Angry Buddhist (9781609458867)

by Greenland, Seth

  At school Brittany asks why she’s late and Kendra says a friend of hers had a problem and she was helping her deal with it. Brittany spends the entire ride banging away on her computer and doesn’t look up. For once, Kendra is happy her daughter does not want to talk.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Seated in the window of Palm Springs Koffe on North Palm Canyon Drive, Jimmy waits for Cali and Arnaldo. As a personal favor, they’ve agreed to brief him on the investigation. He’s got several work files he needs to review, drops in the stream of endless domestic complaints. Jimmy thinks there would be a lot fewer failed marriages if a visit to the District Attorney’s office were mandated for all couples considering the nuptial state. They could see the sheer volume of former spouses gunning for each other and perhaps reconsider their own decisions. But he knows that won’t happen. People are going to do what they’re going to do.

  While he waits, he checks his phone messages. There’s one from his landlord asking him whether he wants to extend his lease on the trailer and another from a robocall service reminding him to vote. The third message is from Coral, the woman who works at the animal control center in Indio. No idea what she wants, that’s a call he can return later. He’s on his second iced coffee when his colleagues arrive. Cali sits with Jimmy while Arnaldo orders their coffees at the counter.

  “Did you know your sister-in-law knew one of the victims?”

  “She told me.” He doesn’t mention his visit with Kendra.

  “We talked to her,” Cali says. “She’s a piece of work.” Arnaldo joins them, placing Cali’s coffee in front of her.

  “Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth,” Arnaldo says, settling into a chair. “This is turning into the case of the century. Con­gressman’s wife and chief of police both banging a murder victim? Someone should write a book about it.”

  “I want Anne Hathaway to play me in the movie,” Cali says. She and Arnaldo laugh. Jimmy doesn’t find any of this amusing. Maybe if he was being allowed to work the case he would.

  “I like Hard for this,” Arnaldo says.

  Jimmy nods, looks at Cali. Pushes aside his resentment for a moment and remembers the other night, the way she moved the strand of hair out of her eyes when she was looking at the Book of Dogs.

  “Is that what you think?”

  “I’m with Arnaldo.”

  “Glenn Korver’s with us,” Arnaldo says. Jimmy looks at Cali. She nods. And now it starts, the tightening of the muscles in the neck and upper back, the shallowness of breath, the pressure in his head. Why does he care? Why is he still attached? Where is the freedom from the craving to matter in the world?

  Breathe in one, two. Breathe out, three, four.

  “Sorry you couldn’t work the case with us,” Arnaldo says.

  Cali says nothing. She offers a what-can-I-do arch of the eyebrows.

  Jimmy rises, nods and walks out. Arnaldo calls after him in a bantering tone but Jimmy does not turn around. He’s not even tempted. On his way to the truck, he passes a blonde cocker spaniel, a miniature dachshund, and a pair of black standard poodles. He does not ask for permission to photograph any of them. He will regret this as soon as his emotions are back under control.

  Although the motor of the pickup is running and the air conditioner is on the vehicle is still parked in a lot just off of North Palm Canyon Drive. Jimmy had thrown his meditation cushion in the back seat today on the off chance he would have some time to try sitting in the desert. Instead, he had spent his first five minutes back in the front seat pounding it with his fist like a punching bag. When he was through channeling his copious frustration, he leaned back, breathed deeply with his eyes closed. He had tried to access the state of beginner’s mind Bodhi had told him about but found it to be a territory into which he could not cross. Meditation is fine, but when it comes to taking the edge off, there is nothing like beating the shit out of something. He has been visualizing Arnaldo and Cali floating away in a pink bubble and the image is a balm to his scabrous feelings.

  But what had he logically expected them to conclude? Was he meant to have made a plea on behalf of his brother’s culpability? They would have looked at him as if he were insane, as if he were discharging some age-old fraternal pathology. And on what had he based his conclusion? It’s based on what he knows of his brother and how he operates and maybe this is an extreme version but it is the logical conclusion of the Randall Duke no prisoners ethos. All of this would have been impossible for Jimmy to credibly convey. And he still isn’t certain he believes it himself. But he knows it’s a possibility and as long as he believes this to be so, he will not sign on to the prosecution of his former boss.

  Jimmy’s in no mood to drive to the office. He still can’t get his mind around Hard Marvin as the shooter but with nothing to tie anyone else to the crime there isn’t a lot he can do except keep his eyes open for dogs to photograph. With this in mind, he decides to stop by the animal control center and see what Coral wants.

  The sounds of muffled barking greet him when he steps into the cool air of the low cinderblock building. A short young Latina with a nose ring in her left nostril stands behind the counter in the reception area. Her curly hair is cut short and a gray smock fits snugly on her stocky frame. A nametag reads “Esmerelda.” Jimmy asks if Coral is around and Esmerelda shouts toward the back of the building. A few seconds later, Coral emerges through a gray metal door drying her hands on a soiled white towel. She’s short and stocky, too, like Esmerelda, and for all he knows they could be related.

  “Just the man I was looking for,” Coral says. Jimmy nods hello. “You still doing that book of dogs you told me about last time I saw you?” Jimmy says that he is. “You got a camera?” Jimmy tells her he does. “Then I got a good one for you.” Coral excuses herself, says she’ll be back in a minute. Jimmy turns around and leans against the counter, gazes toward the entrance. Like a pet grooming establishment, albeit one with a considerably less happy outcome for its denizens, the place exudes an animal funk, and it is not unpleasant to Jimmy.

  “You writing a book about dogs?” Esmerelda asks.

  Turning to face her, Jimmy says: “I take their pictures is all.”

  “Why you want to do that?”

  Where to begin? The threat to Hard Marvin that got him thrown off the police force. The diminishment he experienced at the departure of his ex-wife. The insidious irritation that pervaded his life, that ate away at his ability to function and led to the mandating of anger management classes. But what he says is: “Helps me relax.”

  “I take pictures of all the dogs come here, wouldn’t never look at them. Couldn’t stop crying.”

  What do you say to that, Jimmy wonders. The woman works in a place where they put down a small city of dogs each year and she’s emotional? A moment later the door leading to the back of the shelter opens and Coral returns holding a squirming, rodent-like creature the size of a large rabbit. A Chihuahua.“You got one of these in your book?” Jimmy shakes his head as the dog continues to writhe in Coral’s arms. “Hate to do this one but that’s way the cookie crumbles, right boy?” Coral addressing the dog. Then she pinches the fur on his neck like they’re pals, never mind she’s planning to kill him if he doesn’t get rescued. Jimmy stares at the dog, and senses that the animal knows exactly what’s going on. He reaches out to scratch the dog’s head and the dog nips his finger. The curses that fly from Jimmy’s mouth make both women laugh.

  “Fella’s got some personality, I’ll tell you that,” Coral says.

  Jimmy pulls out his cell phone as Coral places the dog on the counter. The animal’s nails click on the burnt-orange Formica surface in a mad tap dance as he tries to run over the side. Coral holds him in place by sticking a finger through his collar as Jimmy aims his camera-phone, centering the dog in the frame.

  “You know that girl got murdered at the convenience store the other day?” Coral asks. “Little booger was hers.”

  This brings Jimmy up short. He takes
the picture then turns to Coral. “Where’d they find him?”

  “Stuffed in a drawer, I heard.” Jimmy snaps another picture. “Cops brought him in. His dog tag says ‘Diablo.’” Jimmy eyes the dog, still straining to leap off the counter. Diablo has no plans to go gently into that good night.

  “Think anyone’s gonna want him?” Jimmy asks.

  “Adults are your hardest placements. I’d say this guy’s six or seven years old, so his chances don’t look so good.”

  “Tough luck,” Jimmy says.

  “No shit,” says Esmeralda.

  Coral says, “How about you, Jimmy?”

  “How about me, what?”

  “You know anyone might want this angry little son of a bitch?”

  “Maybe for target practice,” Jimmy says, taking a closer look at his finger, where a dot of blood has appeared.

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6

  ELECTION DAY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Jimmy has just returned to the District Attorney’s Indio office after having interviewed a complainant at the Whispering Sands trailer park whose husband owes her nearly twenty-three thousand dollars in spousal support and has not been heard from in six months. Perspiration dampens his short-sleeved plaid shirt and there’s a two-inch high pile of paperwork in the in-box. He gets started on it but his mind keeps wandering to Hard, to Randall and Kendra, to Oz Spen­gler, to Glenn Korver, and to Cali and whether anything’s going to happen between them. Jimmy’s not sure he wants a girlfriend in his life right now. And after the way things went down with the investigation, he’s not confident they can recreate whatever it was they had shared that evening anyway.

  Jimmy drinks several cups of coffee. He reflects on his parents and the simple faith they shared. Truly, he wishes he had that to cling to. Then, seated at his office desk, he has the following IM exchange with Bodhi Colletti.

  Jimmy Duke

  Is the dharma something to believe in, like a religion?

  DharmaGirl@gmail.com

  it’s something you experience, and once you get a hint of the freedom inherent in the experience, you become motivated to practice more to develop the capacity to extend the experience for longer periods, even during difficult times in your life.

  At first he is disappointed with Bodhi Colletti’s answer. He wishes the dharma were something in which he could believe for the simple reason that belief is easy. If he could believe in something it would solve so many of his problems. If the dharma can be for someone who believes in nothing, it could be exactly what he is looking for. It’s not that he believes in nothing. At the very least, he has an abiding belief in Jimmy Ray Duke. He is not sure how this squares with the Buddhist concept of no-self that he has recently discovered. At some point in the future, he will have to ask

  In the waiting area an eye-catching woman is talking to the receptionist. She’s wearing white short-shorts, red pumps and a clinging sleeveless black top with a scooped neckline that shows off several inches of tanned cleavage. Her long dark hair is parted in the middle and she wears large black-rimmed, designer knock-off sunglasses. He immediately makes her for an exotic dancer.

  The receptionist, a middle-aged Latina with short dark hair and large gold hoop earrings turns to Jimmy, who is on his way to the bathroom. “This lady says she has information on the murders at the convenience store. That’s Glenn Korver’s case, right?”

  “That’s right,” Jimmy says.

  “Mr. Korver’s not here right now,” the receptionist tells the woman.

  Jimmy introduces himself and extends his hand to the woman. “Mr. Korver’s one of my colleagues.” Her handshake is light, airy, like a cloud. He notices her French manicure.

  “I’m Princess,” she says. He asks her what she wants to talk to his colleague about and tells him she has information germane to the investigation. Because Jimmy can’t face more paperwork, and because he would like to have sex with Princess despite how unethical that would be, and most of all because he wants to be working on this case, he suggests they go around the corner for coffee, his treat.

  As they walk to the coffee shop Jimmy notices the outline of the red thong she’s wearing through the fabric stretched across her perfect bottom. It’s impossible to place her barely discernible accent but he wants to go there and lie on the beach under the shade of a palm tree while Princess, wearing exactly what she has on now, lovingly performs a cornucopia of sex acts on him. In the midst of this reverie he wonders if the Buddha ever had to deal with someone like Princess.

  The coffee shop is a chain. Princess has taken a table in the back and she smiles at Jimmy in a practiced way as he places a coffee with cream and two sugars on the table in front of her. Her teeth are large and white. They are seated in the back and at mid-morning, the place is empty. A slightly overweight girl with an inch of dark roots in her lank blonde hair wipes the counter with a rag.

  Princess looks around the coffee shop. When Jimmy catches her in profile he clocks the bruise surrounding her left eye. She says: “Can there be a reward in a case where someone got accused but now there’s information saying someone else did the crime?”

  “Why do you ask?” Wonders what exactly she’s talking about and hopes it’s not something dull and domestic.

  “Do you have a tree in your backyard that grows money?” Jimmy shakes his head no, says he wishes he did. “Me neither. So how do you find out if there’s rewards?”

  “You can research this on-line, you know,” Jimmy hoping she gets to the point. Despite his attraction, the man has his limits.

  “You know that case where they say maybe some police chief did two murders?” Jimmy’s ears prick up like a Doberman’s. He is no longer thinking of sex with Princess.

  “Yeah?”

  “That police chief, he didn’t kill those people.”

  “Really?”

  She takes a sip of her coffee. Jimmy looks away, not wanting to pressure her. A pair of retirees, a husband and wife, is now seated quietly at a window table. Princess dips her head and lowers her voice. “A couple of days ago, those two people at the convenience store? That was Odin and another guy.”

  “Who’s Odin?”

  “My husband,” she says.

  The scenario where the aggrieved female looking for revenge lays something on the male’s doorstep is one with which Jimmy is familiar so he looks directly into her eyes and says: “He knock you around?”

  “You a social worker?”

  “Just trying to figure out what’s going on.”

  “His name is Odin Brick, and you need to arrest him.”

  “Someone’s already being charged in that crime.”

  Princess returns his gaze without blinking. “I’m telling you, they got the wrong guy.”

  “How come you didn’t notify anyone sooner?”

  “What, like yesterday? This thing only happened a couple of days ago.” Rising, she smoothes her shorts over the inch of her thighs they cover. “I can go to the cops . . . ”

  “No, no, no . . . wait” he says, grabbing her wrist. “Don’t.” She bites her lip, hesitates, then she sits back down. Jimmy asks her why she didn’t go to the cops in the first place.

  “You work for the D.A., right?” Jimmy nods. “I like to watch my cop shows on TV. Don’t the cops have to bring it to the D.A, before anything can happen?”

  Jimmy tells her that’s true. He asks her about Odin, and why she thinks he was involved in the murders, and the story she tells makes him think maybe she’s more than an unhappy wife. But when she says this: “The other night he walks in and his face has been shot up. First he tells me it’s a hunting accident, like I’m slow. I had to go to the hospital in San Bernardino and say I accidentally shot him”—that’s when Jimmy is convinced.

  “It wasn’t you who shot him?” he says, testing her.

  Princess glares across the table. “I should have gone to the cops.”

  “Easy, Tiger.”

  Taking out a pen and pa
d, Jimmy gets Princess to give all of Odin’s particulars, full name, address, where he works, who his friends are, what kind of hours he keeps and whether he’s armed. When Jimmy asks her if she and Odin are still cohabitating, she says she’s at a motel. She’s left her son with a friend and she’d like to go get him. This hangs between them for a moment. Jimmy thinks about inviting her to stay in his trailer. Realizes it might not look good. He takes his wallet out and counts six twenties, cleans himself out in the process.

  “This should help you out.”

  “I don’t need money.”

  Impressed, he folds the cash and places it back in his pocket. He assumed she would try to hustle him. “One more thing. What hospital did you say you took him to?”

  “Our Lady of Lourdes in San Bernardino.”

  He asks for her cell phone number and jots it down. Hands her his card, tells her he’ll be in touch. Jimmy says goodbye to Princess in front of the coffee shop. As soon as she rounds the corner, he phones Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital to see if her story checks out. When he hears that a man came in with buckshot in his face and a wife who claimed to be the marksman he doesn’t bother returning to the office. Jimmy punches a search into his hand held device. The results come up instantly. Odin Brick: Afghanistan vet, busted for assaulting a police officer, sentenced to three years in Calipatria, time off for good behavior. It does not escape his notice that Odin’s dates at the prison overlap those of his brother.

  As a teenager, Jimmy had gone to the Fontana Speedway a few times to watch the races and even then sensed there was something ridiculous about it, testosterone-choked men driving in circles like they had some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder. He hasn’t been to Fontana in years. The town is an unsightly sprawl of mini-malls and cheaply built houses. Papi’s Auto Salvage is on an industrial road a couple of miles from the Speedway. As Jimmy parks his truck, two young Latinos in green jumpsuits and baseball caps are removing an engine from a Chevy four door sedan that has been totaled. They ignore him when he gets out and heads for the office.