Low Life (21 page)

Simon got into his car, mumbling under his breath. He was tired of everyone coming at him. He was tired of feeling frantic and lost and not knowing what direction to turn. And everyone coming at
him. Samantha. That private detective. Zurasky. And that son of a bitch and his fucking hammer. Goddamn them all.

He drove the car off the curb, and screeched away from there.

He drove around the Fillmore train station parking lot till he found a spot, parked his car, and got out. He dug the screwdriver from his overcoat’s inside pocket and
walked to the Ford Explorer beside which he’d just parked. Glancing left and then right, he sat on his haunches and began unscrewing the plates.

He drove along Hollywood Boulevard, past Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the Ripley’s museum. There was a crowd in front of the theater.

A cop car drove by going in the opposite direction. Simon’s chest tightened but the cop didn’t even glance at him.

It felt strange. How could he feel so guilty – how could he be so guilty: of killing a man and trying to dispose of the body, of breaking and entering, of two assaults – and not draw
the attention of every officer of the law within a hundred miles? Especially when everything was falling apart. It seemed the natural progression, the next step, and yet—

He stuck a cigarette between his dry lips as he drove and reached for his Zippo. It was gone. He had lost it. He thumbed in the car’s built-in lighter and after a few moments it popped
back out. He lighted his cigarette and inhaled deeply. The smoke made his lungs feel like overfilled balloons, taut and ready to pop.

He exhaled.

As he drove he tried to wrap his mind around the events of the last couple weeks. He tried to put the clues in some kind of working order. He tried to untangle the ugly, messy knot of events. He
couldn’t do it. But as he neared the motel – beige stucco with gray patches of concrete where the exterior had recently been repaired after, from the look of the damage, a car had been
driven into the manager’s office – something clicked. And while it didn’t make sense of everything, it gave him something to work with.

Walk the mile. Well, take him.

Yeah, he had something to work with.

He hoped he did.

‘You’re back,’ the guy behind the counter said, then he grabbed a hair from his nostril, plucked it, examined it, and threw it to the floor.

‘I am. But I’d like it if you could forget you ever saw me.’

‘Not a problem. You gotta be forgetful around here.’

Simon nodded.

‘You ditch the fuzz?’

‘Wasn’t the police. Private investigator.’

‘Marital trouble?’

‘What do you know about it?’

‘Nothing, man. Just conversatin’.’

‘Anyways, you got a pen or a marker or something I could write with?’

The guy dug a black marker from a coffee mug and set it on the counter.

‘How long you staying for this time? I can give you a discount if it’s three days or more.’

‘I don’t know how long. We’ll take it day by day.’

‘Suit yourself.’

Simon paid and the guy gave him his key. It was for the same room he’d had last night. One thirteen: bad luck plus one. He was at the manager’s door – looking out into the
parking lot – when he stopped and turned around.

‘If anybody asks, who stayed in my room?’

‘Blond fellow with a harelip. Had a birthmark on his neck shaped like Texas.’

‘Unfortunate fellow.’

‘Most folks are who end up here – their days of shitting in tall cotton far behind ’em. If they ever had any of those days to begin with.’ He looked sad and
contemplative.

Simon nodded and held up the marker. ‘I’ll bring this back when I’m done.’

When he couldn’t find paper he wrote both phrases on the wall.

One a, two e’s, one h, one i, one k, two l’s, one m, one t, one w – same letters for both of them. They were anagrams – just as he’d thought. But what else? He
stared at them for a long time, those phrases scrawled in his shaking hand on the lumpy motel-room wall, illuminated by pale yellow lamplight. When was the last time he’d eaten? His stomach
felt empty and sour and was grumbling and boiling. Could stomachs consume themselves?

This wasn’t the time to think about that. He could eat later.

Anagrams.

After a while he started writing, slowly at first, but gaining speed as he continued on, as he got the hang of it:

He chewed on his bottom lip as he wrote, one anagram after another, none of them making the least bit of sense to him, though he paused after a couple, and stared, trying to make them mean
something. He couldn’t do it, though, and so he continued on – writing away.

Then he stopped again and sat on the bed.

He looked at his collection of nonsensical anagrams. He could think of another dozen, no problem – maw hike tell, aw theme kill, ha me well kit, math like Lew, and on and on – but
saw no point in writing them down when they meant nothing to him.

He threw the marker against the wall, watched it fall to the floor, and fell back on the mattress. He stared at the ceiling. It was covered in spray-on texture – what he’d called
popcorn ceiling as a kid – except in one section. That section looked like it had been recently repaired. Maybe there had been a roof leak and the rotten section had been cut out and
replaced. Or maybe—

He sat up, got to his feet, picked up the marker, and wrote two words on the wall at the end of his list:

One a, two e’s, one h, one i, one k, two l’s, one m, one t, one w – Kate Wilhelm. He stared at the two words for a long time. It should have been obvious. If he’d been
able to think clearly it would have been.

He thought of the letter Jeremy Shackleford had written to her.

What had she done? He had said she couldn’t continue on this path. He had said she would end up hurting herself as much as she hurt him. How had she hurt him? What had she done?

‘You thought I was too stupid to figure out it was you.’ He licked his lips. ‘You won’t think I’m so stupid now.’

He sat at the writing desk in the corner of the room, picked up the telephone, and dialed 4–1–1.

‘City and state, please.’

‘Los Angeles, California.’

‘How can I help you, sir?’

‘The number for a Kate Wilhelm.’

‘Wilhelm?’

‘Wilhelm.’ He spelled it for her.

‘Okay, sir, there’s twenty-three results for Wilhelm but no Kate.’

‘Is there a K?’

‘No, sir. It goes from John to Mack.’

Simon was silent.

‘Sir?’

‘Would it be possible to get them all?’

‘All twenty-three, sir?’

‘Yeah.’

A sigh.

‘Do you have a pen and paper, sir?’

‘I have a marker.’

‘Okay, sir. This first one is Amanda.’

‘Okay.’

He took down names and numbers, scribbling them upon the wood surface of the writing desk since he didn’t have a piece of paper, the meat of his hand just below the pinky occasionally
smearing a last name or the last four digits of a phone number as he dragged his hand over it. Eventually he had them all.

He hung up the phone. He turned around, looking over his shoulder at the digital clock on the night stand. The red numbers claimed it was

It was still early enough to call.

He turned back around and looked at the phone. He had a knot in his stomach. For some reason this filled him with dread, with a vague fear that had no direction to turn, that had no focus at
all. He swallowed and looked at that first number.

He had to do it so he might as well just get on with it.

He picked up the phone and dialed.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi, is Kate there?’

‘Kate?’

‘Kate Wilhelm.’

‘What number are you calling?’

He told her.

‘Right number,’ the woman on the other end of the line said, ‘wrong person.’

‘Okay. Sorry to bother you.’

‘No bother.’ Click.

Keeping the phone to his ear, he severed the line with his left hand, dropping his first two fingers on the button, then lifted his hand, listened to the dial tone, and dialed the next number.
He got a similar response – on and on he got that response. Sorry, no, wrong number, nobody here by that name, who are you trying to call, I don’t know anyone by that name, huh-uh,
nope, bye.

That was how it went until he got to John Wilhelm.

‘Yeah?’

‘Hi. Is uh—’

‘What?’

‘Is Kate there?’

Silence.

‘Hello?’

Finally: ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Who is this?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Who’s calling?’

‘Is – is Kate there?’

‘I said, who’s calling?’

‘Simon.’

‘When was the last time you saw Kate, Simon?’

‘It’s – it’s been a while.’

More silence.

‘Hello?’

‘Kate’s dead.’

‘What?’

‘Dead.’

‘When?’

‘Last April.’

‘That’s not – when?’

‘Last April, I said.’

He didn’t respond. Eventually the guy on the other end of the line grew impatient with the silence: ‘Hello?’

‘That’s not possible.’

‘I’m afraid it is. Goodbye.’

Then the sound of the line being severed. Simon sat with the phone pressed against his ear for some time. Eventually a recorded voice broke through the silence. ‘If you would like to make
a call, please hang up and—’

He set the phone in its cradle, looked down at his lap, thinking about what to do next, and then picked it up again and again dialed 4–1–1.

‘City and state, please.’

‘Los Angeles, California,’ he said. ‘I need the address for a John Wilhelm.’

‘There’s no John Wilhelm in Los Angeles, sir, but there’s one in Burbank.’

‘That’s the one.’

In the dream he was driving a yellow Chevy Nova, and though he was not a particularly tall man – five foot nine – his knees were brushing against the steering
wheel. The seat was adjusted for a shorter person. This was not his car. He saw blood on his hands as they gripped the wheel, in the creases of his skin, under his thumbnails. He glanced to his
right, but the passenger’s seat was empty.

That didn’t make sense; he knew Kate was in the car.

He turned his head to look in the back seat and saw—

Someone banging on the door awoke him. He didn’t know where, when, or who he was. He looked around to reorient himself with his surroundings. He had fallen asleep in the
chair at the writing desk. He’d decided to go pay John Wilhelm a visit, put his face into his hands and closed his eyes, just for a minute, just to think about how he’d handle the
situation, and must have fallen asleep. His neck was killing him.

How long had he slept?

‘Open up, motherfucker!’

The banging continued.

He rubbed at his eyes with his knuckles, looked out of the window. His eyes itched. It was night. The clock said it was nine forty-five. He wondered if an entire day had passed. He didn’t
think so. He thought it was still Tuesday. It
had
been Tuesday, right? He just couldn’t think at—

‘I’ll kick this fucking door down!’

‘Who is it?’

‘Open the fucking door I know she’s in there.’ The words slurred together.

‘There’s no she in here at all.’

‘Open the fucking door and prove it.’

Simon walked to the door and pulled it open as far as the chain would allow. He looked out and saw a praying-mantis-looking guy in a wife-beater and cargo shorts. He was bare-footed. The guy
looked at him with confusion.

‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘The guy whose door you’ve been banging on.’

‘What room—’ He looked at the number on the door. ‘Man, this is the wrong fucking room.’ He said it in a tone that suggested Simon had made the mistake: he’d
obviously put his room in the wrong spot. The guy walked away shaking his head.

Simon shut the door.

A moment later he heard banging on someone else’s.

‘Open up. I know she’s in there!’

Simon was glad the guy’d woken him up. He had to pay someone a visit.