the Golden Orange (1990)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  "Far from the yammering crowd," Buster said. "I think the guy next to me at the bar was fallin in love with me. Can you catch AIDS from slobber and drool?"

  Winnie said to the bartender, a bleached, over-the-hill surfer, "I'll teach you a drink I learned from a bartender named Coley, who claims he invented it. Toss two double shots of Absolut Citron into a shaker. Pour in a splash of Cointreau and squeeze in some juice from a fresh orange. Strain it into a chilled cocktail glass, garnish with a lemon twist and pour one for me and one for yourself. You'll make big tips on this one."

  "This is called working up an informant," Winnie whispered to Buster while the bartender carried out his instructions. When the bartender put the two cocktails on the table, Winnie picked his up, sniffed it, sipped and said, "Perfect. This drink'll sell very big with ladies."

  The bartender sipped and nodded. "What do you caU it?"

  Winnie thought for a moment and said, "I call it .. let's see, I call it The Golden Orange Cocktail."

  "The Golden Orange?" the bartender said. "Not bad."

  When the bartender was down at the other end of the bar, Buster said, "Any drink that goes over with ladies'11 pay the rent in this place. They could serve 'em with an endive hotdog to all the Nellies."

  When the bartender came back to see if they wanted a refill, Winnie beckoned him closer and said, sotto voce, "Now I gotta ask you for a favor. I gotta find a guy named Hack Starkey. Middle-aged with a bad dye job."

  "Got a lot of bad henna rinses around here," the bartender said.

  Winnie took out the mug shot and said, "I work for a private investigator. Been given the job a finding this guy that scams old pensioners outta their savings with phony investment schemes. We jist wanna serve a subpoena on him, make him go to civil court and pay some of it back. No big thing."

  The bartender picked up the mug shot and Winnie knew he'd scored a hit. But the bartender hesitated. Winnie said, "The Golden Orange'll make you twenty bucks a night in extra tips." Then he put a twenty on the bar and pushed it forward, saying, "Here's the first one."

  The bartender looked at the twenty and said, "I think this is the guy that lives near The Windjammer Tavern, down by Sugarloaf Point. Used to come in here, but not in a long time. I think he's sick."

  When they left the bar, Buster said, "Your ship come in? Twew/y-dollar tips?"

  "Tess loaned me a few bucks."

  "A perfect little helpmate," Buster said. "Pretty soon you'll tell me she's buyin a saloon."

  Near The Windjammer Tavern could only have meant the small frame house on the ocean side of the highway, which, from the looks of it, was destined to be scraped. In the side yard was a filthy old kidney-shaped swimming pool bordered by a rusty chain-link fence. It was a very dark night and there was no yardlight. They opened the gate and picked their way through litter.

  "If this guy's a hit man he ain't gettin rich off his commissions," Buster noted. "That pool looks like a vat a cioppino."

  Winnie knocked and a skeletal figure in a tattered terry bathrobe opened the front door. Winnie almost gasped when he saw what the man from the mug shot had become.

  "Mr. Starkey," Winnie said, "we'd like to talk to you."

  Hack Starkey stepped back into a small foyer, and supported himself against a table that held a single vase of paper flowers. He turned and limped into a badly lit, cluttered living room where an orange-striped cat sniffed at a paper plate containing the residue of something coagulated. Something the man must have eaten within the last week or so.

  He had to use both hands and then his elbows to settle himself into his recliner rocker, his forehead beading with the effort. His hair was no longer black. Ttoo inches of gray showed, and the top layer was the same color as the tabby cat. Wisps of gray facial hair hung like Spanish moss from his bony jaw. His flesh was saffron yellow, but his fingers were saddle-leather brown. He lit a cigarette with the stub of another that he'd plucked from one of three overflowing ashtrays.

  The tarnished lamplight was behind him and when he raised his face toward Winnie, his eyes disappeared in their sockets.

  "You are policemen, aren't you?" he wheezed, but when Winnie nodded and fumbled as though for his police I. D., Hack Starkey dropped his palm as if to say it wasn't necessary.

  "We, uh, jist need to ask a few questions about your boss, Warner Stillwell," Winnie said, sitting on the edge of the sofa.

  Hack Starkey looked toward the TV in the corner of the room, and fumbled with a remote control. It fell on the floor and Winnie could see that picking it up would take major effort. Buster picked up the device and shut off the television.

  The house didn't need vacuuming, it needed a street sweeper. Buster used a magazine to dust two fur balls from a kitchen chair and dragged it into the tiny living room. He shot a glance at Winnie that said, This is your hit man?

  Winnie said, "I jist wanna talk about your boss a little bit? A confidential police matter."

  Wheezing, Hack Starkey said, "He never was my boss. Mister Binder was my boss. Mister Stillwell let me go right after Mister Binder killed himself."

  "How long did you work for Conrad Binder?"

  "Off and on, about thirteen years. I did jobs for him when he had the house at Bay shores. Paint the house. Clean the barnacles off the dock. Detail his cars. Then gradually he had me spend time at the ranch. I painted that whole ranch house, all by myself. One time I stayed there for three months."

  Hack Starkey was suddenly wracked with a rattling cough. He grabbed a handful of tissues from a box and gagged up some phlegm. Buster shuddered, and shot another glance at Winnie. The look said: Let's boogie on out oi here!

  When Hack Starkey stopped coughing, he leaned his head back and wheezed some more. He inhaled from an aerosol device next to him. There were various prescription vials and bottles on the table, and an empty glass. Winnie picked up the glass and walked into the squalid kitchen. He filled the glass with tap water and brought it back to the sick man.

  Hack Starkey nodded gratefully and drank. His Adam's apple bobbed like a Ping-Fong ball in an air tube.

  "You should be in a hospital," Winnie said.

  The man, his coughing spasm under control, said wheezily, "I have been. I will be again. I'm suffering from drug side effects as much as anything."

  Winnie picked up the vials and saw the name of a Dr. Wentworth in Laguna Beach. Then he spotted one that contained medication prescribed by a Dr. Lutz in Palm Desert. The prescription was ten months old and had been refilled twice.

  "When was the last time you saw Doctor Lutz?" Winnie asked.

  "Just before Mister Binder died." Then Hack Starkey said, "He was Mister Binder's doctor. I've had that one refilled twice. I got a local doctor now. He's giving me AZT and pentamidine. I think it helps but I'm not sure. I got my hopes pinned on HIV-Immunogen. That's Doctor Salk's new treatment. He found a cure for polio. Maybe he can .. Hack Starkey paused. The horror in the faces of his inquisitors told him what they thought about his hopes. They were looking at a death mask.

  "There's a minor police problem connected with Warner Stillwell that we have to clear up," Winnie said. "Tess Binder told me you were Mister Still-well's man Friday."

  Hack Starkey attempted a sardonic smile and said, "I worked only for her dad. He signed every check I ever got. Mister Stillwell never liked me very much. He's a jealous man, Mister Stillwell."

  "Were you surprised when Conrad Binder shot himself?"

  Hack Starkey puffed on a cigarette and said, "He was a great person. He loved life."

  "Do you know why he did it?"

  The dying man looked at Winnie Farlowe in disbelief. Then he pointed to his sunken bony chest and said, "Ain't too hard to figure, is it? His T-4 count had been real low for nearly two years. Doctor Lutz was monitoring it, but his side effects from the medication were bad. Severe anemia. He was just starting to feel real sick when he took that gun and ended it."

  "Were you at the ranch after his death? When Tess Binder
arrived to take care of funeral arrangements?"

  "Mister Stillwell sent me to pick her up at Palm Springs Airport. He didn't leave his room for three days after Con . . . after Mister Binder died. Can I ask you a question, Officer?"

  "Okay."

  "Was something stolen? Is that it? Is something missing from the ranch and Mister Still well's pointing the finger at me, is that it?"

  "Would that surprise you?"

  Hack Starkey tried to laugh, but he rattled. "Mister Stillwell never did like me. I was young compared to him. Mister Binder was good to me and Mister Stillwell didn't like that neither."

  "Okay, was there anyone else working for those two old men? Besides the Mexican servants? Anyone else who may've run an errand to Newport Beach within a week or so after Conrad Binder's death?"

  "There was no one else. Mister Stillwell fired me a few days after the funeral. There was nobody else."

  "Was Mister Stillwell jealous of Tess Binder?"

  "He loved Tess Binder. I think he was closer to her than her father was, but I don't think she loved him. Used to call him 'mother' behind his back. You know, like, 'Hack, where's my father and mother?' I think she hates gay people. She was a spoiled child. Married a string of losers. She didn't even see her father during the last year of his life, but she always wanted his money."

  "How do you know that?"

  "She'd call him and I'd hear him yelling over the phone. And he'd say something like, 'Absolutely not!' But pretty soon he'd write a check and tell me to run down to the post office and send it to her by express mail. They both spoiled her: Mister Binder and Mister Stillwell."

  Winnie was suddenly very much aware that Buster was studying him, not Hack Starkey. Winnie said apologetically, "A couple more questions, Mister Starkey. To your knowledge, is Mister Stillwell sick too? With AIDS?"

  "He used to go to Doctor Lutz for a minor blood pressure problem, but AIDS? I think Mister Stillwell hasn't had sex in twenty years and resents anybody else having it. He used to be an athlete. He's very strong and healthy. There's no way he could have AIDS. I'd bet my life on it. If I had a life worth betting."

  "But Tess Binder said she thinks he goes to the hospital from time to time."

  With a shrug of the eyebrows, "Not to my knowledge. He goes to that fancy spa down below the border from time to time. The guy's over seventy but looks middle-aged. Mister Binder once told me Mister Stillwell's parents both lived past ninety. Him, sick? I doubt it."

  Winnie stood up and Buster followed. Winnie said, "One last question. Did you give the disease to Conrad Binder?"

  Hack Starkey looked up, and in the yellow lamplight Winnie could see that his eyes were yellow too. He said, "Do you think you could leave me in peace now?"

  Winnie and Buster turned to go, but when they were still in the foyer the doomed man rattled and said, "I imagine his daughter blames me for it. And if it makes her feel better to have someone to hate, I don't mind. He used to come here to Laguna Beach at least once every two or three months by himself, and stay at a motel. He was a good-looking man who still had emotional needs, even at his age. I don't know who he got it from, but what I think is, he gave it to me."

  On the drive back to Newport Beach, Winnie said, "Obviously she was mistaken about seeing Hack Starkey watching her house. It must've been somebody who resembles the way Starkey used to look."

  "Maybe she's jist another hysterical broad," Buster said. "Hack Starkey's a corpse. Drop me at a car wash. I need to be steam-cleaned."

  "But she's not the hysterical type. Doesn't panic easy. I think Warner Stillwell has himself a Hack Starkey kind of guy. I trust what she tells me."

  "Last broad I trusted was my mother. My stepfather used to get drunk and kick the shit outta her when my little brother and me weren't handy. Only thing he never abused in that house was his basset hound. One day I got this idea to take a piss on the floor right in front of his favorite chair and blame it on his dog. So he'd beat the dog instead a my mother. And it worked. Next time he got drunk I pissed on the rug again and he beat the dog again. Then one night when he was out gettin real drunk I took a crap on the rug. When he came home he beat that hound to death."

  "How did that make you stop trusting your mother?"

  "When she saw the dead dog she broke down and told him the dog was innocent. Before he could catch me I jumped out the window and ran away. I ended up livin with my uncle down in Huntington Beach and never went in my mother's house again. And I stopped trustin people, especially women."

  Neither spoke again until they turned onto the Balboa peninsula. Then Buster said, "My little buddy I was talkin to in The Tango Tavern? He asked me if I knew what they call a gay legend. Give up? A myth-ter I thought I'd laugh my tits off."

  Chapter 17 _A Bright Shining Gumdrop

  By the time they got back to Spoon's Landing, Winnie's back was aching and stiff from the ride, the dampness and the stress. Somebody out there was a threat to Tess Binder, he was almost sure of it. He wondered if he should warn her to avoid the channel side of her house at night. It seemed crazy, but the shots out on the trail were crazy too. If Warner Stillwell had hired an assassin, the guy was a wild card.

  When he parked in front of Spoon's, Buster said, "Havin a nightcap?"

  "Better not," Winnie said. "Tess's expecting me."

  "I got an idea might help ya."

  "Okay. Order me a drink. I gotta call and give her a report."

  They found the usual crowd plus a lot more who were venturing out for the first time now that the spring revelers were back in school. There were two empty stools at the far end of the bar separated by the presence of Guppy Stover, with her elbow on the bar and her head in her hand.

  While Winnie went to the pay phone, Buster bellied up and said, "Gimme a Wild Turkey, Spoon. And Polish vodka for Winnie." Then to Guppy he said, "Mind movin down? Me 'n Winnie wanna talk."

  That did it. "Winnie?" she sneered. "What's to talk about with Winnie? Even Bilge O'Toole can't get a rise outta Winnie, and Bilge argues with turtles. Every opinion Winnie ever had is noncontroversial. Like, 'I'm against war. I'm for better schools. I hate lawyers.' Why would you wanna sit and talk to a bore like Winnie Farlowe?"

  Before Buster had an answer, Spoon put the drinks on the bar, accidentally clinking Guppy's.

  "Hey, watch it!" she said. "You oughtta get a curb-feeler on those shot glasses, the way you bang into things! And it wouldn't kill you to buy a lady a drink!"

  Winnie stepped up to the bar then, and Guppy said, "Here he is now, salt of the earth Winnie. Well, this joint's a bleeding canker sore and canker sores don't need salt of the earth."

  "I'd love to buy you a drink, Guppy," Winnie said sweetly. "Would you be terribly inconvenienced if I asked you to move down?"

  Guppy was defanged. When Spoon poured her the free drink, she smiled coquettishly at Winnie and said, "Thank you, darling. It's a pleasure to find a real gentleman in this little corner of hell."

  When they were at last seated together, Buster said to Winnie, "So what'd your little friend say when you told her you struck out with Hack Starkey?"

  "Not much," Winnie said. "She couldn't get over how I found him so quick. Thought I'd need a week to find a drifter like him."

  "Anybody pop a cap at her tonight? Or does she have her imagination under control?"

  "She told me that when she went down to the pharmacy tonight she saw a car that mighta been the same one the guy drove. The guy she thought was Starkey."

  "Get a license number?"

  "Guy got away."

  "They always do," Buster said. "UFO's, Bigfoot, Elvis. The way I see it, you gotta bring this to a head before she drives you outta yours."

  "You said you had an idea."

  Buster downed the whiskey and smacked his lips. "Like you said before, it's time to quit dickin around and go right to the source. Confront this Warner Stillwell now. Tell him what you know and what you suspect."

  "He might laugh in my face. W
hat can I prove? Less than nothing."

  "Yeah, but you can tell him you laid it all out to a lawyer and to some a your old buddies at Newport Beach P. D. And you got a to-whom-it-may-concern note pinned to your girlfriend's underwear that says if I die suddenly, Warner did it. He'll likely call off his pal, if that gun-slingin cowboy even exists."

  "I'm jist not sure it's time to talk to him."

  "It's time. Tell him two can play the game, and if he don't resign himself to livin out the years he's got left, right there on the ranch, you might have to give him a little tit for tat. Like a rat-a-tat-tat from a fuckin assault rifle! There's a lotta things you can tell him to discourage this game you think he's play in. The bottom line is you gotta quit bein a volunteer victim for Tess Binder."

  "Maybe you're right."

  "She can get on with her life and wait for the fortune she's gonna get some day. Who knows, maybe before that she'll get lucky and catch somebody that's on the rebound from one a those other little hose monsters at her club. Maybe he'll fall in love and have a double ring ceremony on his yacht. Without a prenuptial agreement. And she can hire you to go along on the honeymoon as cabin boy, right?"

  Winnie gaped at Buster for a moment. Then he said, "You're about as romantic as lunch in the morgue."

  "I jist know people. People like her? They're the easiest."

  "I'm worried about you. You don't even smile no more. You jist smirk. You probably smirk when you're having sex."

  "For sex you gotta get too close to people. I'm try in to figure out how to do it from a distance."

  "One thing did come outta tonight," Winnie said. "I got another motive for Conrad Binder's murder. When Binder got sick, Warner Stillwell knew for sure his housemate was screwing around with another guy. It musta made him crazy."

  "This is gettin too convoluted," Buster said. "Look, is this case about love or money?"

  "Maybe both," Winnie said. "Life's seldom either or.

  "You're too complicated," Buster said. "You always were. I'm jist a simple guy. To me a murder boils down to sex, revenge or money. And anybody that kills for sex or revenge has bad head trouble. Now I gotta go home and put this beatup old body to bed."