“Yes,” Rolly replied. “Well I think so, anyway.” His mother’s enthusiasm for any newfound art form made it sound like she’d been the first to discover it.
“Well, I must say it was a quite a recital,” she continued. “I mean, I’ve heard some of these fellows at the tourist restaurants before, like in Old Town, but this was quite different. There were five guitar players, which I thought might interest you. One of the guitars was quite large.”
“A guittaron,” said Rolly.
“Oh, is that what they call it,” she said, surveying the stringed instruments strewn about the room. “You don’t have one of those, do you?”
“No.”
“Well,” she continued, “I thought you might be interested because of the guitar playing. It’s quite vigorous, you know, very exciting. And the singer would stomp his boots now and then. It just gave you a feel for the real Mexican traditions, the Gypsy culture or whatever they are. I could see the ranchos, the town squares and taverns in my mind’s eye.”
Rolly wasn’t sure Mariachis had any connection to Gypsies, musical or geographic, but decided not to challenge his mother on her cultural misappropriation. All musicians were gypsies, of a sort. He let her continue. All it took was a nod of his head now and then, a skill he’d developed in childhood, one that proved valuable later, at bars and nightclubs, where he’d search out chatty drunks, the ones with money who’d buy you a drink, sometimes two, in return for your ears. As a private investigator, the skill had proved useful all over again, talking to witnesses who weren’t sure what had happened, trying to remember what they’d seen. He knew how to listen. He knew how to keep people talking until something useful popped out.
“Oh, I forgot,” his mother said, interrupting her Old Mexico reverie, “you had a visitor stop by this evening, a doctor, I think.”
“Did you get his name?”
“No. He was a rather handsome Latin type, very trim and neat with a mustache.”
“Did he leave a number or anything?”
“Actually, he reminded me of your father. Except for the mustache, of course. And those little round scars on his cheek.”
“What did he want?”
“Of course, your father is Irish. And taller. It’s his birthday next weekend, you know.”
“Alicia asked me to play at his party.”
“Oh. Well. I’m sure that’ll be nice for you.”
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“What’s that, dear?”
“The man who came by. Did he say anything?”
“I told him you might not be back until late. He excused himself, said he’d come back another time. He had one of your business cards.”
“When was this?”
“Around six, I guess. He seemed very gracious. I saw him standing outside on your porch.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“No. He had one of those green outfits you see the hospital people walking around in.”
“Scrubs?”
“Yes, I think that’s what they call them. He’s a doctor, I imagine.”
There were two major hospitals located in Hillcrest, any number of private clinics and medical offices in the area. It wasn’t unusual to see the employees, dressed in their work clothes, picking up groceries at the market, ordering lunch at the taco stands. Rolly couldn’t remember giving any of them a business card recently.
“There was someone else, too, an hour or so later. Just when I was leaving to go out. A man and a woman.”
“What did they look like?”
“Well, I’d say they were both of the Mexican persuasion. She was a pretty young thing, quite exotic, dark lips, lovely eyes.”
“And the man?” Rolly asked.
“He was quite a bit older, closer to my age. He must have been her grandfather or something. They had an old truck.”
“A green pickup?”
“I don’t remember the color. It was getting dark.”
“Did he look like a cowboy?”
“Well, yes now that you mention it. I think he had a cowboy hat on, and boots.”
“What was she wearing?”
“I’m afraid I don’t remember. I didn’t speak to them for very long.”
“How about her hair? Was it orange, reddish-orange?”
“No. I don’t think so. I think it was dark.”
Rolly furrowed his eyebrows. He stared at a divot in the Formica tabletop.
“Is this one of those cases you get?” his mother asked, making it sound like he’d come down with the flu.
He looked back at her.
“Max asked me to look into something.”
“Oh.”
Many years ago, Max and Rolly’s mother had been close, best of friends, maybe more. Rolly wasn’t sure how far it had gone. His mother trusted Max. He’d helped them both out, after the accident. Whatever Rolly was up to, his mother could count on Max to take care of him.
“Well, dear, you look tired. I’ll let you get some sleep,” she said, rising from the table, “Don’t stay up too late.”
“I won’t.”
His mother walked to the door, opened it. She paused and looked back.
“Oh, yes, something else. The man with the girl. They said something about music. Some records or something? Does that help?”
“Yes. It might.”
“Good night, dear.”
“Good night.”
His mother closed the door. Rolly’s thoughts traveled back to the sofa, the panties stashed between the cushions. He thought of the times he’d hidden panties from Leslie, his ex, back when they’d tried living together. He thought of the soft-shouldered sirens who left those panties behind, the ones who staked out a spot every night at the edge of the bandstand, dressed in short skirts and high-heels, little rich girls with nothing to do, desperate, bored, the ones who gave themselves up to him, free, with no strings attached. That was a long time ago, before he’d crashed on the rocks of his reckless life, before the Royal Tingle became an all-consuming vibration, an uncontrollable shimmy that ended in broken glass, bent metal, and blood.
He scanned the instruments scattered around his living room. Three guitars lined the wall across from him – a dark-cherry Gibson SG, flame-burst Fender Esquire, and Martin Dreadnought perched on their stands. A weathered Gretsch arch-top hung from two pegs on the wall, next to a green Rickenbacker twelve-string and gold Strat. Guitars were the mast he had tied himself to, his musical ships, wood and steel, trimmed out in layers of polished lacquer, abalone and mother-of-pearl.
The nylon-stringed Cordoba sat on the sofa where he’d left it. He sat down, pulled the guitar into position, finger-picked his way through a Bach fugue, one of the few classical pieces he’d memorized. The Romeros wouldn’t be threatened by his tirandos, but he wasn’t half bad for a rock-and-roll guy. He switched styles, vamping on a slow two-chord musical phrase he’d come up with years ago, never turned into a song. He’d made it as far as one rhymed couplet for lyrics. He sang the words as he repeated the chords.
A wave is coming at us,
There’s nothing else in sight.
On this dark, deserted ocean,
We’re about to face the night.
He repeated the lyric a few more times, hoping for further inspiration, investigative or musical. Neither came, but the sound of the guitar settled the rough waves in his mind. He closed his eyes and lay on the sofa, wrapping his arms around the Cordoba like it was an old bedmate, and fell into a soft lapping of sleep.
El Visitante
(The Visitor)
Three little notes crept into Rolly’s dream, like triplets tapped on a large wooden clave. He jerked awake. It was morning. The Cordoba guitar still lay in his arms. Wiping a dab of drool from the corner of his mouth, he set the guitar down and leaned it against the arm of the sofa. The three little notes came again, like a military cadence, insistent – someone knocking on the door. It wasn’t his mother.
“Just
a minute,” he called. He rose from the sofa, cleared the soft bits of sleep from his eyes. The room was still dark, but the light outside indicated the sun would soon clear the eastern mountains. Two days in a row now he’d been awakened from half-complete slumber.
Three more taps rang out, measured and exact. Rolly opened the door. A man stood outside. He was short, in his late forties, with tar-black hair chopped in a bowl cut, a tightly clipped mustache above his thin lips. Dressed in medical-green shirt and matching pants, the man looked like a hospital orderly. Little round divots scarred his left check. A pocket protector in the man’s shirt held a mechanical pencil, some small metal implements in a plastic sheath.
“Can I help you?” asked Rolly.
“You are Señor Waters, the private investigator?” the man replied, displaying Rolly’s business card.
“Yeah, that’s me,” Rolly replied.
The man’s right shoulder twitched. Rolly felt a sharp pain in his stomach. He stumbled backwards, and fell on the floor. The man stepped across the threshold, closed the door. He stared down at Rolly with eyes of flat steel.
“Where is the girl?” he asked.
“Whaa…ffff,” Rolly wheezed, clutching his stomach.
The orderly seated himself at the kitchen table. Rolly curled up on the floor, holding his stomach. It hurt like hell.
“What girl?” he gasped.
The little man smiled.
“I will find her, you know. Better you should tell me now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You are a detective, yes?”
Rolly nodded his head.
“And you are looking for a girl?”
“Girl, boy, I don’t know. I’m looking for someone who drove their car into Border Field Park.”
“Why did you go to that house?”
“What house?”
“The house at the bottom of the canyon. Why were you there?”
“I thought they might have seen something last night.”
“What happened last night?”
Rolly did a quick calculation, realized he’d added a day.
“I mean two nights ago, Friday,” he corrected himself. The pain in his gut subsided to a dull throb. He sat up.
“What do you think happened at this house Friday night?” the man asked.
“I don’t know. I was just checking around, asking questions. That’s what I do.”
“Did you speak to anyone?”
“A woman wearing a robe. She said her name was Tangerine.”
“No one else?”
“I’m looking for someone who ran their car through the park. That’s all.”
“What is this park?”
“Border Field Park. Down at the end of the road, by the ocean. There’s a bird sanctuary there, where the birds lay their eggs. Someone drove into it Friday night, crushed the nests and some eggs.”
“You are looking for the person who broke the eggs?”
“Yes.”
“You will receive compensation for this?”
“I’m getting paid, yes. Can I get up?”
“No, you must stay on the floor now.”
The little orderly leaned back in the chair and laughed. The muscles on his arms tightened like knotted ropes.
“You Californios amuse me,” he snickered. “Ninos con juegos. Spoiled little children. You play with toy guns. Saving the little birds when there are so many.”
Rolly made no response. The orderly stood up, pulled his chair out from under the table.
“Get below, please” he said, stubbing out his mirth like a spent cigarette.
“What?” Rolly said.
The orderly indicated the space under the table.
“On your knees, amigo. Debajo de la mesa.”
A cold electric surge ran down Rolly’s spine, from his head to his socks. The little orderly planned to put a bullet into the back of his head, execution-style.
“What do you want?” he protested.
The orderly sighed.
“You must get low, down under the table, my friend.”
“Why?”
“I will take a look, around your apartment. I will not hurt you. Under the table, if you try to run, I will hear. If you try to escape, I will demonstrate the big pain on you.”
Aside from his extra weight, Rolly had little to his advantage when it came to physical confrontations. He had no self-defense training. He didn’t work out or exercise. He couldn’t even throw a solid punch the way Moogus could. He sighed, rolled up onto his knees and crawled under the table. Patience was his only ammunition.
The orderly pushed the chair in behind Rolly, creating a makeshift jail cell out of the chrome-legged chairs and Formica.
“You maintain this deception?” the man asked. “You do not have the girl?”
Rolly looked down at the top of the orderly’s patent leather shoes, the perfect crease of his lower pant legs. He wondered why anyone wearing scrubs would bother to press them so neatly. Perhaps they were new, just out of the box.
“I don’t know about any girl,” he said.
“You will not mind if I look around then?”
“Help yourself,” Rolly muttered, trying to sound jaded, but his voice revealed a notable tremolo.
“We shall see,” the man said. “If she has left her little panties behind.”
Rolly jolted his head towards the sofa, caught himself, looked back down at the man’s feet.
“Don’t try anything, amigo,” the man said. His patent leather shoes moved out of view.
Rolly heard the rattle of silverware, the clanging of pots and pans as the little orderly searched through his kitchen. The sound of footsteps moved towards the bedroom, followed by the muffled banging of closet doors, the plastic squeak of cheap sliding drawers. The orderly returned to the living room. He knelt down in front of Rolly. The look on his face resembled pity.
“Gringo, you got some serious wardrobe deficiencies,” the man said, speaking softly. “La pureza es mala.”
“What’s that?”
“You are too much unclean.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“We negotiate. You tell me where the girl is, maybe I buy you some new underwear, a silk shirt, something nice.”
“I don’t know where any girl is. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Those tighty whities, they are not so white anymore. You should not wear them, you know. They are bad for your manhood. You do not get the circulation.”
“I promise I’ll buy some new underwear if you let me out of here.”
“Take my advice, you get the boxers next time, eh?”
“Yes. I’ll get boxers.”
Satisfied that his fashion point had been made, the little orderly rose and walked into the living room.
“You have muchas guitars, amigo” he said. He pointed towards the Cordoba on the sofa. “I would like to play on this one.”
“Be my guest.”
“Gracias.”
“Can I get out from under here?”
“Not yet, I think.”
Rolly’s stomach felt sore. He twisted his shoulders, trying to find a more comfortable position. The orderly watched for a moment, making sure there was no escape attempt. Assuring himself that Rolly wasn’t going anywhere, he picked up the guitar and sat down on the sofa. He strummed a few chords and started to sing. Rio by Duran Duran.
The orderly’s guitar chords were brutal and clipped, barely musical. His singing voice sounded like strangulation, as if he had tilapia bones stuck in his throat. Rolly gritted his teeth and endured. There was no point in getting killed over a bad cover song. The orderly mauled his way through a few more choruses, and put the guitar down.
“You hear that song before, amigo?” he asked, as he pulled a packet of rolling papers out of his pocket, along with a zip-locked bag of dried leaves.
“Unfortunately.”
“The girl I am l
ooking for, that is her name,” the man said, rolling a cigarette. “She is a whore.”
“Oh,” Rolly said. It gave him other notes to consider. Perhaps a prostitute named Rio danced on the sand Friday night, down at Border Field Park, with Nuge, or Jaime, or the Goth kid from the condo. Maybe they’d driven across the least tern preserve in their car. Maybe they’d left a CD behind.
The orderly finished rolling his cigarette. He pulled out a match, struck it on the fret board of the Cordoba. Rolly clutched his fists. It was one thing to force him under the table and make him listen to crappy, out-of-tune 80s synth-pop, but scratching his guitar was irredeemable.
“You smoke the weed?” the orderly said, taking a puff.
“Not anymore.”
“You should try some of this. It’s my own mix, especial – half Indian tobacco, half weed. Like the best of both worlds, two countries, you know? You would enjoy it, I think.”
“No thanks.”
“Are you sure? I roll you one.”
“Not for me.”
“You got problems with the weed?”
“No. I just don’t smoke it anymore.”
“I know many guitarristas who smoke the weed. They say it is good for their musical skills.”
“I stopped smoking awhile ago.”
“Why?”
“I just did.”
“Maybe you got a medical problem? Is that it? You got some sort of medical problem, amigo?”
“Like what?”
“Some men, they smoke too much weed, they lose their machismo. They get breasts, like young girls. You know what I mean, their cojones shrivel up. Then you got no juice for your girlfriend. You have a girlfriend?”
“Not at the moment,” Rolly said. The man studied Rolly, looking thoughtful.
“Where I come from, a guitar player, a good guitar player, he always has women,” the man said. “So I must think that you are not such a good guitar player. Or maybe you cannot satisfy a woman. That is why you don’t smoke the weed anymore. You can’t give the woman what she wants. You got a droopy salchicha.”
The orderly seemed to have an inordinate interest in erectile functions, but speculative assaults on Rolly’s reproductive health weren’t going to accomplish much. It was the least vulnerable part of Rolly’s psyche. As long as the orderly stopped beating on the Cordoba, Rolly didn’t care what he said.
Border Field Blues Page 8