Month: February 2026

Meyers

“You’re gonna have to fill out a report on the stiffs in K-Town,” Purcell dropped today’s drug dealer impound car, a gold, two-year-old Mercedes 560 SEL sedan into gear and rolled into traffic.

“They weren’t both mine,” I said. “And I picked up my brass. Even if they bother to look, they won’t get anything from the lead.”

“You still shootin’ that squishy shit?”

“Short range, yeah.”

“So, I tell the guys workin’ it, it’s most likely gang bangers? Drug deal gone south, somebody dissed somebody’s sister? Mexican kid and a white guy drive off in a low-rider, unsolvable without a witness or three, write it up and move on? What’d you tell the patrol officer?”

“What I said when I called it in. I was out for a jog, found two guns in an alley, come get ‘em.”

“Just bein’ a citizen with a halo? Shit…”

“My sentiments exactly,” and handed him the address and phone number from Jumpy the crackhead’s wallet.

He took the paper, dropped his eyes for a second, handed it back. “Juniper Hills. Not my problem.”

“Unincorporated makes it anybody’s problem.”

“Jesus, Meyers…” he checked his mirrors, changed lanes, turned north. “Nothin’ out there but cracked asphalt and dirt roads with street signs.”

“Movie ranches, rattlesnakes. Maybe even Mrs. Muriel Sands. This was in the crackhead’s wallet.”

“Sands in the sand, huh? Why didn’t you say so? You think she’s the one put the scrotes on you?”

“Like I said, they didn’t ask about ‘the goods’. Only that their ‘bitch’ wanted me.”

“Don’t tell me you hear that a lot ‘cause I’ll call bullshit.” He reached in the Mercede’s carpeted console cavity, “Lemme call it in now ‘cause this thing,” hoisting the handheld radio, “Won’t get us connected with shit other side of the San Gabes.”

County response to the address came back as Chaparral Development and Investments, meaning it was a rental or empty or possibly a real estate sales office.

“Lighten up, Purcell. All that nowhere up there is ten, fifteen minutes to somewhere.”

“Or ten to fifteen to more nowhere and then you’re half an hour out an might as well be on the fuckin’ moon.”

“Toni says there’s a big open-air market full of concrete yard art in Victorville that’s worth the drive.”

“Woman’s fuckin’ nuts, Meyers. There’s a McDonald’s built into a coupla boxcars in Barstow, but I ain’t drivin’ out there for a Quarter-Pounder with rail yard ambience. Listen. Mojave’s not worth the drive for nothin’.”

“Hey, we’ll be close. Your sister’s been after a fountain.”

“Water feature, Meyers. Water feature. Somethin’ she can get at Target or Sears.”

“Just sayin’.”

“Say all you want. I ain’t headed ten feet east of wherever that address is. I see a sign says Mojave I get thirsty, my skin itches an my ass starts to pucker.”

#

Val

Thank God the phone rang interrupting our, Marco’s and my inept “Okay, uh, thanks for, uh, and everything, see ya” moment. The call was inbound for Meyers. I answered before it went to his service, recognized the voice, covered my headset mic.

 “Burke? For Meyers?”

Marco waffled for a split second and nodded. I pointed to the PBX handset. “Meyers left at least an hour ago. How about Marco?” I knew the answer before I heard it, but professional me waited until I heard it to punch the call through.

“Yes?” from Marco, and nothing more. He listened for two-and-a-half minutes. I know because the PBX has a call timer for every line to see who is holding where, and for how long. Marco handed the phone back with dilemma written all over him. He paced, came back to me in front of my reception desk. “Do you…” tip of his tongue on his upper lip, “or can you…” he tapped his index and middle finger on my surround counter, turned around and paced some more.

Reception in my building isn’t built around hospitality. On purpose. There’s room over by the mailboxes for a chair or a small bench in front of the window wall to my right but I don’t need every salesman, repair, delivery or building service man or ‘lonely dude’  to park and start up their nonsense, anxious mothers who would be better off waiting in the dentist’s office.

I mentioned all that about the reception because poor Marco’s pacing came down to no guest seating in the lobby. Or anywhere except whatever waiting room the tenants had in their offices. Restrooms on two and four, not down here, thank God. The elevators opened onto granite tile six feet out and building wide with enough room under the windows for a tall rent-a-plant and a demilune table where tenants staged business cards and flyers and dead paper coffee cups. The elevator faced a hall with offices up to the tile line on the left and right. I guess the six feet of tile before the carpet starts counted as a foyer, but no room for benches or chairs.

Burke breezed in the door in jeans and a windbreaker, saw Marco, stopped. “What are you doing down here?” He set a small, boxy ripstop bag with big zippers on my surround, saying, without looking at me, “This oughta fit.” He turned, gave me a quick smile, glanced back at Marco with an overacted “Ohhhh…”

“Cut it. No key.”

“Nooo key?”

“Don’t, man.”

“No key and Val wouldn’t let you in? You’re havin’ a bad day all around.”

“He didn’t ask,” like I wasn’t invisible or a mind reader. I’m glad, too, because it would have put me on the spot. Opening Meyers’ office without specific instructions. I said, “Second floor conference room, but—” Never assume, Val, it makes an ass…Burke reached for the elevator call button, gave me a nod and said to Marco, “Man who lose girlfriend’s key—”

“Knock it off. But what?

“Something’s, uh,” raising his eyebrows in my direction, “Come up.”

“I said—”

“Couldn’t help that one. Look…The scanner’s blowing up. Couple of bodies in K town, Hollywood homicide lieutenant responding to that and a simultaneous found firearms call.”

“Meaning?”

“Hello, love punch? Meyers? Plus, the lesser half of the amateur spy duo is outside. He just took a radio call from his better half to distract Meyers if he tries to leave. She’s got a meet with Hughes she doesn’t want interrupted.”

“Meyers is already—”

“Yeah, yeah, but they don’t know he’s gone. Neither did the two feds in the Crown Vic who hauled ass when they got a new 20 from Hughes.”

“Hughes and the woman? About what?

“The ‘goods’? Whatever shit they all think Meyers has?”

“He doesn’t have anything,” he tapped his chest, mouthed “I do.” Burke responded with a mime’s open hands and what the hell expression. Marco tilted his head in my direction. Burke squinted. I pointed at Maxie.

Burke kept up the squint for a second longer, finally saying, “I see…” Whether he did or not, it saved Marco or me or both from having to explain something I wasn’t sure I could explain. Burke went statue, poised to push the elevator button until I thought he might pick up pacing where Marco left off, finally pulling away from the elevator. “Bishop is going to recon Hughes and the woman. I think I need to pick up a Crown Vic in Burbank, bag the occupants and drop it in Watts.”

“Where the hell did that come from?”

“One of those cosmic lightning bolts. It shouldn’t take Meyers long to clear on the bodies and the guns with Purcell. How about here, three-thirty, meet the Bishop, compare notes?” I got the look again, “Unless you’re staying?”

“The new 20 is Burbank?”

“Big Boy in Burbank. TV stars, car hops and—”

“Rock Hudson’s removable stool seat?”

“That’s the one.”

“I’m with you.” Marco shot me a smile, and they were gone. To do God knows what. Bagging occupants? Delivering a car to Watts while the Bishop, not the actual Bishop I hoped, did something with the snotty FBI man who left an air of sandalwood and self-importance in his wake, climbed in an illegally parked shiny black Lincoln and took off just before Meyers? Holy crap.

Normally, I’m not nosey. Too nosey, anyway. I stared at the notepad where Aftershave wrote his note, pulled the top sheet, and held it up to the light. No. I thought about the pencil rub routine that always works for private eyes on TV but knew from experience trying to find out where my ex was meeting his girlfriend that trick only works on TV. Dust from a pencil sharpener works a little better, but makes a mess. And copy machine toner, well, never mind how I know what kind of mess that is. Wake up, Val. The artist upstairs has a light box and soft charcoal. And I have an art degree. Almost as useful as basket weaving, but I can rub charcoal with the best.

Val

Marco swept all our lunch trash into a ball and dropped it in the stainless flip-top trash can. I said, “Amazing.”

“Lots of practice. I grew up eating at a picnic table. Runt of the litter got clean up duty.” He stopped, and after an embarrassing pause, “You meant the lunch.”

I said “Uh,” and couldn’t find anything to say that worked for “Thank you” that was bigger than just thank you, or That’s done, or I guess we’d better go, so I said “Well…” in a ‘well, damn’ kind of way and not finding anything to do with my hands that wouldn’t be handsy or maybe unwelcome I turned off the lights and held the door for him this time. He handed me two black disks while we walked to the elevator.

“I’m ready for whatever’s on these.”

“Never doubted you,” and he pushed the call button. He waited for me, so I pushed 1 and got a little sadder with every floor.

He must have sensed it because he said, “Best lunch I’ve had in ages.”

“That was my line, but I couldn’t get it to come out right. I mean you brought Tommy’s and everything, and I don’t know what…”

“You worry too much. Say what’s on your mind.”

“I get in trouble when I do that.”

“Impulsive? People who don’t want to hear what you have to say can fuck off.” And kissed me on the forehead like the nooner stall, but didn’t mess up my hair and we didn’t have an audience.

“Did your mother tell you that?”

“Actually…” and the door opened. I think it’s automatic for most men with any manners to forearm the door like we’re too fragile to stop an elevator door if it goes into crunch mode, but he did it with an elbow and no chivalry drama. I skimmed my desk for notes, the floor for packages, and the clock. None, none and 12:47. I pulled up my desk chair, noticed I was a little euphoric from the friend kiss, and slipped a disk into Maxie. She clicked and whirred and put up a picture of the disk with its name. Road Rage Rio. “This looks like a game,” I turned, hadn’t noticed he’d leaned over me, one hand on the back of my chair and one on my desk.

“Computer camo,” he said. “Open it.”

I did, and the disk contents scrolled down the screen. The names were cryptic. Henhouse, Eggplant, Tie, Loafer…I clicked on the first one and it popped open in my spreadsheet. “Now what?”

“Drag the cells open until everything in them shows. Save it. Do that till they’re all done. Burke will drop off a padded bag sometime this afternoon, in case you need to take Maxie home. Ques—”

“Where’s Meyers?”

We both looked up. An LA everyman in a leather sport coat and starched pinstriped dress shirt. Shiny-faced, like he might have shaved twice and moisturized and just gotten a haircut, or maybe it was the density of his aftershave cloud that gave me that impression. Marco tapped my ‘Concierge Returns at 1:00 PM’ sign. “She’s not back yet.”

“Did I ask you?”

“You didn’t specify. I answered. Care to make it official?”

“Sure, wiseass. Where’s Meyers?”

“Left about an hour ago.”

“You know him?”

“We’ve met.”

“Look, friend, I need to speak to the man.” Aftershave opened his sport coat and showed us a gun.

“Oh, my,” Marco, I swear to God, got a look on his face like he’d never seen a gun before, kind of overdone, actually, and said, “You know what they say in Russia…”

“Enlighten me.”

“Toughski shitski.”

“I don’t have time—” There was a little thump sound, like if you pat yourself on the chest? Aftershave took a baby step back, and his gun was in Marco’s hand.

“Neither do we, friend,” Marco clicked on the gun, the clip dropped out. I know a little about them, guns, anyway. He pulled on the top, and a bullet landed on my desk. “I don’t like these,” setting Aftershave’s empty gun on the counter next to my sign. “But I have no problem taking them away from assholes who think guns make them important. You’re through wasting our lunch hour. Tell me what you have for Meyers.”

 “In my jacket,” Aftershave said, and reached up. Marco caught the hand, bent it forward and put his other hand in Aftershave’s sport coat. He brought out an envelope and let go of the hand. The man shook it out and said, “Damn, you trying to break it?”

“It crossed my mind,” Marco held up the envelope. “This?”

“Incentive.”

“For Meyers?” Marco squeezed the envelope. “Feels like ten grand if it’s hundreds.”

“It is,” Aftershave tried to ignore his hand, but it must have hurt.

“Why?”

“To show up.”

Somehow, I knew, without Marco asking, and set a notepad and pen on the counter. “Write it down,” Marco said. “So nothing gets lost in translation.”

Aftershave wrote something on the pad, clicked the ballpoint closed. Marco checked the note and said, “You’re a day early.”

“Flight delays. My people won’t be here till tomorrow.” He worked his bad hand with the good one. “So…” eyeing his gun, “how do I know this will get to Meyers?”

“Walk by faith, friend, and be glad Meyers was out. He’d have fed you this from the wrong end,” handing Aftershave his empty gun. “Have a nice day.”

Aftershave walked to the door, rolling his shoulders and shaking his right hand. Marco watched until the man was on the sidewalk before he turned back to me. I held the bullet up between my thumb and finger.

“Souvenir,” Marco said. “Now…Where were we?”

Meyers

I changed my mind about a road trip with Ritchie, told him to stop at the first phone booth he saw. It stood alone and exposed on the corner of a run-down Chevron station’s lot. Run down except for the moon unit hoses on shiny new self-service pumps. So self-service the office and service bays had been walled up with cinderblocks. A small window remained, a sign over it advertising Vietnamese takeout. I grabbed the shotgun, got out, told Ritchie to wait, knowing the second my door closed he’d floor it. I watched him rip out and take the first corner on two wheels, scaring the shit out of an old man shuffling along with an equally old small dog in a rickety baby carriage.

You would think in K-town a white man dressed in torn workout gear, with a sawed-off shotgun in his hand, would draw some unwanted attention. All I got was a wave from a gray-haired woman who stuck her head through the takeout porthole. I waved back while my quarter dropped. When the dial tone kicked in, I called the police.

#

“How many times I hafta tell you the Los Angeles police department is not your personal taxi service?” Purcell returned the uniformed cop her cuffs I’d been wearing. “Leave the Walther, put the other two in confiscated at the end of your shift.” She frowned. “Look, I’m not taking a cop off the street because Meyer’s gifted us another coupla guns. Write ‘em up, turn ‘em in.” She complied, at least to bagging the shotgun and .45 and dropping them in her trunk before driving off.

 “Everybody’s lookin’ for an excuse to fuck off,” Purcell fished in his pockets for a light.

“Except for Hollywood’s Lieutenant Purcell. The hardest working crime buster in LA.”

“You know for a guy workin’ overtime makin’ big fuckin’ messes when I specifically asked you not to, you’re pushin’ pain in my ass territory. I hope you got somethin’ on my dead guy in the locked condo or we’re gonna have to stop bein’ friendly. ‘Cause I for damn sure didn’t need two more stiffs and a coupla extra guns.”

“Two? When I left there was one dead and one damaged. He bleed out?”

“He staggered in the back door of a K-town hot pot and barbecue joint where an eighty-year-old Korean woman size of a ten-year-old kid thought he was Godzirra and beat the shit out of him with an aluminum bat.”

“She say Godzirra?”

“All I know is what she did, pantomimed by an Asian man older’n fuckin’ Moses. I couldn’t understand a word either of ‘em said so I put her in a car with a translator, told ‘em get her story an cut her loose.”

“Good community relations?”

“Can’t have Godzirra terrorizin’ old people. Besides, I know your story’s gotta be a lot better’n hers,” he gave me the eye while he re-lit a cigar stub. “Or it better be.”

#

I gave Purcell the highlight reel of what he’d missed yesterday, leaving out Lavender Girl and the disks, but gave him the two information peddlers he’d missed between Mrs. Sands and the Dixie Duo. Since he’d bounced me out of bed this morning, I started today’s daily with Yavuz’s half-assed thugs at Pinky’s. He also got the short version of Hughes’ visit and the government’s interest in whatever Sands supposedly gave me. I offered my theory on Yavuz’s boys resulting from jailhouse chatter, either from the screws or guests at the County Jail’s Hospital Ward about a PI who might have something worth big bucks. That made sense to both of us. Him, because cops understood lock-up communication, and me because up to this point no one except Lavender the Mystery Girl, Val and Pinky knew about the disks, and Val had no idea what was on them.

I shouldn’t hold out on Purcell, but the cop shop leaked like an elephant with a bad bladder. Not that Purcell would let it slip, but he’d grind me for “safe custody” of the disks as “evidence” because he had a murder to clear. Information that would be on a report and down a hundred phone lines within minutes of its posting. Hughes was right about one thing. Information is money in the bank. I finished my abbreviated tale, apologized for missing our one-o’clock with Muriel Sands, and asked how it went.

“Funny thing, that,” he stuffed the last of a Pedro’s ‘Enchilada Dinner in Your Hand’ in his mouth he’d worked on eating while I talked. I waited while he chewed his way through the last bite, which was going take a few because The Dinner in Your Hand, about the size of a weightlifter’s forearm, was a burrito stuffed with buyer’s choice or combination of meats, red, green or cheese enchilada sauce, rice, beans, onions, avocado slices, diced tomatoes, shredded lettuce and purple cabbage wrapped in a tortilla as big around as a tire, tucked at both ends and rolled up in aluminum foil. Black olive slices extra.

I heard him wad up the foil. “Funny?”

“Yessir,” wiping his mouth with a handful of brown paper napkins. “Lately I schedule meetings, I get porched like a life insurance salesman. Today? I look at my watch, it’s one-fifteen. I figure Okay, Meyers is one thing. He’s probably busy doin’ the community a service dustin’ a couple scrotes in K-town, collectin’ guns for the mayor to melt an screw up possible cold case evidence. Mrs. Muriel Sands, though? She’s a stand-up citizen, a professor e-meritus. An she’s a no show. I call her department at USC, thinkin’ maybe she forgot we talked about how she might have a dead husband in the morgue. No, she’s AWOL, just like her fuckin’ husband was until yesterday. No show, no call, to me or the job. So, I’m startin’ to believe she knows he’s dead. Been expectin’ to hear it, maybe. Maybe she knows what the stink is with him, the gizmo factory and you, and like half a El Lay she wants in on it.”

“She killed him.”

“Just like that? You got some divine insight?”

“I don’t know about divine.”

“Well?”

“Nobody else wanted him dead, Purcell. Not until they got what he had. Like my last two dance partners. They wanted to kill me, early on, for fun. But it was obvious if they did, without me getting where they were supposed to take me, alive, they knew they’d follow me right into deadville.”

“For fucking up a potential lead to ‘the goods’, maybe they end up on a slab next to you. But if ‘the goods’ wasn’t in the scrotes’ conversation…” He thought about that for a minute. “You’re thinkin’ she’s the only one doesn’t know, or care, about ‘the goods’. She wanted to cap his ass for runnin’ all over the planet leavin’ the domestic shit on her plate then doin’ the slide with his work wife. Wants you gone because of the con job on you to find him. I hate to say it, but maybe you got somethin’. Divine insight happen to tell you how she killed him?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, that’s good to know,” he handed me his trash, pointing at the can out the window on my side.

“Good?”

“Good to know without a divine pipeline I still got some job security.”

Val

Two to-go size white paper bags landed on my desk’s counter surround. When I looked up, the butterflies I expected on Marco’s arrival didn’t show up. Possibly because I’d regained control of my spreadsheet program. Plus, he surprised me. And printed on the bags? A big red and blue Tommy’s Deli, Since 1927.

We both started talking and stopped together. He said, “You first.” And I said “Tommys? Honest?”

“No, I put Carl’s Junior in bags from cool places to impress people.”

I know I blushed, for half a dozen reasons and got all big-eyed like a kid getting a present. Well, I was. Tommy’s. From Beverly Hills! I put my hands in my lap and waited.

“The Marlene chicken salad on sourdough,” he lifted one bag, “and a Myrna,” lifting the other, “mustard egg salad on white. Take your pick, I’ll eat either. Kosher dills on the side, pepper coleslaw and roasted lemon potatoes de Provence.”

“I, I don’t know what to say.” I didn’t, honestly. “But Tommy’s…” it had to be expensive and the wait at lunchtime…well, ridiculous?

He read my mind, again, and said “We have an in at Tommy’s,” he picked one plastic container out of both bags.

“Let me guess. Meyers?”

“Good eye. And surprisingly enough, Huntley.”

“The polite kid chauffeur is friends with someone at Tommy’s?”

“Tommy.” I gathered from the way he said ‘Tommy’ that was the only friend you needed at Tommy’s, which made perfect sense. I started to say something about Tommy’s and who was the first Tommy and was it named after the machine gun, and the Tommy now and Meyers and gangsters and starlets and call girls and… It sounded stupid and fortunately got balled up between my head and my mouth and didn’t get out.

“Marlene,” I said. “If that’s okay.”

“Told you I’d eat either,” with the crinkly eyes. “Glad I don’t have to eat them both.”

I pulled off my headset, plopped my ‘Concierge Returns at One PM’ next to the bags, grabbed the containers and said something about Let’s not do this here, or Let’s do this like grownups and Follow me. I made it to the elevator, hit the up button with my elbow, and did the same to the button for 4.

“Lunch in the penthouse?” A Tommy’s bag in each hand and a raised eyebrow.

“The executive conference room is on four.” I would have used quote fingers on ‘executive’ but my hands were full. Executive, in this case, meant wood floors, nicer curtains, and dimmable lights. And the chairs had all their casters. It also had an ‘honor’ fridge full of cokes and the like and a thumb combination lock on a liquor cabinet. Not that I needed a drink, but a tall, long-haired guy with Tommy’s Deli bags had put me in hostess mode. I bustled around like Susie Homemaker, getting out plates and silverware, until his hand appeared on my shoulder, gently spun me around, and led me to the table where he had already arranged everything from the bags. Tommy’s hefty, colorful paper plates, the best disposable picnic ware, and fluffy paper napkins. And a short plastic carafe of white wine.

“Why didn’t you say something?” I glanced over my shoulder at my open cabinets for a sec, hoping I didn’t sound whiny.

“I was taught,” Marco said, popping tops on the containers, “that whoever brings the picnic sets it up.”

“I was taught when you have guests you put out the good…” and stalled out. He gave me a couple of seconds of slightly bewildered ‘wait for it’ look before he shrugged and said,

“Mothers. What are you gonna do?” We stared at each other, my hands full of table junk, his full of plastic lids. “Yours ever lay it out for executive conference rooms?”

“Not that I remember,” and set the glasses and restaurant-grade silverware back on the counter.

“Mine, either.” He pulled out a chair for me and held it. I sat. He gave it a soft push to get me started toward the table. And we talked and ate and ate and talked…I think the thing about the Meyers people is they aren’t stiff. I am, more than a little, but they talk to me like they’ve known me forever, about just…anything. Pets and old family stories and books and movies, and life junk. And they listen when I go on about art, and when they say something, or ask something it’s, well, it’s not awkward. Or stupid. Or how people can be when it’s party talk, you know, when maybe you’re on the edge of the guest list and they act like, ‘why don’t you take your wine glass and go stand by the buffet or the bar.’ Two things I did a lot of when I was married to my ex.

Note – If I stretch these out and split them up like they’d be in book form I can make what will end up around a 38k novella last until May🤣

Meyers

A block out of my building three men in a pee-yellow and splotches of primer gray Buick Century low-rider project car with 13-inch wire wheels, probably worth more than the car, pulled up beside me. The driver, a kid with fancy, varnished hair and some whispy pubes on his chin hung his arm out the window and thumped the door. “Why you walkin’?”

“Nice day to be outside,” and kept walking.

 “You need to stop an pay attention, brother,” a different voice from inside the car.

I stopped, leaned into the driver’s window. A blinky, tat covered Anglo greaser in the passenger seat made a production of winking and nodding at the .45 in his left hand that was resting on the center console.

“You stop just to show me your gun, greaseball, or you have something I need to hear?”

A hand the size of a ham reached out the back window, ripped my sweatshirt off over my head. “Look there,” from a huge, round-faced, black as obsidian man. “He ain’t carryin’ no heat. This gonna be easy.” I saw Obsidian’s other ham hand wrapped around a sawed-off shotgun. He pushed the back door open with the sweatshirt hand. “Get in.”

The kid driver’s eyes told me he was new to this kind of thing, Blinky was high as fuck, Obsidian liked to break things. The shotgun looked like a toothpick in his hand.

After two blocks of silence Obsidian said “Bitch said you was a bad man. Why you out ‘thout no damn gun?”

“Better question. What the fuck do you clowns want?”

“We got the girl,” Blinky said.

“We ‘sposed to get you if you wanna see her, or she gonna be all kinds a fucked up,” Obsidian, holding the sawed-off upright on his leg. “We get to fuck you up too, you get pissy.”

“What girl? I don’t know any girls and the women I know could mop the floor with this carload of sperm bank rejects. You picked up the wrong man.”

“Ritchie,” Obsidian cleared his throat, spit out the window. “You take a right up the next light, go about three mile south. We get to where you see all the Ko-rean sign shit can’t nobody read, find us a alley,” saying, without looking at me, “We gone put a stop to this motherfucker’s booshit. Bitch say we only need to bring you alive. Say now, brother,” Obsidian paying attention now. “The fuck you doin’?”

“Pickin’ my sweatshirt off the floor, ‘brother’. That a problem?”

“Go ahead on. Gonna get fucked up soon enough.”

“It’s fucked up now, asshole.”

The .45 came up over the seat. “I, I could kill you.”

“Then for damn sure I won’t make it to your ‘bitch’ alive. Which means you won’t get paid past whatever front money you got and whoever this ‘bitch’ of yours is will send somebody meaner than you to clean your house. You’re not gonna kill me, Jumpy. Not yet.”

Obsidian grinned, touched Jumpy’s arm with the shotgun. “We just make you wish we had.”

The kid drove as directed, pulled up in an alley next to a pile of cardboard boxes on one side and a stack of wooden pallets on the other. Obsidian said “Out.”

I opened the door, holding my sweatshirt. I let both passengers clear the car. When the kid got out, I put my foot on his ass and shoved. “Run.”

“The fuck?” Jumpy raised his .45, leveled it at me. I shot him in the forehead. He backstroked on air and slammed into the stack of pallets. Obsidian stepped around the back of the car, right-handing the shotgun up to shoulder height. I shot him in the shoulder joint. He spun all the way around, dropped the shotgun. It went off, the kid screamed from somewhere down the alley, Obsidian fell sideways on the stack of pallets that had tumbled. I picked up the sawed-off. Obsidian’s arm, shoulder bones showing, hung by sinew. He stared at the Walther.

“Where’d that come from?”

“Ankle holster. Too hot and too obvious under the sweatshirt.”

“Be goddammed. The fuck’s…in that?”

“Subsonic soft nose. Hit like a freight train, do a lot of damage.”

He mumbled something unintelligible and passed out.

I got to the kid who’d gone drama queen with “Fuck me I’m shot! Motherfucker shot me, Goddammit. I can’t walk, I’m shot…”

I checked the tiny holes in his starched jeans, mostly centered on the back of his left thigh, a few up to butt level and down to mid-calf. “You’ll live.” I grabbed his arm, pulled him up. “Bird shot. What kind of dumbass brings bird shot to a gun fight?”

“Nobody said nothin’ ‘bout a gun fight.”

“No? How’d you get this gig?”

“Them two, they jump outta some straight’s cart lookin’ for Romeo, that’s my brother, sayin’ they got him a afternoon ticket an I say Romeo ain’t around right now an the jumpy one’s sayin’, you know, Ain’t that his fuckin’ car, little Holmes? An it is, you know, an I say Yeah, but, an then K’nora come outside, so pregnant she could drop Romeo’s baby there on the porch an she starts in askin’ Jumpy, What’s the ticket be an all an the jumpy dude says It’s five an she says Romeo’s in fuckin’ County, show me the five. An then Jumpy an the big nigger, I never heard his name, they flash the cash, K’nora seein’ how it’s real now an she say Ritchie, that’s me only I go by Rico but anyway she sayin’ Ritchie can drive an they all lookin’ me over an they ask am I legal an K’nora, you know, she sayin’, an she can have attitude, You mean can he drive or is he a fuckin’ wetback? An Jumpy say Don’t care where the fuck he come from, can he drive an me an ‘Knora both say Yeah an the big nigger says Lezgo, all one word like that, Lezgo, an for a minute I think K’nora heard Lezbo, the way she be lookin’ at him an then K’nora counts the five an throws me the keys an, an…” he drooped, from his shoulders through his knees, leaned favoring his birdshot leg, “An now…Motherfucker…Goddammit I’m fuckin’ shot.”

“That was a nice story, Ritchie, but who’s the girl?”

“Don’t know nothin’ ‘bout a girl. Said they was supposed to say it to get you to listen up.”

“The straight’s cart, you remember it?”

“Kinda new Cutlass got the scoop bumper. Silver blue.”

“See the driver?”

“Wasn’t lookin’.”

“Your brother go to school?”

“Yeah. He says why not, you know, it’s free for underprivileged Mexicans, but he only goes to style for the ‘tang.”

“He and his woman married?”

“Nuh-uh, not yet.”

“Fool’s playin’ with a loaded gun. What’s he in county for?”

“Jackin’ parts,” nodding at the Century. “For that piece a shit piss yella car.”

“Who owns the house where you and K’nora stay?”

“My Momma. She owns it.” His face contorted again. “How the fuck I gonna splain this shit?”

“What’s your Momma do?”

“I dunno. It’s at a hospital, you know, I know that. She was like in the army, before, but I was stayin’ to my Dad’s ‘cause he’s looser an all, but he shot some old dude in a Bodega, so now…”

“You’re livin’ with two women and an idiot. Jesus,” I walked him back to the car, parked him on the pallet stack, wrapped my hand in my t-shirt tail and went through Obsidian’s pockets first. His entire personal portfolio rubber-banded in his front pocket, along with twelve hundred and fifty dollars. Jumpy had a shiny new wallet full of nothing, a piece of paper with a phone number and an address, and the same amount of money, different rubber bands. I looked around, found his .45, slipped it in my waistband.

“Drop me off at this address,” I showed Richie the slip of paper.

“Drive? Motherfucker, I can’t drive, an I ain’t never heard a no Juniper Hills… Drive? Goddammit. You don’t see how my leg’s shot all to fuck?”

“You’re hardly bleeding. Drop me, go find your mother.” I grabbed his shirt, got in his face. “Don’t try to hide this from her. You let it go, think it’s healed up, you’ll get blood poisoning and be just as dead as the crack head. Only it’ll take longer and hurt like hell.” I stuffed the folded twenty-five hundred in his shirt pocket. “You get home, use that money to bail out your brother, ease your grief with the women.”

“What about the big—”

“Somebody’ll be out to dump the trash after they give the gun action time to chill. They’ll call an ambulance. Or not.”

“You don’t give a fuck?”

“He pointed a loaded shotgun at me,” tossing the sawed-off on the floor in front of the passenger seat. “What do you think?”

Meyers

I took the stairs to my office. Not that I’m paranoid, but after the parade of Bozos I’d encountered over the last twenty-four hours I wanted a preview of the second floor instead of stepping off an elevator blind. In front of my office stood one familiar and two unknown but obvious government types and the detective Purcell left on my door. They stared at each other in stoic silence.

“Gentlemen,” producing the key to my office. “No coffee yet.”

“Don’t bother,” the detective unfolded his arms. “Purcell said I was done when you got here and whatever shitheads couldn’t wait to see you was your problem.” He made a slight bow, tipped an imaginary hat. “Later.”

Inside, I loaded the coffee pot, flipped the brew switch and said to the best dressed of the three federal suits, “To what do I owe the displeasure, Hughes?”

“Assistant Director in Charge Hughes.”

“Mouthful of title for a shithead errand boy. It’s reasonably early and I’m already tired of asking people twice.”

“Always a ray of sunshine, Meyers. Uncle Sam thinks you might have something he needs to see.”

“Fuck your uncle.”

“Is that any way to talk to an old friend?”

“Don’t bother to sit, Hughes, you won’t be here that long.”

“Thought you might be hostile.” He produced a regulation string-around-the-button manila envelope, tossed it on my desk.

“Gifts from on high?” leaving it where it landed.

“You aren’t curious, or don’t care?”

“I’m redacted. Your business is none of mine. I pick up the phone and you, your bullshit, dossier envelope and the child shadows will be gone in two minutes.”

“You were handed off from above to the regional, which is me, because we have history.”

“We do. If it was my call, you’d be dead and forgotten. Tell me,” I turned a little toward his two sidekicks. “Are the kids coming out these days any better than they used to be?”

One of them shoved a hand in his sport coat, with a decent amount of speed. The business end of my Walther was already on his boss’s forehead.

“No need to show off, Meyers,” Hughes gently pushed the Walther aside. “You might find the dossiers useful.”

“I might. But there’s a rumor that has me and friends of mine on the hot seat for something no one’s explained, other than an interest in what a dead Pac Rim executive might have known.”

“You two,” Hughes, to his sidecars. “Wait outside.”

I lowered the Walther, waited for the door to close.

“There was a time,” he said, “when I’d have pissed my pants if you’d have stuck a gun in my face.”

“Because I would have used it.”

“No doubt.” I could see him thinking of some government speak that wouldn’t insult me. “The situation you’re in the middle of is part of a delicate, multi-faceted investigation.”

“Ongoing since the end of April, first of May? Looking for someone who got dead before you could find him?”

Shock crossed his face for an instant. “We got involved closer to June,” and his expression went question mark.

“A woman claiming to be your situation’s sister asked me to find him,” I said. “She wasn’t his sister, I didn’t find him. A few weeks later he turned up dead with my name on an empty envelope.”

“One thing led to another and here we are,” Hughes stalled again. “It came to our attention in June that his employer, legal and illegal international organizations and a flock of chicken shit gold diggers have been looking for him and his secretary.”

I put on my thinking face, added a dramatic pause before “Riddle me this ass-istant director. What is it the dead man and his girl Friday had that’s got everyone’s panties in a twist?”

“What’s the most valuable asset in the diplomatic arsenal, Meyers?”

“A checkbook tied to the defense budget and disposable personnel?”

“Still pissed off I see,” dropping the official air. “It’s information, asshole. Information important people think you have and they’ll be coming at you from every direction trying to get it. Offering you buckets of money or continued health and prosperity, a boxcar full of vestal virgins…Hell, the Beverly Hills Arabs would probably give you your own sitcom if you play ball. But if you get this wrong, Meyers? You’re six feet under the ground, innocent people will die,” he moved toward the door, “and no one will get hung for it. So,” turning back, “my advice is if you run across what those four,” with a nod to the envelope, “have, had or are after? It’s in your best interest to call me.”

“In your best interest.”

“I’m not the bad guy. You need to remember that,” with a slight chin raise toward my back wall. “Judging by the plywood window the Dixie boys got close. My guys could have been an asset if they hadn’t been delayed. Something I’m positive you engineered. You know,” knuckle rubbing his forehead, “you could save us a lot of bullshit by cutting me in now.”

“I do my own work, Hughes.” I set the Walther on the envelope. “You people get involved and fuck everything up. If there’s nothing else—”

“I know, you’ll see me at my funeral. Whatever you do or don’t have old buddy, watch your back. That phone number you’re so proud of is for the rules-and-locks-crowd. When they come for you from outside the law…”

“Or the country? I’ve been here before.”

“We’ve been here before,” pushing the door open. “We were younger then.”

#

Long ago I learned the definition of “dossier.” A lengthy, detailed, plotless biography. Assembled by the information miners, the people in government who do actual work. Aside from making shitbags like Hughes look like they had a clue, the info nerds actually knew things. They didn’t know what they knew, or how it might be relevant, but like the proverb about giving a chimpanzee a typewriter, enough paper and enough time you’ll get a novel – that’s what the government does with information. Gather it, bale it into folders and wait for someone to figure out how it could be useful. The visit from Huges was all about gifting me a quartet of plotless biographies hoping I would make something of them.

I shook out the envelope and discovered from the bio on top I knew as much about Sands as his biographers. A likable, bulb-nosed, balding man with leftover from the 60s sideburns, a penchant for inexpensive off the rack polyester suits, spicy Thai, Jap beer, tassel loafers and argyle socks. Reliable as a self-winding clock on a spastic’s arm going back to his Boy Scout days. Never called in sick, skipped school or work, or missed a meeting or spent leisure time in the dark places where squares in the Orient blew off steam. An easy-going people person, perfect for a Ph.D. engineer quality control investigator masquerading as a glad-handing international corporate diplomat. A citizen’s citizen. Until April twenty-third, when he and his secretary went off radar.

I set him aside and from the next bio discovered if he had run off with his secretary, he could have done a lot worse. It was the leggy, cherub faced Lavender Girl, real name Jyte Kirkebjerg, in phonetics parenthetically (Jet Kurk-eh-berg). Looking every bit of her blonde Danish ancestry, dressed in a tailored business suit, she was almost unrecognizable from the punked purple version who handed me a small package of huge intrigue. Thirty-one, a Master’s degree in Statistical Analytics and described on her business card as a Process Analyst. I’d have to look that up later, but it sounded like she was born to be Terry Sand’s secretary.

The remaining two bios were so heavily redacted it took me some time to read between the blackouts. I read enough to learn Eisenhower Dembowski and Susan Lea Hechtman, known to me as Eise Melton and Sue Fleigh, were “useful information” brokers. Amateur enough to use their given first names, probably to keep them from fucking up in a conversation, both registered federal lobbyists. Trying to make sense of the partial sentences pissed me off so I decided to call Hughes’ handlers.

I dialed, waited for the three clicks and a woman’s voice. “The weather can’t make up it’s mind today.”

“Eat key lime pie indoors.”

The phone clicked three more times, a man’s voice. “Do you have a clean line?”

“Your Momma’s so ugly they hang a pork chop around her neck—”

“One moment.” Some electronic noise bursts. “You have one now. You need some new material, Meyers. What do you want?”

“Dembowski and Hechtman.”

“Hughes delivered—”

“Hughes delivered shit. Who are they under all the black ink?”

The line went quiet. The woman’s voice came back. “Information agents.”

“I got that much. Listeners? Blackmailers? Low rent spies?”

“Listeners. Gossip collectors. They attend government and private functions, work the room with sensitive listening devices and pocket recorders, sort through it later. They offer up what’s marketable, for a fee, to parties who might be interested.”

“Like your people, only not your people.”

“Much less sophisticated, but yes.”

“Dangerous?”

“He’s a putz, she’s a chameleon. We wouldn’t hear about blackmail. No history of weapons or violence that we’re aware of.”

“Connections?”

“‘Do enough people enough favors and you know who they know.’”

“In this case the people they know might be?”

“Look under E. For Elected officials.” Three more clicks and dead air. Shit. I dropped the phone back in its cradle, checked my watch. Time to lock up my office and beat it before I got today’s Mr. Awkward Moment Award for interrupting Pinky’s mystery food and Val’s goo-goo eyes lunch.

Val

I stared at the PBX because the default building number hardly ever rang. Only when someone forgot the number of who they wanted but remembered the name of the building, then they could get the number from information or the book. I even had my own direct dial line, which made me feel important until it turned out it was the number all the maintenance and delivery people used. I mentioned that to the PBX guy who went to the box outside and in minutes I had another ‘my own number’ line. He told me “No charge, the box is full of unused lines.” He didn’t make any pirate noises, or look guilty so I said, “Thank you” and that was that. Not that anyone calls on that line, either, because the dog can’t get out anymore since Meyers passed the hat and everyone, well mostly everyone in the building, chipped in to get my fence fixed by a handyman who knew what he was doing. It took Toni, the vet tech lady all the Meyers people know, to send a guy out who knew how to put in a “Yes, Miss, I know. A big ass doggy door” for me since leaving the back door open isn’t a great idea in LA even with an eight-foot stockade fence. I don’t see how half a door is any safer but the doggy door man said, “Anybody sees that fuckin’ dog’s head poke out and don’t haul ass the other way deserves what they get.” I dropped my internal phone line soliloquy in time to answer the mystery caller on the fifth or sixth ring.

“Summers Dialex Building, Valentina speee—”

“Hey, Valentina. Marco.”

Oh. My. God. “Marco?” Shit. Too much happy? Why? “How may I direct—”

“You can’t. I’m looking for you, actually.”

“Me, actually?”

“Didn’t I just say that?”

“I have my own direct dial number so…I mean no one ever calls me. On this line, I mean, or the other one for that matter, and here you are. I—”

“Start over?” I heard the crinkly-eye expression thing he did all over his voice.

“Now you’re messing with me.”

“Me? Actually?”

“You. Actually.” I heard myself laugh.

“Okay, we’re even. Hey, Val. It’s Marco.”

“Hello, Marco. Meyers isn’t in at the moment.”

“I’m sure that’s a shame for anyone who’s interested, but you’re who I need, if you have a minute.”

“If I didn’t I’d find one.” I tried to think of something casual. “S’up?”

“S’up?”

“Sorry. I only have two frames of conversation reference. Me, at work, and me, talking to an eight-year-old or a dog. Sometimes it’s hard to choose.”

“Got it. First, do you have a legitimate spreadsheet program for that computer of yours and second, do you know how to use it?”

“Yes, and yes. I took a weekend class, fourteen hours, in data entry and simple cell formulas and what-if scenarios. And I have a book if I need to go deeper. I did get all my Rolodexes entered, but that was contact data… Anyway…After I left your um, office yesterday, well this morning, I ordered two more books, only they’re not spreadsheet related, they’re about command line and basic programming. This morning? I got a ball, well it’s really a dot, to bounce around between the screen borders, and…” Shut. Up. He’s a computer genius and a man and —

“Go on.”

“No, I…It sounds stupid. You know all that so I’m…”

“What? Embarrassed? Don’t be. We all have to start somewhere. In fact, I have the code for a Mac Pong game around here somewhere. One handed, you against the return wall. Code’s broken down so you can see the assembly logic. I’ll drop it by. But, back on topic,” he snuffled, cleared his throat. “I have some spreadsheet data that needs to be cleaned up. Cells extended, formulas, if there are any, extracted. That kind of thing.”

“I could use the practice, so—”

“Forget practice, this is a money job. Does Meyers have a tab?”

“Tab?”

“You know, a tab. Like a bar tab only a Val tab. Where you do something for him, and he owes you and when it gets to be worth more than chump change you hit him for it.”

“No, he, um…Okay, look. The only thing he’s ever asked me to do was take the, um, things, to you and go to a record release party for a heavy metal reggae band. Other things, like finding someone who understands Swahili, or reads palms or…Anything that’s concierge related, he gives me a gift card like everyone else when I help out. But honestly, he’s done more for me than I could repay, financially. The Greek who takes care of my car, Toni, who takes care of my dog. Burke’s a perfect handyman, you…”

“That’s a heavyweight list to belong to. What have I ever—”

“I learned more from you not eating lunch yesterday than I paid good money for…That was my payoff I guess for delivering—”

“The things. Got it. Well, this gig is worth at least fifty. More, depending on how long it takes.”

“I don’t have a computer at home, though, and the phone at work, it’s like a shock collar and I get distracted…”

“Maxie, right? Mac SE?”

“That’s her!”

“I see engineers and college kids lugging those things around in padded backpacks all the time.”

“Really? But I, um…”

“You’re going to tell me you don’t have a padded backpack. I have a box full of padded ripstop cases around here. One’s bound to fit. So, Val. Say one-fifteen, give you a chance to get lunch?”

“I don’t do…I mean lunch sounds really great, but yesterday kind of, and I didn’t bring…” What am I saying?

“Noon, then. Maybe five after. You eat real food or vegetarian? Doesn’t matter. I can find everything edible in Hollywood.”

“I went to two years of college in France, so I’ve eaten…Never mind. Nothing slimy, or heavy, or too fishy smelling. I mean I like fish, but not in the middle of the day, or…I’m sorry. Not much help, am I?”

“Not a fan of the slime club myself and other than fried fish, not for lunch.”

“Surprise me?”

He laughed and said, “Okay,” and hung up. But his “Okay” sounded more like “Whatever” and I realized I should never ask a Meyers person to surprise me.

I tapped my teeth with my pen, muttered, “I wonder what he’ll bring…”

“Wonder what who will bring?”

I jumped in my chair, banged my knee on the bottom of my desk. “Meyers?” Rubbing my knee, “Where’d you come from?”
“Have to ask my mother. Who’s bringing what?”

“Do we have a tab?”

“Not an answer.”

“Okay, Marco. And lunch. And a project.”

“Something he wants you to do for him and bill me for? Invoices will ruin a beautiful working relationship.”

“That’s what I thought. But, um…”

“You don’t want to start off a free lunch relationship by telling him how it is? How about you say ‘Sure, Marco,’ and tell me what he thinks the damage is and we’ll work it out like always and I won’t let on that we had this little talk. Deal?”

“Yes, that’s—You don’t mind?”

“Not at all.” But he had that crinkly-eye almost smile thing that Marco and even Burke and Toni had sometimes, and I wanted to ask him what he thought was funny, but the phone rang again. It was overflow from the dentist, so I grabbed it. Sure enough, when I turned around Meyers had vanished.

#

What would Marco find for lunch? Simple? Strange? Well, I had an hour to wait, so I booted,  that’s a word I learned in computer class, my spreadsheet program. Just to play around with until lunch. That’s not true. I booted it, hoping an hour was long enough to remember how to use it.

Note – This is a classic example of It Ends Where It Ends but the Val confessional tagged on stays because it’s hers. It belongs embedded where she’s musing about lunch and the computer, maybe immediately before Meyers wakes her up. But my grandson has baseball practice and this is live, so it’s one of those things for the edit run.

Meyers

Pinky rubbed his nose with an ice cube wrapped in a paper towel, checked it for fresh blood. “For a minute there I thought you’d call Bad Day to be a Wino on those two and I’m not in the mood to clean up after that.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you before noon.”

“Hell you wouldn’t.” He tossed the wrapped cube in a wet-bar style sink. “Good thing you were curious about the disks. I was about to lose my temper.”

“We wouldn’t want that. Trashing a block of LA with body parts would blow your Mr. Pacifist cover. What would Val think of you then?”

“What Joanie was thinking about you showing up at her door with a hole in your shoulder, Burke, a kid chauffeur and a healthy civilian doll.”

“She tell you that?”

“Toni told me that.”

“What’s Toni—”

“She called, told me she had a classic Meyers tale. She said Joanie was laughing about it when she called but for a minute she thought you’d lost your mind.”

“I called, said I was headed her way.”

“You forgot to mention your entourage. She had some fine wine chilled and your favorite food on simmer and you brought ‘a too young, too attractive, starry-eyed meat-pole vaulting nymph and two extra pairs of balls’ with you.”

“That explains the ice maiden. I thought she was old enough to know better.”

“Like for a minute she was afraid you were old enough and didn’t know better. Seems like somebody I know told me when we were rotting in a muddy Nicaraguan shithole of a dope town that they’re never too old to know better.”

“That was about you and the woman ran a local whore house who thought you were her knight in shining armor come to stay. Until Toni showed up with our evac.”

“Thought that woman was gonna cut Toni’s throat.”

 “I thought about it myself when she showed up driving a fifty-year-old tractor pulling a wood railed flatbed covered in pig shit. Okay,” I studied his nose, tweaked it to be sure it wasn’t broken. “Tell me about the disks.”

#

“They’re from ShenZu–Rucker Precision,” Pinky unlocked a file cabinet as thick as a wall safe. “Also doing business as ElectroBolt, RapidFab, Precidia, OptiFit and a handful of others.” He handed me an inch-thick mixture of greenbar, laser, copy and photo paper. “The good news for you is someone knows their way around computers and swings a mean cheap spreadsheet.”

“Impressive why?”

“These files were done inside a proprietary business system more suited to basic order of materials, inventory, finished goods locations…Whoever put this together had to pull from the billing and shipping side of sales and finance and associate all this crap inside a five-dollar six column spreadsheet plugin.”

“Cut to ‘all this crap for me?”

Pink thought for a minute. “It comes down to shit for parts. These people are selling high end military spec steel, stainless, titanium, nickel alloy, zircon—”

“I can read the list later. What’s the beef?”

“Right. The parts they’re selling are machined, molded, forged, whatever, using inferior raw materials or inferior fab processes. Described as containing ‘fissures, contaminants, air pockets, inconsistent densities—”

“Selling shit as Shinola. Why all the interest?”

“That’s where the spreadsheets come in. They aren’t selling this shit to fix screen doors in the suburbs or build water pumps and ox plows in third world countries. We’re talking global aerospace, military and commercial aeronautics, automotive, sporting goods—”

“Sporting goods?”

“Your ass is hanging off a cliff face three thousand feet above nada you want the wedge nut or anchor bolt to hold. Or in the gym the weight rack you’re under needs to stay put.”

“I can safely assume expanding that thought leads into keeping the wheels on your car, the landing gear not folding—”

“Now you’re there.”

“Partially. It figures the ShenZu people would try to avoid panic or stuff it completely, hoping they can play the odds. If something bad happens they can say it’s a fluke or blame the operator or the equipment. The flip side, the users, particularly any major players or governments on the list, want to know so they can minimize their losses. If the pair of whistle blowers, half of them dead, get their way the lid comes off, shit hits the fan, cue the righteous politicos and class action lawyers. Anything else I need to know?”

“Like I said, the source folders for this came from inside ShenZu’s proprietary system.”

“Why do I need to know that?”

“You probably don’t, but that’s why you need to find the spreadsheet nerd. Look, there’s not enough space on these disks for hi-res imagery. With the right direction whoever investigates could back track the hierarchy of the disk files and find the pot of gold buried under ShenZu’s nose. I hate this phrase, but bottom line? This is about liability and recalls in the millions. Hundreds of millions depending on how many to who and how bad.”

“You read all that?”

“Hell no. Just enough. Spreadsheets and insurance policies, you know?”

“I do. An actuarial’s porn or a poor man’s valium.”

Meyers

I thanked Purcell for the ride, promised to be at Hollywood Station before one, took a shower, realized my car was at the office. I’m just under a two-mile walk from there on a direct life-in-your-hands busy street. Decent day, I needed to burn off the Joan effect and opted for Nikes and sweats. Stopping in at Pinky’s would add an extra half a mile off the direct route. Through the Hollywood burbs between Rosewood and Melrose would push the mileage over three and a half. What the hell. I needed the exercise.

#

I walked into the flower distributor’s shop on the north end of Pink’s building, nodded to the shift manager, someone I’d bet real money was in witness protection, and out the back into a hallway of steel doors. I stopped in the middle and knocked, hard and loud. It took him too long to say, “In the middle of something right now.”

 “Marco Pingue?” adding some frustration. “Rush parts delivery. Hickson’s?”

“Leave it by the door. I’ll get to it.”

“Awful expensive to leave on the floor, Mr. Pingue. Shit gets stole, brother, it’s on you,” looking around for something heavy. The fire extinguisher was under glass. Breaking it would alert the fire station two blocks away, but unrolling the fire hose with its hefty eighteen-inch brass nozzle wouldn’t. I pulled enough off the reel to give me some slack, stood against the wall by Marco’s door.

A slow minute passed and a man I could smell from where I was standing opened the door, checked the floor. “Ain’t nothin’ here,” he took a step out, looked behind the door. “The fuck?” turned back and got the nozzle across his forehead. He sagged, I pulled a revolver out of his waistband, squatted, wheeled in the door in time to see Pink dislocate Stinker’s partner’s right arm, ram his face into a steel equipment rack, grab a handful of hair and throw him to the floor.

“Nice work,” grabbing Stinker by the collar and dragging him into Marco’s inner sanctum.

“All I needed was a distraction,” wiping a smear of blood between his nose and upper lip with his shirtsleeve. He checked the sleeve, put his foot on the dislocated shoulder. “Whattaya think, fuckhead? You and me, one on one?”

“He was never good enough,” I said.

“Yeah,” Marco kept up the grind. “Seen him around?”

“Name’s Johnny ‘Beans’ Maquiao. Became ‘Johnny Shitfist’ after he got tossed for dope and falling down too easy and too often. First call out of the Rocket Bowl for sucker punching civilians with unpaid debts and hookers who won’t behave.” I squatted next to Johnny. “What’s Yavuz got to do with this?”

Marco leaned into his right foot. Shitfist squealed.

“Not asking twice.”

“He heard about money. Maybe…awwww fuck…for something might be in here.”

“Nothing in here but broken waffle irons, numbnuts. Where’d he hear about money?”

“The fuck I know, man. He got a couple calls, give us this address, told us we should find out why a pair a Dixie kickers and the Black Shoes was followin’ some bitch to a nooner. If it was nothin’ but a nooner, we hook it.”

“Fuckheads like you who don’t belong in this building disappear.” I put the revolver to his cheek.

“Fuck, Meyers,” he turned away from the gun, eyes waterfalling with pain. “We’d a thought for a minute this had anything to do with you we’d a went to the Arizona line, turned around an told Yav there ain’t nothin’ to it.”

“Driving your own car, Johnny?”

“Yeah.”

“Arizona’s the best idea you’ve had today. Let him up, Pink.”

“Sure,” he ground the heel of his cowboy boot into the shoulder, pulled him upright and shoved his palm into Shitfist’s chest, yanked on the arm and popped it back in place. Then slugged him in the nose, hard.

“Okay, Johnny,” I said. “When you see the fat Turk motherfucker you work for tell him he’s on my schedule of shitheads need fucking with. Beat it.”

“I ain’t goin’ back there, man. Been needin’ some fresh, you know? But there ain’t shit in ‘Zona, man, Vegas is more inbred than a Arkansas family reunion, and the Indians own New Mex.”

“I-10 straight through to Houston. You’ll fit right in.”

“What about Sammy?”

“I didn’t hit him too hard. Stand him up, put him in your car.”

“The top of his head feels like a loose lid on a jar a pickles, dude. What if he dies?”

“He’ll turn blue, shit in your car and you’ll have another great story for your grand kids. Beat it.”

$%*&^#

Another break up – this one complete runs 1,700. “Stay Tuned”

Meyers

My left trap muscle hurt like I’d gotten a flu shot from a clumsy, blind intern who’d used an ice pick to make a starter hole. It felt that way, but Joan said based on the stiff, horsehair-thin needle she’d pulled out and shown me, the syringe had been an easily accessible plastic disposable job, better suited for insulin, vaccines and allergy shots on passive recipients. To “prove her point” she’d given me an antibiotic shot with exactly what she described and phoned in a scrip for a seven-day course of the same. I was in and out of her “home office” in under five minutes. No emergency room in LA could have done that in under five hours without taking X-rays and slicing me open an extra inch or two to go fish for the needle and lacing me up like a baseball glove when they were done. I tried to thank her, got the ice maiden routine. Which kept me on the shallow side of dinner table chit-chat.

After the run up the hill to Joan’s with too much company, I needed a place away from everything. Feds, cops, the smell of smoldering nutsack and Huntley droning on about St. Joan’s chili. To get there, I had him drop Burke in Hollywood, make a stop at Long’s for my antibiotics and drive me straight to a weekly-rate dump a block past the tracks on South Eastern in Commerce. A place where I could open a window and hope the stench of diesel and the Los Angeles River would clear my head.

I waited for Huntley to cross the tracks headed back north before I walked through the open door of the Samuel House. Two stories of dried blood-red brick, built in 1901 and not painted since.

A bent, salt and pepper black man looked up from a greasy, worn paperback, its cover promising military-sized action toys and well-endowed women in tattered nurses’ uniforms. “Twel dollahs a night,” in a gritty, quiet wheeze. “Twenny bucks ta start. ‘Nother twenny you wanna phone.”

I laid a twenty on the counter. “Food?”

He set a key to 201, palmed the twenty. “Pizza an the like be a block thataway,” without indicating which way was thataway, and slid a sticky, laminated menu in front of me. “What dey gots,” tapping the sheet with a middle finger sneaking out of a knarled hand. “Ain’t much of a walk, an ain’t nothin’ dey got worth dyin’ over so dey ain’t deliverin’ nuttin’.”

“People in your hood die over pizza?”

“Been known to happen fuh less,” he shrugged. “Be ‘sprised how many folks hereabouts be a shit pot better off dead, pizza or no. Phone?” He saw my Walther when I reached for my wallet. “Ain’t nobody gonna die over no goddam phone, neither.” He shoved an ancient, beat to shit mustard colored Pac Bell princess phone wrapped in its cord across the counter, backed away. “Gots a plug on da wall, you see it dare by da bed. G’wan an use it. Doan need no trouble. No way, no sir.”

“Trouble is the furthest thing from my mind.” I gave him another thirty bucks and my pizza order. “Twenty’s the phone deposit. Keep it if that pizza and a cold beer are here in under half an hour. You have cable?”

“No. No cable. Two bits in da box, buck fur a hour. Seein’ as you a man of conscience an is paid in full…” he pulled a well-worn mag stripe card out of a wire bin on the desk. “Stick dis in da side. TV. On da house.”

I said “Thanks,” like he was gent, LA Broadcast TV was worth a dollar an hour and free was a deal.

#

Joan must not have been too pissed off because I found two gel caps in my jacket pocket of whatever herbal narcotics and mild hallucinogenic concoction she thought would be good for my needle stab. They knocked my ass out ten minutes after the pizza landed. I didn’t move until loud hammering on the door woke me up. I shuffled to the door, opened it. Purcell stepped inside.

“Love what you’ve done with the place. You get lost?”

“Tried. How’d you find me?”

“The kid chauffer. Had you in his log.”

“What happens when you tell people to follow the rules,” I dropped on the bed, rubbed my eyes.

“You an Burke an the makes-anything-she-wears-look-good receptionist pulled a vanishing act yesterday.”

“Thought it would be easier on you. Fewer stories, less to wrap.”

“How thoughtful. Way it stands is Hot Nuts, one Shane Lafontiere, said the lighter in his pocket ‘malfunctioned’.”

“Number Two?”

“Landed on his ass, not his head. Broken pelvis and left arm. IDs as a Randall Louis. Not like Lewis, he told me, but Louie. Like Louis Armstrong. I said Armstrong was Lewis, too, so Louie makes you one a the fuckin’ cartoon ducks.”

“His story?”

“Changin’ a light bulb, lost his balance. Turns out he’s wanted in twenty-some home invasions and a few coincidental rapes around Atlanta. They want him so bad Georgia’ll send a Lear with three troopers an a nurse to pick him up. Unless you change their stories and press charges.”

“Either of us strapped for press at the moment?”

“Not me.”

“Consider them gone.”

“Good. ‘Cause I already told a girl from the Georgia AG’s office to come load his ass up. Told her she had to take Hot Nuts, too, but was free to throw him out somewhere over Louisiana. You not in the least curious why I’m here?”

“You found out what was in the syringe?”

“Pentothal. Lucky for you Louie Lou-eye didn’t get to hit the plunger or you’d a dropped like a rock. Hot Nuts said all they wanted was you to talk and hand over ‘the goods.’ Same thing the Feds want. ‘The Goods.’ I asked all of ‘em ‘What is it with the fuckin’ goods?’ Nobody seemed to know, but thought you had ‘em, an as a patriot and all-around stand-up guy or a greedy, cash trumps honor shitbag PI you should hand ‘em over immediately. I told ‘em both about the empty envelope and your prints not bein’ anywhere in Sands’ condo, an to go look for the meatstick beat your time. None a that’s why I’m here. Sands. Ring a bell?”

“Shit. Forgot all about him. We have a meet with his wife,” I checked my watch. “Five minutes ago.”

“Good thing for you the widow is unavailable till after one. Seems loadin’ kids up with useless information is more important than puttin’ eyes on her dead husband for me.”

“She doesn’t know he’s dead?”

“Not yet. Prints say it’s him. With a nose job an a rug,”

“I got the feeling she doesn’t give a rat’s ass if he’s dead.”

“Reads that way, but we only have her ‘poor me, my horny husband ran off with his secretary’ story to go on an I’m not sure I’m buyin’. Not with the wide range of interest whatever was in that envelope is drawin’.” He flipped the pizza box open. “This breakfast?” He lifted a slice, inspected it. “Close enough,” folded it and took a bite. “Put your pants on,” talking through the pizza. “I’ll take you home. Unless you wanna shower in this shithole.” He reached for a handful of bedspread, thought about it, walked to the sink, picked up a scratchy towel and wiped his hands.

“I don’t feel like talking to the government till I can make a call.”

“We run into the feds you’re in my custody an they can piss off.”

“Custody?”

“For throwin’ a gink out a window, if they ask.”

“If they don’t?”

“Custody has a nice, official ring to it, even when it’s bullshit. Put your fuckin’ pants on, Meyers. I spend any more time in this dump I’m gonna need a shower.”