Текст книги "The Eternal Summer"
Автор книги: Paul MacDonald
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 15 страниц)
HIGH NOON
“There he is!” he shouted as I entered.
Badger’s office was half of the ground floor of a three story apartment building located on a side street in Echo Park. The only evidence that it was an actual office was a hand-written sign on poster board pasted in the upper corner of the large picture window facing the sidewalk.
The carpet was a deep gold made deeper by the years of foot traffic from shoes comfortable walking on dusty streets. Its edges didn’t cleanly fit with the wall and was probably a cast-off from another office undergoing an update. There was little furniture outside of a desk, filing cabinet, and a bookcase that looked like surplus from a 1970s schoolroom. I didn’t spot a computer. The only attempt at decoration was a cloudy vase of dried pussy willows and a borrowed frame displaying Badger’s private investigator credentials.
The one question that sprang to mind as I took in the surroundings, a question that I needed to address as soon as I got back to the office, was Who the hell did the background check on the background checker?
“Chuck,” he said, rising from his desk, “good to finally meet you in person.”
Badger was one of those guys who tucked his sweater into his jeans and didn’t wear a belt. He had a handshake that could crack walnuts and his skin was about as rough as the broken shells. His hair was the color and texture of dirty straw and I couldn’t tell if all of it was real.
“Thanks for making this a priority,” I told him and took a seat in a creaky chair. Behind Badger’s desk, a makeshift wall and curtained doorway separated the front of the office from a back room. Over his shoulder and through the slat in the curtain, I spotted an Army cot, mini-fridge, and hotplate. This was what savvy real estate agents would deem a “mixed-use” space.
“You’ll always be the priority,” he told me. I pitied the utterly unimportant person who wasn’t the recipient of this phrase because, as far as I could tell, he said it to everyone.
“I found some things,” he stated firmly. “Let us begin.”
I marveled at the lack of paper in the entire exchange. The only sign of paper anywhere in the office was a yellow newspaper on his desk that looked a decade from being current. If this was a corporate meeting, he’d have a thirty-five page flipbook with the first third filled with table of contents, title dividers, biographies of the participants, and other such nonsense. There would also be an appendix that you would be instructed to “read at your leisure.” Somewhere in the middle of this mess would be the actual meat of the presentation that could be boiled down to a few, succinct bullets. The only way to hear them was to endure a long presentation by the person who put it together. That was why every meeting in corporate America is at least one hour long. Badger wouldn’t make it in that world.
“In 1963 Hector Hermosillo was arrested and charged with the stabbing death of a teenager in the Alpine district. He was twenty-two at the time. The police arrested him at the scene without incident.”
“Knife fight,” I repeated.
“One of them had a knife, anyway. The police put it down as a racial dispute, perhaps gang related. There was concern that it could boil over to another race riot and put a lot of men on the streets.”
Los Angeles at that time was a bit of a powder keg as the city began to resemble the ethnically-diverse mish-mash that it is today. Friction between the various groups – blacks, Mexicans, Japanese, whites, Chinese – jostling for space and jobs and respect sometimes flared up into full-on melees. These resulted in many deaths but never much will to change the things that led to them.
“Latino was one group. Who was the other?” I asked even though I could have guessed.
“Chinese,” he confirmed.
“Where’s the Alpine district? I’ve never heard of that.”
“It’s those little hills between Chinatown and the south side of Dodger Stadium. Used to be mostly an Italian neighborhood until the Chinese moved in. You still have a few decent Italian delis there left over from the old days.”
“You mentioned a gang?”
“This is where it gets complicated. Mr. Hermosillo was one of these pachuco wannabe punks from East L.A. White Picket guy, maybe, but never confirmed if he was officially a member.”
No wonder Hector wore his pants so high. The original Chicano gangs were the zoot-suited playboys of the streets. They wore sports coats to their knees and pants to their chests.
“He was in a gang, huh?”
“There’s mention of it in the original police report but, like I said, it was unconfirmed.”
I wondered how he got access to this level of information. He must have an inside source at the department but I don’t believe he was ever employed by them. I made a second mental note to run a background check on him.
“Was the victim in a gang?” I asked.
“Not sure.”
“Did he have a personal connection to Hector?”
“You’re asking the wrong questions, guy.”
Badger was one of the few men to call other men “guy” and not have it come off as an invitation to a fight. There was an excitement in his voice as if he had some bit of information that he wanted me to discover. But it bristled all the same. I prided myself on having a first-rate interviewing skillset, which included asking the right questions at the right time. The direct challenge to my ability to ask pertinent questions was an open-handed slap to my corporate face.
“Were the Chicano gangs active in the Alpine district at that time?” I asked after giving it more thought.
“You’re getting warmer.”
“Did Hector serve time for the murder?”
“Much warmer.”
“Was he even convicted?”
“He was not.”
“Why?”
“Because an eye-witness confirmed that his actions were in self-defense.”
“One of his friends vouched for him and they dropped the charges?” I asked incredulously.
“A very well-respected, upstanding friend,” he smiled.
“Valenti?”
And the smile that was partially concealed during this excruciating game of twenty questions finally emerged in all its yellowed brilliance.
My mind raced with all the permutations of what this development meant in the already-complex nest of relationships around the disappearance of a young girl. The loyal driver of thirty years owed both his livelihood and his life to the man who employed him. Or was it reversed? Was the job payback for a sordid deed in the Alpine district in the early 1960s?
“I did a little more digging on the murder. No charge, of course, this is just Badger being Badger. It’s who I am and it’s what I do. I get on something and I can’t let it go until I know everything about it. Must be in my blood—”
“What did you find out?” I interrupted before he launched into a family tree discussion about being a direct descendent of a long line of Nez Perce Indian trackers.
“The victim? He wasn’t a nameless punk from the neighborhood. He came from an influential Chinese family with a lot of money. They did most of the developments in the area, including the ones in Alpine.”
“Last name was Li,” I said for him.
“With an ‘I’. How did you know?” he asked, surprised.
“I had a feeling.”
“Maybe you have some Cherokee in you, too,” he laughed.
The fun and games were short-lived.
“We got an issue,” Badger whispered and slowly moved the folded, yellow newspaper that was on the desk and placed it in front of me. I picked it up and scanned the page.
“I don’t see it,” I said. “Is there a story about Valenti in here?”
“Behind you,” Badger said softly.
I followed Badger’s gaze and spun around in my chair and got a look at what was distressing him. Standing in front of the large picture window, his hands cupped on the glass to peer beyond the glare, was the perfectly pussy-willow-framed face of Hector Hermosillo.
“Jesus, how did he get here?”
“Do we have a situation?” Badger asked gravely.
“No, I don’t think so—”
Turning back, I noticed the gun in Badger’s hand and realized it was hidden under the newspaper the entire time. I made a mental note to add the letters “ASAP” next to the background check we needed to run on Badger.
“What’s the score, guy?”
“There’s no score,” I said. “Let me handle this.”
I walked out to the street and faced off with Hector.
“What are you doing here?”
“We were supposed to meet this morning,” he answered mechanically.
“Yeah, well my plans changed. Why are you following me?”
“We were supposed to meet this morning,” he repeated.
“You already said that. Listen, I didn’t sign up for this job to be tailed like a common criminal. That was not part of the bargain. I will let you know when and where I need your help and you will not question me when plans change. You need to understand your place and do as you are instructed.”
It was a dressing-down straight out of an English manor television series. It was full of indignation and pompous self-righteousness. And it was wholly ignored by my pachuco friend.
“Who’s he?” he motioned to Badger’s office. Glancing in, I realized Badger himself was no longer in there.
“This is my personal business.”
I watched Hector read the sign announcing Badger’s trade of business. He looked at me like someone who had double-crossed him. Or like someone who caught their spouse cheating. Anger and disappointment were a deadly combination.
“I’m making progress,” I felt the need to justify. “If your boss wants regular updates, all he has to do ask. I don’t need an intermediary, let alone one who makes me feel like I am the one under investigation.”
But what I really wanted was to avoid having Hector tell Valenti that I engaged the services of a private investigator. Valenti’s mistrust towards the profession – in this case, seemingly justified – might very well get me dismissed from the job. And when I glanced across the street, my potential termination became very likely.
Badger stood next to a parked car, his eyes hidden behind very large, very dark sunglasses. One hand casually held the yellow newspaper in front of his belt. The other hand held something heavy behind it.
I had nightmarish images of a knife and gun battle in the sun-drenched streets of midday Los Angeles and having to explain it all to the police, to Valenti, and to work. I moved around to step in between Badger and his direct line on Hector before anything happened. I then filled Hector in on the progress I had made that morning with Gao. I instructed him to pass this information along to Mr. Valenti.
“We got an issue here?” interrupted a voice behind me.
Badger stood off my left shoulder and although he was speaking to me, he stared only at Hector.
“There is no problem,” I answered.
“Unfortunately, it looks like there is,” he warned. “Traendo cola, ruco.” It sounded like pigeon Spanish. “Yeah, I speak calo.”
Hector slowly put his hand inside his pant pocket. Badger responded by moving aside the newspaper to reveal the gun. He cocked the hammer with his thumb.
“Filero versus a fusca. Bad odds for you,” Badger added.
I’d seen this movie once before and knew the flash of a gun wasn’t enough to scare Hector off. But to my surprise and great relief, the old magician slowly retreated and returned to his car. We watched him drive off down the road.
I had successfully averted one disaster but now had another on my hands. If an alleged murderer who just the other day wasn’t scared of three punks with knives and guns backed down from a fight with far better odds, what did that say about my private investigator?
I made a fourth mental note to terminate all relationships with Badger and his firm, effective immediately.
***
It was one of the few historic homes to survive the onslaught of 1950s two-story commercial real estate construction but it didn’t come out of that battle unscathed. The gabled front rising among the near-perfectly-leveled rooflines beside it seemed dangerously close to toppling over. Its porch was ripped away, exposing an underbelly not worthy of a street-facing view.
I parked in front of an agua fresca, a type of store that caters to the lasting mistrust of the newly arrived immigrants that anything that came out of a faucet was potable. The store was a maze of tanks and filters and tubes designed to make it look scientific when beneath all of the tubes and filters and tanks was the same source of water the customers were lining up to avoid in the first place. A worker out front hosed off the sidewalk, and I half-wanted to ask if he was using filtered water.
I checked the address of the dilapidated home across the street to the one I had written down from the text Jeanette had sent Morgan. In it, she was instructed to bring the money to this place. My mind ran through the possibilities of what I was going to find as I jaywalked across the street. The block was one of those shadowless streets where the summer sun and concrete had long ago vanquished any and all of its leafy companions. Waves of heat radiated up and softened my rubber soles to make it feel like I was wearing cushioned inserts.
I knocked on the metal-gated front door and got no response. I rattled the door long enough to call the attention of a woman inside. To say she was expressionless wasn’t fair to the millions of people who actually were. She almost had a negative energy, like a black hole that sucked emotion from anyone around her.
“Hi,” I said to the impassive face. She was Asian, somewhere in her fifties. It wasn’t clear if she even understood my first line. “I’m wondering if you can help me. I’m looking for a friend of mine. I think she might be here.”
I rambled on like that for a while when her face suddenly broke into a wide smile. I tried to think what it was I said that got the reaction but then realized it had nothing to do with me but with what was behind me. A small Asian family laden with balloons and trays of food and bags of presents approached. The parents were smiling. The children were glum. They looked like they were on their way to church.
The gatekeeper gently brushed me aside to allow room for the family to pass. They were warmly welcomed into the home in a language I didn’t understand. I tried to catch a glimpse of what was just beyond the door but it was too dark to see much of what was inside and the metal grate was quickly shut in my face. I tried knocking again but my attempt landed no results.
I returned to my car across the street.
“Crazy people,” commented the man watering the sidewalk. “You going to shut them down?”
“I might,” I said, not sure what specifically he wanted me to close but very curious to find out. “What’s the deal over there?”
“In and out, all day. They take up all the parking,” he said with annoyance, waving his hand, and the hose with it, at the surrounding street. I had to jump back lest I get splashed with the water.
“What business are they running out of there?”
“You from the city?” he asked, now unsure who I was. Alhambra may have gone Latino then Asian years ago, but the race of the elected officials had yet to catch up. White men in this town meant cops or city council.
“Sure,” I replied without a trace of conviction, “I’m from the city.” I even cinched up my pants in a futile attempt to convey a position of authority. The man watering the sidewalk didn’t buy it. He stared at me as precious gallons of water flowed into the storm drain. I gestured to the water. “Do you mind shutting that off so we can talk?”
He was polite enough to wait two seconds before simply turning his back on me to continue on with his business. It was then that I noticed the black sedan parked a ways down the street. I couldn’t see into the driver’s window because of the glare on the glass, but I knew the car and I knew the operator.
So Valenti’s driver was now tailing me around the city. Part of me wanted to confront him and end this dance once and for all. And then part of me wanted to leave Hector in that car as I pretended to paw around the neighborhood shops. It was nearing ninety-five degrees and with no shade, it felt even hotter. I wanted to sweat him out. I decided instead to lose him for good.
My home was to the north, but I didn’t want to lead Hector to it. So I went east on the 10 Freeway. I got off at a random exit and as I rolled down the off-ramp, I glanced in my mirror and saw the black sedan settling in a few cars behind me. I turned right onto the boulevard and went a few blocks before turning off onto one of the smaller streets. I led Hector on a series of alternating turns but I couldn’t seem to lose him. I pulled into a mini shopping mall and tried to shake him in an underground parking lot but there were too many cars. We ended up in an awkward moment of being bumper-to-bumper while a shopper took forever to back out of her parking space. I stared at Hector in the rearview mirror. His sunglassed face stared back. I gave him a quick wave.
Back on the boulevard, I decided I had had enough and with the light already yellow and my car a good fifteen feet from the intersection, I floored it and lurched out just as the light turned red. I looked back and saw Hector stopping behind the car that separated us, and a big smile crossed my lips at the pure satisfaction of having slipped his tail. This big, beautiful smile was later framed up nicely by the traffic camera that caught me running the red and mailed to me along with a three hundred dollar ticket.
I had dinner at a random taco stand and leisurely made my way using surface streets back to Eagle Rock. By the time I arrived in my neighborhood, the sun had slipped down below the horizon and ended yet another mercilessly hot day. I pulled onto my street off Colorado and as I approached my house I noticed the black sedan parked in front of it. The driver’s window was down. Hector had the seat titled back and dozed casually in the cooling evening air.
I leaned on the horn three seconds longer than necessary as I pulled into my garage and huffily made my way into the house. The place was stuffy and had a faint trace of grapefruit.
“You need central air,” a voice called out from the darkness.
NEW HIRE
Meredith Valenti sat on the leather sofa. Her overly-tanned legs showed little contrast to the chocolate-colored couch but the electric green dress certainly did. It was a halter top, single piece and represented the only splash of color in the room.
“I’m sticking,” she complained and stood up to a tearing sound as her skin pulled away from the leather. The dress, whose hemline was high on her thigh when seated, didn’t come down much now that she was standing. She looked about the sparsely-furnished room with casual interest.
“Do you have anything to drink?” she asked, more like she was addressing the maid than someone whose house she had broken into. I ignored her request and asked why she was there. She in turn ignored my question and asked me a new one.
“Do you know why I dress like this?”
“I have no idea,” I told her.
“Because I can.”
“Seems like a good enough reason for me.”
“How old do you think I am?”
“Fifty-nine,” I said, purposely overshooting the year.
“You wish,” she laughed. “But you’re not that far off. I used to be fat, after I had Jeanette. But one day I got serious about my body and I never looked back. I have 1.5% body fat.”
“I’d challenge you but I left my calipers at the office.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass,” she teased. “I can tell you are just trying to play it cool.”
“Fine,” I said, “take that dress off so I can see what 1.5% body fat body actually looks like.”
She seemed to know that request was coming because before I could finish the request, the dress was crumpled on the floor in an electric green ball. She wore matching bra and panties of sheer, black fabric. There were no discernible tan lines on any part of her body. Every scrap of skin was shaded a warm chestnut, like an antique sideboard. In the irregular light of the room, shadows got hung up in the curves of muscle on her arms and stomach and accentuated them beyond their already overly-pronounced state. In the half-light, she resembled an Olympic swimmer on the men’s 4x100 relay.
“Put your dress back on before Hector sees you.”
“Is he here?” she shrieked.
“He’s sitting out front in his car,” I told her and motioned to the picture window.
Meredith scurried over to the side of the window and peered around the frame. She tugged at the curtain with both hands as she studied the black sedan.
“You better go easy,” I said, “the other drapes are getting jealous.” She didn’t seem to hear me and wrung the fabric tightly into a coiled up piece of rope. “Is this an act or does this guy actually make you nervous?”
“How much do you know about him?” she asked.
“I know about the murder in 1963,” I answered and successfully spoiled whatever surprise she had in store for me.
“You heard about that?”
“Yes,” I replied, “and will you please put your clothes back on. It doesn’t seem like you have any intention of sleeping with me and if that’s the case I’d rather not have to study the goods I know I can’t afford.”
I had no intention of trying to get this transaction transferred to the bedroom, but Meredith seemed like the kind of woman who needed to know she was wanted. She let out a good, honest laugh and gathered her dress up.
“I thought about staying the night,” she said as she zipped up the dress, “but I didn’t think you’d have the stamina.” In a strange way it didn’t sound like she was trying to be hurtful.
“Sit down and tell me why you are here,” I instructed.
“Is he going to come in?” she asked and stared out the window once more.
“Not unless he breaks in, which, after what’s happened today, I don’t see as all that remote a possibility. Now will you answer the question?”
“What was it?” she pretended to forget. I let silence help jog her memory. “It really is hot in here,” she said.
“Come on, lady—”
“I want you to help find my daughter,” she blurted out.
“That’s it? You came all the way here to ask me that?”
“Yes,” she said, “will you help?”
“Of course I’ll help. I’m already working on it.”
“But I need you to work for me.”
“Does it matter whom I work for as long as Jeanette gets home safely?”
“Yes, it does.”
Meredith rambled incoherently as she explained the difference. None of it made any sense but there was something beneath the surface that was being left unsaid and her words walked delicately around it.
“Forgive me if this is too forward,” I interrupted, “but when I first spoke to you regarding your daughter, you didn’t seem to give a damn. What’s changed?”
“She needs our help.”
“Of course she needs our help. She’s been away from home for over a week.”
“No, I think she’s in trouble.”
“Lady—”
“She texted me.”
That got my attention.
“When?”
“This morning.”
“What did she say?”
Meredith pulled it up on her phone and handed it to me. It read, Tell papa to leave me alone.
“Who’s papa?”
“My father. Your employer,” she added.
I went into the contacts folder and pulled up the phone number attached to the text. Then I checked it against the one given me by Valenti.
“What are you doing?” Meredith asked.
“Nothing,” I said as I riffled through the folder of documents.
“It’s her number,” she said icily.
She was right. The numbers matched.
“You didn’t have to check,” she said looking hurt as she took her phone back and shoved it in her bag.
“I just wanted to be sure.” I gave her a moment to get over it. “What do you think she means by the text?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are there any problems between your father and Jeanette?”
“She was the golden child,” she said with a tinge of animosity.
“I know about the will,” I told her. “Jeanette is the sole beneficiary. Jeanette and that museum, of course.” She seemed impressed at the level of information I had gathered in such a short time. “Did they have a falling out?”
“I think so.”
“What does that mean?”
Meredith explained how, on the day Jeanette disappeared, she first went to her grandfather’s home. She was gone for a short time but when she got back she appeared very upset but didn’t want to talk about it. She locked herself in her room. When Meredith went to check on her several hours later, the room was empty.
“Why didn’t you tell me this when we first spoke?”
“I don’t know.”
“What aren’t you telling me now?”
“Nothing,” she cried. “I just need you to help me get her home.”
“Fine, let’s go to the police and tell them what’s going on. We can use the local news to get the word out.” I grabbed the photo of Valenti and Jeanette. “We take this photo and plaster it on the ten o’clock news. Someone is bound to call in a tip.”
“No, that wouldn’t be appropriate. Dad wouldn’t allow it.”
“She’s your daughter, Mrs. Schwartzman.”
“You won’t understand. And please don’t refer to me by that name. I went back to my maiden name after the divorce.”
“Where does your ex-husband stand in all this?”
“Wherever he needs to stand to hold onto that silly job,” she replied.
“Funny, but I can’t see you two together.”
“Dad hated him,” she responded to the question implied by my comment. “That alone was a good enough reason to marry him.”
“What about this fellow with the goatee?”
“Sami?” she blushed. “Did you guys meet?”
“We had a long conversation. About what, I can’t be sure.”
“That’s Sami. He’s actually very brilliant.”
“Did Jeanette experience any of this brilliance?”
“He’s there for anyone who needs it. I’m helping him open a spiritual center out in Reseda where clients can come and practice in a nurturing environment while seeking artistic self-fulfillment.”
I began to understand and sympathize with the old man’s wariness that his daughter was blowing through his fortune. Sami was probably one of many parasites latching onto the socialite and riding on her currency coattails to carve out their lucrative life endeavors.
Money, as it often is, was starting to feel like the root of the whole thing. Cut off from the main pipeline, Meredith now saw an opportunity to get tapped in again. Her warming up and interest in her daughter coincided with the text she received asking Valenti to ease off. Where there was friction there was opportunity.
“Were you and your father ever close?” I asked bluntly. She seemed like the kind of person who needed blunt questions. She answered this one honestly.
“Once. It was a long time ago. And it was very short-lived.”
I left it at that. There was a deep sadness in the way she said it despite her attempt to matter-of-factly brush it off.
“What about enemies?”
“Me?”
“Or your dad.”
“It’d be quicker to count his friends,” she smiled. “Good old dad never realized that making so many enemies would eventually come back to haunt him.”
Before I could explore what exactly she meant by that comment, Meredith’s phone buzzed and she instinctively picked it up. I saw her read through a text and a wry smile crossed her lips.
“Jeanette?” I asked.
She shook her head and stared at whatever message came in. Her eyes brightened in the glow cast off by the phone.
“Dad is going to flip when he sees this,” she laughed and rose and headed for the front door. Whatever it said, the text was important enough that she didn’t need to talk with me anymore about working for her.
“You’re going out the front door?” I reminded her. In her haste, she had forgotten about Hector sitting in the car outside.
“Of course I am,” she said while standing in the foyer. “He doesn’t control what I do,” she stated and then stridently turned around and slipped out the back slider just like she had when she originally came in.
***
I slept in on Saturday, which for a corporate guy meant seven-thirty. I brewed up a strong pot of coffee and enjoyed the cool morning air coming through the kitchen window. One thing about Los Angeles was that despite some excruciatingly hot days, the nights and mornings were always pleasant. It was overcast, a staple of Southern California summers, and the grey sky hung heavy above. I took my first cup of coffee to the living room and gazed out the front window.
The car was still there. The black roof and hood glistened with morning dew. I could see the outline of Hector’s frame through the passenger window. Sometime in the night he had rolled up the driver’s window, probably from the cold. He shifted in the seat in a futile attempt to discover that one position that didn’t cause his body to ache. It had to have been a very uncomfortable night’s sleep.
I grabbed the carafe and settled in a chair by the window and with my slippered feet propped up on the sill, I watched the car from the comfort of my house over three very hot, very satisfying cups of coffee.
After a leisurely shower, a little bit of time online to pay some bills, one load of whites, and a quick clean-up of the house, I went outside and sat in the back seat of the sedan.
“Okay, let’s talk,” I said and offered him a cup of coffee.
Hector stretched his stiff body awake and rubbed both his eyes with fat knuckles. He took my coffee but didn’t turn around to face me. After a night in the car he looked ten years older than his already-pronounced age.
“We both have jobs to do,” I stated. “We can continue to do this silly little dance that isn’t going to accomplish much of anything, or we can find a way to work together and save each of us a whole lot of grief. You need to keep tabs on me and report back to your boss. I get it. And I need to do my thing and not feel like a goddamn five-year-old with a helicopter parent. So here’s what I propose. You come with me on every meeting. If you want to drive me, so be it. But when I ask you to do something – whatever it is – you do it. If I want you to wait outside, you wait outside. If I need to see someone on my own, you respect that. In return, I promise to keep no secrets from you. And I am going to start this morning. I know about the incident you were involved in back in 1963. I know it was a relative of Gao Li’s and that Valenti might have saved you from doing time. Right now I don’t see any connection to what is going on today so I’m fine leaving that alone.”
There was no reaction. Hector stared into the cup held tightly in his hands. It looked like he was trying to extract every last bit of comfort he could from the warm coffee.
