Romeo's Hammer Read online

  Romeo’s Hammer

  A Mike Romeo Thriller

  James Scott Bell

  Contents

  ROMEO’S HAMMER

  Author’s Note

  ROMEO’S HAMMER

  The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself. To be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful.

  – Plato

  But tell me what’s to be done, Lord, ’bout the weather in my head.

  – Donald Fagen

  SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL and naked and dying.

  I was doing my early morning run along the beach that starts at Paradise Cove and turns, like a scimitar, toward the tonier sands of the Malibu Colony. I was living in a mobile unit owned by my rabbi-lawyer friend, Ira Rosen. He said the ocean would do me good. I think he just wanted me as far from the denser population of Los Angeles as possible.

  He knows me well.

  I was not yet to the rough border between my side of the shoreline and that of the Colony where insane money tries to pretend it’s just like real folks. It’s where movie stars and producers, internet billionaires and divorced wives of sports team owners, big-shot lawyers and trust-fund babies, all dig their toes on the sandy shore of the blue Pacific. They think their toes should be exclusive. They hate to have people like me—worth about thirty bucks on the open market—jogging past their multi-million dollar homes.

  Which is exactly why I do it. Under the laws of man and nature, the strip where ocean meets shore is not owned by anybody. This has not stopped the privileged few from trying to keep out stragglers with illegal fencing and the occasional bit of human intimidation.

  Most people are too cowed by this to resist.

  I’m not one of those people.

  THE FOG WAS thick and wet with salt air. It was like running in a dream. The whisper of the morning waves was a comfort, and I needed some of that. I was feeling fine until a seagull screeched by, unseen but loud enough to chill some blood.

  Then the woman appeared, an apparition, with the body of a Greek statue. Like Venus stepping out of her morning shower.

  Only this Venus was staggering like a drunk.

  Slowing, I watched her face. I didn’t want her screaming or thinking I might try to take advantage of the situation. But she didn’t make eye contact with me. She didn’t look like she could make eye contact with anything.

  I looked past her through the fog to see if there was anyone with her. Some lousy boyfriend, maybe, or a party sister. But we were alone in a gray smoke bubble.

  “You all right?” I said, feeling stupid because it was obvious she wasn’t.

  She said nothing. Her right arm came up a little like she was brushing away a fly. She put one foot in front of the other, unsteady.

  “Let me help you,” I said.

  Her head lolled back. She had long black hair, messy around her face, like kelp. Her mouth started to move. It looked like it had a will of its own. Nothing came out. Her empty eyes met mine for a moment. Then they rolled upward and she stumbled toward the waves.

  She fell to her knees in the wet sand.

  I took off my T-shirt and put it over her head. She fought me a little but I got her arms through the sleeves and pulled the shirt over her torso.

  I put my arms under hers and helped her to her feet. She was almost dead weight.

  And then she said something. It sounded like higog.

  “Higog?” I said. “Someone you know?”

  Silence. Her lids were heavy.

  “Can you tell me where you came from?” I said. “I can take you back.”

  Pause. She seemed to be forming a thought. It was as if my words had squeezed into her brain slowly, strained through thick gauze.

  Then she cursed and jerked out of my grasp.

  She took three steps and fell face down and didn’t move again.

  I PICKED HER up and put her over my shoulder. This was going to be a great sight if some beach cop or concerned citizen were to see me. An inert girl over a man’s shoulder does not exactly advertise all is well. Especially when the woman is mooning the sky.

  The fog was my friend.

  And I wasn’t that far from the Cove. I kept on the wet sand to make the walk easier.

  The pier was just coming into view when another runner came toward me out of the fog.

  It was a man, maybe my age, good shape. Wearing a Dodgers hat, black tank top and black running shorts.

  He looked at me. I looked at him and smiled.

  “Too much vodka,” I said.

  The man nodded, ran past.

  I took a look back and saw he was looking over his shoulder at me. He didn’t buy it. I wouldn’t have either. I wondered how long it would be before he called 911.

  I got to the parking lot of the Cove’s restaurant and then headed up to the gate kiosk. Our regular guy, Rodney, saw me and came out. He’s on the fat side of forty, but always wears a smile.

  Except now, looking at the half-naked woman on my shoulder.

  “What’s up, Mike?”

  “Call Artra,” I said. “Tell her to come to my place. Medical emergency.”

  I carried my strange cargo up to my unit. The key was under the clay turtle in the flower garden. I did a nice thigh-burning squat, keeping her positioned, got the key, stood and went up the steps with her. I unlocked the door, and just as I stepped in, she jerked.

  And thunked her head on the door jamb.

  She stopped moving again.

  I LAID HER down on my sofa and got a blanket to cover her up. I checked her forehead and saw a little bump where she’d banged her head. I went to the fridge and got the ice tray from the freezer, ran it under some water and loosened a cube. I wrapped the cube in a napkin and went back to the sofa.

  I smoothed away the hair from her face. She was beautiful in a natural way. She’d had some makeup on the night before. It was a little smeared and faded. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, but there were lines at the corners of her eyes that belonged to a much older person.

  I gently put the ice on the bump on her head. She groaned a little. Her eyes were closed but her face was twisted, like little knots of pain were pulling tight inside her.

  There was no use speculating on what had happened. It could’ve been a thousand different things. My guess was that the alcohol thing was it. Malibu is not generally known for its bibulous restraint.

  So what about the lack of clothing? A love scene gone bad? Someone who had been with her while she was drinking—or drugging—herself. Her condition when I found her was such that she had to have come from one of the beach houses. Access to the sand is cut off all along PCH. She didn’t wander down from the street.

  She had to be a model or an actress. Her face and body made that the most likely story. Looking like she did, you don’t get very far in this town without some agent or producer trying to make you a star. The problem is it could be as a porn star. Hollywood, they say, is the only town where you can die of encouragement.

  There was a knock on my screen door. The doctor had arrived.

  ARTRA MURRAY WORE a pink bathrobe and fuzzy blue slippers. But don’t let that fool you. She’s as tough as they come. Sixty-ish, she had been the first African-American woman head of surgery at Johns Hopkins. She left it all to become a missionary surgeon in Kenya, where she lived through ten years of epidemics and persecutions.

  Now she was in a unit in Paradise Cove so she could run a free health clinic up the coast, near Pepperdine University.

  “What have you got?” she said.

  “See for yourself,” I said.

  “Where’s your shirt?”

  “On her.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s not like that, Doctor.”

  “Uh-huh.”<
br />
  Artra stepped over to the sofa. She dropped to a knee and started feeling the woman’s face, talking to me as she did.

  “Where’d she come from?”

  “The beach. I was running.”

  “Was she lying there?”

  “No, staggering around.”

  Artra pulled back the woman’s eyelids, started fingering her throat.

  “She’s vomited,” Artra said.

  She squeezed the woman’s mouth open and leaned over. Then sniffed.

  “Get a shirt on,” Artra said. “We’re taking her to emergency.”

  “What is it?”

  “This girl’s been poisoned.”

  I DRIVE A restored ’67 Mustang convertible named Spinoza. It was given in lieu of a fee to Ira by one of his grateful clients. Ira is giving me a lease-option on it in return for my stellar investigatory services. Named for the Dutch philosopher whose radical views got him kicked out of his Jewish community. He became something of a loner in this world, but one who kept looking for truth. To this I could relate. The car is dark-green on the outside with a saddle-tan interior. A perfect blending, which is also a reflection of Baruch Spinoza’s unified view of substance. When I explained this to Ira he said I needed to get out more.

  Artra sat in the back with the woman. She had slipped a pair of my sweat pants on her before we left. As we drove, Artra called ahead, explaining what was coming to the emergency room.

  The hospital was four miles away. When I pulled in, there was a male nurse standing outside the doors with a wheelchair.

  He helped Artra get our charge in the chair, wheeled her in. I parked the car and joined Artra at the desk. She was talking to the reception nurse, a woman, and said, “Here he is” when I got there.

  I answered a few questions and Artra filled in with her medical opinion. Then we went into a small waiting room where CNN was showing with the sound muted. That’s the best way to watch the news. We sat.

  “So she was out there alone on the beach?” Artra said.

  “Yep.”

  “Good thing you came along when you did.”

  “How bad is she?”

  “Not good.”

  “What kind of poison is it?”

  “Nicotine.”

  “Nicotine? What would deliver a lethal dose?”

  “My first guess is insecticide.”

  “What a way to go,” I said.

  Artra said, “The question is, did somebody do it, or did she do it to herself?”

  “And how’d she get out on the beach?”

  Artra nodded. “She didn’t say anything?”

  “Only one word. But I didn’t understand it. Sounded like higog.”

  “Egg nog maybe?”

  “Not really the season, is it?”

  “I know some people who nog all the time,” Artra said. “Never cared for it myself.”

  “Thanks for coming over,” I said.

  “It’s what I do.” She paused. “Mike, what do you do? I mean, when you’re not chiseling that fine body?”

  “Me? Chisel?”

  “I see you doing push-ups out there on the sand.”

  “I like the sound of the ocean.”

  “Not a lot of money in that, is there?”

  “I do some work for Ira,” I said.

  “Ah. He’s a good man.”

  “I’d like to be half as good someday.”

  “What’s stopping you?” she said.

  “You sound like a head doctor now.”

  “Doesn’t truth conquer all things?” She smiled. She’d correctly translated the Latin phrase tattooed on my left forearm.

  “Nicely done,” I said.

  Then she looked at my left hand, which was resting on my knee. She picked it up softly, looked it over. “Your little finger,” she said. “It was severed?”

  I nodded. “But I’ve been digitally remastered.”

  “Wow,” she said. “That’s rare, especially considering the location of the laceration. You have good use of it?”

  “It’s coming back. It has PTSD. I don’t want to rush it.”

  She laughed. “Now I really want to know about you, Mr. Mike Romeo.”

  “Someday, Doctor.”

  Part of me hoped that day would come. I’d fight it, but it would be nice to be able to trust someone else in this world. Besides Ira, that is.

  A short time later a woman in blue scrubs came into the waiting room.

  “Hello, Artra,” she said.

  Artra stood. “Good to see you, Gabriella.”

  They shook hands.

  Artra said, “This is my friend, Mike Romeo. Mike, Dr. Gabriella Pedroza.”

  She had a good, strong grip and a warm smile. Late thirties.

  “She’s going to make it,” Dr. Pedroza said. “We’ve administered activated charcoal and her vitals are stable. We found traces of vomitus. That probably saved her life.”

  “Thank God,” Artra said.

  “How’d she get this way?” the doctor said.

  “We don’t know.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Again, don’t know. Mike found her on the beach, alone.”

  Dr. Pedroza turned to me. “No ID?”

  I shook my head.

  “Probably a suicide attempt,” Dr. Pedroza said. “You don’t get that amount accidentally.”

  “Maybe not,” I said.

  The doctor looked at me. “Your reason?”

  “She was out staggering around. If she wanted to kill herself, why would she do that? Also, she was stark naked.”

  Dr. Pedroza frowned. “How does that apply?”

  “Women who commit suicide are usually dressed. They want the police to find them presentable. Men, who usually shoot themselves, don’t care what they look like.”

  “How do you know all this?” she said.

  “I read,” I said.

  “Impressive,” she said.

  “Can I come back and see her?” I said.

  “Tomorrow morning,” Dr. Pedroza said. “If you’d like to leave your number I can make sure you’re notified.”

  “I’ll be here,” I said.

  “So will I,” Dr. Pedroza said.

  “YOU MADE AN impression on Gabriella,” Artra said. We were driving back to the Cove.

  “How so?” I said.

  “A woman can tell. Are you involved with anyone, Mike?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Interested in anyone?”

  “You’re moving out of your field, Doctor,” I said.

  “Just friendly conversation,” she said.

  I tapped my thumbs on Spinoza’s steering wheel.

  “A conversation usually means two sides,” Artra said.

  “Okay,” I said. “I am interested in someone.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Plotinus.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The philosopher. He had this idea that we can’t know ultimate truth through language and rationality, only by uniting with the Absolute.”

  A long silence followed.

  Finally, Artra said, “You are an interesting guy, Mike.”

  “That’s one word for it.”

  When we got to the Cove, Artra asked me if I’d like some coffee. I thanked her, but told her I wanted to get back to the beach before too many people got there. She said she understood. I wasn’t sure if she did.

  Rodney saw me walking by.

  “So what happened?” he asked.

  “She’s going to be okay,” I said. “We got her to the hospital in time.”

  He looked relieved. “The cops came around.”

  “Did you talk to them?”

  “They asked if I’d seen a big strong guy with a naked girl over his shoulder. I told ’em no.”

  “But you did see me.”

  “The girl had a T-shirt on. So she was only half-naked.”

  “Rodney…”

  “Far as I’m concerned, what happens in the C
ove stays in the Cove. I don’t want you getting in trouble.”

  “Ditto, Rodney. If they come back send them down to the beach.”

  When I got down to the sand, most of the fog had gone and I thought about finishing my run.

  Instead, I sat and just listened to the waves.

  There’s something about that sound that makes me think things can be reborn. Even somebody who can’t seem forget the people he’s killed.

  Somebody said, “Hey, man.”

  IT WAS A guy I’d seen around the Cove. Maybe mid-twenties. Long, curly blond hair flopping around like an overturned bowl of fusilli pasta. Scrawny. I could have put my thumb and index finger around his wrist and still had room for a couple of pencils and a Swiss Army knife.

  “Hey man yourself,” I said.

  He dropped to the sand next to me. He wore only red-and-black board shorts. He looked like a fence post with Christmas wrapping. He held a glass pipe, a Bic lighter, and a small baggie of combustible weed.

  “Join me?” he said.

  “I only walk on grass,” I said.

  “Cool with me.” He packed his pipe and fired it up. He held in the smoke, his head nodding slightly, before letting it out.

  “You a dawn to dusk man?” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Bake all day?”

  “So?”

  “Ever think of resting your brain?”

  “Huh?”

  “So it functions optimally.”

  “Opt … I don’t get what you’re saying, man.”

  “My point,” I said.

  He shrugged and looked at the ocean. .

  “What’s your name?” I said.

  “Call me C Dog.”

  “A dog of the sea?”

  “No, man. C, like in my first name, which is Carter, which I hate.”

  “Call me Mike,” I said.

  He nodded and fired up another hit.

  “What do you do, C?” I said. “I mean, when you’re not raising your consciousness.”

  “My what?”

  “Your work, what do you do?”

  “I got a band,” he said. “Unopened Cheese.”

  I blinked a couple of times.

  “Like it?” he said.

  “It’s got a certain aroma,” I said.