by Paul Neuhaus
“That,” I said. “Lines up exactly with the girl I met.”
“Did you talk to Noah’s neighbor? What’s her name? Susan? Mildred?”
“Doris?”
“That’s the one.”
“I did.”
Oscar shrugged. “You seem like you’re good at your job. I don’t know that I have anything else for you. Not right now.”
I sighed and stood up off of my barstool. I fished out a business card and handed it to him. “That’s okay,” I said. “It was a shot in the dark. See you ‘round.”
Oscar shot me a little salute. “Come back around anytime. We only killed a quarter of this chocolate milk.”
“I’ll bring cookies.”
After I left West Hollywood, something else occurred to me. I stopped in one more place before going to Neyizhkasha. I stopped at another bar, this one near the Farmer’s Market and the Writer’s Guild, an Irish Pub called Molly Malone’s. I was looking for someone. An old girlfriend, in fact. (Hailey would’ve been thrilled.)
Hail and I had been together since high school, but we’d had a falling out at UCLA, during which I hooked up with Adalee Palmer. Five foot nine, slender but feminine, thick brown hair, eyes like razors. Adalee (she hated being called “Addie”) was the smartest woman I’d ever known. She was one of the few people I knew that picked out a plan for themselves in college and followed it—successfully—to the letter. She’d been a journalism major, and now she was one of the few scribes I knew who’d kept their job in the age of the Internet.
Ms. Palmer was also a major league drunk. If I ever needed her—which was only sporadically—I looked no further than Molly Malone’s. Sure enough, she was near the back, cavorting with other newspapermen nearly twice her age. She had that thing some women have where they can be thought of as “one of the boys”. She did it with my friends back in the day and she did it with her journalistic contemporaries. Even though she was an attractive lady, I was certain none of the men she was with thought of her in a sexual way.
I’d gone into the pub enough that many of her buddies knew me on sight. Adalee’s back was to me, and the guy she was talking to flicked his chin in my direction, causing her to turn. When she saw me, she smiled at first, but then her expression drifted south. “What the hell happened to you?” she said.
I leaned on the cane a little harder, for the sheer melodrama. “That’s partly what I’m here to talk to you about,” I replied.
Adalee’s other defining characteristic was a maternal streak. She took me by the elbow and led me toward a table—never mind the table was occupied. Fortunately, it was occupied by more of her cronies. “Take a powder, fellas. Can’t you see I’ve got a cripple here?”
The guys at the table good-naturedly picked up their beers and joined the others at the bar. I settled in, putting my walking stick on the table in front of me.
“Tell mama what the problem is…” Palmer said. “But first: what’re you drinking?”
“Drinking? Not me. I was just in the hospital for a week. Tubes coming out of me, the whole nine.”
Her brow furrowed. We hadn’t dated in almost twenty years, but she was as loyal as a terrier. To everyone, really. “Fucking hell,” she said. She snapped her fingers. The sound cut through the noise and the bartender nodded at her. They placed another Harp Lager in front of her in short order. She took a sip and smiled. “Before you begin your tale of woe, I have to know: Are you still shacked up with the fetus?”
The Fetus. Somehow, I thought I’d be spared this time. Ever since I’d fallen in with Ava Amelia, I’d gotten razzed about it by Adalee. She’d said to me once, not long ago, “You shocked me with that, you know? For all your faults, you never much thought with your dick. And you with a career based on judgement. Maybe it’s time for a look in the mirror.”
“I am no longer shacked up with the fetus,” I said. “The fetus bailed. Hailey sat with me twenty-four seven while I was in the hospital and we are now provisionally reconciled.”
“Wonders never cease,” Palmer said, holding up her mug. “It can learn. What do you mean ‘provisionally reconciled’?”
“I mean, she’s been back with me for less than a day and she hasn’t wised up yet.”
“Right. That could happen. For instance, if you’ve been back together less than a day, what’re you doing here? Why aren’t you with her?”
I sighed, watching her drink, and both wanted and not wanted a Harp of my own. “Working,” I replied. “I got my gizzards scrambled in connection with a case. An unsolved case. An unsolved case that’s at the top of my priority ladder right now.”
“Okay then… Lay it on me.”
I gave her the rundown, leaving out nothing.
“Hooboy,” Palmer replied. “You sure know how to poke the wrong people.”
“It’s a talent. Have you covered the Concordance much?”
She squinted and stuck her tongue out at me. “Are you saying you haven’t read absolutely everything released under my byline?”
“A few things’ve slipped through. Here and there.”
“Well, the answer’s ‘no’. I don’t cover the Crazy Cult Beat. Not if I can help it.” She looked over her shoulder and shouted. “Wyatt! Bring it over here and park it for a minute.”
Wyatt, a man in his early fifties with lamb chop sideburns broke off the conversation he was having and came over to join us. “Yes, your highness. What can I do for you, your highness?” He wore a necklace of wooden beads. I should’ve known for sure given my recent sojourn into Eastern philosophy, but they looked like Buddhist beads to me.
“Don’t be a priss,” Adalee said to the newcomer. “This is my friend Jack. He’s a P.I. Just got himself a snootful of the Concordance. This is Wyatt Greebly. Everyone calls him ‘Greebs’.”
Wyatt shook his head at me. “No one calls me that,” he said.
I picked up the cane to show him what a ‘snootful’ looked like.
Wyatt shook his head. “Boy, you did it wrong. Me, all of my Concordance contact comes via the phone. It may surprise you to learn this, but they’re bad. Very, very bad.”
“So I found out.”
Adalee cocked her head at Wyatt. “Wy works the Crazy Cult Beat.”
Wyatt straightened his beads and said indignantly, “I’m a religion and spirituality correspondent.”
“Right. The Crazy Cult Beat. Do you know anything about the airheads losing their 501(c) status?” my ex-girlfriend asked.
Wyatt scratched his nose. “You hear rumors,” he said. “Hell, there’s been talk of them losing their 501(c) since they got their 501(c).”
Adalee turned to me just after snapping for another beer. The girl had hollow legs. “Jack’s been through a world of shit at the hands of the airheads. There’s something weird going on. Or weirder than normal.” She then gave Wyatt a highly abridged version of what I’d told her about the case a few moments before.
“Huh,” Wyatt said. “That ties in with some of what’s being working its way through the grapevine. Strictly gossip, you understand. Nothing I would print…”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll take grapevine.”
“Go ahead and dish, honey,” Palmer said to her coworker.
Wyatt looked around, probably to make sure no one was listening. “I’ve talked to a few people recently out of the Concordance. Recent apostates. They say there’s been some cockamamie at the top. One of them even said Patrick Dankworth might’ve had some kind of breakdown. He’s supposedly always been a prick. A shouter, a conniver. You know, the kind of personality traits you expect from people high up in companies and in government.”
“And in cults,” Adalee threw in.
“And in cults,” Wyatt agreed. “Apparently, he’s gotten much worse lately. Going off on people for wholly irrational reasons. This guy even said he saw Dankworth burst into tears one day with no provocation at all. Anyway, he seems to be headed in a decidedly more fundamentalist direction. Literal int
erpretation of doctrine. Unflinching enforcement of same. According to this source, he’s got a new nickname amongst his executive staff: ‘The Little Messiah’.”
“Hoo boy, that sounds like a thing that could go south in a hurry,” I said.
Wyatt nodded. “Or has already gone south if what you’re telling me is true. I’d be careful if I were you. I mean the Concordance has always been twitchy. If it’s suddenly become more twitchy…”
We all looked at one another for a moment. The way kids look at one another after one of them has told a particularly good ghost story. “Anything else?” Adalee said. “Any more gossip from Airhead World?”
Wyatt shook his head. “You got a card?” he said to me. “I think we should stay in touch. It sounds like there’s a story here.” I handed him a card, and he turned to Adalee. “May I take my leave now, your highness?”
“You’re excused for now, knave.” She looked back at me and sighed. “Do me a favor,” she said. “Don’t get yourself killed.”
“Working on it,” I said, standing and putting all of my weight onto the cane.
When I got outside, it was getting dark. I was coming up empty, and I was feeling the burden of my recent hospital visit. I debated going home, but I felt like I only had one more stop to make and it was close by. Neyizhkasha was just a few streets further inland, and I decided to suck it up and tie up my loose ends.
After I parked and went inside, I felt nauseous. The air inside the restaurant was filled with the scent of things being boiled. Cabbage. Meats. It wasn’t a great smell when mostly all you’ve eaten for a while is applesauce. I looked around, scanning the Eastern European-looking faces, checking for the one face that would stand out—Liam O'Connor’s Irish-looking, eye-patched face. I didn’t see it, but that didn’t stop me staying wary for the rest of my visit. I went up to the hostess’ stand and talked to the girl there. She was attractive though her head was strangely box-shaped. “Is Oxana here?” I said, hoping to see Nikki’s porridge hater.
“Who wants to know?” the hostess said. Not having much experience with Ukrainians, I hoped all of them didn’t talk like 30s gangsters. I didn’t have the patience.
“A friend of Hedeon’s,” I replied. “Hedeon Ponomarenko.”
The girl’s name tag said, “Lyudmyla” which I found distasteful. A Lyudmyla sounded like something mildewy and gray. Anyway, Lyudmyla said, “I don’t know anyone named Hedeon Ponomarenko.”
“How about anyone named Liam O'Connor?”
She sighed and shifted her weight from one hip to the other. “What do I look like to you? A den mother? I don’t know everyone that comes in here.”
Mmmm, mouthy for a teenager. Maybe all Ukrainians did talk like 30s gangsters. “Okay, look,” I said. “I’m a cop. I’m looking for Ponomarenko and O’Connor in connection with a crime. A very serious crime. I also know for a fact, the owner and proprietor of this fine establishment is an associate of Ponomarenko’s. You can tell Oxana I’m here and save us all a lot of grief, or I can find her myself. If it’s the second one, I may have you on an obstruction charge.”
Lyudmyla laughed. “That’s not how that works.”
“How what works?”
“An obstruction charge. Oxana would have to have been the one that did the crime, and you’d have to be here to apprehend her. Based on the fact you never said you wanted to apprehend her—that you were looking for this guy named Ponomarenko—I’m assuming you’re full of shit.”
“An obstruction charge is a lot broader than you think it is, missy.” I heard defensiveness creeping into my voice and tried to curb it. “It’s obstructing prosecutors, investigators or government officials from performing their official duties. Even more broadly than that, it’s perverting the course of justice. So, you see I’ve got a lotta leeway here.”
“Okay, a) good luck making it stick and b) you’re not a cop.”
Christ. Lyudmyla was the toughest nut I’d had to crack in ages. Either I was going to kill her, or I was starting to like her. “I’m totally a cop. I could—“
“Can I see your badge? Your I.D.?”
“I—left them in the car.”
“You’re not a cop. Cops don’t dress like you, they carry their badges on them, and they don’t work their cases looking like they just got out of Intensive Care.”
That hurt. Mostly because I had just gotten out of Intensive Care. “Okay, look, Lyudmyla, I’m gonna level with you: I’m a private investigator and I’m investigating a murder. I just need—“
“Take your wobbly story and dangle, shamus.”
‘Dangle’? ’Shamus’? This chick apparently stepped right out of the pages of Raymond Chandler. (And I was beginning to like her.) “Okay, fine. What’s it worth to you?”
“What’s what worth to me?”
“You brokering an introduction between me and Oxana?”
“Are you trying to bribe me?”
“Yes.”
She smiled. “I’ll tell you what it’s not worth to me. It’s not worth my job. I enjoy working here. I wanna keep working here. Now blow or I’ll toss you myself.” Something about the mean look in her eye told me she could do it. Especially after the week I’d had. I nodded meekly and left.
When I got out to the parking lot, I couldn’t help but laugh. Liam O'Connor… Patrick Dankworth… Both of them paled compared to a little Ukrainian girl named Lyudmyla.
She had my unmitigated respect.
I walked to the Jeep, prepared to call it a day, when a voice called out to me from the direction of Neyizhkasha. “Hey…You’re looking for Hedeon Ponomarenko?”
I turned and there was a woman with her hair pulled back giving her a severe look. She was about five three, mildly attractive and dressed in a Juicy Couture sweatsuit. Bright pink.
“I am,” I said. “I am looking for Hedeon Ponomarenko.”
“And Liam O’Connor?”
“Yes.”
“Are you FBI?”
I took a gander at myself. I was wearing black jeans and a black polo shirt. If you looked at the shirt closely, it had an embroidered Mickey Mouse over the right breast. I was also using a cane. “Do I look like FBI to you?”
The woman approached me from the restaurant entrance. She shook her head. “No, perhaps not. Are you police?”
“I’m not police,” I replied. Part of me was growing irritated. I wanted her to come to the point if she had one.
“I don’t know where Liam O’Connor is. I haven’t seen him for several days. I know where Hedeon Ponomarenko is.”
An unlooked-for informant. Someone who could put me on the trail of The Clergyman. “I’m listening.”
She was standing near me now. She smelled like peppermint. A nice change after the cabbage smell inside the restaurant. She shook her head and said, “Mmm. No. I will take you there. You take me in your car and I will show you.”
Going into Destiny Base without a plan was still fresh in my mind as one of my more boneheaded all-time plays. I wasn’t eager for another hospital stay. I turned my body toward her and leaned on the cane. “That sounds like it’d be a dangerous thing for me to do.”
She smiled. “Look at me. I weigh a hundred and fifteen pounds. You think I’m dangerous?”
“No, but I think Ponomarenko might be. Who are you, anyway?”
“Wasylyna.”
“That’s it? Wasylyna? How about some biographical details? How do you know Ponomarenko?”
Her eyes twinkled. “Hedeon Ponomarenko brought me to this country. From the Ukraine.”
I tilted my head at her. “Out of the goodness of his heart?”
She shook her head. “No. It was a business transaction.”
I had a good idea what that meant. I switched the cane from my right hand to my left. With my right hand, I grabbed Wasylyna’s arm, pulled her toward me and took her wrist with my left. With my right again, I rolled up her bright pink sleeve and found what I expected to find. Needle tracks on the inside of her el
bow. In the space of a two-minute conversation, I knew what Ponomarenko was into. Drugs. Human trafficking. A real sweetheart. Wasylyna was smiling at me with no humor, her eyes vacant. For the first time, I realized how spacey she was. She was under the influence even then. “What goes on here, Wasylyna?”
Wasylyna laughed. “Don’t you see?” she said. “I’m a honeywagon. That’s what he told me to be: a honeywagon.” She laughed again. A laugh unconnected to anything going on around her. A laugh free from meaningful ties to, well, anything. If she knew what a honeywagon was before she’d dosed, she didn’t now. Anyway, she was saying it wrong. She meant honey trap. A honeywagon is a slang term for a truck. A truck that carries off septic tank water.
“How did Hedeon know I was coming here today?” That seemed like a huge question. How had he known? I’d never even heard his name when I’d left the hospital that morning.
The girl shrugged with her whole body and said, “Idunno” as one word.
“Did he tell you to hang out here and wait for people to ask about him?”
Another full-body shrug. Another “Idunno”. She was disappearing under the heroin waves.
“Go sit over there,” I said, indicating a wooden bench outside the restaurant. “Go sit over there and get sober.”
“Okay,” she said pleasantly. It was all the same to her at that point. She walked toward the bench. Halfway there, she turned and said over her shoulder, “He’ll find you. If he wants to find you, he’ll find you. He’s good at finding.”
As I pulled out of the parking lot, I remembered there’d been several girls Wasylyna’s age inside. I wondered how many of them had similar back stories.
I took Beverly Glen back up to the Valley again. It was dark and misty and I didn’t have the freeway in me. When I got to the top, I turned left onto Dickens and looked forward to home. I’d gotten more than I bargained for on my “take it easy” day. Now, besides everything I had before, I had Ukrainians, heroin and human trafficking. As I drove, I thought about bailing on the case, professional reputation be damned.
