A Hopeless Case

by K. K. Beck

  Then Jane went to a pay phone and looked up two numbers in the directory. The first was for a car rental place. The detective had told her the police would be going over the other car, looking for evidence. They’d probably towed it away. And if they hadn’t, if they were checking it out where it was, they might be there and they’d want to ask her more questions.

  She figured it was about a ten- or fifteen-block walk from the hospital on First Hill to the downtown office, so she set out on foot.

  Once she got there, she rented another car and headed toward the freeway, going south. It had all taken so long, and it was getting dark. About forty minutes later, after having been lost twice, she found what she was looking for.

  It looked like the right place. It sat back from the road in a neon-lit strip mall—a squat, concrete block building, painted bright white with a red-and-black sign. MUSCLE HOUSE, it read. Beneath that, in quotes, was the slogan she’d read in the Yellow Pages—“HUSTLE IN AND MUSCLE UP.” She’d eliminated any gym that had the word fitness in its ad, and counted on the neighborhood, Burien, a southern suburb with a reputation for toughness.

  Inside, she was assaulted by a barrage of heavy metal music, with unintelligible, angry vocals, resentful music of the socially powerless male. There was also an overpowering smell—rancid sweat. At the door, like lions couchant, two giants—one black, one white—sat on stationary bikes. Their faces were impassive. Their huge forearms rested on the handlebars. Their massive thighs circled.

  The floor was covered with orange indoor-outdoor carpeting, dotted with black rubber pads. The large, square room bristled with body-building equipment made of dark steel in frameworks coated in orange chipped paint. It all clanked rhythmically as male bodies of various sizes, shapes, and colors pressed, squeezed, lifted, heaved, pushed, and groaned.

  Off to the left was a small office. The door was open, and she went in. The smell hung heavily in the air here, too. There was a desk, littered with papers, and behind it another giant. This one had a brick-red face and a shock of bleached hair. The gray fabric of his sweatshirt strained to cover a massive chest. Jane figured he had a forty-inch neck.

  Brick Face gazed up at her with a pair of china-blue eyes and smiled with a row of perfect teeth. If he noticed the scrapes on her face, he didn’t let on. She appreciated that.

  “I’m looking for a bodyguard,” she said.

  He was silent for a moment, looking up at her. “Yeah?”

  A small woman in red sweatpants and a tank top came over to his side. “Here’s the bad checks for this month,” she said. “Eight of ’em.”

  “Shit, Tracy,” said Brick Face. Jane watched the woman’s arm as she handed over the stack of checks. It was like a man’s—fully developed with a network of raised veins, ending incongruously in a scarlet vinyl nail job. Jane glanced at the woman’s body: massive shoulders, small breasts above a huge rib cage, narrow hips. Above her powerful neck, she had a sweet, small face that could have belonged to a kindergarten teacher.

  The man made a clicking noise with his tongue and pushed aside the bad checks. “I guess we gotta lean on these guys,” he said, bringing up a horrible picture of huge, crushing men pummeling each other to death. Although Tracy could probably scare the hell out of a deadbeat or two all by herself.

  Brick Face turned his attention back to Jane. He winced a little as he examined her face. “You’re sure that’s all you’re looking for?” he said. “Maybe you want someone to beat up your boyfriend, or whoever did that to your face.”

  “I just need someone to make me feel safer,” she said.

  He looked down at the checks in front of him. “Try Bob. Bob Manalatu. Big Samoan over by the wall. He’s three months behind on his gym bill, and he just wrote us a bad check. He could use some spare change. He’s three hundred pounds or so, and too dumb to be scared. Take a look at his gut, and you’ll see what I mean.”

  Bob wasn’t hard to pick out. He was on his back, pushing several hundred pounds of steel up over his neck. He had a flat face, and his body, though muscular, had a balloonish quality. He wore orange Day-Glo shorts and a white T-shirt that didn’t quite cover his solar plexus. There was a twisted white scar there that could only have come from a knife.

  She cleared her throat. “Bob?”

  After three more reps, he fell back for a second, then scrambled to his feet. Standing, the sheer mass of him was awesome.

  “Yes?” he said politely, pulling down his T-shirt.

  “I may be doing business with some scary people. If I go see them, I’d like to take someone along for protection.”

  “Sure,” he said, apparently uninterested in the nature of her errand.

  “Great. How can I get in touch with you?”

  He went over to a gym bag. There were a lot of similar bags lining the walls. There didn’t seem to be a locker room here. It certainly smelled like there were no showers.

  She watched his arms and legs as he bent over. They were like huge satin pillows.

  “Here,” he said, handing her a card. AMERICAN-SAMOAN COLLECTION AGENCY, it read. There was a small graphic of crossed American flags, his name, and a phone number.

  “Fifty bucks an hour,” he said. “More if I have to hit somebody.”

  “What if they hit you?” she said.

  He smiled. His teeth were beautiful. “It won’t happen,” he said, demurely lowering his lids over velvety brown eyes.

  She shook his hand in its black glove, rather like shaking a leg of lamb. “Thanks, Bob,” she said. “I’ll be in touch. My name’s Jane.”

  Out in the parking lot, away from that sour, cloying smell, she realized it wasn’t just sweat she’d been breathing in there. The place must have been heavy with male hormones or pheromones, or whatever they were called. It smelled like men.

  Out in the fresh air, she discovered it was a smell with pleasant associations. In the car, on the way back, she found herself thinking of some energetic phantom lover, with soft, scented skin over hard muscle. She supposed her erotic thoughts meant she was on the road to recovery. Anyway, it beat the hell out of thinking about getting choked by a mysterious assailant in the dark.

  Chapter 17

  When she got back to town and pulled up in front of her house, she was suddenly afraid. The house looked big and square and dark. What if he was in there? Waiting for her. She tried to tell herself it was silly to be frightened, but she came to the conclusion it wasn’t silly at all. It was damned realistic. After all, she had been attacked. Her face ached, and her head still hurt.

  She sat at the wheel of her car, and thought for a moment. Perhaps she wasn’t acting completely rationally. If she were rational, she’d forget all about the Fellowship of the Flame, and Leonora’s money. Maybe she’d leave Seattle and try her luck again in Europe.

  No one had ever struck her before. She’d never felt physical fear like this before—a lightness in her limbs, a heaviness in the pit of her stomach, a prickly, itchy anticipation and dread. It was different than the helpless fear she’d felt before Bernardo’s races.

  But she didn’t want to stop now.

  Jane wanted Uncle Harold’s money. She wanted charge accounts at Nordstrom and I. Magnin and vacations and books and records and fresh flowers. She wanted to meet nice people and give dinner parties. She wanted to go back to the Pike Place Market and learn every little nook and cranny there and find all the best and tastiest of everything. She was too old to be broke all the time. She wanted to be relaxed and respectable, and for that, she needed money.

  But there was more. Jane was angry. Angry at whoever had beaten her and killed Richard English.

  Richard English. Had she somehow caused his death? All she’d done was make an appointment with him. And he was dead when she got there. She had lied, and told him she’d learned about him from Linda’s notebooks. Had she stumbled onto his murder scene coincidentally, or had someone killed him because that someone thought he had the notebooks with his name in th
em? In that case, he had to have talked to someone else. His killer.

  Had she killed him with her lie?

  She asked herself if she’d want to keep on if it weren’t for Uncle Harold’s money. She was pretty sure she would. But the money would be awfully nice.

  She still didn’t want to go into that house. She should have brought Bob the Samoan back with her and parked him on the sofa. Instead, she started the car and headed toward Calvin Mason’s. She hoped he wouldn’t mind, but she didn’t care too much if he did. She’d sleep on that lumpy sofa of his in the office or living room or whatever it was. Besides, tired as she was, she wanted to read the diaries, and she wanted to read them right now.

  Calvin drew the door open a crack and surveyed her from behind the chain. A television blared in the background.

  “Oh,” he said. “It’s you.” He unfastened the chain, and gestured at it. “You never know, at this hour it might be an irate husband or something,” he said airily. Then he took a good look at her face, and sucked in his breath sharply. “You look terrible,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Did they give you pain pills or anything?” He was scrutinizing her face and wincing in sympathy.

  “In the hospital. Until they found out I didn’t have insurance. Then I left.”

  “I hate hospitals. Sit down. I’m having beer and Cheetos. And I have some Darvon from when I got worked over. Want some?” He went over to the television and turned it off.

  “Beer, thank you. Hold the Cheetos and the Darvon. But mostly I want the notebooks. Did you get them?”

  “Uh-huh. Looked like no one had been to your house. I got in through the basement window. It was easy.”

  “Thank you. I’m glad they’re safe.”

  “Be glad that whoever it was that beat you up probably didn’t know where you lived. If you think they were after the notebooks. You want to tell me what’s going on? Who hit you and why and what these notebooks have to do with it?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t looking for these at all,” she said. Calvin was handing her three spiral-bound school notebooks in hot pink, shiny orange, and dark turquoise. Sixties colors, back in fashion again, like short skirts.

  “It’s hard to believe. They’re pretty awful.”

  “You read them?”

  “Of course. Some, anyway. Word salad, most of it. Whatever she was smoking I wouldn’t want any part of.” Calvin popped a can of Rainier beer for her and handed her half a bag of Cheetos.

  Jane flipped open the hot pink book. In green ink she read:

  Lullaby was fussy today. I stared and stared at her face. I wonder if I knew her in a previous life. It’s like she came from another dimension, and my body was her gateway from one world to another. It is so incredibly weird and beautiful.

  Beneath it, in red ink, she read:

  Lately, I have felt perfect glow control, reaching up from my feet through all my chakras and shining from my third eye like Flamemaster has taught us. Now it’s my task to learn to move that flame up and down at will. The Fire Dance last week gave me just a taste of this bliss, and it’s every bit as outrageously wonderful as I knew it would be . . . surging love and power. I had energy for hours and hours, and the room glowed with the fabulous flaming energy of all of us. What we are doing here is so important, and the Flamemaster is so exciting and wonderful. To be part of this at the beginning is such a privilege. I know now that all my other searching was only meant to lead me here, among the Fellowship.

  Someday, if a history were to be written of the world’s changing consciousness, I would be in it, as one of the first to master the secrets of the flame. But there will be no need for history books. All wisdom will live in the souls of all people, and in the common soul of all of us, a glowing, flaming thing, leaping now and then into ecstasy, glowing with happiness and health, never dimmed or cold. And I have been chosen to ignite that flame for the world.

  A third paragraph was in purple ink.

  Plants. Jungle plants with big leaves. Veins in the leaves are full of blood, and when the branches are cut, blood runs out of them and onto the ground. Where the blood spills, new plants grow and they have big white flowers. Who is cutting the branches? I know not. But I am there, and blood splashes on my arm. Plants grow from my arm, pushing roots into my veins and our blood mingles together. I pull the plants from my arm and blood is clotted on the roots. I throw them onto the ground and they take root and grow, the flowers looking up at me.

  “Yech,” said Jane. “There’s some creepy stuff in here. All about bleeding plants growing out of her arm. Dr. Hawthorne would say this little fantasy reflected an ambivalence about motherhood.”

  “I hit a thing about flocks of laughing winged unicorns beating their way across a tangerine sky,” Calvin said. “‘The unicorns are my friends,’ she’d written. What a fruitcake.”

  “If I hadn’t just seen the blood on that man’s head, those bloody plants wouldn’t get to me,” said Jane, shaking her head so she wouldn’t feel woozy.

  “Yes, why don’t you tell me all about that,” said Calvin.

  Jane went over it again. Some of the terror went out of it in the re-telling.

  “What do you think?” she said.

  “I think you’re a lot tougher than you look.”

  She leaned her head against the back of the sofa. “I kind of like the idea of turning into a tough old babe,” said Jane. “But no bruises. I’d like to be a ladylike, polite, well-heeled tough old babe.”

  “My favorite kind,” said Calvin. “Once in a while, they take off the white kid gloves, and wham. But only when they’re cornered.”

  Jane laughed. “The kind that know the rules, so that they know when to break them and can break them with some style.”

  “I also think,” said Calvin, “you’d better find out who the hell this Richard English was and what he had to do with Linda. Could be, of course, that he was caught up in some other deal, and you just happened to wander in.”

  “But why beat me up, search my purse and car?”

  “Who knows? To find out who you are, maybe.”

  “I still think it’s connected somehow. It’s too much of a coincidence.”

  “If it’s connected, then you know a little more now.”

  “Like what?” Her head was pounding again. She realized she had been moving ever since she left the hospital. Moving without thinking.

  “Well, whoever killed English was someone he got in touch with soon after he heard from you. Someone who was afraid he’d talk, maybe.”

  “Okay. What else?”

  “There’s a lot more to this than bilking some little hippie out of her money. You don’t kill over that. It’s something bigger.”

  “I know.” Jane looked down at the notebook in her lap. “Maybe they killed her.”

  “You’d better tell the police all about this,” said Calvin.

  “No,” she said. “I can’t. I’ve got to take care of it myself. That’s the way Uncle Harold wanted it. I’m not letting those old bastards the trustees say I didn’t take care of this myself. I’m not getting beat up just to let the police finish up and screw myself out of that money. I’m sorry, but I’m not.” She picked up her beer and took a drink. American beer wasn’t all that bad, she decided. “You can help me if you want. I still have plenty of money, but renting that car is costing me a fortune, and I might run out before it’s all over. If that happens, you’ll have to work on speculation, and hope that I collect Uncle Harold’s money.”

  Calvin Mason sighed.

  “At which point you can expect me to be very generous,” she added, in a level voice. He’d help her. She knew he would. Calvin Mason always took on pathetic cases. That’s what Bucky had said.

  “What do you need?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll let you know tomorrow. For now, though, I’d like to read these notebooks. And I’d like to read them here, if you don’t mind. I don’t feel safe reading them at home.”

&
nbsp; “I’ll get you a pillow and a blanket,” he said. “Spend the night on the sofa if you want.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate it.” She was glad he didn’t gallantly offer her his bed and move onto the sofa himself. She smiled for the first time in a long time. It hurt her lip. “And can I use your phone? I want to call Leonora.”

  Leonora was home. She sounded anxious. “Dad said you were hurt. Where are you? Are you still in the hospital?”

  “No, I’m all right now. I’m at Calvin Mason’s house, looking at some of your mother’s papers.”

  “What happened? Dad says the Fellowship of the Flame is after you.”

  “Maybe they are. That’s why I want you to be careful. Is there somewhere else you can stay? They might be looking for the papers you gave me.”

  After some discussion, Leonora said she’d spend the night at her piano teacher’s house.

  “I feel bad I got you into this. Maybe we should drop it. I mean, I didn’t know—I didn’t know it would be so important.” The girl sounded frightened.

  “That’s exactly why we shouldn’t drop it,” Jane said matter-of-factly.

  “It isn’t just the money. It wasn’t really getting back the money that made me ask you to help us,” said Leonora, sounding less shaky now.

  “I guess you wanted to know more about her,” answered Jane, wishing the Linda of the diaries had come across as a better mother.

  “That’s it exactly. I guess I wasn’t being honest with myself.”

  “Your mother died young, Leonora. You’ll never know what she would have been like now. She was searching for something. Maybe she would have found it.”

  “She should have had that chance,” said Leonora. “And I should have had the chance to know her.”

  “Listen,” said Jane. “When I get a little more organized, we’ll get together. You can look at the diaries. I’ll tell you what I’ve learned about Linda. I’ve been thinking about her a lot myself.”