Richardson was trying to add it up. How fast could he open the drawer and get the gun? Would I be fast enough to stop him?
“Don’t be an idiot, Ron.” I got up casually and opened the nightstand drawer. There was a chrome-plated .357 Magnum in a leather holster next to a box of condoms. I didn’t generally get any pleasure out of being callous, but my intention was to create a certain impression on Richardson. That is, I wanted to scare the shit out of him. I sat the condoms on top of the nightstand. “You can fuck her now without these, Ron.”
Richardson rolled over and looked at his girlfriend. He must have stared at her body for a full minute before looking back at me. I had sat down again, the .357 resting on my knee.
“You killed her, you motherfucker!”
“The way I see it, you killed her, Ron. When you failed to make the bank deposit.”
“I’m not giving you all that money.”
“If you’re serious about that, if you really aren’t going to pay me, then you should repeat what you just said, and I’ll kill you now and spare us both any additional inconvenience.”
I waited for him to think it over. I noticed his eyes moving now and then to the door.
“Your boys are taking a little nap in the woods,” I said. “If you’re still alive when I leave, you’ll probably want to go out and cut them loose. They can help you get rid of her body.”
“I loved her, you fucking asshole!”
“She was trophy snatch, Ron, like all the others, and you know it. You’ll replace her in a week.”
“Goddamnit! You can’t do this to me! You just killed a woman. I’ll make sure you burn for it.”
“Don’t get sidetracked. What about the bank deposit?”
“You’re really going to kill me if I don’t give you the money?”
“I am. I already told you that. This is your last chance. You didn’t take me seriously the first time, and it cost your girlfriend her life.”
Richardson turned his head and looked at her body lying inert beside him. He moved several inches away from her, as if her death had immediately reduced her to something distasteful, something he did not want to touch.
“Are you getting the message, Ron?”
Richardson was like a little kid who’d spent a long time convincing himself he could fly. Then someone came along and pushed him out of his tree, and of course he hit the ground like the sack of shit he really was.
“I’ll pay you, goddamnit!”
“It’s Wednesday. Well, Thursday morning, to be precise. I’ll give you until midnight tonight to make the deposit. Are we agreed on that?”
Richardson nodded his head in the affirmative.
“Now then,” I said, satisfied that the money issue was settled, “what about Dean Arnaud?”
The expression on Richardson’s face told me everything I needed to know. “You didn’t do your homework, did you, Ron?”
“What the hell, man! I told you I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“I have reason to think you know something about it.”
“Yeah?” he said, forcing disdain into his voice, like a man unsure of how convincing his lies are. “What reason would that be?”
Finding Richardson’s photo in Francine’s closet didn’t necessarily mean he had anything to do with the murder, but I wasn’t going to give him the benefit of the doubt. One way or another, everything a man like Richardson said was a lie. “We’ve come a long way tonight, Ron. I think we’ve really started to understand each other.”
“Jesus Christ! I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t have anything to do with killing that cop.”
I picked up the .357 and opened the cylinder. It was fully loaded. I removed one round and examined it, as if evaluating its suitability to the task at hand, then replaced it and closed the cylinder. I raised the gun and pointed it at Richardson’s head. He winced.
“But you know something about it, don’t you?”
“Look, I admit I’m in the drug business. So what? So are the fucking pharmaceutical companies. Anyway, the asshole wasn’t killed over dope. Not as far as I know, anyway. He was snooping around, asking questions about some missing girl. Somebody didn’t like it, so they got rid of him.”
“What’s the connection to you?”
“There isn’t any fucking connection. Arnaud bought dope sometimes from one of my people. That’s all.”
“Arnaud was dirty?”
“It wasn’t a fucking secret. You want my guess, that’s why his murder was never solved. The guy was an embarrassment. The cops didn’t want the bad press.”
“Did he buy the dope for himself?” I asked.
“Some, maybe. But I think he sold most of it. Small time shit. Convention goers, people like that, out-of-towners.”
“So what makes you think he wasn’t killed over dope?”
“I don’t know, it’s possible, I guess. But it doesn’t make sense. He was too small-time.”
Richardson was the one not making sense. People were killed every day for a lot less than Dean Arnaud was carrying. “There’s more you’re not telling me, Ron.”
Richardson tried to look offended.
“What I’m curious about is why you seem to know quite a bit about Arnaud, but you say didn’t have anything to do with his murder.”
“Arnaud bought some coke from my guy, a couple grand worth, the same day he got popped.”
“And you know this because?”
“My guy got nervous when he heard about Arnaud trading the dope for a bullet in the head.”
“So what did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. I told my guy to shut the fuck up and forget about it. As long as the police didn’t know who killed Arnaud, there wasn’t any problem.”
I smiled at Richardson. He didn’t smile back. He seemed to be waiting for the obvious.
“What’s your guy’s name?” I asked.
“Goddamnit, I don’t need this shit stirred up.”
I didn’t say anything, just waited, tapping my index finger lightly on the barrel of the 357.
“Danny Weiss,” Richardson said, after about half a minute. “He lives over in West Sac. His address is in the fucking phone
