Murder by Candlelight (42 page)

Five candles.

Too little wax.

Anyway, the openings in
Kunkle's nose (everyone's nose) faced down. No way for the wax to
get up into the nose to close off the little man's breathing.
Particularly since Kunkle was breathing in and
out
. Breathing out would blow away
the liquid wax before it could congeal. And yet, Z believed the
police report that Kunkle had been suffocated. Though Z didn't like
cops -- no one did -- they'd be on the money about Kunkle's death.
Nor would they make an error about his nose being stopped up with
wax.

And yet it made no sense. None of it!
..............

Z was tired. ... Exhausted.

Pushing away the list, putting down the pen,
he rubbed his sand-filled eyes.

Enough.

Too much for the shape he was in.
..................

Tomorrow, he'd take it up again.

Tomorrow.

If only he could get a sound night's
sleep!

* * * * *

Chapter 23

Next morning, Z started again on yet another
piece of paper.

1. Picnic.

2. Bud asks for help -- no money to pay.

3. Kunkle thinks Bud stole Kunkle's
girl.

4. The girl was a
racehorse. No
way
she was Kunkle's girl.

5. Zap Kunkle.

6. Stack of money Z left in secret desk
drawer. Later missing -- cops?

7. Notebook -- later missing -- Cops?

8. Bud's name and number.

9. Lee Dotson's name and number.

10. Carrara Marble not in book.

11. Cards.

12. Queen of spades missing from pack.

13. Sunglasses, glue, glim, alcohol = card
cheat.

14. Muscle mags, rubber + no gym equipment,
Kunkle a weak guy = homo.

15. No drugs.

16. No gun.

17. No medicine in house, except
aspirin.

18. Five candles.

19. Leaves house unlocked.

20. Tips cops so they will come and free
Kunkle.

21. To Bud's tavern. Tells Bud that Kunkle
is no problem. Bud nervous, sweaty. Later Z thinks, because Bud had
already heard about Kunkle's death.

22. Bud offers money. Eager to get rid of
Z.

24. Z says, no fee.

25. Bud says thanks. Tavern his whole
life.

26. Both to say nothing about affair.

27. Newspaper says Kunkle dead. Wax.

28. Z thinks, no way.

29. Nightmares start.

30. Dotson killed.

And that was what had to be the final
list.

Proving that all Z had needed was a good
night's sleep for his mind to function once more.

A good night's sleep,
itself, something of a puzzle. Z
still
didn't know the ins and outs
of Kunkle's untimely death, and yet, got so much good sleep he
hadn't awakened until noon.

Could it be that sleep
without nightmares meant he was just
about
to find the answers, that Z's
hidden mind had already discovered the truth?

Tired as he'd been, last night's work had
pointed out the impossibility that Kunkle could have had an
interest in Carrara Marble, the woman a several hundred dollar
hooker. Also, that there was no reason Bud's phone number should
have been in Kunkle's little black book. Surely, Bud would have
mentioned it if, in addition to giving Bud a bad time in person,
Kunkle has been harassing Bud with threatening phone calls. Not to
mention Bud's claim that Kunkle had taken a shot at Bud -- with Z
finding no gun in Kunkle's digs.

Now that Z had added to the tally, were
other revelations hidden in the checklist?

Z scanned the outline again.

Calder had said to include details -- and
that's what, with a lot of hard work, Z had done.

There were other
particulars, of course. Z
could
have listed each item of trash he'd found in
Kunkle's junker of a car, for instance. ....

And maybe he should.

Not wanting to start over -- Z had already
done that several times as it was, each time slipping the pages
he'd had to revise in the fireplace to be burned -- Z began by
adding data, first to No. 14, after "homo," putting: rusty carjack,
screwdriver, old milk cartons, empty food bags, wadded-up
newspaper.

What else?

After No. 13, he made a carrot mark and
penned in "super" above glue.

After "alcohol," Z squeezed in cellophane
wrappers.

Z looked at the list again. Added, "Bud
invites Z to play cards." Also, "Bud in bad shape: can't read."
Also, "Doesn't watch TV." Also, "Olin Brainbridge works for Bud.
Olin has cold. Olin has quit."

Staring at the revised list, Z began to feel
a familiar sensation at the back of his neck, a prickling he
sometimes had when about to discover a truth. ......

And there it was!

Why Z hadn't seen it before, he didn't know,
knowing only that Calder was a genius for having suggested an
itemization! If Z hadn't seen it in black and white, he might never
have wised up.

Furthermore, the answer encompassed the two
most important guidelines old cops preached to rookies.

Motive.

And opportunity.

Speaking of motive, detective novels
generally said there were the only three motives for murder.

Love.

Money.

And hate-revenge. (Not to exclude an
occasional killing done by the world's increasing number of
fanatics, political and religious crazies included.)

Z looked at his watch. Blinked. Held his
wrist as far away from his eyes as his arm would stretch. Squinted
to see the watch's spidery hands, hands that were becoming more
slender by the year.

Midnight.

Midnight? Could it be midnight?

Z put the watch to his ear. Heard its
unsteady tick.

Z stretched, a stretch that made his muscles
creak -- Z's back certainly tired enough for it to be midnight.

He'd started working on the revised list,
when? Sometime that afternoon, after he'd gone out for what ritzy
people called brunch. (Since he'd slept till noon, more like
"lupper" by the time he'd shaved and showered.) Meaning, it could
have been four o'clock before he'd sat down to write.

So, it
might
be midnight. ......

No problem.

He needed to get out of the house for awhile
anyway, a short, clarifying car ride certain to do him good.

Pulling on a light jacket from the living
room's half-closet, Z stepped outside the apartment door to find
the night both dark and middle-of-September cool, Z almost going
back inside for a heavier coat. An idea he rejected since it was
only a short walk down the back path to the dilapidated garage.
After that, he'd be in the car, the Cavalier's heater still
working.

Dark.

So dark, Z tripped on one of the uneven
concrete slabs of the walk, catching himself, but twisting his
knee. (Though he'd had trouble with that knee since football, it
had been better of late. Z could only hope that the sharp stab of
every other step didn't mean another long stretch of painful
recovery.)

Inside the car, out of the garage, down the
street, he turned left on 72nd, Z continuing to be chilly enough to
think of little else but when the whiny little engine would heat
up, the car actually doing that by the time he'd hit the red light
at Oak, Z beginning to feel warm enough to relax the cold-tight
muscles of his back.

With the green, he turned left on Oak, Z
drifting through the sparse, late night traffic of that north-south
arterial, finally leaving the lights of North Kansas City behind
him, the four-lane increasingly deserted as he neared the ASB
bridge. The only cars -- trucks, mostly -- this far south were
those headed over the replacement "Heart of America" bridge into
Kansas City proper.

Except for a few saloons, KCMO was shut down
for the night.

Just to this side of the approach to the
ASB, Z eased his car off the right lane, coasting down to park at
that location's industrial-strength curb.

Getting out, Z was careful to lock the car
in this rust belt neighborhood, caught between industrial North
Kansas City at its back and the muddy Missouri at its feet.

Thick clouds masking moon and stars, the
night was as black as an insurance salesman's conscience; cold as
the blood in an actuary's heart.

No other cars were parked along the
street.

If Bud had any trade this evening, it had to
be the stagger-in kind.

Limping over the high curb, crossing the
uneven walk, Z opened the familiar green door.

Ducking inside the saloon's wet warmth, the
door creaked shut behind him.

Z's eyes already accustomed to the outside
gloom, he glanced around. In the gaudy glare of the silent jukebox,
in the electric hum of neon beer signs, seeing ... no one.

Correction. Seeing a dimly lighted Bud,
hunched behind the bar, his elbows propping up his fat body.

Black string tie. White, western shirt.

"Slow night," Z said when he was in
muttering distance, Bud straining in the joint's half-light to see
who'd come in.

"Z! What
you
doin' here this time
of night?" All of his chins now smiling, Bud straightened up.
Reached across the bar to shake Z's hand.

Z "stooled" himself. Looked into Bud's
pig-stupid eyes. Said, "I know."

"Know what?" Bud still had that sickly grin
on his puffy white face.

"You killed Howard Kunkle."

"Wait a minute," Bud said, his child's voice
now a squeak, Bud putting his arms out in front of him, palms up,
as if to ward off evil. "Who told you that? That ain't true, and
...."

"First," Z cut in, in too
good a mood for late night bullshit, "because
I
couldn't have done it."

"You're not makin' any sense, boy. What you
talkin' about?"

"Not with five candles. I knew that all
along. Just couldn't get myself to believe it. And that leaves ...
you. Besides me, you're the only one who knew I was going to see
Kunkle. Knew the time. Knew the place. Thinking my talk with Kunkle
wouldn't work, you followed me. Discovering the door was open, went
in after I left. Finding Kunkle tied and his mouth taped, you
killed him."

Bud said nothing, his multiple grin fading
to slit-thin lips.

"How?" Z continued, not letting Bud wiggle
off the hook. "By pinching his nose shut until he died. After that,
stuffing hot wax up his nostrils to make it look like he suffocated
from the wax."

Though a guess, Z's speculation drew blood,
Bud's face as pale as a new-made snowman, sweat slicking out of
every pore. A snowman, melting.

"When I came to tell you
I'd run Kunkle off," Z continued, "you already knew. 'Cause you'd
been there. 'Cause you'd killed him." No sense reminding Bud of his
illiteracy. Or that he hadn't heard about the killing on TV either,
because he didn't watch TV. (The odds he'd learned about Kunkle's
death from Brainbridge or from one of Bud's brain-dead barflies was
so remote it wasn't worth considering.) "It was never about the
hooker. You owed Kunkle a gambling debt and he wanted his money. He
knew somebody who owed
him
a favor, someone who he was going to sic on
you."

"How you know that?" the fat man asked
quietly, unable to meet Z's eyes, Bud staring down at invisible
beer rings on the bar.

Resisting the urge to say "Elementary, my
dear Watson," Z said, "No gun."

"No ... gun?"

"Without a gun, Kunkle had to have somebody
do the threatening. Kunkle wasn't big enough."

"A giant. I seen him in here with Howie,
once. One of them chains-and-leather types. A mean, black
son-of-a-bitch."

Z nodded. When Bud
Izard
thought a tough
was big, he
must
have been -- "chains and leather" making clear
another
thing.

"The spade queen Kunkle
gave you was to remind you of Mr. Chains and Leather --
Kunkle's
queen."

Bud got it. Nodded soberly.

"Kunkle was a card cheat."

"Yeah?" Bud looked up, surprised enough not
to have known.

"Brought this trouble on himself. Also, I
figure the money you stole from his desk drawer was yours to
steal."

The look of amazement on Bud's face said it
all.

"You didn't have money one
day," Z explained, "you had several hundred the next. Looking at
the business in here, I had to figure a
week's
take to be less than
that."

Bud shook his head to say he'd been playing
out of his league. "What ... you going to do?" His voice almost
rusted shut, Bud sagged down on the counter again, this time on one
elbow, the other hand slipped behind the bar.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"I'm only happy
I
didn't kill the little
bastard. He was guilty. He sicked his thug on you." Self-defense
was part of the Zaposka Code.

"Listen, Z," Bud said, his alto bright once
more, a smile hinting at the corners of his mouth. "I never had no
margin. Over the years, I lost what I had to Howie. This time, I
was desperate. I couldn't pay Howie off and still make the rent. I
was going to lose this place. And you're right. He tried to kill
me."

"Yeah." Z's exit line.

Z saying what he'd come to say; hearing what
he'd come to hear, Z turned to leave.

And yet .....

Z's memory scratching like a chuckle-headed
chicken, his brain had clawed up a fragment of something Bud said
the last time Z was here. A scrap of conversation about a gambling
game, Bud inviting Z to sit in. What had Bud said? That Z would
make a third? Bud had then corrected himself, saying that, without
Kunkle in the game, there'd be just the two of them.