The Nomination Page 7

  Besides, normal law-abiding citizens always assume that burglars work at night, which is, of course, fallacious. But it’s what they assume. They’re more likely to notice a stranger in the neighborhood after dark than at noontime.

  All the burglars Moran knew, which was quite a large number, worked in the middle of the day.

  He strolled up the street, a middle-aged guy in khaki pants and a blue short-sleeved shirt and a straw hat, neither tall nor short, fat nor skinny, an average-looking white guy with sunglasses and a forgettable face, although Bunny thought he was still cute and women seemed to remember his deep brown eyes and the tiny starshaped scar on his cheekbone and the hard bulk of his chest and shoulders when he slipped out of his shirt.

  “Well, officer, I remember a man. He was wearing a straw hat and sunglasses. No, that’s really all I remember about him.”

  He assumed he was being watched. It was always best to operate on that assumption. He turned up the path to her front door and rang the bell. If by chance she was home and answered the door, he’d grin and say, “Hey, surprise! I’m back in town. Thought I’d take a chance, see if you were home.”

  Of course she didn’t answer the bell.

  He stood there, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, feigning impatience for whatever eyes might be watching him.

  Then he shrugged, walked back to the street, hesitated, shrugged again, putting on a show for his imaginary audience, and went up her driveway, into the carport, around the smelly trash barrels, to the back door. Out of sight, now, from all eyes.

  He had his tools with him, but first he ran his hand over the ledge above the door, then lifted the doormat. No dice. Probably she’d hidden her spare key somewhere in the chaos of the carport, but Moran figured it’d be quicker just to pick the damn lock.

  It took him four minutes. He was a little out of practice.

  When he opened the door and stepped inside, the heat almost blew him back out. It must’ve been a hundred-and-twenty in there. Well, okay. That confirmed that she’d been gone for a while. When she’d been living there, he recalled, she kept the AC on all day.

  He went straight to the bedroom, opened the closet door, fumbled behind the pile of sweaters, and took down the shoebox.

  He dumped the photos out onto the bed.

  Fifteen minutes later he left the house, strolled back to his car, and drove a couple of miles down Route 1. Then he pulled to the side of the road and took out his cell phone.

  When Larrigan answered, Moran said, “She’s not there and those photos aren’t there, either.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Moran explained that Bunny had quit her job, left her house, and taken the photos of her and Larrigan and Eddie and Li An, Larrigan’s Vietnamese girlfriend, with her to wherever she’d gone. “It doesn’t look like she moved permanently,” he said. “Hard to say if she took a lot of clothes with her. But as near as I can remember, everything else was the way it was.”

  “So now what?” said Larrigan.

  “Up to you.”

  “Find her.”

  “It’s gonna—”

  “Goddamn it, Eddie. Do what needs to be done. Get the damn pictures.”

  JAKE IN NEW York told Moran it would take ten or twelve hours to get what he needed—if he could get it. No guarantees. So Moran spent the day in his motel room alternating between his Elmore Leonard paperback and the television.

  It was nearly ten that night when his cell phone chirped. Moran had been dozing.

  “Yuh,” he mumbled.

  “It’s Jake.”

  “Get anything?”

  “She’s been in Davis, Georgia, for at least the past two days, including yesterday afternoon. Before that Jacksonville, and before that West Palm Beach. She’s heading north.”

  “Credit card?”

  “Nope. That would’ve been easier. ATM card. She used it three days ago and then yesterday, same place in Davis. Maybe she’s still there. Worth a shot, anyway.”

  “Well, good,” said Moran. “So where the fuck is Davis, Georgia?”

  “Christ, Eddie, I gotta check the map for you?”

  “No, I guess I can—”

  “Well, I did, anyway. It’s a few miles northwest of Valdosta, just over the line from Florida.”

  “I know where Valdosta is.”

  “Just tryin’ to give you your money’s worth.”

  “You did. Thanks.”

  HE GOT UP at six the next morning, drove to Miami, returned the Chevy sedan to the rental place, and caught a flight to Atlanta. There he switched planes, and he landed at the Valdosta Municipal Airport a little after two in the afternoon.

  He rented a Dodge minivan with one of his many credit cards under one of his many names. The girl at the Budget desk gave him a map of the area, and he found Davis. It was about twenty miles outside the city, the third exit north off I-75.

  Moran found the town and spent the afternoon driving around, orienting himself.

  Davis turned out to be a nondescript little Southern town, mostly red-dirt farms, a few residential streets lined with big old houses with wraparound verandas, trailers and shacks scattered along the back roads, a couple of rib joints, and several roadside taverns. What passed as a business center was a couple of strip malls.

  There were three banks. Bunny Brubaker had used her ATM card twice at one of them.

  There were two motels, and at eight-thirty that evening he spotted the maroon VW with the daisy on the antenna and the Florida plates parked outside the motel nearest the bank she’d used. It was a run-down sixteen-unit flat-roofed boxy structure tucked into a little grove of scrub oak on the main drag heading west past the second strip mall.

  What a brilliant fucking detective I am, thought Moran. Less than twenty-four hours ago I had no idea where she was. She could’ve been anywhere.

  Now I’ve got her.

  He drove back into town, found a Burger King with a drive-through, and ordered a Whopper, fries, and coffee. When he paid the girl at the window, he kept his sunglasses on and the brim of his straw hat pulled low so she wouldn’t see his face. He ate in the parking lot, lit a cigarette, and sipped his coffee while the light faded from the sky. Then he drove back to the motel.

  The red neon sign out front read, unimaginatively, MOTEL. The VACANCY light was on.

  Her VW hadn’t moved. There were two other cars pulled up in front of the motel.

  Bunny Brubaker’s car was nosed up to unit seven, near the end. The other two occupied units were one and three, judging by the light that glowed in the windows behind the pulled drapes where the cars were parked.

  He pulled the minivan in front of unit eight, beside Bunny’s VW, got out, and walked up to unit seven.

  He could hear television voices inside. He tapped softly on the door.

  A moment later the door opened until it pulled tight against the chain. Bunny looked at him through the crack.

  “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered.

  “Hi, Bunny. Surprise, huh?”

  “Yeah. Surprise. What do you want?”

  “I got a message from a mutual friend.”

  She peered at him through the cracked-open door. “How’d you find me?”

  Moran chuckled. “It wasn’t easy.”

  “Nobody—”

  “It doesn’t matter, does it? I’m here and we need to talk.”

  She nodded. “Okay. So talk.”

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Talk to me. What’s he got to say?”

  “Bunny,” said Moran, slapping a mosquito that was drilling into the back of his neck, “the bugs’re driving me nuts out here. Leave that door open like that, you’re gonna have a swarm of ’em in there. Let me in. I don’t get it, anyway. You don’t seem happy to see me.”

  “Tough about the bugs,” she said. “What’s the message?”

  “Fifty grand.”

  “Got it with you?”

&nb
sp; “Come on, babe,” said Moran. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

  “No, it’s not. I know what he wants, and he knows what I want. It’s simple.”

  “Well, if you want what you want, just let me inside for a minute so we can talk private and I don’t get lifted up and carried away by these goddamn bugs, okay?”

  She stared at him for a moment. Then the door shut. He heard the chain rattle, and then the door opened again. “Okay,” said Bunny. “Come on in.”

  She was wearing running shorts and a pale blue T-shirt. Bare feet. Her auburn hair tied back with a rubber band, long smooth brown legs, those nice tits bulging under her T-shirt.

  She went over and sat on one of the twin beds that practically filled the room. He noticed that she kept her left hand hidden behind her. “You can turn off the TV if you want,” she said.

  He turned the TV sound off, leaving the picture flickering. He sat on the other bed, facing her. “You’re looking fine, Bunny,” he said, reaching out and touching her leg.

  She twitched and moved her leg. “Don’t,” she said. “I don’t trust you.”

  “Why not? I bring you good tidings of great joy.”

  “You—you messed with my head. He sent you down to find me. You didn’t tell me the prick was up for the goddamn Supreme Court.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I felt bad about that. You’re a good kid, and we go way back, you and me. It would’ve been nice if we’d just happened to run into each other. But . . .” He shrugged and grinned. “What’s it matter? We had fun, didn’t we?”

  She cocked her head, then smiled. “Yes. We had fun. We always had fun.” She shook her head. “But we’re not going to have fun now. We’re going to do business now. Did you bring the money?”

  “Depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “You got the pictures?”

  She frowned. “Christ, I don’t know how to do this.” She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then pulled her left hand from behind her back. It was holding a short-barreled revolver. A .38, Moran guessed.

  “What’s that for?” he said.

  “A single girl can’t be too careful.”

  “You don’t need that. Jesus. I don’t like guns.”

  “Me, neither,” she said. “But I’d like it less if I didn’t have one. So you got the money?”

  “Not in my pocket. Show me the pictures. Then we can do business.”

  “The money first.”

  He pretended to ponder his options, then shrugged. “Okay. You’re the one with the gun. The money’s in the car. Parked right outside.”

  “Let’s get it.”

  He nodded, stood up, and turned for the door.

  “Wait,” she said. “I’m going with you.”

  He stopped, and when she came up behind him, he turned quickly and slammed his fist into her stomach, just under her ribcage. The air exploded from her, and she collapsed onto the floor and rolled onto her side, her knees drawn up to her chest.

  He picked up the revolver where it had fallen to the carpet and tossed it onto the bed. Then he crouched beside her. “The photos,” he said softly. “Where are they, Bunny?”

  “Fuck you,” she gasped. She was having trouble breathing, and tears brimmed in her eyes.

  “Aw, come on, babe. Don’t make it difficult.”

  “I haven’t got them,” she whispered.

  “I hope that’s not true,” he said. “I’d really feel bad if that was the truth. I need those photos.” He reached for the TV and turned up the sound to full volume. Then he knelt on the floor beside her. He stroked her hair, moved his hand down her back, patted her ass softly. He put his mouth by her ear. “Okay, sweetheart. Let’s talk.”

  “They’re not here,” she said. “Honest.”

  Eddie Moran shook his head, sighed, and grasped her breast. He squeezed it and twisted it until Bunny screamed. Her scream mingled with the television noise, and he was pretty sure no one outside the motel would notice.

  HE TOSSED HER room methodically, and when he didn’t find the photos he combed through her VW. No luck.

  Eddie Moran was confident that he was more proficient at finding things than Bunny Brubaker was at hiding them. She’d told the truth. She didn’t have those damn pictures with her.

  It was too bad he’d had to kill her. She was a good kid. Always had been. But he’d had no choice. From the moment he knocked on her motel room door, she was a dead woman, whether she handed over the photos or not.

  He’d twisted her breast and she’d screamed and twisted and bucked against him. She lashed out wildly, catching him across his neck with her fingernails, leaving three parallel gashes running from his ear to his collar.

  “Aw, shit, Bunny,” he’d said. “That hurts.”

  Again he smashed his fist into her solar plexus. She gagged and puked and curled into a fetal ball, and he knew he’d knocked the spirit out of her. He’d moved his hands to her soft throat, stroked it, watching the terror in her eyes. His thumbs found her larynx, pressed until he could feel it collapse, and he’d watched her face turn red then blue then purple. Her back arched, and a great shudder vibrated in her chest, and her eyes bulged before they rolled up into her head.

  Now he stood in the middle of the room, examining his work, trying to see it the way the cops would see it. All the bureau drawers had been pulled out and dumped on the floor. He’d dragged the mattresses off the twin beds, tipped over the upholstered chair, spilled everything out of her suitcase.

  Bunny’s body lay crumpled in the corner.

  Her revolver was in his pants pocket. He’d taken all the cash and plastic cards and loose papers from her purse and stuffed them into his jacket pocket.

  He shrugged. Too bad. It was a waste.

  He shut off the television and switched off the lights in the room. He cracked open the door and peered outside to be sure nobody was hanging around.

  He slipped out of Bunny’s room and shut the door. He went to his rented minivan and fumbled in his duffel for his baggie of Mexican weed, which he took to her VW and tucked under the front seat. His gift to the local redneck cops. Make the scenario easy for them to understand.

  He wiped his prints from Bunny’s revolver and tossed it into the Dumpster out back. If the cops found it, it’d give them something else to think about.

  Then he climbed into his minivan and headed back to the Valdosta airport. As he drove through the Georgia night, he remembered the single word Bunny Brubaker had gasped as his thumbs had begun to press into her larynx.

  It had sounded like “Seymour,” which didn’t mean a damn thing to Eddie Moran.

  OUTSIDE THE BIG windows of the sunporch, mist blanketed the valley and a soft rain filtered down from the low gray clouds. It was a fuzzy black-and-white photograph, a Japanese ink drawing, beautiful, but stark and foreboding, too, Simone thought.

  Or maybe that was her disease. She’d been having a lot of dark and foreboding hours lately.

  From the big speakers, Beethoven’s Pastorale, the ineffably beautiful Sixth Symphony, washed over her.

  Two weeks, no reply. She’d included her address and her phone number in her letter.

  Perhaps she’d been wrong. Perhaps Carol Ann Chang in San Francisco wasn’t her May after all.

  She’d been so certain of it.

  Wishful thinking, probably.

  For all those years, Simone had not allowed herself to think of May, whose adopted name was Jessie Church, to wonder what kind of woman she’d become, to imagine a reunion. Then the newspaper photograph had unleashed all of her repressed longings and regrets.

  It would’ve been better had she not seen that photograph.

  She felt her eyes growing watery. Her thoughts were so muddled sometimes, her moods so uncontrollable. The frustrating part was that even as she was aware of the confusions and the irrational fears—and the hopes, too—she just didn’t have the energy to concentrate on them, sort them out, solve them with
logic.

  She blinked away the tears and huddled under her afghan, drifting on the music ...

  A touch on her shoulder snapped her awake. She reached up and placed her hand over Jill’s.

  “You were napping,” said Jill. “Do you feel okay? Do you need some medicine?”

  Simone turned her head, looked up at her, and smiled. “I am all right, dear.”

  Jill reached down and touched Simone’s cheek with her fingertip. “You’ve been crying again.”

  “It is nothing.”

  “It’s happening more often,” said Jill. “The symptoms. I’m going to call Dr. Mattes.”

  “Yes,” said Simone. “I suppose you should.”

  She saw the flicker of concern in Jill’s eyes. If Simone agreed to see the doctor, Jill would know that the symptoms were getting worse.

  Jill tried to smile, then handed Simone an envelope. “This came for you. I thought you’d want to see it right away.”

  The large padded manila envelope felt heavy in Simone’s hand. It had been addressed in a loose, careless feminine scrawl, and it had been sent by certified mail. The word “personal” was scrawled across the bottom and underlined twice. No return address.

  It had been postmarked in Valdosta, Georgia, four days earlier. Simone didn’t think she knew anybody in the entire state of Georgia.

  “I’m sorry,” said Jill. “It’s not from . . .”

  Simone nodded. “I guess not.”

  “What about a nice hot cup of tea, then?”

  “Thank you, dear,” said Simone. “Tea would be lovely.”

  After Jill left the room, Simone opened the envelope and withdrew a single folded sheet of white stationery and a handful of photographs. She put aside the photos and unfolded the note.

  She glanced first at the signature at the bottom.

  “Bunny.”

  Bunny Brubaker was the only “Bunny” Simone knew, but that had been over thirty years ago.

  “Dear Li An,” Bunny’s note began.