Nightcrawlers: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Mystery) Read online

Breathing sounds.

  “Joshua?”

  “I’m here.”

  Different tone of voice than on the message. The cold, distant one again.

  “I’m glad you called,” Runyon said.

  “Don’t be. It was a mistake.”

  “Why a mistake?”

  “I can’t talk to you. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “No. There’s nothing you can do.”

  “What did you want me to do?”

  “Nothing. Just forget it.”

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  “No.”

  “Something’s wrong. I can hear it in your voice.”

  “I said forget it. It’s not important.”

  “No? Must’ve cost you a lot, that call.”

  “More than you’ll ever know.”

  “Then talk to me.”

  “What’s the use? Straight society doesn’t give a shit about people like us.”

  “Wrong. Some of us do.”

  Breathing.

  “Talk to me, son.”

  Joshua said, “I’m not your son,” and broke the connection.

  Runyon lowered the receiver. He stood for half a minute or so, listening to the quiet in the apartment, making a decision. All right. He went back into the bedroom for his coat and car keys.

  The old house was on Hartford just off Twentieth—a steep street of one- and two-story Stick Victorians and small, plain apartment buildings. The flat Joshua shared with his roommate was in one of the two-story Sticks, on the ground level.

  Runyon had been there once before. A drive-by, just to see what kind of place his son had picked to live in. He’d gotten the address by checking the reverse city directory. The roommate’s name was Kenneth Hitchcock, age twenty-eight—six years older than Joshua; born in Visalia in the Central Valley, graduated from Fresno State with a degree in business administration, worked as a teller in a downtown branch of B of A, had never been in trouble of any kind either as a juvenile or an adult. Curiosity had prompted the background check, nothing more. Runyon could have gotten their unlisted phone number, too, easily enough, but he hadn’t bothered. It wouldn’t have done any good to keep calling, invading Joshua’s privacy; would’ve just increased the rift between them. All he cared about, once his attempts to create an understanding had been unequivocally rejected, was that his son be safe, healthy, solvent, and reasonably content.

  But now there was this new contact, initiated by Joshua. A reaching out for some reason that wasn’t clear yet. It had opened the door, and Runyon wasn’t about to stand by and let it slam shut again without some push. Andrea’s alcoholic-fueled hate and vindictiveness had prevented him from being a part of Joshua’s life for the first twenty years, but he could be there for him now. And would be, whatever it took.

  He hunted up a parking place, walked back to the building through a chilly night wind that had the smell of fog in it. There was a gate, and a short path that led from the street, to a narrow front stoop. He rang the bell. Before long, footsteps. A peephole was set into the door; Joshua must have looked out through it because the door came open fast. Tight-set face, eyes that snapped with anger, words that were flung more than spoken. “What’re you doing here?”

  “We didn’t finish our conversation.”

  “Yes we did. I told you, I changed my mind. I don’t have anything to say to you.”

  “You did this afternoon.”

  “How did you know where I live? We’re not listed in the phone book. Oh, right . . . snooping’s what you do for a living.”

  Runyon let that slide. “Something’s wrong,” he said. “Don’t tell me different. It’s in your face as well as your voice.”

  Joshua was a handsome kid, Andrea’s kid in that respect, too—her blond hair, her smoky blue eyes, her narrow mouth and delicate features—but he wasn’t so good-looking right now. Drawn, pale, puffy, as if he hadn’t slept much recently. Misery as well as anger showed in the blue eyes, some kind of visceral hurt.

  “Why should you care?”

  “That’s a stupid question and you know it.”

  “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  “Same category,” Runyon said. “I have left you alone. If you’d wanted me to go on leaving you alone, you wouldn’t have called.”

  Joshua met his gaze briefly, looked away.

  “We’re going to talk, son. Be easier on both of us if we do it inside.”

  He moved ahead on the last word, crowding the kid a little. No more resistance; Joshua gave ground, turned aside to let him past.

  Runyon automatically catalogued details as he advanced. Foyer and a short hallway with three closed doors leading off it. The hall opened into a big living room, uncurtained windows in the south wall that framed a broken view of an overgrown yard and the backsides of neighboring houses. Neat, clean, tastefully furnished in greens and browns and dusky reds. Paintings on the walls that had an amateurish look but weren’t badly done—expressionist style, all blobs and whorls of dark color on a white background, all the work of the same artist. Grouped on a folded dropcloth in front of one window were an easel, a chair, a big Tensor lamp, and a small table covered with brushes and jars of paint in symmetrical rows.

  “You the painter?” he asked.

  “No. Kenneth.”

  “He’s pretty good.”

  “Yes, he is. I wouldn’t have thought you’d like expressionist art.”

  “There’s a lot about me you don’t know. Is Kenneth here? I’d like to meet him.”

  “No, he’s not here.” A muscle spasmed in Joshua’s cheek. “He’s in the hospital.”

  “Yes? I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “Three days now and his condition is still critical.”

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  Hesitation. Then, in an angry, anguished rush: “He has a fractured arm, four cracked ribs, a broken cheekbone, and a punctured lung, that’s what’s the matter with him. Among other injuries. His face . . . God, his poor face . . .”

  “What happened?”

  “He was beaten up. They used some kind of club.”

  “They?”

  “Fucking homophobes. Gay-bashers.”

  “So that’s it. Known to him?”

  “I don’t think so. He’s been under heavy sedation . . . confused when he’s awake. He can’t seem to remember much, just that there were two of them.”

  “When and where?”

  “Last Friday night. Saturday morning. He was on his way home from work, he moonlights as a bartender three nights a week at The Dark Spot on Castro. They must’ve been cruising for another target, it was late and he was alone . . .”

  “Another target?”

  “He wasn’t their first victim, the bastards.”

  “How many others?”

  “Two in the past two weeks. I know the second man.”

  “Yes?”

  “Gene Zalesky. He . . . used to be a friend of Kenneth’s.”

  “How badly was he hurt?”

  “Not as badly as Kenneth. He’s home now.”

  “Was he able to provide descriptions of the attackers?”

  “Young, early to mid twenties . . . the same pair.”

  “Driving what kind of vehicle?”

  “An old pickup truck, black or dark blue.” Joshua went to one of the chairs, slumped down on it. Runyon stayed where he was. “I told Kenneth to be careful, ask somebody to give him a ride home, take a cab if he had to. But he wasn’t afraid, he didn’t believe it would happen to him . . . Goddamn them! Goddamn them?”

  “Easy, son.”

  “Don’t tell me that. That’s what they kept saying.”

  “Who?”

  “The cops. Bullshit, that’s all. They didn’t care. Just another fag beating. File a report and forget about it.”

  Runyon said, “It doesn’t work that way,” but they were just words. It did work that way, much of the time. And not just
in crimes against gays or other hate crimes—in nearly all low-profile street felonies. Too many crimes, too many criminals, too little time and manpower. Too many excuses and too much apathy.

  Joshua said bitterly, “I thought you didn’t lie. Isn’t that what you told me in December?”

  “All right. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry. What good is sorry?” Shuddery breath. The blue eyes were moist now; shifting emotions, pain the most intense. “He could die. Kenneth could die.”

  “His condition that critical?”

  “Internal bleeding. The doctors had trouble stopping it. It could start again at any time . . .”

  It seemed for a few seconds that Joshua might break down. Runyon felt an impulse to sit beside him, give him a shoulder to lean on. Didn’t do it because he knew the gesture would be rejected. What his son wanted from him had nothing to do with fatherly solace.

  Joshua made a visible effort to pull himself together. At length he said, “I hate this,” in a shaky voice. “Kenneth is the strong one. I’m no damn good in a crisis.”

  Runyon said, “I am.”

  “I just . . . I don’t know what to do.”

  “You’ve already done all you can. Calling me was the right thing.”

  For the first time Joshua looked at him squarely. “Could you find them, stop them before they kill somebody?”

  “Maybe. No guarantees.”

  “Would you? If I hired you, paid you . . .”

  “No.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I’ll do what I can, but not for pay.”

  Silent stare.

  “You’re my son,” Runyon said. “That’s all the reason I need.”

  3

  TAMARA

  Vonda said, “Well, I met this guy.”

  “Uh-huh.” So what else is new? Tamara thought.

  “A couple of weeks ago at a club in SoMa. We danced and had some drinks and he asked me for my phone number and I gave it to him. I was a little ripped or I probably wouldn’t have.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He kept calling me up and I gave in and I’ve been out with him a couple of times. A really nice guy, and gorgeous . . . I mean a real hunk. His name is Ben, Ben Sherman; he played football when he was at UC Berkeley. He has a good job, he works for a brokerage company in the financial district.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Saturday night we went out again, dinner and dancing, and afterward . . . well, he invited me to his place on Tel Hill, he’s got a great apartment up there, terrific view and everything . . .”

  “Let me guess. You ended up in bed.”

  “I wasn’t going to, it just happened. I mean, you know me, I don’t usually sleep with a guy until I get to know him first.”

  Oh, yeah, right. She’d been friends with Vonda since they were sophomores at Redwood City High. Shared some wild times, their gangsta period when they’d chased with some rough homies, smoked weed, done all kinds of stuff that came close to crossing the line. Vonda looked a little like a young Robin Givens, slim and sleek but with a J-Lo booty; guys had been all over her since her boobs started to show. She’d lost her cherry when she was fifteen, must’ve slept with fifty different guys before and after she cleaned up her act.

  “How was it?” The usual girl-talk question.

  “Oh, great. Wow. The best ever. I mean, Ben really knows how to treat a woman in bed. But it wasn’t just sex.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “No lie. There’s a difference, you know there is. Sex is one thing, making love’s another. I thought I’d made love a time or two, but with Ben . . . Lord, I think I’m in love with that man.”

  “Uh-huh.” She’d heard that one before, too.

  “Seriously, Tam. And it’s mutual. He came right out and said he loves me.”

  Tamara covered a sigh with a sip from her glass. Mineral water. And a white wine spritzer for Vonda. Tamara Corbin and Vonda McGee, the two badass young ‘ho’s all cornrowed and grunge-dressed and party-ready. If those high school homies could see the two of them now, nine years later, one a partner in a private investigation agency, the other an up-and-coming sales rep at the S.F. Design Center, wearing conservative business outfits and sipping mineral water and white wine spritzers in a crowd of mostly white establishment types in the South Park Café. Whoo! Sometimes she could hardly believe it herself, all the big jumps and sharp-angle turns in her life . . .

  “And I wish neither of us was,” Vonda said.

  “Was what?”

  “In love. Ben Sherman, my God, of all the guys in the world.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s white,” Vonda said.

  Tamara stopped being bored. “Uh-oh.”

  “That’s not all. He’s more than just white.”

  “How can he be more than just white?”

  “He’s Jewish, too,” Vonda said.

  “. . . Damn, girl!”

  “I know, I know. That’s why I wanted to get together tonight, I had to talk to somebody about this and you’re the only one I can tell. I’ve never been with a white guy before, you know that, it’s never been my thing. And you know how my people feel about the interracial thing. Alton’ll go ballistic when he finds out.”

  “He doesn’t have to find out.” Alton was her brother, a head case who’d never outgrown his hatred of Whitey. “If you don’t see this Ben Sherman again.”

  “I don’t think I can do that, just blow him off. I really do love him, Tam.”

  “Great sex isn’t love. You’ve only known the guy two weeks.”

  “It’s not just physical and it doesn’t matter how long I’ve known him. You’ve been there, you understand what I’m saying. Same feelings you had for Horace right from the first.”

  Horace. Let’s not get started on Horace.

  “What am I gonna do?” Vonda said.

  “Got to be your decision, nobody else’s. Yours and Ben’s. What’s he say about it?”

  “He says it doesn’t matter how other people feel, it only matters how we feel about each other.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s right. But not a hundred percent right.”

  “I know it.”

  “Still got to do what your heart and your gut tell you to.”

  “What would you do? I mean, suppose Horace was white. And Jewish.”

  Horace again. “Well, he’s not.”

  “Come on, Tam. Suppose he was. What would you do?”

  “I don’t know,” Tamara said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  Eastbound traffic on the Bay Bridge was still moderately heavy, even though it was nearly seven o’clock when Tamara drove up the ramp and joined the stream. The westbound upper deck and the bridge railings and girders created a tunnel effect that magnified car and tire sounds into a steady shushing hum. After a while it seemed almost like a whispering voice.

  Saying Horace, Horace, Horace.

  Get a grip, she thought. She would have turned on the radio and slipped in a CD, but there was something wrong with the volume control—you couldn’t turn it up past a low hum not much different from the one outside. Damn thing had worked fine before he left. Figured. His car. Ten-year-old Ford hatchback that he’d left with her because he hadn’t wanted to chance driving it all the way to Philadelphia in the middle of winter. Maybe it missed him too. Yeah, or it was just a sign of things going wrong, screwing up.

  Vonda wasn’t the only one with a screwed-up love life. All God’s chillun got troubles and love troubles were high on the list. You could empathize with other people’s, but you couldn’t get too caught up in them when you had your own to deal with. Couldn’t give somebody else advice when you couldn’t advise yourself.

  Three and a half months now since Horace had left for Philly. Got his gig with the philharmonic back there, second seat cello, doing fine. Living with one of the other black men on the orchestra, a violinist named Cedric. Settled in. Just as she was settled in: agency p
artnership, new offices, expanding caseload and all the details and decisions that were part of the package. She wasn’t going anywhere for a long time, if ever. And neither was Horace.

  They talked on the phone once a week, exchanged e-mails, said all the right things about how much they missed each other and loved each other, made tentative plans to get together here or back east. But they still hadn’t done it. Something got in the way every time. And the phone calls were getting shorter because they didn’t seem to have as much to say to each other, couldn’t relate long distance to all the changes that made up their new, separate lives.

  She’d known it would be this way. Three-thousand-mile relationships might work for a while, but without personal contact, days and nights together to pump some fresh blood into the relationship, it’s bound to start withering. Sooner or later it would wither past the point of saving. Just dry up and croak, like a plant without water.

  It was already happening to her. She felt it, fought it, couldn’t stop it. All the lonely nights in the Outer Richmond flat they’d shared . . . she’d got so she hated going there after work. Stayed later and later at the office, started taking on after-hours field jobs like this deadbeat dad case tonight. Better that than staring at the walls or the boob tube and throwing pizza and junk food down her neck, which she’d done for about a week after Horace left. After that she’d gone the other way, started to lose her appetite. That was the main reason she’d dropped twelve pounds, not any real desire to shed the flab; she just wasn’t interested in food anymore. Or much of anything else except work.

  Now that’s a lie, she thought as she pulled out to pass a slow-moving truck. She was still interested in sex, oh Lord yes. On her mind more and more lately. Tonight, thanks to Vonda. Three and a half months is a long time to go without it when you’re used to getting it regularly. So damn horny sometimes she felt like she was ready to explode. Vonda might’ve gotten in over her head with a white, Jewish dude, but at least Vonda was getting laid.

  Maybe Vonda would loan out Ben Sherman for a night. Or maybe he had a friend who wanted to change his luck. She’d never slept with a white guy herself—or a Jewish guy, for that matter. Might change her luck.

  Stupid thoughts.