Romeo's Fight Read online

  “Who says?”

  Archie shook his head. “You serious?”

  “You look at the pictures and you practice.”

  The bartender put another shot of Bushmill’s in front of Archie, who said, “So what did you do before you went into fighting?”

  “You’re stalling,” I said.

  He downed his shot. “Zane says you’re some kind of investigator now.”

  “I do some work for a lawyer. I’m not licensed for private stuff, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” he said.

  A skinny guy in a porkpie hat, with a red ascot around his throat, shoved some change into a classic jukebox. A moment later the place was filled with a Celtic jig.

  “Tell me why you want an investigator,” I said.

  “Not just anybody. It has to be somebody I trust.”

  “You pay an investigator, you buy their trust.”

  “But I know I can trust you. We were brothers once. The word back then also was you were a straight-up guy.”

  “What’s your issue?”

  “Nothing much,” he said. “Just that somebody wants to kill me.”

  I waited for him to explain.

  “The last month I been getting ‘em,” he said. “Voicemails from a private number. Whispering voice saying ‘Don’t stick your nose in any further.’ A couple of notes in my mailbox. Same stuff.”

  “Those exact words?”

  “More or less.”

  “What is it you’re supposed to be sticking your nose in?” I said.

  Archie motioned for another Bushmill’s.

  “How many of those are you going to pound?” I said.

  “As many as it takes to get through this,” he said.

  On and on went the Celtic jig.

  Archie got his drink but this time he decided to nurse it. He took a small sip and said, “Ever hear of the Hollywood Hunk murder?”

  “Rings a bell,” I said. “Back in the nineties, wasn’t it?”

  “January 8, 1996. Young wannabe actor named Shad Halls. Jogger spotted his body. Half of it, anyway. The upper half, with no head on it. Head was found a little way off, propped on a rock. Also, his guts were missing.”

  “Yeah, it’s coming back.”

  “Never found who did it. It was sort of like that other case, from way back. The one with the girl, what was it?”

  “The Black Dahlia,” I said.

  Archie nodded. “Anyway, there were a couple of guys the cops suspected in the Hunk case. A porn actor was the prime suspect, he and Shad Halls were together for awhile. Meanwhile, the cops questioned some other people, one guy was a vet. I mean, a veterinarian, respected guy, guy who saves dogs and cats. He may have had some connection to Halls, too, through a pet store or something, where Halls used to work. But that’s it, so the cops double down on the porn actor, a guy who called himself Woody Wildman.”

  I shook my head at the decline of civilization.

  “So anyway,” Archie said, “this vet leaves town a few months later, goes off to Europe somewhere, never comes back. Nobody knows why. Maybe he didn’t like the way he was handled by the cops and all that. He hates America. Something. Anyway, he’s off the radar for years, and finally dies somewhere in Finland.”

  “What happened to Mr., um, Wildman?”

  “AIDS,” Archie said. “And the cops cleared him before he died.”

  “Nice of them,” I said.

  “So a year ago some new evidence turns up. A stash of pictures of Shad Halls in, you know, nothing. Black-and-white pictures, sort of artistic, if that’s your idea of artistic.”

  “Not Ansel Adams, is what you’re saying.”

  “Am I?” Archie said. “Who is Anvil Adams?”

  “Go on with your story,” I said.

  Archie took another sip of Irish whiskey. “Okay. Turns out these pics are kind of in a style that this veterinarian was into. He did photography on the side, for fun and sometimes money, of actors and things. So these pictures are a link between Shad Halls and the vet.”

  “Not a very strong link for murder,” I said. “Maybe the vet didn’t take the pictures.”

  “Except for one thing,” Archie said. “They were found in a box underneath the vet’s house, in a hiding place.”

  “Okay, now you’re talking evidence. So what’s your interest in all this?”

  “I’m the guy who found the box,” Archie said.

  “How’d you happen to do that?”

  “I grew up in that house,” he said.

  “What?”

  He nodded. “The vet was my father.”

  I raised my eyebrows. I’m subtle that way.

  Archie said, “Heavy, isn’t it?”

  “Have you gone to the police with this evidence?”

  He finished his drink. He started to motion for another. I caught his arm and pulled it down.

  “Just talk,” I said.

  “I was gonna go to the cops,” he said. “But somebody stole the pictures.”

  “How?”

  “Broke into my place. Took ‘em.”

  “Just the pictures?”

  “Nah, some other stuff, too. They were in a box, like I said, so maybe the guy figured it had something valuable in it.”

  “Hard to buy that,” I said.

  “How come?”

  “Burglars look for obvious value. Jewelry, laptops. They don’t mess with ambiguous things.”

  “You think somebody knew what was in the box?” Archie said.

  “Did you tell anybody you had these?” I said.

  “Nobody, that’s the thing. And then phone calls started. Private numbers, guy warning me not to say anything to anybody.”

  “About the box?”

  “That’s all he’d say. I’m sure that’s what he means.” He shook his head, looking at his empty glass. “Can I have one more, Mike?”

  “Drinking problem, maybe?”

  “Come on.”

  “I’m not your mother,” I said. “But I haven’t seen you for twelve years and now, out of the blue, you find me and give me this incredible story all while soaking yourself in whiskey.”

  “You think I’m lying about all this?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” I said. “But it doesn’t quite pass the schnoz test.”

  “The what?”

  “The schnozzola. The nose. I used to do some work with a PI named Joey Feint, and he had the schnoz test. He knew when something didn’t smell quite right. My schnoz is tingling now. Which means there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  He took a long moment to think it over, tapping his empty glass on the bar top.

  “You really are good,” he said.

  “Come clean,” I said.

  A few more taps. I put my hand over his to stop it. His knuckles were gnarled from years of pounding.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “I got some other troubles.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  “Girl troubles.”

  “Go on.”

  “She’s twenty-three.”

  I put my forehead in my hand.

  “I know!” Archie said.

  “You’re almost twenty years older,” I said.

  “So?”

  “These things usually don’t end well,” I said. “She live with you?”

  He nodded.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Missy. Missy Nolan.”

  “So what’s the trouble?” I said.

  “Drugs.”

  “Oh, this keeps getting better,” I said.

  “She is in with some bad people.”

  “Shocker.”

  “I’m having another drink, I don’t care.” Archie called out to the bartender. He was starting to get loud.

  I fished out one of Ira’s lawyer cards. “Here. You go to the cops and you tell them what you’ve told me, about the pictures. And you better tell them about any trouble you’re in. You
may need some legal counsel. This is the lawyer I work for.”

  The bartender brought Archie another shot. He looked at it like a sad slosh. Which is what he was.

  “I’m scared, Mike,” he said. “I mean, you find out your father was maybe a killer, and now people are warning me not to say anything.”

  “What about your girlfriend?” I said. “Aren’t you scared for her?”

  “Well, yeah, sure.”

  “I can just hear the tremble in your voice,” I said.

  “What are you saying?”

  I tapped my nose. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He downed the drink in one knock. “Maybe this was a bad idea,” he said.

  “Maybe it was.”

  “I thought I could talk to you.”

  “That’s what you’ve been doing.”

  My phone buzzed. It’s a white-list phone, programmed by Ira. He’s clever that way.

  It was Artra Murray, a doctor who lives near me in Paradise Cove. She runs a public medical clinic off Pacific Coast Highway.

  “Just thought you should know your friend C Dog is here,” she said.

  C Dog referred to Carter “C Dog” Weeks, a twenty-something musician I was trying to get off a weed habit and into good health.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “He’ll live,” Artra said. “But he wondered if you could come in.”

  “On my way.”

  I put the phone down. “Look, Arch. Tell the cops about the phone calls. California has anti-stalking laws, including by cell phone, so if you report it your carrier can set it up so if you ever ID the other guy’s carrier, you can get a subpoena for their records.”

  “That’s good stuff, Mike.”

  “It’s a long shot, but that’s the only kind of shot you have right now. And you’re going to have to settle up with the drug dealers. I’d get your girlfriend out of town until you do. Maybe permanently. Ever think of that?”

  “Where would I go?” Archie said.

  “South Dakota,” I said.

  I left Archie with his booze and drove Spinoza down the new incline to PCH. The sky was blue and the sun friendly. A stiff wind whipped the waters of the Pacific, turning it into a blanket of white caps. It was the perfect picture of the city I was gradually calling home. Always something churning on the surface, and underneath all sorts of stuff you can’t see.

  It was a fifteen-minute drive up the coast to Artra’s clinic. The clinic was set back on the inland side of the highway, behind a strip mall.

  Artra Murray had been the first African-American woman appointed head of surgery at Johns Hopkins. She gave up a lucrative professional practice several years ago to bring medical services to the poor. She lives modestly in her double-wide in Paradise Cove and is at the clinic six days a week.

  She has more energy than most women half her age, which is sixty-five. That’s why I wasn’t surprised to find her refilling the paper cup dispenser at the Sparkletts water cooler near the front desk.

  “Major surgery?” I said.

  She looked over her shoulder at me. “You talking about the cups or our friend Carter?”

  “Let’s start with C Dog. I can always get a drink of water later.”

  Now she faced me. She was wearing a white smock over blue scrubs. Her hair was gray and stylish. She looked like she’d be perfectly at home hosting a tea as she would asking for a scalpel.

  “Let me put it this way,” Artra said. “His problems are behind him.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “Thrombosis of the hemorrhoid, perhaps?”

  She laughed. “Where did you pick that up?”

  “Reading,” I said. “Can I perform his surgery?”

  “Sure,” Artra said. “I’ll get the butcher knife and bottle of rye, and you can go right to work.”

  “Done.”

  “But that’s not what’s bothering our friend,” Artra said. “What entered into his backside was a genus of the Cactaceae family.”

  “Cactus?”

  She nodded.

  “C Dog fell in some cactus?” I said.

  “Not exactly fell. More like sat on.”

  I winced. “How did he manage that?”

  “Maybe you should ask him that yourself.”

  C Dog was in a bed in a cubicle, looking sadder than a mutt without a supper dish. Carter Weeks had the lean body of the former drug user slash rock musician he fancied himself to be.

  “So what’s this I hear about some prickly behavior?” I said.

  “Aw, man.” C Dog’s wild thatch of blond hair framed his sad face.

  “You’re going to have to tell me,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “For the betterment of mankind. We don’t want this happening to anybody else.”

  “Just … don’t.”

  “Were you high?” I said.

  “No!” He tossed his head back. “I swear! I’m clean, going on two months.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Then what are cactus needles doing where sun rarely shines?”

  He sighed. “I was playing Freak with some buds.”

  “Freak?”

  “Kind of like keep away, only extreme. You play it with a Frisbee. In the hills.”

  “Uh-huh. Where does the cactus come in?”

  “Total accident.”

  “But how? Did it tear through your pants?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Please tell me you were wearing pants,” I said.

  He looked away.

  I said, “You were playing this game in the buff?”

  “That’s why it’s called Freak.”

  There are times in life when you are presented with a set of facts that strain your optimism for the future of mankind.

  “So you are telling me you ran around after a Frisbee in the snake-and-cactus infested hills of Malibu, dingling and dangling, and you were not high?”

  “I swear!”

  “Now that is even more troubling than if you’d been high.”

  He put out his hands, pleading. “Come on, man, haven’t you ever done anything crazy?”

  “Not where the tender parts of my body are concerned,” I said.

  C Dog closed his eyes.

  “The main thing,” I said, “is to learn from disaster. Experience is an expensive lesson, Benjamin Franklin said. But the only way to grow wisdom.”

  “Benjamin Franklin can kiss my—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence.” I dragged a chair over to his bedside and sat. “Franklin left us many a fine aphorism.”

  “A fine what?”

  “Short, wise saying. Plough deep while sluggards sleep and you shall have corn to sell and to keep.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “You’ve got to expand your mind, C. Here’s another one. He who exposes his butt to needles should not complain when the point is made.”

  He shook his head. His eyes were completely vacant.

  “That last one I just made up,” I said. “But you can’t deny the wisdom of it now, can you?”

  Half smile from C. I considered that a partial victory.

  “How many beers did you have?” I said.

  The smile vanished. “Come on, man, I just wanted to have some fun with my friends.”

  “Is this fun?”

  He tugged on his ear.

  “C, listen to me now, you’re off to a good, new start. Don’t let one little bump in the road, as it were, get you off track.”

  “Life sucks.”

  “We’ve got to work on your vocabulary,” I said. “I think it needs to be a tad more expressive.”

  “Man, would you talk like a normal person sometimes?”

  “Alenda lux ubi orta libertas.”

  “What the h—”

  “It means light is to be nourished where liberty abounds.”

  “What the h—”

  “It means that with your freedom, seek light, not mere pleasure.”

  “I don’t k
now what the––”

  “Now you get some rest and do what the doc tells you. We’ll do some more philosophical training when you get out.”

  “Yeah?”

  I nodded. “You’re going to be a stand-up guy from now on.”

  He closed his eyes.

  “Now,” I said. “Tell me the real reason you wanted to see me.”

  “I got a little bit of a problem,” C Dog said.

  “Continue.”

  “Promise not to get mad?”

  “I will only promise that I won’t spank you on the backside,” I said. “That would be cruel.”

  After a long sigh, he said, “You know, you scare me sometimes.”

  “I sometimes scare myself,” I said. “Don’t let that stop you.”

  He looked at the ceiling as if searching for an escape hatch. Not finding one, he said, “I owe some money to a guy, and he wants it. And I don’t have it.”

  What was it about me today? Archie’s girlfriend and now C Dog, owing.

  I said, “If this is about drugs—”

  “Not!” C Dog said.

  “What kind of money are we talking about?”

  “Kind of a lot.”

  “Be specific for me.”

  He paused. Then, looking at the palms of his hands, he said, “Twenty thou.”

  I sat back in my chair.

  “I take it,” I said, “this is not a legitimate lender to whom you owe this money.”

  “No, man.”

  “Explain.”

  “Okay, you’re gonna find out anyway. You always do.”

  I made a come on motion with my hand.

  “I needed some big money,” C Dog said. “About six months ago I found a guy who would give it to me. Fifteen grand.”

  “Who was this guy?”

  “His name is Truman.”

  “Like the president?”

  “Which president?”

  “The one named Truman,” I said.

  “There was a president named Truman?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was his last name?”

  I kept myself from slapping my forehead. “What was the money for?”

  “My band. Equipment, speakers. We need it to go to the next level.”

  “As I recall, your band is named Unopened Cheese.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What level are you at now?”

  “Pretty low. But not for long.”

  “So you found this guy. A loan shark, right? And now you’re behind and owe twenty, with penalty and interest.”