Bill Pronzini - Shackles

He didn’t like that; I had meant it to scare him and it did. Enough so that there would be no need for me to show him the.22. He backed up a step, and he must have seen the woman hanging out of the open doorway because her jerked his head toward her and snapped, “Goddamn it, Maggie, get your ass back inside!” She gave him the finger, but she didn’t argue or waste any time pulling her head in and slamming the door. So much for blue-stemmed red roses and the sentiment that went with them.

Barnwell put his eyes back on me, still didn’t like what he saw, and let his gaze slide off sideways again. He was nervous now; the tic on his cheek had worsened. He lifted a hand to poke at it, kept the hand there as if it and the arm were a protective shield between us.

He said, “Lawrence Jacobs, right?”

“That was the name he was using.”

“Okay. Okay. But I dunno his real name, I swear it.”

“How long was he here?”

“A week or so, that’s all.”

“Come on, Mr. Barnwell, you don’t rent out apartments for a week or so. We both know that.”

“He didn’t live here, he was just stayin here.”

“With one of the other tenants?”

“Frank Tucker. He was a pal of Tucker’s.”

“Tucker isn’t one of the names on the mailboxes.”

“He moved out back in December.”

“Did he? Where to?”

“Vacaville, I think. Yeah, Vacaville.”

“Where in Vacaville?”

“I dunno.” But then he paused, and something dark and bitter flickered in his expression. “My old lady might,” he said. “I can ask her, you want.”

“You do that. But not just yet. How well do you know this Frank Tucker?”

“I don’t know him. I don’t wanna know him.”

“Why not?”

“I got reasons.”

His old lady being one of them, I thought. Maggie of the blue-stemmed roses. But there was nothing for me in his domestic problems. I asked him, “Frank Tucker his real name?”

“Far as I know.”

“What does he look like?”

“Big bastard, must weigh two-fifty, two-sixty. Arms like fuggin cement posts. Black greasy hair, like Presley used to wear his. You know?”

I knew-and I didn’t know. The description meant nothing to me. “How old?”

“Forty, forty-five.”

“What does he do for a living?”

“Said he was a truck driver.”

“But you don’t think so?”

“None of my business what he does.”

“Talk to me, Mr. Barnwell. What do you think Tucker does for his money, if it isn’t driving a truck?”

“Strong-arm stuff, okay? That’s what I think.”

“What kind of strong-arm stuff?”

“Any kind. Strikebreakin, head-bustin, shit like that.”

“What about Lawrence Jacobs? That his line of work too?”

“Nah, not him. Too small, not mean enough.”

“What does he do for a living, then?”

“He never said and I never asked.”

“He just stayed here with Tucker for a week of so. Stayed in Tucker’s apartment the whole time?”

“Well, he went out most days.”

“With Tucker?”

“Nah, alone. Just crashin with Tucker. Or maybe…” Barnwell let the sentence trail away.

“Or maybe what?”

“I always thought there was somethin funny about him. Tucker, too, kind of. Queer, you know?”

“Meaning you think they had a homosexual relationship?”

“Could be. Tucker likes broads too”-the dark and bitter thing touched his face again-“but Jacobs, he looked pure fuggin fag to me.”

The gospel according to O. Barnwell, philosopher and sage. But how much truth was in it? I put it away for the time being-until, if, and when I could find somebody more reliable to bear witness.

I said, “Were Jacobs and Tucker old friends or new friends? How did it look to you?”

He thought about it. “Old friends, I guess. Yeah, they knew each other a while.”

“From where? Here in Sacramento, someplace else?”

“I dunno. They never said.”

“Is Tucker a Sacramento native?”

“He never said that neither.”

“How long had he been living here when Jacobs moved in?”

“Few months. He’s the kind moves around a lot.”

“He tell you beforehand Jacobs was moving in or did Jacobs just show up?”

“He told me. Said he had this buddy needed a place to crash for a week or two, till he found a place of his own. Didn’t ask if it was all right, just told me Jacobs was comin. But what the hell, why should I care? I don’t own the fuggin building.”

“You talk to Jacobs much while he was here?”

“Nah, I don’t like fags.”

“Then how come you lied for him?”

Barnwell hadn’t been looking at me much, had done most of his talking to the floor or to spots to my left and right. But now his gaze slithered back to my face, held there long enough for him to say, “Hah?” and then went roving again.

“You told a woman at a Carmichael real estate firm that Jacobs lived here, had an apartment in this building. You told her he’d been here for some time, paid his rent promptly, had a steady job.”

“Oh yeah, that. Sure. But it wasn’t no big deal. He give me twenty bucks, so why not?”

“He tell you what his reasons were?”

“So he could get a place he wanted up there. Carmichael. Said the real estate outfit wouldn’t rent it to him if they knew he didn’t have an address and was out of work.”

“If he was out of work, where did he get the money to rent a place?”

“He never said.”

“And you didn’t ask.”

“Why should I? It wasn’t none of my business.”

“How long after that did Jacobs move out?”

“Couple of days. He must of got the place he wanted in Carmichael, hah?”

Yeah, I thought, he got the place he wanted, but not in Carmichael. “You ever hear from him again?”

“Nossir, never.”

“Or from Tucker since he moved?”

“Not me.” His mouth turned down at the corners: anger, bitterness, self-pity. “Maybe my old lady heard. You want me to ask her now? Or you want to?”

“You do it, in private.” It was easier that way. He could get things out of her that she’d be reluctant to tell a stranger, even a stranger playing the kind of role I was. Besides, if he was alone when he told her about me, he’d build me up into something pretty nasty-use me as a club to punish her for her real or imagined dallying with Frank Tucker. O. Barnwell, loving husband. “I’ll wait here,” I said. “One thing, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t call anybody while you’re inside. And don’t call anybody after I leave.”

“I won’t. Who would I call?”

“Because if you do,” I said, “I’ll find out and I’ll come back. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“Nossir,” he said to a point three feet on my left. “You don’t have to worry, I won’t want no trouble. I’m just a guy tryin to get along, that’s all.”

“Sure you are. Don’t be long, Mr. Barnwell.”

He went back past the ladder, moving sideways as if he were afraid to put his back to me, and disappeared inside the ground-floor apartment. A little time passed. I leaned against the wall next to the front door and smelled the building’s secretions and thought about Lawrence Jacobs and Frank Tucker. Names, just names. And meaningless descriptions that fit dozens of people whose paths had crossed mine at one time or another. Where did Jacobs fit into the short, unpleasant life of Jackie Timmons? And did Tucker fit into it at all?

Voices began to filter out through the wall from Apartment 1-loud voices that kept getting louder. Barnwell shouting, Maggie shouting back. Then there were other voices, something falling over, a yell of pain, a screech that evolved into the words “You stinking animal !” and finally, when the door down there opened and Barnwell reappeared, the steady sound of sobbing.