As She Rides By (Vic Daniel Series)

by David Pierce

  Ten minutes later I dropped down to visit Davey Jones's locker for the second time. I was more or less becalmed in a trough between two swells and was trying to get up onto one knee to see if I could see where the hell I was by then in relation to the shore when a Japanese tidal wave or whatever the hell it was blindsided me and way up I went and then over again and in headfirst again. But this time I kept my eyes open, didn't I, so I wouldn't hit my aching head again when I came up. Which I certainly didn't do, because when I fought my way back to the surface not only didn't I hit my aching head again on the board, there was no board. The board had vanished. I dog-paddled around in a circle. The board had still vanished. I would have laughed, but I'd already ingested enough saltwater by then. I turned over on my back and floated for a moment. Up in the stratosphere a jet went by, leaving an arching vapor trail. Maybe it's one of those reconnaissance babies that can take high-definition pictures of a dirty car license plate from fifty thousand feet, I mused. In which case, in a couple of days from now some desk jockey working for Air Force intelligence will be startled to see in the pile of photos in front of him the last shot ever taken of V. (for Victor) Daniel, just floating away while from time to time a wavelet washed over his enigmatic smile, one hand raised in a final (ironic?) farewell.

  Something nudged my feet. "Take me, great white shark," I said. "I'm all yours." Another nudge. I risked a quick peek. It was the surfboard, somehow, like a faithful hound, returned to seek its master.

  It was a kid who rescued me, about a half hour later and another few hundred yards farther out to sea. By then I had the shakes from the cold, my cheek was bleeding again, and I was flat-out exhausted from trying to paddle with my hands. The kid was in a dinky-looking skiff about six feet long with his girl, a six-pack of beer, and, hanging from the mast, one of those waterproof transistors they sell for those hepcats who have to have sounds even in the shower. It was the music I heard first; I didn't know there was anyone within a mile of me as I was lying stretched out with my head on my bag flailing away and I hadn't looked up for a while.

  Then the kid called out, "Hey, mister, you OK? You're out a bit far."

  "You're telling me," I managed to say, getting a last mouthful of saltwater as I did so. "Got room for one more? I would deeply appreciate a lift to somewhere solid."

  "Sure, man, hop in," the kid called over. He made a nifty turn, came up right beside me, the girl dropped the sail, and I clambered aboard best I could. Then the kid snaked a rope around the surfboard, made it tight, the girl hoisted sail, and off we went, towing the board behind us. The girl saw I was shivering and tossed me over a huge beach towel which I gratefully wrapped around myself, then she tossed a beer my way, then opened one for herself and the kid. It was a Coors Light, I noticed, not one of my favorites, but I had no trouble at all draining it in three long swallows.

  "So what happened, man?" the kid asked after a while. "The current catch ya? It's pretty fierce here for a couple of miles, most surfers know that which is why you don't see any around. Comin' about," he then said. The girl ducked; so did V. Daniel, just in time, and we came about, or turned, to you.

  "Stupid surfers you see around here," I said. "Old, stupid, cold surfers."

  "Dressed funny, too," the girl said, taking in my yellow jogging outfit. "For surfing, that is." She was dressed in a fetching black-and-white striped spandex one-piece, the kid in a pair of ragged and sun-bleached cut-offs. "Hi. I'm Chris. That's Chris too, only for Christopher."

  "V. Daniel," I said. "V. for very, very grateful to you two."

  "Lucky we didn't go to Malibu with my folks, like we was gonna," the girl said.

  "Like you was gonna," the kid said, grinning. She made a face at him.

  We progressed at a good clip toward the shore, coming about from time to time. How pleasant to be sailing instead of paddling, I thought happily. What a brilliant invention, wind. Almost as brilliant as living instead of drowning. After my incomprehensible escape it is perhaps understandable that I was a little goofy with relief. "Danger past, God is forgotten," someone once said. I dispute that. Someone else once said, "A life of danger moderates the dread of death." I dispute that, too, Confucius.

  We were about a hundred yards from land when the kid asked me, "Anywheres special you want to get off, sir?"

  "Right there, son," I said, pointing to the nearest stretch of beach, "would do me fine."

  "You want it, you got it. Hang on." I hung on. He came about one last time, then ran us right up onto the sand, from which I deducted that his boat had neither a keel nor a centerboard.

  "Never been so glad to see sand in my life," I said, climbing out a touch shakily while Chris the girl pulled the surfboard in and then began untying my bag. I checked to see what time it was; both timepieces were still working, and both said it was one-thirty—I'd been out on that damn board almost two hours. Chris trotted over and handed me my bag. I unzipped it and was relieved to see no water had leaked in.

  Then Christopher said, "Well, it's been fun, like, but we should shove off, if you're OK now, sir."

  "OK?" I said. "Kids, I'm over the moon. Hang on a sec." I took off the Rolex and passed it to him. "A small, a miniscule gesture of my appreciation." I rummaged around in the bag, came up with a memo pad and a felt-tip, wrote my name and phone number down, then passed that over. "In case you get any hassles from your folks, Chris, get one of them to call me and I'll square it. As for you," I said to Chris the girl, "you have just inherited this one-owner, low-sea mileage, surfboard, which I never want to see again in my life. Your protests availeth naught." I shook hands with Christopher, kissed Chris in an avuncular fashion on one smooth, tanned, salty, cheek, hefted my bag, and headed off up Las Tunas Beach toward the nearest bar.

  As it happened, I did get a call from Christopher's mom, at my office, two days later. I reassured her that the watch was indeed a gift, that her son and Chris had probably saved my life, and said that she could rightly think very highly of him. There was a pause, then she laughed, and then she said, "Well, more highly than I did last Saturday, when I found a tobacco tin full of pot and a full bottle of his father's Black Label hidden in his closet."

  "Kid stuff," I scoffed, "and anyway, if he didn't secretly want you to find them, he never would have hidden them there, it's the first place a mom would look." She laughed again, and in a roundabout way, inquired as to my occupation, viz., what did I do to get so rich I could give away Rollies and surfboards to teenage kids? I didn't think I should bother mentioning it was easy, neither of them were mine, so I said instead something portentously enigmatic like, "You tell me the value of a secondhand watch plus a secondhand surfboard against that of a secondhand life," which she no doubt thought was total hogwash but was charitable enough to accept.

  Anyway. On the far side of the boardwalk I found a dimly lit, sawdust-smelling estaminet called Peggy's Pub, into which I gratefully hastened.

  "What 'cha been doing, lofty, practicing drowning?" said the pretty barlady, taking in my generally water-logged appearance.

  "Forget the practicing," I said. "Actually"—and here I adopted a sheepish look—"I fell into the kids' wading pool, would you believe it?"

  "Not for a second," she said. "You drinkin' ?"

  "Soon as you finish pouring," I said. While she was concocting me a large brandy and ginger ale, I ducked into the men's room, changed into dry clothes, wrung out the wet, wrapped them in the newspaper, retrieved my wallet, wiped the trickle of blood off my cheek, went back out, climbed aboard a stool at the long, wooden bar, silently toasted the Fates, and down around the hidden bend that first, delicious, swallow went. It was closely followed by a second, then a third. Shortly thereafter, the drink itself was followed by a second, then a third, the third one being accompanied by an invention that rivals even that of the wind—a chili dog, heavy on the onions and the grease: I started to feel like the old Vic Daniel once again, and the old Vic Daniel had things to do, so he better start doing them. I had t
o do something about the Mercedes, of course, and I had to do something about getting me back to civilization, or if not civilization, I'd settle for Beverly Hills. So I asked the pretty barlady if she could recommend a good local garage.

  "Ask me a hard one," she said, pouring out a banana daiquiri for a client with a flourish. The client didn't have the flourish—but he did have a large badge that read, "I'm too young to be this old"—it was the pour that flourished. "He only works there, when he's working," she went on, pointing to a lanky type in overalls who was sitting in the corner behind a pitcher of beer. "Hey, Curly," she called out. "Front and center!"

  Curly poured himself out another glass of beer, looked at it, took a sip, looked at it again, then got up and ambled slowly over.

  "Got a problem," I said.

  "Who hasn't?" he said morosely.

  "In fact, I got two of them." I told him what they were.

  "Call them problems?" he said, with a forlorn look at the pretty bar-lady.

  "Now, Curly," she said, "don't start in on that again." She took herself off to the jukebox with a handful of quarters. Curly watched her go, then sighed heavily, then turned back to me, scratching his abundant locks.

  "What I could do," he said, "is phone Mel, he's the boss, like, and he could radio the tow truck if it's out on a call and get started on that end and then what I could do is run you into town if it's OK with him."

  "Great," I said. "Thanks, Curly."

  "Name's Rex," he said. "She's the only one calls me that." There ensured a long pause.

  Finally, I broke it by saying, "I forgot just what we were waiting for, Rex."

  "Dunno what you're waiting for," he said, "but I'm waiting for a credit card number, which Mel'll prob'ly want, I'm waiting to find out just what kinda shape your automobile is in, cause Mel'll prob'ly want to know that, and I'm also waiting for us to agree on how much for the ride and does that include gas or not?"

  "Oh," I said. Further conversation took place. Details were exchanged. A price was mutually agreed on. Rex shuffled off to call Mel. I finished my drink. The jukebox began playing that Loretta Lynn song about honky-tonk women. Another few weeks passed. Then, back came Rex.

  "OK. Let's hit 'er," he said. "See ya, Debs."

  "Sure, Curly," Debs said brightly. "You too, Cousteau," she said to me. I followed Rex to the back door, out into the parking lot, then climbed up beside him into his beat-up old Dodge half-ton, then off we went.

  Forty minutes later, without another word being spoken, except for him asking me where I wanted to get out and me telling him Flora by Phineas, just off Rodeo Drive, I climbed back down, payed him his fifty ($50) bucks, added a fiver, thanked him, wished him well, and watched him head back the way we'd come.

  On the drive along the Santa Monica Freeway, then the 405—the San Diego—I'd once or twice come close to giving the poor lovelorn jerk a few helpful and brotherly words of advice and comfort.

  I couldn't think of any. Unfortunately, all I know about the subject is what some know-it-all once penned—to ask advice about the rules of love is no better than to ask advice on the rules of total insanity. Which I would not dispute, goofy-footers.

  Chapter Nine

  So all I gotta do now is hang on and keep the faith,

  'Cause I know my drinkin' buddy, my old amigo Samuel D . . .

  I FOUND PHINEAS in the workroom, talking on the telephone and munching on a bagel topped with cream cheese. He blew a kiss my way and gestured that he'd be with me in a minute. I said hello to the girls, who were knee-deep in a forest of what looked like ferns to me, and subsided into a director's chair that had Phineas's name on it. As soon as he'd hung up, we both said, at the same time, "How'd it go?"

  "Tell you in a minute," I said, "if I can use your phone first."

  "Be my guest," he said. "Nine for a line." I punched button number nine, got a line, called the County Sheriff's office, and asked for the same deputy I'd phoned that long-ago and far-away morning from Phineas's kitchen. Marvin Morrison, generally known as Marvelous Marv, was his name; being huge and black and ambitious his game. I needed someone from the County Sheriff's because the LAPD's jurisdiction did not extend to places like Topanga Canyon and Las Tunas, which fell into the roughly three thousand square miles of territory the Sheriff's Department was responsible for.

  Marvelous Marv was in, for once. He was writing up a report, he told me.

  "A satisfactory report?" I asked him.

  "Highly, bro," he said. "You were right, I probably have made history. I'll give you the details sometime over a drink, I gotta get on with this. And may I add my heartfelt thanks?"

  "Any time," I said. I blew him a kiss and rang off. Phineas arched his eyebrows at me meaningfully. The girls giggled. Then he took off the long green apron he was wearing.

  "I, moi, have an idea," Phineas said to me. "I'll drive you home and we can fill each other in on the way; that tickle your fancy?"

  "Highly, bro."

  He led the way out the back door. We climbed into one of the delivery vans and off we went, but not before he'd donned, and then carefully adjusted, the regular driver's cap which he'd found on the seat.

  As soon as he'd wheeled the van smartly into the traffic flow out on the main road, he said to me, "Age before beauty, so you go first."

  "OK," I said. "What I did was I made a mistake."

  "What mistake?"

  "Underestimation, which is why what is left of your Mercedes is at this very moment being towed into Mel's garage down Las Tunas way."

  He winced. I told him how it had happened and said I'd naturally pick up the tab for any repair work, not without an inward wince myself as we were talking three new radials, two windshields, plus the towing charge, plus whatever other damage an irate cannon-toting big mouth might have inflicted. Luckily for me, Phineas rejected my valiant offer with a grandiose wave of one hand.

  "Phineas may be occasionally promiscuous, but he is never petty," he said.

  "Good," I said. "Because you is out one tennis racket and one surfboard as well." And I told him how all that had happened. He whistled through his teeth and shot me a look.

  "Better you than me," he said, swinging right onto Coldwater Canyon. "I'm beginning to take your point about the importance of speaking the same language as those two frightful icks."

  "And how did your day go?" I asked him after a minute.

  "A lot quieter than yours," he said. "My lawyer came by the house in his brand-new BMW at about ten-thirty and off we went downtown. We found the right courtroom, and waited. At about a quarter after twelve, our case was called by the clerk of the court. We were present. The cops were present. The prosecuting attorney, a rather attractive young lady in a Nile-green trouser suit, was present. The lawyer for the accused was present. Guess who were the only ones missing."

  "I give up," I said.

  "Judge D. Sharp, presiding, was not overly pleased. He allowed the accused's attorney one hour to produce his clients. He did not do so. He unhappily had to confess to a total ignorance of their whereabouts. Judge D. Sharp, presiding, declared the accused's bail forfeit, and then instructed the clerk of the court to instruct the appropriate police official of the accused's lamentable behavior. As the appropriate police official was in court, the clerk did so immediately. Said police official promptly departed to regions unknown, and was never seen again, which will probably be the case with my favorite slobs."

  "Au contraire, mon ami," I said, as the Mercedes topped the hills separating Phineas's side of town and mine and began its descent down into North Hollywood and Studio City. "Your favorite slobs are at this very moment, at this precise point in time, back in the slammer where they belong. And this time they will not get bail, even if anyone was foolish enough to want to post it for them."

  "So that's what the mysterious phone calls were all about," he said, nodding. "The 'satisfactory report,' and all that."

  "Why, Phineas," I said, "there was nothing mysterious at all
about them. All I did was call up an old pal, Marvelous Marv, a sheriff's deputy of my acquaintance, and told him that if he wanted to make the fastest collar in the history of law enforcement, as of course he did, because he's been bucking for lieutenant for years now, all he had to do was be in such and such a place at such and such a time.

  "I said, if all went well, he would see a strange sight. Two of them, in fact; hopefully naked. And what he should do is, keep an eye on them until one o'clock or so. And what he should do then is, offer them a lift, forcibly or not."

  "And I thought I was the sneaky type," Phineas said. "Just goes to show."

  "And then," I went on, "if all went well, he would be able to make the fastest arrest in history because what your police official did immediately on leaving the court was to put out an APB, meaning an all points bulletin, on Phil and Ted, meaning all cars be on the lookout for and arrest instantly. Which Marv and his partner would have no trouble doing the second the APB came over their police radio, as Phil and Ted would be in their back seat at the time, and, knowing Marv, completely disarmed, trussed, bound, gagged, and handcuffed to the roof. And thus is history made."

  "Sneaky and devious," he said, turning smoothly onto Magnolia. I gave him directions from there and a few minutes later he pulled up in a small parking area in front of my office. I thanked him kindly for the lift and got out. He grinned at me, and tilted his cap down over one eye.

  "It's moi who owes the thanks," he said. I gave him a grandiose wave for a change.

  "I'll get on to Derrone, too," I said, "about where to send the dozen Angel Faces, remember? Also I'll track down the address of Mel's Garage and get that to him too."

  "Jolly decent of you, old chap," he said. "Now I simply must fly. Drop around sometime when you're in the neighborhood."