Death On a No 8 Hook (A Willows and Parker Mystery) (14 page)

Chapter 27

Mannie was waved into the only chair at the patio table that wasn’t shaded by the pink-and-white striped umbrella. He sat down, the hot, flimsy metal creaking under his weight. Felix was wearing a California Angels baseball cap, a pair of cheap rubber thongs, baggy white trousers and a fruit cocktail shirt. Misha sat on Felix’s left. She had on a pair of outsized aviator glasses with mirrored lenses, a bikini that looked as if it was made of mauve Teflon. Junior had gone back into the house. Now he came out again, carrying a huge glass bowl full of mixed vegetables.

“You ever read Steinbeck?” said Felix to Mannie.

“Who?”

Ice clinked against Felix Newton’s teeth as he sipped at his wine. “What’d you think of the tape?”

Mannie didn’t know what to say. He managed a shrug.

“Ninety seconds,” said Felix.

“Huh?”

Misha turned towards Mannie, cocked her head to the side, sunlight bouncing off her glasses into his eyes. He looked away, at the pink, heart-shaped pool that dominated the yard.

“Ninety seconds is what they gave your little caper on the eleven o’clock news,” said Felix.

“Junior set up the Econoline. It was that fucking bordello on wheels caught everybody’s attention.”

“Station got a news team out there pretty fast,” said Felix. “Cop leaning over a body makes a nice change from some stiff reading a prepared statement from behind a desk, eh?”

“I guess so,” said Mannie uncertainly.

“You phone ’em?”

“Who, the cops?”

“No, Mannie. The TV folks.”

“Jesus! No, of course not.” The late-morning sun beat down on Mannie’s scalp, He wiped sweat from his forehead. Felix Newton was staring at him again, the eyes dark and the heavily lined face without expression.

“Everything’s ready to go,” said Junior.

Misha looked up at him, her mouth small and annoyed. She pushed herself away from the table, went over to the barbecue. Mannie heard the sound of metal on metal and then a sharp hiss. The sweet scent of melting butter mixed it up with the acrid smell of chlorine from the pool, and lost.

Junior was hovering, trying to decide whether or not to sit down in Misha’s vacated chair. Felix snapped his fingers at him. “I got a few things I have to say to Mannie. Go swim some laps.”

“Okay,” said Junior. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and drew the Colt .357, laid it down on the table next to Felix’s wine glass. His Hi-Toppers sucked at the tiles as he ambled towards the pool.

“Shit,” said Felix softly. He waited until the last possible moment and then shouted, “Hold it right there!”

Misha had been cracking eggs, but now she stopped. Everybody watched Junior teeter on the lip of the heart-shaped pool, his arms windmilling as he fought to keep his balance.

“That’s a three-hundred-dollar suit,” Felix yelled. “Take it off, stupid! And while you’re at it, get rid of those shoes. You sound like a fucking octopus, creeping around in those things.”

Mannie reached across the table and poured himself a glass of white wine. He licked condensation from the glass and took a big gulp. Junior undressed quickly. His stomach looked like a washboard. He bent and unlaced the running shoes, pulled off his socks and stepped out of his pants. Mannie saw that he was tanned all over. His ass was as brown as the rest of him. Was that what they did in California, walk around nude all the time? Junior’s hard muscular body arced and he vanished beneath the pink surface of the water. Mannie counted to a hundred and fifty. Junior surfaced, rolled over on his back like a seal. He floated in the middle of the heart, eyes closed, his penis and testicles bobbing gently.

Felix pulled a pack of Camel cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, shook one free and lit up.

“I heard the kid looked as if a shark had got him,” he said. “That was dumb. Naomi Lister, on the other hand, was very smart. Some cop fishing way up there in the mountains. Fucking needle in a haystack. But what the hell, right? Two down and one to go. All that counts is the bottom line.” Delicately, with his little finger, he flicked ash from his cigarette. “Want to know what this is all about?”

“Not really,” said Mannie.

“Junior picked some kids up off Davie Street. Four of ’em. Brought them up here for a party. You know how these things can get out of hand?”

Felix was looking at him, waiting.

“Sure,” said Mannie, although he had no idea what they were talking about.

Felix paused while Misha put plates down on the table. Translucent white china with gold trim. An omelette on one side, salad heaped on the other. Felix speared a chunk of tomato, skewering it on the tines of an Art Deco fork.

“I strangled one of them. And Junior got it all down on videotape. At least, the dumb shit thinks he did. When the survivors took off, the tape went with them.”

“They try to get in touch with you?”

“We got in touch with them first.” Felix frowned. “Can you imagine how I felt about killing that poor kid, when I finally sobered up enough to examine my emotions? Knowing his pals were going to have to go too, because I’m a tidy person and I worry a lot.”

“Bad?” said Mannie.

“A flair for understatement. Very rare in a Jewish person.” Felix’s mouth was full of egg. He stopped talking long enough to swallow. “Junior went through Steve and Naomi’s apartment. Nothing there but a bunch of cockroaches. So he drove his fucking Trans Am up to Squamish and tossed her dad’s place. Zilch. If anybody’s got my tape, it has to be Carly.”

“Makes sense,” said Mannie.

“You think so, huh? Then why haven’t you been out on the street looking for her?”

Mannie shrugged. He toyed with his omelette, pushed a piece of mushroom around the circumference of his plate. “I don’t know, it seemed like a good idea to let things cool down a little.”

“Seemed like a good idea to you, is that what you mean?” Felix stabbed viciously at another chunk of tomato. He chewed vigorously. A gelatinous glop of juice and seeds dribbled down his chin. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, licked himself clean.

“Carly’s staying with a gimp named Walter. Skinny little guy used to be a jockey.”

“Oh yeah, what’s he do now?”

“Fences stuff. Mostly junk. Don’t worry about it, he’s got no connections whatsoever.”

Mannie drained his glass. Felix poured him a refill, waved the empty bottle expansively at the city and ocean glittering far below them. “Nice, huh?”

“Really nice,” said Mannie.

“Laguna Beach is better, though. Down there, you got weather like this all year round. And where else can you shoot whales from your front porch?” Felix leaned across the table and patted Mannie lightly on the shoulder. “Junior’s got the address. You do this right, you got his job.”

“Oh yeah?”

Felix pointed at Mannie’s rings. “What is all that shit, ten carats?” He smiled. “My people live in an eighteen-carat world, Mannie. You want to move up the ladder, you know how to do it.”

Mannie looked closely at Felix and saw he wasn’t kidding. “After I get Junior’s job,” he said, “what happens to Junior?”

“Up to you, kiddo.”

“I want a new piece, too,” said Mannie. And looked surprised. The words had just popped out. He hadn’t thought about it at all.

“A gun?” said Felix. He glanced down at the huge chrome-plated Colt lying next to his plate, beside his coffee spoon.

“No,” said Mannie. “A wig.”

Real hair. Long and thick. Hair that he could wear with confidence in the shower or in the middle of a fucking hurricane. He saw himself down at Laguna Beach, the surf foaming at his knees, a couple of those leggy Californian blondes wrapped all over him. His hair tossed by the offshore breeze. A tan even better than Junior’s.

It could all happen. He knew it could. All he had to do was stay lucky and move fast.

Chapter 28

The ball was painted dark green, with two glossy white stripes. It lay in a hollow, nestled between the roots of a chestnut tree.

The hoop was about twenty feet away on a twisting downhill slope, barely visible behind the spindly green trunks of an intruding clump of vine maple.

Orwell stared down at the ball and considered his options. He could swing under the ball, try to loft it high enough to luck his way through the tangle of the maples. Or he might bounce it off the chestnut, put some spin on the ball and hope for a lucky bounce that would send it curling around the barrier of the trees. Or he could simply play it safe, drive the ball straight ahead and leave his partner, Brynner, an easy shot next time up.

The first two shots were clearly impossible. The third went against his nature. He mulled it over, taking his time.

“Just knock it ahead about five or ten feet,” said Brynner, glaring over the bowl of his pipe.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” Brynner had intense dark eyes and an unkempt black beard, an unpleasant habit of nibbling furiously at the edges of his moustache.

“Too easy,” said Orwell.

“Fucking hell,” whispered Brynner, too quietly for anyone but Orwell to hear. “We can win this thing, eh? The whole bag of marbles! All you have to do is quit screwing around.”

Orwell took a few practice swings. He shifted his stance minutely and then drew back and hit the ball with all the force and conviction he could muster. It struck the chestnut with a dull thud and shot off at a crazy angle, missing Jerry Goldstein’s wife by inches.

“Fore!” yelled Orwell. There was a scattering of laughter.

Brynner chewed at his moustache.

Orwell watched a girl with short red hair line up her shot, drill her ball thirty feet across uneven ground and right through the heart of the hoop, strike a pose.

“Fuck,” said Brynner.

“I’m thirsty,” said Orwell. “I think I’ll go get something to drink.”

“Just don’t come whining to me when your kidneys give out and transplant time rolls around.”

Orwell looked at Brynner to see if he was kidding. It wasn’t possible to say. They were playing the second and final round of the match. Out of sixteen original players, there were only eight left: four teams of two. Orwell silently cursed the luck of the draw. Brynner was not a very amiable person. Orwell had a hunch the guy was out on a day pass from someplace with iron bars on the windows.

He made his way out of the trees, over to where Judith was sitting in the sun in a webbed aluminium lawn chair. She was wearing a wide-brimmed white cotton hat with a scarlet band, a flimsy white summer dress that she’d pulled high on her thighs in order to catch some tan. Orwell sat down next to her on a Coleman cooler. She gave him a big smile.

“Nice stroke, Eddy. If you’d put a little more weight behind it, you might’ve killed her.”

“Scare tactics, that’s all. You cripple one of ’em, the rest fall into line real fast.”

Judith was cradling a bottle of cheap white wine in her lap. Orwell watched her fumble with the screw cap, take a hit. Screw the cap back on. He held out his hand and she passed the bottle to him. He took a sip. The wine was lukewarm, brackish.

“Brynner keeps making these incredibly rotten shots. So I end up looking like a dunce, trying to get out of all the jams he leaves me in. How we ever made it through the first round is something I’ll never know.”

“The rest of us deliberately blew it so we could settle down to some serious drinking,” said Judith. The chair creaked as she leaned towards Orwell to retrieve the bottle.

“Brynner’s about as much fun as a fucking bunion. If I was a quitter, I’d quit right this minute.”

“You can always turn into a quitter, Eddy. You know what they say, it’s never too late to change.”

Impulsively, Orwell reached out and squeezed Judith’s hand. “I’d like to quit being a bachelor,” he said. “Why don’t we get married.”

“Who to?” said Judith, drawing back.

“Each other, for Christ’s sake!”

Orwell got down on his knees. He pulled the sterling silver box out of his trouser pocket, flipped up the lid. The diamond, a half carat of pure carbon crystallized in regular octahedrons and allied forms, caught the light and flashed sparks of red and green.

“Say no!” someone shouted from the trees. There was a burst of laughter.

Orwell flushed. He thrust the ring towards Judith. “Say yes,” he said. “Please say yes.”

Judith tried the ring on. It fit surprisingly well. She slipped it off her finger, put it back in the silver box. “You’re the second man to ask me to marry him this week,” she said.

Orwell stared at her. “I am?”

“Parking violation. Meter had run out. The guy showed up just as I was sticking the ticket under his windscreen wiper. Said he’d been waiting for me all morning long.”

“Oh yeah? and he asked you to marry him?”

Judith nodded. She drank deeply of the wine, holding the bottle in both hands. When she was finished drinking she put the bottle down on the grass and moved her chair around a few degrees. Orwell’s first thought was that she wanted to face him more directly, but then he realized she was simply chasing the sun.

“He figured if we were married he’d be able to beat the ticket because I wouldn’t be able to testify against him in court.” Judith picked up the bottle and drank another inch. “A real kidder, a genuine comedian.”

“What’d you say?”

“I told him he needed a better reason than that, and so did I. You know what happened?”

“No, what?”

“He grabs the ticket and turns it into a cute little paper elephant. With a trunk, and ears that stick way out, stumpy legs and everything.”

“He turned the parking ticket into an elephant?”

‘You should’ve seen his hands, Eddy. A blur, they moved so fast.”

“No shit,” said Orwell. He chopped idly at the grass with the head of his mallet, gouging neat crescents out of the lawn. Judith was staring at him, looking at him as if she was waiting for him to say something. He took a few more swipes at the grass and then said, “Hey, wait a minute!”

“What?”

“This is the same guy you gave a ticket to last week, right?”

“That’s right, Eddy.”

“With the black Trans Am. We were talking about it at the juice bar at the club.” Orwell frowned. “The guy said he was waiting for you?”

“He sure did.”

“What else did he say?”

“He asked me if I wanted to go for a drive,” said Judith. She didn’t see any point in telling Orwell where Junior had suggested they go, which was to the Hyatt Regency, or how he’d gone into extremely graphic detail about what he wanted to do to her once they got there. “I told him to forget it, I wasn’t interested. He jumped into his big black car with the tinted windows, and took off.”

“Mad, huh. Burn a little rubber?”

“All the way down the block.”

“Punk. You think there’s any chance he might come back?”

“Who can say,” said Judith, not sounding too worried about it. She reached down into her bag for a tube of coconut oil. Orwell watched the smooth brown skin of her thigh dimple under the pressure of her fingers.

“What about us?” he said.

“What about you and that cute little brunette detective named Claire Parker?” Judith shot back.

Orwell blushed. “How did you hear about her?”

“Never mind, Eddy.”

“I just went out with her a couple of times.” He was whining. He cleared his throat, and frowned.

“Three times,” said Judith. “You went out with her three times in two weeks. And the last time was to that expensive restaurant in the park, wasn’t it?”

“Kearns told you, didn’t he?”

“Don’t blame your partner for your troubles, Eddy. Blame yourself.”

“It wasn’t anything serious. It was a last fling, that’s all. I mean, I didn’t ask
her
to marry me, did I.”

Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. It was Brynner, his dark eyes glistening. “Your shot,” he said. “You two getting hitched?”

“I doubt it,” said Judith. She applied a little more coconut oil. “I’m going to have to think about it,” she said. “It’s a nice diamond, but I’d never want to be a man’s second choice.’

“Good for you,” said Brynner.

Orwell struggled to his feet. There were grass stains on the knees of his white trousers. He twirled the croquet mallet in his hands, and glared at Brynner as if he was lining up his next shot, and Brynner’s bald head was the ball. Chewing on his moustache, Brynner slowly backed away.