Solo Hand

by Bill Moody

  “I know,” I say. “It’s you I want to talk to.” We go into the kitchen. The rest of the house is dark. Lonnie’s daughter Kesha is probably asleep, and if I know T.J., he’s at the Coliseum, pacing the sidelines in front of the Rams’ bench.

  Sharon is dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt, and sandals. Her hair is pulled back and she wears no makeup. Despite my resolve, the smell of apples that surrounds her gets to me.

  “I just made some coffee. Do you want some?” she asks.

  “Sure.” I watch her take mugs out of the cupboard, wondering how to begin. Do I just confront her with what I know, or dance around hoping she’ll remember herself? We sit at a huge oak table in the kitchen. She pours the coffee, brings cream and sugar for mine. At least she remembers that much.

  “It’s not going very well, is it?” Sharon says.

  I don’t know whether she means our separation or the investigation. “What? You mean the money, the photos, or something else?”

  She looks up. “What did you think I meant?”

  “I mean you haven’t told me everything, have you, Sharon?”

  “Told you what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But she’s not convincing. She avoids my eyes.

  “Sharon, let’s quit messing around. When you came to me with the photos, this blackmail thing, you didn’t tell me I was named in the notes. Now I find out you’ve forgotten something else.” I can feel the anger rising inside me. “Why didn’t you tell me about the typewriter?”

  “What typewriter? Evan, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She seems genuinely surprised, but I never take my eyes off her face. “Well, let me jog your memory. About a month ago, the Topanga Plaza Mall, the discount store, the typewriter you bought, the one that’s exactly the same model as mine, exactly the same model the blackmail notes were written on.”

  She puts her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God, you mean—”

  “The same.” She gets up and walks over to the sliding glass doors, then turns back to me. “Evan, I had no idea, I really didn’t.” Lonnie’s dogs are at the door, eyeing me suspiciously, wagging their tails at Sharon. “You don’t think I had anything to do with this?”

  “What do you expect me to think? Where’s the typewriter now?”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t know, I bought it for Emerson Barnes.”

  Now it’s my turn to be surprised. “Emerson? Why? Where is it now?”

  “I don’t know. I—Emerson was here that day. I said I was going shopping. He asked me to pick it up for him.”

  “But you put it on your credit card.”

  Sharon looks at me again. I can see she’s searching her mind. For the details or to keep her story straight? “He said it was for his nephew.”

  “Damon? Isn’t that his name?” I’d met him once. Nice kid, bright, worshiped Emerson, wanted to be a lawyer like his uncle.

  “He was going away to college. It was a gift. Evan, I’ve bought a lot of things. Lonnie or Carlton always reimburses me.”

  “Why that model?”

  “I don’t know. Emerson said he’d already looked at one, picked it out of the store catalog.”

  “And what did you do with it?”

  “I brought it back here. Emerson said he would pick it up the next time he came over.”

  “And did he?”

  “How do I know? I guess he must have. It’s not here now. I never saw it again.” I’m pushing her and she doesn’t like it.

  I take a drink of my coffee. It tastes bitter now. “So it was around for at least a couple of days, right? Anyone could have used it Lonnie, T.J., Megan—you?”

  “But why would they? It was in a box.” Her eyes flash briefly with anger. “Evan, I don’t like being interrogated and I don’t like where this is going. You think I wrote those notes, or Lonnie?”

  I just stare at her for a minute, trying to read her eyes. I used to be able to do that I don’t know anymore. “I’m not sure what you and Lonnie are doing these days.”

  She slams her coffee mug down and gets to her feet. Some of the coffee splashes out on the table. “Evan, I think you’d better go now.”

  “Yeah, maybe I’d better.” Once again I’ve stepped over the line that is always between us like an invisible barrier. Suddenly I know the difference between Cindy and Sharon.

  “And where did Damon go away to college?”

  “UCLA. I remember that.”

  “All that way, huh?”

  Sharon ignores me and walks across the room, leans on the counter, and stares at me. “Please go, Evan.”

  “Okay, I’m going. Just do me one favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t tell Emerson I asked about the typewriter.”

  Driving back to Venice, I try to put it all together. Elvin Case, Rick Markham, Charlie Crisp, I hadn’t known any of them before, but how well did I really know any of these people? I’d always dealt with each of them separately.

  Lonnie on stage, on the road, in rehearsal. Carlton for expenses, travel arrangements. Emerson, sometimes on road trips with us, and Megan, always at a distance. Sharon? Well, that was another story. Now they were all coming together, forming a circle with me in the middle.

  I pull into a parking place near the apartment and sit in my car for a few minutes running over everything in my mind, but nothing seems to fall into place. There are still too many missing pieces.

  It’s still fairly warm, so when I get out of the car I decide to walk down to the beach. Except for a few strollers, the boardwalk is deserted. During the day, it’s teeming with bicyclists, roller skaters, street vendors, and gawking tourists. There’s a light on in the Shack, but it’s closed.

  I feel drawn to the sound and smell of the ocean. I walk across the sand, just past a lifeguard stand, and stand for a few minutes listening to the waves roll in.

  Footsteps don’t make any sound on sand, so I don’t hear them come up behind me. There are three of them. Two grab me from behind, throw me facedown onto the sand, and pin my arms behind my back. I feel a knee in the middle of my back. From above me, I hear a voice.

  “You’re not being very smart about this, are you, Horne?” the voice says.

  I turn my head and spit sand out of my mouth, but I can’t move enough to see the face behind the voice. One of the other men shoves my head down again.

  “Elvin Case wasn’t very smart either, Horne,” the voice says. “Talking to you wasn’t a good idea. Am I getting through to you, Horne?”

  I don’t recognize the voice, but before I can try an answer, he kicks me in the side. I feel the breath go out of me, pain shoot up through my rib cage. Then I feel something hard against the back of my head. I hear a click. I’ve never heard the sound before, but I know it’s a gun.

  I close my eyes and wait for it. Is this how Elvin Case felt? Is it all going to end right here on Venice Beach? My whole body tenses as the barrel bores into my head.

  “Evan?”

  That voice I recognize. It’s Cindy. I can’t move, even warn her to get away, but I feel the grip loosen on my arms slightly, the knee pressure ease slightly. The gun barrel is drawn away from my head, bodies turn toward her voice.

  “Shit,” the voice says. “It’s the broad. C’mon, let’s go,” he says to the other two. There’s a final shove, then they’re off me.

  “We’ll be back, Horne,” the voice calls.

  Spitting sand out of my mouth, I roll over on my back, see them running across the beach, away from Cindy’s direction. It’s too dark to make out anything but dark shapes.

  Cindy watches them for a moment, then kneels beside me. “Evan, what happened? Are you all right? I got back early. I saw your car, no lights in your apartment. I thought—”

  “Well, I’m glad you did,” I say. I sit up and feel a shooting pain in my side. Cracked ribs maybe. Cindy helps me to my feet, and with my arm around her shoulder, we trudge across the sand back to the apartment.
r />   All I can think of is, the last person I talked to was Sharon.

  While Cindy makes some coffee, I peel off my shirt and look at the damage in her bathroom mirror. A splotch of red covers my side, but it doesn’t feel too bad when I try to raise my arm over my head. I see Cindy in the mirror watching me.

  “You ought to have that looked at,” she says. She touches the red spot gingerly.

  I shake my head. Cindy is already frightened enough. “No, I’ll be all right,” I say. “You’ll just have to be tender with me.”

  Cindy never blushes, but she smiles at me in the mirror. “You must be better if you’re already thinking about that.”

  Back in the living room, I ease into a chair while Cindy brings the coffee. With a cigarette going, I start thinking about my next move. Things are getting too complicated, too close to home. Were those the guys who killed Elvin? If they were, then I can count myself lucky to get off with just a warning. I know, even as I sip Cindy’s coffee, I’m not going to heed it.

  We’ll be back, Horne.

  “Want to go for a drive?” I ask Cindy. She’s already shaking her head.

  “Evan, listen to me. Somebody doesn’t want you to go on with this, whatever it is you’re doing. You tried your best. Let it go. Let the police handle it.”

  “No,” I say, although I don’t really believe it. “The police know less than I do. I think I’ve stumbled onto something that goes beyond the blackmail.” She is not interested. “Hey, you’ve saved my life once, maybe twice. When this is all over, we’ll do something nice, okay?”

  Cindy gets up and walks back to the kitchen for more coffee. When she returns, she sits down opposite me and looks as serious as I’ve ever seen her.

  “Evan, neither of us knew where this was going when it started. We knew each other from high school, we met again, it seemed okay, it felt good. But now, I don’t know, for me at least it’s gone much further than I expected.”

  I know she’s not talking about Lonnie Cole or anyone else I’ve come into contact with in the past week. “Cindy,” I say, “don’t push it, not now.”

  She puts up her hands. “I’m not, I’m really not. It’s just that I want you to know how I feel.” She shrugs. “I don’t even know if you’re over Sharon.”

  That’s the one thing I do know about. Even without tonight, even if Sharon were not involved.

  “That’s over, Cindy, it really is.”

  She gives me a weak smile. “Then I’ll settle for that for now.” She stands up, a look of resignation spreading over her face. “So what about this drive?”

  She’s with me and that’s all I need now.

  I get up and head for the bedroom. “Be right back. I’ve got to get into some less sandy clothes.”

  I have only one aim in mind—check out the nearest record warehouse, see how it’s set up and if it’s possible to get in. After that, I don’t know. The address on the invoice said Inglewood, not far from the Forum, an area of industrial centers and small businesses. I pull up in the parking lot opposite the front entrance.

  “Now what?” Cindy asks.

  Good question. There are only a few cars in the lot, but I can see the front of a big truck sticking out from one corner of the one-story building. “Let’s take a look back there,” I say.

  I drive around to the side of the warehouse, keeping plenty of distance between us and the building. There could be a security patrol at night, so I don’t want to attract any undue attention. The truck is a small semi. It’s open at the back to large doors. There’s a ramp coming out of the truck onto a loading dock. Two guys in khaki uniforms are sliding cartons down the ramp. Cartons of records.

  A third guy is loading the cartons on a hand truck and rolling them down an aisle inside the warehouse. From what I can see inside, there looks to be wall-to-wall cartons stacked to the ceiling.

  This is not going to be fun. I’ll never get past the two guys on the truck even if the inside man is gone for a couple of minutes, unless—maybe there is a way.

  Cindy is none too happy about my idea but agrees to give it a try. I pull the car back far enough so that it’s blocked from view by the back of the truck. I get out of the car and, using a key, let the air out of one of the rear tires. I get a flashlight out of the car.

  “Okay,” I say to Cindy. “You’re on.”

  Cindy walks across the parking lot to the back of the truck and calls to the two guys. Watching her walk toward them I think that if they don’t help her, there’s something seriously wrong with their vision.

  I wait on the other side of the truck, listening to Cindy explain her predicament. The sliding cartons have stopped as they listen and, I imagine, take a very good look at Cindy.

  “Sure,” one of them says. I hear his feet hit the pavement as he jumps off the ramp. “Come on, Doug, we need a break anyway.”

  Another pair of feet hits the ground and the two of them start walking toward my car with Cindy in the lead. I move toward the rear of the truck. There are half a dozen cartons at the bottom of the ramp ready for the third man to pick up. He rolls the hand truck up, looks around for the other two guys, sees them with Cindy.

  “Hey, whatta you guys doin’ over there?” he yells.

  “We’ll be back in a few minutes,” one of them yells back. “Get some coffee, Al.”

  “Suits me,” Al mumbles to himself, and disappears back inside the warehouse.

  I climb up on the ramp just in time to see him disappear among the stacks of cartons, probably to an office. I go through the open doors the other way.

  Once inside, I see the enormity of the job. There are aisles and aisles of record cartons stacked on wooden skids. I shine the flashlight over the cartons. They’re stamped with record company logos and shipping labels, but there doesn’t seem to be any order, any master plan to the storage arrangement. The skids jump from rock to punk to classical. I recognize the names of some of the artists, but some I’ve never heard of.

  I dart about as quickly as I can, randomly checking labels. The warehouse is lit but shadowy enough that I need the flashlight. I keep an eye out for Al, listen for sounds.

  My heart is beating so hard, I think anybody could hear it from ten feet away. I take a deep breath and try to focus.

  Even with the extra time they’ll take chatting with Cindy, the two guys helping her won’t take more than fifteen minutes to change the tire. I don’t have much time before they’re all back at work.

  I’m just about to give it up as a bad idea when I find a skid with an Angeles Record shipping label. Lonnie Cole’s name is on the invoice. It’s one he recorded the previous year. I recall the session now. One tune, because of the-horn arrangements and an inexperienced producer, had taken nearly twenty takes and an extra two hours’ studio time.

  The only trouble is there are more than a dozen skids. They go all the way back to the wall, literally thousands of copies, which coincides exactly with the record returns on the books I saw in Carlton Burroughs’s office.

  I turn off the flashlight. It takes me a minute or two to absorb the disappointment. I was so sure I was right. I really thought I had it figured out, and if I was right, I’d have a pretty good idea who was behind everything. Not only the record scam but possibly Elvin Case’s murder, the blackmail, almost all of it.

  What I still didn’t know was why I was picked to be the go-between. But finding this many records exactly where they’re supposed to be—and there are probably even more—is a tremendous letdown. What am I missing?

  There isn’t time to think about it anymore. I hear the whir of wheels on the cement floor coming down an aisle near me. I squeeze into a space between two stacks of record cartons and listen to Al hoist his load onto another stack, then roll the hand truck back toward the entrance. I wait a minute longer, then squeeze out of my hiding space and make my way back to the front and the loading doors.

  Cindy’s rescuers are back at work, laughing and talking about Cindy. She’ll be plea
sed when I tell her how impressed they were.

  The timing has to be just right. I crouch down between a stack of record cartons and the front wall, waiting for my chance. It’s another five minutes before both of the men working the truck are far enough inside at the same time and Al with the hand truck is heading back into the warehouse.

  I slip out the door, run a few feet away from the light that spills out from the warehouse, glad I remembered to wear tennis shoes. I jump off the loading dock and jog around the corner of the building.

  Cindy is waiting with the car, her fingers tapping on the wheel, looking very nervous when I get in.

  “I don’t like this, Evan. I don’t like this at all,” she says as she throws the car into gear and guns the engine.

  “Hey,” I say, “you were great. Let’s get something to eat, maybe hear some music.”

  Cindy glares at me. I lean against the seat and try to hide my disappointment.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The clock radio reads 3:06 A.M. I’m wide awake. It happens often lately and it’s always the same thing that wakes me up, keeps me tossing around. I’ve talked about it with Dr. Mann. She says it’s normal, to be expected, something everybody goes through after a major trauma. For me, it’s a question looming over me like a weight, heavy and horrifying, waiting to drop on me.

  It’s usually music that triggers these early-morning sessions of wakefulness. A record, a remembered phrase—but this morning, I know it’s from my excursion the night before.

  Cindy and I went for something to eat, then ended up at a small bar in the Marina that had taken to featuring jazz. Last night it was a trio—piano, bass, and drums. The tall, heavyset bassist I knew casually. He and the drummer, a thin young black man, had obviously played together before. They meshed well and laid down a carpet of rhythm any pianist would have walked on with pleasure.

  Cindy and I got there just in time for the midnight set. There were only a handful of people in the small bar. Late-night drinkers, single guys on the make, a table full of girls fending off the repeated approaches, and a couple working out their differences in public. Perhaps only a few of the people understood what they were witnessing on the tiny bandstand.