Savages

17

JAKE RUNYON

Conflicting reports, conflicting images. Every time somebody handed him a verbal picture of Jerry Belsize, it was as if he was looking at the same person with a different face. Like the picture of Dorian Gray. And now the same thing was happening with Sandra Parnell.

The girl was Belsize’s devoted soul mate, the one person he was able to turn to in a time of crisis. She wasn’t the girl he thought she was and he didn’t want anything more to do with her. She was decent, loyal. She was a dope-smoking slut. She was strong willed, with Jerry’s best interests at heart. She was a weak and easily fooled punching bag.

It was even worse with Belsize. He was an innocent victim of circumstance. He was guilty as hell. He was a good, clean-cut kid who got along with everybody. He was a wild and crazy kid who bought and distributed marijuana, drove like a maniac, ran down dogs for the thrill of it. He got along fine with Manuel Silvera. He murdered Silvera in cold blood in a particularly vicious way. He treated his girlfriends in a normal fashion. He was a borderline rapist who slapped them around when he got high. He was good; he was evil; he was a little bit of everything in between.

More: He spent all day Friday in Lost Bar, buying half a kilo of weed from Gus Mayerhof and getting his car fixed. He wasn’t in Lost Bar at all on Friday. He was a regular customer of Mayerhof’s. Mayerhof didn’t know him from Adam’s off ox. He was so afraid of Kelso he’d opted to hide out at the migrant camp rather than go home and proclaim his innocence. He left the camp for no apparent reason and went somewhere else. He torched the camp. He didn’t torch the camp.

What was fact and what was fiction?

Which was the real Sandra Parnell, which the real Jerry Belsize?

T here were no other cars in the Gasco station when Runyon drove in. He parked alongside the convenience store, went inside. The red-haired kid with the dim eyes, Bob Varley, was behind the counter looking hot and bored. The place had neither air-conditioning nor ceiling fans and the temperature outside had climbed up into the nineties again.

Runyon said, “Talk to you for a minute?” and introduced himself. But he needn’t have bothered.

Varley said, “Yeah, I know who you are.”

“No secrets in a small town.”

“Yeah.”

“I understand you and Jerry Belsize are pretty good friends.”

The kid quit making eye contact. Not that it mattered. You couldn’t read anything by watching his eyes. They were like a cat’s, more mirrors than windows, and even if you could see through them, all you’d be looking at was mostly empty rooms.

“We hung out together sometimes,” he said. “But I don’t know where he is and I don’t know nothing about those fires. I already told Deputy Kelso that.”

“You think Jerry’s guilty, Bob?”

“I dunno. Everybody says he is.”

“Not everybody. His parents don’t believe he’s capable of setting fires, hurting people.”

“Yeah, well, they’re his parents, you know?”

“What kind of guy do you think he is?”

“Jerry? A good guy. We get along real good. He don’t treat me like some people do. I mean, I know I’m not smart, but that don’t matter to him.”

“What do the two of you do when you hang out?”

“Do?”

“Chase girls, drink some beer, drag race?”

“Nah, we don’t race.”

“I heard Jerry likes to drive fast, run down animals that get in his way.”

“What? Hey. That’s bullshit, man.”

“Smoke some dope now and then?”

“I never smoked no dope.”

That was a lie. Varley would never be a good liar; it made him turn shifty and furtive.

Runyon said, “Jerry does, though. Supplies weed to his friends, gets it from a German farmer up in Lost Bar.”

“He don’t. That’s more bullshit.”

“Come on, Bob. It’s no big deal. Everybody smokes pot now and then.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Jerry’s ex-girlfriend does and she’s not afraid to admit it.”

“What ex-girlfriend?”

“Sandra Parnell.”

“She’s not an ex.”

“His mother says they broke up two or three weeks ago. Not so?”

“Jerry never said nothing about it to me.”

“And he would if it were true?”

“I guess he would. Sure, why not?”

“Why would they bust up, if they did?”

“I dunno. They been together a long time.”

“Jerry smack her around much?”

“Huh?”

“You know, hit her when he was mad. He likes to play rough, doesn’t he?”

“Nah. Who told you that?”

“Maybe he found another girl he liked better. Maybe that’s why he broke up with Sandra.”

“He didn’t care about no other girl.”

“Maybe she found somebody else. Pretty hot stuff, I hear.”

“Who? Sandra?”

“Made it with a lot of guys.”

“She’s not like that. Jerry wouldn’t stand for that.”

“How about before she started going with him?”

“Nah. She never screwed around, not like some girls.”

“What’s she like then?”

“Oh, you know. Cool.”

“Ashley Kelso cool, too?”

Varley began to tighten up; you could see it happening, a kind of ripple effect from his body down his arms and on up to his mouth and chin. “How come you’re asking about her?”

“Don’t worry, Bob. Anything you tell me won’t get back to her father. Strictly between us.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“No lie. I’m not looking to get anybody into trouble.”

“Then why you ask so many questions?”

“I’m a detective. Detectives ask questions. Like on TV, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“So tell me about Ashley. What’s she like?”

“She’s okay. She’s friends with Sandra.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah. They hang out sometimes, like me and Jerry.”

“She used to go with Jerry, right?”

Varley shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

An SUV came rumbling into the station; he looked out through the window, watching as it pulled up to one of the forward pumps.

“Bob?”

“What?”

“Ashley and Jerry.”

“What about ’em?”

“They went together for a while, until her father caught them fooling around and kicked Jerry’s ass.”

“I guess so. Yeah.”

“How’d Jerry feel about that?”

“Nobody likes to get his ass kicked.”

“I meant about not being able to go with Ashley anymore.”

“He didn’t care too much. They was gonna break up anyway.”

“How come? Because of Sandra?”

“I dunno.”

“So he didn’t keep seeing Ashley on the sly?”

“Nah. She wanted to, but he didn’t.”

“She must’ve been pretty hung up on him.”

“I guess so. For a while.”

“When did she start going with Zach Battle?”

“She don’t go with Zach. He wants her to, but she just wants to drive his car. She don’t have her own car.”

“How soon did Jerry and Sandra start going together? Right after he and Ashley broke up?”

“Not right after. Pretty soon.”

“How did Ashley feel about that?”

“I dunno.”

“Put a strain on her friendship with Sandra?”

“Why ask me, man? I don’t know Ashley real well.”

“Never dated her yourself?”

“You kidding? She don’t want nothing to do with a guy like me.”

“Sandra doesn’t feel that way, does she?”

“Yeah, she does. None of the girls like me much; they all think I’m just a big dummy.” The hurt showed in the abrupt clenching of his hands, the quick twist of his mouth.

End of interview. It would’ve been even if the driver of the SUV hadn’t come in just then to pay for his fill-up. The sad cases like Bob Varley were responsive enough until you touched a nerve; then they closed off entirely, retreated into the dimly lit rooms behind their eyes.

H e didn’t find Kelso. It was Kelso, after a while, who found him.

He was feeling a little woozy when he left the service station. The thick heat and the fact that he hadn’t eaten all day; Rinniak’s call had dragged him out of the motel before he’d had a chance for breakfast. There was a Chinese restaurant downtown he’d noticed when he dropped off Ashley Kelso; he drove there first, ate most of a tasteless plate of fried rice with shrimp. Bad choice. The food lay heavy in his stomach before he was out the door, gave him gas and queasiness. His head had begun to ache again, too.

He’d intended to stop by the sheriff’s substation again. Instead he went to the motel. Two more messages waiting. The first was from the same reporter who’d called yesterday, sounding pissed at having been ignored. He’d be even more pissed tomorrow. The second, clocked in at 10:20, was from Mayor Carl Battle. Would Mr. Runyon please stop and see him, at either Battle Hardware or the mayor’s office at city hall, before he left Gray’s Landing? Not today, Mr. Runyon wouldn’t. Tomorrow morning was soon enough.

He found a packet of Alka-Seltzer in his kit, swallowed a Vicodin tablet with the fizz. Stripped to his shorts and lay down in the darkened room with the air conditioner cranked up high. The idea was to rest until his gut and his head were right again, but it wasn’t long before he dozed off.

A persistent hammering on the door woke him. The bedside clock said it was after five-he’d been out nearly three hours. Groggy, sweaty, but the physical symptoms seemed to have abated. The banging on the door continued. He thought about putting on his pants and shirt, said the hell with it. He went over in his underwear and looked through the peephole in the door before he opened up.

“It’s about time,” Kelso said.

“I was asleep.”

“I want to talk to you.”

“So talk.”

“Not like this. Inside.”

Runyon backed up as the deputy crowded in and shut the door, not quietly. He sat on the bed, rubbed his face in his hands to clear away the last of the cobwebs. Kelso stood as he had in the Redding hospital, flat-footed, jut jawed, one hand resting on the butt of his service revolver.

He said, “What’s the idea, questioning my daughter?”

“You make it sound like an interrogation.”

“I asked you a question.”

“I went by your place looking for you. She-”

“How’d you know where I live?”

“You’re listed in the phone book,” Runyon said. The air-conditioning had chilled the sweat on him; he reached for his shirt. “Ashley was on her way to work. I offered her a ride; we talked some on the way. That’s all.”

“Personal things. About her and Belsize. Matters that are none of your business.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“I don’t like it when a cheap private detective comes around my town-”

“ Your town?”

“-and bothers my daughter and a lot of other people with questions about a felony investigation.”

“One that I happen to be involved in.”

“Not directly and not officially. Didn’t I tell you before to keep out of it? Who do you think you are?”

“A concerned citizen. A cheap detective with a subpoena that I still haven’t served.”

“The devil with your subpoena. I don’t care about that; it’s not important anymore. What I care about is a psycho murderer on the loose. And the last thing I need is an outsider getting in the way.”

“Rinniak doesn’t think I’m in the way,” Runyon said.

“I don’t care what Rinniak thinks. He doesn’t live in this town, he doesn’t know Belsize the way I do.”

Runyon was still a little logy; his reponse was less politic than it should have have been. “Or have a personal grudge against a kid who’s yet to be proven guilty.”

Kelso’s mouth thinned to a white slash. “Unprofessional bias? Is that what you’re accusing me of?”

“I’m not accusing you of anything. Just stating an obvious fact.”

“Based on what? What you dragged out of my daughter?”

“You haven’t made a secret of your feelings about Belsize.”

“I don’t let my personal feelings get in the way of doing my job,” Kelso said angrily. “I go by evidence, and the evidence in this case points to Belsize.”

“Circumstantially, maybe.”

“No maybes about it.”

“No evidence at all that he set the fire last night.”

“Except it was where he was hiding out.”

“Why would he go back there and torch the camp?”

“Because he’s barn-owl crazy, that’s why.”

“One man’s opinion.”

“All right, that’s enough. I’ve had all the interference I’m going to take from you. I want you out of Gray’s Landing. And I don’t want you talking to anybody else about Belsize or the fires on the way. Do I make myself clear?”

“Clear.”

“If you’re not gone by tomorrow, I’ll slap you with an obstruction charge. I’m not just blowing smoke-I mean what I say.”

When he was alone again Runyon finished buttoning his shirt, put on his trousers. There was anger in him, too, a slow simmer of it. The smart thing to do was pack up and head back to San Francisco right now; he was rested enough for the long drive. He could be at his apartment by ten o’clock, be available for work early tomorrow morning. But he didn’t feel like doing the smart thing. He was tired of being banged up, pushed around, lied to, misled, and manipulated. Tired of Kelso, the cowboy act, the stubborn brawn.

He couldn’t justify hanging around here much longer, but neither did he have to leave in a big hurry just because he’d been ordered to. Tamara wasn’t expecting him at the agency until Wednesday morning; he didn’t need to be on the road until this time tomorrow night. Kelso’s ultimatum didn’t concern him. There was no basis for an obstruction charge no matter how many locals he talked to.

He was beginning to see the shape of what was going on in Gray’s Landing. Keep asking the right questions, make the right connections, and the focus would sharpen. If he saw it clear enough over the next twenty-four hours, he’d give it to Joe Rinniak before he left for San Francisco.