Down in the Valley (Vic Daniel Series)

by David Pierce

  Down Victoria to Apple, past Dave's Corner Bar, right at the Longhorn Grill – Happy Hour 4.30 to 7.30 – up Flamingo Drive past the Irish Bar, then out and lock up at the Valley Bowl, J. D. Curtain, ex-pro bowler, your genial host. The place was still fairly quiet, only four lanes being in action, but in another hour all twenty-four would be jumping with league competitions.

  John D. was in his office, Big Sally at the snack counter told me. She only had one customer, a kid drinking a milkshake, so I took pity on her and let her make me a tuna fish on white toast.

  'So how's your love life?' she asked me.

  'Unbelievable,' I said truthfully.

  'Mine too,' she said. 'Unbelievably vacuous.'

  'Is that good or bad?' the kid drinking the milkshake wanted to know.

  'Go look it up,' I said.

  'What a good idea!' the kid said. 'Thank you, sir. I'll rush immediately to the nearest library.'

  I gave the callow whelp a withering look, then settled up with Sal, leaving her a quarter tip. She gazed after me somewhat wistfully, I thought, as I made my way down past the row of Space Invaders and pinball machines toward John D.'s office. Perhaps she was sweet on me. Perhaps she just liked all her big tippers.

  I found my friend sitting at his cluttered desk perusing a smudgy-looking bowling news letter.

  'How's it going?'

  'It's going,' he said. 'How about you?'

  'Likewise I'm sure,' I said.

  He smiled. John D. was a well-set-up man, in his early forties, I suppose, dressed in faded warm-up clothes. He hadn't put on a pound since his days on the pro tour, unlike some I could mention. Without my asking, he tossed me a set of master keys he took from a board on the wall behind his head. I caught them deftly, got out my checklist, and betook myself off to earn my daily bread.

  First I warned the staff to expect strange events in the next half hour, as I always did, like bells ringing unexpectedly and the patter of large feet overhead, then I gave John's entire security system its monthly physical, including going out on to the roof to check the skylight and wandering out back to check the sliding doors in the loading area where his deliveries came.

  All systems were go as far as I could see, but a large flood lamp in the parking lot was out which meant I had to go down to the storeroom, get the ladder, climb up and replace it, which I did without managing to fall off, for once – some years ago I started suffering inexplicably from vertigo, and it wasn't getting any better. Lucky for me my mountain climbing career had already ended by then. Likewise my part-time job as a tree surgeon.

  When I was done, I washed up and made my way back to John D.'s office.

  'Safe for another month,' I said.

  He waved me into a worn director's chair and began doing some warm-up stretches.

  'Something's going on,' he said, breathing in deeply through his nose.

  'It's called Life,' I said helpfully.

  'Must be one of the girls in the cash booth.'

  'I still think it's Life,' I said. He started on some painful-looking knee-bends.

  'I'm all-league now six nights a week, I can figure within a card or two what I should take. I'm comin' up forty to fifty bucks short.'

  'How many girls work there?'

  'At night, three,' he said. 'They're supposed to rotate so there's always two on together, but you know girls.'

  'I wish I did,' I said. 'Do they work there during the day?'

  He shook his head. 'Too quiet.'

  'How do they get paid?'

  'Cash,' he said innocently. 'Simplifies the book-keeping.' Yeah, it simplified the book-keeping all right, for the IRS.

  'Every Friday,' he added, and began forcing himself away from the wall in a series of upright push-ups. It hurt just to watch him.

  'How much?'

  'Too much,' he said. 'Four dollars twenty-five an hour, one fifty-three a week, casual labor, no withholding.'

  'Slave driver,' I said. 'Well, an extra fifty bucks a week isn't exactly going to change their lifestyle, I mean one of them isn't going to suddenly show up for work in sables driving a Maserati coupé.'

  'So?'

  'So it'll probably take a little outside work and a little luck and a great deal of professional expertise, and as none of those are covered in our contract, it'll take a little pocket money from you.'

  'What else is new?' He picked a battered bowling ball off its donut-shaped stand from a shelf crowded with trophies, and hefted it. 'Won a little money with this mother-roonie in my day,' he boasted. 'How much is little?'

  I told him it could take half a day, maybe a whole one. He said do it. I said send me the girls' employment sheets or copies thereof. Also, if he had them, copies of the nightly receipts for the past month.

  'Consider it done, amigo,' he said, swinging the ball over his head. 'Ever tell you about the time I won in Dearborn with a two hundred ninty-nine in the last game?'

  'Yes,' I said, and left. Another nice guy. Two in one day, might be a Valley record.

  Back in the car, I checked the time – five fifteen – turned on the radio and headed out into the rush hour for my last chore of the day, Lucy Seburn, Mrs, but not by much.

  'Down in west Texas, the town of El Paso . . . ' sang the radio.

  'Once took a ride on a Mexican crab,' I sang.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mrs Lucy Seburn lived some twenty minutes' drive east in one of Burbank's ritzier streets, in one of the street's ritzier homes, graveled driveway and all. It even had a name – Mariposa, or butterfly. Feeling more like a moth I parked around the corner on Rivera out of sight of the house, facing back the way I came as I figured I knew Mrs Seburn's routine by this time because it has been the same for the last six Thursday afternoons.

  At five forty-five promptly she emerged from her cocoon, got into her new black Toyota and drove it down towards Rivera where she turned left away from me, made a right on Laurel, right on Acacia, hit the Ventura Freeway, got off at La Cienega and made her way, driving carefully, to a health club out Ventura Boulevard, into which she went with a springy gait.

  I jotted down her route and the times in question, as usual, parked at Moe's hotdog stand across the street as usual, had three hotdogs, mustard and relish only, double fries and a root beer, as usual, and listened to country music for an hour on the radio, as usual.

  When Mrs Seburn came out, looking refreshed, I noted the time and then followed her home. Would you believe for that sort of child's play I actually got paid money? Every Friday I sent by messenger service a typed-up report of the lady's keep-fit routine to her husband at his business address in Century City. Every Monday he sent me back by the same messenger service $82.50 cash. I had concluded after the first time that the attractive Mrs Seburn was having it off and I don't mean her cellulite, although maybe that too. All the other customers of the health club entered carrying holdalls of one kind or another, usually with a combination lock dangling from the strap somewhere. I found out from a guy I knew who used the West Hollywood branch of the same club what the procedure was – clients always brought their sweats and tights and woolly socks with them, placed their street clothes in lockers and secured the lockers with their own combination locks, which the management preferred as keys were too easy to lose on Nautilus machines or during aerobic dance freak-outs.

  Needless to say Mrs Seburn was always holdall-less; presumably she told her hubby, if she told him anything at all, or her maid, if she spoke Mex, that she left her gear at the club. Only me and de Shadow knew better. And hubby, by now, of course. I'd also taken a peek at the Mr Universe at the front desk and figured we could get a deposition out of him without cleaning out the piggy bank. Furthermore, to support my deductive evidence of Mrs Seburn's extramarital activities I also had some nifty shots taken with a long lens of her kissing a young hunk who usually walked her out to the car. She was young and pretty. He was young and pretty.

  I was old and jealous.

  And what was a nice,
clean-cut kid like me doing in that line of work in the first place? Eating. Most gents in my trade with a certain – how shall I say it? – class loudly proclaimed they didn't do divorce work. They did; so did I. I didn't like it all that much but I didn't mind it either, like Canadian whisky, like a lot of things.

  The traffic had thinned out by then, or at least gotten as thin as LA traffic ever gets, which is clotted. I drove home, which is where the heart is, everyone says. It's also where a first-floor, 2br, all mod cons, new C & D, security garage, on Windsor Castle Terrace, talley-ho, just after the freeway overpass, is. It was OK if you liked shit-brown carpeting and cottage-cheese ceilings. The owner, who lived downstairs in the other unit, was Mrs Phoebe ('Call me Feeb') Miner, a tough old gal with blue hair who didn't care what I did as long as I did it quietly or somewhere else.

  I got some grapefruit juice from the fridge, switched on the TV to the news channel and began typing up Mr Seburn's report on the portable Olympia I kept under the bed, finishing up at about seven thirty. I phoned Mae to see if she was back.

  'She'll be back tomorrow,' her roommate reluctantly told me. 'I don't know when.'

  I said, 'Thanks a million.' Mae was a legal secretary almost, meaning she did the work without the pay, for a snazzy ambulance-chaser who had an office in Studio City and a $200 wig. She had taken a month's leave of absence to go home to Peoria and bury her mom.

  All right.

  There were other fish to fry for a Nash Metropolitan owner who still had a few moves.

  I called Linda with the skinny legs. No answer. I called a number written on a cocktail napkin from the Two-Two-Two. No answer.

  Good. I didn't want to go out anyway. I watched some garbage on the TV for a while. I liked police and detective shows best, they were so accurate, so true to life, so wonderfully real. Just kidding, Mother. Then I washed my glass and went to bed with a good book. Not as good as The Amboy Dukes or God's Little Acre, but good. It was set in Hawaii. Then I went to sleep.

  At least the Sandman was home.

  The following morning I didn't bother opening up the office. I had some underdone pancakes and three cups of forgettable coffee at a counter joint, then presented myself right on the dot of ten o'clock to Mr Lowenstein's secretary over at the high school. A sign on her desk said: 'Miss Shirley, Apple of the Teacher's Eye'. Miss Shirley was wearing an off-the-shoulder scoop neckline salvaged from an MGM 50s musical, showing plenty of adorable tanned skin still warm from some giggly beach party. White pop beads. Bright orange fingernails. She was, at first sight, that Hollywood classic, the gorgeous dumb blond, as out of place in a school as I would be singing 'Hi-ho, hi-ho' with the Seven Dwarfs. Strangely, her lipstick had been put on carelessly, almost amateurishly.

  She smiled at me when I entered her office, smiled when I told her my name, even smiled kindly at my tan suit, dark brown shirt, rust tie, brown loafers and impressive-looking Oxford-red, gen-u-ine leatherette briefcase with the fourteen-carat gold clasp. I kept my hand over the fourteen-carat gold initials as they weren't mine.

  'Well, hi there,' she said.

  'Hi yourself,' I said. I wondered if the school held night classes for aging buffoons who were still vulnerable little boys at heart. I was leaning towards her deep blue eyes to ask her when she said I should go right in.

  I sighed inwardly and in I went. Mr Lowenstein smiled at me too.

  'I know,' he said. He was replacing a couple of tomes in a bookcase. 'Unfair, isn't it?' I didn't bother pretending I didn't know what he was talking about, or rather, who. 'I have to look at it all day.' He shook his head sadly.

  'No job is perfect,' I said. 'I don't suppose she can type too.'

  'Like a demon,' he said.

  We sat at opposite sides of his metal desk; it had a new IBM Selectric typewriter attached to it on a swiveling shelf. While I was taking a clipboard out of the gen-u-ine briefcase I thought of something.

  'Where's the principal's office?'

  'Down the hall.'

  'Ah,' I said. 'He doesn't want to be involved.'

  'You are a male chauvinist pig,' said the Vice. 'The principal is a she, not a he. Also, you're wrong, she cares, deeply, but she's helpless.' He looked out one of his windows, the one that overlooked the parking lot; there were more wheels lined up out there than in North and South Korea put together.

  'She's a good woman,' he said. 'Very bright, excellent administrator, more than well qualified, first-class teacher, but she is perhaps just a touch old-fashioned, if you take my meaning.'

  I indicated that I did.

  'Now that she is out of the way, care to do some work?'

  I indicated that I cared by taking out a black felt-tip, courtesy A & A Aaron Bros, Opticians. He talked, I made notes. I asked some questions and made more notes. After a while it became clear that if I was going to get anywhere at all it wouldn't be by being Mr Nice Guy.

  'So what?' he said.

  I asked him if he wanted all the details as I went along.

  'You better believe it, old buddy,' he said. 'Include me in. I'm a big boy too now and also that's what they pay me for. You want something in writing, no doubt.'

  I said it's always better that way.

  He buzzed the intercom and in swayed Miss Shirley.

  'Miss Shirley, Mr Daniel.'

  She smiled at me.

  'With an "e",' I said. I don't know why, I'd never said it before in my life.

  'We need a piece of paper, dear,' Mr Lowenstein said sternly. 'One copy for Mr Daniel with an "e", the original in the safe. It will cover these points: St Stephen's, via its agent, me, hires Mr first-name Daniel . . .'

  'Victor,' I said.

  ' . . . Victor Daniel, of address here . . .'

  I obliged with my office address.

  ' . . . to investigate the use of illegal substances on school premises, to collect evidence of same if possible and to terminate same if possible.'

  I looked at Miss Shirley to look at Miss Shirley, and to see her reaction; she was gazing vacantly out of the window, the one that didn't overlook the parking lot.

  Mr Lowenstein continued: 'He will report at least weekly in writing to me or my agent, you.'

  I managed somehow to hide my glee.

  'I will take full responsibility for all his actions. His fee will be enter fee here . . . '

  'Two bills a day plus reasonable expenses,' I said.

  'Put it in,' he said. 'Paid weekly. This agreement will continue until the stipulations of the contract have been met or by decision of either one of the contracting parties. Anything else?'

  'Mr Daniel will have full access to all files, card indexes, computer print-outs, etc., that he deems necessary to fulfill said contract,' I said.

  'Put it in,' he said. 'Anything else?'

  I shook my thinning pate; Miss Shirley shook her platinum curls.

  'OK. Date, witness and we'll sign them as soon as you have them ready.'

  'See you,' she said, and sashayed out. We both watched her go.

  'She certainly upsets one's attention span,' said Mr Lowenstein.

  I agreed.

  'I called your brother down at Central,' he then offered.

  I figured he had or otherwise we wouldn't have gotten this far. 'So how is he?'

  'Fine, fine. Says he's working too hard.'

  'Oh, well,' I said. 'He was always the over-achiever in the family.' I told him I'd better try and leave before the classes broke as I didn't want too many kids to get to look at me and my natty wardrobe as I'd soon be returning in some other clever guise, one that would give me a good excuse to hang around the premises as it was unlikely that I could pass myself off as a high-school student even if I did put on a beanie and a T-shirt that said something catchy like 'Everyone over 21 sucks'.

  He agreed. We chatted about football and the weather for about the amount of time it takes to spend ten bucks in an LA cab, i.e., very little, then Miss Shirley flounced back in with the contracts, gave them to her bo
ss, then flounced back out again. The Vice and I both read copies without finding any mistakes, then signed on the dotted lines. I said I'd call him later when I'd figured out some sort of approach, and left. I told Miss Shirley the same thing. I wished she'd stop smiling at me like that, it would give a Civil War statue ideas.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Back at the office I opened up, put the contract in the safe, retrieved the telephone, called the messenger service, who said they were already out the door, retrieved Mr Seburn's report from the gen-u-ine briefcase, put it in an envelope, sealed and addressed the envelope. The mailman hadn't come yet so I got out the clipboard and began thinking about St Stephen's and making the occasional note.

  Obviously the problem was infiltration; if I couldn't infiltrate, who could, and would? I tried to remember what it was like being at high school and while I recalled some vivid details of my pitifully few years there, at least half deeply embarrassing, came up with nothing helpful. Timmy ambled by and peered in hopefully; I waved him away. The messenger boy puttered up on his Yamaha 175. I paid him $7.50, got a receipt and handed over the report. The kid was wearing a sort of uniform, and that gave me the beginnings of an idea. I shut up shop, got into the car and headed out into the world, the brave new world, not as easy as it may sound when your brave new California world is an unholy mix of the tedious and the garish, stretching from the Hollywood Hills north to the San Gabriel mountains, the tops of which were already disappearing into thick air. Good thing I'm not the sensitive type.

  At a Sergeant's Supply Store on Sepulveda I bought a pair of painter's white overalls, size X-L, a painter's cap and a twenty-foot metal pocket ruler with automatic rewind. What the hell; I threw in a new pair of white Adidas-imitation sneakers and a two-pack of white tube socks, putting the bill away carefully. I had to go to three car rentals before finding what I wanted, a small, well-used (beat-up) unmarked panel truck; it even had a ladder on the roof rack. I took it for three days, did the necessary paperwork and for an extra $10 had a peon follow me home in it.