The Prince Of Deadly Weapons Page 2

  He swallowed one Valium and a Percodan. He felt thorny projections behind his eyes and wished his mother was still alive.

  He walked out of the house and stood on the scarred wooden dock. He looked out from his small island in Disappointment Slough toward the levee road that ran along the berm of Empire Tract. It was a dry black Delta night. He squatted and searched for his face in the water. He stared into his own eyes. They were dark and more mysterious there in the water.

  "Hello, you ghost," he said.

  The water made his face seem to nod back at him.

  "We have our secrets, don't we."

  Chapter Three

  ESSIE LAW LAY in bed, but sleep was a struggle. She could still feel Taylor's voice, swamped as it was with pain and despair. She had told him she'd come over, if he wanted, but Taylor was adamant that she stay away.

  Her body grumbled something that left her unsettled and made a drink mandatory. She leaned against the balcony railing of her second story walk-up. The Walnut Grove street she lived on was little more than an alley half a block from River Road. Taylor, she knew, was not like most men. He was more prone to hurt himself, rather than others.

  * * *

  DAMON ROMERO and his date were on their fourth drink at the St. Francis Club when he quietly and subtly let a slip of hand take that short run up the back of the lady's neck. It was the perfect blend of feeling, grace and fiction as he said: "Let's go put the top down and ride."

  * * *

  ESSIE GLANCED at the open balcony door. Her phone sat waiting on the desk. Maybe she would try and coax Taylor into letting her come over. She got as far as the threshold before the dreaded hell of a question hit her: Why should she have to coax anyone, someone, Taylor away from despair and pain? Why couldn't someone, anyone, Taylor just want her help, just ask for her help?

  She fell back into watching the street, where people talked in flimsily lit doorways. And where from washed-out storefront curtains music softly came. She followed couples as they coursed the shadows heart-deep into themselves and on toward the river. But something in Taylor's voice just wouldn't shake loose.

  * * *

  IT WAS a perfect night to drive with the top down. The water of Disappointment Slough sparkled with small crystal star fires of sky. The woman stretched her head back and let the wind have at her throat and chest bone.

  Damon Romero ran his strong flat hand along the woman's leg. Each stroke across the sheer skirt fabric rose a little higher, teased her a little more. Then, when he could sense her muscles ease toward him, he let his hand drift back, becoming almost invisible to feel.

  "Why don't we find a place to stop," he said.

  She turned to him and one silent eyebrow rose asking what he had in mind.

  * * *

  IN THE twelve miles it took for Essie to travel from her walk-up to Disappointment Slough the fabric of her feelings tore apart and came together endless times.

  She wanted to go where she felt she was needed, but she wanted to go back because she felt she was not needed enough to be asked. The simple act of asking meant that much to her, and in some small way she was ashamed.

  Life was such an incurable exercise. It wreaked havoc on the heart and turned all the mind's disciplines about how to act into so much infinitesimal drama.

  * * *

  THEY DANCED in the darkness to the car stereo. They danced in the mottled wet shore tide, barefoot and slow. The scents of night were heavy as musk and the long flat distance of Disappointment Slough was spotted by a few lights that seemed to belong to nothing but black space.

  The woman was breathing into Damon Romero's chest when a harsh pop rode the water from one berm to another.

  He stood back and looked down at her. "Did that sound like a gunshot?"

  * * *

  ESSIE PULLED off the road, drove down toward the landing. Taylor's car was parked in its usual place, on a breach of cleared ground just back of the sloping berm.

  She still had misgivings, murky breaks of confidence, as she stepped into the humid quiet of evening. She talked herself through these misgivings. She would not let the mere confusion of need or happiness dictate to her.

  Through the trees, she could vaguely make out the lights of his house. And the front door, it seemed to be open. His boat was moored up at the dock. At least, Taylor was home.

  She reached for her cellular. She would not settle for pure blind silence even if it meant the calamity she feared most.

  His phone rang.

  The calamity of being alone. Truth, come dressed as thyself. One of her stepfather's favorite phrases.

  Taylor's machine kicked in.

  She had not pressed him hard for fear he would—

  A rucksack noise brought her head around fast. Through the rushes came a man. Momentarily frightened Essie stepped back toward her car as the man said, "Did you hear a shot?"

  Essie saw his pants were rolled up to the knee, his legs wet. A moment more and a woman pushed through the reeds beside him. "What?"

  "It sounded like a shot. From there." He pointed into the slough, at Taylor's house and the lights.

  The woman started for the edge of the berm. Romero yelled, "Be careful!"

  "What are you talking about?" asked Essie.

  "We heard a gunshot."

  "It sounded like a shot," said the woman. She was squinting at the house. "How well can either of you see?" She waved. "Look. Look here!"

  Essie crowded up beside her. So did Romero.

  "In the doorway. In the doorway!" yelled the woman.

  From the berm Essie now saw a shape awkwardly slumping across the doorway's yellow light. She screamed into the phone. "Taylor, if you're there—" The tape was now just that dead space after the perfunctory greeting. "Please. I'm across at the landing. Taylor!"

  Romero kept repeating, "Is that a body?"

  "Taylor, god damn it."

  "Maybe we should call—"

  Essie felt she was absolutely falling into some kind of death. She forced the phone into Romero's hands. "Call for help. Call the—" She was running down the berm, trying to get her boots off as she went.

  The woman followed. "What are you doing?"

  Stripping down to bra and panties, Essie charged the water. It hit her chest like cold cement. From the shoreline to the island was almost one hundred yards.

  Her arms flung out wildly. Her head snapped at the air for breath. She wasn't halfway when both legs began to bend with cramps.

  Essie had to close down to keep going, to separate from the cross weight of pain along her back and the stomach sickening contractions. She shut her eyes.

  Her world was now a dark narrow funnel no larger than a candle flame. A piece of pitch dark space that spread throughout her, that filled her, as if it were air and had the power to hold her up. She could feel being outside herself. It was someone else whose arms were knifing at the water, someone else whose breath came in short—

  Her head hit the dock. She came out of the water bleeding and groggy. Racing up the slate steps toward the one-story bungalow her wet feet slipped out from under her. When she landed her wrist was caught between her hip and the step railing. The wrist broke.

  She carried her forearm in her other hand as she made her way up through a maze of trees toward the front door. And there, lying in the yellow light of that threshold was Taylor, a gun in his left hand. He sat in his own blood. It had leaked its way down through his shirt and pants from a wound just under the heart.

  She knelt beside the body, in Taylor's blood. She pressed her hand against his chest to feel if he still had a pulse. His white face didn't move when she called to him. There was nothing in the closed eyes that registered he heard her shivering pleas. But behind the cold, blood smeared shirt cloth there was a pulse.

  Chapter Four

  ROY PINTER LAY on his back in bed. There was a powerful scent of pot about the room. His girlfriend, whom he'd nicknamed Flesh, had completely covered his cock with heap
s of whipped cream and double double chocolate Häagen-Dazs. She'd even added a little crème de men the to the festivities. She was going to be a man's perfect fiftieth birthday party.

  Flesh was that. Twenty-seven years old, with legs that went all the way from the ground up and into a man's psyche. Her body, and those legs, had gotten her a gig in the Vegas chorus, which helped earn enough money to carry her through law school.

  Pinter would tell everyone who'd listen, and he was shamelessly egotistical and shallow in these matters, that Flesh gave the best head of any Assistant D.A. who'd worked under him. And he'd made them all do "the bow," which Flesh, jealous as she was, did not appreciate hearing about.

  Flesh started to work her way down that sundae of a man. Roy's beard and ponytail were covered with sweat, the sheets so damp they stuck to the skin. He bent his head ever so just to watch Flesh take him into her mouth.

  The liquor of ecstasy. Slave time starring your best bitch. The sense of being completely served was one of life's greatest gratifications.

  Roy managed a few breath-ridden words: "I'm probably the… only… banana split in existence… with polio."

  Her free hand grabbed at his legs, those thin pieces of bone he had to carry around on metal crutches. Her ribald fingers cinched up his ass, then wormed their way inside him.

  Electric colors went through his head, then one of life's little perversities got into the play— the phone rang.

  He could feel his blood pounding against the cold insides of her mouth.

  The answering machine kicked in. "Mr. Pinter, this is Sergeant Farr, out in Tracy. I thought I'd let you know right away 'cause you're friends with Nathan Greene—"

  * * *

  SGT. FARR had just taken Damon Romero's statement when Roy and Flesh approached him in the emergency room hallway. "Mr. Pinter."

  "Sergeant, this is Ms. Flescher. She's an Assistant D.A. in the department."

  Farr knew who she was from the gossip hot line, but he put on his best pro forma. "Thanks for coming."

  "Where's Nathan Greene?" Roy asked.

  "Fourth floor," said Farr. "Outside surgery. They're operating on his son now."

  "How bad is it?" asked Flesh.

  "One bullet just below the heart. The boy had pretty much bled to death by the time we got him here."

  "Fill us in," said Roy.

  Farr began. He got as far as the man and woman coming from the St. Francis and parking on the Empire Tract side of Disappointment Slough when Roy caught sight of something just over Flesh's shoulder and said, "Essie."

  His voice sounded as if all things painful could be found there and Flesh turned to see.

  In a small room whose entrance was halved by a curtain, Essie sat. She was wrapped in a blanket. Her legs were bare, her feet bare. Her wet hair had begun to dry in disheveled mats. A doctor was setting her left wrist in a cast while an officer took notes between questions. She had a look of bewildered exhaustion going from face to face.

  "Excuse me, Sergeant," said Roy. Then, to Flesh, "Why don't you get the Sergeant to fill us in while I—"

  Her response was acrid, "Fill us in. Of course, sir."

  * * *

  FLESH LISTENED but her eyes and emotions were elsewhere.

  "She was at the landing, I gather," said Sgt. Farr. "Trying to see if Taylor was home. The two witnesses came along thinking they heard a shot. They saw a body in the doorway and… she swam across."

  Flesh could imagine what would happen inside of that black garden of a mind when Roy found out she swam the slough to try and save Taylor.

  Essie's not even that attractive, thought Flesh. There wasn't one thing about her that stood out, except for the eyes. As dark and deeply green as they were. And also, maybe, the simple fucking fact that she had character. Yeah, Essie was not part of that contingent who was on a collision course with any of the life climbers that might get in her way.

  "We're not even sure at this point if the wound wasn't self-inflicted," said Farr.

  Flesh turned to him at hearing this ugly possibility. "Accident?"

  "Or suicide."

  * * *

  FLESH AND Roy rode in an elevator up to the fourth floor, alone.

  "What did Farr say?"

  He knew her silence was directly aimed at him. "I was just trying to be—"

  "They said the shot could have been self-inflicted. They found Percodan and Valium on his desk."

  Roy sagged back against the wall. "It will kill Nathan."

  "Just think, if Taylor dies, you might get another shot at her."

  A matter of sheer reflex had Roy swinging that metal crutch, ready to come down on Flesh until she warned, "Go ahead. But when I'm done with you there won't be one charitable place in the world where you can go and try to run for public office."

  * * *

  IN A small waiting room near surgery Ivy Buckner searched out her reflection in the window's glassy black. The sacerdotal image of Taylor lying shot and dying haunted her thoughts. She felt as if the world were pressing in on her. As she tried to screen her face to see how it was holding up in these unnerving hours Roy and Flesh passed across her image entering the room.

  Ivy turned and started toward them. "You're finally here." The elegant black gown she wore made a soft ruffling sound as she hugged them both.

  "Where's Nathan?" Roy asked.

  "In the bathroom. He's sick."

  Roy turned to Flesh. "I'll go."

  She gave him a spare expression that seemed to say, "No, really."

  Once the two women were alone Ivy walked back to the window and stared out. Her folded hands made a small white ball. Flesh followed behind her. She saw the nails of one hand digging into the back of the other. Flesh tried to make small talk.

  "You look quite lovely tonight, Counselor."

  "The Southern Delta Association had one of its formal dinners. I dragged Nathan along." She glanced at the clock.

  "You're going to have to explain to me the magic of turning forty and looking as good as you do."

  A forced smile. "Small bouts of anorexia. A doctor who knows how to prescribe. And plenty of exercise."

  Flesh took cigarettes from her purse. Ivy pointed to the NO SMOKING sign. Flesh lit one anyway, then went and sat beneath that very sign. Again Ivy glanced at the clock.

  "He's been in surgery three hours."

  "At least he's still alive."

  Ivy's voice trailed off. "Yes."

  * * *

  THE BATHROOM was gray, empty and noiseless except for Nathan, in a stall, puking. Roy waited till the heaves slowed before calling, "Nathan?"

  A gagging breath. A spit. "Roy… that you?"

  "Your favorite charitable contribution has arrived."

  A toilet flushed. Roy watched as Nathan staggered out of the stall. The surface of his handsome face was drenched with sweat. He wiped the vomit from his mouth using the sleeve of his tuxedo coat.

  Nathan put a hand out for Roy to take but pulled it back on the chance it still carried traces of vomit. He bent to the sink and washed his mouth. He tried to wash the sleeve of his coat. As he did heart sounds came up through the deeps of his chest and throat. "My boy," the words seemed to blindly wobble out, "My boy."

  One hand, now clean, reached and took hold of Roy's coat. Roy fought to keep his crutches balanced on the tile floor. He found himself helpless. He wanted to take Nathan's hand but couldn't. He did not know how to untie himself and express this level of closeness and affection.

  There was a knock at the bathroom door, and Flesh calling to them.

  "What?" said Roy.

  She came in. Her mouth clipped in tightly at seeing Nathan so ravaged. "The doctor wants to talk to you."

  * * *

  EYES CLOSED, Essie went about the anxious task of praying Taylor wouldn't die. She felt someone move in beside her. She opened her eyes to find it was Flesh.

  "Hello, Francie."

  Flesh leaned against the wall by the sink. "You're the o
nly one who's never called me Flesh, you know that."

  Essie's head moved slightly her way, "I'm not sure you entirely appreciate that name… Any word from surgery?"

  "Nathan and the doctors were just going to talk when I came down."

  Essie knew now, the answer was in.

  Flesh saw there were streaks of dried blood down the back of Essie's shoulder. She reached for a paper towel, she wet it in the sink.

  "Taylor hadn't been right for days," said Essie. "I sensed something was wrong. I should have followed my instincts and questioned him."

  Flesh sat beside Essie. She took her arm and began to wipe at the blood— it was Taylor's blood. "Do you have any idea what was bothering him? Was there trouble?"

  Essie did not really hear her. She leaned forward and her gray-green eyes clouded. Nathan— Ivy— a doctor— with Roy steps behind them, were coming up the hallway. Up a long yellow tiled hallway. Their body language said it all.

  Chapter Five

  CHARLES GILL WAS a bank president who had been, and still could be, one fuckin' nasty session guitarist. We are talking a string player who lived the sonic addiction but was forced to opt out.

  He and some club soldiers from the Sacramento crib were in his private studio built on the family estate. He'd built it right, too. This is where you could get plugged in, plow it on and come out with something the pros would cream over.

  Tonight, Charles and his boys were passing all strategic arms limitations for sound. He'd bought a couple of Mesa Rectifiers that were driving two cabs with V-30's. The boys were into nothing but good time running the play book from Pink Floyd to God-smack.

  Charles was doing his renegade version of the first Pink Floyd solo on The Wall album when his private phone kicked in.

  * * *

  ROMERO'S VOICE came through in a clipped static. "Charles."

  Charles closed the studio door behind him and the music that had been stinging out across the lawn was stilled.

  "You on a cellular?"

  "Yeah."

  "Anything business we need to talk about, I'll see you on the dock."