Cool Cache

by Patricia Smiley

  I followed him into the kitchen and watched as he put Andrew in a low scooter on the floor next to his retro aluminum-trimmed kitchen table.

  “Did Eugene come back?” he said.

  “Not yet.”

  “Did you report him missing?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  Deegan seemed puzzled by my comment. “So, then, what can I do for you, Tucker?”

  It was jarring to hear him call me that. Before things went bad between us, he had always called me Stretch because I was long and lean like a stretch limousine. It had been his nickname for me from the first day we met.

  “I want to talk to you about Riley,” I said. “She says you’re not speaking to her.”

  Andrew didn’t like being confined in the scooter. He began to fuss. Deegan tried to quiet him with a few empty promises, but that didn’t work, so he took a set of keys from his pocket and dangled them in front of the baby’s face. Andrew grabbed the keys and began to pound them on the tray. He seemed to find this amusing. I found it loud and irritating.

  “Riley was out of line,” he said.

  “She doesn’t like your fiancée. She’s entitled to her opinion.”

  “I don’t care who she likes or doesn’t like. That’s not the way to handle things.”

  “She’s trying to protect you. She doesn’t want to see you hurt.”

  Deegan reached for a jar of baby food on the counter. “Do I look like I need protecting?”

  I didn’t answer right away because I didn’t want to state the obvious, that everybody needed looking after now and then. Even Deegan. Maybe even me.

  He twisted the lid of the glass jar. The vacuum unsealed with a whoosh. The food inside was an unappetizing pumpkin-colored puree interspersed with green chunks. He put the jar in the microwave and set the timer for twenty seconds.

  “Riley is a great kid,” I said.

  “Yup, she is.”

  “She thinks you want her to give up Luv Bugs.”

  He took a spoon from the drawer. “What Riley does with her life is up to Riley.”

  “Starting a new business is hard. I’m trying to help her, but she needs your support, too.”

  The timer on the microwave went off. “I’ll tell you what I told her. She needs to get a life and stop interfering in mine.”

  He took the baby food jar from the microwave and squatted in front of Andrew’s scooter. He loaded food onto the spoon and aimed it for the baby’s mouth.

  “Aren’t you going to test that to make sure it’s not too hot?” I said.

  Deegan cocked his head. “Excuse me? You’re telling me how to feed a curtain climber? Have you even seen one of these little guys before?”

  “Okay, so I’m not an expert on babies, but I read in a magazine once that you’re supposed to test the temperature so you don’t burn his mouth.”

  Deegan stuck his finger in the jar. “It’s fine.”

  “You’re supposed to test it on your lips. Lips are more sensitive than fingers.”

  “I’m not going anywhere near that line.”

  “Okay, at least blow on it.”

  He tried but failed to suppress a smile. “Your offer is tempting, but no.”

  Deegan aimed the spoon for Andrew’s mouth. At the last minute, the baby turned his head. The spoon hit his cheek. Pumpkin puree spilled down his face and onto his shirt. Deegan grabbed a nearby towel and wiped the food from the baby’s face.

  “Would you please talk to Riley?” I said.

  “I will, but first she owes Carly an apology.”

  I wanted to defend Riley, but Deegan was right. His sister hadn’t handled the situation with much grace. In Deegan’s defense, I knew what it was like when a family member hated the person you loved. I’d been engaged back in college to a man named Evan Brice. My mother thought he was bad news. It was painful to know she didn’t trust my judgment, but as it turned out, she was right. Evan was bad news. I couldn’t help believing that Riley was right about Carly McKendrick, too. She would break Deegan’s heart again.

  “When you love somebody,” I said, “sometimes you just have to forgive them. No strings attached.”

  Deegan parted his lips as if he was going to say something, but he remained silent. His expression held no clue to his emotions. He set the jar of baby food on the tray and fixed his gaze on me. We studied each other for what seemed like a long time, searching for cues to what might happen next.

  The silence was broken by a loud clatter. We both turned toward the scooter. Andrew had crashed the keys against the jar of baby food and toppled it over, spilling the pumpkin puree. He slapped his hand in the food, splattering it all over the tray and all over his uncle. Deegan stood and picked up the towel again, wiping the front of his shirt.

  “Were there any tips in that magazine article about how to get vegetable-chicken dinner out of a clean shirt?” he said.

  I put my hand over my mouth to hide my smile. “I guess I should have read the whole thing.”

  There was a glob of food in his hair. Without thinking, I took the towel from his hand and wiped it off. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there watching me with those smoky bedroom eyes of his and an expression I couldn’t quite read. We were standing so close I could smell the aroma of fabric softener on his shirt.

  I don’t know what came over me, but the next moment my arms were around his neck. It was as if a memory chip had malfunctioned, the one that said Deegan and I weren’t together anymore, that he was engaged to somebody else. My lips brushed against his. I felt his hesitation and then release as he pulled me closer. We stayed like that for a moment, rocking together in some sort of penance dance. I knew it could be more than that if I wanted it that way, but he wouldn’t make the first move. That would be up to me.

  My credo had always been once a cheater, always a cheater. Now I was on the verge of initiating Deegan into that select club. I thought about the consequences of making love to him. It would feel good until Carly found out. She’d be shattered. I knew because I’d been on the receiving end of an unfaithful boyfriend. I couldn’t inflict that pain on another woman, not even Carly McKendrick, who knew a thing or two about cheating.

  I backed away from Deegan’s embrace. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  He took a deep breath and lowered his gaze to the floor. Andrew squealed. Deegan turned toward his nephew to see what was wrong. I used the diversion to make my way to the front door.

  I sat in my car for a few minutes, wondering if Deegan would come after me. If the closed door was any indication, I might be waiting forever, so I headed to Beverly Hills to interview Bob Rossi.

  Chapter 26

  My car was stopped at a red light at the corner of Santa Monica and Wilshire boulevards when my cell phone rang. It was Jordan Rich, asking if I got the flowers. I’d almost forgotten about them.

  “Yes. They were beautiful. Thank you.”

  “You sound upset. Is something wrong?”

  “I have a lot on my plate right now, that’s all.”

  “Did you find your friend?”

  “Not yet.”

  There was a long pause. “I’m sorry. How can I help?”

  The light turned green and I headed into the intersection. “You can’t, but thanks anyway.”

  “I have an airplane,” he said. “I can fly you anywhere you need to go, or I can just sit with you. I wouldn’t even talk if you didn’t feel like it. I’d just be there if you needed me.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  Jordan was quiet for a moment.

  “Will you come to dinner with me Friday night?” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I need some intelligent conversation.” When I didn’t answer right away, he added, “No pressure. Just dinner. You have to eat.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Dinner sounds good.”

  After I hung up, I had a flash of clarity. I’d almost pulled a Deegan, turning down a perfectly sincere offer of help. I wondered what
had happened in our collective experiences that made us always choose to go it alone. I suspected it had something to do with fear.

  It was around five thirty by the time I got to Beverly Hills. The restaurant wasn’t open yet, but the door to the service entrance was unlocked. The narrow hallway led me past a kitchen filled with the sounds of clattering pots and pans, and into a back room of the restaurant where I found Bob Rossi sitting at a table, folding napkins.

  He looked up, startled. “We’re not open yet.”

  “I need to speak with you about Lupe Ortiz.”

  “Are you a cop?”

  “No.”

  “Then I have nothing to say to you.”

  “You’re serving chocolates from Nectar in your restaurant. I know all of Helen’s clients, and you’re not one of them. So my question is, How are you getting them?”

  His jaw muscles twitched, but he didn’t respond. He just kept folding.

  “Did you have some kind of deal with Lupe Ortiz?” I went on. “Maybe the chocolates were an even exchange for dinner, or maybe you just used the food to distract her while you raided Helen’s store.”

  He pushed his chair back so hard it toppled over. “Get out of my restaurant.”

  “Either you talk to me or you talk to the police. Frankly, I’d choose me, because you already have a criminal record. Do you really need another arrest added to your rap sheet?”

  Rossi’s hands were balled into fists. He seemed to be fighting to control his rage. “What do you want?”

  “Where were you Thursday night between six thirty and eight thirty?”

  He paused before answering. “I had an appointment with my shrink.”

  “For anger management classes?”

  He smirked. “No. I finished those, but I’m still angry. Can’t you tell? I didn’t like the doc I was seeing, so I found somebody else, a lady this time.”

  “And she’ll verify you were with her?”

  He picked up the chair and set it upright. “You think I’m stupid enough to lie about that? Of course she’ll tell you I was there.”

  “You brought Lupe dinner every night. Why?”

  Rossi sat down and started folding again. “Because I’m a nice guy.”

  “How did you get into the store?”

  “She always left the door unlocked.”

  “So you had an open invitation?”

  “Yeah. So what? I felt sorry for her, having a no-good son like she did.”

  “How did you even know she had a son?”

  “I broke up a fight between those two one night out in the alley. The kid was screwed up on drugs. I recognized the symptoms.”

  “So she owed you big time, and you decided to take it out in chocolates.”

  “You have it all figured out, don’t you?”

  “Not all of it,” I said. “Why don’t you fill in the blanks?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Better to tell me than the police.”

  He stared at the napkin in his hand as if he was weighing his options. “A bigwig studio executive came in for dinner one night with a party of eight. They all got drunk. Mr. Bigwig wanted chocolates, and not just any kind. He wanted Nectar chocolates. He started to get loud. If he’d been anybody else, I would have thrown him out, but you don’t alienate politicians or Hollywood suits if you want to be in business next week.”

  “So you went next door and asked Lupe if you could raid the refrigerator.”

  His neck turned red. “She didn’t know. I took a few when I brought her dinner. I figured nobody would ever miss them.”

  “One bigwig doesn’t account for all of Helen’s missing inventory.”

  “Okay, so maybe I did it a few more times. I lost a lot of money because of Helen Taggart. She owed me.”

  “Did you get chocolates on Thursday, too?”

  He held his hands palms up in a gesture of mock surrender. “My shrink is a chocoholic. So sue me.”

  “My assistant is missing. I think he was looking into the murder of Lupe Ortiz. His name is Eugene Barstok. I’m wondering if he stopped by the restaurant to see you.”

  “Never heard of the guy.”

  I took the photograph of Eugene from my purse and showed it to him. “He may have been using another name.”

  Rossi studied the picture and frowned. “He looks like a guy I saw arguing with one of my valets last Saturday night, except he wasn’t your assistant. He was a reporter.”

  “From the New York Times?”

  “No. National Geographic.”

  Eugene was branching out.

  “Is the valet working tonight?”

  “Not tonight or any night. I fired him. He dented the fender of a customer’s Bentley later that night. I gave him his final paycheck and told him to hit the road.”

  “How can I reach him?”

  Rossi picked up the stack of napkins he’d folded, and I followed him to a busing station, where he offloaded the napkins into a storage cabinet.

  “I don’t know. I think he moved back to Avalon.”

  “On Catalina Island?”

  “Yeah. He used to work at a golf cart-rental place on Casino Way. He might try to get his old job back.”

  Rossi told me the kid’s name was Aidan Malloy. I had to talk to him. He spoke with Eugene on Saturday night, and he might have some idea where he was headed next.

  Jordan Rich and I were having dinner the following evening. I hoped he’d be willing to have lunch instead—in Avalon. We could get there on the ferry, but it would be so much faster to fly.

  Chapter 27

  When I got home that night, I found a troubling message from my mother. Pookie was in Santa Barbara, but said she planned to be home sometime the following day. The tension in her voice worried me, but I almost didn’t want to know what was bothering her. I had too many problems of my own to worry about.

  All that deep contemplation was giving me a headache. I had to prove to myself I wasn’t a total loner, so I called Venus and told her about Jordan Rich’s offer to fly me to Avalon to question Aidan Malloy.

  “He seems so strong and supportive,” I said.

  “Jockstraps are strong and supportive. Don’t commit until you see his four-oh-one K. Any word on Eugene?”

  “No. I’m worried, Venus.”

  “He’s tougher than you think. He’ll be okay.”

  At about nine p.m., I dialed Charley Tate’s number. I was surprised when he suggested we meet at an Irish pub in Santa Monica for a Guinness and some conversation. The truth was, I didn’t want to be alone, so I told him I could be there in half an hour.

  O’Reilly’s Pub was dark and brimming with attitude when I walked through the door. The room resonated with music and the chatter of men sharing a pint and a few war stories with anybody who’d listen. It took a moment to spot Charley sitting at a table in a corner, hunched over a glass filled with dark liquid. He looked glum. I strolled over and slid into a chair across from him.

  “I’m surprised Lorna let you out of the house this late.”

  “Lorna doesn’t care where I go these days. She told me if I wasn’t going to give her a kid, there was no reason for us to be together.”

  I studied his expression but saw no sign he was teasing me.

  “So what happens next?” I said.

  He just shook his head. “Nothing. She’ll get over it. By the way, I found out what kind of car Rossi drives. A Toyota Maxima.”

  “No Mercedes?”

  “Nope.”

  “Interesting, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Rossi didn’t kill Lupe Ortiz. He was with his shrink on Thursday evening. What did you find at Garvey Motors?”

  “Nothing. They wouldn’t give me squat, except to say they sold twenty black Benzes last month.”

  “I’m getting desperate, Charley. The longer Eugene is out there on his own, the greater likelihood he’ll run into trouble. He’s looking for the person who gave Lupe that chocolate pot. We have to find him before Eugene
does.”

  “I still think Ortiz could have killed his mother. The timeline is tight, but if the traffic gods were with him that night—”

  “Roberto told me he didn’t do it.”

  Charley tilted his head back to take a drink of his beer but his gaze didn’t leave mine. “Dopers lie.”

  “And sometimes they die and can’t clear their names.”

  “The truth will come out one way or the other.”

  I let his words settle in the air. “You always taught me to keep an open mind, Charley. Blaming Roberto for his mother’s death seems too easy. We need to look beyond the obvious. How are you coming with the list of Lupe’s customers?”

  He stared into his beer. “Nothing to report yet. I’m still working through the names.”

  “Hurry, Charley. Okay?”

  He nodded. “I hope to have some answers by tomorrow. Call me as soon as you get back from Avalon.”

  Chapter 28

  The following morning before leaving for the airport to meet Jordan Rich, I called Nerine to see if she’d heard from Eugene.

  “Who?” Her voice sounded way too mellow. Either she was having an early morning Booker’s or she was in insulin shock from all those cookies.

  “Your son . . . Eugene. Have you heard from him yet?”

  “No, dear, I haven’t, and I’m running out of sugar. Can you drop by the store and bring me some next time you’re in the neighborhood?”

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

  I hung up and started packing a bag for Muldoon, who was spending the day with Mrs. D. We were just heading out the door when the telephone rang. It was Mr. Winn from the retirement home.

  “I found a message from Eugene,” he said. “I never check my answering machine. I don’t see very well, and I’m always in my room to answer the telephone. His call came in this morning at seven. I must have been at breakfast.”