New, Improved Murder

16

After I closed the door I went back downstairs to the office. The clerk was just hanging up the phone when I got there.

I went behind the desk, grabbed him, threw him onto a chair.

Then I told him about the dead woman upstairs. As I spoke, I watched his face. He seemed honestly shocked, and then afraid.

“Shit,” he said miserably, “shit. They’re gonna blame me.” You could hear the tears in his voice. “I’m goin’ back to the slammer for sure.”

Usually I wouldn’t have had the stomach for it, as I don’t take any particular pleasure in the misery of others, but now I just leaned against the back of the desk and watched him.

He lit a cigarette and jumped up and started pacing. He looked seedy and mean and vulnerable all at the same time.

“You killed her, didn’t you?”

“Jesus Christ,” he said, whirling on me. “No, I didn’t. I really didn’t.”

“You’ve got a record, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but for B and E. Nothing violent.”

“You know how cops are. Suspicious of you no matter what you did time for.”

He wiped sweat from his face. Lit another cigarette.

“You need a buddy,” I said after a time.

Now he was into the depressive side of his manic run. He stared out the front window at the cars that crept by.

“You need some help, Larry,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, dully. Jane had sounded that way the other day in the park.

“But if I’m going to help you, I’ve got to know what was going on here.”

“Yeah.”

I went over and picked up his pack and put another cigarette in his mouth. I even lit it for him.

“I don’t want to go back to prison,” he said. He sounded about eight years old, with the boogeyman loose in his midnight bedroom.

“Then tell me the truth.”

He shook his head. “I’m as scared to tell you the truth as I am to go back to the slammer. You saw what happened to that whore upstairs.”

“Who did it? Phil Davies?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Why was she killed?”

“Because she knew.”

“Knew what?”

He exhaled smoke. With red neon splashing his beard-stubbled face he looked like a prisoner already in hell.

“Knew what, Larry?”

“Knew what was happening.”

“What was happening?”

“She posed for pictures for some guy.”

“What kind of pictures?”

“You know. With bottles and fruit and stuff up her. That kind of stuff.”

I thought of the photos of Jane and Phil Davies. “Any other kind of pictures?”

“Whaddya mean?”

But I had a feeling he knew exactly what I meant. “Any other kind of pictures — with men while another man was watching?”

“Kinky stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“I suppose.”

“You know a man named Stephen Elliot?”

He said it quickly and badly. “No.”

I smiled. “I thought we were going to be buddies, Larry.”

“Honest. I never heard of no Stephen Elliot. Honest.”

I decided to crack the whip again. “What do you think I should do about the dead woman upstairs, Larry?”

“Shit, man, they really will blame me for it.”

“Right.”

“I don’t know what to do. Fuck.” He was talking to his tortured self.

“I can help you.”

“How?”

“I know the cops pretty well. I used to be a cop myself.”

He looked me over. “Really?”

“Really.”

“You got good buds on the force?”

“Good buds, Larry. Good buds.”

“You really gonna help me?”

“Yeah, if you help me.”

His eyes began to look worried. “Like how?”

“Like tell me who you were talking to when I came in just now.”

He tried another bad lie. “I was ordering a pizza.”

“With anchovies, huh?”

“Yeah. With anchovies.”

“Deep dish, I’ll bet. Those are the best kind.”

“I love fucking deep dish, man. I love the shit.”

I hit him so hard his head cracked back against the wall and his knees started to buckle. Then I brought my knee up and caught him squarely in the groin. I let him slide, screaming, to the floor. I sat down on the chair next to where David Letterman held court and watched Larry try to pull himself back together.

He was in bad shape. He had been all his life. I wasn’t proud of what I’d done to him just now.

I sighed. “Larry, be smart. For your own sake. Call the cops. Tell them everything you know. Everything.”

He looked up at me. An eerie, bitter smile was on his face. “You know, I always thought I’d turn out better than my old man did.” He shook his head miserably. “I fucked everything up just the way he did.”

Then he went back to holding his crotch and groaning.

Outside I got in my car and headed for an address I’d found in the residential directory back in the office.

Phil Davies probably didn’t like receiving guests at this time of night, but right now I didn’t care a whole hell of a lot about his feelings.