by G. M. Ford
Jack shot Spaulding a disgusted look and began to wave the bone around in earnest, as if painting grease letters in the air.
“Come on, now, Abby. You still remember how. I know you do, and I’m even donating my bones. It’s for the good of the species, darlin’. For the good of the species.”
For the first time, Candace seemed embarrassed by Jack’s antics. She was sitting bolt upright, her hands gripping the edge of her plate like it was a life preserver, her lips invisible.
Jack waved the bone at Rodrigo, who had been observing from the far wall. “Hey, Lorenzo,” Jack drawled. “Take this here Meyerson tongue depressor over to the little lady there.”
Rodrigo hesitated. Jack stayed at him.
“Let’s go. Chop-chop.”
Rodrigo skipped across the room and took the bone from Jack’s hands. He held it at arm’s length, using only the tips of his fingers. He turned to walk away.
Francona and Hill rose as one. Abby continued to eat.
Rodrigo got the message. Any attempt to deliver the greasy scrap to their table would probably involve a prolonged need for physical therapy. He turned imploringly back toward Jack. No help there.
Candace was furiously whispering in the Jackalope’s ear, but the old boy just wouldn’t quit. “Go on, boy. Abby’s puttin’ on airs, is all. She’s one of the finest bone artists on the planet.”
Rodrigo was flushed with color, his free hand pumping into a fist.
I walked over, took the bone from the waiter’s hand, and deposited it in the nearest trash can. The room was silent as I returned to my roost next to Rickey Ray. I turned to Brie Meyerson and broke the silence.
“So how are you holding up under all of this?” I asked as if nothing at all had happened. She seemed relieved.
“I’m used to it,” she said. “They do it all the time.”
“No, I mean…” I searched for a sentence that didn’t include both “Bunky” and “cook.” “You know, the whole…”
“You mean that whole barbecue thing?”
“Yeah.”
She checked over each shoulder and then leaned in very close. She might have reminded me of spring, but she smelled of cologne.
“I couldn’t care less,” she said. “That’s Mother’s thing.”
“Really?”
“I’m not supposed to say anything, but, you know…”
“I thought…”
“Oh, you mean the whole grand opera, little-girl-and-her-beloved-pet thing?” She rolled her eyes heavenward. “Spare me. It’s a cow. It didn’t exactly sleep on the edge of my bed. I was raised on that farm. I know what happens to cows. Mother thinks it makes good copy, is all. It’s all hype. I think she watched too many Shirley Temple movies as a child. So dull.”
Trying not to be dull, I pointed at the bottle in her hand. The black plastic top featured those green panther eyes.
“What is that stuff, anyway?” I asked. “I keep seeing it around.”
“That’s because it’s all the rage, you know,” she mocked.
“It is, huh?”
She held the label up to my face. Red background, yellow banner with the word “Josta,” and a sinuous black panther prowling across the top.
“It’s Josta,” she said.
“Josta ’nother soft drink?”
She laughed. “Very good, but no.” She pointed to the label. “See, it’s made with the guarana berry, and the guarana berry is supposed to have medicinal properties. In Brazil, they say it’s an aphrodisiac.”
Spaulding waved the burger in our direction. We both tensed.
“Shit tastes like cough syrup,” he offered. “Her Majesty just orders it because nobody’s ever got it on hand, and she likes to see them have to run all over hell and gone to find it.”
“Stuff it, Spaulding.”
Dixie’s voice rose above the throng. “Be a sweetie, Bart, and get Momma a cup of coffee from over there in the cop section.”
Bart rose and skirted his way behind Candace and Jack, moving into the middle of the room from a break in the tables.
“Step it up, sweetie,” Spaulding brayed.
“Shut up, you moron,” his sister whispered.
Spaulding grinned and brought the burger up to his mouth. It arrived ahead of schedule. Just as he was about to take a bite, Brie reached out and pushed the sandwich hard into her brother’s face, twisting her wrist from side to side, mashing the mess into his face. I wanted to applaud, but decided it would be unprofessional.
Spaulding jerked his feet back and allowed the mess to drop onto the carpet. “You bitch.” He reached for his sister.
I stepped between the pair. “Easy, kid. Easy.”
Spaulding tried to move forward, but Rickey Ray had him by the belt. “Just a little joke there, podna. Don’t be gettin’ your panties all in a wad now.”
Rickey Ray grinned over Spaulding’s shoulder. “Got us a real hellcat here, Leo. Whip any girl on the block.”
All I saw was Rickey Ray’s hand lose its grip on the belt. Spaulding lurched forward, stepped in his own hamburger mess, and nearly fell. Francona grabbed the kid by the elbow and pulled him upright.
“Well, looky here,” I heard Rickey Ray say. “Somebitch touched me.” He looked over at me. Hill was standing on his toes, two paces away from Rickey. “Somebitch done slapped me on the wrist. You see that, Leo?” I told him I hadn’t, but I somehow knew it wasn’t going to matter.
In an instant, all vestiges of the friendly cowboy disappeared from his face, and I saw a frightening ability to switch gears. The ancient Scots liked to speak in terms of becoming fey. Of succumbing to a self-induced battle trance, in the midst of which the warrior was a virtual killing machine. All hell broke loose.
As Rickey started for Hill, Francona, in an amazing display of stupidity, started for Rickey. Fortunately, Lieutenant Driscoll and Marty Conlan arrived at just about the same time. As if magnetically drawn together, the five of them formed a lurching knot of screaming, pushing humanity.
“Rowcliffe. The Mondavi Reserve, please.”
Alomar agreed. “The merlot lacked substance.”
“Mr. Waterman,” Sir Geoffrey said without looking up,
“would you be so kind as to inquire when we shall be permitted to leave?”
“Sure,” I said.
Marty and Driscoll were starting to get things calmed down as I turned and walked toward the corner of the dais. Lawrence and Lobdell were going nose to nose.
His face was red. “That’s not what we’d do with any other group. We’d brace her and check everybody’s reaction. I don’t see why—”
“I’m merely saying that, considering the long-standing animosity among these groups…”
He was shaking his head. “It’s standard procedure.”
“This is not a standard situation. As I see it—”
She noticed me and stopped abruptly.
“Yes, Mr. Waterman?”
“Sir Geoffrey wants to know when he and Mr. Alomar can leave. Also, don’t drink the merlot; it lacks substance.”
My boyish charm seemed to be at an all-time low. She sighed.
“We have transcriptions of their statements for them to sign, and then everyone can be on their way.”
Francona and Hill were shepherding both Meyerson kids back to the family fort. Spaulding left a trail of squashed burger all the way across the room.
Rickey Ray had flipped his switch the other way. He showed Driscoll his palms. “Just funnin’.”
Marty Conlan was jerking at his pants and tucking in his shirt. He looked winded. That was the most action he’d had in years. I could see the excitement in his face.
Brie Meyerson was nearly back at the table when Lobdell spoke. “Miss Meyerson.”
She turned to him. “Yes?”
“I’m afraid we have a problem with your statement.”
“What? Oh.” Brie had not inherited the family stone face from her mother. The girl looked terrified. F
orks poised in mid-stroke. Wine went unswallowed.
“I remind you, Miss Meyerson, this is a murder investigation.”
When the girl didn’t speak, he played his card.
“Perhaps I should tell you that the security floors in this hotel are monitored by surveillance cameras and that, while everyone else’s coming and goings are confirmed by the tape, you do not appear on it until five-twenty P.M.”
“I don’t understand,” the girl stammered.
“It’s very simple. You told us that after returning to the hotel at two-thirty, you went straight to your room for a nap because you were feeling poorly.” He drew the words out.
“You do not appear on the tape, Miss Meyerson. So…if you weren’t in your room, where were you?”
The girl instinctively turned toward her mother for help.
Some help. Abigail Meyerson sat at attention. “Well?”
Brie glanced across the room toward the Del Fuego delegation.
“I…” She started to speak.
Lobdell began yapping. “I repeat, Miss Meyerson, this is a murder investigation. Where were you?”
In a touching display of sibling support, Spaulding piped up. “Leave her alone, dick face.”
Lobdell gave it the voice of doom. “Miss Meyerson?”
From the corner of my eye I caught the movement as Candace Atherton put her napkin on the table and stood.
She spoke directly to Brie. “He’s right. I’m afraid we’ll have to tell them. I’m so sorry.”
Whereas all eating had stopped a couple of minutes back, all breathing was now temporarily suspended.
“We…” The girl seemed to be slipping into vapor lock.
Candace now turned to Lobdell. “This is going to be somewhat awkward, Detective, and I must apologize.” She cast a quick sidelong glance at the Meyerson contingent.
“Miss Meyerson went to the movies with Mr. Tolliver and myself. We didn’t say so before because we were afraid her mother…”
“Nonsense.” Abigail Meyerson was on her feet.
Candace kept talking. “Up at what’s called the Broadway market. A film named Bound. None of us liked it much. We left before it was over.”
“My daughter went absolutely nowhere with these—”
Lobdell cut her off. “Well, Miss Meyerson?”
We had a mass exhale and waited.
The girl had gathered herself. “All right. All right. It’s true.”
A couple of hundred pins dropped.
Sir Geoffrey seemed amused. “Indeed.”
They’d been right to worry what Abby Meyerson would think. As she dabbed at her lips, it was hard to tell where the white linen napkin left off and her face began.
She stood and picked her black purse up from the table. Her expression held no clue. She may well have been the coolest cucumber I can ever remember. Must be that Dove Bar, I mused.
“I apologize for my daughter,” she said to Lobdell. “I had no idea.” She straightened her spine even more. “I assure you that my daughter will have no further contact with these people, and as of this moment, I shall require any further contact whatsoever with me or my family to pass through my attorney.”
She pulled a business card from her purse and laid it on the table. Spaulding grabbed his crotch on the way out. Brie tried to linger.
“Brie” was all her mother said from the doorway. Abby never looked back as she closed the door behind them.
Rickey Ray whispered, “She’s in the frying pan now.”
His lordship had his hands folded over his middle and his lips pursed. He spoke without opening his eyes.
“There are, I suppose, worse places to be.”
“There’s a couple of necks out there in a white Chevy,” Terry whispered in my ear. “They been in asking for you and Georgie by name. Got descriptions of the rest of your crew. They got uniforms out pushin’ the neighborhood hard for the last couple of days.”
I put my mouth to his ear. “Actually, there’s probably more like four of them out there now. I just dragged a couple more of them with me from the hotel.”
I’d picked them up right away. A couple of bulls in a blue Ford Taurus, hanging about five cars back and two lanes over as I rolled up the freeway toward the Zoo. Trying for all the world to look like a pair of weight lifters on their way to the gym at ten-thirty in the morning. Sure. The minute I ducked down the Lakeshore Drive exit, they allowed the gap between us to widen. They knew where I was going.
I motioned for Terry to lean in closer, but he shook his head, turning instead toward the far end of the bar, staying completely rigid as he moved. I followed him down the length of the bar.
“The back’s still bad?” I inquired as I walked.
He waved an arm at me, telling me to follow. He wore the same black polyester pantsuit he’d worn every day for the past fifteen years or so. It was the white patent leather belt and shoes, however, that made the ensemble.
“Killin’ me, Leo. Doc says I got a disintegrating vertebra.”
Terry lifted the hinged section of bar and headed toward the back of the building, pushing chairs out of his way as he shuffled along.
“Wants me to go under the knife,” he continued. “But I don’t know, man. You let people be cuttin’ into your back, you could end up on a creeper with a cup full of pencils, if you know what I mean.”
I told him I understood and followed him out the back door, onto the rickety back porch of the bar. He left the door ajar behind us.
The plywood floor sagged from the weight of the recycling barrels. Three for brown glass. Two for green. Terry checked the area.
Satisfied, he put a hand on my shoulder. “Those two outside was in for a while yesterday. I don’t know what they was doin’ back there.” He shrugged and pointed to his ear. “You never know.”
Two battered brown Dumpsters gagged on the oversized loads of refuse that had been packed into their mouths, leaving the covers now propped agape on the chain-link fence that separated this space from the peeling yellow house beyond.
“George said you would know what he was talkin’ about if I said he was with Piggy and Roscoe and that they had a camp that was right back in the same place as the old camp. He said for you to remember the place where Cappy burned his truss.”
Oh, yeah, like I was ever going to forget the smell of that thick yellow smoke rising to the roaring ceiling and then spreading out in both directions as the old man limped around the fire humming opera.
“I’m gonna leave from here,” I said. “After a bit, the necks are gonna come in to see what the hell happened to me. You can handle it?”
“Be my pleasure to Schultz ’em, Leo. Hell, it’s about the most fun I can have with this back,” he replied.
“I’m gonna need a couple of candy bars,” I said.
Terry nodded. “Always a good idea.” He pulled the door open and eased himself inside, placing his white feet with great care, as if walking on hot coals. The steel door bumped twice on its cylinder and then snapped behind him. For some reason, the Dumpsters smelled worse in the silence.
The way I saw it, I had a case of Rickey Ray’s limited options. The longer the heat looked for the crew, the more of them they were going to find. I had no illusions. This was not the Double-O Section. Some of them were going to get shitfaced and run their mouths to somebody who was going to flap his gums to somebody else who was going to make some folding money out of it. I needed to see George, and I needed to see him now. The good news was that the camp was within easy walking distance of where I stood.
The bad news was that I was about to use up one of my free Lose The Cops cards. Any damn fool can dump a tail if the tail doesn’t know he’s been spotted. About the time tails decide they don’t give a damn whether or not you know you’re being followed, it becomes exponentially more difficult. Once you make them look bad, and the four guys outside were going to be up shit’s creek for losing me, then you become subject to all the high-tech, tag te
am surveillance they can muster. It can still be done, but it takes quite a bit more finesse.
If they were smart, one of the cars would be parked halfway up Lynn, facing downhill, with a nice view all the way to Lake Union, while the other would be along the curb on Eastlake Boulevard, covering the terrain north to south. Sadly, that left only the Dumpsters and the fence.
The door opened; Terry’s hand appeared and dropped a Snickers bar and a bag of Peanut M&M’s into my hand.
“Thanks,” I said, but the door had already snapped shut.
I stashed the goodies in my jacket pocket, then stepped off the porch. I wiggled sideways into the space between the Dumpsters and levered them apart. Each box had two sets of U-shaped ears welded to the side, lift handles for the garbage trucks that slipped their hydraulic tongues into the slots.
Reluctantly gripping the edge of each Dumpster, I boosted myself up onto the lower set of handles. The yellow house on the other side of the fence had a ragged backyard barely big enough for a faded blue wading pool, partially collapsed and sagging under the weight of green water and sodden leaves. Several pieces of ancient firewood, some crosshatched with the bite of the ax, littered the yard, along with a white bleach bottle, whose bottom was cut out. No doghouse. No food dishes. No bones. Good.
I considered a number of methods by which I could possibly climb up and over the garbage without touching a single exposed surface, but eventually said screw it and propelled myself up to the higher set of handles and then up onto the top, careful of my footing lest I slide down the lid and into the Dumpster, in which case suicide would surely be the sole remaining option.
I sidestepped to the top of the lid and jumped. About halfway down, I felt pretty good. That was before I realized that what I had taken to be the ground was merely the top of waist-high field grass. The resultant glitch in my athletic timing drove my knees up under my chin with a crack and then catapulted me back into the lower part of the fence like a missile. The fence groaned and rattled.
I sat in the damp, rough grass with my palms up, as if hoping to stem the torrent of dead leaves showering down upon my head and into my lap from the shaking blackberry bush which had woven itself into the fabric of the fence. I blinked once and then remembered where I was.