Thursday's Child (25 page)

Beau jumped up. “I'll go get some ice for your head.”

Robert just nodded and stretched out on the bed again, wishing that the room would stop spinning. He was only vaguely aware of Beau's quiet return. The cold bag was placed carefully on his head. It felt good, but he couldn't even say so. Every time he woke up over the next few hours, Robert was aware of Beau's presence nearby in the darkness. Mostly the kid seemed to be watching television, keeping the volume turned very low.

It was probably an indication of just how much trouble Robert was in that he found being watched over like that pretty reassuring.

Finally he woke up and saw some morning sun leaking in through the cheap draperies. Robert stayed very still, staring at the ceiling, as he tried to evaluate his physical condition. Well, he was still alive, but that was about as far as he was willing to go at the moment. It was something.

Beau was sitting on the floor, his head resting on the bed, sound asleep. Robert watched him for a few minutes, then reached out and touched him lightly on the arm.

Beau woke up immediately. “What?” He rubbed his eyes. “Oh, damn, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep like that.”

“No problem. You're not being paid by the hour.”

“How're you feeling, Robbie?”

“Better, thanks.”

“Really?”

He shrugged. “How's my head look?”

“There's a lump.”

“I'll bet there is.” He needed to get into the can, badly, so he accepted Beau's help in getting up from the bed. Once in the bathroom, he avoided looking in the mirror. His whole body felt bruised and stiff. But, crummy as he felt, he knew that there was really no choice. He had to keep moving.

Beau was sitting at the table, eating a cold apple pie when Robert came out. He sat with him, but refused the offer of a share of the pie. His stomach lurched at the thought. He took a deep, careful breath. “Okay,” he said. “This is how it is. I'm going to track Boyd down and this time I'll kill him.”

Beau was listening, licking at crumbs on his upper lip.

“But things have sort of changed now.” He couldn't help giving a short, humorless laugh, even though it hurt like hell. “Hey, things are totally fucked, that's how they are, right, Tonto?”

Beau nodded, but tentatively, as if he didn't think he was going to like what was coming.

“So,” Robert said, “you can split.” He leaned back in the chair carefully.

“What?” Beau said, forgetting to swallow the last bite of pie.

“I said, you can split. Right now. Before things get any more screwed up than they already are. If that's possible. Take off, kid. Go home. Wherever. Tell the fucking cops whatever you want to or have to in order to save your own ass. I won't stop you.”

Beau was staring at him. “I don't want to do that, Robbie. Please. I want to stay with you.”

That really wasn't what Robert had expected to hear. He was doing a damned decent thing here and it would be nice to have it appreciated. Instead, he was being looked at like somebody who drowned puppies. “You want to stay with me? Why?”

“Because.”

Robert shook his head. “Don't tell me ‘because.' That's what a little kid says. ‘Because' is not a reason for a man to do something like this.”

“Well, maybe I could help. Like last night.” His look turned slightly defiant. “I
did
help you last night.”

“Yes, you did.”

Beau nodded, as if that settled things. “Well, then. I owe you that much.”

Robert waved off those words as if they were pesky flies. “Fuck that,” he said.

After a moment, Beau pushed his chair back and got up. He walked over to the window, pulled the curtain open a little, and peered out. Then he turned and looked at Robert again. “I guess I sort of love you,” he said, sounding combative again. “Like we're brothers or something.”

“My brother is dead,” Robert said sharply. Almost immediately, he regretted the tone he'd used.

Beau ducked his head for a moment.

“I'm sorry,” Robert said. “I shouldn't have said that.”

“It's okay. I know he's dead and I'm just … well, I'm just a pest you can't get rid of.”

“No,” Robert said. “That's not true.”

“Anyway, my folks are dead, too. You don't have anybody now and neither do I. So maybe we could stay together. Make our own kind of family. You know? Like adoption or something. We could be blood brothers.”

Robert didn't say anything right away. Then he shook his head. “Jesus, Beau, haven't you been paying attention to any of this? What do you think is going on?”

Beau walked back to the table, looking at him.

Robert reached out and grabbed Beau's shoulder, shaking him hard. “You think this is some goddamned adventure we're on here? Something out of a freaking paperback book?
Blood brothers?
Huck and Big Jim riding a raft down the fucking Mississippi, maybe?” He stopped, frustrated, and ran a hand through his hair, grimacing at the pain it caused.

Beau pulled away and went to the other side of the room. “I don't know why you're mad at me.”

“I'm not,” Robert said wearily. “I'm just tired. I'm tired and I don't know what the fuck is going to happen next.”

“Please, Robbie, let me stay with you. Whatever is going to happen.”

“But that's crazy.”

“Yeah, maybe. But I don't care. I just feel good when we're together. Sometimes I'm scared, yeah, but I know you'll take care of me. And I'll help you.”

Damn.

Robert didn't know what the hell to do.

Beau just stared at him.

Finally, reluctantly, he nodded. “Okay, Tonto. We'll ride through this together.”

“Promise?”

“Sure, I fucking promise.”

Beau relaxed visibly. “And I promise, too. I'll hang in, whatever happens.”

“Great,” Robert muttered.

3

She called again.

Still scared, but at least willing to talk. Only not on the phone, Mr. Sinclair, could they meet? Did he know Joey's on Wilshire?

They could and he did.

The early-lunch crowd was just finishing its first glass of wine when Gar arrived. He took a table near the front and waited, wondering if he would recognize a frightened young woman when she came in. In fact, he did. She was a tall blonde, wearing a big straw hat and dark glasses. Hovering in the entrance, she was obviously scared of something.

Gar caught her eye.

She hesitated, almost bolted from the place, then walked over. “Mr. Sinclair?”

“Yes. And you are—?”

“Just … Maureen, that's all.”

“Okay, Maureen, sit down.”

She did. “I shouldn't be here. If he finds out …”

“He won't, at least not from me.”

Darryl, their server for the day, ambled by. They both listened to his recitation of the specials. She chose the Exotic Fruit Salad and a glass of French water. Gar picked Joey's Famous Boursin Burger and a beer.

When Darryl had left them, Gar leaned back and stared at her. “Okay, Maureen, what's the story? You know something about Beau Epstein?”

“Yes. At least, I think it was him. His hair … the man I'm talking about had cut his hair and changed the color, but I'm pretty sure it was the boy you're looking for.”

Gar thought back to the face of the boy he'd seen in the car the night before. Yeah, darken the hair and cut it short and that would be what Beau looked like. “Who is the man?”

Her fingers were knotted on top of the table. “You have to understand, I never thought he'd be involved in something like murder or kidnapping. I just thought …”

Darryl brought their drinks.

She squeezed the lime slice and stirred the water with a straw.

“You just thought what?” Gar prompted.

“He was exciting. Different from any man I dated before. I guess maybe there was a sort of aura of danger and maybe that was one of the attractions. And he's very good-looking. Sexy, if you know what I mean.”

Gar just nodded.

“I thought maybe he really cared about me. Bobby was always a gentleman. There aren't too many of those around these days.”

“Bobby?” Gar said.

“Yes. He came into the restaurant where I work one night and we just talked. Then he came back the next night and asked me out.” She picked up one of the whole-wheat rolls and neatly cut it in half. After a moment's debate, she apparently decided against butter and nibbled the roll as it was.

Gar swallowed some more beer and tried to keep his impatience hidden. If she couldn't tell this her own way, she might not tell it at all. “So you and this Bobby are seeing each other?”

“Well, not anymore. After his brother died a few weeks ago, he just dropped me. No calls or anything. I mean, I didn't even know he had a brother, isn't that weird?”

“You know anything about the brother?”

“No. Except that Bobby said he was murdered.”

The food arrived. They both started eating and it wasn't until Gar was halfway through the burger that she spoke again.

“So when I didn't hear from him, I got sort of worried, you know? I decided to go by his house and just make sure he was okay. And if he was just trying to dump me, then I had the right to hear it face-to-face, don't you think?”

“Definitely.”

“Well, he was okay. Fine, he said. But he was in the middle of cutting this boy's hair. Weird, huh?”

“Did he call the boy by name?”

She nodded. “But not his real name. Called him Tonto. How about that? Tonto.”

“Okay, Maureen. Who is this guy?”

She picked through the remaining fruit with her fork. “Robert Turchek.”

The name meant nothing to Gar. “Do you know anything else about him?”

“Not really.” She looked up. “His address, if that would help.”

It would help, yeah, although there was little chance that this guy Turchek would be sitting in his living room waiting for them to show up.

Maureen looked up at him. “I hope you find the boy,” she said softly. “But I really hope you don't have to kill Bobby. He's not all bad, you know? Even though I'm scared of him, he's not all bad.”

Gar didn't say anything. Turchek must be a real charmer. He could hardly wait to meet the bastard.

4

Beau sat on the bed and stared at the television. The volume was down low again, because Robert was on the phone. He was trying to track down Danny Boyd.

Finally he hung up and came over to the bed. “The son of a bitch has split,” he said. “Someone told him it was me on his ass and he took off.”

“Where'd he go?”

“New fucking York.”

Beau handed Robert the cigarette he'd been smoking. “What are we going to do?”

Robert took a long drag and handed the cigarette back.

“We're going to the Big Apple.”

“I've never been there.”

“It's big and dirty and noisy. But I like it.”

He stretched out next to Beau. “There's one more thing I have to tell you, Tonto, before you sign on for this trip.”

“What?”

“It looks like somebody—maybe Marcello in Vegas or maybe half a dozen different bastards—is trying to shut me down.”

Beau just looked at him. “What's that mean?”

“Somebody wants me dead, kid.”

There wasn't anything Beau could say to that.

20

1

Wally Dixon stretched his feet out on top of the desk and glared at him. “This is something new in your job description?” he said. “Taking on mob hitmen with nothing but your fucking cane?”

“I sincerely hope not,” Gar said. “It was not my finest hour.”

Wally snorted.

“But don't forget, I did find out the guy's name. Which is more than you people have been able to do.”

They were waiting for whatever dope the computers—local, state and/or federal—might kick back on Robert Turchek. So far, the information had been slim. Turchek led, it seemed, a very low-profile kind of life. Most people had never heard of him, and those who had were not inclined to talk, either because of whatever code they happened to live by (most of which codes included strong injunctions against talking to the cops) or because they were obviously scared shitless of Robert Turchek. Having encountered the man once, and heard that quiet, deadly voice, Gar could understand that.

“Instead of just sitting around here with our thumbs up our asses waiting for somebody to tell us something that won't help a damned bit anyway,” Gar said finally, “why don't we make a run by Turchek's place?”

They tossed around the notion of getting a warrant to search the house, an idea that appealed to nobody, and then came up with a nice compromise. Gar would actually be the one to break and enter, in his search for the boy. Wally, a good cop just doing his duty, was almost obligated to investigate. It was maybe on the edge of propriety, but they had always operated that way.

Just to keep things legal (on the surface anyway), they took separate cars to the address the mysterious Maureen had provided.

The small stucco bungalow was something of a surprise; it didn't look like the kind of place a hotshot paid killer would live in. It just looked like a nice quiet home. Wally walked around the tiny front yard, which could have used some landscaping, pretending not to notice as Gar jimmied the lock on the front door.

If they had expected to find an arsenal or maybe even a couple of bodies stacked in the hallway, they were disappointed. “A very tidy fellow,” Wally commented as they surveyed the living room. Nothing was out of place—magazines were neatly stacked on the coffee table with an opened copy of
Mad
on top, videotapes were alphabetized, and even the blanket and pillow that seemed to indicate someone had been using the couch as a bed lately were folded and tucked in the corner.