D Is for Deadbeat

she'd know if Lovella was still in town. I was remembering now the fragment of conversation I'd overheard the night I eavesdropped on Billy and Coral. She'd been talking to Billy then about some woman. I couldn't remember exactly what she'd said, but I did remember that. Maybe Coral had seen the woman I was looking for.
    When I reached the trailer park, I found the trailer dimly lighted, as if someone had gone out and left a lamp burning to keep the burglars at bay. Billy's Chevrolet was in the carport, the hood cold to the touch. I knocked on the door. After a moment, I heard footsteps bumping toward the front.
    "Yeah?" Billy's muffled voice came through the door.
    "It's Kinsey," I said. "Is Coral here?"
    "Uh-uh. She's at work."
    "Can I talk to you?"
    He hesitated. "About what?"
    "Friday night. It won't take long."
    There was a pause. "Wait a sec. Let me throw some clothes on."
    Moments later, he opened the door and let me in. He had pulled on a pair of jeans. Aside from that, he was barefoot and naked to the waist. His dark hair was tousled. He looked like he hadn't worked out recently, but his arms and chest were still well developed, overlaid by a fine mat of dark hair.
    The trailer was disordered-newspapers, magazines, dinner dishes for two still out on the table, the counters covered with canned goods, cracker boxes, bags of flour, sugar, and corn meal. There wasn't a clear surface anywhere and no place to sit. The air was dense, smelling faintly of fresh cigarette smoke.
    "Sorry to disturb you," I said. He looked like he'd been screwing his brains out and I wondered who was in the bedroom. "You have company?"
    He glanced toward the rear, his dimples surfacing. "No, I don't. Why, are you interested?"
    I smiled and shook my head, at the same time caught up in a flash fantasy of me and Billy Polo tangled up in sheets that smelled like him, musky and warm. His skin exuded a masculine perfume that conjured up images of all the trashy things we might do if the barriers went down. I kept my expression neutral, but I could feel my face tint with pink. "I have some questions I was hoping Coral might help me with."
    "So you said. Try the Hub. She'll be there till closing time."
    I laid the skirt and shoes across the television set, which was the only bare surface I could find. "Do you know if these are hers?"
    He glanced at the items, too canny to bite. "Where'd you get 'em?"
    "A friend of a friend. I thought you might know whose they were."
    "I thought this was supposed to be about Friday night."
    "It is. I talked to a cabbie who picked Daggett up at the Hub Friday night and dropped him off down near the wharf."
    "I'll bite. So what?"
    "A blonde was with him. The cabbie took them both. I figure she met him at the Hub, so I thought Coral might have had a look at her."
    Billy knew something. I could see it in his face. He was processing the information, trying to decide what it meant.
    I was getting impatient. "Goddamn it, Billy, level with me!"
    "I am!"
    "No, you're not. You've been lying to me since the first time you ever opened your mouth."
    "I have not," he said hotly. "Name one thing."
    "Let's start with Doug Polokowski. What's your relation to him? Brother?"
    He was silent. I stared at him, waiting him out.
    "Half-brother," he said grudgingly.
    "Go on."
    His tone of voice dropped, apparently with embarrassment. "My mom and dad split up, but they were still legally married when she got pregnant by somebody else. I was ten and I hated the whole idea. I started gettin' in trouble right about then so I spent half my time in Juvenile Hall anyway, which suited me just fine. She finally had me declared a whaddyou call 'em…"
    "An out-of-control minor?"
    "Yeah, one of them. Big deal. I didn't give a fat rat's ass. Let her dump us. Let her have a bunch more kids. She didn't have any more sense than that, then to hell with her."
    "So you and Doug were never close?"
    "Hardly. I used to see him now and then when I'd come home but we didn't have much of a relationship."
    "What about you and your mother?"
    "We're okay. I got over it some. After Doug got killed, we did better. Sometimes it happens that way."
    "But you must have known Daggett was responsible."
    "Sure I knew. Of course I did. Mom wrote and told me he was bein' sent up to San Luis. At first, I thought I'd get even with him. For her sake, if nothin' else. But it didn't work out like that. He was too pathetic. Know what I mean? Hell, I ended up almost feeling sorry