Bub answered, "Only if there's a phone handy."
When Bobbie questioned Fin about the age of all the fun-loving fogies, coots, geezers, codgers, duffers and biddies she'd met in the saloon, he didn't know how to tell her that the oldest fossil in the joint wasn't fifteen years his senior.
All he could mumble in their behalf and his own was "Because of all their fun in the sun, crow's-feet are badges of honor. Sorta like the face paint on Alice Cooper and Amazon head-hunters. They're really not as antique as they look."
Fin was doing some shaky driving when they crossed the Coronado Bridge at 2:00 A. M. He had the radio tuned to a San Diego oldie station, and while Natalie Cole's old man sang "Too Young," he said to her, "My sisters made me sing that when I took guitar lessons. They thought I was adorable."
"You still are," she muttered drowsily, her eyes closed.
He glanced over, thinking that now she looked like a teenager. At the top of the bridge he saw the Suicide Prevention Hotline number, and thought: What is happening to me? Where am I going with my life? Do I have a life left? Where's the Menopause Hotline number? Does it get worse than this?
When they drove through the toll gate he said to her, "Time to wake up, kid, I mean, Bobbie. Open up your peepers."
"Huh?" she said, bolting upright.
"It's not a Scud attack," he said, "but we're in Coronado. Where do you live?"
She directed him to a house just off Fourth Avenue, and after he parked in front, he retrieved her .45 automatic. Then he opened the car door for her, and this time he had to pull her up by the hand. She staggered when she took the first step so he put his arm around her waist and walked her to her upstairs apartment in the rear.
She fumbled in her purse, and didn't object when Fin took the purse and rummaged for the keys. She didn't object when he unlocked the door and led her inside. Nor did she object when he put her purse on the kitchen counter, along with the holstered automatic, gun belt, and keys.
She did object when he pecked her on the cheek and turned toward the door.
In fact, still wobbly, Bobbie intercepted him and threw her arms around his neck, exploring his gold crowns with her tongue.
When he pulled away he knew he was in trouble. Gallantly, he said, "No way, kid."
"Don't call me kid."
Hoarsely: "No way. Not in your condition. Not in my condition."
Bobbie ran her hands under Fin's jacket and over his buns saying, "What condition are you in?"
"No way, Bobbie!" he said, even more raspy. "Your boyfriend went back to his wife, right? You're just lonely."
"Sure, but I don't have to hit on toll-booth attendants. I can find somebody any time I want."
"You'd be sorry tomorrow," he said.
"I never had an older guy," she said. "Besides, it's already tomorrow."
A croak: "I can't go the distance."
She stepped back then and said, "I can't believe it! You're the first guy ever turned me down!"
"I'm not turning you down," he said. "Just asking for a rain check."
"But why?"
That stopped him. His mouth was dry. His heart was hammering. His hands were shaking. He wanted to peel off that rum-stained pink shell right this second and fondle those Emersons for a week at least!
Instead, he said, "I can't take advantage of a kid ... of a young woman that's drunker than a beer-hall mouse."
"You are a gentleman!" she said in amazement. "For real! The first one I ever met in California!"
Trudging out the door, he said, "I wish I had Jimmy Carter's home number 'cause I sure got a lotta lust in my heart!"
She popped her head out and said, "You really are! A gentleman!"
He was boozy and woozy and full of self-pity when he said, "I'm a combat veteran of the battle of the sexes, but somehow I can't bring myself to really use-and-abuse personnel of your gender. Because of my sisters! Those three babes have wrecked my entire life!"
When he got to the bottom of the steps she said, "Wait, Fin!"
He paused: "Is it about the rain check?"
"It's about the shoe!" Bobbie said. "I been forgetting to ask you all evening about the shoe on the dead guy's foot. Whazzisname, Pepe Palmera? What kinda shoe was it?"
Chapter 21
Nell Salter had trouble going to sleep that night because of confusion, and mixed feelings concerning the neurotic cop, Fin Finnegan.
Bobbie Ann Doggett had difficulty sleeping because of her raging blood-alcohol level, and her astonishment at having met a gentleman in the state of California.
Jules Temple couldn't sleep because he was furious at the notion that he was losing control of his own life, and at his dismal sexual performance with Lou Ross. But finally, he blamed his failure on Lou's deteriorating body, and took a sleeping pill.
Fin Finnegan slept badly because of a plethora of emotions that involved Bobbie Ann Doggett, Nell Salter, his three ex-wives, and all three sisters. He had a momentary rum-soaked fantasy about living the remainder of his days in a monastery out near Borrego Springs, until he remembered that he'd still be a forty-five-year-old monk.
Abel Durazo was awake longer than the few minutes it usually took, because of the extreme violence he'd seen in the bikers' bar. And also because tomorrow he was going to collect six thousand dollars from Soltero. Abel had never had so much money at one time in his entire life.
Shelby Pate couldn't sleep at all It was mostly because he'd snorted so much meth he was totally amped, and when he was like this he did all sorts of strange things, such as going out to his girlfriend's one-car garage and trying to take his truck engine apart and put it back together. Sometimes when he was wired he'd work on his Harley in the front yard under a droplight, or he might initiate a frenzy of hedge clipping until it looked like a herd of starving goats had raided the yard.
When he got like this, his neighbors would scream at him and threaten to call the cops, but they were tweakers too. They knew that Shelby was vibrating from having done a teener of go-fast, and that he'd chill pretty soon. Or else he'd flat-line, and they wouldn't mind that either.
There was another reason though, that Shelby Pate couldn't sleep, and it had nothing to do with the twitching and jumping and oscillating caused by the cringe. It had to do with the visit by Nell Salter and Fin Finnegan. It had to do with Shelby learning for the first time that they were hauling a very dangerous pesticide called Guthion, and that such a load should've been manifested for disposal outside California.
When Shelby had got home from the bikers' bar -- long after the paramedics had hauled away the bearded biker with his guts kicked out -- Shelby had crept into his girlfriend's closet and retrieved his leather jacket, the one he'd worn last Friday night. He removed both manifests from the pocket of the jacket and read them. The material from North Island was properly manifested for disposal at a Los Angeles refinery. Then he sat down at the kitchen table and carefully read the manifest from South bay Agricultural Supply.
On line 11-a of the State of California Health and Welfare Agency form, the proper shipping name, hazard class, and I. D. number did not list a waste poison mixture of Guthion. It was listed as "waste flammable liquid," and specifically described as "weed oil and kerosene."
And on line 9, which required the name and address of the disposal site, the facility listed was a refinery in Los Angeles where Shelby and Abel had often hauled ordinary waste. There was no mention of a disposal site in Texas.
Shelby folded the manifest and put it inside a plastic sandwich bag. Then he hid the plastic bag inside one of his spare boots and took that pair of boots out to the garage. After that, Shelby fired up the power mower and started running it over the little yard until a next-door neighbor and fellow tweaker walked out of his house in his underwear at 4:30 A. M., and said, "Dude, if you don't stop workin like a deranged fuckin beaver my old lady said she's gonna burn your house down and that's a promise!"
The first one up the next morning was Bobbie Ann Doggett. The
second was Fin Finnegan, only because Bobbie phoned him at 8:00 A. M. sharp.
Fin stared at the ringing telephone like he was Alexander Graham Bell's cleaning lady wondering what the hell that strange contraption was.
"Uuuhhhh!" he mumbled, after he worked it all out and picked it up.
"It's Bobbie!" she said. "I'm real sorry, Fin, but I could hardly wait to call!"
"Uuuuuhhh!" he said, afraid to raise his head from the pillow. "Bobbie, I'm near death! Please!"
"Don't you want a second opinion? Listen to me, Fin. The shoe? Whaddaya say we call and talk to the officer that found the dead guy's foot? Or maybe we could call the morgue?"
"It's Saturday, Bobbie! I'm on a day off. You're on a day off."
"But Fin," she said, "if the dead guy's foot was inside a black steel-toe high-top U. S. Navy flight-deck shoe, I'm gonna arrest those two truckers for grand theft!"
"Wait, Bobby!" he said, sitting up. Then, "Owwwwww!"
"What's wrong?"
"What's wrong? You drank as much, no, more than I did and you ask what's wrong?"
"I felt a little sick last night, but I went for a jog this morning and I'm fine," she said.
Youth. Communication was hopeless. "Don't go running off and arresting anybody," he said. "Lemme get up and find my head and make some coffee and call a priest for last rites. Then I'll phone the CHP and see if I can get in touch with the young officer who added to my present torment by going on a treasure hunt for a goddamn foot!"
"Okay, I'm at home and I'm ready to go to work," she said. "This'll be the biggest arrest I ever made. It's rad!"
"Rad," Fin said, hanging up the phone. Then, "Rad. Cool. Awesome. Ow, my freaking head!"
While Fin was trying to accomplish the most difficult task of the week, namely, locating the bathroom door, another urgent call was being made by an equally anxious caller.
"Here, pus brain," she said, "it's for you."
Shelby Pate didn't know where he was. He didn't know who she was for a moment, even though he'd been living with the woman for eighteen months.
He lay in bed and tried to focus, but couldn't. He heard the telephone voice saying, "Hello? Hello?"
He tried to put the receiver back on the cradle, but only managed to knock everything on the floor.
"Hello?" the voice said, more faintly.
Then Shelby felt himself being shaken by his hair. "Ooooooo!" he moaned. "You bitch/"
"Get up, puke face, and talk to him!" she said. "It's your fucking boss! I gotta leave for work now or I won't have a job and you'll have to support me for a change, you speed-freak asshole!"
And with that good morning, Shelby Pate's long-suffering girlfriend went off to her job as a manager of a pizza joint, leaving him to listen to that fucking telephone voice yammering at him.
"Hello? Hello? Hello? Goddamnit!" the voice said.
Disoriented, he picked up the phone and said, "Flaco, is that you? It's too early, man!"
"This is Jules Temple!" the voice said.
"What?"
"It's Jules Temple! Wake up. We gotta talk."
That brought him around a bit. He raised up on one elbow and said, "Kin I call you back, Mister Temple?"
"I just need a few minutes. It's important."
He couldn't find a pencil anyway, so he said, "Okay, I'll try to talk, but I was up late."
"It's about the cops that visited you yesterday," Jules said. "I got back to the office and found a note from Mary."
"Yeah?"
"What'd they want?"
"Kin this wait?"
"No, goddamnit! What'd they want? I gotta know! It's my business! You're my employee!"
There was nothing like a little jolt of anger to cut through the fog. "I know you're my boss," Shelby said.
"There seems to be a lotta interest in you two and that truck. What happened? Mary said a kid was contaminated from the Guthion."
His head was clearing more quickly and he said, "That's right, Mister Temple. From the Guthion."
"That's a shame," Jules said. "But what else did they say? Did they find the drums? Did they find . . . anything?"
"No, Mister Temple," Shelby said. "They didn't say nothing about the waste drums. Whaddaya mean by find anything?"
"Well..." Jules hesitated. "Like the license plates, or registration, or any documents from the truck."
"They didn't say nothing about no license plates or registration."
"Anything else? Did they ask about anything else or mention finding anything else?"
"Like what?"
"Goddamnit, like the fucking manifests! Did they mention finding the manifests?"
"Which one?" Shelby asked innocently. "The one from North Island or the one from Southbay Agricultural Supply?"
Jules could have shot him dead. He could have plunged a knife into his throat. He could have pushed him into a vat of acid in the storage yard. But he took a long pause and said, "All right, did they mention the manifest from North Island? Like maybe they found it?"
"No, they didn't," Shelby said, and even through the hellacious methamphetamine and tequila hangover, he was starting to enjoy this.
"Did they mention the other manifest?" Jules asked very carefully, the way you'd talk to a lunatic chained to a wall. "Did they maybe find the manifest from Southbay Agricultural Supply?"
"No, they didn't say they found it," Shelby said.
"They didn't? Okay, I was just wondering, and . . ."
Shelby interrupted him: "But they mentioned it."
"What ... did they say, Shelby?" Jules asked, with no emotion whatsoever in his voice.
"Just that we was carryin this real bad Guthion and it would have to be manifested for outta state. Texas, I think. That's what they said."
"And what did you say?"
"That we never pay no attention to what manifests say. Our job was to bring the stuff back to the yard and then you tend to it after that."
"Okay," Jules said. "Okay, was there anything else they said?"
"Just asked us again about how the truck got stolen. Like, whether we saw anybody we knew around Angel's when we went in for lunch. That kinda stuff. Cop stuff."
Jules was enormously relieved. Now he wanted to smooth things over with this halfwit, to keep Shelby Pate from thinking that there was any more to this than a routine call from a concerned employer.
"I'm sorry to be so abrupt and to call you so early," Jules said, "but you can imagine how I feel. A child died because our waste got dumped by some truck thief. It's not your fault. It's not my fault. Still, I feel very bad about it. You can understand, can't you?"
"Sure, Mister Temple."
"So that was it?" Jules Temple said. "They haven't found any paperwork whatsoever?"
The ox managed a little smile, even with a blinding headache. It was fun being clever, particularly since Shelby hated this cheesy son of a bitch with his manicured fingernails and thirty-dollar haircuts. A guy who never so much as got a palm blister in his whole life. Shelby said, "They asked again about your five hundred bucks."
Jules knew that this larcenous son of a bitch was rubbing it in about his money, but he forced himself to say, "And you told them the same as before? That the truck thief got it?"
"Right. That it was in an envelope wrapped up by the manifests inside the glove box. Where we put everything for safekeeping."
Jules persuaded himself to say calmly and casually, "In the glove compartment with the two manifests?"
"Right," the ox said, grinning now, because he knew that Jules Temple knew they'd ripped him off for the $500. And there was nothing he could do about it. Shelby loved this.
But he'd overplayed it again, just as he had with Bobbie Ann Doggett. As Fin Finnegan might say, he'd taken his performance clear over the top. But even if Shelby had had a clearer head he might not have been clever enough to manipulate Jules Temple.
"If I need to talk to you again, Shelby, I hope you don't mind if I call you?"
"Anyti
me, Mister Temple," said Shelby. "Anytime."
Then Jules hung up. The blood had drained from his face. He got up and began to pace. He went into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. His hands were actually trembling, and that was not like him.
That imbecile said that both manifests were in the glove box, but the day after the so-called truck theft, he'd told Jules that one manifest was on the seat in the cab and one was in the glove box. Now he'd forgotten about that lie.
It could be an honest mistake. Shelby Pate was obviously hung over and more dimwitted than usual. Maybe it was an honest mistake, but Jules didn't think so. There was something about the way he'd said "Guthion."
Jules believed that Shelby Pate had read that manifest, and if he'd read it, he might still have it. Or at least he knew where he'd tossed it and he'd go find it, now that the cops had given those fools information that could put Jules Temple in prison!
But would Pate and Durazo risk jail themselves? They'd dumped the waste. They'd faked the truck theft. A moment's thought provided the answer. They could tell the authorities that they had no idea that the waste was anything more than what the manifest said it was: waste flammable liquid. They could cut a deal with the police, if it came to it. Jules knew he was about to be blackmailed.
While Shelby Pate tried to pull himself together by drinking hot coffee, Jules Temple, for the very first time in his life, began to contemplate an act of violence. He began to contemplate murder.
It was Nell Salter who got the next phone call of the morning, and she was surprised that it was from Fin.
"I got some news for you," he said.
"Was your pasta a success?"
"What pasta?"
"Last night. Pasta?"
"Oh, that. No, it's about our case. The guy that got killed in the hot truck was wearing a shoe that was stolen along with a couple thousand other shoes at North Island when our two truckers picked up the hazardous waste."
"What?"
"His cold foot was in a hot shoe!"
"Were you drinking again last night?"
"Yeah, but I'm sober now. The truckers and the dead guy apparently pulled a grand theft at North Island, then drove to T. J., then faked the theft of the truck. So this means they also dumped the waste!"
Finnegan's Week (1993) Page 20
