Meyers

I found an unusually affable, bordering on magnanimous Purcell down front by the paint dancer’s mat turned triangular interview set. Complete with a triangular coffee table with a water pitcher chock full of ice cubes and lemon slices, glasses, fake plants strategically placed, all laid out on a large oriental rug that had seen better days. All things that would appear luxurious on television, down to the Hollywood motto ‘lights and camera angles hide a world of visual sins.’

“Turns out our boy Romeo was in school,” Purcell frisked himself for a light and remembered he was in a no-smoking zone. “Damn,” pocketed his cigar. “Anyway, kid talked gangster shit to impress the girls, and one of them must’ve passed that to Professor Sands. He was her steppingstone to the idiot Benzene Brothers.”

“Not the middleman?”

 “Way the kid told it he made the intro in an El Torito parking lot. He bailed, she followed in a one in front, one behind Benzene sandwich, walked into the Benzene’s house. One that’s a pool hall, dope convenience store and unlicensed bar downstairs with apartments on top?  Told ‘em straight up she needed a man picked up and delivered to a trailer house and somebody else to make sure the trailer went up at a certain time, and this is a quote. “…in a fashion such that nothing of archaeological value would survive.”

“She taped it?” I bent, lifted the splattered canvas that overlapped the riser. Only a snake could make way through the maze of V and X bracing.

“Benzenes taped it. You with me here?”

“Yeah,” standing, “And they were dumb enough to keep it?”

“In case some part of the ruckus found its way home they could claim it was the professor’s idea, and they’d feed us a patsy for conspiracy.”

“That’s backwards. They did the dirty, she gets conspiracy. How hard was it to roll Romeo?”

“Gang unit sent an undercover playing social worker to the house. He gave up the Benzene’s stash house easy for a pass on his jackin’ car parts beef. Narco’s happy. Gang unit’s happy. Not sure about Romeo or the kid brother though,” Purcell paused for a crooked smile, “‘Cause the undercover said Momma and the pregnant girlfriend were up both their asses the whole time she was there.”

“I’d bet that made a ninety in County look like easy time,” and continued my scan of the place from the event’s focal vantage point.

“You hear a damn thing I said?”

“Uh huh.” I walked off to make a circuit of the stage with my eyes shielded, looking up trying to find light blinder spots. Rialta’s people were pros because unless I stood under a light and looked up, none of them strayed into audience or stage sight lines. I finished the circuit, and Burke and Purcell were side by side.

Purcell was playing with his cigar again. I took it away from him , said, “Your mother never tell you to put it away stop playing with it?” And to Burke “You get a good look at the mercenaries?”

“Him, not her. Except her foot and half holster when they crossed under the light.”

“Good enough for a spot?”

“You spent more time with her than I did. She could be anybody except for the holster. Why?”

“He’s down. She’s not.” I started to walk.

“Hold on,” Purcell’s magnanimous gone. I offered the cigar, he waved it off. “On the way I heard a gunshot wound call out to West Seventh. I don’t usually pay attention to that shit but the GSW there, the vic told them he shot himself. But they couldn’t find a weapon. That got anything to do with this?”

“Did he have company when they got there?”

“Solo. Again, that what’s stuck a bug up your ass?”

“Like I said. He’s down. She’s not.”

“And that’s given you a case of ass because?”

“She’s green and anger motivated. And I didn’t get their affiliation.”

“You forget to ask their game before you shot the fucker?”

“Spur of the moment. My piece was out, he should’ve known better, and she’s loose.”

“Extended out to she should know better but maybe doesn’t and you’re figuring we’re ripe now for two unhinged women with firearms at this shindig?”

“Yeah, and I’d rather both of them left here breathing. Sands is unpredictable but she’s an emotional killer, not a gun for hire. The merc wants to prove something and I’m the focus. She had on a vest. If it comes down to anyone besides me, knock her down, try not to kill her. Let everybody know.”

“Denaldo’s boys?”

“I’ll talk to Donnie. They’ll behave if he tells them to.”

“Good. ‘Cause this room is collateral’s-in-a-crossfire hell if everybody lights up on either of the women.”

Val

After a very efficient young woman in paint splattered coveralls checked for both our names on a clipboard and a policeman and a wavy-haired bushy-eyebrowed character in a shiny sport coat both nodded almost imperceptibly Marco escorted me down an aisle roped off like at the theater, complete with red indoor-outdoor carpet. We arrived at a V space between two sets of those old high school practice field bleachers when he tugged on his ear and cocked his head before he handed three microcassette tapes, like I use for dictation, to a man who had on a headset and longer hair than Marco’s. I expected some conversation but they acknowledged each other with micro nods, like the cop and the shiny sport coat, or maybe in deference to the tapes, and that was that.

“Val honey… May I call you Val?”

I wanted to say you can call me anything, Ooo-la-la lady, just tell me a secret or three or something like it, but all I got out was “Yes.”

And she said, “Good. That’s settled,” with another micro nod to Marco, they must be a thing tonight, micro nods. “He’s back on the clock with the boys. Val, honey, why don’t you join us.”

It didn’t hit my ears like a question, something all the Meyers people seem to be good at, not question questions, and “Us” was her. Ooo-la-la Joan, and Toni, who was her own kind of Ooo-la-la tonight. And I wondered if Huntley the chauffeur knew her. Yes ma’am. Toni, the Ooo-la-la vet. They sat on the front row, holding what looked like cold glasses, because they were sweating. The glasses, not Joan and Toni. Anyway, cold, short water glasses of white wine. And front row seats to a Zane Rialta special. What was I going to say? No?

Meyers

Burke pulled the riveted steel door with World War II era chicken wire embedded glass open for me, saying, “Used to be the only way in and out was through the big overhead door.”

“Let me guess,” I side-stepped a college-age young woman in paint-splattered overalls setting brass stanchions off a flat cart pulled by a small propane forklift driven by a girl just like her. “You fixed it for them?”

“I did. I also replaced the motor that needed hands on the emergency chain to open the big door. And for that I got—”

“Excuse me,” to a third girl, a replica of the first two, except she wore a spool of nylon webbing on her chest like a marching bass drum and walked backward while a fourth slotted webbing into the stanchions. “This the only way in?”

“Yessir,” smiling like she worked for Disney. “Unless the big door comes up. But not tonight.”

“This’ll be a two-sided funnel?”

“Yessir, when we’re done.”

“Exits?” The fourth girl walked, pointed to the back wall by the bleachers like a stewardess, with the same smile. “Two left, two right, one center,” and never missed her timing for a webbing load. They outwalked us like a well-oiled machine.

I rerouted Burke outside the path of the stanchions to what looked like the business end of the warehouse that occupied roughly a third of its size. “Give me the tour.”

“The bleachers came from a high school in Reseda that—”

“Capacity?”

“One thirty-four each, stated. For ticket sales they fudge it to one-fifteen for fat—”

“The riser where the TV people are throwing cable around?”

“Eighteen inches tall, twenty-one feet square. The canvas overhangs—”

“Catwalk?” I said, scanning the light rigging over the staging area where two more people in painter’s overalls were harnessed to the overhead beams.

“Only accessible by a leveled, immobilized cherry picker. I heard about a ladder but—”

“Immobilized?”

“Wheels removed and legs in expansion bolted concrete clamshells. Safety first is—”

“The rear exits?”

“Where the girl pointed, one is behind the scrim that must be a Rialta add on. It’s not—”

“Seems like a lot of doors for less than four hundred people unless the issue is between here and the big door.”

“Fire Marshall mandated the add-ons. Too many live act stampedes—”

“They open on?”

“An alley between this warehouse and the next. The French lawyer, you met her, she helped the Painted Ladies turn this warehouse into a cash register. Marching bands and drum corps rent this place when the weather sucks.”

“With acoustics like this?”

“I was told if you can play in this place with sound bouncing around from everywhere and keep your shit together you can play anywhere.”

“Not sure I get that logic.” I skimmed the rest of the openness. It made me uncomfortable. Ambiguous acoustics induced sound localization problems, plenty of places to hide. Particularly in the stacks of wooden storage containers along the left wall that could give a half-assed climber access to the overhead. “Open,” I said. “Almost indefensible.”

“Lousy sightlines from anywhere on the perimeter except where you’d be exposed and lit up like a Christmas Tree. Except tonight behind the scrim.”

“Scrim is flush with the wall,” and pointed out the upstairs office that jutted out as a box with a big window from the same wall as the cherry picker.

“Stairs are the only access. I added the handrail as an OSHA—”

“Used as the dressing room?”

“Or in the Painted Ladies’ case, un-dressing room. And office. And coffee pot where I—”           

“I said don’t forget the story you want to tell me about you and the paint ladies. But right now, I need to walk this myself and find Purcell.”

#

Val

I stopped two feet from the Smiling Pig van and said, well, sort of demanded, “So, Marco, bring me ‘up to speed.’”

“Tell me what the hell you were doing on the ledge,” trying to pull me into the naked girls’ paint pit. I planted my feet.

“I’m not going in there,” and I heard Gramma say ‘petulant’ and I wanted to tell her to fuck off but then Marco would think I was talking to voices in my head, which I was, but— and Marco was suddenly saying over my shoulder,

“What the hell is the dangerous dames duo doing here?”

“We could ask you the same, Junior.”

That’s when I said “Huh?” and turned around. Toni? Joan? And then Marco said,

“I didn’t think Toni owned anything that wasn’t camo cargos, a sports bra and a too-big heavey metal band tank top.”

“You need to remember your manners, Boy Wonder. Even in a dress I can still kick your ass.”

Junior? Boy Wonder? Did all the Meyers people know each other outside of, well, how you know your vet or, or the handyman or nurse or appliance fixer guy…

“And I’d hate to do it in front of your lady friend,” with normal person laughing eyes and that’s when I expected one of us, Marco, or me, to start some No, uh, or we’re just denials and he didn’t.

So I said, “It was really all a big—” and Joan put her hand on my nervous waving around one, and gave me one of those knowing kind of looks that gets eyebrows into it and says, Shut it. Got it? without saying anything. So I did. Get it and shut it.

She moved her hand and said, “Marco, honey?” And like everybody, he gave it up in a hurry in one big, long sentence.

“We all, that is Burke, Bishop, Val and I covered Meyers at a shithole flophouse on West Seventh where we, I, recorded the bent money drop that was supposed to close this case out but they paid for air because Meyers already put this Zane Rialta play in motion but no one in the room knew that.”

“Except Meyers. See, Toni?” Joan, another knowing look, only this one came with a smile, “I told you there was more to this affair than Meyers asking you to bring two weapons and run Hughes into a parking garage wall for fun with that old Datsun.” And the word ‘affair’ came out in that soft honeysuckle-and-lavender accent, and I wanted to hug her…

“See you two inside,” from Toni, and that’s when I noticed her form fitting floral print sundress and Joan’s black dance leotard and mid-calf summery skirt and their posture and muscle tone and demeanor – even Joan’s abalone stick barrette and I understood the French word allure I’d had so much trouble with since forever. And I wanted to go work out with both of them. I think I sorta said something like that to Marco because he said,

“They do an open yoga three or four times a week, and Toni has a weight machine at her place. You’re family. You should go.”

“Family?”

“Two cars of bad guys follow you, you get the nooner stall and cheap flowers, walk out on a ledge I’m not sure I’ll ever get the straight on and you’ve ridden in the front seat with Burke driving and didn’t puke.” And then he told me there were no paint covered naked women rolling around on canvas inside, but Zane Rialta was exposing the stuff on the disks I opened and stretched out so they could be read and then please straighten my blouse and skirt or he’d catch hell from ‘those two’ for what they might think we were doing in the van.

I fixed my skirt and blouse, which were a little off kilter, straightened up and said “Zane Rialta? The Zane Rialta. Cable channel, news and Hollywood In Sight Tonite? You met her? She’s inside?”

“This afternoon and yes. Setting this up is where Meyers has been since a mobile home blew up on him yesterday afternoon.”

Since a mobile home blew up on him? Meyers? And I felt really stupid, for everything, and to get around that I asked him, “Is she really six feet tall before the heels?”

“Six-one.”

“And she’s inside? Zane Rialta? That’s why we’re here?” And he nodded. I dug my lipstick out of my purse and stuck my face in front of the Smiling Pig’s wing mirror. “Well, Junior,” rubbing my lips together and trying on some tough window ledge girl. “Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?”

Meyers

I shoved the Merc’s weapons in my waistband, waited out the three minutes, got ‘hostiles clear’ from Bishop. I checked with the groggy desk clerk, who said an ambulance was on the way before I jogged out and across the street.

“You’re loaded down,” Bishop, his urban sniper rig back in its briefcase. “Allow me,” and relieved me of two of the extra handguns and one knife. “The mercs expecting a one-man war?”

“They weren’t expecting Superman,” Pinky lifted the long nose hitter special and the last knife. “You managed to scare the shit out us with that act.”

“Only other option was Bishop dropping one of them for a distraction while I kicked in the door. You driving?”

Val

I didn’t get the lecture I expected, from anyone. In fact, after Meyers crossed the street with a briefcase and a lot of guns, everyone lightened up. Like nothing had happened. Ha Ha. Meyers on the ledge. Broke the mercenary’s leg. Ha Ha. Nothing about me on the ledge.

Marco had said “Nope,” to Meyers’ question about driving, and Burke pulled up to the curb in an old-fashioned panel van with a Smiling Pig Provisions sign on the side. The Bishop opened the rear doors, and we piled in. At least that was ladies first, and we sat on latticed metal slabs hooked to either side.

Meyers leaned into the front by Burke and asked something like Did they know he had their van, whoever they were, and Burke said

“With Tommy’s blessing. ‘In case we needed to roll some cold ones’.”

That got my attention. Tommy? Tommy’s Deli Tommy? No. It couldn’t be…“Cold ones?” got my attention next, and I caught myself rubbing my arms. “Why is it so cold in here?”

“Meat delivery,” Marco draped his jacket over my shoulders. “Among other things.”

“Oh please, Marco,” I said, tired of the whole whatever thing that had gone on but really grateful for the jacket that fit like a blanket and I asked, “What else can you deliver in a meat wagon?”

“If we told you…”

And he left it that way, so I had to ask, “What, you’d have to kill me?”

“You said it, not me.”

I tried to catch Meyer’s eyes but had to make do with, “Meyers?” In a mix of too much whine and a little bitch, and all he said was,

“I wonder,” and he looked around inside of the van like he’d never seen it before, “if this was the Pig Icebox Izzy took to the Mojave?”

“Icebox Izzy?”

“Yep. Kept his targets in a freezer to cool off for at least a year. Tall character, too. Probably rode out on the long plank.”

I was still a little spooked by the ledge walk, so I stared at the two plank benches, discovered my side was longest, jumped up, hit my head on the roof. Okay, dammit, enough, or something like it, and braced myself, with both arms and refused to sit.

And Marco said, “You might wanna sit, Val,” Like he was Mr. Consideration. “Any distance in a vehicle with Burke is an adventure, and Long Beach is a ways away.”

“Well, isn’t that just fucking swell.” Way to go, Val…

And then Mr. Considerate said, “Burke, you got room in the passenger seat for a spare?”

“Long as she won’t try to drive for me, yeah.”

“Blood?”

“Dark stains.” And I swear to God, Burke reached out and patted the seat. “But they’re dry. Send her on up.”

Stains? Dry? Good. God.

I grabbed the back of the passenger seat and Burke said, “Here” and handed me a stiff white towel from a bundle of them in a plastic milk crate between the seats. I know all about ‘assume’ but there wasn’t anything else for me to do with it, so I draped it over the seat. All the noise about stains was just that, noise, and I knew they’d been playing me, but I was too shocky or something to get into it with any of them.

Marco tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Seatbelt.” Yeah, okay, but how did this old timey van have seatbelts and I realized when I’d buckled up and Burke stuck his foot in it and ripped us up onto the freeway, this old timey van was a rocket with wheels. And the riding-with-Burke-is-an-adventure thing? Well, like my brother’d say, No fucking shit, Sherlock.

#

I knew the drive from downtown, where we’d been, to Long Beach was forty minutes in average traffic, an hour or more when it stunk. Burke covered it in twenty-five. After dark. The van rode like a luxury car, crappy seats and all. I looked at the speedometer once when we passed a string of cars. One hundred and five. I closed my eyes and hung on to the oh-my-god strap thing on the doorpost until I felt the speed drop.

Burke drove through a parking lot down the side of warehouse in the Long Beach warehouse district the same way he made the rest of the drive, but not so fast I missed the large, simple Picasso-esque line art of three women in bright primary colors over Painted Ladies in an artsy script font.

Okay, I missed it completely with Joan the Oo-la-la nurse but I know the art scene in LA, whether I participate or not, and I am not sitting through what I know goes on here with a meat wagon full of men. I pointed at the sign. “Oh, no. No, no, no. I’ve had my moment for the night and I’m not—”

“Nobody briefed her?” Meyers’ face was a question mark.

“Briefed me?”

“Uh, no.” Marco looked kind of guilty. “She was too busy getting out of her, uh…”

“Her what?”

“My pantyhose, goddammit. Is nothing private with you guys? I’m not going in there—”

And Meyers said, “No choice, commando or not. Pink, bring her up to speed on the way in.”

The more I thought about that comment, not the no-pantyhose part but the important part, about bringing me ‘up to speed,’ I realized none of them knew that I’d decided, on my own, to take in the Granada to see what was up. They all seemed to think one of them had sent me. As what? I’m sure they had a word for it, aside from ‘stupid,’ like forward scout or pre-operation lookout. I kind of hoped it would be something sexy, like from a forties movie. Lady Valentine’s Secret.

And then, well…Shit. I saw that damn sign again.

Meyers

Meyers: Objects and position from the window?

Crows Nest. Window? From the door two lobbyists. Two corp security. Two suits. Plus a merc and a female shadow. All east from window. Bed on west.

Val’s stunt was idiotic, and when I had time I’d ask her what the fuck she was thinking, but right now her misplaced lunacy came wrapped in inspiration.

Meyers. Park Watch. Occupants?

Park Watch. Suits only speak Chinese. One spare interprets. Leather sport coat delivered your invitation. The merc and shadow haven’t spoken.

Meyers. Affiliation?

Park Watch. Unknown

Meyers: Hughes?

Granada Watch. Possible. Hughes burned and off-site

Meyers: Val clear? Footwear recovered?

Park Watch. Affirmative.

Meyers: She’s crazy as a shithouse rat for the ledge walk but thank her for re-routing my entry into this mess.

Park Watch. Meyers. Repeat

Crows Nest. Hard break – Meyers westbound on ledge.

***

I hugged the Granada’s façade and found it easier than Val made it look, but I wasn’t wearing heels. I pulled the curtain back with the Glock’s suppressor and went in the window feet first like the TV Superman.

“Good evening.”

The look on their faces was worth the risk.

“What I want to know is how much money’s in this room.”

Black T-Shirt mercenary with a practiced sneer. “You’re in no position—”

“Mine’s already out. You, the other three who think they’re dangerous are dead before your weapons clear. The little red dot bouncing between targets is good for two more before anyone can sneeze. I’ll take my chances with whoever’s left over.”

“Hughes,” Sue screeched. “Can you hear this?”

“Hughes got burned, lady, and if you haven’t heard he lost Senator Drayton’s money. You said forty. Show me the other twenty.”

“I don’t have it on me. I—”

“Was hoping I’d be dead and your team would walk with the prize? Don’t start lying. Hughes never had the balls to shoot anyone. Right now he’s trying to spin this and flushing you to salvage his career.”

“Drayton will kill all our careers. Godammit, somebody do something!”

“Do what, Sue?” Eise stared down the barrel of the Glock. “I dunno about you, but I’m allergic to lead.”

“He won’t shoot,” from Merc’s female partner. “Not in here.” I saw the Merc’s create-a-diversion blossom and shot him in the left thigh. From the way he crumpled I’d clipped his femur. He screamed, rolled on his side. “You,” Glock on his sidekick. “Two finger all your weapons, kick’ em over, go spread eagle face down.”

The female merc gave me a death stare along with a low growl, “He needs a tourniquet.”

“He might have a chipped bone but if I’d clipped an artery we’d be ankle deep in his blood by now. Use your belt, tie him off if you want.”

“You didn’t have to shoot him.”

“Him or you. And you minimized your own threat.”

“The hell?” ripping her web belt out of the standard mercenary black cargos.

“You need to loosen the tie-down on your swivel holster if you’re going to use it. A word to the wise. If you plan on doing this and staying alive for very long, anyone who knows what they’re doing shoots mercenaries first.”

“And why is that, asshole?” Big merc squawked when she cranked down on the belt.

“No loyalty makes you untrustworthy. Better you’re down than think about you.” I waited until I had three pistols, one with a foot-long suppressor from the female’s knee-length holster plus two SEAL combat knives at my feet, and they’d rolled over.

“I said I wanted to see all the money in the room, people. I meant it. Next one who decides it’s playtime drops. Do it.”

“Alright, alright,” Sue opened her satchel.

“Come out with anything but money and you leave this dump in a bag.”

“Screw you,” she produced a manila envelope like the two I’d gotten last night.

“Toss it on the bed.”

The Asian corporate security guy blew out a stream of Chinese to the two suits who blew some back. Leather Sport Coat Slick, palms out, “They want to see the material.” Both Chinese suits’ heads bouncing like bobbleheads in an earthquake.

I tossed the zip-lock with the original blue disks Lavender gave me. One of the suits flipped open his briefcase, froze when my gun swung around.

“Tell him turn it so I can see.”

He turned to show me the briefcase built around a portable computer. He slipped a disk into a slot, did the computer guy rapid taps and mm-hmm noises, pulled the disk, closed the case, nodded. The other suit handed Slick his briefcase with a wave to me. I held up my hand.

“Open it, facing away from me.”

He shrugged, clicked the latches, nothing exploded, and he turned to show me bank-banded twenties. “Fifty thousand.”

“Close it, put it on the bed.”

“You can’t do that,” Sue, still in shriek mode. “I paid for those!”

“You paid me with someone else’s money not to shoot you and your grunt for bugging my office and having your politico mark send a couple of halfwit Dixie Mafia shitkickers to ruin my day. I could still shoot you for bringing Hughes back into my life. The Chinese gentlemen paid for the return of their property.” I tossed Sue’s envelope into the briefcase, bundled it under my left arm, directed with the Glock. “I’m on a time crunch here people, so on your way out one of you have the desk clerk call an ambulance for this dick head with the hole in his leg. You’ve got three minutes to clear the building,” I glanced at my watch. “Starting now.”

Val, Meyers, crew

Crows Nest. Random unknown entered the box.

Granada Watch. Copy.

Park Watch. Copy. No sound from unknown.

Crows Nest. Visual on Meyers?

Park Watch. Negative.

Granada Watch. Negative. Hostiles inbound.

#

I lifted the mattress and nothing bit me. I opened the drawers of a dresser in that clunky Spanish style that had to be at least as old as the Conquistadors. Nothing but dead silverfish and stains from God knows what. Paper? Notes? I checked the trash can and was losing my nerve for this whole Meyers rescue or whatever it was adventure. Marco, Burke and the Bishop all knew about this room and 8:30. So where were they? Had they come and gone? Did they not tip off Meyers, if he was still alive, that someone with ten thousand dollars and a gun wanted to talk to him in this room? I went to the window, pulled back the curtain and took a deep breath of smog-laden LA air to get the bus-station restroom out of my nose.

Crows Nest. ID on spare in the box. It’s the secretary.

Park Watch. Val?

Crows Nest. If that’s her name.

Park Watch. Hostile approaching on foot. ID Hughes.

Granada Watch. Hostiles out of vehicles and moving. Park Watch, let Hughes come to me.

Meyers. Granada Watch. Light him up. Turn him around.

Granada Watch. Copy.

Crows Nest. Meyers?

Meyers. One block and closing.

Crows Nest. Hostiles under a minute from the box.

Meyers. Lateral occupancy?

Crows Nest. Both clear.

I heard it then. A crowd of footsteps, not trying to be quiet, either. Voices. None I recognized. Jesus, it’s not Marco or Burke. It had to be Aftershave and his ‘people.’ Crap! Did I lock the door? Yes. So what? What if they find me? What do I say? What if they have Meyers? I could be the cleaning lady! Come on, Val, this place hasn’t been cleaned since… The Window. The fire escape! It always works in movies. I yanked the curtain back, stepped up on the sill. Oh. Shit! No fire escape. Of course not. I’m in the front of the stupid building. The lock jiggled, I stepped out on the ledge. Don’t look down.

Crows Nest. Secretary on third-floor ledge. Hostiles in the box.

Meyers. Secretary’s direction?

Park Watch. East.

Meyers. Copy. Entering now. Waypoint one box east of target.

Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Look ahead… For such a dump there’s a pretty little park across the street. Is that Marco under the streetlight? DON’T LOOK DOWN. It can’t be Marco. I’m in a skirt, on a window ledge three flights up. What if he looks up? Good God, Val. You’re not thirteen. What’s he going to see? Shut up, Gramma.

My hands were sweating in the rubber gloves, my shoes kept trying to pitch me forward. No way could I turn around. Little girls get to cry. What do big girls do?

They hear a soft whistle and a quiet voice say, “Don’t look down. Lose the gloves. Dig in with your heels, toes up.”

Huh? “Meyers?”

“Don’t. Look. Move. Feet together, left foot slide, feet together. That’s it. You’re not in a hurry…”

The hell I’m not.

I looked up, saw the stars, my left foot slipped, my right knee buckled… Oh dear God and I wondered who would feed the kid and the dog after I went splat and before I could scream an iron hand clamped on my left arm. It pulled, swung me out over the sidewalk forty feet below. My shoes went flying. I flew through the window and slammed into Meyers like we’d started an angry Tango.

The scream, or gasp, or something stupid headed for my throat and he put his hand over my mouth before any of it could get out. My eyes must have been as big as saucers because his eye’s crinkled and he whispered, “It’s over. Get outta here.”

I smoothed my skirt, choked on my own air, Meyers hissed, “Go. You’re okay now.”

 “Am not!” I hissed back and looked at my feet. “I have to walk out of here barefoot!”

And Meyers said, “No. You have to run out of here barefoot.” Like getting out faster was going to make it any less sticky…

#

I ran, like Meyers told me to. And it didn’t make much difference except for whatever was in the carpet didn’t have time to get a good hold on me like it had when I’d tried to be quiet with my shoes on. I was never so glad to see worn-out wooden stairs in my life. The worst that could happen now was splinters or I slipped and fell because I refused to grab the banister. Three steps in and I was almost, and I mean almost glad whatever was in the carpet gave my pantyhose feet a kind of tack-cloth feel. I was glad the stairs flew by in such a big hurry I didn’t think about how gross that really was.

Until I rushed past the passed-out man and the front desk and through the open front door and felt my gummy feet on the sidewalk. My shoes? Where the hell were… There’s one on the sidewalk, to the left. I swept it up like my softball shortstop days, saw the other one in the street, grabbed it up on a full run, crossed the street, reached for the lamppost and ran full tilt into Marco, who softened up and took a few steps back with me. I know I said something stupid like “I keep running into men tonight…”  

And Marco, dammit, said, “Some kind of adult tag?” Like it was funny.

“Look, you, you… I just walked out on a skinny third floor ledge, almost fell and splattered all over the sidewalk, had to run through nasty grossness just to get out of the, the nastiest building I’ve ever been in—”

And that’s when I caught myself on autopilot leaning one hand on him and lifting a foot for my shoe and my whole brain screamed STOP! I let go of him, hiked my skirt up in back, which I can do without flashing my butt to the whole world, hooked my thumbs in my panty hose. “Jesus, Marco. Turn around!“

He raised his hands, like he was under arrest or something, and turned. I did the get-out-of-pantyhose shove and shimmy, kicked up one foot, yanked, and then the other and said, “Okay.”

He turned around in time to see me ball up the hose and toss them at one of those LA corner trash cans that sit inside an iron jail.

“You don’t keep souvenirs of your memorable nights on the town?”

Smart ass. “If you want ‘em, buddy, you can have ‘em,” and I jammed my feet into my shoes.

“I, uh,” with that stupid crinkly-eye grin, “don’t think we know each other that well. Yet.”

Okay. Fine. And I know I swore then because it was cuss or cry, and I was already a mess. I didn’t need my mascara getting all into it.

Val (mostly)

I caught myself pencil drumming my desk thinking, Alright. The work day is close to over and Meyers hadn’t been in all day. No calls in, or for. Well, Marco called and thanked me for the lunch, again, and apologized for leaving without a word yesterday. I wanted to ask What’s the big secret, buddy? But he was sweet, it was his second call, and he sounded sincere. Unless it was an act. The problem was he’d called me, not Meyers. Not that I didn’t appreciate it, but still…Guys call their buddies, don’t they? Or not… If they’re dead.

Since I was doubting absolutely everything, though, what was I supposed to believe? That everything was lollipops, roses and, and Meyers was…What? Dead? Kidnapped? What if… Joan! She’d know. If something had happened to Meyers, she’d know, even if no one told her. No. I couldn’t call her. What if I was worrying about nothing? Or worse, planting myself in the middle of something awful?

Those people had no reason to include me in whatever they were doing, even it it was planning a funeral or a ripoff of someone whose friendship I valued. Okay, treasured. I mean ordinary me had been pulled into the middle of a Meyers thing that somehow ballooned into thirty thousand dollars and guns in two days. The first one full of flaming crotches and syringe assassins flying out windows. All in orbit around a very normal day.

Well, except lunch from Tommy’s Deli in Beverly Hills. That isn’t very normal. For me anyway. Even little Huntley. Little is the wrong word. Young Yes, Ma’am, No Ma’am, Ooo-la-la nurse Huntley. He hadn’t phoned in and he was practically a regular. No one was even looking for Meyers.

I stopped drumming. Jeez, four o’clock? Already? I got my keys out of my purse, answered the phone on autopilot until four forty-five, said screw it, and took the elevator down to my car.

#

I continued my drumming on the drive home, only on the steering wheel and without a pencil. I went over my checklist so many times it was running around my head in an OCD loop. Feed the kid, feed the dog, call Mom. Nail file, credit card, steak knife. Over and over.

The kid was easy. I threw a pair of French Bread pizzas in the oven. The dog was more interested in whatever stunk in the trash than his food, so I raised the lid, braced the can with my leg and let him find whatever it was. It turned out to be the dregs of some week-old chicken salad in a pint plastic container. We looked at each other, I said “Whatever.” He slobbered and took it to his food bowl.

Asking Mom to drop over and watch TV with, or be ignored by her grandson, was the easiest part. Dodging the “You’re going out! Who, what, where, why and how nice!” conversation? Can’t talk now, Mom. I might be gone when you get here. Yes, everyone’s been fed. Yes, we have popcorn. No, I don’t have any cake mix.

#

Bishop: Crows nest. Box in view. Com check.

Burke: Granada Watch loud and clear

Bishop: Copy. Pingue?

Pink: Park Watch has you. Box audio is go.

#

The note Aftershave gave Marco that I’d charcoal rubbed read Granada Hotel. Twenty-Eight Forty-Seven West Seventh. When it came to minor social catastrophes like too many loud children running around, an imperfect table setting, plastic tablecloths or drinkware, underdone steak or overdone macaroni where burned cheese ringed the casserole dish? My grandmother could give her opinion in two words.

Good God.

I parked in the back of the Granada and looked up at the grimy five-story brick building, the rusty fire escape and yellow light through dingy curtains and heard her peak version.

Good…GOD!

I’d heard it once when we were on one of her mandated Sunday Drives out of Merced. Grampa thought a dilapidated roadside greasy spoon halfway to La Grange – not the whorehouse La Grange – was a good idea for a road trip lunch. That place looked like the Casbah compared to the Granada. Now that I think about it, it was more like a saloon than a restaurant and that was probably Gram’s real problem with it. But it was a dump.

Quit stalling, Val. What did I think I was going to find? If anything had happened to Meyers, it would have happened in a place like this, not at the Roosevelt or the Beverly Hills Hotel.

I collected my reloaded-for-lock-picking purse. Not that I’m a lock picker or anything, but my son has selective hearing, and when I go out the back door I say, “Don’t let the dog close that behind me because it locks.” The dog does his thing, I’m on the back porch. Does anyone hear me knock? No, the dog comes and drools and looks at me like I’m nuts when I work my knife and plastic card magic to get back in.

I could fit through the doggie door, but the one time I tried it became a slobbery game and the dog wanted to go through with me. Laurel and Hardy at the doggy door. So I keep a knife and a plastic card on the windowsill because rain, a deaf kid and a dog that thinks I’m a game require them.

I stepped out of the car and remembered I still had on work pumps. Not really heels, but not flats either, and the cracks in the parking lot were a sprained ankle looking for a place to happen. And then I realized exactly where I was when I was so focused on the back door of this nasty hotel I accidentally kicked and almost tripped over a man lying by the back walk. I bent, just to see if he was okay, and that’s when I noticed the little river of pee running out underneath him and into the storm drain.

All you can do at times like this is step over them and hope they don’t jump up and trip you for kicking them.

The screen door hung at a strange angle after it came out of its frame, but I didn’t have time to argue with it. Inside, under a bare yellow bulb another man slept on a filthy couch across from the vacant front desk with a tent sign stating VACANCY. No doubt.

The stairs must have been carpeted at the end of the last century, but remnants clung to the edges of worn-to-the-bare-wood stairs. I thought about using the banister for about half a second. By the third floor I was almost used to the smell of industrial disinfectant and the pot-pourri of bus station restroom, rotting food and something beyond BO that had set in for decades but was unprepared for the full-floor hallway carpet to be sticky enough to want to keep my shoes. With every step I hobbled on one, pulled on the other.

Good God.

This was the kind of place people came to disappear, or got disappeared. And would the ambulance driver, or a bored cop, or anybody care? Or would the cleaning lady or the desk drunk wrap the body in a gross sheet and heave them into the dumpster I parked by? Jeeze.

303. Halfway down the hall. I thought about kneeling but that lasted less time than the banister idea, so I bent over to work the door lock, that didn’t work but an unladylike squat did. Pull back the little sliding part, hold it with the credit card… Shit, Val. Something’s burning on the stove, you have to get in now! I was hoping for a dramatic *click* but the door swung open on my fourth try and I almost fell.

Good God. NO!

I pulled myself up from the don’t let any part of me touch the floor lunge, and the room was empty. No grotesque corpse on the bed, and if there was blood on floor, who could tell? In all the shows cops and spies have gloves. The cops have latex exam gloves, the spies have leather. I pulled a pair of yellow dish gloves out of my purse and looked around, wondering, since Meyers wasn’t dead or handcuffed to the bed, what was I looking for?

Meyers

Jyno backed the Ramcharger out of the lot after distributing Jyno sized hugs around the room. Even Denaldo and his goons couldn’t refuse. Like a play on the old joke – When does a 400 Samoan transvestite get a hug? Any damn time he likes. Denaldo offered to take Jet under armed guard in a bulletproof limo to where she could shop by phone with his wife and buy a wig that looked more like her own hair. Toni collected her shotgun from Huddy and headed back to offer five-star pet care, a grand cash in her pocket and three free Tommy’s lunches to go and five minutes spent in a women’s equality conversation with Rialta who had her own bag of Tommy’s baked goodies. All plenty of swag for Toni to stay out of my ass for going over her ninety-minute commitment.

“I need to talk to your computer guy,” Rialta unlocked the Corvette, busting my parking lot reverie.

“Why lock it with the top down?”

“Because I have a Los Angeles locking system. You’d have to cut a hole in a steel soup can a quarter of an inch thick to bypass my ignition.”

“Where’d you get that?”

“Kid I work with named Jackson. He knows a gadget man.”

“We travel in similar circles.”

“More so now, thank you. The computer guy?”

“Follow me?”

“Smart ass me wants ask if that was an offer of patriarchal submission, just to see how you’d react. But I won’t.”

“But you did. To prove I’m all for equality…” I gave her Pink’s address and didn’t say “In case I lose you, or you drive like most of the women I know.”

#

Rialta parked in front of Pink’s door, blocking the old alley that no one but the dumpster dumper and foot traffic used. I walked past it and knocked because he kept the place locked up like Fort Knox.

Inside, my expectation of Pink, Burke and Bishop hawking Zane at the front counter got blown by Burke ushering me into the back room where Pink sat at one keyboard and monitor, Zane at another with Jet on speakerphone guiding them through the maze of ShenZu’s computer system. Zane typed with her left hand and took notes with her right like a mad woman organ virtuoso. I sat in the dark outside the desk lamps, surrounded by banks of blinking lights with Burke and the Bishop. By three o’clock Zane had her copy and interview transcribed as well as a written record of the ShenZu computer map she would turn into a color graphic before show time. On her way out I introduced her to Burke as the man behind her ignition lock, and Bishop invited her to a room full of floating poker games. She shook Burke’s hand, told Bishop everyone would think she was on a story, but if he found four or five other interested people who weren’t afraid of her, she was game. I told him to make sure he still had his watch after the handshake.

Pink locked the door behind her, turned to me. “Who’s got the radios and are we adding the news conference warehouse to the wired to-do list?”

“Burke and yes,” I said, hearing my stomach growl.

“You should grow some boobs,” Burke grinned, “so Tommy’d send you home with food.”

#

It always took three rings for the little black box next to Purcell’s phone to flash his caller’s number, eliminating the awkward “Hello, it’s me darling” phase of a call.

“You forget my number, Meyers?”

“I’ve been busy. But I called, didn’t I?”

“You tryin’ to claim short term memory loss? Whatta you know about some big do the mouth with a figure that stops time and rules cable news has planned for the ten o’clock?”

“I’ll let them tell you.”

“Them?”

“Denaldo, a Danish girl named Jet who worked for Sands and Rialta.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Meyers. I need to know what the hell’s goin’ on before the goddam news. I thought we had a deal.”

“We do. I know who killed Terry Sands and how she did it and it’s all yours. In fact, you can arrest her in front of the cameras tonight with me nowhere in the picture.”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Meyers. What about the two southern ginks, the dead losers in K-town, the Feds an the exploding trailer house? All that grief somehow in the rearview?”

“The ginks are part of the news conference, probably sent by a Senator with low level Dixie Mafia connects. The two K-town losers came from Muriel Sands. If you run the plate I gave you when you picked me up—”

“Romeo Lebrón Santiago.”

“He’s in county for stripping cars. If you check Professor Sands’ student roster ten-to-one he pops.”

“He’s out, his kid brother posted bail. You’re sayin’ our boy Romeo hooked the Sands woman up with some armed dumbasses from the hood and found somebody smart enough to rig a simple electrical-short bomb?”

“I am.”

“Jesus. What’s her beef I wonder?”

“She thinks her husband was screwing his assistant. When you see the assistant, you’ll understand why. When you meet her, you’ll realize she’s a human calculator, not a sex kitten.”

“So what was Sands’ up to with her that’s got the Feds an a Senator on your ass?”

“They’re not even half who’s on my ass, but that’ll be over by the time Rialta starts her party. Write this down. West Cowles off Hayes. Look for The Painted Ladies warehouse. Ten o’clock. I’d be early if I were you.”

“Painted Ladies. The broads that roll around in paint naked?” 

“Rialta’s staging at their warehouse, they’re not part of the show.”

“Now that’s a damn shame. Should I bring company?”

“Some uniforms would be nice, for peripheral decoration. Denaldo will have security and so will I.”

“A handful of hot head marksmen and some mob sociopaths? Ask me how thrilled I am about that shit. And the Professor, you’re positive she’ll be there? And positive she dropped her husband?”

“Do I call you with bad information?”

“Depends on how fine you draw the lines between news, information and bullshit.”

Val

Meyers hadn’t been in all morning. I’d seen Burke breifly, and Marco called to tell me how much he’d enjoyed our lunch and when this “assignment” they were all working on came to a head, hopefully soon, we’d have to do it again. Only make it a real picnic, with home-cooked pasta maybe, and eat it in the Hollywood Bowl. I was so shocked he called I agreed, even if I doubted the romantic possibilities of lunch in the bowl. I started to make that joke, how we wouldn’t need anything to eat out of because we were already in a bowl, but like a lot of things I come up with that aren’t on target, it got stopped before it got out. And I thank the muses for the gift of not blurting out stupid, half-baked things I’ve tried to come up with. If I could just find a filter for the spontaneous ones. Like, “Good fucking thing, huh?” All of that bounced against the inside of my head because I was worried about Meyers.

Silly, I know. Meyers can take care of himself. But Burke seemed tense. Marco was great about the thank you and a picnic, but not chatty. Still, Meyers out without a word since yesterday, his friends in quiet mode after they’d talked about thirty thousand dollars that was meant for him and nothing about delivering it. I wasn’t happy.

Meyers

I stopped at the entrance to Tommy’s back lot, spoke to the ex-cop guard who kept an eye on it, rolled up behind Tommy’s blue Cadillac. Jyno pulled his ten-year-old Ramcharger in beside me. I wanted to ask him what kind of shocks he used to keep it level, left it alone. Jet dropped out in front of me, so close I thought I’d have to catch her. Toni, Remington shotgun in hand, got out of a dull off-white Datsun station wagon I’d never seen.

“What? You think I’m so dense I’d work a tail in a Jeep you can see coming two miles away?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Didn’t have to,” handing the shotgun to Hudson the lot cop. “We’re it, Huddy. Anything rolls behind us gets a buckshot kiss. Except,” pointing to the street, “the babe in the red ‘Vette is half the reason Meyers started this parade.”

The Corvette parked behind me. The driver grabbed a leather portfolio, shoved her sunglasses into a hairband, stopped in front of me. “Meyers?”

“Who tipped you?”

“You covered a regular guest of mine while she was in Cambridge doing her best to have the entire population of England help her commit assisted suicide. I feel like I already know you. Zane Rialta,” offering a hand.

 “Meyers. My pleasure.”

“Back at you.” She scanned the small lot, stopped at the comedic assembly waiting in front of the heavy vinyl flaps on Tommy’s skinny dock, built for 1920s delivery trucks barely accommodating Juno. “Looks like a promising little circus,” she brushed past me, tugged my arm. “Showtime.”

For once, the guard on Tommy’s door signaling Donnie Denaldo was inside didn’t stop and frisk anyone. He had trouble keeping his eyes in his head when six feet plus four-inch heels of Zane Rialta walked past. The look on his face said he’d have sold his soul for rescission of the no-frisk order.

Jyno and Jet filed through the steel door into Tommy’s office, followed by Rialta and me. Toni stayed outside, her way of saying she was unimpressed with the mob security. Denaldo stood from one of the leather side chairs next to Tommy’s big, distressed Mexican flea market ‘antique’ desk with the chunk I’d shot out of it several years ago. Tommy, pushing eighty, rarely got up for visitors but made an exception, saying, “Be damned,” he dropped his dead cigar in a faceted onyx ashtray the size of half a bowling ball. “Not that I don’t trust Meyers, but I’da never believed it.”

“Tommy,” I stayed behind the dark, bushy ponytail, “Zane Rialta.”

“Like I don’t know the most recognizable woman on television,” beaming, hanging on to her handshake.

“Tommy’s a ladies’ man,” I said. “Been known to get him in trouble.”

“At least he didn’t say ‘most recognizable tits on television’ like most guys his age,” regaining her hand with a smile, “Or we’d have to talk.”

“But Jesus, woman, they are,” Tommy, red as Rialta’s Corvette, dropped into his chair, fanning himself. “Donnie, Meyers, you guys introduce everybody. I need to breathe…”

I ran down the introductions and everyone found a chair except Jyno, who sat on the floor, and Denaldo’s in-room hood, who stood in a corner and feigned indifference. The room so quiet I could hear the exhaust fan.

Zane dragged a chair into the middle of the room across from Denaldo, sent Jet to the chair beside him, crossed her legs, opened the portfolio and clicked open a pen. “Just so we get off on the right foot, how should I address you,” pen poised. “None of the media I’ve researched have arrived at a consensus.”

I felt the air go out of the room. Everyone involved’s worst fear materialized in the first question.

She felt it, never skipped a beat, raised her head straight on with LA’s mob boss. “Mister Denaldo, Mister Don, Mister Donald, Don, Donnie, hey you…”

“No one has asked before,” Denaldo leaned forward. “They take their shots. Sneer, applaud, spin it. I try not to pay much attention.”

“I’m not looking for an innuendo laden vocational tag here. Only how you, as a person of conscience, and as I’ve been led to believe, are about to unseat a few politicians, call the integrity of a federal investigative branch into question, void contracts related to national security and start an avalanche of recalls and years of investigations all over the world would like to be addressed. Because at ten PM tonight it’s you, the woman currently in the hooker wig and me, in front of millions, telling her tale of intrigue and yours of bravery in the face of possibly severe repercussions. And I need to call you something. I’ll bet ‘Ol’ Donnie here thinks the world oughta know what kinda junk’s holdin’ their shit together an here we are’ is off the table.”

Denaldo stopped laughing long enough to suggest ‘Mr. Denaldo’ on the front end, and it morphed into a casual ‘Don, when did you get wind of this story’ and ‘Ms. Kirkebjerg, when were you contacted by Mr. Denaldo, or was it the other way around?’ Neither of which ever happened. But it got me out of the publicity loop. Jet ran with it, saying she’d been introduced to Mr. D by a mutual friend who’d sold him as a conscientious and civic minded public figure. From there the room took on a studio’s air. The three players generated their own spotlight, the rest of us in darkness at light’s edge. The only time they acted like any of us were in the room Jet answered ‘Yes’ to having indisputable proof and all three looked at me. I sold them a look of far more composure than I felt.