by David Pierce
There was a pause.
'Do I know you?'
'We met briefly,' I said. 'I'd like to get to know you lots better.'
'Me too,' he said. 'Just say where and when, pal.'
'How about you moving your car down the street a bit from your place and being in it in about an hour, that way I can see you're alone and vice versa.'
'You know where I live?'
'I sure do. I wish I could afford an expensive place like that.'
'You know my car?'
'I sure do. Wish I could afford a new one.'
'How'd you get my phone number?'
'Looked it up in the book, Art.'
'Yeah,' he said. 'OK. I'll be there.' He hung up.
'Looking forward to it,' I said to the dead line. 'Enormously.'
I got on to the messenger service I use and told them to send over a fresh-faced, willing boy right away. They said he had just left. I put on an old safari jacket that I hated because it was so second-rate Hollywood but I needed the pockets; into one went the coke, into another an envelope with five of the counterfeit twenties, into the breast pocket my bean bag, then I typed up a little something on the portable and tucked that away in another envelope. I made sure I had a pen that worked. I made sure I had a gun that worked, the fourth of my Police Positives, actually, the unlicensed one.
I dialed the West Valley Police.
Was Lieutenant Conyers working Saturday?
Yep.
Was he in the office?
Yep.
Could I talk to him?
Yep.
'Shorty? It's me, your favorite PI.'
He hung up.
I dialed the West Valley Police.
Could I talk to Lieutenant Conyers, please?
Yep.
'Drugs, Shorty,' I said. 'You know how you hate drugs.'
'Go on,' he said after a moment.
'To make it short, pardon the expression, I got a dealer for you. If we do it right we'll get him with a couple of grand's worth of Bolivia's finest and a handful of play money and an unlicensed firearm and who knows what else. Of course, if you're not interested, if you're going to let personal feelings like jealousy get in the way . . .'
'Details, please,' he said.
The details I gave him. Some of them, anyway. Then he gave me his car radio's call sign. Then he said, 'No fuck-ups, Daniel,' and rang off before I could sneak in any more short jokes. Who knew, maybe he'd turn out to be a decent sort once he got his full growth.
It wasn't long after that when I heard the telltale putt-putt of the messenger's bike; I told him out the window to hang in there, I'd be right down. I grabbed the candy box, locked up, and down I went. The kid had taken his helmet off and was combing his long blond hair with a large plastic lady's comb, the kind with a foot-long handle. I checked the mailbox; there was one envelope, written on the front of which was 'Delivered By Hand'. Super-Punk strikes again.
'Are you a willing boy?' I asked the kid, pocketing my mail.
'Yes, sir,' he said. 'I would call myself a willing boy. As far as business goes, that is.'
'Jolly good,' I said. 'Willing boys are the kind who occasionally make a lot of money for doing very little.'
'Really?' he asked in mock surprise. 'Fancy that. But I don't want you to think I'm doing this job just to hustle a few fast bucks, I've always seen it as a chance to learn a useful trade.'
'God,' I said. 'If only this country had more willing lads like you it wouldn't be in the mess it is today.'
He hung his head modestly, then had to comb his locks all over again.
'To get right to it, willing boy,' I said, 'I have here a gift for an old and dear friend of mine. I wish you to deliver it to him. However, as it is a surprise, I will cleverly distract my old pal, in fact I'll be down the street in his car with him, while you deliver it to his lovely wife.'
'How thoughtful of you,' he said, taking the package and shaking it a trifle suspiciously.
'Nothing like that,' I said, 'and nothing illegal, either, otherwise I wouldn't be dealing out in the open directly with you like this and also I've been using your company for years and they know me well.'
'I take your point,' the kid said, tucking the parcel away in a saddle-bag after glancing at the address written on it. 'So all I have to do to get rich is to give this to the little woman?'
'There is one other minor thing,' I admitted.
'I have never been so unsurprised,' the kid said. I was getting to like him; maybe I could fix him up with Sara.
'Using all your youthful charms, see if the lady of the house will let you use the bathroom.'
'To do what?'
'To have a fifty-dollar leak in. Don't forget to leave it tidy after you.'
'That's it?'
'That's all she wrote.'
'And what if she says no? I mean, believe it or not it's happened once in a while, ladies have said no to me. Why, only last year . . .'
'I want you in that apartment somehow, by yourself preferably if only for a moment, even if it's only to get her to sign the delivery slip. Say your pen's broken so she has to go get one, say you have to phone in, anything. If you manage it, do something noticeable on the way out that I can see from the car. Got it?'
The kid nodded. 'Do I hear seventy-five dollars?'
'You do not,' I said firmly. 'You hear fifty.' I gave him half right then and told him I'd send the rest in a separate envelope addressed to him when I paid the service, then off we went in tandem into the unknown, or, more prosaically, towards Art's condo. And I mused. I don't often muse but that Saturday I mused. Maybe it was the lull before the storm. I wondered how Aunt Jessica was; she'd gone back East and I hadn't heard from her for over a year, not that there was anything much left to say. I mused briefly about Mae – too bad I didn't have a picture of her, I could have gone all dramatic and torn it up or turned it to the wall or something. Too bad I didn't have a picture of Miss Shirley – I could have kissed it goodnight before I went to sleep. I thought about a girl I used to know who ate mayonnaise sandwiches; I remember her telling me once that she had a cousin who ate vegetable sandwiches.
Funny that some illegalities you can not only accept, but practice, while others make you sooo mad! The idea of someone stealing from my friend John D. upset me but the idea of me buying questionable material from the Nus' cousin doesn't upset me at all. Padding expenses normally not only doesn't upset me, it's sheer pleasure, like cheating on your income tax, but why the difference between Mr Seburn and Mr Millington? Do they not both bleed? How do the lines get drawn? I've never seen a bullfight but I wouldn't mind. I've never seen a cock fight or a fox hunt but I would mind. Some people can fish but not hunt. Some people eat horses instead of cows, which is not a bad idea if the horse you're eating is the one you had a hundred bucks on and came last, but still. I read once that after a bullfight you can go around to the back and buy the bull's balls and fry them up for tea. See where too much musing gets you?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Art's condo was tucked into the north slopes of the Hollywood Hills, just over the ridge from the famous Hollywood sign. It was a fair way, but I stayed off the freeway as I wasn't sure the kid's putt-putt was allowed on it, which means we went east on Ventura then cut up into the hills below the reservoir. Right at the turn-off there was a hamburger stand where I used to go once in a while because the owner also sold tickets to the Dodgers games; I tooted a couple of times to get the kid's attention and we pulled in. I was starving, I don't know why, I'd just had breakfast.
While I was wolfing down two excellent hotdogs, I read Sara's latest communiqué:
CONFIDENTIAL
22 May
Report
From: Agent S.S.
To: V.D. (Ha ha)
(From notes taken on stake-out)
5.45 p.m. Contacted P. ('Petey') Bolden.
Explained the caper.
He said yes.
From whence comes my power over men
?
6.30 p.m. He arrives in his father's Corvette.
I make my glib farewells, and then
We cruise the school neighborhood.
6.45 p.m. Check out the phone (my idea)
It works.
Expenses: 00.10
Two Cokes to go for disguise purposes.
Expenses: 01.20
6.55 p.m. Park about fifty yards south of school on Victory.
Slouch and sip sodas
And listen to radio, i.e.
Adopt role of typical teenager
In all its grotesquerie
And lack of imagination.
7.15 p.m. Allow Petey a kiss and a
Quick grope.
Anything to keep the dope
Happy.
7.25 p.m. Suspect in uniform & funny hat
Drives off in gray
1982 Chevrolet
And proceeds past us heading north on Victory Boulevard.
Allow Petey another kiss for disguise purposes only.
Allow five minutes to pass, as instructed, then proceed to
Phone booth (see above).
7.35 p.m. Call in report to V.D.
Expenses: 00.10
Return to stake-out
Strictly against orders
Due to (choose one) (a) brilliant flash of female intuition
(b) standard female curiosity
(c) Petey's being afraid to go home as he took the car without His father's permission
(d) a poet's thirst for Experience.
And aren't you glad we did,
Tall, and in the dark, handsome??
7.45 p.m. (about): I see what looks like the suspect's car
Stopped for the light just across the street from us.
'Petey, start the car.'
He starts.
'Petey, if it's him, hit him.
'I'll make it up to you . . . somehow.'
From whence comes my power over men?
It was him. Crash! Grind!! Scrape!!!
Anger and tears,
Cops and whoopsy-doo, my dear,
A hell of a hullabaloo, I fear,
Two smashed fenders I also fear.
Expenses: Millions,
probably
Then, irate Father,
Then, sobbing Mother,
Then, phone call to Agent In Charge of Case (my idea)
Then, proud Father,
Then, beaming Mother,
Then, home to empty house
& supper of soup & cold roast beef.
Over and out,
Sez
Sara.
Total
Expenses: 01.40
plus millions
'What was that?' the kid asked me when I'd finished reading it.
'God only knows,' I said. What a twerp. As if I cared what she had for supper.
I paid the bill and we hit the road again. When we were getting close I waved him back so we wouldn't arrive at the same time.
Art's condo turned out to be in a right fancy development indeed, there were eight or ten redwood residences laid out irregularly around a large patio and pool, with stables and a riding track complete with little jumps visible at the back. I was a few moments early but I spotted Art's car, with Art in it, parked some fifty yards farther on. I pulled in behind him, not too close, got out, went over, tapped on the window, then, when he unlocked the door, slipped into the bucket seat beside him.
'Nice day,' I said.
'It had to be you,' he said, giving me a look of loathing. 'A house painter, for Christ's sake.'
I gave him my second-best smile, took out my gun and held it in my lap in one hand while I checked him out for armaments with the other. I didn't find any.
'Grow up,' he said. 'Do you think I'm nuts?'
'Yes, I do, Art,' I told him. 'I think you have to be nuts if you go around torching places and killing people in this day and age. Nuts sums it up perfectly.'
'I didn't do shit,' he said. 'And you can't prove I did, neither.'
'Maybe not,' I said, 'and maybe so.'
'Maybe not,' he said. 'Who the fuck are you, anyway?'
'Good question,' I said. 'I'm surprised you didn't ask it earlier if you really wanted to know.' I saw him glance at the gun I was holding so I tossed it on his lap. 'It's what they call a Police Positive.'
He jumped a mile. 'Look out, for Christ's sake!'
'Don't worry, pal, it's not loaded,' I said. 'I wasn't sure I could stand the temptation.'
'Take the Goddamned thing,' he said, and tossed it back to me. I took a casual peek over my left shoulder and saw the willing boy disappear into one of the condos. Two kids on skateboards went careening past the car. A lady with a head-ful of hair curlers went by on the other side of the street.
'If there's anything I hate,' I said. 'How's Dev these days?'
'Dev who, I don't know any Dev.'
'Dev. Everybody knows Dev. Head of security at St Stephen's. St Stephen's. That school just across from where your place of business used to be.'
'Funny, funny,' he said. 'Maybe I seen him around, get to the point, will ya?'
I took out the envelope that had the coke in it and passed it to him.
'Ever seen this before?'
He looked inside, looked closely at one of the glassine bags, then said, 'Nope.'
I put it away carefully, then took out the envelope with the fake twenties in it and handed that over.
'How about this?'
He checked it out, then said, 'Money is money, who knows?' I retrieved it and tucked it away too.
'Ever heard of a kid called Les La Rosa, or Micky Spritz, or Paco De Leon, or Harold Hall?'
'Who knows, I see kids all day, who knows who they are?'
I sighed. I enjoyed it so much I did it again.
'Art,' I said, 'don't make me any madder than I am already because I'm already mad enough to kick your fat face in. Those four kids and a few more worked for you. They sold illegal substances to minors til someone knocked over their stashes last night.'
'I know nothin' about it,' Art said.
'How come your face is always red?' I asked him. 'Are you embarrassed about something?' I heard a car draw up and park some way behind us and hoped it was my favorite Little Person. Then I heard the willing boy's bike start up; as he passed us he did a wheelie, then he chugged off down the hill; I assumed that the acrobatics were the favorable sign I'd been hoping for.
'Kids today,' I said, not for the first time.
'Listen, pal,' Art said, 'unless you got something more interesting to say I'm taking off.'
'You got a short attention span, you know that, Art? But OK, maybe this'll interest you. A few minutes ago a messenger boy delivered a package to your house. "While he was there your charming wife let him inside briefly, who knows why, maybe to use the john, maybe to phone in. Anyway, and here's the really interesting part, what he did was hide five grand's worth of nose candy in your nice new condo.'
'You're shittin' me,' said Art.
'Why,' I remarked, 'isn't that one of those new-fangled car phones I see right there between us? Why don't you give the old girl a call and find out?'
He took a couple of deep breaths, gave me a nasty look, switched on the phone and went on giving me a nasty look until the operator had connected him.
'Deb? It's me. I'm right outside the fuckin' house is where I am. Listen, did you just let some messenger kid in? Oh, he did, eh? You dumb bitch.'
I cut him off there before he could say anything else to her. When he started to climb out of the car, I said, 'I wouldn't, Art. Take a look at who's parked in front of your place.'
He looked.
'That's a policeman, that is,' I said. 'Small, but every inch of him a cop. Also, he hates pushers. Also, he's got a warrant in his tiny hand. If you get back in the car I'll tell you why he's not up there already turning your place over.'
Art sat back down heavily.
'Door,' I said.
He s
lammed the door closed.
'He's waiting for a call from me on your new-fangled phone is what he's waiting for, Art, telling him either to go ahead and bust you or forget about it. Want to get busted, Art? With your record it'll be a long time before you grill another cut-rate wienie, unless of course you make cook in the slammer.'
'Up yours,' Art said. He reached for the phone again; I caught his wrist and began bending it back until sweat popped out on his big fat red face.
'Going to be good?'
'All right, all right, for Christ's sake,' he said. I let go of him.
'Listen, pal,' I said. 'Would you believe I'm not even interested in you? I was hired to do something about Dev, not you. I figure we're even, you and me. You fired my place and I sent yours into the fourth dimension or maybe it was the fifth. As for that kid, that poor, dumb kid, I know that was an accident, you probably did him a favor, even his mother said that.'
'I heard he was some kind of moron,' Art said, rubbing his wrist.
'Right,' I said. 'What happens to you, I couldn't care less, it's good ol' Dev I'm after. Did he tell you the FBI was sniffing around after him?'
'He mentioned it.'
'They haven't bothered you, have they?'
'Not so's I've heard.'
'How do you think I got on to you, think that one over, pal. Who wants to have the heat off him, who might even cop a plea and walk?'
'That fucker Dev,' Art said.
'Here, read this.' I passed him the work of literature I'd typed back at my place after wrapping his present so tastefully. 'I put it all in short words to make it easier for you.'
He managed to read it all the way through without moving his lips, but you could see it was a struggle. Or maybe I'm just being mean again.
'What does "under no duress" the hell mean?' he asked at one point.
I told him. What he was reading was a short statement which affirmed that Devlin was the middleman in the traffic, that he accepted bribes for looking the other way, and that he also accepted a regular supply of horse as part of his end.
'Hell, it's not even legal evidence,' I said mendaciously. 'I just need it to get a hold on the bastard.'
'I sign and you call off the bust on my house?'
'As God is my witness,' I said, looking him straight in the eye.