Peter Spiegelman - Red Cat

“I’m looking for Jamie,” I said.

He squinted at me. “Jamie who?”

“Jamie your nephew.”

“Uh-huh, and you are who?”

“A friend of a friend. I’m trying to get in touch.”

Kenny nodded. “Yeah? Well, so am I. So if you find the prick, give me a shout.”

“I thought he worked here.”

“Only till I see him next.”

There was a plastic chair in front of Kenny’s table, and I pulled it out and sat. “Why’s that?” I asked.

“How about for not showing up to work for a couple of weeks running, and not calling in to say what’s what? How about for not returning my hundred freaking phone calls? How about for screwing over the only relative he has left in the world, who went out on a limb to get him this job in the first place? Those enough reasons for you?” He punctuated his speech with the orange end of his cigarette, and little bits of ash floated in the air when he was done.

I nodded. “You know where he lives?”

“He used to live right here, in the unit at the end of the hall, but he hasn’t been around in weeks.”

“You have a phone number for him?”

Kenny rattled off Coyle’s cell number. “Nobody answers, though.”

“Any other family he’d be in touch with, or maybe visit?”

“His old man drank himself to death twenty years ago, and we lost my sister, God bless her, three years back- so, like I said, I’m it.”

“How about his friends?”

Kenny pulled a hand down his face, and left a streak of grease along his jawline. He shrugged. “You’d know more about that than me- I didn’t think he had any.” Kenny paused and made a thinking face. “There was a guy upstate, maybe, a guy he was inside with.”

“You have a name?” Kenny blew smoke and shook his head. “A telephone number or address?”

Another head shake. “I don’t know- maybe he’s somewhere in Buffalo.”

I nodded. Buffalo. “You don’t know Jamie’s girlfriend?”

He lifted his eyebrows. “He has a girlfriend?”

I didn’t bother to explain. “Jamie leave anything behind when he took off?”

“Check it out for yourself,” Kenny said, and he reached into the pocket of the big orange parka that hung on the back of his chair. He fished out a noisy ring of keys and stepped around the table.

“Come on,” he said. He went clinking down the hall, and I followed.

The apartment was dark and small, not even three hundred square feet and all of it visible from the doorway. To the right was a kitchenette, built into what had been a closet. Next to it was a bathroom, hardly larger than the airplane variety. There was a mattress on the floor, laid out beneath a narrow window set high up on the wall. That wall and all the others were a dingy white, and the floor was gray vinyl. The bare ceiling bulb cast a light like dirty water.

Kenny told me to close the door when I was through, and it didn’t take me long. But for dust and the smell of heating oil, the place was empty. Kenny was back at his desk when I passed his office, looking at his motor and blowing smoke. I didn’t bother to say goodbye.

I got into my rental, pulled out of the Van Winkle lot, and headed back toward Route 9. And stopped when I’d driven fifty yards. There was an alcove in the snow on the other side of the street, a void where a car had been excavated, and I pulled my Nissan in a tight turn and into the snug space. I took out my binoculars and settled in. It was all but dark now, but the path lighting around Van Winkle Court was good enough. I’d be able to see that lying bastard Kenny when he came up the basement stairs.

As an actor, Kenny was right up there with Gene Werner. He’d never pressed me about who I was or how I knew Jamie or what I wanted from him, and he’d never once told me to go away. The line about Jamie’s pal in Buffalo was matched in its dubiousness only by the look of surprise he dressed up in when I mentioned Jamie’s girlfriend. Above all, Kenny had been just too ready to let me poke around in Jamie’s apartment. He’d wanted me to believe that Jamie had moved out- and I did- but I also believed that he was still close by, and that Kenny knew where. I cracked the windows, killed the lights and engine, and zipped my parka to the neck.

As it grew later, traffic picked up at Van Winkle Court, and more lights came on in the brick-faced boxes, but no one came up the basement stairs. While I waited and watched, I thought about my conversation with Ned.

He’d been surprised to hear from me- it had been eighteen monthsbut he knew from my tone that I hadn’t called to chat. He listened quietly as I explained that David had become involved in a murder investigation, that the victim was a woman David had had a sexual relationship with, that David- or Stephanie- might become a suspect in her death, and that if there was an arrest, the press coverage would be vast and voracious.

The news shocked him- how could it not? — but Ned hadn’t risen to the top at Klein amp; Sons by being panicky or dumb, and he didn’t start then. He’d asked smart questions, and had neither pressed me on the ones I wouldn’t answer nor pushed me into wild speculation on the ones I couldn’t. I heard him taking rapid notes throughout. He asked about lawyers, and something relaxed a little in his voice when I told him that Mike Metz was representing David.

“How is David doing?” he asked.

“That’s why I’m calling. I have to go out, but I don’t want to leave him alone. He’s been drinking.”

“Steph isn’t there?”

“No, and I’m not sure when she will be. Or if.”

“Jesus Christ.” He sighed. “I’ll send Liz up.”

Ned rang off and an hour later my older sister had arrived. I met her in the foyer. She wore a black coat over a black suit, and her blond hair was swept straight back from her forehead. Her heels were low, but tall enough to bring her to my height, and her green eyes were narrow and uncertain. Her usual detached cool had deserted her, and her strong, handsome features were set in a mask of worry. On Liz it looked much like anger, and it reminded me uncomfortably of our mother.

“Where is he?” she asked. She spoke in a husky whisper.

“Asleep, on the sofa. With any luck, he’ll stay that way for a while.”

“And what should I do with him when he wakes?”

I shrugged. “Hang out. Give him something to eat. Keep him from doing anything stupid.”

She shook her head. “That’s apparently easier said than done. Will he be surprised to see me?”

“Probably.”

“And pissed off?”

“Definitely.”

Liz shook her head. “Excellent. Ned said he’d been drinking.”

I nodded. “Try not to let him do that anymore.”

“Am I supposed to restrain him?”

“Do the best you can.”

I pulled on my coat and Liz caught my arm. “Jesus Christ, Johnny, this is dramatic even for you. We don’t hear word one for over a year, and all of a sudden you’re in the middle of a murder-and with David, of all people. What the fuck is going-”

I cut her off. “What can I tell you? Shit happens. Right now I’m trying to keep it from happening to David.” I tried to get my arm back, but Liz held on.

“ ‘Shit happens’ isn’t good enough. How did he get himself into…all this?”

“There’s no short answer to that,” I’d said, “maybe no answer at all. But you can try asking David when he gets up.”

There was movement on the basement stairs and I picked up my binoculars. I saw a flash of orange: Kenny Hagen in his big parka walking carefully along a footpath. There was something under his arm, and it took me a moment to make it out. It turned out to be two things: a carton of Marlboros and a box of doughnuts. He walked two buildings south and went down another flight of steps and fished his key ring from his pocket. He fiddled with the lock and went inside. He was in there for twenty minutes by my watch, and when he came out he was empty-handed.