A Drink Before the War (16 page)

We called George
Higby at the Registry of Motor Vehicles. It took us fifteen tries to get past the busy signal, and then, once we did, a recorded voice told us that all the lines were busy. Our call would be taken in the order it was received and please stay on the line. I hadn't been planning on doing much till the end of the month anyway, so I cradled the phone against my neck and waited.

The silence ended after about fifteen minutes and the phone rang on the other end—once, twice, three times; four, five, six. A voice said, “Registry of Motor Vehicles.”

I said, “George Higby, Vehicle Registration, please.”

The voice hadn't heard me. It said, “You have reached the Registry of Motor Vehicles. Our business hours are nine to five
P.M.
, Monday through Friday. If you need further assistance and have a Touch-Tone phone, please press ‘one' now.” A sonic beep went off in my ear about the same time I realized it was Sunday. If I pressed “one,” I'd get another computer that would gladly connect me to another computer and by the time I got pissed off enough to throw my phone through the window, all the Registry computers would be having a good old yuck for themselves.

I just fucking love modern technology.

I hung up and said, “It's Sunday.”

Angie looked at me. “Yes, it is. Tell me the date and you'll be my idol.”

“Do we have George's home number around here?”

“Possibly. Would you like me to find out?”

“That'd be peachy.”

She wheeled her chair over to the PC and entered her password. She waited a moment and her fingers began singing over the keys so fast the computer had a hard time keeping up. Served it right. Probably hung out with the Registry computers on its off days.

Angie said, “Got it.”

“Give it to me, baby.”

She didn't, but she gave me the number.

George Higby is one of those hapless souls who goes through life expecting the rest of the world to be as nice as he is. Since he gets out of bed each morning with the desire to make the world a better place, a slightly easier place to get along in—he doesn't understand that there are actually people who get up with the desire to make the rest of the world suffer. Even after his daughter eloped with a guitar player twice her age who left her strung out in a Reno motel room; even after she then ran into some especially nasty people and ended up working her sixteen-year-old body on the back streets of Vegas; even after Angie and I flew out there and took her away from these nasty people with the assistance of the Nevada State Police; even after this sweet apple of his eye blamed the mess she'd made completely on him; even after all this—George still meets the world with the nervous smile of someone who only knows how to be open and decent and prays that, maybe just once, the world might reward him. George is the sort of raw material out of which most organized religions create their foundations.

He answered the phone on the first ring. He always does. He said, “This is George Higby,” and I half expected him to follow it with, “Want to be friends?”

“Hi, George, it's Patrick Kenzie.”

“Patrick!” George said, and I have to admit that the enthusiasm in his voice made me happy to be me all of a sudden. I felt as if I'd been put on this earth for one reason:
to call George on July 2 and make his day. He said, “How are you?”

“I'm great, George. How about yourself?”

“Very good, Patrick. Very good. I can't complain.”

George was the kind who never could.

I said, “George, I'm afraid this isn't a strictly social call,” and realized with more than a small measure of guilt that I'd never made a “strictly social call” to George and probably never would.

“Well, no problem, Patrick,” he said, his voice dropping an octave for a moment. “You're a busy man. What can I do for you?”

“How's Cindy?” I asked.

“You know kids today,” he said. “At this point in her life, her father is hardly the most important thing to her. That will change, of course.”

“Of course,” I said.

“Got to let them grow up.”

“Sure,” I said.

“And then they come back to you.”

“They do,” I said. Sure they do.

“But enough about me,” he said. “I saw you in the papers the other day. Are you all right?”

“Fine, George. The media blew it all out of proportion.”

“They'll do that sometimes,” he said. “But then, where would we be without them?”

I said, “The reason I called, George, I need a license number and I can't wait until tomorrow.”

“You can't get it through the police?”

“No. I need to play this one out by myself for a little while longer before I take it to them.”

“OK, Patrick,” he said, thinking about it. “OK,” he repeated, brightening a bit. “Yeah, we can do that. You'll have to give me ten minutes or so to access the computer down there. Is that all right? Can you wait that long?”

“You're doing me the favor, George. Take all the time
you need.” I gave him Jenna's name, driver's license number, and address.

“OK. Fifteen minutes at most. I'll call you back.”

“You have my number?”

“Of course,” he said, as if we all keep the phone numbers of people we met twice two years ago.

“Thanks, George,” I said and hung up before he could say, “No, thank
you
.”

We waited. Angie shot a Nerf ball through the hoop above the boom box, and I tossed it back to her each time. She's got a nice arc, but she doesn't use the backboard enough. She leaned back in the chair and sent one up in a high arc. Before the foam ball swished through the hoop she said, “We going to call Devin in on this one?”

I tossed the ball back to her. “Nope.”

“Why not, exactly?” She put another one up and missed.

“Because we're not. Use the backboard a little more.”

She tossed the ball up above her, bouncing it off the ceiling. “It's not standard procedure,” she said in singsong.

“Standard procedure? What, we're the army now?”

“No,” she said, the Nerf bouncing off her fingers, down her leg, and across the floor. She turned in her chair. “We're detectives who have a pretty good relationship with the police, and I'm wondering why we're risking that by not letting them in on evidence in a Murder One investigation.”

“What evidence?” I leaned out of my chair and scooped up the ball.

“The picture of Socia and Paulson.”

“Doesn't prove anything.”

“That's for them to decide. Either way, it was the last thing the murder victim gave you before she was killed. That definitely makes it something they'd be interested in.”

“So?”

“So, this should be a dual investigation is ‘so.' We should be telling them we're going to look at Jenna's car. We should be asking them for the plate number, not having
poor George break into the Registry computers.”

“And if they were to come across the evidence our clients hired us to find before we do?”

“Then, once they're finished with it, they hand it over to us.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“And if it's incriminating? If it's against our clients' best interests to have the police see it, what then? How good is our business then? If Mulkern wanted to get the police to look for those ‘documents' he would have. Instead, he hired us. We're not
law enforcement
, Ange, we're private investigators.”

“No shit, Sherlock. But—”

“But what? Where the hell's this coming from? You're talking like a novice.”

“I'm no fucking novice, Skid. I just think you should level with your partner about your motives.”

“My motives. And what are my motives, Ange?”

“You don't want the police to get their hands on this, not because you're afraid of what they'll do with it. You're afraid of what they won't do. You're afraid it might just be so bad, as bad as Jenna said, and someone in the State House will make a phone call and the evidence will disappear.”

I kneaded the foam ball in my hand. “You're suggesting my motives are contrary to the interests of our clients?”

“You're damn right I am. If these ‘documents' are as bad as Jenna said, if they incriminate Paulson or Mulkern, what're you going to do then? Huh?”

“We'll have to see.”

“Bullshit we'll have to see. Bullshit. This job should have been over half an hour after we found Jenna in Wickham. But you wanted to play things out, be a goddamn social worker. We're private investigators. Remember? Not moralists. Our job is to turn over what we're hired to find to the people who hired us to find it. And if they cover it
up, if they buy off the police, fine. Because we're out of it. We do our job and we get paid. And if—”

“Wait a minute—”

“—you don't do this, if you turn this into some sort of personal crusade to get back at your father through Mulkern, we can kiss this business and this partnership goodbye.”

I sat forward, my face two feet from hers. I said, “My father? My fucking father? Where's he come into this?”

“He's been in this. He's Mulkern, he's Paulson, he's every politician you ever met who shakes your hand with one hand and stabs you in the back with the other. He's—”

“Don't you talk about my father, Angie.”

“He's dead,” she yelled. “Dead. And I'm real sorry to inform you but lung cancer took care of him before you got the chance to do it yourself.”

I moved closer. “You my analyst now, Ange?” My face felt warm and the blood rippled through my forearms, tingling my fingers.

“No, I'm not your fucking analyst, Patrick, and why don't you back the fuck up?”

I didn't move. The trip switch on my temper had been kicked over and I stared into her eyes. They were zipping from side to side with bolts of anger. I said, “No, Ange, you back the fuck up, and take your pop psychology degree and your sentiments about my father with you. And maybe I won't try and analyze your relationship with that Husband of the Year who treats you so well.”

The phone rang.

Neither of us moved. Neither of us looked at it. Neither of us softened or backed up.

Two more rings.

“Patrick.”

“What?”

Another ring.

“That's probably George.”

I felt my jaw unclench a bit, and I turned and picked up the phone. “Patrick Kenzie.”

“Hi, Patrick. It's George.”

“Georgie,” I said, working some false excitement through my vocal cords.

“Do you have a pencil?”

“Detectives always have pencils, George.”

“Ha. Of course. Jenna Angeline's car is a nineteen seventy-nine Chevy Malibu. Light blue. License number DRW-four seven nine. There's a boot order in effect on it as of June third.”

I felt the rush building from the pit of my stomach, the blood pounding into my heart from open valves. “A boot order?”

“Yes,” George said. “The Denver boot. Ms. Angeline didn't like paying her parking tickets it seems.”

The Denver boot. The yellow, immovable tire lock. The blue Malibu Jerome's friends had been sitting on when I went to Jenna's place. Parked in front of the house. Not going anywhere anytime soon.

I said, “George, you are the greatest. Swear to God.”

“I helped?”

“Damn right you helped.”

“Hey, how about having a beer together sometime soon?”

I looked at Angie. She was peering at something on her lap, her hair covering her face, but the anger hung in the room like exhaust fumes. I said, “I'd really like that, George. Give me a call at the end of next week? I should have wrapped this up by then.” Or died trying.

“You got it,” he said. “You got it.”

“Take care, George.”

I hung up and looked at my partner. She was doing the pencil against her tooth thing again, looking at me, her eyes flat and impersonal. Her voice was pretty much the same. “I was out of line.”

“Maybe not. Maybe I'm just not ready to probe that part of my psyche yet.”

“Maybe you'll never be.”

“Maybe,” I said. “What about you?”

“And the Asshole, as you so kindly refer to him?”

“That guy, yeah.”

“Things are coming,” she said. “They're coming.”

“What do you want to do about the case?”

She shrugged. “You know what I want to do. But, then, I'm not the one who had to watch Jenna die, so I'll let you call it. Just remember, you owe me one.”

I nodded. I held out my hand. “Pals?”

She grimaced and reached across and slapped my palm. “When weren't we?”

“About five minutes ago.” I laughed.

She chuckled. “Oh, yeah.”

 

We parked at the top of the hill, looking down on Jenna's three-decker and the blue Malibu parked out front. The yellow boot was apparent even in the fading light. Bostonians get parking tickets and traffic citations with a consistency most pro sports teams would envy. They also tend to wait until their driver's licenses are about to be renewed before paying attention to them. City officials realized this after a while, took a look at their dwindling coffers, wondered where the graft necessary to put their children through college and their asses on the Vineyard was going to come from, and brought in the Denver boot. It comes, obviously, from Denver, and it clamps around your tire, and that car ain't going anywhere until all those parking fines are paid in full. Tampering with one is a serious offense, punishable by prison and/or a stiff fine. This doesn't deter anyone half as much as the fact that the damn things are almost as hard to remove as an old chastity belt. A friend of mine did it once, with a ballpeen hammer, a chisel, and a whack in just the right place. But the boot must have been defective, because he could never repeat the feat. Depressed the hell out
of him too; he could have been set for life—boot destroyer for hire. Making more money than Michael Jackson.