The big man hunkered beside him. His expression was compassionate. He knew as well as Pete did that he was on his way out. He leaned closer and for a moment, the two were eye to eye. The man reached out and slid an arm under him. Pete was grateful, thinking he meant to lift him and carry him to safety. It was too late for that, and Pete knew instinctively that any jostling would waken the pain that had faded to almost nothing. The man fumbled, turning him over onto his side. Pete wanted to shriek but he didn’t have the strength. He was aware of his watch sliding over his wrist. He felt the man pat his pants until he found the square of his leather wallet and slipped it from his pocket. The last conscious thought that registered was the man lifting the handgun from the holster, tucking it into the small of his back. Pete watched him amble away without a backward glance.
There was no way Pete could rouse himself. Who knew dying could take so long? He was bleeding out; heart slowing, belly filling up with blood. Not a bad way to go, he thought. He heard the beating of wings, a nearly inaudible whisper and flutter. He felt quick puffs of wind on his face, feathery grace notes. The birds had come back for him, hoping he had something to offer them when, in fact, every kindly impulse of his had fled.
28
The six hundred dollars Dietz had surrendered to Pete’s landlady netted us an additional fifteen banker’s boxes, too many to fit in Dietz’s little red Porsche. The expenditure should have been classified as “throwing good money after bad,” as he was now out the six hundred plus the three thousand dollars and some odd cents he’d already been cheated. I called Henry for assistance and he obligingly backed the station wagon out of his garage and drove to Pete’s former office building. We’d brought the boxes down on the elevator and stacked them at the curb. It took no time at all to load up the rear of Henry’s vehicle, after which I rode home with him while Dietz followed in his car.
We all pitched in transferring the boxes from the station wagon to my living room and there they sat. Henry said he’d lend a hand examining files, but we vetoed the idea. We knew what paperwork had already passed through our hands. We also knew what we were looking for and there was no point in stopping to educate Henry on the fine points of Pete’s filing system. We thanked him for his transportation services and I assured him I’d check in with him later in the day.
This left Dietz and me sitting cross-legged on my living room floor, pawing through more boxes. “I spend an inordinate amount of time doing shit like this,” I remarked.
“We don’t turn up something soon, I’m bagging it,” he said. “No point in spending more time trying to collect for a job than I devoted to the job itself.”
“You worked four days. We’ve been chasing your fee for one.”
“True, and I’m already bored.”
The first box I opened the contained the contents of Pete’s wastebasket, which Letitia Beaudelaire must have upended and emptied with one mighty shake. Here, in layers going back for weeks, was an accumulation of overdue notices, judgments, legal warnings, dunning letters, threats, unpaid bills, and bank statements showing countless checks returned for inadequate funds. It appeared that Pete, when he had his back pressed to the wall, would send off a bad check as a means of buying himself a few days’ time. The plan always failed—how could it not?—but he was too busy putting out fires to worry about the ones that flared up again.
Dietz said, “At least he was sincere about the river cruise. Take a look at this.”
He leaned forward and handed me a glossy brochure that featured a color photograph of a sleek boat on a body of water. This was not a 2,600-passenger cruise liner tracking the Norwegian fjords. This was river travel. A village was laid out along the shore, with a low rolling mountain beyond. The bell tower on the church was reflected like a shimmering mirage at the water’s edge. Everything about the image was inviting, including the sight of passengers on the upper deck where a swimming pool was visible. “I could learn to live like that,” I said.
“I told you money has its advantages.”
“For sure. I just couldn’t picture anything I wanted. Now I’m getting it,” I said. “It’d be nice if he’d set aside some cash to pay for the trip. I’m sure Ruthie could use the getaway.”
“You think she’d go without him?”
“Not really. I think if she had the money, she’d pay off his creditors before she did anything else.”
I watched Dietz pick up a sheaf of papers. As his eyes traced the lines of print, he let out a bark of outrage. “Son of a bitch! Look at this! What the hell is he doing here?”
I took the typewritten pages and glanced at the first. “What am I looking at?”
“My report. He stole the whole damn thing. Retyped it and dicked around with the language, but essentially it’s my work, with all my receipts attached. I’ll bet he was reimbursed for everything, including my time. This is my original. Look at that.”
I leafed through both reports, keeping the two documents side by side for comparison purposes. Pete had rewritten Dietz’s account on his own letterhead, embellishing in places, altering the wording so it sounded more folksy. Attached were invoices showing two sets of round-trip tickets from Santa Teresa to Reno, trips he’d certainly never made. He’d done a clumsy job of substituting his name for Dietz’s in the hotel bill, but he probably thought his client wouldn’t know the difference. I couldn’t think why he’d kept Dietz’s original. He’d have been smarter to destroy it unless he’d hoped to lift details to fashion a follow-up report. I doubted he had any intention of paying Dietz at all and what options did Dietz have? Trying to collect in California for work done in Nevada would have been an exercise in frustration. Taking Pete to small claims court would have been time consuming, and even if Dietz had won a judgment, what was he to do with it? Pete was flat broke.
“I hope he made good use of my photographs while he was at it,” he said.
He opened the manila envelope that bore his return address and removed the pictures he’d taken.
I peered over his shoulder. “That’s the gal you were hired to spy on?”
“Mary Lee Bryce, right.” Dietz shuffled through the prints while I looked on. “This is her when she first arrived at the hotel and this is Owen Pensky, the high school classmate she met with. Here’s one of her with the boss she was supposed to be having the affair with.”
“No love lost there,” I remarked.
“Unless they’re really good at faking it.”
“I bet Pete collected up front and in cash. He wasn’t the type to bill after the fact.”
“Depressing, but you’re probably right.”
“So if Willard Bryce has already paid Pete, there’s no point in asking him for the money. He’d turn you down cold.”
“When you said Pete was a scumbag, I thought you were exaggerating.”
“I should point out that you had a better motive to shoot Pete than any armed robber did. All that guy got was an empty wallet and a cheap watch.”
Dietz tossed aside the manila envelope. “You know what bugs me? Here I was so worried his death was connected to the job I did. If I’d known he was ripping me off, I wouldn’t have given it another thought.”
“He did provide a great excuse for spending time with me.”
“Well, there’s that.”
I checked the receipts for the two sets of plane tickets. “You think he actually paid for tickets? These are copies of copies. I wonder what happened to the originals.”
“He had to pay for ’em or he wouldn’t have tickets in his possession in the first place. I’m sure he didn’t make two trips to Reno. Hell, he didn’t even make one.”