Below the Line

by Howard Michael Gould

  “Walk me through your last few cases.”

  “Working backward?” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Cheating husband, cheating husband, cheating wife, not-cheating wife . . .”

  “All marital.”

  “Well, before that, there was this TV actor on a murder rap—can I count him?”

  Waldo smiled. “How about the targets? Any chance someone you caught was pissed enough to burn you back?”

  She shrugged. “Always. Occupational hazard.”

  “How about your company? You got three ops?”

  “Not a problem.”

  “You pay them well?”

  More firmly: “Not a problem.”

  “Tell me about them. There’s a Willie Williams—”

  “Wait, wait,” she said. “How do you know that? You been spying on me?”

  “Me? Spy on you?” She smirked and conceded the unlikelihood by dipping her head. He said, “When you were missing, your husband gave me the names. I was going to follow up but I heard from you before I got a chance. Williams, he told me, and a Lucian Reddix, and was it a Dave Goldberg?”

  “Why are you focusing on this? I’m telling you—”

  “Why are you holding back?”

  She hesitated before deciding to say, “It’s not Dave Goldberg. It’s Dave Greenberg.”

  It took a few seconds for the name to land. “Fat Dave Greenberg? From Foothill?” Greenberg was a plainclothes notorious through the Valley Bureau both for his girth and for his general douchebaggery, which came together infamously on a robbery-homicide at a liquor store in Pacoima. Greenberg had spotted what no one else seemed to, a reddish-brown smear on the door and a similar one near the cash register. When he noted the forensic crew overlooking it, he not only snapped at the incompetents to run a swab but roasted them with a five-minute, curse-laden torrent. They let his choler burn down before pointing out a fact of which he was apparently the only cop on the scene unaware: that a matching reddish-brown glob sat on Greenberg’s own elbow, Korean barbecue sauce courtesy of the all-you-can-eat joint where he’d just spent a quarter of his shift. He’d rubbed it against the two surfaces he’d noticed and three more he hadn’t, and nobody had wanted to say anything. Within hours the story had made Dave Greenberg a full-on legend.

  “Damn,” said Waldo now.

  “He’s mellowed.”

  Waldo raised a dubious eyebrow and said, “Yeah? Who’s Williams?”

  “You probably overlapped with him. He had some problems then.”

  “What Williams did I know who had—? Not Dexter Williams.” Lorena nodded. Waldo said, “Dumpster Williams?”

  “He goes by Willie now.” In stakeouts back in the day, Sergeant Williams was known to bring along fellow officer Captain Morgan to keep him company. One night, looking for a spot to take an unnoticed piss alfresco, he staggered across Coldwater and thus across the division line, unfortunate because, when he was found by a shopkeeper the next morning, passed out behind a dumpster, the young Van Nuys team who took the call didn’t know him and he woke up in a cell on a D and D. A couple of compassionate rehab cycles followed, but then, already saddled with the nickname, he blew a 0.12 after crashing a squad car into, fittingly, a big green trash receptacle and was finally drummed out of the department.

  “Dave Greenberg and Dumpster Williams? You pay those clowns actual currency? I don’t even want to know who Reddix is.”

  “He’s a kid. He’s going to be really good. Hungry, very loyal—”

  “Kid, meaning . . .”

  Lorena bobbed her shoulders before admitting, “Nineteen.”

  She had been claiming to have three ops full-time plus three more freelance. “None of them are full-time, are they?”

  “I guarantee them twenty hours a week. The older guys.”

  He was sure she didn’t have any freelancers, either. Paying her bills with PI work, starting to build any kind of agency at all—even with second-rate, part-time ops—was nothing to be embarrassed about, certainly not for a thirty-year-old woman in a hard city like L.A. But Lorena was falling short of her own lofty ambitions, so short that when she re-encountered Waldo after all the years, she felt the need to pose, and now she’d gotten caught at it. He realized how thoroughly he’d humiliated her and changed the subject. “I bet you can call Wax now.”

  She dialed and put her phone on speaker.

  “Roy Wax’s office,” said a woman’s voice.

  “Lorena Nascimento for Mr. Wax.”

  “I’ll see if he’s in.”

  Lorena and Waldo eyed each other through the hold.

  “This is Roy Wax.”

  Waldo nodded encouragement. Lorena said, “Mr. Wax, this is Lorena Nascimento. Do you know why I’m calling?”

  “I do.”

  “I’d like to come talk to you.” When he didn’t say anything, she added, “Mr. Wax, somebody set the two of us up. I believe it’s in both our interests to figure out who that was.” They waited for a response. Finally she said, “Are you still there?”

  Wax said, “My office, one o’clock,” and hung up.

  Lorena said to Waldo, “You’re coming with me.”

  “Don’t you think your charms’ll play better solo?”

  “I think my charms’ll play better with the most famous detective in California for a wingman.”

  “Then I’m in. You feeling better?”

  “Starting to,” she said, and stretched on the bed. The top of her blouse slipped open, unveiling a fringe of red lace. “One o’clock. That leaves us hours. Any ideas what we should do?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Waldo. “Start checking bus schedules.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Lorena howled the whole time he was figuring it out, but Waldo dug in. They’d been nonchalantly sullying the planet far too much, tooling about L.A. in her sports car, and if she wanted to work cases together, especially cases forty-five miles down the coast, she was going to have to start getting around Waldo-style. Of course, that was going to be much harder à deux; alone, he could simply bike to Union Station and catch the MetroLink, but Lorena was nobody’s cyclist, so they were looking at a two-block walk (she in stilettos), a ten-minute bus ride, a few more blocks on foot to Wilshire and Western, then thirteen minutes on the Purple Line—all just to get to Union Station, where the trip to Orange County would actually begin.

  Even the first brief leg made her tetchy. Waldo saw the 207 a block ahead, about to reach the stop before they did, and made the mistake of saying, “Let’s make it!” and breaking into a trot. He managed to catch the driver’s eye, and when he caught up kept one foot on the step and one on the curb, forcing the driver to wait, grumbling, while Lorena took her pointed time strolling the last half block, scowling at Waldo all the way.

  On the bus, there were empty seats but none together. Lorena, sore and bossy, said, “Sit here,” and Waldo took the spot she indicated, next to an octogenarian black woman. Lorena continued back a couple of rows and plopped down beside a twentysomething with a handlebar mustache, thick-framed rectangular glasses and a porkpie hat. If the guy was smart, he wouldn’t try to talk to her.

  Waldo studied the rest of the itinerary that Google Maps served up. There was a hitch he hadn’t noticed coming up in Anaheim, a half-mile stretch from train station to bus stop that they’d have to take on foot. He decided to break the news when they got off this bus so she could have some time to get used to the idea.

  The next thing he knew, Lorena was standing behind him. “Trade with me.”

  He gave her his spot and stepped back to where she’d been sitting. Her erstwhile seatmate, glasses pressed high on his forehead, was holding the middle of his face and moaning. Red droplets fell freely onto his khakis. Waldo watched the back of Lorena’s head and hoped the elderly lady next to her now would fare better.r />
  When they got off at Wilshire the first thing Lorena said was, “I don’t want to talk about it.” But she did. “Goddamn perv put his hand on my leg. How the hell do you ride with these people?” She was walking faster now, agitated. She definitely had a higher gear when she wanted it, even in heels. “Look at the back of my jacket,” she said. It was ivory quilted leather. “Did that hipster fuck get blood on me?”

  He decided not to tell her about the walk in Anaheim quite yet.

  * * *

  • • •

  South Coast Plaza was the biggest and ritziest shopping center in California, everything you’d find on Rodeo Drive collected, air-conditioned, and set down closer to the Gold Coast money.

  Independence Infants, Inc., was headquartered in a tower beside the mall, in a suite all glass and paneling, hushed like a law office. A young blond receptionist with fake pearls quickly shut her Facebook, and Lorena introduced herself and then Waldo. While the girl made a call to the back, Lorena checked a mirror from her purse. Waldo knew to leave her alone; that half-mile traipse had made her sweaty and even more peevish and she was trying to do something quickly about both. Wax’s assistant, a shade younger than the receptionist and two shades blonder, appeared and led them back to his capacious corner suite.

  Wax was more tan in person than Waldo had expected from the Disneyland photo. His glass desk faced the door, a view that stretched to the Pacific behind him. The room reeked of cigarettes. Wax lit a Marlboro as they entered, not something you often saw indoors in California. There was a meeting area off to one side but no chairs in front of Wax’s desk, so Waldo and Lorena stood.

  “I’m Lorena Nascimento. This is Charlie Waldo. You may have read about him in the news recently—he solved the Monica Pinch case.”

  Wax smiled and said, “I know who you are.” Maybe this was a moment when Waldo’s celebrity would help them. Wax added, “The Judas cop.” Maybe not. Wax drew a deep drag and blew smoke in Waldo’s direction.

  Waldo knew Lorena would have rehearsed her speech in her head, but Wax’s raw antipathy had her back on her heels. “I want to, um . . . apologize,” she stammered, “for any difficulty this may have caused you.” Wax tilted his head and peered down his nose while she tried to find her footing. “Whoever hired me obviously wanted to damage you, Mr. Wax, and exploited me to do it. I don’t like looking bad, and I’m going to find out who it was.” Wax’s cool was unsettling her; she was selling too hard. “However you feel about the way Detective Waldo resigned from the LAPD, he was their very best for a long time—”

  Waldo couldn’t watch her spin any more for this asshat and cut in. He said to Wax, “California doesn’t allow smoking in office buildings. Newport Beach hasn’t broken off from California yet, has it?” Lorena turned to him, fretful, but Waldo pretended not to notice.

  Wax said, “We’re in Costa Mesa. And California allows smoking in designated break rooms. This”—he spread his arms to take in his showy office—“is a designated break room.” He took another draw, exhaled extravagantly and turned to Lorena. “So what’s the hustle? Take some pictures, harass my wife, then start milking me?”

  “Milking you?”

  “Getting me to pay you to try to find the person who did this to me. Who may never have existed in the first place.”

  “Mr. Wax, I’m not asking you for any money. I’m here to offer to work pro bono. When we find out who set us up, I’m sure you have grounds for a lawsuit—”

  “Oh, I’ve already talked to my attorneys; I know I have grounds for a lawsuit. Against you, for invasion of privacy and emotional distress.” Lorena swallowed. Wax took another drag. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I am going to try to repair the damage you’ve done to my marriage. But if I so much as hear your name after today, I’m going to make one phone call and have your license revoked. Am I clear?”

  “Yes, sir.” She hesitated, then glanced at Waldo and started for the door.

  But Waldo didn’t. He said to Wax, “You learned something today.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You had Ms. Nascimento come all the way down here; when you talked to her this morning, you at least wanted to hear what she had to say. Now you don’t. What happened in the meantime?”

  Wax blew another stream of smoke in Waldo’s direction. “I guess that famous mind of yours has taken you pretty far.”

  “I get by.”

  “Then how come I’m the one who’s rich?”

  Waldo said, “There are larger things.”

  “There sure are. And I’m the one with money to buy them.”

  Lorena plucked Waldo’s sleeve and he followed her out.

  They rode down the elevator and walked out into the pounding sun and toward the bus stop, Lorena clomping half a step behind Waldo. He told her she should just try to forget this ever happened, but the words sounded hollow even to him. He felt so bad for her that he actually suggested they go next door to South Coast Plaza to window-shop and to see if they could find a dinner he could live with.

  “I’m getting my ass kicked, Waldo. Today isn’t the day to buy fucking Louboutins.”

  “I said, window-shop.”

  “Find a bus to Costco. Time to start window-shopping there.”

  They waited on a metal bench. After a few minutes his phone rang, an unfamiliar number. “Hello?”

  “You owe me a girl, Waldo.” It was Cuppy.

  “We’re trying. I’m sure we’ll get hold of her soon.”

  “We got hair looks like her color in his apartment, and phone calls to and from, right up to the day of. I’ll give you till tonight. Tomorrow morning I’m perp-walking her out of prep school.” The line went dead.

  He repeated Cuppy’s threat to Lorena, who shook her head, her mood steaming off her. Then he started working out a route to Stevie’s house on his phone while Lorena took care of some business on hers, tapping so hard he thought she might crack her screen.

  There were MetroLink options and Amtrak options for the main leg from Anaheim to Union Station. He tried to figure out whether one left a darker carbon footprint than the other but could find only a press release saying that the two companies had partially merged. He abandoned that research and looked instead for a two-bus route to the Anaheim train station on this end, which might at least spare Lorena a repeat of that long hike.

  A white Honda Accord pulled to the curb in front of them. Lorena got up off the bench and opened the back door. “Let’s go,” she said. “It’s an Uber.” Waldo recoiled. “You don’t get in, the only footprint’s going to be the one I put on your skinny ass.” It wasn’t the day to argue.

  NINE

  At the foot of the driveway, Waldo hit the intercom button while Lorena held the Uber in case Stevie Rose wasn’t at home.

  “Hello?” It didn’t sound like Stevie. Waldo signaled to Lorena, who got out of the Honda. She walked over to Waldo as the car turned around and headed down the hill.

  “Hi, is this Ms. Rose?” he said into the intercom.

  “Yes?”

  He noticed a tiny camera atop one of the gate stanchions, tilted down toward the intercom, and turned to show himself. “Hi, my name is Charlie Waldo, and this is Lorena Nascimento.”

  “Yes?”

  “We’re private investigators.”

  “Could you leave your information in the mailbox? This isn’t a good time for us.”

  Waldo and Lorena looked at each other. He said, “We’ve been working with your daughter.”

  “With my daughter?”

  “Stevie?”

  Lorena added, “She hired us?”

  “Do you have any identification?” Lorena took an ID card from her purse and held it to the camera. The double gates parted for them.

  They walked up the Roses’ private hill. A woman in her early forties waited at the open door. T
he tan might have been natural but the tousled and highlighted amber hair hadn’t come cheap. She wore an opal pendant on a thick gold chain, and knee-length khaki shorts and a sleeveless blouse showing off calves and arms that had taken some investment, too. “We just got back.”

  Lorena said, “Are you Stevie’s mom?”

  “Paula Rose.” She held out her hand and shook each of their hands with a firm grip. “What did you say your names were again?”

  Could any parent at Alastair Pinch’s daughter’s school not know who Waldo was? What did that say about Stevie Rose’s mother? “Charlie Waldo. This is Lorena Nascimento.”

  A man appeared behind her, twenty years older but not quite her height, in shorts, sandals and a Hawaiian shirt buttoned tight over a thick chest. He had bountiful hair for his age, curly and dark, graying at the temples. “Charlie Waldo? Jesus, come in, come in. I’m Joel.” He gestured down the steps toward the sofas where they’d sat with Stevie and elucidated for his wife as they followed. “Honey, this is the guy who figured out Monica Pinch.” He turned to Waldo. “I’m a huge fan. Huge. And that other thing? The way you ripped the LAPD a new one? You’re a rock star.” He must have been talking about Lydell Lipps and everything after. The adulation made Waldo queasy. “Can I get you something to drink? I’m not sure what’s in the fridge. We just got back from Hawaii.” Waldo and Lorena both declined. “We just bought a pineapple farm. Well, not just—about a year ago.”

  Paula sat beside her husband. “It gives us a reason to spend more time there. We love Hawaii.”

  “Plus we’re doing good, you know?” Joel lowered his voice conspiratorially, though there was no one around to listen in. “We outbid Dole for it. They just brutalize their unions. We can give them better wages, better medical . . .”

  “Well,” said Paula.

  “Well, not crazy better, but you know.”

  Paula said to Waldo and Lorena, “They see a private owner come in, especially when they see ‘rich, Hollywood private owner,’ these union people think they can walk all over you.”