One Last Hit (Joe Portugal Mysteries)

by Walpow, Nathan

  I called Cedars and found out that Squig could have visitors after two. I took out the SG and played sad songs. I was halfway through “Last Kiss” when the amp cut out. No light, no nothing. The guitar went back in its case. I took out the acoustic, broke a string on the first chord, took it as a sign and put it away too.

  I couldn’t figure out how to kill the time until I went to the hospital. Finally I broke out the vacuum cleaner. After I finished with it I mopped the kitchen floor. After that it was time to leave. I got a bright idea. I would drop the amp off at Guitar Matrix to get it fixed. I would accomplish one productive thing that afternoon.

  Five minutes later I was at the music store. I told my buddy Dex what had happened. He reached in through the back of the amp and jiggled something, then plugged it in. The red light glowed. “Happened to another guy,” he said. “One of the connections likes to come off. I gave it a little bend in there that ought to keep it from happening again.” I thanked him, stowed the amp in front of the passenger seat, and went off to the hospital.

  I parked at Beverly Center because I didn’t like the rates at Cedars. I walked down the car ramp, sure that at any second a parking attendant would appear and take me to task for using their valuable real estate for something so unimportant as a hospital visit. But I made it to the sidewalk without incident and walked around the corner to Cedars. They gave me a room number in the north tower. I took the elevator up with a woman holding a flower arrangement so big it threatened to topple her over. She got out the floor before mine. The bouquet brushed against the door frame and a red carnation fell off. When the door closed I picked it up.

  Squig had a private room. Later I found that Bonnie had connections at the hospital and set it up. When I went in he was sitting up in bed. He had a pile of crossword puzzle books at his side. One was open to a puzzle that was half filled in, in pen again. He saw me, gave me a strained smile, picked up the book. He looked at the other two people in the room—Chloe and a man about my father’s age—and said, “I’ll bet Joe knows.” To me, “This one has me stumped. Thirty-one down. ‘Maple finish.’ Eight letters, starting with BI and the seventh letter’s Y.”

  “Bird’s-eye,” I said.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Bird’s-eye maple. The grain makes patterns that look something like birds’ eyes. Gina’s coffee table has it.”

  “See,” he told the others, “I knew Joe would know.” He started to write it in.

  “There’s punctuation,” I said. “Does that matter?”

  “Nope.” He finished writing and put down the book. He looked pretty good for someone who’d been shot two days earlier. He was pale and his hair looked more awful than usual. But he didn’t seem to be in any pain. A cable from some kind of monitor snaked in under the sheets, and an IV sprouted from his left wrist. There was an empty lunch tray on a rollaway stand and a couple of pots worth of plant life.

  I said hi to Chloe and held out a hand to the older guy and told him my name.

  His had a good, firm grip. “Herb Wozniak. Robbie’s father.”

  Now that I knew, the resemblance was obvious. The eyes, mostly, that hard look, though in Herb’s case it was tempered by the wisdom of years. Like he’d still beat the crap out of you if you did the wrong thing, but his definition of the wrong thing was narrower than Woz’s. He had white hair cut fairly long, a matching moustache, a great tan.

  I went to the bed and handed the carnation to Squig. “For you.”

  He took it, didn’t seem to know what to do with it, finally dropped it in a paper water cup. “Pretty. A chrysanthemum, right?”

  “Carnation.”

  “I always get those two mixed up.”

  “Me too. How you feeling?”

  “You know.”

  “Ready to get out of here and jam?”

  A distraught look. “I’m not going to be jamming for a while. I’m gonna have to stay in bed.”

  “How long?”

  “A week, two, maybe more. Depends on how I heal up.”

  I heard footsteps and turned to the door. “Hey, Woz.”

  “Hey.” He stepped into the room and over to Squig. “You’re doing too much. Put down the fucking puzzles and lay down.”

  “When everyone leaves.”

  Woz pulled over a chair and sat at the side of the bed. He took Squig’s hand, enveloped it in both of his own. He glared at Chloe, his father, me, daring us to comment on this touch of tenderness.

  We endured half an hour of awkward conversation. It was mostly Herb and me. Chloe was clearly a woman of few words. We talked about when Squig was going to get out, that kind of thing. After a while Herb left. Squig was fading. Woz and I exchanged looks, and Woz told him we were going. Squig thanked us for coming. Woz took away the crossword books and tilted down the head of the bed. I went to Squig, put a hand on his shoulder, told him I’d see him soon. As I moved toward the door Woz bent toward Squig. I thought he was going to kiss him. But he just told him everything would be okay.

  I was almost out the door when Squig said, “Guys? Come see me again tonight, okay?”

  “Sure, kid,” Woz said. “Now get yourself some rest, dig?”

  “You too, Joe.”

  “Will do,” I said.

  We said good-bye to Chloe, left the room, got on the elevator. The door opened one floor down. The woman I’d gone up with got on. She looked tiny and scared. She glanced at me, squeezed out a smile, stared at the doors. When they opened she practically ran out of the building.

  Woz asked where I was parked. I told him. “Me too,” he said. “Fucking thieves at this place.”

  We walked in silence back to San Vicente, waited for the light, crossed. Half a minute later Woz said, “Someone needs to get the guys who did this.”

  “Is ‘get’ the same thing as ‘take care of’?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Please. Don’t play vigilante.”

  “Vigilante. I like that.” We walked around the corner, past the Hard Rock, into the shade cast by the monolithic shopping center. When we reached the garage Woz said, “Go for a ride with me.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Jesus, I’m not going to do anything to you. You’re on my fucking side.”

  “I didn’t know I was on anyone’s side.”

  “Just take a ride with me.”

  When I was in seventh grade, I hung out with a tough kid named Emilio de la Fuente. Emy was my friend, as much as anyone in junior high was my friend, but I was afraid of him. I hung around with him because it carried a certain cachet, but most of the time I was scared shitless he was going to turn on me. He’d say, let’s go do X, and I wouldn’t want to, and he’d give me a look that said if I didn’t do X I was going to get the crap knocked out of me. So I always did what he wanted. Which was usually legally or at least morally reprehensible.

  I might as well have been back at junior high. One dirty look from Woz and reason flew out the window. I took a ride with him.

  It’s a Boy

  We got stuck in construction traffic on Pacific Coast Highway. “Jesus H.,” Woz said. “I went this way cause they’re tearing up the 405 and the Ventura both. Look at this shit.”

  I asked him for the fifth or sixth time since we’d gotten in the Barracuda where we were headed. For the fifth or sixth time he said, “Wait.”

  The jam broke at Chautauqua, and soon we were on Topanga Canyon Boulevard, snaking up into the hills. After we passed through the village of Topanga I sat back and watched the scenery. A lot of trees and the occasional open field. After a couple of miles I said, “Where are we going?”

  “The Valley.”

  “I figured that. Where in the Valley?”

  “What’s the difference? It’s all the same.”

  Debatable, but not worth pursuing. “What’s there?”

  “A friend.”

  “What kind of friend?”

  “A good friend.”

>   “I should just give up on trying to get you to tell me stuff before you’re ready, shouldn’t I?”

  “Now you’re catching on.”

  An outbreak of mini-malls and office buildings announced our arrival in the San Fernando Valley. A few miles later Woz turned left onto a side street. Two or three more turns put us deep into a residential area crowded with unremarkable houses. The farther we got from the boulevard the lousier the neighborhood got. The lawns got browner, the streets dirtier, the passersby seedier.

  Eventually we pulled up in front of a house. It badly needed a paint job and the roof could have used some more shingles. The lawn was half dead and half missing. The only thing not depressing about the place was a monstrous palm tree. Not one of the tall skinny ones like on the TV behind Terry Takamura, thrusting impossibly high into the sky, looking like a good gust would break them in two. This one was no higher than a two-story building. But the trunk must have been five feet across. The fronds stretched the whole width of the lot. Up near the top a whole garden of other plants had taken root among the bases of the fronds.

  As we got out of the car a head poked out from behind the palm. It was followed by a body. Both belonged to a boy of about six, dressed in a striped T-shirt and shorts and no shoes. He had a G.I. Joe in one hand and a naked Barbie in the other.

  “Whas-sup?” the kid said.

  “Whas-sup?” Woz said.

  The boy grinned and ran to Woz, who swept him off the ground, held him in the air, and swirled him around. The kid squealed and giggled and dropped his dolls.

  Woz put him down. The kid said, “Did you bring me anything?”

  “Sure did. But first say hello to Joe. Joe, meet Billy.”

  “Hey, Billy.”

  The kid looked me up and down. “Like G.I. Joe?”

  “Yeah, kid,” I said. “Like him.”

  He grinned and said, “Whas-sup?”

  “Not a whole lot, kid. What’s up with you?”

  “Not ‘what’s up.’ Whas-sup. Dontcha know?” He lost interest in me, swiveled back to Woz. “What’d you bring me?”

  “Hang on.” Woz opened the car door, reached under the seat, came out with a paper bag and the toy gun he’d scared the shit out of me with in the record store. “Here you go.”

  Billy grabbed the gun, pointed it at me, kept pulling the trigger. Like father, like son. “You got caps?” he said.

  “Sure.” Woz reached in the bag, came out with an ancient red, white, and blue box. Billy took it, gathered G.I. Joe and Barbie, ran off behind the tree again.

  “You been carrying that thing around all this time?” I said.

  “Yeah. What of it?”

  “Must not see your kid much.”

  “I see him enough.”

  I didn’t think so. There was a touch of softness in his face.

  “You ready?” he said.

  “For what?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I have no frickin’ idea.”

  “Just come on, you big baby.”

  He tossed the bag in the gutter. We went to the door and Woz rang the bell. It ding-donged inside, there were footsteps, the door opened.

  The woman who stood there was wearing the same outfit the kid had on. Stripes on the T-shirt, bare feet. She was our age more or less, average height, average weight. She had a tired face and blond hair with the kinds of streaks and highlights you can’t get at the beauty parlor. A pair of sunglasses was perched on top of her head. She had a bottle of Bud Light in her right hand. “Hey, hon. Good to see you. Who’s your friend?”

  “This is Joe. He’s in our band.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Joe. I’m Wanda.” She favored me with a smile that was eighty percent genuine. “Come on in.”

  The décor was no surprise. Beat-up, mismatched furniture. On the walls, dogs playing poker and a Thomas Kinkade. The kitchen featured lots of empties and a refrigerator covered with magnets and crayon drawings.

  Wanda drained her beer, tossed it at a plastic garbage bin, swished it. She went to the fridge and jerked on the door. It stuck. She pulled harder. It came open, a magnet flew, a picture fluttered to the once-white linoleum. She ignored it. “Beer?”

  “Yeah,” Woz said.

  “Why not?” I said.

  “Light or no?”

  “Whatever he’s having.”

  She dipped in, came out with a trio of MGDs, pushed the door shut with her hip, handed us each a beer. She and Woz twisted their caps off and tossed them in the trash with barely a glance. Woz took a swig and belched. I undid my cap, eyed the garbage can, walked over and dropped the top in.

  “Let’s go out back,” Wanda said. We went down a hall and into a kid’s room. Bunk beds, action figures, a poster of Britney Spears. Billy seemed a little young for Britney, but what did I know about kids? A sliding glass door led out to a wooden porch. There were three beach chairs, a chaise, a low metal table with more empties and an ashtray with a cigar butt in it. The webbing on the chairs had seen better days. I couldn’t tell about the chaise, since it was hidden by the man lying on it. Well over three hundred pounds, and not a lot of it was fat. Dark features, lots of body hair. He was wearing the uniform: striped T-shirt, shorts, no shoes. When he saw us he broke out in a smile. “Woz.”

  Woz went over and slapped him five. Then five more. When they got to thirty or so I stopped counting.

  “How you doing?” the guy said. The universal greeting of manly men.

  “You know,” Woz said.

  “Yeah. Me too.” A chin nod toward me. “Who’s this?”

  “This is Joe. Joe, say hello to Tiny.”

  I nodded and walked over. He held out a meaty hand. I didn’t know if I was supposed to shake it, slap it, or kiss it. I went with the shake, and things worked out fine.

  Woz, Wanda, and I arranged ourselves in the chairs. I eyeballed the yard. About as expected. The lawn matched the one in front. The previous summer’s tomato plant skeletons hung off faded bamboo stakes. There were a couple of nondescript trees and a pile of old lumber. A scrawny bougainvillea covered one wall and most of the roof of the garage.

  “How’s Billy doing in school?” Woz said.

  “He’s doing good,” Tiny said. “Last report card, no problems.”

  “Cool.” Woz slurped up some beer. This prompted Wanda and Tiny to pull on theirs. I didn’t want to be left out, so I gulped some of mine down. A couple of us belched.

  Woz wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Wanda here’s my wife. Tiny’s her old man.”

  “Wife, as in current?”

  He turned to Wanda and they swapped dopey smiles. “We never got around to the paperwork,” Wanda said. “Tiny don’t mind, Goldie don’t mind. So why bother?”

  “No reason I can think of.”

  We sat for a few minutes, talking about Billy’s school mostly. Then Tiny drained his beer, popped it onto the table, and hauled himself off the chaise. “Come on into the garage.” He stepped off the porch.

  Woz put down his beer, got up, joined him. He looked at me. “Come on.”

  “What’s in the garage?”

  “Just come on, okay? Why you need to know everything before it happens?”

  “No reason.” I added my beer to the collection on the table. It was full except for that one slug I’d had. Woz and Tiny were already headed for the garage. I jogged after them.

  The garage door had a big padlock. Tiny undid it with one of a slew of keys on a ring he pulled from his pocket. The saggy door scraped the concrete as he dragged it open.

  We went in. A car and a motorcycle were inside. The car was from the forties or early fifties, all rounded fenders and chrome bumpers. There were restoration materials on the roof and on a workbench against the far wall, seating fabric and Bondo and mechanical doohickeys. The motorcycle was a Harley. I only knew this because it said so. It looked a lot newer than the car.

  Tiny saw me checking it out. “You ride?”

  “
Not really. Actually, not at all.”

  Disappointed in me, shaking his head, he walked to a far corner. Woz followed and I brought up the rear. There was a big metal cabinet back there, four feet wide, three deep, six high. Sturdy looking, almost like a safe. Out came the keys again. Two locks got undone. The door swung open. The cabinet was filled with guns.

  We’re Not Gonna Take It

  I don’t know why I was surprised. L.A.’s overrun with guns. Families in my neighborhood had them. Kids in high school, even the “good” ones, had them. Gina had one.

  Maybe it was the sheer quantity of the things. There was a rack inside where a dozen shotguns and rifles sat vertically. Below it, two shelves with at least an equal number of handguns, all dark and metallic and lethal-looking. Farther down still, a couple of drawers. God knew what was in them. Ammo or hand grenades or tactical nukes.

  Woz and Tiny, wearing matching grins, stood watching me. “Come on over and take a look,” Tiny said.

  Instead I took a step backward.

  “What’re you afraid of?” Woz said. “They don’t bite.” He turned, dipped into the cabinet, came out with one of the handguns. “This one here, you could call it a vigilante special.”

  “Don’t do this,” I said.

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Grabbing a bunch of guns and going off after whoever shot Squig. That is what this is about, right?”

  “Calm down. I’m not going to grab a bunch of guns.”

  I relaxed a little. “Then—”

  “Only two.”

  “You only have two hands. So two guns might as well be a bunch.”

  “They’re not both for me.”

  “Who, then?”

  The two of them just grinned at me.

  Duh.

  “No. No way. Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  “I need backup.”

  “What you need is a lobotomy. I’m not getting involved in this.”