by Dan Glover
"What are you saying, Ms. McNairy? Are we in danger?"
"You should know that better than me, Mr. Picany. Are you?"
He'd found the journal between the mattress and box springs in Paula's room when he'd packed up the house in California for the move to Oklahoma.
It was apparent that she really had murdered those men... Johm and Olay. Not that he could blame her. Now she was dead. Would the Captain attempt to track him down next? Quite likely, at least according to what he read.
There wasn’t a lot he could do except to trust in providence and perhaps have another drink. That and burn that fucking journal before anyone else got a look at it.
Chapter 91—Leaving California
(Bare Bears)
If she had her druthers she'd never leave California again. Sure, there was the ever-present possibility of earth quakes but at least the weather was fine year around. Wichita stank of death and Oklahoma of dust and all the people in those faraway places seemed to be only going through the motions, not really living, not like in California.
Returning to her home state was like entering another country, leaving behind the staid realm of everyday and bouncing into the mystery where anything could happen and it usually did. There was a reason why all the movies were made in California... the magic in the air made anything possible.
Danners was down about his bear. Sometimes she wanted to grab the man and shake some sense into him... to slap him hard across the face and tell him to wake up. Maybe that's why she never had any children. She wouldn’t be a good mother. The authorities would doubtlessly take them away from her and place them in better homes where people would love and pamper them.
That's what Danners needed... to be yanked away from her and remanded into the custody of someone who cared. She wasn’t a friend to him, nor a lover. She treated him like shit most of the time yet he stayed. Like a dog who'd been kicked around all his life yet had nothing better to look forward to and so there he was... raising his queer ass in the air in which for her to plant her shoe any time she felt like it.
"So where is Sally Lupo, Danners? Any ideas?"
"I got nothing, Liza... there isn’t anything to go on. She could be anywhere."
"Well, after our little jaunt to Oklahoma if I was going somewhere, I'd make sure it was warm there. Mexico, maybe? Central America?"
"Why doesn’t Hank just sit tight and wait for her to come home?"
"I'm guessing she took something that belonged to him. After talking with Marcy, I'd say it was money. Probably a lot of it."
"Does Reilly know that?"
"He's not stupid, Danners. If we can figure it out, he can too. Why?"
"Well, if she took that much money from Hank, what's to keep Reilly from doing the same when he finds her?"
"We need to get to her first. Is that what you're saying?"
"Let's go by Hank's place, Liza. Let me take a look around. As long as Sally lived there, I might get impressions just off the surroundings. It's worth a shot."
She never actually realized how well appointed Hank Lupo's home really was. She'd been there before but always took the paintings hanging on the walls as prints and the antique furniture as faux. This time, though, she looked more closely.
Though she walked by it several times she'd always overlooked the Kandinski. Now, while Danners kept Hank entertained and she asked permission to use the little girl's room, she tiptoed into the den, stepped up to the portrait to study it more closely, to touch the surface. Though she was no art expert, she knew right off that it was no print. Either someone had made an extremely impressive copy or it was the real thing. What would a Kandinski go for? A million dollars? More? Across the hall was a Delaunay. She'd taken a painting class a few years back, in her down time after resigning from the department, and recalled him as a French painter of some renown. As far as she could tell, it too was real. A Klint was hanging on the wall right next to it.
"Oh... hi Hank... I was just admiring your paintings."
"Like them? They're fake as hell but oh well... can't afford the real stuff. I thought you mighta fallen in. I was coming to the rescue."
Sure you were. You thought I was snooping... didn’t you? And I was. But what of it? You know as well as I do I can't do anything about it, nor would I even if I could. I owe you too much, Mr. Hank Lupo.
"That's no fake Kandinski hanging on Hank's wall, Danners. As far as I can tell all these paintings are genuine. They have to be worth millions. Did you find anything?"
"When he went looking for you I discovered a memo in Hank's appointment book, Liza... seems as if Hank and Marcy had a little going away party before she left. I didn’t realize the man was such a chef. Apparently he made a special point of preparing Marcy's favorite... stuffed Portobello mushrooms."
"That was sweet of him, Danners. See, I told you Hank is a good guy."
"Yeah... that's what I thought too... until it occurred to me that one of the main causes of liver failure is ingesting poisonous mushrooms."
Chapter 92—Retreats
(And Splitting Up)
Downloading the locator app of Cooper's did no good. Sally had apparently ditched her old phone. Whether or not she had a new one was impossible to discover. He'd called the kids to see if they'd been in contact with their mother but no... none of them had heard from her. And now they were worried that something was going. Their oldest daughter Amy had called a day ago wondering about her mother.
"Your mom's gone on one of her retreats, Amy. I've been trying to reach her but her phone keeps going to voicemail. Have you heard from her?"
"Dad... are you two splitting up?"
"No, sweetie, of course not... we're just taking some time apart, that's all."
"What happened to mom's phone? Why doesn't she answer my calls?"
"I have no idea, Amy. I'm guessing her phone must have fizzled out on her and she bought a new one."
"But dad... why wouldn’t she just transfer her old number to it?"
"I don’t know. Anyway... if you do happen to hear from her, please give me a call. I'm a little worried about her. And I'll do the same for you."
His little girl would never lie to him. Sally hadn’t been in contact with Amy or the other two kids either. She probably knew they'd relay any information she shared with them to their father. So he'd spend three thousand dollars on a useless app. But at least Cooper agreed to take the case pro bono, as long as he was compensated when Sally was finally located.
Maybe he ought to just let her go. He could make more money. Plans were being laid to expand the business beyond anything they'd ever attempted before. With the Captain's acumen they'd soon open the Asian market as well as set up shop on the Indian continent. The man knew people who were interested in living forever and to do that they'd need replacement organs. If Hank rocked the boat too much he might well be tossed overboard. Presti had warned him before about his shenanigans.
They'd never been friends. Hell, they weren’t even close acquaintances. Roy Presti had been his commanding officer when he was in the service. The man seemed to have a knack for picking just the right personnel for whatever jobs needed doing, people who idolized the dollar over morality and who knew how to keep quiet.
They'd made quite a team back then... one had the brains and the other the brawn. Kept things tight. Did what needed doing when it needed done. Made a lot of money together and covered each other's asses along the way. Now, though, things were going south. How far would Presti let things slide before he made that phone call? The man knew people. Had his mitts in a little of everything. Not like Hank, sticking his dick inside any hole he could find. Nope... Presti was strictly by the book, at least when it came to business.
The Captain had been against bringing Picany aboard but Hank had convinced him that the man had connections. And he did. But he was weak too. Still, Hank had acted as a buffer between Presti and Picany... the two never actually met one another. In fact Picany didn’t know about the Cap
tain at all as far as Hank knew. The Captain was a careful man, though. He insisted upon knowing all about Allen Picany and his family.
Funny how Hank hadn’t thought about that, at least not until Paula Picany ran stomach first into a shank inside the slammer. From the sound of it, the killing hadn’t been a typical jailhouse stabbing. The woman accused of the crime was a lifer. What more could happen to her? Another life sentence on top of the one she was already serving? Someone set the woman up. And if that someone had been worried about Paula, what about him? Was he in danger too?
That prostitute Elsa Gruber had things to say, alright. As she lay dying Paula had told the old girl about things only an intimate to the Captain could know. And she uttered one word that explained it all: Johm. The man was a writer, of all things. Left behind a journal. Inside it, he told how the Captain had made special arrangements for all his partners... to plant them in the desert. Dead men couldn’t speak. Roy Presti must've discussed his plans with Johm, his own personal psychopath. But how did Paula come by that journal? That was the question. Did she actually torture and murder the man like the authorities said? Sure looked like it.
Maybe the time had come to put his own plan into action. Yep, Sally had skipped town with a ton of cash but he had more, a lot more. Farming paid big dividends, as long as a person knew what kind of harvest to bring in and who was buying.
He'd heard how the Captain had a place out in Trona. A ranch from the sound of it... dirt and stone and lots of cacti. That entire area was a desert full of old mineshafts that went down into the earth for miles. If a person happened to be a little careless and fall into one of those pits, why, chances were they'd never be heard from again, Captain or not.
The man was arrogant enough to believe no one would dare challenge his authority. But Hank had known the Captain long enough to recognize a poseur when he saw one... what had Shakespeare said? Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Yep. That was the Captain.
It was time to choose a side. He always knew it would come down to that... either he stayed with the Captain or he went over to the McNairy and Forthright team. Yesterday he would've never thought of crossing his old partner. Now, after talking to Elsa Gruber, there wasn’t any question what he had to do.
Hank heard through the grapevine how the Captain would be away this week. He told no one where he was going, but that didn’t matter. Punching the Captain's cell phone number into the locator app Hank smiled as his hunch was confirmed. Damn if Reilly Cooper wasn’t a genius.
Chapter 93—Happiness
(Is a Tea Party)
They were in the garden. Danners stood watching the two of them for just a moment... the girls sitting so still they seemed like they'd just stepped out of a painting. Benji sitting with them, taking the place of the obligatory doll. An early spring had replaced the harsh weather and though the grass was still winter brown March daffodils and tulips were sprouting in myriad gardens and the trees were misty with newly budding growth tips.
This is where they belonged. All of them. Here he was, the intruder still hoping to snare the bear and take him back home to California where Benji would languish forgotten in some corner of the room and every once in a while Danners might remember him and pick him up to give him the cuddle he so richly deserved.
He told himself how Benji was but cotton stuffing sewed into the shape of a bear... that the damned thing had no feelings of its own. It didn’t care who held it or indeed whether or not it was loved at all. Only a child would imbue something as mundane as an old worn out teddy bear with feelings.
A tear trickled down his cheek followed by another, and then a torrent loosened... not for Benji, but for the loss he felt at having finally grown up. His mother wasn’t coming back. He was a sixty five year old man, not a child of six. He'd wake up tomorrow and the day after and the day after that in the same sordid place working the same banal cases that no one else could solve and whatever magic he once believed in would be gone for good.
He closed his eyes and wished he was back in prison where steel walls held out the pain of the world and for twenty three hours a day he was alone, isolated in his dreams. They all thought it was such an ordeal for him. How could he tell them the truth? Prison wasn’t so bad. In fact, in the beginning he'd refused to speak to the attorneys who showed up to reopen his case. Not because he'd lost hope, but on account of how he was afraid he'd be absolved and turned loose.
One of the girls looked up and saw him standing in the shadows. For a moment he thought she might be frightened but instead she stood up, walked over to him, and took his hand to lead him out to the garden. From the looks of things they were having a tea party. Danners remembered his own childhood and how much he enjoyed those pretend moments, only these girls were really having tea. There was nothing pretend about.
Perhaps it was only a coincidence that there were four places set but only three participating in the party: Missy, Melinda, and Benji bear. Someone had tied a red ribbon around his neck to match his knit pants, his brown glass eyes watching the proceedings with an air of expectancy. Danners took his place across from Benji as the girls served him tea with a slice of lemon and put two sugar cookies upon a plate in front of him.
"Thank you."
Their mirrored eyes sparkled like first light as they glanced at him, each other, and then back at him. He'd once attended a Japanese tea ceremony in San Francisco with Liza—she hadn’t wanted to go but he dragged her along so he wouldn’t have to be alone—and the twins' tea party was every bit as formal and elaborate... their movements practiced and yet spontaneous... each step part of an intricate ritual all leading to the whole.
Or was he simply overlaying his own imagination upon what he was witnessing? The tea was Earl Grey, his favorite, the cookies lemony crisps that he loved so much as a child. Had he conjured the scene from some distant memory? Or was he dreaming it all? What seemed like a few minutes later tea was over, cookies, eaten, and a cool westerly breeze had come up as the sun slipped beneath slow-moving banks of clouds turning the afternoon chilly.
He helped the girls carry the accoutrements of the party into the kitchen. From her body language he could tell Liza was ready to leave... he'd long ago learned to read the girl like a palm... each line indicative of deeper foundations running beneath the current of her movements. Yet she smiled at him in a way he hadn’t seen in months, perhaps even years. It almost seemed as if she was happy. Was it for him? Or had she too been the recipient of some secret bit of knowledge meant only for the adept?
Chapter 94—Reilly
(In the Afternoon)
Maybe she really did bring the suffering upon herself, like Lorraine Plummer had once said. It'd been toward the end of a retreat that Sally did not enjoy and yet the thought of going home again didn’t engender any good feelings either. A sensation of loss had descended upon her, especially during the last day in Colorado. Maybe it was on account of the storm clouds rolling in over the mountaintops in the distance that triggered the melancholia, or perhaps it was simply the thought of going back to a life that held no love. Either way, Lorraine had seemed to sense her mood and called her aside for a brief counseling session, the one on one kind that Sally had been dreading.
"I'm sorry you didn’t find what you were seeking here, Sally. Will I see you again soon?"
"Sure, Lorraine... maybe next year I can set aside a little time to attend another one of your retreats. They really are marvelous."
"Liar."
"Pardon?"
"You're a liar, Sally Lupo. I knew it the first time you walked into my home."
"No... that's not true, Lorraine..."
"Come on, Sally. Quit doing this to yourself. All your life you've been working at being someone you're not, and for what? To please parents who don’t give a shit? To placate a husband who shoves his cock up every twat he can find? To coddle children who take you for granted and who always will? Tell the truth, just one time."
"You do
n’t know anything about me, Lorraine."
"I know all about you, Sally Lupo. I see women like you every day of my life. I used to be one myself. But I got tired of eating crap, of being told to be a good girl... and doing my level best to live up to every expectation people had of me while setting aside any and all of my own dreams. How old are you?"
"I'll be fifty next April."
"So you've spent half a century being a liar... fifty years of watching everything you love evaporate before your eyes. That makes me incredibly sad, Sally."
"I'm sorry, Lorraine, but I'm not a liar. We all have to compromise in life... don’t we?"
"No, Sally... we don’t. We make our reality and then we abide within it. These feelings you're having... they're a sign. Either you change, or you don't. It's all up to you, girl. No one else. I'm here for you, but I'm only a shadow crossing your path for a brief instant. Do you know why I'm able to talk to you like this?"
"Yes... no... I guess so. You're trained to do it. That's what you do."
"Come on, girl... wake up. After you leave here today we'll never see each other again. You know it and I know it. I can say these things because we have no attachment for one another. In a year you won't even recall my face. But remember this: all the shit that's coming down on you is exactly what you're bringing upon yourself. Change your attitude and change your life. It's as simple as that. And believe me when I say no one trained me for this. My whole life has led me to this point, as has yours. We both got here the same way, Sally."
Reilly looked at her with a hard glint in his eyes. Was it her turn to die now? Would he succeed where she failed? The plastic ties were cutting into her wrists and her ankles... did he really have to tighten them so much? The fact that he hadn’t tried to hide his face told her he didn’t expect her to live to tell the tale of who'd done this horrible thing to her but then again he'd surprised her by surviving the poisoning.