“Yeah, well, we can buck him up, pharmaceutically speaking. My question’s a little more general than that.”
“I’m not a doctor.”
“You live with him,” Dayball said. “It’s a simple question. He done for the night or can he stand up for just one more show?”
She didn’t dare tell him about Frank’s past. The part about Jesse. The part about this being the third anniversary of the boy’s pitiless death.
“He’s weathered worse,” she said.
“That doesn’t help me much.”
“Not a lot I can do about that.”
“He cares about you, know that?”
Shel closed her eyes. She said, “Yeah. I know that.”
“Matter-of-fact,” Dayball continued, “he told me, just now in the kitchen, I swear to God, he told me the real, down-deep reason he dusted one of the twins out there in Knightsen was because the kid was boning you.”
Shel opened her eyes again. Dayball was grinning at her, waggling his eyebrows.
She said, “So why’d he kill the other one?”
Dayball shrugged. “Never break a set.”
“I never touched either one of the twins. Never. Never even thought about it.”
“You’re saying Frank’s nuts, then.”
“I’m saying he’s mistaken.”
“Pretty fucking drastic mistake, you ask me.” Dayball shook his head. “Too bad. I mean, if he’s unstable, he’s useless. And if he’s useless…”
“Don’t, please.”
“Too much risk here. You see that.”
“He’s harmless.”
Dayball chuckled. “Talk to the twins about it.” He rose to leave, shaking out each pant leg to nurse the crease. “No, you told me what I gotta know. Too bad, really. I’m not gonna take any pleasure from this.”
“Come on,” Shel said. “He can’t hurt you.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Dayball replied. “Sooner or later, somebody besides Tully’s gonna find those twins. Say Frank gets hauled in. They do the usual on him, sit him alone for twelve hours at a stretch, no sleep, no smokes. Scare the piss right into his shoes. Then, once he’s good and shook, they’ll father right on up to him the way they do. ‘You don’t need a lawyer, Frank. What you need a lawyer for, you feel guilty about something?’ And then Old Frank sees the future. And me and Felix and Tully, we’re in a world of hurt.”
“You can’t snitch off on a murder one. You know that.”
Dayball smiled abstractly. “So they say. I’m not so sure. Say they lower it to murder two once they see he’s willing to jabber. Don’t tell me it can’t happen.”
“Frank’s not a talker.”
“Can’t risk it, dear.”
“What if- ”
“Plan’s too touchy, darlin’. Frank’s gonna be under the lights. I can’t have him dreaming up shit isn’t even there.”
“That’s not what I’m telling you,” Shel said.
“No?”
“No.”
Dayball frowned. “What’s that mean, then? You really did bone this kid? He came on, you said yes.”
“No.”
“You acted like you wanted to. You gave the impression.”
“Frank sees what he wants to see sometimes, it doesn’t- ”
“You’re telling me he’s useless.”
“All right,” Shel said. “Yes. The kid came on to me. I didn’t say no. I made eyes. I flashed some leg. All right? You got it? It’s not Frank. It’s me.”
Dayball crossed his arms, studying her with a smile that wavered between satisfaction and contempt.
“You’re lying,” he said.
“I was bored. I’m not young anymore, got it? It felt good, being looked at that way. Okay? It wasn’t just in Frank’s head. It’s my fault. I’m the one who caused all this.”
Dayball looked off, sighed, then sat back down. He rested his chin in his hand and said, “Well then.”
“I had no idea Frank would whack the kid. My God- ”
Dayball held up a hand to stop her. “So this twin did come on to you.”
“Yes.”
“And you responded?”
Shel said, “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
“That takes care of that, then.” Dayball leaned back in the chair, folding his hands across his midriff. “Just one last question. Which twin was it?”
Shel felt her mouth go dry. In time she managed to say, “The stupid one,” but by then Dayball was already convulsed. He laughed so hard his feet tapped against the floor. Collecting himself, he ran his finger beneath each eye.
“Goddamn, that was luscious,” he said.
“Look- ”
“I’m a man who loves his work, know that? Know how few people in America genuinely love their work?”
“It’s me, not him, I meant that.”
He reached over and rubbed a strand of her hair between his finger and thumb, testing it for dye. “Let’s go over this again, shall we?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“We’ve learned how far you’ll go for your boy, am I right? And we’ve learned you’re a lousy liar.”
“Look- ”
“You’re not going to cause me any problems, are you?” He ran his finger across her cheek and smiled. “ ’Cuz you said it yourself, one way or another, you’re the one responsible. Your words exactly.”
“Yes,” Shel said.
“You’re gonna do what you’re told. Stay put. Make sure he stays in the saddle.”
“Don’t hurt him.”
Dayball smiled and put his fingertip to the bridge of her nose. He tapped gently. “As long as you keep him bright-eyed, as long as he can walk his talk…”
“And after that?” Shel asked.
Dayball removed his hand. “I can’t tell you that,” he said. He rose, returning his chair to where he’d found it. “And the reason I can’t tell you that, is because I don’t know. I’m being straight with you.”
Chapter 9
Abatangelo was three weeks into his new daily schedule. He rose at six, showered and ate, then walked across Russian Hill to Lenny Mannion’s photo portrait shop on Union Street. Mornings, he made cold calls to expectant mothers and did the newborn darling layout hustle. Come noon he switched his focus from infants to aspiring talent: homely comedians, models blanching dead smiles, belly dancers hawking cleavage. He stood in the darkroom, inhaling the warm chemical stench as he shepherded black-and-white glossies from developer to stop bath to fixer tray. Come five o’clock he walked back over Telegraph Hill to North Beach, arriving home just as twilight gave way to darkness. Electric buses jostled past, brightly lit and crammed with vacant-eyed office workers. The sidewalks teemed with men and women trudging home. Some of them walked arm in arm, smiling, heads touching.
His apartment remained sparsely furnished in front, but he’d managed to pick up a few items at sidewalk sales. He’d also obtained a metal storage cabinet for the camera equipment he was buying from Mannion, paying it off little by little each week. The camera equipment was part of the plan. He’d gone back out to Oakley two weeks running, sitting atop the hill overlooking Shel’s house and snapping picture after picture of anything and everything that moved in the night. He hadn’t actually seen Shel yet, though he thought he’d caught her silhouette once or twice in a lamplit window, a doorway. He hadn’t mustered the nerve to go down to the door and knock. His reluctance had nothing to do with what the Akers brothers might do to him. It was what they might do to her.
Hanging his coat on the back of a chair, he shuffled to the back room and lay down on the bed, waiting for rush hour to end. He turned on the radio and found himself in the middle of an argument between two female psychologists. The topic, he learned shortly, was impotence. One of the psychologists had a breathy voice, as though letting him in on a withering secret. The other, in contrast, sounded defiantly upbeat. And so it went, like a round of Good Cop/Bad Cop, with the male member under the lights. Withering. Upbeat. Withering. Upbeat.
He turned off the radio.