W is for Wasted (Kinsey Millhone 23)

He set the Escort aside and went to work on the Glock.

With his office rent in arrears, he knew the money would be better spent catching up, but he was already so far behind he couldn’t see the point. He’d met Ruthie when she was a month shy of nursing school, an accelerated course she’d enrolled in after she got her AA degree. He’d finished his own education with no clear sense of what he wanted to do with his life. He’d tried a little bit of everything before he got a job doing repos for a small collection agency. Eventually, he apprenticed as a private investigator and for a while, he felt he was where he belonged. Things hadn’t quite panned out as he’d hoped. Lately, the work had dried up almost completely, leaving him scrambling to survive.

He looked up. One of the on-ramp bums was standing on the path watching him. This was a big fellow he’d seen countless times; red baseball cap, red flannel shirt, jeans, and what looked like new boots tough enough to kick a man to death. He knew people who resented the homeless and wanted them chased off the grassy areas where they loitered from day to day. His policy was live and let live.

Pete said, “Can I help you, son?”

Fellow put his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t bad-looking, but he carried himself with the menacing posture of a thug. Pete gave him credit for persistence. He himself wouldn’t be able to tolerate a life of begging on off-ramps, or anywhere else for that matter.

“My dad had a gun looked like that.”

“Lot of semiautomatics look similar.”

“What’s yours?”

“Glock 17.”

“Is it new?”

“New to me. The 17 came out in 1982. I didn’t acquire this one until recently.”

“How much does a gun like that cost?”

It crossed Pete’s mind that the fellow’s interest might be more than idle. With a gun in his possession, other methods of picking up pay would certainly be available.

Pete said, “More money than I got now, I can tell you that for a fact. Important thing is to handle a weapon like this with the respect it deserves. Safety comes first.”

“You ever kill anyone?”

“I have not. How about yourself?”

“Not me, but my dad was in the army and he killed a bunch. Messed with his head.”

“I’d imagine so.”

Pete let the conversation lapse. After a minute, he looked up. “Anything else on your mind?”

He met the panhandler’s gaze and the fellow shook his head in the negative, saying, “Take care.”

“You, too.”

The bum backed up a few steps and then moved off, heading toward the scrub. Pete had heard there was a hobo camp up there somewhere, but he’d never seen it himself.

When he finished cleaning and reassembling the Glock, he tidied up his rags and brushes, crumpling the newsprint into a wad that he tossed into the public trash container. He holstered his pocket pistol and returned his cleaning kit to the trunk. He pulled out a bag of birdseed and took a seat on the wooden bench. He wasn’t crazy about the ducks. Ducks were stupid and the geese could turn hostile if you didn’t watch your step, not that he begrudged any of them their place in the greater scheme of things. To his way of thinking, pigeons were the perfect birds; each intricately marked, gray and white with touches of iridescence.

The minute he opened his bag of seed, a high-pitched shriek would cut the air, a shrill announcement to any bird within range that there were treats in store. He liked that about birds, their willingness to share. He broadcast seeds in the area around him. He left a trail of seeds across the shoulders of his sport coat. The birds descended in a cloud, their wings batting and fluttering. They settled on him as though he were a tree, talons digging into the sleeves of his coat. They clustered on his lap, some flapping off and then on again. They ate from his outstretched hand. They pecked at the seeds he sprinkled in his hair. If children passed while the birds were feeding, they’d stare at Pete transfixed, recognizing the special magic known only to persons of a certain type. To the children, he must look like a scarecrow; tall and rangy and lean, crooked teeth, crooked smile, and fingers as long as sticks. He attracted birds from across the lagoon as though the wind had blown them into a darkened spiral, whirling around his head before they alighted.

Fondly, he shooed them away, smiling to himself. He folded over the neck of the bag of birdseed and secured it with a rubber band. He glanced at his watch. The lunch hour was coming up and he’d promised Ruthie he’d be home. She’d been doing private-duty nursing, working as needed, which seemed to be all the time, but she was off today.