So the girls did outcalls as well as in-calls in the little rooms upstairs. I was surprised to see the operation so out in the open. Either Baba was getting reckless or he had police protection. Even if he had protection, his world was starting to wobble. His patroness was losing patience with him, his aide-de-camp was threatening to turn him over to the spiritual authorities, and I was closing in on his two most valuable possessions.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I could hear Candyman and Pete arguing as I went up the front steps. When I pushed the door open, they were squared off in the middle of the shabby living room, on the verge of physical violence. Budge was standing to one side with a grim look on his face.
“I want my goddamn money I worked for!” Candyman shouted.
“Negative!” Pete shouted back, belligerent, looking up at his taller housemate. “I told you we haven’t been paid for that particular job yet.”
“Then where you get the money for them new boots, huh?”
“An old shipmate came into port and paid me back some money he owed me.”
“Bullshit! No old shipmate of yours would have anything to do with your sneaky ass. Where’d you get the money to eat in Antonio’s?”
“All that dope you did must of eat up your brain,” Pete said. “How many times I got to tell you? I wasn’t eating in there. I was talking business with Gianni, trying to find some work for you two swabbies so you don’t end up on the streets.”
“No you wasn’t,” Budge said.
Pete and Candyman swiveled their heads to look at him.
“I asked Gianni if he had any work for us. Said I was following up for you. He didn’t know what I was talking about, Pete. He said his cousin Carmen does all his work.”
“The old wop must be getting senile,” Pete said. “He told me he was taking bids for a new patio.”
Candyman took a half step toward Pete and leaned down, nose to nose. His coffee-colored hands were balled up at his sides.
“Gimme my goddamn money,” he said.
“Take it easy, guys,” I said. I didn’t want a blood-spattering brawl.
Pete gnawed on his lower lip, looking into Candyman’s bloodshot eyes for several tense seconds, then flinched.
“You want your money? I’ll give you your money, all right.” His face was red and furious. He yanked his wallet out and pulled out a thick sheaf of bills. Candyman’s eyes bulged. Pete peeled off five fifties and slapped them into the ex-junkie’s hand. Candy counted them quickly and shook his head.
“Thirty more,” he said. “Budge and me both worked thirty-five hours at eight. That’s two-eighty apiece.”
“I don’t pay for beer breaks,” Pete said.
“Where’d you get all that money?” Budge said, awed. From where I stood it looked like the compact ex-sailor had a couple of thousand dollars in his hand.
“I’m moving up in the world,” he said. “Too bad you won’t be going with me.”
“Don’t be mad, Pete,” Budge pleaded. “We just want our money. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? We got bills to pay, too.”
“Here’s your money, you big corked-up bastard,” Pete said viciously, handing Budge some bills. “It’s the last you’ll get from me. You like talking to people so much, you can find your own work from here on out. The both of you are off my crew.”
“Don’t be calling me names, man,” Budge said, thrusting out his big chest. “Um not gonna be a bastard, now.” His macho football player self had overcome his economic fear.
“I don’t give a shit what you are,” Pete said. “I’m through with you. I’m moving out of this dump on the fifteenth. You sink or swim on your own.”
“Where you moving?” Budge said, surprised.
“That particular information ain’t your business,” Pete said. “But you better be looking for a new place, too.”
“Why?” Budge asked.
“Take my word for it,” Pete said, maliciously. “You’re all going to be in the street.” He looked at me. “That includes you and your smart-ass sidekick.”
“How do you know?” I said.
He sneered. “I got my sources. You aren’t the only smart guy around here.”
“You pay this month’s rent?” Candyman demanded.
“I’ll give the bitch the money tomorrow.”
“You better.”
Pete stalked out of the living room into the kitchen. A moment later the back door slammed, stirring the rats in the cupboards.
“He’s full of shit,” Candyman said, counting his fifties again. “He don’t know what’s gonna happen. He ain’t nuthin’ but a bum like the rest of us.”
“Yeah,” Budge said, still stung by the “bastard” remark. “He’s always riding us to keep the place shipshape but he’s the biggest slob in the house. He don’t even flush the toilet after he goes. I went in the head the other day after he came out and there was a turd as long as your arm floatin’ in the can.”
“You don’t think he knows what he’s talkin’ ‘bout, do you, Rob?” Candyman said.
“I guess we’ll find out.”
Upstairs, I took a quick shower and put on clean clothes: gray slacks, a long-sleeve white pima-cotton dress shirt, black leather walking shoes that were comfortable but looked dressy, and my black leather jacket. The meeting with Evermore was critical. Time was running out. The lawyer would be bringing the diamonds back from the desert in a little more than twenty-four hours and our base of operations seemed to be getting shaky. I didn’t know exactly what to make of Pete’s mysterious malevolence and threatening prediction about the house, but they added to my sense of urgency.
I glanced in Reggie’s room on my way back downstairs but there was no sign of him. The living room was empty too. Budge and Candyman were either on their way to the liquor store or just now sitting down on a couple of stools at Mulligan’s on the boardwalk. By the time an hour went by, all their problems would be dissolved in the solvent of ethyl alcohol. They would roar with laughter and nuzzle whatever warm female flesh was next to them. Tomorrow morning, their problems would be back with an extra set of horns, but tonight they would be blissful as two of Kerouac’s beatnik Buddhas, huffing a joint in the alley behind the bar with blurry companions, rejoicing in selfless oblivion.
I didn’t have that luxury.
Traffic on Pacific Avenue was lighter than it had been the night before, when Reggie and I had walked to the ashram, but there were still plenty of merrymakers going to and fro in the blended light of neon and stars. I covered the dozen blocks to Evelyn Evermore’s house at a rapid pace, arriving right at six-thirty.
The front of her two-story bungalow was in good shape from what I could see in the light from the streetlamp and her porch light. The yellow shiplap siding looked sound. The steps and veranda, railed with a white balustrade, didn’t sag or creak.
Evermore opened the door the instant I knocked, as if she had been waiting inside with her hand on the knob. She was wearing the red satin outfit she had worn on Friday night, which jarred me a little bit. There was a fruity tang of alcohol on her breath when she spoke.
“Right on time,” she said with a glowing smile. “I like that.”
Behind her I could see an entry hall and living room with dark-stained oak flooring, both empty. Her new home was unfurnished.
“I hate to be late,” I said. “It makes me feel incompetent.”
“Oh, no,” she said, stepping out onto the porch. “You strike me as very competent. The timing isn’t actually so great, though. I wasn’t thinking when we spoke earlier, but most of the work is on the outside. I don’t know if you will be able to see enough in the dark to give me a bid.”
“Let’s take a look. If I have to come back in the daytime, that’s not a problem.”
“Are you sure? It wasn’t very good thinking on my part.”
“I’m sure.” I couldn’t be certain that I would find out everything that evening I needed to know for the robbery and I liked having the option of a return visit the next day open up like a photo album in front of me. “What needs to be done?”