by Louis Barr
“My offer stands,” Mars said. “You know we’ll always be brothers in arms.”
I slid behind the wheel, started my car, then powered down the driver’s side window. “Thanks again, Mars. You’ve my apologies for the porn.”
Mars grinned. “I’m a nerd, but not a prude.” He placed his hands on the window frame and leaned toward me. “Looking at you in profile, you should consider becoming a porn star.”
“I think you need new glasses or contacts.”
“Well, I am past due for my annual eye exam.” He paused. “If you don’t need my help with your investigation, call me anyway. It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve gotten together.”
Some bonding with my best friend sounded great. “Check your schedule and text me the dates you have open.”
“Count on it.” Mars tapped the Viper’s roof and started back to his office.
I watched him walk away.
Then I pulled my cell and called the Laguna Stop & Save—the supermarket where Shane Danning and his companion made an appearance last night.
Chapter Thirteen
Some Old and Some New
Clint, Laguna, Tuesday, May 1
I worked my way onto the 5. About an hour later, I merged onto 133 South.
Last night’s two hours of sleep had caught up with me. I had the air-conditioning cranked and the radio blaring to keep myself awake. I exited onto Forest Avenue.
I smiled, recalling that summer day during our first year of marriage when Sierra and I’d come to Laguna for some sun, sand, and surf. Yawning largely and loudly, I rolled to a stop at a red light.
Call numbers began blurring across the radio’s digital display. The scan stopped on a classic rock station playing Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” (JFGI).
I saw Sierra in the passenger seat, looking gorgeous in a black bikini. She’d sung a line of the Skynyrd song, then she’d said, “Everyone needs a little rockabilly hoochie-koo from time to time.”
“Sho nuff,” I’d said.
The light changed. The driver in the Mercedes convertible behind me held down the horn. I jerked awake and drove away.
Sierra turned in her seat and looked at the driver of the Mercedes. “Why do you suppose so many women driving luxury convertibles think they must become bottle blondes and get their breasts enhanced?”
More new dialogue, I thought. I answered her rhetorical question with, “It’s an American sociological mystery requiring years of empirical investigations, data gathering, and critical analyses.”
I tried to concentrate on driving, but kept glancing at the now empty passenger seat. I needed to talk to Dr. Grant Stenton about my hallucinations. They’d become increasingly common. I’d dubbed them memory echoes. But what did I call our new conversations?
I chuckled at the young women and men in swimwear walking along the sidewalks. With all the cleavage, tush, basket, and muscle scenery, the local chamber of commerce could post signs designating Laguna as the ass-end-crash capital of California.
I almost drove past the Stop & Save. I downshifted and swerved into the parking lot.
Then I rolled into an empty slot, shifted the Viper into neutral, and put on the parking brake. Leaving the engine idling and the AC blasting, I closed my eyes—only for a few moments. Or that’s what I told myself.
As I slept, Sierra looked at the supermarket. “Another joyless big box store. I hope the person who invented this retail concept doesn’t have other things on the drawing board.”
This was another new conversation. I kept my eyes shut. If I opened them, I knew Sierra wouldn’t be sitting beside me.
Sierra’s voice brightened. “Did I ever share my thoughts with you on America’s supermarket caste system?”
In my mind, I shook my head.
“In our theoretically egalitarian society, there are three classifications of supermarkets coinciding with the working poor, the middle class, and those privileged few who are either too wealthy to be of much use or unconscionably rich and truly worthless.”
“And whenever you’re shopping, always look for the union label, comrade,” I thought.
Sierra pinched my cheek. “That’s funny. Now pay attention. On the top of the supermarket heap are the bright, color-coordinated extravaganzas with floors that shine like polished glass. These supermarkets always price everything at or above the MSRP and never put anything on sale since such enticements are considered unnecessary and trés gauche by their customers. These supermarkets employ smiling, All-American youth to double bag your groceries, then they’ll schlep them out of the store and into the trunk of your luxury car. Do you have any questions so far, handsome husband?”
I shook my head.
“Then we have the less glossy but always clean, well-stocked supermarkets with friendly associates who know an artichoke from a zucchini, a portabella from a shiitake, and their asses from their elbows. These supermarkets offer weekly specials, and the checkers assist you in bagging your groceries, but you must wheel your purchases out of the store and load them into the trunk of your late-model Sonata, Fusion, or Suburban.”
“Dr. Wilkenson-Steele, may I assume you’re going somewhere with this lecture?”
She tapped my cheek with her fingertips. “We’re almost there. At the rear echelon, hind tit, ass-bottom of the pile are the untouchables such as this Stop & Save. In here, you’ll find discolored and cracked linoleum floors, water-stained ceiling tiles, high prices, packaged products way past their use-by dates, and malodorous smells in and around the meat, deli, and dairy coolers.” She waved her hand toward the store. “Ohhhh, Clint darling, you do not want to go in there. This dump could give you food poisoning from breathing the air.”
I jolted awake, inhaled a long breath, and slowly let it out. No one sat in the passenger’s side seat.
I killed the engine, grabbed the Danning file, and stepped into Laguna’s Mediterranean-like heat and ocean air.
The Stop and Save’s automatic doors didn’t work. With the scrape of metal across metal, I pushed my way into the store.
I saw her standing behind the customer service counter. Her heavy makeup and flaming red dye job might suggest she’d been around the block enough to have worn a rut in the sidewalk. I watched her reading a tabloid, licking her index finger to turn the page.
I stood in front of her.
She looked up at me, lifted her thin, drop-dead-red lipsticked lips, and said in a whiskey and cigarette voice, “My, my, my. Look at you.”
I smiled, triggering my dimples. “May I speak to the manager?”
“Honey, I’m her.” She extended her hand—the one with the finger she’d been licking.
I shook it. She didn’t let go of my hand.
“Larena White,” she said, letting my hand go and closing the tabloid. “I don’t suppose a tall, sexy devil like you wandered in here looking for a job.” She smiled. “I’d hire you on the spot and have you sweating in two minutes.”
“I’m not looking for work.” I set my private detective creds on the counter’s cracked Formica. “We spoke on the phone about an hour ago.”
Larena pushed my creds back at me. She winked brashly. “Oh, my. A private dick. What can I do you for?”
One more double entendre, and I’d heave up my testes.
I opened the Danning file, pulled out the photo six-pack, and slid it across the counter. “Have you seen any of these men?”
I waited while Larena eye-fucked each pic, then tapped a ruby red talon on the shot of Shane Danning. “Saw this one last night and scanned his groceries.” She smiled and shrugged. “Over the past few days, there’s damned few alive that ain’t seen a picture of Shane Danning somewhere.”
“Did Danning come in here alone last night?” I knew he hadn’t, but when interviewing an eyewitness, I never asked a question I couldn’t answer.
“No, he came in with a fortysomething man. And yes, they left together too.” She pursed her thin lips in thought. “Ya know, af
ter I talked with the cops last night, I got to thinking Shane Danning might be related to the guy he came in with.”
“What made you think they might’ve been relatives?”
She shrugged. “They reminded me of two guys that had known each other for a while, like an uncle and nephew, or maybe first cousins. Or they might be real good buddies.” She winked, putting a lot into it. “If ya know what I mean.”
I nodded slightly. Her perfume started to make my eyes burn. I slid my sunglasses back on as a shield before I went blind. She continued along a similar line.
“I suppose the older man could be a friend of the family.”
I put the photos back into the file. “Can you describe the older man?”
“Lord love a duck, I surely can.” Larena cackled. “My eyes stayed on both of those sexy devils.”
I kept quiet as she gave the same description of the unknown man I’d read in Danning’s missing person file.
“Hell’s bells, I wondered if Shane Danning’s buddy might be a movie or TV star,” Larena said.
“What made you think that?”
She shrugged. “His good looks and self-confidence.”
Having heard enough of her bullshit theorizing, I veered. “Do you take American Express in here?” I knew she did, but hadn’t seen the usual credit card decals on the double doors.
“Honey, we’ll pretty much take anything you slap down on the counter. We gotta, what with the tourists we get from New York City, Cisco, Seattle, and Asscrack, Wisconsin.”
“Did you see what these two men were driving or get a tag number?”
“Hell no. The only glass in this brick box is the in and out doors. You gotta stand right in front of them to see the entire parking lot.”
With Shane Danning’s Amex card being monitored, a police cruiser had been dispatched to the supermarket before the ink had dried on the receipt. For what it was worth, the police couldn’t have missed catching Danning and his companion by more than two minutes.
Larena had repeated what I’d learned from Danning’s missing person file: No one working last night had seen what make or model of car Danning and the fortysomething man had driven into the parking lot; No one had been able to see the tag; no one had known in which direction the two men had gone when they’d driven away—nothing, nada, zero, frigging zip. Shit.
“Did either Danning or his companion appear drunk or on drugs?”
Larena cackled again. “Honey, did you fall out of a cross-country bus a few moments ago?”
I only smiled.
“Ain’t nothing unusual to get people in here that’s had a few drinks, smoked, dropped, shot, or snorted a little something. I hardly notice the fucked-up customers anymore unless they’re barely able to stand.” Larena’s lips curved into something like a smile. “I only noticed how either one or both of them gorgeous guys I saw last night could leave their shoes under my bed anytime.”
I’d bet Larena White could chug beer like a frat boy, wouldn’t hesitate to tell a California Highway Patrol officer to kiss her ass, liked to eat wieners right out of the package, and could’ve beaten Minnesota Fats (JFGI) in three out of four games.
“Oh honey, I forgot to tell you the older man wore pricy designer glasses.”
I sighed inwardly. Expensive optics around here were as common as animal shit in a zoo. I switched gears. “Did Danning appear under duress or coercion?”
“Do you mean was Danning with the older man against his will?”
“Yes.”
Larena shrugged again. “I don’t think so.”
“I’ve got one more question. Are there video cameras aimed at the checkout lanes, doors, and the parking lot?” I knew there weren’t. But sometimes eyewitnesses told cops one thing and other people something entirely different.
She snorted. “Surely do, hon, but they ain’t worked for the past four or five years.” She flashed a sad smile. “The corporation has its priorities. This here rat hole ain’t one of ’em.”
I pulled a business card from my shirt pocket, added my cell number, and slid it onto the counter. “If you see either Danning or his companion, or both of them coming in here together again, would you let me know right away?”
“Sure thing, hon, if it’ll bring you back again.”
I thanked her for her time. Then I sensed her eye-fucking me all the way out the door.
I unlocked and opened the driver’s side door to let out some of the interior’s blast-furnace heat. It’s the downside of owning a black on black car in Southern California. But it’s a Mamba Package Viper, goddammit! Dodge only manufactured two hundred of them, and they all came in black on black with red accents. One must somehow persevere.
I started the Viper and turned the AC up to the freeze-your-nuts-off setting.
Out of nowhere, I sensed that Raoul needed my help. I started to call him. I paused, thinking, call him and tell him what? I slipped the cell back into my pocket.
I heard Sierra say, “Clint, sweetheart, you’re about to give me hives. Don’t analyze a simple matter to death. Raoul needs you tonight. Call him and say you’re taking him out to dinner. Tell him it’s mandatory, not optional.”
I’d heard something new again.
Even if Raoul didn’t need my help, it had been a long day in the private detective mines. Some dinner, a beer, and conversation with Raoul sounded like a fine idea.
But I first called home and asked Stella if she could babysit this evening. Not a problem. Stella had a room of her own in my house, where she kept several changes of clothing. A lipstick lesbian, she also kept enough toiletries and cosmetics in there to stock a Walgreens store.
I asked to talk to Ian. He’s young enough to be thrilled hearing someone wants to speak with him on the phone.
“Hey, buddy,” I said.
Without preamble, Ian asked, “May I go swimming?”
I told him he could. I’d begun teaching him how to swim when he was three. At six, he swam like a dolphin.
“Can Heathcliff swim?”
“Yes, but don’t let him in the pool’s chlorinated water.” Heathcliff, as with most Maine Coons, wouldn’t think twice about jumping into the tub with you while you’re taking a bath.
He then asked if he could give himself a haircut. I sighed inwardly. “No, son. Let me speak to Stella, please.”
I said to Stella, “I assume you heard.”
“I did, and you can assume I’ll keep both eyes on the boy.”
Then I called Raoul.
Chapter Fourteen
Less Than Stellar
Jud Tucker, Mystic Canyon Casino, Tuesday, May 1
Standing behind one-way glass fifteen feet above the high stakes poker tables, I watched a four-member card-counting team at work. Two college boys kept table-jumping and making significant changes in their bets based on signals from their spotters.
The two spotters, a pair of young, big breasted, short skirted blond babes, signaled the college boys when a shoe got hot and when to hold while simultaneously keeping the pit boss preoccupied. I shook my head in disgust at the pit boss’s negligence.
But the team looked healthy and in their early twenties. On the black market, their hearts alone would go into six figures. And their kidneys, livers, corneas, and lungs would become other gold mines, not counting everything else in and on them with a market value.
After another lucrative organ harvest over the weekend, only three prisoners remained in captivity. A single pair of the card-counting team would make a full house.
But taking them off the floor would have all four team members making one hell of a scene when security approached them, capturing the attention of all the players at the high stakes tables. I’d never get away with abducting any of them. I returned my attention to the problem at hand.
We casino directors considered one gambler counting cards a nuisance—until he or she started taking too much of the house’s cash. But we objected strenuously to teams of counters with winning
systems.
I’d tell my idiot pit boss to radio a pair of guards, then escort the card counters to my assistant director’s office. They’d be questioned and photographed. After checking and copying their photo IDs, all four of the assholes would find themselves blacklisted at casinos across North America.
I radioed pit boss Tom Andrews.
“Yes, Mr. Tucker.”
I described the team. “Pull your eyes off those spotters’ tits and twats, radio two security guards to support you, and bring all four of them to my assistant’s office now.”
Busted, Tom Andrews’s face reddened. “Copy.”
I watched Andrews and two security guards approach the card counters. And yes, all four of them raised hell.
They would never know how lucky they’d been, getting taken away from the tables, I thought.
Since I’d promoted Tom Andrews three months ago, he’d proved himself a less than stellar pit boss. A twenty-seven-year-old former Army MP, Andrews had the brawn and some of the brains for the job, but he sure as shit couldn’t control his roving eyes and rabid libido.
I’d considered firing him, but none of the casino’s execs wanted to deal with a disgruntled former employee’s lawyer. More to the point, a former employee who’d served his country honorably and was working full-time while taking college courses part-time.
Considering all my options, I decided I wouldn’t need to demote or fire Andrews. He’d told me that he lived alone.
And I had his address on file.
Chapter Fifteen
Faraway Eyes
Clint, West L.A., Tuesday, May 1
I watched Raoul lock the front door of his renovated Craftsman, then fleet-foot it down the porch steps to my car. He slid onto the passenger’s seat.
“Thanks for taking me up on my last-minute dinner invitation,” I said.
“As though my social calendar were packed to the nuts,” he said.
I pulled away from the curb. “You’re a talented, handsome Cuban American actor and a successful contractor. After knowing you for over five years, I still don’t understand why you live like a monk.”