Romeo's Hammer Read online

  “We’d like to interview you,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind,” I said.

  “We won’t use anything without your permission to—”

  “I’m ex-Mafia,” I said. “I don’t want Louie the Lip to find me.”

  The reporter gave me a frosty stare and told her camera guy to follow. That’s when I saw a woman about five feet away holding her phone up to me.

  She saw me staring at her and put the phone down and gave me an I’ve-been-hosed look. She slipped back through the crowd. I followed and caught her by the arm.

  “Let go of me!” she said. She was short and wide and had the sour look of a complaint department administrator. She was in her mid-thirties.

  “I’ll need to check your phone,” I said.

  “Get away!”

  The crowd roared about something. My right hand went out of its own accord—I tell myself—and snatched the phone.

  “Hey!” she said.

  A few heads near me turned.

  “Now Thelma,” I said, “you have to take your meds!”

  “Give me my phone!”

  “These people are trying to listen, dear.”

  “That’s my phone!”

  I shook my head. “Do you need to go back to Dr. Alcabides?”

  I thumbed her photos and found the video.

  “You’re stealing my phone!” she said.

  “Thelma! Come along!”

  I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her toward the back edge of the crowd. She tried to wriggle out of my arm, like a bag of cats.

  “Do you want the cops to take you in?” I said.

  “You can’t—”

  I checked the vid. It was shaky and my face indistinct in the dim light. I deleted it. Even if she went to the trouble of recovering it, it wouldn’t do damage. But it’s the principle of the thing.

  “Hey, what’s up?” The beefy and bearded drunk was behind us.

  “He’s got my phone!” the woman said.

  “She’s not allowed to have a phone,” I said.

  “What’d she do?” Beefy said. His breath was fit for trench warfare.

  “Broke out,” I said.

  “No!” she said.

  “It’s time for your meds, dear,” I said.

  Thelma started crying then. I powered off her phone.

  And said to Beefy, “I’m going to take her to the home now.”

  I pulled her away from the drunk, whispering, “I’ll give you back your phone once I explain things to you.”

  She was trembling now.

  When I got her to the corner of the parking lot, I said, “I believe in the right to privacy. I don’t want my likeness in somebody’s phone, or on YouTube.”

  “I was just—” she sobbed. “You were gonna be on TV. I thought you were somebody.”

  “I’m barely anybody,” I said. I put the phone in her hand. “I’m sorry I had to do that. Would you like to press charges?”

  Her head tilted up.

  “Would you like to tell a police officer I assaulted you?” I said.

  “Really?”

  “We can find a cop.”

  “I just want to go home,” she said.

  “Have you had dinner yet?”

  “What?”

  “Can I buy you a street dog?”

  “Street dog?”

  “You smell those onions?”

  She looked around, then said, “You freak me out.”

  “I get that a lot,” I said. I took a five from my wallet and put it in her hand. “Dinner’s on me.”

  She didn’t know whether to thank me or run screaming back to the beach. She chose a middle option, saying nothing, but giving a quick nod before turning her back.

  I hung there in the corner as Allison Ursula Serret continued her speech.

  “Look behind me, friends. Look at the lovely ocean, teeming with life. And then look at what people like Harrison Delimat dump into that ocean. That’s the cold heart of a developer who doesn’t care one bit about the environment, about the future, about the species that are dying out. These developers and technicians spew chemicals into the air and poison into our waters. They think their time is now, but we are not going to let it happen!”

  That got the crowd going.

  Me, too. Going back to my mobile home, that is. I’ve had enough of politicians. As Bierce wrote in The Devil’s Dictionary, a politician is an eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.

  Our edifice is trembling enough as it is. The last thing we need is more politicians.

  THE NEXT DAY, Wednesday, about eleven, I went to Kahuna’s. A fresh-faced hostess welcomed me with a Brite-Smile. It almost blinded me. “Welcome to Kahuna’s. Table for one?”

  “Maybe later. I’d like to speak to one of your people. A very big guy with a Marine tat on his arm. I think his name is Kahlua.”

  “You mean Kalolo?”

  “Ah, that’s it.”

  The hostess laughed. “Kahlua is a drink.”

  “Now I recall.”

  She smiled and her eyes lingered. “You knew that, didn’t you?”

  “That Kalolo serves Kahlua at Kahuna’s? Maybe.”

  “You’re funny. He’s at the bar.”

  THERE WAS A couple sitting at the end of the bar, near the window. The ocean was white and choppy today. There was a lone kayaker fighting his way along the caps. I envied him.

  I sat at the other end of the bar and waited for the big bartender to notice me. He saw me and his face was passive. Then he recognized me and the expression changed. It was as chilly as one of the white caps outside.

  He came right up to me and put his big hands on the bar top. And said nothing. His silence was as heavy as his body.

  “Hi, Kalolo,” I said.

  “What do you want?”

  “How about a Coke?”

  He shook his head.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I can handle it.”

  “You don’t really want a Coke,” he said.

  “I’m Brooklyn’s friend, remember?”

  “You’re not her friend.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “She told me.”

  “We’re on the same side here.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  One of the things Joey Feint taught me was that you need to establish rapport with a recalcitrant witness. Find some common ground.

  “How about those Dodgers?” I said.

  Kalolo said nothing. His dark brown eyeballs gave off a simmering heat.

  “I really would like that Coke,” I said.

  He removed his hands from the bar top and for a moment looked like he didn’t know what to do with them. Then he grabbed a glass and shoveled in some ice, took the soda gun and filled the glass with Coke. He put a little napkin down and placed the glass on top of it.

  “Do you have a slice of lemon?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  There were lemon slices and cherries within reach.

  I looked at them.

  Kalolo looked at them.

  I smiled.

  Kalolo didn’t smile.

  “I was hoping you might help me find her,” I said. “She’s missing.”

  Kalolo didn’t smile even more.

  “Last time I saw her was here,” I said. “With you. When’s the last time you saw her?”

  The bartender said, “Finish and go. It’s on the house.”

  Ironic, coming from a guy who was the size of a house.

  I reached over for a handful of lemons. He would have to do some more slicing now. I squeezed the citrus into the Coke. Some of the juice splashed on the bar top. I put the rinds down in a pile and took a sip of the Coke.

  I squinted. “Sour,” I said. “And let that be a lesson to you.”

  I got up and left.

 
; THERE’S A SMALL sliver of beach access behind Kahuna’s. You have to hop a chain-link fence and climb over some rocks. And ignore the No Trespassing signs the Colony crowd put up.

  I’m good at ignoring signs.

  I went down to the beach, took off my flip-flops, and started walking, looking at the houses. Back in the day when they were first built, people called them shacks. These shacks now fetched three million or more. And I was sure that out of one of these Brooklyn Christie had stumbled with poison pumping into her bloodstream.

  Joey Feint always talked about “shoe leather” being the key to a good investigation. He meant you walk a lot of streets, knock on a lot of doors, talk to a lot of people.

  My only shoe leather was bare feet on very exclusive sand, but I was sure there was someone in one of these places I needed to talk to.

  The beach was virtually empty, consistent with the exclusivity theme. A man with a tan and Speedos and a phone stood at water’s edge. He was gesturing with one hand as he spoke into the phone. He looked at me as I walked by. He seemed surprised there was somebody else on the beach.

  He went back to gesturing.

  Up ahead I saw another denizen. A woman sitting in a beach chair positioned about halfway between the water and one of the homes.

  She had blonde hair done up retro-style. The Jean Harlow look was making a comeback. What’s old eventually becomes new in Hollywood and Malibu. I wondered when the Laurel & Hardy look would come around again and I’d see men walking the beach in derbies, fiddling with their ties.

  This Harlow had on big, round sunglasses and wore a sheer, black beach dress over her bikini. Her legs were long and smooth and crossed at the ankles. She was reading a hardcover book.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  She looked up. Paused. Then pushed her sunglasses up to her platinum-blonde hair.

  Her face seemed sculpted out of porcelain, for nature does not work with such precision. The normal human face has nuances and nerves and a certain elasticity. The face that looked at me did not seem capable of wrinkling. Or smiling. Or making any sudden moves.

  “This is a private beach,” she said.

  “Is it?” I said.

  “How did you get here?”

  “I live in Paradise Cove.”

  She closed the hardcover. Then she gave me a lingering gaze, like a horse breeder assessing stock.

  It was hard to guess her age, but I figured somewhere north of forty.

  “You look like someone who belongs on a beach,” she said. “Just not this one.”

  “I believe the sand is not owned by anyone,” I said.

  “We get the occasional troublemaker,” she said. “Why don’t you just move along?”

  “What are you reading?”

  She held up the book. It was a James Patterson.

  “Is it good?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t have to be,” she said.

  While I was trying to figure out what she meant, she stood and tossed the book on the beach chair. She folded the chair and put it under her arm, started walking away.

  “Can I ask you something first?” I said.

  She stopped and turned. “Who are you?”

  “I’m looking for a woman—”

  “Oh?”

  “––who may have been hanging around the beach over this way.”

  “Is she your woman?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you looking for her?”

  “She’s been reported missing.”

  The woman’s blue-velvet eyes turned inquisitive. “Are you some kind of detective?”

  “I am looking into the matter on behalf of a family member. This woman had long, dark hair, worn straight. Mid-twenties. Tall and …”

  “And?”

  “Well, I mean …”

  “Nice body?”

  “Not that I go out of my way to notice,” I said.

  “Listen, sweets,” she said with a slight curl of her lip. “We want you to notice.”

  My interview was not going the direction I had anticipated.

  “You know,” she said, “I can’t really think in the morning without a Bloody Mary. Have one?”

  “I don’t think so, but—”

  “I really think you should,” she said.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I believe I know the woman you mean.”

  I FOLLOWED HER up some wooden steps to a redwood deck that held a four-chair patio set and one immaculate stainless steel barbecue grill. We went inside through a sliding glass door. She opened it first.

  The inside was hardwood floor, rugs, soft furniture, and pillows. There was a bar in the corner of the expansive living room.

  “Let me fix us the drinks,” the woman said as she stepped behind the bar.

  “Nothing for me.”

  “Oh, come on. Join me.”

  “This really isn’t a social call,” I said.

  She trained her blue-velvet eyes on me. “My name is Nikki. What’s yours?”

  “Mike.”

  “We are now social. Have one with me.”

  “Can we talk about the woman first?”

  “No.”

  She opened what I presumed was a small refrigerator. She brought up a can of V-8 tomato juice and placed it on the bar top. Did the same with a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka, followed in order by Tabasco, and Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce. Then she placed a silver cocktail shaker and two highball glasses with gilt rivulets next to the ingredients.

  “How long have you lived at the Cove?” she said as she opened the Stoli.

  “Not long,” I said.

  “Where you from?”

  “Here and there.”

  “Nicely mysterious,” she said.

  She poured a healthy amount of vodka into the shaker. Put in a little less of the V-8, which, according to Hoyle, should be the more copious of the two. She expertly dashed in the Tabasco and Worcestershire and followed that up with some salt and pepper.

  “Nikki, I don’t want to take up more time than—”

  “Yes you do,” she said. “Or you don’t know your own mind.”

  She grabbed some ice cubes from the below—“Pardon my fingers, sweets”—and tossed them in the shaker. She put the shaker top on and began the maraca routine. As she shook it, she looked at me coolly. She hadn’t smiled once.

  Nikki poured the Marys into the glasses and went to the fridge once more, coming up with a couple of lemon slices and two stalks of celery. She put one lemon slice on the rim of each glass and dunked the celery stalks.

  You cannot say she was not prepared.

  She walked the drinks over and handed me one.

  Not wanting to insult her, I accepted it.

  “I like things spicy,” she said. “Tell me what you think.”

  “You mean about the drink?”

  “You are sweet. Let’s sit over here.” She placed herself on a plush sofa and patted the spot next to her. I took a spot a little further away.

  “So you said you knew the woman I’m looking for,” I said.

  “How’s your drink?” Nikki said.

  “Fine.”

  “You haven’t tried it.”

  “I saw you make it.”

  She put her lips on her glass. Kept them there a moment. Then she took a sip.

  “Any information you have would be appreciated,’ I said.

  “I may have seen her. When did she disappear?”

  “Sometime over the last few days. When did you see her?”

  “I said I may have seen her. I’m not exactly the sheriff of the beach.”

  “You just want people kicked off it.”

  “You’re not exactly friendly, are you?” she said.

  “I’m not here as a friend,” I said.

  “We can change that.”

  She put her drink on the glass-top coffee table and coiled her legs up onto the sofa.

  “I want you to know, Mike, I never do this. Strange
men from the beach. But there’s something about you I really like.”

  It had been only ten minutes from beach to this.

  “You shouldn’t be doing this,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “I could be dangerous.”

  “Are you?”

  “A psychopath.”

  “You don’t sound like a psychopath.”

  “That could be one of my tricks,” I said.

  “Is it a trick?”

  I put my drink on the table. “Can you answer my question? Then I should move along.”

  “Don’t hurry,” Nikki said. “I’ll behave myself, if you really want me to.”

  “I think that would be best.”

  A door slammed. I almost dropped my Bloody Mary.

  “Great,” she said.

  “What?”

  “My husband’s home.”

  HE WAS A good-looking sixty or so. Full head of gray hair. In shape, and wore a blue suit and perfectly knotted tie.

  “Another one?” he said dryly.

  “Your mind is in the gutter, as usual,” Nikki said.

  “Where I found you,” he said.

  “Sir, if I can explain,” I said.

  “No need,” he said. “I know the whole thing. I suppose I should kill you now. Kill you both, in fact.”

  “Don’t be dull,” Nikki said.

  “I’d get off light,” he said. “And it would be worth it.”

  “Where are we having dinner tonight, dear?” Nikki said.

  The man took off his coat and tossed it on a stool near the wet bar. He took some keys out of his pocket and unlocked something behind the bar.

  I just stood there like a dolt.

  The man came up with a healthy looking revolver and pointed it at me.

  “Why don’t you go out to the beach, honey?” the man said. “I want to talk to your stud.”

  I said, “I refuse to be shot under false pretenses.”

  “Watch yourself,” Nikki said to me as she swept on by. She went out the sliding door and closed it behind her.

  “Nice marriage you’ve got,” I said.

  The man nodded. He sighed. “You said you wanted to explain.”

  “Put the gun down, huh?”

  “Tell me what’s going on,” he said.

  So I explained to him about Brooklyn, about scoping out the beach, about finding his wife reading a book. About how she lured me into this den of iniquity.

  When I finished the man looked resigned to the hand fate had dealt him. “I believe you,” he said, lowering the gun. “That’s Nikki all over. You can go now.”