by Sean Lynch
“It is I, your most loyal minion,” I said.
“What is it you seek, ye who claims to be my most loyal minion?” asked the voice, which I recognized as the distinct Minnesota accent of my friend Lothar.
“I need your services,” I said.
“Why didn’t you say so?” Lothar asked.
Lothar Ille is a retired cop I worked with when I was on the job. Lothar hailed from Minnesota, which is how we became friends. We Midwestern rubes had to stick together out here in the People’s Socialist Republic of California. Lothar and I were workout partners, and logged a lot of miles running together before our shifts as cops. Lothar was a compact, fit fellow, with a lot of hair on his body and a little on his head. He sported a bushy mustache he probably started growing when he was twelve.
Lothar’s parents were born in Czechoslovakia, and he was fluent in Czech, as well as Russian, Turkish, and several other languages. Before becoming a cop Lothar served in the Army, but instead of being a grunt like me he was a Counterintelligence Special Agent. Lothar’s I.Q. was off the charts, and though he had little formal education after high school he read physics textbooks the way most folks read the Sunday comics.
Lothar spent the first part of his law enforcement career as a fixed-wing surveillance pilot for the California Department of Justice, and the latter part of his career as a detective with computer forensics as his specialty. Lothar was also a state champion large-bore rifle competitor, a ham radio, electronics, and computer expert, a talented gunsmith, and one of the best friends I had ever made. Ask any of the cops I ever worked with who was the smartest guy they knew, and Lothar’s name would inevitably arise.
At the time of his retirement, Lothar was the vice president of the California Computer Forensics Investigator’s Association, and held a top secret clearance through the F.B.I., among other credentials. He was given the name ‘Lothar the Merciless’ by a frustrated criminal defense attorney who, like many of his colleagues, saw his client slam-dunk convicted after Lothar’s testimony in court. Going up against Lothar in court was like trying to revive Charlie Sheen’s film career; it wasn’t impossible, but the odds were heavily against it.
Since his retirement, Lothar had been renovating his Livermore home to sell. He was planning on moving to Colorado, which he said was still part of America, unlike California. I had spent more than a few weekends helping him with various construction projects as part of that process. Lothar’s property was host to an extensive machine shop and laboratory, and in his retirement he did consulting and computer forensics contracting work for assorted law enforcement agencies and the federal government.
About ten years ago, Lothar, Russ, my brother Chris, and another of our friends, Canadian Todd, began making annual sojourns to the Calaveras Dome each autumn to shoot, drink, eat man-food, and commune as men. We subsequently adopted for ourselves the collective moniker, ‘The Calaveras Crew.’
Each of my fellow Calaveras Crew members were men to ride the river with. Friends I could count on, and who could count on me. Russ had already come through for me with a place to live, and a now gun. A man who will arm you when there’re bad men gunning for you is a friend indeed. I was counting on Lothar Ille now.
“What can I do for you?” Lothar asked.
“Do you still have the capability to download and read data from a cell phone SIM card?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t say so over an open line,” he replied.
“How about I show up at your place early tomorrow and ask you the same question over lunch at the First Street Alehouse?”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“So you’ll help me?”
“Is it important?”
“Life or death, brother.”
“Whose life?” Lothar asked.
“Yours truly.”
“See you in the morning,” Lothar said.
My next call was to Karen Pearson. She answered on the third ring.
“I thought you’d forgotten me,” she said.
“That would be a frosty day in hell,” I told her honestly. I’d sooner forget to unzip my trousers before pissing.
“Where have you been? I was at the gym when you called earlier. I returned your call but got your voicemail.”
“It’s been rather a hectic twenty-four hours,” I admitted. “If we’re still on for tonight, I’ll tell you all about it at dinner.”
“Sounds promising,” she said. I could almost hear the mischief in her voice. Or maybe it was my overactive imagination. Or my overactive hormones. Or both. “What did you have in mind?”
What I had in mind was certainly not something I was going to announce to her over my new cellular phone. If I did she might change her name, address, and get a restraining order. Instead, I said, “I’m game for whatever you’d like to do. I put you on the spot during our first get-together. You were pretty tired and Scott’s was a bit formal.”
“How about we go casual this time? Get some takeout and watch a movie at my place?” She gave me an address in the Oakland Hills, off Broadmoor Terrace.
“Sounds ideal. You like Chicago-style deep dish pizza?”
“What fool doesn’t?” Her stock went up another notch.
“I’m in San Ramon as we speak,” I said. “I can pick up a pie at Zachary’s and be at your place in an hour.”
Zachary’s pizza is the only authentic Chicago-style pizza in Northern California. They have four restaurants; in Oakland, Berkeley, San Ramon, and Pleasant Hill. A beer and a slice of Zachary’s deep-dish pizza might be the second and third best things in life.
“I haven’t had Zachary’s in forever,” she cooed. “It’s a deal.”
“I’ll see you in an hour. I’ll be the rakishly handsome devil at your door with a deep dish pizza and a rose in my teeth.”
“And I’ll be the naked gypsy girl answering the door.”
I dropped my new cell phone, along with my jaw, on the floor of my rented Ford. Then I put my car into gear and drove like Batman to pick up a pizza and get to Karen’s place.
Saisir le jour.
Chapter 20
Karen was as good as her word. And then some.
She wasn’t entirely naked when she opened the door; she was wearing two-inch heels. I didn’t complain. Even in the two-inch heels she had to tiptoe to kiss me, but I didn’t mind. We weren’t vertical for long.
I dropped the pizza, kicked the door closed with my foot, and scooped her up to meet my lips more easily. Her perfectly-shaped ass was as hard as a boot camp bunk. She grabbed the back of my neck and some of my hair in remarkably strong hands and pulled our mouths together fiercely. From there, things went just south of heaven and just north of hell. We never made it past the living room floor.
Within a half-hour or so I learned a few things about Karen Pearson. She was spirited. She was flexible. She was naughty. She was everything a woman is supposed to be. And a helluva lot more.
By the time we lay catching our breath on the carpet the rain had started again. I could hear it drumming a beat on the windows and roof of Karen’s apartment. Tonight I liked the rain even more.
“Think the pizza is cold?” she said. “I’m famished.”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m still trying to recover. I’ve been in street fights that left fewer bruises.”
“I must apologize for my enthusiasm,” she laughed. “It’s been a while. No doubt you could tell.”
“No apology necessary,” I said. “It’s been awhile for me, too.”
“I hope so,” she said. “If not, you should be swinging through the jungle from a vine.”
She got to her feet and walked over to the door, where I left the pizza box and most of my clothes. When she bent over to retrieve the pizza I marveled again at her magnificent legs and butt. Aphrodite should have such a butt.
Karen’s nose wrinkled when she saw the .45 lying amidst my discarded attire.
“Do you always carry a gun?”
; “No,” I said. “Only when I’m awake.”
“I forgot how heavy a Zachary’s pizza is,” she said, changing the subject. “It’s like lasagna.” She headed for the kitchen. I watched her walk. It was the most fun a man can have with his eyes.
“Shall I microwave it? It’s pretty cold.”
“It’s a half-baked pizza. Put it into the oven at four-hundred and fifty degrees for about twenty minutes. It’ll be perfect.”
“But I’m hungry now,” she insisted. “What’ll we do for twenty minutes until the pizza is ready?”
I showed her.
By the time we’d worked up an even stronger appetite, and were even more out-of-breath, the enticing odor of Zachary’s deep-dish pizza filled the apartment. Karen donned a black silk robe emblazoned with some kind of elaborate Chinese dragon, and I put on my trousers and T-shirt. She lit a candle and handed me a bottle of wine to open. It was a 1994 Pontormo Chianti, according to the label. I know next to nothing about wine, but remember hearing somewhere that Tuscan wines went well with pizza.
“You’re not having wine?” she asked as I poured one glass.
“I drink only beer and bourbon.”
“I should have guessed. Especially after our dinner at Scott’s.”
Karen opened her refrigerator. “I generally don’t drink beer, but some of my girlfriends do. I have Dos Equis Amber and Corona. Take your choice.”
“I’ll take the Dos Equis, if you please,” I said a little too gleefully. Dos Equis Amber lager is good stuff.
We dined. The food, the mood, and especially the company were splendid. She had one of the epic Zachary slices; I had two; I was showing restraint. I poured her some more wine and she retrieved a second beer for me.
“You said you had a hectic twenty-four hours,” she said. “Did it have to do with the Marisol Hernandez investigation?”
“It did.”
“What happened?”
“Last night I went out to the Track to talk to a hooker who was working at exactly the same spot where Marisol was murdered. I asked her about Marisol’s death.”
“What did she say?”
“Not very much. She was too scared.”
“Then what happened?”
“Then three guys tried to kill me.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
My smile was my answer.
“Oh my god,” Karen said. “You’re not kidding. Are you all right?”
“After what we did on your living room floor, you have to ask?” I grinned.
“You’re making a joke,” she said. “I don’t believe it. At school a couple of days ago that young man with Belicia tried to shoot you. Now you tell me last night three men tried to kill you. Is having people attempt to kill you an everyday occurrence?”
“What can I say? I bring out the best in people.”
“What happened to the three men?”
“Two of them are pushing up daisies. The third got away.”
“You killed them?”
“I figured I’d extend them the same courtesy they offered me.”
Karen set down her glass. “When you told me you had a ‘hectic’ twenty-four hours, I thought you meant your car broke down. Or the dry cleaners lost your laundry. Or you were late on your rent. Or you’d caught the flu. That’s what people mean when they say ‘hectic.’ Not that some guys tried to kill them and they killed two of them back.”
“Would you rather it was the other way around?”
She ignored my question and asked another of her own. “Did you have to kill them?”
“No. I could have spared their lives and let them kill me.”
“There was no other way?”
“It’s tough to smoke a peace pipe with someone when they’re emptying an AK-47 at you.”
Karen was looking at me very intensely. She’d been looking at me intensely a little while ago on the carpet, but this was a different kind of intense. I liked her other brand of intensity better.
“And you don’t feel bad?” she went on. “You can kill two men, and then make love, and eat pizza, and talk about it like we’re discussing the weather?”
“If you expect me to feel remorse you’ll be disappointed. I stopped apologizing for who I am a long time ago. And I never apologize for survival.”
“Have you killed men before?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know these men?”
“I know what kind of men they were. I’ve known men like them most of my life.”
“What kind of men were they that they deserved to die at your hands?” I was beginning to take umbrage with the accusatory edge to Karen’s voice.
“The kind of man who will turn out a fourteen-year-old girl to perform sex acts with adult strangers on the Track. The kind of man who will shoot a teenaged girl in the face and leave her to rot in the street. The kind of man who will beat a woman to death merely for saying something he doesn’t like. That kind of man.”
“What kind of a man are you?”
“One who prefers to not be dead.”
Karen shook her head and stared at her plate. “I guess this is what Dave Boyer meant when he said you were ‘a capable badass.’”
“I’m sorry if I upset you,” I said. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
“You didn’t upset me,” she said, despite the fact I could tell she was. “I wasn’t prepared for this, that’s all.”
“Nobody is, usually,” I said.
Karen looked away from me and ran her hands through her thick hair. When she looked back her features had softened.
“Is this a regular part of your life?” she asked. “Violence?”
“It’s required sometimes. It’s a part of what I do. I stopped apologizing for that, too.”
Karen Pearson looked out her kitchen window at the rain coming down on the Oakland hills.
“You must be a hard man, Chance,” she said.
“I’ve been to some hard places,” I admitted.
We sat in silence for a while. When she finally spoke again her tone had changed. She switched to what I guessed was the manner in which she addressed her students.
“I like you, Chance. A lot. From the first time I met you. You could probably tell by the way I greeted you today at my door. But I have to process this. This may be too much.”
“I understand,” I said, taking the hint. I stood up and began to get dressed. She watched, and I noticed her eyebrows lift when I clipped on the gun.
“I don’t like guns,” she announced.
“I don’t like vaccinations,” I answered. “But without them my health suffers. Guns are like that.”
“Don’t be patronizing,” she said. “It doesn’t become a gentleman.”
“Don’t be ignorant,” I said. “And I’m not a gentle man.”
“Apparently not.”
“I’ll wait for you to call me,” I said.
“That would be best,” she said.
“Good night, Karen. Thank you for a wonderful evening. I won’t forget it. Or you.”
“Good night, Chance.”
I paused with the door partially open. “Karen,” I asked, looking directly into her eyes.
“Yes, Chance?”
“Can I take the leftover pizza?”
Chapter 21
Livermore was about as far inland as you can go and still be truly considered part of the San Francisco Bay Area. East of Livermore was the Altamont Pass, and once over that you’re in the San Joaquin Valley.
Livermore had undergone something of a renaissance during the past decade, with wineries, independent film studios, retail shopping and estate homes competing with the established old-town Livermore bungalows housing blue collar workers and Mexican immigrants. I was driving Highway 580 to Lothar the Merciless’s house in my rented Ford Mustang. It was shaping up to be a nice day. I wasn’t feeling so nice.
The sun came up on a cloudless Sunday for the first time in three Sundays. I was up with it early,
doing my roadwork with a vengeance. I did a couple of extra miles to get the juices flowing.
I hit the trail hard. When I returned home I hit the weights harder. Then I tore into the heavy bag like Ralphie tearing open his Daisy Red Ryder BB gun on Christmas morning. There’s something comically ironic about countering a beautiful woman’s inference that you’re a violent brute by beating the shit out of an inanimate object.
An hour later I was shaved, showered, and physically refreshed. I still felt like crap. I was so disjointed from last night’s badly-ending conversation with Karen Pearson that I could barely digest my cold Zachary’s pizza.
I guess I shouldn’t be so hard on myself; two dates is almost a record for me. I really liked Karen though; I liked her a lot. Especially the way she welcomed me on arrival. I would have enjoyed knocking on her door on a regular basis. That was apparently not in the cards.
Maybe she’d call? Maybe not. Maybe Senator Dianne Feinstein would join the National Rifle Association and take up deer hunting.
I took the Portola Avenue exit and in five minutes was pulling into Lothar Ille’s driveway. He came outside to meet me holding a cup of coffee.
“Greetings, Lothar,” I said. We shook hands. He didn’t offer me any java. He knows I don’t drink the stuff.
“Let’s go inside. Debbie is visiting her mom in Grass Valley,” he informed me. “We can work undisturbed.”
Debbie is Lothar’s wife of over twenty-five years; pretty rare for a cop. As we walked into his house I noticed a squirrel on the kitchen table eating cereal from a bowl. The rodent paid me no mind as I walked past. Lothar was always rescuing and domesticating critters. Over the years I’d seen him rescue squirrels, birds, raccoons, possums, and of course cats and dogs. It was an integral part of his eccentric genius persona.
“What have you got for me?”
I handed him the SIM card I’d extracted from the phone belonging to the pimp in the white hat. He held it up to the light and examined it. Then he nodded and we went into his workshop out back.
Lothar the Merciless’s workshop was housed in a concrete structure in his backyard which he constructed himself. It looked like the set of a Frankenstein movie, if Dr. Frankenstein was a gun nut. He had a drill press, lathe, and tool racks on one wall, and an impressive array of electronics on the other, including a large working Tesla coil. Lothar possessed a high-performance ham radio, and multiple radio frequency and digital spread spectrum scanners. Several computers custom-designed by Lothar sat linked together on a series of shelves. There were two microscopes and a high-end telescope also. A huge gun-safe occupied another corner of the room, and what space remained in the shop was consumed by stacks of books; mostly technical manuals on subjects ranging from wave spectrum analysis to physics to gunsmithing. I felt like Igor minus the hump.