Hardboiled Crime Four-Pack

by Jack Bunker

  I smile. “I understand Billy lives here with you.”

  “Daddy still lives here, more or less. He’s on tour nine months a year—he calls it the nostalgia-neuralgia circuit—but this is where he drops his dirty laundry.”

  “But he wasn’t living here when your mother was…”

  “Murdered, Mr. Brown. Go ahead and say it. I’ve spent years seeing Dr. Karl in order to deal with it; I might as well get my money’s worth.”

  “Your father had already moved out when she died, right?” I still avoid the M word. Despite her assurances, I’m afraid of setting her off again.

  “That’s right. He was staying in some cheesy residential hotel in Hollywood while they were trying to sort things out.”

  “Why’d she kick him out?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I know what they wrote in the tabloids, but Mama and Daddy never talked about that stuff to us, so who knows if it’s true? Sure, they used to fight all the time, but it was always over some little thing that made no nevermind. Sophia and I used to wonder what they were so angry about; the fights seemed so petty.”

  Our attention is suddenly drawn to a huge bobtail rat scampering across the room and under the kitchen door. I’m surprised that Ginger doesn’t start.

  “Oh, that’s just Sven,” she explains. “He must be hungry. Come on.”

  I follow her into the kitchen, and she motions for me to sit in a retro chrome and red vinyl chair as she opens the fridge and grabs a small log of something that looks like goat cheese.

  “The first time I saw him I jumped right up on the counter,” she says. “If I trained for a year I doubt I could do that again, but he scared me right up there.”

  She cuts a small wad of cheese and places it in front of a hole in the baseboard beside the stove.

  “Daddy came running out with his toothbrush in his mouth when he heard me scream. Sven was long gone, but he’d left a turd on the floor, and Daddy said he was a Norway rat. You can tell by the blunt little ends. Roof-rat droppings are pointy like a football.” Her words are chatty, but there’s a sharp edge to her voice. A bad actress trying to play normal.

  “Billy Kidd just happened to know that?”

  She moves to the sink and washes the soft cheese off her fingers. Several times.

  “Oh he knows a little about everything. That always amazed me when I was a child. There’s nothing he knows a lot about, but he’s got this vast store of random facts, like a big mental junk drawer. Impresses the heck out of the groupies.”

  She turns off the tap, but it keeps dripping. I’m guessing the washers haven’t been replaced in a decade or two. Maybe I’ll get her some new ones when I buy the new flapper for my toilet.

  “I’d like to meet him,” I say.

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. He’s always looking for new souls to bring to Jesus.”

  “I thought he was into Scientology.”

  “That was three revelations ago.”

  Sven pokes his head out of the rat hole, whiskers dancing to capture the scent molecules erupting from the cheese. We watch him dash for it, grab it, and scurry back into his hole. Show’s over. Ginger smiles like a child. I ponder the meaning of a porn star who adopts a wild rat, Norwegian or otherwise.

  “How did you feel about your father moving back in so soon after your mother’s death? I mean, she’d just kicked him out a few weeks earlier.”

  “Nobody thought twice about it, at least not that I knew of. I mean, he was the only parent we had left.”

  “I understand your father moved back in just hours after the crime scene was released.”

  “Oh no. Some columnist reported that, but we didn’t live here for quite a while. First it was the investigation. Then after that, Daddy had to get the bedroom cleaned up and painted, get a new bed. Then we had to lay low for a couple more months until the reporters drained away.”

  “It must have been hard on you and your sister with your father being one of the prime suspects.”

  She laughs, her disturbed demeanor suddenly gone, its disappearance as bizarre as its arrival had been.

  “We knew he didn’t do it,” she says. “If he had, he’d be doing Hawaiian Huna rituals every night or lighting candles or going to church or biting the heads off live roosters. You may not know from week to week what he believes in, but one way or another, he’s a deeply religious man.”

  “Do you think he had anything to do with your inheritance problems?”

  “I’d call ‘problems’ an understatement. When I turned twenty-five I gained control of my trust and found it pretty much empty. They did an audit, but they couldn’t find anything wrong. I just know it all wound up in Gary Cogswell’s pocket, but he’s the Einstein of covering his ass. He claimed Daddy used up the money to raise me and my sister.” She laughs. “If that was true, we would have been raised in a palace and dripping with diamonds. Of course, Daddy loses track of any number that exceeds his fingers, so he was no help.”

  “What about your mother’s father? Wasn’t he involved?”

  “I don’t want to talk about Grandpa Nate.”

  “But…”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about him.”

  She grabs a cuticle in her teeth and tries to strip it off then winces as she draws blood.

  EIGHT

  Nathaniel Strain stands stock still, gripping a one iron, staring at the dimpled ball before him. He shakes his head back and forth, but his pupils are laser-locked on that golf ball like olives on toothpicks.

  “So you’re a writer?” he says.

  “You may get an argument here and there, but that’s what I’m considered by most of my friends.” I wonder why I don’t just say yes.

  I think I’m getting hypnotized by the pendulum rhythm of his jaw. I want him to look at me, but I don’t want to come out and say it. People have a tendency to clam up when you say things like that.

  The Quonset hut that houses Strain Fabrication is all function, no style. The corrugated-steel arched walls set the tone. The air is laden with the acrid smell of molten flux and the pops and hisses of blowtorches. Strain’s office itself is just a sheet-metal box, maybe eighteen feet square, jammed into a corner of the cavernous space, with a door and no lid. What little furniture he has is crammed against the walls to make room for the Astroturf putting mat and electric ball-return cup.

  Strain has Mark Twain’s eyebrows. He appears unusually fit and trim for his age. He must be close to eighty, but he looks closer to sixty. His silver mane could have come from a Clairol commercial, but his face is too odd for a model’s. His eyes bug out, and the top of his nose caves in where it meets his brow, making his profile appear almost inside out.

  He stands with his side to me, backlit by a bare bulb suspended on a long cord from the vaulted ceiling. From this angle, I can see the bulb shining straight through the sides of his cornea, making his eye gleam.

  “Whom do you write for?”

  I always hate this question. “Magazines mostly. I freelance.”

  “I see.” He says it as if he knows all he needs to know in order to write me off as an unemployed hack. I feel my interview floating down the gutter, seconds from the sewer. But he surprises me.

  “Okay,” he says. “I’ll talk to you. Would you like to know why?”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” I say.

  “Because you’re not from the New York Times or Time magazine. The mainstream media was merciless to me and my family when my daughter was killed. They were vultures, hyenas, nothing but carrion eaters, hiding behind the mythical cloak of objectivity.”

  His head swings are really annoying me now. I have to force myself to concentrate on what he’s saying.

  “The tabloids, the rags, the fan magazines—they were the ones that mourned with us. They loved her. They were kind to us. So I’m willing to talk to you, Mr. Brown. It’s the least I can do.”

  “Much appreciated, Mr. Strain.”

  “You don’t mind if I do some
golf exercises while we talk, do you?”

  “You’re the boss.” I wonder whether he’s exercising his neck or his focus.

  Strain has the air of a man who thinks a navy blazer, red bow tie, and gray wool slacks make him look informal. In fact, it makes him look like the cover of the AARP magazine or maybe Power & Motoryacht. His sort of dapper seems out of place in this blue-collar proscenium, but this is where he hangs his skipper’s cap every day. I make a mental note to have Melody look into his background.

  “Why don’t we start with your relationship with Lana. Were you close?”

  “Of course. She was my only child. My baby. We saw each other every week, talked on the phone almost every day.”

  His tone is mannered, patrician. Not a trace of the Texas Badlands where Lana was born. More like Connecticut or Massachusetts.

  “The day she died you left a message on her answering machine,” I say. “Didn’t sound too loving.”

  The only evidence of family in the room is a sixteen-by-twenty framed photo on the wall, which, I notice, includes neither Lana nor her mother. It’s a black-and-white portrait of a much younger, broadly grinning Nathaniel Strain with his foot on the bumper of a vintage midfifties Morgan convertible roadster, holding the keys aloft like a triumphant big-game hunter who’d just bagged the thing with a single shot. Almost incidental to the picture are Sophia and Ginger, two preadolescent bystanders sitting on the running board looking bored. Something about the photo nags at me, but I can’t put my finger on it.

  “We had our disagreements, like any other father and child. She inherited my temper, so when we crossed, it wasn’t pretty. But we always made up.”

  “Except the night before she died. I understand she threatened to cut you out of her will.”

  The one eye I can see doesn’t deviate from the ball, but it tics as if someone had pricked him with a pin. “She’d make idle threats all the time. Never carried through.”

  “What about the girls? How did they get along with Lana?”

  His chin continues to swing without falter. “Lana tried to be a good mother, but she wasn’t exactly suited for the job. I tried to teach her, but she didn’t want to hear it. What sort of discipline can you teach young girls when both parents are on the road nine months of the year? That’s why all hell broke loose after she died.”

  “Is that when the girls stopped speaking to each other?” I ask.

  “That’s right. Soon after they started family therapy with Sophia’s boyfriend.”

  “Her boyfriend?”

  “Well, he wasn’t her boyfriend at the time. That didn’t start until he dumped her as a patient. At least that’s what I’ve been told; Sophia and I aren’t very close anymore. But personally, I wouldn’t trust Karl Lynch as far as the end of my nose.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Lana dies. Billy takes the girls to Lynch for family therapy. Within a month, the girls stop talking to each other and don’t ever talk to each other again. They split out into separate therapy sessions, but the eminent Dr. Lynch keeps seeing them both, which I understand is a violation of professional ethics. Flash forward twenty years, and one of the girls is barely functional and back in therapy with him while he’s shacked up with the other one. Do you see anything there that suggests competence?”

  I’m shocked to learn that Sophia lives with Ginger’s psychiatrist, but I keep it to myself.

  “Ginger seems pretty functional to me.”

  “You’re very charitable, Mr. Brown, but the truth is she’s sick, and Dr. Lynch hasn’t helped. Do you remember the McMartin case?”

  “Sure. How could I forget it? Psychologists brainwashed forty-one preschool children into believing they were sexually molested by teachers doing satanic rituals. It was a huge frame-up.”

  “Well, he was one of the framers. That quack knows how to get into people’s heads and twist them all around. Lynch is the reason Ginger won’t talk to me anymore. That sick bitch won’t even let me in the door of my own daughter’s house. She’s got serious mental problems because of him. You can’t believe a word she tells you. She lies like a rug.”

  I’m stunned. He calls his own granddaughter a sick bitch? Mental problems? Lies? The interview is veering wildly off course.

  “Do you know what she does for a living?” he asks, as if to cinch the final strap on her straitjacket.

  I ignore his question and crumple the list of my own, tossing it into the mop bucket he uses for a trash can.

  “What makes you say she’s a liar?” I ask, trying to reclaim the reins.

  “She’s been making up stories since she was a child. I have no idea what she told you, but I can guarantee it’s not true. She’s always making false accusations.”

  “What sorts of accusations?”

  “She accused Billy of verbal abuse. She accused Lana of beating her. She accused Lana’s friend Claudine of stealing jewelry. She actually attacked Sophia over some squabble the girls refused to talk about.”

  “How do you know the accusations weren’t true?”

  “The girl was a nut case. Still is.”

  “What did she accuse you of?”

  His jaw twitches, and his head finally stops. He turns to face me for the first time, and the gleam disappears as his steel-blue eyes turn almost black.

  His biceps tense like he’s on the verge of a one-iron shot to my temple.

  “Nothing.”

  NINE

  It’s almost six by the time I get home. I walk into the office to find Melody in the midst of a sneezing fit.

  “You okay?”

  “We’ve aaahuu got to aaahuu get that aaahuu sofa aaahuu out of here!” I guess she’s allergic to the stuffing Runt pulled out. She sneezes all the way up the steps as she helps me carry Runt’s sofa up to the street.

  Back in the office, she continues to sneeze, so I open the windows, and we head out to the deck to talk while the office airs. Melody opens the spiral-bound pad she uses for notes and runs down a list of messages.

  “Frank at Esquire replied to your e-mail and said he needs to see a written proposal to make any kind of deal on the Lana Strain piece.”

  “A written proposal?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “In other words, forget the A-list, I’m not even on the B-list over there.”

  “Next, Ginger Strain called. You’ve got an interview with Billy Kidd tomorrow afternoon at the house.”

  “Bless her heart. I didn’t think she’d come through.”

  “Why not?” She gets something in her eye and pulls the lid down to tear up and rinse.

  “She just seemed a little preoccupied last night. I didn’t think she’d remember.”

  “So much for your judgment. Speaking of which…” She pulls a certified letter from her notebook, holding it gingerly by the corner like a bag of dog shit she doesn’t want to touch. Must be from Jerry.

  Jerry has been Holly’s friend since high school and when I started dating her, he came with the package. He was married to Trudy at the time, and the four of us used to double-date. He and I hit it off pretty well and wound up playing fast-pitch softball together every Monday night. A lot of beer under the bridge. Somehow, when he represented Holly in our divorce, all that camaraderie disappeared like dry ice in a hot skillet.

  I open the letter to find an ultimatum. I call Jerry’s office on my cell and get bounced from his receptionist to his secretary before he finally comes on the line.

  “As your friend, Nob, I’m sure you can appreciate how hard this is for me.”

  “How much are you soaking Holly for in order to steal my house?”

  When Holly left me, the house was our only serious asset. She wanted to sell it, I wanted to stay in it, so we made an arrangement that I would buy it from her on time. I took over the mortgage and agreed to send her rent every month in order to pay off her half of the equity with interest. Unfortunately, she bought a condo beyond her means, relying on my monthly payments
. Her safety net was my LAPD salary, but a couple years later I quit the force. Now, when I have cash-flow problems, she does too. Makes us both edgy. It’s a bad situation all around.

  “Holly wanted you to know that, as a charitable gesture, she is giving you until noon on Friday to provide what you owe her before I file a motion to sell the house. I counseled her to file immediately, but you know Holly: big heart. I, on the other hand, have little patience for deadbeats.”

  “Deadbeats?” I blurt. I wanted to stay calm, but Jerry knows my buttons. “I give her all I can, Jerry. I can’t help it if the freelance market is going down the tubes. People are reading less. Newspapers and magazines are dying in droves, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “That’s your problem, Nob. Don’t make it Holly’s.”

  “Well, how about this, Jerry? When we worked out our divorce, I was employed and had a regular income. The mediator based the alimony on that. If you take this back to the court, I’ll have to request a modification of the agreement due to the changes in my financial situation. Does Holly know about that?” I silently thank Angel for giving me this bit of advice in the locker room.

  “Of course,” he says, but somehow I doubt we’d be talking if she did. Knowing Jerry, he’s giving her the hard sell so that he can be the hero and maybe get into her pants after all these years. She’ll never find him attractive, but his ego obscures that fact, much like his belly does his penis.

  “I can’t give her what I don’t have. End of story.”

  “You think I enjoy talking to you like this, Nob? You think this is the apex of my day? It’s conversations like this, day in and day out, that makes me hate my work.”

  “My heart bleeds for you.”

  “Take out a second mortgage, Nob. Judges hate deadbeats.”

  “Fuck you too, Jerry.” I hang up.

  “Eloquent as usual,” says Melody.

  I put the conversation behind me. “Anything else?”

  She checks her list.

  “Oh yeah. Gloria replied to your e-mail about Vlad the Impaler. He apparently hangs at some bar on Fairfax in Little Ethiopia.”