Unfinished Business - Barbara Seranella

by Barbara Seranella

  She stuck her grease rag in her back pocket and went out to see what "Frank" Fahoosy's complaint was this time. The name on his registration was Farhood Fahoosy. He told Pauley that his family were friends of the Shah and had to flee Iran five years ago when the Ayatollah took over in '79.

  And you believed him? Munch had wanted to ask but didn't. It seemed like every Persian she met claimed a close personal relationship with the deposed ruler.

  Fahoosy pulled up to the first lube bay got out of his car, and stood by his rear tire, his dark eyebrows raised and lips pursed in an expression of exasperation. Like many of the Middle Eastern men who frequented the station, Fahoosy was wickedly handsome. Black hair and eyes so dark that there was no distinction where pupil ended and iris began. He trained those exotic eyes on her now.

  "Problem?" she asked.

  Lou had also seen Fahoosy pull up and was standing in the doorway of the office, waiting for Munch to communicate whether she needed him or not. She locked eyes with her boss and made a slight upward lift of her head. Lou caught her meaning and approached.

  "This is unacceptable," Fahoosy said, pointing to his rear tire. She looked down at the chrome rim and wished she'd never sold this guy a set of tires. The negotiations for the low-profile Pirellis had taken half a morning, and he had managed to get the spin-balancing thrown in for free. At least she had thought far enough ahead to pretend she charged for valve stems, too. Lou walked over and stuck out his hand. "Frank, how are you?"

  Fahoosy took the proffered hand, his cuff pulling back to reveal a watch heavy with diamonds and gold chunks. According to his business card he was a producer. In Los Angeles that could mean many things, including nothing.

  "This tire needs to be balanced again," he said. "It was not done properly and now bounces me all over the road."

  Munch looked down at the wheel in question and noticed the lead wheel weight near the valve stem. She tugged at Lou's sleeve and pointed at the weights.

  "Just a second, Frank," Lou said, and pulled Munch over to the side. "What?"

  "I never balanced that tire," she told him, speaking softly so he would have to lean closer. "On a chrome rim like that, I always put the weights on the inside so they don't show. "

  "What are you saying? The guy swapped tires to get a free balance job?"

  "That's right."

  "Look, just go ahead and do it. It'll only take you a few minutes and it'll get the guy out of our hair. " Lou was of the school that any customer was a good customer.

  "That's not the point," she said. She was angry now . . . mostly at herself for letting greed overpower caution. When Fahoosy had first come in, she'd seen the obvious clues to the guy's nature: the wire coat hanger where the antenna used to be and the key scrapes up one door. She'd also seen four bald tires and gone out of her way to be nice to the guy. She had ignored the signs of his unpopularity had given him the benefit of the doubt. As a rule, Munch let her compassion to her fellow man go only so far, especially at the workplace. Fahoosy had also burned Pauley out of a wax job by stopping payment on his check—a fact that only surfaced with yesterday's mail. Now this.

  "C'mon, Frank," Lou said, clapping the guy on the back as if they were old friends. He could do that, too. Pretend as if he liked someone for the good of the business. It hurt her face to smile at Fahoosy, but she did. Lou expected her to rise to any occasion.

  "Let's let her work," he said now, "and I'll buy you a cup of coffee."

  Munch waited until the two men were out of sight around the corner before she opened the trunk. The spare tire wasn't even bolted down. A mass of loose videotapes surrounded it. Movies with titles like Naughty Nurses and Deep and Deeper. Figured. Munch thought of her own brief career in film. Flower George had set it up with this guy who drove a Corvette—a convertible. He was a young guy too, and dressed sharp—not the regular sort of man who waved her to his car for a quick exchange of what he wanted for what she needed.

  The guy said he could spot talent. Photogenic gold. He said she had it, and she had let herself believe for one brief, exhilarating moment that maybe she had found a way out of her life. That he was going to show her some magical escape from old men's groping hands, her father's included. His being the worst. She had been dumb enough to go for the so-called filmmaker's line. No, not dumb, she corrected herself. Take the judgment out of it. If there was one thing she tried to communicate to the women she sponsored, it was to have compassion for their former selves and to treat their current selves as if they were someone they loved. Fake it till you make it, she'd tell them when they would call, crying how difficult it was to change so much about their lives. She counseled her "babies" in the same manner she had been counseled, by sharing her experience, strength, and hope. She told newly sober women that they didn't get screwed up all at once, and that they wouldn't find their issues magically resolved all at once either. When she told them these things, she was also reminding herself.

  So, no, she hadn't been dumb so much as she had been naive back then. Oh sure, at sixteen she had felt old enough for anything and plenty world-wise. But now, with a twenty-eight-year-old woman's perspective it was clear to her how young sixteen really was. No match for some slick guy with a pearly smile and earnest eyes, who, judging by his car and clothes, had his shit pretty well together. And he was telling her she was beautiful—had something special. The very thing she suspected and was trying to convince herself of at the time. Somehow he had known how to prey on that.

  She had gone with him to his "studio." He told her what to do and she let him direct her. Later, drowning her shame at the bar, she had wondered if there had even been film in his camera or if that was part of the lie. He never called back. For years afterward she had sneaked surreptitious glances at the covers of the sex rags they sell from the corner vending machines. She always looked at the girls' faces on the covers, scared spitless that one day she would see her own looking back at her with her tongue curled provocatively and eyes half-closed in a come-hither-and-do-me look.

  How would she live that one down if the photos were to surface now?

  It wasn't as if she didn't admit to most of her past life openly, especially when it would help someone else, like at an A.A. meeting. Even then she liked to work up to the worst parts. People liked to act as if they were cool with anything. Hey it's the eighties, they'd say But really you never knew. Of course, an audience of recovering alcoholics and addicts tended to be a much more tolerant crowd than, say the PTA.

  Garret knew. She would never enter into a close relationship with a man without telling him her history. He had taken the news of her past almost too well. She suspected it thrilled him a little, to be with such a former bad girl.

  For the most part, it was safer to just keep your mouth shut about certain things. Flower George had taught her that, too. But then again, if the story of her past came out, so be it. Might even be liberating. One less thing to hide. Another advantage she had was that stacked against all she'd been through, there weren't that many big deals.

  She slid the tire toward her and stuck her fingers through the center hub hole. Lifting a tire out of a trunk was awkward. No leverage could be applied; she had to rely solely on arm muscles. She could have asked one of the guys to help, but she never did unless it was something they would be asking for help with if the situation were reversed. Like putting a standard transmission back in after a clutch job or setting a cylinder head down over a new gasket. Nobody was ever going to accuse her of not pulling her weight.

  Her size made it necessary for her to employ a variety of tricks when lifting. If a vehicle was on the rack, she could handle even one-ton truck tires by balancing them on her leg first and then bouncing them to the ground. But for now all she could do was grunt a little and heave. Fortunately the Mercedes rim was an alloy and lighter than its steel counterparts.

  She leaned the spare against the back bumper and shut the trunk. The inside of the rim was dirty with old grease and road grit,
further proving her theory that Frank had pulled a switcheroo. The shop's brand of wheel weights were still hammered firmly on the inside lip of the rim. She jacked up the back of the Mercedes, zipped off the lug bolts with her air gun, and put the wheel she had already balanced back on the car. It would have been less work just to balance the swapped spare, but there was principle involved, and that always took precedence over effort.

  She rolled the tire that had been on the car into the office and leaned it against the wall. She was letting the jack down when Frank and Lou walked up the driveway holding Styrofoam cups from the bakery next door.

  Lou had a cup in each hand. "All set?" he asked, handing her one already doctored just the way she liked it.

  "Take it away" she said.

  After Fahoosy left, Lou went back in the office to reconcile the morning's books and figure out his next gas load. A moment later he called Munch's name. She came to the doorway.

  He pointed at Fahoosy's spare. "What's this about?"

  "The detail guys must have forgotten to put that back into Fahoosy's trunk. They'll have to call him later. He can pick it up when he comes in to make good on the check he gave them."

  "This is the kind of shit I'm talking about," he said. "You go out of your way to find trouble."

  Chapter 11

  Munch started to offer a defense but stopped when the phone rang. Lou answered with the standard "Bel-Air Texaco." She took the opportunity to walk away. She grabbed the key to a Ford Mustang off the work order and read the customer's complaint. The engine was stalling at stop-lights, cutting out on acceleration, and idling roughly. Sounded like it had a misfiring cylinder.

  The Mustang was parked next to Pauley's wash stall by the north driveway There was a hose there and it was in a far corner of the lot.

  According to Lou, bad luck and financial reversals had hounded Pauley for years. He'd once even owned his own gas station but had lost it to the tax man. It must be pretty humbling for Pauley Munch thought as she watched him run soapy mitts over the hood of a Lincoln Continental, to be merely leasing what amounted to three parking spaces and a wooden storage locker now.

  During the summer, as soon as Pauley's business started to take off, the people in the apartment building next door complained of runoff. The city got involved and told him he had to install an asphalt berm around his wash area that funneled the water to a drain connected to the sewer. Lou split the cost with him, but it hadn't been cheap.

  She gave him a little wave. He nodded in acknowledgment as he rinsed off the Lincoln. She started the Mustang, drove it over to the lube bays, and hooked it up to the scope. Pauley pulled the Lincoln over to his spot in the shade in front of Lou's office and began squeegeeing water off the hood and roof.

  Spiking lines on the oscilloscope pattern soon informed her that the Ford needed spark plug wires. She shut off the engine and heard a woman's strident voice. The source was a well-dressed Brentwood matron. The object of her complaints seemed to be a mauve Jaguar. Pauley stood beside the gleaming car, looking conciliatory, as the woman pointed to the wheels.

  "There are water spots on the rims," she said.

  "Yes, ma'am," Pauley said. "I noticed that when the car came in. I rubbed them out twice."

  "Well, it's not good enough. Are you telling me you can't polish chrome correctly?"

  "No, ma'am." Pauley had a soft towel in his hand and bent to demonstrate. "These stains are permanent."

  Munch walked past the two of them on the way to the phone and shot Pauley a sympathetic look, but he was concentrating on trying to please the woman. She passed Lou's open office door and saw that he, too, was watching what was going on outside.

  "And what about this?" the woman asked, pointing to a drip of water escaping from the gas cap flap. "I suppose you're going to tell me that this was here when I came in?"

  Pauley said nothing. He used his rag to wipe at the water, then walked around the car and made several other swipes for show. The woman watched with lips pursed, one hand on her hip, while she checked her watch and tapped her foot.

  Munch found the Mustang work order and called the owner's work number. She was in the middle of selling the needed repair when Lou suddenly slammed down his pencil and rushed out his door.

  He came to a stop between Pauley and his unreasonable customer and lifted his hands high above his head in a gesture of exaggerated befuddlement. "What do you want him to do for you, lady" he asked in a voice that carried throughout the shop, "shit blood?"

  Munch winced at the crudeness. The woman's jaw dropped. Pauley looked at his feet. The air around them all hushed with tension. Lou waited a moment for the woman to respond, then dropped his hands and returned to his office. Another moment passed and then time seemed to start up again. The woman paid Pauley and left. Munch finished her call to the owner of the Mustang. By the time she hung up the phone, she was grinning. Vulgarity aside, there were times when she really loved Lou. She walked back outside, thinking to share a laugh with Pauley but when she caught his eye he was glaring at her with an emotion she couldn't fathom. She could understand his anger, but why was he directing it at her?

  "What?" she asked.

  He shook his head and walked off in the direction of the bathrooms. She decided he was embarrassed and left him alone.

  By nine—thirty, the shop was caught up on all the jobs. The Mustang was running like new and the customer would pick it up when he got off work at five.

  She looked at the deserted shop and sighed. She hated it when it got slow. That's when the idiots emerged, usually in the form of bored coworkers. There was nothing more annoying than men with time on their hands. Guys liked to tell stories, she noticed. And the fact that you'd already heard many versions of the same tale didn't stop them. It was like they had some sort of secret pact. You listen to my bullshit, and I'll listen to yours. Bikers did it, cops did it, dopers did it. If someone didn't have anything new to say she often wondered, why didn't they ever consider just shutting up? Or reading a book? Or, God forbid, one of the service bulletins put out by the Bureau of Automotive Repair. She also had to ask herself how much of her resentment stemmed from the fact that the majority of her stories couldn't be shared with the present audience.

  Needless to say, she was more than relieved when Mace St. John's Buick pulled into the driveway. He parked in front of the office. She met him at his car.

  "How are you holding up?" he asked.

  "I'm about to go crazy. You could shoot a cannon through the back room and not hit anything."

  "Let's go see your friend."

  Munch let Lou know she was taking a break. He responded by looking at his watch.

  They took St. John's car to Barrington Plaza Gardens. The gate guard asked them for their names, clipboard in hand. Before Munch could say anything, St. John flashed his badge. The gate guard shrugged and let them on through. Fahoosy's black Mercedes passed them going out. She recognized the custom antenna and scooted down in her seat.

  "Problem?" St. John asked.

  "Just some jerk customer." She sat up again. "What am I hiding for? You've got a gun, right?"

  He smiled. "What did this guy do?"

  She told most of the story only leaving out the part where she "forgot" to put the Mercedes's spare back in its trunk. St. John found the guest parking spaces. He locked the Buick and the two of them walked up the path to unit 62.

  Robin answered the door in a dark green jogging suit. The thick fleece managed to accentuate her thinness rather than conceal it, but at least she had changed out of her bathrobe and brushed her hair.

  "Can we come in?" Munch asked.

  "Oh, I'm sorry. Please.”

  Munch kicked off her shoes and left them by the front mat. Robin directed her guests toward the sofa and settled in an armchair. Munch made introductions.

  "Can I get anyone anything?" Robin asked. "A Coke? Water?" They both declined.

  St. John sat next to Munch on the couch and said, "I'm going to see
Pete Owen later today. I'll offer him whatever assistance I can. I'm sorry this happened to you. I want you to know that we make catching these kinds of predators a number-one priority."

  "I hope so," she said. The refrigerator made a loud, gurgling noise and Robin jumped as if reacting to a gunshot. Munch squeezed St. John's arm although she was sure he'd noticed. She was too honest with herself not to realize when she was making an excuse to touch him.

  "I know this will be difficult," he said, using a gentle tone, "but I need you to tell me everything you remember about your attack and your assai1ant."

  Robin perched on the edge of the chair cushion, barely making a dent. She told her story in a monotone, her eyes never leaving her hands. She told them how she never saw it coming. She'd been on her way home alone from an evening out. He had come up from behind, wrapped his arm around her neck, and choked her until she passed out. When she came to, he had taped her eyes shut. He told her he would kill her if she didn't do what he said. She believed him.

  "He talked to me." Robin rubbed the palm of her hand down her thigh, stopping at her knee. She did this repeatedly as if it gave her some sort of comfort. "He said he had been watching me. His voice was disguised, like he was talking through some kind of vibrating filter. He said, 'You don't know how long I've waited for this.' "

  St. John leaned forward. "What about the voice?"

  "The only way I can describe it is to tell you it was like listening to static, something that shouldn't be human, forming words. Horrible words."

  "Did you tell this to Detective Owen?" St. John asked.

  "I might have. I don't remember how thoroughly I described everything. I was pretty shook up when I spoke to him."

  St. John's eyes had an intense glow to them. He balled his fist and sank it into the cushion next to him. "What happened next?"

  She told them how he'd put her in her own car and they'd driven in what felt like circles. She didn't think they had ever gotten on the freeway, but there was the sensation of going up and down hills. At last they'd stopped. He'd led her out of the car. Two steps up to the front door, across a floor that wasn't carpeted, and then down some stairs.