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  (65)

  In the police station, they took me to a stuffy room with a desk and Lieutenant McGinty. The light in the room was poor, and McGinty looked tired and maybe a little like he had bitten into a sour persimmon.

  The tall cop with the too-big suit was in there too, as were two blue suits with their cop caps on.

  “Thanks for coming in,” McGinty said. “You like some coffee?”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Jeff, get Mr. Edwards some coffee.”

  Jeff was one of the blue suits. “Sure. You want sugar, some Dow Cow in that?”

  “Black is fine.”

  “It’s strong,” McGinty said.

  “It’s fine.”

  The blue suit left the room.

  “I got a few questions for you.”

  “Ask away.”

  “First off, you got some scratches on your face. How’d you get them?”

  “Cutting brush behind the drive-in, repairing a break in the tin back there.”

  “Got to be careful around that tin, don’t you?”

  “Really careful.”

  “So, what I’m finding out about this Walter and Nancy is that they both got sheets.”

  “Sheets?”

  “A list of offenses.”

  “Oh. Like what?”

  “Before she was Nancy Craig, she had another last name, and when she was wearing that last name, she got picked up for prostitution a few times in Dallas.”

  “Really?”

  Of course, by that point, with Walter saying Nancy used to work for him and having called Frank another john, I already had my suspicions about that. I just hadn’t known I had them, but now, it all started to come together.

  “Oh yeah. Common streetwalker, sucking dick in alleys, humping johns in cars. Figure that’s how she met Frank. He tells her some big-ass story about his property and so on, and she decides that sounds nice. Then she brings Walter in as her cousin, gets Frank to sign a big insurance policy. For a horny man, that ass can do more damage than a grenade.”

  “You’re talking about her cousin Walter?”

  “He’s not a cousin. What he is, is her pimp. Or was. You’d think she got married and decided to go straight, help her husband handle a business, live a simple life, but this Walter, he came along with her, so they always had plans of some sort.”

  “I thought their relationship seemed a little odd.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Way they acted around each other.”

  “How did they act?”

  “Like they had some kind of relationship other than cousins. Listen, Lieutenant, I don’t want to do guesswork here, cast a bad light on folks I don’t really know well. I’m just saying.”

  Jeff came in with my coffee. It was in a mug that looked a bit suspicious, like it might have been wiped out with a rag instead of washed, but I picked it up and sipped.

  The coffee was strong. I could feel my stomach churn.

  “You look a little nervous,” the man in the too-big suit said.

  “Nervous? No. I’m, well, I’m in a police station. Being brought into a police station, it makes you nervous. Just how it is, you done something or not.”

  “Have you done anything?” the thin man asked.

  “No.”

  “String Bean there, he’s a suspicious type,” McGinty said. He was talking about the thin cop in the too-big suit.

  “Your mother name you String Bean?” I said.

  “Nickname,” String Bean said. “But that part about me being suspicious, that’s accurate.”

  I was starting to feel a change in the mood of the room. The kind of change you feel when a big electrical storm is about to begin.

  “Let me tell you what things look like,” McGinty said.

  “What things?” I said.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I just offered to tell you.”

  “Sorry. Go ahead.”

  “Thanks,” McGinty said.

  “That’s good of him, isn’t it?” String Bean said.

  “I think it’s pretty considerate,” McGinty said. “What about you fellows?” He looked at the blue suits.

  “I think it’s pretty damn considerate,” Jeff said.

  “Yeah, I like a considerate fellow,” the other blue suit said.

  “Edwards,” McGinty said, dropping the Mr. stuff, “what we’re thinking is this couple, Nancy and Walter, they were running a scam. You see, Nancy’s husband, you know about him?”

  “Fishing-trip accident or something. Drowned, I think.”

  “There was a lot of insurance on him, and he drowned, and she tried to collect, but the company wouldn’t pay. They wouldn’t pay because it looked like murder, not any kind of accident. Not unless you want to call an accident a thing where a guy beats himself up, like with a club or some such, then drives himself off a bridge. Insurance company, us too, we don’t see it as no accident.”

  I tried to look dumb. “Are you saying someone deliberately hurt him?”

  “Damn, you’re quick,” said String Bean.

  “What we’re thinking, yeah,” McGinty said. “And while we’re thinking that, we’re thinking something else. We’re thinking that when Nancy didn’t get the money, the money she and Walter killed for, well, they got vengeful and kidnapped the insurance man’s daughter.”

  “You know about that?” String Bean said.

  “I read something in the paper about her being kidnapped.”

  McGinty nodded. “Pretty much of a coincidence that Nancy’s husband gets murdered, and when she doesn’t get the money, short time thereafter, the insurance man who wouldn’t give her the money, his daughter gets nabbed and a ransom is paid.”

  “How’s that sound to you?” String Bean said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s a big jump.”

  “It is, isn’t it,” McGinty said. “Insurance man, he’s the one had the idea it might be like that. Said he got a bad feeling from Nancy when he wouldn’t give her the money. He suspected murder, and it’s not a big jump from that to think the kidnapping might be connected.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “You know what else we’re thinking?”

  “What’s that?”

  McGinty opened his desk drawer and took out the shoebox with the five thousand in it. “We’re thinking this money we found in your room in the drive-in picture show might be part of a theft.”

  I had never checked to see if Rose had actually followed my instructions about the money not being in sequence, but I was going to bet he hadn’t taken a chance on us checking the money, finding it wrong, and harming Julie. McGinty was trying to trap me.

  “That’s my money. I been saving it ever since I worked at a car lot.”

  “You know what we did? We called around and found you got a bank account. Savings and checking. You got some money in both, but the most money you got is this five thousand and it’s in a shoebox.”

  “I always worry about putting all my eggs in one basket.”

  “Bet it was rough on an Easter-egg hunt. All those eggs and just one basket.”

  “Now and then, one of those eggs would go in my coat pocket.”

  “Damn, that’s some funny shit right there,” String Bean said.

  “Yeah, that’s not bad,” McGinty said. “Let me tell you some more. You got this big chunk of money, like maybe payoff money.”

  “For what?”

  “Now, that we don’t have exactly figured. Do we, String Bean?”

  “Nope. That part is a mystery.”

  “What I’ve got to do is speculate a little. They need you to do something for them for a big payoff. Something like when they kidnap the girl, you watch after her. And there’s this, Edwards. You sold Nancy a car, and then you started coming out to see her. That’s what the little girl works at the drive-in said. One that has a face like a peanut patty.”

  “Nell,” String Bean said.

  “That’s the o
ne. You meet this Nancy, who is quite the looker, I understand, and maybe you’re thinking you’d like to float your boat in her harbor. You helped her get a car, we know that too. We saw the books at the car lot you used to work at.”

  “I sold her a car. I was a car salesman.”

  “But you ended up with the car you sold them.”

  “No. The Craigs bought a Caddy from my boss, bless him. He died recently, see, and they didn’t make the payments, so he sent me out there to repossess it. Nancy gave me a sob story, said her old man wasn’t good to her and wouldn’t pay on the car. She said he drank, heavily. I had to take the car anyway. I liked it, bought it for myself, and helped her buy something she could afford.”

  “Books at that car lot indicate you made a couple payments on that one.”

  “That’s right. I made a deal for her to pay me back directly.”

  “Or pay you in services.”

  “Won’t kid you, I would have gone for that. She could make Billy Graham pull down his pants and jack off in five o’clock traffic.”

  McGinty grinned, leaned back in his chair, and made a steeple of his fingers, letting his chest support them. “Okay. Okay. That could be. But then you go to work for her.”

  “My boss died. I thought of her and the drive-in, so I looked for a job there.”

  “Wait a minute,” McGinty said. “She couldn’t pay her bills and you had to help her buy a car, but she’s got enough to put you on the payroll? Got to admit, that don’t make serious sense. There’s some fucked-up reasoning going on there.”

  “I was desperate, and like I said, yeah, I’d like to have had a piece of that, so I went out there. But I didn’t get any ass, I got a job, because with her husband dead, the place was doing better, him not taking all the money, drinking it up. She said she needed a bookkeeper, and I said I could do it.”

  “And Walter, he’s there all along?” String Bean said.

  “Yeah, all along. He was there before me, and I got the impression he had been there awhile.”

  McGinty nodded, took off his hat, and placed it on his desk. “You got that impression, huh? Julie, the girl got kidnapped, she said her male kidnapper treated her nicely, and she told us he had a sweet voice. I think you got a sweet voice, Edwards. Don’t you think his voice is sweet, String Bean?”

  “Like fucking sugar. You could sweeten a goddamn pie with that voice.”

  “It’s pretty sweet,” Jeff said. The other blue suit nodded in agreement.

  “Julie, poor kid,” McGinty said. “She was terrified. But she also said she saw her kidnapper. On account of that, just to put everyone’s mind at rest, we’re thinking we could get you to stand in a lineup, let her have a peek. Maybe have you say a few words in that sweet voice you have.”

  “Sugar sweet,” String Bean said.

  I knew McGinty was lying. I had been very careful with the mask Julie had on. And I had disguised my voice best I could, talking low and even, which was what Julie was calling sweet. Only way she could have seen anything of my face was if she had X-ray vision.

  “I’ll do a lineup,” I said.

  “Know what I’m thinking, Edwards?” McGinty said. “I’m thinking you’re a lying sack of shit.”

  “Anyone can think what they want,” I said.

  “That’s right, that’s right. I’m thinking too there’s a lot more going on here than I know. But I want to know. I’m that kind of guy. I get something on my mind, have a hard time getting it off. Sticks like glue. I got to know what’s up. It’s like when my wife is putting together a puzzle. She pours all the pieces on the table, and I can’t tell for shit what that puzzle is going to look like. She starts to messing with it, and pretty soon, even though there are a bunch of pieces not put in place, I can see what it’s going to be. An old house surrounded by trees, a river, a dog in the yard, or some such. And you, Edwards, you’re one of those pieces that’s missing, but I can see the rest of the picture. You do fit in the puzzle somewhere, don’t you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Hear that, String Bean, he don’t fit?”

  “Heard it,” String Bean said.

  “You know what else?” McGinty said.

  I was beginning to feel like the straight man in a knock-knock joke. “What else?”

  “Now Walter and Nancy are gone. Hit the road, maybe, or could be there’s this other partner, and that would be you, Edwards, and let’s say that other partner decided a third of a share, if it was that much, wasn’t as good as the whole thing.”

  “I wish I could help you, Lieutenant. Really, I do. But I swear to you, I just work at the drive-in. About this other stuff, Walter and Nancy, insurance scams, murder, kidnapping, and the like, I’m way out of the loop on that.”

  “Guess I’m not asking the right questions, not phrasing it the right way. String Bean and the boys here, they know how to interrogate more articulately. I’ve just had high school, you know. String Bean has an associate’s degree in animal husbandry. And them two boys, both of them, they been to barber college. Right, boys?”

  The blue suit whose name I didn’t know said, “Ask me to give you a little man number one, and I can cut your hair so pretty, shave you so close, you’ll want to fuck yourself and pay for it.”

  “That’s education for you,” McGinty said. He sat forward in his chair, put his elbows on the desk, rested his chin in his hands. “String Bean, boys? Will you take Edwards here down to the suite, make him comfortable, ask him a few more questions? Simple questions, simple answers. Nothing to put him out too much. Maybe get him some more coffee, a little massage, perhaps.”

  “Sure,” String Bean said.

  String Bean and the cops crowded in close to me. I knew to stand up. String Bean put a hand on my shoulder. I was surprised at how big it was.

  “We got to do a little walking,” String Bean said.

  (66)

  String Bean said, “Jeff, get the door. I’ll catch up. I got to get something.”

  Jeff opened it, and we left the office.

  I could see a stairway across the hall, and that’s where we went. When we got to the stairway, Jeff and the other blue suit took hold of my arms and we stopped.

  It was a short drop from the stairs to a landing, and then the stairs turned left and went down into an ill-lit area. Only thing missing was a sign above the stairs that read ABANDON ALL HOPE.

  Jeff and the other cop let go of my arms.

  “Thing you got to watch,” Jeff said, “is that first step. It’s a motherfucker.”

  That’s when I was hit in the back of the head and went tumbling down the stairs.

  It wasn’t a long drop, but I tell you, it hurt like hell. Next thing I knew, I was lying on the landing trying to get up. The cops came down to help me up. String Bean was behind them, almost skipping down the stairs, carrying a heavy phone book, which was what he had used to hit me in the back of the head, I reckoned.

  The cops grabbed me again, helped me up, and practically pulled me down the turn of stairs. It was a longer run of steps and a flickering orange light at the bottom made me feel like I was on my way to an uncomfortable place. I didn’t need to be psychic to know that.

  At the bottom on each side there was a row of cells. They were small cells, and most of them were empty. The lights along the corridor were sparse and some of them were out, and the ones that worked were struggling.

  There was an open cell at the end on the right, and they put me in there. The cell across the way had a big black man in it. He was banged up, sitting on a sagging cot near a rimless commode. He turned his head and looked at me, then looked away.

  The cops pushed me inside, came in with me. String Bean and his phone book followed.

  “We know you been feeding us a line of shit. We’re thinking maybe a more personal kind of discussion might give us what we want.”

  “This is crazy,” I said. “I don’t know anything.”

  I knew they were guessing, but I also knew it was a serious
guess, fueled by experience.

  The beating was pretty intense. Mostly String Bean hit me in the chest, stomach, and ribs, across the back a few times, couple shots in the kidneys. I almost pissed myself.

  This went on for a short time, probably, but it felt like eternity and a day. I ended up on the floor.

  String Bean paused to get his wind, and the uniforms both lit cigarettes and smoked.

  Jeff said, “Want a cigarette while we talk?”

  I didn’t answer him. I got up slowly off the floor and sat on the bed.

  “Nickle,” String Bean called to the man in the cell across the way. “Want to come over here and cornhole some white ass? We got you some.”

  “Nah, sir. I’m just all right where I am.”

  “Free,” String Bean.

  “Nah, sir. I’m all right where I am.”

  I figured that poor man had been through what I was going through, though they had done more than just work him over in the body. They had also done a pretty good number on his face.

  “How’d you get scratched up on your face, Edwards?” String Bean asked.

  “I was killing a cat and it scratched me.”

  “You think this is a time to be funny?”

  I was in so much pain and so worn out by then, I almost told him I’d been fighting with Walter in a pony’s grave. “I was replacing some tin at the back of the drive-in. Walter was helping me. Brush on the other side of the fence was pushing up against it. I tried cutting it, got tangled in it, and the limbs scratched me, tin too.”

  “There better be some cut brush at the back of that drive-in.”

  “There is.”

  I had never cut brush around the drive-in, but I knew Walter had, and I had helped replace the tin. It seemed like a good enough reason to be scratched up.

  “Stand him up,” String Bean said, and when they did, I braced myself for more of that phone book. “Let’s take him upstairs, get him a black coffee.”

  “You know what?” I said. “Put some sugar in it this time, some of that creamer.”

  “Yeah,” Jeff said. “That’s some nasty shit when you take it straight, ain’t it?”

  (67)