The Night Stalker

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

B ack when I was a cop, I’d often go home after a bad day, and lie on the couch in the living room with my head resting in my wife’s lap. Sometimes I’d listen to music on the stereo, but more often than not, I’d let the silence of my house calm me, while Rose gently ran her fingers through my hair.

These days, I didn’t have a house to escape to, and Rose was living three hundred miles away, so I settled for sitting at the Sunset’s bar with the Seven Dwarfs. My mind had latched onto the image of Sampson Grimes being held in a crack den, and wouldn’t let it go. I crushed my empty beer can against the bar.

“You doing okay?” Sonny asked.

“I’ve had better days,” I admitted.

“Can I do anything?”

“Tell me some good news.”

“A new guy came in last night and started buying drinks, and became everyone’s new best friend. I think he’s going to become a regular.”

The Sunset operated on a shoestring budget, which was largely paid for by the drinking habits of the Seven Dwarfs. A new regular was a cause for celebration.

“Is he suitable for Dwarfdom?” I asked.

“I think so. Check him out. He’s over there on the last stool.”

I followed Sonny’s eyes down the bar. Sitting on the last stool was an old, unshaven man with watery eyes and a drinker’s nose, what locals call a salty dog. He wore a long-sleeved denim shirt with the right sleeve tucked into his pants pocket.

“No right arm?” I asked.

“Says he lost it in a car accident,” Sonny said. “His name is Mitch, but he goes by Lefty. He’s a good guy, until he starts singing. Then he gets pretty unbearable.”

I ordered dinner. Sonny served me a bowl of the house chili, and I took a table overlooking the ocean, and ate while watching waves slap the pilings that held up the bar. In their pale reflection I could see the daylight slowly fading, and the blackness of night meet the blackness that lay below. Looking into the water’s depths, I felt a twisting in my gut. For every hour that passed, the chances of Sampson being rescued grew slimmer. I couldn’t just sit here and wait for the police to act. I had to do something.

I removed the photo that I’d printed off Tim Small’s computer, and laid it on the table. In the photo, Sampson was sitting in a dog crate. It occurred to me that of all the child abduction cases I’d worked, I couldn’t remember anyone putting a kid in a dog crate. I wondered what Sampson had done to make the men holding him do this.

An ugly sound broke my concentration. Turning around in my chair, I saw Lefty standing in the middle of the room, belting out a drunken ballad. He sounded like a cat being strangled.

“Hey,” I called out.

Lefty stopped singing. “What’s your problem, mate?”

“I think it’s your voice,” I said.

“Don’t you like music?”

“That’s not music.”

The Dwarfs hooted and hollered. Lefty glared at me.

“Can you do better?” Lefty asked.

I couldn’t sing worth a damn. But if I didn’t respond, Lefty was going to think he’d won, and go back to torturing me. Then I remembered the jukebox sitting in the trunk of my car.

“Give me a minute, and I’ll let you hear what real music sounds like,” I said.

“Sure you will,” Lefty said.

With Sonny’s help, I mounted the jukebox onto a wall in the bar, and plugged it in. As colored neon flowed magically through the glass tubes, the Dwarfs crowded around me, oohing and awwing like a bunch of dumbstruck kids.

“Play something,” one of them said.

The playlist contained dozens of classic rock ’n’ roll songs. I dropped a dime into the machine, and Elvis Presley’s “Don’t Be Cruel” filled the bar. The Dwarfs danced in place and clapped their hands. I returned to my chair, and Sonny served me a cold beer.

“You made Lefty’s day,” Sonny said.

I glanced across the bar. Lefty was dancing by his stool, and having more fun than anyone in the room. His voice didn’t sound nearly as bad singing backup, and he winked at me as he belted out the lyrics.

You know I can be found,

Sitting home all alone,

If you can’t come around,

At least please telephone.

Don’t be cruel to a heart that’s true.

An alarm went off inside my head. I lowered my drink to the table, and picked up the photograph of Sampson. For a long moment, I simply stared at it.

Sampson was being held in a hotel room with a telephone jack, but no telephone. He was also being kept in a dog crate. The two things hadn’t seemed connected, but now I realized that they were. Sampson had used the phone in the hotel room to call 911, only the drug enforcers had caught him. Fearful that he’d try again, they’d taken the phone out of the room, and stuck him in a dog crate. The kid had nearly rescued himself.

The song ended, and Lefty came over to where I sat.

“Still don’t like my singing?” he asked.

I stood up and hugged the old drunk.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

Standing in the parking lot beside the bar, I called Burrell on my cell. My heart was beating so fast I could hear a bass line in my ears. With a little help from Burrell, I was going to find Sampson. Her voice mail picked up. I left a message saying it was urgent, and asked her to call me back.

I waited a few minutes, and called again. Still no answer. I scrolled through the address book of my cell, and discovered I didn’t have her home number.

The stairs groaned as I ran upstairs to my rented room. From my closet I removed the cardboard box containing the crap from my police department days, and dumped it on the bed, praying my address book hadn’t gotten lost. My address book contained the phone numbers of every cop I’d ever worked with. Work numbers, cell numbers, and home numbers. The home phone numbers were all unlisted. Finding Burrell’s, I punched it into my cell, and heard the call go through.

“Pick up the phone,” I said.

She didn’t answer. Her home address was also in my book. Burrell lived on Sheridan Street in Hollywood, just a few miles away.

I ran down the stairs, Buster on my heels.