“The news guy?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“He at home now, you think?”
“He wasn’t earlier. Maggie was upset about it.” He paused. “Why’d you clear the cops out?”
“I have to spend some time alone with the dead. Get a feel for them. Her.” He nodded toward Maggie. “It makes them real. I need that for me to do my job.” He handed her hand back to Gordon, then brushed the hair from her eyes. “She was beautiful.”
Gordon turned away from her, sad that he had to see her this way, afraid this was the way he was going to remember her. “You’re going to get him, this monster?”
“I am. Now, before they come back, tell me all you can.”
And Gordon did, finishing with Maggie coming into the Whale and telling them about the two men, Virgil and Horace with the ferret face, who’d chased her and the homeless men under the pier who’d rescued her, Darley Smalls and Theo Baptiste.
“She remembered their names. Both the ones from the store and the men under the pier?”
“Yeah.”
“And you remembered, too?”
“Yeah, I remembered, too.”
“Most people would have forgotten the second they heard it.”
“I’m a bright guy.” Blood rushed to Gordon’s face.
“Sorry. Don’t take anything I say personally. I have to ask. You understand?”
“Yeah.” Gordon took in a long breath, calmed back down. “My IQ’s off the chart and I have a photographic memory. Show me a page in book and I can read it back a month later.”
“That’d be great for my line of work.”
“For me it was a curse. I learned to hide it.”
“Why?”
Gordon was still holding onto Maggie’s hand. The warmth, what there had been, was gone now. She was getting cold. Gordon shivered. “Being gay wasn’t a good thing when I was growing up. It’s easier now. I was in the closet and didn’t want to draw attention to myself. If people knew how bright I was, they’d want to know why. They’d snoop, find out.”
“You think?”
“I know. There was this guy in San Francisco. An ex-marine. He knocked the gun out of Squeaky Frome’s hand as she was popping caps at President Ford. Saved Ford’s life. A hero for a day, till the press found out he was gay. Dragged him out of the closet.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Truth.”
Wolfe looked back at Maggie, nude, lying broken by the trash. “What did you think of her story?”
“I believed it. Every word. I wanted to go home with her, but she didn’t want me to leave my chess game. Jonas wanted to drive her, but she insisted she’d be safe. She was going to run straight home, not leave the sidewalk. She made it there. I know, because we talked on the phone. She said she was going to bed, but she must’ve changed her mind, gone back out for some reason.”
“Who do you think did this?”
“Not those characters under the pier. If they were that kind, they’d have done her there and sent her body out on the tide.”
“I’ll have to talk to them, but I think you’re right. It was the two who chased her. Virgil and Horace with the ferret face.”
“Your head, why do you shave it?”
“Is it relevant?” Wolfe said.
“It is for me.”
“Chemo. I had cancer. It’s in remission. I keep it off now because I don’t want anyone to know if it comes back. I was lucky, it was diagnosed early. I took a year off, told my work I needed time to get my life together. They don’t know.”
“So, you know what it’s like to be in the closet.”
“No, I don’t live in fear. If they find out, I lose a job. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.”
Gordon looked into Wolfe’s eyes. “She’s cold.” He rested her hand on the pavement.
“I’m good at what I do. I’ll get the ones who did this.”
“Gordon Takoda.” Gordon held his hand out.
“Billy Wolfe.” Wolfe took the hand, shook it.
“No partner?”
“No.”
“You got one now.” Gordon forced himself to take a quick look at Maggie, brushed a hand against her cheek. He stood, dusted off his pants.
“I work alone.” Wolfe’s rasp was cold, final.
“I’m not just some guy who fell off the turnip truck. I put in twenty years with the FBI. I know my way around an investigation.”
“How’d you do that?” Wolfe stood too.
“Except for a gay pride parade in San Francisco in the ’70s, I was in the closet. I quit right after my twenty was up, for the pension. I came out the next day.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this straight off?”
“I wanted to know what kind of man you were. If you were a jerk who shaved his head for some stupid macho reason, you know, like Kojack, I woulda had to find this prick myself.” Gordon turned away and started toward the crowd at the end of the alley.
Horace looked at the gas gauge. He’d spent a quarter tank driving. Stupid. He was almost into L.A. Somehow he’d wound up on the Santa Monica Freeway. He took the Vermont off ramp and got back on heading south. Where was his mind? Nowhere.
“Gotta keep it together,” he mumbled.
He popped a Meat Loaf CD into the player, cranked it up loud. Keeping it together wasn’t gonna be easy. Not with that smell back there.
He kept the van in the right lane, chewing up the interstate. He cruised onto the Long Beach Freeway, tapping his finger on the wheel as Meat Loaf made love by the dashboard light. He punched the repeat button. He loved that song.
He got off the freeway in Lynwood, drove to one of those car washes he knew about where you do it yourself. Something had to be done about the smell. He backed the van into the middle stall, so nobody could see in when he opened the back doors.
Chopped Harleys lined the curb in front of the biker bar across the street, but Horace wasn’t worried about them. They’d be sucking ’em up till last call and then some. He had plenty of time.
He got out of the van, fed quarters to the coin box. He turned the knob to extra soap, then opened the back doors. His brother was covered in blood and stunk like shit. Horace shook his head. Poor bastard.
He went for the hose. It had a gun-like handle with a yard long nozzle. Horace held it like a range shooter, arm extended, and imagined he was picking off rattlers in the desert. Virgil loved that. Not anymore.
Horace climbed into the passenger seat, dragging the hose. On his knees, facing into the back, he held the hose out.
Virgil was lying, head toward the back door, feet facing Horace. He jerked on the trigger and soapy spray shot out of the hose. Aiming at his brother’s shoes, he blasted the soles, moved up to the legs, shooting blood, shit and the woman’s clothes out the back of the van.
He kept it up till the money ran out, then surveyed his handiwork. Virgil lay on his side, Moby Dick, whiter in death, his whiteness contrasting with the metallic black paint on the inside of the van. Black floor, roof, walls. White Virgil, white and dead.
Across the street a couple of bikers wearing Angels’ colors came out of the bar. Time to wrap it up. Horace
