Unpaid Dues Read online

  "Oh God." His chest constricted. He picked up his telephone, but couldn't remember the number; digits kept transposing in his head. Still not breathing, he flipped through his Rolodex and stopped at M.

  M for Mancini, for Munch, for mechanic, for mother of an eight-year-old daughter.

  He punched in the telephone number of the Texaco station where she worked, her photograph gripped between his thumb and index finger. The telephone rang in his ear. Munch looked disheveled in the mug shot. Her light brown hair uncombed, a rebellious sneer on her face, not yet the smiling, sober young woman he'd come to know and—

  "Bel Air Texaco," a man's voice answered.

  St. John fought to calm his thoughts, trying not to superimpose Munch's face on the battered corpse.

  "Lou?"

  "Yeah."

  "It's Mace St. John."

  "How's it going? Just a sec." Lou put down the phone and called out, "Munch, line one."

  St. John exhaled, and by the time Munch picked up, his heart rate was almost back to normal.

  "I need to talk to you," he said.

  "Sure, what's up?"

  "Not on the phone"

  "This can't be good," she said.

  "It could be worse. Trust me."

  Chapter 2

  Munch held an air gun in her hand, poised to tighten the lug nuts on the wheel she'd just hung, when the silver Seville pulled into the Texaco station with smoke pouring out from the wheel wells.

  "Overheat," Lou said, pushing back his sleeves over his wiry arms.

  She paused and followed her boss's gaze. "Even worse," she said as the molten tar smell reached her.

  "Hear that?" she asked, referring to the knocking of the overworked and now probably ruined pistons. So many people didn't understand that when the red temperature "idiot" light came on it didn't mean "keep driving to the nearest repair facility." It meant "urgent trouble now." The best action would be to pull over, shut off the engine, call a tow truck, and not drive until the car died, thereby turning a twenty-dollar thermostat job into an eight-hundred-dollar cracked block. Better to suffer the price and inconvenience of a tow.

  The customer, a man of about sixty jumped out of the car. His name came to her instantly as did the last repair she had done on his car. Mr. Hale, rear brakes, and that was a month ago. And brakes, she was as quick to realize, had nothing to do with the cooling system. The engine continued to rattle and ping.

  "Shut it off," she yelled.

  Mr. Hale flapped his hands once and then did as he was told. The tortured engine gave a last gasping death rattle and then went quiet. Lou was there instantly and pulled the hood release. Munch stood at the front of the car with a rag wrapped around her hand to protect it from the steam. She had already released the second latch when she saw the circle of paint bubbling on the hood.

  "We've got a fire here," she said.

  Mace St. John's sedan pulled into a spot right in front of the office. She waved to him but then her attention was diverted back to the Seville as flames leaped up to greet the influx of oxygen from the now-open hood. The paint job and the engine were history.

  The shop's other two mechanics drew closer. Carlos, a known prankster, grabbed a bucket that Stephano had been using to prime a fuel pump. The fluid in it sloshed as he passed it to Lou with a barely contained smirk. Lou grabbed it from his hands and threw it on the flames before Munch had a chance to stop him or warn him that the bucket was full of gasoline. The engine fire roared to a new height with a bang and a flash. Everybody stepped back, shielding their faces from the heat. A moment of stunned silence followed as they all looked at each other.

  "There goes the carburetor," Munch deadpanned. Lou readily agreed, sneaking a brief glare at Carlos.

  She grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and doused the flames.

  "Is this a bad time?" St. John asked, waving away the smoke in front of his face.

  "Oh no. Business as usual." Munch grabbed the bucket and threw it to the back of the shop. An open container of gasoline was a violation of air quality regulations and punishable by a huge fine. Rightly so. Gasoline was dangerous, but how else were they expected to prime a fuel pump?

  Lou walked over to the soda machine. Munch saw his hands shake a little as he dropped quarters into the coin slot. Mr. Hale collapsed on one of the plastic chairs in front of the office, his right palm pressed tight to the top of his head, his mouth opened wide.

  Lou handed him a Coca-Cola. Carlos staggered over to the bathrooms before he doubled over, gripping his sides, shoulders heaving silently She couldn't help but crack a smile as she turned to St. John.

  "And how's your day so far?"

  St. John didn't return her smile. In fact, he looked grim. The bags under his eyes were a little more pronounced than usual, his lips pursed. He clutched the manila folder under his arm as if it held government secrets. He tilted his head toward Lou's office, turned his back to her, and went inside. Munch, her dread mounting, followed him. She knew Asia was okay She'd called her daughter's school as soon as she hung up with St. John and made Sister Francis personally go to Asia's third-grade classroom, see the eight-year-old with her own two eyes, and then report back. Asia was fine.

  "Is it Caroline?" Munch asked St. John's back. Not that that would make any sense. If something bad had happened to the detective's wife, Munch's former probation officer and Asia's godmother, St. John would be with her, not here. Munch knew full well where his priorities lay She was high on his list, but would always come second to his wife, probably third overall, right after Asia and tied with his dogs.

  "No," St. John said as he entered the office, "it's not Caroline. Close the door. I need to ask you about something"

  He opened the file folder and pulled out a familiar-looking document. It was an arrest report. She spotted her picture clipped to the top and winced. There she was, attitude and all, her mouth set in a fuck-the-world expression, her eyes hard and staring out with what she used to think was a fearsome glare. She sometimes wondered if she had ever fooled anyone besides herself.

  "What's this about?" she asked.

  "How do you explain this?" He pointed to the name typed on the form. Jane Ferrar, it read, aka New York Jane.

  "A mistake?"

  "Try again."

  "Mace, this is like ten years old."

  "It was never fully adjudicated. "

  "So . . . what? Are you here to bust me?" She wasn't overly worried. Surely this was just a matter of a little clerical cleanup. Their friendship would count for something. He couldn't be this hard up for an arrest.

  "Do you know Jane Ferrar?"

  Munch felt a thrill of fear in her stomach, but she sighed as if weary and sat down on an unopened case of coolant. St. John took Lou's chair.

  "Yeah," she said, "I know Jane. I haven't seen her in a few—make that seven—years, maybe longer."

  "Do you have an address for her?"

  "No. If she isn't in jail and still hanging out in Venice Beach, you might want to look for her on Main Street" Even as Munch spoke, she realized her information was dated. The hookers might have moved to Pacific Avenue, or that little strip on Washington in front of the Jol1y Roger. It was, by nature and necessity a migratory business.

  "How did your photograph and fingerprints show up in a file bearing her name?"

  Munch looked at the arrest report and pretended she was thinking about it. The charge was drunk driving. It had happened during one of the spells when she was trying to drink herself off drugs. "Cleaning up" by her old definitions. So much of that period was a blur, but it was hard to forget an arrest and the night in jail that invariably accompanied it.

  "I got pulled over by the cops. I was drunk. I wasn't carrying any ID, so I gave them Jane's name."

  "Why her?"

  "I knew her date of birth and I knew she had a driver's license. It would have been, uh, imprudent to give them my own name. We're also about the same size."

  "I noticed," he said
, sounding pissed off.

  She wondered why he was making such a big deal out of one little misdemeanor. Feeling a little on guard, she continued. "If I gave them some made-up name and birth date, it would come back unknown and make the whole situation much more, uh, complicated. This way I knew they'd come up with a licensed driver and just bust me for the DUI."

  "But you'd still go to jail," he said.

  "Oh, yeah. That was a given. One night and they'd kick me out in the morning with a court date."

  "A court date you never kept and a warrant issued in your friend's name."

  "She had an alibi, as I remember. She was back home in New York. Her dad was having heart surgery. We all kidded her about her dad getting a valve job." Munch stopped talking, remembering too late St. John's sensitivity on the subject of malfunctioning hearts. "Sorry," she said in a small voice.

  St. John waved away her apology with an annoyed expression.

  Munch spread her hands in a gesture of repentance.

  "Look, I'm not saying it was right. I was a jerk. Then. And frankly, I forgot all about it. What do I need to do to clear this up?"

  "Was Jane married? Did she have any children?"

  "Not that I know of, but really I don't know anything. I never see those people anymore unless they wander into an AA meeting. You know that. Why all this interest all of a sudden?" She was keeping her voice calm, but she could feel the sweat forming in her palms and armpits.

  "Jane Ferrar was murdered."

  "Oh," she said. Now it all made sense, his questions, his attitude. "I don't know anything about Jane and any murders."

  "Murders?"

  Chapter 3

  "Murders," St. John said again. "You said murders."

  "I meant murders in the general sense." God, Munch thought, what an incredibly stupid slip. You'd think I had a guilty conscience or something. She conjured a quick image of Jane, but couldn't picture her with anything but wary fear on her face. Jane always tried so hard to please, and always chose to hang out with the people who cared least about her. "Do you know who killed her? Any suspects?"

  She heard the whine of the air gun through the office door, and wished she were still out there tightening lug nuts.

  "We just got her identified. That's why I came to you for help."

  She clenched and unclenched her fist, working the finger that had been broken by one very bad guy the last time she played cops and robbers. A month had passed since then. The flesh wound on her arm had required twelve stitches. She was told the scar would fade with time. The orthopedic surgeon said Munch would most likely have trouble with her damaged knuckle, that she would almost certainly lose flexibility When the splint was removed, Munch could barely crook her finger.

  She had woken up all through that night, bending and unbending the finger until the pliability was completely restored. Dr. Yuen had been amazed; she'd even called in the receptionist to witness the miracle. What the doctor didn't know was that beating long odds was one of Munch's special talents.

  "I'm sorry," she told St. John. "I wish I could help you, but I had nothing in common with Jane and her crowd besides drugs. The last time I heard from Jane was right after I got sober. She wanted to get together. I asked her what for and she said we could go shopping." She gave St. John a wry look. "Not my idea of a good time either. I told her that I couldn't associate with her—that the only thing we ever did together was get loaded and that since I wasn't doing that anymore I had no reason to hang out with her. She got kind of bitchy with me." Munch affected a lofty tone of voice. "She said, 'I didn't know you were nothing but a bag chaser.' " Bag chaser—meaning any typical drug addict who only cared about drugs.

  "I said, 'I don't know how you could have gotten any other impression.' " Munch laughed at her own punch line.

  St. John smiled.

  Munch liked to think he knew and appreciated how much those small acts of defiance cost her, how, each time she stood up for her new way of life and let another piece of the old life fall away she had to face the lurking monster within. The monster whispered that she was a chump, a turncoat, a sellout. She didn't argue. You didn't beat the monster by arguing. The only way out was through surrender. That's when the miracles happened.

  Most of the time, in day-to-day life, work, caring for Asia, cleaning, cooking, whatever, memories of the old days didn't intrude. Especially lately, with the mess her love life was in, she was properly distracted from the risk of relapse. That would sound odd to a lot of people—normal people, that is. They might expect that a recovering addict who was having problems would be the most shaky when actually the opposite was true. In her experience, the good times were the most dangerous. That's when people in recovery might be tempted to think they didn't need a Higher Power, that they were handling their own destiny that maybe an occasional pill or drink would be as easily handled.

  The monster was a sneaky bastard.

  As long as she kept up her connections to AA, she felt 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 through the front window. The officers discovered a domestic dispute between Jane Ferrar and a man who identified himself as Mac Ferrar. Mac Ferrar was described by officers as a tall, red-blond, bearded white male. Jane convinced the officers that the fight was over and that it had all been her fault. The beat cops admonished her to pay for the window before she checked out.

  Those cops would be sued for that same shit now. Sued and sent for "sensitivity training"

  St. John ran the name Mac Ferrar but found nothing. No criminal history; no California driver's license, nada. He wasn't surprised. The name Mac Ferrar was no more real than the baby in Jane Ferrar's arms.

  * * *

  Cassiletti measured the dimensions of the cinder block and wrote down his findings on a legal pad. He also drew a sketch of the block, noting the tongue-and-groove joints on either end along with their widths and depths, and the two-inch-wide furrows at the tops and bottoms of the long-facing sides. The block was a light salmon color and weighed thirty-two pounds. Feeling he'd exhausted his observational skills, he grabbed the thing by the web between the two holes and carried it to his car.