The Death of Friends by Michael Nava Read Free Book Online

looking for. There’re still people inside.”
    “But my friend,” I started to say.
    “Sir, everyone has been evacuated from this neighborhood. You’re not gonna find him.” While he spoke to me, he waved a news van through. “Take my word for it.”
    “Where were they evacuated to?”
    “Various locations,” he said.
    “Can you be more specific, Officer? I’m really worried about him.”
    “Try that little park up on Shakespeare. Then there’s the high school over on Caldwell. Those are your best bets.”
    I went back to my car and drove to the little park I’d passed earlier. I spent the next hour picking my way through hysterical children and shell-shocked adults, and then I drove to the high school, where I searched the gym for another hour. I was feeling pretty shell-shocked myself by the time I left there, having given all the money I had, and a pint of blood, to the Red Cross people who were running the place. But I didn’t find Zack. Finally, bone-tired, I gave up, went home and slept for fourteen hours.

6
    T HE EARTHQUAKE DOMINATED THE front section of the Times the next morning, pushing Chris’s murder to a brief article on page 3 of the Metro section that reported that Chris had been “bludgeoned to death” by an “unknown intruder.” The one detail that interested me was that the weapon had not been found at the scene. Zack had told me differently. I called Captain Closet and reached him just as he was leaving for work.
    “That’s right,” he said about the missing weapon, then paused. “Do you know what it was, Henry?”
    “No,” I said.
    “I’m getting a little tired of this one-way street,” he said.
    “You wouldn’t have found Chris if I hadn’t called you,” I pointed out.
    “If you’re protecting his murderer…” he began threateningly.
    “No,” I said sharply. “This is called representing a client.”
    “Fine. Then get your information through the usual channels, Counsel.” He slammed the phone down.
    I stood there with the receiver in my hand. I’d been thinking about the weapon that Zack had described as a marble pyramid, trying to remember the objects in Chris’s chamber. And then it came to me: a green marble obelisk that had been given to him earlier in the year by the county bar association as an award for being trial judge of the year. He used it as a paperweight. A sick joke. Zack said he’d left it there. Where was it? And where was Zack?
    I called Milt Harriman’s number.
    “Hello,” a male voice, not his, said groggily.
    “Is Milt there?”
    “He’s at the restaurant. Do you want to leave a message?”
    “No, thanks.”
    I showered and dressed. As I was driving to Azul, I thought about the weapon again. Trial judge of the year. Chris was very proud of that award. I wondered if the murderer was trying to make an obscure point by using it. All I could think of was that it was some dissatisfied litigant come back to take an ironic revenge. Maybe I’d been wrong not to tell Captain Closet about the weapon. I’d have to think about it.
    There was a silver Lexus in the parking lot of Azul. I pulled up next to it, got out and went to the front door. It was locked. I walked around to the alley in the back. The back door was open behind the screen door, and I let myself into the kitchen. It had been tossed around some, but there was no major damage.
    “Milt,” I called, entering the main dining room.
    It was an elegant room, the chocolate brown walls lit by bronze wall sconces, smallish metal tables scattered across a concrete floor that had been painted deep blue and then lacquered and buffed to a mirrorlike reflectiveness. Off to the side was a small bar. It was from there that a short man in khaki pants and a wrinkled white shirt, dark-haired, handsome and in need of a shave, came out holding a baseball bat threateningly.
    “Who are you?” he demanded.
    “Henry Rios. I talked to you yesterday about Zack Bowen.”
    “Oh, yeah,” he said,