Duncan Delaney and the Cadillac of Doom (22 page)

“Delaney,”
she screamed as she tugged,
“you’re responsible for this!”

But the clutch handle was caught in his ribs, and as he died reflecting on the ignominiousness of his predicament, all Howard Lomo could think of in a surprisingly clear way was that ultimately this strangely masculine woman was correct in her assessment of the situation.

Leroy Kern drove until the Mustang coughed and sputtered and finally expired on Angeles Crest Highway high in the mountains north of Pasadena. He turned off the headlights and put his head in his hands. His head hurt, his nose hurt, his neck hurt, his soul hurt. He did not know if Lomo had killed Benjamin before he died. He did not care. All he wanted was peace. Leroy Kern opened the glove compartment and reached inside.

Time to go,
he thought.

He was reaching for a forty-four Smith and Wesson revolver that Lomo had stolen from a liquor store in Barstow along with three hundred and fifty dollars in traveling money. Lomo had tied up the manager, locked her in the stock room, and took a half gallon of Wild Turkey for the ride. Leroy Kern had seen him put the gun in the glove compartment. But that was before they opened the whiskey. Leroy Kern was passed out drunk when, somewhere past the California state line, Lomo stuffed the revolver in his belt as a back up to his duty weapon.

Leroy Kern panicked when he could not find the gun. He felt something cold and hard beneath an Auto Club Guidebook. He took it out. It was a small, white, glow-in-the-dark plastic Jesus with a magnet on the bottom, like the one that rode shotgun on his father’s dashboard when he was a kid. Plastic Jesus shown ghostly in the night, arms outstretched as if to embrace Leroy Kern and head cocked slightly to one side as if to ask why. Leroy Kern clutched Plastic Jesus and cried. Years later, when he next met Benjamin at the First Church of the Evolutionary Jesus in Cheyenne, from the pulpit Benjamin would ask how Leroy Kern found Jesus and to the congregation’s delight, Leroy Kern would tell the truth:
I just looked in the glove compartment, and there he was
.

Leroy Kern cried for an hour. Then he got out of the car. He placed Plastic Jesus on the Mustang’s roof and closed the door. He walked down the mountain towards the lights of Los Angeles, looking back every few steps, until the holy glow of Jesus faded into the night behind him.

Fifteen

“How’d you do?” Danny asked.

He ached viewing the riding crop poking out of her bag. The memory of Tiffy on stage whacking herself with it sent his pulse galloping.

“I won, didn’t I? That’s one thousand. Another six fifty in tips. Plus,” Tiffy almost squealed, “a man from
Playboy
wants to photograph me.”

“That old line.”

“That was no line. He gave me this.” Tiffy took a card from her shirt. Sure enough.
Playboy Magazine
. “They pay ten thousand for a centerfold.”

“Now what would your daddy say if he saw you in
Playboy?”

“He’s got a collection in the garage dating back to nineteen seventy three. He’d be a hypocrite to object.”

“I thought I saw Fiona in there.”

“Be quiet. What would Fiona be doing in a place like this?” She looked at her watch. “I got to go.”

“Where are we going?”

“We
aren’t going anywhere.” The cold night frosted her breath as she spoke. She unlocked the Cobra and got in. The engine started with a potent roar.
“You
are going home.
I
am going to meet the man from Playboy.”

“How am I supposed to get home?”

Tiffy gave him a twenty. “Take a cab.”

I’ve lost her,
Danny thought as he watched her drive away. What he did not comprehend was that he had never actually possessed her. And worse yet, the stripping he had thought a lark had matured into a vulture, and Danny was incapable of putting either bird back in the cage. The message light was on when he returned to his room. He dialed zero.

“Your father called,” the operator said. “He said it was urgent.”

Danny hung up and dialed. His father answered and for five minutes Danny listened with only an occasional
yes sir
or
no sir
. He hung up and packed his duffel bag. He put on his jacket and put the duffel bag in the trunk of a taxi and rode to the airport. He exchanged his return ticket to Cheyenne for the next flight to Denver. Fifteen minutes before his plane left, he remembered the Cobra. He ran to the rental counter and gave the clerk his contract. She punched keys on a computer and looked up.

“Your father called and said the car was stolen. We’ve notified the police. Is there something we should know?”

“Nope,” Danny said, “that about covers it.”

He reached the gate as final boarding was announced. He gave the attendant his ticket. She was a young black woman with bright brown eyes.

“Did you enjoy your stay in Los Angeles?” she asked.

“Some parts more than others.”

He settled in his seat in first class. A stewardess approached.

“Can I get you anything? Some juice perhaps?”

“Double Dewar’s, straight up.”

Danny had never drunk whiskey before, but his father drank Dewar’s in times of stress. He downed the glass in one gulp and coughed violently.

“Are you all right?” the stewardess asked.

“I’m fine,” he whispered when the fit finally passed. He held his glass out. “Another of the same, please.”

“We’ve had a lot of calls since you moved in,” Detective Randolph told Duncan. “This is the third dead body related to this address.”

“I don’t deserve credit for that drive by.”

Randolph held up his hand. “Hell, it’s not your fault. No one person could cause this much trouble.”

Duncan looked at Benjamin but said nothing. Benjamin called a cab after the police left. He was off to see Angela.

“Near death makes me eager to propagate the Lonetree line,” he said.

“Can we finish later?” asked Assan, “I have much cleaning to do.”

The coroner took the handlebars from the bike when it proved too difficult to extricate Lomo, and now the bars rested with him in a body bag in the back of an ambulance. Sheila sat on the curb staring at her boots. Samantha pulled her to her feet, Sheila got on the bike behind her, and they rode off in tandem. Roscoe attached a hose to a spigot on the wall. He washed Howard Lomo’s blood into the gutter and down the sewer and ultimately to the sea. Duncan returned to his studio. He picked up Cat and slouched on the couch. The phone rang. He decided not to answer but whoever was calling decided with more conviction not to hang up. On the eighth ring Duncan set Cat on the floor and answered the phone.

“Duncan?”

“Speaking.”

A long pause, then, “you don’t know who this is, do you?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“Jesus Christ! I didn’t think I was that unimportant in your life.”

“Tiffy!” Her habitually reproachful tone solved it. “How are you?”

“I’ve been a whole lot better.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, to start,” Tiffy said, “I’m in jail. Think you could bail me out?”

Duncan almost did not recognize her when a deputy escorted Tiffy into the lobby. She had on the black leather outfit she had worn on stage hours earlier, minus the riding crop. She had left it behind when the deputies pulled her out of what they believed was a stolen car.

“Tiffy,” Duncan said, “you look …”

“Beautiful?”

“Well, yes …”

“Sexy?”

“I guess …”

“Or maybe the word you were looking for was cheap.”

Duncan did not admit it, but that was the second word he had thought of. The first was
wow
. Tiffy brushed by him. He followed her outside.

“See you Saturday, Roxanne,” the deputy called after her.

Duncan opened Assan’s mini-van. “Why did he call you Roxanne?”

“That’s my stage name.”

They drove north on San Vincente then turned left on Sunset.

“You’re an actress now?”

“A stripper.”

Duncan had not see that coming, though judging by her attire, he perhaps should have. He picked up his jaw from it’s resting place on his chest and laughed.

“First grand theft auto, then stripping. You’re a very bad girl.”

“Always have been. You just never noticed.”

Duncan pulled into the lot of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Tiffy got out.

“Walk me to my room,” she said.

He took a ticket from the valet and followed. She stopped at a door surrounded by vines and ferns and struggled with the lock.

“That’s just great,” she said.

Duncan followed her back to the registration desk. She threw her key on the counter before a tall, thin man with watery eyes.

“My goddamn key doesn’t work,” she said.

“We changed the lock,” he said with a gentle lisp. “It was Mrs. Delaney’s wish.” He rang a bell and a hop appeared. “Ms. Bradshaw’s things please.”

“Damn bitch,” Tiffy said.

“That’s my mom you’re talking about.”

She turned on him. “You don’t miss much, do you?”

Duncan backed up. Last time Tiffy was this mad she punched him into a flower bed. Tiffy ripped open one of the bags the hop brought and threw clothing about until she came to her purse.

“It’s all there, Ms. Bradshaw.”

“It goddamn better be or I’ll …”

“You’ll what?” The clerk’s lisp was gone and the teeth he showed were sharp and clean. “Call the police? Sure. You could explain to them about the white powder and marijuana in your bag.”

Tiffy turned abruptly and left. Duncan picked up her bags and followed. They waited at the curb for their car. Tiffy turned back towards the lobby.

“Let it go,” Duncan said.

The valet they called
Rudolph
brought up the mini-van. Tiffy ignored him. Duncan tossed her bags in the back.
Rudolph
stood in the driveway and made the sign of the cross as he sadly watched them drive away.

“Where to now?” Duncan asked.

“Your place.”

“I don’t …”

“Jesus Horatio Christ, Duncan, don’t you fail me now! You’re talking to the woman who took your cherry and screwed you for seven years straight, and if you don’t think you owe me a little consideration you got another thought coming!” Tiffy gazed out the window. “It’s not like I’m going to try to sleep with you.”

“I didn’t think you were,” Duncan lied.

“Well, why not?”

“For one thing,” Duncan said, “You don’t want me anymore.”

“Don’t tell me what I want.”

Duncan knew from past experience he could not win. He had learned long ago to pick his fights with Tiffy, and as soon as a situation demanded it, by God he would stand up to her.

“I’m pretty good, you know. Not at sex. I mean I am. But that’s not what I mean. At stripping. I’m good.”

“I bet you are.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I bet you’re good at it.”

“As good as your girlfriend.”

“How do you know about her?”

“Jesus Christ, what do you use for brains? Fiona brought me out here.”

“Oh,” Duncan pulled into Assan’s parking lot. “I don’t know how good she is. I’ve never seen her strip.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“Well you should,” Tiffy admitted, “she’s fantastic.”

Duncan got out and put Tiffy’s bags on the sidewalk. He went inside and gave Abdul the keys and bought a twelve pack of beer. He handed the beer to Tiffy and picked up her bags. She trailed him around the building and upstairs. He opened the door and followed her in. He dropped her bags, took the twelve pack, and headed for the refrigerator.

“What a dump,” Tiffy said.

She spotted the painting of Pris on the easel. She sat down heavily. Duncan came out of the kitchen with two beers. He gave her one and sat on the floor against the wall.

“You okay?” he asked. “You look pale.”

As she stared at the painting, Tiffy remembered a photograph her father had taken when she was nine. She was sleeping in that picture, her face framed by her long white hair, a smile on her face from a comfortable dream. Her father called her his angel, and he kept this picture in his wallet as proof should anyone deny his claim. She had never liked the picture, but now, looking at Duncan’s painting, she realized there were worse things to be than somebody’s angel. She would have cried had she been capable. Instead the emotions the memory evoked made her angry and spiteful.

“You want to see me strip?”

“I’ve seen it.”

“I don’t mean just taking off my clothes. There’s more to it.”

“Thank you, no.”

“I wish you would cut this goody two shoes crap. I don’t buy it. You know, I was sleeping with other guys when I was with you.”

“I know now.”

“I thought you did. I thought you just turned a blind eye.”

“Nope. I would not have stood it.”

“Oh no? What would you have done? What would you have said?”

“Goodbye, probably.”

“Right. Like I believe that.”

“I said it before I came out here, didn’t I? And with less provocation.”

Tiffy stood. “Do you mind if I put on some music?”

“Go ahead.”

She took a compact disk out of her bag and put it in the stereo. A Latin band played a seductive, rhythmic cross of flamenco and jazz. She put the beer down. She picked up her bag and headed for the bathroom.

“I have to pee,” she said.

She shut the bathroom door. She stripped and put on white panties, cotton socks, a white lace bra, a knee high plaid skirt, and a white silk blouse. She left the blouse untucked and unbuttoned. She turned off the light and opened the door. Duncan still sat on the floor across the room. She danced toward him, softly moving to the music. She swayed and thrust her hips and let her blouse fall naturally off her shoulders to the floor. She unbuttoned her bra and slowly opened it, unleashing the power and the glory of her magnificent chest. She thrust her nipples out as if to pierce his soul. She fell to her knees and looked into his face.