The Name of the Rosé

by Christine E. Blum

  I took a closer look at the two pages.

  “Look at this listing, Sally,” Peggy continued. “ ‘Brugmansia.’ It says they have ‘tubular’ flowers and are known as ‘angels trumpet.’ Flowers and seeds are poisonous if eaten. Other common names are almizclillo, baumdatura, borrachera,’ and it goes on from there. That seems like more than a coincidence.”

  I studied the inset photo of the plant. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  “This book has probably been lying here since 1979, long before Rusty would have started working here.” Sally was emphatically advocating for the devil.

  “True, but look what the page was marked with.” I held up the item.

  “It’s a business card from Spitfire Grill,” Aimee declared.

  “And?”

  “And Sally, in 1979 that coffee shop was called the Kitty Hawk. It didn’t become the Spitfire Grill until 1991. Haven’t you ever read the history on their menus?”

  “So, even if the book is old, the bookmark was placed in the last twenty-five years.”

  “Correct, Peggy, but I bet we can narrow it down even more by checking with the owners. They can tell us if this is the current logo they use, and if not, when it was discontinued.” I really felt like we had a solid lead.

  “Okay, I feel better,” Sally admitted. “But we should skedaddle before someone catches us or the curse rears its ugly head.”

  That was when we heard the sound of the big overhead lights power up.

  * * *

  “Who’s in here? This is the police.”

  “Augie?” I thought I had whispered his name, but it echoed loudly.

  “Don’t tell me. If you’re in here, Halsey, it could be very bad for you.”

  I motioned with my hand for everyone to leave, pointing to Sally in particular.

  Augie added his flashlight to the overhead lights and found us gathered in the dark back corner of the hangar. The only good news was that he seemed to be alone.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” he said, approaching us.

  “This is not at all what it seems, Augie.” I was forceful even though I had zip, zero, nada to back up my statement.

  “Really? And how do you know what I interpret this little coffee klatch to be?”

  “How dare you? We would never get together to drink coffee!” Peggy had been insulted and she was making it known.

  “You’re right, Augie, I couldn’t possibly know. Why don’t you tell us what we’re doing here?”

  “Well, it’s pretty clear you are all—very clever, Halsey. You almost got me. You’ll have a chance to explain it to me in excruciating detail at the station. Put your hands behind your back. I’m arresting you.”

  “You’re being ridiculous, Augustus. We have every right to be here, and for the same reason you are.”

  “Aunt Marisol?”

  Augustus? Hail, Caesar!

  I turned around and saw Marisol and Bardot enter through the back door.

  “And you need to tell whoever is in charge of this place that they left the backdoor open and unlocked. You’re not the one in charge, are you?”

  “No, Auntie.”

  “Glad to hear it. Now come on. I can hear the chopper starting up. Let’s go watch the medevac.”

  Marisol pranced along the hangar with Bardot toward the runway opening. I quickly caught up to her.

  “What was that all about? A medevac?”

  “Heard it on my portable scanner. An emergency organ transplant patient is being transported out of here. Could save his life, and people say this airport serves no real purpose anymore? Ha!”

  In front of us, sure enough, a helicopter was starting up. And from the east side where we’d entered the runway, an ambulance was driving toward it. The rest of the gang caught up with us.

  “Just like we talked about, girls, we are witnessing a lifesaving service from our dear neighborhood airport,” I said, both for Augie’s and the ladies’ benefit.

  The ambulance slowed and then stopped about thirty feet from the plane. We watched the paramedics open the back of the vehicle and then pull out a stretcher. They then adjusted it so the patient was in a seated position. The blades were really stirring up the air, so all of us girls huddled together. I took control of Bardot’s leash. She seemed to think she was going on this mission and I had to explain otherwise.

  When they wheeled the patient past us, I gasped. It was a kid. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen. I felt my eyes water.

  We watched as they loaded him into the belly of the copter facing backward, and all of us waved and blew kisses. I swear, I saw him smile. Once he was safely inside, the medics helped close the door and then joined us to watch the takeoff. Moments later, with the rotors at full speed, it lifted up, and once it reached sufficient altitude, it took off.

  “Godspeed, young man,” I said.

  “And good night, Augustus,” Peggy added as we walked off.

  CHAPTER 11

  I was startled awake by a rap on my bedroom window that was made scarier when I realized that meant someone was in my backyard. Bardot lifted her head up for a quick sniff and then dropped it back down and resumed snoring. This signaled to me that I was safe from any imminent danger. The rapping started again, and I had no choice but to see who it was.

  I parted the drapes a few inches and recoiled in shock. I wondered if I was having a nightmare. I’d only been asleep for a few hours after our midnight airport run.

  “Go away!”

  I returned to my slumber-land cocoon and pulled the covers over my head. That’s when I heard the window slide open.

  “You going to sleep all day?”

  “Maybe. Go away, Marisol.”

  “That’s how you talk to somebody who saved your bacon last night?”

  She had a point, damn her.

  I looked at my phone and saw it was already nine-thirty.

  “What’s up?” I asked Marisol, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. I noticed that none of this held any interest to Bardot, but with her eyes closed, she quickly slid into the warm space I had just vacated in the bed.

  If they ever do a remake of the movie Wait Until Dark with an all-dog cast, I’ll have to audition her.

  I threw on one of Jack’s shirts and padded my way into the living room and out the French doors to the back.

  “Morning, Marisol.” I actually did owe her and figured I’d better start paying it off right away. Civility counts, right?

  “That’s what you’re going to wear? Oh well, no one’s going to be looking at you anyway. Get your car keys. We’ve got to go.”

  “Whoa, whoa, slow down there, slick. You just dragged me out of bed. I haven’t had a chance to ponder my sartorial elegance for the day. And just where do you think I’m going to drive you at this hour?”

  “You do realize kids have been in school for almost two hours already? And rush hour’s over and some people are already thinking about lunch, like me.”

  I’d like to smack her with a summer sausage right in the kisser.

  “Are you going to tell me what you need, Mari-ol, or not?”

  “We.”

  “We? We what?”

  “What we need, not just me.”

  “Okay, tell me what we need.” I started thinking about a Bloody Mary.

  “We need to get going so we can follow Jeb. I saw him get a package from the mail carrier and toss it in his trunk. He went in and got his car keys and he’s about to pull out of the driveway.”

  “Jesus, Mary and God help me, why didn’t you say so?”

  “I just did.”

  I ran in the house, grabbed my keys, wallet and a pair of sweats and met Marisol at my car.

  “He just drove up the hill,” she said, foraging for the peanut butter crackers I sometimes keep in the middle console.

  “You eat those in here and make crumbs and you won’t live to see your favorite holiday, Halloween.”

  “Another month.”<
br />
  “What are you talking about? It’s only February.”

  “No, you just got another month added to what you owe me. If I were you, I’d start being nicer to me.”

  I started humming The Addams Family theme song just to keep from driving us off a cliff.

  * * *

  Jeb drove his blue Honda at a reasonable pace and hadn’t taken the freeway, so I managed to stay two car lengths behind him. Wherever he was headed, he was in no rush to get there. We were going east on Washington Boulevard.

  When I lived in New York, we laughed at the thought of Los Angeles being a city. It just seemed to be a series of suburbs linked by asphalt, with no real history or heart. Since I’ve moved and spent time here, I’ve realized just how much of a misconception that is.

  The pace and the timing of the lights allowed me the luxury of time to peruse the buildings of the changing neighborhoods. As we progressed in the direction of downtown Los Angeles, I noted that the percentage of new construction to old was rising in favor of the latter. We passed some real historical landmarks. Even Culver City, where we were driving now, was a pleasant mixture of new restaurants, theaters and apartment complexes surrounding the historic lot where Sony Pictures currently reside. Since its incorporation in 1917, Culver City has given birth to such classic movies as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane and Meet Me in St. Louis. Desilu Studios was here and thriving in the day, and I could just picture Desi and Lucy driving through the gates in a turquoise and white glimmering convertible.

  Marisol distracted me by fiddling with something in her purse. Actually, laundry bag was a more appropriate identifier, given its size and expanded bottom.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m setting up my electronics,” she replied, not looking up from the task at hand.

  “What electronics? You finally send that flip phone to the Smithsonian?”

  “Don’t make fun of my phone or I’ll add another month.”

  “You don’t get to just add months.”

  “Do too, and it’s not my phone I’m working on.”

  Note to self: next time get a car with a passenger seat Eject button.

  She finally pulled a contraption out of her purse that looked kind of like a black plastic ping-pong paddle. She set it on her lap and went back in for another forage. This time, she brought out one of those square batteries.

  “Isn’t that the same kind of battery you were looking for when we were going to the aquarium?

  “Yep. Got a package of six at Costco.”

  “You go to that place once a week; how can you use up all those bulk items in such a short time?”

  “I don’t. I go there for the parties.”

  “What parties?”

  “Sometimes Wednesdays, sometimes Thursdays. I have a friend who works there. She calls me when she sees them setting up.”

  I was beginning to think she’d finally slipped off the edge of the swimming pool and into her own fantasy world when it suddenly dawned on me.

  “You mean you have a scout who tells you when the food samples will be given out. You’re freeloading.”

  “I am not, I always pay my way.”

  “Ha.”

  “They’re the ones offering. It would be rude if I didn’t taste their food. I had snow crab legs when I got the batteries.”

  We were now past Culver City, heading into East LA. If Jeb was going downtown, he was a lot farther south than he needed to be. These neighborhoods have a reputation for gangs and violence, and while I wouldn’t walk around here alone at night, I was fascinated with the surroundings going past my window. This was truly a cultural buffet coexisting on the same table. On one side of the street I spotted a party supply store for kids, the Paradise Hotel, which I’m guessing rents by the hour, and the Samosa House for Indian pastries. On the other side was an auto body shop, a place to get hair extensions and, ironically, a salon offering Brazilian waxing. Don’t go there.

  When we passed the King Farad Mosque and a Baptist missionary, I started humming, “We Are the World.”

  “Can you believe all these different people are living and working together in one neighborhood?” I asked Marisol. “I am so proud of my city!”

  Marisol stuck her index finger into her puffed cheek and pulled it out to make a popping noise.

  “You’re jaded, that’s your problem. Or maybe you’re just old.”

  “Jeb’s turning right, you see that?” Marisol shouted.

  “I see that, and I heard that; we’re only about two feet away from each other, you know? You don’t have to yell.”

  Marisol was back fishing around in her purse and pulled out something resembling a microphone. She opened the base and connected the battery and then screwed the device into the middle of the ping-pong paddle thing. Finally, Marisol extracted a set of headphones from her bag and connected the jack to the device.

  “I see you’ve expanded your spying paraphernalia, I’m guessing this is a remote listening device.”

  “You’re welcome. This way we’ll hear everything he says,” she replied, and I tried not to think about the distance between my bedroom and her kitchen window.

  I still had Jeb in my sights. “It looks like we’re heading into Watts.”

  It occurred to me that I had some living history sitting right next to me.

  “What do you remember about the 1965 Watts riots, Marisol?”

  “I was just a young girl.”

  I quickly did the math. She was old enough to have a driver’s license.

  “Were you scared?”

  “I just remember being mad that my show kept being interrupted by news. Bewitched was my favorite.”

  Why am I not surprised?

  “Then little Augie and a bunch of my family helped serve Thanksgiving dinners one year in Watts. I made some friends, so I continued coming back until I’d had my first baby.”

  Crap, now she’s Mother Teresa. The thought of being nice to her for the rest of my life was killing me.

  We’d followed Jeb onto a narrow side street and watched him slow and pull over to the curb. Marisol quickly donned her headphones and fiddled with some dials.

  “ ‘Midnight Mercy Mission,’ ” I read off the sign adorning a two-story concrete building that took up the entire block. A seven-foot wrought-iron fence with some menacing-looking barbs at the top protected the structure from unwanted trouble. But in the middle of the day, the front gates were open, and needy families had lined up to receive sack lunches. Jeb had gotten out of his car and was leaning on his door, watching the scene. He had a warm smile on his face. I pulled in to a space a couple of cars ahead of him.

  “Is this the mission you worked at?”

  Marisol shook her head.

  “But I think I recognize a couple of the staff. I can go talk to them.”

  I quickly grabbed her sleeve. “Oh no, you don’t, at least not while Jeb is here. Our job is to observe. Remember, this could all be nothing.”

  We watched Jeb go around to the back of his car and open the trunk. He disappeared from view for a second, then shut the trunk door and crossed the street. He was now carrying a package.

  “What do you think he has in there, comic books and Green Stamps?” Marisol was snide when she was right, something I would never be . . .

  Jeb walked past the line, greeting some of the people along the way, and turned right to go around to the side of the building. I started up the car and did the same along the street.

  “Can you hear anything?” I asked Marisol, who looked like she was a sequestered contestant on a seventies quiz show with those big headphones. She ignored me.

  “Can you hear anything?!” I shouted this time into the microphone. She jumped a foot into the air.

  “I can hear everything, and that hurt. I’m right here. You don’t have to shout.”

  “Didn’t I just get finished telling you that?”

  I leaned into her and pulled one earphone out
so I could listen in.

  Jeb: “Sorry I wasn’t able to come by sooner, Alice, but the good doctor didn’t send me anything for a couple of weeks.”

  Alice: “We’re grateful for anything you can provide, dear sir. This is a godsend and will go a long way toward helping the sick children get well. And please thank the doctor for us.”

  I watched Jeb hand the envelope to Alice.

  “Medicine!” I said a little too loudly, and Marisol jumped again and pulled off the headset. “Jeb must be ordering pills from Mexico and donating them to the mission.”

  “Looks that way, but why don’t they just go directly through the doctor?”

  I thought about that. Marisol had a point.

  “Unless there really isn’t a doctor prescribing the medication. I remember Mary Ann saying Jeb had been a chemist. Maybe he’s doing this all by himself.”

  “Speak of the devil.” Marisol pointed to a white car parked up and across the street. The driver-side window was down, and I recognized Mary Ann.

  “Get down!” I shoved Marisol’s head, and we both ducked below the dashboard.

  “Why are we doing this? Did you sneak some wine when I wasn’t looking?”

  “No! I suspect Mary Ann followed Jeb just like we did. She’s a reporter, after all. This is a matter between husband and wife. He’s well-meaning, but Jeb’s not going about this in the most legal way. We need to let them sort it out. I’m afraid this has nothing to do with Jonas’s murder.”

  As soon as Mary Ann drove away, we did the same. As we headed home, this time on the freeway, I watched Marisol pack away her spy gear. I realized that every time I thought I knew what made her tick, she would introduce some new, surprising aspect of her life into the equation. Some bad, some good. Like serving Thanksgiving meals to the homeless. This made it hard to stay mad at her. Marisol was like a blooming onion, I thought—layers of crispy, golden petals that take on the delicious flavors of the dipping sauces and don’t reveal their true impact until you step on the scale the next morning.

  “The last digit in Jeb and Mary Ann’s house number is seven,” she said while playing with my power window.

  “So?”