Chapters (61)
“So then I called over to Diamond Head and tried to speak to the shop steward, on account of all that smoke Mitch was blowing last week. But the guy didn’t answer my message, so yesterday I took the damn bus all the way down again and they tell me Mitch ain’t been near the place since we left twelve years ago. So anyway, I’d like you to take it on. Looking for him, I mean.”
When I didn’t answer right away he said, “I’ll pay you, don’t you worry about that.”
“It’s not that.” I was about to add that he didn’t need to pay me anything, but that’s the best way to build grudges between friends and relations—do them professional favors for nothing. “But … well, to be brutally frank, you know he’s probably sleeping off a hangover in some police cell right now.”
“And if he is, you’re in a position to find out. I mean, you know all them cops, they’ll tell you if he’s been picked up drunk somewhere. I just feel kind of responsible.”
“Has he got any family?”
Mr. Contreras shook his head. “Not really. His wife up and left him—oh, way back. Must be going on forty years ago. They had a kid and even then he was drinking the pay. Can’t say I blame her. I stole Clara from him back when we was all in high school. Night of our homecoming dance. She used to get all over me when I’d come home with one too many in me, and I’d remind her at least I hadn’t let her get stuck with that prize jackass Kruger.”
His soft brown eyes clouded over as he dwelt on a sixty-year-old dance. “Well, all that past is dead and gone, and I know Mitch ain’t worth much, ain’t much to look at, but I’d kinda like to know he’s okay.”
When he put it like that I didn’t have any choice. I drove him down to my office and solemnly filled out one of my standard contracts for him. I wrote down Mrs. Polter’s address. I took Diamond Head’s location, too—I had a feeling I was going to need all the dead ends I could find to justify my retainer.
Mr. Contreras pulled a roll of bills from his front pocket. Licking his fingers, he separated four twenties and counted them over to me. That would pay for a day of bar-crawling along Archer and Cermak.
8
