“If I had a friend on the force, they would,” I said. “Getting myself one is at the top of my list of things to do, if I don’t get killed and decide to continue in this field.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Harvey.”
It was probably way too late for that advice. “I never intend to,” I said.
There was an uncomfortable silence on the phone.
“Come back soon,” she said.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I hung up and thought about all the implications of her last words. Then I wondered if it would be against the private eye code of conduct to watch a double feature of The Horny Contortionist and Where The Boys Aren’t on pay-per-view.
I decided it wouldn’t be and reached for the remote.
***
I didn’t sleep much. Part of the problem with working nights is that your biological clock, or whatever the hell they call it, gets all out of whack. Having a couple broken ribs didn’t help. So I only got a couple hours’ worth of sleep, mostly catnaps during the slow parts of the porn movies. I also slept a little bit sitting on the toilet, where I discovered the consequences of amateur pharmacology.
I was ready to check out and get going as soon as the sun came up, what little of it I could see through the gray, cloudy skies. I put on a jacket and tie and by seven a.m. I was on Interstate 5, heading towards downtown Seattle.
I was struck by a couple things right away. The crisp, clean air to start with. My sinuses weren’t used to that, so I kept sneezing and my nose was running. If you can’t taste the air when you breathe it, it’s too clean.
Next thing I noticed was the drizzle. I seemed to be the only guy on the road with his windshield wipers on, so I guessed it was like this all the time and that people there were so used to it, they’d learned to see through the layer of water on the glass.
Finally, there was the green. There was so much vegetation everywhere, even along the freeway, it made LA seemed like nothing but concrete and asphalt, which I suppose it was.
As the freeway cut through downtown, I craned my neck like a tourist to get a few good looks at the Space Needle. It was actually the least impressive of the tall buildings that made up the skyline, but at least I was certain I was in Seattle.
The farther out of the city I got, the greener the landscape became. Just before reaching Everett, I took the turn-off for Highway 96. Things became what I’d call rural after that, the narrow highway passing through hilly forests, and lots of mailboxes on posts in front of dirt roads that led who-knows-where. Around the intersection with Highway 9, just outside Snohomish, there were a couple motels facing each other on either side of the road. I made a mental note of them and continued on towards town.
Snohomish wasn’t really a town anymore, it was more of a theme for a shopping center. The quaint, nineteenth-century buildings at the heart of the old logging town were almost all occupied by antique stores and indoor swap-meets. That’s what they do with dead towns now, they turn them into antique malls.
I drove through town and into the country again, past lots of rusted-out cars, rundown farms, and old, rotting houses until I came to a batch of mailboxes at a turn-off for a long, dirt road.
I drove up the muddy road, lined on both sides with tall weeds, and took a fork that was marked by a weather-beaten wood sign that’d been spray-painted with Pelz’s address.
I thought about stopping, and walking the rest of the way in, to be more stealthy, but figured I’d get bogged down in the mud. Besides, if things went bad, I didn’t want to be too far from my car and a quick escape. I decided to take my chances with a direct approach and I drove on.
The road curved and suddenly spilled out into a clearing. There was a faded mobile home, a ten-year-old, corroded Chevy Lumina parked beside it. A clothesline was loosely strung between two trees. There was a barbecue, a picnic table, a couple of lawn chairs in search of a lawn, and an old couch sinking in the mud. The stripped, sheet-metal carcasses of a few decaying cars were scattered amidst the weeds on the edges of the clearing. It all fit with my initial impression of Arlo Pelz.
I parked beside the Lumina and sat a minute, my heart racing. I don’t know which I felt more, terror or excitement, but I knew I couldn’t just sit there. I blew my nose into a napkin and tossed it on the floor. I took my toy gun out of the glove box, leaned forward, and slipped it into the holster that was clipped to my belt behind my back, underneath my jacket. That was the way Mannix used to do it.
I eased out of the car and approached the door, one hand behind my back, ready to whip out my gun if Arlo gave me trouble. I’d lead him to my car, tie his wrists up with duct tape, and then make him think I was going to execute him unless he talked. Once he told me everything, and wet his pants, I’d take him in. The wetting-his-pants part was real important to me.
The key to my plan was the assumption that Arlo would be unarmed. That didn’t seem like a big assumption until I approached the mobile home.
What if he burst out right now with a sawed-off shotgun in his hands? Did I really believe I could hold him off with my state-of-the-art BB gun?
I was about to go back to my car and drive away until I could come up with a better plan, when the door opened and Jolene Pelz stepped out in a pink bathrobe, wrapped tight around what I presumed was her naked body, looking tired and pissed-off.
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing here so God-damn early in the morning?” she said.
Jolene Pelz had the basic framework for beauty, a nice body and attractive face, but her attributes were eroded by a lifetime of bitter disappointment, which she wore on her skin, carried on her back, and expressed with a weariness that marbled her voice. No amount of make-up, perfume, jewelry, or designer clothing would ever hide it, not that she was even trying.
“I’m looking for Arlo Pelz,” I said.
“He isn’t here. In fact, he doesn’t live here anymore.”
“That’s not what it says on his credit card bills, Mrs. Pelz.”
“What kind of cop are you?”
I was so flattered that I almost smiled. I actually radiated copliness now. Wow. That had to say something fundamental about how much I’d changed, about the self-confidence I now radiated, even if I didn’t feel it.
“Credit card,” I said. “My name is Frank Furillo. I’m a fraud investigator for VISA.”
She leaned against her door. “The cop on ‘Hill Street Blues’ was named Furillo.”
If I was going to continue in this business, I had to stop assuming I was the only guy who watched TV and read books.
“I know,” I said wearily. “But it’s not so bad. I grew up with a kid named James Bond. He got his ass kicked every day of the week.”
“Probably by a guy like Arlo,” she said. “You want some coffee?”
“That would be nice.”
“All I got is instant,” she said and went back inside.
I took my hand off my toy gun and followed her in.
Chapter Fourteen
The place was laid out a lot like Jim Rockford’s mobile home, only where his desk would be there was a tan, pseudo-suede couch, the kind that had bulging cushions when you bought it but that flattened to the width of typing paper within a month after you got it home. The cushions were still plump.
That caught my eye, and so did the big-screen TV that dominated the boxy living room.
Jolene asked me to sit down on the couch while she made the coffee, but I couldn’t. I was afraid my clip-on holster would come off and that, with my broken ribs, I’d have a hard time getting up again after I sunk into the cushions.
So I stood at the low, chipped Formica counter that separated the kitchen area from the living room and watched her set the water to boil. There were bills, magazines, and a high school yearbook cluttering the countertop. I resisted the urge to rummage through them.