Girls in Pink

by Bob Bickford

“You have my help,” he said. “I've existed in the same city as Sal Cleveland for twenty years and not gone to war with him. I don't want to now, but you'll have the help you need.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I'll do my best to sort this out myself.”

  “I am personally available to you at any time, amigo,” he said. “You are my friend. I will bring men in if I have to, but I would rather not ask people to involve themselves in something that is not part of their world.”

  “I understand.”

  The bar began to fill up. Lopez drained his beer and shook his head at the bartender. It was time to go.

  “Let me ask you one more thing, Danny. Sal Cleveland came here from Ohio, right? He tells people that all the time.”

  “Yes. It has been many years since he came here. Why do you mention it?”

  “Just curious. I wonder what drew him here.”

  He held my eyes. “Perhaps he doesn't want any part of where he came from. Perhaps he wants to spit at what he started as. Besides, everyone who lives here in California does so because they are running away from something, or else trying to run to something. That might even include you and me.”

  “Think that's all it is?”

  “No,” he said. “I don't think that's all. I also think this—when a man such as that looks in the mirror, he doesn't know who is looking back at him. He makes himself something foolish, because he doesn't know who he is.”

  We were standing on the sidewalk outside before he spoke again. “Can I make a suggestion?”

  I paused in lighting a cigarette to nod.

  “Stop sitting back and waiting for the bad people to do something,” he said. “That isn't your strength. Do what you do. Find out what the truth of this is. You're reacting to the murder of your lady...your client. I think the truth of this goes back further, to that little girl's bones.”

  The simplicity of what he said startled me.

  “Be a detective, Nate,” he said. “Be what you are, and what they're not. Be a detective. Find out what the little girl's secret is. Follow the bones.”

  “Might be the best idea I've heard in a while.”

  “And remember...” He was smiling at me.

  “I know,” I said. “Corazón Rosa.”

  “It's always there,” he said. “If you need to get out of here. That goes for the woman, too. It's a safe and beautiful place. It's better than getting killed.”

  I sat at my kitchen table and nursed the last of a cigar. The window over the sink was open, and air moved the curtains gently and brought the warm night inside. There was baseball on the radio. It was an East Coast game that had been over for hours, but it was better than nothing.

  I thought over what I knew so far about Junie Kahlo. It wasn’t much, so after a few minutes I gave up on it and thought about coffee instead. I didn’t want it enough to get up and make it. I had a clock on the wall that matched the one in my office. It also rolled its eyes and moved its tail on the hour, but since it was still a little way off, there was nothing to see there.

  My eyes must have closed, because when I looked up, Annie Kahlo sat across from me.

  “You shouldn’t fall asleep when you’re smoking,” she said. “It’s dangerous.”

  “I’m not sleeping,” I said. “I just had my eyes closed.”

  “Oh, my…you’re asleep, all right. I want to show you something.”

  She smiled at me, and her eyes held mine as her hands went to her throat and undid the brooch pinned there. She reached across the table and gently caught my hand and turned it over. Her skin was warm. I looked at what she pressed into my palm. It was a small green-and-blue turtle, filigreed with gold.

  I heard water splashing, and when I looked up, Annie was gone. The kitchen had gone with her.

  It was hot daylight. The sun was bright, and it caught at the sparkles of water that jetted and hissed and poured from the enormous fountain in front of me. I was very small, and it all seemed very huge and very blue. My dead parents stood on either side of me. My father’s hand rested on my shoulder.

  Stone dolphins laughed and showered the gray bears playing beneath them. Granite children held hands and explored beneath small waterfalls. Mermaids rested on cement, languid and wet in the spattering, falling water. I touched the railing in front of me. It felt warm from the sun, but the mist from the fountain was cool on my face.

  A large pool lay beneath the cascade, in the shadow of the fountain above it. I leaned over the rail to look into the water. My father’s hand tightened on my shoulder, just a little.

  The water was very clean, and I saw small spots all across the bottom. They were coins, scattered as far as I could see beneath the surface.

  I looked up at my mother’s face. She was very young.

  “Can I swim in the pool?” I asked her.

  “Not now,” she said. “You will later.”

  “Why are there pennies in the water? Who picks them up?”

  She touched my hair, and I remembered her. “Those aren’t pennies, and no one picks them up,” she said. “Those are wishes.”

  “They stay down there?”

  “Forever,” she nodded. “They stay down there forever. That’s what forever is.”

  One of the mermaids lay very close to the railing where we stood. She lounged on the wet cement, chin resting on elbow, watching me. Her skin was marble, but her eyes were liquid and dark. It was Annie.

  I looked at my hand. I wasn’t little anymore, and my parents were gone. The day had clouded over, and the pool and fountain were in deep shade. The spray felt suddenly cold, and I shivered.

  “It’s a circle,” Annie said. “Remember the beginning, and you’ll see the end. When you understand where you came from, you’ll know where you’re going.”

  “What is this place?” I asked her. “Is this where I’m going?”

  “It’s a circle,” she repeated.

  She sat up and wiped the water from her face. I leaned over the rail to take what she held up to me. It was green-and-yellow box, small and flat. I opened the top to look at the crayons inside.

  “When you were little, you were closer to the beginning,” she said. “You remembered where you came from. That’s why the colors were brighter. It’s why you understood what they meant. You got older, and you forgot.”

  “I forgot,” I said, looking at the crayons. “I forgot everything…all of it.”

  “You can remember again if you want to.”

  Krazy Kat sounded the hour, and I lifted my head and looked around the kitchen. The chair across from me remained empty. The refrigerator’s motor buzzed and clicked off. The night outside the window was perfectly quiet. I smelled the dead cigar in the ashtray, but I also caught a trace of Annie’s perfume. I looked at the pin I held in my hand. I rubbed its tiny shell with my thumb while I sat and thought.

  Annie Kahlo affected me too much. She took up too much of my time, and now she had taken over my dreams, too. She wasn't a paying client, and I didn't make enough to support dragon-slaying as a hobby. I was in love with a woman who led me deeper and deeper into things I didn't understand, things that might get me killed. I wondered if the chance of death was a part of her that I was in love with.

  After a while I pushed my chair back, put the turtle into my pocket, and went up to bed.

  -Twenty One-

  Just after five o'clock, and I was locking up the office when the telephone began to ring on the other side of the door. I hesitated for a moment, and then unlocked the door again and hurried back in to answer it.

  “Are you on the run?” Mrs. Gardiner asked. “You sound put out.”

  I couldn't help a smile.

  “Not exactly on the run,” I said. “Not yet.”

  “We're going out to get some air,” she said. “Would you like to join us?”

  I had no plans for the evening, so I agreed and got directions. I knew the place she was talking about, and I went down to the street to get my car.

 
; A lookout on Marina Drive had a small public park, with a couple of benches and a set of swings. Trees and grass were bordered by rocky bluffs that dropped straight down to the ocean. This late in the day, it was empty of people and it carried the sad, abandoned feel that bandstands, amusements and merry-go-rounds have when everyone has gone home. The lawns sloped down to the ocean view and a set of stairs to an observation platform about twenty feet above the surface. I supposed they had built it as a tourist attraction, but it was too far away from the beaches, and too hidden. I didn't think anyone ever came here except maybe for occasional kids with filched cigarettes.

  I went down the cement steps. A metal railing was bolted to the side to keep people from falling down the cliff, but it didn’t look like the kind of thing you’d want to trust. When I got to the landing I looked over the edge at the water beneath me. Half in sun, half in shadow, it was green and black and deep. The surface swayed and washed like gelatin, hiding the power of the currents that moved against the rock face.

  Sea lions rested on rocks, and swam back and forth between the sun and shadow. They were enjoying themselves. None of them looked up at me, standing by myself and watching them. I got caught by a slash of loneliness, so real it hurt my chest.

  There was a noise behind me, and I looked back over my shoulder. Annie Kahlo was coming down the steps. Her steps were light, and she reminded me of dancing, like she always did. She wasn't by herself. Mrs. Gardiner had her arm, and descended a little more cautiously. They both looked happy to see me. Annie brushed my cheek with her mouth and went to the rail.

  “Look at that sky,” Mrs. Gardiner said. “It's going to rain soon. I knew it would.”

  Pleased, she showed me the umbrella she carried under one arm. She was right. There was a massive cloud bank blowing in from sea, making it look like early night over the Channel Islands. I had a feeling that with one umbrella between us, we were all going to get soaked.

  “Sooner or later, it has to put out these damn fires,” she said. “They can't hold out against the rain forever.”

  I agreed, just because nothing lasted forever. The fires outside of the city didn't seem to be abating, though, rain or no rain.

  “I come here every day in the afternoon,” Annie said, indicating the sea lions on the rocky shelf underneath us. “I love them, and I almost never miss a visit. I feel like I have to keep an eye on them. They know how to play.”

  It surprised me to hear it, just because I seldom ever saw her leave her house during the day. Logically, she did. Everyone had to go out for one reason or another, but I only rarely saw her on the sidewalk.

  “They're all different,” she said. “You recognize some of them after a while. Sometimes one of them is just gone, and you know something must have happened. They run into sharks once in a while. I always feel like I should warn them, and I can't, so I try to see them every day in case one of them isn't going to be around anymore. If I were better...” She turned her head to look at me. The vulnerability in her eyes pulled at me. “That's crazy, isn't it?”

  “I think it's kind of wonderful,” I said. “Not crazy at all.”

  The three of us made companionable conversation until the first drops of rain spattered the cement. The cloud bank had rolled over us, taking the last sun. Late afternoon transformed all at once into early evening. There were no electric lights on the platform. We'd have to leave soon.

  “I've had enough,” Mrs. Gardiner announced, opening her umbrella. “My vertigo begins to act up if I stay in a high place for too long, and it's getting dark. I'll see you in the car, my dear. Take your time. I'll sit comfortably dry and watch the rain.”

  She waved off Annie's offer of help, and made her way up the stairs, keeping one hand on the railing. We watched her until she had disappeared at the top.

  “She's a nice lady,” I said. “I like her. You've known her for a long time?”

  “She's my friend,” Annie said, not really answering my question. “She's my best friend. Sometimes I think she's my only friend.”

  I watched her face in the gloom. I was struck again by her remarkable stillness, the containment that seemed to cover so much emotion. I thought I would be happy just to watch her face for hours, and I wondered if I had ever thought that about anyone else. She opened her mouth to speak, and closed it again. There was something on her mind, and I waited quietly for her.

  “They're going to kill you,” she finally said. “If you don't give this up. One day, you'll be gone.”

  The rain came harder now, but it was so warm I hardly felt it. “Game goes nine innings,” I said. “We aren't there yet.”

  I leaned on the railing and looked down. It was getting harder to see in the dusk. The tide was coming in, and every so often a surge washed over the empty rocks below us and spread white foam. The sea lions had all left, gone to wherever sea lions go when night is coming and it's blowing rain.

  “So you're sticking around,” she said. “No matter what.”

  “Is it up to me?” I asked.

  She held my eyes for a long moment, and nodded. The rain ran down her face, but she didn't blink. I looked away, out at the water, and then I nodded, too.

  “I'm in,” I said. “The whole nine.”

  The falling water didn't make any difference to the swells and troughs. They came and went just the way they always had, and they looked exactly the same. The ocean doesn't care how hard it rains.

  There was an Italian grocery a block up State Street. It was dim and smelled spicy inside. The shelves were full of cans and boxes with unfamiliar labels, and there was a white-and-glass cold counter down one side. The people who worked behind it made a pretty good sandwich to order that you could take with you. It had different kinds of meats, cheeses, and marinated peppers, and they handed it across the counter wrapped up in brown paper already darkening wet with olive oil. I paid for mine and went out to the street.

  An old fig tree grew beside the public library steps. I liked to sit and have lunch in the shade beneath it. Women walked by, in groups and alone, let out of their offices for an hour. None of them had ever stopped and asked to share my sandwich, but I stayed optimistic. I made it a point to pay attention to details, and it seemed like the skirts were hemmed a little higher this year. There was less pleasure in it now Annie was around. I thought about it while I ate. Maybe after looking at her, everything else had lost its color for me.

  Today, there were pigeons gathered around to pick up my crumbs. They were there most days; I had no idea where they went when they weren't at the library. I liked the pigeons because they seemed to mostly mind their own business and peck at the things people dropped. They got a bad rap.

  Since I was my own boss, I could go back early if I wanted to, and so I returned to my office in less than an hour. I stopped on the stairs between the second and third floors. Something seemed different in the cool, dim echoes; something I couldn't put a finger on. The smell of perfume lingered in the stairwell, but it could have been from anyone. I went down the third floor hallway cautiously.

  My office door stood ajar, just a crack. I looked at the window pane lettered Crowe Investigations in black and gold. Nothing moved in the light behind the pebbled glass, so I eased the door open with one finger. I took in the wooden chairs and old magazines of the waiting room and then saw that the inner door to my office also stood open. Someone sat in the client chair across from my desk.

  It looked like a woman. She was absolutely motionless, and appeared to be looking up at the corner of the ceiling.

  “Hello?” I tried. “Can I help you?”

  I went in and looked down at her face. Mary Raw didn't say anything to me, because she couldn't. Her filmy eyes stared, and her dark blue dress was a bloody bib. Her chin pointed up, and I saw the bullet wound in her throat. Her eyes bulged, and she looked even uglier than she did alive. She had jabbed my ribs with a shotgun in the Hi-lo, and shot Annie's car to pieces with a Tommy gun. I hadn't liked her, but it had probabl
y been a hard way to die.

  Nothing else in the office was disturbed. I picked up the telephone and asked the operator for the Santa Teresa police. Raines was in the station, and they found him for me. He hung up after I had said just a few words. I looked around for a place to wait, since I didn't want to sit across the desk from the corpse. I went out to the waiting room.

  On impulse, I went back in and sat down in my chair. The room smelled of burned powder, and it got stronger when I opened the top desk drawer. I took a handkerchief from my pocket. My spare pistol still felt slightly warm. I sniffed the barrel before I laid the gun on the far corner of the desk.

  “This might be a problem,” I told Mary.

  The dead woman sat in the same chair Charlene Cleveland had the last time she was here. Maybe there was some kind of justice in it since Mary had been Sal Cleveland's right hand and his strange lover. I remembered Charlene's pink dress, her pretty legs, and what she had said to me. I felt a flash of sadness.

  “Maybe you won't turn down the next poor girl who needs you,” I murmured. “You don't know the first thing about love.”

  I had seen a purse on the floor next to the woman's chair. I went around the desk and unsnapped the clasp without picking it up. The handle of a large revolver rested inside, at the ready. I was sure that Mary walked around ready to use it. Whoever had killed her had completely taken her by surprise. I had a hard time imagining who she had let her guard down for.

  I noticed the blue corner of something, held in her dead fingers. It was a playing card. I got a pencil and teased the corner of the card with it to be sure. I saw the three of spades.

  “Who killed you?” I asked her. “Sal Cleveland? What were you doing in my office? Waiting to ambush me, maybe...and he decided a frame might work better? Did he get tired of you?”

  She stared at the ceiling. If she had any answers, she wasn't giving them to me. I went back to my chair and sat down.

  “I bet you don't know the first thing about love, either,” I told her.

  Heavy footsteps thumped in the hall. I put my hands flat on the desk top and called out to the cops to come in.