It took him all of five minutes. He must have done eighty. Down from Melvyn’s or wherever he drank. He smelled of Scotch and someone’s cigar. I answered the door looking like a rich boy’s wet dream of a trailer slut—my cherry-blossom kimono, loosely wrapped, my dark hair in a messy twist. Mr. Frenchy on my shoulder. I could see a wild despair in him, his tawny hair pulled into spikes—he wanted to grab me, but was afraid of the bird.
“Can you?” He indicated my shoulder.
“That’s Mr. Frenchy. He won’t hurt you.” But maybe he would. I put him back in his cage. “Was I right about Alan?”
He was too unnerved to speak. Instead, he untied my robe the rest of the way.
We fucked so hard, I thought we’d crack the wall.
Afterward, we had a nightcap on the lanai’s glider, shared a j, and he came clean. “He’s already moved a little—to a soils company, to a grader, to a geologist, all at the same address. The same account. He’s getting ready to vacuum it all out. I can’t believe it. I got everybody into Sunrise. My mother. My mother-in-law. My doctor. Friends at the Tennis Club. People in my fraternity.”
“Didn’t you have your lawyer look at the paperwork? Didn’t somebody?” We were idiots but I’d expected a rich boy like Ben to be lawyered up.
He groaned. “I trusted him.”
“We did too.” I stroked the side of his face, kissed his cheek, relit the j and handed it to him. “So, tell me about this mother-in-law.”
He started weeping. “I’m a shit. I’m a complete and total shit, and I’m about to have a full high colonic courtesy of Alan fucking Thompson.”
“You could tell them.”
He shook his head.
“Ever hear of an Indonesian monkey trap?” Holding the acrid smoke.
He lay down with his head in my lap, wiped his eyes on my kimono. Those beautiful muscled arms.
I stroked him as I spoke. “You take a hollow gourd and cut a hole just big enough for a monkey’s hand. Then put some rice in. The monkey comes along, sticks its hand in there, grabs a handful.” I could smell him, smoky and musky, scared and turned on. “But now his hand’s too big to get out of the trap. That’s how you catch a monkey.”
“Why doesn’t he let go?”
“He won’t. He can’t let go of it.”
“And that’s me? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Why don’t you tell your Tennis Club buddies that Thompson’s a wrong guy? That you fucked up. Maybe they can freeze their accounts, pull their cash.”
“I can’t. I need Sunrise to go ahead,” he said, rubbing his head against my thighs. “Not just the money. I need it.”
I understood. He needed it, to prove something. To be the big man. Beholden to no one. I leaned over him, my breasts hovering above his face. “What if something was to happen to Alan Thompson?” I whispered in his ear.
He gazed up, his pretty eyes studying me. “Like what, a car accident?” He still wasn’t getting it.
“I mean cancel his library card. Punch his ticket.”
He laughed before he saw the look on my face. The chuckle died. “You’re serious.” He shook his head. “No, I couldn’t do that. Not in a million years.”
“But I could,” I said. “It would be my pleasure.”
The next day was windy, the palms streaming. I didn’t have to check on Ben, he called me midmorning. He was on board.
“I can’t stand him. He’s chatting away in there with the door open, talking to some contractor. I’d like to drive a stake through his heart. Talking to me like we’re best buddies. What gall.” I could picture Jack—cheerful, hearty, talking on the phone, leaning back in his big leather chair, cowboy boots on the desk. “What do you want me to do?”
I told him to meet me at the IHOP on Dinah Shore Drive, a place where no one was likely to know us. At that hour, it would be mothers with little kids, retirees carefully counting their change.
The IHOP was ice rink cold, I imagined a Zamboni polishing the linoleum. I took a corner booth in the back, wearing the Elke wig and a modest shirt that nevertheless clung to every curve, sending a teasing mixed message of decorum and sex.
Ben looked like money in his pink shirt and his tan. Could he have been more conspicuous? He slipped into the booth next to me, lowered his Ray-Bans. “Come here often, Mabel?”
“I meet all my daddies here.” Every daddy around us was in a wheelchair.
The waitress came by with a menu, refilled my coffee. He ordered a club sandwich, mayo on the side. I got the Rooty Tooty pancakes.
His eyebrows jerked upward. He seemed actually shocked that a person would order pancakes at a pancake house.
“What do you want me to order, the chicken cordon bleu?”
We watched the waitress retreat, the bow of her apron. He lowered his voice. “You should have seen him. Swaggering around, on the phone with the fucking city planner. I’m ready, so help me god. Let’s get this over with.”
Over the rim of my cup, I studied him, wearing those stupid sunglasses. Sure, he’d like me to get rid of Jack for him. Keep his Ivy League hands clean. But this was what I’d lived for these last years. The only thing bringing air into my lungs, blood to my heart. “In three nights, you’re going out with him. Just the boys. You’ve got something to talk to him about, confessions, advice, father-son stuff. Leave your car and take his. Don’t park yours at the office, use a garage. He drives, that’s important. Take him somewhere they won’t know you. Not Melvyn’s or Spencer’s. A hotel. A bar at the airport. Not a casino, they’re loaded with cameras.”
Our meals came. I could see the wonder on his face as I tucked into the pancakes. “No carbs at your house? Poor Ben.”
He grabbed my hand. “Miranda, I can’t stand the way I’ve been living my life. Like a stupid kid. But when this is over, it’s going to be different. It’s going to be you and me and the whole wide world.”
“Easy, pardner.”
He let go of my hand. “You’re not getting away from me,” he whispered. “I used to think Alan’s girlfriend was hot. But you melt metal. I’d like to come over there and fuck you into next year.”
You’re not getting away from me. I’d have to think about that. Later.
* * *
He texted my burner every hour for the next three days. How it was torture to go to the office. How Alan invited him and Sherry up to his place for dinner, to talk to some people about a development in Laguna Canyon. I hate this.
Miss you.
He’s making his special burgers.
I hope he chokes.
I remembered them well. Worcestershire sauce, a bit of horseradish. Those barbeques we used to have. All that father-son sharing of esoteric grill lore. Reeling us in, putting us to sleep. Well, your son’s awake now, Jack. Sharpening the knives.
He called me, late, from home. Sherry must have been sleeping. I heard the water splash, the sexy rumble of his voice. “As soon as we break ground, I’m taking you to Tokyo. First class. You see Lost in Translation?”
I hadn’t been to a movie in years.
“In that wig, you remind me of Scarlett Johansson.” He loved his games.
“Anybody get killed in it?”
“Jesus, Miranda! Relax. We’ve got this.”
Nobody slept the night before. I went out to the arroyo and shot off some of the fresh ammo I’d bought at the Gun Barn out on Indian Canyon. The blasts were startlingly loud but nobody called the cops, nobody did shit. I imagined him kneeling in the dirt. Goodbye, Jack.
After work they went for some Mexican food, then to a jazz bar. Good. Dark.
How’s it going? I texted him.
Having a good old chat. Says he wanted to be a drummer when he was a kid. Hemet. Jack was from Hemet. A tough little town on the other side of the mountain. A local boy. I’m laughing with a dead man. Flying.
I’d told him to take one of Sherry’s Dexis, so he wouldn’t be totally shitfaced after a night out with Jack. I hoped he’d on
ly taken one.
At last, it was eleven. I drove up to the site in the moonlight, descended into that beautiful bowl of rock and sage and cactus that held all of Ben’s dreams. I could see it as if it were already built. He’d brought me up here before—showed me where the pools would be, the firepits and tennis courts.
I didn’t need any speed to feel like I was flying. Every gesture seemed symbolic now, perfect, relentless. I took an old green army blanket and covered my car so it wouldn’t glow, found my hiding place behind some boulders on a rise, where the moon would be in his face. And then life would begin. The clock that had stopped would start again.
Okay, put a wrap on it, I texted him. Showtime.
I imagined them walking down to the car, no valet. Jack squeezing Ben on the shoulder. The drive down South Palm Canyon, past the mobile court which had been my final resting place. No more. I was going to rise, rise. Any minute they’d be turning up Coyote Hill Drive. I waited, crouching with the scorpions and the tarantulas and the snakes in the desert night. All of the hunters.
Here they came, headlights bursting over the crest. The Porsche jolted as it descended the roughly graded road. It came to a stop right where the big pool was going to be.
They got out, so clear in the moonlight. Cocky Jack with his cowboy boots. Ben yammering about something, waving his arms around. “Yes!” he shouted. “See? This is it. This is the Future Perfect.”
Jack lit a cigar, leaning up against the silver Porsche, offering his Steve McQueen grin. He held one out to Ben. Long and thin, a panatela. See, I remembered … A last smoke, a final farewell.
“I love this place,” Ben said, exhaling. “Maybe I’ll move in when it’s built.”
“Lot of projects ahead,” Jack said. “This ain’t the end.”
Oh, but it was, Jack. Silently, the sand slipping under my shoes, I came down from the rocks. My clothes were dark, my hair, neither of them saw me at first. Then Ben did. And Jack. The gun glinting in my hand. I would have worn the wig, but it would have stood out too soon, spoiled my surprise.
“Hi, Jack. Remember me?”
Ben tossed the cigar, moved away from his partner, skirted the nonexistent pool, giving me a clear shot, and came around to stand by me.
Jack took it in, me, Ben. He was figuring it out. No smile now. “Miranda Constantine,” he said. “Not somebody I’d be likely to forget.”
“Guess you didn’t go to Bogotá. Bet your wife wasn’t even Colombian.”
Even with a gun pointed at him, he managed a laugh. “She wasn’t even my wife.” He hooked his thumbs into his belt loops.
The moon turned everything to bone. “Did you know Gil hanged himself?”
He sucked on his cigar. A cloud of the stinking stuff rose into the moonlight above his head. “What do you want me to say, Miranda? Sorry your old man couldn’t take it.”
“Put your fucking hands on your head.”
He did it, his cigar clamped between his fingers.
“Kneel.”
He didn’t do it. “You were always tougher than him, angel,” he said. “Is this what you did for eight years? Look for me? Get all wet thinking about how you were going to fix me? Think about me every night before bed?”
“That’s right, Jack. I’m a good hater. I don’t let go of things.” The gun tugged at me. The gun wanted to have its say. But first, I’d have mine. I’d waited a long time for this.
“I know what you can’t let go of,” he said. But he looked awfully stupid saying it with his hands on his head.
“The million you stole? The kid I never had? Somebody’s gotta pay for all that. Someone who looks a lot like you.” I didn’t know the last time I’d felt so good. My sails unfurling in the moonlight.
“Did you tell Benjie here about us?”
“There was no us.” I could feel Ben next to me, alert as a hunting dog. “You sick son of a bitch.”
“See, Ben, Gil wasn’t much in the sack—”
“Shut up, Jack.”
“And the lady here was so lonely. Bored. Too much juice for a weakling like Gil. But we were a match, weren’t we, dar-lin’? We set that bed on fire.”
That round bed. Wearing Sarita’s black lace stockings. I’d never had a man like Jack before. A real match.
“You fucked him?” Ben whispered.
“And poor old Gil found out.” He snorted. That smirk.
I raised the barrel of the gun in both hands, closed one eye, lined up the sights. “And you didn’t feel anything. Not one moment of regret.”
“Can’t say that I did, darlin’. It’s what I do.”
“Let me ask you one question,” I said, pulling off the safety. “Answer correctly, I might let you live. Tell me, what’s it all for? You could have made that company work. You could actually build Sunrise. All this scamming and fucking people over, people who love you, who trust you. Just tell me why. Is it just money?”
Alan took one hand off his head to puff on the cigar. He grinned. “The money’s the sideshow, darlin’,” he said. “It’s the winning. Every time I take some simpleton like Ben here, or put one over on the city fathers, those Tennis Club assholes—I win. Even if I die, I win. That’s why you’re always going to be a loser, Miranda, even if you shoot me and leave me to the crows. You’re a great fuck, but you don’t have the brains to come in out of the rain. Eight years, and all you could do with your life was think about me.”
I must have been squeezing the trigger harder than I thought—the blast caught him in the chest. It shoved him backward into the Porsche. Ben shouted, “Jesus!” as the sound bounced off the rocks all around us. Dark blood gurgled out of Jack’s mouth, bubbled out and rolled down his chin, staining his shirt.
The second shot dropped him to his knees. He fell onto his side, clutching his chest, his boots dog-kicking in the sand.
I stood over him, watching his blood, black in the moonlight. “Who’s the loser now, darlin’?”
I’d shoot him again, but at this range I’d have blood all over me.
Ben just stood there, his hands over his mouth. Then he turned and staggered away, threw up all those expensive Scotches.
I pocketed Jack’s cell phone, pried his wallet out. Credit cards, driver’s license, receipts, library card—shit, Danika’d have to return his books—business cards, including one for a lawyer in Phoenix. A fat wad of cash. He’d always liked cash. I took a single bill from it—a twenty—wiped the leather on my shirttail, and put the wallet back into his hip pocket. “You done barfing?” I said to Ben.
I folded back the blanket covering my car, rolled it, stuck it in the trunk, took out a package of Clorox wipes and cleaned my hands, wiped the gun. I’d toss it and the phone into a storm drain on the way to Ben’s car.
“And we just … leave him there?” The smell of Scotch and barf clung to him.
“He had plenty of enemies. They’ll never prove who did it … You coming or you want to walk?”
He looked wild as he climbed in next to me. “But I was the last one seen with him.”
Yeah, things get real, Ben. “Just play it cool, and remember—Sunrise is going to get built. Someone settled a score with Alan, but Sunrise is going to happen.”
He was shaking but I knew I could count on him to keep quiet. If he told the cops he’d have to admit he was the one who lured the man out there. Accessory before the fact. But I didn’t like the way he kept saying, “I can’t believe you did it. How can you be so calm?”
I was more than calm. I was redeemed. I felt like I’d been driving up and down the block all these years, looking for a certain address, and someone had finally pointed to the house. My key had fit. I was home. I won, you son of a bitch.
I dumped the gun and the phone. Ben’s teeth were chattering. “You did great,” I said, talking him down. “You’re free of him.” He nodded, swallowing. “We’ll get through the week, and then you’re going to build Sunrise.”
In a few minutes we were pulling up to the park
ing garage. Nobody around. Palm Springs, despite its legend, rolls up the sidewalks at ten.
“Miranda.” He crushed me to him, burying his face in my hair. “Let me come home with you.”
“Not tonight. You’ve got to go home and act like you’ve been there the whole time. Get some sleep. Be ready to talk to cops tomorrow. I’ll call you in a few days.”
He was suddenly on fire. “Fuck me, Miranda. I need you.”
Why not? We crawled into the backseat and did it there like two teenagers.
By the third day, it was all over the news. Millionaire developer Alan Thompson found dead on the site of his latest development. Two bullet wounds. Motive unclear. A stunned-looking Ben in wrinkled linen and a borsalino. It was fine, he should look stunned. An innocent man, his partner gunned down.
I went to work as usual. The dog people in Old Las Palmas called. El profesor liked our layout. I presented the bid, broken down into labor and materials. But as I was driving back from Cathedral City, I got a call from Shirley. “Doll. It’s bad. Don’t come home. You got cops running all over the place. They’re interviewing the neighbors. Showed me a picture of that guy Thompson. Asked if I knew you. Me, I don’t know nobody—not my own mother.”
Ben had panicked. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut. Fucking Ben. What did Jack say? Trust nobody never. But that’s a hard life.
I met Shirley at the Ralph Lauren in the Cabazon outlet mall. Parked the Audi on the blank side of the mall. “They tore the hell out of your place,” Shirley said under her breath, going through the clothes on the sale rack.
“How’s Mr. Frenchy?”
She took out a silk blouse, turquoise, held it up to me. “This is nice.” Then under her breath: “Eleanor’s got him. But you better think of someone to go visit. Who do you know out of town?”
“How far out of town?”
“Mexico?”
Fucking Ben. Just when I thought I didn’t have anything else to lose, turns out I’d had a life. Her, the bird. My place. Gone. It was my hand in the rice trap, after all.
Luckily you didn’t need a passport to get into Mexico, only to come back. And what was the likelihood of that?
Palm Springs Noir Page 3