Girls in Pink

by Bob Bickford

  “Do that,” I said, and followed Danny Lopez out of the room.

  We headed for the parking lot. The skin between my shoulder blades crawled, but no one spoke to us or tried to stop us on the way out.

  -Twenty Seven-

  I chased my headlights up Figueroa Street and parked in my driveway. I checked my watch; it was just before five. The sun still slept, and I needed some sleep of my own, pretty badly. One of Lopez' men emerged from nowhere, sketched a wave at me, and then melted back into the shadows. I was going up my front steps when I spotted Annie Kahlo coming down hers.

  “I'm going for a walk,” she called.

  I thought about asking her again what the point was of having protection on the street if she slipped it every chance she got. She would have said something cryptic, and I was too tired to figure her out.

  “I was just thinking that a walk would be fine idea,” I lied. “I'll go with you, if that's all right.”

  “Get Button,” she suggested. “He doesn't get out enough.”

  “At five in the morning,” I muttered to myself.

  I unlocked the front door and got it open. The dog bolted by me and had a joyous reunion with Annie on the sidewalk. I went in and found his leash. I tried to hand it to her when I joined them, and she shook her head.

  “He doesn't need a leash,” she said. “He knows what to do.”

  “I think this is your dog,” I said. “I just feed him.”

  “I think so, too. We can share him, though. He loves you, too.”

  He loves you, too. My heart jumped a little, and I waited to see if she would elaborate on it, but she didn't.

  “Are you going to tell me about the meeting?” she asked.

  “Not much to tell. Cleveland is losing people, and he's trying to deal with it. He'd like to just kill me, and you too, but this whole thing is shining a spotlight on him, already, and the cops are watching. He's willing to settle for me just going away, and he'll even put me on his payroll and make me a little rich if I do.”

  “What about me?”

  “He didn't mention you, one way or the other,” I lied. “I guess he assumes if I go away, you will too.”

  “Sal doesn't care about the police,” she said. “He owns the police. They're deep in his business.”

  “Earnswood was there at the meeting,” I said. “The captain you recognized. I think they're very nervous.”

  She stopped walking, and turned to face me. Ahead of us, Button stopped too, and looked back. She began to laugh softly. I didn't much like the sound of it.

  “They aren't nervous,” she said. “No one in this whole mess is nervous, except maybe you. These people don't get nervous. They might be asking you to stop, but this is fun. Do you not see that? This is how Sal Cleveland has fun. It's the only reason he does any of what he does, and it's why I told you to kill him.”

  “I might still have to do that,” I said. “Depends.”

  “What else?” she asked.

  I moved to start walking again, and she caught my elbow.

  “What else?” she repeated.

  “I found out about June,” I said, and took a breath. “Nothing really, that we didn't already guess. She ran when they shot your dad. I suppose they were busy doing that, and when they turned around she had disappeared.”

  “You said 'they' shot my father. Who was there?”

  “Cleveland shot him,” I said. “Earnswood was there and helped search for your sister. Fin told me a lot of the story, but I don't think he was there. I don't know who else. Cleveland and Earnswood for sure.”

  I told her the rest of what I knew. Her eyes and her face didn't let me hold anything back. Sal had tried to take June because Annie had run away, and he felt he was owed. June had run and hidden herself, and after spending most of the night hunting for her, he had set the house on fire and left her for dead. She was in the barn, not the house, but she had been too scared to come out. He had killed her just the same as if he had pulled a trigger.

  When I had finished, we started walking again. Up ahead, Button had waited patiently for us. He looked like he was glad to be moving.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “The meeting didn't change anything.” I shrugged. “If anything, it cleared some things up, but I'm not going to let this go, and Cleveland knows it. Things are bound to explode.”

  “Are you scared?” she asked.

  “I don't bother much with being scared,” I said. “Usually no point in it.”

  “So what will you do? You can't sit back and wait for him. He's too strong.”

  “I don't know yet,” I admitted. “Sitting back is how I operate, usually. In my line of work, I've gotten used to poking and prodding and watching, until something gives. Something eventually happens, and then I deal with whatever it is, and hopefully things get resolved. I play the cards as they fall.”

  The streetlights weren't doing much good. I touched her elbow as we stepped onto the sidewalk.

  “Are you afraid of anything?” she asked. “Anything at all? Everyone is afraid of something.”

  The rain had cleared and the sky was full of moon, brighter up there than down here on the ground. The pavement was wet and the street steamed. The vapor floated and moved slightly, for as far up the block as I could see. It hung in the dark air, a congregation of dreams, dancing to music too soft to hear.

  “You've asked me that before.”

  “You never answer.”

  I thought about it. “I never saw much action in the war,” I said. “Too old. I was lucky to get in as a military cop. Before I got stationed in Honolulu, I got bounced around a couple of islands, and mixed in with the troops like a real soldier.”

  I thought about the 'real soldiers' that had died while I broke up bar fights and wrote reports about stolen gear, and some of the old bitterness returned. I stopped talking for a minute, remembering. The sound of my heels was loud on the cement. Annie's steps were silent.

  “In the Pacific, we landed different places,” I said. “We never knew why, or what waited for us on them. Beautiful ocean and perfect, hot day . . . you felt like you should be wearing bathing trunks, not a helmet and pack. The water underneath the boat turned brown, churned up by the landing crafts in front of you, and you were almost on the beach. They'd always turn up then, the sharks . . . like they knew.”

  “They knew what? What did they know?”

  Brick buildings rose high on either side of us. Here and there a dim yellow or orange light was visible from one of the windows high above us, but I didn't think there was a soul awake behind any of them. The curbs were lined with empty cars that looked like they had never belonged to anyone.

  “The sharks came to the surface, and it was hard to believe how big they were, and how close they were to the boat. They were a nightmare, just about the color of the water. Sometimes they splashed a little to make sure you knew they were real, or roll to let you see an eye. They were never worried, or in a hurry.”

  “They came after you?”

  “Not really. They were just . . . there, and they might get you and they might not. They didn't care much either way. If they didn't eat today, they would tomorrow.”

  I took a shallow breath, remembering. “Then you were close enough to the beach, and the brown water swirled and waited and you had to go in. Your rifle weighed about five hundred pounds, and you wondered why you were worried about getting it wet, because bullets can't kill bad dreams.”

  The Camel Diner appeared on the next corner, a small splash of fluorescent and neon reflected in the soaking street. Annie stopped me, and turned me toward her.

  “Somewhere ahead, hidden in the trees or hills or jungle behind the beach, there might be some sweating little guy behind a machine gun. There might be a lot of them, gritting their teeth and feeling triggers under their fingers, just as wound up as you were and dreading you getting close enough they'd have to fire.”

  Her eyes searched my face. I couldn't read h
er expression.

  “What are you afraid of?” she persisted. “Right now?”

  “It always surprised me how warm the water was, and you prayed that if today was your day the little men with machine guns had good aim, because you'd rather die by them than the sharks. Anything was better than the sharks.”

  “So you're afraid of being eaten?” she asked. “That's what scares you?”

  Her look held me, as dark and quiet as the street behind her. Neon flickered and flashed, and the steam swayed like it was alive. “No. It’s not that, Annie. We all get eaten, sooner or later.”

  I was almost out of words, so I took her arm and we started to walk again. The diner looked good, bright lights and the promise of coffee and a piece of pie.

  “I'm afraid of the things that don't care,” I said. “I'm afraid that I'll die and no one will know, or notice.”

  She squeezed my arm. Her smile washed over me, sweet and dark. “Don't be afraid,” she said. “I'll know, and I’ll always notice, so there's nothing to be afraid of.”

  I pulled her into a kiss. She didn't resist, and after a few seconds returned it with a lot of interest. Her mouth and her arms were warm. I hadn't realized how cold I was.

  “I never told anyone else about that,” I said.

  “Why would you tell anyone else but me?” she asked. “Let's go home.”

  She whistled for Button, and we did. The sun came up just before we turned up the hill on Figueroa Street and followed the dog home.

  Annie was asleep when I left her bed a couple of hours later. I stuck my tie in my pocket, since I was only going next door. I carried my shoes through the cool hush of her house. The flowers, the polished wood and the paintings were a different world than what went on outside these walls. The dog slept on a sofa in the living room. He opened one eye, but made no move to follow me out. I left him where he was.

  The morning was still waking up, and the street wasn't moving yet. The new sun glinted off the cars parked at the curb. I scanned them instinctively to be sure none of them were occupied, even though I knew Lopez' men weren't going to miss a trick.

  Mrs. Gardiner stood outside her house, hunting through her mailbox. I wished her a good morning as I crossed my yard, and she waved me over to her.

  “I'm very worried,” she said.

  “Things are quiet,” I said. “The street is perfectly safe.”

  “No. Not that.” She frowned. “The fire. They can't seem to get it contained. The news said it flared up in the hills east of Summerland. We'll be evacuating soon, and I shouldn't be surprised.”

  I remembered what Danny Lopez had said about wildfires. There isn't any way to stop them. They're the ones in control and they burn until they don't feel like it anymore.

  “I'm sure they won't let the fires get any closer to the city than they have.” I said. “Those state fire boys know what they're doing. They haven't let this one get too big. It's just been as persistent as the devil. It can't go on forever. It will burn itself out.”

  “Well, I hope you're right about that,” she said.

  She seemed distracted, and not in the mood to talk anymore, which suited me. I went inside to look for breakfast. I was starving. I looked in the icebox to see about some eggs, but there weren't any, so I poured some corn flakes into a bowl. The milk in the bottle looked slightly turned. I smelled it, and then poured it down the sink. I ate the cereal dry, looking out the kitchen window, and when I finished, I got my hat and went to the office.

  I picked up a tail along the way. It didn't really surprise me, and I didn't mind. I liked to know all the players in the game. This was a car I hadn't seen before, a blue Lincoln Zephyr. I watched it in my rear view mirror. It was a flashy car to follow someone with. Unless the occupants were stupid, I figured they meant to be seen.

  A black-and-white radio car was parked at the curb across the street from my building. I glanced at the lettering on the door; a city car, not county. I didn't recognize the face behind the wheel, and he carefully didn’t meet my eye. The powder blue Lincoln parked diagonally across from him. The side skirts and white-walled tires stood out like a hooker at Bible study. A couple of hard cases sat in the front of it. I figured them for a couple of Cleveland's boys. They didn't look my way, either.

  I stood on the sidewalk, and watched everyone deliberately not watching me. After a minute, I shrugged and climbed the stairs to my office. I spent the morning moving some papers around and making telephone calls. I needed to drum up some business soon. I had been working for birthday cake for nearly a month, and unless I wanted to eat it for every meal, I'd have to pay more attention to my paying clients.

  Maybe I needed to think about hiring another secretary. At least there would be someone in the office to take messages while I ran around and chased my tail. It would be someone to talk to, someone to tell me about real things that made sense, like her boyfriend and her cat. It would do me some good to spend time with a normal person, and wouldn't hurt to place an ad, so I got out a pad of lined paper and started making a list of qualifications. When I got to the third item: Must like baseball, I figured I wasn't serious and tossed the pencil on the desk.

  It was nearly lunchtime, anyway. At the window, I looked down at the street and saw that the police car had left. The bad guys still sat in the blue sedan. I didn't much care what I had for lunch, so I thought I might walk across and ask them if there was anywhere particular that they wanted to follow me to. I got my hat off the hook, and got ready to go out.

  On impulse, I picked up the telephone and tried Annie Kahlo's number. Maybe she would join us for lunch. I was surprised when she answered. Her voice sounded clear and very quiet.

  “I think maybe you shouldn't see me for a while,” she said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I need to be alone for this,” she said. “I can't be alone when I'm with you.”

  “What about everything that's going on?” I asked. “You can't be alone with that.”

  “I can, and I will.”

  I slept in your bed last night, I wanted to say but didn't. You got me to do what you asked. We have a deal now. We were silent for a long minute before she spoke again.

  “Do I have to give you back your dog?” she asked.

  “Keep the dog,” I said. “It isn't my dog, anyway.”

  “It's your dog,” she said, and there was a tiny click as she hung up.

  When I got down to the street, the blue Lincoln had gone. It seemed like everyone was leaving, all at once. I went to lunch by myself.

  The sky over the ocean shone such a deep blue that it hardly seemed real. It was streaked with reds and oranges that looked as though they had been painted on. They said the spectacular sunsets we were getting were on account of the wildfires inland. The smoke in the air did something to the light.

  I stopped the car at a beach joint, right on the water at the foot of Salinas Street. It was in a part of Santa Teresa that I never gone, probably because it was full of respectable people. They never got into trouble, and if they did, they kept it to themselves and didn't call up private detectives to talk about it.

  The outside of the building was rough gray wood, and the parking lot was mostly full. The cars scattered on the gravel were newer models, in pastel colors. The sign on the roof lit up, even though it wasn't quite dark yet. It said Rick's Seaside Grotto. I lit a cigarette and headed for the front door.

  Inside, the place was crowded. The walls were covered in fish nets, and pieces of driftwood and shells were glued onto every surface that would hold still for it. I wasn't sure why they were working the maritime angle so hard when the ocean sat barely thirty yards from the front door. I got a bourbon and water from the bar and slipped into a booth just as a group left it. I probably seemed rude to take up a four-seater with the place so full, but I didn't feel like small talk. The bench was upholstered in aqua-colored Naugahyde, and it felt a little bit sticky beneath me.

  I sipped at my drink
and looked around the room. There was a dance floor at the far end. People drifted on and off it, with merry groups forming and dissolving around the edges. The constant babble of voices rose whenever the horns and snare drums ebbed. Cigarette smoke drifted in the coral and pink light. Everyone seemed to be having a swell time.

  A woman passed close to the table and stopped. She had on a green dress, with a hat and gloves to match. She stood with her back to me, holding her drink carefully away from her body, like she didn't know what it was for. She looked lost. I leaned forward and spoke up over the hubbub. “If you're looking for a mermaid, I don't think there are any here.”

  She turned, a little startled, and gave me a considering look before she allowed a cautious smile. She touched fingers to her chest, right beneath the single strand of pearls, and color crept into her face. She was pretty, but not pretty enough to be sure about it.

  “As a matter of fact, I wasn't,” she said. “May I ask you for a favor? Could I leave my drink on your table? I need to leave, and I don't want to elbow my way back to the bar.”

  “By all means,” I said. “It doesn't look as though you've touched it, though.”

  “I’m supposed to be meeting someone,” she said. “They seem to be held up. I thought I'd order a drink while I waited, but I didn’t expect—”

  “That there would be no place to sit,” I said. “And here I am, with an entire booth all to myself.”

  “Inconsiderate,” she said. “Unfeeling.” She laughed at my expression. It was a nice laugh. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't tease you when I don't even know you.”

  “Why not sit and have your drink?” I asked. “I won't seem so selfish if you do, and your party might show up if you give it a few minutes.”

  She looked at the front door and made up her mind. She put her drink down and slid into the booth across from me, staying at the very edge of the bench.

  “Maybe,” she said. “I may as well stay and wait for a few minutes. You never know.”

  “Might as well,” I agreed. “You never know.”