P.J. Morse - Clancy Parker 01 - Heavy Mental (26 page)

“Nice to see you’re getting along again,” I said, my eyes closed tight as I held on to Fake Jorge.

Then I heard someone walking down the hall. Black Ice’s lead singer chose that moment to go back inside the Echo Chamber and do his own rehearsing. He paused, looked down at Fake Jorge and looked up at the half-naked bodies of Muriel and Shane. He gaped at the sight.

I thought we were busted. I imagined the arrival of the SFPD and being booked on charges of kidnapping. I would lose my license, and then I might be stuck begging Larry for legal counsel.

Instead, the lead singer said, “You are some serious motherfuckers! No one will fuck with you people! I love you guys!” He kept walking down the hall. “If you ever need a singer, you call me. Any time! I respect you people!”

Wayne called out after him, “I respect you, too, dude!”

I just took a deep breath and said, “Thank you.”

Once Muriel said in a surprisingly demure voice that she was ready, Wayne and I threw Fake Jorge to the floor and closed the door. The soundproofing in that particular room was outstanding, so the interrogation could proceed as planned.

Fake Jorge tried to get up, but all the trussing sent him sprawling on the floor. I felt a little sorry for him because he seemed genuinely scared, and I saw evidence that he’d wet himself.

“Oh, no!” Wayne exclaimed. “Poor Westy!”

I took a towel off the sofa and threw it over Fake Jorge’s middle. While Shane adjusted his pants, Muriel and Wayne rolled Fake Jorge over and pulled out the wallet from his back pocket. There was the Real Jorge’s Mastercard, along with Mastercards and Visas for about seven or eight people, including an American Express belonging to Sabrina Norton Buckner. I pulled a small tape recorder from the pocket of my sweatpants and pushed a button.

“That’s funny,” I said. “You don’t look much like Sabrina Norton Buckner.”

Fake Jorge farted in contempt.

“Excuse you!” Wayne took a camera from his pocket and snapped pictures of the individual cards as evidence. “You’ve been a busy boy!”

I heard several sharp raps on the door of our practice room. A shiver passed through my body as I thought of cops, or maybe Travis. Or even Mr. Buckner. With Shane as backup, I opened the door a crack and saw a young, beefy guy with khaki shorts, a black T-shirt, and plug earrings that had stretched his earlobes into long ovals. He was lugging his bass guitar, and he was looking mighty pissed off. His skin showed signs of a growing sunburn.

I gasped and looked back at Wayne, who shrugged and said, “Oh. Whoops.”

“You scheduled an audition?” I yelped.

There was nowhere to hide Fake Jorge. Muriel thought fast and started rolling Fake Jorge out of view of the door, as if he were a log, while Shane and Wayne tried to block the scene.

I threw open the door and planted myself in the doorway to get rid of the guy. “Hi! I’m really sorry, but we can’t do auditions today.” Fake Jorge was whimpering in the back, so I added, “Our drummer got food poisoning.”

The bassist scowled, so I added, “Sushi. You know? What can you do? Do you want to come back another time?” As I asked that, I was thrilled to hear Muriel hiss, “No … no … I’ll play the gig, dammit! I give up!”

The bassist heard Muriel. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and raised an eyebrow. His voice was loud, “I came here all the way from El Cerrito, and I think I deserve some time.”

I chuckled, “Well, you see -”

And then Fake Jorge let out a muffled “harrumph!”

The bassist craned his thick neck, trying to see around me. He saw Muriel with her foot firmly planted on Fake Jorge’s stomach and barked, “Is this some kind of bring-out-the-gimp thing? That’s it! I’m done with this shit! I’ve had it! I’m going to law school!”

Those words made me yell, “You and everybody else!” and slam the door right in his face.

I then whipped around and ran to adjust Fake Jorge’s binds. I made a point of not looking back at Wayne. I thought that Shane may have been distracted, but at least his and Muriel’s intimate moment didn’t completely jeopardize the plan.

Eventually, Wayne caught my chill and asked, “Are you mad at me?”

“All is forgiven if you hold him down while I start talking.”

It took Wayne a few minutes to figure out how to do it, but he sat down on Fake Jorge while I turned on the tape recorder. “So, Antonio or whatever your name is, are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I pulled the duct tape off his mouth.

“Bitch!” he yelled.

Shane thumped him on the head. “Manners!” he yelled. Muriel bent over and shouted in his ear, “Bitch, huh? I will give you something to bitch about!”

“It’s okay.” I squatted by Fake Jorge. “You have every right to be mad. We treated you a little rough back there.”

“Liar,” he spat. Shane thumped him again.

“What’s up with the necklace?” I asked.

Fake Jorge jerked his head back in surprise. “I don’t know anything about a necklace.”

“Now I get to call you a liar, sir,” I said. “Let’s approach this differently. I know that the shrink fired you and that you—these are your words—‘fucking hate desk jobs.’ So why were you working there? Just tell me that.”

Fake Jorge didn’t say anything, so I approached it differently. “Why were you working for the shrink and for Mr. Buckner at the same time?”

Still nothing.

“What if I were to tell you that you and Travis aren’t going to get any money out of that necklace? Not a plug nickel. Mr. Buckner has way too many debts to pay off. And a mistress! And a big bill several restaurants. You really think he’s going to give that money to you?”

Fake Jorge shook his head.

Then I knelt down. “I know it was you who drove the ice-cream truck. Am I right? Do you really think that Mr. Buckner would have your back in court? See how fast he fired your ass when I ran off on you? He doesn’t care about you. He wants you to stay in that bellhop job.”

Fake Jorge squirmed a little.

“Mr. Buckner’s not giving you any money. He’s putting his wife in an asylum, and he’s gonna find that necklace himself. You couldn’t find it at the doctor’s office, so you get nothing.”

He kept shaking his head, but it was slower this time.

“With all the credit cards I found on you, you’re lucky I’m not calling the cops. I mean, I don’t have to call the cops …” I let that thought settle in. “If you know what I mean.”

Fake Jorge understood loud and clear. His voice was flat as he caved in. “She lost the necklace. It’s not a crime if we find it and don’t give it back, right?”

“So did you take the necklace from her in the office?”

Fake Jorge nodded his head no.

“So you were trying to kill me so I wouldn’t find it?”

Fake Jorge nodded his head yes.

“Dude, you are going to jail!” Wayne yelled.

Fake Jorge stiffened up and started trying to kick at my legs. I decided that everyone else in the room besides me needed to stop watching so much television. I tried to calm Fake Jorge down. “Don’t mind my associates. He’s wrong. You’re not going to jail. Not for this, anyway. You only did what you were told, right? Who told you to take the necklace?”

“Mr. Buckner.”

“And it didn’t work out?”

“No,” he replied.

“So why were you trying to hurt me?”

“He found out his wife hired you. He told us to distract you so we could find the necklace. And you were gonna prove the wife was crazy,” Fake Jorge replied.

“How much were you going to get for the necklace?” I asked.

“Ten grand.”

I laughed. “No wonder Travis was talking about taking it himself!” I felt lucky that I hadn’t actually found the necklace, or Fake Jorge and Travis would have killed me for sure. Even if I hadn’t found the necklace, Mr. Buckner would still have the evidence he needed to commit his wife, and then he’d get the rest of the cash. Not a bad deal for him.

But that didn’t answer everything.

“What about the maids?” I asked.

“He wanted the maids to think she was crazy.”

Of course Mr. Buckner wanted the maids to check the pantry—he had to have put Sabrina’s diamonds in the lemonade mix. And he told the maids that Sabrina was funny in the head. Instant witnesses to testify she was crazy. And then Mr. Buckner kept telling me how nutty his wife was and how he wanted pictures proving she was nutty.

“What about Rosa? Did you kill her?” I asked.

Fake Jorge didn’t move. “Who the fuck is Rosa?”

“One of Sabrina’s maids.”

“No—hell, no. Nobody said anything about Rosa.”

“You didn’t run her over?”

“No—I tried to run YOU over, but I didn’t do so good with you and the old man, so fatty Buckner said he’d do it himself after that.”

Muriel looked at Shane. “Do you have any idea what is going on? I am totally confused.”

Shane just shrugged.

“How much time do I have until the game?” I asked.

Shane pulled out his cell phone to check. “Ten minutes.”

“One more thing,” I asked. “Why were you working for Dr. Redburn?”

Fake Jorge rolled his head to the side and laughed. “I was already there. Buckner just paid me extra to make sure the shrink didn’t steal the necklace before he could.”

I remembered why Sabrina was giving that necklace to Dr. Redburn in the first place. “Steal it?” I asked. “Sabrina told me that he would sell the necklace and give half to her and half to charity.”

Fake Jorge laughed harder. “Not unless he’s got a charity named Buenos Aires! Hell, I booked the hotel! He’s going down there tomorrow!”

I didn’t want to believe Dr. Redburn was that bad. I’d kissed the guy. “Maybe he was just going on vacation?”

“Oh, shit! You had sex with him, too?” Fake Jorge asked.

“Is this that hot shrink? You didn’t!” Muriel yelped. “Bad idea, Clance.”

“I did not!” I replied. “Absolutely not! I just kissed him!”

“You kissed a shrink?” Shane and Wayne asked in unison.

“Whatever,” Fake Jorge said. “I’ve seen his books. He don’t got no charity. The money goes straight to him. Buckner’s gonna be pissed.”

“I’ll make sure Buckner’s pissed,” I replied. “And I’ll make sure that doctor is pissed, too.” I looked down at Fake Jorge, who was still curled up and blindfolded. “We need to get back to the ball park.” If Dr. Redburn wanted the money that much and realized Sabrina was giving him a fake, or if she confessed everything—which was a distinct possibility—the doctor wasn’t going to take it well.

Fake Jorge asked, “Why you taking me to the ball park?”

“Not you,” I said. “Sabrina is giving Dr. Redburn a necklace there.”

“Sabrina found the necklace, didn’t she? And Redburn’s gonna get it.”

“Yeah. And you’re not getting anything,” I replied.

Fake Jorge started swinging his legs around in frustration. He knocked over a mike stand. “Hold on, pal!” Shane said.

“Settle down. We’re going to let you out of here soon. You’re going to be fine, but you have to wait.”

“How can I trust you? Huh?”

“Well, you can’t, but you can trust me more than those other guys you were hanging out with.” I pointed at Wayne and then at the door. “Let’s go.”

Before we left, I had one thing to left to say to Muriel and Shane: “You two make a cute couple.”

CHAPTER 36

ON DECK

W
AYNE DROVE US BACK TOWARD
the Gold Coast BBQ, pushing the Westy to its limits. I was squirming in my seat. I was desperate to get to Sabrina before she gave anything to Dr. Redburn. As we approached the ball park, Jamal called.

“Buckner left without paying his bill!” he yelled.

“No!” I yelled back. “Where did he go? He can’t be on the loose!”

“You better hurry up!” Jamal shouted. “You do not leave Gold Coast without paying your bill. You better get over here, or we’ll find him and take care of him ourselves!”

We hit a snarl of traffic about a block away from the park.

“It’s tied up all the way!” Wayne yelled.

I had hoped to meet Mr. Buckner at the Gold Coast BBQ, but a phone call would have to do. When I called him, he picked up on the first ring. “Mr. Buckner, I’m so sorry I was late to our meeting! But I made a break in the case. I think someone named Jorge Vazquez is involved.”

The name “Jorge Vazquez” seemed to stop him cold. I pressed on, “I am almost positive he stole your wife’s necklace.”

Mr. Buckner didn’t even try to address the Fake Jorge issue. Instead, he asked, “Are you near the restaurant? With the pictures? I’m still close. I can meet you at Brannan and Embarcadero.”

You mean run me over at Brannan and Embarcadero,
I thought.

I had no intentions of meeting Mr. Buckner at Brannan and Embarcadero. I was going to try to stop Sabrina from giving Dr. Redburn any of her jewelry. I might never find her necklace, but I sure as hell was going to make sure neither Mr. Buckner nor Dr. Redburn had it.

The traffic loosened up, so I jumped out at Third Street at the entrance to the baseball park. “Don’t forget to dump Fake Jorge off in Colma!”

“Done!” Wayne replied.

I jumped out of the Westy and took off toward the baseball park.

I figured Mr. Buckner was waiting to kill me somewhere up the street, but I was wrong. As soon as I was a few feet out of the Westy, someone tackled me from behind. As the ground whooshed up toward my face, I threw up my forearm to break my fall. Then I heard Fake Jorge’s old buddy, Travis, hiss, “No bitch is gonna burn my crotch without paying. You and your fucking old man friends.”

I tried to scream, and I thought someone might try to stop an attack in broad daylight. But Travis wasn’t quite as dumb as Fake Jorge. He started yelling, “You’ve got to stop with the liquor!” Even though I thought my arm was at least sprained, I gave Travis a few points for fast thinking.

Soon enough, Travis shoved me into the backseat of Mr. Buckner’s car and slammed the door shut. At least I was familiar with the Beamer. I even saw the blonde wig I’d left on the floor. I found myself wrestling in the backseat of Mr. Buckner’s car yet again, only this time it was with Mr. Buckner instead of Fake Jorge, and Mr. Buckner had a gun pulled on me.