F is for FUGITIVE Page 6

  The man on the stool next to mine on the right appeared to be in his sixties. He was big, with a beer belly that protruded like a twenty-five-pound bag of rice. His face was broad, connected to his neck by a series of double chins. There was even a roll of fat at the back of his neck where graying hair curled over his shirt collar. I’d seen him flick a curious look in my direction. The others in the bar seemed known to one another, judging from the banter, which had largely to do with local politics, old sporting grievances, and how drunk someone named Ace had been the night before. The sheepish Ace, tall, thin, jeans, denim jacket, and baseball cap, took a lot of ribbing about some behavior of his with old Betty, whom he’d apparently taken home with him. Ace seemed to revel in the accusations of misconduct, and since Betty wasn’t present to correct the impression, everyone assumed that he’d gotten laid.

  “Betty’s his ex-wife,” the man next to me said, in one of those casual asides meant to include me in the merriment. “She kicked him out four times, but she always takes him back. Yo, Daisy. How about some peanuts down here?”

  “I thought that was Pearl,” I remarked, to keep the conversation alive.

  “I’m Curtis Pearl,” he said. “Pearl to my friends.”

  Daisy scooped what looked like a dog dish full of peanuts from a garbage pail under the bar. The nuts were still in the shell, and the litter on the floor suggested what we were meant to do. Pearl surprised me by chomping down a peanut, shell and all. “We’re talkin’ fiber here,” he said. “It’s good for you. I got a doctor believes in cellulose. Fills you up, he says. Gets the old system powerin’ through.”

  I shrugged and tried it myself. No doubt about it, the shell had a lot of crunch and a sharp infusion of salt mingled nicely with the bland taste of the nut inside. Did this count as grain, or was it the same as eating the panel from a cardboard box?

  The jukebox sparked to life again, this time a mellow vocalist who sounded like a cross between Frank Sinatra and Delia Reese. The two women at the end of the bar began to dance again. Both were dark-haired, both slim. One taller. Pearl turned to look at them and then back at me. “That bother you?”

  “Why should I care?”

  “Not what it looks like anyway,” he said. “Tall one likes to dance when she’s feeling blue.”

  “What’s she got to be unhappy about?”

  “They just picked up the fellow killed her little girl a few years back.”

  Chapter 7

  *

  I watched her for a moment. At a distance of half the bar, she looked twenty-five. She had her eyes closed, head tilted to one side. Her face was heart-shaped, her hair caught up in a clip on top, the lower portion brushing across her shoulder in a rhythm with the ballad. The light from the jukebox touched her cheek with gold. The woman she was dancing with had her back to me, so I couldn’t tell anything about her at all.

  Pearl was sketching in the story for me with the practiced tone of frequent telling. No details I hadn’t heard before, but I was thankful he’d introduced the subject without any further prompting on my part. He was just warming up, enjoying his role as tribal narrator. “You staying at the Ocean Street? I ask because this fella’s dad owns that place.”

  “Really,” I said.

  “Yep. They found her down on the beach right in front,” he said. Residents of Floral Beach had been telling this tale for years. Like a stand-up comedian, he had his timing down pat, knowing just when to pause, knowing just what response he’d get.

  I had to watch what I said because I didn’t want to imply I knew nothing of this. While I’m not averse to lying through my teeth, I never do it when I’m apt to be caught. People get crabby about that sort of thing. “Actually, I know Royce.”

  “Aw, then you know all about this.”

  “Well, some. You really think Bailey did it? Royce says no.”

  “Hard to say. Naturally, he’d deny anything of the sort. None of us want to believe our kids would kill someone.”

  “True enough.”

  “You have kids?”

  “Unh-unh.”

  “My boy was the one who spotted the two of ‘em pulling into the curb that night. They got out of the truck with a bottle and a blanket and went down the steps. Said Bailey looked drunk as a skunk to him and she wasn’t much better off. Probably went down there to misbehave, if you get what I mean. Maybe she sprung it on him she was in a family way.”

  “Hey, there. How’s that little Heinie car acting?”

  I glanced back to see Tap behind me, a sly grin on his face.

  Pearl didn’t seem thrilled to see him, but he made polite noises with his mouth. “Say, Tap.

  What’re you up to? I thought that old lady of yours didn’t like you comin’ in here.”

  “Aw, she don’t care. Who’s this we’re talking to?”

  “I’m Kinsey. How’re you?”

  Pearl raised an eyebrow. “You two know each other?”

  “She had her bug in this afternoon and wanted me to take a look. Said it was kind of whiny up around sixty. Whiny Heinie,” he said, and got real tickled with himself. At close range, I could smell the pomade on his hair.

  Pearl turned and stared at him. “You got something against the Germans?”

  “Who, me?”

  “My folks is German, so you better make it good.”

  “Naw, hell. I don’t care. That Nazi business wasn’t such a bad idea. Hey, Daisy. Gimme a beer. And hand me a bag of them barbecued potato chips. Big one. This gal looks like she could use a bite to eat. I’m Tap.” He hiked himself up on the barstool to my left. He was the sort of man who saved his handshakes for meetings with other men. A woman, if known to him, might warrant a pat on the butt. As a stranger, I lucked out.

  “What kind of name is Tap?” I asked.

  Pearl cut in. “Short for tapioca. He’s a real puddin’ head.”

  Tap cut loose with a laugh again, but he didn’t seem that amused. Daisy showed up with the beer and chips so I never did find out what Tap was short for.

  “We’re just talking about your old friend Bailey,” Pearl said. “She’s stayin’ down at the Ocean Street and Royce is fillin’ her head full of all kind of thing.”

  “Aw, that Bailey’s something else,” Tap said. “He’s quick. He had a million schemes. Talk you into anything. We had us a good time, I can tell you that.”

  “I just bet you did,” Pearl said. He was seated on my right, Tap on my left, the two of them conversing back and forth across me like a tennis match.

  “Made more money than you ever seen,” Tap said.

  “Tap and him did a little business together in the old days,” Pearl said to me, his tone confidential.

  “Really. What kind of business?”

  “Now come on, Pearl. She doesn’t want to hear about that stuff.”

  “Eat a man’s chips, you might want to know what kind of company you’re in.”

  Tap was starting to squirm. “I straightened myself up now and that’s a fact. I got me a good wife and kids and I keep my nose clean.”

  I leaned toward Pearl with mock concern. “What’d he do, Pearl? Am I safe with this man?”

  Pearl loved it. He was looking for ways to prolong the aggravation. “I’d keep a hand on my wallet if I was you. Him and Bailey took to putting ladies’ panties on their heads… stickin’ up gas stations with their little toy guns.”

  “Pearl! Now, goddamn. You know that ain’t true.”

  Tap apparently wasn’t good at being teased about these things. His choice was to let the story stand, or make corrections that would perhaps have him looking even worse.

  Pearl retracted his statement with all the contrition of a prosecuting attorney who knows the jury’s already got the point. “Oh hell, I’m sorry. You’re right, Tap. There was only the one gun,” Pearl said. “Tap, here, carried it.”

  “Well, it wasn’t my idea in the first place and the damn thing wasn’t loaded.”

  “Bailey thought up the
gun. It was Tap’s idea about the ladies’ underpants.”

  Tap made a stab at recovering. “This guy don’t know ladies’ pants from panty hose. That’s his problem. We had stockings pulled over our faces.”

  “Kept gettin’ runs in the hose,” Pearl said, ad-libbing. “Spent all their profits at the five-and-dime buyin’ more.”

  “Don’t mind him. He’s jealous is all. We got them panty hose off that wife of his. She put her legs up and they come right off.” Tap snickered at himself. Pearl didn’t seem to take offense.

  I allowed myself to laugh, more from discomfort than amusement. It was odd being caught between these two male energies. It felt like the equivalent of two dogs barking at each other across the safety of a fence.

  There was a commotion at the far end of the bar, and Pearl’s attention strayed. Daisy, standing close to us, seemed to understand what it was about. “Jukebox is broke again. It’s been eating quarters all day. Darryl claims he’s down a dollar twenty-five.”

  “Give him back his money from the register and I’ll take a look.” Pearl eased off the stool and moved down to the jukebox. Shana Timberlake was still dancing, by herself this time, to music no one else could hear. There was a touch of exhibitionism in her grief, and a couple of guys playing pool were eyeing her with undisguised interest, calculating the odds of cashing in on her mood. I’ve known women like that, who use their troubles as a reason to get laid, as if sex were a balm with healing properties.

  Once Pearl absented himself, the tension level in the air dropped by half and I could feel Tap relax. “Hey, Daze. Gimme another beer, here, babe. This is Crazy Daisy. She’s worked for Pearl since before the rocks cooled.”

  Daisy glanced at me. “How about it? You ready for another one?”

  Tap caught her eye. “Go ahead and make it two. On me.”

  I smiled briefly. “Thanks. That’s nice.”

  “I didn’t want you to think you were settin’ here with a crook.”

  “He sure likes to hassle you, doesn’t he?”

  “Now that’s the truth,” Tap said. He reared back and looked at me, surprised that anyone but he had picked up on it. “He don’t mean any harm by it, but it gets on my nerves, I can tell you that. If this wasn’t the only bar in town, I’d tell him to get… well, I’d tell him what he could do with it.”

  “Really. Anyone can make mistakes,” I said. “I pulled all kinds of pranks when I was a kid. I’m just lucky I didn’t get caught. Not that sticking up gas stations is a prank, of course.”

  “That ain’t even the half of it. That’s just what they nailed us for,” he said. A slight note of bragging had crept into his tone. I’d heard it before, usually from men who longed for the remembered hype of past sports triumphs. I seldom thought of crime as a peak experience, but Tap might.

  I said, “Listen, if we got nailed for everything we did, we’d all be in jail.”

  He laughed. “Hey, I like you. I like your attitude.”

  Daisy brought our beers and I watched while Tap pulled out a ten. “Run us a tab,” he said to her.

  She picked up the bill and moved back toward the register where I saw her make a note. Meanwhile, Tap studied me, trying to figure out where I was coming from. “I bet you never robbed nobody at gunpoint.”

  “No, but my old man did,” I said easily. “Did time for it, too.” Oh, I liked that. The lie rolled right off my tongue without a moment’s thought.

  “You’re b.s.-in’ me. Your old man did time? Don’t give me that. Where?” The “where” came out sounding like “were.”

  “Lompoc,” I said.

  “That’s federal,” he said. “What’d he do, rob a bank?”

  I pointed at him, aiming my ringer like a gun.

  “Goddamn,” he said. “Goddamn.” He was excited now, as if he’d just found out my father was a former president. “How’d he get caught?”

  I shrugged. “He’d been picked up before for passing bad checks, so they just matched the prints on the note he handed the teller. He never even had a chance to spend the money.”

  “And you never done any time yourself?”

  “Not me. I’m a real law-and-order type.”

  “That’s good. You keep that up. You’re too nice to get mixed up with prison types. Women are the worst. Do all kind of things. I’ve heard tales that’d make your hair stand right up on end. And not the hair on your head neither.”

  “I’ll bet,” I said. I changed the subject, not wanting to lie any more than I had to. “How many kids you got?”

  “Here, lemme show you,” he said, reaching in his back pocket. He took out his wallet and flipped it open to a photo tucked in the window where his driver’s license should have been. “That’s Joleen.”

  The woman staring out of the picture looked young and somewhat amazed. Four little children surrounded her, scrubbed, grinning, and shiny-faced. The oldest was a boy, probably nine, snaggle-toothed, his hair still visibly damp where she’d combed it into a pompadour just like his dad’s. Two girls came next, probably six and eight. A plump-armed baby boy was perched on his mother’s lap. The picture had been shot in a studio, the five of them posed in the midst of a faux picnic scene complete with a red-and-white checked cloth and artificial tree branches overhead. The baby held a fake apple in one chubby fist like a ball.

  “Well, they’re cute,” I said, hoping he didn’t pick up on the note of astonishment.

  “They’re rascals,” he said fondly. “This was last year. She’s pregnant again. She’s wishin’ she didn’t have to work, but we do pretty good.”

  “What’s she do?”

  “She’s a nurse’s aide up at Community Hospital on the orthopedic ward, night shift. She’ll work eleven to seven. Then she gets home and I take off, drop the kids at school, and swing back around to the station. We got a babysitter for the little guy. I don’t know quite what we’ll do when the new one comes along.”

  “You’ll figure something out,” I said.

  “I guess,” he said. He flopped the wallet shut and tucked it back in his pocket.

  I bought a round of beers and then he bought one. I felt guilty about getting the poor man sloshed, but I had another question or two for him and I wanted his inhibitions out of the way. Meanwhile, the population in the bar was thinning down from ten to maybe six. I noticed, with regret, that Shana Timberlake had left. The jukebox had been fixed and the volume of the music was just loud enough to guarantee privacy without being so obtrusive we’d be forced to shout. I was relaxed, but not as loose as I allowed Tap to think. I gave his arm a bump.

  “Tell me something,” I said soddenly. “I’m just curious.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How much money did you and this Bailey fellow net?”

  “Net?”

  “In round numbers. About how much you make? I’m just asking. You don’t have to say.”

  “We paid restitution on two thousand some-odd dollar.”

  “Two thousand? Bull. You made more than that,” I said.

  Tap flushed with pleasure. “You think so?”

  “Even bumpin’ off gas stations, you made more, I bet.”

  “That’s all I ever saw,” he said.

  “That’s all they caught you for,” I said, correcting him.

  “That’s all I put in my pocket. And that’s the honest truth.”

  “But how much else? How much altogether?”

  Tap studied up on that one, extending his chin, pulling at his lip in a parody of deep thought. “In the neighborhood, I would say, of… would you believe, forty-two thousand six hundred and six.”

  “Who got that? Bailey got that?”

  “Oh, it’s gone now. He never did see a dime of it neither, as far as I know.”

  “Where’d it come from?”

  “Couple little jobs we pulled they never found out about.”

  I laughed with delight. “Well, you old devil, you,” I said, and gave his arm another push. “Where�
�d it go?”

  “Beats me.”

  I laughed again and he got tickled, too. Somehow, it seemed like the funniest thing either of us ever heard. After half a minute, the laughter trickled out and Tap shook his head.

  “Whoo, that’s good,” he said. “I haven’t laughed like that since I don’t know when.”

  “You think Bailey killed that little girl?”

  “Don’t know,” he said, “but I will tell you this. When we went off to jail? We give the money to Jean Timberlake to hold. He got out and next thing I know, she’s dead and he says he don’t know where the money’s at. It was long gone.”

  “Why didn’t you get it when the two of you got out?”

  “Ah, no. Huh-unh. The cops prob’ly had their eye on us, waitin’ to see if we’d make a move. Goddamn. Everybody figured he killed her for sure. Me, I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like him. Then again, she might of spent all the money and he choked her in a fit.”

  “Naw. I don’t believe that. I thought Pearl said she was knocked up.”

  “Well, she was, but Bailey wouldn’t kill her for that. What’s the point? The money’s all we cared about, and why in hell not? We done jail time. We paid. We get out and we’re too smart to start throwin’ cash around. We laid low. After she died, Bailey told me she was the only one knew for sure where it was and she never told. He didn’t want to know in case he ever had to take a lie detector test. Gone for good by now. Or maybe it’s still hid, only nobody knows where.”

  “Maybe he has it after all. Maybe that’s what he’s lived on the whole time he’s been gone.”

  “I don’t know. I doubt it, but I’d sure like to have me a little talk with him.”

  “What do you think, though? Honestly.”

  “The honest truth?” he said, fixing me with a look. He leaned closer, winking. “I think I gotta go see a man about a dog. Don’t go “way now.” He eased off the stool. He turned and pointed a finger at me solemnly like a gun. I fired a digit right back at him. He proceeded to the John, walking with the exaggerated nonchalance of a man who’s drunk.

  I waited fifteen minutes, nursing my beer, with an occasional glance at the door to the unisex facility. The woman who’d been dancing with Shana Timberlake was now playing pool with a kid who looked eighteen. It was nearly midnight by then, and Daisy started cleaning off the bar with a rag.