Low Life (22 page)

Steering with his knee as he drove, he stuck a cigarette between his lips and lighted it (this time with motel matches; he couldn’t believe he’d lost his lighter on
top of everything else). Then he pressed a button on the door and the window hummed and slid down a couple of inches. A breeze blew against his face. Traffic was light but the noise of humming
tires was loud.

The lights of the city flickered to his left like grounded stars.

The house was small and dark – nearly all the lights inside turned off. Only one room’s window glowed with a dim yellow light, like a jack-o’-lantern. The
yard was flat and bare, no flowers or trees or shrubbery of any kind, just a lawn littered with crabgrass and dandelions. The stucco looked dull and unpainted. It was just concrete gray. A light
blue Ford Pinto station wagon sat in the driveway, the back window shattered, replaced by a black trash bag which was held in place by now-peeling duct tape, crisped by the sun. The tags on the
license plate were eight months past expiration.

He pulled to a stop at the curb and stepped out into the night. He dropped his cigarette into the gutter. The flame was snuffed out by a slow trickle of water coming from someone’s
sprinkling system several houses down. The sound of freeway traffic echoed through the cul-de-sac. A cool breeze tousled his hair. He swallowed.

Finally, after simply standing for several long moments, he walked across the lawn – feeling dead grass crunch beneath the soles of his feet despite the moisture of the soil in which it
was rooted – and when he reached the front door he knocked.

There was silence from within – and then the sound of footsteps nearing the door, the rattle of the doorknob being turned, the pained moan of sore hinges.

And then a man in his forties was looking at Simon. He was barrel-chested and bare-chested, wearing only a pair of canvas shorts. His torso was covered in a thick layer of hair in which crumbs
of food were nestled. His hair was brown except at the temples, which were gray, and his beard – which was long and tangled – matched his temples. The crow’s feet at the corners
of his eyes cut deep lines into his flesh. He was holding a can of Budweiser. His eyes were dull as he opened the door but when he finally got around to looking at Simon they went sharp and bright
and angry.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

‘I’m – what?’

‘Why are you here?’

‘I’m—’ Simon swallowed. ‘I’m here to see Kate. Is she here?’

‘What?’

‘I’m here to—’

‘You
called me earlier tonight.’

‘What? No.’

Simon didn’t know why he lied. It was simply his first instinct. When someone asks you if you did something and he’s got an accusatory tone in his voice you say no.

‘I recognize your voice. I thought it sounded familiar.’

‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I called. I just want to see Kate. I don’t know what she told you, but I really—’

‘What she told me? Are you out of your mind? Kate is dead.’

‘That’s what you said on the phone, but I—’

‘But nothing. What did you come here for?’

The man – John – now had moisture in his eyes, and they were going red. He blinked several times quickly and looked away at something in the corner.

‘She can’t have died last April. I saw her yesterday.’

‘Just get out of here.’

‘Maybe I can come in and look aro—’

‘No. I told you at the inquest I never wanted to see your fucking face again and I meant it. In fact, if I recall, I told you I’d kill you if I ever saw you again, and you’re
really tempting me. Get off my lawn. Get out of here. Never come back.’

‘But she can’t be—’

‘She
is
!’ John yelled. ‘And you fucking know it. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you and I don’t care. Now
leave
!’

As he said the last word he pulled back and threw his can of Budweiser. It was almost full and when it slammed against Simon’s chest from only three or four feet away it knocked the wind
out of him. He stumbled backwards and then fell on his ass on the lawn.

The can dropped to the front porch and vomited foaming liquid from its metal mouth while rolling along the gentle grade toward the grass.

An image like a shard of glass cut through his mind: a yellow Chevy Nova smashing through a guardrail. There were trees thirty or forty feet below, growing on the edge of a
cliff, and in a moment, once gravity kicked in, the car would be dropped into them.

As the Nova flew through the air its front end tilted downward, the headlights splashing across the tops of trees, and from where he sat in the passenger’s seat, Simon could see a flock of
birds take flight from one of them, frightened by the sound of the car’s engine.

He glanced to his left, to the driver’s seat, and—

‘Was it a car accident?’

Simon looked up from the lawn toward John Wilhelm. The man looked back at him momentarily and then without a word slammed the door shut. That was followed by the sound of a lock clicking into
place. Apparently he wasn’t going to answer that question.

Simon got to his feet and dusted himself off. His ass was wet from the grass, his chest wet with beer.

He walked to the car and got inside.

When he got back to his room he found the thermostat and turned on the heater – a small, rusty radiator that looked like an accordion. The night air had chilled him to
the bone – that and the moisture from the grass, and the beer which poured down the front of his shirt – despite the overcoat and scarf he had on. With the heater on, he sat at the wood
chair in front of the writing desk and picked up the telephone. He dialed 4–1–1.

‘City and state, please.’

‘Glendale, California.’

‘How can I help you?’

‘Christopher Watkins.’

‘One minute, sir.’

‘Okay.’

There was the sound of fingers tapping away at a keyboard.

‘I have it, sir. Would you like me to connect you?’

‘Yes, please.’

Silence as if the line had been severed, then a dial tone, and then the phone began ringing. It rang four and a half times.

‘Hello?’

The voice sounded groggy, full of phlegm.

‘Did I wake you?’

‘Simon?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Hey, man, what’s going on? It’s like eleven-thirty.’

‘Sorry.’

‘It’s all right. What’s up?’

‘I need to ask you something.’

‘Ask away.’

‘When you watched the special about UFOs – what did it say about the eyes?’ Simon knew he was grasping at straws, but ever since he left Burbank that private detective had been
on his mind and he couldn’t figure out why, but something in the back of his mind had put him and Kate together in some way.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The UFO special you mentioned. On TV.’

‘Oh, that’s on tomorrow night.’

‘What are you talking about? We talked about it at lunch over two weeks ago.’

‘Nope.’

‘Is it a repeat?’

‘No, man, they been pushing this thing like it’s cocaine. It’s brand new.’

‘That doesn’t – okay. I gotta go.’

He put the phone into its cradle.

‘Bye,’ he said to the empty room.

He walked to a liquor store on the corner and bought a bottle of whiskey. He drank it and watched TV till very late. He wondered if when this was over he might be able to get
his old job back. He’d not called Mr Thames again after that first time. He was certain he’d been fired. But maybe he could get his old job back. He’d been a very good employee
right up until—

He walked to the phone and dialed the office number and the extension and got the answering service. He rambled into the phone for a while and then hung up. He walked to the bed and lay down and
by the time he was asleep he didn’t even remember he had done it.

He woke up with two things – a hangover, and the knowledge of where the private detective and Kate fit together. The guy’d been tailing him on Monday night when he
met up with the woman impersonating Kate Wilhelm. If she really was dead. Maybe it had been her. Maybe Mr Wilhelm had been lying. He didn’t seem to be, but—

He’d remember it. The detective. And if it was someone impersonating Kate, maybe he knew something about her real identity.

He grabbed his keys and headed out.

He unlocked the front door and stepped quietly into the foyer. He hadn’t seen any cop cars, unmarked cars, or anything that seemed suspiciously out of place, but even so,
he wouldn’t have been surprised to find cops waiting for him. They weren’t. It was almost disappointing.

Samantha’s car was in the driveway, but the living room was quiet and empty.

Her purse was sitting on the couch.

He walked to it and started digging through it, looking for that private detective’s business card.

‘Jeremy?’

He looked up. Samantha was standing in the entrance to the hallway in a pink silk nightgown, arms wrapped around her body. Her hair was a tangle and her make-up was smeared – she must have
gone to bed without washing her face – but she still looked beautiful.

‘Where is it?’

‘What are you doing?’

‘His business card. Where is it?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The private detective you hired to follow me. I need to talk to him.’

‘Why?’

He threw the purse to the ground.

‘Just tell me where he is!’

The detective’s name was Adam Posniak and he had an office in a street-front strip of beige stucco on Washington Boulevard just east of La Brea. Simon pulled the Saab
into the gray asphalt parking lot, found a spot, and slipped the car into it.

He recognized the car to his left. It was a black Cadillac, dented up from a recent accident.

The private detective’s office was between a barbecue place and a manicure-pedicure place. There was no sign on the tattered green awning above it. The door said only

no name, and the glass was soaped so you couldn’t see inside, as was the glass in the windows to the left and right of the door. Simon pushed his way inside.

A blonde woman – maybe twenty-five – sat behind a gray metal desk facing the door. A cone of incense burned on a metal plate on top of a waist-high bookshelf to her right and beneath
the scent of incense there was an odd vinegar smell. Behind her head was a very bad painting of Santa Monica Pier, the Ferris wheel shaped like a deflated basketball. Her eyelids were painted blue,
eyebrows plucked thin and then penciled back on again, lips the color of raw meat. Her fingernails were green but the polish was chipped off the top and the nails had grown half in new since the
last time they were painted. There was a white scar that puffed out like foam on her chin. It was shaped like a check mark. There was a laptop computer on the desk, but she was typing out a form on
a metallic-blue Remington Letter-Riter typewriter as the rusted bell above the door gave its choked impersonation of a ring. Then she looked up from what she was doing.

‘Can I help you?’

‘I need to see Posniak.’

‘He’s not in at the moment. I’d be happy to take a message.’

‘His car’s here.’

She made a tight-lipped pinch-nosed face – like she had just smelled something unpleasant, Simon perhaps – and then, after a pause, said, ‘But he’s stepped
out.’

‘Well, if he’s on foot he’s not far. I’ll wait.’

She sighed.

‘What did you say your name was?’

‘I didn’t.’

She gave him a deadpan, and then said, ‘What is it?’

Simon hesitated, wondering what he should say, and decided on, ‘Jeremy Shackleford.’

‘Just a second.’

She picked up the phone and put it to her ear, whispered, cupping her hand over her mouth, looking at Simon with her hazel eyes. She hung up the phone.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘He’s not available at the moment. But he’d be happy to schedule an appointment to talk about—’

‘He’s available.’

Simon walked to the door in the left wall and grabbed the knob, figuring it’d be locked and he’d have to push it in. He just hoped the thing was set loose in its frame and it
wouldn’t be difficult. Instead the door swung right open and Simon stepped into the office and slammed the door on the protesting secretary, who didn’t get out more than ‘Hey wait
a—’ before the swinging slab of wood silenced her. The smell of vinegar was much stronger in here, and beneath it a strange chemical stench that Simon couldn’t place.

He locked the door behind him.

Adam Posniak was at his desk. A smoke-blackened spoon and a lighter and a small bag of brownish powder were on its surface. His coat was off and his left sleeve was rolled up and a rubber hose
was wrapped around his bicep, one end gripped in his teeth and pulled tight. In his right hand was a syringe, his thumb on the plunger. The needle was still inches from the soft flesh on the inside
of his elbow, which was dotted with scars and wounds like bad acne. One brown but blackening hole looked – to Simon’s untrained eye – like it might be infected. It was a mountain
of red flesh topped with an oozing brown scab. In his eagerness Posniak had already begun pressing the plunger and a few drops splashed from the end of the needle and onto the pale flesh on the
inside of his arm.

Posniak let the hose fall from his mouth and set the syringe on the desk. His pale face was covered in beads of sweat. He opened the top right drawer, and simply laid his hand in it. Simon
guessed, but wasn’t certain, that the hand was resting upon a gun of some kind.

‘I’m not a junky, Mr Shackleford.’

‘Obviously.’

‘I’m in constant pain. My eyes. This relieves it.’

‘Ever think of Tylenol? It’s a little less extreme.’

A pause. Posniak licked his lips.

‘Why are you here?’

Simon reached into his pocket and pulled out his cigarettes and lighted one with a match.

‘Mind if I smoke?’

Posniak pushed a glass ashtray across the desk toward him. It was half-filled with cigarettes already, most of their filtered ends smeared with various shades of red.

Then he grabbed a handkerchief from his desk – yellowed by sweat – and dabbed at his forehead.