“How angry?”
“He grabbed my arms and shook me.”
“And?”
“That was it. I had little bruises. Not too bad. Henry isn’t very strong.” A slight turn of the head. “Are you, Henry?”
“So I got a little mad once. That doesn’t mean I did anything to Brenda.”
I raised my eyebrows. “No one said you did.”
“The police came and asked me questions. They didn’t suspect anything.”
“Didn’t they?”
“It doesn’t matter if you believe me. I didn’t do it.” He roused himself and went over to Maria. “Honey, she didn’t mean anything to me. It was just a fling. Only once or twice.”
“Christ, Hank,” I said. “You went to faculty parties with her and everything. While poor Maria here stayed home down in Long Beach watching reruns of Cheers”
I watched them, hoping she’d get mad, hoping the whole thing would get emotional, with yelling and screaming, so Henry would lose control and let something slip. But instead, Maria got a little teary-eyed, and Henry told her he was sorry. He tried to put his arms around her. She shrugged him off. But not very forcefully, and I was afraid if he tried again she would let him. I didn’t want to be around to see that. I didn’t want to see yet another asshole getting the girl while nice guys like me slept alone. So I got off the boat.
Someone new was walking up, a big red-haired lug carrying a six-pack of Blackened Voodoo. “You must be Dutch,” I said, and went somewhere else to dry off.
I found a towel among the debris in the truck. But my shirt was still wet, binding, and uncomfortable, so I pulled it off and drove home bare-chested. A guy without a shirt in a pickup. All I needed was the backward baseball cap to complete the redneck image.
When I got home I threw my orphaned sandal in the Goodwill bag atop Mrs. Kwiatkowski’s jogging suit and checked the phone machine. My father had called. So had Magda Tillis. Both said the machine was making weird noises and they were hoping I’d get the message.
Dad wanted to know how I was doing. Were the cops still following me? I called him back and told him everything was fine and that I hadn’t seen my shadow again. He told me to be careful. I said I would.
Magda told me Dicks memorial service was Monday at ten-thirty at a small cemetery in the hills above Santa Monica, where his ashes would already have been interred in front of a select few on Sunday. She hoped I could make it.
This presented a small dilemma. My ten-fifteen Burger World audition should be over by ten-thirty, but it was way over in Hollywood. The earliest I could get to the service would be eleven. I briefly considered calling Elaine to cancel the audition. But I couldn’t afford to blow off a shot at a Burger World.
After I put the chunk of milii in the greenhouse, I phoned Gina. We exchanged stories, mine about Farber and hers about her mother. Mine was more exciting; hers scored points for human interest.
She was prepping for her encore with Carlos. We joked about how it was the first time in a year either of us had seen the same person two nights in a row. And about how she might get lucky. “I thought you were getting too old for recreational sex,” I said.
She waited a long time before answering. “I guess two dates in a row takes it out of the recreational category. Maybe not quite meaningful, but close enough. I’ve been celibate too long. You too, Joe. It’s making me nervous.”
I showered and shaved. This made three days out of four shaving, way above my average. I emptied my wallet and dried the contents as best I could with my hair dryer. I spent fifteen minutes inspecting my wardrobe before settling on my blue Dockers and a chambray shirt Gina’d gotten me for my last birthday, and I left for my assignation with Amanda Belinski.
I stopped at American Flowers, picked out half a bouquet, asked myself what the hell I was doing, and carefully returned them to their containers. But I broke the stem off one iris, so I paid for it and threw it on the floor of the truck.
The flowers went back because it wasn’t a date. It was fact-gathering with someone who could be invaluable to my investigation. The fact that she was attractive and I was suddenly horny had nothing to do with it. Besides, what kind of putz would come on to a woman whose sister had just been murdered?
I was halfway up Main Street in Ocean Park when the eight-track ate the Dave Clark Five. I jerked the cartridge out, reeled in four or five feet of tape, and threw the whole mess on the floor. It landed atop the iris. This reminded me of Iris Bunche and of her substantial yet attractive tush. They say men think of sex every six seconds. I’d been way behind, and all of a sudden my hormones were playing catch-up.
It was a quarter after seven by the time I pulled into the circular drive in front of the Loews. Twenty-five after by the time I’d discussed the rates with the parking attendant and opted for a place several blocks up the street. Twenty-five to eight when I knocked on the door to Room 621.
Amanda came to the door wearing a diaphanous white blouse over something lacy. Her dark gray slacks faithfully followed the curve of her hips. She wore a little more makeup than when I’d seen her before—a bit of color on her cheeks, some highlighting around the eyes—and ear studs with pale blue stones. Her dark brown hair hung straight down the sides of her face, framing it perfectly. She had a nice perfume on, subtle but sexy.
“Shall we go to the restaurant downstairs?” she said.
“That’ll be fine.”
She grabbed a sweater, and we took the elevator down and walked through the lobby. I’m not usually a fan of fancy expensive hotels, but the Loews works for me. A huge atrium arched all the way to the roof, with plants all over the place. All relatively tasteful. And right at the beach.
We’d just about reached the restaurant when I heard someone call my name. I turned to see Willy Schoeppe approaching. He was clad in khaki pants, a matching shirt with epaulets, and his ever-present smile. He came up and pumped my hand Teutonically I introduced him to Amanda and told her how he knew Brenda, while wondering why he hadn’t looked Amanda up before.
“Have you eaten, Mr. Schoeppe?” she asked.
“I have not,” he said. “But I would not want to intrude.”
“Nonsense. Mr. Portugal and I are here to talk about Brenda. I would be happy to have you join us.”
He looked at me, and I nodded. A few moments later we were seated at a window table that afforded us a splendid view of the sunset. Little rows of delicate high clouds transformed from pink to purple in a minute’s time. A lone pelican winged by over the bay.
The waitress came by and recited the specials. None of us took her up on them. When she went away I broke the ice. “You said at the funeral that you and Brenda’d grown apart.”
Amanda nodded. “Especially since our parents died. Seven years ago. Within a month.”
“Sometimes it’s like that,” I said. “When people are really close, when one goes, the other doesn’t want to—”
She shook her head. “They weren’t close at all. They divorced when I was two. They just happened to pass away the same month. And as for Brenda and me, a lot of the time I lived with my father and she stayed with Mother. And even when we were living in the same house, we didn’t play together much. She was nine years older than me.” Which put Amanda around forty. Old enough. Unlike Iris, who—
Jesus, Portugal, I told myself, get your mind out of your gonads.
The sun squashed itself down atop the horizon, turned redder and redder, and winked out. I kept an eye on Amanda, waiting for some sign this was affecting her emotionally, waiting for the big breakdown. “I wish I’d known her better,” she would gasp out between sobs. “I wish I’d gotten to tell her that even though we hardly ever saw each other, I loved her”
It didn’t happen, and by the time our entrees arrived, I knew it wasn’t going to. Pasta with chicken for me, a steak for Schoeppe, lamb curry for Amanda. In L.A. a lot of people had given up lamb and veal. The whole baby-animal thing. Things were different in Wisc
onsin.
I didn’t taste much of my meal. I was too involved in the conversation. And in watching Amanda Belinski eat.
She did so with amazing intensity. She loaded everything into her mouth with strong, discrete actions. Like a robot would eat, if robots had to. First a shrimp cocktail she’d cached while Schoeppe and I ate our salads, then her lamb curry. Fork in food, fork up, fork over, fork in mouth. I was especially taken by the way she shook the salt. With vigor. Strong, discrete shakes.
We got to talking about Brenda’s burial place. Schoeppe had been out there twice. “A fine example of the Merina tradition,” he said.
“I knew Brenda was into all things Madagascan,” I said, “but I had no idea she would have herself buried like one.”
“It was probably my doing. She was always fond of the plants, but I insisted on introducing her to the culture, and in short order she was more of a devotee than I.”
But that was the last time Brenda entered the conversation for quite a while. Mostly, Amanda and I swapped life stories, while Schoeppe acted avuncular. She taught geology at a medium-size private college in Bow Springs, Wisconsin, where she’d lived for the last twelve years. She’d never been married, had no immediate prospects, and lived with a dog and a cat and a pair of lovebirds named Lucy and Desi.
When the check came, everyone grabbed for wallets and purses. The waitress had Schoeppe’s hundred-dollar bill before my hand even reached my pocket. “Please, allow me,” he said. “It has been a great pleasure.”
Amanda and I filed halfhearted protests. Schoeppe pooh-poohed us, got his change, threw a big tip on the table. Smiling more broadly than ever, he said, “I think you two young people would like to be alone now.”
I hadn’t been called a young people in quite a while, and the term made me grin. Amanda made a lukewarm attempt to get him to stay, but he said he had to get up early and arose from the table. I got up to shake his hand. He held my grip, got a faraway look in his eye, and temporarily lost his smile. “As I spend time here in Los Angeles,” he said, “I grow convinced plant smugglers had nothing to do with Brenda’s death.”
“Why is that?”
“This is not their milieu. I cannot imagine these people in this city. They are people of the desert.”
“I’ve read that climatically, L.A. qualifies as a desert.”
His eyes returned to the room, and his smile did too. “I have read that the same is true culturally. Although personally I do not agree.” He gave my hand a final squeeze and strode off through the lobby.
Amanda carefully placed her water glass in the exact center of her napkin, stood, put on her sweater. “Let’s walk outside.”
We went down to the concrete boardwalk along the beach. The sky was clear, with a fair number of stars. A faint marine odor ran through the air. To the north, Santa Monica Pier jutted into the bay, filled with lights and tourists and skeeball games.
“Let’s walk up to the Promenade,” I said.
“You mean that big shopping center?”
“Just north of it. A pedestrian mall. Great urban-renewal story, yada yada yada. Restaurants, people-watching. Bookstores. You like bookstores?”
“It sounds fun. Let’s go.”
We’d gone halfway up the boardwalk when a grizzled old homeless guy, smelling of burlap, popped out of a doorway to ask for a handout. Amanda shrank back and took my arm. I dug in my pocket for some change. The man said, “God bless you,” which was big among the homeless that year, and returned to his lair.
A block later Amanda abruptly stopped and twisted me around to face her. Her hair fluttered in the breeze. Her eyes searched my face. “Why are you trying to find Brenda’s killer?” she said.
I studied her features. Her eyes so like Brenda’s. Her lips, cool and refreshing. “How do you know I am?”
“Call it woman’s intuition.”
“I see.” It was a good question. I still wasn’t sure of the answer. “She was a friend.”
“The police will find him.”
“Eventually, maybe. I think they’re off on the wrong track. They suspect me, for instance.”
“Did you do it?”
“Of course not. Did you?”
“No.”
“I thought not.”
She let go of my arms and got me walking again. We continued in silence, listening to the surf and the occasional insomniac sea gull.
18
THE THIRD STREET PROMENADE IS A MONUMENT TO UR-ban regeneration. They took a three-block stretch you wouldn’t want to venture into after dark and turned it into a major entertainment center. It’s full of fun things to do, if you’re the type who’s into fun things.
Maybe the evening hadn’t started out as a date, but to the casual observer it would have looked like one. Amanda would touch my forearm to get my attention, then point at some street clown or balloon twister or fancy bubble blower. I would grab her hand to keep from losing her when we pushed through the crowd. We browsed in a used bookstore but didn’t buy anything.
Around nine-thirty we wandered into Yankee Doodles. The place was packed. People leaned intently over pool tables. A dozen TVs showed highlights of the basketball game earlier, as well as hockey and baseball, tennis and golf.
We found a place in the corner. The monitor nearby was tuned to what had to be Trash Sports Network. Bungee jumping and skyscraper climbing and reruns of Battle of the Network Stars. A waitress came and we ordered drinks, a greyhound for me, a Manhattan for hen In old books, people were always drinking Manhattans. My mother liked them. I hadn’t seen anybody order one in years.
We watched the pool players and exchanged confidences on how bad we both were at the game. This seemed to demand signing up for a table. Twenty minutes and another drink later, one came available. After two games had confirmed our ineptitude, we turned in our cues and paid our bill.
We walked back south along the Promenade. I started picking up a two-ships-passing-in-the-night vibe. Like something meaningful, or at least not totally frivolous, was supposed to pass between Amanda and me that evening. What form it was going to take was unclear, and if we weren’t alert enough to spot it when it came along, it probably wouldn’t happen at all. The emotional buzz had been missing for a long time, and when Amanda reached out and took my hand, I felt a physical one as well. We walked silently for a block or two, thinking our own thoughts. As we turned west on Colorado, she said, “Brenda liked you a lot.”
“How do you know that?”
“She wrote me. We traded letters once or twice a year. She said she’d met this guy and he was something special.”
“Is that all?”
“I don’t remember the details. It was four years ago. I wrote back telling her how happy I was for her, and the next time she wrote she said that it was over.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t want to tell me what happened.”
“There’s nothing to tell. She got tired of me.”
She looked me over. “Self-pity doesn’t look good on you.”
My lips were dry. I licked them. “Sorry.”
“She just dropped you?”
“More or less. She went off to Madagascar and said she felt I should see other people while she was gone. And when she came back we just never got back together.”
“Did you try?”
I said nothing.
“You didn’t, did you?”
I shook my head. “No. I just sort of let the whole thing slip away.”
“Maybe she was waiting for you to come after her.”
“Maybe.”
She nodded, as if this explained everything. “But you remained friends.”
“Yeah. A year or so later we worked together on a succulent exhibit for the county fair, spent a couple of days out in Pomona together, and we found we still enjoyed each other’s company. So we began to hang out. She was one of my closest friends.”
“Your closest being this Gina woman who keeps creeping into your con
versation.”
“Does she?”
“Like clockwork.”
I looked away, pondering the significance of what she’d said. The guy who’d been following me was across the boardwalk. He stood on a staircase leading down to the beach, several steps from the top, with only his head and torso visible. He’d ditched the suit and wore one of those fancy polo shirts gangsters in the movies have on when they’re taking calls at poolside. He still had his shades though.
I told Amanda, “Stay here,” and dashed out to intercept him. When I reached the staircase he was gone. I stomped halfway down to the beach, far enough to see that he wasn’t down there.
When I got back to the top, Amanda was waiting for me. “What was that all about?”
“The damned cops have somebody following me around. Come on. I’m going to find him.”
I pushed through the crowd, headed back toward land, more or less dragging Amanda by the hand. I nearly knocked down a woman tending an incense stand. Somewhere not too far away a calliope chugged. “The carousel,” I said.
Everyone’s seen Santa Monica’s resident merry-go-round in The Sting. It reopened a few years ago after a long period of inactivity and delights kids of all ages once more. We ducked in and plunged through the throngs inside. The calliope clanged out “A Bicycle Built for Two.” Little kids screamed for just one more ride. Horses took riders up and down, while less adventurous folk rode benches.
We followed the wheels perimeter and stopped directly across from the entrance. I scanned the crowd, but I knew I wasn’t going to find Sunglasses Guy. “Damn it,” I said.
“Are you giving up?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m not going to find him. He must have taken Melting Into the Crowd 101 at the academy.”
She laughed. “Too bad,” she said. Another laugh. “That was a lot of fun.”
I turned to her. “Fun?”
She was a little out of breath, and a tiny bit of perspiration stood out on her forehead. Her eyes were slightly glazed. “Yes, fun. Like being Julia Roberts in a thriller movie. This kind of thing never happens in Bow Springs.”
The Cactus Club Killings (Joe Portugal) Page 15
