Girls in Pink

by Bob Bickford

  “That's her,” I nodded.

  “I forgot all about her. You have bigger problems than you thought, amigo. That's Dog Raw's wife.”

  “I heard that. Think she'll want some revenge?”

  “Mrs. Raw,” he nodded. “She's worse than her husband ever was. A terrible, terrible woman. Cleveland keeps her very close. Some say they are lovers. They were lovers with her husband's knowledge and permission. Sal trusts her with everything. If you see her again, don't even say hello. Just shoot her.”

  He started stiffly away, and sketched me a wave over his shoulder.

  “Watch yourself, amigo,” he called back. “You have big problems. Remember I told you, if you see her again, shoot her. She's a danger, a killer, a woman of violent appetite. I will tell my people to watch, but...”

  He stopped and turned around, spread his hands helplessly. “She is a psicopata. Just shoot her.”

  “Psychopath,” I said.

  He nodded, started away, and then turned back.

  “You think any more about Corazón Rosa?”

  “Move to Mexico to run a fishing boat?” I laughed a little. “Nice dream.”

  “Dreams are good sometimes,” he said, and tossed me a wave.

  I sat on the bench, soaking up the day and thinking. The kids at the next table finished their food and left. They didn't look at me as they passed. The lunch crowd was filling the place, and I needed to give up the table.

  “Shoot her,” I murmured to myself. “Or I can run to Corazón Rosa. Some choices.”

  I brushed myself off and headed for the Ford.

  -Seventeen-

  After dinner, I crossed my front lawn and went to knock on Annie Kahlo's front door. I was a little bit surprised when she answered it. She stood with one hand on the screen and looked at me with the closest thing she could come to having no expression on her face.

  “You still mad at me?” I asked.

  She didn't answer.

  “There was a car in the alley behind my office this morning,” I said. “Two guys were in the front seat, shot to death. It was the old blue Nash that's been hanging around here.”

  She didn't move, and didn't say anything.

  “You know those two guys were from Sal Cleveland, Annie. It isn't coincidence that they were killed behind my office. It isn't coincidence they've been parking right out there in front of our houses. They were going to try to hurt you, or hurt me. Probably both.”

  She shifted her hand on the door frame, almost imperceptibly. Her bare arm was slender and tanned. She looked vulnerable. I wanted to touch her, but it would have been the wrong thing to do. “None of it's a coincidence,” I said. “I worked for a woman who got killed on your ranch, a place you've kept because your family died there, and the same guy seems responsible for all it. None of it's a coincidence, it all comes back to Sal Cleveland, but I'll be damned if I see how it all ties together.”

  I took a breath. “The cops are going to be all over me soon. They've talked to you about your sister, and they know you may have seen the murder on your ranch. They don't think you're reliable, but sooner or later they're going to want to grill you. They're going to want to put you in a room and talk until they see where you fit into all of this, and it gets worse.”

  Other than my own voice in my ears, there didn't seem to be any other sound on the street. “Sal Cleveland is coming, Annie. He's coming after you, and he's coming after me. I think he's a lot more dangerous than we're giving him credit for. People don't scare me much, but he's starting to scare me.”

  She shifted then, and spoke. Her voice was hoarse, and it didn't have much of its usual silver screen breathlessness. “He scares me, too. I'm scared.”

  “I have to stop this, before it goes any further. I need you to do something for me.”

  “What?”

  She seemed nearly worn out, and I wondered what all of this was costing her. “You saw a man shoot into a car that night at the avocado ranch,” I said. “He shot Charlene Cleveland in the head. It was dark, and you saw him in the headlights of his car. You said you sensed it was Sal.”

  “You don't believe me?”

  “Let me finish,” I said. “This is a man you knew a lot of years ago. Have you had any other contact with him since you moved back to Santa Teresa?”

  She shook her head, no.

  “It makes sense that it was him.” I said. “He got offended that his wife dumped him, and he punished her for it. He knows I'm trying to nail him for it, and he might know you're a witness. Now his people have been coming around, making threats. Now he's lost a couple of guys right behind my office, I think he'll stop threatening and start doing.”

  “I asked you to kill him, and you said no.”

  “It doesn't work like that, Annie.”

  “Looks like it's going to work that way for him,” she cried. “Killing me is going to work fine. You're too good to kill anyone. I'm crazy, right? The idea offends you, but we'll both get killed while you do nothing!”

  “Make sense, Annie.”

  She went silent, and I thought she would slam the door in my face. She didn't. When she spoke again her voice sounded calm. “I've said it was him. He shot the woman sitting in the car, in the face. There's nothing else I can say to you.”

  “Still, you're identifying someone who you haven't laid eyes on in more than twenty years. People change. They get older and look different. I want to be positive the guy you saw shooting is Sal Cleveland.”

  “I'm positive,” she said. “How do you want me to prove it?”

  “You don't have to prove anything. I just want you to eyeball Cleveland now, and tell me that he's the guy you saw at the ranch that night. I want you to look at him now, in person twenty years older, not at a memory from when you were a girl.”

  “Won't it be dangerous?” Her tone had changed. Her voice still rasped, but had an undercurrent of anticipation to it, almost playfulness.

  “He closes the Hi-Lo Club on Olive Street every night, but in the early evenings he's usually at his other place, the Star-lite Lounge in Montelindo. It's a better crowd there. We should be able to get a look at him without anyone bothering us.”

  “When?” she asked.

  “Now...tonight, if you're up to it. My car's in front.”

  “Let's take mine,” she said. “I bought new tires and a tune up, and I haven't had a chance to take it for a ride.”

  I waited outside while she got her keys. When she came out, she had tied her hair up in a silk scarf.

  She led me around the side of the house and up the narrow drive to the back. I could see the roof of my own house, just over the vines that covered the high fence between our yards. The bottle-green Mercury was already out of the garage, sitting with the top down. I got into the passenger side.

  I checked my watch. Eight o'clock exactly, and the neon signs on State Street flickered and buzzed as night came down. The bars and restaurants were just starting to really get going, and the people I saw on the sidewalks and sitting at tables looked like they were having some fun. I wished that we were stopping, but we weren't. We had a date at the Star-lite Lounge.

  The highway to Los Angeles ran fast in the dark along the shore. The breeze caught at the scarf on Annie's head. She glanced into the rear view mirror frequently, and from time to time she brushed a loose tendril of hair from her face. I thought I saw the beginnings of a smile at the corner of her mouth when she caught me looking at her.

  She worked the shifter expertly through the gears and pushed the convertible up to about seventy. The air on my face felt warm, and I took off my hat and put it on the seat between us. She stayed in the left lane. I leaned back in the seat and watched the taillights of the cars we overtook and passed.

  After a few miles, she steered the Mercury off an exit. We went a short distance along the unlit frontage road and rolled into the entrance of the Montelindo Hotel. She put the car into a corner of the lot, avoiding the valets without my suggesting it. We g
ot out and stood together, looking.

  The circular drive in front of the hotel flooded with golden light. A long, low car slid up to the door and stopped. The couple inside eased out. They made their way into the rich light and the car was whisked away. The ocean spread out darkly behind the hotel, looking as though it had been put there just for the guests. It was an ocean for looking at, not an ocean for fishing or swimming in.

  We walked across a shadowed stretch of dry lawn and then through a screen of shrubbery. The Star-lite Lounge appeared in front of us, like a blue neon mirage. The letters of its name shone in blue script over the door. Electric bulbs set in the plantings around its foundation lit up the walls and the parking lot in the same cobalt shade. There were less than a dozen cars in front of the building.

  “It isn't very busy,” Annie said.

  “It will be later,” I said. “The brave ones who want to think they're living dangerously will drift over from the hotel. They'll order a drink and pretend that they belong here.”

  “They don't belong here?”

  I shook my head, no. I pulled open a heavy door and we found ourselves in an entry hall. The floor was patterned in black and white, the walls were dull silver, and more of the blue light washed everything. The sounds of horns and a piano came from behind the closed door at the other end. A very large fellow sat on a stool with his arms crossed. He was near enough to the door to be useful if needed, but well out of harm's way. He looked at us with no expression.

  “Closed,” he said. “Come back in an hour.”

  I spoke to Annie very softly.

  “Let's walk around the back,” I said. “Take a look.”

  She took my hand, and I shrugged. “Sorry,” I said to the big man. “We'll go for a walk, kill some time. See what we see.”

  The big man didn't say goodbye, or anything else, as we turned around and left. Annie's hand felt good in mine. I was glad when she didn't take it back.

  We went to the left of the front entrance and circled the building. It got abruptly dark when we went around the corner, and it took a little while for my eyes to adjust to the absence of blue light. My feet crunched softly on the gravel, but Annie's steps were completely silent. Bins lined the rear of the building, pale gray in the low light. I smelled garbage and the rancid stink of cooking. I didn't know which of the two was worse.

  Trash littered the weedy lot. A big Buick stood by itself. The long front hood reflected the bulb over the back door of the building. The car looked black and ridiculously shiny. I made sure it was empty.

  “This is his car,” Annie said. “I can feel it. I can feel him...close.”

  There wasn't much I could say to that, so I took her hand a little more tightly and went to the door.

  The kitchen was a long room with a low ceiling. Three Mexican-looking cooks in white stood at a counter making sandwiches. They stopped and stared at us, but didn't seem inclined to ask us what we were doing there. I didn't blame them. A sequined and feathered woman stood by a swinging door at the far end. She had it cracked open and was looking out while she finished a cigarette. Before I could decide what to do about her, she tossed the butt into an ashtray and went out.

  I led Annie past the cooks. They went back to what they were doing and didn't look at us again. I put a shoulder to the swinging door, opening it just far enough so that Annie could see into the room beyond, too.

  Just to our left was the corner of a small stage. The musicians were having at it. They were out of my sight but it sounded like a smallish group. The piano, a couple of horns and a bass in the back, with a nearly inaudible brush of drums. They played a blues number that I didn't recognize. The woman who had been smoking stood at the foot of the stage, looking up at them.

  There were ranks of tables, mostly empty, stretching away into the smoky indigo light. The farthest parts of the room were dark. A bar ran down the length of the right hand wall. The shelves of bottles behind it were back-lit, and glistened green and brown and amber. They looked nice after the steady diet of blue. A man sat at the end of the bar, on the stool closest to the doorway where we stood.

  I had seen him before, at the Hi-Lo Club. I still had his card, the three of spades, in my pocket.

  Tonight, he wore a pale hat with a matching band and a freshly pressed dark suit. His highly polished black shoes rested on the brass bar-rail. He lifted his glass and drank from it. The ring on his finger gleamed in the light from the bottles. He looked into the glass and swirled the ice around a little. Then he slowly set it on the bar and turned himself on the stool to look at us.

  Annie's fingers dug into my arm. His face looked younger than it probably was. It was a face he took good care of. The eyes beneath the brim of his hat looked as pale as to be almost colorless in the dim light, but I knew they were a strange green. We watched each other being motionless for what seemed like a long time, and then the spell broke and he looked away. He raised an index finger and signaled to someone hidden in a far corner of the room.

  I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the automatic. Keeping it behind my back, I turned my head and checked the safety. Annie was still staring at the man, and I didn't much like her expression.

  “It's him,” she said. “That's Sal.”

  I couldn't really hear her over the music, but I didn't need to. I touched her shoulder.

  “We've seen what we came to see,” I said. “Let's get out of here.”

  Annie didn’t listen to me. She stared, transfixed, at Sal Cleveland. He got off his bar stool more gracefully than anyone had a right to and walked over to one of the small tables. He slid one of the chairs back and held it, head inclined toward Annie. She started forward.

  “Wait...” I hissed, but too late.

  I tucked my pistol away as I followed her to the table. I didn't try to hide it anymore. It wasn't a bad thing if Cleveland and whoever watched from the shadows saw the gun. Annie sat gracefully in the chair he held, and he adjusted it carefully for her before he sat down himself. I was left to get my own chair. The oily waiter who had appeared beside Sal took the drink order.

  “Champagne cocktail for the lady,” Sal told him.

  Annie's face was utterly expressionless.

  “Did I remember right, my love?” Sal asked her. “I never forget the important things.”

  “Bourbon,” I said, when the waiter glanced at me. “One ice cube.”

  “It's been a long time, Anne,” Cleveland said. “Time doesn't mean anything to me, though. I float on my own time. You should have known that.”

  Annie didn't say a word. Her eyes were fixed on him; luminous, unreadable and black. He kept talking. His voice was soft, his words meant only for her. “You were always going to come back here. Does it surprise you that I knew you were here even before you landed in Santa Teresa? Why did you buy a house in your own name if you wanted to hide?”

  The drinks came. I tasted my bourbon; it was a lot better than what I was used to. Annie didn't look at the fluted glass in front of her.

  “I've waited a long time for this,” Sal said to Annie. “A long time for you.”

  Her eyes didn't leave his face. Beads of perspiration had formed at her hairline. They glinted like tiny jewels. She was scared, but she radiated a strange kind of determination.

  “And now here you are,” Cleveland said.

  A pack of playing cards had appeared in his left hand. He stuck the cigar into a corner of his mouth and deftly, almost idly, shuffled them and fanned them out across the table, face down. He tapped them three times and looked at me. “We'll get to this in a minute,” he said. “I have a question for this shamus. I'll just feel around the edges of things. I hope you're comfortable with that.”

  I had nothing to say, so I waited for him to go on. His eyes were unsettling, and I had to force myself to sit still.

  “First you annoy me with questions about my dead wife, as if your blustering could bring her back to life. If it could, you'd be welcome to her, except th
at no one is ever welcome to what's mine. Once mine, always mine.”

  “Maybe you don't get to decide that,” I offered. “Maybe the people you think you own have something to say about it.”

  His face contorted and he slammed the cigar onto the table. The broken end sparked and smoldered on the tablecloth. The cords in his neck stretched his collar. A man stepped from the shadows, and Cleveland composed his face and waved him back.

  “Then you shoot a couple of my errand boys. Is that supposed to scare me?”

  I sipped some more of my drink and thought about it. “I didn't shoot them,” I said. “Maybe you ought to be scared of whoever did.”

  “Want to play with me?” he asked. “Pick a card. In fact, pick three cards.”

  “No,” Annie said. Her hand clutched my wrist. “Don't touch them.”

  Sal put his head back and laughed. The sound of it was warm and genuine and delighted. “Are you afraid of the future, shamus?” he asked. “Sooner or later the future comes, you know. It's why you came here. The cards don't lie, and they tell what they tell whether you pick them or not. Go ahead.”

  “I'll do it,” she whispered. Sal beamed.

  Annie reached toward the spread of cards. I glanced over at her just as she closed her eyes. I heard her breath, and I imagined her heartbeat in my ears. There was no other sound in the bar. Everything had stopped dead, except for the cigarette smoke that drifted slowly in the blue light.

  One of her slender fingers hovered. It trembled like a divining rod, then steadied and lowered. When she touched a card, her eyes opened and she slid it across the table top with a fingertip until it rested in front of her. Like an audience of phantoms, the smoke swirled and settled again. Sal Cleveland didn't look away from her face. He tapped the fan of cards three times. “That's one,” he said. “Two more.”

  She picked a second card, and then a third. All of them rested in front of her, face down. I looked at the red bicycles on their backs, and I remembered a dark road and a man riding along with a rope slung over his shoulder. I picked up my drink and felt the tremble in my hand.