Bill Pronzini: Betrayers

The Alvarez house was of stucco and similar in type and size, if not in color, to the one owned by Mrs. Abbott. It was painted a toasty brown with orange-yellow trim, a combination that made me think of a huge and artfully constructed grilled-cheese sandwich. The garage door was up and a slope-shouldered man wearing a Giants baseball cap was doing something at a workbench inside. Helen Alvarez ushered me in that way.

The slope-shouldered man was Leonard Crenshaw. A few years older than his sister and on the dour side, he had lived here with her since the death of her husband eight years ago. Leonard had offered to move in, she’d told me, to help out with chores and to keep her from being lonely. If he had a profession or a job, she hadn’t confided what it was.

“Don’t mind saying,” he said to me, “I think Helen made a mistake shelling out money to hire you.”

I didn’t tell him that I was working pro bono; neither did she. “Why is that, Mr. Crenshaw?” I asked.

“Always sticking her nose in other people’s business. Been like that her whole life. Nosy and bossy.”

“Better than putting my head in the sand like an ostrich,” Mrs. Alvarez said. She didn’t seem upset or annoyed by her brother’s remarks. I had the impression this was an old verbal tug-of-war between siblings, one that went back a lot of years through a lot of different incidents.

“Can’t just live her life and let others live theirs,” Crenshaw said. “It’s Charley Doyle should be taking care of his aunt and her problems, spending his money on expensive detectives.”

Expensive detectives, I thought. Leonard, if you only knew what some of the big agencies charge for their services. And how seldom they work pro bono, or take on cases like this one.

“Charley Doyle can barely take care of himself,” she said. “He has two brain cells and one of them is usually passed out drunk. All he cares about is gambling and liquor and cheap women.”

“A heavy gambler, is he?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t think so. He’s too lazy and too stupid. Besides, he plays poker with Ev Belasco and Ev is so tight he squeaks.”

Crenshaw said, “You know what’s going to happen to you, Helen, talking about people behind their backs that way. You’ll spend eternity hanging by your tongue, that’s what.”

“Better than spending eternity hanging by what you’ve been overusing all your adult life.”

“Funny. You’re a riot, you are.”

“Oh, put a sock in it, Leonard.”

He didn’t put a sock in it. He said grumpily, “Telling tales about people, hiring detectives, sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. Next thing you know, our phone’ll start ringing in the middle of the night, somebody’ll bust one of our windows.”

“Nonsense.”

“Is it? Stir things up, you’re bound to make ’em worse. For everybody. You mark my words.”

Helen Alvarez and I went upstairs, into a cluttered living room, and she provided me with contact addresses for Charley Doyle and the address of the real estate agency owned by the Pattersons.

“Don’t mind Leonard,” she said then. “He’s not such a curmudgeon as he pretends to be. This crazy business with Margaret has him almost as upset as it has me.”

“I try not to be judgmental, Mrs. Alvarez.”

“So do I,” she said. “Now you go give those Pattersons hell, you hear? A taste of their own medicine, the dirty swine.”

I didn’t go give the Pattersons hell or anything else, including the benefit of the doubt. Tomorrow was soon enough for that. It was late afternoon now, the end of my workday, and what I wanted was a hot shower, a cold beer, and a quiet dinner, in that order.

So I went home.

And walked straight into a sudden family crisis.

JAKE RUNYON

“Jumpers,” Abe Melikian said sourly. “God, I hate ’em, I hate ’em with a passion. They want to jump, why don’t they go jump off a bridge, jump off a building? No, they got to jump on my poor ass instead.”

Runyon made a sympathetic noise.

“As if I don’t have enough troubles,” Melikian said. “I got a bad back, I got hemorrhoids, and now my doctor says I got to have a hip replacement. I’m falling apart here. Business is lousy, and now I got another jumper trying to screw me. This Troy Madison bum loses himself down a sewer hole with the rest of the goddamn rats I’m out thirty-one point five K, and I can’t afford the loss. You understand what I’m saying to you?”

Bill had worked a few bail-jump cases for Melikian in the past and had warned Runyon he was a chronic complainer and poor-mouth. In fact, he now owned one of the more successful bail bonds outfits in the city: half a dozen employees and offices right across Bryant Street from the Hall of Justice. Healthy as a horse, too, Bill said, in spite of his usual litany of physical complaints. Right. Robust, fit-looking man in his late fifties, with a full head of dark brown hair that didn’t look dyed.

Runyon said, “I understand. You want him found as fast as possible.”

“Fast, that’s right. Before he disappears so nobody can find him.”

“What time was his court appearance this morning?”

“Ten o’clock. Soon as I found out he didn’t show, I sent one of my people over to his apartment. Gone. Flew the coop last night.”

“How do you know it was last night?”

“One of the neighbors saw him leave. Him and that skanky broad he lives with. Carrying suitcases, both of ’em.”

“What’s the neighbor’s name?”

“I don’t know; ask Frank outside. He’s the one talked to her.”

“The neighbor have any idea where they were headed?”

“Hell no,” Melikian said. “Jumpers, they’re like mimes-they don’t say a word to nobody.”

“What about Madison’s lawyer?”

“Public defender. Surprised Madison jumped, he said. Met with him two days ago, Madison promised he’d show, that was good enough for the PD. Why’s everybody frigging incompetent these days?”

“Everybody isn’t.”

“Meaning you? Better not be. I don’t know you, but I know your boss; he’s plenty competent. How come he didn’t come himself? He can’t be bothered with Abe Melikian anymore?”

“He’s semiretired. I do most of the fieldwork for the agency now.”

“Yeah? So I guess you must be okay. I’d hate to have to call in a bounty hunter. Those buggers want fifteen, twenty percent of the bond-I can’t afford to pay fees like that, put me straight out of business.”

Runyon said, “Tell me about Madison.”

“Tell you what? It’s all in that file you got there in your hand.”

“I’d rather hear it from you first.”

Melikian screwed up his face until it resembled a mournful hound’s. “A doper,” he said. “You can’t trust dopers, they’re the dregs, they’re gene-pool scum. Even the first-timers, and he’s not a first-timer-he was busted three times before this last one.”

“All for possession with intent to sell?”

“No. Just this last time for dealing.”

“Jump bail before?”

“No. You think I’d’ve put up his bond if he had? Ahh, why the hell’d he have to pick on me this time? I should’ve turned him and that brother of his down flat; that’s what I should’ve done.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Why. The man asks why. I got mouths to feed and bills and salaries to pay, that’s why. I got to have a hip replacement operation, I already told you that. So what choice do I have but to serve the dregs, the scum, unless my shit detector tells me don’t do it. Only it wasn’t working with this Madison pair. The doper came across all contrite and respectful and I fell for it like he was my first client ever. Maybe my shit detector’s busted permanently along with everything else I got wrong with me. I tell you, I’m falling apart here.”