Trifecta

by Pam Richter

  Julia turned around and looked at Rosa, who was nodding at the large desk in the corner. Rosa was rolling her eyes, as if saying, Aren't men fools?

  "Let's go fix your hair," Julia said.

  "Oh, yes," Rosa looked pleased as she turned to take Julia to her own bedroom. On the way out, Julia looked quickly at the desk top. She didn't see a slip of paper with a combination, but it could be hidden under the telephone or the blotter. She would have to come back and search. Julia felt guilty because she would be using the information that Rosa had so gullibly and innocently given her.

  Rosa's hair almost reached her waist, and Julia tried out different styles, enjoying being with such a sweet woman. She finally pulled all the hair straight back, rolled all under and pulled the edges around into a perfect bun, which she pinned to the top of Rosa's head.

  "Oh, yes," Rosa said, holding a mirror and admiring it from the back view. "Very dignified." She walked back to the kitchen carefully, holding her head high at a stately angle, afraid to jiggle and ruin the beautiful style.

  Julia hurried back to the cottage and got her cameras and camera bag with extra rolls of film and lenses. As she ran back again, Bruno, the big dog, thought she was playing a game and kept bumping her, almost knocking her down a couple of times.

  "My, you young people are so fast," Rosa said, turning around with exaggerated care when she heard Julia.

  Julia was snapping pictures as Rosa turned. Then she took shots of Rosa while she began preparing dinner.

  "I want to go around and take pictures of the theater and the other rooms. Mr. Quijada said it would be all right."

  "Sure. Sure," Rosa said, waving her spoon.

  Rosa told her that the home was usually empty except for a cleaning service, which came three days a week. This was one of the off days. She also learned that Aaron Quijada would not be returning for a few hours.

  Perfect, Julia thought to herself, and started at the bottom, taking pictures in the projection room overlooking the theater. She would save the safe for last.

  Most of the home was quite dark and she had to spend time fixing the lighting in each of the rooms for the photographs. Time flew by. Finally she went into the study.

  Julia looked around and turned on the lights, like she would be taking pictures. They would be useless without Quijada sitting at the desk, but she could figure the best shots while she snooped, she thought, heading toward his desk.

  She heard Bruno bounding up the stairs, his collar jangling dog tags, as she moved the corner of the blotter up so she could look under it. Not there. She glanced up guiltily when she heard a noise, her heart thumping heavily. Bruno was standing in the doorway. He was snuffling, panting and drooling copiously, like he always did.

  She started searching under some papers on the desk. Nope. Maybe it wasn't here on the desk at all. She picked up the telephone and looked under it, finally deciding that the slip of paper was probably in one of the drawers.

  Julia was pulling on the handle of one of the top desk drawers, muttering to herself, damn thing is locked, when Aaron Quijada walked into the room.

  "Are you looking for something? Perhaps I can help?" Quijada said in his deep resonant voice.

  Julia dropped her large camera case, on purpose, and ducked behind the desk for a moment to retrieve it. Even before she stood up again, she could feel she was visibly starting to shake. She realized she was frightened of the man now staring at her with watery unblinking black eyes.

  "Yes," Julia said, searching wildly for something to say. This was a disaster. "I was trying to change lenses under the desk light here, and dropped the lens. It's quite small."

  She ducked behind the desk again, as though searching. She knew Quijada was coming to see if she was telling the truth. Maybe he'd seen her pulling on the drawer. She quickly took a tiny lens out of the camera bag's side pocket and tossed it under the chair next to the desk. She hoped it wouldn't be obvious that it was not the correct lens for the camera she was holding.

  Julia could smell Quijada's cologne before she even felt his presence, on hands and knees, beside her. She acted like she was feeling around the floor with both hands. Of course, Bruno thought this was a doggy game, with everyone crawling around on the floor and he pranced around, getting in the way. Julia was glad he was there, to add to the confusion, but Quijada said something harsh, in Spanish, and the dog whimpered and slunk off to the doorway of the room and lay down.

  Aaron Quijada found the camera lens under the chair and handed it to her. Julia fiddled around with the camera, adjusted the lighting in the room minutely, and asked him to pose at the desk, all the while knowing that the way he was acting toward her was an act. He was suspicious as hell. And not hiding the fact. Maybe he was trying to scare her on purpose.

  Julia left with as much haste and dignity as she could, after taking the photographs. Tonight would not be a late night, she thought, as she hurried back to the cottage to pick up her purse and the Thermos.

  Her nerves were jangled as she finished a little editing on the last chapter and then left the estate with a feeling of profound relief.

  As she drove down Sunset Boulevard she was so nervous that she kept checking the rear view mirror. She thought that someone had taken off from the side of Quijada's house in a big black car right after her. The head lights were too high for her small car and they beamed annoyingly in the rear view mirror, hurting her eyes. She could still see it behind her when she turned onto Sunset Boulevard.

  As she finally went into the driveway to the Beverly Hills Hotel she knew she was not acting very rationally, as the car stayed on Sunset and went past the hotel. She was getting paranoid, but Robin had mentioned that Quijada was a dangerous man, and after this afternoon's experience she believed him. Quijada's suspicion had been overt and menacing.

  Julia knew that staying at the expensive hotel was not very prudent, but she loved the old place. She felt like she was coming home after a hideous nightmare. Julia was sure that Quijada knew she had been searching for something in his study.

  The Beverly Hills Hotel was comfortable and quiet, in the off season, as it was now, but the salary she was making for the book was almost totally eaten up by the luxurious hotel.

  Julia changed into her bathing suit and went down to the hotel pool. The only way she knew to relax after the scary fiasco with Quijada was to get some hard exercise. No one was there and the pool was warm, the water finally relaxing her after she swam laps for a half hour. Then, too tired to try to eat any dinner, she went to bed. Fear had a funny effect on her. Instead of innervating her, it made her very tired. She was instantly asleep when she put her head on the pillow.

  Much later, a ringing sound awakened her and she looked at the alarm clock, believing it was time to get up. Then she realized it was the telephone.

  CHAPTER 13

  Who could be calling at this ungodly hour, Julia wondered, groggily alarmed as she rolled over, grabbing the ringing telephone on the table by the bed.

  "Hello?" she mumbled, still dazed by sleep.

  "Julia?"

  "Um..."

  "It's Robin."

  "Why are you calling so late?" Julia complained, rubbing her eyes. She was irritated. It felt like the middle of the night. She glanced at the clock and saw it was a little past 2:00 a.m.

  "I'm afraid to drive right now. Wondered if you could come pick me up."

  "What's wrong?" Julia asked curiously. His words were cracked up by the static of a cell phone, but he was also slurring in a strange way.

  "Can't drive," Robin said. He started chuckling. "I can hardly see."

  "Are you drunk?" Julia was concerned, but she was also getting angry.

  "Not the usual way. See, I can't go home. And I can't drive. So I thought I would call the beautiful Julia."

  He was definitely drunk out of his mind, Julia decided indignantly, the way he had elongated the word beautiful, making it into four syllables. "Sleep it off, Robin, and call me in the morn
ing. Do you have any idea what time it is?"

  "You didn't call me tonight." He had the voice of a drunken sod, very sad and slightly accusatory, as though by not calling she had caused great pain. "You call every night, so I was worried about the pretty Julia."

  Now that she was awake, she suddenly felt like talking to Robin, even if he was slightly inebriated and had awakened her from a sound sleep. "Well, something scary happened this afternoon. Quijada caught me trying to open his desk drawer. But I found the safe and I think I know where the combination is."

  There was no answer. Julia heard a retching sound over the telephone, then the unmistakable noises of Robin being violently sick to his stomach.

  "Robin!" Julia yelled into the receiver.

  "I'm so sick, Julia," Robin said. He really sounded pathetic.

  "Where are you?"

  "Under the pier at Santa Monica beach."

  "Did you buy some drugs?" Julia asked, suddenly suspicious that he had gone and done the thing he had promised to refrain from, at least for a while.

  "Yeah. It was one of the leads you gave me. But they made me try the stuff. Filthy drugs made me sick. And there was no one to call. I can't drive. I can barely walk."

  "I'll be right there," Julia said, alarmed. He sounded awful. "Don't move, Robin. I'll come pick you up. You might have to go to the hospital, get your stomach pumped, if you took bad drugs."

  "No! You have to promise. No hospital." His words were harsh and uncompromising.

  Julia knew the correct policy when dealing with drunks. She had been to enough college beer bashes to learn the rules. Agree with everything they say. Treat them like children. Never argue and make them mad, because they won't remember anything in the morning, anyway. "Right, Robin. No hospital. I'm coming right now."

  "I really appreciate it, Julia. Oh, Julia, make sure you're not being followed. Quijada is having you followed, you know. Last couple of days. I was tailing the guy following you. It's a long story. Too sick to tell you now."

  Julia started to ask him about who was following her, as she heard him retching again, and then the phone went dead.

  "Goddamnit!" Julia was cursing as she frantically pulled clothes out of a drawer and threw them on the floor, searching for her oldest and most decrepit jeans. She finally found them, after nearly emptying the drawer and pulled them on. She dug for a tee shirt and wind breaker in the pile and put them on too. Running out the door, Julia noticed she was barefoot. She turned around and pulled on a pair of running shoes. This was unbelievable.

  Santa Monica Boulevard was nearly devoid of traffic and it was easy to see if anyone was following her, but Julia was constantly glancing in her rear-view mirror all the way to the beach, in a state of paranoia. Quijada had already been following her? Even before this afternoon? Someone must have noticed her taking suspicious photographs, although she had believed she was being cautious.

  She kept just under the speed limit. She would have loved to race along the deserted street, but she didn't want to be delayed by a traffic ticket.

  When she got to the pier, all the parking lots with access to Santa Monica beach seemed to be closed, with chains across them, so Julia had to park on the highway. Then she jogged through one of the empty parking lots down to the beach. Running in the sand was harder, as the sand kept getting in her shoes and it was so soft it felt as though she was moon walking, like Michael Jackson, instead of moving forward. Then, finally, she was under the pier.

  She hadn't had time to notice how spooky it was because she had been moving so fast, but the waves were crashing against the pilings, making the wooden boardwalk creak in a weird, ghostly way. Someone was walking on the pier and the footsteps echoed hollowly. On top of that, it was foggy down here by the ocean. Tendrils of smoke-like fog would obscure parts of the underside of the pier, then it would become focused again, as the thick mist moved in the air with the breeze.

  She stood, out of breath, by one of the enormous damp wooden supports and looked around. There was only one man under the bridge. He was coming toward her slowly, but she knew it wasn't Robin.

  The guy was big, fat and bald. As the man drew closer Julia looked around in consternation. There wasn't anyone except the huge man staggering toward her. Maybe Robin was sitting down behind one of the pilings and she couldn't see him. This big guy was scaring her, just because he was coming closer. She stood there, unable to move, because she was totally breathless. When the man was about twenty feet away, he said, "Julia?"

  It was Robin's voice. Julia had turned away to run, but she stopped and looked closer. There was a partial moon, reflecting light off of the waves, so she finally saw his face. But it wasn't Robin. It looked like him, sort of, but his eyes were brown and his teeth rotten. He didn't have any hair.

  Julia felt like she was in a hysterical sort of nightmare as she turned in horror and ran down the length of the pier toward the ocean, wildly searching for Robin with her eyes all the way, and wondering if the whole thing had been a trick. Someone who looked like Robin, with his very voice, had lured her here, probably with the intention of killing her in this lonely spot.

  When she got to the water, Julia turned around. The fat bald guy was still staggering toward her and as she watched he pulled off a snug cap. It looked like Robin's thick, black hair had sprung up, complete with the small white stripes at the temples. Then the man staggered and almost fell as he came slowly closer. He stopped again. "Watch me, Julia."

  He was taking off his jacket, which he dropped to the sand. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and dropped it too. He started unwinding what looked like carpet padding from around his middle. It took a while because he had been covered from his hips to the top of his chest in long strips of the padding.

  "I don't believe it," Julia said angrily. "You scared me to death. And what happened to your eyes? And your teeth? They look like they rotted."

  Robin sat down in the sand. He was laughing so hard he couldn't possibly remain on his feet.

  "This isn't funny, Robin," Julia warned, moving closer to him.

  Now Robin was lying on his back, gasping and laughing. He was naked from the waist up, just like the first time she had seen him, and that made her even more angry. His chest looked enormous and dropped suddenly at the concave stomach.

  "You think this is hysterical? Wake me up and then scare me to death? Get up, Robin. Let's go."

  "Away from the beach? In the moonlight? Lighten up a little, Julia. Look at the waves. It's beautiful. I was mesmerized by the waves for about an hour before I called you. Oh shit." He turned over and started having dry heaves. His body convulsed, but evidently he had already vomited all that his body contained.

  Julia sat beside him and waited for him to recover. It really was beautiful here on the beach, sitting under the pier. The rhythmic sound of the waves calmed her with their ceaseless flow, almost hypnotizing her with the sight of the moonlight in their foam. And now that she was with Robin it didn't seem spooky at all. She knew she was safe. Even in his condition now, drunk as a skunk, she was sure he would defend her with his life. She would have to take him to the hospital, though. He was really sick.

  The dry vomiting episode seemed to have taken most of Robin's strength. He was shivering, all of a sudden, and Julia handed him his shirt. She then had to help him put it on because he seemed abruptly weak as a kitten. She brushed sand off of his back and chest before she put the shirt around his shoulders. The skin felt like smooth, hard wood. As she pulled his shirt across his chest and buttoned it, his skin was cold beneath her fingers. She remembered thinking previously that he seemed to exude waves of heat. Now he was shaking like he was palsied with a dangerous chill.

  "You should have left the padding on, Robin. You're freezing."

  "You could hug me," Robin suggested. Then he laughed uproariously, showing his nastily coated teeth. She wondered if he had used tar on them. They were hideously spotted black and brown. It was totally repulsive.

  "Right," Juli
a said, getting irritated again. "Put on your jacket."

  Robin nodded obediently, but just sat there, so Julia had to get up and put the jacket around him. It was about three sizes too big, used to cover all the padding which had made him look fat. As she pulled on the sleeves, his arms and shoulders were very hard and heavy. "Can't you wipe that stuff off of your teeth?"

  "Oh. No wonder she won't hug me. Forgot." He laughed again and went laboriously through his pockets for a handkerchief. Julia liked the laugh because it reassured her that he might be drunk, but he wasn't too sick. It was a healthy laugh, deep and booming, showing his dimples. His handkerchief was monogrammed, just like the ones she had seen in the hospital and at the restaurant. He wiped off his teeth and then popped out the brown contacts. "Robin again. And all yours." He stood up and gave a little bow in her direction, with his arms straight out. He staggered and almost fell.

  "Is this the way you behave when you drink?" Julia asked as she helped him navigate back up the beach. He was leaning on her heavily.

  "I am evidently a very happy drunk. From what I hear. Very nice and polite. Whoops," he almost fell. He didn't seem to be able to walk in a straight line, but she had the odd feeling that he was still very intelligent under the influence of whatever he had taken, and was holding himself under strict control.

  Getting him up the sandy hill to the highway took all her strength. He was leaning on her, an arm around her neck, breathing harshly. At the top they both sank down on a bench, panting, barely able to move.

  "Did you give them money?" Julia asked.

  "A small down payment."

  "I'll pay you back. I don't want to argue with you now, but you know I didn't want you to do this. Those drugs would have killed a weak person, the way you responded."

  "Read all about it," Robin muttered. "They described flu like symptoms and dizziness."

  "You didn't take heroin?" Julia asked, truly appalled at the thought.

  "Kill my parents, if they knew," Robin said. "No hospital."

  "No," Julia agreed. "You certainly don't need a drug record."