“Where now?” demanded Corinne Jones. “The night is yet young.”
“And I’m not,” said Kearny from behind the wheel. “How in hell Bart dreams up these scenarios...”
Giselle was disentangling herself from O’B in the back seat to begin repairs by her compact mirror. “Wait’ll I tell Bella.”
“We had to make it look good,” said O’Bannon.
“Not that good.”
“I’m still not totally clear on what this accomplished,” said Corinne.
“It established Bart’s bona fides,” said Kearny. “You girls, and us picking you up, were his credentials with those pimps so he can try to find where Johnny Mack Brown went with Verna Rounds.”
“Remind me never to become a prostitute,” yawned Giselle.
Kearny looked in the rear-view mirror to catch O’Bannon’s eye. “Want to take a drive down to L.A. over the weekend?”
“With the hearing coming up Monday?” asked O’B, surprised.
“Larry got a direct lead to Jeff Simson from his ex-roommate, and I want to get a statement from Simson myself. So I’m going down to talk to him while Larry goes north to get hold of Rose Kelly. She apparently was on the switchboard that night.”
Corinne said abruptly, “I wonder what Bart’s doing right now.”
Bart Heslip took from his vest pocket a crisp new hundred dollar bill folded longways. He said, “I like the way you got yo crib freaked off, man,” unfolded the bill and extended it toward Ready Eddie. They and several other players from the bar were at Eddie’s apartment on Page Street in the Haight.
Eddie dipped a tiny gold pocket spoon into the hundred dollars’ worth of cocaine the folded bill held. “You one bad nigger,” he said, lifting the spoon daintily toward a nostril. The other players followed suit.
Heslip nodded. “Y’know,” he said, “I gotta get my string expanded now I’m here. Johnny Macks was tellin’ me ’bout a sweet little ho he had here, whut was her name...” He frowned in thought. “Was it Verna?”
“Verna. Sure, hey, cat, I remember Verna. But I thought that sucker took her with him, man.”
“You jivin’ me?” demanded another. “Man, that Johnny Mack is a boss player, not no simple pimp. That little girl, she was a dope fiend, wouldn’t no Johnny Mack take her back east with him.”
“Boss player!” snorted Eddie. “Lissen, mother, I don’t know as he had such a heavy game. Whut ’bout that Sally he had in his stable, got a crib over there on Hickory just off Webster? Now, there’s a ugly, nothin’-ass bitch I ever see one. She an’ that Verna was mighty close, I come to think ’bout it.”
“Well, shit, mother, that Johnny Mack was jus’ playin the short money game with both of ’em.” The pimp started to laugh. “She prob’ly got the claps anyway, that Sally.”
“The Texas claps?” asked Heslip, to cover the fact he had not snorted any coke himself. Then he chanted, “Them bugs at night is big and bright, clap, clap, clap, clap, deep in de heart of Texas...”
And the conversation drifted to other things. Heslip had what he’d come for: Sally, 600-block of Hickory Street. But Kearny was going to wig out when the expense voucher for $100 worth of cocaine came in. Labeled, of course, “payment to informant.”
Twelve
The house at 15321 Redwood Highway in Santa Rosa was so thoroughly empty that Ballard wondered if it was waiting for the wrecker’s ball. Few of these little frame houses remained; now it was high-price motels, gas stations, shopping centers and the sort of businesses that line freeway access roads.
He stood in the bright morning sunlight going through the Rose Kelly file. One damn reference listed. A Jack Gunne at 301 Second Street, Eureka. Not even a phone number. He could see it all now. Eureka, 235 miles north. Was Dan Kearny going to expect him to drive all the way up there to talk with this Jack Gunne? Dan Kearny sure as hell was.
One of the boxy little postal vans with the steering wheel on the wrong side pulled up beside the mailbox, then started off.
“Hey, wait a minute!” yelled Ballard. He came up to the open window. “I’m looking for Rose Kelly.”
“She moved.”
“I know. You see, I’m her brother and I came up from Riverside expecting to spend the weekend, and—”
“Got married,” said the postman.
Ballard retrenched quickly. “Thing is, I’ve been to sea with the merchant marine for half a year. After I spent a couple of days with my girlfriend in Riverside, I thought I’d come up and see Rose. I didn’t know she was going to marry him so quick. Uh... what’s her new name now she’s married?”
“I figger a brother’d just know that.”
And off he putted. Ballard muttered a naughty word under his breath and looked around for other informants. Local store? The shopping center half a mile down the road. Neighbors? Closest to the south was a motel that covered four acres, had a pool, a sign forty feet high, and free color TV in every room. Sure. They’d know their neighbors the way Ballard knew conceptual nuclear physics. What about up the road?
MADAME AQUARRA KNOWS ALL. SEES ALL. TELLS ALL.
So what else was there to do at eleven o’clock on a Saturday morning in Santa Rosa? Listen to the sun shine?
Madame Aquarra knew, saw and told all in a stucco box of a house from the thirties. High-peaked roof with green shingles, narrow windows, the front door with an old-fashioned brass thumb latch instead of a knob. Set back from the road in an unkempt lot with a couple of fossil automobiles buried in the summer weeds. A sign above the thumb latch, enter. Ballard did.
The street noises were instantly gone, replaced by a faint scent of incense. A foyer was created by thick ceiling-to-floor plum-colored curtains on three sides. Those on the right parted.
“What wisdom do you seek?”
Maria Navarro ceased to exist. Raven wings of utterly black hair framed the face. Hurt liquid eyes as black as the hair, eyes that looked right through his blue ones to the back of his head. Small mouth and full lips, slightly tipped-up nose.
“Madame Aquarra knows all.”
Cloud castles came tumbling down. A gypsy — and the gyps, the rom as they called themselves, were 100 percent bad news 100 percent of the time to the gadjos, non-gyps.
“Does she know a forwarding address for Rose Kelly?”
“Madame Aquarra knows all.”
She stood aside and he entered past her. Part of him reacted to the touch of her breast against his arm, the rest of him wanted to put a hand on his wallet to keep her from lifting it. She was dressed in a faded floor-length ivory-colored gown with lace over the tight bodice. The room behind the drapes was cool and dim.
“Look, do you have a forwarding for the woman or—”
“Quiet... please.”
The girl sat down at a round table in the middle of the room which had the first real crystal ball on it Ballard had ever seen. Black plush reached from the table to the floor all around. Ballard sat down across from the gypsy girl.
“The crystal concentrates the inner sight.” She spoke without looking up, her hands tented against her forehead to shadow the eyes. When they did gleam blackly up at him, they were like the eyes of an animal trapped in its burrow. “I see... flowers. Not sad flowers. Happy flowers.” Her eyes dropped again. “I see... yes. White. A... some sort of ceremony...”
“Do you see the postman in there?” asked Ballard. “He told me Kelly got married before she moved out.”
The girl raised her head. “That will be fifteen dollars.” He stood up in disgust and headed for the door. She was there before him. “That will be fifteen—”