Detective Ricohr was well aware of my feelings towards Valenti. He investigated the murder of my friend, a murder that I believed Valenti was connected to. It turned out not to be true, but that didn’t completely absolve him.
“I don’t like him,” I answered.
“But things change,” he finished for me. “Want to fill me in on what that could be.”
“I’m helping him with a personal matter. With his granddaughter.”
“When’s the last time you spoke to her?” he asked.
“I haven’t.”
“So she’s missing. That’s interesting.” He wrote something in his notepad that took far longer to write than anything I had yet told him. “We found your number on a cell phone belonging to a murder victim — Morgan McIlroy. Young girl, blonde?”
It took a moment for it to register. And when it finally did it was like the oxygen was being pulled from my lungs. I think I might have taken a slight step backwards.
“You’re not going to faint, are you?”
“I know Morgan. I mean, I met her once,” I felt the need to clarify not because I wanted to avoid suspicion but because there was a sudden distance between me and the young girl that somehow warranted an impersonal tone. Detective Ricohr continued with the theme of detachment.
“She was strangled, dumped in a car in a parking lot in Chinatown. We’re checking security cameras to see if we can get a shot of the killer,” he added matter-of-factly.
I recalled my encounter with the precocious girl at the burger stand. Only when I summoned an image of the young girl — sitting there in the booth eating my fries and doing her best to answer my questions — did it finally strike me that she was dead.
“Jesus,” I breathed. “We just met the other day.”
“Want to fill me in on what you talked about?”
I hesitated.
“It was in reference to the other thing I talked about with Valenti. But I shouldn’t say anything more until I can talk to the family.”
“It sounds like they could be connected.”
“I wouldn’t want to speculate,” I said.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” he responded. As he turned to leave he requested that I call him as soon as I talked to the old man. And he had some unsolicited advice for me.
“If you didn’t trust him before, I don’t know why you would trust him now.”
HIGH NOON
“There he is!” he shouted as I entered.
Badger’s office was half of the ground floor of a three story apartment building located on a side street in Echo Park. The only evidence that it was an actual office was a hand-written sign on poster board pasted in the upper corner of the large picture window facing the sidewalk.
The carpet was a deep gold made deeper by the years of foot traffic from shoes comfortable walking on dusty streets. Its edges didn’t cleanly fit with the wall and was probably a cast-off from another office undergoing an update. There was little furniture outside of a desk, filing cabinet, and a bookcase that looked like surplus from a 1970s schoolroom. I didn’t spot a computer. The only attempt at decoration was a cloudy vase of dried pussy willows and a borrowed frame displaying Badger’s private investigator credentials.
The one question that sprang to mind as I took in the surroundings, a question that I needed to address as soon as I got back to the office, was Who the hell did the background check on the background checker?
“Chuck,” he said, rising from his desk, “good to finally meet you in person.”
Badger was one of those guys who tucked his sweater into his jeans and didn’t wear a belt. He had a handshake that could crack walnuts and his skin was about as rough as the broken shells. His hair was the color and texture of dirty straw and I couldn’t tell if all of it was real.
“Thanks for making this a priority,” I told him and took a seat in a creaky chair. Behind Badger’s desk, a makeshift wall and curtained doorway separated the front of the office from a back room. Over his shoulder and through the slat in the curtain, I spotted an Army cot, mini-fridge, and hotplate. This was what savvy real estate agents would deem a “mixed-use” space.
“You’ll always be the priority,” he told me. I pitied the utterly unimportant person who wasn’t the recipient of this phrase because, as far as I could tell, he said it to everyone.
“I found some things,” he stated firmly. “Let us begin.”
I marveled at the lack of paper in the entire exchange. The only sign of paper anywhere in the office was a yellow newspaper on his desk that looked a decade from being current. If this was a corporate meeting, he’d have a thirty-five page flipbook with the first third filled with table of contents, title dividers, biographies of the participants, and other such nonsense. There would also be an appendix that you would be instructed to “read at your leisure.” Somewhere in the middle of this mess would be the actual meat of the presentation that could be boiled down to a few, succinct bullets. The only way to hear them was to endure a long presentation by the person who put it together. That was why every meeting in corporate America is at least one hour long. Badger wouldn’t make it in that world.
“In 1963 Hector Hermosillo was arrested and charged with the stabbing death of a teenager in the Alpine district. He was twenty-two at the time. The police arrested him at the scene without incident.”
“Knife fight,” I repeated.
“One of them had a knife, anyway. The police put it down as a racial dispute, perhaps gang related. There was concern that it could boil over to another race riot and put a lot of men on the streets.”
Los Angeles at that time was a bit of a powder keg as the city began to resemble the ethnically-diverse mish-mash that it is today. Friction between the various groups — blacks, Mexicans, Japanese, whites, Chinese — jostling for space and jobs and respect sometimes flared up into full-on melees. These resulted in many deaths but never much will to change the things that led to them.
“Latino was one group. Who was the other?” I asked even though I could have guessed.
“Chinese,” he confirmed.
“Where’s the Alpine district? I’ve never heard of that.”
“It’s those little hills between Chinatown and the south side of Dodger Stadium. Used to be mostly an Italian neighborhood until the Chinese moved in. You still have a few decent Italian delis there left over from the old days.”
“You mentioned a gang?”
“This is where it gets complicated. Mr. Hermosillo was one of these pachuco wannabe punks from East L.A. White Picket guy, maybe, but never confirmed if he was officially a member.”
No wonder Hector wore his pants so high. The original Chicano gangs were the zoot-suited playboys of the streets. They wore sports coats to their knees and pants to their chests.
“He was in a gang, huh?”
“There’s mention of it in the original police report but, like I said, it was unconfirmed.”
I wondered how he got access to this level of information. He must have an inside source at the department but I don’t believe he was ever employed by them. I made a second mental note to run a background check on him.
“Was the victim in a gang?” I asked.
“Not sure.”
“Did he have a personal connection to Hector?”
“You’re asking the wrong questions, guy.”
Badger was one of the few men to call other men “guy” and not have it come off as an invitation to a fight. There was an excitement in his voice as if he had some bit of information that he wanted me to discover. But it bristled all the same. I prided myself on having a first-rate interviewing skillset, which included asking the right questions at the right time. The direct challenge to my ability to ask pertinent questions was an open-handed slap to my corporate face.
“Were the Chicano gangs active in the Alpine district at that time?” I asked after giving it more thought.
“You’re getting warmer.”
“Did Hec
tor serve time for the murder?”
“Much warmer.”
“Was he even convicted?”
“He was not.”
“Why?”
“Because an eye-witness confirmed that his actions were in self-defense.”
“One of his friends vouched for him and they dropped the charges?” I asked incredulously.
“A very well-respected, upstanding friend,” he smiled.
“Valenti?”
And the smile that was partially concealed during this excruciating game of twenty questions finally emerged in all its yellowed brilliance.
My mind raced with all the permutations of what this development meant in the already-complex nest of relationships around the disappearance of a young girl. The loyal driver of thirty years owed both his livelihood and his life to the man who employed him. Or was it reversed? Was the job payback for a sordid deed in the Alpine district in the early 1960s?
“I did a little more digging on the murder. No charge, of course, this is just Badger being Badger. It’s who I am and it’s what I do. I get on something and I can’t let it go until I know everything about it. Must be in my blood—”
“What did you find out?” I interrupted before he launched into a family tree discussion about being a direct descendent of a long line of Nez Perce Indian trackers.
“The victim? He wasn’t a nameless punk from the neighborhood. He came from an influential Chinese family with a lot of money. They did most of the developments in the area, including the ones in Alpine.”
“Last name was Li,” I said for him.
“With an ‘I’. How did you know?” he asked, surprised.
“I had a feeling.”
“Maybe you have some Cherokee in you, too,” he laughed.
The fun and games were short-lived.
“We got an issue,” Badger whispered and slowly moved the folded, yellow newspaper that was on the desk and placed it in front of me. I picked it up and scanned the page.
“I don’t see it,” I said. “Is there a story about Valenti in here?”
“Behind you,” Badger said softly.
I followed Badger’s gaze and spun around in my chair and got a look at what was distressing him. Standing in front of the large picture window, his hands cupped on the glass to peer beyond the glare, was the perfectly pussy-willow-framed face of Hector Hermosillo.
“Jesus, how did he get here?”
“Do we have a situation?” Badger asked gravely.
“No, I don’t think so—”
Turning back, I noticed the gun in Badger’s hand and realized it was hidden under the newspaper the entire time. I made a mental note to add the letters “ASAP” next to the background check we needed to run on Badger.
“What’s the score, guy?”
“There’s no score,” I said. “Let me handle this.”
I walked out to the street and faced off with Hector.
“What are you doing here?”
“We were supposed to meet this morning,” he answered mechanically.
“Yeah, well my plans changed. Why are you following me?”
“We were supposed to meet this morning,” he repeated.
“You already said that. Listen, I didn’t sign up for this job to be tailed like a common criminal. That was not part of the bargain. I will let you know when and where I need your help and you will not question me when plans change. You need to understand your place and do as you are instructed.”
It was a dressing-down straight out of an English manor television series. It was full of indignation and pompous self-righteousness. And it was wholly ignored by my pachuco friend.
“Who’s he?” he motioned to Badger’s office. Glancing in, I realized Badger himself was no longer in there.
“This is my personal business.”
I watched Hector read the sign announcing Badger’s trade of business. He looked at me like someone who had double-crossed him. Or like someone who caught their spouse cheating. Anger and disappointment were a deadly combination.
“I’m making progress,” I felt the need to justify. “If your boss wants regular updates, all he has to do ask. I don’t need an intermediary, let alone one who makes me feel like I am the one under investigation.”
But what I really wanted was to avoid having Hector tell Valenti that I engaged the services of a private investigator. Valenti’s mistrust towards the profession — in this case, seemingly justified — might very well get me dismissed from the job. And when I glanced across the street, my potential termination became very likely.
Badger stood next to a parked car, his eyes hidden behind very large, very dark sunglasses. One hand casually held the yellow newspaper in front of his belt. The other hand held something heavy behind it.
I had nightmarish images of a knife and gun battle in the sun-drenched streets of midday Los Angeles and having to explain it all to the police, to Valenti, and to work. I moved around to step in between Badger and his direct line on Hector before anything happened. I then filled Hector in on the progress I had made that morning with Gao. I instructed him to pass this information along to Mr. Valenti.
“We got an issue here?” interrupted a voice behind me.
Badger stood off my left shoulder and although he was speaking to me, he stared only at Hector.
“There is no problem,” I answered.
“Unfortunately, it looks like there is,” he warned. “Traendo cola, ruco.” It sounded like pigeon Spanish. “Yeah, I speak calo.”
Hector slowly put his hand inside his pant pocket. Badger responded by moving aside the newspaper to reveal the gun. He cocked the hammer with his thumb.
“Filero versus a fusca. Bad odds for you,” Badger added.
I’d seen this movie once before and knew the flash of a gun wasn’t enough to scare Hector off. But to my surprise and great relief, the old magician slowly retreated and returned to his car. We watched him drive off down the road.
I had successfully averted one disaster but now had another on my hands. If an alleged murderer who just the other day wasn’t scared of three punks with knives and guns backed down from a fight with far better odds, what did that say about my private investigator?
I made a fourth mental note to terminate all relationships with Badger and his firm, effective immediately.
***
It was one of the few historic homes to survive the onslaught of 1950s two-story commercial real estate construction but it didn’t come out of that battle unscathed. The gabled front rising among the near-perfectly-leveled rooflines beside it seemed dangerously close to toppling over. Its porch was ripped away, exposing an underbelly not worthy of a street-facing view.
I parked in front of an agua fresca, a type of store that caters to the lasting mistrust of the newly arrived immigrants that anything that came out of a faucet was potable. The store was a maze of tanks and filters and tubes designed to make it look scientific when beneath all of the tubes and filters and tanks was the same source of water the customers were lining up to avoid in the first place. A worker out front hosed off the sidewalk, and I half-wanted to ask if he was using filtered water.
I checked the address of the dilapidated home across the street to the one I had written down from the text Jeanette had sent Morgan. In it, she was instructed to bring the money to this place. My mind ran through the possibilities of what I was going to find as I jaywalked across the street. The block was one of those shadowless streets where the summer sun and concrete had long ago vanquished any and all of its leafy companions. Waves of heat radiated up and softened my rubber soles to make it feel like I was wearing cushioned inserts.
I knocked on the metal-gated front door and got no response. I rattled the door long enough to call the attention of a woman inside. To say she was expressionless wasn’t fair to the millions of people who actually were. She almost had a negative energy, like a black hole that sucked emotion from anyone around her.
“Hi,” I sai
d to the impassive face. She was Asian, somewhere in her fifties. It wasn’t clear if she even understood my first line. “I’m wondering if you can help me. I’m looking for a friend of mine. I think she might be here.”
I rambled on like that for a while when her face suddenly broke into a wide smile. I tried to think what it was I said that got the reaction but then realized it had nothing to do with me but with what was behind me. A small Asian family laden with balloons and trays of food and bags of presents approached. The parents were smiling. The children were glum. They looked like they were on their way to church.
The gatekeeper gently brushed me aside to allow room for the family to pass. They were warmly welcomed into the home in a language I didn’t understand. I tried to catch a glimpse of what was just beyond the door but it was too dark to see much of what was inside and the metal grate was quickly shut in my face. I tried knocking again but my attempt landed no results.
I returned to my car across the street.
“Crazy people,” commented the man watering the sidewalk. “You going to shut them down?”
“I might,” I said, not sure what specifically he wanted me to close but very curious to find out. “What’s the deal over there?”
“In and out, all day. They take up all the parking,” he said with annoyance, waving his hand, and the hose with it, at the surrounding street. I had to jump back lest I get splashed with the water.
“What business are they running out of there?”
“You from the city?” he asked, now unsure who I was. Alhambra may have gone Latino then Asian years ago, but the race of the elected officials had yet to catch up. White men in this town meant cops or city council.
“Sure,” I replied without a trace of conviction, “I’m from the city.” I even cinched up my pants in a futile attempt to convey a position of authority. The man watering the sidewalk didn’t buy it. He stared at me as precious gallons of water flowed into the storm drain. I gestured to the water. “Do you mind shutting that off so we can talk?”
He was polite enough to wait two seconds before simply turning his back on me to continue on with his business. It was then that I noticed the black sedan parked a ways down the street. I couldn’t see into the driver’s window because of the glare on the glass, but I knew the car and I knew the operator.
The Eternal Summer (Chuck Restic Private Investigator Series Book 2) Page 8
