Nightwork Read Online Free Page B

Myers’s clothes and found a small address book. Knuckles rattled the front screen door. The door buzzer sounded. Molloy said, “For Christ sake, now what?” and went away. No new out-of-town address for Bishop was in the small book, but Dave pocketed it anyway and shut the closet. Where had Myers kept business records? Dresser drawers? Nothing but clothes. Drawers were under the closet doors, and he crouched and opened one. Sheets, towels, blankets. He shut that drawer and opened the other. Papers lay there, flimsies, dim carbon copies, pink, blue, green. He grabbed a handful, stuffed them into an inside jacket pocket, closed the drawer with a foot, and went to find Molloy.
    Jaime Salazar was saying, “Then there’s no need to bother your sister at work. You can tell her.” He was slim and dapper in a lightweight blue denim suit, maroon shirt and socks, blue knit tie. Heat had already begun to gather in the small living room, but Salazar looked cool. His skin was smooth, pale brown. He wore a neat mustache and sunglasses. “There you are,” he said to Dave.
    “What kept you?” Dave said.
    “Trying to find an ex-convict called Silencio Ruiz. Paul Myers’s testimony got him convicted of armed robbery year before last. He said he’d kill Myers when he got out. He’s out two days and pow—Myers is killed.”
    Molloy grinned at Dave. “What did I tell you?”
    “That bomb was no amateur effort,” Dave said.
    “He could have paid somebody to make it for him.”
    Dave said, “Why would he bother? Silencio was a street-gang member. Whatever happened to switchblade knives?”
    “He’s disappeared. He was supposed to see his parole officer yesterday. He only slept at his parents’ house his first night. They haven’t seen him since. His gang has a hangout at a liquor store down by the creek. They haven’t seen him either—not since Myers’s so-called accident was on the breakfast news.”
    “What reason would he have to run,” Dave said, “if the whole world believed it was an accident?”
    “When we catch him, we’ll ask him.” Salazar looked out through the open blind. “Did that happen to your car here, this morning?”
    “Gifford Gardens doesn’t have a red carpet,” Dave said.
    Molloy said, “Care for a beer, Lieutenant?”
    “Orange Crush?” Salazar asked wistfully.
    “I’ll look. Maybe she keeps some for the kids.” Molloy went away whistling, pleased with himself.
    Salazar tilted his beautiful head at Dave. “You don’t buy it? You think the wife did it for the insurance money?”
    “She says he beat her. It wasn’t smart to tell me that. It also wasn’t true. She’s scared of whoever beat her. Since he’s dead, that makes no sense. I think whoever beat her also killed him. Why they would do that puzzles me. But if it was to keep her from telling what she knows, it had the desired effect.”
    “If it wasn’t her, what’s left for you to do?”
    “Life insurance can be tricky,” Dave said. “Ever hear of a two-year conditional clause? It lets the company back off if it turns out the insured lied to them. Paul Myers outlined for Pinnacle the kind of cargo he hauled—routine, machine parts, unfinished furniture, clothing. Nothing out of the way. Nothing anybody would want to blow him up for. So maybe he was lying.”
    “If he was—she won’t get anything?”
    “Something. Not a hundred thousand.”
    Molloy came in and held out a frosty purple can. Salazar took a step backward and put his hands behind him. He said in an appalled voice, “Grape?”
    “It’s all there is,” Molloy said.
    “No, thanks,” Salazar said. “Thank you very much.”
    “I’d better go,” Dave said, and went.

4
    G UAVA STREET HAD NO sidewalks. Little enough remained of its paving—bleached, cracked islands of blacktop that stood inches above the dirt level of the street. The Jaguar rocked and rumbled. Weeds edged the street, seedy, sun-dried. There were a few fences, chainlink, picket,