Black

by Russell Blake

  Black tried to focus, but the thought that played on the periphery of his consciousness flitted away the more he tried to corner it. He knew that there was no point in trying to force or coax it into being. It would arrive fully formed when it was good and ready, and not before.

  The coffee was actually pretty good, and Black was happy with the open kitchen approach that prevented Cliff from urinating in it, which he had no doubt the humbled server had developed an almost compulsive urge to do. He sympathized with the kid. Sometimes the world dropped trou and violated you, and you had to take it. Story of Black’s life. Even as he savored his petty victory, Black felt cheapened by it, and resolved to do his best to avoid abusing anyone else he came into contact with that day. He could attribute his mood to having quit smoking. It was that rough period that lasted from the final puff until you died, he thought.

  The Cadillac started grudgingly and sputtered like a politician caught in a lie, and Black decided that he couldn’t put off further the simple maintenance he’d been avoiding for months. His Bluetooth earpiece in place, he dialed his mechanic – a heavyset Mexican man who lived two buildings down from the Paradise Palms.

  “Yo, Cesar. It’s Black here.”

  “That so? Maybe it’s gonna rain.”

  “No…I mean it’s Black, Jim Black, the guy from up the street with the Caddy.”

  “Eldorado. Red leather, am I right?” Cesar replied – he wasn’t great with names, but he remembered cars.

  “Correct. It’s time to figure out what’s wrong with the engine. It’s running rough.”

  “Didn’t you tell me you haven’t had a tune-up since The Beatles played the Hollywood Bowl?”

  “Something like that. I was wondering if you could cruise by tomorrow and give it a look.”

  “Sure. What time?”

  “Nine. I can borrow a car if you need it all day.”

  “That’s a given, esse. You can’t put this kind of thing off forever. You’ll need new plugs, probably a carburetor rebuild, and some belts. Minimum. You got cash?”

  “I wouldn’t be calling if I didn’t.”

  “You want I should swing by your place?”

  “Yeah, if you could. You remember my apartment?”

  “Upstairs. Fourth one from the stairs.”

  “Bingo. I’ll see you at nine.”

  “Mañana.”

  Satisfied that he’d done the responsible thing for the first time in forever, he finished his coffee and tossed the cup in the passenger foot well, taking care that Roxie’s chai was secure in his aftermarket cup-holder before he lurched into traffic, a roll of silver duct tape gleaming at his side like a lucky talisman. As he wheeled along, he twisted on the stereo and the car filled with a Silversun Pickups single he’d downloaded from iTunes without telling Roxie for fear of mockery. Kind of catchy, he conceded, and sang along with the tune, which he’d been listening to off and on for the last few days:

  If we stay here long enough

  We can play with Bloody Mary

  Say her name into the dark

  He passed a super pet store and debated getting Mugsy another toy so he’d stop destroying everything in the office, but decided it was pointless – maybe Roxie was right and he was holding a grudge. Still feeling somewhat pious, Black made a mental note to stop insulting the cat, at least within earshot, as part of his new spirit of non-judgmental change, and to bite back any reflexive urge to refer to him as ‘that fat bastard.’

  The Eldorado coughed like an emphysemic during a dust storm, then settled into a truculent putter, as if to warn Black that it was running on borrowed time.

  A feeling he knew all too well.

  Chapter 26

  Black’s feeling of unease intensified as the afternoon shadows lengthened across his office walls, until at four o’clock he resolved to do something to put his apprehension to rest. He dialed Meagan’s number with a heavy hand, and was surprised at how upbeat her voice was when she answered the phone.

  “Meagan. It’s Black. I hope I’m not disturbing you…”

  “No, not at all. What can I do for you?”

  “How are you holding up?”

  “It’s…it’s been hard, as you might expect.”

  “I’m sure of it. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  “I will. It’s just a bad time, is all.”

  “No doubt. Listen, I just wanted to check with you before I stop by. I have a few loose ends I’m tying up on the case.”

  “Oh. Are you making any progress? I’d have thought you’d dropped it now that Hunter’s…gone.”

  “Not really. I’m about ready to put it to bed. This is more like crossing a few housekeeping chores off the list. Nothing more.”

  “Do you need to get into the house?”

  “No, that can wait for a better time. I mostly just want to stop in and make sure you’re okay.”

  “That’s so sweet. And unnecessary.”

  “I’m in the neighborhood. It won’t take more than a few minutes.”

  “I suppose that’s fine, then.”

  “How’s…Nicole doing?”

  “I have no idea. She left the day after Hunter was killed. She wasn’t here when it happened, thank God. I guess she was out with friends.”

  “It’s got to be hard for her.”

  “I’m sure of it. I think she’s staying with her mom. That will be good. Maybe she’ll move in with her, once and for all.”

  Black could pick up a trace of animosity, even after everything that had happened.

  “You’ll figure it out, Meagan. Tell you what, I’ll be by within a half hour. I just need to finish up an errand. I’ll be in and out in no time.”

  Any other time, he was sure she would have latched onto the double entendre, but her spirit wasn’t in it, and she sounded preoccupied.

  “I’ll be here. See you when I see you.”

  Black shifted on the uncomfortable makeshift seat cover he’d fashioned from tape and then rose, his pants pulling free of the silver patch with a sound like ripping fabric. He pulled on his black double-breasted jacket and cocked a black fedora on his head at a jaunty angle and emerged from his office to find Roxie actually doing what appeared to be legitimate work – paying bills with their bookkeeping software.

  “I’m headed out.”

  “I got that. Is there a costume party tonight?”

  “Another jab about my sartorial splendor, I presume.”

  “It’s just that normal people don’t dress like extras out of a Zoot Suit musical.”

  “I appreciate the candor. But I like this look.”

  “Why not try Robin Hood next? The green tights and the little vest might work nicely. And I think he wore a funny hat, too.”

  “I’ll be on my cell.”

  “Good to know.”

  “In case anyone calls.”

  “Like they haven’t all day. Oh, wait. We did have one wrong number. Looking for a dry cleaner. I’m guessing you don’t want it forwarded.”

  “What would I do without you?”

  “Probably starve Mugsy.”

  “Given that he’s eaten about half my chair, I’m guessing he’d find a way to make do.” Black glowered at the cat, who was lying on his back on the couch, fast asleep, all four paws in the air, soft snoring emanating from his untroubled face. “No wonder he’s tired.”

  Black made it to Bel Air in twenty minutes, the car sounding ominous as it strained up the hills, and he congratulated himself again on his decision to finally get it attended to. When he pulled up to Hunter’s estate, there was a squad car parked in front with two bored uniforms in it, and beyond it, a green pickup truck with utility boxes on either side of the bed and an indecipherable logo on either door. He parked behind the vehicles and approached the squad car’s open driver-side window and stopped well clear of it – there had been enough shooting in the exclusive neighborhood already, and he didn’t want a cop with the jitters to add to his woes.

>   “Officers. I’m here to see Meagan Hunter. I’m a friend.”

  The driver, the older of the pair, a well-fed Hispanic man with a neatly trimmed mustache, met his gaze. “It’s a free country.”

  “What are you fellas doing here?”

  “We were told to stop by every couple of hours and make sure nobody was loitering around.”

  “I imagine pretty soon they’ll be loitering in greener pastures, now it’s becoming old news.”

  “You got that right.”

  “All right, then. I’m going in. Have a good one.”

  Black paused at the front of the expansive front wall – three-foot-high mortar and cement topped with five feet of black wrought iron – and studied the house façade. The blood had been cleaned off the steps, and a handyman was perched on a ladder, repairing a window that had been damaged by the hail of bullets. Stan’s question still burning in his ears, Black closed his eyes and tried to recreate the shooting. Stan had been standing next to him, cop cars spread out along the street, uniforms ducked behind their vehicles waiting for the SWAT team to show up, Hunter waving the hogleg around while swigging from the bottle…

  And then a shot, followed almost immediately by more. But the first shot had definitely come from the right side. A loud, sharp report.

  Black walked to the far right side by the gate and peered into the grounds. A long row of dense hedges ran along both sides, with elegantly coiffed trees lining the perimeter. He edged to the neighbor’s lot line wall and squinted. There was about a two-foot space between the wall and the plants. Not a lot of space.

  He had no idea what he was looking for, but something was nagging at him, and it hadn’t subsided over time. He tried the heavy brass handle for the pedestrian gate and was surprised to find that it was unlocked. Then again, the maintenance men had likely been in and out. Black pushed it open and stepped across the metal threshold onto the smooth cobblestones, likely imported from Europe, and moved to the hedges, his hawk-like gaze looking for something – anything.

  Unfortunately, all he saw was grass in need of mowing that extended to the neighbor’s wall and rich, coffee-toned soil beneath the bushes. A faint suspicion took shape as he studied the area – there was certainly enough room for an assailant to hide, and he would have been out of sight from the street because of the way the hedges ran to the full perimeter at the front of the lot.

  But not at the back. He followed the lot line until he arrived at the rear of the property, where there was a brick wall separating Hunter’s estate from the one behind it – a contemporary masterpiece with a lavish pool and spa area done in symmetrical sandstone. Black studied the rear brickwork, and even in the late afternoon light, picked up a rust-colored smudge near the union where the side wall met the rear.

  Which could have been anything.

  Anything at all. Paint. Crap. Bird poop.

  Or blood.

  Hunter inched along the rear wall until his nose was only a few inches from the smear, but that perspective didn’t improve his appreciation of it. It was a smudge on red brick. Hard to make out.

  But it was there.

  His gaze roamed along the side wall, and then he edged along it, scanning for anything out of the ordinary. Like more blood.

  No such luck. It was probably just some neighborhood animal that had cut its paw. Nothing nefarious. Sometimes, just because you were paranoid, it didn’t mean anyone was out to get you. It just meant you were a nutcase.

  He was nearing the front of the lot again, when he saw it.

  There.

  On the grass.

  Faint. But unmistakable.

  More of the rust-colored splotch. This time, what looked like dried drops of it.

  Black’s awareness focused to tunnel-vision as his pulse pounded in his ears, the effect heightened by the narrow corridor effect of the hedges on one side and the wall on the other. His mind grappled for possible explanations. Perhaps a gardener had cut himself. A maintenance worker. A prowling pet.

  But that’s not what his gut told him.

  He fished his phone out of his jacket and called Stan.

  “You need to get a forensics team up to Hunter’s house. Now.”

  “Why? Where are you?”

  “I’m at his house. Just do as I ask. I’ll wait for them.”

  “What’s up, Black? You been boozing early?”

  “I wish. You might want to get your tired old ass up here as well.”

  “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I think I figured out where the first shot came from.”

  Chapter 27

  The forensics van’s lights flashed in the deepening dusk, the sky all purple and crimson smoke trails. A cool breeze rustled the hedges as the technicians gathered samples, the yellow crime scene tape lending an almost festive feeling to the area. Stan stood by watching impassively as the techs went about their task, scraping and sorting and clipping and shooting photos. Black stood next to him, with Meagan hanging off his arm like she was afraid she’d blow away, her face drawn from the events of the last few days but still undeniably beautiful by any measure.

  “I don’t understand any of this,” she whispered for the twentieth time in the past hour and a half, after Black had knocked on the door and advised her that the police were on their way. “What does it mean?”

  “It means that your husband might have been shot by someone other than the police,” Black said softly. Stan’s eyes shifted sideways toward them, lending a reptilian quality to his somber expression, like one of the humanoid robot warriors that Hunter had spent four sequels battling as they attempted to conquer the earth.

  God, those movies stank, Black thought. No wonder the guy’s career tanked. Who greenlit that kind of garbage and sank a hundred million into it? Some committee of clueless yes-men who’d never read a script in their life?

  He realized that his mind was wandering and returned to the present.

  “It’s too early to draw any conclusions, ma’am. All we know is that there’s some unexplained evidence here that may or may not have anything to do with your husband’s death. Any speculation, especially by amateurs” – Stan glared at Black – “is premature.”

  “That’s true,” Black said, trying to backpedal. Meagan’s sweet fragrance drifted from her blouse, which looked about ready to pop a button as it struggled to contain her full breasts, which he couldn’t help but notice she’d been rubbing against him like she was hoping a genie would pop out of his hat.

  “Can I have a word with you?” Stan asked, his gaze icy.

  “Absolutely. Meagan, would you excuse me?”

  “Sure,” she said in a heart-melting, little girl lost voice.

  Stan and Black walked together to the front gate, where two squad cars waited with the forensics van and Stan’s unmarked sedan. Stan stopped and looked up at the trees across the street as though they contained the answer to a riddle he’d been worrying at with no progress.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Nothing. The woman asked a question. I gave her my best guess.”

  Stan shook his head. “It looks like she wants you to give her more than that.”

  “You picked up on that, did you?”

  “She’s on you like a stripper on a pole.”

  “You have a way with words. Like Stephen King or something.”

  Stan rubbed his face with a resigned hand. “Black. Cut me a break here, would you? Don’t get her all riled up.”

  “Look, Stan, she’s not stupid. She wants to know why the cops are back at her house. She deserves more than the runaround.”

  “And you’re just the man to give it to her, huh?”

  “It’s not like that. She’s distraught.”

  “Why is it that whenever I get a distraught widow she’s either a crack fiend or eighty-nine?”

  “Can’t she be both?”

  They watched as a black Bentley coupe dr
ove by, its windows tinted dark, a vanity plate proclaiming “Frowsy” as its owner.

  “I just don’t need the specter of a lawsuit hanging over my head, Black. You should know that people will sue over anything.”

  “Dog eat dog world, ain’t it?”

  “Sure ’nuff,” Stan agreed.

  “So what’s your take?”

  “I think if, and that’s obviously a huge if, there was a shooter hiding in the bushes, we might have gotten lucky and a ricochet hit him. That’s what I think.”

  “Or the gardener got careless with the trimmer.”

  “Nah. The distraught hottie gave us their number. I talked to the supervisor. Nobody gashed themselves here,” Stan said.

  “She is hot, isn’t she?”

  “No offense, my friend, but she’s way out of your league. She’d eat you alive. High maintenance doesn’t start to cover that.”

  “I know. I just wish she’d stop rubbing on me. I’m starting to chafe.”

  “You’re not just a boy toy.”

  “I have feelings. I think things, and shit.”

  “But she was all over you like that when Hunter was alive too, right?”

  “Yup. I mean, not in front of him, but when he wasn’t there, she just about tore my pants off.”

  “I’m reconsidering the PI thing, you know. You need a partner?”

  “When she was married, there was no way. But now…”

  “Don’t tell me you’re even thinking about it.”

  “I’m not. What do you take me for?” Black insisted, the lie obvious in his voice.

  “You look snappy today. You in a tango show or something?”

  “Why does everyone F with me over my clothes?”

  “Jealousy.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Dude. Just do me a favor. Cut the crime chat with the babe, all right? Ix-nay on the ead-day usband-hay.”