Prudence Couldn't Swim

by James Kilgore

  “I know the place,” I said. “It’s on College Avenue. Small shop. Upmarket. For the university crowd. If Prudence had any dealings with them, they’d remember her. No one else who looked or sounded like her would go there.”

  “Stick to the truth,” she said. “You’re a bereaved husband. That means something. Maybe you think she left some items to be printed there, films of your last night together.”

  I liked the way she pronounced “film,” as in “fill ‘em up.”

  “You said I should tell the truth,” I reminded her.

  “It’s close enough.”

  I laughed and phoned the camera shop. Johnny answered.

  “I’m so sorry, sir,” he said. “I remember the young woman. Charming thing. She bought a video camera from us. Old-style VHS. Don’t sell many of those any more. Said she hadn’t figured out this new technology yet. Wanted it for shooting her honeymoon in Yosemite. It was a couple of months ago. Let me bring it up on the system. Here it is. Mrs. D. Winter. That was her name. I remember it now. A Panasonic. Lovely woman. Elegant. I’m so sorry.”

  I thanked him for his condolences and the information. I asked Mandisa about it. She’d never seen Prudence with a video camera. Neither had I. I’d check with Darlene. At least I had something to follow up on.

  Mandisa promised to write to G. Mukombachoto and go through Prudence’s clothes one more time.

  “There may be a scrap of paper with a phone number or something,” she said. “If I find anything or think of anything, I’ll call you.”

  I gave her my number but I doubted I’d hear from her again. Mandisa was almost as mysterious as Prudence. She didn’t need me poking around in her life.

  CHAPTER 10

  The next morning Officer Carter showed up at my door. This time his partner was a short, stocky woman who looked like a possible candidate for the Olympic team in the shot put. Lovely creature. Their timing could have been better. It was Luisa’s day to clean and I was on my way to a meeting with a young woman from Belarus. Red Eye told me she was tall, blonde, horny, and looking for a husband. With Prudence gone, I could call myself “available.” My heart wasn’t really in it but at least I’d be thinking about something besides that look in Prudence’s eyes when her head popped out of that rolled-up rug. Maybe poking a blonde would cure my insomnia. Something had to work.

  “We have a couple more questions for you about the girl who drowned in your pool,” said Carter. As the two of them parked on my couch again without an invitation, I heard the bedroom window sliding open slowly. Luisa was making her escape. I coughed to cover up the noise. Though I never asked, I figured her chances of having a green card were about as good as those for me becoming lifelong friends with Officer Carter.

  “What else do you need to know?” I asked. I could feel a noose tightening around my neck. I was about two questions from calling my lawyer. Maybe we could file a civil action to recover the costs of the Re-Nu.

  “Do you have a marriage license?” he asked. “We want to verify the name of your so-called wife.”

  “I’ll get it for you,” I said. I went into my bedroom. Carter followed. A cool breeze wafted in through the open window.

  “I’m a bit of a fresh air freak,” I told Carter. He didn’t pay any attention, just headed straight for my bed. I slid open the top drawer of my dresser. My marriage license had been there since the day Prudence moved in but I wasn’t even thinking about the license. The top drawer of my nightstand contained my Walther—an automatic five years if Carter found it.

  “The license is right here,” I said, “you can come and see for yourself.”

  Carter didn’t respond. He was too busy pulling the blankets and sheets off the bed. As I turned to take the license to him, he bent over the bed and took a deep breath.

  “That’s the smell of African pussy,” he said, “wet and wild. She must have been more than you could handle, Winter.”

  I threw the license on the bed, right under his nose.

  “She was my wife,” I reminded him, “for better or worse.”

  He ignored the license, sat down on the bed and slid open the nightstand drawer. I thought about diving out the window but even as fat and slow as Carter was, he could probably get a bullet through me before I got away. I was already starting to taste that watery corn meal mush they doled out in the Feds’ chow hall.

  He scooped out a bunch of condoms and dropped them on the bed.

  “You must have been planning to have a lot of fun with your Chocolate drop bride,” he said, “but you didn’t want any jungle bunny babies running around, did you?”

  He picked up one of the condoms and studied the packet.

  “My mistake,” he added, “I got you all wrong, Winter. These things say ‘extra large’. Couldn’t be yours. What’d you do, take pictures while someone else bonked your wife?”

  I directed him again toward the marriage license on the bed. I wasn’t going for his bait. I was just trying to figure out where the hell that Walther was. I knew I’d put it in that drawer but maybe I’d changed it up in one of my drunken stupors. Wild Turkey could do that to you.

  Carter tossed the condom on the floor and examined the marriage certificate carefully, running his finger over the seal. Strange feeling to be handing a cop a document that was legit. Too bad Prudence wasn’t.

  “One of your buddies make this up for you?” he asked. “We’ve looked at your jacket. Forgery, fraud, trafficking. You’re a fuckin’ jack of all trades.”

  “I’ve given all that up. I’m what they call rehabilitated.”

  He stood up and hollered to his partner that it was time to go. “There’s nothing here,” Carter shouted. “Besides, Winter’s just told me he’s rehabilitated.”

  The woman waddled through the bedroom door.

  “Yeah and I’m Meryl Streep, expecting another Oscar this year,” she replied. Carter led the way as the two headed for the front door, their keys bouncing against those pudgy hips as they moved away. He stopped halfway to the door to look at my collection of videos. He crouched down and pulled a copy of Cool Hand Luke off the shelf, popped the case open and looked at the cassette.

  “I figure a guy like you’s got a collection of kiddie porn sandwiched in with the Paul Newman.”

  “Just Paul Newman plus all the Disney favorites. You wanna watch Bambi?”

  He put Cool Hand Luke back, then rummaged through a few more videos. I just wanted him to get the hell out.

  “I was hopin’ for some ebony porn in your collection, Winter, like your wife fuckin’ the dog.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you left now,” I said.

  “We’ll be back,” Carter assured me.

  “I’ll look forward to that. I’ll bake chocolate chip cookies for the occasion.”

  “Don’t be a smartass, Winter. We could strike you out in a heartbeat.”

  “While we wait for that heartbeat to finish, kindly make your exit.”

  I stood in the front door and watched until they pulled away, then circled around to the backyard to hunt for Luisa. When I called out her name, I heard some bushes rustle in the corner of the yard and out she came, a bit of topsoil clinging to her uniform. She held the Walther in her right hand, pointing toward the sky.

  “I thought maybe they shouldn’t see this,” she said.

  “You’re a star,” I said, “a real estrella.”

  “You are a crazy man, Mr. Winter. Very loco.”

  She gave me a hug. That had never happened before. When she pulled away, her sweaty hair left a stain on my shirt. Hopefully the spot remover would take it out. Re-Nu wasn’t recommended for clothing.

  “I wish I could help you more,” said Luisa. “Prudence was a very nice woman. She was always laughing, but inside I could see that she was sad. She never told me why. Her life was her secret. That’s how it is with us inmigrantes.”

  “We all have our secrets,” I reminded her. She went quiet and started to weep. I gave her the rest
of the day off and headed for Olga, the Belarus girl. I really needed a stress reliever. Hopefully she would fill the bill.

  Olga was waiting for me in the Lighthouse, a dive in downtown San Leandro with lots of pictures of ships on the wall. She could have passed for Anna Kournikova and her bright blue mini skirt wasn’t much longer than Anna’s tennis togs. I battled to keep my eyes off those deep-tanned legs. We had a few drinks. She wasn’t looking for a husband. She had one of those, though I suspected he didn’t see much of her.

  “My husband paid me $3,000 and I got a green card,” she said, “but our marriage isn’t working out.” She opened her purse to show me her little plastic card with “Permanent Resident” printed across the top.

  “I can do massage,” she said and proceeded to gently run her hand along the inside of my thigh under the table.

  “I need a drivers’ license in another name just in case. They tell me you’ve helped a lot of girls.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “A girlfriend.”

  “I’ve helped a few get on their feet,” I said, “but I’m semiretired now.”

  “I can do other things also,” she said as the massage relocated itself a little bit higher up my leg. Maybe Red Eye had told her I needed some cheering up.

  After six drinks I’d agreed to get her a drivers’ license and landed her in my bedroom. She did know how to do other things. I thought of Kournikova sliding across the clay courts in Paris to chase down a backhand as Olga’s athleticism delivered me momentarily from the evil complexities of a dead wife, paranoid fears, and perverted cops. She insisted on a trip to Nordstrom the next morning, her way of collecting a fee for services. I spent $763, which got Olga some enticing perfume, and two shiny, slinky blue dresses with no backs. The blue matched her Kournikova eyes.

  I drove her to an apartment building in San Leandro where she said she was staying with several friends. Obviously none of them was hubby. She offered to meet me again in a few days, to get an update on job possibilities. I suppose Pearly was looking for a Queen for the Day, but I didn’t offer. I said I’d let her know if anything came up. Then for some reason I told her my wife had just died. “Me and Red Eye are investigating what happened.”

  “A husband in sorrow needs to lift his spirits,” she said. “Don’t forget about Olga. I am there for you.”

  “We had a nice time,” I said.

  She kissed me on the cheek, then licked the inside of my ear for a long time, leaving me with my flag flying high to remember her by. Any other time in my life I’d have dropped everything to get my fill of Olga. She actually seemed to like me. Not every girl can get used to a cleft lip. They say we kiss funny.

  As I approached my house an odd feeling came over me, one I hadn’t experienced in a long time—guilt. I couldn’t feel comfortable with another woman until I solved Prudence’s murder. When she was alive and out of the house for days on end, I had no problem hooking up with whatever the wind blew my way. Now that she was gone, I was getting attacks of conscience. Go figure. A couple of shots of Wild Turkey succeeded in bringing me back toward level ground. Guilt never kept Calvin Winter down for long. If I could just score a good night’s sleep, I’d be ready for real action.

  CHAPTER 11

  Mandisa phoned at seven the next morning. I’d just nodded off. The Wild Turkey wasn’t doing its job. She said she wanted to meet me at Denny’s in Alameda in half an hour. “I might as well check out the competition’s menu,” she said, “while we discuss our business.” I didn’t know she had a sense of humor.

  I got there five minutes late and resisted ordering the dollar size. All I needed was a bottomless cup of coffee. She ordered a root beer float.

  “I’ve only discovered them recently,” she said. “They’re terrible for the waistline but so delicious.”

  Her outfit surprised me—ordinary blue jeans, a Nike T-shirt and matching cap. Totally casual and the red streak was gone. Wraparound sunglasses hid her greenish eyes.

  She swirled the ice cream in the root beer with a long silver soda spoon.

  “I found the names and phone numbers of a couple of men in one of her bags,” she said. “I remember her mentioning them before.”

  “Business associates?” I asked.

  “Social, but there may have been some sort of business as well. There was an element of desperation in Prudence’s life.”

  “So it seems.”

  “She used men as sugar daddies,” Mandisa said, “got what she could from them.”

  “Including me?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “Or wouldn’t tell me if you did.”

  “I suppose not but I don’t know.”

  She poked around in the float trying to break up a big lump of ice cream at the bottom.

  “I think she had quite a few, uh, gentleman companions. She was clever and beautiful.”

  “It didn’t help her much in the end.”

  “She was desperate because of problems at home. Life is different in Zimbabwe. So hard.”

  “I read something about this, what’s his name?”

  “Mugabe?”

  “Yes. Kicking all the whites off their farms. Sounds like a real bastard.”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” she said.

  She was probably right but the last thing I needed was a discussion about complications in a far-off land. I didn’t even keep up with Sacramento, let alone Washington, D.C. My conversation had raised one burning question for me though—one apparently without an answer: did Prudence ever call me a sugar daddy?

  Mandisa handed me a piece of binder paper with two names and phone numbers printed in careful, feminine lettering.

  “Be careful,” she said, “these are important people. They’re married, respectable. They’re not interested in being connected to a murdered African seductress.”

  “You’re sure she wasn’t English, with that accent?”

  “Zimbabwe used to be a British colony. Also South Africa. They taught us Africans how to speak like them. If the Americans had colonized us, we’d be saying ‘French fries’ and playing this funny football of yours instead of soccer.”

  I read the names: Alfred Jeffcoat and Carlton Newman. Fast Freddy wasn’t lying to me. Jeffcoat was the name he’d given to us outside the King and Queens. At least someone believed in us.

  “Do you know anything about them,” I asked, “like where they live or work?”

  “Prudence told me if I ever needed money, they could help but that I should be careful. She said they had houses, boats, planes. They’re loaded.”

  “Did they ever threaten her?”

  “Not that I know of. She just said they were rich. Newman is black.”

  “Did you just remember all this now?”

  “Some of it came to me earlier but I didn’t know the names.”

  “Anything else come to you?”

  She slurped at the bottom of her float until every drop was gone.

  “No, but if I think of something, I’ll call you.” She moved the empty glass to the edge of the table.

  “She said if you ever had trouble with Jeffcoat, just mention the name Peter Margolis.”

  “Who the hell is that?” I asked.

  “No idea,” Mandisa replied. She wrote down the name on the napkin and handed it to me.

  “Did you talk to the police?” I asked.

  “No. Never.”

  “You’re sure?” I asked.

  “The police shot my neighbor Billy Mzimane when he was coming back from the shops with a loaf of bread. He was running, pretending he was playing soccer. He was eleven years old. It was like that for us then.”

  “For who?”

  “Blacks, blacks in South Africa.”

  “Is that why you left?”

  “Something like that,” she said. “I have to go. I must catch a cab and get to work.”

  “I’ll give you a ride.”

  She adjuste
d her cap and got up to leave.

  “No thanks, I’m fine.”

  “By the way,” I said, “where is it?”

  “What?”

  “This place where you grew up.”

  “You’ve never heard of it.”

  “Try me.”

  “Katlehong. Near Johannesburg.”

  “I know Johannesburg,” I replied. It was the biggest dot on the map when I was looking for Zimbabwe. Almost as big as Philadelphia.

  “Good for you,” she said and headed outside to look for her cab.

  CHAPTER 12

  After paying for my coffee and Mandisa’s float I powered the Volvo straight to Chumash casino, about a four-hour drive from Oakland. I made it in three. I got $1,000 from the ATM in the casino. My stake. I needed an escape and since my escapade with Olga had only left me with a guilty conscience, I opted for a gambling binge. I couldn’t think of any other alternative.

  I have two rules about gambling. I never do it for more than ten hours at a stretch and I go home when I lose all my stake. I’ve never broken either rule.

  After ten hours and lots of blackjack hands, my $1,000 had grown to fifteen grand. I headed home with my $14,000 in profit stuffed in a Ziploc bag, not feeling one bit better as I pulled out of the parking lot. I had a few more hours on the road to contemplate the investigation. I hoped I wouldn’t fall asleep.

  A mile outside the little tourist trap of Solvang with all its fake Danish houses, an Indian guy and his woman stood by the side of the road. The man held up a crude sign lettered in magic marker: “Broke. Need Job. Kids 2 Feed. Do Anything.”

  I pulled over about a hundred yards in front of them. The man came running to the car.

  “Thanks, boss. I’m a carpenter. I can fix anything for you.” He wore a tattered carpenter’s belt. A hammer and screwdriver dangled from two of the loops.

  “I’m ready to work, sir,” he added. “Just give me the word.”

  A little boy appeared and grabbed onto the man’s leg. He looked about three years old. The bottle of milk in his hand held about one more sip. His shirt had a rip in the shoulder.