by John Decure
But she was standing so close to me now, cheeks aglow, the pink tip of her tongue tickling her front teeth for an instant, stealing my breath away. It still could have happened—spontaneously—and I was not exactly doing any backpedaling. My brain tapped out an urgent message to the southern region: Down, boy.
“Okay, Skip Greuber started it up,” I said. “Who’d they assign as the investigator?”
“Another weird name that was easy to memorize.” Pausing for effect, as if she were about to make an important announcement. “Duke Choi.”
“You’re kidding,” I said absently, thinking, Duke Choi! I’m hosed! How could they know? The L.A. office employed maybe thirty investigators, so the odds were thirty-to-one it was a coincidence. Maybe Duke had told someone he was meeting me at Tommy’s, and it got back to Greuber. No, I’d expressly told Duke to keep it quiet, and Duke is not one to go looking for controversy.
How could they know?
She rolled her eyes. “I know, I’ve never heard of an Asian Duke. Do you know him?”
I told her I did.
“He any good?”
I drank the last of my wine. Across from me, Therese just kept looking extremely fine, the way her legs were gently crossed as she leaned on the counter, the graceful tilt of her head. Look away, the voice in my head boomed. Look away. I did, and my mind’s eye hit rewind on a tape of my lunch with Duke. The voice asking, How much did you tell him, man? Ah, well, just about everything, man.
“He’s good,” I said.
“Why didn’t you invite Therese to stay for dinner?” Carmen said, lighting a candle on the dinner table.
I was standing beside her, dropping salad onto Albert’s plate as he tugged at the sides of his sweatshirt and grimaced. Albert is not big on greens.
“I did. She couldn’t stay.”
Carmen stayed silent a few beats. “Uh-huh.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She lit the second candle and blew out the match. “I saw the way she looked at you. She’s very attractive.”
“I suppose.”
Carmen sniffed at that. “She likes you.”
“We work together. That’s it.”
“You and I met at work.”
‘That’s different. I was available then, so were you.”
As soon as I said it, I realized my approach was getting off track. This wasn’t so much about how I felt about Therese as it was about telling Carmen how I felt about her.
“God,” she said, “you’re such a romantic. What are you trying to say, if you were available now and she was, it would be open season? And obviously, she is available.”
I came around the table. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.” I put my arms around her shoulders, but she pushed me away.
“Don’t tell me you’re not attracted to her,” she said with a tone of bitterness that surprised me. “I know you are.”
Christ, I was ready to tell Carmen what I knew she wanted to hear, but she seemed intent on making me suffer. I felt my temperature rising.
“Sort of the way you’re attracted to my buddy Mick.”
She stepped back. “After what he did? Dream on.”
“Oh come on,” I said, “cut it about ‘what he did,’ will you please? I’m not gonna even defend him again on that, it’s so stupid.” I backed off, turning to the stove, where a yellow ceramic serving bowl sat waiting to be filled. Damn. We never used to argue like this. I sucked in a deep breath. “The reality is, just because we’re together doesn’t mean we’ll never be attracted to someone else. We’re not living in a cave.”
“Sometimes it certainly feels like it.”
I paused again, stemming my anger. “You’ll meet people you’re attracted to, so will I. But that’s not the point. The point is whether you act on it.”
Carmen’s arms were folded tightly across her tee. Shit, I thought. All she was looking for was some reassurance, and I had to make my point, give her the old clinical assessment.
“As far as I’m concerned,” I went on, “you’re the only woman I ever see, Car. To me, you’re it.”
I waited for a response but got none. The electric clock built into the range buzzed quietly. Outside, Max was topping off his dinner with a little game of street hockey, batting his empty food bowl around the yard. I turned toward the stove.
“What? That’s it?” Carmen said. “Keep going. I want to hear more.” She was still upset, but a tiny glimmer of a smile was forming on her lips. Albert caught it—and laughed.
“Yeah, J., we w-w-wanna … hear more,” he stammered. His demand made Carmen laugh, too.
I came back to the table without the pasta, looking into Carmen’s eyes, point-blank. “Okay, then.”
That’s Albert for you. Retarded? Sure. Sometimes you forget the guy is even there, he’s so reserved. Other times, like now, you realize he’s the smartest person in the room.
Twenty-one
Dale called during dinner to tell me he was camped out down the street from Rudy’s house in an old but nice neighborhood just north of the Glendale Freeway.
“Think Angie and Carlito are sitting on Rudy for now,” he said. “The new Lexus is in the garage. Carlito went out briefly to a liquor store for cigarettes and a few groceries this morning in his own ride.”
“What’s he drive?” I asked.
“A rust orange Camaro with skinny low-profile tires. Looks older than the Buick.”
That was it for the report.
“Oh, one other thing of interest happened this afternoon. Angie went around the house and shuttered all the windows, as if she wanted to hide what they were doing in there.”
To me it was an ominous detail.
“I don’t like it,” I said.
“I know,” Dale said. “The thing is, if they’re just hanging around, biding their time before they try the bank with Rudy again, what would they have to conceal? There’s nothing illegal about waiting, so maybe … I don’t know.”
“Unless they’ve figured out he’s not really bats,” I said. “Maybe he’s doing their crosswords too.”
Dale didn’t respond to my little crack. “But why wait? Angie could still drain his account.”
“Not without his consent. And that manager Dobbs, he’s not gonna let her liquidate that much business with his bank if he can help it.”
“But if Rudy won’t give his consent …” I could hear Dale’s breathing on the line. “Jesus, J., they could be torturing him in there, right now, under my nose.”
“I doubt it,” I said. That was a lie. I was fully confident that Angie and Carlito were capable of squeezing the life out of that old man to get what they wanted. I just didn’t want to encourage Dale to do anything foolishly heroic.
“I’m thinking, tonight, when I go back there, I’ll get closer and sneak a peek,” he said. “Maybe even slip inside. Bet there’s an unlocked door or window somewhere in back.”
“Don’t, Dale. Stay out of their way.”
He chortled. “As if you would.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
A siren passed by Dale’s pay phone, and he waited for the noise to die. “Nothing. Just, I feel great, that’s all. Doing something for a change, instead of watching that big old train come down the tracks, waiting for it to run me over.”
“What big train? This sounds like a Johnny Cash song.” I paused. “A really bad Johnny Cash song.”
I thought I heard him chuckle. “Ah, J.,” he said, “I’ve seen you in action and I know you know what I’m talking about. If you were here right now, you’d do the same, maybe even figure out a way to do the situation one better. Hey, what can I say? I’ve come to believe that I actually got lucky having you monitor my probation.”
“How is that?”
“I’ve learned something from you. Not to hold back. I want to say thank you for that.”
“Well, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not welcome.” I knew what this was
really about. “Dale, this isn’t a makeup test for other things in your life you wish you’d done. Listen to me, do not force the situation with those two, they’re bad news.”
There was a silence on the other end, and I thought I was getting through. “Say,” he said, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Leanne again, have you?”
Christ, the man could be thickheaded. “Earth to Dale: Did you hear what I said?”
Another pause. “I heard. But lemme tell you, I do miss my little girl. And I need to see her again, to set the record straight. You know, start fresh. And you sort of promised you’d look for her, J.”
I had my bargaining chip. “I will. Tonight, even, but only if you promise you won’t play James Bond. That’s the deal, boss.”
“Fine, okay,” Dale said slowly, sounding dejected. “I’ll stay put and watch.”
I hung up the phone, thinking about Leanne Bleeker’s potential whereabouts, but not expecting to find her anywhere near Christianitos. Still, I should look. Not of a mind to reveal my latest entanglement to Carmen, I merely ducked my head into the living room and told her I was taking Max for a walk. Then I threw on a black ski jacket and hooked the big boy up. His tail was wagging so hard he nearly fell over, his naked enthusiasm reminding me of Dale. “Jesus, Max,” I said, “don’t tell me you’re that lonely, too.”
The evening was calm and very cold. No moon, and no offshore wind blowing out of the inland valleys, but the humidity was low and the lights of the Port of Los Angeles and Palos Verdes Peninsula rimming the sea to the west looked magnified reflecting off the oil-smooth water. I strolled out onto the pier with Max, straight past the sign that says no bicycles, skates, or pets on the pier—anyone who lives here knows those ordinances are winked at after dark. Two young Hispanic men with fishing gear were walking the other way. When they saw Max, they quickly crossed to the far side, their eyes on him as the big dog lumbered by. Max and I took up a spot just above the surf line. Row after row of white water hissed beneath the pilings. I leaned against the railing and scanned the Northside parking lot, which was not yet closed for the night. A bright orange VW Baja Bug was parked in the first row behind the sand, a guy and a girl leaning against the driver’s door in an intimate embrace. A battered Volvo wagon and a nondescript American sedan bearing a county seal on its door took up two spots just outside the lifeguard headquarters. That was the entire scene. No white delivery van, no loitering surfers in the lot. No Leanne Bleeker.
“Hey, J., what’s the haps?”
Stone Me Stevie had rolled up behind me on a bright red two-wheeler, a vintage Huffy with white sidewalls and chromed front forks. Despite the nippy weather, he wore only a pair of tattered blue jeans with giant holes in both knees, an unbuttoned Pendleton over a white T-shirt, and cheap thongs on his feet. His dirty blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, which served to sharpen his angular features and highlight the acne scars on his face and neck. A confirmed surf rat, Stevie was less than a year out of high school but still suffered from a case of arrested puberty, what with his fluttery voice and cheesy mustache and goatee. He was said to be perfectly content living in the guest room above his parents’ garage two blocks from the sand, unemployed and with no plans for the future. That is, aside from hitting the most happening parties each weekend, dealing some good-quality weed on the side, and surfing the pier every chance he got.
As usual, he smelled faintly like a roach. The kind you smoke.
I said a terse hello, not wanting to encourage a conversation.
“Great fuckin’ run of waves we’ve had since the New Year, eh man?” he said.
“Mm-hm.”
“Been keeping tabs on a tidal calendar at home, making daily entries about wind, swell, and tide. It’s been head-high or better sixteen out of the last twenty-two days.”
“Awesome.”
“Riding a new stick this winter, a little longer for better paddling but really responsive. It’s like, I can feel it in my turns, the way, like, on this one left I got this morning, I, like, hit this fat section with all this speed and just laid it on edge … And fuck, man! You shoulda seen this air I boosted in the shorebreak, we’re talkin’ wicked air!”
In my book, an aerial is a typically showy trick with a wretched success rate, and it’s very hard on the average surfboard.
I felt I had to ask. “So, Stevie, you land it successfully?”
He stopped to catch his breath. “Well, okay, I fell, but dude, it was so radical! Some guy on the beach said he saw it and said he couldn’t fuckin’ believe I even went for it!”
Blah, blah, blah.
Surfers like Stone Me Stevie bore me to tears with their performance anxiety, as if anyone else gives a shit about how hard they’re ripping it up. I stared into the black expanse beyond the surf line, teeth gritted. Good for you, Steve, you shred, bro.
Even Max, who loves his outings, looked bored, his coal black eyes glazing. I was ready to shrug Stevie off and stroll up Main, clinging to the slim hope that I might see Leanne or her panhandling boyfriend vying for change outside some establishment. Then I thought of Stevie’s tidal calendar.
“You check it here every morning?” I asked.
He beamed. “Damn straight. I mean, you gotta be on it if you wanna score, brah.”
I grimaced. “Right.” There’s nothing like getting unwanted advice, and from this punk, who wasn’t even born when I started chasing waves. Shake it off, J., I told myself. “So, you check it in the afternoon and evening, too?”
He shrugged, lighting a cigarette and tossing the match into the foaming drink below the pier. “Yeah, sometimes, if there’s swell. You know, pray for a glass-off.”
A glass-off occurs when the prevailing afternoon westerly wind dies down, making for smooth wave faces and good surfing conditions. It’s a rare treat in these parts.
Max tugged at the leash, looking up at me with a forlorn mug, as if even he knew this guy was dumber than the last big turd Max had deposited under the peppertree at home. But I tugged back and told my dog to stay. I had nothing to lose by asking Stevie a few more questions.
“I was wondering if you’ve seen these guys. Surfers. Not from around here, but they tend to congregate around this white delivery van. You know, like an old UPS truck somebody converted.”
He rubbed his handlebars, hit on his smoke, and stared at the sea as if he was concentrating. “The one with the trippy design painted on the sides. Yeah, I’ve seen that van before.”
“How about lately?”
Stevie’s brow was still arched in contemplation. “Those dudes are fucking kooks. Shitbag equipment.”
“You seen them lately?”
“Not the last couple … hey!” A big smile bloomed on his face. “They’re the ones you kicked ass all over! Fuck, man, that was so cool! I mean, sometimes you gotta make a statement, right? Like, what’s ours is ours, locals rule.”
“I’ve told you before, that’s not what it was about,” I said, raising my voice. “Anyway, you said you hadn’t seen them since whenever. When was the last time—”
But Stevie wasn’t listening. “Fuck, I wish I’d seen it firsthand. Bam!” He smashed a fist into his hand. “What a day for the local crew, man! You know what? I write shit in my calendar about crowd conditions too, and I swear, man, since that day—and the day those Mexicans got beefed, too—swear to God, the kook factor’s dropped off a lot.”
“No kidding.” He hadn’t heard a word I’d said.
He grinned. “I got your back, man.”
“Nothing like making a statement,” I said. This guy was hopeless. I turned to my dog, who was sitting obediently on his haunches. I tickled his leash. “Let’s go, Max. Later, Steve,” I said over my shoulder. “Keep the faith, bro.”
“Hey man,” he said, but I kept walking. “I know what you think of me. But you’re wrong.”
“Good night, Stevie,” I said over my shoulder.
“You think I’m a pussy,” he called out, “but y
ou’re wrong, man. I can back my act.”
I stopped and turned to face him. Stevie was standing up now with the bike’s chassis between his legs, doing his best to appear sincere. “You know,” I said, “you talk so much shit, you end up believing it yourself.” I shook my head. “That’s pretty sad.” I started to go, but pulled up short. “Your attitude stinks. Grow up. You don’t own the beach. None of us do.”
“You’re wrong, man,” he said. “I’m not shitting you, I made a statement of my own, kicked a dude’s ass that day you got into it with those kooks with the garage-sale sticks.”
“Oh, sure.”
“No, I did.” His tone indignant. “I was S-turning this re-form through to the shorepound, fading into the left, but then I see the right jacking better, so I thought, Fuck it. Changed direction, cut across the peak, then this total barney drops in right in my way. Blows the wave, even dings my rail.” Stevie laughed to himself. “Shoulda seen the look on his face, the dork, like he could barely swim. Clueless, man.” He caught his breath, looking as if he was enjoying my attention. “So I just, I dunno, like, I just blew it, man, fuckin’ shoulder hoppers, not gonna take their shit anymore. I go: Bam!” Smacking a fist into his open palm. “Corked the fucker, sent him straight to the beach.”
Stevie’s eyes got larger with every stride I took toward that fancy bicycle of his. “Hey, whoa, dude, it’s cool,” he whined as I grabbed two fistfuls of Pendleton and hoisted him backward off his seat and into the air. He didn’t start begging for his life until he was hanging upside down over the railings, staring, eyes bugged, at the walls of white water pancaking into the seawall below.
“What I do, man, what I do?” he cried above the rumble.
