Suede to Rest (12 page)

I pulled onto
the side street and turned onto Bonita Avenue, heading the only direction I knew. It was close to four. An orange neon sign flickered in the window of a bar down the road from the fabric store. In the past two days, the
O
and the
A
had burned out and advertised The Brdside instead. Instead of turning into the alley that ran behind my store, I drove past the bar, turned onto a side street, and parked in the gravel lot by the back door between a pickup truck and a motorcycle.

“Wish me luck,” I said to the kittens. I cracked the windows and locked the doors, heading inside.

I pushed against the unmarked wooden doors and they gave under the pressure, swinging in like I was entering a saloon. The interior was dark and it took a couple of blinks for my eyes to adjust to the light.

The bar lined the right side of the room. Three men sat at bar stools at the far end. One stared at the TV screen mounted on the wall, his hand cupped around the base of a half-empty glass of beer. The other two glanced at me, then resumed their conversation.

The door swung shut behind me, hitting the backs of my heels. I jumped a few steps forward and put a hand out on the bar to steady myself. Something brushed against my calf and I twisted to look. A large black Labrador moved past me and two burly men followed. I recognized them as the men who had come to Charlie's shop the day my car was vandalized. One wore a black-and-red checkered shirt with a faded denim vest and jeans. The other had a T-shirt with the sleeves torn off, exposing an assortment of colorful tattoos featuring women and anchors. As the second one passed me, I read
Ahoy
on his bicep. They made no secret of the fact that they recognized me, too. Ahoy grabbed a peanut from a barrel in the corner, cracked it, and threw the shell on the floor. He tossed the nut into his mouth and followed the black lab to the pool tables. The man in the wheelchair I'd seen out front the day I cleaned the gate sat behind the felt table, watching me.

I scanned the rest of the interior, realizing how impulsive my entry had been. The man who stared at the TV screen finished his beer, stood up, and moved behind the counter.

“You want something?” He poured fresh beers for the other men and filled a red plastic basket with shelled peanuts from the wooden barrel.”

“Is Duke here?”

“You don't know?

“Know what?”

“If Duke's here.”

I turned away from him and looked around the room again, my eyes resting on the pool game. Colorful balls were scattered on the green felt. “Excuse me,” I said to the bartender, and walked past a Ms. Pac-Man machine to the wheelchair bound man.

“You get lost on your way out?” he asked.

“No, I came here to talk to you.”

“Lucky me.” He maneuvered the wheels of his chair back and forth in short bursts until he was facing me. “Most people don't come here for the conversation.”

I dropped into one of the vacant chairs and looked directly at him. He fit the description I'd been given to a T. I wondered why Genevieve hadn't mentioned the chair, then remembered her words:
He's a good guy. The kind people look up to, or would if they could figure out how.
“You're Duke?” He nodded.

“I'm Poly.” I hesitated, not sure if a spontaneous meeting in a dark corner of a bar required me to add my last name.

“I know who you are. What I don't know is why you're here.”

“I'm here to talk to you about Tom Pickers.”

Behind Duke, Ahoy made his next shot, interrupting the otherwise silent bar with the sharp snap of billiard against billiard. It was followed by a number of balls falling into pockets and rolling down their chambers.

“Like I said, people don't come here for the conversation,” Duke said. He backed away about a foot, and then rolled past me to an office to the left of the bar.

I stood up from my chair and tapped my fingers on the black vinyl pocket on the outside of my tunic. I wasn't sure if I should follow him or get the heck out of there. Ahoy set his cue stick on the felt and approached me. “What do you want to know about Tom Pickers? Maybe I could tell you a thing or two,” he said. His eyes dropped to my throat, then my chest, then lower.

My heart raced. I clenched my teeth and felt the pulse of a nerve ending through my molar all the way up to my temple. I stepped backward, one step, then two, until I knew I had a clear path to the bar and out the front door. I could leave Carson's car until tomorrow.

But the kittens. I couldn't leave the kittens.

The back door opened and a burst of blinding sunlight flooded the interior. Charlie held her hand over her eyes and looked at me.

“Yo—Polyester. I thought I saw you come in here.”

Her sudden appearance threw me off, but at the moment, she was the familiar face I needed. She leaned over the bar, her cropped Metallica T-shirt exposing her flat tummy and a silver belly button ring right above the waistband of her jeans.

“Can I get a couple of beers and some quarters for the jukebox?” she asked the bartender. He finished drying a glass and nodded. I weaved my way through torn vinyl chairs on casters until I stood next to the barstool she occupied.

“This was a bad idea,” I said to her.

“You came here for information, right?” she said in a low voice. “So don't leave until you get it.” She looked over my shoulder. When I turned to follow her gaze, Duke was by the end of the bar. He tipped his head toward the office and I followed.

Duke's office wasn't much bigger than a closet. A desk covered in magazines, envelopes, pens, notepads, and a couple of Post-its took up the majority of the interior. He backed his wheelchair up to the cabinets behind him, pushed his hands against the armrests until he was up, and transferred his lean frame into the chair behind the desk. I took a seat opposite him.

“You didn't wait for your beer,” he said.

Without thinking, I looked at the door. He pulled two mismatched mugs from the bottom drawer of his desk, turned around and lifted a mostly full pot from a Mr. Coffee machine. After setting one mug in front of me, he pushed a carousel filled with powdered creamer and colorful sweetener options across the desk. I shook my head and left the coffee black.

“You must have been talking to Genevieve,” he said after doctoring his own mug. “I can't think of another person around here who would send you to me with questions about Tom Pickers.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“Back in the day, Tom Pickers caused me a lot of trouble.”

“He's why—” I didn't finish my sentence, but I didn't have to. Duke glanced at his chair and let me know he knew what I thought.

“No, that's a different story for a different day. Truth is Tom Pickers was a victim of circumstance just like me.” He slugged his coffee. “Used to come in here nights, I think to get away from his wife. Lots of guys do. It's one of the reasons I've been in business for thirty years.”

“How old are you?” I asked, immediately embarrassed at the question.

“Fifty-seven. Yep, you did the math right. I was probably about your age when I opened the bar. Owning a bar wasn't a lifelong dream or anything. It was something I could do after the accident. And at the time, that's what I needed. A job I could do.” He glanced at the chair and a flicker of anger crossed his face. “Pickers was a regular, and in this business, your regulars pay the bills. But when his wife died, he lost control. Started drinking more and more. Got here early, closed the place down. Took to playing pool, making bets he couldn't cover. Every night. He came here because he didn't have anyplace else to go. The whole town started talking about him behind his back, but truth is I felt sorry for him.”

“With all due respect, there's a moral line in there. His misery benefited you.”

“It might have if he'd paid his tab, but he didn't. And I didn't do anything about it, not at first. San Ladrón was changing at that time. Lots of people moving away, leaving California. Crime was on the rise. Business was tough. I got behind on the rent. Tom Pickers worked at the bank and did what he could to help me out, but the bank cracked down. Gave me thirty days to pay or lose the bar. I couldn't afford to lose the bar. It was the only thing I had.”

“When was this?”

“About ten years ago.”

Duke's clear blue eyes studied me closely. The coincidence of ten years lacked the impact it might otherwise have had. I didn't speak, didn't interrupt. After a few seconds, Duke continued.

“I told him I needed the money he owed me. His tab shouldn't have been public knowledge, but a couple of people found out. That's the problem with a small town like this—can't keep a secret. People are always going to know your business. Pickers got beat up shortly after that. When he wasn't here by four thirty the next day, I thought he'd skipped town. I was wrong. He came in close to midnight, drunk. He ran up his tab, argued his way into a high-stakes game of pool, and started a fight. I had to throw him out. Didn't see him for a couple of days. When the news broke about the robbery at the store, I wasn't the only person who suspected he might have been involved. He was right there, he could have—but he didn't.”

“He was supposed to be there but he wasn't. That was the problem. He was supposed to go to the fabric store, pick up the cash take from the weekend, and deposit it in the bank the next day.”

“I heard that story, too. No, Tommy was there alright. Can't say how clear his vision was, but he was there. I think that's why he took so long to make a statement. He didn't trust what he saw because he knew he wasn't in his right mind.”

“He said he saw a monster.”

“Yep, that's what he said.”

“Why didn't he call the police? If he was scared, why just walk away?”

“Lots of people wondered that very question, but nobody'll ever know the answer to it now. Tommy was alienated after that. Some thought he went nuts, others thought he had something to do with it.”

“Were you one of those people?”

“It occurred to me.”

“What happened next?”

“I got the money to pay the back rent and life went on. Tommy came in a few months later and wanted to talk.” Duke picked up a staple remover from the corner of his desk and tapped the end on the surface. His head was tipped to the side and I could almost see him struggling with ten-year-old memories. “Tommy had a lot of guilt over what happened that night. Said he couldn't let anything like that happen again and apologized for the way things went down. I told him no hard feelings, but I thought it best if he didn't come back to the bar. Wiped his tab clean and wished him luck. Couple of months go by and I hear he's doing better.”

“Has he been back? Since then?”

“No. He got himself together, sobered up. That's when he started up the Senior Patrol.”

I thought about the receipt in the pocket of my tunic. “Are you sure he hasn't been back here? The night before he was murdered?”

Duke leaned forward. “Just what is it you're trying to ask me?”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the wad of toilet paper. I unfolded it on the desk in front of Duke. The paper stuck to the receipt where the duck sauce smudge was, but the printing on the piece of paper was still legible. “I found this at the Senior Center. It has Mr. Pickers's name on the back. I saw him on the street that night and I figured maybe he was on his way here.”

Duke picked up the receipt and held it in front of him. I suspected he knew what this was from, but he worked at keeping his expression unreadable. “You found this at the Senior Center?” he repeated. “When?”

“Today. Is that his tab?”

“Nope.” He held the paper out to me. “Probably somebody scribbled his name on a piece of scrap paper. I don't think it means much of anything,” he said.

Before he had a chance to change his mind, I took the slip of paper and folded it back up.

“Why do you think Mr. Pickers would choose this stretch of town to keep watch over?” I asked.

“That's a funny thing. Once Tommy chose this street, nobody could talk him out of it. He was a stubborn old coot. You would have thought he'd want to avoid it at all costs. I always thought he was trying to figure out what he saw that night.”

“What do you think he saw?”

“Not my place to say.” Duke finished off his coffee. “Whole town knows we had a rift. If you asked around, you might have heard a different version of events, but it wouldn't have been that far from the truth. Long time ago I learned even if you keep your mouth shut you can't control what people are going to say. I admire you for coming to me instead of listening to gossip.”

“Thank you for talking to me about him,” I said. I stood up. “I wasn't sure what to expect when I came in here.”

“That's funny. Most people who walk into a bar know exactly what to expect.”

“A priest and a rabbi?” I asked with a smile.

“Something like that.”

Duke stayed behind in his office after I left. I found Charlie shooting darts and doing shots with the bartender. She was lining up her next throw when she saw me.

“You all done?” she asked.

“I think so.”

“Cool. Let me settle the bill and we can get out of here.” She tossed the dart in her hand at the board and it landed in the bull's-eye. “That should cover a couple of beers, right?” she said to the bartender.

I hustled to the door, not sure I wanted to stick around and find out how and why Charlie had shown up when she did. The sun was mid-descent and the sky was a watercolor of orange and pink hues. The scent of honeysuckles filled the air. I climbed into Carson's car and peeked in the box at the kittens. They were curled up practically on top of each other, their heads tucked on their paws like a kitten version of yin and yang. I resisted the urge to pet them, knowing it would interrupt their sleep.