Cover Your Assets

by Patricia Smiley

  He looked up, startled. “Yeah, but it’s flat, too.”

  “I think you can buy some emergency inflator stuff. It comes in a can and pumps up the tire long enough for you to drive to a service station. There’s a tire store over on Marine. Maybe they carry it. If you want, you can use my cell phone to call them.”

  After I said it, I realized he probably knew about the tire store, since Monique worked there.

  He smiled, exposing white, even teeth. “Nah, that’s okay. Somebody’s picking me up.”

  “Sure?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  Maybe I’d misjudged him. He seemed nice enough. Perhaps Brenda’s antics had temporarily pushed him over the edge.

  When I arrived home, the place was eerily quiet. I missed Muldoon, and I missed my mother. Mostly, I missed somebody to talk to. Even Bruce was looking good to me right now. At about a quarter after noon, there was a knock on my side door. I opened it to find Deegan looming over me, with his hand resting on the doorjamb above my head. He’d cut himself shaving and looked as if he’d dressed in a hurry. His expression was a mixture of wariness and fatigue.

  “Rough night?” I said.

  He ignored my comment and walked past me into the kitchen, where he leaned against the counter. His legs were crossed at the ankles, and his arms were crossed, too. As body language goes, his was on the negative side.

  “So,” I said, “to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

  “Moses Green tells me you’ve been dogging his investigation. Every place he goes, you’ve been there first. He isn’t happy about that.”

  “If he’d do his job right, I wouldn’t have to help him.”

  “Have you ever considered that there’s more to this case than you know?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Deegan. I realize that. But since you won’t tell me anything, I’m forced to find out for myself.”

  “I told you before—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a secret. Well, I know a few secrets, too. For example, there’s a girl named Amy Lynch who may have had a grudge against Evan for a stupid party stunt he pulled before he went into rehab. There’s another girl—currently nameless—who probably feels the same. I also know that Lola Scott was double-crossing Evan and went crazy when he dropped her off his client list. There’s more. Should I go on?”

  “You’re off base, Stretch.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “Give it a rest or Green is going to come down on you like a ton of bricks.”

  I felt my face grow warm. “Did he send you here to threaten me or was that your idea?”

  “He thought you’d prefer hearing the message from me.”

  “Well, you were both wrong. I don’t like being threatened by anybody, but especially you.”

  Deegan looked up at the ceiling and sighed in frustration. “Use your head. You’re no longer just helping out a friend. You’re interfering with a homicide investigation. If you screw up Green’s case, your lover’s killer is going to get off scot-free.”

  Something about the way he said that irked me. “Former lover. I told you, we broke up ten years ago. And I’m getting sick and tired of everybody hinting that we were back together again.”

  “It’s my job to ask questions.”

  “Not of me. This isn’t even your case. And who I sleep with is none of your business. I didn’t ask where you spent last night, did I? You’re just using Green as an excuse to needle me about Evan Brice. Why?”

  He paused for a moment, studying my face. “I saw you on TV last night. You’re very photogenic.”

  It felt as if all the air had been squeezed from my lungs. Deegan had to be talking about Celebrity Heat. Either they’d rerun the Friday night program or they’d uncovered new information. I didn’t want to know the particulars at the moment. Imagining them was enough.

  “I didn’t know you watched that kind of crap.”

  “I don’t. I just happened to be in a room where a TV was on.”

  “And what room was that?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Why don’t you ever answer my questions?”

  “Like I said, my job is to ask questions, not to answer them.”

  Frustrated, I walked over and plopped onto the couch. He followed me but kept his distance at the opposite end. We sat like that for what seemed like a long time.

  When he spoke, his voice was soft. “Look, I’m just trying to protect you. Interfering with a police investigation is against the law. Since the Department doesn’t allow me to associate with ex-cons, I’d hate for that to be the reason I couldn’t see you anymore.”

  It was a feeble attempt at a joke, but I didn’t like his attitude. “I don’t need your protection. I can take care of myself.”

  He sighed and rested his head on the back of the couch as if weighing his response. His expression was grim.

  “Okay, then, here’s the deal. Stay away from this investigation, or I’ll personally find some way to throw your ass in jail.”

  I bolted off the couch. “Don’t try to intimidate me, Deegan. It won’t work. I’ve seen you on the dance floor after a few Tequila shooters, and believe me, nothing scares me anymore.”

  His eyes narrowed into a look that was intimidating, even though I would never have admitted it to him.

  A moment later he stood. “Maybe we should talk again when you’ve cooled down.”

  “No. I think it’s best we keep our distance from now on. That way, you can go protect somebody who needs protecting, and I won’t have to worry about being hog-tied and thrown into the backseat of your detective car.”

  Deegan’s eyelids blinked slowly several times. Without another word, he turned and walked out of the house, slamming the door with a force that rattled the windows.

  -19-

  for the rest of the day I hung around the house, waiting for any word about Muldoon. It was Sunday. People were out and about. Why hadn’t somebody spotted him? By evening the telephone still hadn’t rung.

  I was a wreck. I had barely eaten anything in the past twenty-four hours. Not only had my stomach stopped growling, it had stopped whimpering. At about eight p.m. I went to my office alcove and logged onto my computer’s e-mail program. I’d just sent Mr. Geyer a detailed summary of my progress on the focus group when I heard rattling at the side door. I sat motionless, listening, but all I could hear was the humming of the refrigerator.

  I tiptoed toward a window next to the door and carefully tilted the wooden blinds to look outside. No one was there. I let out the breath I was holding. Stress was making me paranoid. As I headed back to my computer, I heard scraping against the wood deck and saw the knob on the French door slowly turn. My pulse raced as I grabbed a cheese board from the kitchen to use as a weapon and headed toward the door. In one quick motion, I pulled back the curtains. Standing on the deck, wearing a pair of baggy overalls and a sheepish grin, was my mother. I felt relief then anger as I opened the door.

  “Why are you creeping around in the dark?” I said. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “I knocked at the side door, but I guess you didn’t hear me.”

  “Why didn’t you use your key?”

  “I forgot it. Besides, I don’t live here anymore. Remember?”

  I was about to give her one of my responsibility lectures when I realized she didn’t know Muldoon was missing. I felt horrible. She’d entrusted him to me. I’d failed them both.

  “Pookie, something horrible has happened.”

  “Don’t tell me you went to see Lola Scott. Sheila told me you’d been pumping her for information. What’s wrong with you, Tucker? Why do you have to meddle in everybody’s business?”

  “I’m not meddling. I’m helping.”

  “Helping who? Cissy Brice? Save your energy. That girl doesn’t have enough insight to appreciate your help. Let her solve her own problems.”

  “That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it, Pookie? Do nothing and hope
things work out.”

  “I didn’t come here to argue. I came to pick up my curling iron.”

  “Muldoon is missing,” I blurted out.

  She cocked her head. “No, he’s not.”

  Obviously, she was in denial.

  “I came home Friday night, and he was gone,” I said. “I don’t know how he got out. I’ve looked everywhere, put up flyers, everything. I can’t find him. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Look, Tucker, he’s not missing. When I called you from Vegas Thursday night, you seemed really upset. I discussed things with Bruce, and we decided to get up early on Friday morning and drive back to L.A. When we got here, you weren’t around. Muldoon was alone, so we took him with us. He’s fine.”

  A whole range of emotions coursed through my mind: confusion, relief, and finally anger. “I almost had a heart attack worrying about him. Why didn’t you leave me a note?”

  “Because last time we talked, you said you wanted us out. Well, we’re out. All of us.”

  “Where is he now?” I said.

  “In a kennel. Bruce and I are staying at a hotel. Muldoon will join us in a couple of days when we find a place to live.”

  I pictured Muldoon in a dark room, huddled on a dirt floor against the steel bars of his cage, terrified by the unrelenting howls of hundreds of pit bulls.

  “How could you take him out of his home and leave him with strangers? You didn’t even take his cashmere sweater.”

  “Look, Tucker, what’s your problem?”

  My voice felt strained. “I want him back—tonight.”

  She paused, weighing my anger. “This isn’t about Muldoon, is it?”

  In a flash of clarity, I realized she was probably right. This conversation was no longer about the abandonment issues of a scruffy white dog. But I was on a roll. Nothing was going to stop me now.

  “I’ll tell you what this is about. Muldoon deserves to be more than an afterthought. At least leave him here until you find a proper home.”

  “And you can give him a proper home? You’re making him fat with all the junk you feed him. It’s just as unhealthy for a dog to be overweight as it is for a human being. And you let him hang his head out the car window. What happens if a bug flies in his eye? There could be permanent damage. Plus, you’re always gone, and you leave him with that alcoholic neighbor of yours. God knows what could happen to him there.”

  “At least at the end of the day he knows I’ll be home, instead of shooting craps in Vegas.”

  Pookie looked crushed. She didn’t speak for the longest time. Finally, she gave me the name of the kennel and retreated to what had been her bedroom only two days before, presumably to look for her curling iron. I probably should have tried to patch things up before I left to get Muldoon, but I was too angry. Instead, I grabbed a jacket and stormed out of the house.

  When I arrived at the parking lot of Fuzzy Friends Kennel, it looked neither fuzzy nor friendly, and the tinkle bell on the front door did little to alter my first impression. It was a cavernous place with cold, dank concrete floors. The acrid smell of urine didn’t help the ambience, either. Behind the front counter were rows of built-in cages occupied by all types of kitty cats. I looked up to see a round-faced red and white tabby with folded ears, meowing plaintively as if to say, “Get me the hell out of this dump.”

  The attendant was in her early twenties. She wore jeans and a sweater, both black. Her hair was black, too, dyed a dull, opaque shade not found in nature. Her eyes were lined with red pencil, and what I initially took for a lisp turned out to be a tongue stud. I assumed she was either a goth princess or the snake god of some West African voodoo cult.

  She seemed irritated that I had interrupted the TV program she was watching. When she sensed that I had the potential of becoming her worst nightmare, she agreed to release Muldoon. She sauntered into the back room and moments later returned, dragging him by the neck with his leash.

  “Let him go.”

  Her face puckered petulantly. “I’m not supposed to.”

  “I said, let go of the damn leash!”

  At the sound of my voice, Muldoon looked at me as if I was some kind of traitor. It was almost more than I could take. I sank to my knees and called his name. Slowly he walked over close enough so I could put my arms around him. He buried his nose in my armpit as if he hoped that kennels didn’t exist if you couldn’t see them.

  On the way home I let Muldoon hang his head out of the window—just this one last time, I thought, just to cheer him up. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough, so I also stopped at McDonald’s and bought him a Quarter Pounder with cheese. He seemed to feel better after that, but it was only a temporary fix. Tomorrow I’d have to do better by him.

  When we got home, Pookie was gone, and with her, all hopes of patching together our dysfunctional little family. Everything I did lately turned to shit.

  MONDAY MORNING I awoke to the glorious sound of a dog snoring. When I sat up to have a look, Muldoon issued a warning growl to let me know he was on my pillow again. I massaged his forehead and headed for the kitchen to make some coffee. He followed but seemed disappointed that breakfast consisted of a small ration of Pookie-approved vegetarian Zen dog food and a bowl of fresh water.

  “I’m sorry, little guy, but as of now you’re on a diet.”

  He plopped his butt down and stared at the bowl. I left him there to reconsider the cuisine while I went online to look for doggie day care centers. I called and interviewed several proprietors until I narrowed the choice to one: Hannah Mills of Le Bon Chien. There was only one glitch. She wouldn’t accept Muldoon until she assessed his ability to “interface” with his fellow canines. I was amused by her attitude but agreed to drop him off for a playdate and an evaluation. Hannah made it clear that I was not invited to stay. Getting Muldoon into doggie day care was shaping up to be more of a contest than getting him into Harvard. With his appointment at Le Bon Chien set, Muldoon settled in for a nap on the couch. I went into my office to search for Amy Lynch.

  Brodie claimed that Evan had met her while she was working at a hotel bar. That certainly didn’t narrow the search. It was impossible to call all of them. Even if I got a break and found the exact hotel, with all the scams and lawsuits, companies no longer gave out references on former employees, let alone personal information like telephone numbers or forwarding addresses. Checking ice cream parlors seemed like a waste of time, too. I doubted she’d take a job at another one. Cherry Garcia was pretty much at the peak of the frozen milk products hierarchy.

  According to Brodie, Amy had also worked in a nail salon. Unless she was an administrative employee, she had to have a license to do that sort of work. On a whim, I dialed the number for the agency in Sacramento that regulates cosmetologists and, to my surprise, came away with Amy Lynch’s telephone number. A very accommodating roommate advised me that Amy was currently working as a receptionist for a company called Premier Temps. I finally spoke with her there, offering a made-up story about collecting anecdotes from Evan’s friends to use in a eulogy I was giving at his memorial service. Without hesitation, she agreed to meet with me.

  After showering, I put on a business suit—something professional but not too corporate. Unfortunately, Muldoon interpreted all the activity as a sign that there might be a walk in his future. I had to watch how I handled the situation, because the little guy had longstanding abandonment issues, which hadn’t been helped by his stay at the kennel from hell. I certainly didn’t want to trigger an episode. When I asked him if he wanted to go for a ride in the car, he responded with the kind of joie de vivre only a Westie can generate.

  On the way to the day-care center, I put the top down on the Boxster and gave him a pep talk about how to put his best paw forward, but he seemed to prefer listening to the wind in his ears, not to me. I dropped him off in the front lobby of Le Bon Chien and headed for Mid-Wilshire.

  -20-

  mid-Wilshire is a commercial strip along Wilshire Boulevard j
ust west of downtown L.A. where the buildings are generally ten stories or so and the homeless share the sidewalks with lawyers, insurance executives, and secretaries eating hot dogs from street vendors’ carts. The buildings to the north and south of the boulevard are what you might call an architectural free-for-all: aging apartment houses, small shops, and single-family homes, many of which date back to pre-World War II.

  Premier Temps was located in a building several blocks east of Western, between two of the city’s art deco masterpieces: the former Bullocks-Wilshire department store and the aqua and bronze Wiltern Center. I parked on a side street and made my way up to the building’s third-floor hallway, checking each door until I spotted the Premier Temps sign.

  The moment I stepped into the small reception area, I was assaulted by the scent of somebody’s fruity perfume. Sitting behind a desk flanked by a couple of wilted palms was a striking young woman with shoulder-length blond hair. Her skin looked fresh and dewy, as if she’d just been hand dipped in a vat of Kama Sutra oil. I could almost feel the skin on my elbows molting in protest. A plaque on the desk read Aimée Lynch. I wondered if that was the spelling on her birth certificate or if it was some recent affectation. A woman wearing a sari stood in front of the desk, holding a piece of paper on which numerous words had been circled in red.

  “It’s okay,” Amy said, patting the woman’s arm. “Take a few minutes to study the ones you missed, and I’ll test you again.”

  What masqueraded for business attire in Amy’s world was a green jungle-print sarong with a coordinating sweater set. Surrounded by the forest green carpet and those palms, she looked like the guide for an Amazon adventure tour. When she noticed me standing at the door, she flashed a smile that was both dazzling and genuine. Her delicate features made her seem vulnerable, but the deep blue of her sapphire eyes kept her from looking inconsequential. I suspected she was the kind of woman that didn’t inspire neutrality. Either you wanted to be her friend, her lover, her protector, or you wanted to draw a black handlebar mustache under her perfect little nose.