Country of Old Men (18 page)

“It never happened,” Gruber said. He looked at Goetz. “Do I have to answer this garbage?”

Goetz said to Leppard, “He doesn’t have to answer.”

“Damn it, Rube, I need witnesses to the Shales shooting,” Leppard told him. “I’ve got next to nothing to go on there. I need somebody who got a good look at the shooter.” He took hold of the chair back where his jacket hung, leaned over the chair, put his face close to Gruber’s, and shouted, “What time did you go out looking for Zach that night?”

Gruber sat and sulked. Finally he looked up. “If I tell you what happened that night, what will it get me?”

“It won’t get you off for beating your child,” Leppard said. “We don’t plea-bargain child abuse.”

Dave cleared his throat. Leppard stepped to him, bent over him, listened while Dave whispered in his ear. Leppard frowned to himself for a minute, stroking the white streak in his hair, then nodded, straightened, turned back to Gruber. “We could probably do something for Tessa,” he said. “Jail is no place for a beautiful woman like Tessa.”

“What about Zach?” Gruber said.

“What about him? He’ll go to foster care, someplace they know the difference between a child and a punching bag.”

“Don’t be intemperate, Lieutenant,” Goetz said. “Nothing’s been proven yet.”

Leppard said, “I apologize, Counselor.” He looked at the sullen Gruber again. “The county likes children to be with their own parents if possible,” he said. “As Mr. Goetz says, nothing’s been proven against you, yet. Maybe Zach had another one of his famous accidents. Maybe he got out of the car at that filling station to play hide-and-seek with you, and you didn’t miss him till you’d driven all the way to Contra Costa County.” Leppard smiled. Dave was glad the smile was not directed at him. Leppard said, “Maybe the judge will send you and Tessa and Zach to Disneyland for a week, all expenses paid, as a model young American family.” Then his vein of humor ran out. He became a menace again, bent into Gruber’s face again, and asked, “Now tell me about the man who shot Cricket Shales.”

“I didn’t go out to look for Zach. Like I told you, I was in bed asleep. The gunshots woke me up. That was when I went out. We ain’t right over it, but some way our bedroom gets the noise from the swimming pool—late parties, drunks, diving board banging, splashes in the water. Pain in the ass. I was sure these shots come from that direction. And I headed that way, and down the stairs. And I seen this guy crouching down in the pool. It’s empty, you know.”

“I know.”

“In the corner, at the deep end, like he was hiding. I heard somebody running away.” He peered up at Leppard. “Must have been that Ruby Fine, right?”

“Rachel Klein,” Goetz said.

“With your little son,” Leppard said.

“I didn’t hear him,” Gruber protested.

“He was barefoot,” Dave said.

Leppard said, “Forget that for now. What about the man in the pool? Did he have a gun?”

“Yeah, he had a gun.” Gruber barked a laugh. “Damn right. He seen me, too. I ducked back up the stairs before he could blow me away. You better believe it.”

“Describe him,” Leppard said.

“White guy, around my age”—Gruber moved his shoulders, wrinkled his brow—“what can I tell you? He looked like anybody. The light was bad. They don’t maintain the ground lights around that complex worth shit. He was down in the shadows. And I only seen him for a split second. Soon as he heard me and turned to look, I cut out.”

“What was he wearing?” Leppard said.

“One of them leather flight jackets,” Gruber said. For a moment his eyes went dreamy. “Damn, I sure would like to own one of those. But they cost a bundle.” He focused on Leppard again. “You going to get Tessa off? She didn’t do nothing wrong. Hell, she cried when I said we couldn’t look for Zach at that filling station, we had to get out of there. She cried and bitched at me for miles to turn back and find fucking Zach. I finally had to hit her to shut her up.”

Goetz winced. “Don’t say things like that.”

“What did I say?” Gruber asked him blankly.

Supper was chicken Marsala and asparagus tips. Dave set the plates on the table, switched on the television set, and sat down across from Cecil, who was smiling over his plate and tucking a red napkin in at his collar. “Super,” he said, and then looked at the television screen because Dot Yamada, the Channel Three news anchor, spoke his name. “And now here is Cecil Harris in an exclusive interview with renowned Los Angeles drug counselor Jordan Vickers.” And there were Cecil and Vickers seated facing each other behind the news desk.

“Jesus Christ,” Dave said.

The on-screen Cecil was talking about the murder of pop guitarist, drug dealer, ex-convict Cricket Shales—the photo shown was a blurry snapshot—sketching in the background quickly. The real Cecil held his fork poised over his plate and looked at Dave surprised. “What’s the matter?”

The on-screen Cecil said, “At his famous rehabilitation center for drug addicts, Tomorrow House”—file film of Tomorrow House—“Jordan Vickers was instrumental in the recovery of Cricket Shales’s onetime girlfriend Rachel Klein, whom Shales had introduced to drugs.” Footage of Rachel Klein with arresting officers. “Ms. Klein was for a time held by police for Shales’s murder, but those charges have now been dropped, in part as a result of Mr. Vickers’s testimony.” He turned from looking into the camera to ask Vickers, “Can you tell us what it was you told the police?”

The camera pulled back for a two-shot. Vickers was self-possessed, serious. “That I received a telephone tip on the night of the murder that Cricket Shales might be attempting to contact Rachel Klein at her apartment. I wanted to prevent that if I could.”

“And when you got to the apartment, what happened?”

“I saw two men fighting in the patio.”

“Two men?” Cecil said. “And then what happened?”

“There were gunshots.” Vickers gave a wry smile. “I made myself scarce after that.”

“But you can say that it was not Rachel Klein who killed Cricket Shales, but some man. You told me earlier that he was in his thirties. Were you able to identify him?”

“It was too dark,” Vickers said. “It was midnight.”

“Suppose you saw him again?” Cecil said.

Vickers shrugged. “I might recognize him.”

Dave jumped up and switched off the television set. He stared at Cecil, unbelieving. “How could you?”

“What do you mean? Councilman Hernandez brought him to the studio. Said you’d cleared it when he talked to you at the house.”

“Cleared—?” Dave laughed. “You didn’t believe him.”

“He seemed surprised you hadn’t told me.”

“I’m surprised he knew who you were,” Dave said. “He didn’t give me a hint.”

“Me either,” Cecil said. “I’d have said he thought I was the houseboy. Anyway”—he smiled apologetically—“to tell you the truth, I didn’t see how you had any right to clear anything. So after Hernandez left, I put Vickers in a dressing room with a cup of coffee and a doughnut, and I called Leppard. And he said Vickers is under suspicion, but there’s no evidence to hold him. I checked with the district attorney’s office, and they haven’t even heard this part of Vickers’s testimony. They certainly haven’t muzzled him. So Vickers is free to say whatever he wants. Right?”

“Right.” Dave nodded wearily, picked up his napkin, unfolded it deliberately, laid it in his lap.

Cecil said, “See, I do know my job.”

“And you did your job.” Dave picked up his fork. “The public has a right to know—yes?”

“It wasn’t in the
Times
,” Cecil said.

Dave tasted his supper. “He didn’t go to the
Times
.”

Cecil peered at him, frowning. “You saying they wouldn’t have printed it?” He laid down his fork. “What? Hernandez sized me up as a stupid kid?”

Dave twitched him a smile. “I think you can expect a handsome present soon.”

Cecil sat straight, offended. “He didn’t offer—”

“A bribe? No, of course not,” Dave said. “But a man like Hernandez scrupulously rewards those who help him.”

Cecil looked stunned. “He used me?”

Dave nodded. “I’m afraid he did.”

“Shit!” Cecil jumped up from his chair so it banged the wall. Tears filled his eyes. “Shit, shit, shit! When am I ever going to stop being a fool?”

“The same time as the rest of us,” Dave said. “When they drop you into the ground. Sit down. What he did to you is nothing to what he’s done to his friend Vickers.”

Cecil didn’t sit. “What do you mean?”

“Until you put him on the air,” Dave said, “only Leppard and I knew he’d seen the man who killed Cricket. He came so close to the two of them fighting in that breezeway, he almost bumped into them. Why didn’t the killer see him? He’s not easy to miss. He couldn’t chase him down then because Rachel was coming, wasn’t she? And the killer had to hide, himself. But now—now the killer has seen Vickers again, hasn’t he, knows his name and where to find him.”

Cecil licked dry lips. “You mean I set Vickers up to be murdered?”

“No more than Vickers did, himself,” Dave said. “He must have sensed after that interview with Leppard that he was a suspect for murder, and it worried him. So he called Hernandez for help—what else are powerful friends for? And he played right into Hernandez’s hands. The councilman advised him to clear himself of the murder charge by taking his story to the court of public opinion. Hernandez would arrange for it himself. He knew someone at Channel Three news who would help him out.”

“Oh, Lord.” Cecil moaned, and looked at the ceiling.

Dave went on, “By telling the viewers of the six o’clock news he saw the killing and the killer, Vickers would change himself from a suspect into a mere witness—or so Hernandez claimed.” Dave took another bite of chicken, while Cecil watched him, agonized. “He suckered Vickers first. Then he suckered you.”

“Why?” Cecil cried this, bewildered, frantic. “Why?”

“Because Vickers knows a dirty Hernandez family secret,” Dave said. “And in Hernandez’s very shrewd judgment, Vickers cracks under the slightest pressure, and the pressure of a murder investigation is in no way slight, not when it focuses on you, and it was beginning to do that to Vickers, wasn’t it? Vickers betrayed Rachel to save his own hide. And she meant a lot more to him than Alejandro Hernandez. If he thought it would help him, wouldn’t Vickers just as easily spill what he learned the night of the murder when Hernandez rang him for help?”

Cecil reached up for the phone, and held it out to Dave. “Get Leppard to give him police protection.”

“I’ll try,” Dave said, and took the phone.

Lying on the couch in the rear building, reading the new mystery Jack Helmers had handed him the other morning, Dave heard the coachwork of Amanda’s red Alfa-Romeo squeak as it zipped down into the yard from Horseshoe Canyon trail. It was a familiar sound and a welcome one. She’d had the car it seemed forever. He hoped she’d never get a new one. It had become in his mind such an extension of herself. He marked his place in Jack’s book with the jacket flap, laid the book under the lamp, laid his reading glasses on top of it, and got up. He was already on his way to the door when her footsteps sounded in the courtyard. He could tell from the click of her heels she was in a testy mood. He opened the door. “Right on time,” he said. “Come in. A drink?”

“Dave, I wish you wouldn’t—” She broke that off, gave him a tight little smile, a quick little peck on the cheek. “Oh, yes, of course, a drink, and then”—she plumped down in one of the red leather wing chairs—“a long, Dutch avuncular lecture to straighten me out.”

“You’ve been peeking at the script.” He lifted a hand in the doorway, and after a moment the ground lights in the courtyard went out. He smiled and closed the door. He walked up the room, past his desk and file cabinets, to the dimly lit bar. “Cecil’s out. Brandy?”

“And soda, please.” She wore off-white jeans, a big floppy boy’s cap, oatmeal color, a bulky oatmeal color sweater, a yards-long muffler. The size of the chair made her look tinier than ever, but red was a color that favored her prettiness, though it needed no favors.

“It’s a shame to treat brandy like that,” he said.

“Europe does it,” she said, “and I’m over there so often now, it’s come to seem natural.”

He fixed brandy and soda for her, no ice, and got himself brandy neat in a small bubble glass, and came back to her with these things, gave her what she’d asked for, and sat down on the couch again with his drink.

“He’s a nice straightforward kid,” Dave said. “Forget the others. Don’t pile their faults on him.”

“We had an understanding.” Amanda sipped the brandy and soda. “No show-biz shenanigans. Not for me.”

Dave lit a cigarette. “He doesn’t like them either.”

“Oh, Dave, he’s bought into them,” she said impatiently. “They come with the territory. Actors sign contracts. They don’t control what they do or what’s done to them. I knew that. I don’t know why I didn’t remember it earlier.”

“Because Cliff’s different from the rest of them,” Dave said with a smile, lifting his glass to her. “And you knew that from the start.”

“I was in love and I believed what I wanted to believe.”

“He didn’t do this to you, Amanda.”

“Hah!” She tucked up her feet. “Then who did, pray?”

Dave heard muffled sounds outside, and glanced at the door. “I invited you here tonight to meet him.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Him?”

Dave shrugged. “Him, her. We’ll see in a minute.”

Amanda stood up. “What are you babbling about?”

“I never babble.” Dave got up and went to the door. “Cecil will introduce us.” He pulled the door open.

And through the doorway, propelled by a shove from behind, stumbled a youth, whining and cursing in Italian. His black hair stood up spiky. He was so slight his trendy wide-shoulder jacket looked borrowed. Two cameras hung around his neck. A bulky photo equipment bag bumped his hip. Behind him, Cecil came in, grinning.

“Wasn’t any time at all,” he said, “when I heard him crackling around in the bushes.”

“Who are you?” the youth demanded of Dave. “What do you mean by this—this—assault? I will call the
guardi.
I will tell them—”