A Killing in China Basin - By Kirk Russell Page 0,24

took a drink of beer. ‘That night we were talking about going up the coast in two cars. John had a Porsche and the weather for the weekend coming up was supposed to be good, so we thought we’d race each other up to Mendocino. I went down to get a map.’

‘Hold on,’ Jonathan said, ‘I’m getting lost here.’

‘The night it happened I was at their apartment. We’d gone to dinner and then come back to their apartment. I went down to the parking lot to get a map out of my car.’

‘How far down?’

‘One flight. The cars were in this tiny lot in back, and I don’t know what it’s like there now, but then it was pretty quiet except that you had this kind of slopover from the Haight-Ashbury area. Some drug dealing went on close by and that night I’d done something stupid. I’d left my car unlocked after getting the map and had a gun in my car because John and I had been going out to a range and learning how to target shoot. There’d been a couple of carjackings in recent months in the area where I was living, so I’d bought a gun and was learning how to use it.’

He caught a second reproving nod from Jonathan and without giving any sign of having seen it, held up his hand and said, ‘I had decided no one was going to take my car from me. But it was a stupid idea to keep a gun in the car.’

‘Was it registered?’ Jonathan asked.

‘Of course, and I was learning to shoot at a range.’

They gave him blank stares because a few carjackings doesn’t mean you start packing a gun, unless, of course, something was always wrong with you anyway. Stoltz understood. He got it. He had a plan for that.

‘We’d also gotten into skeet shooting. We’d gone out and bought expensive shotguns. We were pretty competitive.’

‘Why does that not surprise me?’ Jonathan said, suddenly switching back and trying to lighten it up, trying to help him out a little. Stoltz nodded at him. How these two reacted would tell him a lot about how everybody else would react and he needed to know where he stood. Boy Scout Steve still looked suspicious and Stoltz drew a deep breath.

‘Anyway, I got the map out of my car and went back up, and when we started talking about the trip, somehow we got in an argument about which way to go, I mean, a really stupid drunk and high argument. I suggested Erin ride with me because that way she wouldn’t have to sit in a car as long, meaning John was going to get lost.’

‘I thought you were avoiding being alone with her,’ Steve said, ‘and how does anyone get lost driving up the coast?’

‘Hey, I was never alone with her, not once. Look, I knew John was jealous and I was kind of pissed off that night. I didn’t like his paranoia. He had a coke problem. But it’s true, I suggested she ride with me just to piss him off. Anyway, I decided it was time to go. I left and when I got to my car there was some grungy fuck sitting in it. I didn’t even realize John had followed me down and all of a sudden the guy’s holding my gun and pointing it at us. He told us to lie down on the pavement and that’s when John charged him.’

Stoltz took a deep breath and looked away before speaking again, his voice flat and quieter now.

‘The guy shot him through the head, dropped the gun, and ran. I knew John was dead so I chased him.’

Stoltz bowed his head.

‘In a way it was all my fault. I left the car unlocked. I fucked up and then worse when I didn’t go back. I didn’t know what to do. I was in shock. Then a cop picked me up. My prints were all over my gun and obviously it fired the bullet that killed him. That’s how I ended up with voluntary manslaughter. I made all the wrong moves. That’s why I’m restarting my career.’

‘Never too late to invent,’ Steve said.

‘Hey, I watched the boom from prison. I watched all my friends get rich, even people that were totally incompetent, but I’m not telling you this so I can bitch about it. Maybe you’ve heard some news about a San Francisco homicide inspector who either shot himself or was murdered, and