One Last Hit (Joe Portugal Mysteries)

by Walpow, Nathan

  We took a spot against the wall. Our seats were folding metal chairs. A guy with a bushy white moustache came over with a menu. We ordered a large pepperoni and a round of beers.

  There was a tiny stage at the far end, with a curtain behind it. It held a chair, a mic on a stand, and an amp no bigger than mine. A man carrying a guitar case walked from the bar to the stage. He was old and he was black. He opened the case and unveiled an aged Gibson, a fat acoustic-electric with a single cutaway. He plugged it into the amp, sat in the chair, adjusted the mic. “How y’all doing?”

  A murmur around the room implied we were all doing well.

  “That’s good. That’s real good,” he said, and began to play.

  It was a twelve-bar blues—I suspected they were all going to be twelve-bar blueses—about how crappy everything was. His woman had left him. He’d lost his house and home. His dog had run away. It was heartfelt and the guy had a great voice and he played splendid guitar. By the third verse I was bored. I’m not into old blues singers. I know the drill, they’ve never been given their due, if it weren’t for them there wouldn’t be any rock and roll, blah blah. I still don’t dig it.

  When the song ended the crowd roared its approval. Gina and I clapped dutifully. She leaned in. “I hate this shit,” she said.

  “Philistine.”

  “You hate it too.”

  “True. Put up with it for a while. In a little bit I’ll do some scouting around.”

  The applause died down and the singer dived into his next number. It was a lot like the first. Again his woman had left him. This time he’d lost his job too. No word on the dog. I slipped from my chair and made my way downstairs. The gatekeeper stood looking out the peephole. “What?” he said.

  Outside, a woman’s voice said, “Joe sent us.”

  I hadn’t, but it did the trick. He opened the door and let the new customers in. Two women with wary eyes. They paid the toll and went up the stairs, and I had him to myself.

  “What’s up?” he said.

  “What’s the deal with the password?”

  A sheepish grin. “You say anyone sent you, you get in. Had a guy last week said Osama Bin Laden sent him. I open the door, the guy’s got one of those skullcap things on.”

  “A yarmulke.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “One of those.”

  I held out a hand. “Joe Portugal.”

  He put out his own and we shook. “Charley Caine.”

  “People are saying Toby Bonner showed up here a few weeks ago.”

  “People are saying that, huh?”

  “Did he?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You saw him?”

  “Sure did.”

  “It was him?”

  “I saw him a couple of times back in the day. You know how you can’t remember if you bought toilet paper, but you can remember the solo on a record you haven’t heard since you were seventeen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was like that. It was him, all right.”

  “When exactly was this?”

  “Three weeks ago, Wednesday. I had a root canal that day. When Toby was playing I didn’t even notice how much it hurt.”

  “Did you know he was coming?”

  “No one did. What happened was, we were supposed to have this Japanese drum guy play that night and—what?”

  “Japanese drum guy?”

  “Yeah. He was in town to play a show at UCLA. We get all sorts of acts here. A couple of months ago we had that yo-yo guy with the cello. Anyway, this Wednesday night the drum guy gets sick and we’re stuck and the opening act’s out of songs and we’re thinking we ought to just send everyone home. Then suddenly Toby’s onstage.”

  “Suddenly?”

  “I didn’t see, ’cause I was still down here. I know he sure as hell didn’t come in this way. But Marco, that’s the manager, he told me later Toby just came in from behind the curtain with his guitar. He plugged it into an amp the openers hadn’t taken down yet, and he started playing. I heard and I thought nah, it couldn’t be. But I ran upstairs, and there he was.”

  “And you’re sure it was him.”

  “How many times I got to tell you?”

  “How long did he play?”

  “An hour or so.”

  “Anyone talk to him?”

  “Don’t think so. Everyone was, you know, intimidated.”

  “What happened when he left?”

  “How come you’re so interested in this?”

  “I was in a band with him back when we were kids. I ran into a couple of the other members. We thought it would be fun to get the whole band together and jam some.”

  “In a band with Toby? Coo-ool.”

  Someone else came to the door. Dick Cheney sent her. Charley let her in, and she went up.

  “Where was I?” he said. “Oh, yeah. Some asshole was banging on the door, and I went down to let them in, and when I got upstairs he was gone. Marco said he just finished a song and while the clapping was going on he unplugged and went behind the curtain.”

  “And no one thought to stop him? To talk to him?”

  “No. You gotta understand, it was like everyone was tripping from the music. Nobody was thinking very straight. Except me, I guess, maybe ’cause I was down here when he quit. I went in back, but he’d already split.”

  “How?”

  “There’s stairs up front, on the street side. He must’ve gone down them, ’cause there’s sure as hell no other way out of there. I went after him, but he was gone. I ran out the door and—”

  “The front door? It was open?”

  “Sure was,” Charley said. “And I sure as shit locked it after they stopped serving down there. Anyway, I ran outside, and there was a car burning rubber down Melrose.”

  “You think he jimmied the door?”

  “Sure looked like it. Else how’d he get in?”

  “Anyone else here tonight that was here that night?”

  “Just the cook, but he’s Lithuanian. Don’t speak English, outside of food talk.”

  I thanked Charley and gave him my number in case he thought of anything. We shook hands again. I started up the stairs. I was almost to the top when my brain kicked in. I ran back down. “The car he was driving. Did you see what kind it was?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Hard to miss those babies. It was one of those old Triumphs. A TR4, that’s what it was.”

  In the latest iteration, the woman had run off and taken the dog, and the singer didn’t have a job anymore because the guy she ran off with was his boss.

  I started for the table but veered off toward the far end. A sign said the restrooms were behind the curtain. I went through, down a dingy hall lit by a feeble bulb, and found doors sporting male and female stick figures. A bit farther on another door stood slightly ajar. I peeked in and could barely make out stairs leading down.

  I opened both restroom doors and flicked on the lights. This threw enough illumination to make out tables and chairs and cardboard cartons filled with paper towels, Christmas lights, candles in Chianti bottles. I don’t know what I was looking for, and I didn’t find it. I turned off the bathroom lights and made my way back to the table.

  Gina leaned in. “Find out anything?”

  “Yeah, but wait till we’re outside. I don’t want to whisper the whole thing.”

  After a half-dozen more songs the singer thanked us all and finished his set. He packed up his ax and went back to the bar. Someone set up a table onstage. A man with bangs and a wispy beard disappeared behind the curtain and came back with a fancy wood box with an antenna sticking up. He plugged the thing in and began weaving his hands around the antenna. Science-fiction sounds emerged. It was a theremin, the first I’d seen. Not the first I’d ever heard. The wackos next door had one.

  We all exchanged grimaces and got up to go. I said I’d meet them downstairs and headed for the john. The men’s room door was closed. Light came from the crack at the bottom. Theremin tuning c
ontinued.

  I waited a minute, checked around, went into the ladies’ room. When I came out one of the women who’d said Joe sent them was waiting. I said something inane and headed back to the club room. I was a couple of steps from the curtain when I heard the screams.

  Doctor Doctor

  The reason people were screaming was Charley the gatekeeper, standing at the top of the stairs in a blood-covered shirt, howling that he needed help downstairs. Along with the screams there was twittering and yammering and some moron yelling “fucking gangbangers” over and over.

  Charley didn’t seem hurt. It had to be someone else’s blood. Someone downstairs.

  Gina was downstairs.

  I rushed for the stairway. When Charley saw me coming he wheeled and started back down. My jump into action got some other people moving. They followed me down. I blew through the vestibule and burst outside. Two people were on the ground. One had someone leaning over them. They other was Gina, lying facedown.

  I dropped to my knees. There was something wet on the ground by her stomach. I thought it was blood. I couldn’t be sure in the meager light from the streetlamps.

  “Joe?”

  “I’m here, babe.”

  “I think I hurt myself.”

  “Where?”

  “My knee.”

  She was delirious. We needed help fast. I looked up at the people who’d followed me out. “Has anyone called 911? Or an ambulance? Or any-goddamn-body?”

  Somebody said they had. I bent back to Gina. She rolled over onto her back. There was blood all over her sweater and some on the front of her pants. My stomach lurched. I got it under control and began carefully lifting the bottom of her sweater.

  “Not now.”

  I kept at it. It was sticking to her stomach.

  “Joe, cut it out. This is no time to be undressing me.”

  “You’re hurt. Badly. I have to see where.”

  “I told you where. My knee.” She sat up in one quick motion, like a vampire coming to unlife, and looked down at herself. She ran a finger across her sweater and inspected what it came away with. For an instant I thought she was going to lick it off. “There’s blood all over me. Omigod. Squig.” She tried to stand. I pushed her down. “Joe, stop it. We have to help Squig.”

  “But—”

  “This blood’s his. He got shot. I’m fine. Go help him.”

  “But—”

  She slapped me across the face. “Go. Help. Squig.” She gave my shoulder a weak push. “I mean it.”

  A dozen people were standing around like dummies. I stood and shoved through them to the other person on the ground. It was Squig, with Chloe all over him, sobbing into his shirt.

  I pulled Chloe away, handed her off to somebody, went to my knees. Squig was still breathing. That was it for the good news. I went after his shirt buttons, starting from the bottom. Someone dropped down beside me, said something that included the words medic and Nam and began on the top ones. Our fingers kept slipping on the blood. Squig’s blood. All that blood, on Charley and on Gina, and on Squig and on the ground around him, was his.

  When the buttons were all undone the other guy—it was our waiter—peeled Squig’s shirt back. There was a lot more blood. In the miserable light I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. I fought off another wave of nausea.

  I heard a siren, looked up, saw lights bouncing into the end of the alley. The waiter shooed me away. I stumbled up and over to Gina. She was on her feet, brushing off people trying to help her. She saw me and fell into my arms.

  The paramedics labored to keep yet another person I was more or less close to from dying violently. I felt helpless and pissed-off at the world. Then a gurney appeared and Squig went on it, with Chloe weeping in his wake. More lights and more sirens, retreating into the night.

  Then there were police. The cop in charge was a big guy with longish strawberry-blond hair combed straight back. He had thick-rimmed black glasses like Woz’s. The cop wore a sport jacket and slacks and one or more of them was blue. His tie was undone. Probably at the end of a shift. All ready to go home and watch Conan O’Brien and all of a sudden there was this to deal with.

  Some uniformed officers had pushed everyone who didn’t belong there out of the way and thrown up yellow tape. I stood there being protective of Gina. Some more medical types had shown up and checked Charley and her over. They pronounced Charley fit as a fiddle, diagnosed Gina with a scraped knee, bandaged it.

  A cop came by. “Sergeant Kalenko wants to see you, ma’am,” he said, pointing the way. Gina looked at me, I nodded, she went off with the cop. I started to follow but the cop told me it was just her, sir, we’ll get to you in a while if we need you.

  I stood around like an idiot, watching Kalenko grill Gina, trying to make out what they were saying. But they were too far away. He quizzed her for fifteen minutes. When she came back she said he wanted to see me.

  “You okay?” I said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Any word on Squig?”

  “I didn’t think to ask. Sorry.”

  “You sure you’re fine?”

  “I’m sure.” She plucked at my shirt, where there was blood from when I hugged her. Again she inspected her fingers. A shiver ran through her. “Poor little guy.”

  The cop came back. “Ma’am, sir, please.”

  I went over to Kalenko. “You wanted to see me? I really didn’t see anything. I was in the john.” Like he needed that detail.

  “The famous Joe Portugal.”

  “You know my bug commercials?”

  “I know Casillas.”

  Hector Casillas was another LAPD detective. I’d had two run-ins with him. First, when he was in the Pacific Division, investigating the death of my friend Brenda Belinski. Then a year or so later, after he’d been promoted to the Robbery-Homicide squad. He and I had done much butting of heads, and mine still hurt.

  “So you already think I’m an asshole,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I’ll form my own opinion of whether you’re an asshole or not. You turn out to be one, we deal with it. But fact of the matter is, Casillas doesn’t think you’re one either.”

  “He doesn’t?”

  “Nope. He just wishes you’d stay the hell out of police business. Same with me. I want you to answer the questions I ask you, and to cooperate like a good little citizen, and that’s all. No interrogating witnesses on your own. No midnight visits to the scene of the crime.” Out came a pad and pen. “You say you were in the men’s room when the shooting occurred?”

  “The women’s room, actually.”

  He gave me a look.

  “Someone was hogging the men’s.”

  A fleeting smile. “So you didn’t see anything?”

  I gestured to some of the others who’d galloped down the stairs. “No more than any of them. You get a report from the hospital yet?”

  He one-eyed me, looked around, spotted a lady cop. “Breckenridge.”

  She trotted over, ready to protect and serve. “Yeah, Sarge?”

  “Go find out the how the victim is doing.”

  “You got it, Sarge.” Off she went.

  “Okay,” Kalenko said. “Tell me about him.”

  “Squig? I knew him when I was a kid. We hooked up again in the last few weeks.”

  I told him the rest. He made notes. When I got to the part about the band he asked if we needed a sax player. I hadn’t a clue how to answer.

  “Just a little joke,” he said. “To put you at ease.”

  “Do I seem uneasy?”

  “A little.”

  “Sorry. It’s not every day friends of mine get shot.”

  “No, just once a year or so.”

  “You’re doing a hell of a job of putting me at ease.”

  “My specialty. This other old friend, his name would be?”

  “Robbie Wozniak. Robert, I guess. Goes by Woz.”

  “Address?”

  “He lives with Squig. O
n Leland, in Hollywood, he told me.”

  More notes. “Any idea why anyone would want to shoot Mr. Jones?”

  “He’s a sweet guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to take a shot at him. Anyway, wasn’t it some kind of random drive-by?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Breckenridge came back. “He lost a lot of blood, but the bullet didn’t hit anything too vital.”

  “Too vital?” I said.

  “They think he’s going to pull through.”

  “They think?”

  “Yeah. You need me any more, Sarge?”

  “Not now,” he said, and she retreated.

  “Anything else?” I said.

  “No. You and Ms. Vela can go.”

  I stepped away.

  “Mr. Portugal.”

  I looked over my shoulder. “Uh-huh?”

  “Remember what I said. No playing detective.”

  “You got it, Sarge,” I said.

  I drove the Volvo back to Gina’s. When we got there she grabbed a plastic garbage bag and took it into the bathroom. She came out in a few seconds, naked, carrying the bag. “Get rid of these, okay?”

  “Sure.” I took it out to the hall, dumped it down the garbage chute, came back inside. The shower was running. I went in the kitchen, got some decaf going, put up tea water on a low flame. I checked my clothes. Some blood, and generally filthy from crawling around the alley. I put my shirt and pants in another plastic bag, left it by the front door, put on the sweats I kept at her place.

  I was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the cover of an Architectural Digest, when she came out of the shower. She had a ratty robe on and her hair was wrapped in a towel. She sat on the opposite edge of the bed. I watched her over my shoulder. After a bit her shoulders shuddered and I heard sounds I seldom hear from her. I climbed over to her side, put my arm around her, and let her cry.

  A while later she asked for a tissue. I got her a couple and she cleaned up. She handed me the wad of soggy paper. I dropped it in the wastebasket and sat beside her again.