by Tony Bulmer
‘It’s an ugly world sometimes, it’s up to us to see it right—make a difference,’ I said. Turning, I greeted Inez. She clasped my hand fleetingly, planting a kiss on my cheek. ‘It must have been awful Dan, finding that girl like that,’ she said.
I breathed her scent, the aroma of summer breeze fabric freshener and designer perfume. As she wafted close, my fingers brushed against her waist. She was petite, voluptuous, perfect. I felt the electricity of desire tingle through me. I thought about the business, Cobra Close Protection. CCP. My business yes, but Inez was integral to operations. No way I could jeopardize the dynamic of our professional relationship by getting involved.
Besides Inez, had no time for relationships. She made that clear from day one. The girl was career focused, some might say obsessed, but the story was more complex. Inez had been a close protection specialist, with the United States Marshall’s service, until she pensioned out to look after her mom, a cancer survivor who was increasingly frail. Inez was a woman who kept things together, at home and at work. I reigned in my emotions, but it was hard. Inez was cute real cute and smart with it. I gave her a silent smile. No way I could tell her how I felt, it could ruin a friendship, maybe ruin the business—ruin my marriage too if I let it, but my marriage was already ruined. I thought of the future. Thought of lawyers. Thought of poor Mimi, the girl from e-date sprawled dead in her chair.
Home run! The wide screen televisions above the bar blasted congratulations in Nicam stereo, the bar erupting with home crowd jubilation. Max jumped around, barking ecstatically. ‘You should have seen her Joe, like no one cared a damn—and Corin—Rothstein said he hadn’t seen her, but he could have killed her too, killed them both.’
Joe looked concerned. ‘Leave it to the cops Costello, like I told you.’ He paused a beat, reading my face, ‘I am sorry Dan, but you gotta know, if Rothstein had really killed the girls he would have took a pop at you, no hesitation.’ He turned to Inez and whispered, ‘I told you not to mention the girl.’
Inez pulled a face.
‘I called the cops,’ I said.
‘Are you crazy?’ barked Joe. ‘You should’ve split out of there and stayed shtum, let the cops work out what happened to those lying…’ he was about to use the word bitches, but Inez’s raised eyebrow cautioned him against it.
‘I had to call it in Joe. We might have been the last ones to see those girls alive. We are involved, whether you like it or not.’
‘Aw, blow that whining touchy-feely shit out of your ass Costello, those girls knew what they were doing. If they thought they could rip-off a face like Frank Rothstein they paid the price for being stupid. Damn pity, they were cute as hell, both of ’em.’ Joe parked a well-chewed cigar in the corner of his mouth. ‘You ask me, we had a narrow escape Costello, you want to be thankful for that.’
‘I think you are doing the right thing Danny,’ said Inez.
‘Thanks I said, can I get you a beer?’ I peripheralized Joe back of Inez throwing a thumb and forefinger against his forehead—‘L’ for loser.
‘Thanks but I’m meeting someone,’ smiled Inez sweetly, flashing her heavy lashed Latina eyes.
‘Anyone we know?’ asked Joe lasciviously.
‘Not in this life time—or any other,’ laughed Inez.
‘Aw, you going already, how about we finish this game?’ asked Joe.
She reached down onto the seat next to her and lifted a heavy box file. ‘Just dropping off the Positano file, for Danny’s meeting tomorrow.’
‘Danny, Danny always Danny, you playing favorites or something sweet cakes?’
‘You are such a new man JR, no wonder you have to trawl the sex net all night to dredge yourself a partner.’
‘Hey, now that’s offensive. I cast the net wide, because I am an equal opportunities kind of guy and I want to give as many girls as possible an equal opportunity of getting into the sack with me.’
‘I think it’s the mating season,’ I conjectured innocently. ‘Besides, he has dated most of the female population between Monterey and Mexico and he is running out of options. Forty year old bachelor, lives in Venice Beach, you get the picture?’ Inez got the picture, I could see that when she looked at me. I could see she saw a married man, but still her eyes lingered warm and questioning. I could see there was a chance, a long-shot desperate chance. As I pondered the possibilities, a familiar voice brought the world back into focus.
‘How are you all doing today?’
The waitress’ name was Gloria, an old friend. Whenever I arrived, she brought me my usual tomato juice, along with a dish of sausages for Max, didn’t even need to be asked. Now that’s service for you, the sort of place you want to hang out, watch the ballgame, watch the ocean and shoot the breeze over a platter of Mexican food and a cocktail. Tonight Gloria brought a Mai Tai for Joe then leaned in over the table and asked Inez what she could get her. I tipped a fifty as a matter of course. Gloria was a great lady, lived out in Huntington Beach, with her punk kid Louie, a 26-year-old UCLA drop out, who never did shit, except ride waves and smoke weed. Nice work if you can get it.
‘Hey Gloria, Inez called me JR’ said Joe, ‘I think she loves me.’
‘I’d be surprised your own mother loved you Joe Russell,’ cracked Gloria knowingly and sashayed off towards the bar. I caught Joe watching her go. Gloria had great legs.
‘See what I mean I said, ‘Monterrey to Mexico. I tossed a sausage into the air on a ballistic trajectory. Max rose up on his hind legs and wolfed it mid-flight.
‘You should get that mutt to try out for the Dodgers,’ said Joe. ‘Those bums could use the help.’
Inez slapped her cue down on the table. ‘I would love to hang with you guys, but I have to go. Say hi to your mom and pop, won’t you Danny?’ Again the heavy lashed Latina eyes, warm and beguiling. I felt a question welling up inside me, but all I could manage was a smile. ‘Sure,’ I said ‘I’ll tell them you said hi, I ever catch up with them that is.’ Mom and Pop were cruising the Caribbean, playing fast and loose with their retirement money. They were having a blast from what I could make out. The last time Mom called in, she sounded juiced. I did the time difference math, and it came out to 10am, which was something of a worry, but I figured Pops would take care of things, he always did.
‘This is why Costello’s life is so tragic,’ drawled Joe. ‘Even his mom gets out more than him.’
‘Mr. sensitive,’ quipped Inez sweetly.
‘Your mom is hot stuff Costello—I mean still, after all these years, what is she, sixty years old?’
‘Fifty five—officially.’
‘Hot stuff, always was, even when we were kids… your old man ever gets tired, you know where to send her.’
‘When she gets back I’ll set you up,’ I said, ‘and watch her eat you alive.’ Typical Joe: big-mouthed macho priapism, short on sense and intellectual context. You had to love him—though most people didn’t.
‘You two are like an old married couple,’ said Inez. She ruffled Max on the head and headed for the door.
I began to follow her, but Joe grabbed my arm. ‘Hold it there professor, you ain’t going nowhere.’
‘I have got a full day of it tomorrow. We have a five man team on the senator and I need to brief the moves.’
‘So you thought you would jeopardize everybody’s future by getting wise with the mafia, then blabber-mouth all you know to the cops?’
‘I got nothing to hide,’
‘And everything to lose dumb ass, you realize that low-life Rothstein ain’t going to let this slip, especially after you pulled that Hong Kong Phooey bullshit on his sorry ass.’
‘He had it coming.’
‘Yeah? Well now I’m going to have to pay the creep a visit and make sure he knows what he’s dealing with,’ said Joe.
I gave him a raised eyebrow look, you never knew when Joe was being serious, but he sure looked serious, dead serious.
THE SEX NET 08
I cruised back home f
rom Fat Tony’s, through the halogen gloom, turning onto Pacific Avenue. I was greeted by a bank of emergency-lights, strobing through the night. Something was wrong and that something was coming my way. Out front of my building, a zoo of emergency vehicles crowded the street. The whole party was there: paramedics, cops, even a fire truck. I looked for signs of a blaze.
Nothing.
Just a growing crowd of onlookers gathering outside: residents, neighbors, night-people passing by from the local bars. The entrance to the apartments was taped off, with yellow crime scene tape. A uniformed cop with hands on her hips guarding the frontage. I drove up alongside her and rolled down the window.
‘You got a problem here officer?
The cop masticated gum and spoke out the corner of her mouth, ‘Reported homicide sir, you are going to have to move your vehicle.’ Her face looked double shift weary. I made allowances. I shot her my famous winning smile, even though I didn’t much feel like smiling. ‘Anything to help officer—this is my building,’ I said, feeling nauseous, as visions of dead Mimi encroached on my world, feeling dirty guilt, like I had killed the girl my self.
The cop looked back at me with blank eyes. ‘You are still going to have to move your vehicle sir,’ she waved me on—like she gave a damn what kind of day I’d had.
I flipped a friendly salute and crawled down the block as far as Jib Street, trying to find a parking place. I flipped a u-turn and parked under a giant canary palm, at the junction of Pacific. As I eased into a parking place, streetlight filtered down through the black tree fronds, casting eerie shadows in the night breeze. I suppressed a shiver, and headed back to my apartment.
As I strode up the block with Max on his lead, I spied my neighbor Mrs. Grisham, the retired lawyer from 213 standing against the crime scene tape, holding her tiny Chihuahua in her arms. She was eighty if she was a day. I walked over and offered a cheery greeting. Without preliminaries, Mrs. Grisham launched into an unsolicited rundown of the nights events, ‘They killed her you know. Mrs. Lieberwitz found the body in the recycling dumpster out back. Just when you think they have cleaned the neighborhood up too. These people have no respect.’ Her voice was shrill and girlishly excited. She was a nice lady, but lonely, it led to overcompensation socially. I felt bad for her and that meant always making an effort to hear her thoughts.
I made sympathetic noises. I made kissy-kissy with the Chihuahua and ruffled it’s head affectionally. The little dog yipped mindlessly, gazing up at me with big chocolate eyes. Max barked and licked his lips. I jerked his lead and he came to heel—there was an understanding here—an understanding that meant Max could under no circumstances hump, menace, or otherwise fraternize with any dog smaller than a beagle, especially if that dog happened to live downstairs. Transgression of this edict would lead forthwith, to punitive cessation of sausage ration. Max stared up at me with big yellow eyes. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said.
Mrs. Grisham had a super-sprightly demeanor, enhanced I suspected by the attentions of an over enthusiastic pharmacist. She leaned over and wagged her finger at Max in mock outrage, ‘Now you behave yourself, you big galoot, Lady Coco will not stand for any of your nonsense, we have had a very traumatic day.’ Lady Coco yipped in agreement.
Max gave a gruff response, to indicate that he could tell only to well what kind of day Mrs. Grisham and Lady Coco had been through, but he wouldn’t mind a good sniff anyway.
That’s when I saw them coming up the pathway: Ramirez and Cullen the cops from Robbery Homicide.
‘How are you officers—heard you got a problem out back?’ I said.
‘Calm as you like,’ said Cullen. His tone was incredulous, nasty.
Ramirez raised the crime scene tape twixt finger and thumb. ‘Get over here Costello, we need to talk.’
‘How about you come up to the apartment and we discuss this over coffee,’ I suggested.
‘You got dead air hostess all over your dumpster and you want to discuss it over coffee?’ sneered Cullen. ‘And it was just a couple of hours ago you were telling us you hadn’t seen any fucking air hostesses’, How do you explain that?’
‘I can tell you what happened,’ I said. ‘Or we can stand here all night listening to your quick fire repartee if you would prefer?’
‘I’m glad you brought that up Costello, because guess what, you have got the right to remain silent.’
Mrs. Grisham waved bony hand in the air, ‘Just a minute officer, I happen to know this young man, and I can vouch that he is…’
‘Thanks for your assistance Marm,’ said Ramirez. ‘But we need to speak to Mr.. Costello about the events that have happened here this evening.’
‘Nonsense. He is a lovely young man, from a good family—a company director no less.’
‘Company directors are the worst, you seen a newspaper recently lady?’ sneered Cullen.
‘Don’t patronize me, or I will speak with the chief of detectives myself.’
‘There is nothing to worry about Mrs. G,’ I told her reassuringly. ‘These nice officers are going to Mirandize me, then we will straighten this whole thing out.’
‘They give you any shit, you give me a call,’ squawked Mrs. Grisham angrily. Lady Coco yapped in agreement.
Ramirez and Cullen glared at me. I shrugged. ‘What can I say, she’s eighty years old.’
Ramirez gave Mrs. Grisham an earnest look, ‘Yeah, that’s right, we are going to take him downtown, straighten this thing out,’ He switched his gaze to Cullen. ‘So read him his rights dummy, before we got any more seniors who want to start a riot.’ Cullen glowered nastily, then read me my rights.
‘It’s not too late to come inside for a cup of coffee,’ I told them.
‘We’ll take a rain-check on that Mr. company director,’ said Cullen.
‘What’s a big shot like you living in seniorsville for anyway, you down on your luck or something?’
‘If you want to talk about luck, I suggest you speak to my ex-wife, she got the mansion in Brentwood, I get to hang at the beach, which suits me just fine.’
‘Aw, the nasty lawyers take your yuppie paradise away from you Costello? Maybe you ask nicely we can get them to come visit you in jail.’
‘Can it Cullen, divorce ain’t no joking matter,’ growled Ramirez.
‘Not quite decree nisi yet, but I’m working on it,’ I breezed.
Ramirez winced. ‘Sounds expensive,’ he said.
I shrugged.
Cullen moved in close, ‘Costello don’t even know the meaning of expensive he’s been fucking around with us like he has his ex,’
Cullen’s spittle settled on my face. I wiped off with my arm and said, ‘Your breath is as bad as your attitude, why don’t you take a step backwards before you hurt yourself?’
‘You hear that Ramirez, the punk threatened me!’ raged Cullen. ‘Are you gonna cooperate Costello, or you want me to slap the cuffs on you right here in the street in front of your neighbors?’
I looked at Ramirez, ‘You are kidding me—right?’
Ramirez shrugged. Looking as apologetic as it’s possible to get for a three hundred pound murder bull. ‘The car’s that way,’ he said, tipping his head sideways, the briefest fraction.
I walked down the block with the cops. They had parked the Crown Vic in a red zone. Naughty. Cullen opened the rear door. ‘Get in,’ he snapped.
‘We can’t get in the back,’ I said, Max doesn’t like it in the back.
‘The pooch gets in back and likes it,’ said Cullen nastily.
‘You want to leave the animal with a neighbor?’ asked Ramirez, ‘I don’t want dog barf all over my upholstery.’
‘Max doesn’t like the neighbors.’
‘I’m sure the feelings mutual, now get in the car Costello,’ snapped Cullen.
Ramirez said, ‘Be nice, I’m sure Mr.. Costello wouldn’t be stupid enough to give us any trouble—would you Mr.. Costello?’
The cops took The Santa Monica Freeway downtown to the Pa
rker Centre. The car smelled of stale sweat, cheap booze and arterial thrombosis. Max whined at first, then started rooting furiously in the carpet of fast food detritus covering the floor. Cullen threatened to throw him in the dog pound. Max sniveled and looked mournful. I said, ‘Told you he doesn’t like sitting in the back.’ Cullen sucked back Dr Pepper and belched noisily. Max finished rooting and began gnawing the edge of his seat.
‘Hey Costello, get that mutt off my upholstery,’ barked Ramirez. I tut-tutted, and Max flashed me the briefest of looks, before resuming his attentions on the seat edge.
At headquarters, they took us upstairs to Robbery-Homicide, on the third floor, and shut us in an interrogation room. Max settled down at my feet and stared up at me, with mournful eyes.
I looked around. The room was Office Depot innocuous, with magnolia walls and faux wood melamine. ‘I’m disappointed, I thought this place would be like something out of Dragnet.’ I said, slouching back in the chair. So what you wanna know?
‘You can start with the 911 call you made from your car earlier this evening,’ said Ramirez. ‘According to the tape, you mentioned a dead girl, then couple of hours later we find a corpse in a dumpster, out back of your apartment building. You going to explain that to us, because things are looking ugly for you right about now, let me tell you.’
‘I got a call from a friend of mine…’
‘You talking about that hair-trigger partner of yours?’ asked Ramirez, sweat glistening on his face.
‘Joe is a good guy—over sexed but that’s no crime.’
‘We’ll decide about that Costello,’ snapped Cullen nastily.
‘I’m separated from my wife,’ I said, ‘Been that way about eighteen months—Joe thought I could use a little company. Tell you the truth I ain’t that interested. But Joe’s been hooking up with women from some web site, local thing, for professional singles. So he meets some woman who has a friend and asks me along—we went out to dinner—Cuban food on Venice beach.’