“Minute I saw it, I got a little click in my mind,” Luther said as he stepped up to the car. “It came in early this morning, and I’d already read about that girl.” He walked over to the driver’s side and opened the door. “I started to look her over, and that’s when I saw them initials.” He pointed toward the dashboard. “See, right there.”
Frank leaned in. The LAD initials were gold-plated and they were attached to the leather dash.
“Now me, I got girls of my own,” Luther said. “I wouldn’t have nothing to do with hurting somebody like this girl you found dead.” He looked at Caleb. “You know me better than that, don’t you, Caleb?”
Caleb nodded. “When’d you say this car came in?”
“’Round nine.”
Frank pulled himself out of the car and took out his notebook. “You haven’t done anything to it, have you?”
Luther laughed. “Shit, no. If I’d done something to this car, you’d know. This ain’t no car wash. We break them down to parts.”
“We’ll send a tow truck for it, Luther,” Caleb told him.
Luther nodded. “That’s what I figured. I already explained to the bossman. He don’t want nothing to do with it. He said, ‘sooner you take it, the better.’”
Frank felt a strong urge to examine the car on the spot, turn it inside out, but he knew they could do a better job on it back at the garage. Instead, he took out his notebook. “Who brought it in, Luther?”
Luther hesitated for a moment. “He ain’t a nice guy. Least that’s what I hear.”
“Who is he?”
“Big nigger. Into quite a few things. I hear he spread some queer around a little bit too much, and drew some time for that.”
“We need a name, Luther,” Frank said. “We can find out about all the rest.”
“He goes by the name of Davon Little,” Luther said. “Some folks call him Butt. He’s got a big ass on him.” He glanced at Caleb and laughed. “Like he’s toting a bale of hay.”
“Been doing business with him long?” Caleb asked.
“Over the years, he’s brought in nine or ten,” Luther said, “usually fancy, like this one. He usually joyrides them awhile, then just turns them over to a cutter.”
“He didn’t joyride this one for very long,” Frank said.
“Yeah, well, you know how it is, you kill a girl, you don’t want to keep her car.”
“You got the keys?” Frank asked. “Or did he hot-wire it?”
“He had the keys,” Luther said. “That’s another thing that bothered me.”
“Where are they?”
“Right here,” Luther said. He pulled them from his trousers and dangled them in the air.
“Open the trunk,” Frank said.
Luther stepped to the back of the car and opened the trunk. It was empty except for the usual spare tire and jack.
“Clean as a pin,” Caleb said mournfully. “Too bad.”
Luther laughed nervously. “What’d you boys expect to find, another dead gal stuffed back there?”
“Never know,” Caleb said. He looked at Frank. “They’ll vacuum the shit out of it. If Angelica lost so much as a hair back here, they’ll find it.”
Frank closed the trunk. “Do you have any idea where this Davon Little lives?”
Luther shook his head. “People we deal with, they don’t make a point of mentioning things like that.”
“Have any idea where he did time?”
“He talks funny,” Luther said. “Sort of like Johnson used to, Texas-like. Maybe that’s where they busted him.” He picked up a soiled magazine and fanned himself languidly. “Lord, it’s hot in here.” He glanced at Caleb. “You remember S. D. Pullens? He used to explode them little fireballs in his mouth?”
“Yeah, I do,” Caleb said.
“He got the chair up in Illinois.”
“Pullens?” Caleb asked unbelievingly. “What for?”
“He was working one of them factories up there, and he just got roaring drunk. Cops come to cool things down, and he shot two of them.” He squinted hard. “I wouldn’t have figured him for that, would you?”
“The drinking, but not the killing,” Caleb said.
Luther shook his head wearily. “When things turn sour, anything can happen. I guess that’s all you can say.” He dropped the magazine into a rusty fifty-gallon drum. “Fanning don’t do no good.” He looked longingly at the square of light which came through the single open door of the shed. “What say we go on back outside.”
The heat remained stifling even outside the shed, and Caleb pulled off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder.
“This Davon character, did he say anything to you, Luther?”
Luther thought about it for a moment. “I just noticed one thing.”
“What was that?”
“He didn’t try to get me down,” Luther said. “Minute I give him a price, he took it.” He looked at Frank. “This ain’t Woolworth’s. People usually bitch and moan about the price, and I come up a little, and the next guy comes down. Not Little, though. Not this time. I quoted him about half what I’d have paid him on the up and up, and he looked glad to have it.”
Frank wrote it down.
“He must have figured they was a APB on it by now,” Luther said, “so he just wanted to dump it. Cutter is the best place. A fence don’t want no fucked-up car.” He shook his head. “Shit, I wouldn’t have bought it either if I’d read the paper yesterday.” He laughed. “But I don’t ever get to the paper till the next day. When it comes to the news, I’m always a day late.”
“Did he say anything at all about the car?” Frank asked.
“They’s nothing to say,” Luther told him. “I know my business, so nobody bullshits me. Besides, I ain’t buying it to take a long vacation in.” He nodded back toward the shed. “Them cars in there, they’ll be down to parts before morning. I mean right down to parts, nothing but bumpers and carburetors and shit like that.” He looked affectionately at Caleb. “Could have been the same with that little BMW, too.”
“I know it could, Luther,” Caleb said quietly.
Luther turned back to Frank. “I’m a car cutter, and I’m a good one, but I don’t have nothing to do with no real meanness, and that’s a fact. Anybody hurts a little girl, they deserve what they get.” He glanced back toward Caleb. “They deserve it a hell of a lot more than S. D. Pullens did, I bet.”
Frank pulled out his card and offered it to Luther.
Luther didn’t move to take it. “I just deal with Caleb,” he said flatly.
Frank put the card back in his pocket. “I appreciate it,” he said.
Caleb laughed. “Well, Luther, I’d tell you stay out of trouble, but shit, I know better than that.” He pulled on his jacket. “You know where to find me.”
“Tell your boys to come get this fucking car out of here,” Luther said. “Some people I deal with would get pretty bent out of joint if they come driving up and saw a goddamn police tow truck.”
“It’ll be here fast, Luther,” Caleb said. “I guarantee it.”
Luther rubbed his sleeve across his face. “And do something about this fucking heat while you’re at it,” he said.
13
The drive back to headquarters struck Frank as unbearably long, and as the first grayish outline of the city became visible, he felt an urge to turn away from it and drive in the opposite direction, it didn’t matter where. Just someplace where he didn’t know the pimps or the whores, or even that fresh-faced young traffic cop who waved him through the late-afternoon congestion. He wanted to be a stranger, a silent, invisible presence, nothing more.
A full sheet had already been run on Davon Little by the time they got back to the bullpen. Gibbons was waving it playfully in his hand when Frank and Caleb came through the door.