Dark Tide

by Josh Lanyon

  “It’s on the TV?”

  “Of course.”

  Of course. I’d slept through the afternoon and missed a lot of the excitement. Naturally the media would have turned out for a story like this. And naturally Natalie would have neglected to mention anything she figured might upset me.

  Guy was saying, “What the hell is it about you that attracts murder and mayhem?”

  “Something in my body language?”

  He groaned. “That was bad — even for you.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “Oh, you know. It’s a slow week for news. They’re making it sound like the Black Dahlia murderer has been revealed at last.”

  “Is there any real information on Stevens? I remember when I first bought this place, I tried to find out what I could, and there didn’t seem to be anything on him.”

  “How hard did you look? After all, the press is going to have resources you didn’t. Not to mention the fact that you weren’t the supersleuth then that you are now.”

  “Don’t even joke about it. Do you know who’s in charge of this investigation? Detective Alonzo.”

  “Christ.” That was heartfelt. “But it’s a-a what do they call it? A cold case, isn’t it? Don’t they have special departments for that?”

  “I have no idea.” And my LAPD contact — I remembered Alonzo’s “hey, give my regards to your boyfriend, ex-Lieutenant Riordan.” I felt another surge of anger on Jake’s behalf. Jake had been ten times the cop that incompetent, homophobic asshole would ever be.

  I realized that Guy was still talking, and I hadn’t heard a word he’d said.

  “…dinner one evening.”

  I replied automatically, “That sounds great.” And it did. I realized again how much I missed Guy. It had been good between us, hadn’t it? Why hadn’t it been enough?

  We chatted a bit more, and Guy rang off. Three minutes later the phone rang again, and my heart did another of those fish-on-a-hook leaps. This time the caller was Lisa. Right on schedule.

  “Darling, you have to come home,” she started in as soon as I answered. “You cannot possibly want to stay in that…that tomb with bodies falling out of the wall!”

  “I don’t know why not,” I replied. “It’s everything a ghoul could ask for.”

  “There’s nothing humorous about this, Adrien. Your heart still isn’t strong enough to withstand any kind of strain.”

  My amusement faded. “Please don’t start.”

  “You’re going to undo everything the doctors worked so hard for.”

  “Lisa.”

  “You have to be realistic now. You know what the doctors said.”

  “Lisa.”

  “Why do you so resent the idea that your family loves you and wants to take care of you? Sometimes I think you’d rather d —” She caught herself, though not really in time.

  There was a shocked silence between us.

  I clamped down on my anger and said as gently as I could, “I wouldn’t. I don’t. I appreciate everything everyone is doing for me. Or trying to do for me. But…sooner or later you’re going to have to come to terms with the fact that I’m…okay.”

  She objected, “Three weeks ago —”

  “Three weeks ago I was shot.”

  “Thanks to that swine, Jake Riordan.”

  I’d known that was coming. She’d been uncharacteristically forbearing on the subject of Jake ever since I’d regained consciousness in the hospital. It couldn’t last.

  “Lisa,” I warned, still striving for patience, “Jake saved my life. Twice.”

  “Your life would never have been at risk if it hadn’t been for him.”

  “Let it go.” That time I didn’t bother to gentle my tone.

  “I don’t understand you,” she protested.

  That made two of us. I didn’t say that, though. Instead I did my best to soothe her, reassure her that I was feeling fine, following doctor’s orders, and keeping the doors locked and the security system on. When she’d finally worn us both down, she bade me good night and rang off to go terrorize her own household.

  I replaced the phone on the hook, collapsed on the sofa, and turned on the TV. I got the usual depressing dose of murder and mayhem on the mean streets of LA; and then, as I started to nod off again, the front of the bookstore flashed onto the screen. An earnest-looking young reporter described the shocking circumstances of the skeleton discovered by a construction crew in the walls of a historic old building.

  The reporter did a brief interview with a discomfited Fernando, who looked ready to sink into the sidewalk, no doubt remembering the green-card statuses of most of his crew.

  The news anchor speculated as to the identity of the cold-case victim. A photo appeared of a tall young man in a dinner jacket blowing a clarinet. Given the closed eyes, chipmunk cheeks, and double chin, that image could have been anyone from Richard Mühlfeld to Benny Goodman.

  I concluded the local news didn’t really have any more information than I did. Not about the gruesome discovery itself or Jay Stevens.

  Clicking off the television, I was dismayed to realize that, despite having slept all afternoon, I was now ready for bed again. Could this excessive need for sleep really be normal?

  I selected a book at random from the living-room shelf — Chandler’s The Long Goodbye — and retired to read in bed.

  No need to set the alarm clock. Even if we’d been allowed to open for business on Wednesday, I’d have been banned from participating. Was that the reason for the apathy that held me in its sway now? Did I really have nothing going on in my life beyond running Cloak and Dagger Books? Was that the sole purpose of my existence? Or was this emotional fugue a combination of meds and the toil of healing?

  Tomkins joined me and set about grooming himself at the foot of the bed. I eyed him critically. Natalie was right. He was filling out nicely, and a bath had done wonders for him. With those big, almond-shaped eyes and that silky fawn coat, he wasn’t nearly as ugly as I’d originally thought.

  “You’re looking pretty fit these days. Ready to go back on the street?”

  He offered a jeering sort of meow, curled up, and went to sleep.

  I went back to my book.

  When I woke the next time, the lamp was still shining, the book was a weight on my still-tender chest, and the alarm was going off downstairs.

  Chapter Four

  Surely it was a sign of the strangeness of my life that on being jolted out of a sound sleep by the hysterical clamor of a security alarm, my first reaction was, not again.

  Not a-fucking-gain, if we wanted to be precise.

  So much for new locks on the doors. I threw aside the sheet and reached for the phone. The bells were still clamoring downstairs, but we’d had so many false alarms, I wasn’t sure the police would show up. This time the 911 operator came on immediately, and I reported the break-in.

  I verified that I was safe — I assumed the new dead bolt on my flat door would hold — and agreed to wait on the line while a patrol car was dispatched.

  The minutes ticked by. Tomkins played with the lamp cord until I scooped him up and tossed him on the bed.

  After what seemed like a very long time though, according to the clock, was a mere seven minutes, I heard the downstairs buzzer. I thanked the operator and hung up.

  I turned off the alarm, unbolted the door, and went down to let the cops in.

  It was the same two uniformed officers from the night before. A young Hispanic man who didn’t look old enough to be out past curfew, and a matronly-looking black woman who identified herself as Sergeant Frame.

  “Somebody sure wants in here pretty bad,” Frame remarked. “Come have a look at this.”

  I followed them into the warm, smoggy night and over to the construction side. Around the corner of the building, they showed me where the bay window had been partially cut away.

  “He must have been counting on you not expecting another break-in.”

  “Not ki
ds,” I said. I couldn’t believe kids would be using a glass cutter. Tools seemed to indicate a professional mind-set.

  “Not kids,” agreed Frame. “Definitely not kids. There’s crime-scene tape across the door, and the perp went for it anyway.”

  The rookie, Martinez, said, “I guess he wasn’t expecting the alarm. He must have fled when it went off.”

  I opened my mouth, and Frame said, “Don’t worry, Mr. English. We’ll make sure. We’ll check the premises from top to bottom.”

  They did too. I went back into the bookstore, sat on the steps, and waited while they investigated the building, floor by floor. A floorboard squeaked, and I tensed. Nothing moved in the gloom. Behind the sales desk, the shiny eye of the Maltese Falcon replica caught the gleam of the emergency lights.

  Occasionally Frame’s and Martinez’s voices drifted down to me — and the crackle of their radios.

  “Nothing to indicate he made it inside,” Martinez called to me when they came back downstairs.

  Frame signified that they were going to check the alley behind the bookstore, and I nodded. A short time later I heard the clang and banging of trash bins.

  When all had been checked out to their satisfaction, they returned to the bookstore.

  “I don’t think he’ll be back,” Frame assured me while Martinez went out to radio all clear. “Not tonight.”

  “Thanks.” I thought she was probably right. Then again, I hadn’t thought there was a chance in hell my intruder would show up two nights in a row, so what did I know? Whoever this guy was, he was determined.

  As though reading my mind, she commented, “This is a busy address these days.”

  I nodded glumly.

  “Any idea what he’d be looking for?”

  I shrugged. “Books? Construction equipment? Termites?”

  She smiled politely. “There are a lot of stories about this old place.”

  “I’ve heard one or two.”

  “I guess you know it used to be a hotel. The Huntsman’s Lodge. It was a swanky place at one time, but a lot of lowlifes used to hang out here in the fifties and sixties.”

  “I heard that too.”

  “The place belonged to the Swierzy brothers. They owned a lot of properties through this part of town. Most of them were sold and demolished after Teddy Swierzy died. This old beauty managed to survive the cut.”

  “There was a move to have it placed on the historical register.” I eyed her with new interest. “It didn’t succeed, but it delayed the building being torn down. In the end, it was subdivided and sold off.”

  “Funny in all these years, all these renovations, nobody ever found what was buried in the floor of that back bedroom.”

  Hilarious.

  “The top level was blocked off for years as unsafe. I know the remodel I did on this half when I purchased it a decade ago was the first real renovation the building had. Most of the businesses renting on that side were fly-by-nights. I don’t think the second story was used much for anything except storage.”

  She shook her head, whether over the waste of floor space or the shabby treatment of what should have been a historical landmark was unclear.

  It occurred to me that Sergeant Frame had something on her mind. She didn’t strike me as the type to stand around in the middle of the night reminiscing about the good old days — although I’m sure it made a pleasant change from domestic-dispute calls.

  “When I first bought this side of the building, I tried to find out what I could about Jay Stevens. There wasn’t much.”

  “Guys like Jay Stevens were a dime a dozen,” Frame said easily. “Part-time musicians and full-time hustlers.”

  “You couldn’t have known him.” She had to have been a baby in 1959. A baby with an intimidating gaze.

  “No. I knew the officer who investigated Stevens’s disappearance, and I remember his stories about this town back then. Stevens played at a club on the beach. It was called the Tides. It’s long gone now.”

  I made a mental note of it. “Was there much of an investigation after Stevens disappeared?”

  “Some. According to Argyle, he was the disappearing kind, if you know what I mean.”

  I thought I did. “This Argyle was the investigating officer?”

  She nodded, glanced out the window to where her partner was waiting by the squad car. She looked back at me. Slowly, quietly, she said, “Jake Riordan was my lieutenant.”

  Funny how the unexpected mention of Jake’s name rippled through my nervous system like an electric shock. I sat up straight, bracing for…whatever was coming.

  “He was a hard ass all the way.”

  Before I could respond, Frame added evenly, “But I never met anyone more fair. Riordan backed his people. He never tried to pass the buck. Never asked you to do anything he wasn’t willing to do himself. That means a lot in a job like this. Sometimes it means everything.”

  I didn’t know what to say; I was wondering why she thought this was anything like my business — what the official word was about me and Jake.

  Into my silence, she said, “Riordan’s still got friends on the force.”

  “Thanks. I’m glad.”

  She nodded politely. “You have a good rest of your night, Mr. English.”

  * * * * *

  Despite the adventures of the night, I was up at the crack of dawn, prowling restlessly around my flat and finally going downstairs to the empty bookstore. The silence was almost eerie, especially on the side of the building under construction. I went to the wall of plastic — refastened with crime-scene tape — and stared through at the empty rooms. I could see the broken window from where I stood.

  There had been occasional break-ins on that side of the premises through the years; there had even been the occasional attempt at burglary on this side. But this was plain weird, wasn’t it? Either I had been targeted by the dumbest burglar on the planet, or someone was desperate to get into this place. Why? We did a decent business, though Cloak and Dagger Books hardly made the irresistible target a 7-Eleven did. Construction equipment couldn’t be that hard to steal. And if it had something to do with Jay Stevens, well, surely the burglar was aware Mr. Stevens had left the building?

  Sipping my coffee — a gourmet flavor known as “decaf swill” — I noted that there was no sign of Detective Alonzo or any kind of police investigation this bright and sunny a.m.

  I turned away as the bookshop phone began to ring. Natalie had recorded a message informing customers that we were temporarily closed. I listened to her unreasonably cheerful recorded voice followed by the incensed voice of one of our regular customers asking how she was supposed to pick up a book we were holding for her.

  Terrific.

  The next three phone calls were local media outlets requesting tours of the building.

  Uh-huh.

  I wondered how long Alonzo’s vindictive streak was going to last. Even a week of this was liable to put a serious dent in my finances. If Lisa hadn’t chosen to shell out an ungodly amount of money, my hospital bills would have already left me in serious fiscal jeopardy.

  I trailed up and down the aisles of books, facing a title out here, reshelving a book there…

  The building creaked emptily as I took another turn around the floor. Outside, the street was busy with traffic; people strolled along the sidewalk. It was sort of like being walled up inside the building, and I thought of Jay Stevens — if that’s whom the skeleton belonged to — waiting to be found all these years.

  That started me thinking. I went into my office and, shrugging off the illogical feeling of guilt, turned on my laptop. I wasn’t going to work, merely glance at my e-mail and maybe check our Web-site orders. No harm in that.

  However, as I watched an alarming amount of e-mail loading into my in-box — sure enough Mel’s e-mail address flashed by — a better thought occurred to me, and I clicked onto the Internet and Googled “Jay Stevens.”

  I was quickly reminded of why I hadn’t pursu
ed the puzzle of Stevens’s disappearance when I’d first taken possession of Cloak and Dagger Books. Not only had I had my hands full trying to get a new business up and running, but “Jay Stevens” was a popular name. A lot more popular than, for example, “Adrien English.” Not that I wasn’t happy about that.

  Never mind all the Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn Jay Stevenses. There was the hair-salon Jay Stevens, the big-and-tall Jay Stevens, and the assorted writer, historian, photographer, and other business-owner Jay Stevenses.

  Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be Jay Stevenses.

  Four pages in, there was still nothing on a missing 1950s clarinet-player Jay Stevens. I remembered what the elderly shutterbug had said about a jazz band called the Moonglows, so I plugged that into Google.

  To my surprise, I scored. My search brought up a small and now-defunct record label by the name of Vibe. Vibe as in vibraphone, not good vibrations. Vibe had been based in Los Angeles and had only managed to stay afloat three years, but in its stable of talent was a jazz ensemble called Jay Stevens and the Moonglows, featuring Jay Stevens on clarinet, Jinx Stevens on vocals, Orrie New Orleans on trombone, Paulie St. Cyr on piano and guitar, and Todd Thomas on drums.

  The Moonglows had made one recording, titled Kaleidoscope. There was a miniature black-and-white photo of the record cover, which I was totally unable to make out.

  I jotted down the names of the other members of the Moonglows. Next I tried a search for “The Moonglows” and “Kaleidoscope” and got a couple of hits. One was a passing reference on a jazz discussion board to Paulie St. Cyr’s “locked hands” style of playing, but the other was for an eBay sale long passed. I was able to zoom in on the record cover, which featured an enraptured-looking lady in a slinky cocktail dress, lying on what appeared to be a red carpet. She was spying through a kaleidoscope. The back of the record cover offered a small black-and-white photo of the uncomfortable-looking Moonglows (probably thinking about that kaleidoscope) grouped around a piano. I was able to pick out who was whom based on the instruments they held. The man holding the clarinet was tall and thin and fair. His suit looked too big for him. He had an engaging grin. The chick singer, Jinx Stevens, leaned with easy familiarity against his shoulder. She wore a ponytail and a cocktail dress. She looked too much like Jay to be anything other than his sister.