Then he spotted the spic in the pickup. Earl Rimms would have preferred spotting an old woman in a Mercedes, of course. Someone he could grab by the neck and throw out onto the street. And have a purse left on the seat to make this miserable day worthwhile, while he drove a decent car out of this goddamn neighborhood which must be overrun by cops looking for him. But he didn't see a single person sitting in a parked car on the old and seedy residential area around Magnolia and Leeward, except the spic in the pickup.
The spic in the pickup was a Durango Mexican named Chuey Valdez. He was a gardener and had the back of the pickup truck loaded with lawn tools. He'd had a bad day too. Two customers had stiffed him, promising to pay him next week. Chuey Valdez had found that money and mangoes were not growing on trees in Los Angeles as he'd been promised by the pollero who hustled him illegally across the Mexican border for two hundred American dollars. He was working his ass off in Los Angeles and he was cranky. He was not about to let some big sweaty may ate steal his battered pickup truck.
Chuey Valdez was eating his lunch of corn tortillas and cold beans and the treat of the week-one whole avocado-when Earl Rimms walked up to his truck.
"Okay, climb outa there, greaseball," Earl Rimms said, his depthless black eyes snapping like a whip.
"Joo wan' sometheeng?" Chuey Valdez asked warily.
"I want your neck. I want your balls. I want your fuckin bloodl An I'm gonna have them if you don't get the fuck outa that truck!"
So Chuey Valdez, as was his custom, shrugged in the face of overwhelming odds as if to say, "Si, senor." He picked up his sandwich bag and his avocado and his tortillas and got out of the truck. Then Chuey Valdez reached into his sandwich bag and withdrew the kitchen knife with which he had been peeling his avocado.
When Earl Rimms, feeling as deadly as a white-lipped cobra, turned to give the little greaseball a shot of knuckles in the mouth, Chuey Valdez plunged that kitchen knife right into the sweating chest of Earl Rimms. Right under the sternum. Right up to the handle. Then he jerked the knife out and tossed it into the back of the truck and stepped away a few feet to survey the job.
Earl Rimms just stood there with his back to the truck, looking at Chuey Valdez. He clearly couldn't believe it. He held both hands cupped over the puncture wound and said in disbelief, "You little spic! You stuck me!"
To which Chuey Valdez shrugged noncommittally and said, "Joo made me mad."
"You fuckin little greaseball!" Earl Rimms said in wonder, and with each beat of his heart, with each word he spoke, a jet of blood would squirt out from his body and splash onto the asphalt.
Then Earl Rimms turned and began walking aimlessly toward Wilshire Boulevard while Chuey Valdez contemplated being a good American and calling the authorities, or being a smart wetback and getting the hell out of here.
As it turned out, he didn't have to decide. Jane Wayne, who was by now crazy with fear for The Bad Czech, came squealing around the corner of Magnolia in her black-and-white Plymouth with her nearly comatose partner, Rumpled Ronald. Earl Rimms stopped, pointed to his chest and at Chuey Valdez as if to say, "That little greaseball stabbed me!" and staggered across the lawn of a stucco duplex, collapsing by the driveway.
Within five minutes there were a dozen police cars blocking the street, their red and blue lights gumballing in all directions. Earl Rimms had dragged himself toward the backyard of the duplex and was lying there, getting very cold, waiting for the ambulance.
The other cops kept back the crowd of rubberneckers, directed the traffic past the police ears and waited to wave in the paramedics, while The Bad Czech, battered and exhausted, stood with his partner surveying the inert body of Earl Rimms.
"He ain't gonna make it, is he, Cecil?" The Bad Czech asked in the flattest tone of voice Cecil Higgins had ever heard from him.
"I don't think so. He musta bled two quarts already. Course these miserable motherfuckers like Earl Rimms, somehow they live when anybody else'd cash it in. He might make it."
Then The Bad Czech said, "Cecil, go ask Jane Wayne if she radioed the paramedics that he's gonna need plasma right away."
"It ain't like you to be so concerned," Cecil Higgins said suspiciously. But he turned to see whether Jane Wayne had informed the ambulance as to the nature of the puncture wound.
The Bad Czech looked dementedly down at the inert figure of Earl Rimms and said, "I think you ain't breathin, Earl. You need CPR."
The Bad Czech rolled up his shirt sleeves and knelt at the head of the mugger, and began giving him cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The Bad Czech pushed down on the bloody chest of Earl Rimms and the blood shot two feet in the air. The Bad Czech put the stingy-brim hat of Earl Rimms over the puncture and pushed down on his chest and the jet of blood clattered against the crown of the straw stingy-brim. The Bad Czech began rhythmically pushing on the chest of Earl Rimms and the blood pounded and clattered against the inside of the straw hat.
An elderly black woman, who lived in the duplex where Earl Rimms had fallen, finally got enough courage after peeking through the lace curtains. She walked out on her back porch. The Bad Czech sweated as he worked on Earl Rimms.
The old black woman was overcome with emotion. "Oh, that's so wonderful, Officer," she said to the monster cop, who looked up, startled. "You're saving that poor man's life!"
The Bad Czech turned his crazed eyes on the old woman and said, "That's right, ma'am. He ain't breathin and this is his only chance. If I can resuscitate him."
"I'm going right inside and call the mayor's office," she said. "You deserve a medal."
As the geysers of blood thudded against the crown of the stingy-brim, while The Bad Czech pushed on Earl Rimms' chest, Cecil Higgins returned. He said, "Czech! What the fuck're you do-in?"
The Bad Czech had his bloody hands pressed around the rim of the stingy-brim. When he straightened up and removed it, a hatful of blood washed over the body of Earl Rimms and onto the concrete driveway. The Bad Czech had to jump back to keep from getting splashed.
"You pumped him dry" Cecil Higgins whispered.
"Quiet, Cecil," The Bad Czech said. "Don't make a big thing outa it."
"Czech! Czech!" Cecil Higgins said, grabbing the monster cop by the shirtfront, looking for a shred of sanity in those demented gray eyes. "That's murder! Did anybody see this?"
"I think he was dead anyways, Cecil," The Bad Czech said.
They heard the ambulance cut its siren and slide to the curb. A few minutes later The Bad Czech, Cecil Higgins, Jane Wayne, Rumpled Ronald, Dolly and Dilford, two detectives and a patrol sergeant were all in the street discussing the incident. The Bad Czech reassured Chuey Valdez that he wouldn't even be charged with littering, and the only way he could've done better was if he'd taken Earl Rimms' scalp like a fuckin Apache.
The paramedic walked out to the clutch of cops while his partner covered the body. "He's long gone," the paramedic said. "I never saw so much blood, even from a puncture like that. The coroner'll have to go to his spleen for a blood sample. He looks like something from Transylvania got to him."
Which caused Cecil Higgins to glance involuntarily at The Bad Czech, who said, "This ain't been my day. I want a burrito."
As they were preparing to leave, the old black woman who lived in the duplex hobbled out to the patrol sergeant and said, "I just want you to know that you should be proud of your men. That big officer there tried to save that poor man even if he was a criminal. That's Christian charity. I want his name so's I can write a letter to the mayor about it."
"Thank you, ma'am," The Bad Czech said shyly. "It don't hurt to remember that we're all God's children."
The Bad Czech insisted on getting a burrito from the roach wagon before they headed back to the station for all the reports. His uniform was a mess, but the paramedics had cleaned up the cuts on his face and hands. He'd drunk seven free Pepsis, much to the chagrin of the Mexican on the roach wagon, but all things considered, he looked remarkably fit after his ordeal.
/> Cecil Higgins was a wreck.
"Even when ya hung the wino, I thought ya wouldn't really do it," Cecil Higgins said, looking up at his belching partner, who had both cheeks full of burrito. "I mean really."
"It ain't easy to say about somethin really" The Bad Czech said, pondering it. "I mean what's real and what's really ..."
"Don't be talkin that crazy shit again!" Cecil Higgins yelled.
"Look, Cecil," The Bad Czech said as he stared at the lake in MacArthur Park, groping for the words. "Consider the Laser Lady. Now she says the lasers are real. What's more real than when ya feel somethin painful? Who kin say they ain't real? It's her fuckin bean the lasers are shootin at. That might be really real, know what I mean?"
"What's that got to do with hangin winos and doin a Dracula on Earl?"
"Well, it's hard to explain but ... it's like it ain't really real. Stuff like that."
"I ain't ready for San Quentin," Cecil Higgins said. "I ain't ready to have a asshole big enough for Evel Knievel to pop wheelies in."
"You ain't gonna ask to stop workin with me, are ya, Cecil?" The Bad Czech looked alarmed for the first time.
Just then the sergeant drove up and parked at the curb. "Hurry up and get into the station, Czech!" he yelled. "The captain got a call from the old lady who saw you trying to resuscitate the suspect. He thinks it might make a good public relations story, so a television crew's coming down!"
"Okay, Sarge, we're on our way!" The Bad Czech said.
And when the sergeant waved and sped away, Cecil Higgins could only look dumbfounded.
On their drive to the station Cecil Higgins said, "I been thinkin, Czech. There's a certain risk to workin with you. I got to face that. What could ya offer me if I'm willin to run the risk a spendin my old age in San Quentin with a asshole big enough for a bobsled race and the Lawrence Welk orchestra?"
"You're the on'y one I kin talk to, Cecil," The Bad Czech said eagerly. "I'll buy ya a drink every night at Leery's!"
"Ya do that anyways. Make it two drinks."
"Okay, two drinks!"
"Maybe you're on to somethin," Cecil Higgins said deliberately. "You're gonna be kissin babies and have your picture in the papers."
"Cecil, this really ain't worth so much stewin about."
"But that old woman saw you suckin him dry. I mean you looked like a big ol blue vampire bat, but she saw a compassionate Christian hero."
"Good thing I got a clean uniform for television," The Bad Czech said, warming up to the thought of it.
"I think maybe you ain't crazy," Cecil Higgins said. "I think maybe Fm crazy."
"I wish you could be a hero too," The Bad Czech said sincerely. "Damn, I sure hope they send that foxy little blonde from Channel Two!"
"When ya buy me my two drinks tonight, I want ya to explain it all to me," Cecil Higgins said. "I wanna know what's real and what's really real. I think I'm ready to listen."
Chapter SEVEN
THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING
The "offices" of lester beemer were not exactly what Mario Villalobos expected. The deceased private investigator didn't cater to the carriage trade of Pasadena. His office was on Colorado Boulevard, near the black ghetto, the pawnshops and secondhand stores, an eyesore neighborhood trying to save itself through urban renewal.
Urban renewal had passed Lester Beemer by. He was a former policeman from Fresno who had settled in Pasadena when he was still a young man. Lester Beemer was sixty-six years old at the time of his death on Saturday, May 1. He had been a licensed private investigator for thirty-three of those years and, from the look of things, hadn't been a total success.
The janitor admitted Mario Villalobos reluctantly. The office had been cleaned out. There were empty metal file cabinets. There were two 1950's vintage desks of ugly limed oak. There was a tinny old sunburst clock, same era. There was a hat rack, a manual typewriter, a few green metal office chairs, and that was all.
Mario Villalobos next went to the apartment house where Lester Beemer had lived for the last nineteen years of his life. His bachelor apartment was already rented to another tenant, but Lester Beemer's landlady, a surly hag with a whiskey voice, provided his epitaph: "He was a dirty old man but he always paid his rent."
"Whadda you mean, dirty old man?" Mario Villalobos asked, glad to be standing on the steps outside the apartment house which reeked of wine and seemed to be occupied by young blacks and white pensioners.
"He liked young girls," the landlady said. "Got a cigarette?"
She sucked half the cigarette inside her toothless mouth when Mario Villalobos held the match. She took two puffs and said, "He never had much money even when he was doing good. Reason is he drank too much and he screwed young girls. He always had some whore in his room. Whores he picked up in nigger bars in L. A. Sometimes he had white girls with whore written all over them. He liked niggers too."
"Ever see this girl before?" Mario Villalobos asked, showing the landlady a mug shot of Missy Moonbeam, an earlier one when she wasn't so ravaged.
"Yeah, could be," she said. "Course they all look alike, those whores. But this one? Could be. I pretty much figured he'd go like he did, screwing himself to death in some whorehouse."
Mario Villalobos asked a few more questions which didn't provide helpful answers, and then he gave his business card to the landlady. "If you think of anything else, either about the blond girl or Lester Beemer, just give me a call."
"He was a dirty old man," the landlady said, taking the card.
"But he always paid his rent," Mario Villalobos nodded.
The next stop was the residence of the part-time secretary of Lester Beemer, whose name appeared on the door sign at Lester Beemer's former office: person to notify if emergency case.
She looked like an emergency case. Her name was Mabel Murphy. She had a red Hibernian face and drank a fifth of booze on an off-day. She was half bagged at four o'clock in the afternoon.
"Aw shit!" she said when Mario Villalobos showed her his badge. "I thought maybe you were an insurance man. I've been hoping old Lester left me a few bucks. Silly of me. The old geezer was always three days ahead of the light, gas and telephone companies."
"How long did you work for him, Miss Murphy?" Mario Villalobos asked, looking around her sixty-year-old wood frame house, built at a time when most of the Pasadena blacks were servants to the rich, and lived in. Mabel Murphy's house was now in the middle of a working-class black neighborhood.
"Off and on, fifteen years," she said. "Lester wasn't a bad guy. Drank too much"-and her eyes said Don't we all? "About time for my first of the day." She got up, waddled to the refrigerator, brought out half a quart of milk and poured it into a water glass which she topped off with Scotch.
"Ulcer?" Mario Villalobos asked.
"Iron stomach," she said. "I just like milk-balls. Learned it from the colored people in the neighborhood."
"Lester Beemer's landlady said he had a taste for prostitutes." Mario Villalobos lit a cigarette after Mabel Murphy got seated.
"Taste for them? You bet," she grinned. "All flavors. He wasn't picky. Just so they were young."
"Did you ever see this one?" Mario Villalobos asked, showing the mug shot of Missy Moonbeam.
She held it under a badly done Tiffany copy and said, "Pretty girl. No, I never saw but one or two of them. He didn't bring them to the office very often. But I heard enough phone conversations to know that he spent plenty of money lining up working girls for himself and for clients."
"For clients? What clients?"
"I don't know," she said. "Most of the work I did was telephone answering, correspondence, checking account, bill paying. Stuff like that. His files were slipshod and that's the way he wanted it. I don't think he paid ten thousand dollars in income tax the whole time I worked for him. He was a secret old bugger. Not the soul of honesty, you understand. Always paid my salary on time though. I used to work Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. The rest of the time he used an answering machi
ne."
"What did he die of?"
"Heart," she said. "Had open-heart surgery twice. The last time they installed a pacemaker. That didn't stop him from enjoying his booze and cigars and it sure didn't stop him from whoring around. I think he almost liked having a bad heart. He loved to tell everybody he was going to die before Christmas. Every Christmas for ten years. Got lots of sympathy that way. But I don't think he got much sympathy from his whores. He was always having me get him cash to pay for services. In advance."
uHow often would he want money that you figured was for prostitutes?"
"Thursday and Friday, usually. And from the withdrawal slips, I knew he'd do it at least one other night."
"Apparently his heart wasn't that bad," Mario Villalobos said.
"As long as the machine kept going," she said. "He always said the little machine in his chest was a child of the god of science. One night the child of the science god took a holiday and that was it."
"Funny way to put it," Mario Villalobos said. "Child of the science god. Did he have an interest in science?"
"Did he have an interest? He was a groupie. He wanted to belong to the Caltech Associates. A lousy little private eye with his dirty necktie and Timex watch, wanting to rub elbows with all those people who give endowments and grants and such. He must've subscribed to half a dozen scientific journals in America and a couple from other countries. It was one of his hobbies. Science, golf and whores."
"Would he've taken a phone call at Caltech's division of chemistry sometime? I found a phone number in the book of a Hollywood prostitute, along with the name Lester."
"He might," she said. "He went over there once in a while. He had a few golfing pals who were members of the faculty. Professors, I guess. Could've been chemists."
"Know any names?"
"No, they never called him. Sometimes he'd just sit around Friday afternoons when he was bored and tell me about his golfing pals from Caltech who were hot candidates for big casino."
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