No offence Intended - Barbara Seranella

by Barbara Seranella

  The thin man glanced at Claire sharply but she didn't meet his eye. What was going on there? Blackstone wondered. Did the two of them have anything going? Or did he just disapprove of her mingling with the local talent?

  The blond man reached out a hand to Blackstone. "Jared Vanowen," he said. "FBI."

  Blackstone swallowed a smile. Pompous idiot.

  "Jigsaw Blackstone, LAPD." The two men gripped hands. Vanowen wore a gold fraternity ring set with a blue stone on his right hand. Blackstone squeezed the man's fingers and was gratified to see the fed wince. Claire crossed her arms over her chest, and Blackstone suddenly felt foolish and juvenile. Alex emerged from his cubicle, sucking a piece of beef jerky and easing the moment's tension.

  "This is Alex Perez," Blackstone said, releasing Vanowen's hand and nodding toward his partner.

  Alex and Vanowen exchanged nods.

  After the two agents left, Alex sat on the edge of Blackstone's desk.

  "I think the print shops are a dead end," he said. "That's why I'm cultivating a second source."

  "You think she'll tell you anything?" Alex asked. Blackstone reached for his phone. "Let's put the word out on the street that we're interested in some military-issue weaponry that might have started surfacing last month. See what we can turn up."

  "Give ourselves a little something to barter with, eh?"

  "You've got to be in the game to play the game"

  "Should we keep trying print shops?"

  "No," he said. "You're right. That lead is going nowhere."

  After his partner returned to his cubicle, Jigsaw swiveled in his chair until he faced his typewriter.

  Early on he had been cautioned on the importance of maintaining copious notes. The cop who had tutored him assured him that the truth would always protect him. Document everything, he had been taught. Cover your ass.

  So when he typed up the evening report, he mentioned the visit to Lisa Slokum and the FBIt's involvement. He also made note of the lack of success that they had had in tracking down the woman from the freeway who, his gut told him, was the same woman who had appeared at the coroner's office. Turning back to his blotter, he drew another balloon in pencil and started to write Jane Doe, but then erased the oe in Doe and wrote Jane Dirty Nails instead. Using a straight edge, he connected her to John Garillo with a solid pencil line and carefully printed the two times she'd been spotted.

  12

  Jack CALLED MUNCH into his office at mid-morning on Monday

  "You got a call," he said. "Maybe you better take it in here. She sounds pretty upset."

  "Who is it?" Munch asked. Jack just shrugged his shoulders on his way out the door. She picked up the receiver.

  "Hello?"

  "They made me go look at his body" Lisa said. " hate those motherfuckers."

  "Who?"

  "The pigs."

  What about the murderers? she thought but said, "The cops are just doing their job."

  "Yeah," Lisa said, sniffling. "Everybodys just doing their job."

  Munch looked out the office window and saw Jack talking to a customer in a Pontiac Le Mans station wagon. His body blocked the face of the customer, but the car was familiar. It had been in last week, and she had replaced the brakes front and back. Jack stood, saw her looking, and motioned for her to join them. She held up a finger. "Did the cops say if they had any suspects?"

  "Their investigation is going to be bullshit, I'll tell you that right now."

  "Why do you say bullshit?" she asked.

  "You think they really care who killed him?" Lisa said. "You know what they asked me? They wanted to know if he had any female friends that worked for a printer. What kind of fucked-up question is that?"

  Munch felt something drop inside her intestines and instinctively drew her hands into fists. Were they looking for her? "Did they say when they'd be back?" she asked.

  "They won't be back," Lisa said. "You still coming over tonight?"

  "Yeah, after work. Stay cool." She hung up and went outside. "Problem?" she asked, addressing both Jack and the scowling man behind the wheel. "For two hundred dollars," the man said, "my wife's brakes should feel like new."

  "Are they pulling?" she asked.

  "No," he said.

  "Squeaking?"

  "No, but look how far I have to press down the pedal."

  She looked in the window and watched as the man demonstrated.

  "My wife didn't know enough to complain." He gave Jack one of those you-know-how-women-are-with-cars looks. Jack's expression was noncommittal.

  "You've got power assist on these brakes," she explained. "They always feel like that standing still. What's important is how they stop the car when it's moving." Whats important, she was really thinking, is that your wife isn't dead. Nobody you knew was shot over the weekend. Probably nobody you ever knew was ever shot. Thats whats important.

  "Tell you what, Bob," Jack said, reaching in his pocket for a dollar. "You go across the street and get yourself a cup of coffee, and we'll adjust the brakes."

  After the customer had left, Jack turned to her.

  "Watch the phone, I'm going to take this around the block."

  "You want me to put it on the rack first?"

  "No, I want to check it out before we do anything. Get started on that VW clutch cable."

  He pulled back into the shops driveway ten minutes later. She chewed her lip, awaiting his verdict.

  "Are they okay?" she asked.

  "Yeah, when that guy gets back, you let me handle him."

  "Here he comes now," she said, seeing him emerge from Denny's.

  Jack waved and then waited for the customer to cross the street. "Let's go for a ride, Bob," he said, patting the man's back. "You drive."

  They returned in another ten minutes. Both men were smiling. Jack got out at the curb, and Bob went on his way

  "He looked happy" she said, joining her boss as he looked after the retreating vehicle.

  "Jerk," Jack said, without letting the word disturb the smile on his face.

  "Well, at least he's a satisfied jerk. What did you do?"

  "The brakes were perfect. I just moved the seat up."

  "Good one."

  "What was wrong with the girl on the phone?" he asked. "Or is it personal?"

  "Her brother got killed."

  "Oh, I'm sorry"

  "You didn't like him. It was that guy who came by last Friday',

  "I didn't wish him dead," he said, shocked. "What happened? How'd he die?"

  "She said he was shot."

  "Geez, I knew that guy was trouble, but shot? You better stay away from those people."

  "I promised her I'd stop by there after work tonight."

  "You sure that's safe?"

  "I already said I would."

  "You want to leave early? Me and Lou can handle things."

  "No, I'll work all day." She wasn't about to leave early again. She already had enough things to feel guilty about. Visiting Lisa again tonight meant she would miss the meeting she regularly attended on Monday nights at Tarzana Hospital. Ruby would be concerned if she knew that Munch hadn't been to a meeting since Friday Good habits were the easiest ones to break, Ruby always said. Munch decided that what her sponsor didn't know wouldn't bother her.

  13

  BY THE TIME five o'clock rolled around, Munch was exhausted. She plunked down wearily in the seat of her GTO, pressed down the accelerator twice before turning the key and then settled back to let the Pontiac's engine warm up. Rolling her head to one side, she spotted Asia's car seat. The sight of it brought a smile to her lips. How satisfying it would be to be working this hard for somebody else.

  She'd never realized before that a baby could have such a personality She'd always thought them just crying, sleeping blobs until they were old enough to talk and say something interesting. But she had been wrong. She'd really connected with that little baby of Sleaze's.

  Just thinking about the little rugrat made her want to b
e holding her again. She patted the empty cushion of Asia's car seat. It crinkled as if lined with plastic. It wasn't very cushiony either. What had they used to stuff it? Plastic bags and old newspaper or something? She pulled the seat closer to her and studied it, finding the places where the cushion attached to the plastic frame and unsnapping it. She located a zipper in the back. Restuffing the cushion would be a simple matter.

  She unzipped the zipper. A rectangular, shrinkwrapped package of papers fell out. Beneath that was a second plastic bag filled with yellowish-white crystalline powder: meth.

  Oh, shit.

  She jammed the dope back into the cushion with shaking hands.

  Sleaze, you jerk.

  She recalled his words: " just need you to take the baby over to my sister's and pick up a few things at the apartment."

  I am an idiot, she thought.

  Her car still revved on fast idle. She tapped the accelerator, and the engine settled down.

  The first packet slipped to the floorboard between her feet. She bent down and retrieved it. Using the small screwdriver that she always carried clipped in her front pocket, she slit open the hermetically sealed plastic bag. An assortment of documents spilled into her lap: photographs, maps, hand-lettered lists of names and dates.

  She looked at the pictures first. They were a series of photos of two men speaking. The first guy she recognized as the dude riding shotgun with Sleaze the day he came in. The second man in the picture—the one in the suit and dark glasses—was definitely some kind of cop. The two men were exchanging envelopes and sneaking furtive glances. She singled out one picture that clearly showed the long-haired guy's face as well as his tattoo and stuck it in her visor.

  Underneath the pictures she found a floor plan of a building—some sort of warehouse, it looked like—and a schedule of names and times. The names were all preceded by ranks and the times were all written militaristically: 1100 hours, 2300 hours.

  Beneath the floor plan and timetable, she found hand-lettered lists of dates, dollar amounts, and number/letter annotations: M14 (1 case), HC #35 (6 cases), 7.62 X 22mm AP (200), M16 (3 cases). They appeared to be records of payoffs and monies collected for weaponry Tux's name was mentioned often. That had to be Deb's Tux. The dates, all of them late August and early September, had been circled. Curiouser and curiouser. What had Sleaze stumbled into? He hated guns. Was this what he had snitched about? Then what was the other guy in the picture doing? And what about the dope?

  She snuck a look at the car seat with its terrible cargo. The best thing to do would be to just get rid of it. Flush it quick before she had a chance to think. But then again . . . That much shit was worth thousands of dollars. Was it smart to just throw it away? Was it smart to do anything else?

  She could use that money to pay for Sleaze's funeral. Surely that was only justice. What was left could help defer the cost of a babysitter while she was at work. The beauty of dope money was that it would be cash. Cash that wouldn't be figured into the financial report for her probation officer. Maybe this was God's way of helping. He did have a pretty weird sense of humor sometimes.

  She stacked all the paperwork back together, stuffed it back into the plastic as best she could, and stuck it under her seat.

  She drove home carefully stopping twice as long as necessary at four-way stop signs. When she got home, she lifted the car seat out of her car using only her fingertips, handling the thing like it might turn around and bite her. Her phone was ringing when she got to her front door. She answered it out of breath, holding the car seat at arm's length.

  "Yeah?" She noticed her voice had taken on a suspicious tone.

  "Will you accept a collect call from Lisa?" the operator asked.

  "Sure, why not?" She set the carrier on the floor.

  "Hey" Lisa said. "You coming over tonight?"

  "Yeah, I wanted to clean up first."

  "I was thinking," Lisa said, "when you were over at Sleaze's place, did you see Asia's car seat?"

  "I did."

  "Do you have it? 'Cuz I was thinking we should have it here, in case we need it."

  Munch closed her eyes and shook her head. Lisa knew a lot more than she was saying.

  "Yeah, I'll bring it over tonight," Munch said. She heard traffic noises. "Where are you calling from?"

  "The liquor store."

  "Who's watching the kids?"

  "They're okay by themselves for a little while."

  Munch wondered how she'd arrived at that conclusion. Lisa obviously believed in the hasn't-killed-them-yet parenting method. "I won't keep you, then. You go on home and I'll see you in about an hour."

  After they hung up, Munch ran her bath. All she could think about were the drugs in her house, singing their siren promises.

  Was she happily sober?

  Jesus, where had that thought come from? Where was her gratitude? Thank you, God, for not making it heroin that Sleaze was smuggling, was the only prayer she could come up with.

  She rushed through her bath and dressed quickly Still barefoot, she grabbed the car seat cushion and took it into the kitchen. Until she could decide the best way to handle this situation, she needed to hide the dope. Too bad she couldn't figure out a way to hide it from herself while she was at it. She picked up the flour canister and then set it back down. Too obvious. She opened the refrigerator and considered pouring the milk out of the carton, but nixed that idea as well. You could always tell when they had been opened. A message kept flashing in her brain: Should she sample the merchandise?

  Maybe she could hide it in the trash cans out in the alley Pickup wasn't until Monday No, that wasn't good, either. What if someone went through the trash? Kids, even, looking for recyclables. She rummaged through her kitchen drawer until she located a ball of twine. Unwinding six feet of it, she fashioned a noose with a slip knot. She unzipped the car seat, lassoed the bag, and pulled the twine tight around the center of it. The last thing she did was wipe the bag clean of any possible fingerprints.

  She walked outside to the storm drain, lowered the dope down the gutter, and tied the other end of the string to the grating. If the string broke, there were going to be some busy rats tonight.

  * * *

  On her way to Inglewood, billboards along the freeway invited her to fly to Hawaii. She thought about the thousands of dollars that would be hers for the taking—just a few phone calls to the right people. The battle raging between her ears gave her a headache.

  At Culver Boulevard, four bikers on Harleys thundered past her single file, filling the car with the roar of their engines. They pulled in front, and she saw that they were wearing Hell's Angels colors. Why did the sight of them still thrill her? For the briefest instant, she wished she had Harley-Davidson wings on her back window instead of her rainbow-colored EASY DOES IT.

  She got off at La Tijera and caught the red light at the top of the off-ramp. While she idled there, the sheriff 's bus groaned to a stop next to her. She stared so hard that the driver waved to her. Smiling weakly at the private joke between her and her maker, she waved back.

  Point taken, God.

  She stopped for gas at an independent station that still sold 98 octane. While she waited for her tank to fill, she stashed the packet of paperwork under the spare tire in her trunk and stuck the picture of the tattooed man in her shirt pocket.

  When she got to Lisa's house, she brought the now-emptied car seat in with her. Lisa's eyes widened slightly at the sight of it.

  "Where are the kids?" Munch asked. The question already felt part of her routine. Funny how quickly new habits developed.

  "In their room." Lisa said her line of script over the sound of the TV

  Munch walked over to the kids' room and opened the door. Jill and Charlotte were drawing on each other with Magic Markers. Asia, naked save for the indelible star now scrawled on her chest in black ink, reposed on the floor next to them sucking on a pen. It made a soft plopping noise when Munch pried it gently away from her.

>   "Where's her diaper?" Munch asked.

  "Mommy said to let her air out for a while," Charlotte reported.

  Munch lifted Asia onto her hip and stepped back into the main room. Lisa had her hand up the back of the car seat cushion. She jumped guiltily when she saw Munch.

  "Something wrong?" Munch asked.

  "No. I, uh—"

  Munch cut her off before she had a chance to come up with any bullshit. Lisa had already answered the question Munch wanted answered. "Have you guys eaten?" she asked.

  "I was going to fix the girls some cereal," Lisa said. Munch reached for her wallet. "Why don't we get a pizza?"

  "Yeah!" the two girls shouted in unison from their room.

  "I'll go pick it up," Lisa said. "I've been in this house all day watching the baby I could use a break."

  "That's fine," Munch said. "You go, I'll watch the kids."

  Lisa took off on her bicycle. Munch put a fresh diaper on Asia, dressed her in a bright pink romper, and held her until she grew limp with sleep. After settling the baby in her crib, Munch went into the kitchen. She spotted the homicide cops' business cards on top of the trash and retrieved them. After brushing them off, she stuck them in her pocket and then rejoined the girls in their room.

  Miscellaneous game pieces ground underfoot as she stepped across the stained carpet of the girls' room. A naked, ink-stained doll sat propped against the bed frame. Wrinkled and soiled clothing lay everywhere.

  Jill, the younger one, was eager to show Munch her treasures. She kicked aside a damp coat balled in the corner and retrieved a rock with sparkling bits of quartz in it. Munch acted suitably impressed, turning the rock in her hand so that it caught the light. It gratified her that the two girls had warmed to her. They had regarded her with some suspicion on her first visit, but now seemed willing enough to include her in their world. She didn't kid herself, the promised pizza didn't hurt.

  "I tell you what," Munch said, "Let's surprise your mommy and clean your room."

  "Okay," Jill said.

  "Everything is just how Mommy wants it," Charlotte protested.

  "She won't mind if we hang up some of your clothes, will she?" Munch asked, picking up a set of overalls and shaking them out.