by Louis Barr
“Please tell Davidson I’ll speak with him. And be polite. He could be the salt of the earth.”
“Yeah, or a process server, or the Zodiac Killer.” She started for the door, turned, and added, “Watch him.”
I trusted Hope’s cop instincts. Opening my desk’s top right drawer, I pulled out my weapon of choice, a compact forty caliber Glock. I racked a round and moved the gun to the desk’s center drawer, leaving it open several inches.
I shot my cuffs, cinched my tie, and said, “Clinton Steele, you are duly served.”
About a minute later, Scott Davidson knocked on my open office door. With one look, I knew he didn’t wear the stripes of a Captain Douchebag process server.
Davidson was easy on the eyes in a laid back, Lee Majors (JFGI) “boy-howdy” cowboy, big papa phallus sort of way. I stood and invited him in, while closing the desk drawer and stowing my Glock for some future shooting incident.
I shook Davidson’s callused hand and noticed his farmer’s tan. He pulled out one of the client chairs and sat military straight, keeping his spit-shined black cowboy boots flat on the floor.
I sat and leaned back in my chair. “What can I do for you?”
Davidson cut to the chase. “I’m looking for a full-time job.”
“You’ve worked either as a private investigator, or in security, or in law enforcement,” I stated.
“I worked as a Kern County deputy sheriff for twenty-five years,” Davidson said.
“You’re retired?”
“Yes, I’d had enough of department politics, budget cuts, and complaints about the maltreatment meted out to lawbreaking assholes.” He quickly added, “Sorry.”
I smiled. Seriously, meted? That’s a verb you use to prove you’re a college grad. I turned to my PC and clicked. The printer slid an employment application into the tray. Handing Davidson the form and a pen, I pointed at the writing table outside my office.
I opened and scanned the latest edition of the LAPD’s Police Beat E-zine, occasionally glancing at Davidson. He looked like a rough and tumble kind of guy, someone not to be fucked with in any way, shape, or form.
I closed the E-zine, turned, and looked at the framed desk photo of Sierra, my late wife. She stood hooded and gowned, scrolled sheepskin in hand, having earned her doctorate in economics. She softly smiled as I stood behind the camera, framing the shot.
The luckiest moment of my life came when I first saw Sierra in a mom-and-pop coffee shop. I couldn’t drum up the chutzpah to cross the room and try to start a conversation with this drop-dead beautiful woman. She was focused on her laptop, her fingers flying over the keys. She looked busier than a one-legged Rockette. She might tell me to take a flying fuck at the moon if I interrupted her work. I walked out of the shop, espresso in hand.
I’d thought the Ma-and-Pa shop served the most unremarkable coffee in all of Los Angeles. Still, I’d stopped by the following morning, hoping to see the pretty woman with the dark auburn hair. I spotted her again, keyboarding her laptop. She looked up—and straight through me. I felt like a stalker or a perv taking a coffee break. I left with my head down and my tail between my legs.
On my third day of unexceptional coffee, she looked directly at me and smiled. I grinned as if I’d just made a successful prison break. Our smiles held. Espresso in hand, I walked straight to her table and asked if I could join her.
She closed her laptop. “Please sit down. I’ve been waiting the past three days for you to talk to me.”
Fuck my life.
After a few weeks of lunch and dinner dates, holding hands at the movies, talking as we took long walks, necking, and finally sleeping together, we both knew our lonely days and nights had become things of the past.
When we were dating, I told her about the one bisexual relationship I’d had with my West Point barracks mate. But she knew when we spoke our wedding vows I would be a faithful husband. We were happily married for about five years before Ian, our then four-year-old son, and I lost her in an auto accident. I died inside.
Now I missed my wife, loved my son, enjoyed my job, owned my house, remained in perfect health, and received a great income from Aunt Vona’s and my closely held corporation, Steele Productions. At thirty-three, I looked old enough to be taken seriously, but young enough not to be addressed as “sir.” At thirty-three, I was in my prime and held the world by the short hairs. But without Sierra, I did not consider myself a lucky man.
I ended my pity party and turned to my computer to search for young men reported missing over the past two years. Narrowing my search using age, income, and geographical criteria, I came up with a short list of missing men, but it did not include Shane Danning. He’s not yet in the system, I guessed.
The men on my short list all had been in their early to late twenties and resided in either one of L.A.’s high rent districts or in Orange County. All had been located safe and sound.
I leaned back in my swivel chair. I didn’t see a pattern; it seemed the young princes of Los Angeles hadn’t become the victims of a serial nut job—not at the moment, anyway.
I knew finding and sifting through all the young men with missing person files would turn into a clusterfuck of mythical proportions. And those data would not necessarily reflect all the unreported and unidentified tween and teen runaways living and dying on the city’s streets.
My “due diligence duties” required that I duplicate what the Missing Persons Unit’s investigators had already done, and look into anything new I might stir up in the weeds. I’d begin all of that tomorrow after I talked with Captain Flynn.
Scott Davidson knuckled my office door. I looked up. “Finished?”
“Yes.” Davidson crossed my office and passed me his application.
His penmanship was as precise as the lettering on an architect’s blueprint. Anal retentive much?
Davidson lived near Bakersfield. “You don’t have a Los Angeles address.”
“Not yet,” Davidson said. “Is that a deal-breaker? You can reach me on my cell anytime—it’s the phone number on my application.”
“That works.” I set his application under my desk’s leather pad and stood. “My business partner will contact your references and get back to you in a few days.”
Following the handshake, I watched him leave.
Hope and I employed retired law enforcement officers as temps when we needed them, but temps can never take the place of permanent, full-time employees. Davidson could become a strong prospect if everything on his application checked out—that, and if the former deputy quit giving Hope the creeps. Zodiac Killer, my ass.
I turned to the windows facing the building’s parking area and watched Davidson as he flipped through his ring of keys, slid behind the wheel of an old GMC pickup, and drove away. Memorizing the Jimmy’s tag, I went to the keyboard and sent Hope Whitman, finder of all things great and small, a message to check on the registered owner of the pickup truck, and contact Davidson’s employment references.
I’d done all I could do on the Danning case until tomorrow morning. I had a friend dropping by my house for dinner and a beer or two. I began shutting down the office.
Chapter Three
Extreme Gaming
Jud Tucker, Sunset Strip, Monday, April 30
The “Steele & Whitman Investigations” block letters on the office door’s frosted glass had told me what I’d already known. But I saw myself as a semper paratus man, always forewarned and forearmed.
Shit, I hadn’t seen Clint Steele since his parents’ double funeral about ten years ago. I shook my head and chuckled. “Oh, the sins of the father,” I said out loud.
Wanting to do a quick reconnaissance, I’d trailed the world-famous Diana Danning gash into Steele & Whitman Investigations.
Now standing in the parking lot, I took my time picking through my ring of keys, sensing Steele had me under surveillance. Turning my back to the office windows, I unlocked my truck, slid behind the wheel, and drove away.
Steele looked too young to know his ass from a hole in the ground. But I sensed a clear and present danger right beneath his likable tough guy façade. Once I forced him into my new extreme game, he’d keep me on my toes. I’d bet the ranch on it.
But then, I liked my extreme gamers to have some fight in them.
Chapter Four
Mercury in Retrograde
Clint, The Flats, Beverly Hills, Monday, April 30
I entered my house from the garage, pulled off my shoes, then dropped my car fob, home and office keys, wallet, and pocket change into the hall table’s ceramic bowl. I heard Ian’s bare feet running. “DADDY!”
Dodging me, Ian shoved his feet into my dress oxfords, snagged the car’s fob, and announced, “I bet if I wear your shoes I can reach the gas pedal and go for a drive, Daddy.”
Before he planted his forehead into the wall with his first step in my shoes, I swept him into my arms and held him to my chest. My size sixteens dropped onto my socked feet—frigging painfully at that. I plucked the fob from Ian’s fingers before he made a break for the garage. I kissed him on the cheek. “Did you have a good day?”
“No, look!”
The back of his right hand sported a Muppets Band-Aid. I affected a gasp. “What did you do, buddy?”
His face turned serious—tough to pull off, having lost his two front baby teeth.
“I did-ent do it. The kitty scratched me. I cried.”
Heathcliff, our red Maine Coon, peeked around the laundry room’s doorjamb. Cats always seem to know when you’re talking about them. The twenty-eight-pound tom swaggered into the hallway, sat on his haunches, and began washing his face. Cats…you can’t help but love them. Their litter boxes, not so much.
Frowning at Heathcliff, Ian turned his big, expressive blue eyes back to me. “I think you should put him in time-out.”
I lowered Ian to the floor. He walked with me to the kitchen. “I’m certain Heathcliff didn’t mean to scratch you—unless you were pulling his tail again.”
As Stella unloaded the dishwasher, she narked, “Indeed, he tried to drag that poor cat across the kitchen floor by his tail like a Radio Flyer red wagon.”
Stella closed the dishwasher. “I began teaching Ian some algebra basics today.”
She’d worked as an elementary school teacher for thirty-five years before retiring. Thanks to Stella, Ian’s writing, math, speech, and reading comprehension levels exceeded most of his peers’, according to his standardized test scores.
Stella ran a hand over her white hair and checked her blouse and slacks. While in the company of a six-year-old boy, you never know what might’ve gotten spilled, sprayed, splattered, hacked, or sneezed onto you.
“I marinated New York strips and made vegetable kabobs for supper. Ian said he wanted a hamburger. It’s all in the Frigidaire.”
Viking had manufactured all my kitchen’s major appliances. But in Stella’s world view, Frigidaire was synonymous with refrigerator. I’d never asked her why. I thanked her for caring for Ian and getting dinner prepped.
Ian hugged Stella good-bye. She gave him a peck on the forehead. She grabbed the hand straps of today’s brightly colored, monstrous granny purse. I walked her to the front door, her low heels tapping along the red oak floor.
I watched her slide behind the wheel of her Tesla. She threw me a wave and turned a one-eighty at a breakneck spin, then drove at a turtle’s pace down the driveway.
I closed the door, turned, and went upstairs to the master bedroom. My little shadow followed on my heels.
I’m six-six and weigh two hundred and fifty pounds, but I balanced on one leg then the other as I pulled off my socks, slacks, and boxer briefs. I removed my tie and dress shirt.
I hung my suit and tie in my half of the walk-in closet. Sierra’s clothing filled the other half. More than two years after her death, I still couldn’t convince myself to donate her things.
Ian sat on the bed watching my every move, as if I might suddenly vanish as his mother had. He remembered his mom, but he’d quit asking me when she’d be coming home.
I stepped out of the closet nude, bent, picked up and tossed my socks, shirt, and underwear into the hamper. Still watching me with his big, dark-blue eyes, Ian said, “Daddy…”
“Yeah, buddy.”
“When will my penis get big like yours?”
Dr. Grant Stenton, a shrink I knew, told me Ian had advanced to the phallic stage of psychosexual development. He’d be curious about his body and mine, especially the “particulars” below the belt. Doc Stenton said Ian should see me undressed from time to time. I should be casual about my nudity and teach him the proper names of male genitalia.
I pulled on stringy jean cut-offs, free balling it, then shrugged into a faded West Point Academy T-shirt. I said, “Ian, your penis, testes, and scrotum will get larger as you get older.”
“Why do I gotta wait until I’m old?”
Anticipating at least one follow-up question, I had prepared myself for it. “Because your entire body gets larger as you grow from a boy, to a teen, to a man.”
“Why?”
“That’s how it works. You wait and see.” Yes, I’d given him a cop-out answer requiring additional comments. I lifted his Dodgers T-shirt and gave him belly raspberries. He kicked, giggled, and forgot all about his and my genitals for now.
I barefooted it to the kitchen. Ian pounded down the stairs behind me.
After a yawn and a stretch, I opened the refrigerator door that I’d papered with Ian’s artwork. I grabbed a Corona and a root beer from the fridge and sat at the kitchen island. Ian climbed onto the stool beside me. Pulling a short stack of adult coloring books toward us, I asked, “Which one do you want?”
“Birds, please.”
That left me with trees, flowers, dogs, cats, or clowns. Considering clowns about as creepy as far-right politicians, I went with the dogs.
Ian turned to a drawing of a snowy owl. I slid his unopened root beer toward him. He bumped the can. I caught it before it went ass over tea kettle to the floor. In spite of Ian’s intelligence, he remained a little boy. And throughout his continual questions, spills, stumbles and falls, I’d be there for him—time after time.
I looked up, hearing the garage door lifting. The rumble of Raoul Martinez’s dual-wheeled diesel pickup sifted into the house. Raoul drove a working man’s truck; no urban cowboy’s shiny, tricked-out ride used primarily for extended cab tour de force fucking.
Ian dropped the crayon he was using. “Raoul is here.”
“He is,” I said, looking at his artwork. “Good job, son.”
Ian frowned. “I don’t like it.”
Spoken like a true artist, I thought. After switching from children’s to adult coloring books at Stella’s recommendation, Ian had started lightening and darkening his colors, giving the drawing depth and perspective. Neither Stella nor I had taught him how to do it. This being Los Angeles where all the arts thrived, maybe Ian’s coloring skills had come by way of something in the air or water.
With a hard-hat ring imprinted on his dark hair, Raoul Martinez stepped into the kitchen, stopped at the fridge, and grabbed a beer.
Raoul sat beside me, squeezed my shoulder, and smiled at Ian. “Hey, dude, that’s a mighty fine coloring job on that owl. I should hire you to paint the interiors of my newly built houses.”
Ian scrutinized him. “How much would I get paid?”
“You asked for it,” I said quietly.
“Union scale when you get old enough to work,” Raoul said, winking at Ian. He drank some beer, then turned to me. “Thanks for the cold one, Moose. Your brewski selections are the best of all my boyfriends.”
I sipped some beer, then wrote on the top of my coloring page, Shut your tramp mouth.
“Daddy, what did you write to Raoul?”
I winked at Ian. “It’s a secret.”
“Was it something I’m not supposed to understand until I’m older?”
“Uh-huh, son.” I said to Raoul, “Rough day?”
He let out a short breath. “The crew and I finished framing that custom build. Christ, two by sixes with twelve-inch centers. This house could survive an Old Testament flood.”
I nodded, understanding the shop talk. When Sierra and I bought this circa 1960s two-story colonial, the term “fixer upper” made for one frigging colossal understatement. But after inspecting it, Raoul assured us it had “good bones.”
Rock and Raoul Construction focused on custom houses, renovations, and masonry. I’d hired Raoul and his crew to remodel the white brick colonial inside and out.
I sometimes worked alongside Raoul on the renovations and learned a few of the finer tricks of carpentry and masonry. He and I quickly became close friends.
I plucked a wood shaving from Raoul’s hair and dropped it into my empty beer bottle. “Have you gone to any auditions lately?”
He tapped my knee and said in his stage-trained voice, “I went to a cattle call last Saturday for a Shakespeare in the Park production of Macbeth.”
“I bet you’ll get a callback.” I paused, then added, “Vona has something in the pipe that may interest you.”
Raoul started peeling the label off his beer bottle. “Is this a bit part where I get to be first male murder victim in the credits?”
“No, Raoul, I’m thinking you’re perfect for the leading role. I’ll tell you more over dinner.”
Raoul chuckled and shook his head. “I got it. Don’t sell Rock and Raoul Construction yet.” He sipped some more beer. “What about your day?”
“Hope and I took on a high profile client this afternoon.”
Raoul lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah?”