“He never gave up. He wanted Max to go back to work, can you imagine?”
That took me by surprise. “I thought he hated Max.”
“He was terrible to him for years. The old ‘you’ll never work in this town again’ stuff, as though Max cared. And then, just like nothing had happened, there he was on the phone, offering work. I ask you.”
“But Max said no.”
“Max, work for Ferris Hanks? Of course not. An unbelievable man. Absolute sewage.”
“So everyone says.”
“And for once, everybody is right.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It seems to me that a community is usually right when it passes judgment. Look how people felt about Max.”
“And how they feel about me,” Christy said, using my least favorite of his repertoire of tones.
“People don’t think badly of you,” I said. “They just wonder when you’re going to do something on your own.”
It startled him. Everyone was being nice to him, and here I was, kicking him in the shins. “Like what?” he demanded. “How much time-”
“I know all about that,” I said, “and you have no idea how much time you have. You could live for years. You’re going to have money. What are you going to do, Christy?”
“How would I know? I haven’t thought about it.”
“Start by going to the cops.”
“Why? Why should I do that?”
“Well, they’re looking for you, for one thing. You can’t hide with Robert and Alan forever. You get caught, they’re going to be in trouble, too.”
“I’ll go somewhere else,” he said.
“And you can’t help me until you’re free to move around.”
“Help you?” He sounded skeptical. “You think I can help you?”
“Of course you can. I’ve needed to talk to you a dozen times in the past two days, and I didn’t know where you were. And even now, now that I do know, I can’t call you from home because the cops might be monitoring my phone. I need to get into things, like Max’s safe-deposit box, that I don’t have access to without you.”
“What’s in the safe-deposit?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “until I look.”
“Don’t you think the cops will look there?”
“Same answer.”
He got up and did a circuit of the room. His clothes sagged on him, but it wasn’t until he turned his back and I saw the buckle on his pants that I realized he was wearing Alan’s. They made him look even thinner than he was. At the mantel he stopped and picked up one of the black cats. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Do it for Max.”
The cat got folded into half and then into quarters. Christy wasn’t looking at it; he seemed to be studying the face of the grandfather clock. “What kinds of questions did you have?” he asked at last.
“Marta Aguirre, for example. She’s not around.”
He shrugged. “So?”
“So why not?”
He tore the cat in half. “What does it matter?”
“Is she legal?”
“No. Her cousin is. That’s where she lives, with her cousin. Max hired her because she wasn’t legal. His way of helping out, as usual. And she spied on us. She stole from us.”
Ah, Marta the thief. “What kinds of things?”
“Little stuff. A couple of Max’s rings. A gold chain Max gave me. Stuff she could put in her pockets.”
“Max knew?”
Christy rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Max gave her a raise. Said she must not be earning enough.”
“What days did she work?”
“Mondays and Thursdays.”
“My, my,” I said. “Mondays.”
Christy paused in the act of ripping the cat into quarters and stared at me. “The day before-”
“Do you have her address?”
“No, but her cousin’s listed. Elena Aguirre. In Reseda, in the Valley. That’s where we had to call if we wanted her to come in on an off day.” He looked down at the scraps of paper in his hands and searched the room for a place to put them.
“What does she look like?”
“I’m no good at describing people.”
“You’re very good, though, at identifying things you’re not very good at.”
“She’s tiny,” he barked. “No more than five feet, and she’s got short gray hair cut at the ears like a helmet, and one shoulder higher than the other.”
“Any tattoos?”
“How should I-” He stopped and worked his mouth into a tight little knot, and then he smiled that same sweet smile. “That was a joke,” he said. He suddenly looked doubtful. “Wasn’t it?”
“More or less. Are you going to go to the cops for me, Christy? For Max?”
“I don’t know,” he said again, stuffing the cat into his pocket, along with the remnants of the smile.
I gave up. “Are you going to stay here, then?”
“Maybe.” He sounded all of sixteen.
“Then I need to talk to Alan and Robert,” I said. “There are some things they should know.”
He looked stung. “You think I’d keep anything from them?”
“I don’t know what I think, Christy. You’re not willing to do the one thing I need you to do.”
“I haven’t said no yet.”
I got up and crossed the room and knocked on the door through which Alan and Robert had disappeared. The door opened into a den, furnished in Intensive Cozy: quilts and lap rugs flung themselves aggressively across overstuffed furniture. Potted plants flourished in terra-cotta containers. Robert was watching television, wearing earphones, and Alan was reading a detective novel with a startlingly lurid cover.
“Excuse me,” I said, “but I need you in the living room.”
“I’m here,” Christy said sulkily from behind me.
“Robert?” I said, miming removing headphones. Robert pulled his off, looking faintly surprised.
“What is it?” Alan asked.
“The two of you are in danger,” I said, “and I thought somebody should tell you so.”
“We’re not afraid of the police,” Robert said.
“I’m not talking about the police.”
Alan drew in the corners of his mouth, looking like a schoolteacher weighing the punishment for some poor kid’s spitball. “What, then?”
“The guy who killed Max,” I said. “He came back to the house, looking for something, and I don’t think he found it. If I were in his shoes, I’d be worried that Christy has it.”
“I don’t have anything,” Christy said, and then he said, “he came back to the house!”
I told them about my encounter two nights earlier. “Whatever he wanted, it was small,” I said, “and he hadn’t found it when I showed up or he wouldn’t have tackled me. And I doubt he stuck around to look for it after I left.”
“What was it?” Alan asked.
“Something he couldn’t leave,” I said. “Something that ties him to the murder.”
“Well, I haven’t got it,” Christy said insistently.
“That doesn’t really matter,” I said. “What matters is that he probably thinks you do.”
“Why wouldn’t he think the cops found it?” Alan asked.
“He’s thinking past that. If the cops found it, there’s nothing he can do. If Christy has it, though, there is something he can do.”
