by David Pierce
After introducing myself, I said, 'Sorry to disturb you, sir, but it's about an ex-employee of yours, Dev Devlin.'
'You aren't disturbing me, son,' said a mild, old man's voice. 'I wish you were. What about him?'
'He's head of security at a high school down here,' I said.
'Where's down here?'
I told him.
'What's the weather doing?'
I told him.
'What's Dev doing?'
'Well, that's just it,' I said. 'He doesn't seem to be doing much. When he worked for you, would you say he was a smart cop?'
'I would say that.'
'Did he know about things like drugs?'
'Be hard not to these days, even in Modesto,' said the old gent.
'How long was he with you?'
'A good three years.'
'Know what he did before that?'
'Straight army.'
'If you don't mind me asking, was he honest?'
'As honest as most,' the ex-sheriff said. 'Course you don't get the opportunities up here in the sticks a fellow might down there in the big time. Also he was working under me.'
'How would you sum him up in a few words, if you had to?'
The old man thought for a moment.
'Hard-working. Moody. In pain a lot.'
I told him I got the picture, thanked him and hung up. In pain a lot? Who wasn't?
CHAPTER SIX
I was ordering a root beer to go when I remembered something so I wedged myself back into the phone booth and called Mr Lowenstein. I was cool with Miss Shirley, who put me through.
'You have been busy,' he said.
'I try,' I said modestly. 'I presume you've read my full and detailed report, pardon the paper it's written on.'
'I have it in my overworked hand this very moment,' he said. 'Mr Daniel. I'm not trying to tell you your job but for goodness' sake remember pupils have both rights and parents these days.'
'They would have, wouldn't they,' I said, 'at least parents. But I also have to remember just what I'm up against. Anyway, one or two quick things – do I assume you want to keep the cops out to try and minimize any publicity?'
'You certainly do,' he said. 'Next.'
'Why didn't you use your own security men?'
'I decided not to,' he said shortly. 'I decided an outside investigator might be more . . . objective.'
'I see,' I said. 'And how did you come up with me?'
'My wife and two children bowl,' he said. 'Very occasionally they talk me into going along with them. As I refuse to make an ass of myself by even trying to knock those foolish wooden objects over, I normally spend most of the time talking with Mr Curtain, a man I've come to admire somewhat over the years.'
'I see,' I said again.
'Next,' said Mr Lowenstein.
'That's it,' I said. 'Thanks.'
'Thank you,' he said politely, then hung up.
'Objective, eh,' I said to the dead phone. 'That's me all over.'
As I fought my way out of the telephone booth that was designed for midgets I noticed there was only one car left in Art's parking lot, the one sporting a car-phone antenna. I went into the washroom at the back; it was surprisingly clean, with a heavy smell of disinfectant. I looked through the wastepaper basket; there was one empty packet of strawberry-flavored cigarette papers, either from a sissy or from someone trying hopefully to mask the highly individual aroma of burning pot.
Then, braced with the soft drink, I got myself as comfortable as possible in the front seat of the van back in the school parking lot and waited for the last classes to let out for the day. The first trickle of liberated youth started just after three thirty, then the volume increased steadily until the lot was in full action, doors slamming, brakes squealing, engines revving unnecessarily, kids calling back and forth. The soccer field, or 'pitch' as I liked to call it, and tennis courts filled up, so did Art's. Dev put in an appearance and strolled about keeping the lid on things; twenty minutes later it had all pretty much calmed down. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just getting the feel of it all. Nor is it true to say that I was waiting for Miss Shirley, whose car, who knew, might just happen to be at the garage that day and who would love a drive home in a dirty van with a dirty old man. Anyway, I did not see her; maybe teacher was keeping her in late.
So I drove home by myself, changed clothes and vehicles and made it back to the office just before rush hour. I waved to Mrs Morales, opened up, picked the mail off the floor and leafed through it – no employment records yet from John Curtain so I could put off thinking about his problem for the weekend. I didn't want the chore of getting Betsy out and setting up, but habits are habits and good ones even more so, according to Miss Manners, so I did and transferred all my notes, names and addresses, receipts, the contract, the report to Mr Seburn and the one to Mr Lowenstein in abbreviated forms on to their appropriate disks, then cut up all the now superfluous paperwork with a shredder of my own invention – a large pair of pinking shears and a deft left hand.
What the hell. 'Occupy yourself ceaselessly,' said Solomon, 'it sure beats thinking.' Then I attacked the rest of the mail.
There was some bank interest from a ninety-day deposit to enter, also a certified check for $200 from Mr Raymond Millington of St Charles, New Mexico. I'd been looking on and off for over three months for the Millingtons' runaway daughter Ethel Catherine Anne, age fifteen, last seen at the Taos Trailways bus station 2 February. She wasn't really last seen then, hundreds of people had hopefully seen her since, it's like Columbus discovering America when it wasn't even him, it probably wasn't even America then, and there were assorted millions of people here already, but that's the way it was always put, last seen.
I'd so far tried all the usual things as well as several unusual ones but I wasn't getting anywhere and didn't want any more of the old man's money – I didn't know for sure but I saw him as an old man – bearded, mournful, maybe a farmer. So I got out the typewriter and on my officially headed stationery (from Mrs Martel, next to the post office) wrote him a note withdrawing my services and telling him that if I went on I felt I'd only be wasting his money. I kept his last check because I'd earned it. Most of it, anyway. My leg started hurting about then so I got up to stretch it.
There were two more missing-person letters in the mail, one from Utah, the other from Santa Barbara. God knows how the writers found me. Not that I wasn't capable but as a one (occasionally two)-man operation I'd be far down on a list of potentially helpful agencies where manpower is what's needed, not brains. I don't suppose there are many things sadder than a missing-person letter with its list of physical characteristics and you know it's one of 500 copies. And in the photograph that comes with it the subject is always smiling; of course who keeps a picture of someone crying or frowning, or takes one for that matter, but still.
I answered both letters, saying I couldn't take on any more clients right now but I would keep the pictures with me and keep my eyes open as I went about my daily business. Sure.
By then it was getting on to six thirty, hell, time I was getting out of there. I dug the phone out and called Mae. She was back. Sure she'd see me later, just for a drink or two though cause she was beat.
'I can imagine,' I said. I tidied up, put everything away, locked up, mailed the letters in the corner box, waved to Mrs Morales but she didn't see me, and burnt just a touch of rubber on my way out into the traffic.
Home. Showered the body beautiful, shaved the visage divine and patted on some aftershave Mae had given me in my stocking last Christmas. As five months had gone by and there was still plenty of it left and it had been a small bottle to begin with you might think I didn't care that much for it and you might be right. Then I donned some out-dated Valley leisure wear, drank a weak brandy and ginger and idly ruminated about Art, Dev, Mr Lowenstein and with one, cute, untidy exception – faceless high-school students. I didn't think about Miss Shirley. Then I put the top up on the car and went
to pick up Mae.
A lady on the radio told me to stand by my man. I said I would.
Mae and I had a drink or two at the Two-Two-Two, one at Dave's Corner Bar and a quick one over at Sandy's where the local post office workers were just starting to get into it. Great invention, bars, I'll take them over the steamboat or cotton gin any time. Hell, over the wheel, too. And all I ask in a bar is three little things – that within it is for ever twilight, that it serves booze and that it serves me. There's not a lot wrong with bar girls either, they're something like actresses, seldom ugly, seldom teetotal and seldom celibate, but usually heavier.
After Sandy's we had a bite of overdone pasta at Mario's and a couple of glasses of house burgundy which she liked but I could have lived without. Mae said she was OK, she was relieved it was over, her sister had been no help at all and her father, long divorced from her mom but still living reasonably nearby, hadn't even bothered to show up. Couldn't let a little thing like a funeral interrupt his afternoon canasta session, she said without malice. Nice girl, Mae. Nice big, blond girl, big appetite, worse clothes sense than mine even, no games. She was wearing a mother-of-pearl locket that had been her mother's and before that her grandmother's, and kept touching it to see if it was still there. I thought she had something on her mind other than what she had just been through, but I didn't press her about it.
We wound up back at her place; she and her hyper-active girlfriend Charlene shared a small house off Sepulveda that smelled strongly of cats, which made sense as there was always at least a dozen living there at any one time. Charlene was out for once on a date; God only knows what he was like and where they were, maybe go-carting in Encino. Mae made us a nightcap and we went to bed.
'Just for a cuddle,' I warned her. 'Been a tough week.'
'Very amusing,' she said.
We were sipping and cuddling and watching a barely watchable Burns & Allen re-run when she said, 'Jay-sus, what's that?'
'What's what?'
'That.' She turned on the bedside lamp and pulled down the sheet. 'That.'
'Shark bite,' I said.
'Not very amusing,' she said. 'You didn't have it when I left.'
She touched the foot-long scar gently. It was on the top of my left leg, on the inside. I leaned over her and turned the light off again, giving her a kiss on the way there and on the way back.
'Well?' she said.
'Well,' I said, 'I was in the Oasis, way out Ventura. You know it?'
She shook her head.
'Just after you left. I was drowning my sorrow.'
She made a noise indicating disbelief. 'Drowning your thirst, maybe.'
'Anyway, it was getting late. For lack of anything better to do I was shooting the breeze with this garden furniture salesman who'd just lost his job so he was sleeping in his car. Well, I bought him a couple of drinks and he felt bad because he couldn't return the favor so to cheer him up I bought him a couple more and bought the old girl behind the bar, Martha, a couple too, she'd just had all her tubes out so she wasn't too cheerful either.'
'Sounds like a fun soirée,' said Mae. 'Sorry I missed it.'
'Two guys had been playing pool, waiting for the joint to empty out. Young kids, drinking beer. Harmless. One Mexican. One hippy. The hippy jumps the bar, whips out a bread knife and holds it against the old girl's throat while she empties the till.'
'Oh, God,' said Mae.
'While he's doing this his pal is holding his hand in his pocket like he's got a gun, covering us two, i.e. me and the ex-garden furniture salesman who's sleeping in his car. I figured he was full of shit, if he had a gun he would have shown it, so when his amigo let go of Martha I decided to get clever.'
'Uh-huh,' said Mae. 'What else is new?'
'I caught him a good shot on the side of his cabeza with a pool cue. He dropped the money and the knife. As I figured, his small-time compadre didn't have a gun but he pulled out a knife from a sheath on the back of his belt where it was hidden by his shirt and he caught me one.'
'You're lucky he didn't cut your testimonials off,' she said.
'He was trying,' I said.
'Brilliant,' she said. 'Totally brilliant.'
'I know, I know. But what are you going to do? You put up or shut up, especially when you're my size.'
'Well, you could shut up once in a while,' she said. 'Specially when you're smashed.'
'You know what? My personal physician says it's OK for me to resume my love life again if I stay on the bottom and don't move anything but my eyelashes. Next week I can curl my toes.'
'You'll be lucky,' Mae said. And so I was.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The following morning Timmy was burned to death in my office.
I was there at the time looking up the names and phone numbers of some students I planned to have a word with later that day. If I'd been a little less paranoid I'd have made out a list Friday afternoon and kept it with me but there you go. That time in Chicago the Corsican button-man tried to tattoo my head and shoulders with the firing pattern of a sawn-down shotgun had come about because I had a piece of paper in my wallet I should have left at home or burned or eaten.
So, Saturday morning, feeling pretty good all things considered, I parked in front of the office at about ten thirty, waved to Mrs Morales, opened up, took the garbage out the back and was unlocking the safe to get Betsy when I heard the front picture window shatter. I poked my head out of the bathroom to see what the hell was happening, figuring it was probably that loser Mick again, when the whole office went up in a whoosh of flame like it had been hit with a load of napalm. Maybe it had. I smelled my hair burning. I did have a fire extinguisher but it was by the front door so I couldn't get to it even if I'd wanted to. Fat lot of use it would have been anyway.
It seemed impossible a fire could spread so quickly; I soaked a towel under the tap, put it on my head and crawled to the back door and out, crawled like the bad old days on the obstacle course at Fort Meyers when sadistic, gung-ho creeps fired live 30-30s up your rectum. Thank God it was garbage day and I'd already unlocked the back door.
I lay on the asphalt out back for a minute. I saw my pant legs were smoking and rolled over and over in the dirt. I probably shouted a bit too because I frightened the worms out of the alley cat who lived next door and nothing frightened that molting feline. Then I heard someone else shouting, then a siren. I hobbled around the side of the unit through the broken glass at the edge of the vacant lot. When I got around to the front, flames were shooting out through where the plate-glass window used to be. Mr Amoyan was trying to get close with his toy fire extinguisher but someone was holding him back.
'Your friend went in,' he said when he saw me but I didn't know what he meant. Then he went on about something else but I didn't know what that meant either. It must have sunk in though because I remembered it later.
I sat down suddenly in the parking lot; some kind citizen pulled me further away from the blaze; Mrs Morales gave me a paper cup of something I didn't drink. I saw the Nus helping their cousin carry cartons of merchandise out of his store, as if the stuff wasn't hot enough already. Mr Amoyan said something in Armenian I didn't understand. I said something he didn't understand right back.
The first of the fire engines came around the corner, some of the crew jumping off and going into action before it stopped. I noticed it said 'Class One' on the door of the fire engine; nothing but the best, as usual.
It was all over in a surprisingly short time, maybe six or seven minutes. By then the fire was out completely, there wasn't even much smoke left. My unit was the only one touched. A fire marshal who had arrived in a bright red Pontiac made his way cautiously into the ruin.
'There's a fatality in here,' he called back. 'Male.' I noticed Timmy's shopping cart lying on its side in front of the Nus'; some of his belongings had been carried by water from the hoses down past Mrs Morales'. A plastic ray gun floated like a boat in the water. I seemed to recall Mr Amoyan saying something abo
ut my friend going in and guessed that my friend Timmy had gone in all right, to try and help his friend, me, out. Goddamn it anyway.
The paramedics arrived. The one who wasn't the driver smeared some cooling jelly on my face, cut away what was left of my almost-new chinos and began on my legs. Ouch. The fire marshal came out looking angry. I asked the driver to get him for me; he brought him over.
'My office,' I said as best I could. 'I was in there. What happened?'
'Looks like a brick first, then a bottle of gas,' the marshal said, turning away for a good spit. 'Burns like hell for a few minutes, then goes out.'
'You take him to the hospital now, please,' said Mrs Morales. The paras already had the stretcher out; they lifted me effortlessly on to it.
'When are you coming to visit me?' I whispered to Mrs Morales.
'You shouldn't be talking, pal,' said the driver.
'Why should I visit a crazy man like you?' asked Mrs Morales.
'I can tell you what you're doing wrong with your tacos,' I said.
The paras snapped down the legs of the stretcher and wheeled me to the ambulance and then slid me in, one jumping up behind me, the other closing the door behind me. Then the one in the back began giving me oxygen.
'Just in case,' he said.
'In case of what?' I asked, but he didn't answer.
The driver took off. I could feel awful things happening to my legs, I imagined I could feel skin oozing off, like baby Blobs. The para who'd cut off most of my trousers had thoughtfully left me my pockets for future use like a true member of the medical profession; I pointed to the one with my wallet in it. The para got it out. I stopped sucking oxygen long enough to tell him, 'Insurance.'
He nodded, found my Kaiser card and redirected the driver. I was damned if they were going to take me to County, I'd wound up there once before when I'd been shot, mugged, stomped, rolled and a few other things downtown near the flower market and it was six hours before they got around to me. Not because they didn't like me or because of something I said, but because bleeding slowly to death from a stomach wound was way down on their list of emergencies, they had dozens of more serious cases to look at first and more arriving regularly at the door. I found out later they got about 400 emergency patients a day and about half of them were critical, having been stabbed, shot, slashed, smashed, run down by cars or life.
