As we drove back, Murray said, “I just take them sometimes.”
“What you take is your business, not mine.”
Murray wanted to get to the police station. He wanted to see if there were any official statements or a press conference.
After I left him, I paid a visit to the hospital to see how the officers from last night were doing.
They were in beds in the same room. Manny Glinga was loudly complaining to a nurse, doctor, and a uniformed police officer about the treatment. “I’m in pain. Nobody will give me drugs.”
The nurse murmured assurances. The doctor looked annoyed. The cop yawned. Glinga said, “Things better get better pretty quick.”
They noticed me. “Who the hell are you?” Glinga demanded.
The uniformed officer said, “He’s the guy who saved your life.”
Glinga squinted at me. “Oh, yeah, I sort of remember. Thanks, I guess.”
I moved farther into the room. Raul Sanchez was hooked up to several machines. He seemed to be asleep. “How’s your partner?” I asked.
“He’s going to be okay,” Glinga said. “Excuse me, I gotta talk to these people.”
I tuned him out and approached Raul. The machines gave off low murmurs. One beeped at regular intervals. His chest rose and fell. I touched his hand. He gripped mine. His eyes opened for a second then shut. He muttered something I couldn’t hear. I leaned closer. His eyes opened again for an instant then closed. He breathed hard for several more moments then whispered, “Be careful. Be careful.” His eyes closed and his breathing returned to normal.
I turned to the others who didn’t seem to have noticed. A technician came in and began to check the readings on the machines. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Are you a member of the family?”
“I saved his life.”
“Oh. Well, I guess.” He confirmed what Glinga had just said but added, “It will be a while.”
I left a few minutes later. Glinga hadn’t shut up the entire time I was in the room. I wondered what Raul had been warning me to be careful of.
I decided to give the entourage’s enclave a better look. On my way I passed the police department. The parking lot was filled with cars and a herd of media trucks. The frenzy must be intense.
A Porsche, a Jaguar, and a Mercedes were parked on the street outside of the vast Victorian mausoleum the entourage occupied. I found a spot for my out-of-place Escort under a gorgeous old elm spreading its vast canopy of leaves to shade the street. I was between the silver Mercedes and the maroon Jaguar. I hoped the Escort didn’t suffer from low self-esteem.
I strode to the front door. Through the window to the left of the front door I saw the three men I’d seen yesterday. In the kitchen were Bordine, the skinny guy, in black cargo shorts and no shirt, Meyers in a flowered shirt and sweatpants, and Krunst in a suit and tie.
I knocked.
Meyers answered the door. “No reporters, go away.” Today’s shirt had pink and yellow flowers.
I said, “I’m not a reporter. I’m a private investigator, Mike King.”
“I want you to go even more away.” He slammed the door.
I rang and knocked and banged and knocked and rang until he returned. “Get the fuck out of here,” he said.
I said, “Tim Czobel is dead.”
Krunst and Bordine came up behind him. Krunst said, “Get the fuck rid of him.” He peered over Meyers’s shoulder.
I repeated my news.
Ash colored visages spread on all their faces.
“Who are you?” Krunst asked.
“Mike King, a private investigator.”
“Let him in.”
We stood into the front hall, blessedly air-conditioned.
Meyers asked, “What do you mean Czobel’s dead? Nobody’s said anything to us. No reporters have called with the news. The police haven’t been here.”
I said, “You’d think at least a few of the reporters would be camped out here.”
Krunst said, “The police have a press conference scheduled in half an hour. We’re supposed to be there. They’re going to officially announce that Tyler was murdered.”
Meyers asked, “How do you know Czobel was murdered?”
I turned to Krunst. “Any particular reason you were chasing him down Main Street early this morning with a broken beer bottle?”
“It wasn’t me,” Krunst said.
I get really annoyed when they tell such blatant lies.
I said, “I stood between you and him. I watched you turn and run.”
“I didn’t kill him. If he’s dead, where’s the body?” Krunst asked.
“That’s the funny thing,” I said. “The body is gone.”
Krunst said, “That’s impossible.”
I said, “Czobel told me that while in the bar, he was trying to get information about Tyler Skeen and that’s what pissed you off.”
He glared at me with a look of scorn and derision and spoke in well-spaced words. “I was not there.”
Meyers looked on with unabashed curiosity.
Bordine said, “Who cares if he’s dead? He was just a reporter, another word for parasite. He said he was going to write a book about Tyler and make money from his death. He’s free to write a book, but not about Skeen’s drug use. Skeen was acquitted. Czobel claimed he had proof this time. Video of Skeen doing drugs, that he had used needles with incriminating DNA and drug residue, but he never produced any such video.”
Shades of other notorious major league players. Did Czobel have such a thing? Now that he was dead, where was it? He’d never mentioned it during our pillow talk.
I asked, “Were you trying to find out if he really had a tape? Scare him? You think a drunken chase in a small town in Wisconsin is going to stop him writing a book?”
“I don’t know what would stop him.”
Meyers said, “Being dead would.”
Krunst gave him a nasty look and said, “I didn’t kill him.”
“How do you know he’s dead?” Meyers asked.
“I saw him dead.”
“Do the police know?”
“I have no idea what the police do or do not know. Either of you guys kill him?”
They all protested loudly.
“How well did you know him?”
“Not very,” Krunst said.
“What the hell was going on up here?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Krunst asked.
“Why the fake crowds every day to greet Skeen at the ballpark?”
“Who said they were fake?”
I sighed. “I’m a very good private investigator. I could find the people in the crowd. They looked like locals. They can’t have that much loyalty to you or Tyler Skeen. You couldn’t have been paying them that much. They’ll have blabbed to their friends about making easy money off a few big time yahoos.”
“We made Tyler feel a little better,” Krunst said. “So what?”
“His ego was that fragile?”
“Some days he felt old,” Krunst said.
Meyers said, “When he was really honest with himself, he knew he was near the end of his career.”
“How long had you guys known him?”
Meyers said, “My older brother knew him years ago.”
Krunst said, “I’m from the firm of Krunst, Blandford, and Tahona in Los Angeles. We have only high profile clients.”
Brodine said, “A friend knew a friend.”
“Was he on drugs?”
Krunst said, “No,” but he said it too fast.
Meyers asked, “Which one, Skeen or Czobel?”
“One or both.”
Krunst said, “We don’t care if Czobel was.”
Meyers nodded.
“You know where Czobel was staying?”
Bordine said, “Why would we care?”
Meyers said, “We’ve got to get to the park. We don’t know where he is. We’ve only got your word for it that he’s dead. Maybe you’re the killer.”
Krunst said, “When this all comes out, when they have the results of Tyler’s tests, it’ll come down to natural causes.”
Well, he got points for optimism, or as a killer hoping for the best. I left.