The Juan Doe Murders: A Smokey Brandon Thriller (21 page)

I returned to my desk and dialed Ray’s house. “You’re there.”

“Not long for these parts, though. I’m outta here.”

“How’s the kid?”

“I’m lookin’ at him right now, hunkered over a plate of scrambled eggs and Tabasco.”

“He’s set up to talk to someone at four,” I said.

“I might have to tranq him before I leave. He thinks he’s ten feet tall and bulletproof. Wants to go find Binky or confront that guy Cheng.”

“Oh no-no-no. Put him on, will you?”

I sweated it during the day, wondering if he’d show. I really didn’t need a complication with Boyd if David did a rabbit on me.

Somewhere in the hours that clipped by I got a chance to call Joe again. A nurse gave him a phone, because he wasn’t allowed out of bed. Our conversation seemed…I don’t know…strained. Maybe he was plain exhausted from it all. I was guarded, I suppose for David’s sake, and my own. He did say, “I’m sure putting my friends on a rough track, eh?”

“Oh, Joe…”

“Ah, it’s all right. Probably just too much lime Jell-O.”

“That could be so.”

“You doin’ good?”

“Muddling along. Slow on the Doe cases.” Then, “What I want to know is how, you, Superman, can break a case while sitting on your ass, eating lime Jell-O? I saw Harold Raimey.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t get over-excited.”

“Tell me.”

“He got Charles Dobson’s tennis shoes. Your cast shots help a bunch. He’s re-visiting the alibi, and there’s an insurance policy and a mother-in-law who says Mrs. Dobson was seeking divorce.”

“Far out!” Joe said.

David showed as promised. We met Boyd at a Red Robin restaurant in Tustin. The two men shook hands, then David and I slid into the red naugahyde booth opposite.

In the next hour, Boyd Russell showed just how good an interviewer he could be. He surprised me. Probing and casually making light jokes by turns, he soon put David at ease. When the kid got some potato skins stuffed with bacon and cheese in him, it was like he’d known the rumpled cop a long time.

The only place Dave stumbled was when Binky’s name came up. He was still stricken by his own actions and worried that she may be in harm’s way. At the last mention of her name, David gave me a quick glance, wrung his hands under the table, and said, “I have more to tell you. You know I knew Freddie, the one killed at Turtle Rock.”

“Yes, right. And…”

“And I recognized that one you found down in Capistrano.”

“My case,” Boyd said, looking at me, then David.

David took a moment to gather himself. He looked away, then told us, “Binky’s friend, Nita? She was in love with a guy named Carlos. Carlos Sarmiento.”

Boyd was writing this on his little notepad.

David waited till he looked up, then said, “He’s dead too.”

Boyd cut his eyes at me and waited.

David was talking to me now. “I was so afraid. Afraid it would get to my folks, this whole mess. I had been with Binky by that time.”

“I understand.”

“Well, you know that Juan Doe that was found in Nellie Gail Ranch?” His words were crackling in the hollow of his mouth. He paused and took a drink.

Indeed I do, I thought. We had nothing for that one yet.

Boyd’s face said it all. This was it. The kid across the table from him was going to crack our cases for us. Maybe. The whole noisy room seemed to float in a gelatin of soundlessness, no noise anywhere, as we waited for David to go on.

“I told you I’d only seen Binky a couple of times. In reality, I must have gone up there four, five times. A week or so after Nita died,” he said, “Angela told me Nita’s boyfriend got whacked too. She asked if I could get a gun.”

“Angela asked
you?
” I said.

“She was scared. I asked her of who. Izzy, she said. That’s when I really started getting worried for Binky. I didn’t know what to do. And that’s why,” David said, “when I talked to you at the Swallow’s Parade that day, I was just trying to sort things out.”

Boyd said, “Did you get that girl a gun?”

“No! I wouldn’t touch a gun.”

“Good,” Boyd said, the frown relaxing some. “So,” he said, “this guy Whitey’s real name is Carlos Sarmiento?” Boyd was looking down now at his notepad.

“Wrong. Whitey’s name was Desi Blanco.”

“Desi Cono Blanco,” I said. “Technology Park.”

Boyd acknowledged but was clearly confused.

David said, “So put it together: Nita first. Then her boyfriend, Carlos. Or, no…maybe it was Whitey first. Anyway, Greg Cheng
is
central
to this, I’m telling you. You wonder why I’m sleeping in the bushes? Now you understand?” He looked around at the crowd as if he could find someone threatening there.

I said, touching David’s arm, “I see what you’ve been going through.”

“And there’s Dad,” he said hoarsely.

“And there’s Dad,” I said.

TWENTY-SIX

I
 walked to David’s car with him. “How do you feel about Boyd Russell?” I asked.

“I guess I’m glad I talked to him.”

“Do you trust him?”

“I think so.”

“What are you going to do now? Want to come to my place? We could call the hospital, see how your dad’s doing.”

“Not tonight, thanks. I’m pretty wiped.”

“I imagine.”

“About Binky?” His eyes showed feeling. “She has great spirit. I know a teeny bit of Spanish. ‘
Espiritu
.’ ”

“I like the sound of it,” I said.

“Yeah,” he answered, fingers tucked in his front pockets. “
Espiritu
.” He bent and gave me a quick hug. Then I watched him weave between cars until he reached his.

Joe still couldn’t have visitors. I’d have to find someone to make me some false ID so I could get in as a relative; there was plenty around.

I’d been home an hour when Gil Vanderman called. I told him sorry, no Hemet, no train museum this weekend.

“Can I see you tonight, cup of coffee at least?”

“It’s been a long day.”

“Well, I can understand that. I haven’t always gotten to work at doing what I love. I used to be a computer programmer. Don’t ever work for a computer company. They’ll work you into the
ground. Now that I’ve told you my sordid past, does it kill any possible interest you might have been developing for me?” He had a nice voice, a sense of humor.

“Gil, it’s like this a lot with me. And I
am
seeing someone.”

“You told me that. I’m just calling as a friend.”

“Maybe you better find another friend, Gil. I don’t mean that to sound harsh, it’s just…”

“Hey, you have a great weekend, hear?”

“I will. You too.”

I wanted to go somewhere. Where, I didn’t know. Just go. So I drove to Triangle Square, a shopping center in Newport with gobs of neon and live music coming from the second-story deck. I went into the music store to look for Mungo Jerry on a CD because I’d seen a finch on my balcony, his red-orange cap like a tiny yarmulke, and he piped a series of notes that sounded like two bars of “In the Summertime”: When the weather’s hot, he’s got women, he’s got women on his mind. At the section for Hits of the Seventies and Eighties, I felt a presence close to me and stepped aside, still reading labels.

“Don’t run. I just got here,” Gil said.

“What are
you
doing here?”

“They didn’t throw the lock soon enough, I guess.”

He had on a peach-colored shirt with a duck embroidered on the pocket. He was looking for music too, jazz. He didn’t press me, didn’t recriminate, and soon wandered on to find his selection. At the cash register he glanced at me twice, and I, of course, at him, or I wouldn’t have known. He came back.

We had our coffee out on the veranda where the guitar player was performing. He told me about a place called Sid’s just a block or two away, a little dive with a banana tree by the door, good music inside. Come check it out. Leave any time you want.

I drove over, following him. We listened to a small blues band, the two of us and six other people, and sat on hard wooden chairs
at a table covered in vinyl cloth; just about as unglamorous as it could be. In the brown shadows, Gil leaned over and kissed me by the side of the mouth. The band started in on livelier music. I was momentarily happy, cut free of the outer world.

When we left an hour later, outside Gil kissed me again: under the hard light in the parking lot. Through my car window, rolled down. “Come home with me,” he whispered, still leaning in. He put his warm lips on the flesh next to my ear.

“I can’t.”

“Come home with me.”

“On your way, cad.”

“Walk with me, just a little bit.”

“I have to get home.”

“The air’s so warm. The night’s so beautiful.” He unlocked my door, reaching inside. “Walk with me. Then I’ll let you go home. I promise. Look at that moon.”

And why…and why shouldn’t sex be like saying hello? I know how most people view such things. I know that to preserve the peace, the social order, such private notions should be kept private. I know that for most people anything beyond one-at-a-time moments of the heart is unthinkable. Shall I say then, merely, that somewhere in the ticking night I heard a dove release its yearning sound. We give comfort, get comfort, where we can.

Later I stood at my kitchen window and watched the sky grow silver in that moment when the world holds its breath between dark and light. I told myself I would phone Joe first thing, get grounded again. Joe, alone and bored and scared and angry at the fate that was his, and no doubt still asleep at this hour.

I saw the silhouettes of homes on the far bluffs and thought of the lives therein, more coming into the county every day: 3,000 new streets added to county maps this year alone. I thought of the people who were up already: weary mothers with sick babies,
cops on graveyard,
indocumentados
making their way to pickup points where drivers would invite them to work construction sites or kitchens, or the gardens of rich people’s homes. I thought of Binky and of Nita Estevez, and of Trudy Kunitz grappling with her ordeal.

In the quiet reeds beyond, the sun would soon begin to penetrate. Life would stir in the waters, creatures would search, feed, and mate.
And it is good
, saieth the prophet. Why, then, this restless sadness? And why, then, did I wish I could erase the night and begin again? I had only said hello.

TWENTY-SEVEN

S
aturday morning David called and said he was going back to his apartment to get his things. If Cheng was there, he was there. He’d handle it. He could also tell Cheng that Binky was hands-off, wherever she was.

What a mess of nerves and random behavior.

I tried talking him out of it and asked where Ray was. Ray had left for work. But there had to be discomfort in David’s own plan or he wouldn’t have called
me
. I said, “I’m coming along.”

When we got there we took a path to a wooden fence at the rear, where David reached over and opened the gate. On the patio were plants blooming in a dozen pots. David said, “Greg’s.”

He unlocked a door that led to the kitchen. Except for a soda can on the counter and a newspaper separated on the table, the place looked spotless. The living room had a ruby-colored Oriental rug and a handsome red leather couch, not the version you might normally see in a student’s abode, but the expensive kind whose seams were tapped with brass tacks around its curves. Paisley drapes hung at the windows. A small table held a chess game.

“Greg’s here,” David said.

I saw the reflection of a computer screen in one of the windows, coming off a room to the left. Then Greg Cheng came out.

He was a little more than my height but stocky, and wore pants that bagged at the hem over puffy feet, and a green plaid shirt over a white crew-neck. A chunk of his hair fell to his eyebrow like an arrow pointing to the round, soft features of his face.
“You,” he said to David. “I thought you decided you couldn’t live here any more.”

“I have stuff to get,” David said.

Cheng swept a hand toward the hallway. “Be my guest.” He had an ever-present grin, as if it were all a joke. Cheng looked at me. “Welcome to my humble jumble.”