by Bill Moody
“I’ll leave it to you. I won’t be long.”
I pull one of the patio chairs out of the pool and, using a net on a handle, fish out some remaining debris from last night’s storm. I dive in and feel the rush of cold water wash over me. I swim a few laps, dive around some more enjoying the moment alone.
I climb out and lie on my stomach for a few minutes. The sun’s warmth feels good now. I think about Wardell, Sonny Wells, and Louise Cody and Tony Gallio. What are they doing together? And why is Rachel so hostile toward her mother? Does that have something to do with Gallio as well?
I raise myself up and look at the pool again. One last dip, then I’ll give it up. I dive in again, swim down to the bottom, and shoot up out of the water like a porpoise. One more time. I touch bottom, then shoot for the surface. My eyes closed, I feel for the edge of the pool and put both palms out to pull myself up, when I feel a shooting pain in my right hand.
I open my eyes and see a huge shoe. When I try to pull my hand away, the pressure increases. When I look up, I see Karl smiling down at me. There’s another form I catch briefly out of the corner of my eye, but before I can identify it, Karl has me by the hair. He pushes my head under water and holds me there till I think my lungs will burst.
He yanks me to the surface. I’m sputtering, choking; I almost get some breath when he dunks me again, this time longer. He jerks me to the surface by the hair once more and drags me half out of the pool, then resumes his stance with his size-thirteen shoe on my right hand.
I lie on the deck half out of the water, gasping for breath, without enough energy to pull my hand loose, even though the pain is sharper now. Finally I look up past Karl and see Tony, sitting in a deck chair, dressed immaculately in suit and tie.
“Well, Horne, we have your attention now, I see.” I try to pull my hand loose from under Karl’s foot, but he just adds pressure. “Now don’t annoy Karl,” Tony says.
He gets up and squats down in front of me, his face only a few inches from mine. “My uncle is not pleased with you, Horne. He thought you both had an understanding the other day at Spago, but apparently that’s not the case. That’s why I’m here today, as you might have guessed. Now what are we going to do about you, Horne?”
“The same as Sonny Wells?”
“Who the fuck is Sonny Wells?” Tony looks up at Karl. “Do you know Sonny Wells, Karl?” Karl shakes his head. “You see, Horne, we don’t know Sonny Wells or what happened to him.” Tony grabs me by the hair; Karl increases the pressure on my hand. “This is the last time, Horne. If you don’t back off, the next time we’ll have to take you to see my uncle Anthony, and I guarantee this is fun compared to what that will be.”
“Hold it,” Natalie says. I hear her voice over my shoulder. She’s standing, I guess, at the other end of the pool. As long as she keeps water between her and Karl she’ll be all right. “I’ve already called the police,” she says. Good girl.
Karl eases his foot slightly, enough for me to pull loose. I grab his other leg. It’s like pulling on a tree trunk, but he’s off balance. I pull as hard as I can. He topples over me and into the pool with a loud splash that sends water cascading over the edge of the pool. Tony stands up and backs away a few feet. He looks from me to Karl, sputtering and splashing around in the pool. When I realize what’s happening, I almost laugh.
“He can’t swim,” Tony yells. He starts around the pool. I drag myself out of the water. What saves Karl is the size of the pool. His thrashing has taken him backward toward the shallow end. “Stand up, you idiot,” Tony yells. “Stand up.”
Karl’s eyes are wide with terror until he suddenly feels the concrete under his feet. Natalie circles around the pool until she’s near me. Tony moves closer to the shallow end, but he doesn’t want to get his shoes or suit wet. Karl keeps backing up, then trips on the steps, plops down, and almost falls over backward. He scrambles to his feet.
Tony reaches him and drags him up to the edge. “Come on, you idiot.”
“I’m sorry, Tony.” He’s blubbering now, struggling to his feet.
“I meant it,” Natalie says. “The police are on the way.”
Tony pushes Karl. “Move, move,” he says. He glares at us and points his finger at me. “We’ll see you again, Horne.”
Then they’re gone. We hear car doors slam and screaming tires on asphalt.
I drop into a deck chair and inspect my hand. It’s already swelling, the skin is broken in a couple of places, but I don’t think it’s broken. I’m not going to play any piano today.
Natalie takes my hand gently in hers. “We’ll need to get that X-rayed,” she says. “Let’s get some ice on it.”
I try to close my fingers into a fist, but it’s no use. We go inside. I stretch out on the couch while Natalie gets some ice and wraps it in a washcloth. “Did you really call the police?”
“I was on the phone with Trask when I looked out the window and saw them. I just wish I’d had my gun with me.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” The ice feels good against the pain shooting up my arm. I close my eyes and try to think of something else.
There’s no sound of sirens, but it’s only a few minutes until Trask and another detective arrive.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Trask and his much younger partner, a short, compact man with dark hair and eyes named Dave Ochoa, look around the pool, but of course, there’s nothing to see now. The water is already drying on the pool deck as I explain to both of them what happened.
Trask listens in silence. He’s not happy. “Inside, Horne,” the detective says. “Dave, get a statement from her.”
“My pleasure.” Ochoa has hardly been able to take his eyes off Natalie. He must spend all his money on clothes. The blazer-slacks ensemble is definitely not off the rack.
“Relax, Dave, she’s a cop too,” Trask says.
“Really?” Ochoa says, smiling at Natalie. He dons his aviator-style sunglasses. I’ll have to introduce him to Brent Tyler.
Trask and I go inside the apartment. I’ve changed into shorts. I have a towel around my neck, and my hand still wrapped with ice and a small hand towel. I’ve given up trying to flex my fingers. The whole hand is throbbing now.
Trask, looking weary, sits down opposite me. “Okay, Horne, let’s get a couple of things straight. I’m not your friend like Danny Cooper, I didn’t go to high school with you. The favor I did was for Cooper more than you, but that was a one-time thing. Now we’re in a new game. First, do you want to file assault charges on those two goons? We can pick them up, but Gallio will have them out before we get the paperwork done.”
“No, I think I’ll just let it go.”
“That’s the second smartest thing I’ve heard you say yet. For your sake and your lady friend’s, not to mention the guy who owns this place, the smartest thing would be for you to tell me you’re on your way back to L.A. By the way, who does own this place?”
“Ace Buffington. He’s a professor of English at UNLV.”
“Ace?” Trask looks skeptical, but he writes it down in his notebook
“Yeah, Ace. That’s his name. He plays a lot of tennis.”
“Well, I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t tell me his name was Robin Masters. You’re definitely not Magnum.”
“Ace doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Oh, really? Isn’t he the guy you’re doing legwork for?”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t know about Gallio or any of the rest of it.”
The ice cubes are melting and dripping on the carpet. “Let’s have a look at that hand,” Trask says. We go over to the kitchen sink. Trask peels off the towel and lets the ice cubes drop into the sink. His touch isn’t nearly as gentle as Natalie’s, but he’s done this before.
“You better get down to Emergency and have this taken care of. Then we’ll talk some more.” He takes a card out of his wallet and lays it on the counter. “Just in case you lost the first one. Call me.”
I fi
gure I’ve gotten off easy. Trask goes outside to get Ochoa. I pull on a T-shirt with one hand, slip into some rubber sandals, and watch through the patio door as Trask says something to Natalie, with Ochoa looking on. He hands her a piece of paper, then thumbs toward the apartment.
After they’re gone, Natalie locks the door for me and we head for UMC, with her driving the Bug.
“How’d you do with Ochoa?”
“He asked me to dinner,” Natalie says.
“What was that Trask gave you?”
Natalie keeps her gaze straight ahead. “Rachel Cody’s address. He ran the plate for you, but he said if you’re foolish enough to follow that up, which he thinks you will be, you should be careful.”
“Why?”
“It’s in an area called the Naked City—heavy gang activity, drug deals going down in broad daylight—very bad area.”
“Did he tell you where it is?”
Natalie shakes her head. “No, he said you’d figure it out yourself.”
At UMC we only have to wait for forty minutes with an array of people suffering from various cuts, sprains, and injuries from a couple of minor traffic accidents. I wait another hour for X-ray results. The good news is, there’s no break. I tell the doctor on duty I caught my hand in a car door.
“No kidding,” he says.
“Actually two Mafia guys tried to drown me. The big one crushed my hand.”
“Whatever,” the doctor says. He’s already lost interest in me by the time an ambulance pulls in with a stabbing victim. The ER doctor wraps my hand loosely in an Ace bandage and writes me a prescription for pain killers.
“Where do I get this filled?”
“Try a pharmacy.”
We stop at an Albertson’s supermarket and wait another thirty minutes on a vinyl bench for the prescription, wondering why it takes so long to shove twenty tablets into a bottle and type a label. Back at the apartment I swallow two Percodan with a large glass of water and stretch out on the couch. In minutes I’m out for the count. When I open my eyes again, Natalie is sitting on the edge of the couch looking down at me, holding a glass of water.
“Hi, sleepy. How do you feel?”
“Better, I think.” I sit up and reach for a cigarette. “How long have I been out?” I down the whole glass of water in one gulp.
“Couple of hours.”
“What time is it?”
“Nearly three.”
“Oh shit, the gig.”
“Already taken care of. Brent Tyler wishes you a speedy recovery and got a sub for a couple of days. I told him you’d call. I also made arrangements for the funeral service. It’s tomorrow at eleven, Bunker Brothers Mortuary.” Natalie frowns at me and consults a scrap of paper. “Can you afford this?”
“Yeah, it’s not a problem. I did okay financially with Charlie Crisp.”
“The country singer?”
“I know, it doesn’t fit, but he was pretty generous. I saved him a lot of money.”
“Coop told me a little bit about it,” Natalie says.
“I’ll tell you all about it sometime.”
“Well, you still look sleepy. If it’s okay, I’m going to check out of the Rio and bring my stuff over here.”
“It’s more than okay.”
“Good, I was hoping you’d say that. What about Ace?”
“Don’t worry about Ace. I don’t think his moral standards are in jeopardy. I’ll square things with him.”
“If you say so. You get some more rest, and I’ll be back soon with something to eat.”
With Natalie gone, I drift off, thinking about the ever-widening hole I’m getting into. Sonny Wells is dead, maybe because he talked with me. I’ve been warned off by two goons who work for an alleged Mafia connected figure, who wants me to stop looking into Wardell Gray’s death, then roughed up considerably, enough so that I can’t play my gig, and Rachel Cody is holed up somewhere in far less luxurious digs than her mother’s planned community. The Naked City? Lots to look forward to, but I’ve come this far, so why not? As the Percodan kicks in again, it all starts to blur. I drift off into a delicious dreamlike state of euphoria.
I wake up in the dark to Oscar Peterson’s piano on the stereo and the smell of Chinese food on the coffee table. I hear Natalie rattling plates in the kitchen.
“What time is it?”
“Nearly nine,” she says, coming into the living room. “I decided to let you sleep. Feeling better?” She sits down next to me on the couch. She’s changed clothes, and her hair is in a ponytail again.
We both look at my hand. The swelling has gone down considerably, but the pain is still there, though now it’s little more than a dull ache. I try and flex my fingers. There’s movement, and that’s something. I’ve been here before.
“This looks very good,” I say, eyeing the egg rolls and little boxes of Mongolian beef, peppers, and steamed rice. We eat in silence, listening to Oscar romp through a set of standards. It’s a live performance from the old London House in Chicago. When the tape ends, Natalie gets up to put something else on.
“That’s okay, leave it,” I say.
“How about some coffee with our fortune cookies?”
“Yeah, sounds great.” I get a cigarette going while she brings the coffee. My head seems clear now, but the temptation to close my eyes again is compelling. Natalie leaves me alone for a few minutes but finally says, “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
“About what?”
Natalie shrugs. “Wardell Gray, Gallio, Rachel Cody?”
“If you’re asking am I going to pack it in and go back to L.A., the answer is no, and don’t tell me that’s what I should do.”
“I don’t imagine many people tell you what you should do, and if they do, you probably do just the opposite.”
I laugh. “I think you’ve got me figured out already.”
“Yeah, that’s what worries me.” She reaches into one of the paper bags and pulls out two fortune cookies. “Let’s see what the future holds for us.”
“You first.”
She cracks hers open and takes out the slip of paper. “Your ambition is a positive driving force,” she reads.
“That sounds an awful lot like law school.”
“Okay, smarty, your turn.”
I break open the cookie and look at mine. “Working for a higher purpose is more fulfilling than just making a living.”
“Oh, that’s deep,” Natalie says.
“Well, I’m not doing too well at making a living, so maybe my higher purpose is solving Wardell Gray’s murder.”
I meant it jokingly, but Natalie’s face is troubled. “Is that what you’re going to do?”
“I don’t know. I just know I’ve got to try.”
I don’t know how or when I fell asleep or how I got tucked into the twin bed next to Natalie. I know I took two more Percodan sometime after we ate, and talked some more. I just know when Natalie shakes me awake it’s morning, and she’s standing by the bed dressed in a dark pantsuit with a cup of coffee.
I stand under the shower for ten minutes, switching at the end to cold water for as long as I can stand it. More coffee, and I’m ready for whatever today brings. I rewrap the hand in the Ace bandage. I can move it some, and the dull ache tells me it’s not as bad as I originally thought.
I still don’t feel up to shifting the VW’s gears, so Natalie drives while I swelter, even with my coat and tie folded across my knees. We negotiate the midmorning traffic to the funeral home, across from Cashman Field on Las Vegas Boulevard. There are only a couple of other cars in the parking lot, and one of them is Pappy Dean’s. He’s waiting at the door, Panama hat, suit, and dark sunglasses in place. I put on my coat and tie and walk over to join Pappy.
“Shoulda been at Sonny’s church,” he mumbles as we go inside. “Wasn’t time, I guess.”
It’s only a little cooler in the chapel. A short, thin black man with thick glasses nods to Pappy and introduces himself to me as Rev
erend Waters. He motions us to a seat near the front. There’s one small floral arrangement in front of the closed casket. I check for a card, but there’s none. There are some papers for me to sign, a check to be written, which Natalie has to make out for me, and the Reverend’s brief familiar eulogy.
Just before he begins, Trask comes in and takes a seat at the back. A minute or two later a woman with a scarf over her head and wraparound sunglasses sits halfway down the left side. I watch Pappy glance at her and give what I think is a brief look of recognition. I turn and look at her closely, but her head is bowed throughout the service.
“We are gathered here today,” the Reverend begins, “to pay tribute to Charles Wells, known as Sonny to his friends. Charles was a musician and so I’m told, a good one. Sonny fell on hard times later in his life and was the unfortunate victim of these violent times we live in.” The Reverend’s voice rises as he winds up. “Struck down in a senseless and brutal way by unknown assailants. We can only be comforted by the faith that the Lord knows the circumstances of Sonny’s demise. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.”
“Or mine,” Pappy whispers next to me.
Before the Reverend Waters can wrap it up, Pappy gets up and retrieves his bass. I hadn’t even seen it. He walks Trouble over near the casket and plays three choruses of the saddest blues I’ve ever heard come out of a bass. We sit for a few moments as the last note resonates through the chapel.
The Reverend Waters swallows once, recites the Lord’s Prayer, looks over the nearly empty chapel and ends by saying, “Thank you for coming.”
It’s over so quickly, none of us seems to know what to do. We stand up and turn toward the exit. The woman in the scarf and dark glasses is already on her feet, moving toward the door. She stops for a moment, turns, and looks toward all of us. With those glasses I can’t tell who she’s looking at, but somehow, something clicks. I think I know who she is.
I follow her outside into the glare, past Trask, who starts to speak to me. She walks quickly toward her car.