Orange County Noir (Akashic Noir)

by Gary Phillips

  Blood. The ammonia cleaned up mine.

  Now I have something bigger to clean up.

  Sarah's four months pregnant, but she won't even talk to me.

  I have to fix this, but it's like he's always watching. Always ready.

  Still doing his jail cell workout, right there in the middle of Sarah's garden.

  I guess that's the beauty of Hank.

  I'm going to have to leave the house tonight without Hank following me. I'm meeting an old prison acquaintance of his in Old Towne tonight for a cup of coffee. Benito Scalvo was locked up for over twenty years on a murder-for-hire beef. He's in my doc too. He and Hank have a long-standing prison hate for each other. I want to talk to Benito about that. Benito has no family to speak of, no prospects. Nothing in the world to do.

  He was so glad I looked him up.

  Ifred Hitchcock was definitely some kind of gamesman. Weird, but a gamesman. He had it figured that people came to his films with an attitude, like they were on to his game and daring him to show them some moves they weren't expecting. So he gave them really twisted stuff. Like Janet Leigh getting all cut up in the shower. Or the old dude with his eyes pecked out in The Birds. Or, later in his career, in Frenzy, when censorship loosened up, the killer breaking the fingers of a naked corpse to get at something she'd been clutching when he strangled her.

  But the thing is, he didn't take the game that seriously. As he once famously said to an actress who told him she was worried about how to play a scene: "Ingrid, it's only a movie."

  I was slumped behind the wheel of my parked taxi, drowsing over a copy of Francois Truffaut's conversations with Hitchcock, taking an easy trip through the great director's head. It was a slow night. Lots of slow nights in Laguna Niguel, but there wasn't anything left for me in L.A. and I was living more or less rent-free in my sister and brother-in-law's converted garage in the Hills, making enough behind the wheel to pop for dinner for them every now and then.

  I wasn't fooling myself. I knew I was just treading water and I'd have to swim for shore sooner or later. But on nights like that, nice and balmy, with nothing pressing, treading seemed preferable to making waves and attracting sharks. Not that sharks don't find you anyway.

  I was in the middle of Hitchcock's description of "Mary Rose," a ghost story he'd considered filming, when the box started squawking and, between squawks, Manny, back at the garage, was repeating a familiar name. Mine. J.D. Marquette.

  Manny has a cleft palate and his words have a slushy, lispy sound that I won't try to duplicate in print. "Fare's at a shopping center on La Paz Road, J.D.," he said, adding the name of the center and the exact address. "He'll be in front of Gregor's. Tyoo smashed to drive home."

  "Good job, Manny," I said. "I love ferrying drunks."

  I turned off the battery-operated book light, a gift from sis, closed the cover on Hitchcock and Truffaut, and went back to work.

  That section of La Paz Road is like Mall Town U.S.A. One shopping center right after the other. By light of day, with their too-new, seamless, pastel-colored plaster coats, the structures resemble not very creative film sets, populated by extra players. Those pastels turn circus sinister at night, especially after the shops have started to shutter and most of the extras have headed home.

  A big guy staggering around with his collar open and his tie at half mast and four other males, somewhat more sober, were gathered near the entrance to the center, in front of Gregory's Sports Grill. The drunk was the only one of them who looked as if he'd ever played a sport other than foosball. He was big enough to have been a linebacker in his younger days, before he gave it up to booze.

  "Glad you made it so fast," a thin guy with glasses said when I got out of the cab. He turned to the ex-linebacker. "Sonny, here's the cab."

  "Fuck the cab," the drunk, a.k.a. Sonny, said. "Don't need no fuckin cab."

  The thin guy gave me Sonny's address in Monarch Pointe and a pleading look.

  I took a step toward the big man. "Come on, sir," I said, taking his elbow. "Time to go home."

  He jerked back, face flushed, eyes red as Dracula's. "Don't you touch me. Who the fuck are you?"

  "He's the cabbie, Sonny," one of the other guys said. "Gonna drive you home."

  Sonny glared at me for a second, then staggered to the side. "Goin home, myself," he muttered. "Doan need help from this long-haired prick."

  He did his drunk dance toward the few cars remaining in the parking lot.

  The thin guy with glasses ran after him, tried to stop him. Sonny shoved him away, then staggered to a beautiful creamcolored Lexus convertible. He paused, doubled up, and emptied the contents of his stomach over the rear of that lovely vehicle.

  Better it than the interior of my cab.

  He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket, then struggled with the car door, got it open, and squeezed behind the wheel.

  "Jackass's gonna kill himself," one of the men said.

  "Or somebody," I said, as Sonny roared past us, trailing vomit and exhaust.

  The thin guy with glasses apologized for wasting my time, gave me two twenties for my trouble. That seemed like a fair enough exchange, even including the long-haired prick comment.

  I got back in the taxi, folded the twenties, stuck them in the pocket of my island shirt, and checked in with Manny. "Fare decided to drive himself home."

  "Anybody else there need a cab?"

  "Doesn't look like it."

  "Shit, J.D. We oughta start chargin' these bastards for cancelations," Manny lisped.

  "Absolutely," I said. "You got anything else for me?"

  "Price of gas, these fuckers should pay."

  "Damn straight," I said. "You got another run for me?"

  "Naw. It's dead here, J.D."

  "Then I think I'll call it a night."

  "Wish I could," Manny said. "The fuckers."

  It wasn't that late. Especially for somebody who gets up around noon. There were a couple of bars near the ocean that still might offer an hour or two of action, such as it was. Probably wouldn't take me that long to blow the forty.

  There was no traffic along La Paz. Just the darkness broken by my headlights, the occasional streetlight, and the even more occasional traffic light. I thought about Kelly. There's a scene in Citizen Kane where this old guy played by Everett Sloane tells the reporter that when he was a kid he saw this little girl on a ferry, wearing a white dress and carrying a white parasol. He never met her, but as he says, "Not a month goes by when I don't think of her." That was kind of like me and Kelly Raye. Except that we did meet. And we lived together for a while, until I made a mistake and she discovered I wasn't the kind of uncomplicated, dependable young man she thought I was. Funny thing, I was ready to be that guy. But hell, too little and too late. So she was in L.A. and I was in L.N. And not a day went by when I didn't think of her.

  I was recalling her birthday two years ago, when I'd just flown in from New York and ... Christ! A blonde suddenly leaped out of the shadows on the left, hopped the neutral ground, and ran right in front of my goddamned cab.

  I jammed my foot on the brakes and the cab skidded to a stop inches from her, my movie book and lamp sliding to the floor. The seat belt was digging into my shoulder. My hands were locked around the steering wheel.

  The blonde was in my headlights. If I'd been going faster than the limit, I'd have hit her. She reached out a hand to touch the cab's hood, maybe to convince herself that it had really stopped.

  When I began breathing again, I pried my fingers from the wheel, rolled down the window, and shouted, "What the hell, lady?"

  "You're the best," she said, walking around the cab. "I wasn't sure you'd stop. I need a ride and here you are ..."

  She tried to open the rear door and was surprised to find it locked. She frowned, then figured it out. "Aw, crap. You're off duty?"

  She was in her late twenties, maybe three or four years younger than me. Dressed California casual, in aqua T-shirt and tight designer jean
s. Not spectacular but pretty enough. Straight blond hair. Tanned skin. Good body. Carrying a big floppy purse, the size of a beach bag.

  "Please," she said. "I'm desperate. I really fucking need a ride ... away from here. It's worth fifty dollars."

  "Where to?"

  She hesitated, then said, "Ritz-Carlton."

  Fifty bucks to drive five or six miles. I stared at her, thinking about it.

  "A friend drove me here. He ... didn't want to leave the party. And he didn't want me to leave, either. Understand?" She looked to our left. I looked there too, and couldn't see anything but the vague shadowy outline of one of those residential complexes with cookie-cutter buildings, heavy on the redwood and stucco. "Please. I really need a lift."

  She seemed to be suffering from a lack of sincerity, but fifty bucks was fifty bucks, so I pushed the button that unlocked the doors and she hopped in.

  Softened by the age-yellowed bandit barrier, her face looked better than pretty. A hometown beauty contest winner whom the movie cameras didn't love quite enough. In some kind of trouble. She ran her fingers through her hair and let out a long sigh. "You're a lifesaver," she said. Looking to the left again, she added, "Let's went, Cisco."

  I stepped on the gas but kept my eye on her in the rearview as she reached into her big bag. She didn't look like carjacker material, but I stopped breathing until her hand reappeared with a cellular. She raised the thin slab to her ear. "You clear?" she asked somebody, leaning forward, tensing. "Great, baby. I'm in a cab," she said. "Right. Amazing luck, huh, a fucking cab out here in the boonies ... No. Just worry about yourself. I'm golden." She listened for a few beats, then, "Shit. You think?"

  She snapped the phone shut.

  "Everything okay?" I asked.

  Linking eyes with me in the rearview, she said, "I'm not sure. Look, I, ah, didri t mean to offend. The boonies comment."

  "Boonies works for me. This is where Republicans come to die."

  "You live here long?"

  "About a year."

  "Before that?"

  "L.A."

  "Ah. That makes more sense. The hair. I ..." Her cellular must've vibrated again. "Excuse me," she said and took the call. "Yeah?" Her head dropped and her face hardened. "Woohoo. I'm so scared, you dickless wonder. Eat shit and die." She clicked off the phone. Then she lowered her window and threw the phone out into the night.

  "Friend?" I said.

  She leaned forward, closer to the plastic guard that separated us, and asked, "Want another fifty?"

  "I'm listening."

  "Get off this street as soon as you can, stop, and cut the lights."

  She looked back to where I'd picked her up, doing a head turn that almost matched Linda Blair's. There was nothing much to see behind its.

  In front of us, the neutral ground on the left went on and on. There was a park to our right, separated from the sidewalk by a low white double-rail fence. I could see where the fence ended. I goosed the gas and made the turn into the park on two wheels. Then I made another turn into an empty parking area separated from the road by thick foliage. I braked, killed the engine, and turned off the lights. "This what you had in mind?" I asked.

  "Oh yeah, baby," she said. "Perfect. But I could use a Valium the size of a hockey puck."

  I turned to look at her. "That's a Woody Allen line, right?"

  "Broadway Danny Rose," she said. She leaned forward and squinted at my license information in the moonlight. "J.D. Marquette. So you're into movies, huh, J.D.?"

  "I used to have a job that gave me a lot of free time."

  "Me too."

  "What's your name?" I asked.

  "You can call me Nora. Ah, J.D., we may be here a while."

  "Yeah?"

  "I am paying you a hundred bucks."

  "Point made, Nora." I reached down, picked my book and reading light from the floor, and put them into the cab's glove compartment.

  "You even read about movies, huh? Maybe we should play the movie game while we wait. It's my favorite."

  "I'm not big on games, Nora."

  "Oh, come on. You're good. The way you nailed that Woody Allen, maybe too good. I think we should stick to just one genre. All things considered, maybe crime movies."

  "I don't play games," I said. "Why don't you just tell me what's going on here?"

  "Kind of a crazy story with a crazy twist to it." She was grinning at me.

  "That line's from Double Indemnity," I said. "Fred MacMurray. Now, stop with the bullshit and tell me why we're sitting here in the dark."

  "I guess that's not asking too much. My friend ... his name is Tom Iverson ... we live in the Florida Keys. Tom has this dumb charter boat thing going. But he does other odds and ends too. So he tells me he's got business here and we'll be spending a few days at the Ritz-Carlton, which sounded like a nice kinda getaway. Only when we arrive, he says the business is with this guy I don't really care for, who's like a freak and a half, you know. Anyway, we go to this ... Hold on. Car coming."

  Nora and I sat silent as a black Escalade floated by, heading south.

  When it was well passed, I said, "Okay for its to leave now?"

  "No. Not okay. There'll be more and they know I'm in a cab."

  "Who's they?"

  "Friends of the asshole."

  "So, tell me about the asshole."

  "His name is Joey Ziegler. A stunt man. You probably saw him in the last Batman, the one with the dead joker guy. I've never exactly warmed to Joey, because he does stuff like grabbing a tit when Tom isn't looking. Anyway, we're bringing Joey a little something Tom picked up in Yucatan, a-"

  "A piece of junk worth half a million," I said, completing her sentence.

  She smiled. "Oops. You do know movies."

  "You were feeding me a remake of Night Moves. Not a bad film. Gene Hackman as a private eye. Lousy ending. Tell me what really went on back there, Nora. Right now, or I'm tossing you out of the fucking cab."

  "Okay, this is the truth, J.D. Wait ... another car."

  This one was a white Escalade. Moving at about fifteen miles per hour. Flashlight beams shot out of its open windows, scanning the foliage on both sides of the road. I didn't think they could see any part of the cab.

  "Maybe we should move further back in the park," I suggested when they'd passed.

  "Okay. But don't turn on the lights."

  I started the engine, backed onto the lane, and began creeping deeper into the park guided by moon glow. We passed a golf course and, eventually, a building in darkness that I assumed was some sort of clubhouse. The lane made a fork, one section continuing on, the other circling the building to a small lot. I took the latter, moving the cab as close to the rear of the building as I could.

  "Better," she said. "Maybe we'll make it through the night."

  "You were about to tell me the truth."

  "Right. My friend John and I have been collecting a few dead presidents selling heroin to Brentwood and Beverly Hills assholes who like to impress their party guests with a special after-dinner treat."

  "Where do you get the product?"

  "John has a friend who's an army sergeant in-"

  She stopped talking because I was shaking my head. "God- damnit. You just can't help yourself, can you?"

  "What?" She pretended to be sincerely confused.

  "Who'll Stop the Rain? Michael Moriarty and Tuesday Weld, with Nick Nolte as the soldier. Not as good as the book. Get out of my cab. I'm finished."

  "No, baby," she replied. "I'll say when you're finished." I didn't need much moonlight to see the huge gun she pulled from her bag. "I wouldn't put too much faith in this cheap bandit shield." She tapped the barrel of the gun against the plastic that separated us. "I mean, maybe it might stop a bullet, but . . . being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky?"

  "Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry," I said, my mouth suddenly as dry as Cl
int's delivery. What Nora was holding was a Smith & Wesson Magnum, all right. But it was a 500, bigger and badder than the one in the movie. Enough to take out the bandit shield, me, and the front of the cab.

  "Relax, J.D.," she said. "I got no reason to shoot you, long as you behave. In fact, I'm doing you a favor. If you drove out of here right now, with or without me, you'd be a dead man. The difference is: if we're together when they find us, they'll probably just shoot us both. But if I'm not with you, they'll beat you to death trying to find out where you left me."

  "Why do they want you? Be straight with me, Nora. No more Yucatan pottery or drugs, huh?"

  "My partner Jed and I . . . got into a situation back there."

  "What kind of situation?"

  "That doesn't matter now," she said. "It happened. We pissed off the wrong guys, the kind who get real biblical when it comes to payback."

  "What happened to your partner?"

  "He's dead. That call I got was from some zombie, telling me he'd just shot Jed in the face. Like that's supposed to freak me out. Fuck them."

  If she wasn't freaked, she was either delusional or suicidal.

  Two Escalades full of homicidal assholes out for revenge. Not exactly an everyday occurrence in Orange County. I knew of only one local who might have that kind of entourage, a former Vegas "businessman" who'd retired to the peace and quiet of Laguna Niguel.

  "What did you and Jed do to get on the bad side of Caesar Berlucci?" I asked.

  "Bad side?" She gave me a nasty smile. "Jed blew that fat wop right out of his Guccis."

  "He killed Berlucci? Why would anybody do something that stupid?"

  She stopped smiling and tensed. For a second, I thought she was going to use that giant gun. Then she slumped again and I let out the breath I'd been holding.

  "It's what we were paid to do," she said.

  "Paid by whom?"

  "Who the fuck knows? Or cares? The contract comes in. You do the job. Money is money."

  "It couldn't have been easy, getting that close to the old man," I said.

  "Jed had a golden tongue. Talked its into the compound, won the old bastard over. We would've made it away clean, but Jed got greedy." For a second her eyes sifted toward her big bag, then back at me.