First Avenue (26 page)

Read First Avenue Online

Authors: Lowen Clausen

Tags: #Suspense

“I have to tell you I can’t imagine that those two cops would get mixed up with
Pierre
. I know them. Now,
Pierre
is a different story. I could believe anything about him.”

She said nothing for a moment, and he wished he had kept quiet, too.

“I know what I saw,” she said, looking at him with sharp defiant eyes.

“Yes, I guess you do.” He nodded slowly, reluctantly. “You’re going to need to be more careful. We both need to be careful,” he corrected himself as he thought about the walk through the Market where he had felt so safe.
McDonald
and Fisher walked there, too. My god, was that possible?

“I think you should quit working at the Donut Shop,” he said. “Don’t go back tomorrow. It’s too dangerous.”

“It’s closed tomorrow.”

“That’s right. I forgot. I could help you find another job. Silve could use some help right here.”

“I can find my own job. You don’t need to help me.”

“Sure, it was just an idea. I’m kind of worried about Silve, that’s all. He’s trying to find some help, but he’s not having much luck. He works too hard. He’s not a young man anymore.”

She looked at him as though she were trying to see his words, not just hear them, and he permitted her to look in his eyes as long as it took. She seemed to regret how quickly she had turned away from his suggestion.

“Do you come here a lot?” she asked.

“Every day,” he said, “but not like the Donut Shop. This is a good place.”

She wrapped her hands around her coffee cup and rubbed it like a talisman.

“It would make
Pierre
angry if I just walked out. He might not pay me. He’s supposed to pay me next week. Or he might think I know something. It would be better if I stayed another week.”

His mind creaked and groaned like a rusty winch pulling up a heavy
net
on the fishing boat where he used to work. He doubted she would listen to him, anyway.

“Would you quit after a week?”

She nodded, and her black braids dropped from her shoulder with a sign of consent.

He got up to refill their coffee cups. Something seemed to please her. He stopped to look at her rare smile, standing above her with coffeepot in hand and a question in the half-smile he gave back. She tossed her braids back over her shoulder and straightened her posture. A light flashed across the shadow surrounding her.

“It’s nice having somebody else pour the coffee,” she said.

He told her how he had offered his services to Silve, and how Silve had thought it was a fine idea because then he could shoot any customer who complained. She laughed for a moment, but her laughter startled her as though waking from a dream. He watched her eyes turn sad. He put the coffeepot back in its place, sat down in his, and wondered how this girl could become sad with laughter.

Silve labored down the steps. His legs were less confident than early in the morning. He stopped at the coffeepot and looked to see if the others were in need of a refill.
Sam
held up his hand and made room in the booth for Silve. He was glad Silve had come.

Silve took off his chef’s hat and put it on the table. He smoothed back his silver hair that showed the line of his hat, sipped noisily from his cup, and let out a sigh. He and
Sam
spoke for a few minutes about the day’s business with each knowing their lines by heart. Then Silve turned his attention to
Maria
.

“So maybe you want to work?
Sam
says you have a job over at the Donut Shop.”

She seemed surprised that Silve got to the point so quickly, or maybe she was surprised by the point.

“That’s right,”
Maria
said.

“He told me you get up early,” Silve said. “Said you have brains, too. Muscles and brains. Good.”

Sam shifted in the booth, trying to find a more comfortable position. He was not sure how much Silve would tell, but the girl seemed not to mind yet. She smiled at the old man.

“He washed the dishes today,” Silve said, pointing at
Sam
. “So I think maybe he wants to find somebody else to take his job.”

“He washed the dishes?” the girl asked.

“Yes,” the old man said and laughed the way he did in the morning. He looked better already. It must have helped to get off his feet and to see the young face across from him.

“Maybe you want his job?”

“I could do it.”

“Good. When can you start?”

“I have to work there another week. I could start after that.”

“Good. You see me Monday. We’ll set up the schedule then,” Silve said.

Silve got up from the table and picked up his cup. The interview was over. “You stay and talk if you want,” he said.

“I think we’re all done,”
Sam
said.

He picked up the other two cups and slid out of the booth after Silve.

“Just leave them here,” Silve said. “I’ll get them Monday.”

“I already have them,”
Sam
said.

Silve walked slowly up the steps, using the handrail to steady himself.
Maria
slid out from her side of the booth and followed Silve.
Sam
walked last up the steps and put the cups on the stainless steel pass shelf.

“Don’t leave any money today,” Silve said as he anticipated
Sam
’s reach for his wallet. “I owe you today. You come on Monday, and I’ll have oxtail.”

“You’ll make me fat with your oxtail.”

“You, too,” he told
Maria
, who stood in front of the door. It was the only place where there was room. “You come on Monday, too.”

“Yes. I will.”

Sam reached behind
Maria
and opened the door. She tried to get out of his way and stumbled against a pail that stood on the floor. He reached for her arm to steady her.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m just getting the door.”

He opened the door and let her out first.

“We see you soon, honey,” Silve called after her as she walked with
Sam
up the ramp.
Maria
turned and waved. Silve waved back from inside the half door.

Sam didn’t want to walk far with
Maria
. He stopped in front of the fish stand at the top of the ramp and moved a step away from her. “We’ll separate here,” he said as though he were talking to the fish sign overhead. “I’ll keep an eye on you next week as much as I can.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Yes, I do.” He could be stubborn, too. “I’ll see you here Monday after you get off work.”

Then he looked at her directly, forgetting for a moment his communion with the fish sign.

“I appreciate the information,
Maria
.”

He tried to smile, but it was strangely difficult. He could not imagine calling her “honey” as Silve did, making it seem pleasant and natural, but he wished he could. He wished he could at least smile like Silve.

As he turned to go, he got an uncertain smile from her. It was no better than his, much like it, he expected. They were a strange pair, he thought.

He looked back once to see where she might have gone and saw her still at the fish stand, smiling freely for the fishmongers, a pretty customer receiving special attention.

Chapter 21
 

Saturday night had not meant anything special to Sam for a long time, but he sat on his deck and tried to read a book that was special in the sense that it had become a ritual. He had read the book the first time as a high school boy on a fall day not long after the writer had killed himself, and he had read it each fall since, when the weather turned a certain way, when it had become too good to last. Borrowed from a friend and never given back, the book was broken and worn, much like the man who had written the story.

Usually he read the book in a day—never more than two. He liked reading about the noises on the
Paris
streets, the smells in the cafes, the wine and the food. He liked the cold air in the mountains and the talk of love beneath heavy covers. In the first chapters everything seemed possible—love and success and honesty. But later came the meanness and ridicule.
Sam
was always saddened by those chapters.

The sun went down and the book remained in his hand. Another year he was thinking, another time through the book, but this time thinking about himself, too—himself less like the young man the book was about and more, all the time, like the older one who had written it. The older one probably had nothing to do on Saturday nights either.

Beyond the open pages the towers in the city were red and gold in the final rays of sun. At the base of the golden towers, lights began to flicker. Kat would be there or on her way. He wondered if Saturday night meant anything to her. Farm girl and all. Were there still barn dances for light-footed farm girls? He imagined her a joyous dancer with her face flushed with the summer night, delight in her smile, and eyes dancing along with her feet.

No dancing tonight.

No dancing for the girl,
Maria
, either. She didn’t seem like the dancing type—not the way her laughter stopped before it had a chance to spread. Together with Kat, the girl was getting in his way and blocking his mind from the last lines of the book. What was
Maria
’s story? Had she really seen anything, or had her imagination gotten the best of her—and him? What kind of dance would
McDonald
and Fisher be dancing tonight?

He closed the book and dropped it on the deck. He rose from the chair and leaned on the railing. Restlessly his mind absorbed the relentless exertion of the waves.

Georgia was coming toward him on the beach. Her red hair was framed within the dark mat of the evening behind it. She waved to him, and he waved back from the deck. He felt better seeing her.

“What are you smiling about?” she asked as she climbed the steps to join him.

He was smiling.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Nothing,” she said in imitation.

He smiled even more.

“Have you come for the Saturday-night dance?” he asked.

“What?”

“It’s Saturday night.”

“I know it’s Saturday night.”

“I’m not used to company on Saturday nights. It’s a welcome change.”

“Maybe I’ll just sit down and forget why I came,”
Georgia
said.

Georgia didn’t sit down, however. She might have wished to, but she remained standing.

“So what did you come for?” he asked, feeling less hospitable than before.


Diane
thought she saw somebody outside the house—some guy named
Morris
.
Mildred
moved her to a hotel.
Diane
is ready to talk if you feel like talking to her.”

“Now?” he asked.

“I’ll drive,”
Georgia
said.

Sam looked down on the deck where his book lay closed. He had only a few pages yet to read, but the ending would have to wait—probably until next year. He knew what it said anyway.

“Okay,” he said. He didn’t even suggest calling
Markowitz
. He was in too far for that.

“I’ll get the car and meet you on the street,”
Georgia
said. “Two minutes.”

She walked into the house and out through the kitchen door. He would follow her in a minute—two minutes. He picked up his book and tossed it onto the coffee table as he passed it on the way into the bedroom for his gun.

In the car she concentrated on shifting gears and didn’t talk. He had never ridden in a car with
Georgia
. He discovered that she was a very efficient driver, although she followed other cars too closely for his comfort. She drove down from the greenness of Magnolia Bluff to the gray streets along the water. He wondered where they were going but didn’t ask.

She parked on the street beside the Olympic Hotel, which was a fine old stately building downtown.
Sam
looked out the car window and followed the rise of the gray stone building.

“I see we’re in the low-rent district,” he said.

“It was
Mildred
’s choice,” she said.

As they passed through the lobby, he thought he was probably the only person in the building wearing blue jeans. He was wrong, however.
Georgia
was wearing them, too, but her jeans had a style that took them past the check-in desk barely noticed by the receptionist.

Georgia pushed the fifth-floor button at the elevator.

“Anybody else know she’s here?”
Sam
asked. They were alone in the elevator cab.

“No. She’s registered in my name.”

“Is
Mildred
here, too?”

“She stayed in her house.”

“That may not be such a good idea.”

“I know.”

When the elevator stopped,
Georgia
led him down a soft carpeted hallway and stopped at 512. She tapped twice on the door, then twice again. He saw the peephole darken and heard the chain coming off the door.

Although
Diane
looked tense and uncomfortable, she was a different person than the one he saw the day after
Ben
Abbott
’s death. Her face had color and a roundness that was not there before.

“Hello,
Diane
. You’re looking better.
Mrs.
Abbott
must be taking good care of you.”

“She’s very nice. Everybody has been nice to me.”

“Let’s sit down, shall we?”
Georgia
said. She gestured to a large table beside the window. There were four heavy chairs from which to choose.

“I’d like to take some notes,”
Sam
said. “Is that okay with you?” he asked
Diane
.

She looked at
Georgia
, who nodded her approval.
Georgia
found a pen and stationery in the top desk drawer and placed the writing material on the table.

Sam sat across from
Diane
with
Georgia
between them. He tore the hotel logo off the top of the stationery and picked up the pen. For a moment it seemed difficult for the girl to begin.
Georgia
signaled impatiently with a nod of her head that it was time to start.

“I used to work the streets. Okay? That’s where I met
Alberta
.
Pierre
set us up and took part of our money. He wasn’t exactly our pimp, but he knew people. You don’t want to cross him. That stuff in the paper about him helping kids was a lie. All of us knew it.

“There was this one guy,
Robert
J.
Morris
—he always said the ‘J’ like that was some big deal. He and
Pierre
were friends, or at least they knew each other. This
Morris
guy hung around the streets a lot. It was like he got some kind of thrill out of it. There are always guys like that around, but he was really creepy. He drove a Jaguar and said he was a private detective, and he always had a gun with him. He liked to show it off.

“He’s the one who brought
Ben
in. They met in the J & M Cafe. Rich kids like to go there. It has kind of an edge. One time in there I saw
Ben
play Russian roulette with
Morris
’s gun. He did scary things like that when he was high.

“We’d party with
Ben
and his friends on his boat, and he’d give us drugs—pot, coke, angel dust. He had everything. We’d get high with him and his friends. This
Morris
guy tried to be real friendly to
Ben
, but he treated us like whores. He tried to make us do things.”

The girl looked around the beautiful room with the “things” written in her face. Perhaps the room helped her realize that she was in a different place than she had been before. Then again, maybe she was in the same place.


Alberta
hated the streets. I think that’s why she started going with
Ben
. I told her she was crazy if she thought some rich boy would take care of her. When she got pregnant, she could have done something about it, you know, but she wouldn’t.


Ben
let her go after the baby came, just like I said he would. I told her she should get some money from him anyway, but she changed when the baby came. It seemed like that baby was all she was interested in. That’s when she started working at the Donut Shop.

“Then one day, she wasn’t there.
Pierre
said she went back home. Called her a bitch because he had to open up without her and told us to leave her alone if we knew what was good for us. He gets that scary look, sometimes. I didn’t believe him, but I didn’t know what to do.


Ben
was high all the time after that. I don’t know if he missed her or what. I mean, he could have done something before. Right? He was just high all the time.

“The night he drowned he told Shooter he wasn’t going to work with them anymore. He said he was finished. He and Shooter started yelling at each other, and they got into a fight.
Ben
was too high to fight. Shooter pushed
Ben
, and he ended up in the water.
Jack
and I tried to get
Ben
back, but the boat moved away too fast. When I tried to grab the wheel, Shooter pushed me away. I saw it happen. So did Jack. I lied about that before. I was scared to tell the truth. Shooter let him drown.

“Shooter called
Robert
Morris
when we got back to the dock—I won’t use that ‘J’ anymore—and him and
Pierre
came out to the boat.
Pierre
was really mad at Shooter. He didn’t care about
Ben
, but he was really mad.
Pierre
told me not to say anything about him—ever. He wasn’t there, he said, and I’ve never seen him and
Ben
together. I was supposed to say that
Ben
got high and fell off the boat, but nothing more. He told me if I didn’t keep my mouth shut there was plenty of room for me where
Ben
and
Alberta
were.”

“Is that exactly what he said?”
Sam
asked.

“As close as I can remember. He meant it, too. When he left,
Morris
called the cops. He said we had to because of
Ben
being rich and all. He told us what to say. You should have heard Morris talk to those cops, like he was some friend of theirs. The cops never even asked us for ID. I guess they thought we were rich kids, too.


Mrs.
Abbott
came down to the boat before I left. Everyone else had gone except the cops. I didn’t know where to go. I’d been staying on the boat with
Ben
.
Morris
wanted me to go with him, but I wouldn’t. I was scared of him. There wasn’t anything he could do because the cops were there. But when I saw him sneaking around
Mrs.
Abbott
’s house, I knew he was looking for me.

“I should have told
Mrs.
Abbott
everything right away, but I was scared. When she asked who I was, I told her I was
Ben
’s girlfriend. I told her about being pregnant.
Ben
wouldn’t use any protection when he got high. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Georgia’s expression told him that no one else did either. In comparison, his job was simple. Write down the facts and move on. He looked down at his paper and saw that the only fact he had written was the name,
Robert
J.
Morris
. He circled the name. He would have remembered it without the circle.

“Who do you think burned the boat?”

“It could have been any of them, but I’ll bet
Pierre
was in charge.”

“Why?”

“He’s in charge of everything.”

“Why would he do it?”
Sam
asked.

“I’m not sure, but
Ben
might have hidden something there.
Pierre
and
Morris
looked all over the boat before they called the cops.”

“What would he hide?”
Sam
asked.

“More drugs maybe. I’m not sure. I think they used
Ben
’s boat to get drugs. Sometimes they made me get off the boat and stay in a motel overnight. There was always money after that.”

“What kind of drugs?”

“Everything, but lately it was mostly heroin. Anyway that’s what
Ben
started using.”

“Did
Ben
sell the drugs?”

“I don’t think so, but
Pierre
did. So did
Jack
and Shooter.”

“How about Alberta?”

“She didn’t sell it, but she took it to
Portland
sometimes.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because Pierre would make me stay with the baby when Alberta was gone. They had somebody down there who bought it from them. I did lots of things, but I never used that heroin. And I didn’t sell it, either.”

Diane looked down at the table. Her face seemed to lose its fullness and became gaunt like the first time he had seen her. Unlike then, there was no place to escape this time.

“Something big is supposed to happen soon,”
Diane
said abruptly.

“What do you mean by something big?”
Sam
asked.


Jack
just kind of hinted about it with
Ben
. He said they were going to leave
Seattle
soon.”

“Who?” he asked.


Jack
and Shooter, I think, but maybe
Morris
and
Pierre
, too.”

“Do you know where they’re going?”

“No.”

“Why would they leave?”

“I think it’s getting too hot for them here. I heard
Jack
talking about one more deal.”

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