Джо Горес: Dead skip

Ballard walked up to the Buick and began running the keys on the door. Key 14 turned slightly, stuck. He worked it. It popped over. He jumped in, slammed and locked the door. Dammit, dammit! Key 14 just would not work the ignition. He began running the set.

A short, stacked, very pretty brunette in hip-hugger purple cords and a funky tie-dyed silk blouse came from The Freaks, looked at the Buick casually, did a double-take, then ran across the street toward him. Ballard kept running the keys.

“What are you doing in there? Get out of that car!”

Ballard shook his head, kept running the keys. She turned and ran back across the street and into The Freaks, her solid rear jouncing pleasantly in the purple cords.

Up to key 27 without success. Hell.

Twenty-five or thirty patrons, mostly men, burst from The Freaks in a clot. Ballard, still running keys, could identify the subject from Heslip’s reports: blond hair down over the shoulders like Prince Valiant, a Jesus Christ mustache and beard. Not Christlike, however. When the door wouldn’t open, he began beating almost hysterically on the window with a clenched fist, kicking, shouting, “Get out of there, you fascist son of a bitch. I’ll off you, pig bastard...”

The black-haired girl cried, “Fred! Fred! Here’s the keys!”

The subject tried to unlock the door. Ballard held down the lock knob with one hand, ran keys with the other. The girl had a second set; the subject went around to the other side. Ballard slid into the middle of the car, held down a lock knob with each hand. It was getting hairy. A heavy-set lumberjack-type wearing slacks, no shoes, no shirt, and a paisley vest that left bare his hairy meaty arms, began pounding on the windshield with the heel of his hand, trying to bust it in.

The girl disappeared; Ballard immediately used that hand to run keys again. Number 53, still no joy. Over his shoulder he saw that the girl had stopped a cruising black-and-white, was gesturing and pointing and crying. You don’t know it, honey, but thanks.

One of the cops advanced on the Buick with his holster flap unbuckled. He rapped on the window with a gloved knuckle, stuck a tough cop’s face against the glass. “Okay, buddy, out of there. Easy!” he called.

Ballard picked up his repossession order from the seat and held it against the window. The cop studied it, turned abruptly to the girl. “Hell, lady, he’s a private cop. He’s legal.”

“But he can’t just—”

“He’s got the paper that says he can, lady.”

The subject, while Ballard had been showing the repo order, had finally gotten his door unlocked. He jumped in beside Ballard. “Out, pig bastard, or I’ll break you apart!”

Ballard met his eyes. This he could handle. “Sorry, Mr. Chambers. I have to take the car.”

Chambers began cursing shrilly. Behind the beard his face was contorted; spittle flecked his mustache. He still made no actual move to touch Ballard, however. The girl had unlocked the other door. The cop opened it to stick his head in. “Any chance of waiting until tomorrow on this?”

“No known residence, five hundred bucks delinquent, he stole the car back from the client’s lot in Bakersfield after it had been repossessed down there, is currently out on bail under an aggravated assault charge in connection with that. You tell me, Officer.”

“Yeah.” The cop turned back to the girl. “That’s it, lady. He wants it now.”

“I... all right.” She caved in abruptly, leaned across Ballard to tell the subject, “Give him the keys, Fred.”

“I’ll give him shit!” Fred yelped. “I’ll—”

Just then the lumberjack went for the partially open door. The cop moved casually to block him, but the beefy youth shouldered him roughly aside.

The second patrolman, a huge black who had been leaning against the squad car with his arms folded, the picture of noninvolvement, lunged forward like a fencer. His giant black hand plucked the attacker away like an orange. “That’s a cop you’re shoving, daddy-o,” he crooned. He had a dreamy, hopeful look on his face. The lumberjack’s hands curled into fists; the cop said softly, “Yeah!”

He slammed the other man up against the squad car in the classic spread-eagle as if he were made of papier-mâché. As he frisked the youth and plonked him in the back seat of the squad car, the crowd quieted magically. The black cop called him in to the Hall of Justice for a make on possible wants, reading his statistics from his driver’s license.

The girl, meanwhile, had started crying. “Fred, give him the keys!”

“I’ll give him something, I’ll—”

“Like you gave it to the black boy last night?”

“I... what?”

“One of our men,” said Ballard. “He’s in a coma. If he happened to catch up with this car last night like I did tonight—”

“Oh, no,” said the girl in a sick voice. “You can’t... Fred wouldn’t...”

“Like hell Fred wouldn’t,” said Ballard.

“Look, I’ve been driving the car ever since Fred started his gig here,” she said desperately.

“What time does his last set end?”

Chambers said, in a small voice, “One-thirty, one-forty-five. Man, I didn’t clobber any spa — any black. I didn’t, man.”

The cop looked pointedly at his watch. Chambers slid hastily out; the girl dropped the keys in Ballard’s lap as if suddenly glad to be rid of them. When Ballard pulled away he could see, by the rear-view mirror, that the lumberjack was being released from the prowl car — which meant he was clean downtown.

Halfway to the office, Ballard suddenly started shaking. He had to pull over to the curb and park for a while. It had been a pretty close thing back there. The Freaks’ clientele seemed trying to live up to the name.

But as he started up again and headed for the office, he drew a mental line through Chambers, Fred .

A heavy hand on an auto horn jerked Ballard’s head up. His eyes were bloodshot; he had drooled on the desk top. Man, dead asleep. What time? He looked blearily at his watch. One-twenty. A shiver ran through him as he got upright, yawned, knuckled his eyes, pulled on his topcoat. Yeah, yeah, I’m coming, for Christ sake.

Twenty-four hours ago, here at DKA, Heslip had been getting it. How was he? Any change? Hell, too late to call. Ballard stumbled past the Chambers Buick, set the alarms before pulling the door shut behind him. Involuntarily he looked right and left before crossing the sidewalk to the Yellow Cab he’d called. Nobody, of course.

“Yeah, make it Geary at Tenth Avenue.”

He settled back in the rear seat, to fall asleep immediately. The cab stopping woke him up, he paid the driver, got his receipt, walked down Tenth to his company Ford. Shivering, he got the motor started, tried to knuckle sleep from his eyes. Then he grinned to himself. Maybe he ought to go around the corner for a beer at The Freaks. Yeah, sure. What he ought to do was go home, get some sleep.

But only forty-eight hours left to Kearny’s deadline. And two more cases lined out for tonight yet.

Kenneth Hemovich, 191 Stillings Avenue.

Where the hell was — oh yeah. Out off Monterey Boulevard somewhere. He checked the map, then used Park Presidio to get through Golden Gate Park to Nineteenth Avenue in the Sunset. Patrick Michael O’Bannon, the best field man DKA had next to Kearny himself, had played as a kid in the sand dunes where the Sunset District now was. He said. You could never tell, with O’B. He was a blarney Irishman for sure.

Ballard turned up Congo from Monterey, was immediately into a maze of streets which curved and climbed up the flank of Mount Davidson. The air coming in through the rolled-down window to keep him awake was wet and heavy. Stillings was only two blocks long; he parked a block from 191 to recheck the file.