Authors: Noreen Ayres
“Anytime,” he said, hands in both pockets, feet splayed, big ears backlit by a beam of sunlight cutting in from the window.
My boss was around wanting to talk before noon, and I had to go over everything anyway, because he'd heard some of it from Captain Exner.
“I need to go home,” I said. “I expect Blackman to be calling.”
“You go do whatever is required,” Stu said. “Just be careful and observe procedure.”
“You bet,” I said, and left knowing which caution was the more important to Stu Hollings, company man.
When I got to the house, Motorboat was shrieking. I'd left that morning without giving him milk. Muzzle up, sniffing, his little buck teeth barely showing, he stopped pipping when I came near. He looked so darned cute. “Poor little baby! Twenty-four hours since you had milk warmed and hand-delivered. I got busy, little guy.” I reached to scratch behind his floppy ears and he let me, unblinking. Then in a flash he whacked at me with his hard teeth, not so much of a bite as a warning, then fled to the hollow log. When I tried grabbing him from the front as he huddled there, he scooted back faster than I could react, and I said, “The hell with you then,” and heard behind me a voice that flung me against the dryer.
“Who's the guy?” Monty Blackman said.
He stood in the doorway of the laundry room, a wild hood of black hair all around, pale blue shirt over a white one, pale blue jeans, the same cream ostrich skin boots poking out beneath, with the telephone ringing, ringing, ringing.
Caught in a lie, a basically honest person wants to come clean, beg forgiveness, trade for wholesomeness again. That's what I wanted to do with Monty: confess. Say, a man's been killed right before my eyes! Did you know? Did you order it? The game is up.
What I said was: “What the
hell
are you doing in my house?”
“Your phone's ringin',” he said. He stood aside.
I slid through the laundry room doorway close enough to smell him, all the while hoping whoever was calling would not hang up.
“Smokey, honey,” Mrs. Langston said, “I just passed a man asking for you, and I told him to go on up, but then I forgot: I maybe didn't lock your door after getting grass for Motorboat. But I shouldn't have just sent him along up there. I
thought
you were home, but I didn't
see
you come home. Is that all right? He said he was your boss.”
“Uh, I think so, Mrs. Langston. You might want to have Harvey check the wiring, though. You know how those things go.”
“Oh, migod. Oh, migod. I'll call the police.”
“No, wait. I think you can still drive it. Just give me one minute and I'll come down and check.”
I was watching Monty stroll around the living room touching things. From a shelf over the fireplace he picked up a tile on which was painted a lazuli bunting, with its bright blue hood, gripping a bug in its beak. He nudged a gas bill that lay on top of the stereo. From a chair, he picked up a paperback I had with a bookmark in it. I'd been reading about a forensic anthropologist named Clyde Snow, a renegade genius who brought some measure of justice to hundreds of unearthed Argentine “disappeareds.” On the front was a photo of half of the face of Joseph Mengele, the infamous death camp doctor, merged with his recovered skull to demonstrate that skeletal remains can be identified. The title was
Witnesses from the Grave
. I was relieved when Monty just tucked the book between the cushion and arm without even looking at it, and sat down, putting an ankle on a knee.
How long had he been in my house? Mrs. Langston hadn't said. I'd decided a long time ago not to keep anything at home that related to my workâno folders, no training certificates, no mugs with clever penal code numbers on them, no group pictures. The only thing that could give me away was an old department directory; but even that I kept behind a stack of phone books in a cutout of the dark wood counter in the bar, hard to see.
I said, “An unlocked door is not an invitation.”
“A shut eye ain't always sleepin' either,” he said. “Where'd you take off to?”
“What gives you the right to come into my house?”
He looked around, nodding. “Pretty nice place you got here. You must be doin' jobs on the side. What you need my money for?”
I went to the front door and opened it fully.
“That mean I'm thrown out?”
“No job's worth my privacy.” I was shaking inside. “You're a rude sonofabitch.”
He came toward me but then parked his butt on the arm of my sofa. “I had to have Jolene follow you home one day just to be sure I'm dealin' with who I think I'm dealin' with. Now it looks like I was right to do that,” he said in his soft gravel. “I ought to fire your ass.”
“Screw you, Monty. You don't need my life history for me to wander around your bar in nighties. I don't give my address or correct phone number to anybody.”
I leaned out quickly to glance down the walkway to see if Mrs. Langston was in or out of her condo. Monty was being a jerk and so far not a threat. I didn't really want to involve her.
“You turnin' tricks for this kind of place?”
“That's none of your business. Leave.”
“Oh yes it is. I don't want heat of any kind. I told you when you first come to see me, none of that stuff. Now maybe I didn't make it clear I meant on your own time same as mine, and if that's so, it's my fault.”
I sighed and said, “This place is my aunt's.”
“You got a car phone. I seen the antenna.”
“I got scared one time. It's how I spend my money instead of on manicures. You want to go through all my bills, see how I spend my money? Why wouldn't a girl have a car phone if she can manage it? And I sure as hell don't need your sending some little snippet of a no-brain to follow me. I really resent that.”
He got up, amused, came close and snagged a finger in my tan leather belt, giving it little tugs. “I like you. Shoot, I don't want you to go nowhere. You want me to apologize? I apologize. Monty can do that. For somebody he likes.” He brushed a hair, I guess, off my temple. I let him do this because I needed to hang in there with him if I was going to avenge, like Dr. Clyde Snow, a couple of disappeareds. “I just wanted to see if you're all right. It can get kind of rough around those Harley humpers. One of those sauceheads get funny with you? That why you left?”
“I got sick of you showing off,” I said, brushing his hand off my belt, letting him know I was willing to try a truce. “After about your seventh win.”
I pulled away and was turning again to look for Mrs. Langston when her dear and brave form appeared on the walkway, all decked out in a pastel jogging suit, her eyes fired with sixty-five-year-old resolve, her cane a lumpy hardwood that looked a whole lot like a gladiator's mace.
Monty offered twice to look at Mrs. Langston's car. She said her son was coming over. Harvey, she said, the name I'd made up only minutes before. While we talked, our eyes met often, and I smiled and one time winked when I thought Monty didn't see. I watched as she went on her way, an almost-disappointed slope to her shoulders, this time gripping the cane not by its clubby head, but by its middle.
Monty said, “I need you workin' this evening. You going to do that for me?”
We looked each other over, and I thought if this man's asking me back to work, he doesn't know I saw Quillard Satterlee'sâBernie Williams'âmurder. I could still get out to the farm for a look. What I had to decide was whether I should tell him I was going back for my artificially missing wallet.
I walked him down the stairs, feeling the farther away from my apartment he was, the more comfortable I'd feel. On the way, he said, “So who's the guy? You never told me.”
“Shit, I forgot about that! You followed me last night too, didn't you?”
“I was worried about you. Came by and was gonna knock, but I saw you had something goin'. You don't have to tell me. Your business is your business.”
“Yeah right. Like my business is Jolene's business. I'll come back to work for you, Monty, but if this ever happens again, that's it. No following me. I'd think you'd have a million better things to do than that. Do you have any idea how insulting that is? How would you feel if I followed you home?”
“Come on now, that was a onetime thing, a onetime thing. What if you didn't show up to work some day? How would I get in touch? What if you and old Howard run off with the fortune I got stashed in my till?” He stopped and looked out over the parking lot, beyond the fountain that continuously mists its recycled load into the air, to where a man and his small son were stopped to look at a green motorcycle with a snake molded onto the rear fender. I hadn't seen it when I drove in because of a sewer-line repair truck that had been parked at the spot next to it but that was now gone, leaving three cones strung with bright pink plastic strips in its wake. “Besides,” Monty said, “that guy's too old for you. Must be he's a stud.”
“Are you leaving or am I going to have to quit my job all over again?”
A sensual smile formed within his beard, and he cocked his head at me, his thumbs in his hip pockets, and said, “Don't come till eight. One of the new gals is workin' split shift and I won't need you till then. Competition, darlin'. You better behave.”
“I don't think this is going to work, Monty.”
“Come on. Don't take everything so serious. Puts creases in your forehead. Hey, you know where I'm off to? Goin' to go pat my piggies on the head for doin' such a good job becoming moms and dads. Why don't you come along out there with me? What else you doin' today? Let me make it up to you, me pissin' you off. I'll buy you dinner on the way back.”
“Thanks, butâ”
“We'll be back plenty of time.”
“Well, I did lose something out there. My wallet.”
“You shouldn't bring a purse to them things.”
“It was a wallet. I had it in my jacket.” I looked at his gleaming bike and said, “You don't have two helmets. I'll have to take my own car.”
“You don't have your driver's license.”
“I'll live dangerously. Look, I'll need a few minutes,” I said.
“That's okay. I need some gas. Where's some at?”
I told him, grateful for the few minutes to see if I could find Joe and tell him what was up. When I rang up, Joe wasn't there. I couldn't reach him on his car phone either. He refused to wear a beeper, saying it was too much like being owned. Fishing Christine Vogel's card from my purse, I said the number over to myself, then tore the card to pieces and put it down the disposal. I touched the wallet in my pocket and thought I'd have to lose it somewhere so I could say I'd lost it somewhere. Christine's voice mail came on when I called her. I left a message, telling her I was on my way out to the Avalos farm, that Monty seemed all right, seemed normal; leaving directions and telling her to coordinate with Joe. I called Joe's number again and left the message I should have left before. I even tried Ray Vega. No deal. God help the world if you need a cop at lunchtime.
An hour later, we stood in the sunken-level family room of Tranquilino Avalos, looking at wire sections stapled to wood plaques. Monty said, “He's nuts about this stuff. Devil's rope. Him and Lupita go all over collectin'.” Every wall bore eighteen-inch samples, replete with prongs, barbs, stars, leaves, spurs, or razor spirals. Between the displays hung Indian rugs, a picture of a woman carrying baskets, and straw hats. “He paid four hundred dollars for a piece not any bigger'n that,” Monty said, pointing to a length of bird's-feet not mounted but lying bare next to a rusty branding iron on the mantel.
The house smelled of sausage, peppers, onions, and egg, as Mr. Avalos brought a black two-handled griddle to the dining table and set it on what looked like ordinary outdoor bricks. He said, “If you don't eat it, the dogs will.” There were four place settings of blue plates and peach-colored cups on pale green terry cloth hand towels. Four place settings, but I saw only Mr. Avalos and a wisp of what I took to be his wife, clutching her robe as she sped down the hallway and disappeared into a room.
A coyote in full howl, cut out of white pine and wearing a pale green neckerchief, stood guard by the railing that separated the family room from the dining area. Over the table near the ceiling on the wall were two crosshatched muskets with lashed bayonets.
Mr. Avalos retreated to the kitchen, coming back with a pitcher of orange juice and a glass coffee pot. His movements were as smooth and quick as anyone who knew exactly how many steps could be saved within the confines of a house he'd loved forty years. He sat nearest the kitchen.
Pouring juice into the glass next to his, he glanced up once as Monty took a seat. “How about you?” he asked, barely meeting my eyes.
“Please,” I said. I was starved. The old man poured, then swept a clutch of breakfast jambalaya onto my blue-fired plate. He spread his toast with jelly while Monty pincered stiff bacon strips off a small yellow platter with his knife and fork and dropped them onto my plate.
“Say,” Monty said, “I can't get that rotten kid of yours to commit to a time to help me out with my manure pit. We talk, he doesn't show. Hell, what am I doin'? I just tattled to his daddy.” Monty was only talking to be talking. There wasn't any conviction in it.
Mr. Avalos thoughtfully chewed his food as he set a biscuit on the rim of my plate. As soon as I broke the biscuit, the butter dish was under my nose.
He said, “Paulie drinks too much. Like you said.”
“He does like the amber,” Monty said. “I guess his mom being sick. You want me kick his butt?”
“His brother died of the same thing.”
“I didn't know that, Mr. Avalos,” Monty said.