“Alright,” he says, shaking his head, and though he clearly doesn’t like it, he invites me in. He doesn’t seem to remember our first conversation and says he’s got something he wants me to see. I’m wondering if he’s already got his daughter kneeling in some little chapel wing he’s built onto the abode, which could potentially close this case a lot quicker than I’d like, but then he hasn’t mentioned anything about the daughter I’m not supposed to know about, so I keep my mouth shut. You have to learn to play dumb and let people talk, to pretend you’re not actually heaven-sent, not to mention that you’re just one delayed promotion away from archangel.
“Took you long enough to get over here,” he’s saying as he spins around to drag race across a room the size of a hotel lobby, moving so fast the front wheels of the chair lift up off the ground. I trot along behind him, past modern sculptures, Chinese vases, and furniture you can’t buy in South Texas. On the far side of the room, he hits the brakes and comes to attention before a large gold-framed painting on the wall. It’s a portrait of Mary, mother of Jesus, with a creamy white face, a blue scarf covering her head and a mysterious smile that honestly might give a fella ideas if she could come up with more than two dimensions.
“My prize possession,” he says. “I love that painting. What do you think of her?”
“She’s something,” I say, wondering where this is going.
“Look at her eyes, Willie.” So I look at her eyes. “What color would you say those eyes are?”
I say blue. He snorts and tells me to be specific. “Royal blue? Sky blue? Slate blue?”
“Mister Shore,” I say real slow, exploring my dramatic range, “I do missing persons, I do background checks, and I do some spectacular divorces. What I don’t do, I’m afraid, is shades of blue. Wish I could recommend someone else to you, but the specialists are few and far between.”
“I’d call it turquoise,” he says, nodding like he’s just confirmed the lack of pulse in a dead man. “Look at her,” he says. “She’s disgusting.”
Which is how the long story of Harry Shore and his beloved blue-eyed Madonna begins. She was done in the late fifteenth century by the school of the Italian painter Botticelli, he tells me over coffee, which he insists on brewing and serving himself, which is apparently how he insists on doing everything. He doesn’t offer cream and tells me I can’t afford the sugar. Then he tells me that his worthless daughter Fernanda has somehow swapped his priceless original for a fake. He can’t say when, he can’t say how, but he’s sure of it. The eyes give it away. His Madonna has deep blue eyes – midnight blue – and these aren’t midnight blue. He knows her face better than he knows his own, and he sure as hell knows she never had turquoise eyes.
“So, Fernanda,” I say, pulling out the little prop notebook and pencil I find in my suit from some past investigation. Fernanda, I write in the little notebook. But first he wants to tell me about Lulu, the daughter who turned out right. Two years younger than Fernanda, she’s the one who’ll inherit the estate, including the rightly blue-eyed Madonna once I find it, although considering the state of my suit he says he’s not convinced I could find a dry-cleaner if called upon. Lulu, on the other hand, is clean of mind and clean of body. Took orders at sixteen and is now a nun who has devoted her life to saving little orphans across the border in Acapulco, Mexico.
“And I don’t intend to have those little orphans cheated by a no-good slut,” he says. Which gets us to our first deadly: lust. “Fernanda has nearly been the ruin of me over the years, principally due to her unwillingness to keep her clothes on.” He’s bailed her out of countless situations, both romantic and business, the business situations usually the result of some romance. If she were truly evil, maybe he could admire her – that at least requires some conviction. But no, she’s just sloppy. The most recent folly is an art gallery she’s opened up in New York City. He provided that money on condition she never ask him for another cent. Then she began harassing him to let her sell the Madonna. He refused, they fought and haven’t spoken since. Now she’s stolen it. Replaced it with a fake. He’d go to the police, but he doesn’t want the family name dragged into this, so for lack of anyone better, he’s called me. Which gets us to the deadly known as greed. What it doesn’t get us to is why he’s been praying for Fernanda’s soul, but the first thing you learn as a detective in the Paradise Police Department is that what they pray for is rarely what they really want. When you know a higher power is listening, you tend to keep your bug in your box.
Now Saint Chief’s crack about Shore’s new Sunday School wing is starting to make some sense, and I’m figuring Mister Shore’s bug sleeps in a little gold bed. What Saint Chief still can’t abide is that even in heaven, the prayers of rich folks get heard first. You build a new Sunday School wing and pray for chocolate ice cream, some higher up will make sure one of us gets sent down with a scoop. It doesn’t bother me, really. That’s just the way it is everywhere, and I’ve never known it to be different, whether you’re in heaven or on earth.
When it comes time to discuss my fee, I figure that if he’s been given a sign, he’s not liable to doubt handing over the kind of cash I’ll need to do this properly, so I tell him two hundred dollars a day, and I tell him that doesn’t include expenses, so I’ll need five thousand up front. Not a blink, not a tremor. That box is shut up tighter than a bank vault. He zips over to a desk, writes out a check and zips back, at which point it’s no small satisfaction to catch him sucking wind. Then he gives me the address of Fernanda’s gallery in New York and the name of his insurer, who’s located there too. He’ll call ahead in case I want to stop by and talk to them. He’d prefer it if I didn’t mention his suspicion of theft, but they should at least have some proper photographs on file, which might give me some idea of how the eyes are supposed to look.
“From here on out, Mister Shore,” I say, “I dream in midnight blue. I’m inventing a fetching new dance move I’m calling the Midnight Blue, and I’ll order midnight blue if I can find it on the menu. Also, before I leave I just wanted to say what a genuine honor it is to be working for you. I guess I don’t get to Sunday mornings at Saint Pete’s as much as I should, but whenever I do, it’s a genuine pleasure to read scripture over in that new Sunday School wing. Hell, when was it – just last month, I guess – I was talking to that lovely Caroline Susan, and she was saying how it’s just done wonders for attendance.”
To my surprise, this little speech doesn’t seem to gratify the old man in the slightest. If possible, his face becomes even harder, and when I mention Caroline it nearly cracks, at which point our fearless detective gets a little glimpse into the elder’s box. Apparently the ex is no longer the paragon of Christian virtue she was the last time we spoke, which may explain why he hasn’t taken the time to remember that I was once married to her.
“Are you working for her?” he barks, eyes now a blue I’d call ice.
I show him the check. “Mister Shore,” I say, “you just gave me five thousand reasons to be working for you.”
“She could give you a few thousand more,” he snarls, “courtesy of that construction boondoggle you mentioned. Richard used to be an honest builder before he met that bitch. Now there’s true evil. I’d kill her with my own bare hands, and you can tell her I said so.”
I whistle through my teeth like I just couldn’t be more shocked by this unexpected news while remembering the talent Caroline always had for inspiring vivid fantasies of her untimely death. “Put in the limestone and charged you for the marble, huh?”
“I just hired you to do a job,” he says, looking as if he’s calculating what his bare hands could do to me. “So you’d best go do it.”
And though I’d like to ask him more about the sins of my ex-wife, I’m pretty sure she’ll still be sinning the next time we meet, so I walk out of there even faster than he can roll, out into a clear blue morning feeling like I’ve just stolen a Madonna of my own, a Madonna with a belly fetish, a Madonna not unsuscep
tible to my devastating tango, a Madonna who, for the time I’ve got on earth, has eagerly agreed to be my one and only girl.
2
Witness the arctic polar bear as he emerges from his hibernatory lair. He is big, and he is bad, and he’s slept for too long. Now hear him roar. This is the arctic polar bear. Yes sir, I’m emerging from hiding. Lightning has shot down from a cloud. A great white beast has arisen from his slumber and stalks the earth again.
Not to be confused with your North American black bear, which is much less adaptable than the polar bear hibernatorially. I know this from a little girl of Eskimoan heritage with whom I once exchanged a few Eskimo kisses on the road in northern Oregon. What she told me is that while the black bear is a strictly wintertime hibernator, your polar bear will choose its time depending on weather and food supply. Knows what it needs and manages accordingly. I like to think I share those same secrets – of adapting myself to circumstances – of knowing when to hold ‘em or to fold ‘em, so to speak – and with five thousand dollars in my pocket, mister you are about to hear me roar.
First order of business, however, is converting Shore’s check into something green with a little more heft to it. I drive back up the coast towards my hometown, which resembles most of those you’ve never heard of along the Gulf. The air is good, the sunsets are fine, and there’s plenty of fishing for those so inclined. You also get some strange characters mixed in with the suburban types, and I guess I can’t except myself from that bunch. Sun-crazy retirees, ex-sailors, seasonal drunks, and those on the run who ran till they hit the Gulf of Mexico. I fall into this last category, I guess, except I started out here. By the time I hit fourteen, however, I was on my own and on the road, California to the New York Islands. Give it a little catchy beat, and that one could be my theme song. Then after more than a few false starts, and more than a few spectacular conclusions, I found myself drawn back to the Gulf again. Whatever I had of family was long gone, but I guess somehow I thought I might like to feel settled in a place again. Reunited with Caroline, got a detective’s license, and picked up a few odd jobs, then stuck around long enough to know that settling’s not for me, but that didn’t give me long enough.
I pass a couple of bait shops just opening up, some drive-thrus serving late breakfasts, and decide to stop in at Pete’s for a second breakfast, specifically for the pancakes. Pete still works the kitchen and piles them up right over the sausage. Comes out looking like a birthday cake. Then it’s just a matter of blueberry syrup and some serious knife and fork work, a delicious combination if you ask me. Betty, Pete’s waitress, never lets my coffee cup get down past halfway. She’s wearing her candy-striped uniform, which I do like on her, and once she’s wondered where I’ve been and we’ve gotten in our morning flirtations, I go out back to call this fella I know down at the police station. Figure I’ll get a little head start on the Madonna. Early bird and the worm and whatnot. Jimbo James is his name. I’ve known him for a couple of years and share a drink with him from time to time for lack of better company. I also happen to know he married above his station, so to speak, to a little redhead who works in the suit department of Fabien’s Fashion for Men. Agreeable to a little nip and tuck when you’re looking to set yourself up in Italian style. Keys to the dressing rooms and whatnot. Gave ol’ Jimbo no end of pain, till I guess he figured he had no choice but to become a hard-ass. Started cruising around in his trooper at a cool five miles per hour just begging you to jaywalk. That kind of thing.
So I get Jimbo on the line, and he tells me he hadn’t heard they let me out, which is the kind of material you’ll get from Jimbo, not that you can entirely blame him.
“Funny stuff, Jimbo,” I say. “Actually I just wanted to pick your brain for a moment. Don’t get nervous. Really I just wanted to know if you’d run a name through the computer for me.”
“Don’t tell me you’re working, Willie,” he says, doing his best to sound real awestruck or whatever. It’s the little things you miss.
“The name is Fernanda Shore,” I say. “Just the usual, if you don’t mind, Jimbo. Past arrests, credit rating, current address, anything you can find.” He tells me he’ll see what he can do. Even manages to be relatively polite about it, although we both know that’s because there’s a bottle of high-dollar bourbon in it for him.
In the lot outside Pete’s, I manage to get the truck to turn over yet again, which would be enough cause for celebration on a regular day. She’s stood by me through thick and thin, my truck. Silver to my Lone Ranger, if you’ll permit me. But God bless her, she’s seen better days. Not worth the trouble to sell, if you want to be blunt about it. Not more than a thousand miles left in her either, but that’s enough to get me into town and the savings and loan, where I cash Shore’s check and come walking out with a stack of hundreds not much thicker than a pack of cards. Maybe I should have gotten it in twenties for sheer effect, I’m thinking, as I stroll down the block to Felicity Liquors to buy a bottle of Wild Turkey for Jimbo.
Then I decide I may as well stop by Fabien’s and pay Junie a visit. She’s bobbed her hair real short, which personally I don’t think becomes her, but she is pleased to see me. Together we pick out this real slick blue Italian suit in what they call Super-100 wool, the sort of suit where they’ve still got the stitching on the shoulders and the sleeves are still unhemmed. I try it on, and man that’s luxury. I feel like Mr. Marcello Mastroianni, the Italian movie star. Junie seems to agree as she goes around pinching me under the arms and between the legs. Giggles a little and says, “Which way do you hang, Willie?”
“Hell, Junie,” I say. “You know me. Guess they’d better go ahead and sew in that third leg.”
She giggles some more and sticks some pins in me like I’m some voodoo doll, all while giving me the kind of looks like she’s trying to see into the depths of my wasted soul or whatever. Once we’re done she steps back to look me over. “Boy, Willie,” she says. “You look like Super One Million.”
“Hell, I’ll take it,” I say. “How soon can you make it fit?” She tells me they can get the tailor working on it after lunch and I can try it on that afternoon. Says she won’t mind staying late if necessary.
“Thanks, Junie,” I say. “I’m taking a little business trip tomorrow and won’t be detained.”
She says she thinks she can manage it, and we go over to the register where I take out my stack of green, split the pack, shuffle them up and deal out seven hundred-dollar bills. Then I give her the little smile I like to call the Heartstopper. I mean I just bring it all out at once and hope we’re both still breathing when it’s over. Junie is not unaffected. She rests her cheek on her shoulder and does something cute with her eyelashes. “I’ll see you later, honeybunch,” I say, and stride right out of there, La Dolce Vita.
From a payphone out on Las Colinas, I call to book an airplane ticket. Flying may be my only remaining phobia, which I guess is funny when you consider where I spend most of my time, but contrary to popular opinion, they don’t give you wings up there, which suits me just fine. Given the circumstances, however, I don’t have much other choice. I’ll be lucky if the truck gets me to Houston.
Then it’s just a matter of the worldly goods. We’re talking a suitcase of clothes hidden under the backseat and a thirty-eight caliber Colt I’ve carried since I was a kid. Fired only twice in all those years, once through the minibar in a motel north of Omaha, once through my own hand which required a few stitches. Lonesome nights, you don’t want to let them go too late. Nevermind. The truth is I do occasionally enjoy walking down the sidewalk feeling it there against my leg. I mean you just notice more when you’re lethal. That sun just seems to shine a little brighter.
Once I’m organized, the weather’s shaping up so nicely that I decide to drive up the coast to Big Merl’s for a king crab extravaganza. I do seconds, and I even do thirds. Clean out the local population, so to speak. Tastes so good, Greenpeace’ll have a citation on me by dawn, I fear, but by then I’ll be
long gone. Crab killer on the run.
From the restaurant I check in on Jimbo. He tells me they’ve got nothing on Fernanda Shore. No arrests, no credit problems, no address, which isn’t a big surprise. I get the impression from her father that Fernanda’s a rolling stone. Gathers no moss, a woman like that. In any case, I thank Jimbo and tell him Felicity’s got a bottle for him. “Any leads on the Willie Lee shooting?” I ask before hanging up.
“Like I told you before, Willie,” he says, “we’re taking that investigation real serious, but given the victim’s prior history, our list of suspects now has more names on it than the phonebook.”
“So does that list include you?” I ask, but of course he hangs up, so after a leisurely digestif, I cruise back over to Fabien’s to see Junie for finishing touches. She and the tailor get me up on this podium like a museum piece and ease me into seven hundred dollars. The pants come up, tight enough to remind you what you got down there and brother not a thread more. The jacket slips on. I mean your arms just click right into place. You are compact and delicious. What a pleasure. Clothes don’t make the man, but I sure can’t understand people who buy cheap threads. I mean you spend your whole life in them. Me, I make it a habit of buying several notches above my station. They last you twice as long, and more importantly, they keep you optimistic. Makes Junie and the tailor optimistic too, which is the way you want it to be. He shakes my hand twice, and Junie even throws in a pair of silk underwear. Wants me to try those on too, but I tell her I’m more interested in looking at some highly fashionable shirts, like one of your better pink paisleys. They sell anything like that at Fabien’s?
Planet Willie Page 2