Bloody River Blues

blood. He had used Clorox to scrub it. This had worked pretty well but the camper smelled fiercely of bleach.
    “I called three times and you never answered.”
    “I don’t have a machine in the camper,” he said, although he did. He often did not turn it on.
    “There’s all kinds of talk around the set about you. Mr. Sloan’s been saying some things that aren’t real nice. He’s talking about suing you. I’m real sorry about your friend, John. I don’t remember him, but I think I met him once. He seemed real nice.”
    “He was.”
    “So you want to be alone tonight?”
    “Something like that.”
    “I don’t think it’s good for you.”
    “What’s not good?”
    “To be alone. Come over. Cranston’s only twenty minutes away.” Her voice was a breathy singsong.
    “It’s just not a good time.”
    “Okay, if that’s what you want.” Melodious became brittle.
    Oh not now please.
    “Are you trying to tell me something?” she asked.
    Brother.
    “No, no, it’s just, this thing with me being the witness and all.”
    “What about it?” she asked testily, and obviously wanted an answer. It seemed patently unfair to have to argue like this with someone you were not sleeping with.
    “It’s taking up a lot of my time.”
    “It’s probably not taking up time tonight.”
    “Well, it is. There’ve been some complications.”
    “Complications? I thought you were a simple kind of guy.” She was being playful now.
    Perhaps their fight was over.
    “I don’t know . . .” He kept picturing the way the FBI agent fell, surprised, spiraling down. That was it. Just a fall. Then he was dead. Just like that.
    Please, he heard Nina saying. She had to see him. “Please, John.”
    The man had just lain there, and Pellam had walked into the kitchen and dug under the sink for garbage bags in which to wrap up the body.
    “It’s only twenty minutes?” he heard himself asking.
    BECAUSE HIS BROTHER was a union carpenter and had taken him on dozens of jobs, Stevie Flom appreciated good woodwork. He took pleasure in the way joists and studs met and how crown molding fit perfectly in the corners of ceilings. Tonight he wandered through the dark basement of a ramshackleVictorian house by the riverfront and checked out the handiwork.
    Not bad, not bad at all.
    Though he wondered why anybody would renovate a house here, where the only views were of a cement plant, a trailer camp on its last legs, and Pelican Island.
    Stevie looked at the structural work again. He approved of the wooden studs, instead of the metal ones most builders used. That meant the wall was going to be nice and solid. He looked at the wiring. Electricity was one thing he wanted to learn about. He was good with hydraulics and mechanics but the idea of electricity was kind of weird.
    The concrete floor, he observed, was not in good shape. A lot of cracks and places where it had crumbled. He saw evidence of standing water. That was one thing his brother had told him to look for in basements.
    Evidence of standing water.
    Stevie wished he had something to read. He thought of his old man, who kept newspapers and Time magazines piled up in the basement at home—stacks and stacks—with a few Playboy s hidden between them, their places marked with twigs. But here—nothing but the boiler instructions encased in plastic. His brother had once returned with three hundred bucks he had found in an old book while doing some work in Alton. This place was nothing but old basement.
    With evidence of water damage.
    He was dying for a cigarette but he knew he shouldn’t smoke. The ash would be evidence. He hadseen that on Magnum PI one time. Evidence of a killer. Or was it a Matlock rerun?
    So he just walked to a half window and gazed outside, across the street to the empty trailer court.
    Wondering when the hell was the beer guy’s Winnebago going to return.
    HE PUT HIS head against Nina’s hair and inhaled.
    He liked the smell. Animal-musky and sweaty and perfumed. He breathed in again and woke her up.
    “Hm?” she asked.
    “Go to sleep,” Pellam whispered.
    “I was asleep.”
    “Go back to sleep.”
    “Hm.”
    Regardless of Pellam’s mood and inclination several hours ago, a seduction it had been.
    Cranston, just off the expressway, was a town much smaller than Maddox and more affluent and gingerbready. A riverfront tourist trap, the town was filled with shops selling antiques and gadgets and Cute Things. Nina apparently did much shopping