The Perpetual Summer

by Adam Walker Phillips

  “If you only recently found out yourself, then that means Carl didn’t tell you either. Did you ask him why he kept it a secret?”

  “I did.”

  “Did he give you an answer?”

  “Nope.”

  “But you want one from me. Okay, I will prove I am the better person. I like her and didn’t want to betray her confidence.”

  “When’s the last time you spoke to her?”

  “It’s been a while. Not since before you and I last met.”

  “Have you tried to contact her?” I asked.

  “Now that you tell me she has had the baby, I just might.”

  “Do you happen to know where she is staying? Even if it’s just a town, that’d be helpful.”

  “I don’t.”

  Clearly she wasn’t in the frame of mind to give up much information. I asked her to let me know if she heard from Jeanette. And if she did talk to her, that she try to persuade the girl to return home. The old woman acknowledged the request but didn’t say outright whether she was going to agree to it.

  “Whatever happened to that nurse, the angry one?”

  “She hasn’t shown up for work this week. Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious.”

  I leaned back and looked down at the empty rows of glide chairs.

  “Not a lot of visitors today,” I commented. “Must be the heat.”

  “There aren’t many on any day,” said Sheila. “You’re my first visitor in a while,” she felt the need to add, and instantly gave herself away.

  We chatted about nothing for a couple of minutes longer, mostly about the heat, then I got up to excuse myself. A few feet from the door, I turned back.

  “Just so you know,” I told her, “I’m not working for Carl anymore. He dismissed me over an indiscretion that I didn’t commit. He knew I didn’t do it but he fired me anyway. If I had to guess, this outcome was inevitable all along and if I was smart I would just go home and mind my own business.

  “But I’m not smart and I’m not ready to quit. I’ve never met this kid; I don’t have anything at stake in it, but somehow I still feel responsible for bringing her home. Maybe her family is screwed up but most families are. It’s still better than being out there all alone.”

  I made it no more than three steps toward the door.

  “Sit back down, please,” she instructed. Once I was back in the chair, she admitted that she had seen Jeanette earlier that morning. I assumed she had but didn’t tell her so. “She has a handsome little baby.”

  “So it’s a boy?”

  “Yes, Carl has his heir,” she spat. “You know that I am childless?”

  “You mentioned it before.”

  “But you don’t know why.” I told her I didn’t. “Let’s just say it wasn’t because of a lack of desire and it wasn’t because of a lack of ability.”

  “So what other reason is there?”

  “Fear,” she answered. “Fear of Carl.”

  “You’re going to have to elaborate, Ms. Lansing, because if I am understanding you correctly that is a pretty big accusation.”

  “I didn’t make an accusation; I just described a feeling I had,” she parsed as if in fear of a defamation suit. “I was scared of what he could do. He is, as you may guess, prone to abusive behavior.”

  “That’s still a broad term. What kind of abuse are you referring to?”

  “Well, I never had a child,” she replied. “That should answer it for you. And that’s why I don’t think Jeanette should go back to that household.”

  “But she lives with her mother,” I reminded her. “And could even stay with her dad if she wanted to.”

  She smiled at me.

  “I’ve heard about those two from Jeanette. They will do anything to stay on Carl’s good side. There’s too much money in it,” she said, and despite the ugliness in her words there was a vein of truth in them.

  This time she volunteered to let me know if and when she was in contact with Jeanette. I lingered, but she quickly picked up on my discomfort in the heat and offered to walk me to the door. Or, I walked her as she clung to my arm with brittle fingers.

  “Not a day goes by that I don’t question that decision,” she mused. “They say when you have a child, all of your concerns are thrown out the window because you have just one concern now. Then again,” she reasoned, “everyone in this home was placed here by their children, except me. I had to come here on my own.” She paused to reflect on that decision. “I don’t know which situation is sadder.”

  On my way out, I once again stopped by the front desk and spoke to the attendant. She was trying to find order to a pile of paperwork and it looked like the pile was getting the best of her.

  I interrupted her efforts. “Excuse me, is there a way I could leave a small gratuity for the staff for taking such great care of my aunt?” I asked.

  “Why that is very thoughtful of you,” the woman beamed.

  “I’d like to leave it for the attendant I asked about earlier.”

  The beam got a little duller.

  “Oh, okay. Well, you can leave it with me.”

  I took some of the cash I had on me to bribe the gossip blogger and started to hand it to the woman, but then had second thoughts and awkwardly pulled the bills back.

  “Maybe I should just write a check,” I said to the woman.

  “However you prefer,” she said icily.

  “Tala…” I said, “…what was her last name again?”

  SOCIALIZATION

  The coincidences were too numerous to justify using that word anymore. People and places were integrally linked in a knotted mess that I had little hope I could ever untangle. I decided to focus on the connection of the nurse at the convalescent home. The fact that she hadn’t shown up for work in days without an excuse was further proof that something was amiss. Still to be decided was whether she was coercing Jeanette or in collusion with her. Either way, I knew if I found Tala, I would find a path to Jeanette.

  I gave the job to Badger. With my interview fast approaching, I couldn’t risk pulling a disappearing act at work. Presence was an important quality for senior leadership and an empty office was not the ideal way to project an image of serious engagement in my work. And although the interviews would grant me ample time to meet and discuss my qualities and ideas with the decision-makers, there was a necessary pre-step I had to take if I had any chance of succeeding.

  “Socialization” was the new buzzword at the office. With so many new ideas and initiatives being pitched at once and so little mental “bandwidth” (and will) to process them all, leadership demanded they hear about each pitch on an individual basis before the actual meeting. The reason was clear: no one liked to be taken by surprise. This resulted in a mini-campaign of sorts, often off the calendar, for which you were expected to make the rounds to the various offices of the decision-makers for a quick “drop in” chat. You’d float the idea, get some initial feedback, and then agree that it would be good to discuss in the larger group. In the military world, this was known as “softening up the hill.” In the corporate world, it was how people filled up their calendars. One meeting with ten people quickly became eleven meetings when you added in all of the individual ones.

  I was so busy running around on my socialization work that I missed the breaking story—Nelson Portillo was wanted for questioning in the murder of Morgan McIlroy. She was apparently last seen with him leaving a restaurant in Silver Lake. The police had a school photo of the Portillo boy and despite the menacing words “Wanted for questioning” emblazoned over it, the kid still didn’t look like he could kill another human being. There was no mention of Jeanette in any of the articles.

  I foolishly put in a call to Detective Ricohr, and unfortunately for me, he picked up.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Restic? Do you want to confess?”

  “No, but you have the wrong person in the Portillo boy.”

  “Now why would you know anything ab
out that?” he asked, surprised. “Maybe you should be a person of interest in the girl’s murder.”

  I hadn’t thought through the phone call and was now getting myself entangled in a difficult situation. When I met with Detective Ricohr previously, I was not forthcoming with the details around Jeanette’s disappearance because of some vague notion of client privilege, if there even was such a thing. But now having been summarily dismissed from my role as private investigator, so too was I released from any obligations to Valenti and his precious privacy.

  “I may not have given you all of the facts when we first met,” I confessed.

  “I’m sure of it. Care to make amends?”

  I told him what I knew—most of it, anyway. I explained the reason for meeting with Morgan in the first place and was clear that the missing girl I was after was, in fact, Valenti’s granddaughter.

  “You have a way of tangling with some pretty powerful people,” he commented, but it sounded more like a warning than anything else.

  I purposely avoided mentioning the original payment Hector made to Nelson’s brother. I knew how quickly this would be misinterpreted as further proof of Nelson’s potential guilt. And, I conveniently left out the part when Nelson tried to run me over, and the time he tried to escape out the window and then stood me up in the Rally’s parking lot. Reviewing all of the stuff I left out of the narrative made me half-wonder if Nelson should be a suspect after all.

  The other big piece that was conveniently left out of what I told Detective Ricohr was any mention of Hector Hermosillo—the knife fight in the street and the prior arrest for murder in 1963. From what I knew about Detective Ricohr, he wasn’t your typical cop. He was a pragmatist and didn’t follow the easy route. But despite all that, I withheld the details about Hector because reasonable or not, cops tended to latch onto things and not let go. The last thing I wanted was the full weight of the Los Angeles Police Department to come down on my little magician friend. He didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.

  “I’m only telling you all this because I have met with the Portillo boy and there simply isn’t any way he could have done what you are saying.”

  “I never said he did,” Ricohr corrected me.

  “Come on, Detective, his face is plastered all over the news. No one is going to split hairs when they see his mug in connection with the girl’s murder. Right now, in the eyes of the public he is already guilty and it’s only a matter of bringing him in for his punishment.”

  “You can’t base police work on a ‘feeling’ someone has for a suspect after meeting them for five minutes,” he chided, but his heart clearly wasn’t in it. He was a decent soul and he was a better detective. “So you think the girl’s murder is connected to the disappearance of the Valenti girl?”

  “I do. There’s something deep running under all of this that I haven’t yet figured out. It could be about money.”

  “It often is. This Gao Li—he sounds pretty motivated to get back at the old man.”

  “Very motivated. His family hasn’t had the best of experiences with Valenti, to say the least. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. Most people who deal with Valenti come out on the short end.”

  There was a brief pause.

  “You still holding some anger toward the old man?” he asked me straight out.

  “I may hate the man,” I told him, “but not enough to do what you’re implying.”

  My word seemed enough for him and he let it go.

  “Why hasn’t the family contacted the police?”

  “Publicity.”

  “That sounds thin,” he ruminated.

  “Or selfish.”

  “Or both. I could alert my colleagues in Missing Persons, if you think that would help. We don’t necessarily need the family to file a report if we think the girl is in danger, but it doesn’t make it easy without the family’s involvement. Especially this family.”

  I told him that it might do more harm than good. I didn’t want to spook Jeanette by having her face plastered all over the news along with Nelson’s, and provoke her into doing something drastic. It was also an unnecessary risk to Ricohr’s career.

  “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “What are you, five or seven years from retirement?” I asked back.

  Detective Ricohr and I shared the golden handcuffs also known as a “secure retirement.” The last thing he needed was to be run off the force because someone with a lot of money and influence didn’t like the way he handled the situation.

  “We’ll do what’s right,” he answered.

  “Keeping this out of the headlines is the right thing to do.”

  Detective Ricohr processed the information and came to the same conclusion.

  “There’s nothing much I can do about the Portillo kid now,” he said. “Maybe I was a little hasty but let’s remember, he is the last person to have seen the victim alive.”

  “Other than her killer,” I amended.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “I’m going to prove you wrong,” I told him, feeling my oats.

  “Listen, pal,” he fired back, “I’m letting it go that you lied to me when I first approached you about the girl’s murder. But I am going to be very clear right here and now—if you pull that again, I am not going to be in a forgiving mood. You learn anything about anyone, you call me first. And if I hear otherwise.…”

  “There’ll be hell to pay.”

  “Fuck off,” he said and hung up on me.

  THE SILENT SCREEN

  I caught Jeff Schwartzman as he was about to leave the office. By the way he bustled about and didn’t make much effort to actually settle down for a second and speak to me directly, I got the sense he wasn’t in the mood to make time for me. It wasn’t but a day or two ago that we were best friends, united in our work to bring home his daughter. Now I was the guy with the clipboard in front of the grocery store—if he didn’t make eye contact then he wouldn’t have to stop and sign my petition.

  When faced with people in a rush, I have the annoying habit of slowing things down to a glacial pace.

  “There was one thing…I, uh, wanted to…talk to you…about.”

  “Sure, but I’m in a bit of a rush so if it’s quick, then let’s walk and talk,” he suggested, and assumed I would be in agreement because he hurried out of the room before I could answer. I didn’t move from the spot where I was standing and patiently waited for him to come back. It took longer than I expected but he eventually reappeared in the doorway and put on his best annoyed impersonation. “Okay, what is it?”

  “Did you ever get ahold of your daughter?” I asked.

  “I did not. But I am not sure how that is any of your concern,” he replied, pushing his way into his office and closing the door behind him. “I thought you weren’t helping out on this anymore.”

  “So are you and the old man on speaking terms again?” There was no way he could have known that unless they were. My suspicions were confirmed when I looked back at the blank screen where the now-silenced video installation was supposed to be.

  “Yes, it’s common that family members talk once in a while,” he said, taking on a snarky tone. Jeff seemed to jump between two personas—the Average Joe from the Valley or the High Society dabbler—depending on his current standing with the old man. By the way he kept addressing me like a servant, I assumed things had been temporarily patched up between them.

  “Why the rapprochement?” I asked.

  “I don’t have to answer your questions,” he told me again but didn’t make any move to kick me out. “You’re a very aggressive person. And I’m not sure I like it.” He was slipping back into the kid from the Valley.

  “How much do you know about what’s going on with your daughter?”

  “How much do you know?” he shot back.

  “Plenty,” I calmly replied. “She placed the article in the gossip blog.”

  I invited myself to one of the chairs and made him listen to
all that I had learned over the last couple of days, including the connection between the nurse from the convalescent home and the clinic where Jeanette had her baby. He reluctantly sat opposite me and silently listened, though he did check his watch several times to remind me that he was a busy man and had places to go. Jeff didn’t let on whether any or all of what I was telling him was new information.

  “Are you finished?” he asked.

  “Almost. Have you spoken to Mr. Li lately?”

  “No, but I plan to,” he answered.

  “I’d like to be there when you do. I have some questions of my own that I want to ask him.” He didn’t acknowledge the request and overall wasn’t as responsive to reasoning as in the past. The reconciliation between him and Valenti was more pronounced than I had originally guessed. “Jeff, it’s time to go to the police. This is no longer an affair of the family. Murder is involved.”

  “Trust me, I understand the gravity of the current situation,” he replied noncommittally.

  “The number-one goal is to bring your daughter home, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, the best way to do that is to let the authorities help. They have the resources at their disposal. They can cast a net a lot farther and deeper than what you or I can do.”

  “Plastering her face all over the news sites?” he asked with a trace of contempt.

  “Now is not the time to worry about decorum. That stuff is extremely painful in the short term but it fades a lot faster than you think. If she’s made it this far I think she can handle a little ugliness in the media.”

  He sort of nodded but something made me wonder if his original misgivings about the publicity were for fear for his daughter’s humiliation or in fear for his own.

  “I spoke to the detective assigned to the McIlroy girl’s murder—” I said, but before I could finish, Jeff leaped to his feet, his face a contorted mélange of orange and red.

  “You already went to the police!” he shouted.

  “I didn’t have to; they came to me.”

  “Well, you better not have told them anything.”