
“Brown.”
“I don’t suppose you noticed the license number?”
“Nab. Who notices license numbers?”
“All right, Mr. Barnwell. Just remember what I told you about making phone calls.”
“I’ll remember. Like I said before, I got nobody to call. And I’ll see to it she don’t call nobody neither, least of all Tucker. Make sure she don’t if I have to bust her fuggin arm for her.”
O. Barnwell, humanitarian. O. Barnwell, the Christian ideal.
AFTERNOON
Vacaville is a farming and ranching community off Highway 80, some thirty-five miles west of Sacramento. The literal translation of the name is cowtown, which is appropriate enough, but in fact the town was named after the Vacas, a family of Hispanic settlers in the area. A quiet place, Vacaville, plain and old-fashioned in looks and outlook, hot and dusty in the summer-one of those towns with plenty of history and yet no particular historical attraction for the modern tourist. The only reasons you’d go there were to visit friends or relatives, or business, or to see one of the inmates at the California Medical Correctional Facility nearby. On first reflection, you wouldn’t think somebody like Frank Tucker would want to live there. But if he was the kind of man Barnwell had painted him-hired muscle, more brawn than brain-it was exactly the type of town he might pick. For one thing, a few ranchers and farm owners still believed in taking a hard line with recalcitrant laborers, the ones who had the gall to
