Cocaine and Blue Eyes

by Fred Zackel

  "You don't know where she is."

  "I wasn't here when she left." She tried to explain. "She left sometime last night. Just packed up her belongings and left. Not even a goodbye note. I haven't seen her since last night."

  "Why did she leave?"

  "She said you'd know."

  "What am I suppose to know?"

  "She said you wanted to bust her."

  "I'm not trying to bust anybody."

  "I told her you said that. I told her you weren't from food stamps, and she said you didn't have to be. She said you had a good reason for following her. She said you wanted to bust her. Does it have anything to do with drugs?"

  "I'm a private investigator, not a nark. I told you that."

  "She has been involved with drugs?"

  I hesitated. "It seems like she has."

  "Oh lord." But she didn't doubt me. In her eyes, Dani was now Missing In Action. Her kid sister was as good as dead. Sometimes it wasn't that simple.

  "Where did she go when she left?"

  Catherine was deliberately vague. "She could've gone anywhere. She just packed some clothes and left." Her mind was starting a Disappearing Act. Maybe she was working on a breakdown. Maybe it was all a con.

  I didn't buy her story. There were few places Dani could have gone last night. Most people were out celebrating the New Year. Either Catherine was hiding something or Dani didn't trust her sister any more.

  Catherine began to rise, as if her body was a ghost. She looked like she had seen The Way and was tired of waiting. She was drifting to get away from me. Drifters and runaways always think the grass is greener somewhere else.

  I wasn't finished. Not yet, anyway. "Where's your Baretta?"

  "Uhn?" She stared.

  "The gun you keep in your desk."

  "It's in my desk." She came back to earth. She went around and opened the drawer. "It's not here." She looked up. "How did you know it wasn't here?"

  "I went through your desk."

  "You went through ... ?"

  "I didn't take it. Maybe Dani did."

  She was stunned. "You think she might be in trouble?"

  "I think she thinks so."

  She puzzled over that. "For what?"

  "Where would she go if she thought she was in trouble?"

  "She'd come here." She couldn't concentrate. "She was here. She was here until you showed up." She remembered me. "Why are you doing this to her?"

  "Whatever she's been doing she started before yesterday."

  "Yesterday." She remembered she had it rough yesterday. "Oh, you're driving me crazy with worry!" Her face twitched at the thought of more worry lines. "Why are you doing this?"

  I was persistent. "Where would she go?"

  She tried hard. "Riki? Jack?" She didn't know. "No. No. I don't want to hear any more of this." Her spine jolted upright. She bolted from the room.

  Once again I was left alone with the black maid. She blocked the doorway as if I might chase and tackle her employer. Her sullen eyes said I was a bucket of shit with a rusty handle.

  I waited until we reached the hallway. "Dani was here." Maybe someone had told her loose tongues sink ships. "What happened yesterday after I left?"

  "Why should I tell you?" she said. "You fucked up New Year's Eve for me, and the way it's going, my whole weekend's going with it."

  "You know I never meant to do that."

  She hardened. "I ain't taking any more shit than I haveta."

  "My job's the same way." I didn't care what she said. "Dani was here. Why didn't you tell me she was here?"

  She decided what the hell. "She wasn't here when you was here. She was out shopping for clothes."

  "What's with all this secrecy bullshit?"

  "That boyfriend of hers. Dani didn't want him around no more. Catherine, she thought he was shit."

  "What did you think of him?"

  "He only come here once."

  "So what did you think of him?"

  "He was shit," she agreed.

  "What's Dani been up to since she came here?"

  "She don't do shit." She realized that wasn't fair. "Eating candy, rolling joints, playing records, drinking Galliano like it tastes good. If I had her money, I'd be rolling my own. Only I wouldn't be drinking that Galliano. I'd get some good stuff."

  "What happened yesterday after I left?"

  "Catherine got into the bottles." She grimaced. It was a corny story. "She was feeling guilty about Joey dying like that. You know, unwanted. Jack, that's her cousin, he called up right after that and told her 'bout you and she went back to the bottles, only harder, like there was no tomorrow and she wanted to die, too."

  "What time did Dani get home?"

  "'Bout seven. Catherine was drunk and crazy. The first thing she tells her sister, your boyfriend's dead."

  "She's that bad a drunk?"

  "Worse." The maid knew. "She drinks all alone and she drinks till she falls down." Her face held no respect for a drunk woman.

  "How did Dani take the news?"

  "Oh, she freaked out. You gotta when your boyfriend's dead, even if you don't love him. She ran upstairs, locked herself in, wouldn't come out for supper, even. I took some up to her, then she don't even eat it." The maid really couldn't blame her. "She hadda get her head together. When she does stick her head out, Catherine's gotta blow it again, telling her 'bout you being here."

  "I heard how that went down."

  "It didn't go down. Dani didn't know what to do 'bout you, or where you fitted in. She called up north and then she really got scared. Nobody ever heard about you up there. She thought you were the Heat."

  "Where was Catherine all this time?"

  "Crying and whining in her bottle. Half gone and all twisted around. Talking about the family name, like that means something. Even Dani got pissed at that. She went back upstairs and locked herself in again. She made me come up with her, made me pack an overnight case for her." She was pissed all over again. "Shit, I told her I wanted to go home, it's New Year's Eve, I had things to do."

  "But she made you stay."

  "She said she was gonna give me a ride home." The maid couldn't forgive that. "I musta been crazy waiting around for her to get off the telephone. That woman. I told her nobody stays home on New Year's Eve."

  "Who'd she call?"

  "Anyone she ever knew. Only they wasn't home."

  "Anybody in particular?"

  "Her cousin Jack. She tried him a whole lotta times, only she never got through. She got busy signals, then nobody was home."

  "She never got through to him?"

  "Not while she was here, anyway."

  "What time was this?"

  "'Bout nine. Maybe later."

  "Anybody else?"

  "A long distance. I don't know who she called, but she said she'd be there by morning. She said she had a couple of things to take care of, and she'd be on her way."

  "How did you know it was long distance?"

  "She had the telephone book out, and it was open to the area code map, and I had to put it away."

  "You don't know who she talked to?"

  She smirked. "It was a man."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Dani was smiling. She's got a poker-face around women."

  "Then what did she do?"

  "We split."

  "Did she say where she was going?"

  "The airport. She was getting outta town for a while."

  "Why didn't she tell Catherine where she was going?"

  "She couldn't. Catherine had passed out. Shit, I hadda wait around until she put her sister to bed. We both done that before, you know, so it didn't take her long, but I wasn't the only one what was pissed off."

  "After she dropped you off, she went to the airport?"

  "I don't see how she did." She snickered. "She didn't have no money. She was in a hurry and forgot it." The maid couldn't believe white folks' foolishness. "The banks was all closed, cos of the holidays. She tried borrowin
g off me, but, shit, what with all the money this family's got, she ain't getting no money from me."

  "Why didn't she come back here?"

  "Cos she thought you was gonna show up here again. You was all she could talk 'bout. She wanted no part of you."

  "She thought I was the Heat."

  She gave me a foul look. "Dani's either a fool or a phony, cos she shoulda known you ain't the Heat. You're too soft."

  I ignored that. "Where would she go if she thought she were in trouble?"

  "The first man she found at home."

  The phone began ringing somewhere inside. The maid shooed me outside. The front door closing behind me sounded like an airlock closing. Maybe this branch of the Anatoles wanted out of Spaceship Earth. I couldn't say they were wrong.

  The Mercedes was gone, as was the holly wreath on the door. I went to the garage and peered through dirty windows. The garage was empty. There was an oil stain on the concrete. It could've come from the Mercedes.

  I started off downhill towards my car. It was peaceful on that shaded street. You could hear the limousines waxing in the sunlight. Wealth is a plateau above the daily grind, and in Pacific Heights the rich do look down on the poor.

  Massive homes. Songbirds and trees and lawns in the city. There were no people around. They all led busy lives elsewhere. They were creative. They had taste. They hired interior decorators and subscribed to the opera. Their city park had tennis courts and flowers. The men could smile without showing their teeth, and their women could never be too lean.

  Then I dead-stopped.

  It felt like a steel rod. My whole spine curled up like a question mark. You can never forget the feel of a gun in your back. You swear you can feel that metal circle. Only dead men and movie stars have guts at a time like this.

  I started to raise my hands slowly.

  "Put your hands down, stupid." It sounded like Riki Anatole. He poked me again. "Turn around slowly."

  I moved slowly. Even then I thought I moved too fast. I made a conscious effort to slow down, and still thought I moved too fast.

  Riki was half in the bag and dead serious. His boozed face was drawn and angry, afraid of me. He needed sleep and his clothes looked slept in. His tie was missing, and a collar point hung over his blazer lapel. He looked like a bear leaving a cave on the first day of spring. He had a Police Special in his left hand.

  "What's with the gun?" I asked.

  He tightened his grip. "I don't trust you, you son of a bitch. You've been following me."

  "When was I following you?"

  "Yesterday." His gun hand shook. "You bastard."

  "If I did, I didn't mean to."

  "I don't believe you." He wet his lips. "You wanted to follow me. I told my lawyer about you."

  "Is Tan Ng your lawyer?"

  "So what if he is?"

  I pointed to my face. "He did this to me."

  "That old man?" He swayed. "I just wanted to know who hired you." He remembered his gun. He poked it my way with a cokehead's phony bravado. He waved the gun through the air. "You think you're pretty tough, don't you?"

  "Tough enough to handle you," I lied.

  His chin twitched, a faint and irregular pulse, just as it had yesterday with his wife at the fish company. His twitch made him an easy win at poker and a dangerous man with a gun.

  People like Riki Anatole have little knowledge of guns. Amateurs with a gun were the most dangerous. They knew nothing, and that is usually more than they needed to know. What was worse, they don't understand a gun and its consequences.

  "Start walking across the street."

  I went slowly, deliberately. I set foot after foot ahead of me, almost counting the steps. I resisted every impulse that told me to run. Nobody runs with a gun in his back. I found it hard to believe no one saw us.

  His beige Caddy looked like a magazine ad beneath some umbrella trees. I followed his instructions and entered on the passenger side. He made me slide across the seat to the steering wheel. The big bear blundered in. He threw me the ignition keys.

  I snapped the ignition. The steering wheel unlocked. Then the starter turned over. I forgot the gas pedal. The engine coughed, then died. I told Riki he needed a tune-up.

  "Get on with it."

  He was a bigger man than me, so the car seat was pushed back all the way. He helped me move it forward. The bear jarred me against the steering wheel when he helped the seat with his weight. That gave me an idea. I fastened my seat belt and my shoulder harness. Riki was nervous, too nervous to notice. He was left-handed, and he found it hard to hold the gun on me from the passenger side.

  I started the car again.

  "This time use the gas pedal."

  The engine roared into life. Exhaust smoke billowed in the rear view mirror. The Caddy had a big engine.

  "I suppose you're taking me to Dani."

  "Why would I do that?" His laughter was coarse and laced with whiskey-courage. "You're a cocky son of a bitch. Never give up a cover story."

  "What did you tell her last night?"

  "I didn't say nothing," he said.

  "Didn't she call you last night?"

  "I wasn't home last night." He frowned. "Last night was New Year's Eve. I threw a party at the club." He started to shrink. "My wife drank too much. She was asleep before midnight." He sounded like a disappointed honeymooner. He raised his gun. "You're working for her."

  "I'm not working for her," I said.

  "She did hire you. Jesus H. Christ, she'll be the death of me." He looked over with bleary eyes. "You're fired. And you're gonna refund all that money."

  "I'm not working for her."

  "Slow down," he demanded.

  We were almost going fast enough.

  "My grandfather hired you, didn't he? Well, fuck him. You just tell him, I don't care if he does cut me off. I've done the best I could. Even threw a goddam party and that didn't help none." He was lost in self-worry. "I almost lost my wife last night. She shouldn't mix pills with her booze." His knuckles went white. "That crazy bitch. I'm not going to let that happen again."

  I slammed down the accelerator. The car was sluggish, almost stalled, then overdrive kicked in and all 420 cubic inches broke free.

  "Hey, I'm telling you, slow down!"

  I pushed down my foot. "Go fuck yourself."

  "Listen, I mean it." He shook his gun in my face.

  "So do I. Go fuck yourself."

  He leveled the gun. Both sides were blurring.

  "Shoot and we crash." I pressed it to the floor. The car shot ahead at freeway speeds. We crashed a stop sign.

  He reached for the ignition key.

  I slapped his hand. "You can't take the key out. The steering wheel locks." There was a Rolls Royce ahead. I knew enough to pass him. He was just cruising.

  "Oh Jesus, you're gonna kill us." His face was snow white. We flew through, passing a mail truck making a left turn.

  "I don't give a shit." We scared the hell out of a lady curbing her Afghan between two cars.

  Sweat rode his temple. "Aw shit." He lowered the gun.

  "You wanna talk this over?"

  He nodded dumbly, too scared to talk.

  "Throw away the gun. Out the window."

  He had forgotten it. It was useless to him now. His right hand blundered down and caught the power window buttons. The vent on his side began to widen. His left hand tried cramming the pistol outside.

  We hit the crest at Lyons Street. My biggest mistake.

  We jumped the crest at freeway speed and Riki screamed.

  The homes alongside were small castles, brick chateaus. One of the most charming streets in the city. It's not quite the steepest, but it is paved with smooth red brick. The South Gate to the Sixth Army's Presidio is at the bottom of the hill. There's a stop sign, too. An Army convoy was almost through the gate.

  And I had all four wheels off the ground.

  I spun the power steering sharply.

  Then we bottomed. The
car went whomp and the shocks gave. Riki started screaming. The tires screamed back. But slowly, ever-so-slowly, the car angled off to the left. I slammed down the brakes. They locked and we sluiced leftward, hurtling down towards Presidio Avenue.

  But we didn't hit the convoy. We hit a mailbox.

  We hit like a jetliner nailing a beer can. The noise was incredible—a planeload of plumber pipes crashing. The hinges of the box squealed and broke free from cement. The Caddy was lifted into the air. I thought we'd fly like a rock skipping over water.

  But the undercarriage caught on the mailbox. When my body slammed forward, my shoulder harness kept me from the steering wheel. Riki wasn't so lucky. He slammed into the dashboard, banging his head and shoulders. His gun went off, shattering the AM-FM radio. It was quiet like eternity then.

  I sat and sat and stared and stared.

  Riki was slumped like a rag doll. His clothes were all bloody.

  "Are you okay?"

  He started swearing. His heart wasn't in it. He had a bloody nose.

  "If you can bitch, you're okay." I cracked the door, hauled myself up, then stepped down.

  The Caddy sat atop the mailbox like a boat on a reef, its prow dangling over a treelawn. The mailbox was crushed. It had broken free from all four metal hinges, cracked the cement and been thrown onto the lawn. Oil was soaking into the grass. The transmission and drive train were twisted like drinking straws. The front wheels hung down like a dead man. A corpse on a rock.

  The convoy had stopped. Servicemen were coming our way. The other traffic on Presidio tooted their horns, impatient. Some neighbors closed the curtains and opened front doors.

  I patted the prow and started off down Presidio.

  "You're leaving me here?" Riki had crawled out.

  "You don't expect me to stay."

  His face changed color. "How do I explain this?"

  "You were cleaning your gun and it went off and you lost control of your car."

  His face changed color again. "I can't say that."

  "You better say you were driving. I have no insurance, and your company won't like my version."

  He realized that. "Oh my god." He was a tired man.

  "Maybe Uncle Sam won't sue." I went off downhill. There was a coffeehouse down the street that sold imported beers. The walk would keep me from stiffening up until I was ready.