April Smith - Good Morning, Killer

“Come on, it’s freezing.”

I took his big warm hand. “I hope Juliana isn’t on the street tonight.”

I had become aware of a homeless African-American man on a nearby bench, fists in pockets. Every time his eyes fluttered closed, he jerked himself awake. Now another transient, a white guy with a huge belly, was lumbering toward a doorway.

Andrew was suddenly on his feet.

“Where’re you going?”

“That’s Willie John Black. Hey, Willie!”

The man looked over slowly.

Andrew said, “Remember me?”

“Sure I remember you,” he said, but seemed to need a little help.

“Detective Berringer.”

“Of course.” The man raised a hand, which was weighted down by a small, filthy, formerly yellow day pack. “How are you, Detective?”

“Good. How are you, my man?”

“Well, I was just going to claim this doorway. It’s a double, you see.”

It was the entrance to a vintage clothing store with side-by-side glass doors, room enough to lie down and stretch out. Willie lowered his small pack and a bedroll.

“Just put down my gear …”

Every move was shaky and painfully deliberate. I made him for fifty or sixty: matted white hair and a full white beard stained yellow around the lips. He wore a clean blue sweatshirt that said Beverly Hills 90210, paint-splattered pants and enormous round-toed boots with red nylon laces that were loose because he could not bend to tie them.

“You’re not going to bust me?” Willie said.

Andrew laughed and patted his shoulder.

“Last time I busted you had to be eight or ten years ago, when I was on the street.”

“You remember that?” said Willie shyly.

“Sure do.”

“I remember you, too. You were always nice. Always a gentleman. Even when you arrested me.”

“This is Willie’s doorway,” Andrew explained, with a significant look because it was directly across from Crystal Dreams.

“Used to be a bookstore,” Willie said.

“You hang out in this doorway a lot?” I asked.

“Sometimes I go up to the 7-Eleven. Up near Saint Anne’s. They’ve got a serenity meeting and a men’s room I can have access to. Sometimes I go down to that place behind the Holiday Inn. They’ve got soup. You can get a paper bag lunch.” It was hard to see what was going on underneath the hair and beard. His face was ruddy and weathered, and his eyes — I tried to find his eyes — were flat disks, faintly green. They slid away and came back to me.

“What’s your name?” he asked. I gave him my card and we shook hands. His was heavy and rough and imbedded with hard black grime.

“You go up to the 7-Eleven, but you come back?”

“Sometimes I penny-cup for a meal. A lot of people pass by here.”

That made sense. There would be crowds from the movie theaters and pedestrians streaming from across the street.

Andrew showed him the picture of Juliana.

“Did you ever see this girl?”

The paper trembled in Willie’s hands.

“Yup. I’ve seen her. Many, many times.”

My heart kicked up.

“Where?”

He seemed lost in the picture.

“Have you seen her around the Promenade?”

“Oh, yes,” said Willie. “She’s a regular.”

He handed it back.

“Look,” said Andrew, “can we buy you some dinner?”

Willie looked around. “Don’t want to lose my place. The man said it’s going to rain again.”

He swayed, tired on his feet.

“Willie,” I said, “this girl was kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?”

“We think she was here, yesterday, sitting on that bench in front of Crystal Dreams.”

“Did you see her,” Andrew prompted, “sitting on that bench?”

Willie squinted through the hazy light.

“Yup. I’ve seen her. Talking to that man with the camera.”

Sometimes you hit it. Sometimes the silver dollars tumble right out into your hands.

“Can you describe him?”

“Oh, he’s been around here. I think he must be a tourist from Arizona.”

“How do you know?”

“We talk.”

“You and the man?”

“Oh, sure. He gives me a hard time about my gear,” said Willie, moving the grimy pack aside with a big round toe. “Told me to get it disinfected for bugs.”

Andrew and I were like hounds baying on the leash.

“Tell us about him.”

“What was his name? What did he look like?”

“White fellow.”

“How old?”

Willie shrugged. “Young.”

“What kind of camera?”

“Pretty fancy camera. Called him ‘Arizona’ because he was always talking about Arizona. Wanted to go back there. Didn’t like it here in California. We had some deep talks. I told him he could count on me. You have to take care of your own.” “Was he a transient?”

Willie considered what it meant to be a transient.

“Never saw him up at the 7-Eleven.”

“Did he have a van? A dark green van?”

“Van? Don’t know. Never offered me a ride. But he did seem eager to leave.”

“What didn’t he like about California?” I asked.

“Wanted to go back to where he came from. Just like me. I’m originally from New Orleans. That’s where I’ve been trying to get back to, soon as I can recover my property.”

“But you saw him talking to this girl.” Andrew put the picture in front of Willie’s nose. “When?”

“On and off.”

“Yesterday?”

“Might have been.”

Willie lowered himself slowly and with great weariness, hands feeling along the glass door, until, with a sigh, he found that he was sitting on the bedroll. He was finished.

“Thanks for all your help.”

“I want to help out,” echoed Willie, and his eyes rolled up at us with a serious and sad expression. Everything he said had borne the same monotone, as if the world he saw through those colorless eyes was only gray-on-gray.

Andrew was gazing down at him.

“It’s going to rain, buddy. Let me give you a ride to the shelter.”

“That’s very nice of you, but I’m waiting for a dude named Steve. We’re going up to Malibu. He has access to a propane stove,” said Willie with a meaningful raise of white eyebrows. “It’s better to stay together because of street violence. That way we can maintain a reasonable situation.” “You’re not going up to Malibu tonight.”

Willie thought about this and nodded his shaggy head. “That’s true, I have to work.”

“What kind of work do you do?” I asked curiously.

“I travel around America for the national Defense Department,” he said. “I have an ID which the El Monte police took away. That’s what I’m talking about, trying to regain my property. They also impounded my vehicle. My job is to drive randomly throughout the United States and data-process sponge cake in the U.S. population.” I had the woozy feeling of being lifted up and set back down, like bobbing in a wave.

“Sponge cake?”

“‘Sponge cake’ is a code name that refers to Patricia Hearst, who was an individual from the Soviet Union who was being data-processed to be a high warden in the NOBD. That’s what I was trained to do, you see. Sometimes I would encounter a candlelight situation.” Andrew was looking away. A damp breeze lifted up the back of his hair.

“A candlelight situation,” Willie explained, “is an entity case where the future and today merge together.”

I thought for a moment, just one moment, he was pulling the greatest joke of all time. Then it all drained out of me.

“Willie,” I said gently, “have you ever been in a hospital?”

“Oh, yes. Yes. I was flying a Cobra and slammed into a mountain in Wyoming called Devil’s Ring. They put me in the hospital.”