Her eyes lifted to follow Temple's arrival. "Daddy was so disappointed about our divorce. We never really tried, he said. In his day, people tried." She blinked, not to disperse tears, but in an attempt to refocus her entire point of view, to see the past in the light of this dramatically different future. "Maybe he was right. We kids never did understand why the partners were so tight. A war we hardly heard of didn't seem to be enough reason. But that was his generation. They were loyal. We're yuppies, young urban have-it-alls . . . fast-faders."
"Maybe." Temple sat wearily on the next chair, facing the front of the room. "It's hard for women to understand men and war. Guys have a love-hate relationship with conflict. Maybe, like sports, it's one of the few places men can form deep friendships without the fear of being labeled homosexual."
"Why does it take violence to make men friends?"
Temple shook her head. She didn't feel like analyzing anything right now. She got up and plodded to the wake at the front of the room. Where were the police? Granted, New York City had a tad more traffic and a few thousand more streets than Las Vegas, but....
The conference door opened, making a mousy creak that hit the silent huddle of people like a shotgun blast.
Someone filled the opening, haloed in the hall light.
Behind them all, Kendall wailed. "It's D-D-Daddy!"
As the only surviving relative, she bravely had stood to greet the officials, yet all she could blurt out was the victim's name, a poignantly childish call for Daddy.
Temple braced herself, ready to take over at this difficult time. That was what public relations people were for, even if the relations were with the police.
The male silhouette stood framed in the doorway, its form lumpy and bloated. As the man stepped forward, the room's perimeter down lights resolved the visual ambiguities. He was not what they had expected: a New York City uniformed officer or detective. Not unless the officer had gone undercover for the holidays in ... a Santa suit.
Everybody stared, speechless, at the dead man's macabre twin.
Santa realized that something was very wrong. His hands lifted to peel off his jolly bearded disguise. The puzzled, smooth-shaven face beneath was frowning, frowning at the room, at Kendall Colby Renaldi. Santa's cap, hair and beard wilted from his hands like Spanish moss.
"What's wrong? Where is everybody? I couldn't pass through the kitchen without grabbing a cup of coffee to revive me for the end of the evening. Sorry I kept you all waiting. What's going on here? Kendall, baby?"
At that, Kendall Colby Renaldi burst into hysterical laughter.
The newcomer was Brent Colby, Jr., in the flesh.
Chapter 19
No Way Out
Matt kept his fingers rolled in the greasy scruff of Effinger's jacket collar while he patted himself down for the quarter that would kick start his captive down the road to justice. Maybe.
Nine-one-one didn't seem appropriate, so Matt dialed nearby police headquarters. He didn't expect to find Molina in, not this late and this close to Christmas, but he knew domestic violence boiled over at such socially heated times of year. The department's number
was easy to remember.
Effinger fidgeted in Matt's grip but didn't try to bolt. Must be a shock to see a pip-squeak kid from your past come back like Eliott Ness.
"Molina available?" he asked the first human voice that answered.
"That depends. What's the problem?"
"I've got someone she's very interested in getting a hold of." Effinger weaselcd out of his jacket some, so Matt slammed him up against the motel wall and dug an elbow into his stomach.
"Call tomorrow."
"Can't, I literally have the guy in custody, and I can't hang on to him all night."
"What did you say your name was?"
Matt gave it, fearful of being taken for a crank caller otherwise. Lord knows he got enough of that breed at ConTact. And so did the police.
"I don't see what I can do for you, Mr. Devine."
"Look. The guy in my hands right now is supposed to be dead and buried on Clark County's tab. He may be involved in a couple of murders."
"I'll call Molina, but she won't be crazy about this. Citizen's arrest isn't what people think it is. I assume your so-called suspect is not sticking with you voluntarily. He could press charges against you."
"The only thing he's going to be pressing in the near future is his jailhouse baggies."
"Okay, okay, desperado; where can the lieutenant reach you?"
Matt sighed. That meant they'd have to hang by the outside phone, freezing and looking obvious. He strained to read and repeat the pay-phone number in the faint light, absently twisting one of Effinger's arms tight when Matt sensed a break for freedom in the making.
"You can't do this! I'll sue."
Matt hung up. "It's a friendly family misunderstanding. Holiday tensions and all."
"What're you gonna do? Who'd you talk to just now?"
"Someone who wants to see you in the worst way."
"She ain't here in Vegas?" Fear touched Effinger's sullen voice.
"She?"
"I ain't telling you nothing. I ain't telling the police nothing, and I certainly ain't gonna tell a defrocked priest nothing."
"I'm not defrocked. I left with blessings and a small stipend."
"Stipend. Blessing. I ain't heard nice-nelly words like that since I got the hell out of that Polack neighborhood in Chicago. Worst place I ever been in."
"We agree on that. Why'd you stay, then?"
Effinger's shrug loosened Matt's clutching fingers. They were starting to go numb.
"I got smokes in my pocket. Okay if I dig 'em out?"
"Which pocket?"
"I sure don't want your fingers in em."
"If you want a smoke, you're going to get them."
"Left front jacket. You was such a wimpy kid. How'd you grow up to be so hard-nosed? They don't teach that in the seminary."
"I was never wimpy. I was just a whole lot smaller than you were. I thought about killing you every day, back in Chicago."
Effinger held still as Matt jammed an unfiltered cigarette into his hand in the near dark. "I'll keep the matches," Matt said.
"Sure did practice those Jap moves, though. You caught me by surprise that day. I'da never gone down if you hadn't jumped me."
"But you did go down. And you're going to go down again. The cops in this town are mighty interested in you, dead or alive."
Effinger laughed as Matt struck a match head against the thin brown striker line. A Gilded Lily matchbook. The sulphur smell was warm and rich, like gourmet coffee grounds. Effinger's crumpled cigarette trembled as he inhaled, cupping his hands around the spark of red warmth.
That impromptu shower wasn't doing either of them any good in this cold night air, Matt thought, hating to share even discomfort with this man. And where was Molina, besides off trying to have a life?
"Why'd you move in on us?" Matt asked.
Effinger inhaled, letting the wall hold him up, either resigned or waiting for a chance.
"Your ma wasn't bad-looking in those days. And I wasn't such a poor specimen myself. She had a house, and you were just a little kid. I figured you were like a pet rat or something. No trouble." His upper lip curled over the cigarette moving up and down with his mumbling lips.
"She wouldn't leave the old neighborhood," Effinger went on, blowing out memories with his cigarette smoke. "They treated her like shit, but she wouldn't leave. Didn't want you to grow up without 'family' Family! Big dumb Polacks who disowned her the second you were born, a stye in God's eye. I was raised Cath'lic. I know the drill. You're a bastard, Matthias. Fact is, I'm the only legitimate father you've ever had, or ever will have. And she wouldn't say word one word about the guy that done the deed. Oh, my, no. That got to me. Like he was too good to mention to the likes of me. I needed to get out of the family stuff, sneerin' but not lettin' go. Sneerin'. Even she and you started sneerin'. So ... I took off for Vegas. Lived my own life. Finally left for good when the little yellow-haired ingrate jumped on me like he was playing Godzilla."