Nightcrawlers: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Mystery) by Bill Pronzini

be more tolerant of my folks as I got older. Maybe he will, too.”
    “What I’m hoping.”
    “Is that why you’re doing this? Investigating these bashings?”
    “Partly. He contacted me, opened a closed door that I’d like to keep open.”
    “What other reason?”
    “He’s hurting, he needs my help. That’s one.”
    “There’s another?”
    “I’ve been in law enforcement most of my adult life,” Runyon said. “I don’t like to see innocent people hurt and I damn well hate the ones who do the hurting. This pair that beat you up, put Joshua’s roommate in critical condition . . . if they’re not stopped, they’re liable to kill somebody. I don’t want that to happen.”
    Zalesky said, “Commendable,” and seemed to mean it. “I wish more cops felt that way.”
    “So do I.”
    “I’ll do anything I can to help, of course, but you already know that. What is it you’d like to know?”
    “To begin with, where were you attacked?”
    “Just up the street from here, on the park side. I’d just come home from visiting a friend, just parked my car and gotten out.”
    “What time?”
    “After one A.M. Close to one-thirty.”
    “They followed you?”
    “No. They were parked a couple of spaces away, across from my house.”
    “As if they were waiting for you?”
    “It seemed that way.”
    “But they were strangers?”
    “Oh, yes,” Zalesky said. “Definitely. I suppose they spotted me somewhere, some other time, and followed me then. One of those random things. It’s quiet up here late at night, I must’ve seemed like a good target. I don’t know. With men like that . . . who the hell knows?”
    “They were in a pickup truck?”
    “Yes. Black or dark blue, I’m not sure which.”
    “Could you identify the make and model?”
    “I don’t know anything about cars, much less pickups.”
    “Did it seem new or old?”
    “More old than new.”
    “Anything distinctive about it that you can remember?”
    “Distinctive . . .” Zalesky’s brow furrowed, smoothed again. “Well, there was a Confederate flag in the back window. I noticed that when they came out at me.”
    “A real flag or some kind of decal?”
    “I think it was real. My God, you don’t suppose they could be Klan members? In San Francisco, of all places in this country?”
    “Anything’s possible,” Runyon said. “So they came out and then what? Just attacked you, or did they say anything first?”
    “Oh, they had a lot to say. The usual run of gay insults. One of them called me sweet thing . . . Christ. The other one said something ridiculous about teaching me not to mess with boys and then they started hitting me.”
    “They use weapons of any kind?”
    “One of them had a pipe or club made out of metal. Aluminum, I think.” Zalesky shuddered. “I can still hear the sound it made when he hit me with it.”
    “Little League baseball bat?”
    “I suppose it could’ve been. The other one hit me with his fists, kept kicking me when I was on the sidewalk. They were both laughing. The whole time . . . laughing, as if they were really having a fun time.”
    “What can you tell me about them?”
    “Not much. It was dark and I couldn’t see their faces clearly. One of them wore a jacket with a hood and the other a cap.”
    “What kind of cap?”
    “I’m not sure . . . it might’ve been a baseball cap.”
    “Was he the one with the aluminum club?”
    “. . . Yes, I think so.”
    “How old were they?”
    “Early twenties, maybe twenty-five.”
    “Big?”
    “The one in the jacket was. Over six feet and . . . what’s the word I want? Not fat, but . . . burly, chunky. Pale skin, at least it seemed pale in the dark. He may have red hair.”
    “What makes you think that?”
    “Freckles,” Zalesky said. “On his forehead and cheeks.”
    “You’re sure they were freckles, not blemishes?”
    “Freckles, yes. And I remember a lock of hair hanging out from under his cap. Light-colored, but not blond . . . it