Steven Brust - Agyar

“Maybe,” said Jim. “They frown on other people killing drug dealers; I imagine they think it presumptuous.”

“Narrow of them.” I continued to stare out the window, trying to see if anyone was out there. At last I gave up and stared morosely at the hearth. “I suppose starting a fire is right out,” I said.

“Do you think it’s Laura Kellem?” he said.

I didn’t answer; I just didn’t know any more. And I didn’t know if the police had the house under constant surveillance, or just periodic drive-bys.

I put my horrible coat on. Jim said, “Where are you going?”

“I want to see how our police force is spending my tax dollars.”

“You don’t pay taxes.”

“I’ll see you later.”

He licked his lips. Why would a ghost lick his lips? “Be careful,” he said.

“Yes.”

I left the way I was getting used to leaving-carefully, over roofs, and with darkness all around me. Having got that far, I checked out the area and found them very quickly, half a block down the street: Two gentlemen sitting in a running car drinking coffee while passing a pair of binoculars back and forth. Just like in the movies. Did the Lakota police have the manpower to spare for twenty-four-hour surveillance like this? Apparently, unless I just happened to catch them. Or maybe Mel Gibson had said, “Look, Captain, I just know that place is it. Let me check it out.” And Robert Duvall had said, “We can’t spare you. How are you coming on the Johnson embezzlement case?” And Mel had said, “Captain, I’ve got three weeks of vacation built up, and I’m taking them right now.” Then a quick cut to exterior house, background, car parked down the block, foreground, two men in car-

No, not very likely. Sorry, Mel.

They knew I was about, and they knew I frequented the house, and they were watching for me. Why?

I looked around a little more, but they seemed to be the only ones. The thought came that I could do for them both right then, but, to put it mildly, it would not have helped the situation.

Then another thought came to me, and, after some reflection, I could see no problem with it. I positioned myself behind a tree, cloaked in the night, and I waited. The moon, waning from the full, rose in the heavens.

After a time, I knew that one of the policemen was sleeping, and the other, the passenger, was staring straight ahead. I walked up to the car and tapped on the window. The driver was of middle years, perhaps forty or forty-five, and had a flat face of the type that makes one think he was dropped on it as a child. He didn’t look anything like Mel Gibson. The passenger looked like Robert Duvall. He stared at me without expression and without blinking, and rolled down the window.

I said, “Why are you here?”

“Orders,” he said. Ask a stupid question…

I said, “For whom are you watching?”

“Homicide suspect,” he said. His voice was wheezy. He probably smoked too much; the noxious odor of secondhand smoke wafted from the car along with warm air from the heater.

“Does this homicide suspect have a name?”

“John Agyar, alias Jack Agyar, alias Yanosh Agyar.”

Now was not the time to attempt to get into the Guinness Book for endurance cursing, nor was it the time to correct his pronunciation of my name. I said, “How do you know he lives there?”

Robert Duvall’s face contorted just a bit because I had made him think; he probably had to put together things he had been directly told with things he’d happened to hear. He said, “A neighbor identified the sketch, and his em oh matches two homicides that happened there.”

I didn’t know what an “em oh” was, but I got the idea. I said, “Give me the sketch.”

He did. His companion, the driver who didn’t resemble Mel Gibson, started snoring. I looked at the sketch; this one was considerably better. It mentioned the coat again, and also included the pendant, damn it.

“Here, put this back.”

He did so.

I said, “Are you sure the drug dealers were killed by Agyar?”

He said, “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Same kind of killing as the other two, and maybe three more.”

“All right-wait. Other two? ”

“Yes.”

Literal son of a bitch. “What others? Name them.”

“Kowalczek and Swaggart, maybe the Tailors, and maybe a pimp named Alvin Jorgenson, alias Charlie George.”

“Say those names again.”

“Kowalczek, Swaggart, Tailor, Tailor, and Jorgenson.”

Ah ha.

I said, “Who was Kowalczek?”

“Theresa Kowalczek, female Caucasian, aged twenty-four.”

“How did she die?”

“Her throat was ripped out.”

“That was never in the papers,” I said. He didn’t say anything, and I realized I hadn’t asked a question. “Why wasn’t that in the papers?”

“It was hushed up.”

“By whom?”

“Baldy.”

“Baldy?”

“Yes.”

“Who is Baldy?”

“Theodore Baldwin.”

I clucked my tongue and tried again. “Who is Theodore Baldwin?”

“The mayor of Lakota.”

The mayor?

“What does the mayor have to do with this?”

“His son was engaged to Terri Kowalczek.”

Oh, Kellem, good work. “What is known about the killing?”

“Some sort of love triangle. This Agyar was involved with one or the other of them, either Kowalczek or Baldwin, we don’t know which.”

Probably pretty accurate, if one were to substitute Kellem for Agyar. “Hasn’t someone-umm. What is Baldwin’s first name?”

“Brian.”

“Hasn’t someone asked Brian Baldwin?”

“He isn’t saying anything, and he’s been sick.”

“Sick how?”

“I don’t know; that’s what we’ve heard.”

“Is he in the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

Unfortunately, it all made sense. “When did the investigation break?”

“When Donald Swaggart was killed the same way, and we got a witness.”

“What is known about this Agyar?”

“Nothing, except that he’s been seen in this neighborhood, both before and after the bodies were found in the house.”

I wondered how my dear neighbor Bill would feel if he were to wake up one morning and find his wife dead. My musings were interrupted by the radio, which had being going pretty continuously, starting to sound urgent. It occurred to me that my friends had been out of touch for a while, and it was always possible that someone would call or drive by to check on them, if they hadn’t done so already.

Robert Duvall was still looking at me, waiting. He would continue to do so for some time, unless he was told to do something different.

“Now listen to me,” I said.

“Yes.”

“There must be something wrong with the exhaust system in this car.”

“Yes.”

“You have had the engine running, and you both fell asleep.”

“Yes.”

“In a moment, you will spill your coffee on your lap, and that will wake you up.”

“Yes.”

“You will know at once that you have passed out from carbon monoxide poisoning, and you will roll down the window, turn the car off, and wake up your partner.”

“Yes.”

“First you will roll up the window, and you will forget doing so, and you will forget this conversation entirely, then you will spill your coffee.”

“Yes.”

“Do so now.”

He rolled up his window and I got out of there.

I returned to the house, came up to my typing room, and dug through the sheaf of papers that my friend from the newspaper had given me, and it was all there, between the lines; hints of a love triangle, hints of a gruesome death, if you were looking for them. The whole thing was there. The trouble was, I’d been looking for the gruesome death part, rather than trying to spot a murder that made so much noise Kellem would know it couldn’t be hushed up.