“You know I didn’t.”
She turned over again, to face me. Her face was flushed, her eyes swollen, but her hair was unmussed, still clumped into sharp, accusatory spikes. “No, probably not. You seem like a good person. But on the other hand, you’re just a guy. Guys do weird shit, they hurt you and fuck around with you and then they get that innocent look on their faces, saying, Who, me? I’ve seen it so many times. They can do anything, any fucking thing, then put on that innocent act, like they’ve been doing since they were little boys, breaking the neighbor’s windows with baseballs and stealing cookies out of cookie jars.”
She sat up and rubbed her fists in her eyes. “No,” she said, “I know you didn’t do it. But the person who did it? I think you know him.”
I lit a Camel and blew the smoke up toward the ceiling. I felt like a smoker again. Maybe I’d never quit. When I looked at her again, her eyes seemed to be looking through me. She probably didn’t even know why she’d said what she said. She just did, and that was that. She reminded me of my cat, ripping the stuffing out of my couch, looking over at me, daring me to give one good reason not to do it, one that would mean something to a cat. We’d used up everything we’d come to the room with.
I told her that she should call me in the morning and to call the desk if she heard any noises outside her door.
As I drove home I felt completely exhausted, as if I’d been beat up. And I noticed something for the first time. Full moon.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I dreamed I was struggling with a furiously tangled guitar cord. The knots were insidious and vague, defying every probe of my clumsy fingers. I couldn’t remember why I wanted to unknot the mess in the first place, but it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to find the other end of the cord. When I found it, it was in Barbra Quiero’s hands. She said that the mess was all my fault. Then I woke up. It was a helluva way to start off the day.
It was noon. I got up, put water on to boil, ground some coffee beans, and fed the cat. His life was simple. No coffee, cigarettes, rhythm and blues. No car insurance, band soap operas, or two a.m. payoffs. A simple life, no answering machines. Mine was blinking five times. I rewound the tape, turned the volume back up, lit a cigarette, and finished making the coffee.
The first message was from Leo. He said he wanted to talk to me, that it was important. The second message was from Lasko, saying to give him a call when I got my lazy ass out of bed. I stopped the machine and dialed the homicide department. He wasn’t in, so I left a message. I called Leo, but there was no answer.
The next two messages were from local rock writers. They were both calling about “the, uh, Retha Thomas thing.” I knew that the first writer—by his reputation and the tone in his voice—just wanted a juicy little story for his paper. The second one wanted to know if there was anything he could do to help. I thought it would be better all the way around if I didn’t return either call.
The last message was from Vick. He was on his way to the bank, he said, to cash a $100,000 check from IMF Records. Why didn’t I drop by later so we could square up? You could hear him burst into laughter as he hung up the phone. I poured a cup of coffee and sat down with the paper. Damn, it had really happened. I hadn’t realized until then that the concept of the porky thrift shop proprietor getting a hundred large from a major record label for his little indie records had seemed abstract, fictional. I suppose I felt a twinge of jealousy.
Or maybe it wasn’t jealousy, exactly. I’d made the payoff for him and he got his hundred grand. What did I get out of it? Retha Thomas was still in a coma, and I didn’t know who had put her there.
The coffee was good. I called the neighborhood florist and ordered some birds of paradise to be delivered to Ladonna at work. They said they’d probably get there in an hour. I’d wait, then call her. To kill time I got out the Danelectro bass and started plunking. Founded in 1948 by New York electronics buff Nathan Daniel, the Danelectro Corporation produced a line of guitars, basses, electric sitars, and other strange stringed instruments (in addition to amplifiers, one of which also served as a guitar case) that were not only incredibly innovative, but cheap. Danelectros were the VW Beetles of rock and roll hardware during the company’s heyday between 1956 and 1968. Now they were collector’s items. The pickups were sheathed in chrome lipstick tubes. The bodies were made of particle board and Formica. Streamline Modern relics, they were as American as Buicks, Bowl-A-Rama, and Bob’s Big Boy. Mine was a dual cutaway shorthorn model with copper sparkle finish. It was lightweight, had only fifteen frets, and would produce, after some coaxing, a tone that was at best scratchy and twangy, providing a perverse satisfaction similar to that of a cheap, marginally reliable sports car.
The strings sent vibrations through the body and made it seem alive. Normally that was a good feeling, but now it reminded me that someone had picked up my candy-apple red Fender and tried to beat the life out of a girl with it. Would it ever feel the same again? Would it be spattered with dried blood and smudged with fingerprint powder when the police gave it back to me? Would I even want to see the thing again?
It was weird. I felt violated, but feeling that way almost seemed like an infringement on the rights of the comatose girl. She was the one who’d really been violated. Violated to death, maybe. But I felt that way anyway.
Some part of my subconscious mind was still waging a small war with Barbra Quiero, too. In a way I understood her lashing out at me, testing me, sniping away at vulnerable spots. But on the other hand, I felt an old-fashioned ambivalence toward her. She was both attractive and repellent, clever and simple-minded. The world was full of people like that, and I didn’t have to be her whipping boy.
There was a knock at the door. It was Lasko, his face damp from the heat as he walked in carrying a bass guitar case. He was dressed in a blue blazer that was a size or two too small and big brown box-toed shoes. The getup was as uncomfortable for me to look at as it must have been for him to wear. “Got any coffee left?” he asked, sitting down on the couch, tripping the latches on the case and taking out his own bass guitar, a sunburst Fender Precision. It was a good one. I’d found it for him in an East Side pawn shop.
“Sure. You in court today?”
“Yep.”
“Then you only want half a cup, right?”
“Sure, that’ll be fine,” he said, distractedly plucking out some beginner’s runs on the instrument.
I brought him the coffee and set it down on the coffee table.
He nodded a thank you, then reached down to the case and brought up a pint of Jack Daniel’s. He poured a slug into the coffee, took a sip, and leaned back. “Got a couple hours’ recess. I hope you got some time.”
“Sure,” I said, strapping my bass back on. “What’d you want to start with?”
We did a quick review of some songs I’d taught him during his last lesson, “Linda Lu,” “Roadhouse Blues,” and “The Thrill Is Gone.” His technique was improving, and his timing was starting to get so good that I had to wonder if maybe he’d gone into the wrong profession. Timing is hard to practice unless you’re doing it with a band, but if you don’t work on it, once you do get with a band you’re no good to them. So I was an insistent toe-tapper with Lasko, and he seemed to have a natural feel for not only keeping the beat, but also for playing around with it, teasing it, purposely coming in a bit late, anticipating it with a leading note. But he had questions.
“I wanna know why is it you can’t tell me what the scales are,” he said, slurping the coffee and whiskey, eyeing me across the cup suspiciously.
“You mean the major and minor scales?”
“No, you know what I mean. How some songs have these flatted thirds and sevenths, and some don’t. How some songs have them both flatted and natural. I mean, you showed me these keys, and hardly any of these songs we’ve been learning follow them.”
“Well, besides the major and minor, there are modes. There’s the mixolydian mode, there’s also what w
e call the blues scale, which we’ve been using a lot, especially in songs like ‘Linda Lu.’ ” I tried to look smug and authoritative, but I could see by his hostile expression that it wasn’t working.
“You mean I gotta learn a whole new scale or mode for every song?”
“No. Just listen to the guitar player and the basic melody, the chords. It’s just the way it is. Sometimes you might have a half step instead of a whole step so you can lead into the next chord. Or you might have your flatted sevenths happening when you’re doing a walking bass pattern and you’re descending down to the root note of the next chord.”
He was shaking his head. “Goddamn, it just doesn’t seem like there’re any rules to this shit. How am I supposed to learn how to do it if every time I learn something, I find out that that’s not necessarily the way it is?”
“If you’re just worried about memorizing the notes, we could get some little round stickers and stick them to the fret board, and write the names of the notes on them.”
“Fuck you.”
“You’ve just got to be flexible, Lasko. Go with the flow.” That seemed to irritate him even more. He sighed and nodded, relaxing his grip on the bass. “Go with the flow, huh.”
“Yeah, just think about the song, instead of the rules, think about—”
“I know what ‘go with the flow’ means, Martin.”
I studied the wrinkles around his tired eyes, the pallor in his cheeks. “Not making your police work any easier, though. Is it?”
“No, it ain’t. I been trying to go with the flow on this Retha Thomas thing, and so far, it ain’t working. But we don’t have a hell of a lot to go on.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Well, no. Not exactly. Actually, I wanted to tell you, we found out some more stuff you might be interested in, seeing as how you and Vick Travis are so buddy-buddy these days.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You’re the one suggested I go to him and apologize.”
“I didn’t mean you should move in with the guy,” he said, making a face. “I’ve seen your car there two, three times this week now. But whatever, it’s your goddamn business. What we found was that Donald Rollins evidently got a spike full of brown tar or china white and went for a walk and either jumped or fell in. I know it sounds suspicious, but the ground was all wet and there’s only one set of footprints. We haven’t got all the reports back from the lab, but some of the whip marks on his back were months old.”
He paused and watched my reaction. I thought about what he said, but I just couldn’t do anything with the information.
Lasko shrugged. “What can I say? I don’t know what to make of it. But there are all kinds of people out there, people like Donald Rollins, people who look for people like Donald Rollins. The X rays did reveal that he had a broken arm about a year ago. I thought you might be interested to know who paid the emergency room bill.”
“This is what you wanted me to know about Vick?”
He nodded. “Probably doesn’t mean anything.”
But it did mean something. It didn’t seem pertinent to Retha’s case, but it put a darker shadow over Vick’s way of “helping out” people in the music scene. Evidently Donald Rollins had been late in paying back one of Vick’s loans, and a broken arm had been Vick’s way of “working it out.” Then he must have felt bad about it and paid the hospital bill. But Lasko didn’t seem to know about that. He was still talking.
“Old Vick’s been around forever, right?” he went on, and I couldn’t tell whether he was being sarcastic or not. “Sort of a fatherly type. I know two, three guitar players he’s given guitars to. I’m kind of surprised he hasn’t given you a bass since you’re one shy these days.” He glanced down at his watch, not waiting for my reply, and said, “Oops, I need to get back. Say, Watson did give you a call, didn’t he?”
“Watson?”
“Detective Watson. A born-again hard-ass from Abilene. His daddy was a Texas Ranger and he’s currently the Lieutenant’s fair-haired boy.”
“I sense a conflict.”
“Conflict? Hell, he only thinks liquor, cigarettes, and rock and roll are the tools of Satan. His idea of New Wave was Jim Bakker. No, hell, there’s no conflict. Anyway, he was supposed to call you.”
“Well, he didn’t. What’s it about?”
“The cab driver. A witness for you.”
“Regarding what?”
“Regarding Sunday night, or should I say, Monday morning. A driver for Harlem Cabs helped Retha Thomas carry you down the hall here to your apartment. He just happened to be dropping off a fare in your building when she drove up. She gave him twenty bucks.”
It was like a drink of cold water. I was surprised at the degree of relief I felt. “Damn, that makes a difference. But how’d she know where I lived? I don’t remember a damn thing after we left the party.”
“Maybe she looked at your driver’s license. Maybe she pulled over another drunk and asked him, I don’t know.”
“Well, whatever. It sure eases my mind.”
“I reckon it eases both our minds. As for her having your bass, I guess she forgot she had it, or maybe she was hoping you’d come by for it.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me sooner.”
“Sorry, Martin. I’ve had troubles of my own, and Watson was supposed to call you. Guess he’s been too busy.” He was bent over, putting his bass back in the case, so I couldn’t see his face. Once again, it was hard to tell if he was being sarcastic or sincere. As he snapped the latches shut he looked up. “You’re gonna have to get your case fixed, too. Evidently it got jammed in her trunk and she couldn’t get it out. The latches broke off, and she just left it in the car, carried the bass up to her room. Maybe somebody saw her carry the bass up to her room like that, tried to take it from her.”
“Oh, come on.”
He shrugged. “Nah, I don’t go for that either.”
“So do you have any leads?”
“Nothing I can discuss with you. Besides, it’s not really my case anymore.”
“What do you mean by ‘not really’?”
“I guess I’m trying to say the Lieutenant assigned it to Watson.” He didn’t seem very disturbed about it, but he wouldn’t
look me in the eye. “Besides,” he said, sighing, “it’s not really a homicide. Not yet.”
“Did you talk to Barbra Quiero?”
“Yeah. Typical LA brat, ain’t she? She comes on like she knows everybody and everything, but doesn’t know anything that can do us any good.”
“She does come on pretty strong.”
He shook his head, frowning. “She’s too skinny, Martin. I don’t trust women like that. They ain’t gonna keep you warm on a cold winter night. But it never does get cold in LA, does it?”
Before I could answer, the phone rang. He tried to look disinterested, tugging on the cuffs of the blazer, trying to make it look like it fit. But it never would.
I answered the phone. It was Ladonna. She’d just gotten the flowers. I gave Lasko a good-bye wave.
&&&
I showered and shaved. Ladonna was going to take the afternoon off. As I finished dressing I made mental notes. I had a lot of things to do. I wanted to talk to the Thomases to see if they could help me find Retha’s boyfriend. I needed to call Leo again. It looked like I was going to have to find a saxophonist. I needed to talk to Vick. But none of these things felt as urgent as seeing Ladonna. I was tying my shoes when the front door swung open. It was Leo.
He looked slightly more rested than the day before, and his hair had been in the vicinity of a comb in the last few hours. He was clean shaven in a white T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, but when he took off his shades and shook hands with me, I could see that his eyes were still a little puffy.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Dinner went OK. Spent sixty-nine dollars at Fonda San Miguel. We talked and stuff.”
“Call a cease-fire?”
“I
don’t know, Martin. I thought maybe we were getting there, but just now when I was driving her to work I got pulled over.” He sighed and rolled his eyes. “My license is suspended, you know.”
“Outstanding warrants?”
He nodded. “She ended up being two hours late for work ’cause she had to run to the bank so she could bail me out of jail. So she’s pissed again. She wants me to give up the Flying V. Fuck that, man, I’ve always wanted a guitar like that.”
I didn’t say anything. He dug the American Express card out of his pocket and handed it over. “I don’t know if it was worth it or not, but I appreciate the gesture. I’m trying, man, I really am. By the way, something I wanted to tell you. It’s about this Retha Thomas deal.”
“What?”
He took a labored breath and looked down, not at the floor but not at my face either. “I know you probably have some suspicions about Vick and Ed, but don’t hassle them. They didn’t have nothing to do with it.”
“How would you know?”
“I was with them. Me and Ed left that party not long after you did. I was with them till sunrise.”
“So this is something you could testify to in court?”
“No. Why should I? I just told you they didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“What were you guys doing?”
“None of your business. Just doing some Cuervo shots, mostly.”
“That wouldn’t sound so bad in court,” I said. I watched his face grow more pallid. He put his shades on and headed for the door. “I just wanted to let you know, Martin, so you don’t go barking up the wrong tree, pestering people who didn’t have nothing to do with anything.”
“Nothing at all?” I said.
“Nothing.” His hand was on the doorknob, the sunglasses obscuring his eyes.
“Was Donald Rollins with you the other night?”
“Hell, no,” he snorted. “I told you, it was just me and them two.” He swung the door open.
Tough Baby (Martin Fender Novel) Page 12