“How do you mean, trouble?”
“Disputes with neighbors. Excessive drinking, loud parties. That sort of thing.”
“Nothing like that,” Powers said, “Say, you have reason to think he’s mixed up in the young woman’s disappearance?”
I hedged on that. “No specific reason, no. Did you happen to see Lemoyne last night?”
“Don’t think so. Not last night.”
“But he was home?”
Powers thought about it. “Wasn’t when I went for my walk, but I seem to remember his lights being on when I looked out before I went to bed. Won’t swear to it, though. My memory’s not what it used to be.”
“He’s not home now. Any idea where he could be?”
“Not a clue.”
“Bar or restaurant he frequents?”
“Like I said, I hardly know the man. Might ask one of the other neighbors, but I doubt they’d be able to tell you any more than me.”
“So he’s not particularly friendly with any of them? One of the black families?”
“Never saw him hanging out with anybody around here.”
“He lives alone?”
“Yep. As long as I’ve been here.”
“Girlfriends?”
“Don’t remember seeing him with a woman, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t had his share.”
“Male friends?”
“Same answer.”
Quiet, nonaggressive, nontroublesome loner. If that was a true picture of Robert Lemoyne, what had he done to make Tamara notice him, run the check on him? And if he was responsible for her disappearance, what did he or she or both of them do to cause it?
I went back to the car, sat there with the cell phone in my hand. Call the cops-that was the right thing to do. Except that it wasn’t, not yet. No clear-cut motive and nothing but circumstantial evidence to link Lemoyne to Tamara’s disappearance-maybe enough circumstantial evidence to convince the local law to talk to Lemoyne, but not enough to convince a judge to issue a search warrant. Without any indication of foul play, the Toyota was just another car more or less legally parked in a supermarket lot. She hadn’t even been gone long enough for an official missing person’s report to be filed.
Not a damn thing the law could do, not tonight, not soon enough.
There was only one other person besides me who could do something-Jake Runyon. His number was the one I called.
21
TOMMY DOUGLASS
“Hey, Tommy,” Bix said, “hey, man, you sure about this, huh?”
“Sure about what?”
“Doin’ this one so early, man. People on the streets, cars, lights in all the houses… suppose somebody sees us?”
“We been over that already, how many times? This Butter-field’s not like the other fags. He don’t go out much and when he does he drives.”
“The one up by the park had a car.”
“So what? He stayed out late couple of nights a week, that made it easy. This one don’t go out much at night and when he does he comes home early and brings some other fag back with him. Troy told us that, didn’t he? We checked him out, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, but-”
“Yeah but, yeah but. Come on, what’s the matter with you? You turning chicken on me?”
“Chicken?” Bix glared at him from under the bill of his Giants cap. “Listen, dude, I ain’t afraid of nothin’ or nobody. You call me chicken, I’ll kick your ass. You know I can do it, too.”
Tommy sighed. Problem with Bix wasn’t that he was chicken, problem was he had two fuckin’ brain cells and one of ‘em was always out looking for the other. You had to explain everything to him fifty times before he got it, and then half the time he forgot and you had to explain it all over again. It was worse when he was high. He was high now, all that crystal meth he’d smoked out at Finn’s crib in Daly City. High and wired, the way he had to get to give these lousy queers what they deserved. Not Tommy. One pipe, that was all he’d smoked. He didn’t need speed or anything else to get his juices flowing. Just giving it to those bastards, paying ‘em back for what they did to Troy, that was enough. Better than any drug he’d ever tried.
Troy. Stupid punk kid. Ten times smarter than Bix, maybe even had a few more brains than himself, but he was still stupid. Convincing himself he was gay, of all the goddamn things, then running off to the city, the Castro, Faggotville, and letting all those queers take advantage of him, stick their dicks in him… Christ! Made his blood boil thinking about what they’d done to an innocent seventeen-year-old kid like his little brother. Made him want to fix them real good. Not just hurt them, like the first three-put their lights out permanent so they couldn’t prey on any more underage dummies. Maybe that’s what he’d do with this Butterfield or the next one. Yeah, maybe. Why not? Felt so good kicking the crap out them, think how good it’d feel taking one all the way out.
“Tommy, hey, man, what time’s it now?”
“Quit worrying about the time. He’ll be here pretty soon, comes home from his work about this time every night.”
“Unless he goes out somewhere. What if he don’t show?”
“Then we’ll come back tomorrow night. Or the next.”
“I’m ready now, man. I’m hot to trot.”
“Just take it easy. Stay cool.”
“So hot I’m cool,” Bix said and giggled. “So cool I’m hot.”
Two fuckin’ brain cells.
They were parked behind a Dumpster across the street from Butterfield’s house off Twenty-fourth Street. Nice old shingled house, big, yard in front, garage built on to one side. Rich faggot, worked for some computer company, big executive or something. Screwed businesspeople during the day, screwed underage kids at night. Bastard. Lousy queer boy-fucking bastard. Well, he’d get his pretty soon, pretty soon. Wouldn’t be screwing anybody for a long time after tonight. Might never screw anybody ever again after tonight.
Cars came up the street, went down the street. None of them turned into the driveway over there, but Tommy had a feeling it wouldn’t be long now. Another five minutes, ten at the most. The Little League bat was on the seat between him and Bix; he pulled it over onto his lap, ran his fingers over the dented aluminum.
Bix had one of those little rubber balls that he kept squeezing in one hand or the other. He flipped it from his left to his right, made a fist and crushed it hard. Then he giggled again. Not because anything was funny, he always giggled when he was high. The more he smoked, the more he giggled. Damn irritating habit. Sounded like a girl. Sometimes he even sounded like a faggot.
Another set of headlights crawled up the street. Tommy sat up straight. His head felt funny all of a sudden, like it’d just been pumped full of air. His ears started ringing. His pecker stirred as if a girl had just stroked it.
“That’s him,” he said.
“Hey, man, how can you tell that from-”
“That’s him, goddamnit, get ready to move.”
Tommy took a tight grip on the handle of the bat, shoved the door handle down on his side. It was Butterfield, all right-the car slowed, lights swept off into the driveway, garage door started to slide up. Tommy was out and halfway across the street by the time the door was all the way up and the car started slotting inside, Bix a couple of steps behind him. Nobody in sight, one other set of headlights but they were a block and a half away uphill. No problem.
