Deep Without Pity | Page 4

going to have to trust me. If I ask a question, it's probably for a good reason."
He blinked his eyes down, then back up to mine. "My father was a difficult man. I respected him, and I honored him, as I was taught to do."
I decided I was not going to be able to crack Jeffrey King, and that it probably wasn't worth my effort anyway. "All right, Jeffrey," I said, "I'm interested." I recited my rates, adding, "Plus a bonus if I get her off. A hundred will do for a retainer."
"Will a check be all right?"
I nodded, and while he started writing I asked him, "Who do you think did it?"
He finished making out the check, tore it out with a long,
backhanded rip. Then he looked at me with smoldering eyes. "The whore," he said. "Charlene Desmond."
"Have you met her?"
"No. But I've read what she said in the newspapers. She's evil, Mr. Sloane. A desperate, misguided woman." He was sounding twice his age again, and I wondered just how much he knew about desperate, misguided women.
"What's her motive?"
He shrugged. "Who knows? But she must have known Chico was off on Thursdays. That would be the day when she was used to visiting my father. So when she wanted something from him, she knew when he would be alone. He refused her, probably refused to continue his relationship with her, and she shot him."
"Um hmm," I said, and picked up the check. "Can I reach you at this number?" He nodded. "All right. I'll get on it right away. If there's anything else I need I'll call you."
He left and I threw open a window. The smell of baking asphalt wafted in from Congress Avenue, but it was an improvement. I called the sheriff's office and asked for Winslow.
"Hello, Sam. This is Dan. Looks like we're going to be working together."
"How's that?" His voice had a tentative sound to it, a little frayed at the edges.
"On the King case. His son hired me."
"Oh really."
"What's wrong? You and Jeannie slug it out again?"
"No. No...just can't see why you'd want to bother with the King case. It's all over but the trial."
"Well, maybe so. But I still got to make a living. Listen, can you give me some info? I need to know where the King woman stands."
"Like what?"
"Like did you get prints on the gun?"
"Yeah. They were smeared, but we got two good sets. One hers, one his."
"Do you have an address for Charlene Desmond?" He gave it to me and I wrote it on the blotter.
"One mote thing," I said. "What about traffic up at the King house Thursday night. Did you find out anything?"
"The cab companies say none of their people went up there. Neighbors don't remember much." He found a quieter, apologetic tone. "Say, Dan, I have to go."
"Yeah. I understand. See you, Sam." I did understand. I'd been around long enough to know the sound of pressure coming down.
?
V
In 1959 I gave up my DA haircut and sold my Chevy and joined the Marines. My girlfriend was very proud of me for about two weeks, then she found somebody who was still in the neighborhood, and that was that. When Kennedy sent the "advisors" to Viet Nam in '61 I was along for the ride, and I was flying choppers by '62. Then my hitch was up, and I was ready to go home. So my sergeant got me drunk and got me to sign a blank piece of paper and I was suddenly in for three more years. They hadn't been able to make their idea of a man out of me, and they wanted another chance.
I didn't want to give it to them. I'd been rooked and they knew it, but the pressure was on. I tried to raise a stink, but it was hopeless, and finally the word came down: if I wanted out badly enough I could have a Dishonorable Discharge. I walked out of the Commandant's Office in Saigon and watched a Buddhist monk pour gasoline on himself and set himself on fire. I went back into the Commandant's office and talked some more. I finished my hitch at a desk in Germany.
I took my hand-to-hand combat training to Pinkerton while I was at Berkeley on the GI Bill. They used me for muscle while I finished my college, and let me do my required two years of investigating when I got out. With my license in hand I proceeded to starve for a year in a Northern California full of private eyes and impoverished kids. It was 1971 and the magic that was Berkeley was dead, along with the magic of most everything else.
I moved back to Austin and found some of it again. The kids were here, and it