Benighted (16 page)

I pick up a pair of scissors and head down to Weapons.

Ally’s sitting resting his feet against the stockroom wall, his head buried in
Sleepers Monthly.
I knock on the door as I go in. The fluorescent lighting makes the sleeper guns and silver guns stand out from their racks like cardboard cut-outs. Without searching my memory, I know it’s an unhealthy light. “How can you not get a headache in here?” I say.

“Mm? Oh, hi, Lo.” Ally takes his feet off the wall and kicks another chair toward me. “God, you should see this. They’ve got a new design coming out, they say you can sight up to four hundred yards with it.” He pushes an article under my nose.

“Fat lot of good that’ll be sighting in the dark, is what I think, but then I’m just a girl.” I stand against the wall, a few feet away.

Ally takes his magazine away so I can’t insult it, ignores the second part of what I’ve said. He opens his mouth to explain why I ought to take this new technological advance seriously, but if I wanted to know about beauty in design then I’d look at pictures.

“You,” I interrupt, “owe me a haircut. I had a lawyer in here who didn’t mention public opinion once.”

“Who’s that?” Ally’s hand makes a protective pass by his head.

“Adnan Franklin. He didn’t mention the majority of citizens at all.”

“Shit. What did he say?”

I shrug, holding the scissors. They’re a pleasant shape in my hand. “That I’d contravened my client’s human rights and broken national and international humanitarian treaties, and let civilization down.”

“That doesn’t count.” Ally leans forward and snatches the scissors. “He talked about civilization. That’s public opinion. He just used bigger words.”

“Bullshit. Where did you learn philosophy?”

“He said most people wouldn’t like you. Same deal, I reckon.”

“No…” Franklin didn’t say that. That wouldn’t have been—“I think he did like me.”

“Did he now?” Ally isn’t a particular gossip, but he likes to hear something first. He likes his information pristine. “What’s going on there, then?”

I sit down. “No, Ally. Work. Nothing going on. Anyway, I’m seeing someone.”

“Hey.” He sits up, alert. “Who?”

I wave my hand. I wasn’t planning on telling him. “Just some social worker I met.”

“A lyco? God, Lo, you don’t date lycos.” Ally considers that he has the goods on my love life, that he knows about me. I don’t want to know about his.

“I don’t date, Ally.”

He gestures with the magazine. “You think they just believe what people say about bareback girls.”

People say that bareback girls are sluts. Or that bareback women are frigid. Fucking a cripple. “I’m no girl, Ally. And nobody worth listening to says it. Listen, I wanted to ask you about a shelter case you had.”

“Who is this guy?”

He’s right, nons do usually date each other. He’s way too curious. I won’t have this. “The case, Ally, or I’m walking out the door.”

Ally rolls up the magazine and slaps it against his palm. “Which case?”

“And don’t tell anyone I said I was seeing anyone. If Bride Reilly finds out I didn’t tell her, she’ll put salt in my coffee jar.”

He shrugs. “Whatever. What’s the case?”

“Moon night before last. Someone brought in a bad lune, he’d mauled the first catcher. Johnny Marcos.”

Ally doesn’t like to sit still. He doesn’t fidget or twitch, and he’s fit, smooth-jointed, but he’s always on the move, like liquid in an unstable container. His shoulders stop in mid-roll when I say Johnny’s name, and he settles in his chair. “That’s the Ellaway case.” His voice is flat. “I heard you were doing that.”

“I am. I need to know about what happened in the shelter.”

He exhales a deep breath, pushes a hand through his hair. “Johnny came in mauled, the bastard who bit him was tranked.” He tugs at his lip. “We had a real medic, so they took him in the back and patched him up. There was blood all over the floor.”

I raise my hand fast, like a reflex. “I’m not asking about Johnny, Ally, I need to know about Ellaway.”

He glances at me, starts to say something and changes his mind. “The trank didn’t last long. He came around after a couple of hours. Didn’t settle him down.”

I shrug. “He’s a user, cocaine, probably other stuff. Smoker. Probably takes sleeping pills. His resistance is way up there.”

“Well, whatever.” Ally leans forward, bounces his hands off his knees. “Kept coming at the bars. Kept at it, right up until sunrise.” Most lunes slow down a little as the morning gets near.

“How was he when he ricked?”

“Swearing. Angry at the pain, you know the type?”

“Bad lune.”

“Yeah. Started swearing before most of the others started crying, though. They were still just making noises, but he was right there, knew what was going on. Cussing as soon as he had a daytime tongue. Wouldn’t lie still for the cramps, either—he was pacing around, crouching down, hitting the wall. Guy doesn’t like hurting.”

“You were watching?”

“Yeah, he was making a noise. Threatened to get a shock prod if he didn’t shut up.” Ally’s eyes are dark, each pupil hidden in a black iris, and shadowed even when he’s rested. Strands of shaggy russet hair hang over his face, and his expression doesn’t change when he says this.

“Did he?”

He shrugs, rubs his hands together. “Demanded a telephone. Said it was his right, he wanted a phone.”

“Yeah, I can hear him saying that.” It’s cold in here. I tuck my hands into my jacket sleeves. “Did you give him one?”

“Yeah.” Ally sighs. “Yeah, I did.”

“How come?”

“Couldn’t face hearing him argue. He was a determined one, I could tell, I mean he was demanding a phone before he’d even put the overalls on. You ever try arguing with a naked man?”

“Well—” No. I’m making no jokes about that one. “He hadn’t even dressed?”

“Guess he didn’t think the overalls suited his style. And,” Ally puts a hand to his face, “and there was a juvenile in another cell, fourteen-year-old crying her eyes out. I just gave him a phone and went to try and get
her
to put some clothes on. I mean, she was just sitting crying for her grandma without a stitch on her. Kind of hard to work with a naked girl sitting around.”

“Jesus, Ally, a fourteen-year-old?” My hands tighten around my wrists.

“No.” He looks away from me, bites his lip and glances back. “For God’s sake. Just hard to know where to look, that’s all. You’ve got a sick mind, Lola.”

“
I
have?” I remember what I looked like at fourteen.

“Yeah, you.”

“So, so—” I reach out my hand to pull the conversation back to the point, “you weren’t listening to Ellaway when he made his call?”

“No.” Ally pulls a face. “Sorry, Lo. I don’t know who he called. Someone came to pick him up, though.”

“Who?”

“A man.” He shrugs. “I wasn’t—He signed himself out. And, and the hospital hadn’t come around, the ambulance wasn’t there yet, and Johnny was still in the shelter. I didn’t get a name.”

“What did he look like?” I fire the question to blot the word
Johnny
out of my mind.

Ally spreads his hands out, shaking his head, turning from one palm to the other as if they might hold an answer. “I don’t know. Dark hair, fair skin, tallish. I don’t know. I don’t do faces. I can’t tell you anything that wouldn’t have you questioning every other man in town. I wasn’t looking.”

He sounds helpless, but this doesn’t relax me. “How could you not look? He’d just mauled one of us. Why weren’t you looking?”

Ally stands up, fends me off and paces around the back of his chair. “Lay off, okay? I thought it was clear-cut. I thought your department would handle it. I didn’t stare because I wasn’t in the mood, it was seven thirty in the morning and I’d been up all night, and there was blood all over the floor. Just lay off.” He slumps back down and rubs his knees.

I say nothing.

Ally speaks first. “Look, the number will be on the shelter’s phone bill. You can run it through the police and find out who he called if you want to know. It’ll just take a few weeks, that’s all.” He sounds like he’s trying to make amends.

“Yeah. Look, I’m sorry.” He’s right. A policeman once told me to my face that we’re less of a priority when our suspects can’t re-offend for a whole month. Still, I can get it started. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not your fault. And it’s probably not important, anyway. Thanks, Ally.”

“Yeah. It’s okay. No sweat.”

“That’s everything, right? I mean, nothing else happened with Ellaway?” I rub my forehead, remember something else. “Hang on, you got a look at him before he ricked. Was he clean?”

“Clean?” Ally blinks at me.

“Yeah, I mean did he look like he’d been rolling in the mud or anything? You know, he says he was trying to find a shelter when he started furring up. Says he broke down near Foundling, so he probably would have gone straight there, and there’s records of what the plants are in different parks. If there were brambles in the hair he shed or anything, it’d back his story up. I don’t suppose anyone saved it when they swept the floor?”

“No.” He presses his hands together between his legs. “No, the blood. A sweeper came in, disinfected the place, incinerated stuff. Don’t you remember? It’s a new reg.”

“What new reg?”

Ally screws his face up. “God bless our government. You know the one. If a catcher is bleeding, everything has to be sterilized. You remember it, last year someone got AIDS from the guy who collared her?”

I frown, shade my eyes. I think I do remember it. Someone had forgotten to put overalls in the cell. The woman was halfway through ricking when the attendant went in to put some out for her. Figured he’d be safe if she was halfway there. She sank her teeth into him, his blood got onto her half-changed gums. He lost a piece out of his arm, and she’s dying. Voters were outraged or terrified; it was a scandal. Another notch tightened on protocol, more discipline promised for us. Now HIV-positive nons can’t dogcatch or do shelter work at all. They man the switchboards, I guess, earn that little bit less money to spend on medicine. I noticed they’d introduced blood tests along with the shrink evaluations, but it’s a while since I’ve done shelter. I’m clean, I won’t let a man touch me without a condom or a test, ever. But I guess it’s all come through now, more paperwork, more examinations, more promises to the public that we are their servants. If they tear our flesh from our bones, we won’t presume to bleed on them.

My back aches, and my voice is hoarse. “Johnny didn’t have AIDS.”

“I guess not.” Ally speaks softly, his eyes on the ground. “But they made us burn everything anyway.”

“God.” I want to go home. “So there’s nothing?”

Ally shakes his head. “I—There was a mark on his shoulder. A couple.”

“Marks?”

“I don’t know. They could have been old scars playing up, I guess.” He looks down. “Or maybe someone scored him with the catching pole.”

That would make sense. Smaller cuts heal when they rick; it’s a bad injury that doesn’t at least half close. Apart from silver, the terrible allergy that makes even a small cut swell and fester, that makes them wake with open necrotic wounds instead of pink new scars. Looking away from Ally, I make myself think it: if Johnny injured him during the collar, then that might have pushed him to attack. I could claim self-defense, or provocation…I could say it was Johnny’s fault. “I—I’ll have to look into it.”

“Sure.” Ally makes no sound as he sits in the chair.

I steady my head with my hand as I rise. “Listen, I’d better go and get the inquiries about that call he made in order, you know how long that’ll take. Thanks, Ally. You will testify if I call you, won’t you?”

“Sure, Lo. Whatever.”

I turn toward the door. We shouldn’t have had this conversation.

“Lola.” Ally’s voice makes me look back.

“Yeah?”

“You forgot your scissors.” He holds them up, studies them. His shoulders hunch, and suddenly he gives me half a crooked smile. “You said your lawyer friend only mentioned civilization, yeah?”

“Yeah.” My voice is as quiet as his. “Only civilization.”

“Well, what the hell.” He raises the scissors before I can stop him, takes his long ragged hair in his fist. “We’ll call it a draw.”

There’s a grind as the scissors close, and then Ally is shorn, his hair hanging in uneven tassels to his shoulders. He throws the scissors across the room, and holds up his hand, clutching a sheaf of hair like a trophy.

THIRTEEN

T
here’s a handwritten sign taped to the garage door that says, “Please knock loud as our bell is broken.” Ally waits behind me, kicking at stones.

“Ally,” I say, and then stop. This isn’t Marty, this isn’t Nate; I don’t need to tell him to let the lawyer do the talking. Ally’s my age, after all.

I must send Marty a card. I sent some flowers, but that was a week ago, they’ll have faded by now. They still haven’t let him out of the hospital.

“Yeah?” Ally’s voice cuts across my thoughts. He puts his hand on the door, leaning on it, and drums his fingers. Turned toward me, he takes up a lot of space.

“Do you reckon you can find something?”

He shrugs. “Find what?”

“Something to back up his claims,” I say, hitching my bag on my shoulder and straightening my coat. “Ellaway says he broke down. Do you reckon you can confirm it?”

Ally takes his hand off the door and pushes his hair out of his face. He hasn’t tidied it since he took the scissors to it in the stockroom, and it tumbles in lank tails around his fingers. “If they haven’t fixed it,” he says. “I’ll see what I can do.”

I wasn’t asking for a favor, just an opinion, but I don’t say this. We stand without speaking for a few more seconds, and then the door swings up.

A man in a clean white T-shirt and stained jeans stands under it. His face is youngish, in his thirties perhaps, and he’s shaved his head to allow for the fact that his hair is already receding. His scalp is dented looking; the planes and dips of his skull show through the brown stubble of his hair. The posture is assertive, wiry arms poised, shoulders sloping, but his face is amiable enough. “Yes?” he says.

I can start this friendly, at least. “Good morning,” I say. “Do you run the garage?”

He cocks his head and nods. He isn’t going to waste time elaborating, the nod suggests, but he’s happy enough to let me know.

I hold out my hand and he looks at it for a moment and then shakes it. His hand is bony with a firm grip; lyco calluses and others beside them from holding wrenches and screwdrivers. “My name is Lola Galley, and this is my colleague, Alan Gregory.”

“Kevin White.”

I hand him my card rather than flashing it at him. “How do you do. I’m here on behalf of a client of mine, Richard Ellaway. He left his car at your garage a few weeks ago?”

White looks at the card, looks at me.

“I’m investigating his case,” I say. “He got stuck outside on a moon night and assaulted someone. I’d like to have a look at his car.”

Ally taps his fingers against his legs beside me, and I stand still, settle all movements down and hold myself quietly.

White shrugs and gestures with the card. “You got any proof you’ve come from him?”

“We don’t need proof,” I say, trying to sound like I’m just reminding him of a fact: something about this man tells me that if he digs his heels in, there’ll be no shifting him. “But I have some letters he’s sent me about the case.” Neutral ones, from early on, before Ellaway got to know me. I take them out of a folder in my bag and hold them in front of White. “I take it you recognize the signature?”

White studies it. There’s a pause; Ally shifts on his heels, and I hold out the letter for White to see. I doubt he does recognize the signature unless he has a photographic memory, but the letter’s genuine and White seems to have some sense. If he’ll just accept the letter and decide not to throw his weight around, we’ll be in without a fight. I keep silent, unthreatening, and let him read.

“All right,” he says, looking up. “I’ll show you to it.” He turns and walks into the garage. When he can’t see, I let my head rock back and smile, just for a second. We’re in.

“You’ve had his car since his arrest, haven’t you?” I say to his back.

“When’s that?”

I give him the date.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Our footsteps echo against the concrete walls. There are a few men here and there, under or over cars; they don’t look up as we pass. Black tires loom at the corners of my vision.

“And what would you say was the trouble?”

“Trouble?”

“When you had a look at the engine.”

White slows down and looks over his shoulder. “You say you’re from Mr. Ellaway, right?”

“Yes. Yes, we are.”

He gives us a measuring look. “Only I have to be careful, you know, I run a good business here, my clients put their faith in me.”

“I’m sure they do.” I mean this. His place is clean, his men are concentrating on their job. He could fix my car, if I had one.

He stops. “It’s just, he was out after curfew, right? So I figured it might be evidence and I shouldn’t mess with it. Isn’t there a law about that?”

I’m almost taken aback: an actual good citizen. “So you told him you couldn’t work on it?”

White shrugs. “Yeah. But I didn’t do anything unusual, I mean, no one fixes a car unless they get a go-ahead from DORLA or some proof that the case is closed. No offense, I mean, but I don’t want to get into trouble with you all.”

I raise my hands. I mustn’t look too surprised; this should have occurred to me. I just never thought that mechanics would be scared of us. I should have been chasing up the car sooner than this, even. I’m just used to alcoholics and homeless loiterers. Most of my clients don’t have cars. “Of course. So, where are you keeping it?”

“At the back.” White keeps walking. Ally looks at me, and I glare him into silence.

We reach the car. Here it is, the blue Maserati: even in the dark, it gleams. Ally puts his hand on it, strokes the curve. He’s going to love this.

“Mr. White,” I say, “if it’s all right with you, I’d like to leave my colleague to have a look at it while I ask you a couple more questions. Would you be happy with that?”

“I’ve got a busy morning.”

“I’ll keep this as quick as I can.”

Ally opens the hood and nestles inside, and I turn and follow White.

We sit on plastic chairs and I sip coffee from a stained mug. “Did you know Mr. Ellaway before he sent you his car?” I ask.

“No.”

“You didn’t?”

White just looks at me.

I blow on the watery coffee. “So he just brought it in that day?”

“He didn’t bring it in. He called and told us where to get it. He offered a collection fee and I accepted. We went and picked it up, and we’ve had it since then.”

“Called when?” Did he call from the shelter? Was that the call he made on his cell phone, the one I’m waiting for the phone company to trace?

“About eleven a.m.”

Too late. The call from the shelter was not to Kevin White.

“Anyway, I sent someone to pick it up, and we brought it back here. And it’s still here.”

“Just like that?” I grip the mug to stop myself staring and sit still.

White grins. “I don’t mind. Nice car like that, it raises the tone of the place.”

I flash a smile and push on. “Mm, but has he been in to check on it since then?”

“Nah.” White shrugs. “Up to him, he’s paying me for the space.”

“Does he come in to pay the bill, check on the car?”

He shakes his head. “Sends a check.”

Ellaway hasn’t notified us about the car. He’s left it here instead, not telling me where it is. I had to spend some time researching to find this place. He hasn’t lied to me, he hasn’t broken the law and gotten the engine fixed before I could look at it, but he hasn’t given me the routine information, either. White seems to know his job, but I think again what I thought earlier: Ellaway has left his car a long way off the beaten track.

“So—” I put the cup down on the concrete floor. “So he’s not been in at all?”

White dusts his hands together and smiles. “Nope. Doesn’t bother me. Wish all my customers were that little trouble.”

I go over to Ally. He’s practically crooning over the engine, tinkering and touching with the fascination of a true devotee. “Hope you’re enjoying yourself, Ally,” I say, making him flinch inside the hood. “It’s the closest we’ll ever get to a car like this.”

Ally emerges, disheveled and with a smear of grease on his nose. “You’ve got—” I gesture at him.

“Where?” His hand passes across his face.

“There. On your—” I stand back and point. “Left. Down.” I point again. He gets some of it off, rubbing it off onto the heel of his hand, leaving a trace behind.

“So,” I say, “did you find anything?”

Ally stops cleaning himself and beckons me to the car. He dives into it from the front, and I lean over one of the sides. “See that?”

“Yeah. It’s a car.”

The hood overshadows us, and our voices echo back at each other in the confined space. Ally’s head is too near mine. I look down at his grimy hand, which is pointing at parts of the engine.

“In words of one syllable, Ally,” I warn. I’m leaning hard against the side; sculpted metal presses into my hands.

Ally draws a breath; it sounds louder than my own under the hood. “Your man—is right when he says the car is—broke. There’s a—flaw in the part that makes it go. You can’t drive this. But I’m not sure how the flaw got there. He could be wrong to act all—shocked.”

“Ally, what the hell?”

Ally points to the engine. “This car’s in a good state. That’s all. And the damage, well—it doesn’t look like wear and tear.”

“For God’s sake, spit it out. I can’t stand it when you hedge.”

Ally looks at me, opens his mouth, closes it, looks back at the engine. “I could be wrong. But what I’m saying is that he could have done the damage himself.”

I pull myself out of the cramped space and walk to the wall. “You’re saying he trashed his own car?”

“I’m not saying anything,” Ally says. His fingers flex in and out, and he paces. “I’m not messing with this guy, Lola. You can deal with him, you’re the lawyer, but I don’t want him after me for saying the wrong thing.”

“Ally, stop it.” I can’t watch him fidgeting to and fro, I just can’t stand it. In a minute I’m going to slap him.

He turns, runs his hands through his hair. I stand at the wall and watch him. “I just don’t know, Lo,” he says. “I just don’t know what to think.”