“Where were you last night, Mr. Doyle?”
“Me? Christ, you think I’m the guy? Bust into my aunt’s place dressed up in a fuckin’ sheet?”
“I asked you a question, that’s all.”
“Yeah, sure. Well, it wasn’t me. I was with my woman all night, at her place.”
“Melanie.”
“Yeah, Melanie. All night. Ask her, you don’t believe me.”
“Maybe I’ll do that.”
“Goddamn snoop,” he said. “Coming around where I work, accusing me. If you wasn’t an old man, I’d push your face in.”
“Welcome to try anyway. Assault is a bigger crime than malicious mischief.”
“Fuck your mischief,” he said cleverly. He dumped the rest of his sandwich into a paper sack on the seat beside him. “Now I lost my appetite.”
“That’s too bad. I’ll bet your aunt lost hers, too.”
Doyle opened the truck’s door and climbed out. I backed up a step to give him room—just the one step, so he wouldn’t get the idea I was retreating from him. But he had no intention of following up on his threat to push my face in. He stood flat-footed, glaring at me out of his little piggish eyes.
“Listen,” he said. “I told you before, I didn’t have nothing to do with what’s been going on at her place, that ghost crap and the rest.”
“That’s right,” I said. “You did mention ghosts the other day, didn’t you.”
“Huh?”
“ ‘Her dead-husband’s friggin’ ghost,’ I think you said. How’d you know?”
“Huh?”
“That your aunt had a fanciful notion about Carl visiting her from the Other Side.”
“. . . What the hell you talkin’ about?”
“The notion only came to her three days ago. You said you hadn’t seen or talked to her for some time before that. So how’d you know about it?”
“I, uh . . .” Doyle’s blocky face had developed a burgundy flush. “Wasn’t just two days ago she started in about ghosts. She said it to me the last time I seen her.”
“Did she? I’ll ask her about that.”
“You don’t ask her nothing. Stay away from her.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I don’t have to tell you nothing, you hear? I don’t have to talk to you no more at all.”
“Not to me, maybe. How about the police?”
The piggish eyes narrowed. He made a fist and waved it in my direction, not too close. I knew what was coming next. When guys like him are stuck for answers or caught out on something or other, they quit what passes for thinking and go straight to belligerent anger.
“I had enough of your bullshit,” he said. “You leave me alone from now on, man. Don’t come around bugging me no more. You do and I’ll bust you up good, old bastard or not.”
I showed him my wolf’s smile, to see if it would have any effect on him. The madder they get, the more likely they are to let something slip. Not Doyle, though. He fixed me with a black look and then stalked past me, not quite touching me on the way, and disappeared inside Dependable Glass’s warehouse.
I went and sat in my car, with my hands resting on the wheel. And then I just sat, staring, while things happened inside my head—plunk, plunk, plunk, like pinballs dropping into holes and slots.
Well, hell, I thought.
Getting old, all right. And real slow on the uptake.
14
TAMARA
She’d been in better spirits come morning. The feelings of loneliness and isolation were night creatures that crawled away in the daylight and left her focused again on Lucas and Alisha.
The first thing she’d done was drive over to the Western Addition. Scouting mission this time. Figure Lucas was living with Mama in that apartment above Psychic Readings by Alisha; figure he still drove that light brown Buick LeSabre. Then chances were, it’d be parked somewhere in the vicinity. Private garages cost a bundle in the city, public lots weren’t cheap, either, and it’d be costing him and Mama enough as it was to live and work their con. So it had to be street parking whenever he was in the neighborhood.
She’d thought of this last night, but driving around and trying to pick out a light brown Buick in the dark didn’t make much sense. Lot easier to identify colors and models in daylight. There wouldn’t be many brown Buick LeSabres parked in that neighborhood, and only one with a scrape and dent on the right front fender.
Turned out there weren’t any.
She drove around there for an hour, roaming two and three times over every street within a six-block radius of the Fillmore address. Just one Buick compact and it was white, not light brown, and it didn’t have any fender dents.