Stateline (12 page)

One was large and fat, wearing a dirty t-shirt and faded brown pants, his hair covering his head in sparse patches. The other man was much smaller, not much taller than me even though I was only ten years old. He had greasy black hair and strangely deformed lips that seemed locked in a continuous sneer. Their conversation grew louder, and ugly tones intruded into our home like a vile odor. My father closed the door behind him, but I went outside to the front steps. The men stood shouting in the driveway of our San Jose home, and then I remember my dad saying, “You want to settle it that way? Then let’s settle it.”

They squared off on the driveway, he and the big man, with the deformed one watching not five feet from where I stood. The fight lasted maybe sixty seconds but seemed at the time to go on forever. My mother and sister came outside and watched my dad beat the man bloody, but the man wouldn’t quit until he reeled around, staggering like a drunk, and fell face down onto the wet, gravely street. “You’re not only an evil man, you’re also stupid,” my father told him. “You’ll go to jail for your crimes.” His friend helped him into their truck, and they drove away.

My mother was crying back in the house, and my father put his thick arms around her shoulders. “He had the nerve to confront and insult me at my home,” he said, wiping the tears from her face. “Would the Richard Reynolds you married take that lying down?” His shirt was ripped, and a thin trail of blood ran from his cheek into his black beard.

As a district attorney, Richard Reynolds was widely feared for his vehement approach. A number of men he’d prosecuted swore they’d get back at him, and at one point we had our phone number unlisted. But my father loved his work; he did it fearlessly, and his mind was as sharp as his physical presence was intimidating. He was a large man with hard, dark eyes, and I never remember him without a full, coal-black beard, but in our home he was as kind and patient as he was relentless as a prosecutor.

It was around that time he changed our family name from Reynolds to Reno, and he was labeled as an eccentric in Santa Clara County’s legal ranks. He eventually left the DA’s office, went into private practice in San Jose, and had a successful career as a trial lawyer until one late fall day.

He had come out of his downtown office later than usual that evening, on a windy, moonless night. The man, whose name I later learned was Hubert Sheridan, was hiding in the parking lot, lying in wait for the day he had promised himself for the last three years. My father never had a chance. He died instantly from the point-blank blast from Sheridan’s ten-gauge shotgun.

Hubert Sheridan was arrested later that night as he crouched in the weeds down on the banks of the nearby Guadalupe River. He was a lifetime criminal, an unintelligent, bitter man who had lost any real hope of a normal life by his teen years, when he was convicted of rape and sentenced to a year in a juvenile detention center. Afterward, he took his place among the criminal element on the outskirts of society, until eventually he was arrested for a series of felonies. My father convicted him of armed robbery, kidnapping, and a number of lesser charges, but prison overcrowding and a paperwork glitch set him free after serving only three years of his twelve-year sentence. He had been out of jail for a week when he murdered my dad, and it wasn’t until I went to his sentencing hearing that I realized he was the same man my father had fought in our driveway on that cold night, back when I was a young boy.

• • •

A waitress tapped me on the shoulder and I snapped awake. I ordered a coffee, called Caesar’s, and asked for Mandy McGee. There was no answer. I sat around for a few minutes, filled out a five-dollar keno slip, and gave it to the runner when she came by. Then, as much as I didn’t want to, I called Wenger’s home number. He answered on the first ring.

“Hey, Rick—

“Enjoying your long vacation?” he interrupted.

“Rick, something’s come up here in Lake Tahoe.”

“Don’t tell me—you’re hung over, and you’ll be late on Monday.”

“No. You know the wedding I’m here for? The groom was murdered, and his father has hired me to investigate.”

“Hired you to investigate?”

“That’s right.”

“What? You mean Wenger and Associates, right?”

“No, I’m going to do this freelance.”

“
Freelance?
What does that mean?”

“It means I’ll need to spend another couple days up here, maybe more.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

“So, you’re not coming in tomorrow?”

“That’s right.”

“Dan, what are you saying? You can’t just drop your responsibilities. You have a job working for me.”

“I understand that. I’ll need to take some vacation time, or possibly a leave of absence.”

“What? That’s bullshit! You can’t just call me up on a Sunday afternoon and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I won’t be coming in for a while.’”

“Sorry, this was unexpected.”

“Unexpected, huh? Listen, buster, that doesn’t cut it. That’s not the way professional careers work. I’ve treated you fairly, paid you on time, and now you’re completely disregarding that.” His voice had risen about two notches higher, the way it always did when he was emotional. I didn’t say anything for a moment. I could hear him breathing in the phone.

“Rick, I don’t feel good about putting you in a bad spot. You’ve been a fair boss, and I don’t take my job for granted. But depending on what happens here, I may or may not want to continue working for you.”

“What? Now you’re quitting without notice? You asshole!”

“Now, calm down—I didn’t say I was quitting. Goddammit, Rick, here’s the bottom line. I was paid a large amount of money up front to investigate this murder. There’s no way I could pass it up.”

“How much?” he said. I knew he would ask that.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s enough that I accepted the offer immediately.”

“Tell me how much. You owe me that.”

“What’s the point, Rick?”

“The point is I may want to make a counter offer.”

“There’s no way you could offer me enough. I told you, it’s a large amount of money.”

“Dammit, Dan, I’ve treated you well for two years. You can’t screw me over like this! I have the right to know what I’m up against.”

“It’s way more than what you’re paying me.”

“Dan, how much?”

“It wouldn’t make sense for you to even consider–”

“How much?”

“I’m telling you, Rick–”

“How fucking much?” he screamed.

“Fifty thousand,” I said.

“Stop lying.”

“That’s up front, plus another fifty K if I identify the murderer before the police.”

“That’s preposterous. No one would pay that kind of money.”

“The guy’s a rich executive.”

“I don’t believe it,” he said.

“It’s the truth.”

“Fifty thousand for investigating one murder? What kind of idiot would pay that much? What if the cops close the case right away? Do you still get the money?”

“I already have the check.”

“This is unbelievable. I think it’s just wrong. And I think the right thing to do is bring this business to Wenger and Associates.”

“Yeah, right. Look, I’ll make you a deal, Rick. Don’t jump to any quick decisions. This whole thing could be over in forty-eight hours. I’m asking you to cut me some slack, hang in there for a couple days, and I’ll let you know how it’s going.”

“Bring the case to Wenger and Associates.”

“Nope.”

“Let’s work it together. Me and you.”

“Not gonna happen, Rick.”

“That’s it, huh? Just like that. Well, thanks a lot, Dan. It’s all good. I’ll be waiting to hear from you. Just call me at your convenience. Appreciate it, man. No problem.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

“You better think long and hard about what you’re doing here. What comes around goes around. Don’t come running to me when you need work.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Don’t forget, you’re gonna have to pay taxes on that money.”

“I know.”

“You’ve got some growing up to do,” he said, and started saying something else, but I hung up on him.

I pushed away the last of my lukewarm coffee, went to the bar, and ordered a CC Seven. My head was ringing from the effort of not telling Wenger to screw himself. All the months of tolerating his petty crap seemed to culminate in that phone call, as if our relationship was a festering boil that needed to be popped. That’s what Wenger was, I decided: a festering boil on the ass of my life.
Fuck you, Wenger. Calling me a drunk, leaping to the conclusion last Thursday that I’d been boozing all night when I’d only had one drink. Sure, bring the case to Wenger and Associates. Right. Kiss my ass, you greedy son of a bitch. I’m done with you instructing me on the most basic elements of my job over and over, as if I were a fucking moron.

I gunned my drink, and then an odd thing happened: I felt a silly grin take hold on my face, and I actually began chuckling. Ah, hell, Wenger was Wenger. I even felt a strange affection for him, probably because he was so predictable. I’m sure he was eating his liver over the fact I had run into such an unexpected bonanza. To him money meant everything: status, prestige, comfort, self-esteem, self-image—it was all tied to income and finances. Wenger would always find a way to determine how much money a person made, and then he assigned respect accordingly. If someone made less money than he did, he’d rejoice smugly, but if they out-earned him, he’d be bitter and jealous. I’d gone to pick-up bars with Wenger, and his usual tactic was to suggest to young ladies that he made more money than whomever they were mingling with. In the best-case scenario, women would ignore him, give him dirty looks, or tell him to beat it. In the worst case he’d get his ass kicked, and on a few occasions I’d saved him from a likely beating.

I called Mandy three more times, then I tried Jerry McGee, and he answered.

“How you holding up, Jerry?”

“Ah, jeez, I’m fine, but Shelly’s going crazy, and Desiree is really freaked out.”

“Man, that’s too bad. I wanted to call to say I’m sorry.”

“Appreciate it. After what I’ve been through in my life, this is just another test. But we’ll be fine. It’ll pass, and life goes on. Hey, Shelly tells me Bascom hired you to investigate the murder.”

“Yeah, looks like I’ll stay up here for a little while.”

“You couldn’t have picked a nicer place, except for the weather.”

“Jerry, have you seen Mandy around?”

“I think she’s downstairs playing slots. She’s riding home with Shelly, me, and Desiree. Her boyfriend, Renaldo, deserted her. They had some fight or argument, and he left her up here. The guy’s a real class act.”

“No kidding, huh?”

“These damn kids. Like I don’t have enough problems.”

“Are you going to take off tomorrow?”

“No, I’m gonna load up the girls and go after dinner. Maybe I’ll give them all a Valium, so I can drive home in peace.”

We laughed. “Not a bad idea,” I said.

I hustled out to my car and drove straight to Caesar’s, hurrying because I only had forty-five minutes before my meeting with Jack Myers at the bar. Caesar’s layout was typical of a large-scale casino. The carpet had a geometric pattern designed to cause disorientation, and the walls were mirrored in strategic places to confuse one’s sense of direction. The walkways seemed to wind mazelike in all directions, and everywhere banks of slot machines beckoned, clanging loudly and luring in the distracted passerby. There were no clocks on the walls, and the bathrooms were infrequent and out of the way.

Fortunately it was late Sunday afternoon, and the casino wasn’t particularly crowded. I started at the elevators to the hotel rooms, searching outward until I found Mandy about ten minutes later at a bank of quarter slots. I took a seat next to her and began playing a machine.

“Any luck?” I said.

“Hey, you,” she said, and touched my shoulder. She was wearing jeans, black open-toed heels, and a white V-neck shirt cut just low enough to allow a tempting glimpse of cleavage. I burned through a few bucks then stopped and took a cigarette from her pack. She kept on playing her machine as if she were oblivious to my presence.

“You hear from Renaldo?” I said finally.

“No,” she said. “What happened to your face?”

“Sven Osterlund hit me with a right cross.” She blinked and her lips parted.

“I hear you know him,” I said.

“And your point is?”

“Osterlund’s a prime suspect in Sylvester Bascom’s murder. He’s also got more problems than a math book. He’s trouble, Mandy. Don’t let him drag you into his gig. It’ll have an unhappy ending.”

“Since when did you start seeing into the future? That’s Sven’s bag.”

“I deal with criminals for a living. As a group, they’re pretty predictable.”

“Really? Well, tough guy, maybe next time you should try to predict when you’re gonna get punched out.”

“I’ve been hit harder, believe me,” I said, but I could feel my patience eroding. “He said you and he are together now, and he warned me to stay away from you. Is that true?”

She bet the last of her credits, pulled the handle, and came up bust. “What we did the other night was fun, Dan. But don’t get your hopes up for a repeat performance.” With that she walked away and left me sitting there, feeling as manipulated and inadequate as a rookie gambler going broke on his first big night at the casino.

T
he King’s Head was on a road I’d never heard of, but I thought it would be easy to find. I turned left off the highway, searching for the address, and found myself driving fruitlessly through a dark, older neighborhood. The houses were a mixture of ancient cabins, dilapidated pre-fab units, and trailer homes that had long ago sunk into their final resting place. Half the structures were boarded up, and some looked condemned. The other half appeared to be lived in—and badly. A child in soiled diapers sat crying on a sagging, rotted-out redwood porch, while in the driveway next door a man in a grease-smeared down vest wrenched on a rust-bucket Ford Bronco. He shot me a look as I drove by, his eyes black with aggression. Dead pine needles were matted on his deck, and the fresh snowfall in his yard was stained by soot and dirt, as if filth grew like weeds beneath the snow.