by J. R. Rain
“ Humans are also hungry,” said Cindy.
“ Well, this human might change his ways.”
“ Change how?” asked Cindy. “I thought real men eat meat.”
“ Real men stand up for what they believe.”
“ And what do you believe?” she asked.
“ I’m working on that,” I said.
“ And in the meantime, no more meat?”
“ For now,” I said.
“ And what if I want meat? And for the love of God don’t turn that sexual.”
“ I haven’t a clue what you mean,” I said innocently, wiping away what I was certain was a foam mustache. “And eat what you want. I’m not trying to change the way you eat.”
“ Thank God. I love bacon.” She swirled her wine in her glass. Professor Cynthia Darwin was blond and blue-eyed and looked nothing like the distinguished anthropology professor I knew her to be. A distinguished professor with the pedigree name. Yes, she’s related to that Darwin. Survival of the fittest and all that.
She said, “So, in the meantime, you’re not going to eat meat?”
“ Nope.”
“ Do you think you’ll ever eat it again?”
“ Dunno.”
She looked at me from behind her glass. Her pupils were growing increasingly dilated, seemingly with each sip.
“ So, you’re doing it for the animals?” she asked.
“ Something like that.”
“ Somehow,” she said, setting down her glass and reaching across the table and taking my hand, “I find that kind of sexy.”
“ Protecting animals is sexy?”
Except I knew that after one glass of wine, Cindy found just about anything I did sexy. She didn’t have to think about it long. “Yeah, I find that very sexy.”
Chapter Four
I was sitting in my van and studying the outside of a bar in Belmont Shores. The bar where Mitch Golden had last been seen.
It was called Panama Joe’s. Belmont Shores is a trendy little subdivision of Long Beach, and parking is at a premium here, which is why I was currently mostly blocking a driveway into a Bank of America. I also mostly didn’t care.
Although it’s highly illegal to do so, Detective Hansen had “accidentally” emailed me some of the pertinent information from his missing person file.
Any police investigator worth his salt appreciated help on a case, even from a private eye, just as long as that private eye didn’t get in the way. Hansen appreciated the help, although he would never admit it.
So now I was sitting in my newish Ford Cargo Van, which I had recently purchased for the sole purpose of surveillance work. I loved the Mustang, and I still owned it, but the classic car was proving not to be very practical during stakeouts. People tended to remember classic Mustangs; not so much nondescript Ford Cargo Vans, which are a dime a dozen.
My Cargo Van had been heavily customized. The windows were tinted. A divider separated the front seats from the rear of the van, accessed via a small door, which I could climb through and shut behind me. The cargo area featured a small desk, two swivel recliners, a TV, electrical jacks, a mini-refrigerator, a sink and a small bathroom that I really hate to use, but will if I have to. Stacked near the desk was a pile of various magnetized company names. Bogus companies, of course. A van that said “Al’s Plumbing” drew less attention than a plain-unmarked van.
I flipped through Hansen’s notes. Seven days ago, Mitch Golden went missing. His girlfriend, Heidi Mann, filed a missing person’s report the next day. Detective Hansen had been assigned the case later that day, which was when he made his initial phone call to Heidi Mann. She had come down to his office where he’d asked her all the usual questions.
I read his question and her answers now. Nothing stood out, other than the vague threat made by owners of a fishing vessel near San Diego. The vessel apparently hailed from Mexico and allegedly hunted hammerheads off the coast of California and Mexico. Hansen never followed up on it, although he did forward her concerns to a game warden friend of his at the Department of Fish and Game, who oversees commercial fishing.
A car pulled up behind me, its headlights blasting into my side mirrors. I verified that it wasn’t a police car, then ignored it.
There was no indication that the DFG had received Hansen’s report or done anything about it. Then again, I wasn’t sure what they could or should do about it. From all indication, Mitch Golden and his crew had been threatened by Mexican fishermen poaching illegally in U.S. waters.
A minute or two later, after some grade-A investigative pondering, I realized the car was still behind me. I looked again in my side mirror. The driver appeared to be doing a lot of angry gesticulating.
By my estimates, I had left enough room for a car to squeeze in behind me. In a city where parking was at a premium-even illegal parking-I wasn’t about to give up my spot, not when I had such a clear view of Panama Joe’s.
The driver waited some more, then turned into the driveway, heading no doubt for the bank’s drive-thru ATM. He might have clipped my rear bumper as he did so but I didn’t give a damn. Hell, a nicked bumper gave my van a sort of authentic, shabby-chic look.
A few minutes later, my van rocked slightly again, and a quick glance in my driver’s side mirror showed that my pal had left the bank, and none too gracefully. He pulled up next to me and stopped, effectively blocking traffic. His passenger side window slid down.
“ Hey, asshole,” he said. “You’re blocking the fucking driveway.”
He’d stopped in the middle of the street to relay this information to me. I glanced back at the traffic he was creating, which was quickly piling up behind him. “You don’t say?”
“ Yeah, I do say, muthafucka.” He was a smallish guy with a thick neck and red hair. He leaned across the passenger seat and used his smart phone to snap a picture of the fake magnetized sign along the side of my van. “And we’ll see what your boss has to say, muthafucka.”
“ Please, mister. Not my boss.”
“ Fuck you, muthafucka.”
And he sped off. I watched him go, weaving through traffic, high on his own adrenaline rush. At one point, he nearly sideswiped a little Miata. He promptly flipped the bird to the driver of the Miata. Probably threw in a “muthafucka,” too.
With the excitement over, I went back to studying the bar. According to Hansen’s file, Mitch had been having a drink with two fellow activists who worked for Shark Heroes, the non-profit organization owned and operated by Mitch and Heidi. Both workers were contacted by Hansen. Both gave in-depth interviews. Both had watched Mitch Golden head to his car. Neither had seen him enter his car or leave in his car, which wasn’t surprising since his car had been found in the same parking lot the next day.
He never made it to his car, I thought.
Someone had either been waiting for him, or Mitch had entered another person’s car willingly, or forcibly.
I thought about that as I watched a heavy flow of pedestrians work their way down Second Avenue. Most of the pedestrians were young people. Most seemed drunk. All were loud.
From where I sat in my van, I could see behind Panama Joe’s. There was a small parking lot where Mitch Golden’s car had been found. Although two single lights illuminated the parking lot, it looked dark and forgotten. I suspected a surprise attack on someone would go unnoticed. Also, according to Hansen’s notes, there was no parking lot surveillance, even though a sign near the driveway entrance into the lot proclaimed there to be one. False advertising.
My cell rang. I glanced at the faceplate. The call was being forwarded from another number. My fake plumbing number.
“ Al’s Plumbing,” I said.
“ Lemme speak with fucking Al.”
“ You fucking got ’em.”
“ Good, ’cause you’ve got a real asshole working for you.”
“ We don’t like assholes here at Al’s Plumbing, where the customer’s always right, except when they’re wrong. Did you get h
is name?”
“ Hell, no.”
“ What did he look like?”
“ Hell if know.”
“ Did he have a sort of roguish charm, an impish smile?”
“ More like a dumb jock with a big head.”
“ Right. What was he driving?”
“ A white van that was blocking the B of A.”
“ So, there was no room to pull in behind him?”
“ Hell no.”
“ None at all?”
“ Shit, I don’t know.”
“ Would careful and considerate driving have solved your problem?”
“ Fuck that. And fuck you, too, muthafucka.”
“ Will do. Here at Al’s Plumbing, the customer always comes first.”
“ Fuck you.”
“ Tell a friend.”
“ Muthafucka.”
Chapter Five
Fifteen minutes later, I pulled away from the curb and parked illegally again, this time directly behind the bar’s back door. I took off the “Al’s Plumbing” sign and replaced it with a “Joe’s Catering” sign.
Did he say big head?
I sighed and headed inside the bar, where the bartender was a good-looking Asian guy with spiky hair. He had a big, friendly smile, which might be why all the ladies were sitting in barstools around him.
He turned his attention from a beautiful blond who might have actually batted her eyes at him, and focused on me. As he did so, one of the women must have said something flirty that I missed, and the guy looked genuinely embarrassed.
“ What can I get you?” he asked.
Spiky here was my guy. He fit Hansen’s description in his notes to a T. Or to a spike. Sometimes, as a private investigator, you get lucky.
“ Bass Pale Ale,” I said. “And some information.”
“ What kind of information?”
I took out one of my business cards and handed it to him. As I handed him the card, he handed me a dark bottle of the good stuff. Now that’s what I call a hand-off.
“ I’m here about Mitch Golden, a customer of yours.”
“ They still haven’t found him?”
“ Not yet.”
“ Sorry to hear that.”
“ You spoke to Detective Hansen?” I asked.
“ Yeah, he came by a few days ago.”
“ You mind if I ask you what you told him?”
He shrugged. “I don’t mind.”
Actually, I knew exactly what he told him, since his statement was in Hansen’s report, but it’s always nice to corroborate a witness’s facts.
“ I told him that guy Mitch had come in for a couple of drinks with two other guys. They sat at that table over there.” He pointed to a table near the big glass window at the front of the bar.
“ Any reason why you might remember three random guys?” I asked.
“ They’re regulars, actually. I see them all the time.”
“ You told Detective Hansen you’d seen them only a few times.”
“ Same thing.”
“ Not really,” I said.
“ You see someone three or four times in my business, and they start feeling like regulars.”
Actually, I know a little something about drinking, since I happen to do a lot of it. Too much, sadly. Regulars at bars are a lot different than the casual drinker. Casual drinkers come in maybe once, twice a week with friends. Regulars get shit-faced nightly.
So, which was it?
Except that Spiky and his good-natured smile had suddenly turned a little defensive. It could have been my imagination, but his spiky hair, held in place by an unknowable amount of gel, might have quivered a little in irritation.
I didn’t want to lose Spiky, and I didn’t want his female admirers to attack my giant head with pitchforks, and so I said, “Okay, I get it. Same thing. Did you happen to notice if they met with anyone?”
“ Just the three of them.”
“ No one came up to them?”
“ Not that I remember.”
“ Were you busy that night?”
“ Sort of.”
According to the police report, it had been a quiet night. Strike two. A good witness he would not make. Bad witnesses were generally bad for a reason: they had something to hide.
I sipped on my beer. I could see the bartender’s mind working. I knew it was working because his spiky hair was shivering. I also knew he was trying to remember exactly what he had told Hansen just a few days earlier. He knew the importance of having his testimony line up.
“ How long were Mitch and his two friends here?”
“ Hard to say. An hour or two.”
An hour or two didn’t help anyone. Too big of a gap. I decided not to press him with this, as I sensed I was losing him. I wasn’t a cop. He didn’t have to answer my questions. Hell, he didn’t have to answer a cop’s questions, either, if he really wanted to play that game.
So far, he was cooperating, which was telling in itself. He knew something, but not much. So what was he hiding? Maybe nothing. Maybe he always panicked when interviewed about anything. I suspected his good looks and perfect spikes had gotten him far in life.
I asked, “Do you know if Mitch Golden was involved in drugs?”
“ What do you mean?”
“ Did he sell drugs?”
His eyes shifted slightly, and I knew I had nailed it. Strike three. His eyes came back to me quickly. “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
He went back to the group of four or five women who looked visibly relieved to have their object of affection back. I placed a ten-dollar bill on the counter, and me and my big head left.
Chapter Six
I was drinking an iced tea and working my way enthusiastically through a large bag of fries at a McDonald’s in Huntington Beach, waiting for the one I knew would come.
Mind you, this wasn’t an ordinary McDonald’s. Sure, it had the prerequisite two-story jungle gym, geeky cashiers, and partially masticated chicken nuggets scattered randomly throughout the store. Sure, it had the filthy mop bucket in one corner, old-timers talking over coffees, and a large, plastic Ronald McDonald display that gave even me the heebie-jeebies.
Except, of course, this McDonald’s was different.
You see, God visited this McDonald’s, and I don’t mean that figuratively. A few years ago, at this very restaurant, I met a man named Jack. Except he was like no man I had ever met before, since or in-between. Jack knew things. About me. About others. About everything. Things he shouldn’t know. Things you wouldn’t expect him to know, especially since he appeared to be just another beach bum.
Anyway, he appeared in my life one day, and he’s always been there for me. Waiting.
Here at this McDonald’s.
And as I ate and drank, I saw him coming. He appeared first in the near distance, shambling slowly along Beach Boulevard, looking to all the world not only like a bum, but a bum with some serious issues.
He paused and let a minivan turn into the McDonald’s driveway. He waved at the people inside. They didn’t wave back. The woman, I noticed, actually stepped on the gas, leaving God-or Jack-in the dust.
He crossed the baking heat of the parking lot, shuffling and limping and smiling. Little black, yellow-eyed birds appeared behind him and he opened his hands and something came out of both of them.
No way.
It had been bird seed.
He pushed through the front door, spotted me, waved and smiled brightly. I waved and smiled brightly back as he got in line in front of a cash register. A few minutes later, he sat opposite me holding a steaming cup of black coffee.
“ It’s been a while, Jim,” he said pleasantly.
“ I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
His eyes twinkled. “Sorry for what?”
“ For not coming in to see you sooner.”
“ Oh, I’m around more than you know.” And he winked.
Jack was a man of indeterminate age and race. He coul
d have been anywhere from forty to seventy, and he could have passed for Caucasian, Latino or Native American. Hell, if he told me he was Polynesian, I might have believed him. Even his hair color and eyes were indeterminate, but with me that’s not saying much. Hair and eye color were generally lost on the severely colorblind, such as myself.
“ Still, I should have come see you sooner,” I said.
“ You should do whatever you want, Jim.”
“ It’s just that sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind when I talk to you.”
“ Then don’t talk. Just sit quietly.”
“ But I want to talk to you.”
He smiled at me serenely.
“ I know,” I said. “I should do what I want.”
He smiled again. “Always.”
I picked up my drink and said, “I know who killed my mother.”
“ You are a good detective, Jim. I’m not surprised.”
“ Does God ever get surprised?”
He winked. “Rarely.”
Just then a timid little girl suddenly appeared at our table, a finger hooked in one corner of her mouth. She couldn’t have been more than three, maybe younger. She wore a flower dress and shiny black shoes, and there was ketchup on the tip of her nose. She swayed a little as she stared at Jack. Jack smiled so warmly at her that I thought he must have surely known the little girl. The little girl removed her finger from her mouth and broke into a huge smile.
“ Your mother is looking for you, little one,” he said.
In that moment, the door to the jungle gym burst open. An hysterical woman scanned the room wildly, then spotted the little girl. She moved swiftly through the restaurant, took her daughter’s hand. As the little girl was led away, she looked back at Jack…and smiled.
When they were gone, I said, “She knew you.”
“ The little ones often do.”
“ And who are you?”
“ Who do you think I am?”
We often played this game. Jack was the master of the verbal parry. The spoken sidestep. Lexical double-speak. He would have made a fine politician, actually. God for President. Now there’s a slogan.
