I was about to leave when I saw a shadow move on the porch next door. Then I saw the darting orange motion of a lit cigarette.
I walked over to the fence and said hi.
“Hey yourself,” came the gruff voice. A black male: not a kid, an older guy.
“You know Mike?”
“Yeah, I know him.”
“You know where he went?”
“Maybe I do. Who’re you and what do you want?”
“I’m his friend Janeway. I’d like to help him.”
“I don’t think anybody can do that.”
Before I could react, he said, “That man’s bleedin‘. He’s bleedin’ out of every crack and sweat hole. Awful damn thing, what happened.”
“Yeah, it was. Denise was great. I didn’t know her real well, but I sure liked what I knew.”
He said nothing.
“You know them well?” I said.
“About like you. Not long but long enough. They ain’t been livin‘ up here real long, and people here tend to mind they own business.”
“Did the cops talk to you?”
“Oh yeah. They talked to everybody.”
“You able to tell them anything?”
“Not a damn thing. I was sleepin‘ all afternoon. The Salvation Army marchin’ band could’ve come through here and I wouldn’a seen ‘em.”
There was a pause. “I work nights, sleep days,” he said. “This’s my night off.”
“Well,” I said. “You feel like telling me where he went? I want to help him if I can.”
“Then you better have one helluva fast car, friend. Mike said he was gettin‘ out of here, goin’ to Vegas.”
BOOK 2 - Baltimore
CHAPTER 14
Eastern Avenue was the color of a Confederate uniform and just about as empty in the pale light before dawn. The Treadwells’ building squatted in the block like a brick fortress. At one time it might have been respectable, with its tiled portico and the leaded glass in its front door. Now the tiles were cracked and worn, the tiny glass pieces in the door replaced with glass that matched poorly or not at all. The sign said books, and just inside the portico another sign, equally peeling, equally faded, was mounted on the door. ten a.m. to six p.m., seven days a week. I had more than four hours to kill.
I cupped my hands against the one clear window, but I could see little more than the dim outline of the front counter, a rickety-looking bookcase with a sign hawking sale books at a dollar each, and just inside the door a poster advertising book fairs in Wilmington next week, Washington next month, and Baltimore later in the summer. Shadows of more substantial bookshelves loomed in the darkness beyond.
I walked back to South Broadway and went down toward the harbor. I was looking for a cafe that might be open that time of morning, and what I found was a dingy place across from the market, which even then was beginning to come to life. I ordered a plate of grease and sat over coffee with my
I heard Willie Paxton’s voice like a broken record:
I saw Ralston’s despair and felt my own.
I never know quite what to do at a time like that. I knew I could find Ralston if he had actually gone to Vegas. A man like that stands out. Give him time to settle and he’d be no problem.
Denise was another matter. If Whiteside didn’t find her killer, and I didn’t think he would, I would have to give it a try. Brave thoughts for an ex-cop who had just burned most of his bridges downtown. Brave thoughts when in all likelihood my first hunch had been the right one, that some two-bit burglar had killed her when she’d walked in and found him there. A spider, maybe a transient: a stranger, in any case. Those guys can be hell to catch, even when you’ve got the resources of a big-city department behind you. Even when you get prints, who do you match them to?
The guy jumps a train and he’s in Pittsburgh tomorrow.
