Devil's Arcade

by Robert Bucchianeri

  The Pelican, a dank, faded single story motel built in the fifties that smelled of mold, rotting wood, and flowery nose-clenching air deodorizer, would suffice for my purposes.

  It was a block in from 92, The El Camino Real, and about a mile from Fred’s.

  The thought of sleeping was difficult, but I knew it was what I needed before the upcoming journey I was bound and likely to take. My head felt like the wrong end of a block of timber under the assault of an ax man.

  I normally would have taken a sitting position on the floor, but you could almost see the bacteria festering in the stained carpet, so I sat in a lotus position in the middle of the bed with my palms open on my knees and tried to relax and breathe.

  After ten minutes of valiant struggle with my thoughts, the relentless interrogation of the facts of the past twenty-four hours that I was helpless to stop, I surrendered.

  My mind is the only thing separating me from being the Ultimate Yogi.

  Finally, exhausted, I lay back on the bed and fell asleep without realizing it.

  My eyes flickered open to a familiar song of my youth—a high-pitched smother of bells running into each other.

  My new phone was set to an old-fashioned ring.

  When I brought it in front of my eyes, I was surprised to see that it was just after 7 a.m. I’d been asleep for almost five hours. It seemed like three minutes. I felt more enervated than refreshed.

  I swiped the display open and waited. Nothing.

  It had to be Marsh. I didn’t recognize the number because he was using an untraceable phone too.

  Still, feeling a slight paranoia, I did not speak first.

  After another few seconds, Marsh said, “Jewel Allen isn’t her real name.”

  Not a surprise.

  And yet I felt my pulse quicken at the news. It meant Marsh had caught the scent of the prey or perhaps even more. It meant I could take action. It meant I could leave the Pelican Not Inn.

  “You found her?” I said.

  “Not exactly. How’s that head of yours?”

  “Hard as ever.” I was lying. It felt soft and vulnerable as did the stream of consciousness running through it, but I didn’t want Marsh rushing in to save me. I had to do this myself, although I would need assists from him and Alexandra.

  “Glad to hear it. Hope it’s not too hard to listen to reason.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I doubt it’ll be easy to find Jewel or to get her cooperation.”

  It didn’t matter how easy it would be. The phrase, “Easy is as easy does,” popped into my mind, but, thinking on it for a moment, I didn’t have a good idea of what that even meant.

  “We got nowhere with the owner at the gym. Leslie. Don thought he might be hiding something, but no idea what that could be. I guess there’s no reason to think he’s involved at all. The fact that Bobby spent time there, and it’s so close to the casino makes me think we have to do some further exploration and that’s happening as we speak.”

  For Marsh, there are no coincidences. I mainly agree with him but am not as strict an adherent to the axiom as he is.

  He continued. “But at Fred’s, we caught up with a bartender and a waitress at their favorite watering holes. Karin, the one who pointed you toward the Oceanview, was one. She didn’t appear to know that she was setting you up. It surprised her because she kind of liked, or at least felt sorry for, Bobby. She was shocked to hear that he’d been killed and, with a little pressure about how her name might come up in the police investigation unless she could help us out, she told us what she knew about one Dorothy Mahoney, also known as Dot, aka Jane Morgan, aka Julie Kaminsky, aka Ruth Castro, aka Jewel Allen. That’s what we’ve stumbled on so far. I’d guess there are more.”

  “Maybe she’s into cosplay.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe she missed her true calling and should have headed for the bright lights of Broadway.” Marsh paused and added, “Although I think she’s not comfortable in the limelight, prefers to operate in the shadows.”

  “Her real name is Dorothy Mahoney?”

  “Yes. Probably. That’s what the California Department of Corrections thinks. We’re still working on completing our background check.”

  Mahoney was a common name, so the feeling of recognition I got from it wasn’t surprising. But it seemed to ring a too familiar bell in my recent memory I couldn’t put a finger on right at that moment.

  I shifted on the bed, rolled my legs out and over the side and planted them on the floor, moving my toes to get the circulation back. I winced and closed my eyes, feeling a sharp stab of pain in my temple. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes with mild success.

  “What else?” I mumbled.

  “She’s, more or less, an old-fashioned grifter. Served time for credit card and mail fraud of various sorts. She has a big heart. Enjoys working with old people. She cozies up to them, sometimes on the phone, sometimes just knocking on a lonely person's door, and then, after ingratiating herself, becomes best buddies. It isn’t long before she’s helping them with their finances, and not long after that, usually a matter of only days or weeks, that Grandma or Grandpa starts bleeding money.”

  “Bobby said she’d admitted to prison time but blamed it on a boyfriend who left her holding the dope.”

  “Any boyfriend of hers would have been the dope,” Marsh said.

  “So she probably had her eye on Bobby as a mark the whole time. Which was already obvious.”

  “Surely.”

  “I know what she looks like from her visit to Acapella. But a photo I can use to show around would help.”

  “The best one we have is the mug shot when she was arrested five years ago. She’s stripped of makeup, her hair is kind of mousy, but there’s something in her eyes and the curve of her mouth. Some men probably didn’t mind being her dope.”

  “You’ll get the photo?”

  “Portia should be texting it in the next few minutes.”

  “But, and I assume you can corroborate this, from what Karin and the bartender said, she looks very different now. We showed them the mug picture, and they could hardly believe it was the same woman. She has brown hair, and I guess she’s thinner and maybe has a new nose. Plus, the makeup adds a veneer of glamour. Course, she might have already shed that persona and look along with it. I would guess her look morphed along with her aliases.”

  “I think she toned it down while playing Bobby’s daughter. Hair color is right, and she wasn’t overly made up when she came to see me. I couldn’t detect any plastic surgery, but maybe it was a good job. If I run into her, I’ll know it.”

  “Unless she’s already transforming herself into someone new. Especially with what went down at the motel, I would think…” He paused, and I listened to him thinking.

  “We don’t know that it was her and her gang that killed Bobby and Paula. It still seems likelier than Poe having anything to do with it. I think he had a soft spot for his brother. I can’t imagine he’d murder him so ruthlessly. I know the trail’s too fresh, but did you pick up any clues to where she’s been spending her time since she left Bobby?”

  “Karin didn’t have any ideas about that. We tried to track her through two credit cards she uses under Jewel Allen but didn’t come up with a lot. She hasn’t used either card in more than a week.”

  “You said that you talked with a bartender. Was that a woman?”

  “Yes. Maureen. She knew Jewel, but they weren’t close.”

  “Did you talk to a woman named Selma?”

  “Not in the notes here. We’re still working our way through the employees. Some haven’t taken shifts in the past day. Management is more than a little testy, so we’re trying to catch people off duty, which takes time.”

  “Which we don’t have,” I muttered. “Any headway on the guys who were in her gang? The guys with her that day when Bobby overheard them?”

  “Working on that. Karin mentioned a couple of guys who came in to see her fairly regu
larly, and she provided descriptions but no names. Once again, we checked at the gym and got no help from friend Leslie. Portia just got Bobby and Jewel’s home phone call records and we’re going through that identifying frequent callers. Time,” he said.

  “Which we don’t have,” I repeated. I had feeling this was all going to come to a head sooner rather than later, to say nothing of my involvement at the scene of the murders, which might stay hidden for one more day before I’d be on SFPD’s most wanted list.

  “The story just went up, boss.” Someone talking to Marsh. The faint clicking of a keyboard. I waited.

  “I’m reading about your adventures last night in the Examiner. Details are sketchy, thank goodness. Three bodies. Not identified. Horrific crime scene. Police not saying much. No mention of any names or suspects. Our friend in the department came through. Whoever committed the murders will wonder about the third body, whether it might be you. If they didn’t mean to kill you, they’ll wonder if they just hit you too hard. It’ll make them have second thoughts, or think you are dead, and maybe allow us to catch them unawares.”

  “And you think later this morning they’ll announce all of us poor victims' names?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “I’m going to feel funny.”

  “Long as you don’t feel dead.”

  “Still don’t know why I’m not.”

  “That’s what we’ll find out, Plank.” He paused, then added, “What’s your day look like?”

  “You’re right about the bass. They’re running.”

  “I can’t join you today but have fun.”

  “I will. If I catch anything, I’ll let you know.”

  “Ditto, partner.”

  Twenty-One

  Selma’s eyes widened perceptibly as I approached the bar tucked into the shady back corner of Fred’s Flapjack Casino.

  As I placed my hands on top of the bar, she said, “The usual?”

  I laughed, and she bent down and hoisted up a bottle of Ocean’s Spray, filled a glass to the top with small rectangular ice cubes, filled it up with purple-red liquid, and dropped in a glistening twist of fresh lime.

  She forgot my little paper umbrella, but I was still impressed.

  She was wearing the same black dress and had the same perky breasts peeking above it. She also had the same glint in her eye. I felt liked, and that always brightens up a man’s day.

  I took a sip of cranberry and expressed my appreciation.

  Selma said, “Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon after Randy and Cro Magnon man attacked you yesterday.”

  I thought he was more akin to a Neanderthal, but at least we were on the same relative page. “Ah, I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding. They’re both probably really nice guys who coach Little League on the weekends.”

  “Have you been drinking something other than cranberry?”

  I laughed again. I liked her sense of humor. In another lifetime, I’d like to have spent more time with her.

  “Randy isn’t here this morning, but still, Max, he’s got people spying on us. He’ll know you were here and that you talked to me again.”

  I nodded. “I don’t want to get you in trouble. But I wanted to ask you about Jewel Allen. She used to deal blackjack here.”

  She looked at me. Shook her head. “There’s been too many people here lately asking about Bobby and Jewel. Randy’s all paranoid about it. He told me specifically not to discuss her with anyone.”

  That was interesting. As much as I didn’t want to spend more of time in the company of Randy, it might be unavoidable.

  “When is your break?” I asked.

  “Max,” she said, sighing.

  I flashed her an understanding but insistent smile.

  We sat in Selma’s car, parked beneath the shade of a dying elm tree bordering the casino, just beyond the chain-link fence enclosing a small parking lot for customers.

  We were safely out of sight of the casino’s potential prying eyes.

  I’d left the casino almost forty minutes before she did and waited in a nearby Portuguese cafe, sipping black coffee and nibbling on a sweet roll.

  Selma was puffing nervously on a cigarette. I tolerated it but had my window open. She told me about Jewel, rushing her words as if she had only a limited time. Her break was just fifteen minutes, and you had to punch in and out, and if you were late even five minutes, you got docked a half hour’s pay.

  Fred’s Flapjack Casino was a blast from the past in more ways than one.

  “I guess I wasn’t level with you last time. I knew Bobby, mainly in terms of his relationship with Jewel, but I didn’t know who you were really, and things have been paranoid there lately.”

  “But I thought you liked me.”

  “Yeah. Well, I’ve liked a lot of guys that screwed me.”

  “I can imagine.”

  She shook her head. “C’ mon, I didn’t mean that way.”

  “Sorry. I know what you meant. And there’s no reason you should trust me, especially if Randy has been giving you such a hard time.”

  Two young boys on skateboards approached the car, jumping from the curb to the street. One of them, a shaggy redhead, slammed shoulder first into the car, his board skittering underneath. I moved to open the passenger door to check on him, but he bounced up with a laugh as his friend called him a moron, and he slithered under the car to retrieve the skateboard. A moment later, they disappeared around the corner. I thought of Frankie and her love and skill at skateboarding and realized I hadn’t seen her for three days, that she was staying with Dao and Meiying thinking Alexandra and me were in Hawaii without her. I knew it made her sad and now it made me the same to think about it.

  “Karin told me what happened to Bobby and his daughter. That’s so horrible. That’s why I’m here, despite Randy. I want to help if I can. I didn’t know him well at all, but Bobby was nice. Naïve maybe. But not a mean bone in his body.”

  “What did you think of Jewel?”

  “She was one of those women. Had a spark. Men loved her. She was pretty, sure, but she had something. And she knew what made men tick. Some women do and use it to help men out. Others, like Jewel, use it to their own advantage. Me, I’ve never been able to figure men out so much. I just like ‘em.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “Well, it’s gotten me into more trouble than it’s worth sometimes.”

  I nodded.

  “Anyway, Bobby was no match for Jewel. It was like a cat playing with a mouse. I don’t know exactly what went on between them, but I wondered why she was with him at all. I knew he had to have something to offer her, but I never figured out what.”

  “Were you friends with her?”

  “Not really. She didn’t have a lot of time for other women. There were always men around her. She did go out with the girls a couple of times. I chatted with her about nothing special, but we weren’t friends.”

  “Did you know she moved in with Bobby?”

  “I heard.”

  “Do you have any idea where she might live now?”

  “It’s funny. It feels like, what do they call it, a deja vu moment. Is that right? Just this morning I saw her. And then you drop by unexpectedly asking about her. I guess there was a guy asking about her yesterday according to Karin, but it was my day off.”

  “You saw her this morning?” I said, feeling a surge of adrenaline.

  “Yeah. I hadn’t seen her in…I don’t know. Weeks, I guess. And the last time I saw her, one night a while back, it was going in the gym too. I guess that isn’t weird at all. Some guys I’d see her with were regulars at the gym.”

  “Do you know any of their names?”

  “Who? The guys you mean?” She frowned, thinking. “I mean I didn’t know them, but yeah, one was Carl, or maybe Carlos. That’s it. Carlos. He was Latin. Kind of hunky in his own way. There was another guy name of Steve. I know they all spent time at the gym together. I don’t know whether Jewel work
ed out. That’s a little hard to imagine. But the guys looked like weightlifters.”

  A crow landed on a power pole in my line of sight. He flapped his wings, and another crow dropped beside him. The second crow dug its beak into the middle of the first. There was a smattering of squawks and squeals and both of the birds lifted off, one chasing the other. Love or hate, I couldn’t figure out which.

  Another thing I couldn’t figure out was why Jewel aka Paula had led me to investigate at Matthew’s Maximizing Muscles if that was where she and her gang hung out. Had it all been a setup? Were Leslie and Carlos expecting me and directing me, however subtly, to the casino? Had Karin been in on it too?

  Thinking back on the conversations I’d had with them all, I couldn’t come to any conclusions as to why they thought I’d be a good patsy for them.

  “Is Karin around today?” I asked.

  “She’s working the night shift. She should be here by nine tonight.”

  I couldn’t wait for that.

  “Do you know where she lives?”

  Selma didn’t want to tell me, but when I told her how important it was and offered a hundred-dollar bill in recompense for the half hour she’d be docked for coming back late for her break, she reluctantly relented.

  “What time did you see Jewel?”

  “It was early, before seven. I was having a smoke outside.”

  “Did she see you?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  I wrapped up with Selma quickly after that.

  Jewel Allen had gone into the gym roughly two hours before.

  If I was lucky, she was still there.

  Twenty-Two

  No surprise, the place looked exactly the same as it did the day before. A smelly, sweaty good old-fashioned place to build muscle. A manly enclave that I didn’t imagine would be a natural place for Jewel Allen to hang out.

  But then again, she seemed to have a way with men and was probably comfortable in their preferred haunts.