Gideon's Rescue

by Alan Russell

  My shaman friend does not think like most people, and I’m very grateful for that. Still, I am not at all convinced he’s right about me being a fire-eater. What I am is a fire survivor. And I’m glad I’m not a sin-eater; I can barely digest my own.

  I resisted the temptation to call out for the song “Fire Eater,” and the three of us rode in silence.

  As it turned out, going to Tarzana was a wild-goose chase. Brad Steinberg never stopped at his favorite Starbucks to get his late-afternoon caffeine, and neither did he broadcast his whereabouts on social media. I suspected Chase had probably contacted his friends, telling them I’d been questioning him at lunch. The time wasn’t totally wasted, though. When it appeared Steinberg would be a no-show, I took the dogs to a nearby park and we had a work-and-play session. Emily was happy when I removed her cone, and even with the cast on her leg she was able to amble around. She already had mastered “sit,” “come,” and “down.” “Stay” was a work in progress, so I had Sirius show her how it was done. I had him sit and stay, and emphasized the command while throwing a ball. He watched the bouncing ball, and then waited, and waited, until I finally said, “Go ahead.”

  We drove from the park back to Starbucks and I made sure Brad hadn’t snuck in during our absence. After that, we began our drive home. The stop-and-go was to be expected, but it was a little more go than stop, and we puttered along the freeway at between fifteen and twenty miles an hour.

  We made only one detour, my favorite wine shop in Sherman Oaks. I left with a Cava, a Spanish sparkling wine, and some Tempranillo that the clerk assured me would make a great sangria.

  Usually Lisbet has to endure “Gideon time,” a condition where I’m perpetually running about thirty minutes late for whenever we agreed to meet. For once, I arrived home with almost half an hour to spare. That gave me time to warm the paella, chill the Cava, and make the sangria. Then I jumped in and out of the shower, and even did some tidying up before the ever-punctual Lisbet arrived at seven.

  Sirius alerted me to her arrival, making his happy sounds. Behind him was Emily. She didn’t bark, but watched the way Sirius greeted Lisbet. Then it was her turn. She was sniffing Lisbet’s leg, or doing the best she could with her cone, and wagging her nubbin. Lisbet got down on one leg and extended her hand so that the e-collar didn’t interfere with the necessary sniffing. Emily looked delighted to meet the mystery woman whose scent was everywhere in the house.

  “Hello, Emily,” said Lisbet. “Welcome to the household. I’m glad I’m no longer the lone female here.”

  Maybe on some level Emily understood she was now family; maybe it was Lisbet’s tone; maybe it was Emily’s desperate need to be loved; maybe Lisbet was even better in person than she was in her scents; maybe it was all the above. The scarred-up pit bull melted in Lisbet’s arms, leaning her weight against her body. Lisbet laughed, Sirius barked, and Emily melted a little more.

  “Home sweet home,” I said, and bent down and gave Lisbet a kiss.

  Lisbet was in no rush to be disentangled, so I went out to the kitchen and returned with a flute of the Cava. We clinked glasses and said, “Cheers.”

  “Am I sniffing what I think I am?” she asked.

  “Yep,” I said. “Mung beans, tripe, and haggis.”

  “My favorites,” she said.

  “There is also humble pie as an accompaniment to the meal,” I said.

  “Is that so?”

  I nodded. “I apologize for not consulting with you when it came to adopting Emily.”

  It was a good time to beg forgiveness; Emily had managed to work most of her body onto Lisbet’s lap.

  “She seems to be as sweet as you said she is,” said Lisbet. “But . . . ”

  The sound of Lisbet’s having reservations concerned me. “But what?”

  “But I’m in danger of dropping my glass and being smothered. Help!”

  Lisbet’s arm was pinned to her side by Emily’s weight, and she was barely able to hold her half-filled glass aloft. I took it from her and helped her up.

  Before putting the paella in the oven, I had sprinkled a little chicken broth atop it, hoping that the seafood and rice wouldn’t dry out during reheating. Whether my trick worked or the dish was so good it defied my attempts to ruin it, the paella was wonderful.

  There were just a few grains of rice left now, morsels we unashamedly vied for. Lisbet feigned poking me with her fork, and then swooped in with her fingers, getting all the remaining rice.

  “Foul,” I said. “No fingers allowed.”

  She smacked her lips, swallowed, and said, “You no longer have any evidence with which to convict me.”

  “The proof is in the pudding. Or to be specific, it’s in the crema catalana, which you won’t get unless you confess your crimes.”

  “I’ll confess to Lincoln’s assassination,” Lisbet said, “for crema catalana.”

  While I went to retrieve dessert, Lisbet put down her fork and stroked Emily’s head. For both her sake and the dog’s, she had removed Emily’s cumbersome lampshade halfway through dinner. Now Emily was able to more easily rest her head in Lisbet’s lap.

  “How’s your new BFF?” I asked.

  “Great,” she said, running a hand along Emily’s head, but then suddenly pulling it back and examining what was there.

  “Gross.”

  “What?”

  “I’m afraid Emily is still oozing from some of her wounds. In fact, there’s puss coming out of one of her head wounds.”

  I nodded and said, “I’ve got lotions and potions and pills for that.”

  “And I’ve got soap and water for my hands,” Lisbet said, rising to go and wash.

  I put our desserts down on the counter while the two of us washed our hands. “I know it probably would have made sense to leave Emily at the shelter while she healed,” I said, “but if I had done that, I’m pretty sure she would now be dead.”

  Lisbet finished with her washing and turned off the water. “Did you just say she would be dead?”

  “I did.”

  “From what cause?”

  I told her about the videotape of the man with a gun, a suspect I was all but certain was Humberto “Tito” Rivera.

  Lisbet considered what I’d told her and tried to make sense of it. “So you think the man who left Emily for dead,” she said, “then sought her out at the shelter to kill her?”

  “I can’t think of any other reason why he’d be there with a gun. At the same time, I haven’t yet been able to figure out what would compel him to try and kill her for a second time.”

  “What’s the best reason you can come up with?”

  “There’s probably not a better way for him to tell me to eff off. And maybe by killing Emily, he thought that would scare me.”

  Lisbet half nodded but clearly wasn’t sold. Unfortunately, neither was I.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Verdades (Truths)

  Over cups of espresso, Lisbet and I discussed the disappearance of Mateo Ramos.

  “The three directors are trying to close ranks,” I said, “so now I’ll need to convince once of them that it’s time to play ‘let’s make a deal.’ I know one of them has a conscience. Someone filled Mateo’s wallet with twenty-five hundred dollars and sent it to Luciana Castillo. Since money is tight for Jason Cunningham and Chase Durand—aka Quentin and Marty—that leaves Brad Steinberg—aka Hitch—as Luciana Castillo’s anonymous donor.

  “What I think played on Brad’s conscience was seeing Luciana’s pictures in Mateo’s wallet and reading his love poetry. Without knowing much about him, I’m guessing Brad is a romantic. I can use that as his Achilles’ heel.”

  “It seems wrong to target the one person who did the right thing,” she said.

  “You’re probably right,” I said, “but my concern is what happened to Mateo Ramos. Even an accidental death has consequences.”

  “I suppose so,” said Lisbet. “It just seems sad.”

  “It is that
. This will probably be one of those cases that has no good outcome.”

  “What’s your plan for exploiting that Achilles’ heel?” she asked.

  “Love poetry,” I said.

  “That’s your secret weapon?”

  “It is when I’m using words from the grave,” I said. “Tonight I thought I’d translate the three poems that were in Mateo’s wallet.”

  “I’d better help you,” said Lisbet.

  “My Spanish isn’t good?”

  “There’s that,” she said.

  “And what else?”

  “You’ve heard of being a hopeless romantic?” said Lisbet.

  I nodded.

  “You’re more of a clueless romantic,” she said.

  Luciana had allowed me to make copies of everything in Mateo’s wallet. Two of the poems meant for Luciana looked like works in progress. There were scratch marks on the papers and crossed-out words. The third poem was typed out and much longer than the others. It was unclear if Mateo had written that poem or if it had been authored by someone else. Because it was typed, or copied from some book, I suspected it wasn’t original to Mateo.

  Lisbet began working on one of the shorter poems, transcribing its words into the laptop in their original Spanish.

  Luciana, Mi Amor

  Mi sueño es simple,

  Quisiera estar contigo,

  Mi sueño es mi mundo,

  Quisiera estar contigo.

  Te he dado mi corazón,

  Lo es tuyo siempre,

  Ha dejado mi ser,

  Y ahora palpita contigo.

  Tus ojos son mi universo,

  En los cual logro verlo todo,

  Déjame perderme en ellos,

  Y vivir en tu eternidad.

  I was lucky Lisbet was helping me with the translations, as she seemed to have an intuitive sense for interpreting what Mateo had wanted to say in his poem. For her it wasn’t only taking a word from Spanish and finding the English equivalent; she made it more personal, as if trying to draw the words from Mateo’s heart.

  “I think that’s about as good as I can do,” she said.

  I thanked her, and then picked up her translation and read.

  Luciana, My Love

  My dream is simple,

  I want to be with you,

  My dream is the world,

  I want to be with you.

  I gave you my heart,

  It is yours forever,

  It left my chest,

  And now beats in yours.

  Your eyes are my universe,

  I look into them and see everything,

  Let me fall into them,

  And be lost in you for eternity.

  “You did a great job,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “It feels right,” I said. “And I met Luciana. What Mateo wrote about her eyes, and what you translated, describes them. They’re the first thing you notice about her. She’s a tiny woman, probably under five feet. It would be easy to mistake her for a girl but for her eyes. They’re large, and they are filled with sorrow. The first time I looked at them, I thought of one of those Margaret Keane paintings.”

  “Eyes easy to fall into,” Lisbet said.

  “They were eyes I didn’t want to further disappoint,” I said.

  Lisbet nodded, and I nodded. Then she said, “I’m ready to tackle the next poem.”

  “You sure?”

  “I wouldn’t want to disappoint Luciana,” she said.

  As before, Lisbet typed the poem in its original Spanish. Although she was using a computer program that translated the words into English, she continued working on the poem and formulating her own translation. Finally, she was done.

  “It’s titled,” she said, “‘On the Day We Wed.’”

  She wiped a tear from her eye. Strangely enough, there was something in my eye as well. This time she read the poem aloud in Spanish:

  En el Día de Nuestra Union

  He contado los momentos,

  Demasiados sin duda,

  Pero sé que serás mía,

  Por siempre solo mía, Amén.

  She continued reading the stanzas, and though I didn’t know many of the words, the love came through. Lisbet read with emotion, and when she finished had to blink away the tears. Several seconds of silence followed her reading. Then she said, “And now what feels like the inadequate English translation for ‘On the Day We Wed.’”

  I hadn’t realized that translating Mateo’s poetry would be such a personal endeavor, and I wondered if I should have involved Lisbet.

  She started reading, and I listened carefully:

  I count the moments,

  They seem far too many,

  But soon you will be mine,

  Forever and ever, amen.

  Lisbet read about how Mateo had loved Luciana from the first moment they met and was made forever a hostage to her heart. The love-struck suitor said that he settled for having Luciana in his dreams for now, but he longed for the reality of waking with his bride at his side.

  After what I felt was an appropriate silence, I said, “Thanks so much for your translations.”

  “Thank you,” she said, “and thank Mateo for his poems.” Then she asked, “Didn’t you say there was a third poem?”

  “There is,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure Mateo didn’t write it.”

  “Why is that?”

  “The first two poems were simple and earnest and handwritten. The third poem is a copy of some sort. It’s also longer and more complicated than the first two poems. I suspect it was someone else’s love poem.”

  “Let me see it,” said Lisbet.

  I handed her the copy of “Verdades.” As soon as she saw the poem, Lisbet nodded and said, “You’re right. Mateo didn’t write this poem.”

  “How are you so sure?”

  “‘Verdades’ is a classic Spanish love poem. The title means truths.”

  “You’re familiar with it?”

  She nodded.

  I had this sense that there was more to her story. I also had this sense that I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear more. But then again, the poem was supposed to be about truths.

  “A man once gave me a copy of the same poem,” she said. Her smile was small, and maybe a little sad.

  “He was in love with you?”

  “He was,” she said. “But I also think he wanted to comment on the way I sneezed.”

  “Your sneeze?”

  “Didn’t you once refer to my sneeze as ‘a kazoo meets a hissing cat’?”

  “I might have said something like that.”

  “David was also amused by the sound of my sneeze.”

  She said the name the way Hispanics do, making the I in his name a hard E, so the second syllable rhymed with the word need.

  “You see this line here?” she said, pointing.

  I read the words: “‘Me gusta verte estornudar.’”

  Lisbet nodded. “It says, ‘I even like the way you sneeze.’ I always found that funny, especially after the poet extolled so many other things about this woman.”

  “Did David write you love poetry?” It was a question I was afraid of asking.

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Verdades,” I said, thinking about truths. “Even though I don’t write poetry, you’re still my muse. For me, poetry is like a foreign language, with all the words untranslatable.”

  “I know that.”

  “Whatever happened to you and David?”

  “I broke up with him.”

  “Why?”

  “He wasn’t you.”

  “If you were trying to make me feel better, you just did.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “When were the two of you together?”

  “More than a dozen years ago.”

  “For the record,” I said, “I, too, am a huge fan of your sneezes.”

  “Really?”

  “You doubt me?”

  “Whenever I sneeze,
you always laugh.”

  “I will not deny it’s a funny sound. In fact, I always thought it was a shame that Dr. Seuss never heard it, because I’m sure he would have immortalized it in one of his books.”

  “What would the title have been?”

  “Goodnight Gesundheit?” I said.

  “Not bad,” she said.

  “A Snozzle of Snorkeling Sneezes?”

  “You’re not a poet,” she said, “and you’re not a romantic, but you do have your moments.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Looking for Tarzan

  Even though it’s only about a ten-mile drive from my home in Sherman Oaks to Brad Steinberg’s preferred Starbucks in Tarzana, I allotted an hour for the commute. In the event Steinberg wasn’t there, I also brought the dogs along; at a minimum we’d get another workout in his absence. And since it was likely to be a bumper-to-bumper drive, I’d at least have the dogs to complain to.

  I lowered all the windows an inch or two, so as to allow the dogs to sniff the news of the day. It wasn’t easy for Emily with her lampshade, but I didn’t want her to ride without it. For the most part her wounds were healing, but given the opportunity, she liked to dig at some of her injuries and chew on her cast. That morning I’d spent ten minutes rubbing her with one of the lotions Dr. Misko had prescribed. It had helped most of her scaling skin, but there were a few wounds I was worried about and wanted a vet to look at. There was still discharge coming from Emily’s head wound where it looked like she had an abscess.

  Maybe it was time to schedule Emily to see Sirius’s vet, Dr. Wolf-Fox. The hyphenated last name had come about because of her recent marriage. The last time Sirius and I had been in to see her, I had encouraged Dr. W-F (as I was now calling her) to start a family, and suggested if they had a boy, he should be Jack Russell Wolf-Fox, and if they had a girl, to name her Kerry Blue Wolf-Fox. Dr. W-F seemed to find my suggestions equal parts funny and intriguing.

  The traffic seemed a little more merciful than usual, and we arrived in Tarzana earlier than I had expected. Visitors to the area are always curious about the city’s name. Yes, Jane, there really is a Tarzana, and the city really was named after Tarzan. In 1919, Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the Tarzan books, bought a 550-acre ranch in the San Fernando Valley and renamed the spread Tarzana Ranch. In 1950, Burroughs’s ashes were buried under a walnut tree located in front of his office on Ventura Boulevard. I heard the location was now private property, and I wondered if there was currently any memorial to Burroughs.