Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 06 - Private Eyes

by Private Eyes(Lit)

  Closing the door behind me and locking it with a hard twist.

  The restaurant's lights were ofo The leaded windows were frosted and thinly spaced and a dishwater-colored haze struggled through them. My pupils labored to adjust. When they stopped aching, I saw a single long room lined with tuft-and-nailhead redleather booths and floored with honey-brown carpet patterned in mock peg-and-groove. The tables were spread with white linen and set with pewter drink plates, blocky green glass goblets, and stoutlooking flatware. The walls were vertical pine planks stained the color of roast beef. Bracketed shelves just below the ceiling line housed a collection of mugs and steins easily a hundred of them, many of them featuring pink-cheeked Anglo-Saxon visages with dead porcelain eyes. Suits of armor that looked like studio props stood in strategic locations around the restaurant. Maces and broadswords hung on the walls, along with still life's favoring dead birds and rabbits.

  An open door at the rear offered a glimpse of stainless-steel kitchen.

  To its left was a horseshoe-shaped, leather-topped bar backed with a St. Pauli's Girl mirror. A stainless-steel serving cart sat at the epicenter of thefaux-wood carpet, bare except for a rotisserie spit and a carving set hefty enough to handle bison surgery.

  Ramp was at the bar, facing the mirror, brow resting in one hand, one arm dangling. Near his elbow was a glass and a bottle of Wild Turkey.

  Clatter came from the kitchen, then silence.

  Unhealthy silence. Like most places designed for social intercourse, the restaurant was deathly without it.

  I approached the bar. Bethel Drucker stayed with me. When we got there, she said, "Can I get you something, sir?" As if brunch had been restored.

  "No, thanks."

  She went over to Ramp's right side, leaned low, tried to catch his eye.

  He didn't budge. The ice in his glass floated in an inch of bourbon.

  The bar top smelled of soap and booze.

  Bethel said, "How "bout some more water?"

  He said, "Okay."

  She took the glass, went behind the bar, filled it from a plastic Evian bottle, and put it in front of him.

  He said, "Thanks," but didn't touch it.

  She looked at him for a moment, then went into the kitchen.

  When we were alone, he said, "No problem finding me, huh?"

  Talking so low I had to move closer. I took the stool next to him. He didn't move.

  I said, "When you didn't come home, I wondered. It was an educated guess."

  "Got no home. Not anymore.

  I said nothing. The St. Pauli girl grinned with Aryan joy.

  "I'm a guest now," he said. "Unwanted guest. Welcome mat worn clear the hell through... How's Melissa?"

  "Sleeping."

  "Yeah, she does that a lot. When she's upset. Every time I used to try to talk to her she'd doze off."

  No resentment in his voice. Just resignation. "Lots to be upset about. I wouldn't trade what she's been through for twenty billion.

  She got dealt a lousy hand.... If she'd've let me.

  He stopped, touched his water glass, made no attempt to lift it.

  "Well, she's got one less thing to be upset about," he said.

  "What's that?"

  "Yours truly. No more evil stepdad. She once rented that from the video store-The Stepfather Watched it over and over Downstairs in the den. Never watched anything else down there-doesn't even like movies.

  I sat down to watch it with her. Wanting to relate. Made popcorn for two. She fell asleep." He heaved his shoulders. "I'm gone, hit the dusty trail."

  "From San Labrador or just from the house?"

  Shrug.

  "When did you decide to leave?" I said.

  "Bout ten minutes ago. Or maybe it was right from the beginning, I don't know What the hell's the diff?"

  Neither of us talked for a while. The mirror shot back our reflections, sullied by dishwater light. Our faces were barely discernible, distorted by the imperfections in the silvered glass and the painted face of the grinning fraulein. I made out just enough to know that he looked awful. I didn't look much better.

  He said, "I just can't see why the hell she'd do it."

  "Do what?"

  "Drive up there-break her appointment at the clinic. She never broke rules."

  "Never?"

  He turned and faced me. Unshaven, pouch-eyed. Instant old man; the mirror had been kind. "She once told me that when she was a kid in school, she used to get straight As. Not because she especially liked to study, but because she was afraid of the teachers getting mad at her. Afraid of not doing well. She was straitlaced as they comeeven back when we were at the studio and things got pretty loose, she never relaxed her standards."

  I wondered how that kind of morality would fare after coming up against Todd Nyquist. I said, "Chickering's pushing a suicide theory."

  "Chickering's a goddam ass. The only thing he's got any talent for is keeping things quiet. Which is what they pay him for."

  "What kinds of things?"

  He closed his eyes, shook his head, faced the mirror again.

  "What do you think? People making asses of themselves. They come in here and get plastered, want to drive home and get all pissed-off and abusive when I tell Noel not to release their keys. I call Chickering.

  Even though this is Pasadena, he comes right down and escorts them home-he or one of his troopers, but they do it with their own cars, so no one will see anything out of the ordinary. Nothing gets written up and the ass's car gets delivered to his driveway. If it's somebody local. Same with nice old ladies caught shoplifting, or kids smoking dope."

  "What about outsiders?"

  "They get put in jail." Grim smile. "We've got great crime statistics." He ran a finger across his lips. "That's why we've got no local paper-thank God for that now. I used to think it was a real pain in the ass from an advertising point of view, but thank God for it now."

  He put both hands over his face.

  Bethel came out from the kitchen carrying a plate of steak and eggs.

  She put it down in front of him, then quickly went back in.

  After a long time he looked up. "So. How'd you enjoy the beach?"

  When I didn't reply, he said, "I told you she wouldn't be out there.

  Why the hell'd you bother?"

  "Detective Sturgis asked me to check."

  YAlVAIt t I t I "Good old Detective Sturgis. W I sure wasted each other's time, didn't we? You usually do what he asks?"

  "He doesn't usually ask."

  "Though it wasn't exactly dirty work, right? Drive to the beach, catch some sun, check up on the client."

  "It's a beautiful spot," I said. "Get down there much?"

  He tensed his jaw. Touched his whiskey glass. Finally said, "Used to.

  Few times a month. Never could get Gina to go with me."

  He turned and looked at me again. Stared.

  I held his gaze.

  "Nothing like the sun at the beach," he said. "Gotta keep the old tan going. Perfect host and all that-got a certain goddam standard to uphold, right?"

  He lifted the glass, sipped.

  I said, "The last couple of days haven't been a day at the beach for you."

  "Yeah." Hollow laugh. "First I thought it was nothing-Gina'd lost her way, would come right back. Then when she didn't show up by Thursday night, I started thinking maybe she had taken a drivewanting to be free, like Sturgis said. Once I put that in my mind, I couldn't get it out. Couldn't stop wondering if it was something I did-drove myself nuts wondering. So what does it turn out to be?

  Goddam stupid accident, Jesus H... I should have known it wasn't us. We were getting along great, even though it was so. so He made a tortured sound, picked up the glass, and heaved it at the mirror. The fraulein's face cracked; blades of glass tumbled out and shattered on the gooseneck spigot of the bar sink, leaving a trapezoid of white plaster. The rest of the mirror remained bolted to the wall.

  No one came out of the kitchen
.

  He said, "Skoal. A-goddam-sant6. Bottoms goddam up." Turning to me: "What are you here for anyway? See what a secret fag looks like?"

  "Touching base. Trying to make some sense of what happened, myself.

  So I can help Melissa."

  "Made any so far? Sense?"

  "Not yet.

  "You one, too?"

  "What?"

  "Fag. Gay-whatever they're calling it nowadays. Like him.

  Sturgis. And me and.

  "No."

  "Bully for you... Good old Melissa. What was she like as a little kid?"

  I told him, emphasizing the positive, careful not to break confidentiality.

  "Yeah," he said again. "That's what I figured. I would have likedAh, to hell with it."

  He got up with remarkable speed. Went to the kitchen door and called out, "Noel!"

  The Drucker boy came out, wearing his red busboy's jacket over a T-shirt and jeans and holding a dish towel.

  "You can go now," said Ramp. "The doctor here says she's sleeping. If you want to wait till she wakes up, that's fine. I've got nothing for you to do here. Just do one thing first: Pack me a suitcase-clothes, stufo just throw it in. Use the big blue case in my closet. Bring it back here-doesn't matter what time. I'll be here."

  "Yes, sir," said Noel, looking uneasy.

  "Sir;" said Ramp, turning to me. "Hear that? Respectful youth.

  This boy will go far. Watch out, Harvard."

  Noel winced.

  Ramp said, "Tell your mom it's safe to come out. I'm not going to eat any of this. Gonna take a nap, myself."

  The boy went back into the kitchen.

  Ramp watched him. "Everything's going to change," he said.

  "Everything."

  Just as I was pulling away from the curb, Noel came out of the restaurant. He spotted me and jogged over to the Seville. He'd removed his red jacket, wore a small backpack over his T-shirt. The shirt said GREENPEACE. He mouthed, "Excuse me."

  I opened the passenger window.

  He said, "Excuse me," again, and added a "sir."

  "What's up, Noel?"

  "I was just wondering how Melissa's doing."

  "She seems mostly to be sleeping. The full impact may not have hit her yet.

  "She's a very..." He frowned.

  I waited. He said, "It's hard to phrase it."

  I shoved the door open. "C'mon in."

  He hesitated for a moment, pulled off the backpack, placed it on the floor, and slid in. He lifted the pack and put it on his lap. His face was hungry and hurting.

  "Nice car," he said. "Seventy-eight?"

  "Nine."

  "The new ones aren't nearly as good. Too much plastic."

  "I like it."

  He played with the straps on the backpack.

  I said, "You were saying something about Melissa. Something that was hard to phrase."

  He frowned. One fingernail scraped a strap. "All I meant to say was, she's a very special person. Unique. Just from looking at her you'd assume she was something totally different than what she actually is-I mean, I know this sounds sexist, but most of the really good-looking girls tend to be concerned about superficial things-at least that's the way it is out here."

  "Out here in San Labrador?"

  He nodded. "At least as far as what I've seen. I don't know, maybe it's California in general. Or the whole world. I've never really lived anywhere else since I was a little kid, so I can't really say.

  That's why I wanted to get out of here-try a different environment.

  Not all this party-hearty."

  "Harvard."

  Nod. "I applied to a lot of schools, didn't really expect to get into Harvard. When I did, I decided it was what I wanted, if the financial part could be worked out."

  "Was it?"

  "Basically. Between what I've saved up, taking a year off to put more away, and some other things, I could have handled it."

  "Could have?"

  "I don't know." He fidgeted, pulled straps. "I really don't know, now, if going away is the best thing."

  I said, "Why's that?"

  "I mean, how can I leave when she's going through something like this?

  She's... deep. Feels things more strongly than other people.

  She's the only girl I've ever met who's really concerned with important things. The first time we ever met, it was unbelievably easy to talk to her."

  Pain in his eyes.

  "Sorry," he said, reaching for the door handle. "Sorry for bothering you. Actually, I feel kind of dishonest talking to you.

  "Why's that?"

  He rubbed the back of his neck. "The first time Melissa called you-about wanting to come in and see you? I was there. In the room with her."

  I mentally replayed the conversation. Melissa excusing herself a couple of times... Oh, darn, hold on... hand over the phone.

  "And?" I said.

  "I was against it," he said. "Her seeing you. I told her she didn't need a- She could work things out herself. That we could problemsolve it together. She told me to mind my own business, that you were great.

  Now here I am, talking to you myself."

  "None of that's important, Noel. I'et's get back to where we were-Melissa as a unique person. I agree with you on that. What you're saying is you feel a unique rapport with her. And you're worried about abandoning her in her time of need."

  He nodded.

  "When are you supposed to leave for Boston?"

  "Early August. Classes start September. But they want you to get there earlier, for orientation."

  "Got a major in mind?"

  "Maybe international relations."

  "Diplomacy?"

  "Probably not. I think I'd prefer something that has to do with actual policy-making. An administrative staff position at the State Department or Defense. Or a congressional aide. If you study the way the government works, it's really the people behind the scenes who get things done. Sometimes professional diplomats do have impact, but often they're just appointed figureheads." Pause. "Also, I think I'd have a better shot at a behind-the-scenes position."

  "Why's that?"

  "From everything I've read about the foreign service, where you come from your family, your background, who you know-is more important than what you actually accomplish. Kind of like making the best clubs in high school. I haven't got much of a family. Just Mom and myself" Saying it matter-of-factly, no self-pity.

  He said, "It used to bother me people put a lot of premium on lineage out here. Meaning money that's two generations old. But now I realize I've actually been pretty lucky. Mom's really supportive and I've always had everything I needed. When you get down to it, a person doesn't need that much, do they? Also, I got to see what happens to lots of the rich kids-the kind of messes they get themselves into.

  That's why I really respect Melissa. She's probably one of the richest girls in San Lab, but she doesn't act like it. The first time I met her she'd come into the Tankard with some other kids for a French Club dinner and I was busing for my mom. The rest of them acted as if I were invisible. Melissa took the time to say please and thank you, and afterward, when the others went out to the parking lot, she hung back and talked to me, told me she'd seen me at the Pasadena-San Labrador track meet-I used to do gymnastics until it took too much time from my studies. Nothing flirty she's not like that. We started talking and there was this instant... rapport. As if we were old friends. She kept coming in and we got to be really good friends. She helped me with lots of things. All I want is to be able to help her. Is it definite about her mom being... ?"

  "No," I said. "Not definite. But it doesn't look good."

  "That's really... terrible." Shaking his head. Scratching the pack. "God, that's terrible. It's going to be so hard for her."

  "Did you know Mrs. Ramp well?"

  "Not really. I washed her cars every couple of weeks. Once in a while she'd come down and take a look. But to tell the truth, she really didn't care about them. One
time I made a comment about how fantastic they were, and she said she guessed so, but to her they were just metal and rubber. Then she apologized right away, said she hadn't meant to demean my work. I thought that was pretty classy.