Ken Douglas - Dead Ringer

“How’d you do that?” Wolfe stood too.

“Except for a gay pride parade in San Francisco in the ’70s, I was in the closet. I quit right after my twenty was up, for the pension. I came out the next day.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this straight off?”

“I wanted to know what kind of man you were. If you were a jerk who shaved his head for some stupid macho reason, you know, like Kojack, I woulda had to find this prick myself.” Gordon turned away and started toward the crowd at the end of the alley.

Horace looked at the gas gauge. He’d spent a quarter tank driving. Stupid. He was almost into L.A. Somehow he’d wound up on the Santa Monica Freeway. He took the Vermont off ramp and got back on heading south. Where was his mind? Nowhere.

“Gotta keep it together,” he mumbled.

He popped a Meat Loaf CD into the player, cranked it up loud. Keeping it together wasn’t gonna be easy. Not with that smell back there.

He kept the van in the right lane, chewing up the interstate. He cruised onto the Long Beach Freeway, tapping his finger on the wheel as Meat Loaf made love by the dashboard light. He punched the repeat button. He loved that song.

He got off the freeway in Lynwood, drove to one of those car washes he knew about where you do it yourself. Something had to be done about the smell. He backed the van into the middle stall, so nobody could see in when he opened the back doors.

Chopped Harleys lined the curb in front of the biker bar across the street, but Horace wasn’t worried about them. They’d be sucking ’em up till last call and then some. He had plenty of time.

He got out of the van, fed quarters to the coin box. He turned the knob to extra soap, then opened the back doors. His brother was covered in blood and stunk like shit. Horace shook his head. Poor bastard.

He went for the hose. It had a gun-like handle with a yard long nozzle. Horace held it like a range shooter, arm extended, and imagined he was picking off rattlers in the desert. Virgil loved that. Not anymore.

Horace climbed into the passenger seat, dragging the hose. On his knees, facing into the back, he held the hose out.

Virgil was lying, head toward the back door, feet facing Horace. He jerked on the trigger and soapy spray shot out of the hose. Aiming at his brother’s shoes, he blasted the soles, moved up to the legs, shooting blood, shit and the woman’s clothes out the back of the van.

He kept it up till the money ran out, then surveyed his handiwork. Virgil lay on his side, Moby Dick, whiter in death, his whiteness contrasting with the metallic black paint on the inside of the van. Black floor, roof, walls. White Virgil, white and dead.

Across the street a couple of bikers wearing Angels’ colors came out of the bar. Time to wrap it up. Horace put away the hose, picked up the shoes and clothes, tossed them in the trash. One of the Harleys rumbled to life, then another. Horace started the van as they roared off in the direction of the freeway.

Gordon waited at the end of the alley while a police photographer shot a couple rolls of film. The lab men filled baggies with blood samples and bits of evidence from around the site, a lot of it irrelevant, but they were leaving nothing to chance. The coroner’s wagon backed up the alley. There were more people out now. It was a quiet crowd, but somehow the neighborhood knew, as if death’s quiet voice traveled from house to house, waking them, letting them know he’d come calling.

“You wanna take a ride with me?” Wolfe took Gordon by the elbow, moved him away from the gawkers. He led him to a nineteen eighty-something Chevy, opened the passenger door, closed it after Gordon got in.

Gordon watched the night roll by as Wolfe drove. He picked a teddy bear off the floor. “Yours?”

“My boy’s. He tossed it up from the car seat in back. Got an arm on him like Sandy Koufax used to have.”

“Dodger fan?”

“That your IQ at work?”

“You ever see them play in the Coliseum?” Gordon looked in the back seat. There was a baby’s car seat back there. It looked like a permanent part of the car.

“Before my time.”

“What are you, thirty, thirty-five?”

“Old enough to vote. Look, I’m supposed to be the one asking the questions.” Wolfe was on Second Street now. He pulled up in front of the twenty-four hour coffee shop across the street from the Lounge, shut off the engine.

“This isn’t the police station.”

“You are sharp.” Wolfe got out of the car.

The restaurant’s apple pie flavor seemed out of place in the Shore. Two hours before sunup and the place was doing a brisk business. Gordon had never been in before, probably a mistake, this many people didn’t come to a place this early unless it was good. He ordered the country breakfast, he was going to need his energy. The cop ordered eggs over easy, bacon and toast.

“Tell me about yourself,” Wolfe said.

“You interrogating a suspect?”

“No, interviewing a partner.”

Horace snuck into the house at 3:30 in the morning, shoes in hand, so as not to wake Ma. Virgil had always been her favorite. No more back rubs for Ma. No more pedicures. No more whatever else Virge did for her.

“Why do you sneak into this house like a thief?” She was up. Horace squinted, eyes getting used to the dark. She was sitting straight backed on the couch with that quilt she’d made when they were kids wrapped around her. She looked like a squaw.

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“We keep decent hours here.”

“Sorry, Ma.” He had to be careful. A wrong word could bring on one of her fits. She’d had the epilepsy her whole life, but the tumor made it worse. Any little thing could set it off.

“Where’s your brother?”

“He didn’t come home?” Horace felt his asshole pucker up. Nothing he could do about it. He didn’t want to hurt her. The lung cancer and the brain tumor were bad enough, she didn’t need to know Virge was never coming home. She didn’t have long and the end was gonna be painful enough without that. “He got a girl.”

“Really?”

“They went to the movies. She had a car.”

“What kind of girl?”

“A teacher at Long Beach State. I didn’t get to meet her, you know how Virgil is about stuff like that.”

“That’s nice.” She started drumming her fingers in her lap, like she did when she was happy. “He’s a good boy, it’s about time.” Then, “Where you been?”

“Looking for a girl myself.”

“Jealous of your brother?” She was smug. If she only knew what he’d had to do to get the money for her doctor and the hospital. It wasn’t right. It shouldn’t cost so much money to die.

“A little, I guess.” It couldn’t hurt to let her think that. He sighed. Now he could see pretty good in the dark room. She was wearing that satisfied smile she used to wear when she could see. He turned away, padded toward his room in stocking feet.

“That man’s been calling,” she said.

“What man?”

“That so called friend of yours who calls whenever he wants. Don’t he know better than to call in the middle of the night?”

“I hope you were polite.” Horace hustled into his room, grabbed the phone, pushed buttons. That’s all he needed, Ma talking to Striker.

“Yeah.” It was Striker.

“I did the Kenyon woman.” Horace wanted to get out the good news before Striker had a chance to complain about how long it took.

“Is it gonna come back on us?

“No way.” Horace talked low, hand cupped over the mouthpiece, so Ma couldn’t hear. “I couldn’t do it like you wanted, so I made it look like a sex crime. She had this faggot boyfriend nobody knew about. I dumped her behind this gay bar he was at.” It didn’t sound too bad the way he said it, maybe Striker wouldn’t mind.