Down in the Valley (Vic Daniel Series)

by David Pierce

  By six thirty I was more or less bathed, pilled, aftershaved and resplendent. I automatically started to call up Mae, then caught myself. Whoops. So I made myself a large drink and watched a bit of one of my favorite TV programs, a Mexican variety show in which the girls were costumed as pineapples. Then I thought Evonne might like to hear the latest developments so I gave her a call. She was out back watering her garden, she told me on her portable phone.

  'Beat it!' she said loudly. 'Off! Out! You little bastard!'

  'Well!' I said. 'That's a fine way to talk to someone who's spent all day risking his life and being sensational.'

  'Not you,' she said. 'It's the neighbors' miserable cats, they eat my parsley.'

  I told her I had serious cat problems as well, what a coincidence, how about getting together that evening to compare notes and enjoy a celebratory drink or two or three.

  'I can't,' she said, 'and it's all your fault, I have to get together with the boss. Do you know how much has to be done before Monday?'

  'Ah, blast,' I said.

  'Look, why don't you come over tomorrow evening, I'll cook us something on my tiny barbecue that never did work right.'

  'Make mine rare,' I said. TTFN.'

  OK! But that left tonight. I called Linda, no answer. I called Mavis, whose number was scribbled on a cocktail napkin from Hal's Hickory House. A man answered and said she was in Reno for the weekend spending his money. OK. I figured I might give that twerp Sara a break and take her to an under-twenties drug orgy somewhere but there was no answer at her place. Maybe Benny had another aunt I could check out.

  OK. So I'd cruise a while, maybe have a quick one at the Corner Bar, see what was going down, then check out Sandy's dump, maybe see if Mario's house wine had gotten any better due to some miracle of secondary fermentation.

  It was later, much later, that evening, that peach of an evening.

  I was not only feeling no pain, I was not only feeling a great deal of happiness, but I was feeling that the answers to those elusive truths that have troubled Man since the dawn of history, like why nurses have the reputation they do, were just a bar away, maybe only a drink. I was way the hell up Ventura near Glendale at the time, just idling, singing along with the radio and wondering why I hadn't decided to be a wonderful country singer instead of merely a wonderful human being when I espied a neon sign that promised everything a wonderful human being would ever want – Drinks, Eats, Games, Girls, Music, Parking.

  I pulled smoothly into the alley alongside and parked next to a low-rider that had a front bumper a good inch off the ground. A guy blowing weed by the back door ignored my cheerful wave of greeting. I more or less tacked around to the front and made a casual entrance. The joint turned out to be a Mexican beer-only cantina but I guess beer is Drinks and microwaved tacos are Eats and pool is a Game and the apparition behind the bar was almost a Girl and what was coming from the jukebox was undoubtedly Music of some south of the border kind.

  What the hell. I think someone said that once, too. What the hell. Great expression, though, whoever said it; short and pithy. What the hell.

  I was on my second Corona and working on my high-school Spanish with the drunk next to me when I had an eerie feeling as if someone with a very large and very cold hand had suddenly grabbed the back of my neck. Being normally about as mystic as Sandra Dee I figured that either someone with a very large, very cold hand had grabbed me by the back of the neck or I'd flashed on something in the mirror that would repay a second and closer look fast. So I looked, and saw him; at least I thought it might be him, a young Latino shooting pool who, the last time I'd seen him, if it was him, was at Martha's when he was trying to ensure that from then on I'd be in the soprano section of the choir. When I peeked again a few minutes later I caught him looking at me, but I still wasn't sure.

  'Caballeros?' I loudly asked the drunk beside me who was looking unhappily down at two burritos he'd ordered.

  'Por allá,' he mumbled, waving vaguely toward the back of the bar. I arose and headed that way, weaving a little more than I really had to. When I was out of sight of the pool table I nipped out the back door, ran up the alley and was just in time to catch the bastard nipping out the front door.

  'Buenas noches,' I said with a friendly grin.

  'Buenas,' he said with a friendly grin.

  'Qué tal, amigo?'

  'Pues, bien, como siempre,' he said. 'Hasta luego, eh?'

  'Momento, compadre,' I said. 'Take off your shirt.'

  'No comprendo,' he said, but I suspected he'd com-prendoed because he held his hands innocently out in front of him.

  'Camisa,' I said. 'Off.'

  When he went for the back of his belt I knew it was him all right and when he pulled out the knife I had my bean bag already cocked and I caught him a good one right on that nerve in the upper arm that you always tried to find when you are giving another kid, especially a brother, a knuckly. The knife dropped to the street. He started to take off but I caught him in two strides and threw him into the alley. When he got up I beat the shit out of him, then beat some more shit out of him, then kicked him a bit, then took his wallet and knife and got the hell out of there. The guy blowing weed by the back door didn't even wave me goodbye.

  When I stopped for a light a few blocks away I checked out the wallet; the cheapskate had only about sixty bucks in it, which I kept. The wallet and the rest of its contents, which included a picture of some virgin or other and a lubricated rubber, I tossed out a while later. I did keep his ID to give to Shorty.

  A peach of a day, a peach of an evening, a peach of a noche.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Alzheimer's disease is a devastating illness of the aging.

  The cause is not known, nor the cure, nor even any effective ongoing treatment. It affects the centers of the brain that control the memory and personality and is progressive and irreversible. The sufferer commonly asks the same question over and over and usually loses control of some bodily functions as well. My Mom had it.

  I drove over to Tony's about eleven Sunday morning to pick her up. She wasn't quite ready so I spent some time with the kids in the backyard telling lies about my job. They didn't mind, they liked lies. I didn't mind, I liked them, occasionally. The boy, Martin, was ten, the girl, Martine, nine and they were both soccer freaks; their father had built them a half-size goal behind the garage and they wanted me to take a turn being goalie. I said my multi-million-dollar contract with Manchester United prohibited me from playing on the amateur level due to possible injury.

  When Mom was finally settled in the back seat of the car with her bag beside her and her knitting bag beside that, I gave the kids a wink, waved to Tony and his missus and took her home. The rest of the day I didn't do much, I got Mom settled in, talked to the Vice on the phone a couple of times. He reported that he and Dev were making progress, and how, they had lists ready of those students who were going to get the chop and those to be put on probation, Evonne had letters to their parents all ready to go, and all concerned were looking forward to extremely interesting assemblies Monday morning, with, as I'd suggested, everyone conceivable who had a uniform marching out on stage for starters, and did I want to be there?

  'Thanks but no thanks,' I said. 'The only thing that would get me back to that hotbed of sex and drugs would be to carry Miss Shirley's books home.'

  'I had a good laugh at some of the expenses you claimed,' he said.

  'I'm pleased to hear it,' I said. 'After all, is not humor the best medicine?'

  The afternoon passed; I read a while and ironed a couple of shirts, Mom knitted and watched golf on television. When evening was nigh I made sure the beeper that kept Mom in touch with Feeb was pinned on her blouse and working, then took my leave. Mom, who knew just about everything else, didn't know that I forked over a hundred dollars a month extra to her friend Feeb for services rendered above and beyond the normal duties of a landlady. Hell, cheap. The beeper had been cheap, too, thanks to you kn
ow who. On the way to Miss Shirley's I stopped at the Arrow for two bottles of Martini Brothers Gamay. Aunt Fat'ma wasn't there but a plateful of her halvah was. I was licking the stuff off my teeth for a week.

  Monday morning early I stopped by Mrs Mattel's to order some special stationery. I had that letter of thanks from the FBI to the Bolden boy to write, also I wanted to send Timmy's mom a certified check that would use up three quarters of Dev's cash and thought it might make it easier for her if it came with a nice letter from, say, the California Association of Unwed Mothers.

  Back at the office I called Syd, the happy used-furniture hustler, and spent the rest of Dev's money on an air-conditioning unit. All right! Do not the spoils belong to the victor, at least some of them? Then I wasted a little time leafing through a catalogue of video games; rubbing out peasants was beginning to pall slightly, you know how it is. I'd already decided I wouldn't call Evonne up, at least not until noon, I didn't want her to think I was too easy. And I won't bother telling you at this time how we got on Sunday evening, some things are too personal to be gossiped about willy-nilly, but I can reveal Evonne has a middle name, Beverly, a brother in Biloxi called William and that she puts Tabasco sauce on her baked potato.

  Then someone phoned me, a long-distance operator wanting to know if I would accept a collect call from Davis, California. Would I ever, not often do you get a call from one of the missing bits and pieces.

  The caller was a Mrs Doris Lillie and she had seen my ad and might be able to tell me something about the child. How was she, anyway?

  'Fine,' I said, 'but determined and none too happy.'

  There was a sigh from Mrs Lillie. 'I know,' she said. 'I can imagine. Heck. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not but it feels right.'

  'Speaking for the girl,' I said, 'it would certainly help her to know who she is, all other things being equal.'

  'I can't argue with that,' Mrs Lillie said. 'Well. Now what?'

  I said I could be in Davis the following afternoon if that was convenient. It was. She asked me to please come by myself as she wasn't sure she could manage the girl too. I said I understood.

  As soon as Mrs Lillie hung up, I called Sara's apartment. She answered the phone herself with her customary bored 'Yeah?' When she found it was me, she said, 'What's up, Sherlock?' I told her I had hot news and to get her little buns moving in my direction.

  'I'm on my way, V.D.,' she said.

  I went back to the catalogue. I had just narrowed my choices down to either a detective game which would probably be too easy for me or a sort of treasure hunt when the kid slouched in the door, cool as could be but a little out of breath. She was attired that day in a pair of camouflage overalls worn over a torn net undershirt, red sunglasses and a red and white bandana tied like Aunt Jemima's on her dopey head. She plopped herself down on the edge of the desk and said, 'OK, Doc, tell me the worst, I can handle it.'

  I told her. She clenched one fist and waved it in the air. 'Banzai!' she shouted. 'Now we're gettin' somewhere!' She leaned over and ruffled my hair.

  'Cut that out,' I said.

  'Of course I'm going with you,' she said.

  'Oh no you're not.'

  'Why not?'

  'Because the lady said I should come alone.'

  'Don't give me that line,' she said. 'I can wait in the car.'

  'You can't come anyway,' I said.

  'Why not?'

  'I don't want to be seen walking around with you, that's why not.'

  'How do you think I feel about you? It's like being with the Hulk,' she said.

  We glared at each other.

  'That cat's here again,' she said after a minute. 'Dunno what it sees in you.' I turned around and told the cat to beat it. It just looked at me. I finally had to get up and chase the thing out.

  'How're we getting there?'

  'We're not,' I said. 'I'm getting there.'

  'Oh, give it up,' she said. 'Give it a rest. You know perfectly well I'm going. If we took that jalopy of yours it'd take a year.' I had to agree with her there. 'Anyway I don't like driving too far, I get car sick, I'll puke all over you. We'll have to fly.'

  'Oh no we won't,' I said. 'I don't like flying, I get air sick, I'll puke all over you.'

  'Bet you're just scared,' she said. 'Big chicken.' What a pest.

  'Well, maybe I am scared,' I said. 'Maybe I've got good reason to be. Maybe I was in a crash once. Maybe twice.'

  'Were you?' she asked interestedly. 'When?'

  'Some war or other,' I said. 'I forget . . .'

  'What'll we do then, hitch-hike?'

  'Ever heard of trains?'

  'Pops, no one takes the train.'

  'We do,' I said. 'You'll love it.'

  'I'll bet,' she said. 'If there even are any.'

  'I'm just about to find out, aren't I,' I said, 'if you'd shut up for once in your life.'

  I called Amtrak. After I'd listened to recorded music for a while a lady told me the good news – there were trains to Sacramento which was near Davis leaving twice daily. The one that followed the Valley north departed at three forty-five a.m. and the one that took the scenic coastal route left early in the afternoon but took longer. Then she told me about connections and such. It all sounded fairly laborious. I knew that flights left regularly from LAX and Burbank and only took about an hour and were cheap, too, because the competing airlines were always having price wars, but I was not going to fly, so there.

  'All aboard,' I told Sara. 'We leave tomorrow morning at a quarter to four.'

  'Holy moly,' she said. 'Too bad they didn't have a train that left early. Is that it? Is that our only choice?'

  'No, that is not our only choice,' I said, with commendable patience. 'We could take the scenic coastal route but that takes thirteen hours, and thirteen hours with you would drive anybody nuts. Got any money, or bread, as you call it?'

  'What for?'

  'For your ticket, that's what for.'

  'I got ten dollars,' she said. 'Almost. Is it much more than that?'

  'Just a trifle,' I said. 'That'll probably take you as far as Bakersfield. You ever been to Bakersfield?' She shook her Technicolored head. 'Not a nice town to be stuck in.'

  'So put the rest on the bill, big shot,' she said. 'What are you giving me such a hard time for anyway?'

  I thought about it for a moment. 'I don't know, maybe I just don't believe in happy endings.'

  'Maybe I do,' she said.

  'In front of Union Station, tomorrow morning, three thirty,' I said. 'That's on North Alameda, downtown.'

  'See you there,' she said.

  'Your folks going to give you any trouble?'

  'No,' she said. 'Even if they do.'

  'Do me a favor,' I said. 'If you've got anything halfway presentable to wear, wear it?'

  'Same to you,' she said. 'With bells on.'

  She left, swinging what hips she had. What a twerp. Shortly after, I tidied up my desk, put away what had to be put away, locked up and drove home. I had a word with Feeb on the way in. She said Mom was fine, she'd beeped once but had forgotten why by the time Feeb had arrived. In the early days Mom would get upset when something like that happened but now she laughed it off. I told Feeb I was off to Sacramento for a day on a job, could she manage? No sweat, said Feeb. I was glad I'd leveled with the old battle-axe about the fire in my office.

  Mom cooked us lamb chops and baked potatoes for supper. The chops were done to a turn but the potatoes were a little hard, she'd forgotten to light the oven. No sweat, said I, and gave her a kiss. I made some instant mash instead. Later we watched a Magnum, P.I. Now there was a guy with a wardrobe I could relate to.

  Three thirty, in front of Union Station, on North Alameda. I'd just bought the tickets, $58 for each round trip. A brand-new 'Vette with a smashed right front fender stopped five feet in front of me and guess who got out. The 'Vette took off. She came over to me and twirled to show off her traveling outfit.

  'Love it, dear,' I sa
id. 'It's so you.' She was wearing a sort of late 50s party frock made out of blue felt, with appliqués of musical notes on the skirt. On her thin legs, green fishnet stockings. On her feet, hiking boots. Thrown over her shoulder, the tattiest bit of fur since the last of the buffalos. On her head, a 'Welcome to LA' sun visor. She was dragging by one strap a small, orange backpack.

  'Come on, will you?' We got on a waiting bus and found two seats together at the back.

  'Funny train,' she observed. 'Don't they usually run on tracks?'

  'Bus to Bakersfield,' I said. 'Train to Stockton. Bus to Sacramento.'

  'Now you tell me,' she said. 'Can you smoke in here? I'm a nervous wreck. You should see a shrink about your fear of flying, then we wouldn't have to go through all this boring drek.' Legally or not, she lit up one of her imitation stogies and stared out of the window at what excitements downtown LA before dawn had to offer, i.e. a passing wino in a sleeveless overcoat buttoned up to his neck. He glanced up through the darkened window at us. Poor mother, I thought. However there are attractions in giving up completely, maybe he was thinking the same right back, poor mother.

  It's roughly two and a half hours northwest on Interstate 5 to Bakersfield; we both dozed off, there's not a lot to see on that route even in daylight. We had time for a coffee, a stretch and a leak in the old Bakersfield train station before boarding. A few of the locals' eyes popped when they took in the full beauty of my companion's get-up but they stopped popping when they looked at mean old me.

  By six thirty we were ensconced in a smoking section right next to the club car so madame could puff her lungs out if she wanted to and the train was heading up the Valley to Hanford, Fresno, Madera, Merced and all points north. Sara dozed off again, her polychromatic head against my shoulder. I hoped the dye wouldn't rub off on my suede jacket. I thought about this and that, trains are good for thinking. I thought I might write a slim monograph on my bits and pieces observations someday. Once when we were a family Mom and Pop and Tony and I had taken a train somewhere but I couldn't remember where. I know there were cows and horses because Tony and I were on opposite sides of the train counting them but if you saw a graveyard you had to start all over again. Once Aunt Jessica and I almost took a train to Carmel. Sara stirred in her sleep and reached out with one hand. I put mine in hers and she grasped it like a baby grasps a proffered thumb or finger.