by Hal Ackerman
“Tragic.
“I owe her a favor.”
“Really.”
“Really.”
She appraised his response. Decided he was on the ups. “There are these two guys. I don’t like them much. One called Wylie, one called Phibbs. Do you know them?”
Stein gestured that he didn’t.
“One is like a lawyer-rock promoter-wannabe mogul. Wears cartoon character t-shirts. His friend looks like a marine or a CIA pilot. Buzzcut. Lethal empty expression. I occasionally deal with them if I need generic run-of-the-mill smoke.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Let a girl finish. You know how you get a sense when people are showing off for you? A week or so ago these guys were talking about bringing home some end-of the-world weed from Amsterdam.”
“No, this would be local.”
“Sorry. She took another whiff of the bud “I look forward to this.”
“So how’s it like living in the antique world?”
“All men are merely weak surrogates for him, Stein.” She made him almost think she really meant it.
A TV was playing as Stein made his way back through the house to the exit. The “Supermodel Slaying” was all over the news. Local reporters were buttonholing anyone who might have known or worked with Nicholette Bradley, shoving mikes in their faces, asking their imbecilic questions. “How does it make you feel…?” The one person in the whole circus who looked like he truly loved and missed the girl was a hairdresser who said he had known her for years and, according to the crawl, had done her hair for all the Espe ads. He was gay and bald and had eyes that even in grief danced like hummingbirds. His name flashed on the screen. Paul Vane. Stein had heard that name before. It took just a few moments for it to roll into the right pachinko hole in Stein’s brain to start the bells ringing.
Paul Vane.
The former lover/mentor of Michael Esposito. The man accused of stealing the Espe bottles. The man Mrs. Pope Lassiter wanted him to talk to. Stein could not imagine what a soulful, compassionate person like Vane had in common with a furtive little tramp like Miss Espe, Michael Esposito. Maybe the thirty-year age difference had something to do with it. Groucho’s line about a man being as old as the woman he feels, transcended gender preference.
With Goodpasture gone AWOL, Paul Vane was Stein’s only direct link to Nicholette Bradley. He had reason now to drive out to Palm Springs and it had nothing to do with shampoo. It registered somewhere on the spectrum of his hard drive how curious it was that Nicholette was a focal point in both of his current preoccupations. He called his answering machine from the phone booth outside the center. He winced when the mechanized voice informed him he had eight messages. He skipped past the five from Mrs. Higgit without listening. There was a message from Ben at the bank that was so cryptic he had to play it twice to understand. Ben had traced the Stop Payment to a name that sounded so phony he was sure it was bogus. One Alton Schwimmer. The confirmation of Stein’s suspicion made him growl and wish he had left the doctor to fend for himself last night instead of driving him back to his hotel.
The last message was from a woman with a perky voice that Stein did not recognize, telling a rambling tale about a dress that she had sent to the dry cleaners. It was the longest, wackiest wrong number in telephonic history, but she finally circled back to the point of her story, which was that she and Stein had met two months ago in the produce section looking at a vegetable that was half cauliflower and half broccoli, and that Stein had called her Broccolflower and given her his phone number, but she had stuck the napkin in the bra strap of the lining of the dress that she had just now gotten back from the dry cleaners which was why she hadn’t called him until now, but if he remembered her and if he had not met the woman of his dreams yet, she hoped he would call her back.
Stein absolutely remembered her. Redhead. Flaky as filo dough. Just as she began to give her phone number, there was a horrible squeak, and the tape went dead. Stein gasped, “Oh no!” But a moment later her voice came back laughing. “Can you believe I can actually make the sound of a tape disintegrating? One of the joys of having eight huge protective brothers. Just kidding about the huge protective part. And the eight. Anyway, call me. I thought you were cute.”
He called her back immediately.
“Broccolflower. It’s Stein.”
“Yes?” Her voice contained no glow of recognition.
“Stein.
“Yes. Hello?”
“You just left a message for me?” He waited for the exultant, oh of course, but there was nothing. “Broccolflower?”
“I don’t think this is going to work,” she said, and hung up.
When he called Millicent Pope-Lassiter to say that he would go to Palm Springs after all, it pissed him off that she was not at all surprised. She had apparently brushed off Stein’s entire act of rebellion as a non-event. The trip, she thought, would be an excellent second prong in the attack, in conjunction with the warrant that had been issued for the arrest of the inside man at the warehouse. She rummaged through her papers for the name, “A Mister Duluth Greene.” Stein roared from someplace deep in his digestive tract and was still volcanic when he called Mattingly’s office and Mrs. Higgit put him through.
“I told you not to do that. Didn’t I specifically tell you not to do that? Do you people fucking listen? I’m going out to Palm Springs in an hour. You call the dogs off Morty Greene until you get further notice. Do you understand that?”
His blood pressure was ripping at his eyeballs. He needed Lila’s sane, calming influence to take the ride out there with him. Plus she’d love getting her hair done by Paul Vane. He heard the water lapping in the backyard pool of her Beverly Hills home when she picked up her cell phone. He pictured her basking on the chair float listening to her Italian lesson on earphones.
“Do you feel like going to Palm Springs?” he asked.
He heard her sit up and adjust the halter-top of her bikini. “But Stein, you hate Palm Springs.”
“That’s why I need you to go with me. Something good to compensate for something I hate.”
“My God, that was almost sweet. When were you thinking of going?”
“Fairly soon.”
“You mean sometime in the next month?”
“More in the nowish area.”
“You mean this week?”
“A little more nowishly.”
“You don’t mean today?”
“In an hour?”
“Stein! Is the last minute the only minute you ever function in?
He could hear her clambering out of the raft and patting herself dry with her fluffy white bath towel that sat on the redwood lounge chair. “I just have that charity cocktail thing at the Beverly Wilshire tonight but I can blow it off.”
“Isn’t that where you get to meet the governor’s wife?”
“Since when do you care about those things?”
“I don’t. But you live for them.”
“We’ll take my car. You must be the last man in America not to have air conditioning. I have a hair and nail appointment. Give me an hour-and-a-half.”
“Lila, it’s just a ride to Palm Springs. Don’t get all-” But she had already clicked off.
Ninety minutes would give him time to ride out and warn Morty Greene. He didn’t know why he was so sure Morty had nothing to do with the missing bottles. No doubt some wishful longing that important parental qualities found their way into their children’s DNA. Morty’s red pickup truck was not in the driveway. In its place was a zippy new Mini Cooper convertible.
Stein rang the doorbell to Morty’s apartment and practically burst through the door when Morty opened it.
“Man, you must have a death wish,” Morty said. “You bust in here like John Wayne? You’re not even Wayne Newton.”
“There may be an arrest warrant out for you.”
Edna Greene quietly entered from the room beyond. Her hair was up in a bun and she was wearing a red Jamaic
an robe. She looked at Stein with grave severity. “No suggestion of crime, you said?”
“I’m sorry. This isn’t my doing.”
“You’re going to be sorry in motion.” Morty moved threateningly to Stein.
“Duluth!”
“Why did you quit your job?” Stein demanded.
“How is that your business?”
“You practicing for what you’re going to tell the SWAT team?”
“Do you remember the seven horse?” He rubbed his fingers together. “Would you go back to a loading dock?”
“That’s a fair point. So once again I present you with this document.” Stein offered the bill of lading in Morty’s proximity. He glared down at it and breathed fire.
“Duluth, this man did not get you in trouble. Tell him what he wants to know about that piece of paper.”
Stein was suddenly apprehensive that once again all his instincts had been wrong. “Is there something I should know about this piece of paper?”
Morty surrendered. “Hell, I guess you already know. I suppose you talked to Delores Brown.”
“Why would you think I did that?” Stein asked.
“I’m being straight with you, man. Don’t treat me like a boy.”
“Let’s talk about you and Delores, then.”
Edna Greene retreated to the back room and Morty nodded for Stein to take a seat. “You ever work on a loading dock? I’m guessing probably not.”
“Is this going to be one of those long stories with poignant sociological implications?”
“The job sucks, all right?”
“That I can relate to.”
“So they make me a supervisor. For an extra buck-thirty an hour I keep records on everything that comes in and goes out and bring all the records down to Accounting.”
“I’m on a bit of a time crunch.”
“In accounting there is a particular fox they just hired who wears pants so tight you can see her smile.”
“Downtown Delores Brown?”
“So we have this little rap going and one afternoon she sashays up to the dock. She says she locked her keys inside her car, and did anyone know how to, you know, open a door with-”
“I get the idea.”
“As it turns out, I possess a little experience in that area, so I volunteered to help.”
“Anyone could tell at first glance you were an altruist.”
“Only trouble was, a shipment of bottles was due in the next twenty minutes and it’s my responsibility to sign them in.”
“I’m beginning to get a bad feeling about this, Morty.”
“It gets good before it gets bad.”
“You went with Delores and helped her gain entry.”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“You found her ignition key?”
“All right, Mister Stein,” Edna called in from the next room. “The point is made.”
The sexual innuendos made Stein gloomy, not eroticized. “Just so I can feel as horrible as possible, Morty, are you telling me you weren’t there when the shipment arrived? That you had somebody else sign the manifest with your name?”
“No, man. I signed the paper. But…”
“But what?”
“But before the truck ever got there.”
“So you never actually saw the merchandise?”
“Oh, I saw the merchandise.” Morty grinned.
“I’m talking about the bottles.”
“You wouldn’t be if you saw Delores.”
“Duluth!”
His mother’s scolding voice straightened him up. “I never saw the bottles,” Morty admitted. “But I’m sure they were there. Why wouldn’t they be?”
“And how many bottles were in this shipment?”
“A hundred cases. Times 24 in each case.”
Stein perked up. “Did you say a hundred cases?”
“That’s right.”
“Not a thousand?”
“A thousand? Hell, no!”
“Swear on your life that it was only a hundred.”
“It was a hundred cases, man.”
Stein was inwardly relieved. This brought it back down again to the trivial.
“That time,” Morty added.
“Excuse me?”
“There were a hundred cases that time.”
“There were other times?”
“Delores would come down there every now and again.”
“Let me take a wild stab. When there were shipments of Espe shampoo bottles?”
“I didn’t think about it at the time.”
“Morty, damn it. Have you and your little partner from the track been scamming up Espe shampoo bottles? Trucking them out to Palm Springs?”
“Naw.”
“I noticed a sharp little Mini Cooper down in the driveway. What happened to your Ford?”
“I traded up.”
“You could wear that thing on your foot.”
“It’s surprisingly roomy.”
Edna Greene came in from the back bedroom. “That’s Roland’s car. He borrowed Duluth’s truck. How much trouble is my son in?
“Him? Nothing. He’ll do twenty years in state prison and then get on with his life. Me, I have to tell Mattingly he was right.”
She pulled her son’s collar down so he was at her eye level. “Du-luth Greene, did you have anything to do with moving those bottles?”
“No, Mama, I didn’t.”
She released him and turned to Stein as though she had proven the irrefutable existence of gravity. “He had nothing to do with moving any bottles, Mister Stein. He stepped aside with that woman. That was all. Can you trust that I’m telling you the truth?”
“What court of law could argue with the my mama says I’m innocent defense?”
“We’ll deal with court when we have to,” Edna Greene said. “Right now I want to know if you believe us.”
“Against my better instincts, I do.”
“Then you can call me Edna.”
Stein pushed a couple of bills into Morty’s hand. “I want you to stay in a motel for a couple of days ‘til I get this straightened out.”
Morty pushed the money back at him. “Hey man. I don’t need your damn twenty dollars. I hit the seven horse.”
Before Stein could insist, the LAPD patrol car pulled into the driveway. Moments later Stein watched dolefully as Morty was read his rights and taken down the steps in handcuffs. “I told them not to do this, Edna. I’m going to fix it. Don’t worry.”
“That’s Mrs. Greene to you.”
TEN
“Stein!”
Penelope Kim’s voice sang out his name in a parabola of delight. Stein had knocked on her door to see if she’d walk and feed Watson in case he didn’t get back from Palm Springs in time that night. There was something different about her: her long black hair was brushed to a sheen and the clear outline of her breasts delineated themselves beneath her silk blouse. There was a touch of color on her lips and a line that accentuated the depth of her eyes.
Stein apologized. “This appears to be an inopportune time.”
“Come in,” she chided. “You look so forlorn standing out there in the rain.”
“It’s not raining.”
“You make it look like it is. Come in.”
“I get the feeling you’re expecting someone.”
“I am. He’s here. It’s you.”
“What’s me?”
She pulled him inside. The room vibrated with the heady aroma of smoldering sage and the pure tones of koto and flute from her stereo.
“Penelope, I don’t want to get in the way of whatever ceremony you’re performing here. Can I ask you to do a favor for me?”
She smiled at him as though she were privy to all his past lives. “I know where you were last night,” she intoned. “I know why you missed your party.”
Last night seemed ages ago. Stein tried to remember where he had been and where he had said he had been.
“Yo
u weren’t counting shampoo bottles, my sweet mendacious mentor.” Penelope undulated the newspaper in front of him. Its front page carried lurid pictures of Nicholette Bradley’s murder scene. “Stein, you covered her body! You preserved her modesty. You’re like a knight of the Round Table.”
“What are you talking about?” It was a weak denial. He enjoyed the praise.
“I never would have thought of that for Klein. I’ve underestimated your depth.”
“Why would you think I was there?”
She engulfed him under a silken, feathery aura of affection. “You can’t hide from me, Stein. You know that I see the events outside the bands of visible light. You were there with her. I smell her on you!”
“Look, you’re in a weird kind of mood and I have to-”
She stood in his way. “You made love with her, didn’t you? You had sex with her right on the floor.”
“Somebody here has a rich fantasy life.”
“You held her in your arms. You pressed your fingers into the spaces between each vertebra.”
She pressed Stein’s fingers into her hand. “You’ve never come on to me. Do you know how incredibly sexy that is?” She tugged on the sleeves of his blue work shirt. “Lift your arms.”
He bowed obediently, not sure if he was about to be stroked or beheaded.
“What are we doing?” he whispered.
Her fingertips pressed so gently against his temples that he was not sure whether he was being touched or merely wishing to be touched. “This is called L’ang Pao Tong. It means ‘Caress of Butterfly Wings.’” Sensation shot through all of his nerve endings. She pinched his earlobes between her fingernails. He cried out in surprise. “There are no barriers between our thoughts, Klein. You had her right on the floor, didn’t you? Tell me what she looked like naked. Put me there with you alongside her.”
“Did you just call me Klein?”
She unwrapped the fabric tied round her waist, and her skirt was no more. She wore nothing underneath. Her legs were long and slender. She had a small tuft that looked like the brow over one modestly averted eye.
“Tell me how it felt to be inside her,” she breathed. “Was she soft like dandelions?” She laced her fingers behind Stein’s neck and brought him closer to her.
“You’re using me as your sexual surrogate.”