on it.
I saw the autoloader lying on the floor in front of me. Then the cop looked up and I followed his line of sight to the exposed ceiling. Overhead were big commercial blowers and vents and ducting and electrical conduit and hanging fluorescent tube light fixtures. A body hung jackknifed at the hips over a steel crossbeam. His arms dangled over one side and his legs over the other. If he’d landed just one inch higher or lower, he’d have simply slid off the beam to the floor. I walked around the gun and got directly under him and stared up into the face of Joey. It was an urgent shade of purple and his eyes were open.
“The safe in the office,” said the uniform, pointing to the far back side of the kitchen.
The office door was open and I stepped in. There was a desk and a black leather couch and a small fridge and microwave, pictures of near-naked dancers on the walls, along with a Chargers calendar and Padres pendants.
There was also a big floor safe that was open but not empty. I squatted in front of it and saw the stacks of cash and some envelopes.
The officer and janitor stood in the office doorway.
“Why kill a man for his money then not take it?” asked the uniform. His name plate said
“Maybe he freaked and ran,” said the janitor, whose name patch said
“Okay,” said Peabody. “Then tell me how Joey got ten feet up in the air and hung over a beam. And don’t tell me he did it to himself.”
Carlos looked up at the body and shrugged but I had an opinion about that.
“What time do you start work?” I asked him.
“Two. That’s when they close.”
“Is Joey usually here?”
“One of the managers is always here. They count the money every third night. Then they take it to the bank.”
“So tonight was bank night?”
“Was supposed to be.”
I drove fast to Vic’s hotel room downtown but he didn’t answer the door. Back downstairs the night manager, speaking from behind a mesh-reinforced window, told me that Vic left around eight-thirty—seven hours ago—and had not returned.
I made Farrel’s place eleven minutes later. There were no cars in the driveway but lights inside were on. I rang the bell and knocked then tried the door, which was unlocked. So I opened it and stepped in.
The living room looked exactly as it had two nights ago, except that the beer cans were gone and the pile of black binders had been reduced to just one. In the small back bedroom the stroller was still in place and the plastic doll was snugged down under the blanket just as it had been. I went into the master bedroom. The mattress was bare and the chest of drawers stood open and nearly empty. It looked like Farrel had stripped the bed and packed her clothes in a hurry. The bathroom was stripped too: no towels, nothing in the shower or the medicine chest or on the sink counter. The refrigerator had milk and pickles and that was all. The wastebasket under the sink had empty beer cans, an empty pretzel bag, various fast-food remnants swathed in ketchup, a receipt from a supermarket, and a wadded-up agreement from Rent-a-Dream car rentals down by the airport. Black Beamer 750i, of course.
Back in the living room I took the black binder from the coffee table and opened it to the first page:
I flipped through the pages. Dialogue and brief descriptions. Four episodes in all.
Getting Sal’s lines right, I thought.
Vic didn’t show up for work for three straight nights. I stopped by Skin a couple of times a night, just in case he showed, and I knocked on his hotel room door twice a day or so. The manager hadn’t seen him in four days. He told me Vic’s rent was due on the first.
Of course Farrel had vanished too. I cruised her place in La Mesa but something about it just said she wasn’t coming back, and she didn’t.
On the fourth afternoon after the murder of Joey Morra, Vic called me on my cell phone. “Can you feed my scorpion? Give him six crickets. They’re under the bathroom sink. The manager’ll give you the key.”
“Sure. But we need to talk, Vic—face to face.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“Who else could throw Joey up there like that?”
Vic didn’t answer.
“Dom and his people are looking for you, Vic. You won’t get a trial with them. You’ll just get your sentence, and it won’t be lenient.”
“I only took what she needed.”
“And killed Joey.”
“He pulled a gun, Robbie. I couldn’t thinka what else to do. I bear-hugged and shook him. Like a reflex. Like when I threw you.”
“I’ll see you outside Higher Grounds in ten minutes.”
“She met me at Rainwater’s, Robbie. I walked into Rainwater’s and there she was—that beautiful young
