Death by Sarcasm (3 page)

He gave a weird little laugh that sounded like rodents scurrying behind a wall.

“Nah, you’re related to Brent, I can tell,” he said. His little eyes shone with the pride of his intellect.

“Actually, Columbo, I’m his niece.”

“Niece, huh? He never talked about you.”

Mary looked around Cecil’s office. Tiny, cramped, and the walls filled with photos of celebrities you just couldn’t quite place. Mary tried not to notice the smell of Cecil’s horrible cologne combined with stale cigars and body odor. And she tried not to think about this place being the last stop, the end of the line for Uncle Brent.

“Yeah, well I didn’t really talk about him a whole lot, either,” she said. “At least, until he got slaughtered behind your club.”

Cecil didn’t know what to say so Mary filled the void. “Why don’t you tell me what you know.”

“So you’re not a cop, right?” Cecil said, stroking his moustache. The little eyes were shining again.

“No, I’m a member of the SWAT team,” Mary said. “I’m a Polynesian princess. I’m a hostess at The Ivy. It doesn’t matter what I am. I’m just a grieving niece with an attitude and not a lot of patience.”

Cecil sat at attention. “Jesus, you are Brent’s niece, aren’t you? You don’t have to get nasty, though,” he said, waving his hands in an attempt at placating her. “Look, I booked him for some of the early slots, you know, sort of as a favor.”

Mary took a deep breath. How far had Brent fallen that he needed favors from a shit stain like Cecil Fogerty?

“Why would you do that?” she said.

“I owed him.”

Mary raised her eyebrows, indicating he should continue.

“Well, you know,” Cecil stammered. “Brent was pretty good with the ladies.”

Mary had known that. Uncle Brent was caustic. He used his sarcasm to hurt people. Mary had never bought into that. She believed in the power of humor to unite, not divide. But despite all that, she had heard that her Uncle Brent was quite the ladies’ man. If there was something she could feel good about, it was that Brent probably had one helluva good time before he checked out for good.

“Frankly, I’m shocked you might have needed some help with women,” Mary said. “I figured you’d tested more mattresses than Serta.”

Cecil looked at her and Mary could tell he wasn’t sure if it was a legitimate compliment or a whole hearted rip.

“Well…” he said, unsure if a modest agreement or honest denial was in order.

“So he helped you score,” she said, urging him on and desperately trying not to picture him naked.

“You’re pretty blunt, aren’t you?”
“Nah, I’m as delicate as Ming vase,” she said. “So get to the part about Uncle Brent helping you with a booty call.”

If sheepishness could be personified, Cecil Fogerty was now it. “Anyway,” he said. “I let Brent and his buddy come in, do their thing, and I’d slip Brent like, a hundred bucks, maybe two hundred depending on the size of the crowd and how his stuff went over.”

Mary let out a low whistle. “Two hundred bucks, huh?” she said, knowing it was probably only half that. “How do you keep this place running handing out that kind of dough?”

“Between Brent and the bar, it was a wash,” Cecil said. “But like I said…”

“You owed him,” Mary finished.

Cecil shrugged his shoulders in compliance.

“So you said ‘Brent and his buddy.’ What’s the buddy’s name?”

“No clue – never met him. I hired Brent.”

For once, Cecil took his eyes off Mary’s body. That’s how she knew he was lying.

“Ah, the truth has such a nice ring to it,” Mary said.

Cecil gave her a blank stare.

It pissed her off. Her uncle was dead. Had been cut open a stone’s throw from this shithole of an office, and guys like Cecil Fogerty were still walking around.

“So you don’t even know his name. You let a comic onstage, without even knowing anything about him at all? Never saw him do some material? Come on. I’m not as stupid as you look,” she said.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “I hire the guys, I don’t follow them home after they do their sets,” Cecil said, feigning exasperation. He looked at Mary, let his eyes run up and down her body. “Maybe I could come up with something…you know…if you want to have a drink with me.” He smiled at her. Mary shuddered.

“Well, that’s really tempting, Cecil, really tempting,” she said. She felt the bile rise in her throat, but she forced it back down. “I bet you could put that little ‘stache of yours to good use, couldn’t you?”

Cecil grinned like he’d hit the MegaBall jackpot.

“We have a few drinks, I show you around the upstairs, where I’ve got this cool suite…” he started to say.

Mary paused for just a moment. She could let him buy her a drink, finesse a few more stories about Brent out of him. Maybe even let him take her up to his suite for just a moment if she felt he had more information. She thought about that for just a moment and then pulled her stainless steel ParaOrdnance .45 from her shoulder holster. She took out a handkerchief from her front pocket and wiped down the body of the gun, casually, as if she were cleaning her eyeglasses.

“I hate dust. I really ought to do more than just a surface cleaning, though. I really ought to fire a few rounds, then give it a good cleaning.’

She looked up at Cecil. “You got anything around here I could shoot?”

“This isn’t necessary…” he started to say.

“Let me ask you something, Cecil,” Mary said. “Do you think if I shot you in the head, and then pried open your skull, I would see the name of this comedian? The name you’re keeping from me? Or would a bullet damage the name? Maybe I should shoot you in the space where a heart normally would be, then find another way in.” She snapped her fingers. “I’ve got a Sawzall at home! A DeWalt!”

Mary could practically see the little moustache fibers on Cecil’s face twitching in fear.

“This gun is a ParaOrdnance .45. High-capacity. Holds 14 rounds plus one in the chamber. But what I love most are the sights. They’re called 3-dots. See them?” She pointed the gun directly at Cecil’s face. “When they’re all neatly lined up, I can’t miss.”

Cecil backed away from her. “Okay, okay! Talk to Jimmy G! Jimmy knows that kind of shit,” he said, his voice high and whiny. “I swear to God I don’t know any names or locations or anything. I just pay the guys. Jimmy G will be on tomorrow at four. I promise. Tomorrow at four he’ll be here. He’ll be able to tell you.”

Mary slid the .45 into her shoulder holster. Cecil rubbed his upper lip where the gun had nearly pressed against him.

“You sure know how to get a man excited,” Cecil said, massaging his moustache.

Mary let her eyes run up and down his body, just like he’d done to her.

“Hotties like you just bring it out in me,” she said.

You know it’s bad when you step outside in L.A. and breathe in the air like it’s fresh and clean. But that’s what Mary did now. She should buy a nasal inhaler to use after visiting places like Cecil’s office. Rinse the smell out of the nostrils.

She tried to mentally cleanse herself of Cecil Fogerty. At this point, she wanted to go back to her apartment and maybe take a long shower. Watch a movie. Forget about places like this for a little while.

But when she got to the Buick, she stopped, her breath momentarily caught in her throat. Her hand on its own volition traveled to the butt of her .45.

And then she counted the bullet holes in the Buick’s windshield. There were six. A 9mm or .357 perhaps. Were they from the same gun that was used to kill Uncle Brent?

She felt unusually light in her stomach, and she turned and did a 360 degree turn. There was no one anywhere near the car. She reflexively checked rooftops or open windows for the barrel of a rifle. But she saw nothing.

Mary felt the anger rise again. She gritted her teeth. And then she walked closer to the car and read the note tucked underneath a piece of the windshield.

Stop – or the next joke is on you.

A
ctually, the joke was already on her. A car that usually garnered no attention at all had suddenly created a crowd. Mary saw a patrol car pull a U-turn three blocks down.

Mary took out her cell phone and called Jake.

“Someone shot up my car,” she said.

“The Buick? Maybe it was a mercy killing. Auto euthanasia.”

“You’re buddies in blue are here,” she said as the patrol car pulled up next to the Buick. “You might want to pull up your pants and let them know this just might have to do with a certain ongoing murder investigation.”

She snapped her phone shut and volunteered herself to the patrol officers. Once she finished answering their questions, she did her best to work the crowd to see if anyone had witnessed the shooting. Eventually, several people pointed out a young guy with greasy hair and thick glasses who they said claimed he’d been the first one here. She made her way over to him.

“I’ve never seen a car assassinated before,” Mary said.

“I saw you talking to the cops,” he said. “Is it yours?”

“What, do I look like I’m 90 years old?” she said. “I’m just curious. Like you.”

They walked as close to the car as they could get, without getting in the way of the cops. He took a closer look at the windshield. “Probably just some kids,” he said. “Vandals, don’t you think?”

Mary considered it for a moment. “Yeah, vandals,” she said. “Old ones.”

“Old ones?”

“Old people think Buicks are for them,” she said. “So they hate seeing a young hardbody like me driving one. This happens to me quite a lot, actually.”

The guy adjusted his glasses and looked at Mary, his eyes slightly wide with fear.

“Why do you still drive it then?” he said.

“I’m not gonna let those old fuckers win, man.”

He seemed to think about it for a moment, then said, “You know, now that you mention old people, I may have seen a little something. It was probably nothing, but now it makes a little more sense, maybe.”

Mary felt her heart beat a little faster. She needed a break.

“What’d you see?” she said, keeping her voice bored and disinterested.

“Well, I thought I heard something weird, little pops and breaking glass. I live up on the fourth floor,” he said, pointing to a building about a half a block away.

“So then what did you do?”

“Well, I walked over and saw the car, then I saw a guy a few blocks down, walking kind of fast, but trying not to look like he was walking fast, know what I mean?”

“What’d he look like?”

“I never got a good look at him.” He tapped his glasses. “It was just that he had a windbreaker on. And it was a weird color. It was kind of hard to tell, but it sort of looked like a turquoise blue. But like I said, I can’t see very well. And I am partially color blind.”

“What’s your name?” she asked him.

“Tim.”

Mary nodded.

“All right, take off Tim, unless you want the cops to take you downtown and question you for half the night.”

Tim virtually trembled at the thought. He turned to go, but then had a second thought.

“You know, you were bullshitting me with that old people thing, weren’t you?” He squinted at her through his thick glasses.

Mary shook her head, then held up two fingers in the peace sign and hooked them into sharp claws.

“As we used to say in the Girl Scouts: Honor bright – Snake bite!”

Jake and Mary watched the Buick’s front end slide up onto the LAPD tow truck. Even though the crime scene unit had done some preliminary work, the vehicle would need to be taken back to the lab to dig out the bullets and perform more intricate examinations.

“So you’re going to need a ride, huh?” Jake said, a little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Sure will,” Mary said. “Want to wait with me for the cab?”

He took that one in stride, she saw.

“Now, Mary, there’s no need for a cab,” he said. “The good citizens of Los Angeles would be happy to know their tax dollars were being used to give a lady in distress much needed transportation.”

“Ah, it’s the Jake Cornell sex tax,” she said. “I don’t recall seeing that itemized on my annual tax statement.”

“It’s listed under city services.”

“Ah,” Mary said. She knew Jake was kidding around, but the idea of taking her home being seen as a charitable service pissed her off just a tad. “Well, I would accept a ride,” she said. “But I’m just afraid that if the Shark found out, you would have to tuck tail again like you did last night.”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s called being professional,” he said. “You should try it sometime.”

“Career advice from a guy fucking his boss,” Mary said. “That makes sense.” She pulled out her cell phone. “I’m calling a cab. You meet a better class of people that way.”

“Look,” Jake said. “If you let me take you home, I’ll let you know a few things we’ve found out, okay?”

“Oh, Jake,” she said, her voice husky. “You always know just what to say.” Mary climbed into his unmarked car.

Jake fired it up and they headed east toward Santa Monica and Mary’s condo.

“Spill it, Shark Wrangler,” she said.

“Bullets were 9mm,” he answered. “Two to the back of the head. Probably a silencer. The knife was traced to a wholesaler in Gary, Indiana, but their products are often moved from retail location to retail location so it’s virtually impossible to track.”

Jake swung onto Lincoln and Mary caught a glimpse of the ocean when they turned onto Ocean Park.

“Any other good news?” she said.

“We’re continuing to interview the waitress and trying to track down other customers who were there, but so far nothing. We have a few names we’re running down, but so far, no one’s jumping out at us.”

Mary nodded.

“What about you?” he said.

“The guy who shot my car may have been wearing a turquoise blue windbreaker, but my wit is partially color blind,” Mary said. “So who knows?”

Jake pulled to a stop at a red light. They were a block from the ocean and Mary could see the moon peeking out from behind the Santa Monica mountains.

“Sounds like we’ve both got nothing,” Jake said.