Bleeders

16

“Man, you’re in some big hurry,” Kinsella said. “I figure it can’t be more than ten minutes since I talked to the girl in your office. What’d you do, fly over here?”

“I was in the neighborhood. What’ve you got for me, Nick?”

“Dingo, that’s what I got.”

“What about Dingo?”

He made his chair creak and groan, leaning back. His desk was strewn with more food remains — Chinese takeout, probably from the previous night — and the butts and ashes from a couple of dozen dead black stogies. The air in his office was dead, too, murdered by tobacco smoke laden with carcinogens. We were the only two people in there trying to breathe it this morning.

He tore the wrapper off another stogie, bit off one crooked end, fired it with a gold-and-platinum lighter. Taking his time, enjoying himself. That was Kinsella: fat, sloppy, corrupt, with a flair for the dramatic and a vicious streak on the one hand, a tempering one of generosity toward people he liked on the other. I didn’t prod him. When you dealt with Kinsella, you played down on his level, according to his rules, or you didn’t play at all.

“Ah,” he said when he had the stogie drawing to his satisfaction. “Nothing like a good cigar. ‘A woman’s just a woman, but a good cigar’s a smoke.’ Who was it said that?”

“I’m not sure. Kipling, maybe.”

“Who’s Kipling?”

“Long-dead British writer.”

“Yeah, a limey. Figures.” He made the chair creak and groan again. “So like I said, Dingo.”

I waited.

“I figure maybe he’s your shooter,” Kinsella said.

I could feel myself go tight, inside and out, all at once. “Bald? Bushy eyebrows? In his forties?”

“So I hear.”

“Who is he?”

“Nobody much. One of these shit-for-brains guys, apes walking around on two legs. Like Bluto, you remember Bluto from the other night? Big guys, tough, but zombies from the neck up.”

“What’s his real name?”

“That I don’t have. Nobody seems to know.”

“His connection to Jackie Spoons?”

“Word is he worked for Jackie awhile,” Kinsella said, “about a year ago. They had some hassle over money — Jackie figured Dingo screwed up on a collection, tried to hold out a little for himself. Beat the crap out of him, busted his leg. What I told you, he’s crazy. Jackie, I mean.”

“Where can I find Dingo?”

“You figure I’m right, he’s the guy almost put you in a pine box?”

I said between my teeth, “I’ll know that when I see him.”

“You figure on putting him in a pine box?”

“Where, Nick?”

“Beats me. Beats everybody I talked to.”

“Who knows him besides Jackie?”

“Nobody knows him, me included. He’s what you call your mystery man.”

“Maybe Jackie knows where he is.”

“Uh-uh. He ain’t had nothing to do with Dingo since the hassle; he can’t help you. Stay away from him, you know what’s good for you. That’s from him as well as me.”

“Is Dingo a crankhead?”

“What you think? He worked for Jackie, even Jackie uses what he peddles.” Kinsella shook his head. “Drugs, they’re for the apes and the schmucks and the losers. You got to keep a clear head, you want to climb up on top and stay there. No drugs, no booze. No broads, either, except once in a while. Just a lot of good cigars.”

“Anything else you can tell me?”

He shrugged, blew smoke at me, shrugged again. “You got your favor, my friend,” he said. “You got all I got. Like they say, now the ball’s in your court.”

The Ford Taurus was no longer parked in front of the San Mateo apartment complex. Nor anywhere else in the vicinity; I drove around two full blocks to make sure the car hadn’t been moved to another spot.

It bothered me a little, but not as much as it would have before I talked to Kinsella. I found a place to put my car and went to have another look at the mailboxes in the building’s vestibule. Kirsten Sabat — Apt. 411. That was something, anyway.

I was about to ring the bell when two young women wearing flight attendants’ outfits and dragging wheeled suitcases emerged from the elevator inside. San Francisco International was not that far from here; a lot of the apartments were probably occupied by airline personnel. These two were in a hurry. They came out through the entrance doors without a glance my way or a backward look as they clattered down the steps. Sometimes problems get solved before they develop, and this was one of them. I caught the door before it shut and slipped inside with the same straight-ahead purpose, as if I belonged there as much as the stewardesses.

The elevator deposited me on the fourth floor. Number 411 was an inside unit, no doubt facing on an inner courtyard: the complex was built in a massive enclosed rectangle. There was a bell push and one of those one-way magnifying peepholes; I laid my thumb on the button, kept it there for three or four seconds with my face arranged into a hopeful salesman’s smile. I needn’t have bothered. That ring and two others brought no response.

The door had two locks-push-button snap variety on the knob, a deadbolt above. I rotated the knob, pushed and pulled just enough to tell that the deadbolt was off. Another problem solved in embryo. Snap locks are an open invitation; a preteen can loid one with a little knowledge and a little patience. I got out a credit card, made sure I had the hall to myself, and went to work. It took about four minutes to get the plastic positioned just right to snick the bolt free. Just like on TV, only not as fast.

The apartment was a mess. At first glance it appeared to have been ransacked, but sunlight streaming in through the open drapes showed me that the clutter was cumulative — a slob’s paradise of male and female clothing, disarranged furniture, dirty dishes, overflowing ashtrays, and general disorder. The acrid scent of marijuana flavored the air; half the butts in the one ashtray I glanced at were dead roaches. There was also what looked to be a rock of methamphetamine, at least two grams. Charlie Bright and Kirstan Sabat: soulmates.

I made my way through the obstacle course to have a look at the other rooms. The kitchen invited ants, rodents, and a case of disinfectant. A short hallway gave access to a bathroom on one side, a bedroom on the other. The bedroom door was open; I started in there. And pulled up short one pace across the threshhold.

Somebody was lying facedown on the bed.

Covers pulled up to the neck, male, red hair — Charlie Bright.

The last person I’d come across lying facedown on a bed had been Carolyn Dain. That thought and Bright’s stillness built cold tension in me as I advanced to the bed. I caught an edge of the stained blanket, drew it down halfway, and then let breath hiss out between my teeth. Bright was alive, unhurt. Sound asleep. Up close, I could hear the kind of wheezing that comes from clogged sinuses.

I dug fingers into his shoulder and shook him. Did it twice more, hard and rough. It was like shaking a rubber dummy; the only response I got was a couple of faint grunts. I gripped his other shoulder and flopped him over on his back. No response to that, either. The red hair was long and tangled, his skin grub white where it wasn’t spotted with freckles, and he was thinner than he’d looked in the photo, almost anorexic. You could see each of his ribs, the shape of his breastbone above a concave belly. He couldn’t have weighed more than 120, even though he was nearly six feet tall.

I slapped his face half a dozen times, back and forth, not being gentle about it. All that got me was a low groan. Another set of six slaps, and his eyes popped open; but there was no focus in them, and they closed again before I finished smacking him. The hell with this, I thought. I don’t like mishandling the helpless, even a kid who probably deserved it.

So I yanked the covers all the way off his naked body, hauled him off the bed and onto his feet. It roused him enough to mutter something that sounded like “What’s going on?” but not enough to enable him to walk under his own power. I had to drag him out of there and across the hall into the bathroom. There was a shower stall; I pushed him in there, propped him against a mildewed tile wall, and turned on the cold water.

That brought him out of it. He squealed when the spray hit him; gasped, moaned, made other sounds of protest. But he took it standing up and without trying to get away. I figured he’d had enough when his eyes stayed open and shivers wracked him. I turned off the water, tossed him one of the soiled towels draped over a clothes hamper.

From the hallway I watched him dry off in jerky movements, wrap the towel around his middle. He stood for a few seconds, staring groggily at nothing. Then he gulped three glasses of water, dribbling some of it down his skinny chest, and wobbled past me into the bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed, put his face in his hands.

I leaned against a bureau, waiting. His head came up finally. The watery blue eyes had focus now; he saw me standing there and gave me a long, bleary look. He didn’t seem angry or scared — just bewildered in a fuzzy-headed way, and maybe a little resigned. As if it were an expected part of his lot to be hauled out of bed and thrown in the shower by somebody he’d never seen before. The mild-mannered, submissive variety of addict and ex-con. Yet another variety of bleeder. The predatory cons in prison must have had a field day with him.

“Who’re you?” he asked. The Texas drawl had a mush-mouthed sound, as though his tongue was swollen.

“A man with questions. A man you don’t want to lie to or mess with.”

“Cop?”

“Close enough. Your PO’s a good friend of mine.”

“Mr. Duryea? Oh, shit.” Some scare had come into his voice. “He know I’m here?”

“Not yet. Cooperate and he won’t find out from me.”

“Gonna find out anyways, sure as hell. Goddamn that Kay. I wished I never met her.”

“Who’s Kay?”

“Kirsten. I was clean till I met her. Clean and straight, I swear it. I’d’ve known all the shit she was into, I never would’ve come near her. Speed, man, that stuff messes with your head. I feel like I done crashed and burned.”

“She didn’t knock you down and force you to take it, did she?”

“Well, she had it, she offered it, she’s got good connections...” He grimaced, groaned a little. “Ah, hell, it ain’t her fault. It’s mine. I know better, I just cain’t hep myself sometimes. Man don’t use his head, he might’s well have two assholes.”

Amen to that.

Bright looked around the bedroom, frowning. “She ain’t here, is she?”

“Just the two of us.”

“What time’s it?”

“After eleven.”

“Eleven? Goddamn her, she knows I cain’t wake up like she does after a jag. I told her get me up so’s I can go to work. No later’n eight A.M. and don’t forget ’cause I cain’t take no more time off.”

“Maybe she tried to get you up. Look at the trouble I had three hours later.”

“Yessir, I’m sorry about that. But listen here, I got to call in. I lose that job of mine, Mr. Duryea’s gonna violate my ass for sure.”

There was no point in telling him he’d already lost his job. “Answer my questions first. A few more minutes won’t make any difference.”

“Reckon you got that right.”

“Dingo,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Dingo. You know the name.”

“Nossir, I... whoa. You mean that Aussie sumbitch?”

“That’s right.”

“Oh, man, I wished I never set eyes on that boy. I doan want nothing more to do with him.”

“What’s his real name?”

“I doan know.”

“He never told you, you never heard it?”

“Nossir. Dingo’s all I know.”

“Let’s make sure we’re talking about the same man. Forty or so, big, bald, bushy eyebrows, onion breath.”

“Cain’t say about his breath. Rest of it’s right.”

“He speak with an Australian accent?”

“Not so’s you notice. Been in this country awhile, I reckon.”

Or born here. “All right. Where’d you meet him?”

“Frisco. ’Bout two years back.”

“Before you were busted for dealing meth.”

“Yessir. All his idea and his fault, that deal. Him and that woman of his.”

“Annette Byers?”

“I doan recall her name.”

“Tall, leggy, streaky blond hair, early twenties.”

“Big tits? Yeah, that’s her. Sumbitch Dingo set us up with a undercover narc and her and me got busted. Not him. He got off clean, that boy.”

“Why didn’t you take him down with you?”

“I sure wanted to, but she said we dasn’t, he’d kill us if we did. He would’ve, too. Sumbitch’s meaner’n a sore-dick dog.”

“You have any contact with him since you were paroled?”

“Nossir. No way. I ever see him again, I run the other way.”

“How about with the woman?”

“Her neither.”

“How’d you get involved with the two of them?”

“Met her one night at this here club in Belmont.”

“The Alamo?”

“Right, the Alamo.”

“She hang out there or what?”

“Not her, me. She come in one night with some friends.”

“Dingo one of them?”

“No. Wasn’t ’til later that I met up with him.”

“Where was that?”

“Party at some old boy’s house.”

“What old boy?”

“Slick named... Duke. Yeah, Duke.”

“Duke what?”

“I doan remember. Honest.”

“Where was the house?”

“Frisco somewheres.”

“What street?”

“I doan remember.”

“What part of the city?”

“I doan know Frisco, man.”

“Who else was at this party? Jay Cohalan?”

“Who?”

“Jay Cohalan. Another friend of Annette Byers.”

“Never heard the name.”

I described Cohalan. Bright said, shaking his head, “Nosir, uh-uh.” It sounded like the truth, which made me wrong about him being Cohalan’s supplier. It had to have been Dingo, then, through Byers. She was the Alamo connection, not Bright. Cohalan had either met her there as Bright had or she’d taken him there after they were together.

I said, “So Dingo was at this Duke’s party. Who invited you? Byers?”

“Yessir. Made it seem like we was gonna ball, her and me, but once we got there she was all over him like a blowfly on a turd. Sweet little piece like her, and him with a face that’d pucker a hog’s ass. He must have some whang on him, on’y thing I can figure.”

“How’d they hook you into the meth deal?”

“Well, he had some crystal on him and I done bought me some. I was flush at the time, I ain’t sayin’ how come. Dingo, he says he needed more cash for a big buy he was setting up. I wished I didn’t listen to him, but he was pretty slick. Snot-on-a-doorknob slick, that boy. A thousand buy-in gets me a fast five thou on the street. Uh-uh. All that thousand got me was a year in jail.”

“Anybody else in on the deal with you three?”

“Nossir. Just us.”

“Where was Dingo living then, do you know?”

“With her, I reckon. Couple times we met, it was at her place.”

“He have a job? The legit kind, I mean.”

“A job...” Bright frowned, winced, held his head. “Seems one of ’em said something once ’bout him working part-time for some moving company.”

“Which moving company?”

“Doan remember if they said which one.”

“But it was in the city?”

“Frisco, yeah, I think it was.”

“What else can you tell me about Dingo? Where he came from, other people he knew?”

“Nothing. If I ever knew something else, I done forgot it.” He blinked at me again. “That sumbitch in trouble? That how come you asking all these questions?”

“He’s in trouble, all right. You don’t want to know any more than that.”

“Reckon I don’t,” Bright said. “Can I make my call now? I’m scared as hell I’m gonna lose my job.”

“Where’ll you be if I need to talk to you again?”

“Huh? Right here, that’s where.”

“Not moving out on Kirsten?”

“I cain’t. I give up my own place on account of her and her goddamn speed. I ain’t got nowheres else to go.” He turned his hands palms upward, a gesture at once rueful and resigned. “No damn place to go except straight back to jail.”