State’s Evidence Read online

  “You mean would we know if they had the Quilk boy? Negative. We haven’t tried to penetrate them as yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s contraindicated. If Tony drops off the chart, at least two of the second tier will foreclose each other from trying to vertical into his slot. If you want to know how the scenario will play out, read the papers about the Bruno family in Philly. They just blew Chicken Man Testa all over the block. When the thing sorts itself out, then we can mount a mission. We don’t have unlimited resources, you know.”

  I was starting to think it was a good thing they didn’t. “Fluto told me if he went to jail he’d just run things from his cell,” I said.

  “Some LCN units could do it and have. But not Fluto. You have to have someone on the outside to execute the directives. The only one Tony’s got is his kid, and young Tony’s not equipped for the mission. He’d go on the same vacation Hoffa went on about two weeks after Tony was incarcerated. But to get back to the point, Tanner. Take a week off. Drive to the mountains. Pretty up there this time of year.”

  “I just got back.”

  Lucas nodded. “So you did. I must admit, her testimony was unexpected. Though not unwelcome.”

  “If I leave it for a week, and Gus Quilk isn’t found, the judge in El Gordo will dismiss Tolson’s murder case against Fluto.”

  “She probably will,” Lucas agreed. “But that’s not your problem, is it?”

  “I guess not,” I said. “There’s one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “Who the hell was it that Fluto squashed down there on Oswego Street?”

  Lucas shook his head. “You come back in a week. If the Quilk boy hasn’t surfaced by then, I’ll brief you on full background. Believe me.” Lucas looked at his watch and pulled a file toward him and thumbed through it.

  I smiled. I stood up. I left. I didn’t believe Lucas for a minute, but I pretended otherwise in order to match all the other pretending that had been going on in the case.

  When I got back to the first floor, I went inside a phone booth, pulling the door shut behind me. I listened to the hum of the little fan at the top of the booth as I stared at the telephone that was a foot from my face and thought about using it. I finally decided I didn’t have to make the call right then, so I didn’t. Instead I drove back to El Gordo, for what I hoped was the last time.

  22

  The lights across the bay were vague and timid, shrouded in evening fumes and mist. I parked the car and turned my back on the lights and the view and walked toward the fence and the low, dark house which lay beyond it. I tried the two front gates, careful not to make a sound, and confirmed that they were locked, then started around to the back, moving with the stealth of felons.

  There were lights coming from the Martin house to my left, and the indistinct drone of television words. Periodically I could see Kathryn Martin’s head pop in and out of the small window above her sink, a frown of concentration on her face as she prepared the evening meal. I walked beside the fence between the Blair and Martin houses, hoping the Martins didn’t have a dog or an alarm system, wondering if I’d made the right assumptions.

  The night air shouldered past the redwoods that spread their boughs above me, making sounds of silks and satins. The stars peeked in and out of clouds. As far as I could tell, the Blair house was dark and vacant, which was all right with me. And then nothing was all right, because a human sound crawled toward me from somewhere behind the house. It was the sound of pain, of the end of consciousness. I hurried in the direction I was going.

  The only light came from the Martin windows and from the chip of moon above them. The hill that rose behind the terraced lots was a high hull of impenetrable blackness. I still wasn’t sure what had happened, only that something had. I couldn’t see well enough to run.

  When I rounded the back corner of the fence, I saw the slats of an open gate. I moved into a jog and trotted toward it, wary, alert for the movements of someone besides myself. I couldn’t see anything but the thick splash of shadows when I tripped and fell.

  Dirt and rocks scraped flesh from my hands and knees. A fat, wet worm of blood inched down my leg. I rolled to my feet as quickly as I could, then bent back down to feel for the thing I had stumbled over. My hand felt bulk and warmth and the slick ribs of polyester; my fingers slid over enough textures to confirm my guess, then I struck a match.

  It was Wayne Martin. I guessed he was dead. The match went out.

  His head was oddly bent toward the point of his shoulder, his neck necessarily broken. One of his eyes was a balless socket. I felt for pulse and breath. Nothing bulged, nothing tickled. I struck another match and saw only the white face of a black Bible that lay open just beyond Martin’s four dead but grasping fingers, its pages fluttering in the wind like broken wings. I heard a sound behind me. When I looked up, I saw James Blair.

  He wore the same simple robe and slippers as the first time I had been at the house and he was carrying some kind of blanket draped over one arm and a rope looped over his wrist. When he saw me, he started, but only briefly, and dropped them both. I couldn’t see what was in his other hand but I thought it was a knife.

  “Good evening,” Blair said, immediately and totally composed. I could have been pulling weeds from the petunias.

  “Is this your doing?” I asked, gesturing toward the body behind me.

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Unfortunately,” I repeated. I saw Davy’s face for an instant, a new star, the brightest of the night. Then it vanished, perhaps to make room for the soul of its father.

  “He wasn’t who I thought he was,” Blair said softly. “He shouldn’t have been back here.”

  “You stupid bastard,” I said. “He was just trying to see his son. He hung around back here so he could catch a glimpse of the life he used to live.” My voice sounded hollow in the open air, the shell of a blown egg. I was suddenly exhausted, and I knew I couldn’t afford to be.

  “I realize all that now,” Blair said. “I thought someone had sent him.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. I think you’d better come inside.”

  It was more than a suggestion. The thing in his hand caught light for an instant. “And leave him here?” I asked.

  “For now.”

  “Could he be alive?”

  “Not possibly. His neck is broken. At the fifth or sixth cervical vertebra, I believe.”

  “His eye popped out when you hit him.”

  “Yes.”

  “Karate?”

  “A similar art, though more deadly. Come.”

  I patted my coat pocket, pressing it flat, feeling no comfort of a lump—my gun was back in the car. I had shot too many people with it, and now it seemed I always found an excuse to leave it behind. Blair stood to the side and pressed his eyes on me as I walked into the enclosed and foreign compound in which he lived. The gate closed behind us with the sound of an ax on wood.

  I crossed the gravel garden and went through the open glass door into the darkened living room, then turned and waited for Blair to join me. He was still in the shadows, when the room was suddenly lit by a dim and bluish light. When he entered I saw that the broad blade of a cleaver still dangled at his side, its edge buried in the folds of his robe. I gestured to the knife. “You’re not planning to do anything with that, are you?”

  Blair lifted his brows.

  “It’ll be hell getting my blood out of all these mats. A real tough laundry problem.”

  “Indeed,” Blair said simply, then carefully placed the cleaver on the table beside him. I shuddered. The stainless blade was made for dismemberment and nothing else.

  “Who did you think Wayne Martin was when you were breaking his neck?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Someone sent to retaliate?”

  “Something like that,” he observed absently.

  “Sent by whom? Young Tony? Your half brother
?”

  Blair smiled. “You do get around, Mr. Tanner. My compliments for unearthing our little secret.”

  “Where’s Teresa?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since she took the witness stand in court.”

  “How about the Quilk boy? Did you grab him?”

  “Why would I do that?” Blair asked.

  “I’m not exactly sure. I haven’t got all this straightened out yet. Maybe you can help,” I added. If he had time to think, he would think about me. I was trying to prevent it.

  “Why would I want to help you?” Blair asked artfully, and laughed for the time it takes to wink.

  “To square yourself with the Buddha, maybe.”

  “Oh, I did that long ago, Mr. Tanner. The Buddha is infinitely accommodating. It’s his most attractive quality.”

  “I doubt that he can accommodate what you just did out in the backyard.”

  “Perhaps not. It’s really not important. I no longer need the Buddha. I no longer need anyone.” The words were apocalyptic.

  “I remember you told me earlier that in this day and age a man could only choose to withdraw from the world or to become twice mad,” I said. “I assumed you had chosen the former. I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

  “Some would say so.” Blair’s serenity was so complete I began to wonder if he was drugged.

  Blair watched me silently, as interested as I was in what he would do in the next minute. “I am going to kill you now,” he said after time had passed. “I am not happy about it, but I have no choice, because of what you have learned and seen. I want you to know I bear you no ill will. Circumstances compel me to save myself and my destiny.”

  “So it’s destiny, is it? A heritage of crime and death?”

  Blair smiled. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “The police know I’m here,” I blurted.

  “Oh, I doubt that very much. Truly I do.” Blair nodded to confirm his words. “You came here to learn. Sadly, you will die in ignorance. But then, perhaps, you will know all there is to know. In a sense I envy you.”

  “Bullshit. Have you killed your sister, too?”

  “Teresa? Why would I kill her?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know which side you’re on. Did you shoot young Tony Fluto? Did you fire-bomb Wadley’s Restaurant?”

  Blair just rubbed his palms and fingers against each other and breathed, regularly and deeply, in some sort of exercise.

  “Are you trying to succeed to old Tony’s arson empire? Is that what this is all about? Is that the swamp I wandered into when I drove into this fucking town?”

  “Swamp is a good word,” Blair said. “Your speculation is reasonably accurate as well. I have worked for my father for many years, since I learned what he was and what I was. Doing his bidding, doing my duty, risking much and receiving little but a dream in return. Now I claim full benefit. Now I actualize my heritage.”

  “Tell me one thing,” I said. “Was Teresa working with you? Is that why you pretended to be man and wife? Were you some kind of secret commando team Tony had behind him, keeping the opposition in line, eliminating the pretenders to his throne?” I saw Teresa’s face as I said the words, and heard her voice, and the coupling of the image with my guess was horrible.

  Blair held up a hand to block my words. “I have no more trivial answers, Mr. Tanner. Only the ultimate one.” He raised his other hand as well, and straightened both of them, turning their edges toward me, wielding them like the cleaver he had just abandoned. His body turned as well, his stance becoming martial, threatening and confident. I knew I didn’t have a prayer if the fight was fair.

  Blair advanced toward me in that silly sliding motion of Kung Fu movies and playground antics, but I had no doubt that for him the moves were practiced, as effective as ordnance. He was a walking truncheon and I had nothing that would fend him off. It wouldn’t take more than one blow to kill me, if it was the right one. The one he had used on Wayne Martin. The expression on Blair’s face was mixed, but a part of it was regret. “Goodbye, Mr. Tanner. I feel that you are a man who need not fear death. If you allow me to proceed unimpeded I can guarantee the end will be quick and painless.”

  I laughed. “Oh, I’m not going to allow you to do a damned thing, Blair. You’re going to have to do more than talk like a dentist to roll me up in the same blanket with Wayne Martin.”

  Blair had expected my response. Without another word he slid toward me a step. I took a step backward. My leg bumped a table and I glanced quickly down. What I saw gave me an idea, faint and desperate, like my chances of survival.

  Blair’s eyes had brightened into azure jewels. He advanced on me relentlessly, left leg and arm cocked and forward, right side in reserve. His slippers scraping across the floor mats made the only sounds in the room except for the interior sounds of my heart and lungs.

  When I sensed he was about to advance another step, I reached down behind me and, without taking my eyes off him, groped for and finally grasped the deep green and delicate vase that rested on the table to my rear. When he saw what I had in my hand, Blair’s eyes flickered once. His right hand rose to shield his face and he lunged toward me, ready to slash my throat.

  I dove to the side. At the same time I threw the vase, not at Blair, not where he anticipated it would go, but at the wall across the room. The sound it made as its form and history shattered caused Blair to halt for an instant, then glance momentarily toward the wall that had destroyed his prize. The momentum of his initial move was as broken as the vase. I had retreated to a sliding door that was a thin and flimsy ally at my back.

  Blair came on again, his face no longer casually engaged but grim and deadly. I felt silly, a grown-up playing at kid games, until I met his eyes. Then I felt cold and as old as I would ever be.

  As he came toward me again, I shifted from side to side, reminded absurdly and distinctly of dodge-ball games, my back to a red brick schoolhouse, my only threat a deflated volleyball. Blair grunted and launched a flying kick to my chest.

  I leaped to the side again, so slowly that my trailing arm was nicked by the hurtling pad of Blair’s slipper. His momentum carried him into the thin door screen, shattering it. It took him several seconds to escape the shredded bamboo and rice paper. By the time he found me again, I had ripped his favorite scroll off the wall, the one that recommended the killing of the Buddha. I held the long strip of paper in front of my body like a towel.

  Blair again assumed his assault position. I waited for him to meet my eyes, and when he did I took the brittle strip of paper in both hands and ripped it down the middle. From the look on Blair’s face I had torn his heart as well.

  I threw the tattered scroll at him and turned back to the wall and swiped at the print of the tranquil fishing scene and sent it tumbling off its hook and to the floor. The glass over the print shattered, the mat bent awkwardly. “You bastard,” Blair muttered.

  He grunted once and bent his knees and I was in retreat again, my diversions gaining me only time, not advantage. Blair was enraged, but not so much that he abandoned the discipline of his technique. I wanted him to come at me like a street fighter. Instead, he advanced like a warrior god.

  I backed away again, then jumped toward the wall and pulled one of the kendo swords off its pegs and brandished it awkwardly in front of me. But I sensed immediately that it was the wrong thing to do, that I should not have armed myself, that it would be my undoing. “I shall now kill you with your own weapon, Mr. Tanner,” Blair said. “It is always the preferred result.”

  He was back in control now, because I was again predictable. I thought for an instant, then waved the sword in front of me, forcing him back a step. Then I whirled it about my head like a bolo and threw it at the paper carp that hung, gay and colorful, on the far wall. When the sword miraculously impaled the carp, the symbolic thrust seized Blair more powerfully than I could ever have. He was suddenly confused and doubtful, and I hurried to pull my one last trick.
By the time Blair had turned back toward me, I had the little bonsai tree and its heavy lacquered pot in my hands, my right fist wrapped around the undulant trunk of the tiny evergreen that emerged from the thick, damp dirt.

  “It has lived two hundred years,” Blair whispered. With a mad cry I yanked the tree out of its bed of soil and threw it to the floor and crushed its needles and branches, its bark and roots, its centuries of life, beneath the thick hard soles of my shoes. The blasphemous sounds of destruction were displaced by Blair’s scream, which was as pointed as the sword still sticking in the wall behind him. But it was his chest, not mine, that felt the wound.

  Blair leaped at me in sprawling, flailing fury. I stepped inside his punch and smashed him just above the ear with the heavy ceramic pot that had once held the ageless tree. Blair went down with the groan I had heard Wayne Martin utter, the groan of fallen men. I sank to my knees beside him.

  He wasn’t dead, but he’d be unconscious for a long while. I breathed deeply and slowly, until my adrenaline had subsided. After several minutes I rose and went to the back fence and Wayne Martin. I draped the blanket over his body and returned to the house with the rope and tied Blair’s hands and feet. When I looked up from the last knot, I looked into the eyes of Teresa Blair.

  “How did you get in here?” I asked stupidly.

  “Through the front door. This is my house, remember?” She gestured toward her brother’s body. “Is he dead?”

  “No.”

  She looked at the shambles around us. “What happened?”

  “He was trying to kill me. I was trying to stop him.”

  “Why did he want to kill you?”

  “Because he just killed your neighbor, Wayne Martin, and I just learned about it. Neither Martin nor I were in his plans, and it shook him.”

  Her eyes widened, revealing the red rims of strain. “Wayne Martin? Why would James do that? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I know. Blair thought Martin was someone else. Someone sent to kill him.”

  “Poor Katie,” she said.

  “Poor Davy,” I said.