Bluebird Rising

by John Decure

  “That’s just tragic, Kimberley,” I said with a bite.

  “Tragic?” Kimberley stiffened. I hoped she was wise to the fact that I didn’t want to hear her sob story. We sat there and diddled our drinks like two prisoners on a blind date gone bad.

  “Yeah. Shakespearean, even.”

  Then she said in a more reasonable tone, “All I’m saying is, if he was that lonely, why couldn’t he just pick up the phone and tell me? Would that be so hard to do?”

  “You’re not the most accessible person I’ve ever met.”

  “Well I’m here now, aren’t I?”

  I gave her credit for coming all this way.

  “And I’m serious about hiring Mr. Bleeker to prepare my father’s will.”

  “I suggest you do it fast, and pray that your dad doesn’t keel in the meantime.”

  “Oh, he’s fine. Sounded great on the phone today. Maybe Pop’s a little sad, but he’s in generally good health.”

  I set down my drink and swiveled to face her. “What I meant was, I hope Angie and Carlito don’t kill him. If he dies intestate—you know, without a will—she gets half of everything. And a million beats a hundred grand anytime.”

  “Then we should do it tonight,” she said, touching my wrist.

  “Not with a phony signature,” I said. “Dale wouldn’t go for that. Neither will I.”

  “You’d stand by and watch my father lose everything instead? After all I … after all we’ve done for him?”

  “It’s a serious crime.”

  Kimberley’s freckled white cheeks blushed pink. “Well, of course we’ll do it legit,” she said.

  “Of course,” I said, unconvinced. I was jonesing for a real drink, but I wanted to go home and crawl into bed with Carmen even worse. I was sick of other people’s bullshit schemes.

  “Now don’t go making me feel guilty about what I did this afternoon,” Kimberley said. She swigged deeply into her glass, as if she needed more ballast. “It’s not like I had a choice.”

  That one made my forehead ache. Shit, the woman couldn’t possibly know how often I’d heard that feeble rationale in my line of work.

  “Don’t kid yourself. You always have a choice.”

  She wagged a finger. “You shoulda ordered a real drink.”

  “Just do the will as soon as your dad splits with Angie. When’s that supposed to happen?”

  “She said she needs a week to move out.”

  My gaze narrowed on her. “That’s too long. Gives them too much time to plan something.”

  Kimberley’s face rumpled. “Don’t sound so paranoid, you’re scaring me.”

  “At least I’ve got your attention.”

  “Well excuse me, but I don’t think it’s necessary. I know a thing or two about the law, too.” She said it like someone who always has to be right. “If the girl kills him, she won’t inherit a penny.”

  I got off my barstool. Outside, through the windows, Max’s huge head hovered near the door, poised like a sphinx. I peeled a five out of my wallet for the drink, flashing on Bobby Silver’s lifeless form stretched across a burning couch. No longer feeling so out of step with human nature.

  “You’re right,” I said. “That’s why when they kill him, they’ll make it look like an accident.”

  Twenty-two

  The Times ran a piece in the Metro section the next morning that read like a follow-up to Channel 6’s TV report on the law center fire. Headlined “Panel Reviewing Bar Activities Makes Early Headway,” it was little more than a vehicle for Miles Abernathy, the disciplinary review panel’s leader, to air the familiar beef that the bar had too much power to investigate and prosecute complaints. In Abernathy’s view, the panel had already uncovered evidence of “a troubling tendency, if only on the part of a small minority of bar lawyers, to overreach, sometimes even flouting the law in the process.” Of course, he was talking about me, and the Times reporter duly rehashed the facts involving my possible “role” in the fire, inferring that I might have started the blaze to destroy files. According to Chief Nicholas Conforti, the Glendale police were looking into the possibility that I had committed arson at the behest of a previously disciplined attorney whose involvement in the law center’s business was as yet unknown.

  Apparently I was unavailable for comment. I frowned.

  “Well, that’s bullshit.”

  “They called last night when you were walking Max,” Carmen said across the breakfast table. She was reading “Dear Abby,” sipping tea in a white terry robe. “Too bad you were out so late.”

  Last night. My back ached when I thought about it. Kimberley’s inebriated state had not mixed well with the sudden realization that her dad was likely in great danger. She’d cried a little, begging me to help her father. The tears led to a quick, shaky cigarette and a hyperventilating anxiety attack. I offered to walk her back to the hotel, taking her hand, but Kimberley had barely cleared her barstool before a bad case of the whirlies descended, bringing on an indelicate reflex action. I saw it coming and ducked, but Ralph Pritchard, who’d come over to lend a chivalrous hand, was slower. That snappy blazer of his was probably being plucked out of the Dumpster and fitted right now by a pier wino.

  I’d carried Kimberley the four blocks over from Main to Fifth on my shoulder, laid her across the bed in her room, turned up the heater, placed a small trash can near the bed in case she had another urgent need, and left. By the time I walked back home, took out the garbage, and put Max away for the night, Carmen and Albert were asleep on the living-room couch, the eleven o’clock weather guy talking about a forty percent chance of rain.

  I flipped to the back pages of the paper to read the rest of the state bar piece and got a surprise: Burton Webb, the governor of the state of California, was using Abernathy’s claims to renew his threat to cut off the bar’s funding if it failed to heed the call to reform. To Burton Webb, a slash-and-burn advocate of small government, bar reform meant only one thing: cutting the bar’s dues budget in half. Never mind that the agency is charged by law with responding to each and every complaint it receives, that its 800 hot line gets maybe ten thousand calls a month, or that the volume of cases prosecuted has tripled in recent years. Forget the rising cost of labor and doing business in general. In Webb’s view, the state bar is “like a bloated Hindenburg,” a redundancy illustrative of the man’s linguistic shortcomings.

  The whole thing read like overkill for a commercial fire at a small office in Glendale, a forced piece of reporting. I wondered who had fed this crap to the Times and what his or her connection was to a UPL outfit that backed investment scams targeting the elderly.

  Today I would check in with Duke Choi. I put down the fish wrap and had a hopeful thought: Maybe Duke was already getting somewhere.

  Carmen had read the disgust on my face. Unable to resist, I picked up the paper and reread the governor’s quote aloud. “Quite the rhetorical genius, isn’t he?” I said.

  “Don’t look at me.” She’d pulled her bare feet up and wrapped her arms around her legs. “I didn’t vote for him.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “You’re being used,” she said after a moment.

  “I know.”

  “But I don’t think you’re important enough for them to ruin you.

  “Gee, thanks.”

  She picked up the paper. “No, no, no, don’t be offended. I really don’t think this is about you, though, J.”

  I pointed to the article. “See that? ‘J. Shepard.’ That’s me.”

  She took time to sip her tea, letting me wait. “You’re being too literal. What I mean is, this ethics-panel thing is part of a bigger cycle. You know, like Mexican politics.”

  I stared across the table. “Mexican politics.”

  Carmen allowed herself a small smile. “That’s right. Remember last winter when we took that trip down to Baja? The one-weeker that turned into a two-weeker.”

  “Sure. Good waves.” We’d had a lot of weather on the
way back up. Every road from the Seven Sisters turnoff to San Quintin was washed out when the rain came.

  “And you were wondering out loud why they kept rebuilding the roads to go straight through the streambeds and washes, the Mexican men out there by the roadside with their picks and shovels, already starting the rebuilding process.”

  “You’ve got to admit, it makes no sense.”

  “But that’s the point,” she said. “They were already rebuilding when we came back through. Those men had jobs.”

  “So that’s why they build roads right through streambeds in Baja, to create jobs.”

  She nodded. “It’s a cycle. It might be stupid and inefficient and probably corrupt, but it is what it is. And Mexico is that way. A lot.” She laid down the article. “This panel thing is no different.”

  The phone rang. It was Skip Greuber. “J., buddy. Glad I caught you. Thought you’d be out surfin’, man. Howzit today?” Laying it on a bit thick.

  I didn’t trust anyone who would investigate me behind my back. “Awe inspiring,” I said, “two foot and crumbly.” I felt my heart thumping inside my T-shirt. “What do you want?”

  “Nothing, just thought I’d call. You see that article in the Times yet?”

  “If I had a bird, the bottom of the cage would have new lining already.”

  “Pretty wild how they got a quote from Webb and all, huh?” I didn’t answer. Then he said, “We’re getting some complaints on that Bleeker fellow now.”

  “UPL, yeah, I know, but it’s no surprise. That place in Glendale was using his name and bar number without his knowledge.”

  “I dunno, J., doesn’t look too good for him if you ask me.” He waited for my response, but got none. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know where we can reach him, would you? We’d sure like to talk to him.”

  “Try his membership-records address.”

  “We did. His wife says he doesn’t really live there anymore. You seen him lately?”

  I was tired of his game playing. “This part of your SBI on me, Skip?”

  He paused. “Now wait, buddy—”

  “Quit with the buddy crap already, will you?” I said. Carmen sat very still, studying her section of newspaper self-consciously. “What do you want, Skip?”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, “act like a jerk-off if you like, J. I just thought I’d extend a little courtesy to you, that’s all.”

  “Well gee, thanks. Have a nice day. Later, Skip.”

  “J., hang on a minute, wait!” he yelped. “You there?”

  “Make it fast.”

  “Reggie wants a meeting with you.” He was talking about our ultimate boss, Reginald Hewitt, the chief trial counsel at the bar.

  “Then why didn’t he call?” I knew Hewitt to be a straight-ahead type, even if he was somewhat removed from the day-to-day personnel like me. He was the kind of guy who would come around from behind his desk to shake your hand on your first day on the job, then surprise you by remembering you by name when you crossed paths again in a parking lot six months later. I couldn’t quite picture the chief using Skip Greuber to set up his meetings.

  “Jesus, J., quit busting my chops, will ya?” Skip said it as if he was down on himself for lacking the wit to cook up a decent lie.

  “Sorry, but that’s not good enough, buddy.”

  There was an unexpected pause before Skip said, “You listen to me,” letting some agitation bleed through. “We know what you’re doing. The chief wants to put a stop to it before the bar gets another big fat fucking black eye for the public to see.”

  “Skip?” I said.

  “Yeah?” Suddenly hopeful.

  “You tell the chief he’ll have to follow the MOU and go through my union rep.”

  He half chuckled, letting out a long sigh. “Shepard, you do not know what you’re getting yourself into.”

  I didn’t care for the sound of that. “That a threat or a warning?”

  He seemed to think about his answer. “You decide, smart guy.”

  I hung the phone up hard, stood there, staring through the window above the sink at the big palm across the alleyway behind my house. No wind yet. I felt the pull of the ocean again, the need to distance myself from this building mound of grief by the most reliable method I knew. I wondered what the swell was doing, whether the midmorning low-to-high tide was bumping up the surf. I’d checked it from the second-story balcony at dawn, balancing with one hand flat on the brick chimney as I stood spreadlegged on the railing. Unless the surf is sizable, it’s an unreliable, cheater’s surf check, as plenty of good small days go undetected from this distant vantage point. But I just didn’t have the requisite energy or desire to get dressed and slog down the block and over the berm for a true check this morning.

  I thought of Stone Me Stevie’s claim that the crowds had thinned near the pier of late, due in large part to the intimidation factor that the two beefs I’d been involved in had generated. The possibility that this was true simply robbed me of my present initiative to give it a midmorning look. At least for now, finding a few uncrowded peaks wouldn’t seem like much of a coup.

  I didn’t hear the doorbell ring, but I heard Albert call out, “I’ll get it!” from the other side of the house. Albert digs answering the door. Carmen says it makes him feel useful and more like an adult.

  “Think the chief might want to offer you your job back?” Carmen asked me.

  I shook my head no. “I still have my job. This is just a free vacation.”

  “Um, J.?” Albert called to me from the entry hall. “It’s K-K-Kimberley.”

  “Free vacation, right,” Carmen said. “And the fun never stops.” Her voice weary.

  I came away from the window and bent over to kiss Carmen on the head. Her black hair smelled faintly sweet, like vanilla. She hadn’t said another word about moving out since the bowling alley, and I was glad for it. I wanted her to know I appreciated her hanging in so well through all of this craziness of late, but as I made my move, she closed her eyes.

  I kissed her anyway.

  The taxicab was still idling on Porpoise Way when I invited Kimberley Kirkmeyer-Munson into my living room. She wore tight blue jeans and a white top under a black V-necked sweater, red tennis shoes. Her hair was thicker and curlier than I’d ever seen it, as if she’d slept on the roof of a Greyhound bus all night. Dark sunglasses hid her eyes completely. A way casual look for her, and somehow the effect was to make her seem more vulnerable. Carmen seemed to notice the difference too; she’d crowded in behind me and had her arms folded, sending Kimberley the Woman-don’t-even-think-about-it greeting.

  Kimberley waved her hand at the yellow Ford Taurus. “Okay,” she mouthed at the driver. The cab had a minibillboard on its roof advertising a new brand of cigarettes named Ocean Breeze. Christ, I thought, this world is getting more cynical by the minute.

  “Wasn’t sure you’d be home,” Kimberley explained. “And I am not in any shape to walk back to my hotel, even if it is only on the other side of Main.”

  “Feel free to call first,” I said.

  Kimberley guided herself into the big leather chair near the front window, the one Dale liked to sit in at night. Everything nice and easy. She winced. “Ooh, my head feels like cement.” She left her sunglasses on as she rubbed her temples.

  Carmen and I took up on the couch and waited, but Kimberley said nothing. She seemed to be winded just from her trip up the front walk to ring my doorbell.

  “I came here to thank you,” she finally told us, removing her shades. Her eyes were almost as red as her hair. “For last night.” Her eyes cut to Carmen quickly when she realized what she’d said. “I mean, for helping get me back to my room after I got sick. I was so zonked, I still don’t know how you did it.”

  I wasn’t about to volunteer any information in front of Carmen. “You’re welcome.”

  “You made a helluva point about my father.” Then she regarded Carmen. “Dad doesn’t have a will.”

  Carm
en raised an eyebrow. “So?”

  “So, if those two find out, God only knows.” She shuddered lightly—“Anything could happen.”

  It was probably a good time to reassure her, but quite honestly, I didn’t feel obligated, not with the extended stroke job Rudy Kirkmeyer had apparently given Dale and me just to get his daughter to notice him again. I was still not completely sold on Kimberley’s take on the situation.

  I said, “Maybe a quick reunion is in order.”

  Kimberley straightened as if to shake off her hangover. “Can you help me?” Carmen and I exchanged blank stares. “I mean, I’d like to hire you. To do the will.”

  “He’s already got a job,” Carmen said.

  Kimberley sat back a little. “Just barely. The hotel leaves a free copy of the Times at my door in the morning. I read today’s edition while I was waiting for my cab.”

  “I’m not an estate-planning lawyer anyway,” I said.

  Kimberley clicked her tongue impatiently. “Then let’s cut to the chase. I’ll pay you a fee to help me get him back. Safely.”

  “Have you tried talking to him since you made the deal with Angie?” I said.

  “The line’s busy.” She opened her purse and began to dig through it, probably looking for a smoke. “Truth is, I’m beginning to get concerned.”

  “You should have made handing him over contingent on them getting the first fifty grand,” I said.

  She found her cigarettes. “You’re right. That’s my point, I’m not good at this kind of stuff.”

  “You want to go outside?” I asked.

  Kimberley waved off my gesture. “I want you to help me get my father back. I’ll pay you whatever you want.” She sighed, her lips puckered, and said quietly, “Please.”

  “I don’t need your money,” I said, walking to the front window. I thought of Dale, the way he’d stared through these same squares of glass at night, aching to somehow make his lost daughter found again. And with Rudy, how far Dale had gone to protect a client who’d lied to him and never paid him a cent for his trouble.

  I could feel Kimberley’s perceptive gaze on my back. “Then what?” she said.