Rob Cornell - Ridley Brone 02 - The Hustle (17 page)

While technically Hal’s house had an address on the north side, it sat in a subdivision at the end of a fingerlike curl than dropped down along Hawthorne’s western border, dipping into southern territory. The houses were nice two story deals stacked together like pieces on a chess board, less than a porch’s worth of grass for backyards. It was one of those family neighborhoods where the air conditioner and heater made up for any urge to go outside into the shadows of the oppressive neighboring houses. I think they called it suburbia.

Hal’s place blended well with those on either side of him. Even if I had arrived during the day, I would have been hard pressed to tell the difference between the three homes beyond the house numbers. Yep. Definitely suburbia.

I parked across the street and down a few houses. I had no idea what to expect. Maybe Hal would answer the door when I knocked. If he didn’t, I wouldn’t stop there. I’d let myself in. Then I would either find Hal passed out asleep, absent, or…well…no need to get melodramatic.

The feel of my gun against my side in its shoulder holster provided a little comfort. But I didn’t really get off on shooting people. So walking into dodgy situations armed unnerved me as much as it empowered me.

Most of the houses on either side of the street had porch lights on, or some kind of illumination from inside, even if only the blue flicker of a television. On his front lawn, Hal had a lamppost with a lamp made to look like an old fashioned gas light. It sat a half-dozen feet from the edge of the driveway. It was the only visible light on anywhere in or outside of his house. I didn’t think I was going out on a limb assuming the light was either on a timer or had a sensor that turned it on at nightfall. The lone light gave the house behind it an isolated feel, as if it stood alone in space rather than a few paces from the house on either side.

As I entered the circle of light cast by the lamp, I hunched into my coat to obscure my face with my collar. I should have worn a scarf, but I had been in too much of a charged rush. Not only would it have kept my face from going numb, I could have made certain no one could ID me if I ended up having to perform my own B and E.

Not that anyone was looking out their window, watching Hal’s place. The snowfall was light, but steady. A few diehards would brave the cold night to shovel their driveway when more than an inch collected, but most folks would stay bundled inside. The day was done, night had come, and most people had no compelling reason to leave the toasty comfort of their abodes.

I strolled up the approach to Hal’s front door, drawing tracks with my feet in the several inches of unmarred snow. No one had shoveled here in a while. Nor had anyone walked to or from the house.

Not good signs.

Quite being paranoid. Even bad karaoke singers dressed like Tom Jones can take vacations.

That inside voice that likes to argue with me didn’t sound so convinced.

When I reached the doorway, I pulled a glove off and knocked on the door with my bare knuckles. The snow dampened silence that followed my knock’s wake had a thickness to it, like humidity. Each breath I took tasted like ice.

I poked the ringer with my thumb and started at the sound that rang through the house. I shouldn’t have been surprised—the opening bars of “New York, New York” played in an electronic series of tones, Muzak brought down to the lowest common denominator. An old mini Casio keyboard had better resonance.

Even good old digitized Frank didn’t summon Hal to the door.

At that moment I realized I was playing right into Hersch’s hands. He had me running after Hal while he kept on with his race. But I couldn’t keep from checking on Hal after the threat Hersch had placed in my home. Surely, he knew that.

Damn, that bastard had skills. Too bad he used them for the power of evil.

A quick glance around to make sure no eyes gazed in my direction, as far as I could tell anyway. Then I took off my other glove and withdrew my set of lock picks. A little rusty with the picks, it took me long enough to lose feeling in my hands. When I finally did get the door open, I found little relief from the cold inside.

I quickly shut the door behind me, yanked my gloves back on, and shivered like a crack addict in need of another fix. Not only had the path out front gone undisturbed for several days, the house couldn’t have hosted a living person for any length of time. The only thing that made the house warmer than the outside was the walls blocking the wind and the roof shielding the snow.

His front door opened to an open living room with a set of spiral stairs leading up to a short mezzanine enclosed by an iron fence with bars that looked better suited across a window. The doors to the upstairs rooms stood visible behind the bars. The lack of a full floor above the living room and the vaulted ceilings gave the whole house a sense of spacious luxury. It might not have been a rich man’s home, but Hal had a pretty nice pad, certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

The open floor plan also made the initial search easy enough. After scanning the living room, I only had the kitchen and the master bedroom on the first floor to check. Kitchen first, and nothing to report. I did check his fridge. That curiosity again. I don’t know what I expected. Old takeout cartons and empty pizza boxes? But the inside of his fridge looked like a miniature supermarket. He had the beverages—from apple juice to bottled water—in alphabetical order. Condiments stood lined up like soldiers in bright uniforms—yellow mustard, red ketchup, green salsa verde—in the shelves on the door. The only thing a little less than perfect in the fridge was a package of chicken breasts. The meat looked a little gray around the edges and, even sealed in the plastic, cast off a funkish smell that tainted the whole fridge.

Hal the neat freak. Unbelievable.

I swung the door shut on the fridge and checked the master. Bed neatly made. Clothes all folded neatly in dresser drawers and hung smartly (and grouped by color) in the closet. I recognized a lot of the outfits. What I did not expect were the collection of plain old, normal business suits. I started to wonder if our beloved karaoke regular had a split personality.

The master bath sparkled so clean I squinted when I turned on the light. The only toilet and tub I’d ever seen that clean was still on display at
Lowe’s
.

So far my search had told me a lot about Hal I didn’t know. It did not, however, uncover any evidence of harm to Hal. Before I started congratulating myself, I took the spiral stairs to the second story. Four doors to four rooms. Two of them were open. One was a small bathroom, cleaner than the master, if that were possible. The other open door led into a guest bedroom that looked like it had never been used and had a smell to back that up.

Door number three I had to open. I felt like little Danny in Stephen King’s
The Shining
, standing at the door to room 217, compelled to enter, frightened to know what waited on the other side.

Good thing I didn’t believe in ghosts.

I flung the door open to…not really a surprise—in fact, it made perfect sense—but it took me back a second as I realized what I had stepped into. Sound proofed walls lined the small room. A recording mic hung from a boom attached to the ceiling. One corner of the room held a sound booth no bigger than a modest walk-in closet. Black cords snaked across the floor. A candy apple Fender reclined in a guitar stand. Hal had himself his own recording studio.

“Wow.”

My house had one of those in it. I hadn’t stepped foot in there since leaving Hawthorne for LA. It sat in a far wing that I seldom had to enter, thus it remained out of sight and out of mind. This reminded me of it, though. Like the music study with the baby Grand, my parents’ recording studio cradled much of their waking hours.

I’d learned my lesson, though. I would
not
make any unplanned trips into the studio.

One more door left to go. I had no idea what to expect. Seemed like every door in Hal’s house opened to some strange corridor of his personality that led to places I never imagined I would find with him.

This last door was no exception.

My heart skipped a beat at the sight. Something about the room resonated inside of me. The reason was obvious, of course. The race car bed. The gaggle of stuffed animals crowded at the headboard. The jet plane mobile hanging from the ceiling. Shelves packed with books by the likes of Dr. Seuss and his many imitators. Bright blue walls with a stenciled border along the ceiling of cavorting zoo animals. Like the guest bedroom, this little boy’s room looked untouched, like a museum display. The only sign of any sort of attention was the lack of a dust coating on the furniture.

Nothing I could do made this connect with my image of Hal. Beyond that, this room didn’t connect with the rest of the house. It was like he had borrowed a room from another house, another life. Was Hal a father? At almost eighty it seemed hard to believe he could have a son at an age fitting the room. Grandson maybe?

That resonant twang I felt when I first opened the door vibrated again in my chest. Obviously, it made me think of my daughter. I realized that even if I eventually found her, even if I could somehow integrate her into my life, I had missed out on this stage of her life. Instead of the racecar bed, she might have had a small four-poster with pink canopy. Unicorns instead of jet planes. But the other items in the room wouldn’t have to be changed. This could have been her room. A room I would never get to see.

I shook off those thoughts. They wouldn’t help me find Hal. Though the hell if I knew what would. I had to make a more detailed search now. This was the tedious part of my job. In many cases it’s made easier when someone has a den or home office. Most of the good stuff goes in there for your local snooping sleuth to find. But Hal had a recording studio instead of a study. I doubted he kept any important documents in there. Except some sheet music.

The kid’s room tempted me, but what did I expect to find in there? I’d done enough catering to my curious nature. If I tracked down Hal, I could ask him about the room.

When all else fails, the place where a person sleeps is the best place to look for pieces that might answer questions, or give answers you never had a question for.

Downstairs and back in the master bedroom, I took a moment to turn in a slow circle while standing in the center of the room. This time I was looking for smaller details, not necessarily artifact of his everyday life, but those things that hinted toward the latest moments in a person’s life. Receipts, letters, new photographs, journals or diaries—the holy grail of a PI’s search, providing an easy picture of past and present.

Once I had the landscape of Hal’s room scanned, I moved into the detail work. I checked drawers, his closet, found a box on the top shelf full of signed photos from various musicians, including Sinatra, Dean Martin, even Jerry Lee Lewis. My parents had a number of similar pictures hanging on the walls of the
High Note
, including several contemporary artists who had visited the bar. A good many of those pictures were destroyed in the explosion and resulting fire. The ones that survived I had taken up to my office and hung there. I might not have wanted to be one of those musicians, but I could never deny my reverence for them. Much as I hated to admit it, music flowed through me as thick as blood and twice as hot. Who knew that a passion for music could pass through the genes?

Just when I thought I was out of places to search, I found an envelope taped to the bottom of a drawer in the bathroom vanity. I hesitated from touching it. I had no idea what I’d find inside. After all the rummaging I’d done through Hal’s things, now I felt like I was invading his privacy. Hilarious, I know.

I dug my right glove out of my coat pocket and put it on. With my gloved hand I peeled the envelope off the drawer, then took it out to the bed where I laid it on the deep red duvet. I stared down at the envelope, my breath puffing clouds into the cold air. It was a standard business-sized envelope, a cream color, no writing, and not sealed, but only tucked closed.

I put my other glove on, picked up the envelope, and opened it. I withdrew the single sheet of tri-folded paper, dropped the envelope back onto the bed, and unfolded the paper.

One sentence, three words and a question mark”

Found him yet?

I crumpled the paper into my fist then threw the waded ball away as if it might bite if I held on too long. I growled, the sound echoing back at me in the silent room. I stopped myself from kicking the night stand or punching a hole in the wall. An act of will far stronger than any I had made in recent memory.

Found him yet?

I could hear Hersch’s morphing voice speaking those three words. First as his Butthead stoner persona, then his refined, cold, and dangerous voice. He’d played me again. Right down to finding a place to hide his note that he knew I’d find, because he knew how well I would search.

I stalked out of the bedroom, not bothering to retrieve the note. It wouldn’t do me any good. In the living room I took a final look at Hal’s abandoned home. What could have Hersch done with him? Kidnapped him? Killed him?

Whatever he had done, I knew it wouldn’t be easy for me to find him. Hersch would have made sure of that. Hal was the ultimate red herring and a victim to Hersch’s wickedness simply because the poor bastard liked to come to my karaoke bar.

This left me with a choice. Continue my search for Hal and help him if he could still be helped. Or forgo that search for Hal and redouble my efforts to track Hersch. If I could find Hersch, I could find Hal through him. But I couldn’t know what condition Hersch had Hal in. Changing focus and going after Hersch might put Hal at risk if he wasn’t already lost.

I didn’t want to make this choice. I boiled it down to its basest ingredients.

Find and help Hal (if he could be helped).

Or find Hersch and protect my daughter from him.

Daughter.

Hal.

Daughter.

Hal.

I couldn’t hold back. I punched a hole through the drywall by the entrance. My glove kept my knuckles from scraping, but the impact sent shockwaves of pain through each joint in my fingers and up through my wrist. The pain in my hand, I felt, was a fair trade for the satisfaction I got from breaking something. I looked at that small satisfaction as foreshadowing to the exuberant glee I would feel when I did the same to Hersch’s face.