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.”