Down in the Valley (Vic Daniel Series)

by David Pierce

  'Expensive lines coming out, cheap schlock going in.'

  'And a little sweetener to the insurance investigator, if he even bothers to look closely. Ah, well.' He moved to the door. 'TTFN. Know what that means?'

  'No.'

  'Ta ta for now.'

  He finally left, thank heavens; he was not only short, he was nuts, I was beginning to think. I took one of Benny's pills and a couple of aspirin and my daily dose of antibiotics, although I was supposed to take one before every meal, and before long I figured I could manage a bath if I dangled my legs over the side so I manufactured another weak brandy and ginger and gave it a try. Once I was in, it felt just fine, as the bishop said to the actress or the choirboy. Steam rose; I dozed. The phone rang while I was soaking; I let it ring, I cared not.

  'I build my castles in the sky, they turn to smoke, but what care I?' my pop used to say, blowing smoke rings to amuse his boys. He died when I was sixteen and Tony fourteen; I wonder what he'd say if he saw us today. Probably the same thing.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I took the truck to work the next morning. I took my hangover, too. I like hangovers – mild ones, anyway. They shift your head sideways into a devil-may-care, goofy space where non sequiturs roam and witty phrases dance and sing.

  I stopped on the way at Blumenfeld's Office Supplies, New 'n' Used, which is on Magnolia about at Colfax, where a hustler name of Syd was thrilled to unload on me a one-owner desk and swivel chair, a spare chair, a filing cabinet and a card file. He offered me the price of a lifetime on a large, framed, 3-D photograph of Reagan seated in the Oval Office but I managed to curb myself. Syd and I loaded the junk in the truck, then money changed hands.

  Next stop was Mrs Martel's store next to the post office. I needed everything, she was delighted to hear, new personalized stationery and envelopes, something to be getting on with until they were printed, memo pads, pens and filing cards, all the impedimenta of the upwardly mobile businessman. I made a mental note to ask my landlord how much of all this crap was covered by his insurance. Mrs Martel offered me a sensational deal on a thousand personalized ballpoints but again I somehow managed to curb my lust.

  'Will there be anything . . . else?' she asked me in a stage whisper when she handed me my change. 'Anything . . . special? Will you be writing any more letters for the Department of Immigration or the California Parks and Wildlife Commission or the Highway Department, Orange County Branch?' I blushed becomingly, scuffed my feet and told her I'd let her know. Then it was next door for stamps. I like standing in line at the post office, it makes me feel humble.

  My office was empty; I opened up and began unloading. I didn't see Mrs Morales but to hell with her anyway. Quite frankly, now that I was upwardly mobile, she'd be nothing but a handicap at events like Rotary Club picnics and Young Businessmen lunches. My place still had that ammoniacal smell of cheap whitewash, but was otherwise neat and clean, rug down, painting finished. I placed the new old furniture where the old old furniture had been, arranged the bits and pieces on the desk, opened the back door to air the room out, picked up the pile of mail from inside the front door, sat down in my new old swivel chair and began to go through my correspondence. I left Betsy and the typewriter where they were in case I didn't need them.

  Top of the pile was a note from the decorators. It said, 'Don't forget!!! Phone & electric and glass & lights tomorrow,' which was today. I hadn't forgot. Underneath that it said, 'Gave cat milk. Thank you!' Should have given it a hit of that Haig's Pinch, I thought, that's more its style.

  There was a note from the messenger service saying that they had called with a delivery Monday and Tuesday but would not call again until they heard from me, the addressee, regarding my future whereabouts. Well shet ma mouf. I went to the pay phone outside the Nus' and gave the service a call. They said they were on their way. Then I popped in next door for a spot of business with the Nus' enterprising cousin, Nyom Pnung; I was never sure if that was his name or where he came from, or both. I waited while he sold a couple of hard-core home videos to a middle-aged lady in shorts. Then, after exchanging pleasantries, I asked him if he happened to have any telephones.

  'What color, you care?'

  'No, me no care.' He let me have a bright red, lightweight, touch-tone for a ludicrously low price and threw in a twelve-foot lead. He tried to tempt me with a telephone answering machine that did everything but write home to Mother, but for the third time that day, and it was still early, I was strong. Anyway, I hated those things even more than I hated water-picks, electric carving knives and glass-frosters.

  Back I strolled through the noon haze to the office and the waiting pile of mail. Out went something from the Reader's Digest that might have made me a very rich man. Out went something from Johnny Carson's stooge, ditto. Out went something beginning 'The Curse of Rameses Will Follow You Forever If You Break The Chain'. Out went an insulting leaflet beginning 'Your name has been given to us as one of the 24,000,000 American men who have some sort of problem with hair loss'. Out went 'Dear Neighbor, America's foremost painter of clowns has just printed a limited edition . . .' Mental note – buy a wastepaper basket.

  John D., Valley Bowl, had sent me what I'd asked him for – employment records on the three girls and his receipts from the past month. I looked them over to see if any lightning would strike. The ladies' names, in no particular order were Maria Cintron, single, Barbara Herbert, single, and (Mrs) Martha F. Nazarof. Their respective ages were nineteen, twenty-four and twenty-seven. They lived, respectively, in East LA, Van Nuys and La Crescenta. They all had Social Security numbers. They all had car license numbers. They had been slave labor for John D. for, (respectively), three weeks, nine Weeks and three and a half years. Ah so.

  Back to the phone booth. My brother was off duty but I got on to a co-worker of his, not Morrie the weird this time but a morose older man called Larry I'd met a couple of times, once at the station downtown and another time at the funeral of a trainee policewoman, a good friend of Tony's and mine, hell, it must have been three years ago already. Larry grumbled a bit as usual but came through as usual – Maria owned a ten-year-old Ford, home address the same, four moving violations, traffic class attended. Barbara had an ancient Bug, home address the same, no violations. Martha was driving a newish Toyota, registered in her husband's name, home address correct, no violations.

  'Anything else?' he said sarcastically. 'God knows I got nothing else to do. There hasn't been any crime at all in LA for weeks.'

  'No, thanks, Larry,' I said.

  'Take care of yourself, stupid,' he said, then hung up. 'Stupid' – I guess my brother had been singing my praises at his office again.

  The receipts John D. had sent were in groups of five slips stapled together, one group for each day. There were subtotals from the bar, the snack bowl, the lanes and any sales of merchandise, and on the fifth slip the total was entered. Once every two weeks there were additional entries from the pinball and video machine share-outs and once a month payments from some of the leagues that paid that way. No help there that I could see.

  I looked over the cards again in case I'd missed any clues, like, Hobbies: buying expensive jewelry or raising afghan puppies or keeping younger men; no such luck. Well, all things being equal, or almost equal, I thought I'd start with Barbara Herbert, twenty-four, single, from the nearby residential horror of Van Nuys.

  My legs were itching like crazy so I got up to distract myself. I did have some spray for them but I'd cleverly left it at home. That bloody cat was sitting just inside the back door peeking out at a bird that was hopping around the garbage; I told it to get out and stay out, or else. It got out, taking its own sweet time about it. The molting mouser belonged to an aging hippy who lived with his girlfriend in a dilapidated loft across the back alley from me. All his window boxes were planted with huge pot bushes that he had slyly disguised as tomato plants by festooning them with round, red Christmas-tree ornaments; I suppose a blind Narc might be fooled f
or a couple of seconds.

  The glass man cameth about then and I rubber-necked while he and his lady associate installed my new shatter-proof front window in something under ten minutes, laughing hysterically at nothing that I could make out all the while. Then Sparks showed up and started on the rewiring. Then laughing boy and his girlfriend helped me carry the now superfluous boarding that had been covering the window area out back for the cat and his gang to play on, then they pissed off. Then the man from Ma Bell, or I suppose it was now Pacific Bell, made an appearance. He wasn't laughing hysterically, in fact he wasn't laughing at all; he did what he had to do, presented me with an illustrated folder on the use and care of the telephone, adding a poorly printed pamphlet on Being Born Again, then took his leave. Mental note – an even larger wastepaper basket.

  I plugged in my new phone and heard the comforting sound of the dial tone. When I was younger I used to listen to it at night sometimes, feeling a sense of wonder and latent adventure that was as long gone as the flavor in Orange Crush.

  I looked over the pamphlet on Being Born Again as a Christian. Could a private eye be born again, I wondered briefly. Would one want to? If that were only my main worry today.

  All right. Back to the mail. Photo-Date was after me again. Cal Edison wanted their monthly pittance. The May Co. was having a summer sale of ladies' separates, super! Someone in Ohio wanted to know if I was satisfied with my present cost of automobile insurance. Was anyone? The last item was an announcement from a specialty house in Pasadena of a sale in electronic protection hardware; I glanced through the five-page list that was enclosed until I got discouraged, which didn't take long. Out.

  The boy from the messenger service putt-putted up on his underpowered bike; he entered, I signed, he left, I opened. It was as expected the regular weekly payment from Mr Seburn, cuckold, but this time he had added a note taking me up on my suggestion that we try and get a statement from Mr Universe who worked the desk at the health club. He also mentioned that any more photos of an incriminating nature would be useful as he was planning to bring the affair, no pun intended, to a close, if possible by the end of the month. The news made me glad and sorry; glad because I'd had nine weeks at $82.50 per, sorry because there wouldn't be any more such paydays. But I was pleased to have a chore to do, I like keeping busy, it's good for the complexion, someone said. I had not repeat not forgotten St Stephen's and all the complications thereof, au contraire, if I may show off my learnin', every itch was a constant reminder, but didn't someone else once say all life was a question of timing? I figured I'd give the simmering pot of cupidity at the school one more stir in the next day or so, then leave it to simmer again for a short while. Then, look out.

  'Don't get me mad!' my pop used to say. 'Just don't get me mad!' He would say this of course in a voice that suggested it was all he could do to control his total rage. Well, I was mad already. It might be claimed that I'd been mad since I was sixteen, mostly at myself, the rest at Tony. And Pop.

  The messenger boy, having made a brief pit stop at Mrs Morales', was just pulling out of the parking lot when a customer walked in through my newly painted front door. I didn't know she was a customer at first as I'd never before had one with lime-green and orange hair styled in a Mohawk and I'd also never before had a customer with a whole string of safety pins hanging from one ear. However, what am I if not adaptable, who am I if not tolerant of all the minority elements in society, including freaks? And I did sort of dig the Day-Glo underwear which I could spy through a jagged tear in her purple gauchos. Her eyes, undoubtedly so bloodshot they were solid crimson, were hidden behind wrap-around sunglasses, one lens of which was badly cracked.

  'Hey, man, what happened to you?' she whispered after looking me up and down.

  'I was born,' I whispered back. 'What's your excuse?'

  'You know Elroy?' she then whispered.

  'I know Elroy,' I admitted. 'He's my landlord. I like Elroy. I was late with my rent once and he just laughed and laughed while he broke both my legs.'

  'Jesus, man, what stinks in here? This is all his idea,' she said in almost a normal voice. She was still hovering by the door, jumpy as a zebra who can smell the lions but can't see them yet.

  'Look,' I said. 'Let's pretend. Ever play that? Let's pretend we are both level-headed, sensible types and go about this in a sensible, businesslike way. You come in. You sit down. You tell me about it, whatever it is, then I'll tell you if I can help or not.'

  She thought it over, closed the door and finally sat down across from me in my new old spare chair and immediately lit up one of those long, thin, fake cigars girls smoke these days. Mental note – steal new ashtray.

  Slowly her story emerged; it took a while but I had a while. Her name was Sara Silvetti but that wasn't her real name, it was her adopted name, she didn't know her real name. She was a poet. She was an amazing poet, actually, considering her lack of experience. She lived with her adoptive parents in one of Elroy's apartment buildings, the same one he lived in, in Sherman Oaks, on Huston, near the park. She was eighteen and had just been thrown out of Pepperdine College, not that she gave a good Goddamn about it. She told me she didn't give a good Goddamn about anything. I told her she must give a Goddamn about something or what was she doing talking to me. She owned that, OK, maybe she did give a Goddamn about something.

  'Like what?'

  'Elroy thinks I should find out who my real mother is,' she said. 'He thinks not knowing is helping to screw me up.'

  'What do you think?'

  'I think he's full of shit,' she said.

  'Yeah, well,' I said, 'you could be right and he could still be right.'

  She sighed and looked around for something to do with her cigarette ash. I got her the top of a Bromo-Seltzer bottle from the bathroom. She looked it over.

  'I like classy guys,' she said, deadpan. 'So what do we do?'

  'So what have you done so far, have you talked it over with your adoptive parents?'

  'Is he nuts?' she said to the ceiling. 'Is he completely out of his bird? I got enough problems already at home.'

  I could well imagine.

  'Have you ever seen the adoption papers?'

  'No.'

  'Do you know where they are?'

  'No.'

  It was my turn to sigh. I did so, deeply. 'Sara, do you know anything at all about the facts of life?'

  She threw me a look that was half contemptuous and half, if you only knew.

  'Not those facts of life, Mata Hari. Your adoptive parents have rights, both legal and otherwise. Now I don't need their permission to try and find out who your real parents are but I sure as hell wouldn't start looking without at least telling them what's going on, it's called consideration or politeness or both. Also, they could obviously be a lot of help. They know what agency you came from, or through, or what stork brought you, they know when, it's even possible they know who your real mother was, they might even have met her. And they may also know that laws have changed, today the child has certain rights; in some cases agencies can be obliged to make their adoption records public. In any case, we need something to start with; that is, if we do decide to go on with it and I for one am not exactly thrilled by the whole idea.'

  'I got something,' she said quickly. 'I know when and I know where I was left.'

  'Left?'

  'Yeah, left,' she said. 'As in deposited. Abandoned. Deserted. Chucked out with the bath water. Get the picture?'

  'Yeah, I get it,' I said.

  'Not that I really care,' she said.

  'Of course not,' I said.

  She glared at me suspiciously. I felt like giving her the heave. What a dope, with her stupid hair and stupider torn clothes and even stupider safety pins and black nail polish except for the nails that were yellow. Next thing I'd be inviting that mange-infested cat in for cocotte de chicken livers and chilled Chateau Carnation.

  Sara lit up another one of her foot-long specials.

  'Well?' she said
.

  'Your folks have got to know,' I said, 'the sooner the better.' She had shoes on that didn't match, in fact one was a boot. I know, I know, she had another pair at home exactly the same.

  'Well, they don't want to know,' she said. 'And they don't want me to know. And they are not going to help me find out anything about my mother, my real one.'

  'How do you know that?'

  'I listened,' she said. 'I used to listen a lot. Then it got boring.'

  'Why do you think they won't help?'

  'Who knows?' she said.

  'Do you think it's remotely possible they love you and don't want to lose you, silly as it may sound?'

  'Me?' She thought it over for a moment.

  'You.'

  'That'll be the day,' she said. 'That will be the bright new dawn.'

  I raised the one eyebrow I had left at her.

  'Listen,' she said, leaning forward. 'I been thinking. What if you did find out who my mother was and where she is and I got in touch with her, then it would be too late to stop me, they'd have to face up to it then, wouldn't they?'

  'What about you facing up to it?' I said. 'What about that?'

  'Facing up to what, that cat of yours?' She pointed behind me.

  'That'll be the bright new dawn,' I said, 'the day that cat is mine. Beat it!' I chased it out and closed the back door.

  'Facing up to a lot of things,' I said when I came back. 'We may never find out who your mother was; probably we won't. The records may not exist; if they do, you may not be able to afford the potential litigation involved. Sad but true. Your mother may be dead, Sara. She may be alive and not want to meet you.'

  'I can't see that,' she said.

  'Look in a mirror,' I said. 'What if you were the result of a rape? What if you were illegitimate and it would harm your mother's life now if it all came out? What if she met you and didn't like you? What if you didn't like her?'

  'What if I don't like you?' she said. 'What difference does it make? You going to help me or not? Elroy said you would. I said why should you.'