Riders on the Storm Read online

I drove to a Mexican restaurant called “Carlos’.” He was smart. Seeing where I was going he pulled into a parking space across the street and waited till I went inside. I was pretty sure he had no idea that I’d finally spotted him.

  From my booth I could see him. An older man a little slumped in the driver’s seat. He’d occasionally glance over at me and I’d glance away. Eye tag.

  I had a taco and a glass of Pepsi. The Pepsi was warmer than the taco. I’d have to remember not to come in here again.

  After relieving myself in the john, I walked through the kitchen and out the back door. Numerous pairs of eyes watched me. One man said, “Hey.” But I didn’t wait to find out if that was a friendly “Hey” or an unfriendly one.

  There was an alley across the street. There would be no way he could see me from where he was parked.

  The old battered garages in this poor neighborhood reminded me of my boyhood in the Hills. Everything there had been in a perpetual state of rot and falling-down, too, but alleys and half-collapsed garages had been a fine place to sail the imaginary seas you saw in all those Technicolor pirate movies or to hide behind huge pretend boulders to shoot at bad guys who populated all the B Western movies.

  I came out a block behind him. The temperature had to be approaching ninety because even this slight bit of exercise soaked my shirt. He wouldn’t be having that problem. Even at four years of age his car probably had air conditioning.

  I had had to cross a street, which gave him the opportunity to see me. Now I walked up the sidewalk leading to his car, which gave him another opportunity. From what I could tell he didn’t ever glance in his rearview or look around.

  I opened the passenger-side door before he could do anything about it. But then he didn’t have to do anything about it because he was holding a Smith & Wesson Model 586 with the four-inch barrel pointed directly at me. He had one of those old-time smooth radio voices that suggested both manliness and more than a hint of irony.

  “That looked like a terrible place to eat, McCain.” But before I could say anything, he said, “It’s too hot to keep the door open. Get in and sit down. And if you’re with weapon, please put it in my glove compartment.”

  With weapon. Despite the situation I liked that.

  “No weapon.”

  “Good.”

  I sat.

  He resembled the actor Robert Montgomery. Intelligent, slightly slick manliness. Gray-streaked hair combed straight back; the blue gaze probably not as strong as he would have liked. Still looked good in the somewhat worn three-piece suit.

  Now that I could see him close-up the fine features and baritone voice were all that was left of a man who had, most likely, seen better days. The right arm was dead, just hung there. And as I watched him he convulsed almost imperceptibly. Even so, in snapshot he looked like all the upscale private investigators on the covers of the used mystery pulps I used to buy for three cents apiece.

  “Stroke.”

  “I’m sorry. And I’d be even sorrier if you weren’t pointing that at me.”

  “My apologies. I never liked it when somebody pointed a gun at me, either.” He set the gun on his lap.

  Then we just sat and looked at each other for a minute.

  “We’re doing the same thing, McCain.”

  “Yeah, and what would that be?” But I had a pretty good idea.

  “You haven’t figured it out by now?”

  “You’re a private investigator.”

  “That’s right.”

  And then—the air of dash, the sleek patter, the stroke—I recognized who he really was.

  “You’re Gordon Niven.”

  “At your service. And in case you’re wondering how I can still get work, I do it all by phone and mail. I sound pretty sturdy on the phone. They call me and tell me their problem and I agree to help them on my own terms. Not everyone agrees but at least thirty or forty percent do.”

  In Des Moines there was this legendary investigator named Gordon Niven. He’d been a bona fide spy in the big war and the highest-priced private investigator in Chicago for the fifteen years following it. Then he fell in love with the wife of a prominent radio host. She left her carousing and abusive husband on the condition that they settle in Des Moines, her hometown. His work crisscrossed the state. He broke up counterfeiting rings, drug rings, seditionist rings and did every other kind of investigative work as well. He built and lived on a giant sprawl of an estate and never quite quit courting his new wife. I’d read his interviews in the paper. Despite his usually polished demeanor he still got downright corny about her. But I thought I’d heard a rumor that they’d split up.

  “You mind if I ask why you’re following me?”

  “I need some help.” He clapped his dead arm. “There’s this and there’s the fact that you may be the man who’ll help me finish up what I’m doing here and get back home. My wife and I have reconciled. I miss her. And frankly, I’m tired.”

  “Maybe I could be of more help if you told me what’s going on.”

  “That would violate the private-eye code.”

  “What private-eye code?”

  “Haven’t you ever read your Raymond Chandler?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, Marlowe adheres to a strict moral code. In fact Marlowe is why I got into this business after the war. Spying’s a very dirty game. I had to kill two people and let someone I liked be tortured to death. No moral code in spying. The opposite, if anything. Then I happened to read Farewell, My Lovely and as ridiculous as it sounds I realized that that was a field where I could make my own moral code and not be forced to violate it.”

  Here I was sitting with a living legend who was telling me that he partially became a living legend because of Philip Marlowe.

  “So when do I get to know what’s going on?”

  With his good hand he waved me off. “Go somewhere interesting, will you, McCain? So far this has been pretty boring.” The grin made it clear he was kidding me.

  “I’ll do what I can for you, your Lord and Majesty.”

  “You have to admit, you’re at least a little bit pleased to be working with me.”

  I sure as hell wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him.

  “Take care of yourself, McCain. I’m relying on you.”

  I got out of the car and started walking to the rear of it when I looked through the backseat window and saw three manila file folders spread across it. The folders didn’t interest me but the black-and-white photograph of the woman lying on one of them did.

  Her image stayed with me all the way back to my car.

  What the hell was Gordon Niven doing with a photo of Steve Donovan’s wife Valerie?

  Part Two

  “Our numbers have increased in Vietnam because the aggression of others has increased in Vietnam. There is not, and there will not be, a mindless escalation.”

  —Lyndon B. Johnson

  11

  JAMIE WAS JUST TELLING ME THAT CHIEF FOSTER HAD CALLED wanting to talk to me when Foster himself walked through the doorway and said, “I was headed to the courthouse but when I saw your car I thought I’d stop in.”

  In order to see my car Foster would have to pull into an alley and check the space allotted for three cars. Not quite as casual as he made it sound.

  “Think I could get a few minutes of your time?”

  “Sure.”

  He glanced at the back of Jamie’s head. “Kind of stuffy in here. How about we go sit on the steps.”

  “Who wants to be in air conditioning when you can soak in the ninety-degree temperature?”

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  I went down the hall and dragged a couple of Pepsis out of the vending machine and then followed him out the door. Nothing more comfortable than concrete steps.

  “You want to go first, Sam?”

  “Oh, the working together thing.”

  “You have the edge. You know this town a lot better
than I do.”

  “Well, one thing I’ve found out is that I think Lon Anders and Steve Donovan may have had a falling-out over business.”

  “And why would you think that?”

  “I talked to Donovan’s old business partner. He said that Anders wanted the business all to himself. That being the case, maybe Anders killed Donovan.”

  Two kids with Dracula T-shirts came strolling down the alley toward us. I’d seen them many times before. They liked to sit on a nearby deserted loading platform and smoke cigarettes. Foster’s black hard-ass Mercury with its whip antenna said police. The kids glared at us as they passed by. They had squatters’ rights on the loading platform. This was summer vacation. Kids were supposed to do what they wanted with no adult interference.

  “Guess I’d need some more evidence than that. The way Anders tells it, Carmichael almost ruined the company.”

  “Then there’s a guy named Teddy Byrnes.”

  “Donovan’s cousin?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Why would Byrnes kill his meal ticket?”

  “Because he’s insane. Maybe Donovan pissed him off. You don’t piss off Teddy Byrnes.”

  Then it was his turn. He was so laid back he probably didn’t need Valium for his colonoscopy. No problem, man. Just shove it right in there. I’m fine.

  Everything he’d learned pointed to Will being the killer. He’d interviewed Anders (“By the way, he told me that he’d like to set you on fire and then drown you; I have to admit that the boy has a temper.”) and Anders was home from seven o’clock to six thirty this morning when he woke up. His lady friend would testify to that. “That isn’t necessarily a great alibi but nobody seems to have seen him in or around the crime scene. And believe me, with that car of his just about everybody would’ve noticed him.”

  “Maybe he drove a different car.”

  “Maybe. But the difference between Anders and Cullen is that people can place Cullen at the crime scene. And then there’s the matter of motive. Donovan had humiliated him.”

  “Cullen went looking for him to make things right. To apologize.”

  The pipe came out again. He filled it, tamped it, lighted it. Some men look so damned comfortable with themselves when they smoke their pipes. Cigarettes are for nervous, uptight people. Like me most of the time.

  “And there he sits, Sam. He can’t help me and he can’t help you. And he can’t help himself. He just sits there or lies there and he’s beyond reaching.”

  The pipe smoke was almost exhilarating. I wanted to run right down to the tobacco shop and buy myself one. A good one. One that would make me look serious and contemplative. People whispering behind your back, “That little bastard is a genius.”

  “So you’re fixated on Will.”

  “Sam, give me somebody else to be fixated on and I’ll jump right across.”

  I slapped a mosquito with so much force against my cheek that I could feel pain in my forehead. A mistake. I didn’t want one of those military hospital headaches.

  “Bring me what I need and Will’s a free man.”

  “You don’t really believe he’s guilty, do you?”

  “Now you don’t really think I’d give you an honest opinion on that, do you? I’m not very bright but I’m not dumb enough to say that to his lawyer. We go to trial and you put me on the stand and make me say that I told you I didn’t think he was guilty—”

  “Then you do think he’s innocent.”

  “He could be but right now I’d have to say that he looks guilty. I keep telling you to look at the evidence. You keep denying any possibility that he’s guilty. But if you could be even a bit objective—”

  “I think I can be. I think I am.”

  “Well, I hope for your sake you’re right. Because otherwise I’m afraid you’re wasting your time.”

  And with that he stood up with his pipe and his skeptical police eye and reached out and offered me his hand.

  “If you come up with something new—”

  “I’ll let you know.” I almost said “Paul” but I was not going to give in to that.

  I watched him walk to his car and then we exchanged a wave and I went back inside to the civilizing effects of air conditioning.

  Kate was the star. You couldn’t not watch her. She was four and dressed in a blue sweatshirt with a cartoon cat on it. Presumably the cat was from a Saturday morning show sponsored by one cereal or another. She was possessed of amused blue eyes and blond hair that looked so soft it would probably disintegrate if you touched it.

  Nicole was five and intensely serious. Her dark hair and dark eyes were almost perfect matches for her mother’s. Every once in a while as we ate she would fix her eyes on the wonderfully childish Kate with a disdain befitting royalty.

  Maybe it was because of the green linen tablecloth and all the darker green dishes and coffee cups and cloth napkins that I had second helpings of roast beef and mashed potatoes. It had been quite a while since I’d had a family meal.

  Then as the sky in the dining room windows turned into violet night, Mary announced that it was time for the girls to take their baths and get ready for bed.

  I got kisses from both the girls. Kate’s was earnest and a little sloppy. Nicole’s was dry and quick

  And just then I realized that in her quiet and proper way there was something like sorrow in those dark eyes of hers. And then I thought—I catch on quick—of what she’d been through with her parents these past few years. The rancor and anger. Maybe Kate wasn’t old enough yet to completely understand what was happening. Certainly she would have understood the rage of both parents. That would have been terrifying. But Nicole was old enough—and certainly bright enough—to know the implications of all the torment. Her father would never live with them again. The people who had comprised her family would never be her family again. I gave her a hug.

  Kate said she wanted to show me her cat drawing but Mary said some other time. “Kate’s a genius at thinking up reasons not to take her bath.”

  Then she hustled them off with Kate throwing “’Night” over her shoulder.

  After Mary came back, I said, “You remember that job I had in high school washing dishes over at Romano’s Pizza?”

  “You’re going to tell me that you miss washing dishes.”

  “Not washing them, drying them.”

  “I see. Well, I’m certainly not going to stop you.”

  For the first five minutes in the kitchen we made out. My hands were all over her and she was all over me.

  Then Kate called out for her and we had to give up those ferocious high school sex moments.

  When she came back she said, “Kate couldn’t find her walrus.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  “We were at the dime store one day and she saw this cheap little stuffed walrus and begged me to buy it for her. She was two. It’s like some kind of lucky charm or something. Somehow it had fallen behind her bed. I got it for her and she gave me one of those hugs you can never forget.”

  “You’re a good mother.”

  “I could be a lot better, believe me.”

  “Oh, right, I forgot what a terrible woman you really are.”

  “You’ve always kind of idealized me, Sam. I’ve always wanted to say that to you but the right time never came around. This is the right time. You boys in high school and college always said ‘She’s the kind of girl you marry’ or something like that. I think that’s how you’ve always thought of me. I don’t literally mean marrying me but that I was the ‘good’ girl or something like that and Pamela was the bad one. But Pamela wasn’t bad; she was just confused about her real feelings. And I wasn’t all good, either. I lost my virginity when I was sixteen. I lied because I knew you’d lose respect for me if I didn’t.”

  Well, there you go. She’d told me that I was the first lover she’d ever had. And that was when we were out of high school.

  This was the seventies. I indulged in liquor, grass and sex. I’d lost my
religious faith, I’d lost most of my faith in the political system and I knew how corrupt our system of justice was. And if I had to sit down and count up the number of lies I’d told in my life, a fair share to women I’d cared about, I would be one hundred and thirty-four before I could stand up again.

  But this hurt me, what she said.

  “I’m sorry I lied to you, Sam.”

  “Oh, that’s all right.”

  “Sam, I’m standing right here and I can see that it’s not all right. I lied and I’m sorry. And it was only once and the next time I slept with anybody it was you.”

  I proudly kept a book on feminism on my coffee table to show the young ladies I tried to charm that I was no Cro-Magnon macho moron. But here I was trapped in that old virgin trap. I’d always thought I was the first with Mary.

  “Slap me.”

  “What?”

  “Slap me.”

  “Sam, are you all right?”

  “No, I’m not all right. I’m thinking like morons think.”

  “And how would that be?”

  “I don’t want to say. That’s why I want you to slap me. Bring me to my senses.”

  “Either you’re mad at me for lying to you or you’re mad at me because you weren’t the first.”

  “The first.”

  “The lying?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “And a little because of the second.”

  “Because I wasn’t a virgin when we finally slept together?”

  “Yeah, a little bit of that.”

  “Sam, please don’t be like my brother.”

  “Stan?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about him?”

  “He has this wonderful girlfriend. And she really is wonderful. And he loves her. I’ve never seen him like this, but he won’t marry her.”

  “Because she’s not a virgin?”

  “Exactly.”

  “He lost his virginity when he was fourteen.”

  “He told you that, Sam?”

  “No, my dad caught him in the back of his old panel truck.”

  “God, I can’t believe how he’s been about this whole thing. About not being able to marry her. This is the seventies. Girls have as much right to have sex as boys. I know how it’s killing him. One night he started crying about it. I just held him the way I did when he was little and he got hurt or somebody had said something mean to him. He’d never admit it but he’s pretty sensitive. And then it wasn’t funny or even ridiculous anymore because I could see it was tearing him apart. How much he loved her and wanted to marry her but couldn’t because of this stupid idea he had in his head.”