Down in the Valley (Vic Daniel Series)

by David Pierce

He waited while I changed into my whites, then I drove the truck back to the car rental and dropped him off. He said, 'Have a good day.'

  I said, 'Adiós, amigo.'

  I drove back along Victory to the school, having a little trouble with the shift into second, and did a slow circle around the school property until I spotted what I'd been looking for and what no school in the US of A would be without – a nearby junk-food emporium. This one was on Greenview right across the street from the back of St Stephen's; it was called B & B's, a solidly built wooden shack with the usual signs advertising Coke and Seven-Up, plus a few plastic benches next to its own small parking lot into which I wheeled smartly in case anyone was watching – it was twelve thirty by then and B & B's was jumpin'.

  One of the two phones in the back was free; I dialed Miss Shirley. She sounded funny.

  'I'm eating my lunch,' she said.

  I told her that was a mighty fine idea and I would do the same and then stop by the school and start to work.

  'I'll hold my breath,' she said.

  I put away some fries and three hotdogs, mustard and relish only, not bad but not as good as Moe's, then sucked at a root beer and watched the assembled juveniles at their play, which seemed to consist mostly of insulting each other both physically and verbally. Some things never change. A cute girl at the end of the bench I was on nodded at me and said, 'How ya doin'?'

  I said, 'OK, thanks for askin'.'

  Unfortunately I couldn't spot anyone rolling reefers, rolling drunks, shooting up or popping caps. I did see the cutie nick her extra catsup packets and also spied two adventurous lads in the front seat of a new Ford 4 x 4 sneaking hits of beer from a paper bag, but that was all. 'I laughed with them, I quaffed with them, I let them rob me, but that was all!' my pop used to recite from some unknown source to make us kids giggle.

  'Death, where is thy sting?' my mom used to answer him back, from some other unknown source.

  A couple of kids in soccer gear came trotting across the street to assorted wolf whistles from the wits in the crowd; I noticed a large sign over the back entrance to the school that said: 'Sat. 10.00 a.m. – SOCCER – Blitz Vrs Runners'.

  When I'd gotten all the mileage I could out of two root beers I dumped my trash and the cute co-ed's in a nearby bin and went up to the service window again; the owner's city permit to operate was thumbtacked up just inside the opening. The red-faced man in a paper chef's hat and dirty paper apron who had served me before came over and slid the protective screen open. He had the smile of a man who wants to be liked but is rightly afraid he isn't. Maybe he had a canary. He for sure had a set of expensive false teeth.

  'What can I do you for?' He had a couple of fingers missing on his left hand.

  'Just a toothpick,' I said. 'Sorry to trouble you.'

  'No trouble,' he said, passing over a small box.

  'Nice place,' I said, helping myself.

  He shrugged. 'Yeah.'

  'Would you be one of the Bs in the sign?'

  'Nah,' he said. 'Everyone asts that. It was there when me and the wife bought in so we just left it. I'm Art.'

  'Jim,' I said. 'Bidding on a painting contract at that establishment of higher learning across the street there.'

  'Oh yeah?' He leaned his elbows on the counter and gave me his idea of a smile again. Everyone was smiling at me today; maybe it was my deodorant. The two kids in the Ford left, burning rubber, and went all of fifty yards to the school lot.

  'Fuckin' kids,' said Art, the red-faced philosopher.

  'Yeah, well,' I said. 'See you later, pal.'

  'OK, pal,' said Art, retrieving the toothpicks and sliding the screen across again. So much for any ideas I had of skillfully pumping Art.

  I shifted the van across the street without burning any rubber and, trusty clipboard in hand and new tape measure in pocket, walked down the empty hall of the Admin wing to Miss Shirley's office.

  Miss Shirley was in, fresh makeup lavishly applied, curls combed or tousled or teased or whatever it was she did with them. She raised one imperfectly drawn eyebrow at my getup but otherwise was all business, at least as far as a dish like her could ever be business.

  'I would like,' I told her, 'a short tour, then to meet the head of your school security and then access to your computer outlet, in that order, please.'

  'Follow me, Picasso,' she said.

  And the tour was short, all I really wanted at that time was a look at the storerooms and the kids' locker rooms. So I looked at the storerooms – they were rooms in which things were stored – then saw the locker rooms, of which, it turned out, there were two, one for each sex, unsurprisingly. They were located in the sports wing that ran off at an angle from the other buildings right next to the gym, which was also unsurprising. The lockers were the usual metal type in rows two lockers high, each numbered and with a built-in combination lock. Then the vision called Miss Shirley escorted me down endless halls to the office of the head of security, a Mr Dev Devlin, to whom she introduced me and to whom she spelled out my bona fides. Then she left; I couldn't stop myself from watching her go but did prevent myself from whistling. Maybe I was growing up after all.

  On the way to Devlin's office I was trying to figure out why the place felt so different from schools in my day. It looked different, of course, with color-coordinated icky pastels on the walls instead of good, honest poop brown and puke green, and the desks seen through the occasional open classroom door were different, of course, being contemporary work areas instead of good, honest, too-small, carved up wooden horrors. And in some of the rooms the kids were bent over computers instead of books, and the color of the blackboards was for some reason green now, like tennis balls are green and hair is green but the main difference, it came to me, was the halls were quiet. In my – admittedly short – day, schools were designed to be as noisy as possible, why, God only knows, probably money – reason anything out and sooner or later you get to that – but these halls were quiet, foam-backed lino on the floors, acoustic tiles on the walls and ceilings, movable screens set up as baffles . . . what the hell. Maybe the kids were noisier now so it all evened up.

  Oh. Something else happened on the way to Devlin's office. I broke up a drug orgy.

  We were going by the boys' washrooms just opposite the lockers when I heard with my little ear something that began with 'scuf', as in scuffle. As classes were in progress at that very moment it didn't take but a trice to deduce that what was probably going on was boys doing something they weren't supposed to be doing.

  I excused myself nicely to Miss Shirley and went in and sure enough, a small group of St Stephen's finest ne'er-do-wells were sharing a joint. My entry caused a brief flurry of muffled laughter and stall doors abruptly swinging shut, then all was quiet. The place was thick with the sweet smell of good pot. I relieved myself noisily at one of the urinals, tucked away Old Faithful, got out my new pocket rule and, whistling, began measuring things.

  'Well, she's about ten by ten,' I said ostensibly to myself, then stooped down and had a quick peek under the stall doors. Under one of them I counted four feet, under the one next to it, six. I made some noise over by the window and one of the kids slipped out and went to wash his hands. He gave me a quick glance in the mirror to see who the hell I was and what the hell I was doing.

  'What do you think about canary yellow?' I asked him.

  'What?' He was a big kid with a sort of modified Apache cut.

  'Canary yellow!' I said. 'It'll look darling with forest-green trim.'

  'You like a painter?' the kid said, drying his hands.

  'A decorator,' I said. 'A color coordinator, if you prefer. Painter!' I shuddered delicately. A second kid snuck out when my back was turned and exited rapidly. 'Mind holding the end of this a teeny minute?' I offered him the end of the rule.

  'Yeah,' the kid said. 'All right, you guys,' he said to his friends. 'It's just some jerk-off.'

  'Well!' I said. 'Jerk, maybe.' The rest of his pals emerged, gave me
looks varying from contemptuous to downright hostile, then they all trooped out with appropriate horseplay at the door. After a minute I followed them. One of them was talking to Miss Shirley.

  'For Mr Bonds,' he was saying with that innocent look kids put on when they're lying through their teeth and which grown-ups put on when they're lying through their false teeth. 'For the game.'

  'Well, you better get on with it then,' Miss Shirley said. The kid took off. 'They're marking something called the pitch for Mr Bonds for the game Saturday,' she told me.

  'They're also getting smashed in the boys' washroom,' I told her. 'And a "pitch" is what the Limeys call a soccer field. I do a lot of reading,' I added.

  'I do a lot of standing around waiting for you,' she said. 'Let's move it, Pablo. I've got work to do.'

  We moved it. Well, I walked it, she moved it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Mr Dev Devlin was tough, if you took his word for it, and I was more than willing to.

  He looked pathologically normal, with the stereotyped mien of the ex-Marine, and I soon found out that's exactly what he was. His office was small and appropriately spartan although there was a vase of fresh daffodils on the battleship-gray metal desk and several pictures of the Irish countryside up on the walls. Confirming his Marine connection, just inside the door was a large framed photograph of him as a lieutenant in Vietnam; he came over to look at it with me. There was something about his walk, a hesitancy, he lifted one foot a little higher than the other, I wondered if he had a partial prosthesis of some kind.

  'Just before Tet,' he said at my shoulder. He smelled of Old Spice, the GI's favorite, and he-man cigarettes. He was in a dark blue para-military outfit with red 'Security' flashes on each sleeve and a metal name-tag that said 'M. Devlin, Chief Sec' above his breast pocket. His holster was snapped shut but by the size of it he was packing something more than a BB pistol. Shorter than me but with a weightlifter's build, his muscles showing plainly through his shirt. Square face, light brown hair a little longer than regulation but not much. Also, he was not pleased and he told me so, standing there in front of the photo of one of his life's Golden Moments.

  'I don't like it, Vic,' he said.

  'Gee, I'm sorry,' I said.

  He gave me an unpleasant glare and pointed at a nasty-looking aluminum chair. I sat down; big deal.

  'I don't like outside security coming into my school,' he said. 'Not one little bit.'

  I was going to say I was sorry again but I hate being redundant. He paced up and down behind my chair showing me how much energy he had; I didn't bother watching. I figured he'd calm down in a while and he finally did.

  'What's going down, Vic?' He took a swivel chair across from me and straightened an already straight pen and pencil holder made from a brass mortar casing.

  What's going down? A good question, Dev ol' boy. Miss Shirley had told him my name, status and that I'd been hired by the vice-principal, but that was all. I was debating with myself how much more to tell him; on one hand I needed inside help, and who better than he to provide it? On the other, sinister, hand was the disquieting thought that if he was such a hot-shot he should already know what was going on so why hadn't he done something about it? If you have a highly trained, logical mind like mine, this would seem to lead to two possibilities – (1) he wasn't such a hot-shot or (2) he had his own reasons for sitting on it. I thought I'd start by working on (1), but it seemed a little direct to open up with 'Are you or have you ever been a hot-shot, Dev?' so I asked him instead, 'What do you know about computer thefts, Dev?'

  He shook out a Camel from a pack he kept in his top drawer, lit up with a kitchen match, then put the pack away again.

  'You mean of the things themselves?'

  'No, I mean using the things to steal other things with.' He looked a little lost. I really felt sorry for him.

  'Well, I read about it,' he said. He kept his cigarette cupped between thumb and first two fingers as he smoked. 'That what you're doing here?'

  I nodded solemnly. 'It's my specialty, Dev. It can be mighty tricky, too, I can assure you.'

  'Oh, yeah?' He looked relieved; I thought I'd relieve him some more.

  'Yes, indeed. Oh, by the way, Mr Lowenstein asked me to specifically tell you his bringing me in in no way reflects criticism on your department.' Kissing ass is good for the soul, said St Francis. 'Speaking of your department,' I said, doing my soul some more much-needed good, 'how do you manage to stay on top of a job like yours? It must take some organizing, having responsibility for a place this large, to say nothing of its contents, both animate and inanimate.'

  Dev brightened; he told me, one pro to another, how he had the job organized, and it was impressive enough. More often than not a security system is only as good as the specific demands the insuring company has listed, but that wasn't good enough for Dev. All requirements for locks, dead-bolts, window-jams, alarm systems silent and otherwise, fire doors and escape routes, fire drills, internal security and all the rest had not only been met but more than met. He had two properly licensed assistants who worked school hours on alternate days and the routes and times of their meanderings were changed by him arbitrarily and irregularly. He organized street-crossing patrols of goody-goody students and when necessary for special events, goody-goody parking monitors.

  He also divulged that he slept in a small, self-contained apartment at the far end of the science wing near the front of the school and his nightly patrols were altered as well in irregular patterns. He informed me he was licensed to carry a weapon on the premises while on duty and had fired it twice in the course of said duties, both times into the air and both times to prevent car thefts. H'um – it looked like the Loot was a hot-shot after all, which left the above-mentioned possibility number (2) – a whole different can of worms.

  'Wow,' I said, after he had run down a bit. 'Sure wish my job was as exciting as yours.' He then expressed polite interest in mine so I told him a little about my boring occupation, how it was a lonely one-man job, hinted that computer thefts were often linked to purchasing departments (a red herring) and then took my leave with a considerable amount to think about. A lot of fancy footwork from Dev is one thing I thought about.

  Ten minutes later Miss Shirley had me installed in an empty office two doors down from hers. She told me what language the computer on the otherwise bare table spoke and asked me if I spoke it too.

  'Un poco,' I said modestly. 'Just enough to order a drink and get something to eat.'

  'Ha ha,' said Miss Shirley.

  I limbered up while she went to get me some programs I'd requested and when she came back holding them to her chest like a small girl holding schoolbooks I asked her, 'I know it's a long shot but are you by any chance Marie Wilson's daughter?'

  She said, no, she was the only daughter of Mr and Mrs Shirley and who was Marie Wilson anyway, then she left me to my toils.

  I switched on, signed in and asked the computer if St Stephen's had a cadet corps.

  It did.

  I asked the computer to run a list of members.

  It did.

  I asked for a print-out of same; it rattled me off one. I asked the computer if St Stephen's had a gun and rifle club or facsimile of. It did, and obliged me with a list of members, acting president M. Devlin. There were seven names of students that appeared on both lists. I asked for and immediately got a print-out of the names, addresses and phone numbers of those seven, obtained by cross-connecting with the student directory. Ain't progress terrific?

  I looked up Dev's file while I was there; it told me little that I didn't already know but I saw and noted down that he had used as a reference when he'd first applied to St Stephen's a former employer, one Sheriff W. B. Gutes of Modesto, California. I also memorized Miss Shirley's home number in case of emergencies. Listen, be prepared; and if Macbeth ever said a truer word than that in his life I never heard it.

  There wasn't much more I could do til school broke so I switched off, tid
ied up, took back to Miss Shirley what I had borrowed from her, then asked if I could borrow her typewriter for a sec. She sighed deeply and batted her blue eyes at me; maybe I was getting somewhere.

  'Listen, Dopey,' she said. Maybe I wasn't. 'Use the printer, that's what it's there for. It prints things.'

  'Thank you,' I said meekly. I went back to the empty office, switched on, and typed in a résumé of my work so far and my plans for the rest of the day. I asked for two copies and got them without any sarcastic 'Done, merciful one' comments. One copy I kept, the other I handed over to Miss Shirley for her boss. Then I said farewell and split the scene, as the kids say.

  Or used to, anyway.

  A hard, maybe even a bitter woman, that Miss Shirley. A hard, bitter, frustrated ball-breaker, I knew the type well. What man these days doesn't?

  After only a couple of wrong turns I found the science wing and noted where the door to Dev's apartment was. Then I took myself over to Art's for a much-needed snack. I hadn't had anything at all in my stomach for a good hour and a half. I managed to finish two of Art's mediocre chili dogs, then got some change from him and put in a call to the Modesto, CA police department.

  The desk sergeant was in.

  Was Sheriff Gutes still in charge there?

  He wasn't but he dropped in most afternoons to complain about something. The desk sergeant sounded like one of the things the sheriff complained about was him.

  Could I reach the sheriff at his home?

  I could if I knew the number. And if the sheriff was home.

  Could I have the number please?

  The small-town wit finally gave it to me and a moment later I was actually speaking to the sheriff, or ex-sheriff, to be precise. Were sheriffs still called sheriffs after they retired or took off for Florida with a blond and a suitcase full of small, unmarked bills? Anyway, I was going to tell whatever he called himself that I worked for California Casualty or some other fictitious insurance company and as Mr Devlin's contract with St Stephen's was about to be renewed we had to run an obligatory check on him. Then I thought to hell with all that, the sarge had given me the impression Gutes was straight to the point of being a nuisance about it so I decided to be straight right back and see what happened. It wasn't really important anyway, it was just curiosity.