Don't Leave Me

by James Scott Bell

  “No.”

  “Valley Circle and Ingomar.”

  “So?”

  “Meet me there.”

  “Forget it. I don’t know who you are, and I’m not––”

  “Relax, son. It’s a wide open park, lots of kids and dogs. Nothing bad’s gonna happen.”

  “Give me a reason.”

  “You’re into something that’s going to get you killed, is that enough of a reason? And by the way, it’s the same thing that got your wife killed. And come alone. I’ll know if you don’t.”

  Chuck tried to swallow. Couldn’t.

  “Just show up,” the voice said. “I’ll find you.”

  “This is nuts. Why can’t you just––”

  “Three o’clock.”

  “What if I don’t show?”

  “You got one chance.”

  Chuck said nothing.

  “I’ll give you one more incentive,” the man said. “Maybe you want to find out about your wife’s criminal record.”

  Chuck’s body cracked with cold lightning. “You’re a liar.”

  “Am I? She was from Davis, right? Of course you know that. Her maiden name was Rankin. Julia Rankin. How’m I doing?”

  The connection dropped.

  “What is it?” Wendy said.

  For a moment Chuck couldn’t say anything. The Twilight Zone episode was continuing. It wasn’t Wendy Tower in the car with him, it was Rod Serling.

  “I’ll drop you off at your apartment,” Chuck said.

  “Something’s very wrong,” Wendy said.

  “You’re a good teacher,” Chuck said.

  Chapter 38

  Sandy noted the call from Samson in the chronolog, then flipped to the interview statements section of the murder book. Four patrol officers had canvassed the immediate neighborhood as well as the businesses. No eyewitnesses, though a man from the Target garden department, unloading peat moss from a delivery pallet, said he thought he saw a blue sedan drive slowly by. He took no notice of it, though. He thought the driver was a Caucasian male.

  Great.

  And another thing. This section of the parking lot had no security cameras set up. Might the killer have known that?

  “All work and no drinking,” Mooney said from behind her.

  “Where’ve you been?” Sandy said.

  “You working the book?”

  “No, arts and crafts. I’m thinking of doing a collage with all the body photos.”

  “Well you may want to add this to the design.” Mooney tossed some pages on Sandy’s desk. The autopsy report on Grant Nunn.

  She picked it up. “You’ve read this?”

  “It’s yadda yadda, cause of death one bullet to the brain,” Mooney said. “But there is one thing more.”

  Mooney pointed to the section marked External Examination. “Blunt force trauma,” he said. “Back of the head. Somebody knocked him out before he got popped. Maybe it was one of those homeless guys who sleep by the wall.”

  “Who packs a .38?”

  “It’s been known.”

  “That still doesn’t explain what Nunn was doing there in the first place,” Sandy said. “What if he was hit somewhere else, and then driven there?”

  “That makes even less sense,” Mooney said. “I’ve been thinking, what if it was Samson?”

  Sandy shook her head.

  “No, listen.” Mooney slid a chair over. “I’ve been thinking about it. Samson drove away, right? While Nunn was calling it in.”

  “Right.”

  “What if Nunn follows Samson?”

  “Why?”

  “Thinks something’s not right. Samson’s route to Woodland Hills takes him by Target.”

  “And what, Samson shoots Nunn?”

  Mooney smiled.

  “What possible motive would Samson have for killing Grant Nunn?” Sandy said.

  “Hey, what possible reason would Samson have for cooking meth? But he was.”

  “But,” Sandy said, “Samson wasn’t alone. He had his brother with him.”

  “Maybe we should have talk with the brother,” Mooney said. “Alone.”

  Chapter 39

  After dropping Wendy off, Chuck started for the far end of West Hills. On the way he got another call.

  “Where are you?” Royce asked.

  “On my way to see somebody,” Chuck said.

  “Somebody you know?”

  “That’s complicated.”

  “Chuck, I don’t want you to get nervous about this.”

  “About what?”

  “Something I’m going to tell you.”

  Chuck almost laughed the demented cackle of the guys who think they’re Napoleon. “Nothing you say is going to make things worse.”

  “I was messing around on the computer,” Royce said. “You know that text message you got? Said Samson s-m-r-t?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I Googled those letters, to see what it came up with.”

  “And?”

  “First off, it’s the NASDAQ abbreviation for Stein Mart.”

  “I’m getting mystery texts from a store?”

  “You can also find an I Am So Smrt Homer Simpson tee shirt.”

  “Hilarious. What’s your point?”

  “Here’s the thing, Chuck. I went deeper. I kept going. And then I got to smrt as a word. It is a word. In Serbian.”

  “Serbian?”

  “Chuck, it’s the Serbian word for death.”

  Something popped in Chuck’s ears, like a mosquito had flown inside his head with a cap gun.

  “Chuck, you there?”

  “What is happening, Royce? What the hell is happening?”

  “Hang tough, will you?”

  “What choice do I have?”

  He clicked off and drove, and it felt like he was driving in a wind tunnel full of fog. Even in the daylight everything seemed to blur. He wondered if he might not have a stroke.

  That’d be just great, wouldn’t it? Then Stan could start taking care of him.

  Snorting a derisive laugh at himself, Chuck continued on.

  He got to Lazy J Park a little before three, his head still pounding with what Royce told him.

  But that only raised a ton of other questions, each more bizarre than the last. Serbians? The guy with the knife. What had he stumbled into with a stupid rear ender? What did all this have to do with Julia and voices on the phone?

  Maybe it was time to go to the FBI or something. Sure, and with all their available time they’d look into nothing. No way to find the knife guy. And the cops were all over him, suspecting manufacture of drugs.

  Really? Or were they leaning on him, trying to get some leverage? For freaking what?

  Chuck parked in the small lot and sat for a minute with the windows up. The sun warmed the car and he liked the feeling. Enveloped by heat. It relaxed him and that’s what he needed.

  He looked out the windshield to see if anybody looked like he was waiting for him.

  There was a kids’ birthday party going on near the swings, complete with parents in party hats, a couple of blow-up bounce houses, a clown doing balloon animals and, yes, an old wrangler with a pony giving rides. When these West Hills parents gave a party, they didn’t just do cake and streamers. Nothing too good for little Madison or little Noah.

  A few yards away, an old man walked his dachshund. The dog looked like a knockwurst with legs. Two teen boys in wifebeaters and low rider shorts swaggered in front of his car, laughing at some inside joke.

  But no sign of anyone waiting to talk.

  Was he crazy for being here? If it was somebody who wanted to do him harm, would he have picked this place? Wide open and with potential witnesses all around? Maybe he was summoned here to be watched, to see what he’d do. Somebody doing some serious chain jerking, like leaving strange text messages on his cell phone.

  Chuck got out. He stood at his car a moment, trying to look conspicuous. When he got no response he started walking across t
he grass, toward the fence on Valley Circle.

  He didn’t have to look lost. He was lost. Nothing made sense, and the idea that he would soon be looking into the eyes of a clandestine acquaintance of his wife’s was more than just a kicker. It made everything else seem open to dream-like interpretation.

  Maybe he’d never been in the Navy, never served in Afghanistan, never had a brother named Stan. Maybe he was like one of those guys in a paranoid movie of the '60s. What was it? The Manchurian Candidate, that was it. The one with Frank Sinatra. The one about brainwashing.

  Or maybe he was Jim Carrey in The Truman Show. Some god-like madman was pulling strings, and soon Chuck would bump into the end of huge set.

  At the fence, Chuck found he was fighting for air. His lungs constricted. It wasn’t just the heat, it was the pressure of unreality, the closing walls of an existential trash compactor.

  Now was the time to pray. To try again. To reach up for the God who had once allowed Satan free reign with a guy named Job.

  But as Chuck closed his eyes, behind him someone said, “You think it’s hot?”

  Chuck turned. The clown from the kids’ party was standing there, frilly collar, fire-engine red hair, and all. Beads of sweat rolled down his white-caked cheeks, leaving gray streaks like ski tracks around his large, red nose.

  “Try standing out here in this get up,” the clown said.

  “Is it you?” Chuck said.

  “Is it who?”

  “Never mind.”

  “I don’t want the kids to catch me smoking.” The clown reached into his polka-dot pants and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. Fired one up. Blew out a stream of smoke.

  “That’s better,” he said. “I been making poodles and giraffes for an hour straight.” He held out the pack. “Want one?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Then I guess we better talk about Julia.”

  It was him. Oh Mary, mother of Jesus, this was the guy. Chuck almost burst out laughing, a crazy laugh, like this was just the last nail in his bizarre coffin.

  “Yep,” the clown said. “I’m the guy.”

  Chuck said, “What’s your name?”

  “Boffo.”

  “Come on, your real name.”

  “Boffo the Balloon Clown will do. And you are in way over your head.”

  Under the makeup Chuck saw two very serious green eyes. Even with the clown’s bulbous nose and ridiculous wig shooting out at right angles from his head, his expression was not about to make a kid laugh.

  Chuck said, “How come you know about my wife’s past?”

  After another drag, the clown said, “Tell me what you think you know.”

  “Your name’s Thompson, isn’t it?” Chuck looked for a tell, but the clown eyes didn’t dance. “You knew my wife,” he added.

  “Check.”

  “You slept with my wife.”

  “Now you’re the clown if you believe that.”

  “You were seen.”

  “By who? That little rat from the shop? How much he tag you for?”

  Chuck said nothing.

  “Three bills? Four?”

  “Tell me about Julia,” Chuck said. “You were the guy on the motorcycle, the one with the Sun Cycle vest.”

  Boffo smiled. “Never heard of that guy. But go on.”

  “Come on, man.” Chuck felt like laughing in guy’s face and punching it out. It was all too absurd.

  “I didn’t sleep with her,” Boffo said.

  “You were intimate. The guy saw you.”

  Boffo shook his head. “The cholo made up a story for you. You bought it. Literally. Which shows you’re dumber than you look. Which brings me back to my main point, that you’re in over your head.”

  Chuck was starting to feel heat from more than the sun. “I’m sorry if I’m having a little trouble talking to a clown who calls himself Boffo.”

  “You wound me,” Boffo said. “I take this business very seriously. Kids depend on me.”

  “What was your relationship with my wife?”

  “I was her source,” he said. “On a story.”

  “What story?”

  “Oh, bigger than that alligator farm jive.”

  Some kids screamed joyfully from a blow-up bounce house near the parking lot.

  “You know about that?” Chuck said.

  “Boffo sees all, knows all.” He took another puff on his cigarette then rubbed it on the bottom of his big, floppy shoe. “Listen to me,” he said. “If I talk to you, you don’t ever try to find me. If I see anything I say to you show up online or in the news, I will find you and make you feel pain.”

  “Not very clown-like of you.”

  “Deal?”

  “Fine.” Chuck was desperate for something, anything. Even this.

  “What’s my name again?”

  “Boffo,” Chuck said, feeling ridiculous.

  “Good. Not anything else. Now Boffo was a CI for the DEA. Confidential informant. What’s happening here, even around this very park, is trade in H.”

  “Heroin?”

  “What did I just say? It’s all over this Valley, all through the Westside and the Hollywood Hills, out to the Pacific Palisades, every which way you look. And the people behind it are the worst people you never want to meet.”

  “Serbians,” Chuck said.

  Boffo’s painted orange eyebrows creased upward. “Very good. You’re right about that. The old ethnic cleansers. A more dangerous form of life you will not run across. You remember Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West?”

  “Afraid I don’t.”

  “Let’s put it this way. Henry Fonda was the coldest-blooded killer in the history of the movies in that flick. These guys are worse than Henry Fonda.”

  “Was that the story my wife was working on?”

  “It’s also why she’s dead. And why you will be, too, you keep after this. My guess is they’ve had you on their radar even from before the fake accident that took her out.”

  Chuck’s entire body, despite the heat, went cold. “What do you mean fake?”

  “You don’t have to be a genius to figure that out. It was a hit job.”

  “Are you saying she was murdered?”

  The clown nodded.

  Words hooked the back of Chuck’s throat, caught in hot tissue and stayed.

  “Listen a little more,” the clown said. “There’s dirty cops involved, too. Now the LAPD is a lot cleaner than it used to be, but that only drives the dirt deeper. Any cops question you?”

  “Yeah,” Chuck said, as if from a distance.

  “What about?”

  “They’re charging me with making meth in my garage.”

  Boffo snorted. “You got to be kidding me. Meth is high desert manufacture. It’s not a lemonade stand. How’d that happen?”

  “I don’t know. I came home and my house was on fire. They say it was started with propane and other stuff I didn’t have in there.”

  “You have been so set up. You and Julia both. Man, you’ve got to get out of here. Move. Flee. Get gone.”

  “I have a job. I teach elementary school.”

  “They got kids everywhere. Even in other states.”

  “Tell me about Julia. What about her having a record?”

  “I checked her out. If I was going to be her source, I wanted to know who she was. Found an old fraud charge buried in the records. Supposed to be expunged. She never tell you about that?”

  Chuck could barely shake his head. A secret like that? It couldn’t be. Julia would never have––

  Boffo the clown got a softer look in his eyes. “Pal, listen up. I’m really sorry your wife died. She was smart and tough. I don’t know why she wouldn’t have told you some things, but hey, I was in the secret-keeping business myself. And now I’m out of it, doing time at kids’ parties.”

  “What can I do?” Chuck said. “What can I possibly do?”

  “Start all over again someplace else.”

  “I have a cr
iminal charge hanging over me.”

  “Yeah, bummer. You have a good lawyer? If you don’t, I got some names.”

  “They’re not clowns, are they?”

  Boffo laughed. “See, that’s good. If you can’t keep a sense of humor, even in the bad times, you might as well pack it in.” He clapped Chuck on the shoulder. “Well, back to the salt mines.”

  “Wait. What if I want to get in touch with you?”

  “Unless you book me for a party, don’t try. Remember what I said. I’ll be all over this if you say anything. And it really pains me to say that, as a clown. We like to be friendly to everybody.”

  Chapter 40

  Chuck dreamed, again, about Nolan Ryan. It happened off and on, a whacked-out dream in a far corner of his brain.

  Nolan Ryan, his boyhood hero, wearing his Angels uniform, on the mount at the Big A, only his jersey was too short and his stomach was showing. He had a rash or something on his stomach, but a nice tan otherwise.

  He was pitching to Mario Lemiux, but Mario Lemiux was a hockey player . . .

  . . . Mario, another sports hero. Pittsburgh Penguins.

  But on a baseball diamond?

  And he wasn’t holding a bat. No. He had a doorknob and a fish and a kite.

  He better watch out! Chuck could hear himself saying that. Mumbling that in his dream.

  Watch out Mario! Nolan has heat.

  Here comes the pitch!

  Somebody in the stands screamed.

  It sounded like a man. A young man. A scared young man.

  Chuck jolted awake in a chair.

  Another scream.

  Where was he? The smell . . .

  The motel.

  Another scream. It was his brother, asleep but screaming.

  Chuck bolted to the edge of the bed and shook his brother. “Stan . . .”

  Stan jerked to a sitting position. “Help!”

  “Stan, I’m here, it’s okay.”

  Before Stan could respond someone pounded on the wall next door and yelled an epithet-laced warning to shut up.

  The digital clock read 10:04. Chuck’s head was soggy. He could hardly remember what had happened that day. Beaman with Wendy. Dropped her off. Meeting a clown. Oh yeah, the clown. Life was a funhouse with wild mirrors now.

  “Chuck,” Stan said. “The wolf man was after me!”