Tell No Lie, We Watched Her Die

by Richard Sanders

  We were coming up on our destination, Schirmer’s Market. A guy in a dashiki was hawking incense off a card table on the edge of the tiny parking lot. Three of the neighborhood pervs, somberly watching the street, sat on an aluminum-colored couch that had been propped up against the market wall.

  “Have you seen the video?”

  “I have to say I have,” she said. “I didn’t like doing it, not at all, but it felt like I had to. I was looking for a clue or something, trying to understand what happened.”

  “Was she in the habit of making videos like that?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I know she enjoyed the bedroom, that much I know. But what she did in there I couldn’t say. Not my purview.”

  The three pervs weren’t lounging on the aluminum couch any more. They were suddenly in front of us, standing straight in our faces.

  One of them, a guy with a cigarette in his mouth and a greasy ponytail tied up in a bun at the back of his head, stepped up to me. He was a rapid smoker, puffing every three seconds like a steam locomotive.

  “The fuck you think you are?” he said to me.

  “Sorry?”

  “You won’t talk. You won’t help out. You won’t cooperate. The fuck? What’s wrong with you?”

  “T’s right, man,” the second guy behind him said. “The fuck?” This was a big, barrel-chested dude with the belly of a pregnant woman. He was quite a sight.

  The third one, a long-haired tweaker, actually wasn’t a bad looking guy, nothing a full set of teeth couldn’t fix. He didn’t say anything. The silent but violent type.

  I looked at Rapid Smoker. “What do you want?”

  “You hear that? What do we want.” He worked that cigarette like a smoker at the airport getting ready to take a long flight. “You’re pissing people off. You’re making them angry. You’re making them bitter.”

  I saw the guy selling incense step back from his card table and look away. He didn’t want to be part of this.

  “Bitter?”

  “You don’t know how bitter.”

  I was sweating mud. They pull this shit with a cripple old lady right here? Any other time I would’ve put my hand on the Glock under my hoodie, but I wasn’t going to pull it out, not with Pear around.

  Who now leaned forward on her cane. “It’s nice they let you boys go out and play by yourselves,” she said, “but shouldn’t you have some supervision?”

  Rapid Smoker ignored her. “You sure you know what you’re doing?” he said to me. “Cause if you think I give a shit bout who you think you are, that’s just sad. Tell you right now, that’s just fucking sad.”

  He flicked the butt away and reached under his shirt. I saw the glint of something stuck in his belt, jumped away as he yanked the gun out. I saw him raise his arm, level the piece at me, then saw something come swooping through my line of vision, arching out of the sky.

  Pear’s cane came down hard on his wrist, knocking the gun to the ground. He grabbed his paining hand, turned his eyes to her and was about to turn his body and go after her when she whacked the cane across his lower spine. He fell screaming to the pavement, clutching at his back.

  “Just a little bruise of the vertebra,” she said. “Stop whining.”

  The big guy, Pregnant Belly, lunged at me, hands going for my shoulders. I uppercut his open mouth. The shot produced a moment of numbness in his eyes and not much else. His grappling-hook hands kept reaching for me. I threw punches between his arms, pounding his thick chest with all the effect of beating on a mountain.

  I felt him grab my hoodie, start swinging me, hurling me to the side, doing a 180 on me, a 360, a 540, a 620. Finally he let me go. I landed splat-flat against the side of a Nissan Versa. I saw the third guy, Silent But Violent, moving in on Pear, but she was holding him off with the cane, feinting at him, jabbing, swiping at his head.

  Pregnant Belly charged at me again, arms stretched out for another centrifugal toss-around. I’m thinking, stay away from the upper body. Tackle low. I pushed off from the Versa as he came in, dove under his arms and gave him a running head butt in his soft round belly. He oofed and staggered six or seven feet and probably would’ve regained his balance, but he’d stumbled just far enough back to collide with the incense-laden card table. The dashiki guy jumped into the clear as Pregnant Belly wrestled with the table, carrying it back another four or five feet and scattering Sandalwood, Egyptian Musk and Raspberry Fantasy joss sticks all over the ground until the table gave way and tumbled over and he went down with it.

  I looked over at Pear, looked just in time to see Silent But Violent kicking the cane out of her hands. I started running as the guy was reaching back to throw a punch at her head. No need. As his arm was moving Pear grabbed his long hair, twisted around and threw him and his momentum over her shoulder, smacking him to the ground with thudding, pancaking force.

  I think I’ve just witnessed a demonstration of the flying wig-ripper body slam.

  “You all right?”

  “My back is killing me,” said Pear. “But a hot bath I’ll be okay. Hand me my cane.”

  I once interviewed a 90-year-old woman who’d been an outstanding tap dancer in her prime. She could barely walk when I met her, but she could still do a triple time step.

  I saw the incense guy pick up Rapid Smoker’s gun and slip it under his dashiki. Fair exchange, I guess, for his damaged merchandise.

  One by one, our three friends wobbled to their feet. Pregnant Belly and Silent But Violent didn’t hesitate—they started scrambling away. Rapid Smoker made a quick look for his piece and, not finding it, went to join them. But first he glanced at me.

  “God do people hate you,” he yelled, and took off.

  “What’s the what on all that?” said Pear.

  “Something to do with the video.”

  “Those turds?”

  “Sent by somebody.”

  “Who?”

  “Somebody with money. Somebody with power. I have my suspicions.”

  She turned and started heading for the entrance of Schirmer’s Market. “Well, at least I got my exercise in.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that. Too dangerous.”

  “What difference does it make?” she shrugged. “At my age, it’s too late to die young.”

  >>>>>>>>>>>>

  CHAPTER 5

  THE CORE OF THE MAZE

  WHERE GOD HIDES

  The house was a single-level Traditional in Brentwood, located just a few manicured blocks away, ironically, from where O.J. Simpson used to live. The exterior walls were made of diagonal mahogany slatting, with columns of French limestone at the corners. The sloped roof meant there were vaulted beam ceilings inside. This is where Amanda Eston lived, and where she died.

  Tasha and I sat in her car, staring at the house across its deep set-back. She was pointing out what had changed in five years. The eucalyptus trees were new. So were the shrubs, though they needed a trim. The pool and enclosed lanai were the same. The blinding white gazebo in the back, trust her, was a new addition.

  Her eyes kept returning to the house. “So much went on in there. Good, bad. She spent so much time trying to level her life out. Sometimes I think…” Tasha turned away and looked at the street. “Sometimes I’m almost sorry I found out what I did, about the family, the history. Maybe it was too much for her, too much burden. Maybe things would’ve been different, maybe her brain circuitry would’ve been different, if she didn’t know. If I didn’t know. If I hadn’t gone back and looked.”

  “You had to go back,” I said, “especially when you’re young. No kid can resist something that’s hidden. You can’t keep children from trying to learn secrets, even when the child is yourself.”

  “I guess.”

  “Shit, that’s the whole key to childhood. Trying to decode the secrets of life.”

  She glanced up through the trees. Endless blue, hot butter sun. The sky was looking very Mexican today.

  “Pear’s really all right?” she sa
id.

  “She’s fine. Little backache is all.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten you together. I didn’t know I’d be putting her in danger.”

  “She can take care of herself.”

  “Sometimes you take a bad path, you get lucky, you’re still waiting for yourself on the other side.”

  I didn’t get it. Then I realized she wasn’t talking about Pear anymore.

  “But how many times can you get away with it?” she went on. “Cause you know that one day you’ll take that path and you won’t be there on the side. But you still do it. You still try to run past the past, get way beyond it. Sometimes I… I used to wake up with the dead in my room. I could feel them there. My mother, my father, all of them. In my bedroom, waiting for me to join them.”

  I looked over at her. The tears were already running down her face.

  I took her hand. Her fingers were coiled and shaking.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “You’ll be all right. You took the path, you found yourself on the other side. You’ll always find yourself on the other side. Have some faith in that.”

  She looked again at the house, the property. “You see the back, how leafy it is?”

  Beyond the gazebo the yard was thick and hidden with magnolia trees and high bushes.

  “There was a spot like that where we lived,” Tasha said, “just down the street from our house. All woodsy and shady. My mother always said that’s where God hides. He hides in the woods so no one can find him.”

  She took her hand away from mine, wiped her cheeks and eyes. Seconds of silence went by.

  “Do you believe in an afterlife?” she said.

  “I don’t know. I’m just trying to deal with this life.”

  She nodded and said my name. Quinn. Then she said it three or four times and leaned across the seat to me. Leaned so close I could smell the light sweat of her body. We kissed. We held each other and kissed again, all the biochemistry instantly up and running. We were making out in her car, making out in front of the house where her sister’s body had been found.

  >>>>>>

  LET’S MAKE A DEAL

  They were busy at the bureau chasing down a story on the actor Evan Striker. The guy’s DUI hearing had been scheduled for today, and he didn’t help his case by showing up drunk. The courtroom was chaos. Striker got angry because the judge got angry. “But I didn’t drive here!” he protested.

  I was busy with a call that came in.

  My name’s Marvin Brackett. I know someone… I represent someone…who would like to do, like to do some business with you.

  His voice, though halting, was polished and practiced.

  “What kind of business would that be?”

  If I tell you… If I say I’d rather not talk about it on the phone, will you, will you understand?

  “I’m not sure.”

  It concerns something, something that’s taken up a lot of your time lately. I believe… I believe it’s taken up a great deal of your time…in the last, in the last few days. Am I making myself clear?

  What else could it be?

  “I think so.”

  The person, the person I represent, he’s just trying to…trying to, you know…trying to…

  “Make some kind of deal?”

  Well what else would you expect? Yes, make, make a deal. Are you willing to meet?

  “Yes.”

  How about tonight? We’ll need some, need some privacy. Is 1 a.m. too late for you?

  Marvin Brackett gave me instructions and directions. My brain was on full hum when I hung up. Some odd little stew was cooking up. Somebody somewhere was crock-potting something.

  >>>>>>

  ADD TURPENTINE TO YOUR LIFE

  I woke fast and had no idea where I was. My apartment? The Four Seasons? Tasha’s bedroom—she was still sleeping next to me. I got the geranium smell of her skin, the fresh jasmine of her perfume. Her bed faced her balcony and the view beyond. The moon was blurred by mist on the Hills. They made me think, for a moment, of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  Her eyes were opening. She sat up, all smiles and wonder. We talked for a few minutes, nothing gigantic, just lazy talk, the little things you say after coming out of that secret sleep.

  But Amanda wasn’t far off from the center of her mind. Amanda and her family legacy. She brought the conversation back to her doubts.

  “You never can tell,” Tasha said. “You never know what’s going on underneath. Maybe I should’ve never come to LA. Maybe I should’ve stayed in Virginia, never talked to her.”

  “I don’t know. No matter what you do, where you go, you always end up facing yourself. Her, you, me—we all have to deal with ourselves.”

  We talked about escaping, or thinking you’re escaping. I told her about my meth runs, staying up for days on crystal and booze, how reality gets so spread out it’s as thin as a sheet of black ice. It’s like adding turpentine to your life—the colors eventually get so diluted that everything ends up looking washed out and fake.

  She was gazing past her balcony. “Drugs,” she said. “How much do you know about pralicin?”

  “Very little.”

  “That’s one thing that still bothers me. I know she did it herself, killed herself, but where did she get all that pralicin?”

  “Was she doing it before?”

  “Never—not as far as I know. I mean that’s the thing. Hardly anybody ever did pralicin. It wasn’t something you could just cop off the street. So where did she get it?”

  I didn’t say anything, but I was thinking: Maybe she went to a specialist dealer. Maybe she went to somebody who dealt unique kinds of drugs. Who did I know like that?

  >>>>>>

  AN ALTERNATIVE SCENARIO

  Dodger Stadium was empty, but North Hill Street nearby was jumping. People strolling along eating banh mi subway sandwiches, clothes shoppers trolling the curbside bazaars for 1 a.m. bargains. I was looking for a restaurant called The Fruit of the Mekong, but Marvin Brackett told me I’d never find it by name. He’d said not only was the place’s name written in Vietnamese, in quoc ngu, but it was spelled out in old Chinese sinograph characters. Instead I should look for three yellow apricot flowers painted on the white awning outside.

  Got it, just up ahead. Three flowers side by side in slot-machine perfection. The restaurant looked dark and crowded at the same time. I kept walking, casually moving another 100 feet or so past it, glancing around at the night life. But really searching for anything unusual. For anybody in the crowd who might be looking at me.

  Nothing. I went back and into the Fruit of the Mekong. The hostess by the door was wearing a purple ao dai—a long, tight-fitting silk skirt—over the traditional pair of pants.

  “Reservations?” she said.

  “Not here to eat. I’d like to see someone about catering.”

  “Catering, yes.” She took her eyes away from me. “I can help. When is your event planned for?”

  “Thirteen days from now.”

  “I see. And how many people are you expecting?”

  “Thirty-seven and a half.”

  The hostess nodded three times. “This way.”

  She brought me closer to the mobbed bar area, where the laughter seemed to notch up an octave into a giggle as we approached. Two women were standing at this end of the bar, staring at each other, one running her hand through the other’s hair.

  The hostess guided me to a pair of red velvet drapes hanging near the side of the bar. “Up the stairs, two doors to the right.”

  I passed through. Old staircase, sagging steps, barely lit. Very quiet. I kept my hand on the Glock.

  The second door to the right opened to a small private dining room—one table, three chairs. Two people were seated.

  One was a stunning woman with long black Hispanic hair, dark skin against a business suit the color of a pink Cadillac. She said her name was Paloma Applewhite, her voice as musical and passionate as Yolanda Vega calling out the lott
ery numbers in New York—and tonight’s bonus number is fawty-four!

  The other was a squat, powerfully built man with a well-cut suit, a squash-shaped head and a military buzzcut.

  “Marvin Brackett. We talked, we talked on the phone.”

  “I thought your voice was familiar.”

  Paloma beamed. “Have a seat, please!”

  They were drinking coffee, a pot with extra cups and saucers on the table. She asked if I wanted some and poured. Three people sitting around drinking coffee at one in the morning. It was like a mini AA meeting.

  “Thank you for coming,” said Paloma. “I guess you’re wondering what you’re doing here.”

  “The thought occurred to me.”

  “Sorry for all the, all the mystery,” said Marvin.

  “We’ll try to answer all your questions.”

  She handed me a business card. Elegant Acquisitions. Paloma Applewhite, President.