by Louis Barr
I told Raul and Vanessa to stay where they were. Then I chased after Rick Jackson.
I followed the tabloid tool down the sidewalk. In about fifteen seconds, give or take, Jackson’s photo card would be gone; that, and his ass kicked.
My security coworkers don’t call me Jane Wayne for nothing. Yeah, this job seriously beats the hell out of working in a salmon cannery.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Hold My Beer and Watch This
Clint, Friday, June 15
I’d boarded a flight to San Francisco this morning to meet with Anna Acerbi. If memory served, Acerbi meant “heartless” in Italian. She’s the principal of Acerbi, Kline, and Emerson, one of San Fran’s most prestigious law firms.
Anna Acerbi read about Steele & Whitman’s work on the Danning case. In her letter, she said she needed a competent, reliable, and thorough detective agency to monitor and direct her firm’s in-house private eyes. Ms. Acerbi offered Steele & Whitman Investigations a two-year contract with serious money.
Hope and I discussed the firm’s offer and decided I should meet with Acerbi in person to see how I felt about the principal and the firm. When I got back to the office Monday morning, we’d decide to accept, decline, or make a counter offer to the proposal.
I knew going into my meeting with Ms. Acerbi that the firm sometimes handled high-profile criminal defense cases.
I knew this criminal defense work would be about as well-received by Hope as a turd in her chowder bowl. And after falling prey to one of California’s most prolific serial killers, I didn’t know whether I wanted the contract either, no matter how lucrative it was.
My insomnia had returned after I’d found my half brother nearly whipped to death at the Ranch. Had I been a day or two later in finding him, what remained of Shane’s body would’ve been dropped into a mass grave.
Since Shane’s rescue, I’d been stopping by his private hospital room daily, bringing him real food, books, and candy after Diana told me her son had a weakness for chocolate. Initially, I did most of the talking. On my second visit, I held his hand and told him about our family connection. He lifted his brows and gave me a slight smile. Then we began talking.
On my third visit, I brought Ian to meet his uncle. My son asked with an earnest look, “Did you ever see that movie where the little boy yells, ‘Shane! Come back!’ I totally liked it. Daddy watched it with me. I asked why Shane wouldn’t come back. He said cowboys had to keep riding the range. I think he wouldn’t come back cause it’s another one of those things I’m not supposed to know about until I’m older.”
Shane laughed warmly and tousled Ian’s hair. “When I get back to work, would you like to sit in the cockpit with me on a short flight?”
“Awesome,” Ian said.
Shane smiled and winked at me. At that moment, we knew we’d bonded. It took the innocence of a child to bring the three of us together as a family.
I yawned deeply in my first class seat. Tired as I felt, I’d been unable to sleep last night; ditto on this return flight.
I loosened my tie. Then I sent Mars a text, asking if he wanted to get together this evening. He replied that he had an assignment but would drop by around 2100 hours, possibly earlier. I let him know I’d be waiting for him.
I stared out the window as the jetliner neared the greater Los Angeles area. The voice brought me out of my stupor.
“Before we begin our descent into Los Angeles, may I bring you another drink?” The cabin attendant added, “Or anything else, anything at all.”
“I’ll pass on another drink, thanks.” But I flirted back. “How far down the path of anything at all were you thinking of going?” Having no interest in him, I wondered why the hell I’d said that.
The cabin attendant grinned, reached across the empty seat beside me, cleared away my scotch bottle and glass, then returned the tray to its fully upright and locked position.
Something lightly brushed my crotch. My cock started to stiffen—the shameless prick.
The cabin attendant noticed. “I believe that answers any doubts I had.” He pushed the drink cart back to the galley.
I found the business card between my thighs. I chuckled as I read, “Landon Cox, Licensed Masseur & Personal Trainer,” followed by a Los Angeles phone number.
Anyone of the LGBTQA+ tribes knew the connotations of “masseur” or “masseuse” combined with “personal trainer.” And if Landon Cox wasn’t a website alias, I’m the lost heir of Warren Buffett.
I folded the card and slipped it into the magazine pouch beneath the tray. I didn’t need a massage from a stranger. I had Mars dropping by tonight.
The feds and the Mystic Canyon cops had gotten to Jud Tucker before he could kill himself. Tucker, along with his assistants, Blake Walsh and Blaine Vogel, were in county lockup, awaiting trial. I pinched the top of my nose between my thumb and index finger. Something about Jud Tucker’s crimes did not compute. Specifically, how the fuck had he known that Shane Danning was my half brother? I’d thought Shane’s paternity had been one of the film industry’s better-kept secrets. Maybe I needed to have a long talk with Diana. Then it hit me like a kick in the head: Diana might’ve had a one-time get in, get off, get out liaison with Jud Tucker as she’d had with other men, including myself. It hadn’t escaped my attention she liked to pillow talk.
I tightened my seat belt as the jetliner began its long glide toward LAX. I closed my eyes.
I jolted awake as the plane touched down, then slowed and taxied toward a Jetway. Pulling my laptop bag out of the overhead bin, I waved buh-bye at Landon Cox as I disembarked. He smiled and winked at me. I winked back in recognition of his entrepreneurial spirit.
I got out of LAX, saw it was past 1630 hours, and decided to stop for a drink. Ian and his buddy Sage had a weekend sleepover at the Pruitt manse. Tonight through Sunday belonged to me and Mars.
Being a Friday rush hour, it only took me seventy minutes to drive the nine miles from LAX to Santa Monica. Yup, that’s bitterness you’re hearing. I pulled into the first bar I saw without a car bearing a faded “MAGA” sticker on a bumper held in place with duct tape and coat hanger wire.
I stepped into a lounge filled with men in suits and ties, and women in business attire all ready for a drink and dinner at the end of another work week. I found an empty stool on the shadowy side of the bar.
An attractive bartender smiled at me. “What can I bring you?”
I smiled back. “Do you have a bottle of Utopia?”
She raised her brows, spoke to the bar back, who hustled off and returned cradling a bottle of beer that cost two Franklins. A boy must treat himself now and then.
Pulling my money clip from my pocket, I laid two hundred bucks plus a forty dollar tip in front of the bartender. She thanked me, slid the bills off the bar, and went to the till. It hadn’t escaped my attention she wore a wedding ring. Private investigators miss nothing. I slowly poured beer into the chilled mug she’d set in front of me and sipped.
The thirtysomething guy to my right tried to interrupt my quiet enjoyment of a luxury beer. I ignored the stranger beside me. But I saw the bartender shoot a dirty look at him.
I drank some more beer.
“You like expensive beer,” the thirtysomething man sitting to my right stated.
“Sometimes,” I said.
“I know I haven’t seen you in here before. I’d have remembered you.” He burped. “Excuse me. I’ve had a few.”
I gave him a quick once-over. His sandy hair had begun to recede, which didn’t look bad on him. Add pale blue eyes behind thin glasses and a nice smile. The trite pickup line and belch aside, I thought him an all right looking guy.
I drank some more beer.
Looking closer, I saw the indentation of a long-worn wedding band on the man’s left ring finger. Ahh, fuck, I thought, but said, “Are you recently divorced or looking for something you can’t get at home?” Watching for a reaction, I noticed the stranger’s eyes appeared a bit dilated. He had a n
ervous energy barely beneath his skin that had one knee jiggling and his right hand tapping the bar. I knew goddammed good and well he was an addict, probably crack. I turned back to my beer.
“Don’t turn away from me. I’m talking to you.”
Great, he had a crack addict’s irrational temper.
“Listen,” he began in a low voice, “for a hundred bucks, I’ll give you a blow job to remember. For two hundred, you can fuck me, and that’ll be something you’ll never forget.”
“Uh-huh, and for nothing, I can go home and jerk off.” I finished my beer, stood, and made it to the door without being followed. On the sidewalk, I pulled the car’s fob from my pocket. Christ, even in a pleasant lounge with expensive drinks and a mellow crowd, I had to sit next to a crack whore. I went to a steak house for dinner.
At home, I pulled off my dress shoes and kneeled for Sammy’s sloppy kiss, playful growls, and tail wags. Heathcliff peeked at us from the laundry room door. “What’s up, pretty boy?”
The fat cat swaggered over and let me pick him up.
“So, your highness, did you make certain the whelp didn’t pee on any of my rosebushes while I was gone?”
Heathcliff purred and squirmed. I set him on the floor. At least the family pets were always here to welcome me home. Seeing they had plenty of food and water, I grabbed my shoes and headed upstairs.
I was standing in my bedroom in my underwear when my phone vibrated on the nightstand. It was a call from Mars.
“I finished early.”
“So you’re on your way,” I said.
“Incoming, baby, and close enough to see the light from your bedroom windows.”
I looked toward the street and affected a Brooklyn inflection. “I see you. I got your incoming right here.”
He adopted the same inflection. “Moose, buddy, hold my beer and watch this.”
I laughed, hearing squealing tires as Mars raced up my driveway.
Marston Hauser could always make me laugh. And I suspected he could keep me happy for a long, long while.
And for the first time today, I genuinely smiled.
Chapter Fifty
Where’s the Rest of the Story
Clint, Beverly Hills, Saturday, June 16
The waiter served our drinks: a Jack Daniel’s single barrel on the rocks for Flynn, and I’d ordered the same, but neat.
Our waiter, sufficiently handsome and well-built to be a CK underwear model, asked if we’d decided what we’d like for dinner.
I asked for the tenderloin cooked medium, stuffed baked potato, and stir-fried vegetables.
The waiter looked at Flynn. “And for you, sir?”
“What are your specials?”
The waiter rattled them off.
“Who in the hell eats swordfish?” He moved ahead. “Then do you have lamb belly sweetbread?”
“Sorry, no sir.”
“Ahh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, then can you bring me either a tongue or a head cheese sandwich?”
I lightly kicked Flynn under the table. “You’re about to trip my gag reflex.” The restaurant specialized in steaks and seafood, and being Saturday night, the place was packed. “In the interest of time, double my order, please.”
“But I want my steak cooked well, and I’ll take mashed, not baked, with chicken gravy.” Flynn glanced at the menu one more time. “Do you have corn or peas in the kitchen instead of that stir-fried shit?”
“I’m certain we have fresh pea pods, baby carrots, mushrooms, green beans, and zucchini,” the waiter said.
“We used to feed pea pods to the hogs,” Flynn grumped. “Well then, can you shuck the peas and boil them?”
“Sir, each pea is slightly larger than the head of a pin, but I’ll ask the chef what he can substitute for your stir-fried vegetables.” The waiter hung in there. “Since you want it cooked well, may the chef butterfly your tenderloin?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
I answered for Flynn as if he were in an early stage of dementia. “He won’t mind.” I held a fist to my mouth and yawned. I would’ve preferred having dinner with Mars, but one of the intelligence agencies had an emergency contract for tonight. Not interested in eating alone, I’d called Flynn.
“My name is Brennon,” our waiter said. “Let me know if you need anything before I serve your dinners.” He snapped up the tall menus, turned, and fled.
Flynn squinted, watching Brennon’s departure as if the young man were a park restroom perv. He took a sip of his whiskey, took another sip, and set the tumbler on the white linen tablecloth. “I imagine Steele & Whitman got a shitload of new clients after the Danning case made the newspapers.”
I nodded and mentioned the Acerbi, Kline, and Emerson contract proposal. I did not say how lucrative the San Fran law firm’s offer was. I also kept quiet about their luxurious offices.
Hope and I had discussed the offer this morning before I went to my desk. I’d known Hope felt as I did: Who the hell needed the headaches.
I told Flynn that Steele & Whitman Investigations had all the business we needed.
“Business is booming,” Flynn said. “Ain’t you a lucky so-and-so.”
“You know every investigation hinges on a degree of good fortune. Working together, you and I had all the necessary skills and ten times the luck.”
Our waiter brought our salads. “I’ll bring your dinners shortly.”
Flynn scowled at his salad. “You want this?”
“No thanks, go ahead and try it. You might like it,” I said.
Flynn stared with disgust at his salad for several seconds as if it were a fresh, colorful cow pie. He shoved the plate aside. “I’m told the two men Tucker kept drugged and locked away will make a full recovery in time. As to Shane Danning, he’s been released from hospital.”
“I know,” I said. “Shane decided to try some talk therapy before the flight surgeon examines him and makes a determination on his fitness to fly.” I shrugged. “He’s going to postpone plastic surgery on his back.”
I ate some salad. “You know, Captain, we still need to learn the rest of the story behind the Danning case.”
“Well now, your gut instincts are telling you this?”
“No, Flynn, it’s my Delta Force preternatural powers, my private eye’s spidey senses, and my Captain America decoder ring.” I dropped the matter.
Flynn ignored my sarcasm. “I hear Jud Tucker, Blaine Vogel, and Blake Walsh’s attorneys will argue their clients have been legally insane for years.”
I knew California used the two-pronged McNaughton Rule in determining a defendant’s sanity at the time of a crime: First, the defendant understood the nature and quality of the act, and second, the defendant could distinguish the difference between right and wrong. I also knew in California, a defendant could not be found insane solely on the basis of personality, adjustment or seizure disorders, or the addiction/abuse of intoxicating substances.
I figured Tucker, Vogel, and Walsh had the slightest chance of acquittals by reason of insanity. If so, all three of them would spend the rest of their lives locked away in a state mental hospital. It’s merely another type of penitentiary.
Our salad plates were whisked away and our dinners served.
“To Vogel and Walsh’s credit,” Flynn said, “they told detectives they watched Jud Tucker shoot Deputy Sheriff Scott Davidson in cold blood, and made the murder look like a suicide.”
“Why did Tucker kill the deputy?”
“Seems Scott Davidson wanted a sexual relationship with Mr. Tucker.”
“Deputy Davidson didn’t deserve to die for that. What a fucking brainless approach to saying ‘No thanks.’” I chewed a piece of fabulously seasoned steak and swallowed. “What about the five-million-dollar ransom Diana paid Tucker?”
“The feds found a couple thousand Tucker deposited in his checking account, but they’re not saying much about the rest of the ransom.”
I nodded. Then Flynn and I focused on eating
.
In a while, a busboy removed our plates and cutlery. Moments later, waiter Brennon arrived. “May I tempt you gentlemen with dessert, coffee, or an after-dinner drink?”
Flynn and I declined. Brennon set the leather check holder on the table. I picked it up.
Flynn grunted his thanks.
On top of the bill, I found a note written in a masculine cursive: Off at eleven. Call me about dessert, if you’re so inclined. Brennon included his phone number.
I tucked Brennon’s note into the breast pocket of my sport coat. I paid for our meals with black plastic. This was, after all, a deductible business dinner. I pulled cash from my money clip for the gratuity and closed the check holder.
When the waiter returned, he ran my card at the table and shot me a smile that went all the way to his eyes. “Thank you, gentlemen.”
“I suppose you left that handsome and probably queer”—he pronounced it “quare”—“waiter too much of a tip. A couple of dollars would’ve been sufficient.”
“Only in a Bangladesh restaurant. In Beverly Hills, two bucks wouldn’t cover the tip for the glacier ice in your drink. But you did get one thing right.”
“And what would that be?”
“Our waiter is one handsome devil. He gave me his phone number. Do you want it?”
“Now, why would I want that? All I need to do is wait for him at the bar until the end of his shift.”
“He’s off at 2300 hours.” I stood then pushed my chair under the table. “Good night, Captain Parsimonious Tramp.” I held a fist to my mouth and yawned. “Do you need an escort? I’d hate to learn your 1965 Vauxhall wouldn’t start again.”
Flynn stood. “Get outta my face. I’ve gotten tired of your smart-assed remarks left and right.”
“Flynn, it’s always a pleasure.” We shook hands. “Love you like the big brother I never had.”
He actually smiled. “Same here.”
Chapter Fifty-One
You Got Mail
Clint, The Flats, Saturday, June 16
I walked into my house around 2200 hours and felt the rumble of its silence.