So I’m wrapped up in bath towels and running again through a hotel in the middle of the night, so tired that for a brief moment I wouldn’t mind sinking back into a cloud for a while. Then I think of Ralph loafing around on his own cloud, and the feeling passes soon enough. A little girl from room service comes by too terrified to even break stride, and if they’re serving breakfast, it does make you wonder what time it’s gotten to be. As long as those corridors are, I don’t have too much trouble keeping in sight of the spangles. I follow her through the sports complex and around the indoor pool, learning once and for all that bath towels just aren’t designed to be worn with any kind of dignity.
Through the weight room and out the other side there’s a sign advertising massage and sauna up another corridor. That’s the only way she could have gone, I figure, so I move up the corridor, opening doors and checking empty rooms as I go. Massage beds with holes in them for the head. A room they call the aquablast with these hoses in it where I guess they spray you down like livestock. Some people will pay for anything once. A clock through an office window says five thirty in the morning. Jesus, I must have slept a while. Really a man can’t help but shake his head as he runs along, going through massage rooms at five thirty in the morning while all the masseuses sleep.
Eventually there’s just one door left. The sign says steam room, and as I push open the door, it appears that somebody’s forgotten to shut off the steam. Visibility’s so bad I can’t even see my feet, and within seconds the towels are so waterlogged that they’re weighing several times my body weight. Making my way to the edge of the room, I bang up against a wooden bench, which appears to run around the whole room. As I feel my way along next to it, I get the sense I’m not alone. Then I get the sense I’ve heard a little jingling, and I lunge for the sound, losing at least one towel in the process, not that I still need layers considering you could crack an egg in there and have an omelet before it hit the floor. Then I’m crashing into something pink, and she’s putting up some fight, but the momentum I’m carrying takes us to the floor. The girl squirms out from underneath me, the folder held wide in one hand, her limbs slick with steam and tough to catch. She makes to escape, I grab a thrashing ankle and pull her back. Then I jump past her and collapse against the door, blocking her exit, and we both sit there catching our breaths on the floor, where fortunately the steam’s not quite as thick. Her sweat-slicked limbs are sprawled in all directions, and the bikini can hardly be said to be doing its job. I’ve had fantasies about this, but never in my fantasies did her veil slip down to reveal a certain Albanian acquaintance of mine whom I like to call Twiggy.
“Let’s do that again,” I say, still having some trouble breathing.
“You’re disgusting,” she says.
“Any idea how to turn off the cloud formations?”
“I tried the switch,” she says. “It’s stuck.”
“Then so are we, sweetheart,” I say. “At least until you tell me what you were doing in my room. And what you’ve done with number twelve and number seven, for that matter.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” she says, though clearly there’s no danger of that.
“How’d you turn up as a belly dancer anyway?”
“You saw me on the chorus line,” she snarls. “I got a job for the night with the girls. I wanted to keep Fernanda in sight. Then once we left the charity benefit he made me stay for belly dancing.”
“I imagine Le Mons found your belly as exciting as your legs and the rest of you,” I say.
“You’re a monster,” she says, moving the folder around behind her. “I’m not giving it back.”
“Dear Twiggy,” I say. “Last I saw you, apart from that chorus line, which was quite honestly riveting, you were running off into the night with my old pal Billy Sidell. Tell me it’s true love and you’re moving to Arizona once you don’t find that Madonna.”
She claims she’s never heard of anybody named Billy. I wink at this and tell her I admire her fidelity, even if it’s to Kafka.
“I hate him,” she says, removing a few scarves and spangles, “but he’s got a car. Alberto had a car. Now I hate him too. Why the hell is it your business anyway?”
“I’m a private investigator,” I tell her. “I was hired by the owner of the painting to get it back.” The heat’s making me feel drunk. Seems like words are getting more difficult to pronounce. I take off another towel to let the body breathe a bit, which brings me down to one, and that’s just a hand towel, I now realize, and nothing you’d want to attempt to use as clothing. A codpiece, I believe it’s called, although unfortunately what it’s trying to cover is a few notches up from the cod on the food chain.
“You ever hear of Ricardo Queso?” I say.
Her eyelids droop, then flicker open. “No,” she says, removing a last scarf, and her arm band, which brings us down to practically nothing.
“Cleans the pores,” I say. “Give me the folder back. God knows what you think you’re going to do with it.”
“God? Do you believe in God?” she says, quite possibly beginning to experience the effects of heat stroke.
“More than you’d believe, sweetheart,” I say, sliding a little closer so I can get my hands on that folder once she passes out.
“Once I fasted for thirty days,” she murmurs, eyelids drooping shut again. “It was a bit like this. The mind begins to lose its hold on reality, but I pushed further, and on the other side I found God.”
“That wasn’t God,” I say, struck for about the billionth time by the dumb things people will say about God. You can spend your life pretending to play hide-and-go-seek with him, but I can report with great and unwanted authority that you won’t find him till you’re dead. “Twiggy, that was more like starvation.”
“Who’s Twiggy…?” she says. Then her chin drops to her chest, and I lunge for the folder. She perks up as quick as a wildcat, and if she was slick before, she’s greased lightning now. Thankfully I am too, but that’s not exactly helping me get my hands on the folder. I grab it, she grabs it back, and even with all the flesh she’s showing, I can’t say I’m enjoying it. I lose her in the clouds, I find her on the floor again, the folder keeps going back and forth till she’s holding part of it and I’m holding part too, and before it’s all through we’ve got enough parts that they’ll never make a Madonna folder again. Wet scraps cover the floor like somebody’s soggy cereal, and from now on any photographic evidence of those dark blue eyes will exist only in my mind.
15
Erasmus writes in his book that if you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you won’t do it, and it won’t happen. I’ve gotten an early start on the day, whether I like it or not, so I’ve decided to take some inspiration from the little Dutchman. Stop thinking and start doing. Pack the suitcase and move on out. I dress and brush my teeth. Then I remember the thirty-eight in the minibar and fish around in there for it, only to find that it’s stuck to the side of the freezer box. I tug on it a bit but can’t get a grip, until it’s clear that this is going to require something a little more scientific. I consider taking the whole damn minibar down to Denver with me, but if you’ve ever tried to haul a minibar up to your shoulder, you know why I don’t. Then I figure I could just unplug the thing and wait it out, but there’s got to be a better solution, I think, so I call up room service and order ten coffees on the double. The guy on the other end of the line wants to check my figures, but I assure him we’re talking double digits, and if it was on the double, now it’s on the triple.
“Are you currently taking any medications?” he says.
“None legally prescribed by a doctor,” I say.
“Any known history of heart troubles in the family?”
“None if we don’t count the broken ones, which might take us to breakfast tomorrow.”
“Alright then, Mister Lee,” he says. “We’ll have them up there on the quadruple.”
That’s service, I tell him. Let
him know that only few times in my life have I had such pleasure talking to room service. Hugo, as the fella’s called, says the feeling’s mutual. I ask him if they by any chance do rental cars, seeing as how I’ve got some business to tend to in the capital city. He says they do, but he can get me a better deal with a buddy of his down at an agency in town and can have something waiting in half an hour. Bravo, I say, but you’ll have to excuse me now as there’s been a knock at my door. I know, he says. Enjoy the coffee.
It’s the same little girl I saw out in the hallway not more than an hour before. She stands there with ten cups of coffee on her tray, and when she sees it’s me, they start rattling like an earthquake’s hit. I take the tray from her and lead her into the room. She sees minibar opened to the gun and squeaks like a mouse.
“I’m a private investigator,” I say to her. She just nods. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m investigating?” She nods again. “To make a long story short,” I say, reaching for my wallet, “the mystery of the human condition.” Hand her a fifty dollar bill. “I don’t imagine I’ll have to use it,” I say, nodding over at the gun, “but you can never be too sure.”
She’s gone before I can even offer her a cup, so I take up a couple of my own, get down on my knees and splash them up into the minibar towards the gun. There’s a little cracking noise, which I take as a good sign, and then I get a little river of caffeine flowing past my boots, which can’t be too good for the leather. Then I take up another couple of cups and get up in there for another attempt, and this time with another crack the gun just slides out as polite as you please into the palm of my hand. That leaves me with six cups of coffee, which if you’ve never attempted I wouldn’t advise. With two you’re feeling pretty good, and three makes you near invincible, four gets a little depressing, but five brings you up a bit again, then with six you’re more or less Frankenstein’s monster. I mean I’m walking down the hill towards town and the rental agency, and out of the corner of my eye the pine needles are bursting off the trees like fireworks. It’s alive! I’m seeing stars, but when I try to chase them down, they turn into butterflies and flutter off.
Hugo’s buddy Flavio meets me on a backstreet at what I guess is his own personal rental establishment, or maybe his home. When he hands me the keys to an El Camino, I can’t say I like it, but I’m on a mission and bravely choose to ignore the fact that I’m cruising down the mountain in a car that wishes it was a truck. Even downhill she only gets up to about fifty, but with the kind of caffeine running through my veins, fifty feels like twice that, and I grip the wheel in fear for my life all the way down to Denver.
Once in town I find a phone booth and use some remaining quarters to call the number on Jeffrey’s scrap of paper, which gets me the switchboard at Denver University. I tell the kid who answers that I need to speak to Professor Barry Farsinelli on urgent art business. He laughs and tells me I’ll need the art department, then transfers me over to a girl called Sherry, who tells me the professor’s working from home today. After a bit of pleasant flirtation, she also tells me his address.
Then I put in a few more quarters and dial the number of the police station in South Texas. I ask to speak to Jimbo James. It’s not the kind of thing you want to make a habit of doing, but I’ve got a question or two that have been weighing on my mind. Jimbo comes on the line and asks where I’ve been. I tell him Vail, Colorado, he asks what they’re holding me for and if the police up here need any cooperation from his department.
“Let me know when you take this on the road, Jimbo,” I say, “so I can be sure and buy me a ticket.”
“From what I hear you can’t afford one,” he says, which I ignore. I couldn’t begin to explain to someone – and especially not to Jimbo – how little money means to an angel.
“Got a question for you. I’m looking for an Alberto Pasha and was wondering if that name rings a bell to any of the great minds in that department of yours.”
“Funny you should ask, Willie,” Jimbo says. “We’d like to talk with Mister Pasha ourselves. We found his car abandoned out at the fisherman’s wharf. Found it with five grams of cocaine in the glove box. You know anything about that? What’s this Mister Pasha to you?”
“Professional secrets, Jimbo. He may be involved in a case I’m working on.”
“Knowledge of a crime is still a crime, Lee.”
“You bring up an interesting point,” I say. “And I’ll be sure to call if I learn anything about Mister Pasha, but in the meantime I have information about another crime that I feel it’s my duty to share.”
“Oh yeah?” he says, voice rising just a touch. “What’s that?”
“The shooting of a certain William Lee four years, eight months, and twenty days ago. The perpetrator was wearing a pink paisley shirt, which I don’t believe was ever mentioned to the police. Correct me if I’m wrong, but pink paisley is just the sort of thing you’d wear when not in uniform, assuming you ever take off that uniform these days.”
He laughs so hard I have to hold the phone away from my ear to keep from going deaf. Not like Jimbo, laughing. Sounds like a bad case of smoker’s cough. “What’s so funny?” I say, popping in another quarter to make sure I don’t miss the answer.
“The only person I know gay enough to wear pink paisley is the victim in that shooting. So I’m developing a theory that the victim caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and decided the world would be a better place if he ended his life.”
“It’s a theory, Jimbo,” I say, “and it’s reassuring to know that you can, in fact, develop a theory. So while you’re on a roll, are there any other known wearers of pink paisley you can think of besides the unfortunate victim, who happened to have moved on from pink paisley about a decade ago?”
“Hmm,” he says, clearly enjoying this more than I ever will. “Another gay male? Only one I can think of would be the fella the gay victim’s wife left him for, although I’m not so sure he’s gay. Might just be castrated, like every man this woman meets. Richard Susan does wear some flashy duds, however.”
Of course Susan’s been tops on my list since the day I went up, but I can’t believe he could identify the trigger end of a gun. Maybe he had something to do with my death, but I doubt he’s the one who did it. The truth is, he never rated me highly enough to want to kill me. “What exactly do you mean by castrated, Jimbo?”
“You’re asking me?” he says, and does a bit more of that laughing. “I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but that woman twists men around her finger and flosses her teeth with them. She’s given Susan about a dozen reasons to shoot her, and they all tend to be half her age with shaved chests.”
“Anyone particular come to mind? Anyone with a fondness for diving boards, by any chance?”
“I guess you’re thinking of Rock Lightford, and yeah, he’d do just as well as any of the others. By the way, if you know anything about Lightford, you’d better fess up. He hasn’t been seen in weeks, and his mother down in Freeport called the other day to report a missing person. He was a favorite in the senior nationals this year.”
“You think Susan might have done something to him?”
More laughter. Jimbo’s apparently becoming a real jovial character. “Richard Susan? That guy gets a splinter on a construction site, he gets all emotional and has to take the day off. Apparently he hasn’t held a hammer in years. Worried about the pedicure.”
“So what’s Caroline up to?” I say, making a tactical decision not to attempt to explain to Jimbo the difference between fingernails and toenails. “And I don’t mean marrying Susan, which is a mystery all to itself. What I mean is that I just can’t believe she’s suddenly found a passion for the triple lindy, or whatever she does. When we were young, we’d go over to Sandy’s pond – remember that? – and she’d be too scared to jump in. I’m telling you, on our honeymoon, she wouldn’t even get her ankles wet at the beach.”
Jimbo starts to say something, but that’s the moment my windfall of Manhatt
an quarters finally runs out, and instead of something that might begin to make a bit of sense, I’m hearing nothing but dial tone.
Making matters worse, if that’s possible, when I get back to the El Camino, Ralph, who’s more or less a dial tone in human form, is sitting behind the wheel and telling me to get in.
16
Farsinelli’s house is on a block near the university that looks like it was built up sometime in the nineteen-fifties. Oaks and spruce shade two-bedroom houses with screened-in porches and paint peeling off in places. Farsinelli’s is peeling all over, and the lawn needs a machete taken to it before you could imagine bringing in a lawnmower.
On the ride over I’ve explained the situation to Ralph. He doesn’t like the Farsinelli angle, or any other angle on Planet Earth, really, other than the one his fist took towards my face, three descriptions of which I’ve heard in two blocks. Swallowing my pride, I’ve managed to convince him that since we’ve lost Fernanda, Farsinelli may be the best shot we’ve got of finding her again.
“You’ve lost her,” he says, driving along in first gear while nervously checking the mirrors. It’s clearly been a while since Ralph’s been on the road, and it’s also clear that he’s not going to be leaving my side anytime soon if he can help it, so I reluctantly agree to let him wait in the car while I hop inside to investigate Farsinelli. Not that he really leaves me any other choice. “I don’t want to hurt you again,” he says with this sadistic grin.
“Dear Lord,” I murmur, quickly shutting my eyes. “I realize we’re meant to love all of your creatures, so please give me the strength to love this creature to my left. Also please give my best to Saint Chief. Tell him it’s all coming together, and that I may have a few bonus souls for him by the time this is over, but unfortunately our friend Ralph may be a lost cause. You didn’t hear that from me. Also, is it true he was killed when he dropped a barbell on his head? Nevermind. I know you can’t answer back, but I’d sure be curious to know. Might explain a few things. Okay then, hasta la vista, Amen.”
Planet Willie Page 13