by Eve Goldberg
“. . . nothing in the pipeline. They even had me cleaning out some muckity-muck’s office after he was fired. Just to keep me busy. Boring as hell, but I’m not complaining. At least I’ve got a job.”
A clean-cut kid driving a golf cart with the green Pinnacle logo on its side passed us. The kid smiled and waved. Mrs. Flynn waved back. She forced a tight-lipped smile that to me read more like a grimace. I needed to get the conversation on track.
“Mrs. Flynn—”
“Cora.”
“Cora. Did something spill on your living room rug recently?”
She looked at me quizzically. “Spill? I don’t know . . . why are you asking?”
“There’s a stain on one corner.”
“So there’s a stain. I’ve got a kid so of course things spill. Joey could’ve spilled some cereal or something.”
“It’s not cereal. It’s dark colored.”
Mrs. Flynn shrugged. “Could be anything I guess.”
“Did you or Joey cut yourself recently?”
She stopped abruptly. Her eyes widened and fear poured out.
“Are you saying there’s blood on the rug?”
“I think so. And not just a drop or two.”
“That’s crazy. Blood? Don’t you think I’d notice something like that?”
“I don’t know. Would you?”
Mrs. Flynn shot me a furious glare. I thought she was going to let me have it, but the glare gave way to something else: A look of recognition? Just for an instant. Then her face went blank.
She turned away from me, lit another cigarette off the lipstick-smeared stub in her hand. We walked in silence for a while. We had left the red-roofed office buildings behind and were now passing through an Old West set. Splintered plank sidewalk. Hitching post. Fake wooden store fronts. Generic signage painted to look old and weather-worn and historic. Trading Post . . . Hotel . . . Sheriff . . . Dry Goods . . . Signs you’ve see in a hundred cheap westerns. The Saloon sign hung crooked above an expertly broken window.
I thought about how to handle Mrs. Flynn. I was certain she was hiding something. But who didn’t have secrets? I just hoped that whatever she was hiding wouldn’t block me from finding her son. I fished the torn envelope out of my back pocket and handed it to her. She studied it.
“That’s Richard’s handwriting. Where’d you get this?”
“From Joey’s room.”
“The return address—”
“I’m betting Joey took it with him.”
“Do you still think he ran away to his father’s?”
“For lack of any better idea, yes.”
She shook her head, thinking. “No. It just doesn’t make sense. I mean how would he get there? And where would he actually go? To a damn post office? And beyond all that, WHY? Why would he do something like that to me?”
“I don’t know.”
Mrs. Flynn dragged hard on her cigarette. We had circled the Old West set, past the Pioneer Church and the horse corral. Now we were on the backside of town, walking behind the building facades where their missing back walls exposed a web of electrical wires, beams, pipes, ladders, and the scaffolding that held the Saloon and the Trading Post shells in place.
“About Wednesday night,” Mrs. Flynn began. She hesitated and bit her lip. “Maybe it’s nothing, and . . . it’s all kind of fuzzy, but I went out with some of the girls from work for a few drinks and I . . . maybe I had a bit too much to drink.”
“Okay.”
“What I’m trying to say is . . . I met a man there. We . . . he came back to my house.”
“Just the two of you?”
She nodded. “It’s not easy for me to tell you this, but that’s how it is. If you want to judge me there’s nothing I can do about it. He was gone in the morning.”
“This man, did you know him?”
“I’d never seen him before,” she mumbled, looking down at the ground.
I had an urge to shake her. Not because I gave a damn who she slept with or why. You brought a stranger back to your house, the next day your son goes missing, and you waited until now to tell me! I wanted to shout. But I didn’t. I stayed cool. I kept my voice in neutral. “Stay detached,” Lou always said. “Try not to display emotion in an interview.”
“What did this guy look like?” I asked.
“Umm . . . big, really big . . . blonde hair, blonder even than yours.”
“Big-tall, or big-fat?”
“Not fat. Just big. Big like a football player.”
“How old?”
“I don’t know. It was dark. Thirty maybe, thirty-five, forty.”
“What bar?”
“Kelbo’s. We go there sometimes after work.”
“The one on Pico or Fairfax?”
“Pico.”
I pulled out my spiral notebook and a pen.
“Which friends were with you? I’d like to talk with them.”
“It wouldn’t do any good. My girlfriends had all left by then. You really think this has anything to do with Joey?”
“It might. You said the guy came back to your house. Did he drive his own car?”
“I assume so. I told you, I don’t remember too much about that night.”
“What more do you remember?” I asked casually. I was getting to know Mrs. Flynn and how the smallest thing, a slight tone of voice, could switch on her defenses.
“I checked on Joey. I definitely remember that. He was asleep. After that . . . ” she ran her fingers through her dark wavy hair, tugging at the strands as if she were trying to pull out a memory. “After that . . . ”
She dropped her cigarette butt and ground it into the pavement with her heel. I had the feeling she was stalling for time.
We walked in silence for a few minutes, turned a corner. All at once we had returned to the modern world of white-washed office buildings with shaded walkways and red-tiled roofs. When we got to Building 8, Mrs. Flynn finally broke the silence.
“Now that I think about it,” she said, not looking at me as she spoke, “you’re probably right about Joey going to his father’s. I mean with the envelope and everything, I’m almost certain that’s where he went. I think that’s the best place to start looking.”
Nice dodge away from the guy at Kelbo’s, I thought.
CHAPTER 4
By the time I got back to the office, the sun was dropping and the air was cooling off. I checked with the answering service: no urgent calls, nothing I’d have to deal with tonight. Finally, I called the VA hospital. A nurse with a slow Southern drawl told me that my uncle was sleeping and I should call back in the morning.
“I will,” I said. “How’s Lou doing?”
“He has his good days and his bad,” she said vaguely.
“How about today?”
“It’s best you speak with a doctor about medical matters. But I’ll be sure to let Mr. Zorn know you called.”
I thanked her and we hung up. It had been a few days since I’d visited Lou. I felt bad about it, but since it was due to work, I knew Lou would understand.
I sat down at Lou’s desk and unwrapped a fat roast beef sandwich from Zucky’s. Just the smell made me hungry. I realized that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I gazed out the window as I ate. Across the street was a nursery specializing in bonsai. A small man in a pith helmet and khaki jacket was locking the nursery gate. Next door to the nursery, a red neon BAIL BONDS sign flickered on. The West L.A. Police Station was just around the corner, so the bail bonds joint did a decent business, 24/7.
This was the time of day Lou and I would often talk about his cases — our cases, he would call them — or just shoot the shit about life. I wondered if we’d ever do that again. Lou had put off going to the doctor for months, until he no longer had enough breath to walk from his house to his car. The doctor characterized his emphysema as ‘severe.’ I didn’t understand any of the doc-talk about bronchial obstruction or disruption of alveo-somethings, but it didn’t take a genius to figure
out where it was all leading.
“Hold down the fort, kid,” Lou had said in a weak, raspy whisper the last time I’d visited him at the VA. “I’m counting on you.”
That was new and different: Lou counting on me. I didn’t know exactly how I felt about that, except that it was strange and I knew for sure that I didn’t want to let him down. Couldn’t let him down. Lou had never let me down, he’d always been there for my mother and me. Now it was my turn. Ready or not, that’s how it was.
I finished the sandwich and sorted through the mail — a few bills and a flyer advertising a vacuum cleaner shaped like a flying saucer.
Then I drove over to Kelbo’s.
It took me a few seconds to adjust to the dark. Kelbo’s was a Polynesian-themed restaurant with pineapple-shaped lanterns, hand carved tikis, and a high ceiling draped with fishing nets. I threaded my way past booths disguised as thatched huts where families hunkered over plates of sweet spareribs, shish kabobs, and blue drinks topped with paper umbrellas.
I pushed aside a curtain of shells and entered the bar. Japanese lanterns and dried porcupine fish hung from the ceiling. The bar itself was a mammoth slab of dark polished wood. The bartender, tall with a cleft chin and a stubble of beard, was wiping down some glasses with a rag.
It was still early. The sole customer sat on a stool at the far end of the bar — a middle-aged man in shirtsleeves staring listlessly into his drink. He was clean-shaven with wiry grey hair. He had a taut, sinewy body; small but packed with muscle. He looked like a man who wanted to be alone with his liquor.
I ordered a Schlitz, sliding a five across the wood slab to the bartender.
“Keep the change,” I said.
“Let’s see some ID.”
I showed him my driver’s license. He made a big deal of comparing me to my picture. I was used to it. He finally brought me the beer.
“Been working here long?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
He looked at me warily, knowing, as bartenders always do, that I wanted something.
“Long enough.”
I put my card on the bar so that the writing faced him.
“I’m looking for a guy who was in here Wednesday night.”
He picked up the card and looked it over. His face hardened. He slapped the card back down on the bar.
“We don’t give out information about our customers.”
“I understand, but —”
“No, buddy, I don’t think you do.”
“Take it easy, man. I get it. I’m a PI. My clients depend on me keeping things quiet too. I’m not asking you to snitch on some sleaze ball going out on his wife. I’m looking for a missing kid. This customer, he might know something about it.”
“Sorry, no can do.”
The bartender turned away from me. He picked up a glass from the drain board and began polishing it.
“Hey, Mike, give the kid a break.” The voice came from the wiry man at the far end of the bar. He flicked me a crisp salute off his brow. “You’re Lou Zorn’s kid, aren’t you?”
“He’s my uncle.”
The man picked up his drink and moved over to a barstool near mine.
“Alex Terekov. Detective Sergeant, Hollywood Division. I remember seeing you over at West LA. a few times. How’s Lou doing?”
“Not so good.”
“Sorry to hear it. That son-of-a-bitch is a survivor, though. He’ll make it through this . . . if anybody can.”
“I hope so.”
“He and my old patrol partner were at Guadalcanal together. Saved my partner’s ass at Henderson Field.”
“You in the Pacific too?”
“Aleutians. Seventh Infantry.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to frozen tundra, frost bite, and coming home to sunny fucking paradise.”
The detective drained his glass, then held it up for a refill. The bartender drifted over and picked up the empty.
“Mike, while you’re at it, help this kid out,” Terekov said. “He’s one of the good guys.”
“Sure thing, Detective,” the bartender replied. There was a sullen edge to his voice. He’d cooperate, but not happily.
Mike The Bartender poured a shot of scotch for Terekov and set it down on a fresh napkin. The detective picked up his drink and ambled back down to the far end of the bar. The bartender turned to me.
“Okay, buddy, I guess it’s your lucky day.”
“The guy I’m looking for is thirty to forty, big guy, real light blonde hair, lighter than mine even. Left with a woman at closing Wednesday night.”
“Any particular woman?” the bartender said with a smirk.
“Name’s Cora Flynn. Do you remember the guy or not?”
“Yeah, I remember him. Hair’s white as snow.”
“White?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Seen him before?”
“Nope. Never saw him before and hope I never see him again.”
“Why’s that?”
“Cuz he was a creep.”
“How so?”
“Picking up on . . . on the lady when she was already out of it, is what I mean. You know the type.”
“What type?”
“A creep. Like I told you. I watched him all night. Circling like a vulture. He kept his distance, but was checking her out. Then he goes in for the dead meat at the end. Disgusting. No respect at all.”
I nodded slowly, wondering how far I could push this guy before he’d clam up.
“Did they leave together?” I asked.
“More or less.”
“What do you mean?”
“He kind of carried her out.”
“What about the woman? She a regular?”
“Comes and goes.”
“Can you tell me anything else about her?”
He shrugged. “Nice lady. But I’ve had to call her a cab a few too many times.”
Mike The Bartender picked up another glass from the drain board and started to dry it. “So Cora’s kid is missing, huh. I didn’t even know she had one.”
I nodded. I took a few sips of my beer, waiting to see if he’d say anything else. I didn’t like alcohol, not even beer, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. The bartender busied himself with what bartenders do: rearranging glasses that didn’t need to be rearranged, checking levels on bottles he already checked ten minuets ago.
“This white haired guy,” I said, “if he comes in again, would you let me know?”
I tapped my card which was still on the bar and pushed it towards Mike the Bartender.
He didn’t pick it up. He glanced over at Terekov who had lit a cigarette and was staring at the smoke as it wafted up into the hanging lanterns and bloated, spiny fish. Terekov could have been thinking deep thoughts, or thinking nothing at all. Either way, Mike The Bartender and I both knew he was listening to our every word. Almost imperceptivity, Terekov nodded. The bartender turned back to me.
“Sure,” he said. “No problem. If I see the creep, I’ll give you a call.”
CHAPTER 5
It was dark by the time I got home. I parked in the alley behind my apartment, a two-story duplex with peeling plaster and no heat. The duplex had been built in the 1920s, the golden age of Venice Beach. Back then — when gondolas glided along the pristine canals, tourists soaked in the salt-water plunge, and Sarah Bernhardt performed at the pleasure pier — Venice had been proclaimed the “safest beach in the country.” Now it was pretty much a slum.
I climbed the rickety wooden steps to the second floor landing, careful to avoid the splintered hand railing. Decades of salt air had taken its toll on the place, and the landlord sure as hell wasn’t doing anything about it.
I unlocked the door and went inside. Even after living here almost two years, I still got a kind of thrill each time I walked in. This was MY apartment. MY place. As long as I was able to come up with the rent each month, I had a home. The single big, airy room (plus bathroom) was plenty for me. More than plenty.
I kicked off my shoes and pulled a cold tonic water from the fridge. The “kitchen,” which occupied one corner of the room, consisted of a tiny fridge, a hot plate, and a red vinyl dinette table with four matching chairs that I had picked up cheap at the Salvation Army. On the other side of the room was a Murphy bed that pulled out of the wall, a dresser, and a sagging couch that I had inherited from a buddy when he moved up in the world. Next to the dinette set, on the west-facing wall, a sliding glass door opened to a balcony where I kept my surfboard. The slider was the landlord’s single concession to fixing the place up. The view from the balcony was the backside of an old brick building that housed a liquor store with a few apartments above it. Beyond that was the beach. I couldn’t see it, but it was there.
My apartment had two main attractions: the rent was cheap, and I could hear the surf breaking just a few hundred feet away. As an added bonus, my downstairs neighbors, Tom and Tina Crawford, had become friends. Tom worked the line at the Ford plant in Pico Rivera. Tina waited tables at Chasen’s, a swanky Hollywood joint where tips were famously large. He was Negro and she was white. We all liked the same music, so they never complained when I blasted the hi-fi. Now and again I’d run into them up at Shelly’s Manne-Hole in Hollywood or down at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach. Sometimes we’d all go together.
I opened the slider to the balcony. Cool ocean air flowed into the room. I switched on the radio, catching the tail end of a Mingus cut just as the phone rang.
“Ryan, where have you been? I’ve been calling you all evening.”
“Working, Mom. The usual. You see Lou today?”
“I went to the hospital, but they wouldn’t let me into his room. The nurse said he needs his rest. I’m worried, Ryan.”
“I know.”
“I just wish there was something I could do.”
“I know.”
“And he’s going downhill so fast. You remember last year, the doctor said his only chance was to quit smoking, cold turkey, right then and there. But did he listen?”
“It’s the past, Mom. Forget about it.”
“I just don’t want to lose him. First your father . . . ”
