Роберт Паркер - Sixkill

“The dead girl? Sure,” Mike said. “I mean, she wasn’t so special to remember when she came in, but then, you know, she gets killed, and everybody’s talking about it and it’s on the news and you go over it in your head... a lot.”

“You remember when she arrived here?”

“I do,” Mike said. “I was working early evening that week, and she came in a brand-new bright red Caddy. I mean, I’da remembered the car even if nothing happened. Leather interior, all the bells and whistles. Looked like it had about ten miles on it.”

“She driving?” I said.

“No, a guy was driving. He let her off, and she went in the hotel, and he drove away.”

“Remember the guy?”

Mike shrugged.

“Not much,” he said. “Suburban-looking guy. Maybe fifty. I was mostly checking out the ride.”

“Ever see her again?”

“I was off duty when the EMTs brought her out,” Mike said. “But I hung around, so technically, I guess yes. But she was covered.”

“How ’bout the car or the driver?”

Mike shook his head.

“No.”

“You wouldn’t have a number for the car?” I said.

“No, no reason,” he said. “Maybe if we parked it...”

“He didn’t come back to pick her up,” I said.

“Not on my shift,” Mike said.

“Thanks for your time,” I said.

“Hope you catch him,” Mike said.

“Hell,” I said, “I don’t even know who I’m after.”

When we went in to visit Buffy and Tom Lopata, Buffy eyed Z silently as she showed us to the living room. She was wearing tight black pants that narrowed to the ankle, black open-toed sandals, and a black polo shirt hanging over the pants. Her arms were pale and very thin. Tom joined us from upstairs, as he had before. I wondered if they ever spent time together.

“My associate,” I said to them, “Zebulon Sixkill.”

Tom Lopata put out his hand. He was wearing madras shorts, black penny loafers without socks, and a white shirt with a buttondown collar. His shirttails, too, were over his pants.

“Hi,” he said. “How ya doin. Great to meet you.”

Z shook hands and nodded.

Mrs. Lopata lit a cigarette.

“What the hell kind of name is Sixkill?” she said.

“Cree,” Z said.

“What?” she said.

“Cree,” Z said. “Indian tribe.”

“You’re an Indian?”

Z put up his hand, palm out.

“I come in peace,” he said.

“So why is your name Sixkill?” Buffy said.

“Buffy,” Tom said. “For crissake.”

She ignored him. She was staring at Z.

“Goes good with Zebulon,” Z said.

“Well, you are a strapping, handsome Indian,” Buffy said.

“Yes,” Z said.

“Could you folks tell me where you were the night Dawn died?” I said.

“My daughter?” Buffy said. “Is there a new development?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet. I’m just trying to tie up some loose ends.”

“Here, I suppose,” Tom said. “Probably watching TV.”

“That your memory, Mrs. Lopata?”

“We weren’t watching together,” she said. “He won’t watch my programs.”

“Hell, you won’t watch mine, either,” he said.

“I don’t want to watch some dumb sports thing,” she said.

“But you were both here, in the house, together that night.”

“Absolutely,” Tom said.

“No,” Buffy said.

I looked at her.

“No?” I said.

“I was here, but he was out gallivanting in his new toy,” Buffy said.

“Toy?” I said.

“She likes to joke,” Tom said. “I got a new car; I may have taken it out for a spin, see how she handled.”

“Red Cadillac sedan,” I said. “Leather seats?”

“Yeah,” Tom said.

“Nigger car,” Buffy said. She snubbed out her cigarette and lit a new one. “Neighbors probably think he’s a pimp.”

Tom shook his head sadly.

“Doorman,” I said, “at the Inn on the Wharf says Dawn was delivered to the hotel in a new red Cadillac convertible.”

Tom stared at me.

“According to the doorman, the driver was a suburban-looking guy, maybe fifty,” I said.

Tom didn’t say anything. Buffy turned and stared at her husband. Z and I waited. Tom looked at Buffy.

“For God’s sake,” she said, “you are a pimp.”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” he said.

“You delivered your daughter to that pig so he could fuck her to death,” Buffy said.

“For God’s sake,” Tom said. “It’s not like I knew.”

“Pimp,” Buffy said.

“She wanted a ride,” Tom said. “I had the new car. Hell, she was going to have a date with a movie star, for crissake. Who wouldn’t take her in?”

“Without telling her mother,” Buffy said. “Either of you, without telling the mother.”

“She made me promise,” Tom said. “She knows what you think of her.”

“Her own mother,” Buffy said.

She put her second cigarette out carefully in the ashtray, picked up her cigarettes and a lighter from the table by her chair, stood, and walked out of the room.

“Shit,” Tom said. “She’ll go in her room and pull down the shades and turn on the TV. And she’ll sit there and stare at it and chain-smoke for days.”

“She do that when Dawn was bad?” I said.

“Any of us,” he said. “Except maybe Matthew. She did it less with him.”

I nodded.

“You dropped her and left?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Any arrangement to pick her up?”

“No.”

“You dropped her and came home?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Wife awake when you got here?” I said.

“No.”

“You sleep together?”

He snorted a little humorless snort.

“No,” he said. “Any way you mean it.”

When we were driving back to Boston, Z said, “I’ve seen Lopata before.”

“When?” I said.

“He was on the set, across from Jumbo’s trailer, talking to one of the producers.”

“He didn’t seem to recognize you,” I said.

“No,” Z said. “I was in Jumbo’s trailer, looking out the window.”

“You know what they were talking about?”

“No clue,” Z said.

“You were sober?” I said.

“Nope.”

“But you remember this guy,” I said.

“He was very...” Z waved his arms around. “You know?”

“Animated?” I said.

“Yeah, animated.”

“You remember which producer?” I said.

“Sure,” Z said.

“We can ask him,” I said.

Z nodded. We were quiet for a time.

“You know,” he said. “Neither one of them ever called the kid by name.”

He’d grown more talkative recently, but quiet still seemed to be Z’s natural condition. Conversation was always surprising.

“Seem too immersed in being mad at each other,” I said.

“Why the hell do they stay married,” Z said.

“You Indians just don’t understand white-man ways,” I said.

“Hell,” Z said. “I’m still trying to figure out why you killed all our buffalo.”

The alley that runs behind my office from Berkeley to Arlington was named Providence Street. When Z and I came down the back stairs of my office to get my car, which was parked on Providence Street, I noticed that the Berkeley Street end was blocked with a couple of orange traffic barrels. If people have threatened to kill one, one becomes unusually observant. I paused in the doorway.

“Odd,” I said.

“The barriers?” Z said.

“Yeah. Usually there’s a cop.”

I looked up at the Arlington Street end. More barriers.

“Odder,” I said.

“Street’s one-way,” Z said.

I nodded.

“Might be nothing,” I said.