“Yeah. Best to let bygones be bygones.”
“What does that mean?” Paul asked.
Raf shrugged. “Nothing, man, just that you can’t fix the past.”
“Uh, yeah. Well, shall we?” Paul said, motioning to the door.
They went out to his truck and made their standard transaction. Rafael left for a medieval philosophy lecture.
As much as he liked Rafael, Paul was glad to be free of him. An idea had occurred to him during their conversation. He took out his cell phone and noticed that the battery had died. He used the pay phone at the back of the pub to call Lacey’s cell. Her outgoing message came on immediately.
“Lace, it’s me,” Paul said, his voice quavering a little. “Hey, I just talked to Rafael. Listen: He says Hart was mixed up with a gang called Los Chungos from way back in the Bakersfield days. Apparently he was working off some money he owed them. I’m trusting that you’ll … register the seriousness of this and act accordingly. To summarize: Hart, Los Chungos. Spanish for ‘We kill nosy white girls.’ Okay? Be careful.”
Paul felt a little uneasy about using an honest guy like Rafael as part of the lie, but it was for a good cause.
It was shaping up to be a successful day for Paul’s top two imperatives: keeping Lacey and the business out of trouble. He decided to check out a little liberal arts school nearby where he didn’t have customers yet. He hung around the campus health food store, just getting a feel for the place—the same way he’d met Rafael a few years ago. Judging from the concentration of white dreads, it was a promising target. He’d ask Raf to check it out.
As Paul got on the highway to head back to Mercer, his focus on business as usual started to drift. He knew he’d pass the exit to the old family cabin halfway home. While he remained committed to steering clear of the Hart/Babalato mess as much as possible, he couldn’t forget what Big Marv had insinuated to Lacey about their parents’ death. He had to do something about it.
Paul could already see himself pulling off at the exit and, for the first time since before the accident, going to the cabin. If there was something to find, he wanted to find it before Lacey did. Given her recent behavior, she’d no doubt be snooping around soon enough.
His mind drifted back ten years to the days in the wake of the accident. He remembered it was like waking up on a different planet. The whole town seemed to go mute—even Terry was speechless for once. Paul remembered lying awake hearing Aunt Gwen through the wall, quietly repeating, “Thy will not mine be done,” until she fell asleep again. All he could let himself hope for back then was that Lacey would be okay. Then Hart came along and Paul went off to college. In the weeks before he left, he’d felt a brotherly instinct to try to protect her from Hart, but he didn’t push it, figuring she could make her own decisions. It occurred to him now that it was the worst mistake of his life.
When he came to the Wallis exit, Paul took it without thinking. He was surprised to remember all the turns it took to reach the cabin. Taking a deep breath, he pulled into the gravel driveway. No cars were out front, and it looked like no one had been there for a while. He had expected everything to look tiny, like nostalgic settings usually do, but it all looked normal. The cabin was nothing special, but it was nestled in a beautiful little valley crowded with redwoods. Not bad for a park ranger and a fish hatchery receptionist, Paul thought.
He went around the back and climbed in one of the windows on the back porch. There was never anything inside worth stealing, unless you had a thing for mismatched furniture from the seventies, so no one had ever bothered getting locks on all the windows.
Before his feet hit the floor, Paul was transported to his childhood. On the wall in front of him was the big, dopey felt sign his mom had made: two pine trees, with WINO spelled out in stylized letters between them, purportedly representing a hammock. The Wallis International Nature Organization, his parents’ casual co-op of friends who shared the cabin. The club seemed to exist mostly to facilitate jokes about the club (which was “International,” for example, because one of the men was Canadian). The sign used to hang in the entryway but had been moved here to the laundry room, apparently by someone who didn’t have the heart to throw it away after the accident. Paul wondered if some of the same folks still had a stake in the place.
But Paul wasn’t there to reminisce. He decided to get the worst part out of the way first, taking a quick look through the bedroom where his parents had been found. The furniture seemed to have been updated by a decade or so, but nothing else struck him. He went through the rest of the cabin.
In the hallway between the bedrooms Paul came across the big maple desk. Paul’s dad was the type of man who recorded everything, even noting his mileage in a little notebook he kept in the glove compartment. If there were records for the place, this is where they’d be. In the back of the drawer, in a manila folder marked WINO, he found a sheet of names, addresses, and phone numbers. Three couples were listed: Jasmine and Walter Blakey, Grace and Victor Collaspo, Mal and Mel Sundstrom. Two of the couples rang a distant bell. He copied down the names and addresses, all of which were within a hundred miles of the place.
Suddenly feeling like an intruder, he went out the way he’d come in and got back on the highway. Instead of obsessing on the names and what he was going to do with them, he decided to go to Brandy’s for some comfort.
Up in Tulac, she greeted him warmly, and he didn’t mind when he noticed her furtively shutting down her computer—probably to hide some controversial chess gambit from the nineteenth century or something. 25 Confronting her about the intellectual stuff could wait, though.
Later that night, lying in bed with her, he couldn’t sleep. Some brotherly instinct told him to go home.
When he finally got there around midnight, Lacey was out. He plugged his cell phone into the charger and after a moment the voicemail icon popped up. The first message was from Lacey, who seemed to be having trouble catching her breath: “Paul, call me as soon as possible. This is urgent.” The second one was a calmer but equally urgent version of the same message. Paul braced himself as the third message began.
“Hansen, you there?” Terry’s voice was dazed and happy. “This is the Puma. Jesus, what a day. Where to begin? Morphine is not overrated. Anyway, I’m in the hospital. The Falcon tried to kill me. Puma out.”
After a potent brownie and a disappointing Pet Medium, Betty walked out to her mailbox on the gravel shoulder of the road. Along with the usual bills was an unstamped envelope. She opened it on the way back to her house. As she unfolded the single sheet of paper, a handful of mini-marshmallows fell out. The letter’s two sentences were typed:
Tell Lacy to let sleeping ducks lie.
Or she’s next.
NOTES:
Lisa,
Okay, I played it as straight as I could. As for Terry’s comeback, please don’t take it the wrong way. I think it had to be done for the reader’s sake. I hope you’ll agree. Next time you feel the need to kill someone off, how about, say, Deputy Doug?
Add Sleeping Ducks to the list of potential titles.
Dave
Dave,
I suppose I should have been more specific when I suggested that Paul do some investigating of his own. I meant he should investigate Hart’s murder. But it’s my own fault for not spelling it out. If you are going to delve into the suspicious death of the Hansen parents, I’m actually fine with it, but it needs to lead somewhere. And if you don’t know what that means, ask.
I guess I never realized the extent of your love for Terry. Hmm, what to do? Well, at least we’re back to work. I’m going to take the Epictetus approach: “Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”
In response to your previous note, please forgive me for forgetting about your 1996 publication of that great poem “Davy Cricket” in Harper’s. I don’t know how I could have forgotten that. I now present a very special Lutz’s Index:
Number of times Dave h
as mentioned being published in Harper’s: 90
Number of times Dave was published in Harper’s: 1
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Lisa
CHAPTER 17
Lacey and Paul stood beside Terry’s hospital bed. Terry’s face and body were mottled with bruises. He was hooked up to an assortment of monitors, tubes, and receptacles. His right leg, broken in four different places, hung in traction. His left arm, from shoulder to wrist, was also set in a cast that was so far unblemished by any friendly signatures. Paul was the first to get his hand on a Sharpie: To the Puma, until the end, your friend, Paul.
“I really thought you were dead,” Lacey said.
“You and me both,” Terry replied.
“No. I mean, like, I really, really, thought you were dead. In fact, there was no doubt in my mind that you were dead. Like totally and completely, never coming back, dead.”
“Miracles can happen,” Terry said in his blithely morphined state.
“Uh-huh,” Lacey replied. “Only they usually don’t.”
“Just be happy for the man,” Paul said, elbowing his sister, knocking her off balance.
“I’m happy for you,” Lacey said.
When visiting hours ended, Terry’s nurses ushered Lacey and Paul out of the room. The man needed his rest.
That night Lacey and Paul both dreamed about houses. In Lacey’s dream, their rambler crumbled on top of them. In Paul’s, he was trying to get out of the house, but the doors were locked and he didn’t have the key. The morning following an unusually vivid dream, the siblings would often compare notes. But that morning, they were mostly silent over coffee and cereal. Lacey was the one to break the silence.
“So, I read an interesting article about Los Chungos the other day.”
“Really?” asked Paul.
“Yeah. Seems they all moved to Florida in the late nineties. They haven’t had a West Coast presence since then.”
“Interesting,” said Paul. “I guess that’s the official story they want us to believe.”
“ ‘They’?”
“El Consorcio,” Paul said solemnly.
No response.
“La Mano Invisible.”
“Of course. The Invisible Hand,” Lacey said, holding up a trembling hand and staring at it in mock terror.
Paul didn’t have much fight in him that morning. He poured himself another bowl of cornflakes.
“Got any plans today?” Lacey asked.
“The usual,” Paul replied.
“Making deliveries, getting stoned, and watching a full day’s shift of television?”
“And what are your plans, Lace?”
“You know. The usual.”
“Would that be going to work or fighting crime?”
“Don’t see why I can’t do both.”
Lacey left her dirty mug and cereal bowl in the sink. Paul could clean up after her for once.
It was business as usual at the Tarpit. Until Betty arrived, that is.
“We need to talk,” Betty said.
The morning rush was over, so Lacey made her friend a hot chocolate with extra marshmallows and poured a cup of straight coffee for herself.
“What’s up?”
“This came for you yesterday,” Betty said, sliding the note across the table.
Lacey read the terse message.
“You have any idea who sent this?” Lacey asked, her heart beating out of her chest.
“No. I found it in my mailbox, just that one sheet of paper. When I opened it up a bunch of mini-marshmallows fell out.”
“Marshmallows?”
“Strange, huh?”
“Did you eat them?”
“Of course not.”
“You know what this means?” Lacey asked.
“It means whoever left the note is a dimwit. The phrase is ‘let sleeping dogs lie,’” Betty replied. “How could you confuse dogs with ducks?”
Lacey opted against enlightening Betty on the note’s subject matter. This was her investigation and she’d deal with it.
“Should I be scared?” Betty asked. “The note writer knows some things, like where I live and that I like marshmallows.”
“Don’t worry about it. Whoever sent this is after me,” Lacey replied, pocketing the piece of paper.
After Betty departed, Lacey continued to wonder who’d sent the warning. The question kept sticking in her head like a lousy old record. Big Marv was an obvious candidate, but hadn’t he already made himself abundantly clear, both physically and verbally? It couldn’t be Doc Holland, for too many reasons to list. For one, how would he know she was on to him? Secondly, if he was trying to keep a low profile, this was hardly the way to do it. Also, he knew where the Hansens lived—there was no reason to leave the note with Betty. Could somebody else besides the old non-doc have a stake in this matter? Lacey had no idea where to go with this lead, but she had to go somewhere.
After closing up the Tarpit, Lacey drove to her newly minted mailbox depot and opened the tiny door. She’d mailed the letter to Holland only two days earlier and hardly expected such a timely response. But there it was, an envelope addressed to “The Mallard” from “HH” with a San Francisco postmark. She returned to her car before cracking the seal. The script was pure Doc Holland.
From the Desk of HERMAN HOLLAND, M.D.
Sook,
I thought we said our good-byes.
You’ve been shaking me down for five years. We’re done now.
I’m retired and so are you.
It’s time you and your “silent partner” find some other sheep to fleece.
HH
Lacey swung onto the road and broke every speed limit sign she passed. In ten minutes flat, she was inside Mapleshade and knocking on Sook’s door.
“Lacey,” Sook said as he invited her into his walk-in-closet-sized room. “What a pleasant surprise.”
Lacey smacked the note into Sook’s chest.
“Old man, you’ve got some explaining to do.”
Sook took a few steps back under the pressure of Lacey’s light shove. He unfolded the note, but couldn’t read a thing without his glasses.
“Who are you?” Lacey asked.
Sook appeared confused and feeble, hardly the crafty extortionist she’d discovered him to be.
“I need my glasses,” he replied.
Lacey scoured the room and found them atop the dresser.
“Read,” she intoned as she passed him his spectacles.
Sook read the note, took a deep breath, and sat down on his bed, a sudden exhaustion setting in.
“Where did this come from?” Sook asked.
“I found it in your old mailbox. The Mallard Corp. headquarters. You remember that, don’t you?”
“But I closed that box. I haven’t written to Holland in weeks. I didn’t even know how to track him down.”
“I wrote to him,” Lacey replied. “I wanted to find out what happened to the old doc and maybe flush out his blackmailer. Did not expect my plan to work so smoothly. You know what else I didn’t expect?”
“I can explain.”
“Really?”
“I needed money. My Social Security check goes straight to Mapleshade. I never had more than a few dollars to spend. I have grandchildren and sometimes I like to send them a little something on their birthday.”
“Sook, you’re a geriatric marijuana dealer. Don’t you make enough pocket money with your first part-time job?”
“Who’s to say what enough is?” Sook replied.
“You’re a blackmailer, Sook.”
“You know what blackmail is, Lacey? It’s a business deal, plain and simple. I promised not to do something that I could legally do, in exchange for money. That, my dear, is a verbal contract, recognized by the law.”
“Only, you knew something about Holland that the rest of the town should have known. If he wasn’t a real doctor, he shouldn’t have been treating patients.”
“Well now.
You have a point there,” Sook conceded. “But I did what I had to do.”
Lacey sat down in the crappy mesh chair Sook had pinched from Mapleshade’s waiting room. She had so many questions for Sook, but only one was relevant to her case.
“Tell me the truth, Sook. Who is your silent partner?”
“Was,” Sook corrected.
“Excuse me?”
“It was Hart.”
As she drove home, Lacey went over the rest of her conversation with Sook. The old man had figured out during his first visit with Holland that he was no doctor. He could treat a flesh wound and do basic triage, but for any complicated concerns, he referred patients to the local emergency room. Holland knew what tests to run, but had only limited knowledge of the treatment protocol. Holland told Sook he was a Vietnam vet. On a hunch, Sook phoned up one of his Army connections and learned that there was no record of a Herman Holland as a physician in the Vietnam War. In fact, no Herman Holland had worked as even a medic. Sook then contacted the AMA and found that there was no Herman Holland in the doc’s age range.
Sook couldn’t believe that Holland had practiced in Mercer for twenty years without anyone noticing. He saw an opportunity and seized it. He rented out a mailbox and opened a bank account under the name Mallard Corp. Then he made his demands. It didn’t take Holland long to figure out the identity of his blackmailer. Sook was the only Mapleshade resident who refused to visit his offices, even during that brutal strep throat outbreak.
How Sook’s silent partner came into the picture was another story. Sook had once asked Hart to drive him to his mailbox store. They ate lunch at Diner afterward. Hart asked him about the letter. Sook’s reply was cagey. Hart could always spot a liar, being such an adept one himself. He got curious and picked Sook’s pocket when he dropped him off at the home.
As soon as Sook realized his check was missing, he got a phone call from Hart. He wanted a cut. Sure, Hart could blackmail Holland himself, but the fake doc could only afford so much hush money. If pushed, he would leave town, as he eventually did. Hart opened a bank account in the name of Merganser, Inc., and Mallard Corp. wrote him a check every month. Lacey’s final question was one she never thought she’d ask Sook.
Heads You Lose Page 13