She took a long time deciding whether or not she wanted to help him. “How?”
“I asked you how bad things had gotten for him, and in what ways.”
“I don’t know everything. I only know what I’ve seen and heard in here, and I’m only here Monday through Thursday.”
“Okay.”
She sighed. “He had money problems. Business was down and he couldn’t pay his bills on time. I think he was tapped out on all his credit cards.”
“And you know this because?”
“Because I was taking the calls from people demanding payment. Banks, suppliers, utilities. We had the electricity cut off in here at least once.”
“How long had this been going on?”
“I don’t know. Three, four months, maybe.”
Gunner couldn’t believe it. Four months in debt and Del had never once asked him for a dime.
“How deep in the hole do you think he was?” he asked Viola.
She shook her head. “I really couldn’t say.”
“You weren’t responsible for his books?”
“His books? Oh, no. I could have done them, if he’d let me, but Mr. Curry did his own books. All I do—” She immediately corrected herself: “All I did around here was answer phones and do paperwork.” She picked up on Gunner’s hesitation and read it perfectly. “I know. That’s the kind of work any girl out of high school could do. What’s a grown woman like me want with a job like this?” She smiled at an old wound, the twisted knife still in her back. “If that paper I got from Morehouse was still worth anything, I wouldn’t be here. But it’s not, and I’ve got to eat, so here I am.”
Gunner could only nod, sorry for whatever he’d done to make her think such a painful admission had been necessary.
“When you say business was down, exactly how far down was it?”
“Way down. He still had work coming in, but nowhere near what he used to have. New business was down, especially. Somebody was spreading lies about him online, driving folks away.”
“A. Fuentes?”
“Yes. At least, that’s the name they used. How did you know?”
“I saw a few of his—or her?—reviews on your desk. What’s the story?”
“There is no story. I never heard of any A. Fuentes and neither did Mr. Curry. The name, the call, the things they said Mr. Curry did—it was all BS. Every word of it.”
The subject seemed to have touched a nerve with her.
“So who did Del think was writing these fake reviews?”
“He didn’t have any idea.”
The twist she’d put on the word “he” was an open invitation to a follow-up question.
“But you did,” Gunner said, obliging.
“It was just a feeling I had.”
Gunner waited.
“I think it was Zina.”
“Zina?” Gunner couldn’t hide his surprise. “Why Zina?”
“How well do you know her?”
“Not very.”
“Kids, they throw this word around way too much, but sometimes it’s appropriate: she’s a little bitch. I’m sorry, I know I should have more consideration for her than that, considering her condition, but that’s the word that fits. Poor Mr. Curry was on the phone with either her or his wife every day, trying to keep them from killing each other. That’s why—”
She checked herself.
“What?”
“No. I’m not going to say it.”
Gunner took a stab in the dark: “That’s why you thought Zina had done the shooting.”
“When I first heard about it—my mother called to tell me to turn on the TV—that was my first thought. That Zina must have killed her mother and Mr. Curry, then turned the gun on herself. I couldn’t imagine it happening any other way. Kids these days are so crazy. But that’s not possible, is it?”
“It wouldn’t appear to be, no,” Gunner said. “But that could change.”
Viola’s eyes welled up with tears again. The tissue was still balled up in her right hand, but she just sat there and let the tears come. “I hope it does. I hope to God it does. Because Mr. Curry didn’t deserve what she did to him. He was a good father and a good husband, and just because he wouldn’t let her have everything she wanted….”
“Like what?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I can’t.”
“I just need a few more minutes of your time.”
“No. Please.”
“Glenn Hopp. I saw Del had to let him go a few weeks ago.”
Gates eyed him suspiciously. “That’s right.”
“Can you tell me why? Was his termination for cause?”
“No. Mr. Curry just couldn’t afford to pay him anymore. Glenn didn’t do anything to get fired. But what if he had? What difference would that make?”
“People who get laid off for financial reasons don’t usually take it personally. But getting canned for reasons related to work performance sometimes bends folks out of shape, especially if they think the reasons given are bogus.”
“Work performance had nothing to do with Glenn’s termination. The money just wasn’t there to pay him anymore. If you’re thinking he blamed Mr. Curry for that, you’re wrong.” She stood up. “Now, I’d like to go, and I’d prefer to lock up behind me. Are you done in here?”
“I think so,” Gunner said. Gates seemed awfully anxious to stop talking about Hopp for some reason, but asking her why now was likely to prove fruitless.
“Good. Let’s go.”
5
“IT SHOULD BE DEUCY, with a Y,” the stranger said again, because nobody had acknowledged him the first time.
“Excuse me?”
“The name of the bar. It should be The Acey Deucy, with a Y at the end. Not The Acey Deuce.”
He was a newcomer here, everyone could see that, so his ignorance was forgivable. But Lilly Tennell, who had been the Central Los Angeles bar’s sole owner and operator since her husband J.T. had been murdered in it going on twenty years ago, did not always have patience for those who made this observation about its name. It was a slow and somber night at the Deuce as it was, owner and regular patrons alike dealing with the death of one of their own, and Lilly didn’t need any added incentive to be uncivil.
“We lost the Y in a fire,” she said, her mouth an angry red line against the inky black of her face. “Summer of ’73. Some fool use’ to rent the building next door burned up his top two floors and part of our roof, settin’ an old space heater too close to a pile’a clothes, and the fire took the Y in our sign up there with it. ’Course, we didn’t have no insurance, took us eight months to raise the six hundred the man said it would cost to put the damn Y back, and by that time, people were already callin’ the place the Deuce and likin’ the sound of