Hard Cold Whisper

by Michael Hemmingson

  “What kind of help?”

  “I don’t know,” she said after a pause. “I need…something.”

  12.

  The phone rang three hours later. Thought it was Gabriella—who else would be calling at this time?

  Or Meghan.

  I almost didn’t answer.

  “David,” a man’s voice said, “you’re there, good.”

  It was my boss, Allen Marshall.

  “Allen?”

  “Listen,” he said, “I know it’s late early, and you’re asleep, or was…listen, I need a favor.”

  “What is it? What’s going on?”

  I turned on the light and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.

  He said, “Need you to go to the office, get a check, and take the check down to Alibabba Bail Bonds.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Can you do this, kid?”

  “Sure. Who am I bailing out?”

  “Me.”

  “You?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “You’re in—jail?”

  “Holding tank for now,” he said, “that’s why I need you to get me out of here before they transfer me around and make me wear one of those goddamn blue outfits with the white socks and rubber shoes.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “Tell you about it after I’m out of here…”

  13.

  I was the only employee and Westlake and Marshall who had a key to the office and authority to sign checks. It was three in the morning when I got to the office, grabbed a check, and drove down to Alibabba Bail Bonds, around the corner from central booking of the San Diego County jail.

  Allen’s bail was $25,000. I thought that was pretty high. It was for a felony.

  “Assault on a police officer,” said the fellow working at the bail bond office, “disturbing the peace…”

  Assault on a cop? What the fuck had Allen gotten himself into? I knew it had to be a good story. Allen had many great yarns from his days as a private eye.

  I wrote the check out for $2,500, ten percent of the bail.

  It’d take a few hours for the bondsman to get the paperwork through and for the jail system to spring Allen. I had some breakfast at the downtown Denny’s and read the early edition newspaper. I could’ve gone back home but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

  I sat in a booth and watched the sun come up as I ate pancakes with two scrambled eggs, four slices of bacon, and an English muffin. I thought about the first time I met Allen Marshall, applying to be a process server. I had just finished the training courses and gotten my county number and bond. Allen looked me over and wanted to know why the hell I wanted to be in this business and I told him of my intentions of one day working as a private investigator. He smiled sardonically and informed me that shamus work wasn’t like the movies, I wasn’t going to be solving crimes or having adventures; mostly I’d do background checks and follow around cheating wives and husbands. “Hopefully I’ll see some good sex then,” I said. He liked that.

  6:15 a.m., my cell rang.

  “Free as a lark,” Allen’s voice said. “Meet me at the office.”

  I met him at the office.

  He looked haggard: a few hours in the can will do that to anyone. He was drinking instant coffee and smoking a cigarette.

  “You wanna hear it?”

  “Tell me.”

  “A process came in, simple money demand from a credit card default, Visa, $4,000. The defendant turned out to be this little old lady who lives in my complex. I don’t know her, but I’ve seen her around, a recluse and kind of unfriendly whenever we’d cross paths. I figure, hell, why get one of you guys on it when she lives across the courtyard from me, I can take care of it myself, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So I go over there, knock knock. I know she’s in there, I can hear the TV and I see her walk by the window. ‘Legal documents,’ I say loud enough for her to hear. But she won’t answer the door. You know how I hate it when people do that. So I knock louder, I implore her—implore, mind you—to open the damn door and accept service so I won’t have to come back. She must’ve known she had the lawsuit filed on her. Or she just didn’t feel like being neighborly.

  “I go back to my place and open a few beers and half an hour later two fucking uniforms are at my door. ‘What the fuck you boys want?’ I go.”

  “You said that?” I was surprised, and impressed.

  “Fucking cops.”

  There was no love lost between him and a few old detectives going back to his shamus days, what exactly I didn’t know. I heard a rumor that Allen once applied to the police force when he was young and he was turned down, and he’d been harboring a grudges ever since.

  He continued: “They tell me they got a call that I was harassing and terrorizing one of my neighbors. I explained to them I was serving papers and showed the summons and complaint to them and they go: ‘She claims you were knocking on her door so hard the hinges almost came off.’ I said that a load of bull crap, said that I was acting as an officer of the court and serving court papers, yadda yadda, and they’re saying ‘we’re just responding to a complaint’ and I go: ‘Well, tell the old bag to answer her door next time instead of evading service.’”

  “You called her an old bag?”

  “That’s what she is. So the cops go back to talk to her and I get this idea, I can take care of business. I go back to her condo and knock and one of the cops answers the door and I toss the papers down at the lady’s feet, saying, ‘You’ve been served, ma’am.’ I tell you, I’ve never seen a woman of her advanced years move so fast. She was fuming. She streamlined straight at me, her claws drawn, she was ready to rake my fucking eyes out, and she was screaming like a bat out of some deep dark cave in New Mexico. What can I do? I defend myself. I punched her.”

  “You hit an elderly woman?”

  “Not hard, but enough to deflect the crazy-maker. One of the cops grabs me and, well, reflexes you know—I punched him, and I hit him hard.”

  “Shit,” I said.

  “Next thing I know, they have me down on the ground in cuffs, and the one I hit, he’s got his baton out and he wants to give me a work over with that but his partner stops him.

  “‘Go ahead and do it, asshole,’ I tell him.

  “’Tempt me,’ he goes.

  “Meanwhile, the old bag is screaming assault, saying she wants to press charges, but they remind her that she came after me first. I say, ‘I want to press charges, I’m an officer of the court, it’s a felony to physically retaliate against a process server’ and they’re like ‘it’s a felony to assault a peace officer,’ yadda yadda. I go you gotta be motherfucking kidding and they’re saying nope, we’re not, we’re haulin’ your ass in, and sure as my dick is nine inches, that’s what they did. I didn’t have access to a phone for at least six hours, which was bullshit, I should’ve gotten my phone call right off, they were just being nasty, and when I did I call up Alibabba’s and they say get us the ten percent and I called you and now here I am, cranky as a drunk with an empty jug and tired and facing a felony and a misdemeanor. I just wanna have a few beers and hit the sack and sleep all day and forget this shit ever happened but come nine o’clock, I’ll be on the horn with my lawyer to get this bull crap taken care of and erased.”

  “Damn,” I said, wondering about what I’d do if that happened to me. “You think you can get the assault dropped?”

  “Reflex in the heat of a moment of self defense,” he said. “I won’t plea to a lesser charge. And I want the disturbing the peace charge gone, too. And I want that crazy old bag charged with attempted assault on an officer of the court. Those goddamn cops wouldn’t charge her or take her in. I’m gonna have a talk with their desk sergeant, but first I’ll pow wow with the shyster.”

  I shook my head and smiled. “Never a dull moment around here.”

  He lit another cigarette. “Heard you got served with a suit, right outside.”
/>   “It’s horse and bullshit.”

  “A lot of it flying around lately, kid. You just gotta duck and hope the stink is bearable.”

  “And not step in it,” I said.

  “The step is unavoidable. Just look where you put your foot and then clean off your shoe as soon as you can, otherwise you’ll just have to go out and buy baby some new blues.”

  14.

  Drove back to my apartment and Meghan was waiting for me in her car. She rushed towards me, clogs clacking. She looked like she’d been up all night: baggy eyes and pasty skin and flat hair.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Not now,” I said.

  “I saw you take off at 2:45,” she said. “In the morning!”

  Was irritated. “You’re stalking me?”

  “I’m looking after you,” she said. “Where did you go at that hour and in such a rush? And don’t tell me you were serving someone.”

  “It’s none of your business,” I said.

  “I’m concerned. It is my business.”

  “I’m not in the mood for this.”

  “There’s something I want to tell you,” she said.

  I didn’t want the neighbors paying attention so—once again against my better judgment—I let her come inside so she could have her say.

  First, I took a shower.

  I wasn’t surprised when she joined me, her naked tattooed body pressed against mine, the water between us.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Then why did you invite me in when you knew things would lead to this?” she said.

  It was a good question. Why couldn’t I just tell her off? Tell her to fuck off? Maybe I was a coward. The soft approach wasn’t working. Was I afraid to actually cut her out of my life? I had been quite used to her being around for three years.

  “I have to get to work,” I said, leaving the shower.

  “Stay,” she said.

  In got dressed in the bedroom and Meghan came out, wearing a towel around her body. She sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “Come here,” she said.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  “So look, booboo,” she said. “I know we’re not exactly together anymore so I can’t expect you to not go out and get some pussy now and then. I was just—I wasn’t prepared for it the other day.”

  I zipped up my pants.

  “I forgive you,” she said.

  “Forgive me?”

  “Yes.”

  “For what?”

  “For being with another woman.”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I say it is.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “I love you,” she replied.

  “I don’t love you, Meghan. I don’t think I ever did. In fact, I know now I never did. I don’t know what it was.”

  Her eyes were big and wet. “You hated me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Do you hate me now?”

  “I’m exhausted,” I said. “You have to stop coming over.”

  “You don’t want to see me? And—and don’t say, ‘Just as friends.’”

  “No, Meghan,” I said as strongly as I could, “I don’t want to see you anymore. Not as friends, not as anything.”

  I knew I didn’t sound convincing.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “Please get dressed,” I said to my ex-girlfriend. “I really do have to go.”

  She picked up her clothes from the floor.

  She asked, “Who is the bitch?”

  “Don’t start.”

  “Who is she?”

  “No one you know.”

  “Who?”

  “None of your business.”

  “You’re really testing me, David.”

  “I don’t mean to. I just want to go to work.”

  “Work? Or her?”

  I didn’t answer that, because I did indeed desire to go to Gabriella, not work.

  “Please don’t ever bring her here,” Meghan said, putting her clothes on.

  “Listen to me,” I said. “You can’t be waiting for me in your car. It’s stalking. I don’t like it. I want you to cut it out. Okay?”

  She wouldn’t look at me; she put her clothes on and left.

  15.

  “Talk to your lawyer?” I asked the boss.

  “She’s on it,” Allen Marshall said. “Something just came in, and it’s right up your alley, kid.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “Requires a tent and a sleeping bag. The money’s good.”

  There was a man who lived on a ranch out in Santa Ysabel, toward the mountains past East County. His place was gated and there were guard dogs, so he proved to be hard to serve some sort of request for injunctive relief, something to do with business and interference with contractual arrangements. Basically a lot of legal mumbo jumbo I didn’t feel like taking the time to comprehend.

  Word was that the guy might be out of town, or holing up on his property, but he had to show up at the gate at some point.

  “A camp out,” I said.

  “You love ‘em.”

  I wasn’t sure about now. I had been seeing Gabriella every day and I wanted to keep doing that. Who knows how long I’d be on a stake out—a day? Two days? A week?

  I couldn’t pass up the job or the money. I never did. Stake outs were $100 for the first hour, and $50 every hour after that. Doing an all day and nighter added up and my bank account was happy when I did.

  I told Gabriella about the job after we made love that afternoon.

  “What does it mean?” she asked.

  “I might be away for a while.”

  “How long?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “When do you start?”

  “When I leave here.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “I’ll pass on the job,” I said, although I knew I wouldn’t.

  “For me?”

  “For us.”

  “Don’t do that,” she said. “I don’t want you to do that. This is your work. You need the money.”

  I didn’t exactly need it. But who passes up good money?

  “It’ll probably only be two days, three at the most,” I said. “If I’m lucky, he’ll pop his head up tonight.”

  “I wish I could camp out there with you,” she said, her head on my chest. “We’d have so much fun in that tent together, away from it all.”

  That sounded nice.

  “I think I will miss you,” she said. “I’ve been getting used to your visits.”

  Ditto.

  “I’ll have a nice paycheck after the job’s done,” I said. “We’ll go somewhere really fancy for dinner.”

  “I don’t care about that, David,” she said. “I only care about us being together, and nothing getting in the way of our love.”

  There it was.

  She said it.

  It was happening.

  16.

  Gabriella called several times that first night in the tent; the cell phone reception wasn’t all that great but it didn’t matter to me, just hearing her voice, crackled and distant and echo-y, was good enough to soothe my lonely ass soul.

  “It’s such a clear night out,” I told her. “You should see the stars.”

  “What are they like?”

  “Like stars.”

  “I’ve never been in the mountains,” she said.

  “The desert?”

  “You know I’ve never been anywhere.” She sighed loudly.

  “You’ve never seen a night sky like this,” I said, standing outside the tent I had set up at on the ground across from the gate of Arnold Maxwell’s property, the elusive defendant who was my target.

  My car was parked a quarter of a mile down the road. By the time he noticed my tent, I anticipated it would be too late.

  “It’s cold out,” I
said.

  “Dressed warm?”

  “Warm enough; still cold.”

  “If I was there, I would keep you warm.”

  She called in the morning.

  “Wake up, lazy boy!”

  I yawned. My back hurt from sleeping on the ground.

  She said, “If I were there, I’d give you the best message.”

  “Stop torturing me.”

  “What do you have for breakfast?”

  “Beans and wieners,” I said.

  I had brought a three-day supply of canned food and bottled water.

  “If I were there . . .”

  “Yeah yeah,” I went, “you’d whip me up an omelet.”

  “Are you kidding? I love beanie weenies,” she said; “we’d share the can and then I’d give you a beanie weenie kiss.”

  Mr. Maxwell showed up the next day, just a few minutes before sunset. The sky had a strange purple and orange glow to it and things didn’t feel right. I should’ve known something bad was going to happen; sometimes I don’t pay attention to my intuition and every time I don’t, I get pissed at myself.

  Intuition never lies, although it has been known to exaggerate.

  He was coming home. He drove a huge pick-up trucks with monster mag wheels: one of those men who had to feel tall and enormous in the world because physically a was a short man, a man with money, a man who thought himself important—I could tell by the way he carried himself, as he climbed out of his big bad truck, using a ladder to get to the ground, to unlock the gate of his property. He kept the motor of his vehicle running; it rumbled like a snoring leviathan.

  I knew I was going to have to be quick. I made a mad dash toward him, calling out his name. He turned around and snarled because he knew who (or what) I was and what I was about to do. He took a boxer’s position, legs apart, both his fists up and ready for defensive action. I certainly had no interest in sparing with him so I simply tossed the legal papers at his feet and gave him the customary, “You’ve been served, sir.”

  The idea now was get my car, come back here, fold up the tent and go back home, back to Gabriella and her embrace. Hopefully Maxwell would be gone and allow me to gather my stuff up.