Deadline (26 page)

‘Why the big pretense?'

He looked at me carefully. ‘How did you get my name?'

‘From a LaBrea CD,' I said.

‘Old things just keep coming back to haunt you.'

‘Don't they,' I said. ‘Also Gerson used your name when he was busted for a coke buy. Another connection.'

‘He used my name with the cops? That fucking bastard stoops so low he gives low new heights.' He looked at me carefully. ‘You been in the wars, Jerry? You've got some blood on your face and your clothes look less than debonair.'

‘Forget my appearance. Do I call you Tim Dole or Phil Stam?'

‘I don't give a damn. I'm leaving, see the suitcases?'

‘Wait,' I said.

‘Or you'll hit me with the iron?'

‘I might get round to it,' I said.

‘But you're the nonviolent type, Jerry.'

‘I used to think so. But I'm under pressure, Tim. And I can't predict what I'll do next. I might swing this iron. I can't say.'

‘Unless I speak.'

‘Quickly,' I said.

‘What are you in the dark about?'

‘The part you played.'

‘It's a sad story. I was a thirty-six-year-old struggling musician. Funny how those two words seem to have been made for each other – struggling and musician. Like ham and eggs. Anyway, I put a band together four years back, Gerson liked our demo, he fronted us a shitload of money. Then he did one of his famous overnight U-turns. Decided he didn't like our songs. Wanted his cash back. I'd spent my share. The other band members managed to cough up – but not me. I owed Gerson more than I could raise. I tried to back out. Ah, no way, we had a contract with some weird lawyer-speak small print I hadn't read too carefully in all the excitement of signing.'

He looked at his watch, then ran a hand through his hair and caught the ponytail, bringing it forward and examining it as if for split ends. His pale-gray eyes had always struck me as sad and honest, which was probably why he'd managed to fool me for as long as he had. Or maybe on some subconscious level I wanted to be fooled, because I needed to think people sought my insights, my experience, my touch. The vanity of a man and his profession. Had I ever really helped anyone?

‘Did Gerson put you up to this?' I asked.

‘Jerry, I like you. I enjoyed being your “patient”.' He hung quote marks around the word ‘patient' with little pincerlike gestures of his fingers. ‘I got into the role. I made up all these fears. These great anxieties. I even took the medication. Wow. I liked that, too.'

‘The point, Tim, the point. Did Gerson give you instructions?'

‘The point is, I fear for my life. There's some heavy people involved in Gerson's set, Jerry.'

‘Like Nardini?'

‘You expect me to say I can implicate the Great Nardini? I don't know anything about Nardini except what I read in the newspapers.' He smiled, but without any joy. He held his hand forward, palm down. ‘See how I shake, doc. I'm running. I'm the fugitive kind. I kid you not.'

‘So who gave you your instructions?'

‘I don't like to snitch,' he said.

‘And I don't like the idea of physical violence,' I replied.

‘The role of hurtee is particularly unappealing,' he said.

‘Then speak,' I said. ‘Spare us both.'

‘OK. Gerson mainly. But a couple of times a guy called Resick would make an appearance. A lawyer type. His main function seemed to be to remind me I owed vast sums of cash to his client – viz., Gerson – and the debt would be wiped out if I did what I was told and asked no questions.'

‘And you were to infiltrate my office, impersonate somebody in need of help.'

‘Yep. I was to come off as a basket-case, a guy only loosely connected to reality.'

‘You did it well.'

‘You led me by the hand, Jerry. You asked the questions, I answered. You seemed so …
eager
, man, I didn't want to disappoint you.'

‘And the reason behind all this was the file.'

‘The file. Right on.'

‘How did you get into the safe?'

He held up his hands; they were his principal mode of communication. His long, bony fingers were stiff. He had unusually big knuckles. ‘With these, Jerry. With these God-given, guitar-plucking, fine-tuned hands, I got into your safe.'

‘Without any inside help?'

‘I didn't need any.'

‘Jane didn't help you?'

‘Your secretary? No.'

I was relieved to hear this about Jane, but I still felt puzzlement, anyway. ‘How did you know there was a floor-safe?'

‘Gerson told me, Jerry. Told me exactly where it was.'

Gerson was like a shadow spreading all over my life. How did Gerson know about the safe? I wondered if he had a hold over Jane, if he'd forced Jane to tell him. I flashed on the party in Gerson's house, the presence of Jane and Allardyce, and wondered if there was some collusion between the three of them, if they were parts of a larger connivance whose design was just beyond my range of vision.

‘So, it was basically a matter of waiting for the right opportunity, Jerry. Hey, I'm missing my plane, man. I'm getting flustered and fluttery. I need some more of those nice calming drugs you gave me.'

‘And when was the right opportunity?'

‘Lunchtime yesterday. It was a piece of cake getting inside the office, Jerry. Your locks suck. As for the guy in the lobby, an earthquake wouldn't shake him, I swear it. I opened the safe. It took me less than three minutes. Unhappily, it was a wasted effort. The file wasn't there. Which caused Gerson apoplexy. I thought he was going to blow like a fucking geyser.' He held his hands up again. ‘These babies didn't always strum a guitar, Jerry. The Devil once found work for these bad boys.'

‘You were a thief,' I said.

‘I was misguided in my youth,' he said. ‘No offence, Jerry, but I have to fuck off out of here. I want a little distance between myself and Gerson, OK? I don't want to be at his beck and call if something else crosses his mind and he comes looking for me. I don't want to be his goddam prisoner. I want a simple life in another town. I'll shave my head and wear a saffron robe and hang out in provincial airports if I have to. Now, excuse me. With any luck, I might make the plane. Maybe.'

He bent to lift up his bags.

I said, ‘Did you know about the kidnap?'

He straightened up again and looked at me. ‘What kidnap?'

I told him.

He looked surprised. ‘I swear I didn't know, Jerry. I wouldn't get involved in anything like that. I met your wife a few times, and she was always real nice to us back when we thought we were stars. She was also nice when we discovered we weren't. She's a good woman. I often wondered how she could stand working at LaBrea. I guess she likes the job.'

She likes the job. She likes the buzz. The wild side. My Sondra.

‘What else do you know?' I asked again.

‘That's it.'

I gazed at his face. He'd fooled me before. But I had the feeling he was weary of acting; that he was too afraid to pursue that particular career.

‘You can still catch that plane, Tim,' I said.

‘Yeah, maybe.' He picked up his bags and struggled towards the door, groaning from the weight of them. ‘I called a taxi about half an hour ago. You can't get a cab in this city any more. None of the drivers know their way around LA. They're all from Macedonia or someplace.'

‘One last thing,' I said. ‘How do I find Resick?'

‘Not in the phone book. Guy's unlisted.'

‘But you know the address, Tim.'

He looked at me with concern. ‘Leave it alone,' he said.

‘The address, Tim. That's all I want.'

He hesitated, then he shrugged and told me, and looked sorry that he had.

‘I'll help you with the bags,' I said. I took one, a black leather carry-on bag, and we walked towards the elevator. We rode down to the lobby in silence. We walked in the direction of the front door, the dark street.

Before we made it, Big Skull loomed up out of nowhere. A huge mirage. His fair-haired friend was standing just behind him, with a red-stained bandage on his left hand and the sleeve of his shirt rolled way up his left arm. His bracelet dangled from his wrist.

‘Hot dog,' Big Skull said. His eyes popped as he smiled. ‘Lookeee here. What have we got? Tim the spy and Supershrink carrying bags.'

The fair-haired man said, ‘Looks to me like somebody's planning a trip. We got here just in time, you ask me.'

I tightened my grip on the tire-iron, which I held pressed flat against my thigh. I set down the black leather bag I was carrying. Dole was standing motionless; this was his nightmare – he wasn't going to walk away from the trap in which Gerson had imprisoned him. There was no escape. He belonged to Gerson.

Dole made a nervous little sound somewhere between a sigh and a sob. ‘Guys, listen, let me walk out of here, you never saw me, who's gonna know?'

Big Skull said, ‘We'll know.'

Fairhair said, ‘Yeah, we'll know. We'll have to live with the fact we've been derelict in our duties if we let you walk, Dole. See the problem?'

Dole said, ‘Hey, we can talk, come to an understanding.'

Big Skull looked at me, bug-eyed and spooky, like an extra in a movie populated with aliens. ‘As for you, doc, you got something we were supposed to get from you back at that bank, only you appeared to split before we could get our hands on it. You got it with you now?'

I shook my head. ‘I have a deal, and it doesn't include you.'

The fair-haired guy stared at his bandage as if he were fascinated by it. He said, ‘We never heard about any change of plan.'

Big Skull blinked in an uncoordinated way. ‘Get the goods, that's what we were told. That's why we went to the bank. Nobody's told us any different since then.'

‘Then you've had a serious breakdown in communications, guys, and I suggest you call your controller and get this all straightened out.' I gripped the iron as hard as I could, because I knew where this was headed, and I didn't like the prospect. I felt flushed with the idea of violence; I was poised on a dark ledge. The combined IQs of the two guys probably made them candidates for the baboon house; nevertheless, they were bright in the one place where it mattered to them – the realm of savagery.

Dole said, ‘I'll just leave you guys to –'

Big Skull suddenly headbanged Dole. One backward dip of the strong man's head, and then a fierce swift arc as he brought his face forward and cracked his forehead against Dole's brow, shuddering bone on bone. The musician went down at once, and as I was about to say something to Big Skull – complain, protest, whatever – I saw that Fairhair had the brass knuckles on his right hand and was preparing to swing his fist towards me.

I raised the tire-iron very quickly and hit him a vigorous blow to the side of his head, a serious shot he couldn't avoid. Bone crunched. Blood streamed from his ear and out of the ragged slit the iron had hacked in his jawbone; he fell back against the wall, head dangling at a terrible angle. Big Skull reacted fast to the situation, drawing his gun out of his spine holster, but then I brought the iron down again with a speed and strength I'd forgotten I ever had. I pounded the back of his hand and the gun went flying away; then, as he raised his hand to his mouth as if to lick it for pain-relief, I struck him again, hard to the side of his neck. He half-dodged the blow, but not quite. He lost his balance and dropped to one knee and, struggling for breath, glared up at me. ‘You fuck,' he snarled, and I swung the iron two-handed, a mighty swipe like with a golf-club or baseball bat, and hit him across the nose, breaking the bone, splitting the upper lip, shattering the teeth. He hunched forward, his spine curved, and blood poured out of him. He held his hands cupped just beneath his face as if he might catch the blood. I thought about hitting him one last time, but I didn't, the fight was done. The big swing with the iron had stretched the muscles in my ribs and sent pain through me, and when I moved my lungs ached, but I felt good and vibrant. I hadn't become soft and West Coast altogether, there was still something steely in me that didn't mind fighting, something cold, something born in storm and snow.

I ran from the building, reached the Ultima, got inside. As I wheeled away from the sidewalk, I was amazed to see Big Skull staggering out of the apartment building, moving with God knows what kind of effort. Each step he took was a struggle. His face was black with blood, but he was grinning and I couldn't figure why.

‘Hey, doc. Don't forget your free gift!' And he threw something silvery that sailed through the open window of the car, flew past my face, and landed on the passenger seat. Then he collapsed on the sidewalk, going down on all fours like a motionless bear.

I drove past him. I heard him cough blood. I also thought I heard him laugh a loose, fractured kind of laugh.

The box on the passenger seat measured about twelve inches by nine, roughly. It was wrapped in silver paper. I picked it up in my right hand as I drove. It weighed a few ounces. I shook it, heard nothing.

I set the box in my lap. Did it contain another lock of Sondra's hair? Another reminder? I pulled the car to the side of the street. Quickly, I ripped the silver paper away. I reached in, encountered some tissue paper. Wet and sticky. I pulled my hand out of the box and saw, by the light that fell from the streetlamp, that my fingers were dark with blood.

Sickened, I let the box slide from my grasp; it dropped on the passenger seat and its contents slithered out on the fine tan leather. I stared at it.

The mess on the seat. The soft, shapeless mess.

What was this? All my medical training dissolved.

Recognition wasn't instant, but when it came I felt a pain as severe as that created by a serrated knife thrust into my heart. I covered my mouth with a hand, and at that moment my environment changed weirdly: the streetlamps dimmed, the sky tipped sideways, I was detached from my body and floating out over the city; a capitulation of senses, an eclipse of reason.