“Just say anything to stall him,” Danny instructed. “Tell him there’s reasonable doubt, tell him anything to distract him, but don’t fuck up. And be tactful. He’s the king of San Carnal, and he just lost a son; Villa Leona is a house in mourning.”
3
A Nubian nymph tucked her bikini bottoms, capered along the diving board, bounced off into the air, and dove smoothly into the cyan swimming pool imbued with blissful laughter and solar glares. A beach ball bounced between rainbow-nailed hands, black- and blond- and pink-haired heads spraying water in slow motion toward the deck chairs where female bodies endured the sun like sinuous dunes and the vaults of pagodas of ancient cities along the Silk Road. Butterflies danced to slow reggae, and the mustachioed barista from The Love Boat shook a margarita while listening to the security guards’ frequency on his earpiece as they ordered the gates to close after Danny, who was now walking up the path from the garage, talking to himself.
“My cover is Daniel Monzón, but everyone calls me Danny for short,” he explained. This was common practice among undercover agents: an easy way to prevent an acquaintance from ruining the whole operation with a Hey, Danny. “I think we can stick to our real story, you and me: you’re a P.I., you helped me out of a couple tough spots—something like that. Just don’t mention that we met when I arrested you for drunk-driving a Porsche from the backseat. Deal?”
He waited for Kimrean’s usual non-apology apology for that particular incident—by arguing that the llama was taking up the driver’s seat—but it didn’t happen. Danny stopped and turned to find he was speaking to nobody.
Back by the swimming pool, Kimrean, mouth open, arms hanging bloodless on each side, stood under the tropical heat in full Stendhal syndrome before the spectacle of naiads sunbathing, rinsing their hair, cavorting around like characters in a Bouguereau rendition of a Roger Moore 007 scene. A Venus on the left climbed out of the water, long curly black hair dripping estrogens; by the deck chairs, a random soft body part wobbled nimbly under the inertia of a turn toward the camera. A giggling fairy in a pink bikini ran past Kimrean like a gazelle, brushing the P.I.’s elbow, and Kimrean felt that exchange of ions trigger a chain reaction extending like spidery lightning up their arm, flowing down their chest, and igniting their lower abdomen.
Danny Mojave snatched them from Arcadia, pulling them by an ear.
“We’ve got work to do, Zooey.”
“I’m on it,” she said, heels dragging through the lawn. “I’ll need saliva samples from all those suspects.”
“I thought you hated San Carnal.”
“Oh, I hate it—all the institutionalized sexist frivolity. But I’m all for the authentic everyday sexist frivolity of true, hard-working San Carnalians.”
They returned to the path, and Danny released Kimrean when he was sure Adrian had taken over. “Just try and behave in there, okay? Apart from being a drug lord and all that, the Lyon is a pretty traditional guy; I don’t want to shock him. I’ll introduce you as Adrian; let’s pretend Zooey isn’t there for a while.”
“I’ve been trying that most of my life,” Adrian replied. “It doesn’t work.”
On the main building porch—a humble entrance to what zoomed out to be a four-story villa—a seven-foot-five Mexican, looking like the kind of man who spends twelve hours a day working out at the gym (or just working there, as an elevator counterweight), skipped the greetings and proceeded to frisk them. Kimrean obligingly spread both legs and arms with no objection: their revolver was still somewhere in the San Francisco office, and their handcuffs were in the morgue. At least they had borrowed a new hat. Without one, both Adrian and Zooey felt naked.
“Speak only when spoken to,” Danny resumed, as they entered a shady, narrow anteroom with a statue of a mounted conquistador and a bead-curtained door. Danny knocked on the doorframe. “On second thought, maybe give him your condolences. He buried his son yesterday.”
“What do you say to a Lyon who’s lost a relative? Hakuna matata?”
The beads rattled softly under an AC breeze. Adrian glared back at Danny.
“What? I told you ignoring her is useless.”
A maid pulled the curtain open.
* * *
—
Victor Lyon was pretty much like any other cartel boss Kimrean had met: big, white-haired, megalomaniacal, and convinced that every decision he made regarding money, ethics, or fashion was inherently right. The pulp-inspiring street legend of the 1970s was somewhere in there, buried deep under the businessman, the family man, the general. He resembled a lion the way lions are depicted on coins—vigilant, not bloodthirsty. He appeared to be sixty years old and sixty days from his next heart attack.
They found the man sitting in an Emmanuelle wicker throne, clad in a black kimono, pink feet in sandals resting on a matching stool. Danny and Kimrean stood by, waiting for the Lyon to finish grumbling into the wireless phone. The room was rich in indoor plants and hunting trophies. Another bodyguard stood in a corner, successfully mimicking the taxidermied empty stares.
Kimrean had already scanned the contents of the room twice and was already assigning names to individual flies buzzing around by the time the boss finally ended the conference with a Spanish swearword and hung up.
“Rodrigo Villahermosa,” he recounted for Danny. “He’s ready to assist us in battle for thirty percent, plus the districts of Barro and Arellana. But it’s okay if we don’t agree to his conditions; he can get fifty percent from the Red Mums when it’s all set anyway. The greedy swine!” He slapped the phone off the side table. “There used to be loyalty.”
From the same table he picked up a cigar, snipped the cap off with a guillotine, and lit it up. The first drag produced a cloud of white smoke like the verdict of a papal conclave. He sat back and used the cigar to point at Kimrean.
“Who’s the girl?”
Danny felt his prepared introductory words committing suicide on the tip of his tongue. He checked on Kimrean, green eye glinting behind the blond bangs. For a second of madness he even considered correcting the old man. In the end, though, sanity prevailed.
“Mr. Lyon, this is Zooey Kimrean. She’s the private eye I told you about.”
“I don’t need private eyes, I need an army,” the Lyon epigrammed. He spoke like the emperors of old, powerful and weary. “My son is underground. It’s been three days. It’s time for cannons, not detectives.”
“With Zooey’s help, we might not need the cannons.”
“Goddammit, Danny, can’t you see this is war?! Michael’s dead—a red flower was on the body! What more proof do you—”
Zooey took a ripe pear from a bowl of fruit on the table, rubbed it on her waistcoat, and champed into it with delight. She stopped munching as soon as she realized that both Mr. Lyon and Danny had shut up.
“What? I waf hungry.” She pointed at the bowl. “That’f what it’f there for, ifn’t it?”
A fly (possibly Jennifer) traversed the scene in a slow flight, punctuating the pause.
“Mr. Lyon,” Danny tried to reroute, “all I want is to contain the damage. Zooey here is a genius. Give her five minutes. If we missed anything, she’ll find it. If there is proof of a third party involved, we can salvage the alliance; your work will not have been in vain. If the signs point to the Red Mums, you’ll have your confirmation to strike back.”
He sounded both tough and servile. The kind of person all the Mr. Lyons in the world can’t get enough of.
“I don’t need any more confirmations,” he persevered, clearly for the sake of appearance.
“And Zooey doesn’t need more than a glance at the pool house,” Danny replied.
Zooey was holding the pear core in her hand, longing for a waste bin.
The Lyon gripped his cane and hoisted himself off the chair with a tired sigh. “It’s the Mums, Danny.”
; “I hope you’re wrong, Mr. Lyon,” Danny said, with not a hint of victory in his voice.
* * *
—
They exited through the back door and took the scenic route around the pool, Danny holding Kimrean’s hand just in case. Mr. Lyon, leading the party and slowing it down a little, paid as much attention to the women laughing and splashing in the water as he would to goldfish or ducks. The girlscape had long been there for his son Mikey’s enjoyment rather than his own; he had therefore considered it improper to send the decorations home while the boy’s memory was still fresh. Of course, the news of a murder just a few yards away, not to mention the wake and the funeral that followed, had dampened the mood in Villa Leona, but the girls seemed to have overcome their distress and put aside their concerns for just a little increase in their pay. That was professionalism.
On the way to the pool house, a considerable hike from both the main building and the pool, Danny told Kimrean how San Carnal police had swept the room and examined the corpse. It was implied how brief their involvement had been: Mr. Lyon had always taken care of his own security, and extending an invitation to the local authorities had been a mere formality. The autopsy had been equally swift and superficial.
“There were obvious signs of struggle: he had bruises on his face, a broken arm. The CSI’s theory, and mine, is that Mikey caught the murderer when he sneaked in through the bedroom window. They fought, and once Mikey pulled out his nine millimeter, the intruder disarmed him and shot him. Then he took the Beretta with him, so as not to leave prints. Only the red chrysanthemum on the body.”
Beyond the swimming pool and a paddle tennis court that the garden path circumvented stood the overgrown bungalow, which could have comfortably lodged the families of a dozen Irish coal miners but had instead served as Mikey Lyon’s quarters. A guard patrolling the garden hurried to unlock the front door as soon as he saw the old man approaching.
“This is where it happened,” the boss showed, crossing the brief foyer. Danny followed him to the center of the sitcom-sized living room.
Kimrean stopped on the threshold. Visible from there were the fireplace, the media center, the open kitchen in the back. The fireplace was unpolished stone; everything else, mahogany and bamboo. A hollow wooden elephant played the cocktail cabinet role. On the mantelpiece, a single red flower in a vase sighed at its own reflection in the mirror.
“We found Mikey faceup here,” Danny said, pointing at a sharply defined disinfected area on the leopard rug. “The only door was locked from the inside; the bedroom window was open.”
Adrian said, “It wasn’t the Japanese. Let’s go.”
He turned around and left. He had not walked six feet into the room.
Lyon grunted like an English bulldog at someone who just pretended to throw a ball for him. Danny babbled an apology to him and ran after Kimrean.
He caught them by the wrist on the garden path.
“Zooey, Jesus Christ, you didn’t even—”
“I’m not Zooey,” Adrian whispered angrily, shaking Danny’s hand off. “Don’t ever do that again. Ever.”
“What? Do what?”
“Shit, I don’t even know if I want to know if you know that room is bugged.”
Danny mouthed a random question word, more due to the convoluted form of that line than to its implications.
“Okay, you don’t know,” Adrian sentenced. “There’s a scuff mark on the floor near the entrance from when someone dragged the phone stand to access the socket on the wall behind it; there’s dust on the socket cover, but the screws are all shiny, because someone removed the screws to hide a transmitter inside—FBI field manual. Also, the framed picture of nine-year-old Mikey and his mom on the stand has a bent corner from the time someone hid a microphone on the frame. You will find at least two more mikes, I’m guessing in the kitchen and either behind the mirror over the mantelpiece or in the philodendron. That room has been bugged for at least a week.”
Danny strove to digest all that information compressed into twelve seconds, then muttered, “But…who the…?”
“Oh, I don’t know, let’s see. Who would care to eavesdrop on Mikey Lyon’s business? Can’t think of anyone, except for the ‘twelve counties and five state agencies cooperating to bring down the cartel,’ ” he quoted. “Each one throwing their own mikes and moles and territorial piss marks in the bad guys’ yard! Brilliant coordination as usual!”
“Shit,” Danny wheezed through gritting teeth. “Week before last, the health department came to inspect the place for molds, said some bullshit about new regulations. We had painters working on the ceiling. They were being watched most of the time, but—”
“But while they weren’t being watched they turned the house into Dr. Dre’s studio.”
“The company seemed legit; I checked them out, even drove by their office downtown.”
“Danny!”
The Lyon was catching up with them, hindered by his cane.
“What the hell—you in cahoots with this woman to take the blame off the Mums? Are you—”
Kimrean stepped between them with a wide, fake, conciliatory smile: “It’s done, sir. It wasn’t the Red Mums.”
“But—”
“Mr. Lyon, that flower you found on the victim is not a chrysanthemum: it’s a rare species of rose native to northern Mexico, used only in ornamentation and the preparation of oils. Chrysanthemums are strongly symbolic flowers in China and Japan, where they have been the standard of the Imperial Yamato dynasty for fifteen hundred years; to a Japanese, replacing it with any other flower is like the White House substituting the bald eagle with a penguin. What that Mexican rose there is telling you is ‘Greetings from the South.’ ”
All characters waited for oxygen to flow back between them, Danny and Mr. Lyon gaping at the detective’s ever off-putting, yet calmly reassuring, expression.
“ ‘Greetings from the South,’ ” the old man echoed. And he scowled a little deeper upon asking, “Villahermosa?”
“I’ll let you boys talk,” Kimrean suggested, and they disappeared around the corner.
* * *
—
Kimrean marched over the lawn following the left flank of the bungalow, away from the pool mermaids and toward the colloquy of cockatoos dwelling in the thickest area of the garden. A man was pruning a crape myrtle by the far side of the building, which was fringed by flowery shrubs. Adrian pointed at the sprinklers.
“¿A qué hora las azaleas?”
“A las nueve.”
He thanked him and stepped into the bushes. It was a small jungle in the six-foot-wide strip allotted, the highest twigs reaching well over the P.I.’s hat. Adrian stood in front of the bedroom window and peeked inside. The sill was almost level with his eyes.
He knelt down and started combing the earth for what was left of the footprints after the stampede of criminal investigators. He examined the base of the wall (brown brick over a stone plinth), the brickwork, the mortar between the brickwork like streets clogged by lichen. He ran a fingertip along one of the streets and licked it. He fished his cigarette pack out of his waistcoat, and from the pack he extracted his Detective Kit™: it consisted of a magnifying glass (just the lens), a razor, tweezers, and an empty vial for samples. With the razor he started scratching the edge of the plinth, ten inches above the garden floor.
Myriad insects patrolling and pollinating and eating the jungle assimilated the detective like any other worker.
“What are you doing?”
It was a feminine voice, genuinely interested. Kimrean sprung up, twirled on their feet, expecting to face one of the naiads from the swimming pool. Then they corrected the angle of vision by a few degrees downward.
Her bikini was strawberry-and-cream colored, retro, closer to a vault jumper’s top. She wore her black hair short and sungla
sses like big, bedazzled insect eyes. She stood four feet, eight inches.
Adrian didn’t say anything, so Zooey inserted a friendly “Hey.”
The girl nonchalantly took a sip from her Vanilla Coke. A few yards farther, on a sunny patch among the peach trees, a deck chair and an open Harry Potter book lay out of focus.
“Are you looking into Mikey’s murder?” she inquired.
“Uh-huh,” answered Zooey, while Adrian seemed busy groping a cluster of flowers. “It’s a commission, really; I’m not personally interested.”
“Me neither,” said the little girl.
She waited to see if that caused any effect, but the stranger was apparently too engrossed fondling the azaleas. For a second there it seemed like the conversation had been extinguished.
She commented, if only to defibrillate it: “Police didn’t seem to care a lot either, did they?”
Adrian eyed her again over the fluffy white blossoms. “Why don’t you go play with your little friends by the swimming pool?”
“I’m not allowed there. They say it’s awkward.” She scoffed. “Who wants to look at their prostitute-filled swimming pool and feel dirty or anything, right?”
That did cause some effect, enough to attract Zooey’s attention. Adrian’s was forced to follow, so he gave the girl almost two full seconds’ worth of analysis.
“Okay, lemme see: high zygomatic bone, British accent, attitude…You must be the Lyon’s daughter from his current marriage.”
“Also, I’m eleven, so why else would I be here?” she said. “That wasn’t too impressive.”
Adrian lost interest and returned to the wilderness, nose inches from the ground, seemingly counting the fallen petals.
The girl followed them from a safe distance. Red-nailed bare toes curled on the fresh grass.
“If you’re a cop, shouldn’t you be wearing a visible ID?”
“If you’re eleven, shouldn’t you be busy exploring your own body or something?”
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