by Sue Grafton
“Nice car. I used to have one just like this,” I said. I yanked at the seat belt, making a vain attempt to buckle it across my lap. The whole device was frozen, and I finally just had to pray he’d drive without crashing and burning. I do so hate to end an evening being flung through the windshield. At my feet I could feel a breeze blowing through a hole where the floor had rusted out. If it were daytime, I knew I’d see the road whipping past, like that small glimpse of track you see when you flush the toilet on a train. I tried to keep my feet up to avoid putting weight on the spot lest I plunge through. If the car stalled, I could push us along with one foot without leaving my seat. I started to roll down the window and discovered that the crank was gone. I opened the wing window on my side, and chilly air slanted in. So far, the wing window was the only thing on my side that functioned.
Cheney was saying, “I have a little sports car, too, but I figure there’s no point in taking anything like that into the neighborhood we’ll be in. Did you talk to Dolan yet?”
“I went over to St. Terry’s to see him this evening. He was a doll, I must say. I went straight from the hospital to the station to look at files. He even provided me copies of the crime scene photographs.”
“How’d he seem?”
“He was okay, I guess. Not as grouchy as usual. Why? What’s your impression?”
“He was depressed when I talked to him, but he might have brought himself up for you.”
“He has to be scared.”
“I sure would be,” Cheney said.
Tonight he was wearing a pair of slick Italian shoes, dark pants, a coffee-brown dress shirt, and a soft, cream suede windbreaker. I have to say he didn’t look like any undercover cop I ever saw. He glanced over at me and caught the fact that I was conducting a visual survey. “What.”
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“Perdido,” he said, naming a little town thirty miles south of us. “What about you?”
“I’m local,” I said. “Your name seems familiar.”
“You’ve known me for years.”
“Yes, but do I know you from somewhere else? Do you have family in the area?”
He made a noncommittal mouth sound that generally indicated “yes.”
I looked at him closely. Being a liar myself, I can recognize other people’s evasive maneuvers. “What’s your family do?”
“Banks.”
“What about banks? They make deposits? They do holdups?”
“They, mmm, you know, own some.”
I stared at him, comprehension dawning like a big cartoon sun. “Your father is X. Phillips? As in Bank of X. Phillips?”
He nodded mutely.
“What is it, Xavier?”
“Actually, it’s just X.”
“What’s your other car, a Jag?”
“Hey, just because he has big bucks doesn’t mean I do. I have a Mazda. It’s not fancy. Well, a little bit fancy, but it’s paid for.”
I said, “Don’t get defensive. How’d you end up a cop?”
Cheney smiled. “When I was a kid, I watched a lot of TV. I was raised in an atmosphere of benign neglect. My mother sold high-end real estate while my father ran his banks. Cop shows made a big impression. More than financial matters, at any rate.”
“Is your dad okay with that?”
“He doesn’t have any choice. He knows I’m not going to follow in his footsteps. Besides, I’m dyslexic. To me, the printed page looks like gibberish. What about your parents? Are they still alive?”
“Please note. I’m aware that you’re changing the subject, but I’m electing to answer the question you asked. They both died a long time ago. As it turns out, I do have family up in Lompoc, but I haven’t decided what to do about them yet.”
“What’s to decide? I didn’t know we had a choice about these things.”
“Long story. They’ve ignored my existence now for twenty-nine years, and suddenly they want to make nice. It doesn’t sit well with me. That kind of family I can do without.”
Cheney smiled. “Look at it this way. I feel the same way about mine, and I’ve been in touch with them since birth.”
I laughed. “Are we cynical or what?”
“The ‘or what’ part sounds right.”
I turned my attention to the area we’d begun to cruise. It was not far from my place. Down along Cabana Boulevard, a left turn across the tracks. The condominiums and small houses began to give way to commercial properties: warehouses, “lite” industry, a wholesale seafood company, a moving-and-storage facility. Many buildings were long, low, and windowless. Tucked in along a side street was one of two “adult” bookstores. The other was located on the lower end of State Street, several blocks away. Here, small barren trees were spaced at long intervals. The streetlights seemed pale respite against the wide stretches of the dark. Looking off toward the mountains, I could see the smoky glow of the town washed up against the sky. The houses along the hillside were linked together in a fairyland of artificial lights. We began to pass small groups of people, five or six leaning against cars, clusters of the young whose sex was difficult to distinguish. Their eyes followed us without fail, conversations halted momentarily in the hopes that we would offer business of one sort or another. Sex or drugs, it probably didn’t matter as long as money changed hands. Through the window, I could smell the dope as joints were passed from hand to hand.
The dull booming of a bass note signaled the proximity of the establishment we were looking for.
Neptune’s Palace was a combination bar and pool hall with an open courtyard along one side, surrounded by a wide asphalt parking lot. Patrons had spilled out into both the courtyard and the parking lot. The yellow glow of mercury-vapor lights streamed across the gleaming tops of parked cars. Blasts of music spilled from the bar. Near the front of the place, girls were lounging against a low wall, their eyes following as a succession of vehicles cruised by in search of the night’s adventure. The double doors stood open like the entrance to a cave, the rectangle of tawny light softened by a fog of cigarette smoke. We circled the block twice, Cheney peering out for sight of Danielle.
“No sign of her?” I asked.
“She’ll be here someplace. For her, this is like the unemployment office.”
We found a parking place around the corner, where the night air was quieter. We got out and locked the car, moving along the sidewalk past numerous same-sex couples who seemed to view us with amusement. Heterosexuals are so out of it.
Cheney and I pushed our way into the bar, merging with the shoals of inebriated patrons. Music blasted from the dance floor. The damp heat from all the bodies inside was nearly tropical in its nature. The very air smelled briny from the cheap beer on tap. The nautical theme was everywhere apparent. Big fishing nets were draped from the beams across the ceiling, where reflecting bulbs played like sunlight on surface water. Up there, a light show simulated twilight on the ocean, day fading into sunset, followed by the jet black of night. Sometimes the constellations were projected overhead, and sometimes ferocious cracks of lightning formed the apparition of a storm at sea. The walls were painted in a multitude of blues, shades graduating downward from the calm blue of a summer swell to the midnight hues of the deep. Sawdust on the concrete flooring created the illusion of the ocean’s sandy bottom. The dance floor itself was defined by what looked like the prow of a sunken ship. So perfect was the fantasy of life beneath the sea that I found myself feeling grateful for every breath I took.
Tables were tucked into alcoves made to look like coral reefs. The lighting was muted, much of it emanating from massive saltwater aquariums in which large, pouty-mouthed groupers undulated endlessly in search of prey. Reproduction antique navigational charts were embedded in polyurethane on every tabletop, and the world they portrayed was one of vast unpopulated oceans with treacherous creatures lurking at the outer edges. Not so different from the patrons themselves.
In the occasional brief lull between cuts, I picked u
p the faint effects being played through the sound system: ship’s bells, the creak of wood, sails flapping, the shriek of seagulls, the tinny warning of the buoys. Most eerie was the nearly undiscernible wails of drowning seamen, as if all of us were caught up in some maritime purgatory, in which alcohol, cigarettes, laughter, and pounding music served to ward off those faint cries creeping into the silence. All the waitresses were dressed in skintight, spangled body suits as shimmering as fish scales. I had to guess most had been hired on the basis of their androgyny: cropped hair, slim hips, and no breasts to speak of. Even the boys were wearing makeup.
Cheney stayed close behind me, his hand placed comfortably in the middle of my back. Once he leaned to say something, but the noise in the place obliterated his voice. He disappeared at one point and came back with a bottle of beer in each hand. We found an expanse of unpopulated wall with a largely unobstructed view of the place. We leaned there, people watching. The volume of the music would necessitate a hearing test later. I could picture all the cilia in my ear canal going flat. I’d once fired a gun from the depths of a garbage bin and ever since had been plagued by an intermittent hissing deep inside my head. These kids were going to need ear trumpets by the age of twenty-five.
Cheney touched my arm and then pointed across the room. His mouth formed the word “Danielle,” and I followed his gaze. She was standing near the door, apparently alone, though I had to guess she wouldn’t be for long. She was probably in her late teens, lying regularly about her age, else how would she get in here? She had dark hair long enough to sit on and long legs that seemed to go on forever. Even at that distance, I could see slim hips, a flat belly, and the breasts of early adolescence, a body type much admired by the postmenopausal male. She was wearing lime-green satin hot pants and a halter top with a lime-green bomber jacket over it.
We made our way across the room. At a certain point in our progress, she spotted Cheney’s approach. He pointed toward the courtyard. She pivoted and went out in advance of us. Outside, the temperature dropped dramatically, and the sudden absence of cigarette smoke made the air smell like freshly cut hay. The chill felt like liquid pouring over my skin. Danielle had turned to face us, hands in her jacket pockets. Up close, I could see the skillful use of cosmetics in the battle she must have fought with her own youthful looks. She could have passed for twelve. Her eyes were the luminous green of certain tropical fish, and her look was insolent.
“We have a car parked around the corner,” Cheney said without preamble.
“So?”
“So we could have a little talk. Just the three of us.”
“About what?”
“Life in general, Lorna Kepler in particular.”
Danielle’s eyes were fixed on mine. “Who’s she?”
“This is Kinsey. Lorna’s mother hired her.”
“This is not a bust,” she said warily.
“Oh, come on, Danielle. It’s not a bust. She’s a private investigator looking into Lorna’s death.”
“Because I’m telling you, Cheney, you set me up for something, you could get me in real trouble.”
“It’s not a setup. It’s a meeting. She’ll pay your regular rates.”
I gave Cheney a look. I’d have to pay the little twerp?
Danielle’s gaze raked the parking lot and then strayed in my direction. “I don’t do women,” she said sullenly.
I leaned forward and said, “Hey, me neither. In case anybody gives a shit.”
Cheney ignored me and addressed himself to her. “What are you afraid of?”
“What am I afraid of?” she said, finger pointing to her own chest. Her nails were bitten to the quick. “I’m afraid of Lester, for one thing. I’m afraid of losing my teeth. I’m afraid Mr. Dickhead’s going to flatten my nose again. The guy’s a bastard, a real prick…”
“You should have pressed charges. I told you that the last time,” Cheney said.
“Oh, right. I should have gone ahead and checked into the morgue, saved myself that messy middle step,” she snapped.
“Come on. Help us out,” Cheney coaxed.
She thought about it, looking off into the dark. Finally, grudgingly, she said, “I’ll talk to her, not to you.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
“I’m not doing it because you’re asking. I’m doing it for Lorna. And just this once. I mean it. I don’t want you to set me up like this again.”
Cheney grinned seductively. “You’re too perfect.”
Danielle made a face, mimicking his manner, which she wasn’t buying for a minute. She headed off toward the street, talking back across her shoulder. “Let’s get it over with before Lester shows up.”
Cheney walked us to the car, where we went through the requisite door-wrenching exercise. The ensuing squawk was so loud, a couple halfway down the block stopped necking long enough to see what kind of creature we were torturing. I took the passenger seat and let Danielle take the driver’s side in case she needed to make a hasty getaway. Whoever Lester was, I was getting nervous myself.
Cheney leaned toward the wing window. “Back in a bit.”
“You see Lester, don’t you tell him where I’m at,” she warned.
“Trust me,” Cheney said.
“Trust him. What a joke,” she said to no one in particular.
We watched him through the front windshield as he disappeared into the dark. I sat there hoping her Monday night rates were low. I couldn’t remember how much cash I had on me, and I didn’t think she’d take my Visa, which was maxed out anyway.
“You can smoke if you want,” I said, thinking to ingratiate myself.
“I don’t smoke,” she said, offended. “Smoking wrecks your health. Know how much we pay in this country for smoking-related illnesses? Fifteen billion a year. My father died of emphysema. It was like walking suffocation every day of his life. Eyes bugging out. He’s breathing… he’s like this…” She paused to demonstrate, hand on her chest. The sounds she made were a combination of rasping and choking. “And he can’t get any air. It’s a horrible way to die. Dragging around this old oxygen tank. You better quit while you’re ahead.”
“I don’t smoke. I thought you might. I was being polite.”
“Don’t be polite on my account,” she said. “I hate smoking. It’s very bad for you, plus it stinks.” Danielle looked around then, regarding the interior of the VW with distaste. “What a pigsty. You could get a disease sitting in this thing.”
“At least you know he’s not on the take,” I said.
“Cops in this town don’t take money,” she said. “They have too much fun sticking people in the can. He’s got a much nicer car, but he’s too paranoid to bring it down here. So. Enough with the chitchat, get-to-know-you bullshit. What do you want to know about Lorna?”
“As much as you can tell me. How long did you know her?”
Danielle’s mouth pulled down in a facial shrug. “Couple of years. We met working for this escort service. She was a good person. She was like a mother to me. She was my what-do-you-call-‘em… mentor… only now I see I should have listened to her more.”
“How so?”
“Lorna killed me. She was great. She really blew me away. I was like totally in awe. She knew what she wanted and she went after it, and if you didn’t like where she was coming from, then it was too bad for you.”
“What did she want?”
“A million bucks, for starters. She wanted to retire by the time she was thirty. She could have done it, too, if she’d lived long enough.”
“How’d she propose to do it?”
“How do you think?”
“That’s a lot of time on your back,” I said.
“Not at the rates she charged. After she left the escort service? She was making two hundred thousand dollars a year. Two hundred thousand. I couldn’t believe it. She was smart. She invested. She didn’t blow money the way I would’ve if I’d been in her shoes. I got no head for finance. What’s in my
pocket I spend, and when it’s gone, I start over. At least I used to be that way until she straightened me out.”
“What was she going to do when she retired?”
“Travel. Goof off. Maybe marry some guy who’d take care of her for life. Thing is… and here’s what she kept hammering at me about… you got money, you’re independent. You can do anything you want. Some guy mistreats you, you get the fuck out. You can walk. Know what I’m saying?”
“That’s my philosophy,” I said.
“Yeah, mine, too, now. After she died, I opened a little savings account, and I salt it away. It’s not much, but it’s enough, and I’m going to let it sit. That’s what Lorna always said. You put it in the bank and you let it collect interest. She put a lot of her money in blue-chip stocks, municipal bonds, shit like that, but she did it all herself. She wasn’t into this business about financial managers and people like that, because, for one thing, she said it’s the perfect excuse for some asshole to come along and rip you off. You know stockbrokers? She called ‘em portfolio pimps.” She laughed at the phrase, apparently amused at the idea of procurers on Wall Street. “How about you? You got savings?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Where is it? What’d you do with it?”
“I put it in CDs,” I said, feeling faintly sensitive on the subject. It seemed strange defending my financial strategy to some girl who worked the streets.
“That’s good. Lorna did some of that, too. She liked tax-free munis, and she had some of her money in Ginnie Maes, whatever they are. Listen to us. This is what I like. Talkin’ about all this long-term stuff. You have money, that’s power, and no guy can come along and punch your lights out, right?”
“You mentioned her making two hundred thousand. She pay taxes on the money?”
“Of course! Never fuck with the feds, was her first rule of thumb. That’s the first thing she taught me. Anything you make, you declare. Know how they got Al Capone and those guys? Undeclared income. You cheat the feds, you end up in the can, like big time, and that’s no lie.”