Sunset Express

I opened the screen door and we went in. There was another smell in the room, just beneath the dope. I tilted her face to better see the eye. 'James do this?'

She pulled away from me and waved the pipe again. 'It'll be the last time, yessireebob.' She took another pull on the pipe.

'We need to see him.'

Jo

'Would you tell him we want to see him, please?' The other smell felt wet and old, like melons that had gone soft with age.

Jo

Joe-Pike walked over to the radio and turned it off. Jo

I called, 'James?'

Jo

Pike and I looked at each other, and then Pike took out his.357 Python and held it down along his leg. We followed her out of the living room and across a square little hall to the bathroom. It was an old bathroom, built sometime back in the fifties, with a buckled linoleum floor and corroded fixtures and a brittle glass shower door, the kind that can hurt you bad if you fall through it. Jo

I said, 'Oh, man.'

James Lester was lying through the broken shower door, half in the tub and half out, impaled on half a dozen jagged glass spikes. His head was almost severed, and the walls and the tub and the buckled linoleum were sprayed with gouts of dark red blood that looked not unlike wings raised toward heaven.

We had wanted to ask James Lester about Pritzik and Richards and the fabrication of evidence, but now he wasn't around to answer our questions. Neither were Pritzik and Richards.

Fu

CHAPTER 22

I got as close to the body as I could without stepping in blood. Jo

She said, 'Yee-uck! I ain't touchin' that mess.'

'Your footprints are on the floor. There's dried blood on your shoes.'

Jo

'The water in the sink was ru

'Yeah.'

James Lester was wearing pants and the work boots, but no shirt. Both legs and one arm were crumpled in a kind of K on the floor, with the other arm and the upper half of his body hanging through the glass into the tub. There was water on the linoleum around the base of the sink where it had spilled over and mixed with James's blood. A bar of soap and a Bic razor and a can of Edge shaving

cream were on the sink, which was splashed with water, like maybe he had been getting ready for work and turned and slipped and gone head first through the glass. I said, 'What happened, Jo

She shook her head. 'I spent the night with my friend Dorrie, and he was like this when I came home. I guess he fell.' She made a big deal out of showing me her eye. 'The prick did this to me yesterday. You see what he did?' She shook her head and her lips went wubba-wubba-wubba like a cartoon character. 'Oh, man, doesn't that smell just make you wa

She went back into the living room, and we followed her. She tried stoking the pipe again, and I pulled it away from her. 'Hey, whatcha doin'?!'

'He's dead, Jo

Jo

'Was he expecting anyone?'

'I don't know!'

'Did he mention anyone to you, like maybe he was concerned?'

She put her hands over her ears. 'I don't know I don't know I don't know!' Shouting.

I stepped back, breathing hard, and let her calm. I looked at Pike and Pike shrugged. I took a breath, let it out, then sat next to her. I said, 'Okay, Jo

'We fought because he's an asshole!'

'Was it because you blew the whistle to me about James being Stuart Langolier?'

She froze for a moment, and then she squinted at me. Suspicious. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'C'mon, Jo

She slumped back on the couch and stuck out her lower lip. Sulking. 'James Lester was his real name. He changed it legally to get a fresh start when he gave up his life of crime.'

I said, 'Jo

'I did it to fuck him.' Her voice was soft and petulant.

'Why?'

'Cause he was go

'How do you know it?'

'Cause he said that when he got the big payday he was go

Pike walked away. He has little tolerance for the vagaries of the human condition.

I said, 'Jo

'What do you mean?' She rubbed at her eyes. When she touched the bruised eye she winced.

'He may not have been telling the truth. He might have made up the story about meeting Pritzik in a bar. I think maybe he planted the things I found in order to collect the reward, or someone else planted them and James was in on it.'

She shrugged, even more sulky. 'I du

'Did he know Pritzik and Richards? Did he tell you how he was going to set this up?'

She suddenly sat up, loud and animated. 'Hey, I'm still go

Pike said, 'Forget the reward. You'll be lucky if you don't go to jail.' Pike, the Intimidator.

Jo

I said, 'Tell me about Pritzik and Richards.'

She shook her head. 'I don't think he knew them. I mean, he coulda, but I don't think so.'

'Why not?'

Shrug. "Cause he didn't have any friends. Just this guy from the video store and Clarence at the transmission shop. Clarence is a Mexican.'

I glanced at Pike, but Pike was staring out the front door. Intimidating the neighborhood. I said, 'Maybe he mentioned a buddy who worked at a Shell Station or an ex-con he would have drinks with.'

She shook her head. 'He just went out with Clarence. I know 'cause I followed him.'

'You followed him.' The detective using advanced interrogation techniques.

She made the kind of shrug again. 'When he started all that talk about gettin' a Bud Lite girl I got worried he might be doin' more than drinkin' when he went out.'

'And all he ever did was go out with Clarence?'

Her head bobbed. 'Uh-huh.'

'How many times did you follow him?'

'Eight or nine.' She thought about it. 'Maybe ten.'

I described Pritzik and Richards. 'You ever see him with guys like that?'

Another head shake. 'Nuh-uh. James and Clarence would just sit there and drink, and sometimes play video games.' Another big fly cruised through the room, this time passing between us before heading toward the bathroom. Jo