Unpaid Dues Read Online Free Page A

safe. Not 100 percent content or at one with the universe, but
at least firmly trudging the road to a happy destiny
    "So you don't know if she had a kid?" St.
John asked again.
    "It's entirely possible. She and Thor wanted
one, though I don't know what kind of parents they thought they'd be.
Thor had some big idea about having a son—you know, to carry on his
name and all that bullshit."
    "And who's Thor?"
    "He used to be Jane's old man, but I'm pretty
sure they split up. He's probably in prison or living under some
freeway bridge if he's still a1ive."
    "You got a last name for this guy?"
    Munch thought a minute and then shook her head.
    " Sorry He was always just Thor to me. He might
have used Jane's last name."
    " I think I'm noticing a trend here."
    " Hey" Munch said, "it was war out
there."
    She watched him leave and
fought the urge to make a phone call. Cops looked for things like
that—who you called right after they left.
    * * *
    St. John searched CLETS, the California Law
Enforcement Telecommunications System, for any information on Jane
Ferrar, updating her status as deceased, the victim of a homicide. He
also cross-referenced her by name through the station's new and not
yet reliable CAD system, the Computer Automated Dispatch. He came up
blank, which didn't surprise him. If there was any recent activity on
Jane Ferrar, chances were that information would be at the Pacific
Division station that handled Venice Beach.
    Even though the LAPD was beginning to emerge from the
dark ages, none of the eighteen geographic divisions' computer
systems were linked by a network, nor were they even compatible. When
St. John needed files from any other division, he had to drive there.
    After stating his intentions to Cassiletti, who was
sitting at a table in the roll call room with the cinder block in
front of him, St. John grabbed his keys. His Buick had over a hundred
thousand miles on the odometer and needed a couple minutes of warm-up
before the lifters quieted down and the oil cleared out of the
combustion chambers. Or so Munch had explained.
    He set the heater to low and headed off. The radio
was tuned to an FM station and an old Steppenwolf song played softly
beneath the static of his police radio. The song had come out when he
was twenty and wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army. In the early
days of his tour in Vietnam, he'd felt like some kind of god, just
out of high school and put in charge of million-dollar equipment. And
the hookers, they were everywhere—young, beautifully exotic, cheap
even by a cocky young American's standards.
    He'd never felt so alive, especially as his belief in
his immortality wavered. Every morning was a victory. Every taste,
smell, and sound was savored—the moist morning air, men laughing,
stale cookies baked and sent from elementary-school kids stateside.
This was, of course, before the children were taught to be ashamed of
the war. Before all of them were. That came later.
    While he was in-country while the cause was still
righteous, the world around him blazed with intensity. Coming home
had been a letdown. Colors seemed duller, everyday concerns seemed
unreal and unimportant.
    He drove away his first wife, Nan, with his stock
dismissal to any and all of her complaints: "Is anyone shooting
at you?" How could any problem be a big deal if no one was
shooting at you."
    He grasped entirely the seduction of urban warfare.
    Now he wondered who that weathered old fart was who
stared back at him from his bathroom mirror each morning. Time has
passed, he told himself. The war is over. As Munch would say move the
fuck on.
    The Pacific station on Culver Boulevard rewarded him
with a plethora of information. In addition to Jane Ferrar's criminal
record he found an instance where officers had responded to a
disturbance at the Star Motel on Rose Avenue in Venice Beach.
    He went to the files and pulled the original copy of
the incident report. Management had phoned police when a coffee table
burst