Vineland (3 page)

“Uh . . . well maybe I'll do it now, can I use your phone?”

“Think it's in the bathroom, last time I looked.”

Alone, he and Prairie happened to get eye contact. She'd never been a squirmer, not even as a baby. Finally she said, “So?”

“He's a OK fella, but no bank's gonna let me cosign no loan, come on.”

“You're a local businessman.”

“They'll call it gypsy roofer, and I owe too much money all over the place anyhow.”

“They
love
it when you owe money.”

“Not like I owe it, Prairie—if the whole project went belly-up, they'd take the house.” A point that may even have begun to get through, when Isaiah came running out of the bathroom yelling, “We got the gig! We got it! Awesome! I can't believe it!”

“Me either,” Zoyd muttered. “You're going to a full-scale Italian wedding and do what? ‘Fascist Toejam's Greatest Hits'?”

“It could need some reconceptualizing,” Isaiah admitted. “I, like, implied we were Italian, for one thing.”

“Well you might want to learn a few of the tunes, but you'll settle in, try not to worry,” chortling to himself as Prairie and Isaiah went out the door, yes always glad to help out, my boy, a crime-family gig, whatever, no no, don't bother to thank me. . . . Zoyd had played a few mob weddings in his career, nothing the kid couldn't handle, and besides the eats would more than make up for any awkward episodes, so it wasn't as if he were running a mean trick on his daughter's boyfriend, whom he was still not 100 percent crazy about, or anything like that. And as a problem to be addressed, Isaiah was more like a vacation from deeper difficulties, chief among which, all of a sudden, was the recrudescence of Hector Zuñiga in Zoyd's life, a topic, as he lit a joint and settled in front of the soundless Tube, that his thoughts unavoidably found their way back to.

I
T was a romance over the years at least as persistent as Sylvester and Tweety's. Although Hector may from time to time have wished some cartoon annihilation for Zoyd, he'd understood from early in their acquaintance that Zoyd was the chasee he'd be least likely ever to bag. Not that he credited Zoyd with anything like moral integrity in resisting him. He put it down instead to stubbornness, plus drug abuse, ongoing mental problems, and a timidity, maybe only a lack of imagination, about the correct scale of any deal in life, drug or nondrug. And though not as obsessed these days about turning Zoyd—they'd had that crisis long ago—Hector still, for no reason he could name, liked to keep on popping in every now and then, preferably unannounced.

He showed up first in Zoyd's life shortly after Reagan was elected governor of California. Zoyd was living down south then, sharing a house in Gordita Beach with elements of a surf band he'd been playing keyboard in since junior high, the Corvairs, along with friends more and less transient. The house was so old that all of its termite clauses and code violations had been waived, on the theory that the next moderate act of nature would finish it off. But having been put up back during an era of overdesign, it proved to be sturdier than it looked, with its old stucco eaten at to reveal generations of paint jobs in different beach-town pastels, corroded by salt and petrochemical fogs that flowed in the summers onshore up the sand slopes, on up past Sepulveda, often across the then undeveloped fields, to wrap the San Diego Freeway too. Down here, a long screened porch faced out over flights of rooftops descending to the beach. Access from the street was by way of a Dutch door, whose open top half, that long-ago evening, had come to frame Hector under a ragged leather hat with a wide brim, peering through sunglasses, the darkening Pacific in pale-topped crawl below. Out on the street, wedged into most of the front seat of a motor-pool Plymouth, waited Hector's partner in those days, the seriously oversize field agent Melrose Fife. Zoyd, whose luck it happened to've been to answer Hector's knock, stood trying to understand what this individual with the outlaw hat and cop sideburns was talking about.

After a bit, Corvairs lead guitar and vocalist Scott Oof wandered in from the kitchen to join them, leaning on the doorjamb playing with his hair. “Maybe later,” Hector greeted him, “you could explain this all to your friend here, 'cause I don't know if I've been gittín through. . . .”

“¿
Qué
?” replied Scott wittily. “
No hablo inglés.
”

“Whoa.” Hector's front-door smile tightened up. “Maybe I should get my pardner up here for this. See him, out there in the car? You can't really tell till he stands up, but he is so big, that nobody ever wants to get him out of the car, 'cause once he's out, you dig, he ain't alwayss that easy to git back in?”

“Don't mind Scott,” Zoyd hastily, “he's a surfer—so long, Scott—he had a little run-in a few years ago with some, uh, young gentlemen of Mexican origin, so sometimes—”

“In the parking lot at the Taco Bell in Hermosa, yes a memorable series of evenings, much celebrated in the folklore of my people”—this being in the early days of a Ricardo Montalban impersonation that would over the years grow more refined.

“You've come to take revenge?”

“Please. Forgive me,” Hector producing from an inside pocket, access to which now also afforded a leisurely view of a service .38 in an armpit rig, his federal commission in a fancy tooled flip-open leather case.

“Nobody here's into nothing federal,” Zoyd didn't think.

Van Meter, back in those days sporting a profile that mandated at least a stop-and-frisk, ran in frowning. “What's wrong with Scott? he just split out the back.”

“What I'm really here about,” Hector had been explaining, “is the matter of drugs.”

“Thank God!” screamed Van Meter, “it's been weeks, we thought we'd never score again! oh yes, it's a miracle—” Zoyd kicking him frantically—“who sent you, are you the dude that knows Leon?”

The federale showed his teeth, amused. “Subject you refer to is temporarily in custody, though sure to be back before very long in his accustomed spot beneath the Gordita Pier.”

“Aaaaaa . . . ,” went Van Meter.

“No, no my man but that is precisely the sort of corroborating detail that we value so highly,” snapping, like a magician, a crisp five-dollar bill, half a lid of Mexican commercial in those days, from behind Van Meter's ear. Zoyd rolled his eyes as the bass player grabbed at the money. “And there's always plenty more in our imprest fund for good-quality product. For make-believe bullshit, of course, we pay nothing, and in time we grow annoyed.”

That fatal five-spot was not the last Purchase-of-Information disbursement in the neighborhood. In those years there were so many federal narcs in the area that if you were busted in the South Bay you actually stood less chance of its being the local Man than some fed. All the beach towns, plus Torrance, Hawthorne, and greater Walteria, were in on some grandiose pilot project bankrolled with inexhaustible taxpayer millions, appropriate chunks of which were finding their way to antidrug entities up and down every level of governance. Zoyd, to be sure, made a point of never pocketing any of Hector's PI money personally, though he was content to go on eating the groceries, burning the gas, and smoking the pot others obtained with it. Now and then he would get fooled on some minor dope purchase, sweet basil in a heat-sealed bag, a small vial of Bisquick (yep, he'd murmur, still making stupid mistakes and how about yourself?) and he'd feel really tempted, sometimes for days, to turn the dealer in to Hector. But there were always good reasons not to—it would happen that one was a cool person who needed the money, another a distant cousin from the Middle West, or a homicidal maniac who would take revenge, so forth. Each time Zoyd failed to inform on these people, Hector grew furious. “You think you're protectín them? They just gonna fuck you over again.” The edge in his voice was frustration, everything about this Gordita assignment was just really fucking frustrating, all these identical-looking beach pads beginning to blend together, resulting in more than enough mistaken addresses, early-morning raids upon the innocent, failures to apprehend fugitives who might have only fled across an alley or down a flight of public steps. The arrangements of hillside levels, alleyways, corners, and rooftops created a Casbah topography that was easy to get lost in quickly, terrain where the skills of the bushwhacker became worth more than any resoluteness of character, an architectural version of the uncertainty, the illusion, that must have overtaken his career for him ever to've been assigned there in the first place.

“Situations back then,” Zoyd hammered it on in, these many years later, “relationships, sure got tangled up in that house, with more and also less temporary love partners and sex companions, jealousy and revenge always goin' on, plus substance dealers and their go-betweens, and narcs who thought they were undercover trying to pop them, couple-three politicals fleein' from different jurisdictions, good deal of comin' and goin' 's what it was, not to mention you actin' like it was your own personal snitch Safeway, just drop in, we're open 24 hours.”

They were sitting at a table in the rear of the restaurant at Vineland Lanes, Zoyd after a lot of lost sleep having decided to show up after all. He ordered the Health Food Enchilada Special and Hector had the soup of the day, cream of zucchini, and the vegetarian tostada, which upon its arrival he began to take apart piece by piece and reassemble as something else Zoyd could not identify but which seemed to hold meaning for Hector.

“Lookit that, lookit your food, Hector, what have you done?”

“At least I'm not droppín it all over the place, includín my shirt, like I was out in some parkín lot.” Yes, a certain emphasis there for sure, and this after their having shared, maybe not many, but still a parking lot or two, even some adventures therein. Zoyd guessed that at some point since their last get-together Hector, as if against a storm approaching over his life's horizon, had begun to bring everything indoors. Stuck out in the field at GS-13 for years because of his attitude, he had sworn—Zoyd thought—he'd go out the gate early before he'd ever be some
cagatintas
, a bureaucrat who shits ink. But he must have cut some deal, maybe it got too cold for him—time to say goodbye to all those eyeswept parking lots back out under the elements and the laws of chance, and hello GS-14, leaving the world outside the office to folks earlier in their careers, who could appreciate it more. Too bad. For Zoyd, a creature of attitude himself, this long defiance had been Hector's most persuasive selling point.

What the federal computers this morning had not brought to Hector's attention was that the alleys today were scheduled for junior regional semifinals. Kids were in town from all over the northern counties to compete on these intricately mortised masterpiece alleys, dating back to the high tide of the logging business in these parts, when the big houses framed all in redwood had gone up and legendary carpenters had appeared descending from rain-slick stagecoaches, geniuses with wood who could build you anything from a bowling alley to a Carpenter Gothic outhouse. Balls struck pins, pins struck wood, echoes of collision came thundering in from next door along with herds of kids in different bowling jackets, each carrying at least one ball in a bag plus precarious stacks of sodas and food, each squeaking open the screen door between lanes and restaurant, letting it squeak shut into the next kid, who'd squeak it open again. Didn't take many of these repetitions to have an effect on Zoyd's lunch companion, whose eyes were flicking back and forth as he hummed a tune that not till sixteen bars in did Zoyd recognize as “Meet the Flintstones,” from the well-known TV cartoon show. Hector finished the tune and looked sourly at Zoyd. “Any of these yours?”

Here it was. OK, “What are you sayin', Hector?”

“You know what I'm sayín, asshole.”

Zoyd couldn't see a thing in his eyes. “Who you been talking to?”

“Your wife.”

Zoyd began stabbing and restabbing his enchiladas with a fork while Hector waited him out. “Uh, well how's she doing?”

Hector's eyes were moist, and popping out some. “Not too good, li'l buddy.”

“Tryin' to tell me what, she's in trouble?”

“You catch on fast for an ol' doper, now try this one, you ever heard of defunding? Maybe you noticed on the news, on the Tube, all these stories about Reaganomics, a-an' cutbacks in the federal budget and stuff?”

“She was on some program? Now she's off it?” They were talking about his ex-wife, Frenesi, years and miles in the past. Why, besides the free lunch, was Zoyd sitting here listening to this? Hector, leaning forward bright-eyed, had begun to show signs of enjoying himself. “Where is she?”

“Well, we
had
her under Witness Protection.”

Not hearing the stress on
had
right away, “Oh bullshit, Hector, that's for Mob folks trying to be ex-Mob 'thout havin' to die first, since when are you usin' that Mafia meat locker for politicals, thought you just took 'em put 'em in the booby hatch like they do over there in Russia.”

“Well, technically it was a different budget line, but still run by the U.S. Marshals, same as with the Mob type of witness.”

Man could crush him with just a short tap dance over the computer keys—why was Hector being so unnaturally amiable? All that could possibly be restraining the tough old doorkicker was kindness, unfortunately a trait he was born so short on that nobody living or dead had ever observed it anywhere near him.

“So—she's in with all these Mob snitches, the money disappears, but you still have her file, you can punch her up when you need her—”

“Wrong. Her file is destroyed.” The word hung in the wood space, between percussive attacks from next door.

“Why? Thought you guys never destroyed a file, 'th all 'ese little fund, defund, refund games—”

“We don't know why. But it's no game in Washington—
chále ése
—this ain't tweakín around no more with no short-term maneuvers here, this is a
real
revolution, not that little fantasy handjob you people was into, is it's a groundswell, Zoyd, the wave of History, and you can catch it, or scratch it.” He eyed Zoyd with a smug look which in view of what he'd been doing to his tostada, over, by now, most of the tabletop, lacked authenticity. “The man who once shot the old Hermosa Pier durín a lightnín storm,” Hector shaking his head. “Listen, K mart this week has full-length mirrors on sale, and I'm nobody's charm-school professor, but I'd urge you to get one. Might want to start upgradín your image, li'l buddy.”

“Wait a minute, you
don't know why
her file was destroyed?”

“Is why we're gonna need your help. The money's good.”

“Oh, shit. Yah, hah, hah, hah, you lost her's what happened, some idiot back there wiped out the computer file, right? Now you don't even know where she is, and you think I do.”

“Not exactly. We think now she's headín back here.”

“She wa'n' spoze to Hector, that was never part of the deal. I wondered how long it was gonna take—twelve, thirteen years, not bad, you mind if I call the Guinness Book Hot Line with this, it has to be a world record for fascist regimes keepin' their word.”

“Still simmerín away with those same old feelings, I see—figured you'd be mellower by now, maybe some reconciliation with reality, I dunno.”

“When the State withers away, Hector.”

“
Caray
, you sixties people, it's amazing. Ah love ya! Go anywhere, it don't matter—hey, Mongolia! Go way out into small-town Outer Mongolia,
ése
, there's gonna be some local person about your age come runnín up, two fingers in a V, hollerín, ‘What's yer sign, man?' or singín ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' note for note.”