January Justice

by Athol Dickson

  I stood. “No, sir. We’ve covered everything for now. But as new information comes up, I’d like to be able to check in with you if that’s okay.”

  “By all means. Do please keep us in the loop.” The congressman pushed the button on the side table, and Olivia Soto came into the room. “Olivia,” he said. “Would you please help Mr. Cutter find his way out? And perhaps you could take his card?”

  “Certainly,” said Olivia.

  I followed her back out the way we had come. She opened the front door for me and stood aside to let me exit. As I passed, she spoke very softly. “What if Alejandra Delarosa didn’t do it?”

  I paused. “Excuse me?”

  “If you find out she didn’t do it, then what?”

  I said, “Ms. Montes was an eyewitness to the murder.”

  “Didn’t the killer wear a mask?”

  “Is there some reason why you think it wasn’t the Delarosa woman?”

  “I was only curious.”

  I searched her face. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course.” She held out her hand, palm up. “The congressman wanted your card.”

  I gave it to her, then walked down to Haley’s Bentley and drove away. The last thing I saw in my rearview mirror was Olivia Soto, watching from the open door.

  20

  Driving back from Beverly Hills during rush hour, I had plenty of time to think about the congressman’s questions. Clearly he knew things about me that I don’t share with anyone. Because so much of the last year of my service in the Corps was public knowledge, I suppose I took some comfort from the fact that very few people on the planet could gain access to information about my covert operations before the so-called butchery of Laui Kalay. Knowing that a United States congressman had taken time to check my complete service record made me feel vulnerable. I didn’t like the feeling much. It touched on things best left undisturbed, things inside my head that I couldn’t control.

  I was on the 55, and then Newport Boulevard and the Pacific Coast Highway, and then out along the harbor. The meeting with Doña Elena and Congressman Montes had reminded me of Haley, as almost everything seemed to do. The city below their plate-glass windows, the presence of a film star, his arm around her shoulders, the way she leaned into him. My hands grew slippery with sweat on the wheel of the Bentley. It was a Continental GT. The V-8 convertible with the burled walnut-and-camel interior, and the four-layered fabric top that was so silent you couldn’t tell it wasn’t made of steel. It was a good car. A lovely car, excellent and praiseworthy in all regards. But it was Haley’s car.

  I drove through the massive gates, rolled up the winding driveway, and pulled into the long garage between Haley’s Range Rover and the stretch Mercedes. Her Escalade was in the fourth bay down. All excellent vehicles. All around me, everything was good. All of it was noble. But none of it was mine, or ever would be, just as Haley was no longer mine, and never would be mine again.

  I was raised by God-fearing grandparents to believe in Jesus Christ. I was raised to believe it’s a sin to drink to excess. A man should never lose control of his mind. If I had learned anything in the hospital, it was that. Insanity was losing control of your mind, so of course it made no sense at all to meet insanity with alcohol, which made you lose control. But insanity was insane,

  after all. Sense had nothing to do with it. I went into the guesthouse kitchen and poured myself a Scotch.

  When that first glass was empty, I drank three fingers more. I thought of what was true. It was twenty-five years old, that Scotch. That meant it had been sitting in an oaken barrel in the Scottish Highlands on the day I signed with the Marines. Now it was sitting in my otherwise empty stomach. Whatever is excellent must include that Scotch, but three fingers or three hundred, it didn’t matter. There wasn’t enough of that kind of excellence in the universe to make up for the loss of Haley.

  I carried the bottle into the living room and sat down on the sofa.

  That’s where Simon found me the next afternoon.

  He had a cup of french roast in his hand. He put it on the coffee table, then walked to the windows and drew back the drapes.

  “Whaa?” I said, squinting toward the light.

  He said, “You have a visitor.”

  “Dah?” I mumbled.

  “A lovely lady, if I may be permitted to say so.”

  I cleared my throat and decided the Scotch on an empty stomach might have been a mistake, regardless of how old it was. “Who?”

  “A Miss Soto. She said you met last evening.”

  Memories returned of the woman who had admitted me into the Montes’s home, and that amazing smile. “Where?”

  “I believe she awaits you in the garage.”

  I sat up a little and took my first sip of the french roast. What a heavenly elixir. I silently apologized to Jesus for getting drunk and promised not to do it, ever again, if he would only make the headache disappear. I blinked and tried to focus on Simon’s face. I tried to use my words.

  I said, “The where?”

  “The garage.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “I thought as much myself; however, she mentioned a certain fascination with the Bentley, which she said she noticed you were driving yesterday, and she asked if she could see it. I saw no reason to refuse. I hope that is acceptable.”

  I sat up farther and took a good long drink of the coffee. “Simon, we need to talk.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Congressman Montes? The State Department? The Foreign Office?”

  Simon’s facial expression grew slightly more neutral than usual, if such a thing were possible.

  “Come on, man,” I said. “Explain yourself.”

  “Will that be all, sir?”

  “What? You call me ‘sir’ against my will and tell me nothing?”

  “Would you care to dine? Some eggs and bacon, since you are just awakening? Or perhaps something more substantial, since it is almost dinnertime?”

  “Don’t chastise me, Simon. So I had a little party with myself last night. So what?”

  Simon’s hand was on the doorknob. “One did notice the depleted Glenlivet on the floor beside the sofa.”

  “How about this: I’ll tell you a secret from my time in special operations, and you tell me something about whatever you and Hector Montes were up to back in the good old days. We’ll trade.”

  “I should think that would be most unwise, sir.”

  “Oh, all right. But just so you know, my special-ops stories are pretty interesting.”

  “I am certain of it, sir.”

  “Will you please stop calling me that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Simon left.

  I considered the little I knew about the man. He had been working for Haley long before I met her. I guessed he was in his late fifties, or maybe as old as sixty, but I had often noticed that he moved with an athletic grace that belied his age. He had traveled with Haley all around the world, apparently at ease in every situation, and I had heard him speak several languages with apparent fluency. Always before I had assumed he was comfortable in foreign situations because of this training and experience as a servant to the wealthy, but now that Doña Elena Montes had told me he was once employed by the English Diplomatic Service, that seemed a more likely explanation. I wondered what his role in government had been exactly. Probably he had been a lower-level diplomat of some kind. It would explain how he and Congressman Montes had met.

  Ten minutes later, I was walking across the grounds toward the garage. I wore my usual pair of cargo shorts, white polo shirt, pair of flip-flops. I had also donned a pair of Oakley wraparound sunglasses with polarized lenses, since it seemed to be in my best interest to avoid the slightest ray of sunlight. The only problem was the earpieces were a little wide, which made it hard to rub my temples.

  One of the center garage doors was open. Olivia Soto stood in the shadows beside the Bentley. She had opened the hood, or bonnet as they called
them at the Bentley dealership, and she was leaning over the engine compartment looking closely down at something. She heard my footsteps on the gravel.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, pulling back from the engine. “Remember me?”

  “Of course,” I said, which was pretty clever considering the thickness in my brain.

  “So, you’re not just a private investigator. You’re also a chauffeur.”

  “That’s right. I can also throw in personal security, if you’re in the market.”

  She smiled. “You live here?”

  “They’ve allowed me to stay on until they get it sold.”

  “Is that normal, living in a client’s house?”

  “It is for bodyguards. Hard to protect someone when you’re not close. But I don’t actually live in Miss Lane’s house. I stay over there.” I pointed at the guesthouse.

  “And they let you drive the Bentley. That’s nice work if you can get it.”

  “You bet.”

  She gestured toward the open engine compartment. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. It’s good to meet a fellow car fanatic.”

  “I see they’ve got a hydraulic car lift here, and you’re set up with air tools.”

  “Yep. Also impact wrenches, air hammers, die grinders, polishers, you name it.”

  “And a Matco tool box on castors in every bay. Amazing.”

  She turned back toward the engine. Her thick black hair was still in the long, loose french braid that hung halfway to her waist, but she was dressed more casually than the day before, in a pair of huarache sandals; a loose-fitting, lilac-colored T-shirt; and white cotton shorts. The shorts were pretty short. Her legs looked strong, slender, nicely tanned and lovely.

  She said, “It’s the new V-8, isn’t it?”

  “You know Bentleys.”

  “I know about them. I’ve never had one, of course. But I’ve been wanting to get my hands on this new model ever since it came out. What a beautiful machine.”

  “Would you like to drive it?”

  She looked at me as if I had just promised her a six-month tour of Europe. “You’d let me do that?”

  “Sure. Let me get the keys.”

  I had started moving toward the board where all of Haley’s keys hung on little hooks when Olivia Soto said, “Well, actually…”

  I stopped and looked back at her. “Yes?”

  “You’re going to think this is strange, but as long as you’re offering, do you think I could, I mean you and I could…”

  “Go ahead and ask. The worst thing I can say is no.”

  “Yes, I guess that’s true. Could we take apart the engine?”

  “What?”

  “Well, not completely apart, obviously. Just maybe pull off this plastic cowling around the edges of the compartment so I can see it better?”

  “Is that all?”

  “Well, maybe we could remove the valve covers, if that’s not too much trouble. I mean, you have all these tools…”

  “Okay, you’re right. I do think this is strange.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. But I mean, this thing is incredible.” She had turned back toward the car’s engine, looking at it the way some women look at horses and others look at clothes. “Who wouldn’t want a closer look?”

  I figured I would play along a little. After all, I could always put things back together. So fifteen minutes later, we had the plastic cowling off and the engine on full display.

  She leaned in and spoke in a reverent tone. “Would you look at that.”

  I had noticed that she wore her fingernails short and without polish. Watching how she laid her hand on one of the manifolds, I said, “You’re the first woman I’ve ever met with a thing for engines.”

  “Not just engines,” she said, stretching and craning her neck to see down into the gaps between the block and chassis. “Pretty much anything mechanical, as long as it’s well designed. Bicycles. Boats. Electronics. Would you please pass that wrench?”

  “This one?” I handed her a ratchet wrench, and she went to work on one of the valve covers. I said, “You do know we’re going to have to replace the gasket if you take that off?”

  She looked back over her shoulder at me. “You have pneumatic wrenches and a hydraulic lift, but no spare head gaskets?”

  “Olivia, this is really weird.”

  Her face fell. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I promise I’m really not a crazy woman. I just have this thing for engines… Sometimes I get kind of carried away.”

  Maybe it was the hangover, or maybe it was my own struggle with bizarre impulses, but to me at that moment, what she said made sense. “It’s okay,” I said. “We’ve got spare gaskets.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. Knock yourself out.”

  I stepped back and watched as she crawled all over the engine. Soon she had the valve covers off. She tinkered with the lifters for a while, and then she moved on to inspect other parts. Now and then she mumbled things like “Huh” and “Wow.” After nearly an hour of that, she started putting everything back together. I watched closely to make sure she did it right. She did, and it didn’t take her long.

  I said, “Where’d you learn to work on cars?”

  “In Spain. I serviced Formula Ones.”

  “I didn’t know there was a Spanish team.”

  “It’s the only one. They used to be called Hispania Racing, but now they go by HRT F1.”

  “How’d you get involved with them?”

  She stepped back from the Bentley, wiping her greasy hands on a shop towel. “Pretty much the way I got you to let me have a look at this one.”

  “I’ll bet men usually say yes when you ask for things.”

  She said, “They do.”

  Her smile lit up the garage, and I remembered Haley at the Nueces River. I made myself refocus on the present. “I’ll bet you didn’t come here to play with the Bentley.”

  “No. I came to deliver that.” She nodded with her chin toward a nearby workbench. On it was a manila folder. I went over, picked it up, and withdrew a few papers.

  “Background on Alejandra Delarosa,” I said.

  “The congressman pulled some strings and had someone put the file together for you. He and Doña Elena thought it might be helpful.”

  I saw names and contact information for the woman’s former employers, landlords, priest, and other acquaintances. There was the LAPD case file Russo had refused to share with me, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement file, and more. I started reading and got interested. When I looked up a few minutes later, Olivia Soto was watching me with a frown, which she quickly replaced with a more neutral expression.

  I said, “Please be sure to thank the congressman for me.”

  “You know, he had another file. On you.”

  “Did you read it?”

  “I might have seen a few things, while it was lying open on his desk.”

  “I see.”

  “I was wondering if you’d tell me… that poor woman and your overdose. How did you come back from that? How did you stay sane?”

  For some reason, the question embarrassed me. I tried shrugging it off with a grin. “What makes you think I’m sane?”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that. It’s none of my business.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. The silence was a little awkward. I remembered her parting questions at the Montes’s house the day before, and I thought about the fact that the file could easily have been sent over to me by courier.

  “Well,” she said, “thanks for a great time. I’ll be going now.”

  I walked her outside and along the gravel drive toward the car she had parked beside the fountain at the mansion’s entrance. Our footsteps crunched on the gravel. The water gurgled in the fountain. There were the usual birds-of-paradise, bougainvillea, and morning glories, all Teru’s handiwork. God chipped in with a pair of hummingbirds flashing metallic ruby and green, a perfectly blue
sky, and a perfectly green lawn.

  When we got to her car, a little Japanese thing, I said, “It was good to see you again.”

  She offered her hand. “Yes. Thank you.”

  I needed to say something to get her talking. I needed to know more about why she was really there. I’ve found the best way to get people to open up about themselves is to open up myself, so I said, “I have no idea why I’m not crazy.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  I said, “What you asked me a minute ago… I think that a lot.”

  “It wasn’t an idle question. I lost somebody once. Sometimes I think I’ve been crazy ever since.” She looked at me closely. “You understand?”

  “I do.”

  She covered my hand with her other one, and we stood that way, my one hand in both of hers. It felt very presumptuous. Very awkward. But I also felt the fact of her. I felt it flow into me. Another person, touching me. I felt it travel up my arm and spread within my chest and begin to burn away my nerve endings, which strangely didn’t cause me pain, but only the utter lack of feeling that can only come with bitter cold.

  The nothingness that had nearly conquered me forever hovered all around us as she said, “I knew it. I saw it in you yesterday. You have a broken heart.”

  I hadn’t thought it possible to feel the loss of Haley in a new way, but to hear myself described so precisely with such a cliché left me speechless.

  She moved closer. She released my hand and placed her palms flat against my chest. She was beautiful, but I witnessed her hands against my chest with a sense of impotent outrage, as if watching from too great a distance while someone tried to steal from Haley. Olivia looked up at me, her eyes searching mine, her lips moist and slightly parted. She had completely misunderstood, just as I intended, and she had revealed a little something. Maybe it was important. I hoped so. It was costing a great deal to learn.

  She said, “Maybe I can help. Maybe we can help each other.”

  I was paralyzed. I couldn’t bring myself to push away. I stood there, absolutely helpless as my heart raced. The ground around us turned to polar blue. I felt the freeze creep up my legs. I felt it spread across my loins, my stomach and my chest. I was ice, a pillar of it in the Southern California sun. I saw the water vapor in my breath condense, a fog ascending toward the place where Haley waited. I saw white frost form on Olivia’s black hair. I feared for her. If she did not let me go, I knew my frigidness would spread to her. I began to tremble. She felt it. She stepped back.