The Detective & the Chinese High-Fin (11 page)

I said, “So what do you think happened, Dave? Why do you think Keaton was killed? You knew the guy from when you were thirteen. What's your theory?”

He nodded and said, breaking now a bit from what everyone else had said, “You know, Keaton knew all kinds of people that the rest of us didn't know. He was always finding new groups of people to hang out with, or who would fall in love with him for a while. You know people like that? You just suddenly hear that they are in this new group, kind of out of nowhere? The USC film guys were like that—”

“Or the guys from the band, the Test? The way Craig Helton met Keaton.”

“Right, exactly. And I'm not saying the people in that band had anything to do with Keaton getting killed. In fact, I think those guys are all really good guys, and some of them are still friends with Craig. And, shockingly, I don't think they ever fell out with Keaton. The USC guys too . . . They didn't murder Keaton over that film. I mean, I really don't think that happened. But those are both examples of how Keaton just got involved with all sorts of random people. Like, the tropical fish thing you just mentioned. It's like, what? Who? Tropical fish business? Really? But on the other hand, it makes total sense. It's totally Keaton. So I think that somewhere along the line he got in with somebody, or one of those groups of people, and he pissed off the wrong person. You know? I mean, he had a pattern of pissing people off. But it's one thing to let your brother down, or, like, a really sweet guy like Craig Helton, or some rich-kid USC students, but, you know, not everyone is like those people. You piss off the wrong person, just one person, and you never know. There's some crazy people out there.”

I thought for a moment about Lee Graves. The way he'd looked at me when I started flaking out at Prestige Fish. His skeleton face had shown some deflation, but there was anger there too. I'd pissed him off by wasting his time.

And then Treadway took a turn I didn't see coming. He said, “You know, I always felt, of all the people Keaton hurt, that Greer somehow took it the hardest. Again, I'm not saying he had anything to do with the murder, like,
no way. It's just that thinking about Keaton makes me remember things. And Greer was my friend,
is
my friend, so maybe I paid a little more attention to him or something. But I don't think that's why I feel this way. I really do think Greer was the most disappointed, let down, hurt, something. More than Craig, more than his ex-girlfriend who he cheated on, like, a thousand times. Sydney Frost. Sydney Scott now. Did you talk to her?”

I nodded.

Treadway continued, “There were times growing up when Greer just kind of seemed lost. In a daze. Emotionally scarred or something. And I remember thinking at the time that it was probably Keaton's fault. And now, with more of an adult perspective, I still think that. Some fucked-up thing Keaton had done. Or a bunch of things. Making fun of him, picking on him, not sticking up for him, I don't know. Ultimately, that's why I didn't like Keat. I knew about the whole laundry list of shit he had done to all sorts of people, but that stuff didn't really hit me as much as when I saw in my friend, right up close, the effect of his behavior.”

I didn't respond. I just sat there for a second, looking out toward the ocean. Getting dark now. The water taking on a deep blue, almost black color. Lights popping on in the buildings all over La Jolla, and in the lamps lining the boardwalk and the cove. Right then Jill poked her head out, this time sans Davey, and said, “Ready?”

Mid-dinner. The Treadways were quite
pleasant to be around, and the food was good too. Simple and good, spa
ghetti with marinara and a fresh salad with crisp romaine, artichokes, garbanzo beans, yellow peppers, and oil and vinegar. Dave stuck with beer during dinner, which I appreciated. So did I. Jill had red wine. Nancy would have appreciated that. I was enjoying myself.

At one point Dave said, “You know, a private detective is one of those jobs where you could live a whole lifetime and never meet anyone who's actually a private detective. And yet it's a job that every guy is interested in. Every guy would like to meet a PI. I even think every guy wants to
be
a PI, at least a little bit.”

I laughed.

Jill said to Dave, “You want to be a private detective now?”

“A little bit, yeah. Every guy does!”

I laughed again.

And then Jill said to me, “Do you think that's true? Every guy wants to be a PI?”

“I don't know. But let me tell you this. It's not always interesting. It can be really boring. Not all the time. But it can be. I'm not sure every guy wants to sit outside someone's house in a midlevel American car for, you know, five hours, waiting for something to happen.”

Dave said, “That doesn't sound so bad. It really doesn't.”

Again, I laughed. And then I added, truthfully, but also for fun, “It can also be dangerous. Really dangerous.”

I looked at both of them, this attractive couple looking back at me and wondering now, basically, if I'd ever killed anyone. That was my guess, at least.

“Don't worry,” I said. “I'm not about to pull out my gun.”

They gave this nervous laugh.

I added, “I don't think.”

We continued chatting. Dave talked a little more about his money-managing life. Turns out he had made it on his own. Cat had done well for himself. Jill talked a bit about her former career as an advertising executive that she might or might not go back to, probably will one day, needs the mental stimulation . . .

When we were finishing eating, just at that moment when it felt like we were all about to stand up and start clearing the table, Jill said, “So, you have a girlfriend?”

“See?” Dave said to her. “You think it's cool to be a PI too.” He continued, teasing her, “Do you want me to go into the kitchen or something so you can flirt with our guest in private?”

“What?” she said. “He's cute. I was thinking about setting him up!”

Dave looked at me. “Girls always want to set you up with their friends, and then the friends are never hot enough. It's just that simple.”

I laughed. I was genuinely surprised that he said it. He was right, of course.

He continued, “You show up, and you think: Why would someone think this is the woman for me? And you also think: Why did the girl who set me up, set me up with someone clearly less attractive than she is? What does
that
say about her opinion of me?”

I laughed. Right again.

Jill said, “We just want the best for our friends. So we set them up sometimes knowing it might not be the right match, but hoping there will be some kind of spark anyway. That's why that happens.” She took a long pause as another thought seemed to occur to her. “Well, we don't always want the best for our friends. We sometimes do.”

We all laughed at that. These two were telling it like it is.

I answered Jill's initial question. “I have a girlfriend. Her name's Nancy. She's a nurse.”

Jill, ribbing me a bit, said, “So she can take care of you after those
dangerous
situations.”

Everyone laughed. No one harder than I.

I said, “That's how we met. Seriously. I got hurt on the job and had to go to the emergency room. She took care of me.”

I looked at these two. And I had a thought. A thought I hadn't had in a while: I could be friends with them. You don't have that thought that often when you're in your mid-, okay, late thirties. That you could end up genuine friends with a person, or a couple. I liked them, liked their energy, enjoyed being around them. Don't worry, that didn't mean Dave Treadway was off my list of possible suspects. Nobody was off that list. Not yet. But I liked them.

We got up, cleared the table. I said thank you to Jill for making dinner and thank you to Dave for talking to me. Then I left, got in the Focus, and headed back to Los Angeles in reasonably light, but not too light, never too light, nighttime traffic.

N
ext morning, back at my desk, MacBook Pro open, big slider open, big cup of coffee in my hand. I was revising my case notes, adding what I now knew in crisp, simple bullets. But also looking back over the whole narrative. I looked at the line that first mentioned Prestige Fish.

•
      
Craig Helton tells me Keaton Fuller worked in the tropical fish business, company name: Prestige Fish.

I imagined for a brief second all the players in my story as tropical fish swimming around in an enormous tank.
I saw their faces on the various species. There was Jackie Fuller swimming about. There was Dave Treadway gliding around. There was Lee Graves sliding by.

I think I took too many mushrooms in college.

I was imagining this, eyes no longer on my case notes but instead out the slider, when my phone started once again shaking frenetically, spazzing out, snapping me out of my reverie. Marlon the Marlin.

“Marlon.”

“Johnny boy, I had a thought.”

As you may have noticed, sometimes Marlon calls me “Johnny boy.” I'm not sure I like it, and I've thought about it quite a bit. But I let it go, because it's Marlon the Marlin. Not because I think he's going to shoot me if I tell him to stop, although I guess it's possible. No, I let it slide because
it's Marlon the Marlin
, that's how he talks, that's who he is.

“Yessir,” I said. “What's happening?”

“I made some calls. Nobody I know knows anything about Graves or Prestige Fish. But, as I said, I had a thought.”

“Right, you did in fact say that.”

“Well, here it is. There's always the possibility that this is a Pendella Situation.”

“Right, that's very true.” And then I took a long pause. “What's a Pendella Situation?”

“Good one, John. Good one. Smart-ass. You realize I'm trying to help you, right?”

“Oh, right, yes. Marlon, please continue.”

He calls me “Johnny boy.” I tease him a bit. You know, give and take.

Marlon said, “See, I was tired when you showed up yesterday, or else I might have thought of this right then. Lot of sun and booze comes with living on a boat.”

“Yes, particularly sun. I ran into Hunter Clavana, the Aussie at your marina, yesterday. He's been essentially scorched by the sun.”

“Right.”

“Like, he might actually catch on fire at some point.”

“Right.”

“Like, just be walking along and burst into flames.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“I mean, he's a deep gray. Like slate. He's almost black. He's basically black.”

“I got it, Johnny boy. I got it.”

“So,” I said, recalibrating. “The Pendella Situation.”

“Lenny Pendella,” Marlon said.

“Lenny Pendella,” I repeated.

“Zip it. Okay? Zip it.”

“Right,” I said, meaning it. Sort of.

“So,” Marlon continued. “Lenny Pendella was a guy we all knew back in the neighborhood. He was a short little guy with a little white beard, and he had this homely little wife to go along with his homely little white fucking beard. Her name was Liza. Lenny and Liza Pendella. And Lenny and Liza had a knickknack shop.”

“A knickknack shop?”

“Porcelain dolls. Ornaments and shit. Gnomes and trolls to put in your fucking garden. Tchotchkes.”

“Ah, okay, right. Got it. I've never been into one of those places. They scare me.”

“You and me both, friend. You and me both. Anyway, so Lenny and Liza have this little shop. It's a tiny little place and the rent's pretty low. And there are enough weirdos out there who actually fucking like places like that, so it does okay. Better than okay. It does pretty goddamn well.”

“Okay,” I said.

“But the truth is,” Marlon said with some excitement in his voice, “they are actually running numbers out of Lenny and Liza's Fucking Knickknack Shop. And they are making a shitload of money doing it. But nobody ever looks into them. One, because they have a way to hide the profits—they have a business. But two, the bigger reason—everybody just buys that Lenny and Liza are these fucking fringe characters. So there can't be anything going on there. Shit, Lenny looks like one of the trolls you can buy in his store. So does Liza, for that matter. See, the whole thing's so weird, and even weirdly legit, that it's
got
to be real. Their knickknack shop
can't
be a front for something else. You see what I'm saying?”

I stroked my chin pensively and said, “A Pendella Situation.”

“Right,” Marlon said. “That's what we came to call stuff like this. A business that's one thing. But a kind-of-strange thing. But a kind-of-strange thing that's actually doing pretty well. Which makes the people doing the strange thing seem like experts in this niche fucking world. But ultimately, of course, it's a business that is, or could be, a front for another thing, a criminal thing, that's more lucrative than the first thing.”

“Because after a while, being in the vending-machine business gets too obvious.”

“That's right, Johnny boy. But if you sell garden gnomes or tropical fucking fish, you might not be all that obvious. Especially if you know a shitload about garden gnomes or tropical fish. And especially-especially if the fucking garden-gnome or tropical fish business starts doing well. Then you don't just have a business to hide your profits, you've got actual profits to hide your profits.
If
you get looked into, that is, which you won't, because the first business is weird as fuck and it's doing well and you can prove it. Now, I've got no clue if your thing is in fact a Pendella Situation, but, you know, maybe. You said you were on a murder case, a serious fucking case, and if this guy at the fish place is somehow involved in a killing, then in my mind it increases the chances of the Pendella. My guess? Drugs. Blow. Oxy. Maybe heroin, but I doubt it. Not weed, of course. Shit's legal now.”

Marlon paused, and I could hear him taking a sip of a drink with lots of ice in it. First big, stiff rum drink of the day. Guy was still nice and sharp.

He continued, “You also said you thought something was happening with this guy. You know, you felt something. And you're good at your job, I'll give you that. A smart-ass sometimes, but good at your job. So I advise you to look around for the Pendella.”

“Thanks, Marlon.”

“You bet, John. Just tell me what happens, in full, when you have some time. It's the only action I get these days.”

Marlon always wants the story. I thought, Well, I'll be happy to give it to him. If I can find it.

We hung up.

I sat there at my
desk, now thinking about what Marlon had said set against all the other people and other possibilities in the mix. Again, what next? What next?

I found my answer when a vehicle, a very new-looking Jeep Cherokee, slid in front of my open slider, then parked just around the corner in one of my guest spaces.

I heard the car door shut, then saw Greer Fuller appear. He took in the lot a bit, then swung his eyes over to me, sitting there, looking right at him. I waved him in.