Romeo's Town (Mike Romeo Thrillers Book 6)

by James Scott Bell

“I would kiss before I spoke,” I said.

  “You know the lines!”

  “Some. It is after all one of the great scenes in Shakespeare.”

  “So… what would you say if I were your very very Rosalind?”

  I should have kissed her then, and not spoke.

  But I said, “Sophie, I need to tell you something.”

  She waited.

  “You know the work I do,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Somebody took a shot at me two days ago. With a high-powered rifle.”

  She stiffened.

  “Yeah,” I said. “He hit a policeman instead, almost killed him. This was right outside Ira’s house. He was waiting for me to show up. And he’s still out there.”

  Sophie looked away from me, out at the city.

  “Somebody could ask the question,” I said, “why should I do this? Why not move out of L.A. to some quiet burb and get an easy job, like price checker at the 99¢ Store?”

  Without moving her head, she said, “What’s the answer?”

  “For one thing, Ira needs me. I’m his legs and his eyes in places he can’t get to. I owe him for saving me from a bad place in my life. He’s the only one in this life who cares about me.”

  “Not the only one,” Sophie said.

  She put her hand on mine.

  I looked at it.

  “But there’s another thing,” I said. “I don’t like being pushed. I don’t like cutting and running. I don’t like leaving the scales unbalanced.”

  “Scales?”

  “Of right and wrong, good and bad. Whenever a bad guy gets away with it an angel loses his wings.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Me,” I said. “Just now.”

  She took her hand away. “Poetic.”

  “That’s why I stay,” I said. “Even though there’s a cost involved. I don’t know if I can ask you to pony up that same cost.”

  She said, “How about letting me do my own figuring?”

  I cleared my throat. “Well, I—”

  She touched her finger to my lips. “Pray you, no more of this. ’Tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon.”

  After that we were silent for awhile, looking out at the town. Then we drove around some more. The conversation was light.

  But there was heaviness in the silences.

  I dropped Sophie back at her place. We said an unsteady goodbye. No touch as she got out. She thanked me for a nice time, but it felt like a kid thanking an aunt for new socks at Christmas. I drove away with a case of German weltschmerz filling my chest. That’s the weariness you get when you compare the world as it is with your ideal vision of how it should be. I’d allowed myself an ideal vision of Sophie and me, together. Now it was melting away. Leave it to the German philosophers to come up with a word for that. They were not exactly known for their good cheer.

  I decided to check on Nick the giant. This would fulfill my duty as assigned by Dr. Artra Murray.

  The neighborhood was relatively quiet. I parked across the street and walked up the driveway to the gate. The smell of char was heavy in the air. I looked over the gate and saw the remains of a burned-out garage. Yellow police tape crisscrossed the front of it. Everything inside was black. There was a hole in the roof as if a cannon ball had blasted through.

  I went back around to the front door of the house and knocked. Nobody answered. I tried again. Nothing.

  When I turned around I saw a boy, maybe eight years old, holding a skateboard and looking right at me.

  “I heard it go boom,” the boy said.

  “You did?” I said.

  “Yeah. Boom!”

  “Did you know the man who lived there?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Nick.”

  “Do you know where he is now?” I said.

  The boy made a slashing motion with his finger across his throat.

  I took a step toward him. He backed up.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said.

  “You might give me the virus.”

  They’re sure efficient at pumping fear into the young ones these days.

  “I was a friend of his,” I said. “Are you saying he’s dead?”

  Nod.

  “When did this happen?”

  “Um… yesterday night.”

  “Are you sure he’s dead?”

  “My mom said.”

  “Is your mom home?”

  He nodded.

  “I’d like to talk to her. Would that be okay?”

  He looked at the ground.

  “Can you take me to your house?”

  “Um…”

  “I’ll stay far away so I don’t give anybody the virus.”

  “Um…”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Cyrus.”

  “Mine’s Mike. I really want to know what happened.”

  “There was a fire.”

  “Right.” We had reached a cul-de-sac in our conversation. Which was why I was happy to see the nervous-looking woman coming toward us calling, “Cyrus! Come on home, honey.”

  The boy started toward her.

  “Are you his mother?” I said.

  “Who are you?” she said.

  “A friend of Nick’s,” I said. “I was visiting here just a couple of days ago. Can you tell me what happened?”

  Suspicion lined her eyes, and who could blame her? This is the city, the fear of strangers has amped up, and I’m not exactly the cuddly type to begin with.

  But she softened, and said. “There was an explosion. It knocked some dishes out of my cabinet. When we came out to see it was on fire.”

  “Was it a bomb?”

  “It sounded like it. But I know he used to cook in there and he wasn’t supposed to.”

  “Do you know what they did with the body?”

  “I’m sorry, no,” she said. “You could ask John.”

  “John?”

  “He lives here.”

  I remembered Nick telling me it was an ex-con who rented the garage to him.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  The woman started to walk away, holding the boy’s hand.

  Cyrus looked back at me and said, “Bye.”

  “Bye,” I said.

  I went to a front window and peeked in through the curtain crack. No lights on.

  I called Ira.

  “That guy I knocked out in my flower garden. His place burned down, and he was apparently inside when it happened.”

  “His whole house?” Ira said.

  “He lived in the garage in back. There was an explosion. A neighbor thinks it might have been some sort of cooking accident.”

  “Like propane, perhaps?”

  “He did have a Coleman stove,” I said. “I don’t think that’d be enough for what happened.”

  “Incendiary device, perhaps,” Ira said. “Any investigators on scene?”

  “Not at the moment,” I said.

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” Ira said.

  “Can you track the body?”

  “It will be under the jurisdiction of the county coroner, and any suspicious or violent death is subject to investigation. I know someone in the office.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “Some reading,” I said. “And wait for the landlord to show up.”

  It took an hour for him to show. He drove a Ford pickup and parked in the driveway. He was about six feet tall, buzzed hair, wearing a T-shirt, black jeans and black boots. The clothes all seemed crisp and clean. He wasn’t coming from a work site. As he walked toward the front door he leafed through some mail.

  I got out of Spinoza. “John?”

  He looked at me. His face was not unappealing. While there was a studied ex-con look about him, his blue eyes were of the light variety that women love.

  But those eyes were suspicious as I approached.

  “I knew Nick,” I said.

&n
bsp; He looked me up and down. “Romeo?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Come on inside.”

  The decor was not what I expected. The furniture looked new. On the wall above the sofa was a big, framed photograph of John, shirtless, wearing loose cotton slacks and a mirthless expression. On the bottom right, in fancy script, it said Dolce & Gabbana.

  “I don’t think that’s a selfie,” I said.

  John tossed his mail on the coffee table. “Not bad, huh?”

  “Dolce & Gabbana, huh?”

  “I’m getting into modeling.”

  “Your PO get you that?”

  He laughed. “Nah, I got it all on my own, with the help of a fine lady. Funny who you meet in this town. You could be having a hamburger and some chick from a modeling agency sees you and there you go.”

  “You’re Lana Turner,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Lana Turner, the actress.”

  He shook his head.

  “From the old Hollywood days,” I said. “When she was a teenager she was sitting at a drugstore in Hollywood, wearing a tight sweater, and she got noticed by a studio scout. She became a big movie star.”

  “See what I mean?” John said.

  “Let me ask you about the explosion.”

  “Happened around eleven last night.”

  “Must have knocked you out of bed.”

  He smiled. “No way. I was in bed, but not here.”

  “I get it.”

  “It’s a crime scene and they’re going to send a specialized team. Really sucks what happened.”

  “Think it was a bomb?”

  “I have no idea,” he said.

  “Think it might have been a cooking accident?”

  “Again, no idea. Nick told me about you. You did a real paint job on his face.”

  “I’m sure he told you he wanted to do the same thing to me.”

  “Something like that,” John said.

  “Are you the one who hooked him up with San Dae-Ho?”

  Stiffening, John said, “Is that any of your business?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “How often have you worked with Dae-Ho?”

  “Got nothing to do with him. Don’t want nothing to do with him. That’s as far as it goes.”

  “I’m not satisfied,” I said.

  “I don’t care,” John said.

  “Maybe your modeling agency would care,” I said.

  He started a stare down. It’s a prison thing.

  I kept a poker face. “They might be interested in people who refer leg breakers who later get blown up on their property.”

  “I already told you, I wasn’t here.”

  “You didn’t have to be.”

  The fashion model went calmly to a shelf with a black box on it. He opened the box and pulled out 9 mm automatic.

  “Get out,” he said.

  “Like you’re going to shoot me and put at risk all that modeling jack.”

  “I told you I didn’t have anything to do with Nick’s death, okay?”

  “I believe in the presumption of innocence,” I said. “But I also gather evidence. And I’m asking you about San Dae-Ho.”

  After a pause he put the gun back in the box.

  “Sit down,” he said.

  I took a chair and he took the sofa.

  “I know about Dae-Ho. He was here once. He’s not somebody I ever want to see again. I don’t know what he and Nick had worked out. I’m legit now, and want to stay that way. I’m bummed about Nick.”

  “Have you talked to the police?”

  “I got a phone call. They’re sending somebody out tonight. I’m going to cooperate in any way I can.”

  “How about Nick’s next of kin?”

  “I think he has a brother. I don’t know anyone else.”

  “I don’t suppose you know how to get hold of the brother.”

  John shook his head.

  “Your uncle owns this place?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where is he?”

  “New Mexico.”

  “He have a record?”

  “What’s the point of all this?”

  “I just ask questions,” I said.

  “That’s all I’m going to say,” John said. “I’ll save anything else for the cops.”

  “Need a lawyer?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  I gave him one of Ira’s cards. “Just in case,” I said. “And if you hear anything, I’d appreciate you letting us know.”

  “I want to know what happened, same as you,” John said.

  Maybe. But I wasn’t ruling him out for complicity in Nick’s death.

  Back at my palatial room at the Motel 6, I called Ira and filled him in on my interview with John.

  Ira told me the D.A. was taking Clint’s case to a new and lower level.

  “Meaning what?” I asked.

  “Get this,” Ira said. “They’re going to argue that his suicide attempt demonstrates consciousness of guilt.”

  “Say what?”

  “There’s a California Jury Instruction, number 372 to be exact. It says if a defendant fled or tried to flee immediately after the crime or after being accused of the crime, the jury may take this into account as demonstrating consciousness of guilt.”

  “I don’t see the relevance.”

  “They’re going to argue that when Clint attempted suicide, he was trying to flee life.”

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  “Wish I was,” Ira said.

  “They can’t be serious.”

  “And yet they are.”

  “Don’t words have meaning anymore?” I said.

  “Post-modernism and political correctness are a witch’s brew, Michael. Words mean only what people want them to mean, and only then as a means to power.”

  “Humpty-Dumptyism,” I said.

  “Precisely,” Ira said.

  We were referring to the bit from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass.

  "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

  "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

  "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

  “Ol’ Humpty saw it coming, didn’t he?” I said.

  “Where are you now, Michael?”

  “At a Motel 6 in the Valley.”

  “Your hideout?”

  “I prefer to think of it as a lovely garden spot.”

  “Is there a garden?”

  “No,” I said. “But words mean what I choose them to mean.”

  “You can come over here, you know.”

  “You don’t need the added worry,” I said.

  “I worry about you anyway, Michael.”

  “I know you do.”

  “That includes your soul.”

  “I know it does.”

  “Let’s keep working on it,” Ira said.

  “I love you, too,” I said.

  The sirens are lovely at night in the Valley, and the police helicopters like whippoorwills singing their plaintive song.

  Folklore holds that whippoorwills singing near a house are an omen of death or bad luck.

  Great.

  I did fifty push-ups and fifty crunches, then spread out on the floor looking up at the ceiling. I thought of Sophie and how she seemed to be floating away from me. In one sense I was glad about it, for her sake. In another sense, I was sick about it, for my sake. The ceiling offered no solace.

  So I went over questions in my mind. Like, who took a shot at me? How did Nick die? Where did this San Dae-Ho clown fit into things?

  Who was running the drug trade at Elias and using Clint Cunningham as a dealer?

  What did TBD mean in Clint’s drawing?

  “So what do you have for me?” I asked the ceiling.

&n
bsp; Got no answer. I considered the French existentialists who believe there is no answer. Life is absurd. It’s all waiting for Godot, who never shows up.

  There’s something inside me that resists surrendering to absurdity.

  On the other hand, I was talking to a motel ceiling.

  The next morning it was Sunday in L.A., a strange time in the city. People going to church or Costco, to the beach or the mountains. Or they stay at home—many with fear o’ the virus—and watch golf or football, cooking shows or shopping networks. No one does serious business, so all the important matters are on hold.

  I gave C Dog a call to remind him that tonight was the night he was going drug buying in Hollywood. He said, “I’m ready, Eddie.”

  I walked to a Burger King and got myself a fine breakfast—if one can say that without being oxymoronic. It had sourdough bread, something yellow that might have been an egg, and a sausage patty with cheese on it.

  I was ready to take on the world after that.

  Or not.

  Nothing against Burger King. It serves a purpose. It makes an acceptable breakfast sandwich and a pretty good hamburger. Just not the best in the world. That honor belonged to a little place called Nell’s a few blocks from my prep school. It was where my mother brought me one time when Dad was at Oxford delivering a paper on the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl.

  It was the day when one of my classmates pushed my face into a mud puddle.

  I was very quiet at home. So for dinner Mom took me to Nell’s. She knew I loved it. It cooked the fattest, tastiest burgers in New Haven. Heck, probably all of New England. And though she would have preferred I have a healthy soup or salad, she knew this day was not one to force those upon me.

  We sat at a table on the sidewalk.

  “You’ve had it rough,” Mom said.

  I only nodded, and took a bite of my comfort.

  “This should come as no surprise, Michael. You’ve been given a gift, a rare mind, and that is going to trigger the human weakness of envy.”

  I nodded.

  “This will come out in ways that hurt,” she said. “Very deeply sometimes. There are three ways you can react. You can withdraw, attack, or repose. Knowing you as I do, I suspect your first instinct is to withdraw. You get silent.”

  I said nothing.

  “You don’t want to be with people, even people your own age. Being at school with older kids is not easy. But that is a crucible for your gift, Michael, and you will come out of it stronger, and better, and will contribute good things in this life.”