by Jack Bunker
“What’s stopping you?”
Mack looked around the parking lot to see if anyone was watching. “J.T. said I’m supposed to stay home.”
“J.T. wants it to look like you can’t work. So you’re not working. Look, you’re not claiming your injury keeps you from driving a car. It just means…” Wanda looked down at the ground. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You know what? Fuck it. I believe I will take this sumbitch out today. You want to come with me?”
“I would, but I’ve got a shift in a couple hours. You go have fun, though.”
“I will. Hey, really, thanks again for the trailer. It was real thoughtful.”
“Forget it.” Wanda smiled. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Why do you call it the McMahon 3000?”
Mack put his foot up on the trailer and pushed his Mira Vista golf cap back on his head.
“It just sounds badass, darlin’. It just sounds badass.”
Mack hitched up the trailer to his Firebird and headed east on the 10 out toward Joshua Tree. He was getting a later start than he would ordinarily have liked, but it was just a shakedown cruise, a test run for the McMahon 3000 about to be unleashed on the hot Mojave sands.
The buggy itself performed even better than Mack had hoped. The suspension ignored rocks and potholes; the tires rolled over the loose sand like it was pavement.
Fuck you, Frooch. The competition just drove up.
Al checked into a Holiday Inn Express while his insurance claim was being sorted out. As much as he’d resented the lid GSAC had placed on his advancement within the company, he had to hand it to them for taking care of their own when it came to a claim. He’d lost everything in the fire, so while he got out from under the mortgage note, he still had to replace everything he owned, down to his golf clubs. The company had cut him a check for ten grand the morning after the fire, an advance against his overall claim. Even though it would be deducted from the proceeds, considering Al didn’t even have a change of underwear with him when he watched his house burn, it was a welcome windfall.
He’d picked the motel because of its proximity to the GSAC office. After two days he realized there was no real benefit in being close to a job he was going to lose anyway. He decided he ought to move to a motel closer to the club. At least that way he could go hit some balls in the morning. It was too bad they never got around to putting rooms in at Mira Vista. That would’ve been nice. Get up, hit a bucket of balls, grab some breakfast, and roll into the office. J.T. didn’t want him hanging around the club, but if Al wanted to hit balls at 6:00 a.m., who was J.T. to tell him he couldn’t?
As he walked out into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Express with a Styrofoam cup of coffee and a nylon duffel bag, Al noticed a white BMW in corner of the lot. Even though it had been almost ten years, Al still felt a tinge whenever he saw a white BMW. The BMW of the guy Michelle left him for had been white.
Al hadn’t been crushed when she left. He hadn’t even been hurt that she left him for a guy from her gym she’d been fucking. What really stung Al was that she didn’t even go for alimony. He knew he was lucky, but it wounded his pride that she never expected he’d make enough money to bother with. That Sunday, parked down the street, he’d watched her load her stuff into the back of the guy’s car.
Arriving at his desk now, Al was torn between discouragement and giddiness. He was demoralized to have lost not only his job, but also the ill-gotten foundation of his consulting business. On the other hand, with no unsalable house to anchor him to Riverside, he was now free to go anywhere his imagination took him. His problem was his imagination didn’t really take him anywhere else.
He needed a hobby. He decided to get back to playing golf. He’d have Steve Estep fit him for a real set of clubs—not some off-the-rack, 3-PW set of pot metal irons from Wal-Mart, but a real set of sticks. He’d try out every new driver in the shop. If a new driver was $500, so what? It was time to turn his life around.
Thinking about his new purchase gave Al Boyle’s outlook a conspicuous boost. People in the office who ordinarily walked by without saying a word stopped to ask a smiling Al how everything was going. Like a robot he processed the foot-high stack of files on his desk, intermittently checking the Internet to compare the ratings of irons, drivers, and putters on various golf magazine websites. They had some neat bags now. He hoped Mira Vista’s pro shop carried them.
After stopping by In-N-Out Burger for dinner, Al drove his loaner Honda straight to Mira Vista. Estep was only too happy to get Al set up with $3,500 worth of new equipment, from clubs and shoes to bags, clothes, balls, and tees. As he loaded his new purchases into the trunk of the Honda, he noticed another white BMW off near the range where a handful of guys were hitting balls. There seemed to be a lot of them on the road now. Maybe once his check came in, he’d have to take a look at getting one himself.
THIRTY-EIGHT
J.T. was more than a little annoyed that Buddy had never called him about meeting with Aza. On the phone Aza had been so cagey, J.T. couldn’t tell if the two had talked yet or not.
On top of that, Al was making him nuts. Guy complains nonstop about how screwed he is with his worthless house; then when he finally catches a break and the fucking thing burns to the ground, he’s still finding something to whine about. J.T. wondered if any meth dealers might move into his neighborhood. Shit, even Stephanie’s would be a help.
Shari brought in a cup of coffee and laid the LA Times on the desk. She had an ass the size of a volleyball, and J.T. watched it float out of his office and into the hallway. Soon.
Smoothing out the paper, J.T. noticed a two-column bar below the fold with a photo of Meshulam Razin and the headline “Meshulam Razin, ‘Keeper of Secrets,’ Dead at 90.”
BEVERLY HILLS—Legendary attorney and long-time Angeleno Meshulam Razin, 90, died in his sleep last night, according to a press release issued by his son-in-law, Dr. Michael Rosenstein, of Bel-Air.
As an attorney, Meshulam Razin’s formidable trial skills often had him mentioned in the same breath with America’s legendary lawyers such as John W. Davis, Edward Bennett Williams and Johnnie Cochrane. But perhaps Mr. Razin’s most lasting legacy is that of a behind-the-scenes power broker.
Long considered one of the most powerful men in the nation, Razin was known as “The Keeper of Secrets,” and his influence throughout the entertainment industry was unequaled in the late twentieth century. Razin famously exploited his personal relationships to rescue seemingly troubled projects. Shunning the spotlight, Razin consistently declined numerous appointments to public office, including a reported ambassadorship to Israel during the Reagan administration.
While many attributed his publicity aversion to personal shyness, Razin could never shake whispers of darker explanations. In addition to studio heads and film stars, Mr. Razin’s relationships with reputed underworld figures were also tabloid fodder.…
J.T. dropped the paper on the desk. Son of a bitch. He knew Razin was old, but somehow he’d never actually believed he was mortal. Now that he was gone, would all those secrets really go to the grave with him? Would the kids try to cash in with a tell-all book?
One thing J.T. did know: Meshulam Razin would never have gotten jumbled up with this posse of assclowns.
When Hector arrived at the office, Manu was already there. Upon closer inspection, Manu appeared to be wearing the same clothes as the day before.
“Manu?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you go home last night?”
“I got caught up in an online discussion about The Matrix.”
“All night? Why don’t you go home?”
“Okay.” Manu closed up his laptop and collected his phone from his desk. “McMahon has a bench warrant.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“McMahon is the plaintiff in your GSAC case.”
“I know that. What’s this about a warrant?”
<
br /> “I did a background check. He was cited in Moreno Valley a few days before his accident at El Fuente Dorado. He never responded to the citation. The court issued a bench warrant for his arrest.”
“No kidding?”
Manu began walking toward the glass office door that opened onto the strip mall’s parking lot.
“Um, Manu? Can I see this?”
“I saved a PDF and e-mailed it to you. There’s also a hard copy on your desk. See you later, Hector.” Manu walked out the door.
Hector dropped his briefcase behind his desk and pulled a Diet Coke from the mini fridge. He sat down and picked up the pages Manu had left on his desk. Hector called the duty supervisor at the sheriff’s office in Riverside.
Hector had defended two deputies in a §1983 action brought by a twenty-five-year-old who’d gotten the shit beat out of him outside a Circle K convenience store. The media framed the story as two fascist jackboots ganging up on a defenseless young black man, Jamal Blake. Hector had shown at trial, however, that the multiply fractured victim had, in fact, turned not one, but two pit bulls loose on Sam Roper, a uniformed deputy who’d told the guy to “get those fucking dogs away from the store.” Had it not been for a passing deputy who witnessed his colleague writhing in the parking lot under 188 pounds of canine rage, Roper would have been killed. One of the dogs had Roper’s right wrist in his mouth; the other was tearing at Roper’s left biceps. As it was, Roper received ninety-two stitches. The dogs were not so lucky.
Deputy Don Tinny radioed for backup as he raced into the parking lot. Tinny leapt from his car and shot the first dog as Deputy Brent Sowell’s cruiser screeched around the corner. Tinny ran around his car to get a shot at the second dog. Out of nowhere and swinging a chain leash, Blake charged Tinny. Sowell, skidding into the parking lot, slammed his car into Blake, knocking him into the store’s wall. Tinny shot the second dog and was prying its dead jaws loose from Roper’s arm when an injured but cranked-up Blake, still holding his chain, picked himself up from the sidewalk and charged Sowell. A former defensive lineman at Auburn, Sowell, and Tinny, the one-time martial arts instructor at Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. Butler in Okinawa, “ensured the suspect had been fully subdued before taking further action.”
In spite of Hector’s occasional DUI work, obtaining a defense verdict for Tinny and Sowell had earned him a lifetime of goodwill with the Riverside sheriff’s office. The duty officer took a message for Brad Fojtik, the deputy who’d written up Mack McMahon. Fojtik returned Hector’s call and agreed to meet Hector at the Costa Coffee shop in the strip mall.
Hector had blown up a copy of Mack’s driver’s license and took the printout detailing the bench warrant down to the coffee shop. Fojtik walked in a few minutes later.
“I do remember this asswipe,” said Fojtik, laughing. “He had a busted headlight and was heading straight to Hooters in Moreno Valley. You know, the one off the Sixty?”
“Yeah. You remember anything else?”’
“He gave me some line of shit about how it had just happened five minutes ago at the Van Slaters. I only remember because it was so stupid. Like you get run over by shopping carts and you go to fucking Hooters?”
“He said he got hit by shopping carts?”
“Yeah. He said that’s what fucked up his headlight and his shoulder.”
“He mentioned his shoulder?”
“Kept rolling it over, you know, dramatizing it to try to get out of the citation.”
“Anybody with him?”
“No, he was by himself.” Fojtik took a sip of coffee. “I did notice him in my rearview talking to some guy while he was going into Hooters.”
“You get a look at him?”
“Nah. Black kid. It was dark. Nothing suspicious or anything.” Fojtik sipped his coffee. “What kind of case you got going?”
“It’s nothing. Just running down some details for an insurance claim.” Hector arranged the papers in the folder and closed it. “No big deal.”
Al checked into the Best Western on Sunnymead in Moreno Valley. After sitting alone in his motel room alone for ten minutes, all Al could think about was his brand-new clubs in the trunk of the Honda. He slid his electronic room key into his pocket and strode down the hall, thrumming the window as he waited for the elevator. Out in the parking lot, as soon as he opened the trunk, he was hit by the smell of the new bag. He loved the way the clubs jangled in the bag softly with their new head covers—not like his old set of irons that sounded like a ring of car keys. As he slammed the Honda’s trunk, he stopped whistling. Across the street in the parking lot of the Sunoco was a white BMW. Al froze. After fifteen seconds, the BMW started up and pulled onto Sunnymead and out of view.
Al ran back to the lobby, his new clubs bouncing in their new padded bag, the bag itself beating against his calves. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. J.T. Call J.T. Fuck.
Al called J.T., gasping. “We got a problem,” he said, hyperventilating after his sprint from the parking lot. “Somebody’s following me.”
“Who? Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because of the house. Maybe they’re following me because they suspect arson.”
“Then it sounds like you got a problem, Al, not we got a problem.”
“C’mon, I’m serious.”
“Is there any reason they’d suspect arson?”
“Shit, I don’t know. Hundred grand underwater. Suspicious explosion.”
“If that was the case, the cops would be pulling up in paddy wagons for every fire in the Inland Empire. Everybody’s underwater. Don’t worry about it.”
“Shit.”
“What?”
“Vargas.”
“Who’s Vargas?”
“My boss. I told him I couldn’t take the job in Weed because of the house. That was right before the fire. Shit.”
“First of all, have you ever had a thought that you didn’t just blurt out? Jesus.”
“I’m having one now.”
“Listen, relax. Worst case—wooorrrrst case, they investigate. So what? You didn’t blow up the house next door, did you?”
“No.”
“The cops found the meth lab, didn’t they?”
“Yeah.”
“So let them investigate their asses off. Big fucking deal. I’m telling you, if you really didn’t burn your house down, you got nothing to worry about.”
Al wanted to calm down. Maybe J.T. was right. Still.
“Then who the fuck is following me?”
“You’re sure you’re not being paranoid?”
“You told me I was supposed to be paranoid, remember?”
“And you’re making me proud, son.”
“Quit fucking around. I’m not kidding. Somebody in a white BMW was at my motel this morning in Riverside. I saw him again at—” Al caught himself. He didn’t want to hear J.T.’s shit about being at the club.
“At where?”
“At least two more times today that I know of, including just now at this motel in Moreno Valley.” Al was starting to hyperventilate again.
“Okay, here’s what you do. Tomorrow morning, you keep your eyes peeled. If you’re being followed, the guy’s going to follow you to work. Get a plate number and we can take it from there.”
Al jumped when he heard something thump the wall outside. Then he heard a vacuum cleaner and realized it was just the maid.
“You don’t know anybody with a white BMW, right?” said J.T.
“Michelle’s husband had one.”
“Michelle?”
“My ex.”
“Well, shit, there you go. That’s probably it. He’s probably just looking to dump her and get you to take her back.”
“Very funny.”
“Would you lighten up? The FBI doesn’t drive German cars. You’re not a drug dealer. You didn’t burn your house down. I really think you’re overreacting.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Just take it easy. What’s the worst thing it
could be?”
THIRTY-NINE
Mack pulled into the parking lot of Wanda’s complex totally pumped. The McMahon 3000 had outperformed even his wildest expectations. Shit, if all Mini Coopers ran like this, he was going to have to reconsider the whole King Ranch pickup idea.
He was still jacked when Wanda came home at 9:00 p.m., and he ambushed her as she opened the front door.
“Hey! Guess whose McMahon 3000 just kicked some desert ass?”
“No kidding? That’s great.”
“Goddamn right. That sumbitch out there is a machine, baby. A fucking machine.”
“That’s great, really.” Wanda dropped her purse on the dining room table. “Listen, I don’t want to blow you off, but I want to go down and get a swim in, okay?”
“Sure. Hell, I’ll whip us up some margaritas and I’ll join you.”
“There you go.”
Mack poured the entire pitcher into three stadium cups and carried them down to the pool, where Wanda’s long body cruised through the water like a mako. Big as she was, Mack couldn’t get over how gracefully she moved in the pool. He’d finished one of his margaritas and was nearly through the other when Wanda pulled up. She stretched herself out and rested her head on her arms the same way she’d done the other night when Buddy was there.
“Here’s your drink, darlin’.”
“Thanks, but you go ahead. I’m just taking a little breather.”
“You sure?”
Wanda nodded and ducked underwater and came up smoothing her hair. Mack took a big slug of the margarita. He’d already had two pitchers while he was sitting around the house waiting for Wanda. Now he wished he’d taken a leak before he came down.
“I saw that guy Johnny Ho on TV back at the club,” Wanda said.
“Oh, yeah?”
“He was with your pal Pete Fruccione.”
“Frooch ain’t no pal of mine. Hell, I don’t even know the man. He might be looking over his shoulder this-a-way ’fore long, though.” Mack leaned back in the patio chair and stretched his legs. “What were they talking about?”