by Lee Goldberg, Scott Nicholson, J A Konrath, J Carson Black,
“What did you see?”
“I saw her standing on the rail,” I replied. “Lauren looked at me, and then she dove off as casually as if she were taking a swim.”
“What did she want from you?”
“She wanted to make sure I was looking.”
I was surprised by my own answer. It was simpler than the other explanations I’d run through my head. I wondered when I’d settled on this one.
“No, Harvey, she wanted to be sure that I was.”
And then he hung up. I kept the phone to my ear.
I said, “Good night, Mr. Parkus.” And then I hung up, too.
***
It took me fifteen minutes to walk up the steep hill to Cyril Parkus’ house. I suppose a man in better shape would have made it in five, but I had to stop and rest a few times and clutch my sides in pain. I wasn’t being a very good patient. I wasn’t being much of a security guard, either.
I’d left the guard shack empty and the gate closed, but I knew from experience there was rarely anybody coming or going at two fifteen a.m. on a weeknight. I wasn’t too worried.
We’re also not supposed to enter the community, even though we guard it. Don’t ask me why. So, to get in without ending up on the surveillance tape, I climbed over the gate at a spot where I know the camera’s view is obstructed by an overgrown tree.
As I trudged up the steep hill, which would have been a chore for me even without the broken ribs, I tried to distract myself from the pain by looking at all the big houses I was theoretically protecting, with their detached garages and red-tile roofs and dramatic, outdoor lighting. It was as if the exterior of each house was decoratively pre-lit in case the cover photographer from Architectural Digest just happened to drive by, or maybe a busload of tourists, neither of which was likely to happen with the gate out front and my constant vigilance.
Well, almost constant.
All the lights were on inside and out at the Parkus house, and I heard the burbling of at least three different fountains as I walked across the cobblestones of the motor court.
The front door was almost entirely glass, so I could see straight through the circular, marble entry area into the huge, two-story living room, its floor-to-ceiling windows affording a commanding view of the entire valley.
But the view was lost on Cyril Parkus, who was sitting on the floor, staring blankly into the whiskey bottle between his legs. He was still dressed in his business suit, leaning against a wrought-iron and glass coffee table.
I knocked on the door. He looked over and didn’t seem too surprised to see me.
He motioned me inside. I opened the door and went in. The house smelled like a rose garden, but there wasn’t a single flower in sight.
“Come to check up on me?” Parkus asked.
“You didn’t sound too good.”
“Afraid I was gonna stick a gun in my mouth?”
I shrugged. There was alot of antique furniture and maritime oil paintings, but the room was dominated by an old, rotting, wooden sign above the fireplace. The faded, peeling paint read: Big Rock Lake Resort. It couldn’t have been worth much, and didn’t fit in with the rest of the décor, so I figured its value was sentimental.
“I could never do it, even though it’s the Parkus family tradition.” He shook his head and took a big swig from his bottle. “First my mom, then my sister, now my wife. All killed themselves. I must be a real horrible person to live with.”
“You’re not the reason she jumped.”
Parkus cocked his head. “Really? And how the fuck would you know that? You’ve never even talked to her.”
“I saw her face when she met Arlo Pelz,” I said. “I bet if he’d never shown up, she’d still be alive.”
“We’ll never know, will we?”
“We could try.”
“Un-fucking-believable.” He glared at me, set his bottle down on the floor, and struggled to his feet. “Is that what you came here for, Harvey, to shake me down for a few more bucks?”
Parkus reached into his pocket, pulled out his money-clip, and threw the cash at me.
“Go ahead,” he yelled, “take it!”
“I want to earn it, Mr. Parkus. I want to bring Arlo Pelz to justice.”
“Jesus Christ,” he snorted in disbelief. “I hired you do to something anybody with a driver’s license and a two-digit IQ could pull off, and now you think you’re fucking Batman.”
“Arlo Pelz might as well have pushed your wife off that overpass,” I said. “And you’re going to let him just walk away. Well, maybe you can, but I can’t.”
It was true. At that moment, I felt like I was channeling Joe Mannix, Frank Cannon, Barnaby Jones, Thomas Magnum, and all the great private eyes who came before me. Even Parkus seemed to sense that.
“Who the fuck are you?” Parkus yelled, his voice echoing off the walls of his big, wide living room. “You’re not a police officer, you’re not even a security guard. You’re barely even a man. You’re just a clown with an iron-on badge.”
He looked so disgusted at the sight of me, I thought he might vomit right there. But I felt stronger and more sure of myself than I ever had in my life.
Parkus marched over to the front door and held it open.
“Get out of my house, Harvey. Go back down to your little shack and pick your nose for a few more hours. And if you ever butt into my life again, if you so much as wave to me as I drive by, I’ll have you fired. Do we understand each other?”
I understood, all right.
The only reason he wasn’t going to have me fired the next day was because he was still afraid of what I knew, or might know, or could figure out. He couldn’t take the risk that I might go to the police with my story.
I walked out.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said as I left.
He slammed the door behind me.
I was glad I came up. I’d learned a lot and, without even realizing it, made some decisions.
In a way, Arlo Pelz and I now had something in common. We both had something on Cyril Parkus. Arlo had Lauren’s secret, whatever it was, and I knew that she was being blackmailed, and that her husband knew the guy who was doing it.
It didn’t seem like I had all that much, but it was enough to make Cyril Parkus very nervous. Enough to try buying me off and, when that failed, using intimidation to get his way.
Neither worked. If anything, he’d encouraged me.
I was going to find Arlo Pelz and whatever it was that Lauren killed herself to escape.
The only trouble was, I had no idea how I was going to do it.
Chapter Twelve
Carol was waiting for me at the Caribbean, sitting on a chaise lounge facing the entrance. She was in her business clothes, and she had the morning paper on the chaise lounge next to her.
“Shouldn’t you be on your way to work?” I asked.
“I thought you’d want to talk.”
“About what?”
She held up the Valley section of the Los Angeles Times. On the front page was a picture of Lauren, which I guessed was taken at a party, a picture of the wrecked cars on the freeway, and an article about the suicide.
I took the paper and quickly scanned the article. It was mostly about the traffic accident she caused, and the people in the hospital, who were in satisfactory condition with all kinds of broken bones. There was a little bit about Lauren and how shocked the community was by her suicide. The article said she was an active fundraiser for local charities and was survived by her husband in Camarillo and a mother in Seattle.
I handed the paper back to Carol. “I told you she needed help.”
Carol nodded. “I’m sorry, Harvey.”
“It’s not your fault.” I was saying that a lot lately.
“It’s not yours, either.”
I nodded, but really only to be polite. I wasn’t sure she was right. I told her that I saw the suicide, and that I’d talked to Cyril Parkus, and that even though he threatened me,
I was going to continue my investigation.
Carol smiled, which I thought was kind of odd.
“I knew you would,” she said, like she was glad, or proud of me, when just the other night she was scowling with disapproval over the idea that I hadn’t walked away from it. I’ll never understand women.
“I think I can help you,” she said. “Do you still have that car rental agreement?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I’d like to take it to work with me; maybe I can use Arlo’s VISA number to run a credit check on him and get you an address.”
That was a great idea.
Who’d have thought having a friend at a mortgage company would come in handy on an investigation?
I was learning that there were other ways for a private eye to get information without having a love-hate relationship with a cop.
“You’re my Peggy and my Susan Silverman,” I said.
“Who are they?” she asked.
“Peggy was the secretary for private eye Joe Mannix. She did all the important research for him while he ran around beating people up. Susan Silverman is a shrink who sleeps with Spenser, another private eye. She gives him philosophical insight into how noble and good he is and they are, and how it’s okay he’s killed a dozen people because he’s so noble and good, and then she fucks his brains out.”
“Is this your way of saying you expect me to go to bed with you now?”
That hadn’t occurred to me, but since she’d mentioned it, I didn’t want to entirely dismiss the idea.
“No, but if that’s what you want . . .” I let my voice trail off suggestively.
“Get me the rental agreement, Harvey.”
She said it in a way that not only made it clear my suggestion was rejected, but that she was disappointed with me again. Somehow, that made me feel a lot more at ease with her.
I got up. “Can I use your computer while you’re at work?”
She tossed me the keys to her place. “Make yourself at home.”
I started for my apartment, then turned back to look at her and caught her looking at me. The expression on her face wasn’t the lingering traces of disappointment I’d expected. I saw warmth and concern and even some sadness.
“Why do you want to help me?” I asked.
“I’ve never seen you care about something before,” she said. The answer came so easily for her, I wondered if she’d been waiting for the question.
“I care about you,” I replied.
“It’s different now,” she said.
I supposed it was, but I didn’t want to get into it then. I didn’t know if I ever wanted to. I nodded in what I hoped was a deep, introspective way, and went to get her the rental agreement. I felt her eyes on me the whole way, but this time I didn’t look back.
***
Carol’s apartment had the same floor plan as mine, but that’s where the similarities ended. It was decorated like some kind of frilly country cottage, with yellow walls, white trim, and everything she could afford from the Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn catalogs.
She’d replaced all the door knobs and drawer handles and faucet fixtures with replicas of old-fashioned stuff, and every surface in her place had some kind of cutesy accessory, whether it was the colorful oven-mitts on the kitchen counter, the napkins in their special holder on the table, or the seat covers on all the chairs.
There were also plug-in air fresheners in every electrical outlet, which made the whole apartment smell so strongly of pine sap, I felt like I was visiting an upscale tree house.
Ordinarily, I felt uncomfortable in her apartment and fled as soon as possible. But this time, I was concentrating so much on her computer screen, I was oblivious to my environment.
First, I used a search engine to see what I could find on the Internet about Lauren Parkus. I found lots of articles, mostly local society columns, about parties and fundraisers she either organized or had attended. The events were always very pricey affairs for good causes at five-star hotels, and the guest lists usually included some movie stars, major sports figures, and big corporate leaders.
There were also a few pictures of her. Each time one came up on screen, it startled me. Her eyes always looked so alive. Of course, nothing about her was alive any more.
Cyril Parkus was often in the photographs with his wife, a big, proud smile on his face. He seemed so glad to be there, as if he was having such a good time battling cancer, illiteracy, lupus, sudden infant death syndrome, teenage drug addiction, and pollution of our groundwater. They were just parties to him—I think they were more to Lauren, or at least I wanted to believe they were. He also held her in a possessive kind of way that declared, I get to take her home and fuck her and you don’t.
I looked up Cyril Parkus. There were even more articles about him than his wife, mostly business pieces about the financial side of the movies. Apparently he was a major player in the international sale and distribution of movies. Anytime there was an article about the field, he was the expert they quoted. I guess he qualified as an “industry leader.” I figured it was his stature in the business that got so many people to contribute and participate in the charities Lauren was involved in.
Just for the hell of it, I tried looking up Arlo Pelz in a few of those Internet phone book and “find your lost friend, lover, or relative” websites, but came up empty. I also ran my name on those same sites, and wasn’t surprised that nothing turned up for me, either. We were both as irrelevant in cyberspace as we were in the real world.
But I was going to find him, somehow, and I was going to make him pay for blackmailing Lauren Parkus and driving her to commit suicide. I also intended to get him back for kicking the piss out of me.
Intention and ability are two very different things.
I wasn’t martial artist or a boxer. I had no self-defense skills at all, unless you include running and hiding. The last actual fistfight I’d been in was in the fourth grade and it went a lot like that fight in the elevator, with the other guy doing all the hitting and kicking and me doing all the crying.
I didn’t have time to find a master of the ancient art of Sinanju and learn how to turn a napkin into a lethal weapon.
If I wanted to take Arlo, it couldn’t be a fair fight. I needed an edge.
With that in mind, the next thing I did was go back to the search engine and type in the phrases: “‘Realistic toy gun’ AND ‘police shooting.’” The search engine coughed up a couple hundred articles about police officers shooting kids and morons who pointed fake guns at them. I scanned the articles and narrowed my search until I found the brand name and model of toy gun that did the best job of fooling the police and getting kids and morons killed.
It was an exact, plastic replica of a Desert Eagle semi-automatic pistol that fired BBs. I found the manufacturer’s website and learned they also made detailed replicas of just about every other pistol, machine gun, and rifle you could imagine.
The air-fired BB guns were intended mostly for target shooting, but were also used a lot in movie and TV production as stand-ins for the real thing. By law, the replica guns came with a bright orange tip on the barrel so they couldn’t be mistaken for genuine firearms. But it wasn’t hard to break the tip off, or paint it, and trick someone holding a real weapon into shooting you five or six times.
The fake Desert Eagle semi-automatic pistol sold for about forty bucks, a fraction of the cost of a real one, and required no license or waiting period. All you had to be was over twenty-one years old and gun crazy.
That’s when Carol called, excitement in her voice. She’d discovered that the credit card Arlo Pelz used was shared with his wife, Jolene, that the card was officially in her name, and that the bills were sent to her in Snohomish, Washington, which was just outside Seattle.
I got a chill up my back, just like the one I got when Bruce Willis saw the wedding ring drop out of his wife’s hand in The Sixth Sense.
I checked the article about Lauren Parkus’ suic
ide again, to be sure the chill I felt wasn’t lightheadedness from inhaling all that pine air freshener. It wasn’t. The article said Lauren’s mother lived in Seattle.
I got the chill again and told Carol why. I think I heard her swallow a squeal. It was kind of like we were having phone sex, saying the things we knew would get the other person off.
“If anybody finds out what I was doing, I could get fired for this, but I don’t care,” Carol admitted, her hushed voice tittering with excitement. “It was fun.”
She’d discovered my awful secret. Snooping was a thrill, so much so that she’d easily forgotten the dark side, the whole reason she was looking into Arlo Pelz for me: somebody died. I didn’t have the heart to remind her. Carol did me a favor; she deserved to enjoy it.
“You have something else I can do?” she whispered conspiratorially.
I told her there wasn’t and thanked her for what she’d found out. I also told her I wouldn’t be around when she got back and that I’d leave her keys in my mailbox.
Then I called my supervisor at the security company, told him I had a horrible stomach flu, and that I’d probably be out for a couple days.
And then I printed out the specs on the Desert Eagle and a list of the manufacturer’s retailers in Seattle.
***
When I got to LAX, I discovered that the airline had overbooked my flight. They were offering four hundred dollars in free travel vouchers to any volunteers who were willing to give up their seats and wait for the next flight to Seattle in three hours.
I wasn’t in a hurry. Lauren Parkus was already dead. Three hours wouldn’t change much. I volunteered my narrow coach seat and five inches of legroom.
I got my free travel voucher and, feeling flush, went to the restaurant and treated myself to one of their eight-dollar-and-ninety-five-cent cheeseburgers and two-fifty Cokes.
It was only while I was sitting there, eating my insanely expensive fast food, that I started thinking about things. First, I wondered how the public allowed airports and movie theatres to charge so goddamn much for food. Then I thought about what I’d do when I got to Seattle.
