The Emerald Cat Killer (10 page)

She felt him shift his weight, then push himself toward the head of the bed. She tried to ask him something and was rewarded with a whack on the back of her head. Bobby yanked the quilt off her and wrapped it around his chest.

“Witch's tit!” he hissed.

“What's the matter, Bobby?” She pushed herself upright, reached for him, asked, “Do you want me to…?” She still had trouble saying it, and wasn't that truly, truly weird? She had shed every last bit of her good-girl upbringing, every last bit except that she still had trouble sometimes talking about the things she did to make money for them or to make Bobby happy when they were at home.

Bobby said, “Cold as a witch's tit. Fuck! We got any food?”

Red twisted over to the side of the bed and swung her feet onto the floor. She was already wearing two pairs of socks and she could still feel the cold. She shoved her feet into her dirty sneakers. She pushed herself upright, almost tilted over but managed to catch herself on the edge of the battered kitchen table that Bobby had found abandoned on the sidewalk and dragged back to the Van Buren and up the stairs with Red's help. She was proud of that, of helping Bobby get the table up to their room. It made her feel as if she was contributing to their little two-person family, that she was earning her keep, that she had a stake in their household.

There was a thin plastic take-out bag on the table. Red wasn't sure how long it had been there. At least the cold weather kept the fly population down! She opened the bag and took out a couple of plastic foam boxes, some plastic implements, and a couple of tiny plastic condiment packets. There was a waxy cylindrical container, too, with a plastic lid, a cross-hair slot in the middle and a straw through it. She hefted the container. It was halfway full.

Bobby pushed himself off the bed. He was already dressed except for his shoes. He had a pair of old shitkickers that he'd got out of a free box and he shoved his feet into them. He took a couple of steps to the table, pulled over one of their two rickety chairs, and slid into it.

Red waited while Bobby hefted the beverage container, sampled it via the straw, and put it on the floor next to his foot. He squinted at the plastic foam boxes. He nodded, opened one, studied its contents, then opened the other.

He said, “Here,” and shoved one of the boxes toward Red. It contained a half-eaten hamburger and three pickle chips. Red picked it up and turned around, starting toward the microwave they'd salvaged off a yard sale when the owners were busy haggling with a customer over a set of cracked chinaware. But then she remembered that the microwave had gone on the fritz and there was no money to get it fixed.

“I'm sorry,” she said. She wasn't sure whether she'd said it aloud or just thought it. She was shocked to hear the dry raspy voice and the quaver in it, and told herself that it couldn't possibly have been her voice.

“Sorry for what?” Bobby asked.

So it had been her voice after all. “Sorry the microwave doesn't work,” she managed. She felt like crying and she had no idea why that was.

“Eat your food,” Bobby said. Red looked at Bobby's meal. It wasn't much different from hers, except whoever had abandoned it must have given up a lot sooner because there was almost a whole cheeseburger there. Bobby picked up a plastic condiment packet and opened it with his teeth. He squeezed its contents, amazingly red ketchup, the brightest stuff in their room, onto his bun. He dropped the packet back onto the table and started eating. Red picked up the condiment packet and coaxed another drop of ketchup onto her own burger.

When they'd eaten, Red stowed the empty foam boxes and other detritus in the plastic take-out bag and tied a knot to keep the bag from spilling.

“Bobby, Bobby honey, what are we going to do today?”

“We're headed up to Shattuck. Shattuck, Rose Street, you know the neighborhood?”

She said that she did.

“I got an idea,” Bobby told her. “I got a great idea. I got a Plan A and I got a Plan B. Can't miss. We're gonna make some nice bread up there.”

“But—” She felt herself starting to shake. She knew that Bobby didn't like it when she contradicted him, or even asked a question except what to do next. She pulled in as deep a breath as she could. “But you told me to stick to the flatlands. That's … Shattuck, Vine, that's … remember what happened when I wandered up near the Claremont that time, when I slept in that guy's car—”

“Yeah, yeah, that worked out all right, didn't it? Sometimes you just get lucky. But this one I got planned. I been up there and scoped this thing out and it's win-win, bitch, it's strictly win-win.”

She nodded assent. He wasn't mad at her for questioning him. She was happy about that.

Bobby said, “Turn around. Let me look at you.”

She complied.

He grunted. She tried to figure out what the grunt meant. He said, “Take your shirt off.”

She pulled the T-shirt over her head. She was filled with hope. She thought he might want her now. She liked it when he wanted her. She liked it when he even looked at her. She balled the shirt, held it beside her face. It was a Berkeley High Yellow Jackets shirt that somebody had dropped in the street. Bright yellow with a red insect logo. She thought it worked well, the coloring of the shirt and the coloring of her hair.

She could almost feel Bobby looking at her nipples. She smiled again and pressed her arms against her rib cage, pushing toward her sternum, showing off a little for Bobby. She started to move toward him.

He said, “I don't know, I don't know.” He shook his head disapprovingly. “Look at yourself. Jesus. Just look at yourself.”

She did. There was a rectangular mirror beside the door. It was pretty grimy and it didn't reflect real well anymore—if it ever had—but it showed her herself. She looked at her face, then at her body. She began to cry.

Bobby said, “Put it back on. Jesus.”

She pressed the shirt against her face to mop up the tears and then pulled it back over her head.

“Bobby, what are we gonna do?”

He had an exasperated expression on his face. He said, “If you'd ever took care of yourself we'd be all right. But the way you look, no wonder the johns don't want you.” He took a deep breath, then he said, “That's why we need a Plan B. You're just lucky you're with me. I'm smart, I got a Plan A and I got a Plan B.”

He crossed the room to the old dresser that came with the place. He pulled open a drawer and lifted out a couple of extra shirts that he kept there. He reached underneath the shirts and lifted something that made a sound as he moved it.

Red knew what Bobby kept in that drawer. She wasn't allowed ever to take it out, or even to pick up the shirts on top of it, or even to open the drawer. She raised one hand involuntarily to her face. She'd disobeyed Bobby once on that score, and she remembered the lesson he'd taught her about doing what he told her never to do. She still had a little sore where she'd touched that cigar lighter against her face, trying to get warm the night she got them the laptop. It was mostly healed, though, and the laptop had brought some nice money at a flea market.

Actually, Red knew, Bobby kept two things in that drawer. She knew what they were, too. She was afraid of them both. The only thing was, she couldn't decide which one she was more afraid of.

Maybe the knife.

One was the knife. It was a Marine Hunter. It was eleven inches long. The blade alone was six inches long. Bobby had lifted it from a sporting goods store in Albany. They planned the lift when there was only one clerk behind the counter and no other customer in the store. It was Red's job to get the clerk's attention and keep it while Bobby made the lift.

She'd done her job. The clerk was a college kid, looked like a college kid anyway, and Red came on to him with both tits blazing. She had him turned away from the door, and Bobby was in and out with the knife, and the clerk never even saw him. Talk about a clean lift! She actually felt sorry for the college kid, gave him a little before she left so he wouldn't feel so bad when he discovered he'd been robbed. Or his boss did.

Bobby was mad about that. “Never give away what you can sell,” he insisted. “Never give it away.”

But he was pleased with the job she'd done. He even said so.

Maybe the gun.

Red never knew exactly how Bobby got the gun. She was fascinated by it. She went to the library and got online with a public-access computer and looked it up. It was something called a Beretta Stampede Thunder revolver. It was a little thing, only three and a half inches long, and it fired .357 Remington ammunition. She found one on a gun dealer's site and it was expensive.

Bobby would never tell Red much about how he got the Beretta Stampede but she managed to pry a few hints from him. A couple of big guys had been fighting it out in Oakland's Jingletown. There was some shooting, wheels, somebody had a police scanner going, and everybody got out of JT before even the first black-and-whites arrived. No, not quite everybody. A couple of bangers were dead and another one was alive but not moving, and nobody was going to stick around to try to help him.

Bobby came back from that with the Beretta. He never told her what he was doing there. The fight was strictly black on black. Whose side was Bobby on? What was he doing there?

He told her never to touch that dresser drawer and she never did except when she figured she could get away with it. Then she would open the drawer, pick up the old shirts, look at the knife and the gun, and pet them.

She would pick one of them up. Sometimes the knife. Sometimes the gun. They competed for her love. She would tease them. She would reach toward the knife and the gun would say,
No, don't love her, love me, love me.
And she would pull back her hand and reach toward the gun and the knife would say,
No, don't love him, love me, love me.

Somehow she felt as if the knife was a girl and the gun was a boy.

She would lift the knife in its leather sheath out of the draw and take the knife out of the sheath and look at the blade, and hold it against her cheek, against her throat, not the sharp edge but the flat of the blade, it was so smooth, it felt so good. She would love the knife. She would hold it in front of her face, press her tongue against it, and run her tongue along the length of the blade until she reached its point, and press the point against her tongue until she could taste her own blood.

Or she would take the gun out of the drawer, out of the little holster that Bobby had somehow got for it. The gun fit so cleverly into the holster, so snugly, it was almost sad to take it out, but it was so beautiful, the metal was so nice, it felt so good in her hand. The barrel was like a man's organ, but little, like a little boy, and the cylinder was like a scrotum. She would sit on the edge of the bed holding the gun in her lap, leaning over it so she enveloped it completely with her body, as if it was her very own baby, and she would rock back and forth and sing to it, sing to her darling baby.

Which would it be today?

Bobby took the knife out of the drawer, strapped its sheath to his belt, and closed the drawer again.

He said, “Time to hit the street, bitch. You better go out and make a few dollars for us. That food wasn't too great. See if you can get something else together. Take out the garbage—you understand me?”

She nodded.

“Take out the garbage, see if you can find a couple of johns and make a few dollars. Tonight we're going out to score big-time.”

Red gave him the biggest, brightest smile she could put together and took out the garbage.

*   *   *

The Bishop Berkeley Music Shoppe-with-a-pee-pee-ee must have been named in a whimsical moment because it didn't have any of the cutesiness or cottage-in-the-glen décor that Lindsey feared he'd encounter. Instead, the shop occupied the ground floor of an aging shingled house just off Ashby Avenue. The atmosphere was a mix of sixties-funkiness and serious dedication to music. The place was filled with gorgeous guitars, basses, mandolins, violins, a couple of drum kits, an assortment of horns. There was even a marvelous antique harpsichord. It must be heaven for a musician.

A young woman was standing behind the counter, wearing a dark blue Cal T-shirt, baseball cap, and jeans. That seemed to be the uniform of the day, at least in this town: T-shirt and baseball cap and jeans. She was holding a brass trumpet, playing scales. There was sheet music spread in front of her. Lindsey wondered why anyone would need sheet music to practice scales, but there it was. And this girl was good. No Harry James, this one. Maybe more like Ziggy Elman. She should try her lip on “And the Angels Sing.” Lindsey's mental Rolodex rolled into action. Ziggy Elman, real name Harry Finkelman. Worked for Benny Goodman. Great trumpeter. Died young. And broke.

A real, talented youngster.

The youngster in the Cal T-shirt spotted Lindsey and lowered the instrument. “Can I help you, sir?”

Lindsey said, “I hope so. Are you Jade Montoya?”

“I plead guilty. Are you here to arrest me?”

Lindsey recoiled. “No, no, I—nothing like that. I just … I—”

The young woman's demeanor changed. “I was just kidding. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you.”

Lindsey ran his hand across his forehead. “I'm—” He reached for a business card and laid it on the counter, on top of the young woman's—on top of Jade Montoya's—sheet music.

Montoya picked up the card and studied it. Then she said, “I guess you're not here to buy a guitar. Or are you? We have some beauties. Custom-built Montalvos.”

“No, I'm working on an insurance matter. Can you spare me a few minutes, Miss, ah,—”

“Just call me Jade.” She gave her name its English pronunciation. “Would you like to sit down, sir?”

Getting old, getting old, Lindsey thought. When young women offer you a seat, you're definitely getting old. He suppressed a sigh, or tried to do so. He wasn't sure whether it had escaped or not, but Jade Montoya didn't react to it. She had olive skin and glossy black hair. Her eyes were green, maybe more like emerald than jade, but still, he decided, she was well named. He suppressed another sigh.