Try Darkness

by James Scott Bell

  “My bar dues are all paid up.”

  “Why don’t you come on down and we’ll talk?”

  “Why don’t you tell the management to take a check or the next stop’ll be superior court?”

  Pause.

  “You’re not being real congenial here, Ty.”

  “Why should I be? It’s not complicated. Now I’m trying to think which client would be the one to own the Lindbrook. It must be one of yours, or Longyear’s. I’m trying to remember. Would it be Orpheus? Somebody like that?”

  Snort from Al. “Tyler, my friend, what are we doing, huh? What is all this? We’ve been through too much together. Let’s go to Sombrero. Now. Just like old times. I’ll buy.”

  “Al—”

  “We’ll work it out. The way all legal matters should be worked out, over a couple maggies and some chips.”

  “Al—”

  “One hour.”

  9

  ON THE DRIVE over I called Sister Mary. She works the office and is the best nun on the computer. She has a cell phone, too. St. Monica’s is making a pilgrimage into the twenty-first century.

  “Hello, Mr. Buchanan.”

  “Ty. Please.”

  “How can I help you?”

  “What is this, Jack-in-the-Box all of a sudden?”

  “Is there something you need?”

  “I need to apologize for this morning. I got a little competitive out there. Didn’t mean to get all March Madness on you.”

  “That’s quite all right. I allowed myself to . . . I was partly to blame.”

  “But I saw a little of that Oklahoma stardom. You should’ve played college ball.”

  “Mr. Buchanan—”

  “Ty.”

  “How can I help you?”

  “I need you to look something up for me. The Lindbrook Hotel downtown. Find out about Orpheus Development Group, an LLC. My old firm handles them, through an associate there named Al Bradshaw. I don’t know who the players are. But I recall a lawsuit filed against them about two years ago that may have named the parties. I want to find as many names associated with Orpheus as I can. Try the name Rood, too. You may not be able to turn anything up but—”

  “Mr. Buchanan, I was programming computers when you were working on a manual typewriter.”

  “Sister Mary, may I remind you I’m not that much older than you? That they actually had real computers when I was a kid?”

  “Oh yes. I saw some of those machines in a museum once.”

  “You’re a credit to your religion, Sister.”

  “As you are to yours.”

  “You’re a sweetheart.”

  “We don’t often hear that one,” she said, and hung up.

  10

  SOMBRERO ON PICO. A place Al and I used to frequent to get frequently hammered. Al because he was not happy at home. Me for a variety of reasons that didn’t apply anymore.

  It’s the place where I first met Jacqueline Dwyer. And where things started that I couldn’t stop. Where life fell off a cliff. Which is why my nerves were on high alert as I went inside.

  Al was waiting for me at a table, his coat off and tie loosened. Already working on his first margarita.

  “Hey, look at you,” he said, offering his hand. “No work clothes for you, huh?”

  “These are my work clothes,” I said. “I’m working right now.”

  “For a tenant at the Lindbrook. A woman calls herself Reatta.”

  “Well too shay,” I said. “You actually did some work for a change.”

  “Love you, too. What are you drinking?”

  “Straight Coke.”

  “Come on.”

  “With lemon.”

  Al motioned for the waiter, who came over in his white shirt, black vest uniform. “A large Coke with lemon slices,” Al said. “Chips and guac.”

  The waiter scurried away.

  “How you making out?” Al said.

  “Like the Lincoln conspirators.”

  “Huh?”

  “Hanging in there.”

  “Good,” Al said. An embarrassed pause thudded into his margarita. “I know this place has a lot of memories for—”

  “Let’s talk about Orpheus Development Group,” I said.

  Al tried not to flinch. “You guessing or telling?”

  “Educated guess. Orpheus has plans to gentrify the Lindbrook. Am I right?”

  “You know I can’t say anything about that.”

  “Then why’d you get me down here? Ply me with chips? You think I’d lie on my back and let you rub my tummy?”

  “No—”

  “Who’s the guy, the front man for Orpheus? I’m trying to remember the names, but I never worked with them. Somebody named Rood or Rod or something.”

  “Ty, you know I can’t talk about that.”

  “You’d be yapping loud if I filed and got to depose him.”

  “Come on! You’re not threatening to file now, are you?”

  “Why not? I have to keep fresh. Seems to me a good way to do it is to pierce the sham corporate veil and get some people before a judge.”

  “We could get you bounced like that.” He snapped his fingers, but the sound was pretty limp. “You have a classic conflict of interest, having worked for the firm.”

  “I’d still have it before a judge.”

  “You’re taking this awfully personal, Ty. Why?”

  I ate a chip.

  “You want me to tell you why?” Al said.

  “No.”

  “Okay, here it is. You got shaken up pretty bad when Jacqueline died. I know that. Everybody knows that. You wind up in jail and you almost get killed yourself. It’s like being in war. You have post-traumatic stress. You’re not supposed to have your midlife crisis for another ten years or so. But you take it on early because of what happened. You wonder if you’re doing the right thing at Gunther, McDonough. Maybe now—”

  “Why don’t you catch a breath.”

  “. . . maybe now you think you have to go out and rep the”—Al made quote marks with his fingers—“downtrodden. That’s fine for a while, but sooner or later you have to come back to reality and common sense and shuffling the cards around on the table so everything works out.”

  “Are the cards marked?”

  “Ty—”

  “When did you go into psych, Al?”

  The waiter returned with a fresh basket of chips, a bowl of guacamole, and my Coke and asked if we were ready to order. Al said yes. I said no. The waiter said he’d be back.

  “Is that the way it’s going to be?” Al said.

  “I came here to listen. It’s your show.”

  “All right. This is because you’re a friend, okay? This is not a fight you want to get into. This is not something you can win. You know how it works. You know what we can do if we want to play hard. You know we can grind you down. We can make your life a living hell.”

  “Better to reign in hell than serve at Gunther, McDonough.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Ty, be reasonable.”

  “Why don’t you try it? You have a client who is breaking the law. Breaking. The. Law. Because he doesn’t want the hassle of dealing with tenants who have actual rights. And he has you on a leash, the attack dog, and thinks he can scare people off.”

  “Don’t do this, Ty. I’d hate to see us end up at each other’s throats.”

  “We’re there already.” I took a chip and scooped up a golf ball–size chunk of guac. Pushed the whole thing in my mouth, washed it down with Coke. Stood and said, “Thanks for the dinner.”

  “Ty, wait.”

  I didn’t.

  11

  IT WAS DARK when I got back to St. Monica’s.

  I’m still trying to get the hang of the community here. You don’t find a lot of monasteries in L.A. You don’t bump into a lot of monks at Trader Joe’s.

  This is a community of nuns who follows the Rule of St. Benedict, which is around fifteen
hundred years old. They take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They also have a vow of stability and try to be as self-contained as possible. One way they do this is by baking and selling fruitcake.

  Frankly, I don’t know how they stay in business.

  They have a vow of “conversion of manners,” which sort of turns the normal way people look at things upside down. You give instead of get, give up instead of smash the other guy.

  Except, apparently, when playing basketball.

  But the thing that sets them apart is a vow of hospitality, and that’s where I come in. When I needed a place to hide out, here they were. Right in the mountains overlooking the San Fernando Valley. A nice big plot of land these Benedictines scored in the early days of the great ranchos.

  Father Bob is the sort of resident priest, to say mass and hear confession and those sorts of things. Things I’m clueless on.

  There are three types of nuns here. The nuns in charge are the baby boom generation, represented by the superior, Sister Hildegarde. These nuns don’t wear habits, like you see on Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary’s. They wear, well, K-Mart style. Modest and right off the rack.

  Then there’s the younger ones, like Sister Mary Veritas. She’s the youngest one here, in fact. They do wear the habit and don’t like the Vatican II slide. They identify more with the third type, the older nuns, the ones Sister Mary calls “the greatest generation.”

  These are the nuns who gave their all to make religious life happen and they are largely forgotten now.

  Once I asked Sister Mary why there were all these types of nuns running around. She said, “In community, there is room for diverse lifestyles and gifts. People think there’s only one way to be a nun or sister or monk, but there isn’t. St. Paul said there are different kinds of gifts, or charisms. And each one is given by the Lord for the good of the church.”

  “You know,” I replied, “ the legal system is sort of like that, only without the praying and without God.”

  Sister Mary says human weakness interferes with any system, even religious communities. The biggest tension being how the older nuns are going to be taken care of as they get closer to meeting their Maker. These abbeys never have enough money and—at least according to Sister Mary—there’s not a big move to take care of their own.

  The older nuns occupy a wing on the grounds of St. Monica’s. Sister Mary and some of the young nuns spend a good part of their day there ministering to the graying veterans.

  This does not always sit well with Sister Hildegarde. She just can’t seem to wrap her head around the yutes. Why, she reasons, after all the reforms, would anyone want to go back before Vatican II? She looks at the younger nuns the same way an aging professor at Berkeley looks at campus Republicans.

  12

  “IS THAT THE young man about the toilet?” Sister Perpetua said.

  She was sitting in the plain wooden chair in the middle of her tiny room. The room had a bed, a crucifix on the wall, a desk with a lamp, and that was about it. A window looked out to the night. From the direction I figured it was the eastern view, which was a large plot of undeveloped land owned by the abbey.

  Land Sister Mary said ought to be used to build better facilities for nuns like Sister Perpetua.

  Sister Mary had a folding tray with a wash basin behind Sister Perpetua’s chair. The older nun’s hair was short and full of soap as Sister Mary washed it.

  “No,” Sister Mary said, “this is Mr. Buchanan. He’s a guest here.” She looked at me. “A guest who should not be in a nun’s quarters at this hour.”

  “I knocked,” I protested. “What was I—”

  “Does he know about the toilet?” Sister Perpetua was at least eighty and had brown eyes that looked like windows to a glorious past.

  “Something wrong with the toilet?” I asked, sharp as ever.

  “We’ll take care of it tomorrow,” Sister Mary said.

  “Do you know about it?” Sister Perpetua asked me.

  “Hey, I used to own a house,” I said. “I know toilets.”

  Sister Mary scowled at me. “I don’t think you want—”

  “No problemo,” I said. “I need to earn my keep around here—”

  “You don’t have to,” Sister Mary said. “Believe me.”

  I took Sister Perpetua’s hand. It was delicate, bony. “Sister, glad to meet you. I’m going to try to help you out.”

  “He’s a nice young man,” Sister Perpetua said.

  “Yes,” said Sister Mary, “but I don’t think he wants to—”

  “Of course I do,” I said. “You just leave it to me.”

  “Mr. Buchanan—”

  I touched my lips with my finger and went to the small bathroom.

  Sister Mary had nailed it. I didn’t want to.

  The toilet bowl looked like a Jackson Pollock. Not something an amateur plumber should be mucking around in.

  “No problemo!” I said. The only instrument available was a well-worn plumber’s helper. I took up the plunger and held it over the bowl.

  “He seems a nice young man,” Sister Perpetua said in a stage whisper. “I hope he knows about toilets.”

  We’re all about to find out, I thought.

  I gave the plunger its baptism and started pumping. From the bowl came a gooshing sound, like an orc sucking flesh. This was why you go into law.

  “Okay in there?” Sister Mary called.

  I worked it a few more times and heard the same sound. The level of the Jackson Pollock went down a little. Success.

  I pushed the flush handle. A pause of agonizing length followed. And then, Vesuvius.

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “A little help.”

  The contents came flowing out over the rim, like something out of a Technicolor fifties sci-fi movie. The Blob That Ate St. Monica’s.

  Sister Mary appeared at the door. I think she had a smirk. She grabbed the towel on the rack, threw it on the floor, then found another in a cupboard and used that too.

  “Oops,” I said.

  “Christian charity does not permit me to reply,” Sister Mary said. “I’ll clean it up.”

  “No, let me—”

  “You’ve done enough. Why don’t you wait outside until I’m finished here. I have some information for you.”

  “You sure? I mean about me not helping.”

  “Oh yes. Quite sure.”

  I wasn’t all that upset about getting out of the room of foul things. I was too embarrassed to say anything to Sister Perpetua. I just waved.

  Just before I closed the door I did hear her say, “And he looked like a nice young man.”

  13

  THE NIGHT WAS clear and a warm wind blew in from the canyon. I sat on the patchy grass in front of the unit and looked at the stars.

  I remembered how my dad tried to teach me the constellations when I was eight or nine. He was a cop in Miami. He got me to see the Big Dipper and Orion’s belt, but after that I was pretty lost. I didn’t see how anybody could connect the dots and come up with a bear.

  My dad was killed in the line of duty when I was a kid. For a couple years after that I used to try to find a constellation that might have been him.

  Sister Mary came out and sat on the grass with me.

  “So how bad was it?” I asked.

  “Pretty bad,” she said. “Remind me not to ask you to fix anything here.”

  “If it makes any difference, I really was trying.”

  “Sister Perpetua thinks you’re the new janitor. She’s a little worried the job may be too much for you.”

  “Maybe we can change the subject. Were you able to find anything out about Orpheus?”

  “Yes. He was a Greek.”

  “What?”

  “In Greek mythology. Orpheus descending.”

  “Son of Mr. and Mrs. Descending?”

  “That toilet must have done a number on you.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Orpheus was married to a woman
named Eurydice. She died and was taken to the underworld. Orpheus went after her. He was a musician and was able to use his music to charm Hades, ruler of the underworld, who gave him permission to take Eurydice back up to the world.”

  “Must have been some good kind of music, like Duke Ellington.”

  “Whatever. Hades had a condition, though. He warned Orpheus not to look back to see if Eurydice was still there. Orpheus couldn’t stand it and did look back before he got to the world. So Eurydice was snatched away from him. Later Orpheus angered some women of his city because he took no interest in them, and they ended up tearing him to pieces and throwing his head into the River Hebrus.”

  “Nice.”

  “So the question I have is, Why would a land development company name itself after Orpheus?”

  “You have a guess?”

  “I do.”

  “Go for it.” I was more than a little interested. In the matter involving my murdered fiancée, Sister Mary had provided a crucial insight. She’d told me about the seven deadly sins and how at least one of them was going to be at the heart of any crime, and she named the two she thought it might be. She was right.

  “Whoever is running Orpheus,” she said, “or whoever dreamed it up, believes he can charm anyone with his music. Not literally, of course. But with whatever he uses to get people to do what he wants.”

  “Or she,” I said. “Maybe it’s a woman.”

  “How likely is that in the world of large development companies?”

  “Not very,” I said. “But just to keep the options open.”

  “I did find one name,” Sister Mary said. “Hyrum Roddy. He is some sort of agent for Orpheus. Agent for service or something like that.”

  “Agent for service of process,” I said. “Every corporation is required to have someone designated for official contact. Did you get an address?”

  “Of course,” she said. I could not see her face clearly in the dark, but enough of it was visible to show that little half smile. The one she got when she challenged me to around-the-world on the basketball court. Knowing she could shoot lights out.

  “Sister Mary, if I ever get my own office, and you ever get out of this gig, maybe you’d come work for me.”