Eats to Die For! (4 page)

As unthreateningly as I could, I strolled her way. When I got close enough, I said, “Hi, there.”

She reacted as though she'd been burnt.

“Shit!” she cried, stubbing out the cigarette. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you, just for a second.”

“You won't tell them I was smoking, will you?” she asked, sounding like a six-year-old who had just gotten caught standing over a broken vase. “I'm supposed to have quit, but it's so damn hard.”

“I don't even know who they are,” I said. “I just want to ask you a few questions about your life as a tomato.”

“And suppose I don't want to answer any questions?”

“Then I guess I'll find them and tell them you were smoking.”

A look of panic crossed her otherwise beautiful face. “No! I mean…shit, mister, what is it you want to know, and why?”

“Well, why, because I'm a private investigator.”

Her eyes narrowed. “For who?”

“For Luisa Sandoval.”

“I don't know any Luisa Sandoval. I told you that already.” Even Oedipus at the end of the play could have seen she was lying.

“So you have been here playing a tomato since nine this morning.”

“I never said that.”

“You told me you've been here since nine.”

“I have, but I wasn't playing a tomato.” She started to pull out another cigarette and then glanced at me and thought better of it. “Shit, I hate this! I want a damn cigarette! Look, whoever you are, I'm the director of the little pageant we've got going out on the sidewalk. I'm a dancer, so I was brought in to tell the people how to move. You know, what kind of body language an onion would have, that sort of thing.”

“Wow, Burger Heaven really takes this seriously.”

“Oh, yeah!” she said. “We did have a girl playing the tomato, but she left, so I had to take over. Her name wasn't Luisa Whatever, though, it was Maria. Maria Ramirez, I think.”

And a more stereotypically artificial Mexican name you will never hope to find, mi amigo
, Ricardo Montalban said in my head. But I had already beat him to that one. As pseudonyms went,
Maria Ramirez
was as convincing as Jane Doe.

“What's your interest in all this?” the woman asked.

“I really am a private investigator,” I said, “and the name's Dave Beauchamp. I'm looking for her is all.”

“Well, she left. They had to get rid of her.”

“Why?”

“She wasn't very good, for one thing.”

“That all?”

“Look, I don't have to talk to you, you know.” Apparently she had decided by now that I was not going to tell “them” about her smoking.

“I'm done, I guess, though I would like to know your name.”

After a few seconds deliberation, she said, “Regina.”

“Thanks, Regina. And your cigarette habit is safe with me. But simply out of curiosity, how do you get a gig directing people dressed as hamburger ingredients on the street?”

“Thinking of changing jobs?”

Something you might want to think about
, I heard. Shut up, Mitch.

“I'm just curious,” I said.

“Well, I guess you just find yourself in the wrong place at the right time, that's how.” Regina walked past me, across the parking lot, and entered the restaurant, only to emerge a few moments later in full tomato regalia. She then went to join the others.

She didn't even wave goodbye.

I could have gone in and ordered another burger, but Regina's obvious fear lent a little bit of credence to Louie's claims, making me think that maybe she had been right in her suspicions that she had been under scrutiny and suspected of something.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. If I showed up so soon after trying to sneak out a burger bit, they might think I was onto them, too, so I got back in the car and headed home.

Once there I decided to give Louie Sandoval a call and see if I could find out what had happened to her career as a love apple. Fishing out the number she gave me, I dialed it and listened to four rings, before it went to a machine.
Hello,
her recorded voice began,
this is Luisa
.
I'm not here, so leave a message. And if you're a telemarketer
… She went on to describe an action that I doubted could actually be done, even by professional contortionists.

After hearing the beep I left a message asking her to give me a call, or come by the office again, if she had the time.

Obviously, I was not hungry for dinner, which coincided quite nicely with my having little food in the refrigerator. It wasn't that I could not afford to pack the fridge, at least this month, it was that I hadn't bothered going to the store this week.

Figuring there was no time like the present, I headed out for the local Ralph's and filled up the cart with basics—milk, bread, eggs, orange juice, coffee, hamburger meat (of course, my burgers wouldn't be as good as Burger Heaven's), frozen french fries, a bag of salad, some quick frozen dinners—and a DVD copy of
Pomeranian Springs
, a made-for-cable neo-noir that was one out of dozens of remaindered titles relegated to a $5.99 dump bin in the main aisle. At that price, I almost bought two.

By the time I headed back to my car with my groceries, which were tucked into three paper sacks, each of which cost a dime, dusk was starting to blanket the city. Maybe that was what affected my vision.
Something
had to be affecting it, because it just didn't seem rational that the woman standing by the front of the store, appearing to look straight at me was the Burger Heaven security guard who had given me the gift certificate, now out of uniform. Once I noticed her, she turned and went inside the store.

It wasn't impossible, of course, but the odds that I would see the same person on the same day at my usual grocery store had to be astronomical. But what were the odds that she was actually tailing me? No, I wasn't that paranoid. It was someone other woman, it had to be.

If you say so, kid
, Bogie chimed in, and I could tell he didn't believe me.

CHAPTER FOUR

It had been two days since the tomato had walked into my life. Two days without a new case or client, or even the promise of one. Two days of coming to the office and downloading movies on my laptop while waiting for something to happen. Two days of realizing that even at $5.99, the DVD of
Pomeranian Springs
was a waste of money. At least I knew why they named it after a dog. I saved the jewel box for future use and put the DVD itself on my desk to use as a coaster.

Two days without hearing so much as a word from Louie Sandoval.

By eleven-thirty, I called Louie's number again and left another message. It was the fourth. Either she was hot on the trail of a story, or had decided I wasn't worth the money either, or something had happened to her. I didn't want to think about that last
or
.

Picking up my well-thumbed copy of the Leonard Maltin Movie Guide, I went into my closet-sized bathroom. I once had a girlfriend who ascribed a more kinky connotation to my taking a movie guide into the john, but I swear, it's only to pass the time. After finishing, I took the lid off the tank, fished out the bug in the baggie, and said into it: “Thank you for listening to station KRAP, Los Angeles,” and then flushed, after which I returned the bug to its place of honor. I doubted if anyone was still listening or recording, but it made me feel better.

Knowing who had planted it would make me feel better still, unless it made me feel awful, depending on who it was.

By one in the afternoon, having zapped a frozen box of mac-and-cheese for lunch (and yes, I
did
want to go back to Burger Heaven, but I was forcing myself not to until I talked with Louie), I was ready to do some detecting.

Going online I found the homepage for the
L.A. Independent Journal
, and after plowing through all the layers of offers to subscribe, join or donate, I found an office phone number. Dialing it led me to a mechanical voice, because all business telephones lead to a mechanical voice. I waited for the company directory and took a chance that the first name would be the person I wanted to talk to, since the most important people in a business were usually the first named, and since the first name was
Zareh Zarian
, I figured it wasn't alphabetical.

Pressing the code, I waited until a real voice answered, “Zarian, make it quick.”

“Hi, Mr. Zarian, my name is Dave Beauchamp and—”

“Beauchamp,” he interrupted, “Beauchamp…aren't you the guy who cracked that twin murder case?”

“That's right, but now I'm—”

“Yeah, I remember. We did a few inches on it. Hey, can't you see I'm on the phone?” he suddenly yelled.

“Uh, I'm here with you. On the phone, I mean.”

“Not you, Beauchamp. One of my staff is talking to me and…oh, right. Sorry. I just got a new headset, and he really can't see I'm on the phone. I hate these things. Now, what were you were saying?”

“I hope I'm not interrupting your day, but I was really trying to get a hold of Luisa Sandoval.”

“You know where she is?”

“No. I've been trying to contact her.”

“So have we. She's nowhere to be found. It's like she's disappeared.”

The word
disappeared
lodged in the pit of my stomach like an ice block.

“What's your interest in Sandoval?” he asked.

“She came to see me to get me to help her with a story she was working on.”

“The hamburger thing?”

“That's right.”

“What did she need a dick for?”

That's
private
dick to you
, the voice of Dick Powell said in my head.

“This might sound a little funny, but she wanted me to sneak a hamburger out of a Burger Heaven.”

“I'm not laughing. Look, can you come down to the office so we can talk in person?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, two o'clock. Don't be late.”

With that he hung up.

Since he hadn't bothered to give me the address of the
Independent Journal
, I had to check the website again. The offices were on the west side of Los Angeles so I decided to give myself plenty of time to get over the hill from the Valley, particularly since today was one of those overcast days that seem to confuse L.A. drivers almost as much as actual rainfall.

Because of slow traffic on Coldwater Canyon Avenue over the hill and the perennial automotive quagmire known as Beverly Hills on the downside, it was not much before two o'clock when I arrived at the nondescript building on Pico Boulevard. There was a call box on the front door, and I hit the O button. A woman's voice soon answered, “Can I help you?”

“I'm here to see Mr. Zarian,” I replied. “My name is Dave Beauchamp.”

Instead of a verbal response, I heard a loud buzz and click, and went inside.

The offices of the
L.A. Independent Journal
were as unprepossessing as the building's exterior, consisting of concrete walls and floor. The lobby area contained a front desk inhabited by the young woman who had buzzed me in and a sofa, and not much else. Before I had a chance to approach the desk, an Armenian guy, probably late thirties, with uniformly short hair and a beard stubble and dark, probing eyes under a unibrow, appeared from the back. He was wearing chinos and a loose white shirt, and a phone headset with the cord tucked into his shirt pocket.

“You Beauchamp?” he asked.

“Yes. I'm a few minutes early.”

“S'all right, come on back.”

I was expecting to be led into a private office, but instead walked into a large open space with a desk in the middle—at least I think there was a desk under the simulated skyline made from stacks of papers—and shelves and file cabinets all around.

Pushed against one corner was a smaller desk at which sat a young man pounding away on a computer. Overhead were banks of fluorescent lights and, most peculiarly, at the rear wall was what looked to be an abandoned freezer case.

“This building used to be a grocery store,” Zarian said, following my puzzled expression. “We never bothered taking it out. The
Journal
is a no-frills operation. Every cent we earn goes back into the quest for truth, not fancy decor. Sit down.”

The only place to sit in the room was a folding chair, so I slid it closer to his desk and sat.

“Okay, Beauchamp, tell me what you know about Sandoval going MIA.”

What did I know? Not a great deal, which I proceeded to outline.

“So the last time you saw her was in your office?”

“That's right. Well, no, actually, the last time I saw her was a short time after that when I drove by the Burger Heaven where she was doing her tomato act. She was still there. But when I went back later, another woman was in the suit.”

“And she came to you because she wanted you to steal a hamburger.”

“No, not steal, I was to buy it, but I was supposed to take part of it out of the restaurant and give it to her for testing. She said that Burger Heaven doesn't allow that, and I have to say that I've had more difficulty than I imagined I would, though that's partially my own fault. I keep compulsively eating the things so there's nothing left to take with me.”

“Yeah, strange, isn't it?” Zarian said, leaning back in his chair. “She's been working on this story for several weeks and not getting very far, and if you knew Sandoval you'd know that just makes her more tenacious.”

“Not the quitter type, you're saying?”

“Hell no. I'd force her off of a story if it was tanking, but she'd never quit.”

“So there's no way she would have abandoned this story?”