Baca Page 5

  Mickey said, “And you’ll deliver Bob’s bike?”

  “We will. Don’t worry about a thing. Now go, you all look bushed.”

  **

  By the time we rode back to the cars, Mickey had convinced us to stop at Landman’s home and rest a bit. We loaded the bikes and followed Mickey to the house and through the massive doors to a large entertainment room. I was starving and asked Mickey, “Do you think Bob would mind if we raided his kitchen?” She told us to stay, then scurried into the kitchen, eager to have something to do. Hondo and I sunk into two of the huge, comfortable chairs arranged in a semi-circle facing an enormous plasma screen television hung on the wall.

  Hondo said, “What do you make of those other words and names, the way they were all jumbled together? They were arranged like a pile of rocks.”

  “Beats me. We’ll just start with what we can figure out, and that’s Valdar.”

  Hondo said, “Yeah, probably not too many Chumash around to ask.”

  Mickey came back, pushing a food cart with assorted cold cuts, vegetables, cheeses, crackers, chips, sliced fruit, four types of dips, and showcased in the center was a plastic cylinder full of individually wrapped pieces of dried meat. The wrappers read: Kataki’s Gourmet Kobi Beef Jerky.

  I pointed at the jerky and raised my eyebrows. Mickey said, “Bob receives cases of it every month from Japan. He did a commercial for it over there. It’s a big seller.”

  Next to the jerky was an iced magnum of Cristal champagne, china plates, knives and forks, cloth napkins and three glasses.

  Hondo said, “You whip all this up just now?”

  Mickey blushed and turned her head, “It was nothing. I like doing it for you two.”

  I looked at the champagne, “Bob likes this?”

  “Oh my, yes. He has several cases of it in the wine cellar. It’s his favorite.”

  We nibbled on the jerky, which was better than most steaks I’d eaten in restaurants, and relaxed and drank champagne until the bottle was empty. Mickey sprang from her seat as if a catapult launched her and hurried into the kitchen, returning with a second bottle. We drank that, too. Hondo mentioned something about not wanting to offend the host. After the third bottle I was feeling no pain. Hondo said that if we drank one more, he’d be at Stage Ten on Dan Jenkins’ Ten Stages of Drunkenness, which is: Crank Up The Enola Gay.

  We left Mickey at Landman’s where she planned to spend the night. As we left, Mickey said, “I may check out some things tomorrow, do some investigating.”

  “Why don’t you tell us what it is and we’ll do it. That’s what we’re getting paid to do.”

  She shook her head, “No, no I’ll do it. Makes me feel like I can make a difference. I’ll do my sleuthing inconspicuously, don’t worry.”

  Now she was using words like sleuthing. “Don’t get into any trouble, Mickey. If you even dream it’s dangerous, you call me, okay?”

  She nodded and almost fell through the huge doorway as her head went forward. She grabbed my belt to keep from falling. “I guess I had a little too mush to drink. I think I’ll go to bed now.” She closed the big marble door and we walked to the Mercedes.

  “You want to drive?” Hondo asked.

  “Heck no I don’t want to drive. I had too much champagne.”

  “Me too.”

  “Then you better drive careful, and slow, and don’t bother me because I’ll be asleep in the passenger seat.”

  Hondo didn’t say anything and we drove off.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I woke to the sounds of many honking horns. I opened one eye and looked along the back of the convertible. Cars were stacked bumper to bumper in two lines that went back a quarter-mile. No one could pass because the Mercedes was straddling the middle stripe.

  I looked over at Hondo and saw he was smiling, wearing his shades and humming along as the Mamas and Papas sang California Dreaming from the speakers. “You realize you’re blocking two lanes of traffic?”

  “Sure.”

  I waited for more. There was only silence, humming. “You want to tell me why?” I said.

  “I noticed everyone passing seemed angry and in a hurry. I thought I could slow things down, let them re-adjust their karma and mellow out. It’s too beautiful an afternoon to have so many angry vibes permeating the highway populace.”

  I started laughing, “Sometimes I wonder if you’re not a hippie who got zapped here in a time warp. Some of these people may be in a legitimate hurry. Some of them may be armed with AK’s. You need to let them pass,” I shook my head. “Next thing I know you’ll be wearing love beads and have flowers poking out of your hair.”

  Hondo gave me the peace sign, pulled over and waved for the next ten minutes as cars passed, honking their horns and yelling and shooting us the finger. California, land of mellow. When most of them had passed, Hondo sped up and got me home without either of us being shot or maimed by irate drivers.

  I checked my phone for messages and had none, went to the bedroom, showered and changed into fresh gym shorts, then checked my e-mail. There were a few jokes sent to me by friends, but nothing extraordinary. I shut it off and went to the living room to catch the local evening news.

  One thing about drinking early and then taking a short nap and waking, it left me with a dull headache, fuzzy thinking and a cranky disposition. You’d think I would learn. I went to the kitchen and drank two large glasses of water, dug through the refrigerator and found half a Papa John’s Canadian bacon and pineapple pizza and several Rolling Rocks. I took one of the beers and the pizza and went to the couch.

  As I ate the cold pizza, I thought about where in the hell Bob Landman could be. Things, especially considering what we found today, were not pointing in a good direction.

  The Mexican women hadn’t heard a thing when Bob’s bike was thrown from the cliff, which indicated to me that Landman himself had thrown the bike and fanny pack, or he had been rendered unable to call out, or the bike and fanny pack had been taken from him on the trail, too far from the edge for the women to hear a yell or scuffle.

  I ate a second slice of pizza and drank a second beer, which seemed to help my headache and disposition. The news was long over and I flipped channels through all nine thousand stations twice before stopping on the Discovery Channel and a special on Neanderthals.

  I ate the last slice of pizza and was on the last beer when the doorbell rang. I almost didn’t get up because the show was where the Cro-Magnons -- baldheaded guys with dried flaky clay on their faces -- were about to whomp up on the poor Neanderthals. I wanted to see my team win, feel good for a change. The bell rang again and I went to the door and looked through the peep hole.

  Bond Meadows stood there wearing an open, knee-length fur coat and black stiletto heels and nothing else, unless you counted the bottle of Cristal champagne in her hand. On seeing the bottle, I pondered opening the door. She rang again and I peeked again. Maybe I only had the strength of seven or eight tonight. I opened the door and she came in.

  “I thought you were never going to open the door.”

  “I wanted to see how you were holding that bottle before I did.”

  A flash went through her eyes, then faded. “That’s not very nice.”

  “What do you want?”

  She shed the coat, then kicked off her high heels and walked to the couch to sit down. He body was incredible. The only other one even close was Hunter Kincaid, but in a more athletic way. Bond opened the champagne with a pop and said, “Do you have two glasses?”

  I nodded instead of speaking because my tongue had turned to stone. Other body parts were following the tongue.

  “Well, go get the glasses, silly boy.”

  I went to the kitchen and returned with two jelly glasses, the last clean glasses in the house.

  She took one, “The Flintstones, very avant-garde.” She poured the glass half-full and handed it to me, then poured her own. She patted the couch beside her and said, “Sit down so we can talk.”


  I was so aware that I only had on a pair of gym shorts. She moved closer and I felt her naked leg press against mine from hip to knee. The hairs on my exposed thigh tingled and stood higher. She ran a hand across them, trailed her nails up my hip and to the back of my neck, playing with the hairs. Goosebumps popped up on my arms. My breathing was heavy and the smell of her made my head spin. “Drink your champagne,” she said.

  I drank. I turned my head to look at her face, but my eyes were trying to grow out on stalks like a crab’s so I could angle them down and ogle this close, naked, perfect body without Bond realizing I wasn’t looking at her face. The thought of it reminded me of being sixteen and in the back of a car. I felt a small grin start, then grow wider as I thought about it, then I started laughing.

  Bond moved away from me and frowned. “What’s so funny?”

  I couldn’t stop. I tried to explain, but burst out laughing each time. One thing about laughing like that, it’s contagious. Before I knew it, Bond was chuckling, and then laughing along with me. We went on like that until our sides ached and we tapered off, with occasional hysterical flare-ups that had us wiping our cheeks.

  When we stopped for good and caught our breath I said, “What are you doing here, and what’s with the seduction?”

  Without our laughing jaunt, we’d be rutting on the carpet and furniture like a pair of supercharged minks, that I knew.

  “I wanted to make sure you were on my side.”

  “You don’t have to screw me to get that. If something happens to change it, I’ll tell you.” I sipped some Cristal and said, “Who did you think I’d side with?”

  “Frank.”

  I snorted, “Frank? He may be your husband but he’s an ass.”

  “Well, he’s a powerful man, and powerful men get what they want.”

  “Not always.” I took another sip and wiped off a drop running across Barney Rubble. “Did Frank say something to you?”

  “He hinted that you were working for him, that he’d hired you from under whoever originally hired you. He doesn’t know it’s me, and I thank you for keeping it from him.”

  I drained my glass and walked to the kitchen sink where I rinsed the glass and looked at her across the open bar that separated the living room from the kitchen. I said, “If Frank was here I’d tell him right to his face-” the door burst open and Carl Rakes stepped in, followed by Frank Meadows.

  “You’d tell Frank what?” Frank said as he rubbed his hands over his knuckles. He looked at Bond and said, “Put some clothes on, bitch.”

  Now wasn’t this a fine way to end an evening? Carl stood to the side of the door with his hands on his hips. He was dressed in a black fishnet tee shirt, tight-fitting black leather pants and lace-up work boots. His arms and torso were covered in blue-black prison tattoos. There were skulls and pirates, church cupolas, a portrait of Madonna, one-hundred dollar bills on each pec, and lots of words and phrases with some of the letters looking like backwards E’s and R’s and upside down V’s. The indigo ink highlighted Carl’s muscles like oil on a bodybuilder. His chest and stomach looked hard enough to break a knife blade. Frank said, “Carl, get that sonofoabitch over here.”

  You’d think he might ask me to walk over, after all it was my house. When Carl reached the end of the bar I slipped my hand into the sink and grabbed the handle of a meat tenderizing mallet I’d used the night before on a round steak. It was solid aluminum with a handle like a hammer and a head the size of a coke can. The face of the mallet was a pattern of small pyramids, almost like the inside of a waffle maker. Carl didn’t see me hide it behind my leg, and as he came around the bar I made my move.

  Carl was fast and leaned back from what he thought was a spinning backfist, but I faked with it and followed around with the mallet and its extra fourteen inches of length and caught him dead center in the middle of the forehead.

  There was a loud thock and I felt the impact all the way to my shoulder. Carl dropped in a heap and his body started jerking and quivering. Hondo calls it “Doing the chicken”.

  I walked around the bar and said, “Frank, you get this piece of trash out of my house and if you ever come in again, I’ll shoot your sorry ass.”

  Frank rubbed his hands harder, like he couldn’t wash something off, “You wait, Baca. You don’t have a clue what you’re getting into.”

  He started to say something to Bond, who still hadn’t put on any clothes but I said, “Uh-uh. She stays. Now get him out of here before I call the cops.”

  Frank went to Carl and helped him up. The mark of the meat mallet was glowing on Carl’s forehead like a fresh red brand. Tiny pinheads of blood caught the lights and glinted in the deepest parts of the waffle marks like miniature red Christmas bulbs. He wobbled beside Frank to the door and they went out without closing it.

  I walked to the door and saw the latch was broken, so moved a chair against it.

  Bond said, “Do you mean it? I can stay?”

  “For a while. You don’t need to go home and be around him.”

  I sat on the couch and she slid beside me. She touched my face and moved hers so close I felt the soft breath of her words, “Then we won’t laugh this time.”

  **

  When I woke the next morning Bond was asleep with only the top of her head above the covers. I rose and showered, put on fresh Wranglers, gray New Balance shoes, a black polo, my shoulder holster and my gray, fresh-from-the-cleaners Patagonia windbreaker. I let myself out without making a sound. The drive to the office left me time to think. Bond jumping into bed with me was unexpected but not unique, especially in Los Angeles where people still seemed to have sex as easy as shaking hands. Maybe I should have said no.

  Nahh, who was I kidding? The woman caught me at a weak moment and that was that. At least that was what I was going to tell myself.

  Thoughts about Frank were different. I wasn’t sure if he followed Bond to the house, but that would be the logical thing, especially since he showed no surprise at her being there. But Frank’s last words, “You don’t have a clue what you’re getting into,” nagged at me. That, and the fact he sent Carl after me without much talk. It shouldn’t have been his play. Too many chances to sue, especially when it was in my own house.

  I parked in the gym’s lot and went to my office. Hondo was already there and had a fresh cup of coffee waiting on my desk. He was sipping out of his favorite Star Wars mug and making origami with his free hand. There were two bird things on his desk and now he was working on what looked like a dog.

  I’m more refined. I drank from a personalized mug given to me by Hunter Kincaid. On one side it had a picture of Hannibal Lecter in his leather mask above two sugar cubes. On the other it read in Halloween letters: The Silence of the Lumps. I also ate a bag of peanut M&M’s. Between the coffee and the chocolate, I thought I might get enough caffeine. The peanuts were for nutrition.

  “I had a visit from Frank and Carl last night.”

  Hondo’s eyebrows went up. “He wanting you to co-star with Tom Cruise?”

  I filled him in and waited until the last to mention that Bond had spent the night. He looked at me and said, “Freud would have a field day with you.”

  We were both drinking a second cup of coffee when Hondo said, “So, what are you going to do when Hunter shows up tomorrow?”

  I burned my tongue and sat up. “She’s really coming?”

  “Yep. She won’t say it, and neither will you, but you both want to be friends again.”

  I nodded, “Yeah. We never should have taken it that far. We were great as friends.”

  “You can get it back. But Bond may be a problem. Might be like rubbing Hunter’s nose in it or something. Your call, though.”

  I nodded and thought about things as we finished our coffee. After we rinsed our cups and got in my truck, we headed for Landman’s house in Malibu to find Valdar, the painter. On the way, Sergeant Vick called to tell us that luminal tests on Landman’s fanny pack were negative: no evid
ence of blood. I asked him about prints off the money clip or anything else and he said partials in several places but nothing with enough points to identify. Vick also said the phone numbers on the sheets of paper had been the offices of several film companies, that they’d called and noted that Landman was friends with some of the producers and called on occasion to chat, and that no one had heard from Landman in four or five days. He reminded me about the Julio’s chips and salsa and hung up.

  We reached Landman’s Malibu address twenty minutes later and parked at the edge of the road. The sound of surf rumbled and the smell of the ocean was fresh and clean as we walked to the door and rang the bell. No one answered, so we went down the ridge to the ocean side of the house and saw an open sliding patio door on the second floor deck. I yelled a few times, but got no answer. Hondo went to the privacy gate on the stairs and after a moment said, “It’s open, let’s go.”

  I followed him up and we went through the patio door. Fine sand gritted as we stepped in and curtains floated in the breeze like the arms of banshees.

  There were canvases in various sizes and in various stages of completion littering the floor and leaning against the wall. One large canvas on an easel was half complete and showed Bob Landman as a Border Patrol Agent with gun belt and western Stetson looking out over mountains from a rocky point that seemed familiar.

  “That’s where the bike went over,” Hondo said.

  There was a color photo printed on computer paper attached to the side of the canvas, which showed Landman posing, sans uniform, like the painting and standing on the lip of the cliff where we’d stood yesterday. At the edge of the photo was a portion of yellow bicycle showing, the Colnago, and on the far side of it was a foot and leg in jeans to the knee. Someone else was with him.

  “Let’s look for a camera or see if he’s got a computer with the pictures already loaded.”

  Hondo walked into the bedroom as I moved down the hallway. I hadn’t taken three steps before Hondo said, “Better come in here, Ronny.”