Safety Valve (Burnside Series Book 4)

by David Chill

  I looked over and a very tired, very raggedy black cocker spaniel came walking slowly up to us. She was a small dog, maybe 15 pounds at the most. Her black fur was thick and matted, and she had long floppy ears. She started toward us at first, wagging her tail, but jumped back quickly when Hamlin picked up a rock and was about to throw it at her. I grabbed his arm before he could let it sail.

  "C'mon, stop it. I'm sick of that mutt. I'm gonna take her out now!"

  "What the hell for?" I asked, struggling to wrench the stone out of his hand.

  "Damn thing barks all night and tears into the trash cans all day," he panted, as I finally jerked the stone away from him. "She's a total pain in the ass. Just like her masters. Except she still keeps hanging around."

  I glared at him. "I would guess if you were a kid and the people taking care of you were suddenly gone, and you had no one to feed you, you'd be doing the same damn thing as she is."

  He dusted himself off. "I'm calling 9-1-1. I had to listen to her howl all last night. I got work to do."

  Yes, I thought, writing screenplays for movies no one will ever go to the theatres and watch. "I'll take her over to the shelter," I said. "No sense tying up the emergency lines."

  I gave my card to Hamlin and told him to call me if he remembered anything else. Hopefully the call wouldn't be an invitation to share police files for his next script. I looked over at the cocker spaniel and remembered her name was Chewy. I called her name and extended my hand for her to sniff. She walked over tepidly and began licking my fingers. I opened up the Pathfinder and reached inside for a bottle of water. Pouring some into my cupped hand, I offered it to her and she lapped it up quickly.

  Hmmm. I had an idea. I opened up the door wider and she looked up at me. "Go on in," I said. After a moment's hesitation she jumped into the Pathfinder and lay down on the front passenger seat.

  "You're okay with riding shotgun?" I asked her.

  Chewy responded with a big yawn and curled up in a ball. I drove slowly down Lookout Mountain, and by the time I turned onto Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Chewy was sound asleep.

  Chapter 14

  In addition to being a rustic outpost within a big metropolis, Laurel Canyon serves as a gateway into the San Fernando Valley. The scenery changed as Chewy and I wound our way down through the passes. At first, the shrubs and greenery masked entranceways to multi-million dollar homes and estates. There were also the occasional glimpses of the sweeping views of the Valley floor. Had it been a clear day, the drive might have been spectacular.

  At the bottom of the hill lay Studio City, an upscale suburban community, replete with nice homes that were a bit less ostentatious than the ones tucked away inside the canyon. As we pushed forward into the Valley though, the homes became older and more pedestrian, eventually giving way to the industrial neighborhood of North Hollywood. The Laurel Canyon Boulevard of the Valley was lined with auto repair shops, warehouses and strip malls. Instead of mansions and gardens, we passed liquor stores, cheap nail salons and video game shops.

  I turned left onto Sherman Way and continued to drive through a series of modest and then less-than-modest neighborhoods. Along the way I stopped at a large Petco and bought Chewy a collar, a leash, some dry dog food and a pair of bowls, one for water and one for food. After loading them in the Pathfinder, I looked to see if Chewy wanted a drink out of a real bowl. Her light snoring told me she had other priorities.

  After a few miles I found the Herman Room in Van Nuys and parked in the small lot behind the gritty establishment. Exiting the Pathfinder, I left a couple of windows open a few inches for Chewy. As I approached the decrepit establishment, my nose wrinkled. At some point in time, the Herman Room might have been a decent place. There used to be a lot of these venues around L.A. These were the old-school bar and grills, where they served cheap steaks and cheap drinks. The interior was lined with faux wood paneling and they had those red naugahyde booths that inevitably developed cracks along the surface from excess wear and too little upkeep. A number of booths had strips of gray tape holding the seats together. The bar featured bottles of top drawer liquor brands, but the reality was the owner would often refill them every few days with generic booze. The clientele were usually more interested in getting drunk for a reasonable price, and rarely took notice of the product's quality.

  I walked inside and was immediately hit with the stench of drinks that had never been properly cleaned up, as well as food that had been fried too long. The floor was covered with sawdust to give it a western feel, but that only served to give the owners a reason to not sweep up every day.

  It was about 3:30 p.m., so it came as no great surprise that the joint was empty. Behind the bar stood a very large, swarthy man wearing a cheap white shirt, red vest and black bow tie. He looked to be somewhere between 30 and 50 years old; he had one of those timeless faces for which fat did a good job of hiding his age. There were a pair of men seated at a table in the back. One of the men was well into his mid-50s, lean, with graying hair and a scratchy looking gray beard. The other was in his early 20s and was as big as the man behind the bar, but looked far more solid. He was deeply muscled and evoked a sense that he did nothing more than pump iron all day. The older man was hunched over an iPad, working on a spreadsheet. The younger one stared into space.

  "You need something?" asked the older man, looking up from his spreadsheet.

  I thought of telling him I needed a place for my new dog to urinate, and she'd probably find this room to her liking. But I figured I'd start off by playing nice.

  "Is Brendan around?"

  The two men looked at each other. "Who wants to know?" the older man demanded.

  "Name's Burnside."

  "What's your business?"

  "It's a private matter. Just want to talk to him."

  "Uh-huh. Well, Brendan's gone. He went to Mexico. Be back next week," the older man said, and the fat guy behind the bar began to giggle obnoxiously.

  "Yeah," the fat man smirked, and laughed a stupid laugh. "Gone to Mexico."

  "Maybe I should wait for him."

  "Maybe you should go screw," the older man replied.

  "Yeah," parroted the fat man behind the bar, his laughter now derisive. "Go screw."

  So much for playing nice. "This is about Gilbert Horne."

  "Never heard of him," the older man said.

  "Don't you ever look at your TV?" I said, pointing to the old-style 25-inch box TV that was placed above the bar. "Or is that just there to figure out the betting line?"

  The young guy began to get up, but the graybeard used his hand to signal him to sit back down. "You don't need to get involved in this," he told him. "Fernando, throw this douche bag out the door."

  "I wouldn't try that if I were you," I warned.

  The big man behind the bar laughed again and wiped his hands and came slowly toward me. He moved deliberately, not out of caution, but as if this were just one more boring thing on his to-do list. Sizing me up, he stopped next to me and decided he would give me a break. He pointed to the door.

  "Get out," he ordered, with an air of finality.

  "Make me," I responded.

  "You're gonna get hurt."

  "No, what I'm gonna do is shove that laugh down your throat."

  His jolliness no longer evident, the fat man reached out and tried to grab my left arm, but I was ready for him and drove my right fist into his solar plexus, followed with a left to the side of his temple. Groaning slightly, he gave me a sneer as if to say I was messing up his afternoon. Coming at me with a little more interest, he threw an overhand right, which I sidestepped and moved my head back slightly. Off balance now, he tried to throw a punch with his left hand, but I blocked it easily. I grabbed his left wrist, and in one motion, ducked underneath his arm and twisted the wrist sharply behind his back. He yelped in pain as I jerked his arm high up his back. Cutting his left ankle out from under him, he started to fall and I grabbed the scruff of his neck and slammed his forehead ag
ainst the wooden bar. His head bounced up for a moment and then down again, and the rest of his body went limp and slid down a bar stool, taking a second or two before ending up on the sawdust-covered floor.

  Breathing heavily now, I turned to look back at the two men. "Got any more goons nearby, or do you want to tell me where Brendan Webster is?"

  They looked at each other. "Again, what do you want with him?" the older man demanded.

  "Again, it's a private matter."

  Graybeard looked at the kid with the muscles. "Okay, go ahead. If he can take Fernando, maybe we can use him on something." He went back to working on his spreadsheet. The muscle-bound young man rose.

  "Who are you?" I asked, my right hand starting to edge closer to my shoulder holster. There are only so many fights you can get into with bruisers before one of them lands a lucky punch. And with guys this big, one punch is all that's needed.

  "I'm your guy. I'm Brendan."

  I stopped. "You could have saved your friend a nasty bump on the head by telling me that a minute ago."

  Brendan looked at me. "Mr. Rooney's the boss. I do what I'm told."

  We walked outside and started down the block. It was warmer in the Valley, and considerably more hazy than it was in the L.A. basin. At the corner, we turned into a strip mall that boasted a hodgepodge of outlets. These included a shoe repair shop, a liquor store, and a pizzeria with a faded banner advertising its grand opening held a long time ago.

  "Tell me about Gilbert Horne," I started.

  "You a cop?"

  I flashed my private eye shield at him and didn't answer the question directly. "Three guesses."

  Brendan stopped. "Why didn't you just say so from the start?"

  "Your boss would have been on the phone to his lawyer in two seconds. This way's more difficult, but it's better, believe me."

  Brendan processed this, but I wasn't sure how much sunk in. "Do I need a lawyer?"

  "If you shot Gilbert Horne and his wife," I said, testing the waters, "then I would say yes. Otherwise no."

  "Okay. I didn't have anything to do with those murders. I heard about them, though. But all I did was make some pickups from Mr. Horne. He owed money to my boss. Lots of money. That's about it."

  "How did he come to owe money to the Rooneys?" I asked.

  "How else? Gambling."

  "Sports?"

  "Sports, horses, card games. I guess he was a good poker player at one time. They say that's how he got that fancy car dealership in Santa Monica. I guess he thought lightning would strike twice."

  "So you made the pickups from him at the Seaside."

  "The what?"

  "The Seaside," I repeated. I started to surmise that any line of work where Brendan would have to think hard would be problematic for him. "It's a hotel in the Marina."

  "Oh yeah. Also at his house sometimes. He didn't always show up at the hotel when he was supposed to. Sometimes he didn't have the full payment."

  "You ever work him over?"

  He shook his head furiously. "No, never. I mean Mr. Rooney wanted me to, but the whole business was messy. I'd known Gil a while. He represented me when I was playing football. Still did after that. I didn't want to screw that up."

  "He was your agent after football?" I asked. "For what?"

  "MMA. He was arranging a few fights for me."

  MMA stood for Mixed Martial Arts, the contemporary version of boxing, except with most of the rules thrown out. The two combatants went into a steel cage and were allowed to fight in almost any way they chose to. There was a referee there as well, but more for pretense than actual officiating. The winner was usually the guy who didn't get beaten to a pulp.

  "How'd you get involved in that?" I asked.

  "Tore up my knee in football. Texas A&M. This seemed like my best chance to make it in a sport."

  "And you played high school ball locally," I asked.

  "Down in the O.C. but yeah. I guess that's kind of local."

  "You happen to know some of Horne's clients? Oscar Romeo, Patrick Washington, Ted Wade?"

  "Sure. Everyone knows them. Great guys."

  "They had Gil Horne as their agent. Any problems you know of?"

  "Yeah. I know Oscar and Patrick were pretty unhappy with him."

  "Unhappy enough to shoot him?"

  "I don't know. Maybe Oscar, he's got some issues. Not Patrick, he's all business. Both felt Mr. Horne wasn't doing the job. Heard they finally fired him. But I don't think it was just because of the work."

  "Oh? What else?"

  "On account of Mr. Horne's wife. April. She seemed like a piece of work. I only met her a few times, but I've heard the stories. I didn't think she was all that hot, but you know, lot of guys like that type. Blonde, big boobs, gets high a lot. When she got high, she would get crazy. She tried coming on to me once, but I gotta keep business and bitches separate. Makes things too complicated, you know?"

  "Yeah, sure, I'll bet," I said, doing my best to sound agreeable. "Any other guys she came on to?"

  "Sure. I know about Ted Wade."

  "Meaning?" I asked.

  "Meaning Ted was poking April. It got complicated you know, him being Mr. Horne's nephew and all. But Ted's crazy. Drugs can make you do all sorts of crazy stuff. Sleeping with your step-aunt? That's just messed up."

  *

  It was around 5:00 p.m. when I pulled into the garage underneath my apartment building, and that was just when Chewy began to stir. She stood up and gave a big yawn as I pulled into the space next to Gail's Toyota. Fixing the collar around her neck, I attached the leash and led her out of the Pathfinder. She bounded toward the elevator and it was all I could do to keep her somewhat heeled.

  I hesitated as we approached our apartment. Gail and I had not even seriously discussed having children. The idea of surprising her with a pet this suddenly began to make me a little uneasy. Women sometimes liked surprises, but sometimes not. This one was a wild card. And it had seemed like such a great idea a few hours ago.

  I looked down at Chewy. "You be on your best behavior, you hear?"

  Taking a deep breath, I entered the apartment. "Gail, I'm home," I called out in my best patriarch voice. Just like Ward Cleaver. Or maybe Homer Simpson.

  "Hi, I'm in the kitchen."

  "Can you come out here. I have a surprise for you."

  Gail walked into the living room a moment later and stopped suddenly. Chewy wagged her tail. We both looked at her expectantly.

  "Oh my," she said.

  I dropped the leash and let Chewy give Gail a proper greeting. Her tail whipped back and forth and wagged even harder as she sniffed Gail and looked up at her. Gail reached down and tried to pet her. Chewy responded by licking her hand.

  "Wow," Gail whispered. "I don't know what to say. Where did you get her? She's beautiful, but she could certainly use a bath."

  "Um. She's an orphan."

  "Meaning?"

  "Her name's Chewy. She used to belong to April and Gilbert Horne. She was wandering the streets. Lookout Mountain. I felt sorry for her."

  Gail drew in a breath. "You do have a penchant for taking in girls who need help."

  I looked at her and couldn't say anything. My open mouth probably spoke volumes. Gail and I rarely talked about this painful incident from my past.

  "Sorry," she said, recognizing the inadvertent sting of her words. "That came out wrong. I meant that you were sympathetic. It's actually a good trait to have."

  About six years ago, I had made the biggest mistake of my career, and possibly my life. I had arrested a young runaway named Judy Atkin, for prostitution. She was a minor, 17 years old at the time, but could have passed for 12 or 13, she looked that innocent. When she was released, I took her in, the type of mistake no cop should ever make. I knew better, but I felt like I had the chance to make a difference in someone's life.

  In the end, Judy betrayed my trust and I was arrested for pimping a child. She skipped town and that got me off the hook, so the char
ges were dropped. While she didn't directly cause to me to leave the police force, the episode paved the way for my departure. Spending time in county jail with the same scum I had been locking up for years was a life-altering event. I was a changed man after that, for the better and for the worse. The events that followed sent me down a new path and a new career. I had to believe they led me to this moment, to be here with Gail, and to be starting a new life with her. And for that at least, I had no regrets.

  "I knew what you meant," I said to Gail, and drew her into my arms. 'You don't need to apologize. I trust your heart."

  She kissed me and I held her tightly for a long moment. And then I felt a pair of paws scratching at my leg and a low whimper. We looked down. Chewy wanted to be part of the hug.

  "Okay, look," she said. "Are pets even allowed in this building?"

  "I've seen someone else walking a poodle. That's good enough for me."

  "Maybe you can show me your rental agreement," she said suspiciously. "I don't want to fall in love and then discover we can't keep her."

  "Too late for me," I said, looking down at Chewy. Her mouth was open and she was panting happily. That meant she was hot and sweating, but I chose to interpret it as she was smiling and in a very happy mood.

  I took over the dinner chores from Gail as she hunted down the rental agreement. I threw some penne in a pot of water and set it to boil. Gail had been heating up a marinara sauce, and I added some minced garlic. About 20 minutes later, we were ready for dinner.

  "There's nothing in here that says you can't have a dog," she said, still scanning my contract. "Just that you're responsible for any damage to the carpets and window coverings."

  "I'm good with that."

  "There is one issue you may not have thought of."

  "Which is?"

  "We leave in the morning and come back in the evening. At some point during the day, Chewy is going to need to do some, er, business. Which of course brings up the matter of the carpets."