Mr. Mercedes Page 5

  Mostly, though, it was him. Brady Hartsfield. Credit where credit is due. City Center was a sledgehammer. On Olivia Trelawney, he used a scalpel.

  "Are you listening to me?" Freddi asks.

  He smiles. "Guess I drifted away there for a minute."

  Never tell a lie when you can tell the truth. The truth isn't always the safest course, but mostly it is. He wonders idly what she'd say if he told her, Freddi, I am the Mercedes Killer. Or if he said, Freddi, there are nine pounds of homemade plastic explosive in my basement closet.

  She is looking at him as if she can read these thoughts, and Brady has a moment of unease. Then she says, "It's working two jobs, pal. That'll wear you down."

  "Yes, but I'd like to get back to college, and nobody's going to pay for it but me. Also there's my mother."

  "The wino."

  He smiles. "My mother is actually more of a vodka-o."

  "Invite me over," Freddi says grimly. "I'll drag her to a fucking AA meeting."

  "Wouldn't work. You know what Dorothy Parker said, right? You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think."

  Freddi considers this for a moment, then throws back her head and voices a Marlboro-raspy laugh. "I don't know who Dorothy Parker is, but I'm gonna save that one." She sobers. "Seriously, why don't you just ask Frobisher for more hours? That other job of yours is strictly rinky-dink."

  "I'll tell you why he doesn't ask Frobisher for more hours," Frobisher says, stepping out onto the loading platform. Anthony Frobisher is young and geekily bespectacled. In this he is like most of the Discount Electronix employees. Brady is also young, but better-looking than Tones Frobisher. Not that this makes him handsome. Which is okay. Brady is willing to settle for nondescript.

  "Lay it on us," Freddi says, and mashes her cigarette out. Across the loading zone behind the big-box store, which anchors the south end of the Birch Hill Mall, are the employees' cars (mostly old beaters) and three VW Beetles painted bright green. These are always kept spotless, and late-spring sun twinkles on their windshields. On the sides, in blue, is COMPUTER PROBLEMS? CALL THE DISCOUNT ELECTRONIX CYBER PATROL!

  "Circuit City is gone and Best Buy is tottering," Frobisher says in a schoolteacherly voice. "Discount Electronix is also tottering, along with several other businesses that are on life support thanks to the computer revolution: newspapers, book publishers, record stores, and the United States Postal Service. Just to mention a few."

  "Record stores?" Freddi asks, lighting another cigarette. "What are record stores?"

  "That's a real gut-buster," Frobisher says. "I have a friend who claims dykes lack a sense of humor, but--"

  "You have friends?" Freddi asks. "Wow. Who knew?"

  "--but you obviously prove him wrong. You guys don't have more hours because the company is now surviving on computers alone. Mostly cheap ones made in China and the Philippines. The great majority of our customers no longer want the other shit we sell." Brady thinks only Tones Frobisher would say the great majority. "This is partly because of the technological revolution, but it's also because--"

  Together, Freddi and Brady chant, "--Barack Obama is the worst mistake this country ever made!"

  Frobisher regards them sourly for a moment, then says, "At least you listen. Brady, you're off at two, is that correct?"

  "Yes. My other gig starts at three."

  Frobisher wrinkles the overlarge schnozzola in the middle of his face to show what he thinks of Brady's other job. "Did I hear you say something about returning to school?"

  Brady doesn't reply to this, because anything he says might be the wrong thing. Anthony "Tones" Frobisher must not know that Brady hates him. Fucking loathes him. Brady hates everybody, including his drunk mother, but it's like that old country song says: no one has to know right now.

  "You're twenty-eight, Brady. Old enough so you no longer have to rely on shitty pool coverage to insure your automobile--which is good--but a little too old to be training for a career in electrical engineering. Or computer programming, for that matter."

  "Don't be a turd," Freddi says. "Don't be a Tones Turd."

  "If telling the truth makes a man a turd, then a turd I shall be."

  "Yeah," Freddi says. "You'll go down in history. Tones the Truth-Telling Turd. Kids will learn about you in school."

  "I don't mind a little truth," Brady says quietly.

  "Good. You can don't-mind all the time you're cataloguing and stickering DVDs. Starting now."

  Brady nods good-naturedly, stands up, and dusts the seat of his pants. The Discount Electronix fifty-percent-off sale starts the following week; management in New Jersey has mandated that DE must be out of the digital-versatile-disc business by January of 2011. That once profitable line of merchandise has been strangled by Netflix and Redbox. Soon there will be nothing in the store but home computers (made in China and the Philippines) and flat-screen TVs, which in this deep recession few can afford to buy.

  "You," Frobisher says, turning to Freddi, "have an out-call." He hands her a pink work invoice. "Old lady with a screen freeze. That's what she says it is, anyway."

  "Yes, mon capitan. I live to serve." She stands up, salutes, and takes the call-sheet he holds out.

  "Tuck your shirt in. Put on your cap so your customer doesn't have to be disgusted by that weird haircut. Don't drive too fast. Get another ticket and life as you know it on the Cyber Patrol is over. Also, pick up your fucking cigarette butts before you go."

  He disappears inside before she can return his serve.

  "DVD stickers for you, an old lady with a CPU probably full of graham cracker crumbs for me," Freddi says, jumping down and putting her hat on. She gives the bill a gangsta twist and starts across to the VWs without even glancing at her cigarette butts. She does pause long enough to look back at Brady, hands on her nonexistent boy hips. "This is not the life I pictured for myself when I was in the fifth grade."

  "Me, either," Brady says quietly.

  He watches her putt away, on a mission to rescue an old lady who's probably going crazy because she can't download her favorite mock-apple pie recipe. This time Brady wonders what Freddi would say if he told her what life was like for him when he was a kid. That was when he killed his brother. And his mother covered it up.

  Why would she not?

  After all, it had sort of been her idea.

  12

  As Brady is slapping yellow 50% OFF stickers on old Quentin Tarantino movies and Freddi is helping out elderly Mrs. Vera Willkins on the West Side (it's her keyboard that's full of crumbs, it turns out), Bill Hodges is turning off Lowbriar, the four-lane street that bisects the city and gives Lowtown its name, and in to the parking lot beside DeMasio's Italian Ristorante. He doesn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to know Pete got here first. Hodges parks next to a plain gray Chevrolet sedan with blackwall tires that just about scream city police and gets out of his old Toyota, a car that just about screams old retired fella. He touches the hood of the Chevrolet. Warm. Pete has not beaten him by much.

  He pauses for a moment, enjoying this almost-noon morning with its bright sunshine and sharp shadows, looking at the overpass a block down. It's been gang-tagged up the old wazoo, and although it's empty now (noon is breakfast time for the younger denizens of Lowtown), he knows that if he walked under there, he would smell the sour reek of cheap wine and whiskey. His feet would grate on the shards of broken bottles. In the gutters, more bottles. The little brown kind.

  No longer his problem. Besides, the darkness beneath the overpass is empty, and Pete is waiting for him. Hodges goes in and is pleased when Elaine at the hostess stand smiles and greets him by name, although he hasn't been here for months. Maybe even a year. Of course Pete is in one of the booths, already raising a hand to him, and Pete might have refreshed her memory, as the lawyers say.

  He raises his own hand in return, and by the time he gets to the booth, Pete is standing beside it, arms raised to envelop him in a bearhug. They thump each other on the back the
requisite number of times and Pete tells him he's looking good.

  "You know the three Ages of Man, don't you?" Hodges asks.

  Pete shakes his head, grinning.

  "Youth, middle age, and you look fuckin terrific."

  Pete roars with laughter and asks if Hodges knows what the blond said when she opened the box of Cheerios. Hodges says he does not. Pete makes big amazed eyes and says, "Oh! Look at the cute little doughnut seeds!"

  Hodges gives his own obligatory roar of laughter (although he does not think this a particularly witty example of Genus Blond), and with the amenities thus disposed of, they sit down. A waiter comes over--no waitresses in DeMasio's, only elderly men who wear spotless aprons tied up high on their narrow chicken chests--and Pete orders a pitcher of beer. Bud Lite, not Ivory Special. When it comes, Pete raises his glass.

  "Here's to you, Billy, and life after work."

  "Thanks."

  They click and drink. Pete asks about Allie and Hodges asks about Pete's son and daughter. Their wives, both of the ex variety, are touched upon (as if to prove to each other--and themselves--that they are not afraid to talk about them) and then banished from the conversation. Food is ordered. By the time it comes, they have finished with Hodges's two grandchildren and have analyzed the chances of the Cleveland Indians, which happens to be the closest major league team. Pete has ravioli, Hodges spaghetti with garlic and oil, what he has always ordered here.

  Halfway through these calorie bombs, Pete takes a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket and places it, with some ceremony, beside his plate.

  "What's that?" Hodges asks.

  "Proof that my detective skills are as keenly honed as ever. I don't see you since that horror show at Raintree Inn--my hangover lasted three days, by the way--and I talk to you, what, twice? Three times? Then, bang, you ask me to lunch. Am I surprised? No. Do I smell an ulterior motive? Yes. So let's see if I'm right."

  Hodges gives a shrug. "I'm like the curious cat. You know what they say--satisfaction brought him back."

  Pete Huntley is grinning broadly, and when Hodges reaches for the folded slip of paper, Pete puts a hand over it. "No-no-no-no. You have to say it. Don't be coy, Kermit."

  Hodges sighs and ticks four items off on his fingers. When he's done, Pete pushes the folded piece of paper across the table. Hodges opens it and reads:

  1. Davis

  2. Park Rapist

  3. Pawnshops

  4. Mercedes Killer

  Hodges pretends to be discomfited. "You got me, Sheriff. Don't say a thing if you don't want to."

  Pete grows serious. "Jesus, if you weren't interested in the cases that were hanging fire when you hung up your jock, I'd be disappointed. I've been . . . a little worried about you."

  "I don't want to horn in or anything." Hodges is a trifle aghast at how smoothly this enormous whopper comes out.

  "Your nose is growing, Pinocchio."

  "No, seriously. All I want is an update."

  "Happy to oblige. Let's start with Donald Davis. You know the script. He fucked up every business he tried his hand at, most recently Davis Classic Cars. Guy's so deep in debt he should change his name to Captain Nemo. Two or three pretty kitties on the side."

  "It was three when I called it a day," Hodges says, going back to work on his pasta. It's not Donald Davis he's here about, or the City Park rapist, or the guy who's been knocking over pawnshops and liquor stores for the last four years; they are just camouflage. But he can't help being interested.

  "Wife gets tired of the debt and the kitties. She's prepping the divorce papers when she disappears. Oldest story in the world. He reports her missing and declares bankruptcy on the same day. Does TV interviews and squirts a bucket of alligator tears. We know he killed her, but with no body . . ." He shrugs. "You were in on the meetings with Diana the Dope." He's talking about the city's district attorney.

  "Still can't persuade her to charge him?"

  "No corpus delicious, no charge. The cops in Modesto knew Scott Peterson was guilty as sin and still didn't charge him until they recovered the bodies of his wife and kid. You know that."

  Hodges does. He and Pete discussed Scott and Laci Peterson a lot during their investigation of Sheila Davis's disappearance.

  "But guess what? Blood's turned up in their summer cabin by the lake." Pete pauses for effect, then drops the other shoe. "It's hers."

  Hodges leans forward, his food temporarily forgotten. "When was this?"

  "Last month."

  "And you didn't tell me?"

  "I'm telling you now. Because you're asking now. The search out there is ongoing. The Victor County cops are in charge."

  "Did anyone see him in the area prior to Sheila's disappearance?"

  "Oh yeah. Two kids. Davis claimed he was mushroom hunting. Fucking Euell Gibbons, you know? When they find the body--if they find it--ole Donnie Davis can quit waiting for the seven years to be up so he can petition to have her declared dead and collect the insurance." Pete smiles widely. "Think of the time he'll save."

  "What about the Park Rapist?"

  "It's really just a matter of time. We know he's white, we know he's in his teens or twenties, and we know he just can't get enough of that well-maintained matronly pussy."

  "You're putting out decoys, right? Because he likes the warm weather."

  "We are, and we'll get him."

  "It would be nice if you got him before he rapes another fiftysomething on her way home from work."

  "We're doing our best." Pete looks slightly annoyed, and when their waiter appears to ask if everything's all right, Pete waves the guy away.

  "I know," Hodges says. Soothingly. "Pawnshop guy?"

  Pete breaks into a broad grin. "Young Aaron Jefferson."

  "Huh?"

  "That's his actual name, although when he played football for City High, he called himself YA. You know, like YA Tittle. Although his girlfriend--also the mother of his three-year-old--tells us he calls the guy YA Titties. When I asked her if he was joking or serious, she said she didn't have any idea."

  Here is another story Hodges knows, another so old it could have come from the Bible . . . and there's probably a version of it in there someplace. "Let me guess. He racks up a dozen jobs--"

  "It's fourteen now. Waving that sawed-off around like Omar on The Wire."

  "--and keeps getting away with it because he has the luck of the devil. Then he cheats on baby mama. She gets pissed and rats him out."

  Pete points a finger-gun at his old partner. "Hole in one. And the next time Young Aaron walks into a pawnshop or a check-cashing emporium with his bellygun, we'll know ahead of time, and it's angel, angel, down we go."

  "Why wait?"

  "DA again," Pete says. "You bring Diana the Dope a steak, she says cook it for me, and if it isn't medium-rare, I'll send it back."

  "But you've got him."

  "I'll bet you a new set of whitewalls that YA Titties is in County by the Fourth of July and in State by Christmas. Davis and the Park Rapist may take a little longer, but we'll get them. You want dessert?"

  "No. Yes." To the waiter he says, "You still have that rum cake? The dark chocolate one?"

  The waiter looks insulted. "Yes, sir. Always."

  "I'll have a piece of that. And coffee. Pete?"

  "I'll settle for the last of the beer." So saying, he pours it out of the pitcher. "You sure about that cake, Billy? You look like you've put on a few pounds since I saw you last."

  It's true. Hodges eats heartily in retirement, but only for the last couple of days has food tasted good to him. "I'm thinking about Weight Watchers."

  Pete nods. "Yeah? I'm thinking about the priesthood."

  "Fuck you. What about the Mercedes Killer?"

  "We're still canvassing the Trelawney neighborhood--in fact, that's where Isabelle is right now--but I'd be shocked if she or anyone else comes up with a live lead. Izzy's not knocking on any doors that haven't been knocked on half a dozen times before.
The guy stole Trelawney's luxury sled, drove out of the fog, did his thing, drove back into the fog, dumped it, and . . . nothing. Never mind Monsewer YA Titties, it's the Mercedes guy who really had the luck of the devil. If he'd tried that stunt even an hour later, there would have been cops there. For crowd control."

  "I know."

  "Do you think he knew, Billy?"

  Hodges tilts a hand back and forth to indicate it's hard to say. Maybe, if he and Mr. Mercedes should strike up a conversation on that Blue Umbrella website, he'll ask.

  "The murdering prick could have lost control when he started hitting people and crashed, but he didn't. German engineering, best in the world, that's what Isabelle says. Someone could have jumped on the hood and blocked his vision, but no one did. One of the posts holding up the DO NOT CROSS tape could have bounced under the car and gotten hung up there, but that didn't happen, either. And someone could have seen him when he parked behind that warehouse and got out with his mask off, but no one did."

  "It was five-twenty in the morning," Hodges points out, "and even at noon that area would have been almost as deserted."

  "Because of the recession," Pete Huntley says moodily. "Yeah, yeah. Probably half the people who used to work in those warehouses were at City Center, waiting for the frigging job fair to start. Have some irony, it's good for your blood."

  "So you've got nothing."

  "Dead in the water."

  Hodges's cake comes. It smells good and tastes better.

  When the waiter's gone, Pete leans across the table. "My nightmare is that he'll do it again. That another fog will come rolling in off the lake and he'll do it again."