I pull up to the front gate of John G.’s house, push the button and the gate opens without a voice coming over the intercom. Before I can ring the doorbell, Alexis opens the door.
“Good Evening, Bobby. How are you?”
“I’m feeling better, thanks for asking.”
“I heard about your house being destroyed. That’s terrible. I’m so very sorry. You look okay.”
“Thank you, Alexis.” I try to be smooth, “You are looking quite lovely this evening, yourself.” She turns to lead me through the house.
“Why, thank you, Bobby.” I see a half smile and I think maybe she’s trying not to laugh at me. Nah. “Would you like a glass of wine while you wait?”
I open the door for her as we head toward the outside dining area, trying to remember my manners. “That would be great. Thank you.”
“John picked this wine out for you, so help yourself. He’ll join you shortly,” She indicates a bottle in an ice bucket on the bar, cork pressed half-way into the bottle. As she walks back into the house, I suppress an internal sigh. She’s such a babe—more than just a babe. I obviously can’t get a date with her and flirting with her is really no fun because she’s all business. I guess I’ll just have to stick to dreaming about her.
“Bobby,” John G. calls, pulling me back to earth. He walks out of the house toward me with his outstretched hand. “How are you doing, bruddah?” he says, a typical Hawaiian greeting. “How’s DJ? I heard about his accident. It’s awful, just awful.”
I shake his hand, “Just a strained shoulder and bruising from the airbag.”
“Does he need anything? What can I do to help?”
“Thanks, John. I’ll pass that along to DJ.”
“Before I forget, I want you to have this. It’ll help out with the rebuilding your house.” John G. hands me an envelope.
I look at him, confused. I open the envelope and inside there is a check for two hundred thousand dollars. My knees buckle. I have to sit down. I take a big gulp of my wine.
Finally I say, “I can’t accept this, John. My house was fully insured and they tell me I should have a check in the next few weeks.”
“Take it, please. You, DJ and Micky always treated me like family. My business is doing well and I would be deeply hurt if you don’t accept this gift, from one friend to another.”
I look at the check again. I’m not really sure what it all means. If I accept it, what will I owe him in return? Finally I clear my throat and croak out a thank you, then fold the envelope and put it in my shirt pocket. He smiles.
“Good. Now we can get on with our evening. Tell me what’s has been happening over the last few days.”
Before I can start, John’s personal chef walks out carrying a platter.
“I remember how much you like Ahi, Bobby. The fish was caught fresh this morning in Hawaii, and flown here for a special treat tonight.”
I don’t know what to say except, “Thanks, John. This is amazing.” I can’t help but be suspicious. I look at the platter of sushi and sashimi and decide to enjoy myself and start back on the detective work tomorrow.
For the next couple of hours we eat fantastic food and drink even better wine. I tell him almost everything, including being shot at in the canyon, but I leave out Micky’s letter and my deal with Murph.
At the end of the evening, he walks me to my car and I finally get up the nerve to ask what I really came here to find out.
“John, do you have any idea who might have tried to kill me or DJ?”
He turns and looks directly into my eyes, “Bobby, I don’t know what you’re implying, but if I wanted you and DJ dead, you’d be dead. There would be no trace of you. You’d just be gone.”
Shit. He looks like he means it. I open my mouth, but before I can say anything, he puts his hand on my shoulder and smiles. “Now, drive safely home and watch your back. Whoever is trying to kill you might succeed if you don’t pay attention.”
As I drive back to the boat I can’t forget the look on John G.’s face. I think he was being truthful about not trying to kill us. I sure as hell hope so.
◆◆◆
After he watches the gate close behind Bobby’s car, John G. walks back into his house and into his office. He presses the button on the intercom. “Alexis, could you come into my office, please?” He sits down in his desk chair and looks out the window.
John G,’s office was built out of Koa wood, imported from Hawaii. Floor to ceiling bookcases, paneling, a coffered ceiling and flooring, all built from this rare and exotic wood. The wood cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and the room pleases him.
“Yes, John?” Alexis says as she walks into the office.
“Alexis, I’d like you to keep an eye on Bobby Paladin and his friend, DJ Frasier, for a few days. Bobby’s staying on DJ’s boat in the Dana Point Harbor. I want you to try to find out who’s behind their recent problems. This should take priority over your regular duties. I’d like updates at least twice a day.”
She nods.
He pulls a file across the desk, his reading glasses from the top drawer and begins to flip through the file. When he doesn’t say anything, she knows she’s dismissed.
As Alexis walks toward the front door and to her car, she wonders how she’s going to approach this without being caught by Bobby or DJ. Her boss will not be happy if she screws this up.
Chapter 17
I wake up feeling a little sore but better than yesterday, so I decide to go for a run through the harbor. After an hour of slow jogging, mixed with walking, I arrive back at the boat and see Murph sitting in the cockpit, reading the Sun Post News. He’s got two cups of take-out coffee sitting beside him. I step up into the boat’s cockpit and sit down opposite him. He sure shows up whenever he feels like it.
“How are you feeling this morning?” He leans over and passes me a cup.
“Pretty good, considering. I just went for a little run. It gave me a chance to think.”
“Come up with any answers? Anything you might want to share with me?” he folds the paper.
“Not really,” I say.
“How was your meeting with your friend, last night?” he asks, pulling his notebook out of his pocket.
“I straight-up asked him if he knew who was trying to kill us.”
“Really. What did he say to that?” He sets the notebook beside him and takes a sip of his coffee.
“He said that if he wanted us dead, we’d be dead. I believe him. I’ve known John G. for a long time.”
“Okay, if you say so.”
“So,” I ask, “if he isn’t trying to kill us, then who is?”
Murph looks at me for a while before answering. “I don’t know, Bobby. We haven’t found anyone who witnessed anyone around your house or anybody who saw DJ being run off the road.”
“He just drove himself into the guardrail in the middle of the day for fun?”
“I don’t know. I’m also starting to think the sheriffs’ office has a leak. I can’t even tell my boss that. I can’t figure out who it might be. Keep that close to your chest.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if John G. has more than one cop on his payroll. I think it’s strange he was so adamant that he didn’t have anything to do with my house, the shots fired or DJ’s accident. He knows key details that only the cops should know. John G. has always paid people off; that’s his way. Check this out bro, he wrote me a check for two hundred grand to go toward the repair of my house.” I hand the check to Murphy.
He whistles. “What are you going to do with this? Do you think he’s trying to bribe you?”
“I’m going to call my attorney to look into the tax issues. I don’t need it, but John G. insisted. I could donate it to the Travis Lee Foundation.”
“What’s that?”
I take a deep breath. “That kid I shot. His parents took the money they received from the city of Los Angeles to settle the lawsuit and set up the foundation to help at-risk youths with after sc
hool tutoring and mentoring.”
“I’d heard about the shooting—that’s why you quit the force, isn’t it? I didn’t know what happened to you after that.”
“That’s a long story. This money feels kind of dirty, but I could also do some real good with it, you know? What do you think?”
“I think you should hang onto the check for now. It might end up being evidence against John G. If John G. isn’t behind these attempts on you two, then we might have a real problem trying to figure out who is. He was the obvious suspect. We need to find that box Micky said he left in the canyon. Why don’t we start there?”
“Okay. Let me change my clothes and we can go search T-Street Canyon.”
I head down below into the boat’s cabin and get dressed.
“I need to take my van, Murph. I’m going to swing by and see DJ after. I’ll follow you to T-Street canyon,”
He’s sitting outside the gate, waiting for them. He watches as they get into their cars and pull out of the Harbor parking lot. He doesn’t follow them right away. He can’t afford to get caught. He’s making good money passing along copies of Detective Murphy’s reports. He was getting rich and no one was going to stop that, not Murphy or that washed up cop, Bobby Paladin. Big fucking deal, he killed one kid and his life falls apart.
He decides to loosely follow Paladin. Tailing him down PCH, he thinks about Paladin’s friend, Frasier, and how he had run him off the road. What’s it going to take to get both of these jerks to back off?
As he follows Paladin into town, he quickly figures out where they’re going: back to T-Street Canyon. After he’d taken those shots at Frasier and Paladin to scare them away, he’d returned the next morning and searched the canyon, but had come up empty handed. If those guys ever find the information Webber had hidden, everybody involved would be in deep shit. He has to re-think his plan. Killing a cop and an ex-cop was not ideal but, if they get too close, he’ll have to consider it.
He drives through town, down El Camino Real a few blocks past Trafalgar Lane, turns down the street and parks on Ola Vista. He gets out of his car and starts walking toward the canyon. He finds a spot where he can keep an eye on them but still stay out of sight. He’ll wait until they came up out of the canyon. If they found the box, he’ll have to decide what to do next.
Chapter 18
“Are you sure this is where you guys built your fort?” Murphy asks.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” I thought I was sure but I’m really frustrated that we can’t find the box. I walk deeper into the canyon and stop. Am I missing something? Maybe the fort wasn’t behind Micky’s parents’ house. Maybe it was farther down the canyon.
“Murph, we need to look deeper in the canyon. I remember now that we had a trail from the back yard down into the canyon. I think we might be looking in the wrong place.”
We make our way back through the bushes until we are further down. It’s much more overgrown here.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing down there? This is private property and you’re trespassing!” We hear a voice holler from above. “I’m calling the cops right now!”
“Hold on, sir. I’m with the sheriff’s department.” Murph calls up the hill. “My name is Detective Dwayne Murphy. I’m an investigator with the sheriffs’ department. Give me a minute to climb up there and I’ll show you my ID.”
I hear Murph mutter, “Pain in the ass Neighborhood Watch Nazi,” as he climbs up the hill to show the homeowner his badge and ID I hope this helpful citizen is unarmed.
The guy says, “Sorry. Thank you, officer. The other day there were some guns shots fired right over there. My wife is a nervous wreck.”
I hear Murph placating the guy, which could take forever. Since I’m not here officially, I know he wants to be sure the guy doesn’t call the sheriffs’ office. I start to move further down into the canyon.
I come to a spot with a fallen eucalyptus tree and remember: when we were older, out of the fort building stage, Micky, DJ and I, used to sit on this log and talk about girls, surfing and smoke some weed. So I sit on the log and figure I’ll just wait for Murph to finish up. I kick at a pile of stones under the log. When I look down between my feet, I notice an indentation in the ground. The dirt has been disturbed and then smoothed out to make it look natural. I kneel down and start to carefully move the dirt with my hands. After a few minutes, I see a square corner. I’m looking at the top of a box.
“Christ,” I whisper. There it is. A Japanese puzzle box, just like Micky said. I hear Murph swearing, crashing back down the canyon. “Murph!” I hiss, “Come here! Quick.”
I clear the stones and dirt from around the box, and gently remove it from its hiding place. I sit back down on the log and set it on my lap. The box is totally smooth and it looks seamless. There are no joints showing anywhere on it. Murph works his way over to me. He stops and stares at the box in my hands. I brush more of the dirt away.
“Be careful! Remember what Micky said about opening the box the right way. We could destroy the contents. Where did you find it?”
“I just sat down to wait for you and found it under a pile of dirt and rocks.”
“So how do we get it open? I don’t see a lid.”
“It’s a Japanese puzzle box. Haven’t you ever seen one?”
Now that the dirt is cleared off, we can see that the puzzle box is beautiful. It’s made of wood that has a black lacquered finish and inlayed with mother of pearl. It’s pretty big, too, a little smaller than a shoebox but wider.
“You slide the panels this way and that way and eventually it opens. Sometimes it takes only a few moves, sometimes a lot more. I’ve never seen one that looks like this. It looks like it might be complicated,” I say.
“Well, be careful and don’t move anything until we figure out how to open it.”
“I know. We’re going to have to try to figure this out on our own.”
“Shit, the leak. How are we going to open this without the department’s help?”
I stand up with the box, look up at the sky and mutter, “Micky, even dead, you’re a pain in the ass.”
I’m glad I brought my backpack with me. I take off my jacket and carefully wrap the box in it, then slip the covered box into the backpack. We should feel like we’ve made a huge accomplishment, but we’ve just ended up with another problem we can’t solve.
“I guess the best thing is for me to take this back to the boat and hide it for now. Then I’ll go see DJ.”
“Normally, I’d say that the box would be better in the sheriff’s hands, but right now, I doubt that.”
“Micky said he left us another clue for opening the puzzle box. It’s too important and he wouldn’t risk leaving them together. We need to find that next clue and find it fast.”
I put the backpack on and we turn to climb back up the canyon.
I stop and turn back to fill in the hole where I found the box. If someone is following us, I don’t want them to know we found it.
◆◆◆
He watches as they come back up from the canyon. Paladin opens the passenger side of his van and gently sets his backpack on the seat. He can’t tell for sure if they found something, but the way Paladin is handling that backpack make him pretty sure they had.
As Murphy and Paladin drive away, he looks up and down the street before slipping out of his hiding spot. He’s just starting back to his car when his phone vibrates in his pocket. He gets into his car before he answers it. He listens intently, finally saying, “Yes, sir. I know, sir. I think Paladin found it, but I can’t be one hundred percent sure. Yes, sir. When I find out, sir, you’ll be the first to know, sir.”
He hangs up, pale and sweating from his conversation. The General is ruthless man. This game of playing both ends against the middle is very dangerous, but very, very profitable. It’s all about the money. He checks his watch; he has to get to work or he’ll raise suspicion with his boss. If he can pull off his plan, he’ll be a very rich man. Then he can retir
e; lie on the beach, read and drink expensive scotch for the rest his life. Best of all, he’ll still collect his pension. He loves the idea of beating the system.
◆◆◆
I pull into DJ’s driveway, lock the van and run inside. DJ’s sitting in his recliner, his arm in the black sling from the hospital. “Sorry I’m late, DJ. Are you doing okay?”
“Much better today, but the house seems so empty without Maria and the kids. Get me out of here, will you?”
I help DJ into my van and before I’ve even come around to the driver’s side, he’s lit a cigarette. “I could use a beer.”
“Aren’t you on medication or something?”
“Nothing too serious. Besides, one or two beers won’t kill me.”
“I’m not going to argue with you. Let’s go to the Red Fox Lounge. That way we can get lunch, too. It should be pretty quiet this time of the day.”
“Great idea.” He turns and blows smoke out the window.
“Well, while you’ve been relaxing, I’ve been busy.”
He turns to look at me, “Really? Doing what?”
“Murph and I went back down into the canyon and found the box.”
“No shit?! That’s great!”
“I don’t know if it is because now we seem to have a bigger problem. It’s a fucking Japanese puzzle box.”
“What the hell is that?”
“A Japanese puzzle box. Christ, Murph had never seen one either. Didn’t you guys read Hardy Boys mysteries as kids? In Micky’s letter he said not to try to open the box. If we don’t open it in the right sequence, whatever is inside will be destroyed. Micky rigged it somehow. It looks like it’s a really complicated one.”
“Can I take a look at it?”
“Sorry, bro. I hid it for now. Micky said that he left us a clue somewhere so we would be able to open the box. He put the box and the instructions in different places for safety
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