Vixen

23

JAKE RUNYON

Most wage earners look forward to time off on weekends, one or two days of freedom to rest, putter, engage in recreational pastimes. Runyon wasn’t one of them anymore. Not after the long, empty months in Seattle following Coleen’s slow and agonizing death, not after the move to San Francisco and his failure to end the long estrangement with Joshua, not even after he’d become involved with Bryn. Work was his primary focus, the one thing he was good at, the only activity that gave him any real satisfaction.

Weekends when he had no business to occupy his time were nothing more than a string of hours of enforced waiting, to be endured and gotten through. He had no hobbies, no particular interest in sports or cultural events; he was constitutionally incapable of sleeping more than five or six hours a night, or of sitting around the apartment reading or staring at the tube or just vegetating. An active diversion more job-related than pleasurable was the only sure way he’d found to deal with those empty Saturdays and Sundays: close himself inside the Ford and burn up long miles and tanksful of gas on the highways, back roads, streets, and byways of the greater Bay Area and beyond, familiarizing and refamiliarizing himself with the territory and what went on in each part of it. The better he knew his turf, the better he could do his job.

This weekend was not one of the empty ones. This Saturday and Sunday he’d been working a field case, acting on a hunch. It was one of the few jobs he disliked on general principle, involving stakeouts and spy photography, but he didn’t mind it so much in this case because the subject was the sort of scofflaw it would feel good to take down.

The stakeout was in Belmont, near a fairly affluent tract home owned by a businessman in his forties named Garza. Garza had a large accident policy with Northwestern Insurance and had put in a claim citing an on-the-job injury that prevented him from doing any sort of manual labor. He had a doctor’s report to back him up. Northwestern smelled fraud and hired the agency to investigate, with Runyon being given the assignment.

Fraud was what it was. He’d found out that Garza and the doctor were old high school buddies who played golf together now and then, conducted a couple of drive-bys at Garza’s home and business, and finally readied his digital camcorder and began the stakeouts in the hope of proving the subject wasn’t anywhere near as incapacitated as he claimed.

The Saturday stakeout had been a bust; Garza had spent most of the day at the small plumbing supply company he owned, supervising his handful of employees and doing nothing contrary to his injury claim. The hunch that had drawn Runyon to the subject’s house today was the fact that Garza was having a new driveway put in. The man was too smart to do any heavy work at his place of business, but there was the chance that he’d decided to cut costs by doing some of the driveway renovation himself.

Most of the day it had looked like another bust. But then a little past three-thirty, Garza figured it was safe enough to put in a couple of hours of work on the driveway. The garage door went up and there he was, coming out with a shovel in hand. He looked around without spotting Runyon in the Ford, then started shoveling and spreading gravel. No strain, no pain, not even a wince while he worked.

Runyon had recorded three full minutes of damning video when his cell vibrated. He put the camcorder down before he checked the phone. And then he forgot all about Garza.

The caller was Kenneth Beckett, with his third and final cry for help.

“Help me, Mr. Runyon. Please. I don’t want to do it.”

The naked desperation in the kid’s voice put Runyon on instant alert. He could feel himself going tight inside and out. “I don’t understand. What don’t you want to do?”

“The gun… I couldn’t, I couldn’t…”

“Cory’s gun?”

“She said I had to do it because of what happened to Mr. Vorhees.” The kid’s shaky voice changed, rose in the falsetto imitation of his sister’s. “‘He’s out of control, Kenny, we can’t let him hurt us, too.’”

Chaleen. Vorhees’ killer after all, for some reason as yet unclear. And Cory found out about it. And now, in her warped mind, it was payback time.

“But it’s not right,” Beckett said. “Even a bastard like him, even if he did what she said… it’s not right. I tried to do it like she told me to but I can’t.”

“Then don’t. Don’t! You understand me?”

A kind of moan and then silence.

“Ken? Where are you calling from?”

“His place. She let me have my cell, so I could call her when it’s over, but I…”

“You haven’t called her?”

“No, I couldn’t. Just you.”

“Chaleen’s place, you said. His home?”

“He’s in there. Cory put something in his drink when they were together before. He…” The falsetto again. “‘It’ll be easy, all you have to do is put the gun to his head and close your eyes and squeeze the trigger…’”

“Ken, listen to me. Chaleen’s home, is that where you’re at?”

“… No. The factory.”

“And you’re where now, exactly? Inside? Outside?”

“In my van, out front.”

“All right. Stay there. Don’t leave the van, don’t call Cory, don’t do anything. I’ll be there as soon as I can. You understand?”

Runyon was talking to himself. The line hummed emptily.

It took him twenty-five minutes of fast driving to cover the distance from Belmont to Chaleen Manufacturing in the city. Nearing dusk by the time he reached Basin Street. The industrial area was quiet, Sunday deserted. When Runyon entered the last block, drove past the factory grounds, the ropy muscles in his shoulders and back drew even more taut.

The street was empty of vehicles of any kind, and the only one inside the chain-link fence, parked in the shadows next to the detached office building, was a newish black Cadillac. There was no sign of the blue Dodge van.

The kid hadn’t waited.

Drawn back to the flame again.

Runyon braked in front of the closed office gates. Before he got out he unlocked the glove compartment, removed the.357 Magnum from its chamois wrapping, holstered it, and clipped the holster to his belt.

A chill bay wind played with scraps of litter, swirling them along the uneven pavement, forming little heaps against the bottom of the fence; a fast-food bag slapped his leg as he stepped up to the gates. The two halves were drawn together, but not locked: a big Yale used to padlock them hung by its staple from one of the links. He pushed through, his steps echoing hollowly on the uneven pavement.

Somebody had torn the WE’RE ECO-FRIENDLY! poster off the office door; one corner of it was all that was left, the loose piece flapping in the wind. The doorknob turned freely under Runyon’s hand. He pushed the door inward, looked into the outer office without entering. Lighted, but empty.

He called Chaleen’s name. No answer.

Once more, shouting it this time. Still no answer.

He went in then, leaving the door standing open behind him, one hand on the Magnum. The two inner doors were closed. The one on the far left would lead to a bathroom or storage room. He cracked the one in the middle. The large room beyond was also lighted. He called out again, heard nothing but the faint after-echo of his own voice, then widened the crack so he had a clear look inside.

Chaleen’s private office, large enough to take up most of the back half of the building. Desk, chairs, wet bar, couch, a shaded lamp on the desk supplying the light.

And Frank Chaleen sitting in a sideways sprawl on the couch, head flung back, eyes shut, one arm dangling.

At first Runyon thought he was dead. But there was no blood or other signs of violence on Chaleen or the cushions under him, and as Runyon moved closer he could hear the faint rasp of the man’s breathing. Passed out drunk was the way it looked; you could detect the odor of liquor on his breath, and on a table next to the couch was a nearly empty glass of what smelled like expensive scotch.

But the way it looked wasn’t the way it was.

Runyon used a thumb to raise one closed eyelid. Drugged; the size of the pupil confirmed it. Beckett, on the phone: Cory put something in his drink when they were together before. Together here? No, she wouldn’t have run that risk. Probably arranged to meet Chaleen in a bar or restaurant not too far away, spiked his drink with something slow-acting like benzodiazepine, then sent him here on some pretext with a promise to meet him later. The drink he’d poured for himself from his wet bar would have helped deepen the drug’s effect when it finally took hold.

And once he was unconscious, Beckett was supposed to come in and finish the job. Shoot Chaleen point-blank in the head, make it look like suicide. Another reprise of Cory’s cold, evil MO: leave the dirty work, the wet work, to the men in her life, and her brother was the only one left. Except that she’d overestimated her power to manipulate Kenneth into an act he was incapable of committing. But he must have come close because he’d been in here with the gun and something else Cory had given him, the sheet of bond paper that now lay crumpled on the floor in front of the couch.

Runyon picked up the paper, smoothed it out. Chaleen Manufacturing letterhead stationery with six lines of computer typing on it and Chaleen’s scrawled signature at the bottom. But he hadn’t typed it and he hadn’t been the one to sign it.

I can’t go on living. Business on the edge of bankruptcy, my whole life in shambles. I killed Andrew Vorhees. We had a fight and I hit him with a paperweight and put the body in his car and made it look like a carjacking. The police are suspicious, they’ll find out, I can’t face prison. This is the best way for everybody.

The hell it was. Best for Cory. Only Cory.

Runyon shoved the phony suicide note into his pocket, then made a quick search under and around the couch and of the rest of the office. There was no sign of Cory’s small-caliber automatic; Beckett had taken it with him.

At the door Runyon cast one more look at Chaleen. Limbs starting to twitch a little now; pretty soon he’d wake up sick and bewildered. But not half as sick as he’d be when he took the fall for killing Vorhees.

Runyon was in the Ford and on his way down Basin Street before he rang Bill’s home number. Caught him in, gave him a terse report-what Beckett had told him, what he’d found in Chaleen’s office, what he was afraid might happen or have already happened.

Bill said, “The kid may not have gone back to the apartment. If he’s enough afraid of his sister…”

“Plenty afraid, but he won’t be able to stay away from her. He’s like a whipped dog with nowhere else to go.”

“She wouldn’t hurt him. It’s not her style.”

“Not normally, but she’s bound to be furious when he tells her he didn’t go through with it. I’m on my way there now.”

“Intervention? Cory could make a lot of trouble if he refuses to give her up.”

“I know it, but I don’t see any other choice now-I’ve got to try for his sake. I’ll take full responsibility-”

“No, you won’t,” Bill said. “I’ll meet you there and we’ll see this through together.”