The Zozobra Incident

by Don Travis

  Del’s lips went tight; his left eye twitched. “We can’t do that. Please, Vince. See me through this. I apologize for the phone calls, but like I said, I’ve been out of town. Working twelve-hour days lately—trying to earn that partnership, you know.”

  “If this doesn’t get cleared up, there probably won’t be any partnership.”

  “There will if you’ll keep the lid on this thing long enough.”

  Acid boiled up out of my stomach. “Is that what this is all about? You want me to keep the lid on things until you get your damned promotion?”

  He sagged back in his chair. “No, that’s not what I meant. I want this thing resolved, partnership or no partnership. But I need your help to get it done. I’ll do a better job of keeping in touch from now on. I promise.” He licked dry lips. “Where did you find Emilio?”

  “Right where you met him. At the C&W Palace.”

  He closed his eyes and gave an exasperated sigh. “I hung out there for two days, and there wasn’t a sign of him.”

  “Do you know a character called Rory Tarleton?”

  “Who’s he?”

  “The man who developed the film. I’m going to look him up later this morning. Do you or your firm have anything going with Miguel Arrullar or the Santos Morenos?”

  “The gang? Not to my knowledge. It’s possible, although improbable. We mostly practice corporate law, but we do a little criminal work. I doubt we’d accept a client like that, though.”

  “Might not be a client. Maybe one of your clients got robbed or swindled and these guys showed up on the radar screen.”

  “That could be. Let me check it out, but please don’t tell me the Santos have the pictures too.”

  “Emilio says no. He’s trying to get in tight with them for protection, and his being gay or bisexual makes it dicey for him. If he waved those pictures around at those fellows, he’d be out on his ass. Or dead on it.”

  “Do you think Emilio has any more photos?”

  “No, but if he knows who has the negatives, he could print another set. And speaking of those infamous pictures… here.” I slid an envelope containing the photographs across the desk to him. He put them in his jacket pocket without examining them.

  “And just for the record, I didn’t keep any of them or make copies.” I paused a beat. “How could you get mixed up with that guy? He’s dangerous.”

  “Aw, Emilio’s a little wild, but dangerous?”

  “Think about it. He has sex with anybody who’ll pay the tab, which is dangerous in a serious way. And he’s hooking up with some of the deadliest people in this part of the country.”

  “Emilio’s careful. He practiced safe sex, even with me.” Del scowled. “As for the other, that’s a new development. He was always a loner. Ours was probably the longest relationship he ever had.”

  “And that worked out well, didn’t it?”

  He gave me a look. “Put the needle away. I don’t need that right now. It looked for a while as if it might last, but he got a yen for a woman, and I needed to have him to myself. When I fought him on that, it ripped things apart. There, does that make you feel any better?”

  “I wasn’t looking for gratuitous information. How did he take the breakup?”

  “Well, he left the apartment mad as hell, if that’s what you mean. He thought I ought to let him move that woman into his room permanently and take turns with us. Or,” he added distastefully, “have a go at it with both of us at the same time.”

  “Who was she?”

  “Some woman named Estelle Bustamante.”

  “What do you know about her?”

  He shrugged. “Pretty woman about five six or so. Long black hair. Not much else.”

  “Do you know how to get in touch with her? Have a picture? Anything to help locate her?”

  “No, I don’t. Wait a minute… I did snap a picture of them one day.”

  “You took a picture of Emilio and your rival?”

  He flushed. “That was before I knew what was going on. I thought she was a relative or something. Anyway, he asked me to take a picture, so I did.”

  “And you still have it?”

  “A copy of it. Yeah… somewhere.”

  “Good. Dig it out and get it to me. She may not have anything to do with this, but we need to cover the possibility.”

  “The extortion note wasn’t a woman’s writing. It was crudely written in what I swear was a man’s hand.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. She could get anyone to write it.”

  “That’s true.” Del grimaced. “Damn Emilio. I oughta chase the little twerp out of town.”

  “Maybe, but not just yet. I might need his help running this thing down. But when you decide it’s time, I can tell you exactly how to do it. Threaten to take his car away. He’s in love with that Mustang.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Don’t tell me you gave it to him free and clear?”

  “Clean title.”

  “Dumb.”

  “Love.”

  “Lust. By the way, you’re going to see an expense item of a hundred dollars. That’s for the repair of his seat cover. I cut it up a little.”

  “Christ, if you had to do that, couldn’t you at least make him pay for it?”

  “Saved me hours of bullshit. I put a knife to his car, and he yakked his head off. As for who pays—I cut, so you pay.”

  We both flinched as the front office door opened. Hazel did that to us.

  She stuck her head inside and sniffed. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “And good morning to you too, Hazel.” Del attempted a smile.

  “Whatever.” She withdrew to the outer office, prudently closing the door behind her.

  Del was justifiably proud of his ability to charm people, but even he accepted that Hazel Harris was immune to his appeal. After promising to send over the picture of Emilio and Estelle, he cleared out of the place. While Hazel slammed around the outer office, I scooped up pastry crumbs and drained Del’s cup. That coffee was good right down to the last tepid drop.

  EMILIO’S DIRECTIONS to Rory Tarleton’s place had been vague, and the South Valley was not the place for vague. Before locating the address, I had to make a couple of stops to ask after the short dirt road that didn’t appear on my city map. The small, sand-colored adobe house was missing large chunks of stucco, which gave it a snaggletooth appearance. Weeds and an occasional tuft of genuine grass sprinkled the dirt yard like a week-old beard. A puke-green Toyota on rims almost blocked the driveway in front of a carport filled with junk. This was obviously a residence, not a place of business.

  Banging on the doorframe and peering in windows too dirty to see through produced no results, so I walked around to the backyard. The ten-by-ten frame structure hugging the cinder-block wall at the rear of the property was probably Tarleton’s darkroom. When pounding on the door brought no response, I tried the knob.

  “Hey!” a voice yelled from inside. “Don’t come in here. I’m developing film.”

  “Mr. Tarleton?” I balanced my tone nicely between authority and amiability. “We need to talk.”

  “Go ’way.”

  The nice disappeared. “Either we talk out here, or I come in there.”

  “You’ll ruin the run. Give me five minutes.”

  I hungered for a smoke to occupy my time as the five minutes stretched into ten and then fifteen, but Del and I had given up tobacco in a burst of healthy living on our first anniversary. In view of the wrecked relationship, I might as well take it up again, but I didn’t have any smokes with me. As my mind rounded on that conclusion, the door to the shed rattled.

  The man who emerged was a Marine drill sergeant gone to pot. The shoulders were still square but everything else was wrong. His face looked like his front yard: dusty brown and speckled with a hoary stubble. His long, unkempt reddish hair was shot with gray. All of that was easily fixed, but the bulging stomach would take some work. It was an odd belly, gathered right in front li
ke a pregnant woman’s in her ninth month. But the gunny’s voice was still there.

  “Who the hell are you, and whadda you want?”

  Resisting the urge to snap to attention, I held out my hand. “B. J. Vinson. I’m a confidential investigator.”

  He ignored my offer to shake. “What’re you doing investigating me?”

  “Trying to get to the bottom of a sensitive matter. You know a hustler named Emilio Prada?”

  “I know a fella called Emilio. Don’t know his last name. So what?” The words were still crisp and straightforward, but the eyes beneath his protruding brows had gone wary.

  “Did you develop some film for him?”

  “Maybe. But that’s between him and me.”

  “And me. Look, I did four years with the Corps as an MP, so your DI tactics won’t work on me. I’ve thrown too many like you in the brig. Maybe even you.”

  “Could be. Been there a few times. When was you at MCRD?”

  Tarleton referred to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego.

  “Ninety-two.”

  “Hell, I coulda been your babysitter.”

  “Yeah, and I coulda put you in the brig as payback.”

  “Could be,” he said again. “Commissioned or enlisted?”

  “A butter bar that turned silver before mustering out.”

  “Officer material. So, whadda you looking for Emilio for?”

  “Not looking for him. Looking for some film he had developed.”

  A crafty look crossed his face. “Them racy ones of him riding the blond-headed dude.”

  “Right the first time.”

  “Ain’t got them. Handed them over as soon as they was developed. What I want with filth like that, anyway?”

  “Emilio claims he paid for them by giving you a ride.”

  Tarleton’s face turned mottled. “That lying little shithead. I charged him fifty bucks and tossed him and them dirty pictures out as soon as they come off the dryer.”

  “Why’d he bring them to you? Why not some commercial place? That would cost him a lot less than fifty dollars.”

  “What kinda private eye are you? A pro’d call the cops in a minute.”

  “They wouldn’t be interested unless minors were involved.”

  “Maybe so, maybe not. You wanna take a chance like that with the fuzz? So it cost him a little more, but he didn’t have no worries with me.”

  “Question is, did you make a few extra copies for yourself?”

  “How? Emilio stood right there and watched me develop the film. He was like a mama hen guarding her brood. I figured the blond dude was his sweetie pie, and he was jealous somebody’d try to horn in. Guess maybe I was wrong.”

  “What makes you think you were wrong?”

  “You poking around for them dirties makes it look like blackmail. The blond dude famous or something?”

  “He’d just prefer his image didn’t show up where it doesn’t belong. You have any trouble with me tossing your place?”

  “Fuck no, you can’t go poking around in my stuff. Why’d I let you do that?”

  “To keep me from going to my buddies down at APD. They likely have a sheet on you, enough to give them something for probable cause. Someone might want to follow up with a visit. So if you’d rather deal with the police….” I left the rest hanging.

  He shifted his feet and studied the dirt on the ground, looking uncomfortable.

  “Look, all I’m interested in is finding those negatives. I’ve got a blind eye to anything else.”

  Tarleton gave it some deep thought before waving his hand toward his darkroom. “Have at it.”

  It wasn’t long before I regretted the devil’s bargain with the old Marine. The stuff that turned up might not have qualified as kiddy porn, but some of the girls skirted awfully close to the edge. I went through his darkroom, his house, and the car up on blocks before tackling the rat’s nest of the carport. Tarleton came right along behind, using my search as an opportunity to separate his trash into piles. One would go back into the carport, the other to the garbage. I was a filthy mess by the time it was over, but his place looked a sight better than it had an hour ago.

  More than a little frustrated, I took my leave and drove straight home. A car parked at the curb in front of the house raised my antenna, but alarm quickly turned to joy. It was Paul’s old purple Plymouth coupe. As I pulled into the driveway, he got out sporting an anxious grin.

  “I was just about to leave,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind me dropping by like this. I kept thinking I’d see you at the pool, but you haven’t been by. So I wondered if anything was wrong.”

  My smile was broad and generous, nothing hesitant about it. I was happy beyond my ability to express it that he’d been the one to make the next move.

  Realizing he was babbling out of nervousness, I set his mind at ease. “Have a new case that’s taking up too much of my time, that’s all. I’ll be back in the pool as soon as I can.”

  Paul ducked his head. “So, it’s okay? You know, me coming by without an invitation?”

  “It’s not only okay, it’s great. Come on in while I clean up. I look like I’ve been collecting garbage.”

  The grin came back. “Well, doing yard work, at least.”

  Paul Barton was exactly what the proverbial doctor ordered. He whipped up a mean omelet while I showered and shaved for the second time that day. Then he served a surprisingly delicious meal on my mom’s everyday china. I ate in my bathrobe as he sat opposite me sporting one of those form-fitting T-shirts he wore so well. This one had a logo reading, “Protect Human Rights—All Human Rights!” Probably not many people realized the rights he was advocating.

  Chapter 6

  I STRETCHED and resisted the urge to turn over and go back to sleep. My hand brushed the other side of the bed, encountering only an expanse of cool percale. My eyes snapped open and I sat up, surrendering to another stretch and a jaw-cracking yawn. A note on the dresser expressed appreciation of the night we’d shared and said Paul had gone to an early class. It also gave a phone number for future reference.

  The next move was mine.

  I recalled watching him sleeping beside me last night, amazed at the visceral reaction the image provoked. My stomach fluttered. Was I ready for that kind of emotional attachment?

  Time enough to figure that out later. My principal chore this morning was to locate Estelle Bustamante.

  When I arrived at the office, Hazel stuck her nose in the air as she handed over an envelope. “Delivered from that man’s office this morning.”

  “Ease up on him. You oughta be happy he’s nothing more than a paying client these days. Think of it, Hazel. Del paid your salary this month.”

  “I’ll give it back.”

  Hazel was aptly named. She reminded me of that sassy maid of the same moniker in the cartoons and TV sitcoms of old, who ruled the fictional Baxter household with a firm hand. Hazel had been my mother’s best friend and, like her, a schoolteacher. Until she retired and took over my office, that is. I resigned myself to the fact that the last word in the matter of Del Dahlman would never be mine.

  I went into my private office and opened Del’s envelope, which evoked a sharp breath. I could see why Del thought Emilio and Estelle might be related. Both had beautiful brown eyes, and it would be easy to take them for brother and sister except for Emilio’s possessive arm draped over her shoulders, his hand resting on her right breast. The couple in the photograph was the fulfillment of every mother’s dream. Emilio, arguably even better looking than Estelle was, exuded the machismo of a man claiming his woman. The kid projected raw eroticism.

  Estelle Bustamante had no phone, at least none listed in her name. I pocketed the picture and headed for the Motor Vehicle Division to look up my old buddy Susie Garcia.

  I asked the clerk at the front station to let Susie know I needed a minute of her time. Then I sat down to wait. Susie had been sweet on me ever since the second grade. Her eternal op
timism about landing me in the sack stemmed from a junior high incident when we had come within a hair’s breadth of “doing it,” as we called the ultimate intimacy in those days. I had been the one who pulled back at the last moment, which should have been a clue to my future. At the time all those raging hormones confused the issue.

  “Hello, lover. God, you look terrific, you know that?” Her voice startled me.

  “I’ve been described in a lot of ways, but terrific is a new one. You’re the one who looks great. I’ll bet your cheerleader’s outfit still fits you to a T.”

  “Really?” She placed a hand to the back of her head and preened a little. “You must need a favor. Well, come on back, and let’s see what we can work out.”

  Susie managed the MVD office just north of San Mateo and Montgomery NE. She led me to her bland gray government-issue office, slipped gracefully into a chair, and motioned me to a seat across the bland gray government-issue desk. With a dimpled smile, she reached for the photo in my hand.

  “Wow! Which one are you hot for? They’re both dynamite.”

  “I know who he is. It’s the woman I’m looking for. Her name is Estelle Bustamante.”

  “Anything else? DOB, address, that sort of thing?”

  “Nope. That’s why I brought the photo.”

  She found the information within minutes. The license photo did not do the woman justice, but it was clearly my Estelle Bustamante. After Susie provided an address and looked up vehicle information for me, we verbally jousted for a few minutes, resurrecting school experiences and remembering them differently.

  THE BUSTAMANTE woman’s home in an early-twentieth-century residential section north of Old Town was one of those tall narrow houses with the foundation in the Spanish culture and the rafters in the Anglo. The pink stucco probably hid genuine adobe, but the attic window beneath a steeply pitched tin roof came right out of the Midwest. The place was neat and well tended, and I understood why when a plump, darker version of Hazel answered the door, still wiping her hands on the apron around her waist. This was probably Estelle’s grandparents’ home, and they were people who came out of a world where a family’s abode reflected who they were. And these were old-fashioned, neat folks who took pride in themselves.