Stone Quarry (22 page)

Lydia said, "Mmm." I didn't say anything.

She rolled down her window. The wind blew her silky hair across her forehead. She combed it back with her fingers.

When the first cigarette was gone I pulled out another.

"If it makes you that crazy," Lydia said, "you can drive."

"Do all Chinese read minds?" I pushed the cigarette back in the pack.

"Only me and my mother."

"I love your driving. Hear that, Mrs. Chin? I love your daughter's driving. Turn here."

We had reached the steep hardscrabble road. We bounced up it, emerged from the trees onto the flat, rock- strewn plain.

"We're here," I said.

Tonight there was a moon. The ridge was clearly visible, towering on the other side of the great pit, in whose glassy surface stars glittered.

"God," Lydia said, staring. "Where are we, Mars?"

"It's an abandoned quarry pit. The one I told you about, where Jimmy dropped the cars."

A truck went by on the ridge road, its headlights passing behind trees a hundred yards above where we sat.

"That's weird," she said.

"There's a road up there, but you can't get here from it, except on foot. Stay in the car a minute."

I got out, moved away from the car. The shack was dark and silent. "Jimmy!" I shouted, "It's Bill. I have a friend with me. I need to talk to you."

A short silence. Then from behind me, some distance away, Jimmy's voice, hoarse and loud: "Who's with you?"

I turned. There was a great mound of jagged rock, with smaller mounds piled at its feet like the ritual remnants of some brutal civilization. Nothing moved. I called, "No one you know. Another PI." I motioned Lydia out of the car. She stepped out cautiously, her jacket unzipped but her hands empty.

Scraping sounds came from the mound. The moon covered everything with a silver light that had no dimension. The scraping stopped, and Jimmy, rifle in one hand, jumped from a rock that jutted sharply from the mound's face.

"Man, where've you been?" he demanded. His face was haggard, sleepless. His jumpy eyes flashed from Lydia to me. "Where's your car?"

"My car's too obvious. I wanted to come up here in something Brinkman wasn't looking for."

He eyed Lydia again.

"This is Lydia Chin," I told him. "We work together sometimes, in the city. She's okay."

"Thanks," said Lydia dryly.

We followed Jimmy into the shack. He lit the wobbly kerosene lamp. His clothes stank of sweat and smoke; there was a pile of cigarette butts on the table.

Jimmy shifted uneasily.

"You scared the shit out of me."

"For Christ's sake, Jimmy, what's wrong?" I put the 7- Eleven bag on the table.

"Someone was here."

A chill went through me. "Who?"

"I don't know, man! Last night, in the rain. Someone came up the truck road. A car. I saw his lights."

"Did he see you?"

"I don't know. He could've. I had the lamp lit, you know, just .. ." He shrugged. "I killed it when I saw his lights, but he could've seen it."

"And you didn't see him?"

"No, man. It was raining, it was dark."

"Did he drive close to the shack?"

"Uh-uh. Just to the top of the truck road. He was here maybe five minutes, then he split."

"Did he get out of the car?"

"I don't know! I couldn't see him!"

"Okay, Jimmy, okay. Here, we brought you some dinner. And some beer. You look like you could use it." I reached into the bag, put a six-pack on the table. Jimmy yanked a can off the plastic; I did the same. He looked unsurely at Lydia. "You want one?"

"No, thanks," she said. She had stationed herself by the window, listening to us, keeping an eye on the empty landscape.

Jimmy sat on the rickety chair. I perched on the edge of the table. He unwrapped the sandwich, bit into the end as I asked him, "What did you do?"

"When?" he asked, muffled by chicken and cheese.

"Last night."

He swallowed. "What did I do? I didn't do anything!" He took a long pull on his beer. "I thought about it, man. I thought, soon as he's gone, I'm history! I figured with the rain and all, I could make the Thruway and be in Canada by morning."

"Why didn't you?"

He stared at me. "Because you said not to! Because you said stay put!"

"Good."

"But then you didn't come last night, and you didn't come today . . ." He looked at me out of eyes that seemed as tired as mine. "Jesus, Mr. S. What's gonna happen?"

"What's going to happen is that you're going to tell me the truth."

"Oh, man—"

"Don't start that shit, Jimmy!" I slammed my beer down on the table. "Here's what happened last night: someone cracked me on the head, left me lying in the woods in the rain. That I'm not dead is pretty much an accident. And someone tore up a shed belonging to a friend of mine. I want to know why. And someone drove your truck off the road into the ravine."

He paled. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"It's what I said the other night: this is no goddamn game, not anymore."

"Game," he muttered. He shook his head. "Are—are you okay?"

"No. My head is killing me, my shoulder's sore, I'm stiff, I'm tired, and I'm generally pissed off. So now tell me, Jimmy, it's Ginny who had the truck, isn't it?"

He shook a Salem from the pack in his parka. "Yeah." He lit it, looked at me in silence, as though he didn't want the answer to the question he was about to ask.

"There was no one in it," I told him.

He let out a breath, nodded. "Jesus," he said.

"Since when has she had it?" I asked.

"Last week. Thursday, I think."

"You think?"

"Some time Wednesday night, Thursday morning."

"Right after she told you she didn't want to see you anymore? What the hell did you give her your truck for, if she was kissing you off?"

He dragged on the cigarette, blew smoke into the cold room. "I didn't. She has her own keys. I gave her a set. Well, loaned them to her. The ones on the silver ring." He looked up at me. "She loves that truck, man. She loves to drive it. She's so little, it's so big. She gets a real charge out of that truck. When it was missing, I knew that's who took it."

"So she took it, and she's had it a week, and you didn't do anything about it?"

"What the hell was I supposed to do, report it stolen? She's fifteen, man. And her father, he thinks she's a fucking saint. He'd kill her if she was in trouble with the law."

"That's why she hangs around with guys like you?"

He shrugged. "Just because he thinks she's a saint, that don't make her one. Maybe if he got to know her a little better she wouldn't run around looking for trouble to get into." He hesitated. "Mr. S.? What about my truck?"

"From what Brinkman says, it was totaled."

"Shit." He shook his head slowly, gave a short laugh. "Ain't that a kick in the ass?"

"Jimmy," I said, "there was blood in the cab. And a nine- millimeter automatic."

"A gun? In my truck?"

"And I'd bet the rent it's the one that killed Wally Gould."

"Oh, Jesus."

"Yeah. Whose is it?"

"Please, man. Please. You gotta believe me. I don't know whose it is. It's not mine."

"Do you have one? A handgun, any kind?"

He shook his head. "Just the rifle. It's all I ever owned. Ever." He glanced at the Winchester standing against the wall. "Tony gave it to me. A long time ago."

"I know, Jimmy."

"I'd've told you," he said. "About Ginny. I almost did. But when you said about my keys being at the bar . . ."

"Jimmy," I said, "I know you're trying to protect her, but you're not doing her a favor. I saw her last night."

"Ginny?"

I nodded.

"So what're you asking me about the goddamn truck for? You knew she had it."

"No. She was in her car. I didn't find her, she came and found me, at the bar. She wouldn't tell me about the truck. Unless," I said, "I told her where to find you."

"Find me?" He had the look of a man trying to make sense of the half-remembered incidents in a dream. "Ginny wanted to find me? What the hell for?"

I drank some beer; it just made the cold room colder. "Any ideas?"

He shrugged wearily. "Frank. You said Frank was looking for me. She's always trying to impress fucking Frank, he's always telling her go away and leave him alone. Maybe she thought if she found me, that would work."

I looked around the room, the wavering lamp flame,

Lydia in black leather at the dusty window. "Jimmy," I said, "remember I told you Eve Colgate was robbed?"

He nodded.

I said, "Someone made a real mess in a shed on her farm last night. I was on my way to see what was going on when I was hit."

"I don't get it. Who hit you?"

I gave him the short version. When I was through he didn't move, didn't speak. Finally he said, through tight lips, "Jesus, man. You could've been killed."

"Yeah. By whom, Jimmy?"

He rubbed his grimy face. "Honest to God, Mr. S., I don't know," he said. "But if I find out, I'll kill him. I swear I will."

I laughed, shook my head.

Jimmy looked at me in surprise. He smiled weakly. Lydia, looking over, smiled too.

"Jimmy, listen, what about the burglary?"

He gave me a blank look. "What about it?"

"Could Ginny have done that?"

He shrugged. "I guess she could have. She's always trying to prove she's tough. Bad, you know. Like she smokes Camels, without filters. She could've done it to show, like, that she could."

"To show whom?"

"The guys. You know, everyone."

"Frank?"

"Yeah, she does a lot of shit like that. But it never works. Frank don't want nothing to do with her."

"Why not? She's too young?"

"Frank don't give a shit about that. He's just, like, he just don't want her around." He stood, paced the gritty room. "Jesus, Mr. S., I feel like I don't know a fucking thing. Except I know I'm sick of this place. I'm sick of these clothes, and that goddamn stove, and hearing the goddamn wind all day. Tell me what to do." There was nothing guarded in his eyes now, nothing hidden. All there was was weariness and fear. "Whatever you say, I'll do it. You think I should turn myself in?"

I thought about it. "No. Someone's trying to set you up for Gould's murder. My choice is Frank. That's pretty straightforward, but there's something else going on and I don't want Brinkman to get his hands on you until I know what the hell it is."

He lifted his shoulders in a helpless gesture.

"Where does Frank live in Cobleskill?" I asked.

"Those condos over the bridge. You know, the ones with the pool. The first building, on the third floor. His name's not on the bell."

"What name is?"

An embarrassed look. "Capone."

"Capone?"
"Uh-huh."

"Too bad," I said. "A sense of humor almost makes a guy human. I'd hate to think that about Frank."

Jimmy added his cigarette butt to the pile on the table. "But he's got this other place he uses sometimes, in Franklinton."

"A grungy green house at the top of Endhill Road?"

Jimmy's eyes widened. "Uh-huh. How do you know that?"

"I know all sorts of things," I said. "And if I knew why Wally Gould was killed at the bar, I could die a happy man."

"Christ, Mr. S., I've been thinking about that for two days. That basement—-Jesus! Why would anyone go there? There's nothing to steal. Tony hasn't got anything."

I said, "Maybe they went there because that's where they had a key to."

"A key—you mean, mine? That they would've got from Ginny? Yeah, but still . . ."

I finished my beer, set the can down. "Yeah," I said. "But still." I zipped my jacket, pulled my gloves on. "Okay, Jimmy. Give me another day. But if I come up with nothing, then I think you should turn yourself in. Not to Brinkman, to the troopers. I have a friend there. And Jimmy? What I said the other night, about if they find you?"