The Butcher's Granddaughter (12 page)

I handed the phone to D.F. “He wants to talk to you.”

All I got was Double F’s side. In a voice that never stopped quivering he said, “No. No...unh-unh!...I swear to God!” Then he started crying again. Then he gave a bunch of street directions to a building in Little Tokyo. He described the security the place had on it. My stomach got hollow as I realized with a dawning sickness that in less than thirty minutes that Asian chemist would be dead. Then Double F was quiet for a long time. Right before he hung up, a large patch of urine stained the concrete around his feet, tingeing the air acrid.

“You owe me. Ready to give it up?”

He nodded, staring at the ground, at the dark circle slowly growing larger around his shoes. Then he wiped his nose on his sleeve, reached in the Nike bag and pulled out a thousand dollars in hundreds and pushed it at me. “Here, mothahfuckah.”

“I don’t want money, D.F.”

“It’s from the King!” he hollered suddenly, and threw it at me. The outburst sent him into tears again.

I picked up the bundle and gave it back to him. “Then use it,” I said.

He wiped his nose on his sleeve some more and looked at me with what might have been a little hope.

“Here’s the deal. You get this,” I said, placing the picture of the dead redhead in his palm. “Ask around, and I mean everywhere. Spread the cash around. Hit all your west side connections, you got me?”

He was in some weird stupor. He nodded without looking up from his hands, which held the photo and the money about a foot apart, like opposing magnets. “You either call me or be back here in three days and tell me what you got. Kingfish won’t hurt you.” I thought about that. “Well, he might hurt you, but he won’t kill you. You’re taking that dough to him right now, right?”

He nodded again, violently. His chest hitched in and out with stifled breaths.

“Good. So, back here in three days or give me a call.” I put my hands on his shoulders and made him look at me. “Remember, you’re an investment. Kingfish puts money into you, and he expects to get more money out. He’s a businessman, just like me. So buck up, pal. You’re still in business.” I zipped up the bag and handed it to him. “Now go. I’ll see you later.”

He stood there for a second, in a daze. “Go!” I yelled, pointing down the alley. “Go!”

He looked at me a little crazily, then started to stumble off, careening from one side of the alley to the other. I watched his feet go from the kicking, stumbling motion of a drunk, to a light canter, to the churning, pumping rhythm they were so accustomed to—the beat of the street that kept him alive.

In three days he would be back, like a ghost. Strung out, a little edgy.

And full of information.

I lit a cigarette as my feet carried me the other way. I had a debt to pay.

Chapter 8

The sun was shining. It was morning. That was two strikes against the day.

I was sitting in the client’s chair in front of Rick Cane’s desk, squinting. Two of the four walls in his east-facing corner office are glass, and the sunlight was not just shining in, it was shouting, jostling, and elbowing its way in, searching out corners and undersides and trying to wake up the dust. Not even the darkly conservative mahogany wainscoting could dim the intrusion, and I remembered the sunglasses in my pocket and got them on my face just before a headache could really take hold.

The rest of the furniture in the office follows the lead of the walls: the carpet is a deep green; a short, thickly shelved bookcase is solid, dark mahogany; the client chairs, smaller versions of Rick’s that don’t rock back, are mahogany and brass with linen upholstery that’s a slightly lighter shade of green than the carpet. His desk sits in the exact center of the room, a solid block of ebony three feet thick, with a top big enough for two midgets to play tennis. Not a square inch of it was visible underneath piles of manila folders, legal pads with scribbling all over them, and forgotten newspapers.

Rick had his back to me, talking in low tones through a black enamel phone buffed to match the finish of the desk, trying to get a tan through the windows. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but didn’t care enough to try. I was tired, hungry, and sore. Double F’s right cross was a tender memory beneath my eye. Cane hung up, turned around and looked at me in silence for about ten seconds. Then he hit a button on his intercom and said, “Elizabeth, could you please bring in a cup of coffee for the deadbeat you let into my office?”

I smiled slightly and pointed at the spot on the desk where I had thrown the tracings from Denise’s diary. He looked down at them the way he might look at a squashed bug, then unfolded them slowly and read them beginning to end. Elizabeth brought me the coffee, and it was kind to me. When he finished reading, he took a sip of coffee from a black enamel mug and said, “What you got is very comforting. How you got it is not.”

“You want to lecture me now or fax it to me?” I said. I was in no mood.

“You wouldn’t listen either way. Where’s the money?”

I pulled the roll out and laid three hundred and fifty dollars on his desk, counting out loud.

“A C-note and-a-half for expenses?”

I nodded.

“You want to itemize them?”

“You said no questions. I’ll tell you if you want, but you’d be aiding and abetting a felon. I got you what you needed, and you’d’ve never found it yourself.” I stretched until my back popped. “She’s a fine, beautiful young lady, Rick, if a little immoral, and she’s only bopping with her boyfriend. She’s also a little behind-the-back entrepreneur. I don’t know how much of that you want to tell Bob.”

He looked at the tracings in front of him, smiled, and then bent over beneath the desk. The sound of a shredder came briefly, and his hand returned empty.

“How’re you going to tell Waterston?” I asked, slurping the last of the coffee. It perked me a little.

“Good news is never a problem. And the bearer only had to get into one police blotter to bring it.” He wagged his finger at me femininely. “No more questions.”

“Right.”

He pulled two hundreds out of the cash on the desk and handed them to me. As I rolled them up and tucked them into my jacket, I said, “Funny, though.”

“Hmm?” He had picked up one of the legal pads and was looking at me over the top of it.

“Something about this just doesn’t sit right, Rick. Why would Waterston hire you to tail his daughter?”

“Because I’m his friend. He trusts me.”

“Trusts you to what? You’re no peeper, man, c’mon.”

He placed the pad carelessly on one of the stacks and picked up his coffee cup. “What’s bothering you?”

I sighed and tilted the chair back until the legs creaked and Rick winced a little. “Well, needless to say, working for you isn’t the only thing I’m doing right now. I’m also looking for a dead girl.”

He gave me an odd look.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret: Waterston came in on me while I was in Denise’s room. But—”

“He fucking saw you?!” Rick coughed coffee back into his mug. Tiny spots settled on the papers all over his desk.

“Yeah,” I went on coolly. “But it’s no big deal. If he didn’t tell you, he won’t tell anyone else. I scared him so bad he won’t get it up again for a year.” All the blood was slowly draining out of Rick’s face. “Look, would you quit worrying?” I said calmly. “This did not reflect on you. I got out clean. Now listen: Waterston hires you to go knothole peeking at his daughter, a job that, one, he could’ve done himself, and two, as a friend, or so you say, he shouldn’t have asked you to do in the first place.”

“He shouldn’t have?”

“No, and stop me if I’m wrong on this, a lot of it is assumption. Robert Waterston’s a big deal businessman, and he looks like he’s got at least a thin code of honor. He has to know that peep business is for dicks trying to make rent, not big bad downtown P.I.’s. Asking you to do a job like that would be like asking Picasso if he would paint your house.” I shrugged. “Right?”

Rick nodded, started playing with a pencil and said, “OK, sure. But let’s say he was scared of something. The
Azure Mosaic
, say, and what goes on aboard it. Bob Waterston, real estate magnate, high-end art dealer, upstanding citizen and public figure, is not going to hand the possibility that his daughter is dabbling in prostitution to some dink with a South Street address. Those guys talk to the papers over stuff that wouldn’t make the want ads. Unh-unh. Bob came to me because he wanted to keep that possibility under the hat.”

I understood that Waterston was a friend, but it still sounded a little strange, like there was something Rick wasn’t telling me. I decided not to push it. “Well, anyway, thanks for the work, man. It’s nice to remember what the sun looks like. But I’ve had enough daytime for a good month. You want to get some breakfast before I run away?”

He shook his head. “No, that’s all right. The fact that Bob saw you still gives me the shakes just a little. Let’s stay out of touch for a while. I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

I nodded and got up to leave. He stopped me at the door. “You said you were looking for a dead girl? What’s that about?”

I shut the door and turned around. “Actually, I know where the girl is. I’m looking for who she was.”

He looked at me with questions in his eyes.

“She was the first victim in a serial killing. I happen to be the last person seen with the second victim.” I remembered Li weeping in my bed and added, “It’s become a personal thing now.”

“Sorry, Bird. Was this other victim a friend?”

“Nah. Just a sister of one of my connections. That’s under the hat, by the way.”

“What is?”

I smiled. “Right.” I couldn’t get Li out of my head. “Actually, Rick, you think you could keep a loose ear out for me?”

“Sure. What am I listening for?”

“A redhead, super good looking. Either used to go to C.D.M. High or knows somebody who did. No one will’ve seen her in a while.”

“Gotcha.”

I was almost out the door when he said, “Hey, Bird.”

I leaned back in the office. “Yeah?”

“You getting laid, beautiful?”

“Not lately.” The image of Li, naked on top of me, erupted across my mind.

“You need to. Clears the head wonderfully.”

“Up yours, you horny bull,” I said, and stepped over the secretary’s jaw on my way out the door.

I couldn’t decide if I was more hungry or tired, so while I thought about it I dropped into a flower shop on P.C.H. and bought a dozen roses for Li. I strapped the box onto my bike and listened to my stomach instead of my brain.

Edie’s Diner is a theme restaurant across from a huge mall in Newport called Fashion Island. 1950’s music is on the jukebox and they have good burgers, but the waitresses don’t wear roller skates, which really would’ve made the place. I slumped into a booth, dropped a quarter in the jukebox menu on the wall, and plugged in “Lonely Teardrops” and “The Wanderer.” A sweet little Newport Beacher with a deep tan and too much makeup covering it, took my order. She talked through her smile like a ventriloquist’s puppet, and said “My name’s Kiki,” as if it were something to be proud of.

I said, “Of course it is,” and ordered a cheeseburger with everything, a vanilla Coke, and an ashtray.

The ashtray came first. I lit up and stared through the window at the traffic, the last of those rushing to work, earning their fun and sun. Monday morning, and I was doing what Monday mornings were made for—not wanting to face it. I molded the ash on the cigarette against the side of the ashtray until it was a perfect tapered point. That made one less thing that looked crooked.

I wanted something to be wrong, and I wanted it to be obvious. Kiki swished by me on the way to coffee another table. I watched her fuss with place settings and water other tables as I wondered absently what it was I was looking for. What bothered me most was that it felt as if I’d already seen it—something under the surface, a break in the rhythm. I went over everything on that night in Jay’s apartment. Something was wrong, and it was wrong the way a good facelift is wrong—you’re not really sure until you see the little white scars behind the ears.

I grabbed a napkin and asked Kiki on her way back with the coffee if she had a pen I could borrow. She said, “Sure,” with one of those waitress smiles that always leave you thinking about missed opportunity. I doubled the napkin over and wrote “Red” across the top in capital letters. I flipped it over and wrote “Song.” Then I put the pen to my lips and pursed them like I was doing something. They were still like that when Kiki brought the burger. I let it sit there.

Underneath “Red” I put “expensive jewelry” and then “prostitute” with a question mark. I wrote the same thing under “Song,” minus the prostitute suggestion. I wrote “16-19 yrs. old” under both names. I wrote “female.” I wrote “attractive,” and decided I was grasping. I kept going back to the word “prostitute?” under “Red.” Then I went to the phone and called an old friend.

“USC Medical Center.”

“Hello, Gene. How’s lunch?”

There was a pause and then, “Oh, hey, great. What do you want now?”

“I was just wondering if that little Latino was making good on our deal.”

“Yep. Every day at 12:30 on the button. I’m busy, man. What’d you call for?”

“I wanted to know if our redheaded Jane Doe had been identified.”

“Nope. Detective Cazares has brought in several possibles, but nobody’s confirmed. Why, you got something?”

“Nah. Just checking in. Thanks.” I paused a second and then said, “Actually, there is one more thing.” I waited for him to get suspicious. He didn’t. “Was there any evidence of previous serious injury? And I’m talking about bad things like scars from knife slashes, or broken bones, particularly in the face?”

I heard papers rustling and knew he was looking at the report. “Unh-unh. She was flawless.”

The way he said “flawless” clicked something. “What do you mean?”

“I mean she didn’t have anything out of the ordinary on her or in her. No drugs, or at least no trace of recent abuse, and that includes alcohol; no significant scars, internal or external.” He shuffled papers for a minute. “Wait a sec. She’s had an abortion. Probably very early in the first trimester. No heavy scarring.”