January Justice

by Athol Dickson

  When I woke again, Olivia Soto was sitting in a chair next to Teru. He remained where he had been before, but he was asleep.

  Olivia was reading a magazine. I watched her for a minute, wondering why she was there and how she had found out I was there, and whether I should let her know I was awake or keep on watching her, or just go back to sleep. I decided it would be wrong to be inhospitable in a hospital.

  I said, “Hello.”

  She looked up from the magazine. “You’re awake.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “You might be a dream.”

  She stood and leaned over and gave my cheek a gentle kiss. Maybe she meant it as a sympathetic gesture, but her lips on my skin felt foreign and unnatural.

  “Proves nothing,” I said. “Beautiful girls always kiss me in my dreams.”

  She smiled, then took my hand and said, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  Teru muttered something in his sleep and adjusted his position in the recliner. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “What are you doing here?”

  “Doña Elena asked me to convey her hope for your quick recovery. The congressman also wanted you to know he’s concerned.”

  “How’d they know I was here?”

  She shrugged. “The congressman has his ways.”

  “Well, it was nice of them to send you over. Please tell them I appreciate it.”

  “Okay, the thing is, they didn’t exactly send me. Doña Elena just asked me to mail a card. But when I found out you were hurt, you know…” She stroked my hand a little.

  I said, “It’s just a little headache and a couple of scratches.”

  “Thank God for that.” She gave my hand a squeeze, then released it and sat back down next to Teru. “Who did this to you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Do you think it had something to do with what you’re doing, looking for Alejandra Delarosa?”

  “Maybe.”

  Teru roused himself with a sudden shake, then stretched his arms toward the ceiling. “I’m hungry.”

  I said, “Olivia, have you met Teru?”

  She nodded. “We talked awhile before he went to sleep. Simon was here too, but he left about an hour ago. He said something about painters coming over to the house.”

  “An hour ago? How long have you been here?”

  “Just a few hours.”

  Terus said, “Olivia volunteered to keep an eye on you while I took a nap.”

  I looked at him. “You were here all night?”

  “Sure,” he said. “And now that you’re awake, I’m thinking enchiladas.”

  A little later, I checked out of Hoag without waiting for the doctor’s blessing. Simon had brought over a change of clothes for me earlier, so except for a small bandage over the stitches on my forehead, I was fairly presentable when Olivia drove Teru and me about half a mile inland from the hospital. We ate at El Matador on Newport Boulevard. It was the finest Mexican food in south Orange County, except perhaps for La Siesta in San Clemente. My head was splitting, but I was used to that, and besides, greasy food has always seemed to help with headaches.

  While we ate, Olivia said, “Are you going to drop the investigation?”

  I covered my mouth when I answered, since it was full of refried beans. “Why would I do that?”

  “Someone almost killed you. That would make most people stop.”

  I shook my head. “I won’t stop.”

  “Yes. I had that feeling.” She took a healthy bite of chili relleno. She seemed to ponder me as she chewed. She swallowed. “Does the money make you curious?”

  “What money?”

  “The two-hundred-thousand-dollar ransom. You do know Toledo was worth millions?”

  “Some people think so.”

  “Some people? Everybody knows he stole millions from the people of Guatemala. So why did the kidnapper only ask for two hundred thousand?”

  “That’s exactly what we want to know,” said Teru.

  I looked at him. “We? What ‘we’?”

  “You and me of course. And Simon.”

  Olivia said, “You’re working on this with Malcolm?”

  I said no in the same moment Teru said yes.

  Olivia looked back and forth at us, her lovely eyebrows arched. I stared at Teru’s profile. He didn’t return my look, but he did sort of stick his jaw out stubbornly.

  “Well, it’s good to know Malcolm has help,” said Olivia. “Since he so clearly needs it.”

  “Simon is a butler, and Teru is a gardener,” I said. “They are not personal protection specialists, and they don’t have private investigation licenses.”

  “I am also an attorney,” said Teru, turning to stare down his pug nose at me. “And a philosopher, as you well know. I defy you to ask me anything about Nietzsche. Or Oliver Wendell Holmes, for that matter. Junior or senior.”

  Ignoring him, I turned toward Olivia. “I don’t need help. Everything is going exactly according to plan.”

  She said, “Getting knocked unconscious, shot three times, and rolled off a mountain? This is your plan?”

  “It’s called flushing your quarry.”

  “Otherwise known,” said Teru, “as getting your butt kicked.”

  “Well, whatever your so-called plan is, what do you think about the two hundred thousand?” asked Olivia.

  “The police say she asked for half a million initially, and Toledo talked her down.”

  “It’s still not enough money, when she could have asked for millions.”

  “True,” I said. “So I think maybe Delarosa didn’t realize how much Toledo had. Or maybe she figured he wasn’t liquid. Just because a man is worth a few million doesn’t mean it’s in a form that he can transfer. She was his administrative assistant, after all. She might have known his investment situation.”

  Terus said, “Maybe that two-hundred-thousand figure isn’t accurate. It’s common in kidnapping cases for the details to be reported incorrectly to the press. It helps the police weed out crank tipsters.”

  Olivia opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again and focused her attention on her lunch. Teru and I did the same. It really was top-notch Mexican food.

  After a while, Olivia said, “Should we get something to go for Simon?”

  Teru and I both laughed. Teru said it might be worth it to take back a taco, just to see the expression on Simon’s face. But I said there wasn’t much chance of a reaction one way or another, and Teru agreed it probably wouldn’t be worth the money.

  Olivia said, “I take it Simon doesn’t like Mexican food?”

  “He’s more of a Cornish hen and escargot kind of guy,” said Teru.

  Teru paid the bill; then Olivia drove us to El Nido and dropped us off. She said she had to get back to the Montes’s place in Beverly Hills.

  As she drove down the driveway, Teru said, “Some people have all the luck.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That there is a gorgeous girl, and she obviously has a thing for you.”

  “That’s not why she comes around,” I said.

  “No?”

  Watching Olivia’s car turn left at the gate and move out of sight, I said, “No.”

  We turned to cross the grounds. I was a bit light-headed. At one point I wobbled a little, and Teru gripped my elbow to steady me.

  I said, “The old noggin’s taken quite a pounding.”

  “You want to sit down here a minute? I could go get a golf cart.”

  “It hasn’t come to that.”

  He held on to my arm as we walked slowly. I didn’t object. I said, “Interesting that she asked about that two hundred thousand. I’ve been wondering about that all along.”

  “She seems like a smart girl.”

  “Woman, Teru. We try to call them women now.”

  “Not when you’re my age, and they’re her age.”

  We walked on.

  I said, “It’s time to look into Arturo Toledo’s financial situation. See if
he really did get out of Guatemala with all those millions.”

  “Hard to find that out, I would imagine.”

  “Probably. But Doña Elena’s new husband is a congressman, so his finances are in the public record.”

  Teru said, “If Toledo had the money, and the Delarosa woman only got two hundred thousand of it, then Doña Elena might have all the rest.”

  “And if she does, there might be hints of it in the congressman’s finances.”

  “Which would mean what, exactly?”

  I paused a moment to consider the implications. “If Toledo didn’t have the money, I’ll know why Delarosa settled for two hundred. And if he did have the money, I’ll know I need to focus more on why she settled.”

  Teru nodded. “You want help looking into that?”

  “Nah. It’ll give me something to do while I wait for my head to get back to normal.”

  “Define ‘normal.’”

  “Shut up.”

  “Okey-dokey.”

  With his usual sixth sense, Simon seemed to know we were coming. He stood waiting in the shade of the palms beside the guesthouse patio, looking very proper in his Savile Row bespoke suit. It was a relief to settle into a chair at the table beside him. On it were a pitcher of lemonade, three glasses, three slices of key-lime pie, and a SIG Sauer P228 in a tactical holster.

  Simon remained standing as he poured the lemonade with one hand held behind his back. “I thought you might enjoy a citrus-flavored dessert after your Mexican meal. To cleanse the palate.”

  I decided not to bother asking how he knew where we had eaten and refused to dignify his remark about palate cleansing with a reply.

  I said, “Where’s the Tabasco sauce?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You know. Tabasco. Hot sauce, made from peppers.”

  “I am familiar with the condiment, but should not consider it desirable with key-lime pie.”

  “Oh well,” I said, helping myself to a slice. “One should not expect an English butler to be familiar with American cuisine. Have a seat and pitch in on this pie before it melts.”

  Looking back and forth between Teru and me, Simon slowly sank into the chair on my left. Teru was already sitting across the table. He also took a slice of pie and dug in.

  I pointed at the M11 on the table. “Is this for me?”

  Simon said, “To replace the one they took.”

  “How’d you get your hands on it so quickly?”

  “Respectfully, Mr. Cutter, it would be best if I did not answer.”

  “But it’s legal? Registered?”

  “Indeed it is.”

  “That takes at least ten days.”

  “In most cases, I believe that is correct.”

  “But not in this case?”

  “No, sir.”

  “This is what you did after you left the hospital?” I clipped the holster to my belt. “Thank you, Simon.”

  “You’re welcome, Malcolm.”

  I looked at him to see if his use of my first name was intentional, or a slip. He looked away and covered a yawn with a linen napkin.

  I said, “When did you last sleep?”

  “I believe it was the evening before last.”

  “You didn’t even take a nap?”

  He looked back at me as if I had just suggested serving fish and chips to the Prince of Wales. “One does not nap.”

  I turned to Teru. “And you. Thank you for staying there all night.”

  “Sure,” said Teru, finishing his pie. He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Simon, that was excellent. I’m really gonna miss your excellent taste in bakeries.”

  “And I shall miss the pleasure of walking in your garden, Mr. Fujimoto.”

  I said, “You guys never mentioned how you found me.”

  Teru said, “You told me where you were going, remember? When you didn’t get back on time, we decided to go looking.”

  “I said I’d be back about three. What time was it when you found me?”

  “I don’t know. Couple of hours after midnight.”

  “You searched all that time?”

  Neither of them answered.

  I decided I had asked enough questions for a while. We sat there quietly while seagulls wheeled and shrieked in the perfect blue above. Teru packed his pipe and lit it with a wooden kitchen match. Neither of them seemed to be in a hurry to move on. Neither of them seemed to think anybody had to say anything. We just sat together.

  26

  I spent two days recuperating at El Nido. Most of that time I slept, drank Scotch, and tried not to think about Haley or the real reason I had been so easily taken by the two guys in the mountains. To distract myself I went over to the mansion and wandered through the rooms. It was about as close as I could get to Haley.

  I stood in her closet and touched her clothes. I tried to smell the scent of her on them, but it had faded with the months gone by. I looked through the random assortment of odds and ends she had left on top of a built-in dresser. A little sewing kit for replacing buttons and so forth while traveling. A nail file. A valet parking stub. Paperclips all linked together in a chain. Coins. Costume jewelry. Handwritten notes on scraps of paper, random things like “coffee for the boat” and “Ben at 8:00” and “tell Lizzie pale blue.”

  I wandered through some guest rooms, the solarium, and her screening room, which looked just like a little motion picture theater. I ended up in Haley’s office, sitting at her desk. Simon had not yet given me the key to the lap drawer, which was locked. I didn’t care enough about its contents to ask him for the key. Everything would be going to the Salvation Army soon anyway.

  I opened the other drawers one at a time. There was just what you’d expect to see in a businesswoman’s desk. Files, basic office supplies, a small tape recorder for giving dictation. There was no tape in the recorder. Maybe that was for the best. I would have listened to it. I would not have been able to resist. But hearing Haley’s voice might have sent me screaming back to the mental ward.

  The stack of screenplays were still there on the corner of her desktop. She once told me her office got about five a day. One of her assistants spent most of the time screening them for Haley. Only the best made it to her desk. I looked through the stack idly.

  The third one down had the word “Guatemala” on the cover. I opened it. A one page treatment had been slipped between the pages. I looked it over. It was closely based on what I had told Haley about my first deployment to Guatemala. American missionaries in a remote mountain village had been caught up in the struggle between the Communists, the military, and a local drug lord. People had died, some of them heroically. It had always bothered me that nobody knew what happened in that village. It had bothered Haley, too, after I told her the story, which was why she wanted to make a film about it.

  I skimmed the script. Some of it was too close to the facts. If Haley had filmed it the way it was written, she might have gotten me in trouble with the Marine Corps or the US Department of State. I got to the last page, and there at the bottom was a note in Haley’s handwriting: Get Malcolm’s okay.

  I traced the cursive writing with my finger. What a woman.

  Leaning back, I stared off across the room at nothing in particular. The shelves of books and walls of polished paneling faded as I wondered if it could be coincidental, or if Haley’s Guatemalan film really did have something to do with the URNG case. I went over everything I could remember. None of the details surrounding the murder of the American missionaries had surfaced in the URNG case. The kidnapping and murder of Doña Elena and Toledo had happened long after the missionary murders, and long before Haley and I met. Except for the setting in Guatemala and the fact that the URNG and the junta were both involved in the story that inspired the film, there didn’t seem to be any overlap at all. But at least the question had distracted me a while.

  What I needed was more distraction. I decided to search the Internet for anything I could find on the Montes’s fi
nances. I went back to the guesthouse.

  Sitting at the computer in a corner of the living room I learned about the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007. In compliance with that law, the Office of the Clerk of the US House of Representatives published annual financial reports on every congressional representative. The reports showed overviews of their unearned income and details on their financial transactions, such as the purchase or the sale of stock or real estate. It turned out Hector and Doña Elena Montes had a lot of stock and real estate.

  There were houses in Miami, in a town I had never heard of in Montana, in Aspen, and in Seattle, plus, of course, the estate in the canyon above Beverly Hills. They also had properties in the Caribbean, Italy, and South Africa, of all places. There was stock in dozens of companies and royalty income from a self-help book Doña Elena had written before she and Montes were married, titled Beyond Survival. The book was about the lessons she had learned during her recovery from the kidnapping ordeal.

  More recently she had begun to bring in a lot of money from her acting career. She was nowhere near Haley’s pay scale, but when I added up her earned income over the past two years and divided by the number of motion pictures that credited her online, it appeared she was averaging around seven million per film. Not bad for four to eight weeks of work on camera.

  The problem was, I had no way of knowing how much Doña Elena and Toledo had been worth before he was killed. She hadn’t even met Congressman Montes at that point, so there was no law mandating that those finances become part of the public record, which meant I was no closer to understanding the two-hundred-thousand-dollar question than before.

  To get more information, I made some calls, mostly to the few real friends Haley had in the motion-picture business. Although none of them knew about our marriage, they did know that she and I had become close friends. They all took my calls in the spirit of “any close friend of Haley’s is a close friend of mine.” If they had known anything, I had no doubt they would have told me. But few of them even knew Doña Elena Montes, and most of them hadn’t met her until after the kidnapping and murder.

  There was only one comment I found interesting, from an agent friend of Haley’s named Meredith Pendleton. She told me about a conversation she once had with Doña Elena’s manager at some producer’s cocktail party. She said the manager had implied the Beyond Survival book-sales figures were inflated.