Melissa Bourbon Ramirez - Lola Cruz 01 - Living the Vida Lola (16 page)

Antonio nodded his agreement.

I ordered a couple of Dos Equis and debated whether to try to engage the guy in conversation or play it straight. Direct, I decided. The guy didn’t look like he messed around. Drinks in hand, I slid a copy of Emily’s photograph across the tacky counter and held my breath.

The bartender stuck his drink back in the well and reached for the picture. “What’s this?”

“Do you recognize this woman?” I watched his face with Clint Eastwood scrutiny as he picked up the photograph.

He squinted and held the picture up to a dusty fixture that hung from the ceiling. The light from outside couldn’t penetrate the tinted windows and the dimly lit bar.

“I’ve seen her around here a few times.” He sounded hoarse, as if he’d just woken up and hadn’t found his voice yet. He slid the photo back to me.

“Really?” I asked, probably sounding a little too excited. My hunch had totally paid off. God, I loved these moments.

“Are you cops?”

“No, no.” I shook my head emphatically to convince him. “This woman turned up dead. I’m trying to find out what happened to her.”

He took a long drink and then leaned forward, both hands resting on the bar. “She met with Muriel once or twice.”

I slid onto a barstool and sipped my beer as casually as I could muster. A minor in Acting should be a required degree for private investigators. Luckily I’d had several years to perfect my innocently curious expression. Muriel. The name rang a bell. Another entry in Emily’s journal, I thought. “Muriel?” I prompted.

“She runs the place.” I pulled out my notepad and scribbled.

“Does Muriel have a last name?”

He squinted at me but said, “O’Brien.”

“And, I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“ ’Cause I didn’t give it, missy.”

I looked him square in the eyes. “Could you give it to me now? For my notes.”

“Notes for what?”

“Like I said, Ms. Diggs is dead. I’m looking into it.”

The bartender’s suspicious gaze settled on Antonio.

My brother leaned in beside me, one elbow resting on the bar. If only he had a cowboy hat, he’d fit in perfectly. As it was, with his clenched and goateed jaw, his Raiders cap pulled low over his eyes, and his pumped-up biceps, he looked like a damn menacing bodyguard.

“You sure you’re not cops?”

Antonio laughed. “Not even close.”

He lifted an eyebrow, but he looked back at me and shrugged. “Tom Phillips.”

I scribbled the name in my notebook and then glanced around at the nearly deserted bar. Just a few lonely California cowboys sipped their drinks. “Is Muriel here tonight?” I asked, turning back to Tom.

“Nah, she runs a couple places in Sac Town.”

So Muriel was busy. “And they are…”

Grumpy attitude notwithstanding, Tom Phillips was more than willing to talk. “Tattoo Haven over off Del Paso and My Place.”

“My Place. Isn’t that bar out on Bradshaw, too?”

He nodded, and I scribbled the names of Muriel’s businesses down.

“Do you know why Emily and Muriel met?”

Tom’s bony shoulders moved up and down. “Nope. Muriel don’t tell me shit.” Poor guy, he was kept out of the loop. I hated that. He tilted his head back as he took a long drink. “Don’t pay me shit, neither.”

“She doesn’t care that you do all the work, huh?” I shook my head, trying to win him over. “Bosses.”

His bloodshot eyes brightened. “Damn straight.”

I smiled. He was putty in my hands. “Do you remember when Emily was here last?”

He thought for a few seconds, nodding his head at me like we were part of the same union, fighting against the man. “ ’Bout a week ago, I reckon.”

“Do you remember the day?”

He dumped the remains from his glass in the sink, refilling it halfway with ice. Then he took a bottle of Seagram’s from
under the counter and poured the glass three-quarters full. He topped it off with Sprite, gave it a quick stir with his finger, and gulped, draining half the liquid with one mouthful. I wondered if he’d be able to stand at the end of his shift. I was getting tipsy just watching him.

“Muriel splits her time between the places. She’s here Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, the Tattoo gig Thursday and Sunday, and My Place Monday and Saturday.”

“Busy woman,” I said, writing her schedule down.

Tom shrugged. “That lady, the one in your picture, she was here last week.”

“What day, do you remember?”

He thought for a second. Nodding, clearly satisfied that he’d figured it out, he said, “Must have been Wednesday.”

A jolt of energy shot through me. Now I was getting somewhere. The day Emily had disappeared. “You remember what time?”

“Round lunch, I think.”

“Did she talk with Muriel?”

“Yeah, they talked.” He finished his drink and dumped the ice. It seemed to be his routine. “Argued, you might say.”

“Did you hear what about?”

“Didn’t want to.” He shrugged again. “I tuned ’em out most times.”

“But you know they were arguing,” Antonio said.

My thought exactly.

“Look,” Tom said, “I mind my own business. Life’s easier that way.”

“But you did hear what they were saying,” I prompted.

Reluctantly, he nodded. “A little bit. Something about her kids and some of their friends. Don’t know what Muriel had to do with it, and I don’t care neither.”

“Have you seen Muriel today?” I asked.

He shook his head, giving me an
I just told you her schedule a second ago
look. “It’s Monday.”

I smiled brightly and checked my notes. Sure enough, Muriel spent her Mondays at My Place.

Tom Phillips didn’t seem to have any other information for me, but who knew when I might need him again. “You’ve been very helpful. I hope Muriel smartens up and gives you a big fat raise.” I passed him a business card.

He stuck it in his back pocket. “I hear anything, I’ll be sure to give you a call.”

Wow, wasn’t he accommodating. Looks and drug use could be deceiving. I smiled and thanked him. “Are you up for another stop?” I asked Antonio when we were back in the car.

“You buying another round?”

I nodded. “Of course.”

He revved the engine, and we were off to My Place.

It was clear the second we walked in that Just Because could have been lifted and dropped whole on top of its sister bar and no one would have noticed the difference. They were nearly identical inside, from the dim light and tinted windows to the shellacked bar and pasty-skinned bartender. The only difference here was that the bartender was a woman.

“I do believe we’ve found our Muriel O’Brien, Holmes,” Antonio whispered, the
H
in
Holmes
sounding like he was hawking a loogie in an East L.A. way.

I grinned. “Right, Watson.” Memories of childhood detective antics flashed through my mind—Jack playing the villain—God, I’d forgotten about that. I’d tied him to a tree once after I captured him. If only I’d known what to do with a restrained Jack Callaghan back then, but the opportunity had been lost on my innocent twelve-year-old self.

I looked around at the mix of people—an older couple at
the jukebox, a leather-vested man with a navy bandanna snugly wrapped around his head, a black-and-white couple that looked from the back like a May-December affair. It was an eclectic bunch.

“What can I get you two?” the bartender rasped at us. Looking at her, I found it hard to believe she had the ability and skill to actually run three businesses. Her brittle hair was pulled back and clipped at the base of her neck, steel gray strands poking out like bits of spiraled wire. Her teeth had an awful tint to them, like the slimy coating on a peeled hard-boiled egg. I swallowed a gag.

I opted for bottled water this time, and Antonio ordered a Corona. I ponied up the cash and perched on a stool while Antonio leaned in beside me, elbow on the bar, his cap tugged low over his eyes.

“Are you Muriel O’Brien?” I asked.

Her eyes immediately became wary, and she took a half step backwards, pulling her flannel overshirt closed. “What do you want? You come in here to drink or what?”

Wow, this lady was on edge. What happened to chatting up the customers? I handed her a business card. “I came across your name in relation to Emily Diggs.”

She mulled that over for a second, then let out a throaty cackle. “That lunatic? I ain’t no relation to her.”

Oh, this one was bright. “But you know her.”

She darted her eyes around the bar as she huffed, shrugging her shoulders. “We’ve had the unfortunate pleasure.”

“Well, unfortunately for
her,
she’s dead.”

Muriel blinked, and blinked again, her gaze skittering around again, finally settling blankly on the May-December couple. They seemed blissfully unaware of anyone else. Oh, to be so in love.

Apparently, Muriel hadn’t read the obits in the
Bee
this
morning. She threw her hands up and retreated even more. Her voice lowered to a raspy hiss. “You two just get on outta here. I don’t want nothin’ to do with this.”

I threw my own hands up in an effort to calm her down. “Emily’s brother just wants to know what happened to her. Can you help me out?”

“I’ll tell you this,” she muttered sharply. “If she’s dead, she probably asked for it.” She doubled over in a hacking cough. “She was looking for trouble, gettin’ mixed up where she don’t belong.”

Antonio notched up the bill of his cap. “Can you be more specific?”

Muriel bared her yellowed, crooked teeth. Her eyes jerked around the room, and her eyebrows lifted when she focused on us again. “She done screwed the wrong people, and she didn’t even know it. Made all kinds of trouble.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I tried to warn her.”

Muriel seemed to have forgotten she’d wanted us to leave, so I seized the moment. “Who’d she screw over?”

She hacked, her head thrusting forward like a cat coughing up a fur ball—only Muriel’s fur ball was a glob of brown phlegmy goop that she spit onto a napkin, crumpled in her hand, and tossed into the garbage can.

“Qué asco,”
Antonio muttered under his breath.

It was
totally
gross, but I flashed him a look that said,
Shut up
. Who knew if this woman spoke Spanish?

Apparently she didn’t. She ignored Antonio and knocked a cigarette out of a battered pack. With the cigarette gripped between her thin lips, she managed to light it with a yellow Bic held in her shaky hand.

After a deep inhale, she hacked again. I tried to keep my face impassive. Guess I didn’t do a very good job. “You got a problem?” she rasped.

Shaking my head, I flattened the wrinkles that lined my forehead. “I was just thinking smoking might aggravate that cough you have.” Or make her cough up a whole blackened lung.

“Shee-it,” she drawled. “Smokin’ and drinkin’ are my only pleasures.” She pulled a glass out from the well of the bar and held it up in a toast before swigging a mouthful of her poison and swallowing hard. She leaned in toward me and hissed like she was divulging a world-class secret. “Only Myers’s, Coke, and Marlboros. Nothing else passes these lips.” She took another healthy swig before replacing the glass under the bar and out of sight. “I’m dead serious. Nothing.”

Good to know. “So, um, Muriel, who was Emily screwing over?”

“You ain’t the cops, right? You have to tell me if I ask, right?” Her eyebrows puckered, and she snaked her gaze at Antonio. “Hate to think a good-lookin’ man like you was a cop.”

Antonio nodded. He even managed a small smile, bless his heart. Maybe he deserved a kickback.

“No, we ain’t police.” I cringed, but if poor grammar was what it took to relate to her… I was willing to go the distance.

“So you ain’t shittin’ me. Someone really knocked off the old bat?”

The photo I had of Emily put her in her mid-forties. If she was an old bat, that made Muriel a walking corpse. Probably she thought she was hot stuff for a crotchety old broad. Rose-colored glasses. Was my perception of myself that warped? Twenty-eight and single to me meant wise and independent. What did it mean to an outsider?

“I ain’t shittin’ you.” My high school English teacher would take back every one of my A’s if she heard me talking now.
“Now what were you saying? About Emily screwing someone over?”

She surveyed the room, her expression turning hard when it returned to us. She was certainly conscientious of her other customers—I had to give her that. She shrugged. “When you go messing around in other people’s business, people get mad at you.” She doubled over again, coughing. After she stubbed out her cigarette, she moved the ashtray to the back counter. “How’d she die, anyway?”

“Her body washed up in the river.”

She grunted. “Drowned, huh?”

“Yes, drowned.” She was like a train-of-thought child. I had to redirect the conversation. “When did you see her last?”

Her gray eyes peered at me through the coils of her hair. “Last week sometime, I think.”

“Do you remember what you talked about?”

“Shee-it. How could I forget? She was trying to shut down my tattoo parlor, that’s what.”

Tattoos. A flash of Bonnie, the tattooed bandit from Laughlin’s market, shot into my brain. The tramp stamp on her breast was like a bull’s-eye right over her heart.

A knock sounded from the end of the bar, and Muriel ambled away to serve a customer. She pulled out two bottles of beer and flipped off the caps before sliding them over. She made acerbic small talk for a minute, collected a fistful of dollar bills, and knocked her fifty-cent tip against the bar with two quick flicks of her wrist. She’d been doing this a long time, and it showed.

“Relax, Lo,” Antonio said, rubbing my shoulder as if I were a heavyweight champ ready to go another round. “Don’t let her rattle you.” He adjusted his hat. “You’re doing great.”

I didn’t know why Bonnie’s tattoo was stuck in my mind, but I took a couple of deep breaths and had refocused by the
time Muriel returned to us. “Why did Emily want to shut down your business?” I asked again.

“Get this,” she said, smacking her thin lips together. “That woman, Emily, said that a tattoo killed her son. She was nuts.”