I guessed the dead man had been in his late sixties, maybe older. I guessed he was Bernard Corsello. I wondered about a lot of things.
“Quick look around,” I said. “Touch nothing.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Something that says this has something to do with Adele. Something I don’t want to find.”
Ames strode over the body and into the living room. I went for the open bedroom. On the table next to the bed was a flat and warm glass that seemed to have about two inches of some liquid in it. I smelled it. Cola. Next to the drink were two pens, a pad of paper, a telephone, a wallet, and some change. I picked up the wallet, opened it, and found sixty-two dollars. I rubbed off my prints with my shirt and put the wallet down. Nothing else in the room seemed interesting except for the hanging Jesus who looked down on me. I didn’t say anything to him. I hadn’t since I was a kid.
I went into the bathroom. Nothing of interest. The third room, the one with the closed door, I opened with my shirt as a mitt. The lights were off. I hit the wall switch and wiped away my print.
This was clearly Mickey Merrymen’s home away from home. The drawers were open, and nearly empty except for a few T-shirts and a single pair of underpants with a hole in them. A CD player sat on the small dresser. The bed was a mess. There was a small bookcase next to the bed. There were only a few books in it, all horror stories, Straub, Koontz, King, Saul, McKimmon. What made it clearly Mickey’s room were the three photographs tacked to the wall above the bed. They were small. One was on an angle. Adele was in all of them. From the holes in the wall around the three photographs I guessed there had been more, lots more.
Adele was alone in two of the photographs, both outdoors. Adele from stomach to head. The other of her alone was also outdoors. In the first she was smiling. In the second, she pursed her lips with a pretend kiss for the camera. She looked like any other pretty sixteen-year-old. Her past didn’t show. In the third photograph, Adele was leaning against a tall young man who reminded me of both Michael “the bat” Merrymen and a young Anthony Perkins. His arm was around Adele. He was grinning. I liked his white button-down shirt. I liked his smile. I didn’t like having Adele’s photographs on the wall. I took them down, dropped the tacks in an empty wastebasket, and pocketed the pictures. There was nothing else I could find to link Adele to the house. I doubted the police would go over every print in the place, but there was nothing I could do about it.
I found Ames in the kitchen looking at the refrigerator. There were magnets holding up three messages. Each magnet was a photograph, Einstein, Marlon Brando, and Hank Aaron. One message was a simple grocery list. The second message read: “Insurance due first Tuesday of the month.” The third message was, “Remember to call for pizza for Mickey and the girl.”
I pulled the pizza message from under Hank Aaron and said, “Anything?”
Ames shook his head “no” and we headed toward the corpse and the door.
“Didn’t take his money, the television, CD player,” I said.
We moved past the dead man and Ames stepped out of the door. I should have hurried after him but I looked one last time at the dead man and the thought came. That was the way I wanted to see the man who had run down my wife four years ago on Lake Shore Drive. He had left her bleeding, dying, barely alive. It took at least five minutes before someone went to help her. It was too late. The driver had gone on. What was that murderer doing now? Was he haunted by what he had done? Had he been a drunk who didn’t remember the life he had taken? I looked back at Jesus in the next room expecting no answer or solace.
“Best be going,” Ames said.
I looked back at Corsello one last time, wiped the door handle, went into the night, and wiped the outside handle.
“Now?” asked Ames.
I looked around. The street was almost empty. Half a block down to our left an old black woman was laboring under the weight of two heavy shopping bags. We got into the car and drove.
I dropped Ames and his scooter back at the Texas Bar and Grille.
“We’re looking for Flo Zink’s white minivan,” I said as we maneuvered the scooter out of the trunk. “This kid,” I said, pulling out the photograph of Mickey and Adele, “is probably with her.”
“I’ll ask around,” Ames said.
Neither of us said what we were thinking. Adele had killed before. She had killed a man who deserved killing. Adele, in short, knew how to pull a trigger. If something had happened, something… I gave up.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said.
Ames nodded, locked his scooter, and waved as I got into the Cutlass.
It had been a busy day. And it wasn’t over.
I called the police from a pay phone on Main Street. If I leaned back I could have seen the downtown police headquarters. I hit 911.
“How can we help you?” a woman asked calmly.
I told her, with my best James Mason imitation, that a man was dead. I quickly gave the address and hung up before she could ask for my name.
When I got to the Bangkok, the place was packed. Sally saw me making my way through the crowd. She was seated at a booth with her two kids, Michael, fourteen, and Susan, eleven. Sally raised a hand and I moved to the booth.
Sally and Susan sat on one side of the table. I sat next to Michael on the other.
“Someone hit you,” Susan said, pointing to my cheek.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I brought her bad news.”
“It happens,” Sally said.
Sally is and will always be a year older than I am. She is solid, ample, and pretty with clear skin, short wavy hair, and a voice that always reminded me of Lauren Bacall.
“Ready to order now?” asked a beautiful Thai waitress in a yellow and white silk dress.
“You look terrible,” Michael said, turning toward me.
Neither of Sally’s kids disliked me. I think I puzzled them. I never made jokes, didn’t work at making them like me. And I’m sure they wondered what their mother found in the soulful, balding man who reached for the tea and said, “You guys?”
“Crispy duck,” said Sally.
“The same with a Thai iced tea,” said Michael.
“Another one. Thai iced tea too.”
“I’ll have the tofu pad thai,” I said.
The pretty waitress smiled and walked away.
“So,” said Sally. “How was your day and how can you afford this?”
“New clients,” I said. “Two of them.”
“Your cheek?” she said.
“Someone slapped me.”
“You deck him?” Michael asked.
“It was a woman,” I said.
“Did you deck her?” asked Susan.
“She was a lot bigger than I am,” I said.
“Most people are,” said Susan. “That doesn’t mean you should let them hit you.”
“It’s part of my job,” I said. “I slap people with a summons. They slap me with their hands.”
“It’s more than that,” Sally said, looking into my eyes.
Yes, I thought, I’ve just come from discovering a dead man, almost certainly murdered. I not only found him, I pounded his head three or four times when I tried to open his door.
“There’s more,” I said. “Later.”
During dinner, Susan did most of the talking, mainly about a friend named Jackie who may have decided she no longer wanted to be friends with Susan. Jackie’s transgressions were numerous. I know one was that Jackie had begun sitting at a different table at lunch. I don’t remember the others. I don’t remember eating. I sort of remember paying the check with some of the crumpled bills from Marvin Uliaks. I sort of remember Sally asking the
