Baca Page 7

  I had a chance to end the ridicule, but this was becoming a point of honor. “Paint it like it was,” I said.

  Hondo grinned, shook his head and walked to the Mercedes.

  At the office, we decided we should split up and work two things at once. Hondo would go to Landman’s office and get with Mickey to go over records for the weeks preceding Bob’s disappearance, and I was going to check around on the Valdar connection. Hondo left and I went through the side door and into the gym. My friend was behind the juice bar drinking something that looked like a half-gallon purple milkshake.

  “Arch, what is that?” I asked.

  Archie swallowed and grimaced at the taste, “My own recipe. Keeps me going all day.”

  I said, “You know, at your age prunes will keep you going all day, too.” Archie was eighty years old, a bodybuilder from the golden age of Muscle Beach who’d placed second in contests a half-dozen times to Steve Reeves and John Grimek. He still does a thousand sit-ups a day and can bench press three-fifty. Archie bought the building thirty years ago and had part of it converted into an apartment, where he now lived, and the remainder into a gym and our office. Archie finished the drink in six huge swallows, burped and said, “You must want something with all that flattery you’re throwing at me.”

  I put my hand over my heart, “Archie, how can you say that?”

  “Your ass. Now, what do you need?”

  “My truck’s in the shop-”

  “What’s the matter, it get harpooned?” Oh, he thought that was funny.

  “Nooo. I’m having a little body work done, so I don’t have any wheels.”

  He walked to the front desk, reached behind the counter and pulled out some keys. He tossed them to me and said, “The Vette’s around back. Don’t wreck it.”

  Archie’s Corvette is a mint condition, candy apple red sixty-three convertible. He’d bought it new after some friends got him speaking parts in several of those late fifties-early sixties motorcycle gang movies.

  It was a fine feeling to drive along Santa Monica Boulevard with the top down. I slowed as I passed the Beverly Hilton, getting waves and smiles from three young women getting into a Bentley. I took a left on Wilshire and a few minutes later passed Sotheby’s and turned onto Dayton Way. Pelson’s Galleries, LLC was up on the right and I parked beside a baby blue convertible Ferrari 360 Modena Spider. On days like this, convertibles seemed to sprout like mushrooms.

  Inside, I told a willowy young man with blinding white teeth who I was and asked him to tell Harold Pelson, the owner, that I would like to have a minute with him.

  Harold came out and shook my hand as he led me to his office. We exchanged the usual pleasantries and I got to the reason for my visit.

  “What can you tell me about an artist named Valdar?”

  Harold pursed his lips, thought a moment and said, “I read something the other day about possible foul play. I believe it said there was blood found in the home he was living in at Malibu.”

  “I read it, too. But what I’m interested in is his history, that sort of thing.”

  “Well, he’s originally from the former Soviet Union, a town on the Volga River called Samara, where the Samara and Volga join. He was discovered while working at the big prison there, and he developed a quick following in Europe and over here. He made his first show in the United States three years ago, in New York. It was some of his best work, very primitive and powerful. He’s gaining fame because of his outlaw personality and raw talent. But he’s very uneven. I’ve seen several of his paintings that were extraordinary, very bold and powerful, and others that look like they should have been painted on velvet and sold in Mexico.”

  “That bad.”

  “Yes. He seems to get caught up in other styles, and then butchers them when he paints. Absolutely atrocious, and he doesn’t take criticism well at all. But then, that also adds to his mystique. He’s a rough man, and has been in a number of serious brawls with people who don’t see things his way.”

  “You mean like fistfights?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t normally associate artists with that type behavior.”

  “There are a few bad ones; egotists, boors, womanizers, drunkards, hedonists. But you’re right; artists are not normally people who beat others to a bloody mess.”

  “Have you met him while he’s been in California?”

  “I was at the same party once. It was a showing given for Deco Martinez, the ex-gang member turned artist. But Valdar brought some people with him that I didn’t care to associate with.”

  “Because...?”

  “They were Russian, like Valdar. He was very friendly to Martinez, but Valdar’s little group discouraged any intruders into their clic, except for Robert Landman, the actor, and Frank Meadows and his wife. They were well received. Everyone else was given cold stares and silence.”

  “No other artists got close?”

  “Only Deco.”

  We talked another ten minutes without anything making me jump up and shout “Eureka!”, so I thanked Harold and left. By the time I reached our office, the sun was backlighting low clouds on the horizon like a halo. Hondo sat at his desk eating half a Subway’s sandwich. The other half was on my desk, along with a canned Coca-Cola Classic.

  “It was good of you to cook,” I said.

  “I figured you’ll need your strength. Bond called a couple minutes ago, said she was at your house and had a surprise waiting for you.”

  I looked at the sandwich, “Maybe I shouldn’t eat, then. Maybe she cooked.”

  “I don’t think you want to wait.”

  Something was making the hairs on my arms stand up. “What is it?”

  “There was a message left on the answering machine when I got here about a minute before Bond called. I didn’t listen to it until after she hung up. The message was from Hunter. She got an earlier flight out and called on her cell phone to say she was on her way to your house, since she didn’t know where my new house or our new office was. She also said she had a surprise for you.”

  I wondered if I could disappear across the border, maybe live in a fishing village in Baja under an assumed name.

  Hondo said, “You need to get over there in case they get testy.”

  “Come on with me.”

  “All right.” He stood up and pointed at my sandwich, “You going to eat that?”

  “I’ve lost my appetite.”

  **

  We went in Hondo’s Mercedes and I was torn between wanting him to hurry and wanting us never to get there. I was not looking forward to this one. We reached the house and saw the front door standing wide open. Bond’s Jaguar was the only car in the driveway.

  I went to the door and looked at the living room. Nothing was broken, and there were no bullet holes in anything I could see. I stepped in and Bond came out of the bedroom wearing shorts and a tee shirt. She saw us, walked over and kissed me. Her mouth tasted of ice and orange slices and bourbon. She pulled back and looked at me when I didn’t respond.

  Bond said, “I had a visitor a bit ago. Gave me quite a start. She evidently has a key because I’d locked the door before I went into the bedroom to prepare a special surprise for you.”

  I felt my shoulders sag and a deep heaviness sink into the center of me.

  Bond continued, “We had an intense discussion for a while, then she left.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “Oh, she said lots of things, but if you mean when she left, yes. She said she would talk to Hondo tomorrow.”

  Hondo said, “I’ll come by in the morning, pick you up.” He left without saying good-bye to Bond.

  I went to the couch and Bond sat beside me, playing with the hairs on my neck. She said, “Don’t you want to go into the bedroom, let me show you my surprise?”

  I was silent for a minute, then said, “No, I’m not up to it tonight.”

  She got upset. “Just what is your problem? Do you have the hots for her? If tha
t’s the case, then fine, bring her back and we can all three enjoy each other. It might liven up what’s turning out to be a real shit of an evening.”

  “I think it might be best if you leave.”

  Bond jerked to her feet and said, “Fine! You don’t know what you’re giving up, Mr. Baca.” She stormed into the bedroom and came out carrying a small overnight bag. “And you can consider yourself fired, too. You’re off the case, you asshole!” She went out the open door and I heard the Jaguar start and wheels squeal as she left.

  I leaned forward and rested my head in my hands. No matter what my intentions, I have a way of screwing up with women without even trying. I walked to the door and closed it, then went to the cabinet to take out a bottle and try to kill enough brain cells so that I’d get rid of the ones that carried the memory of this night.

  **

  I woke the next morning at sunrise with a good one. The Flintstones glass was still half-full of orange juice and vodka, the ice long melted, and I had a throbber of a headache that started behind my right eye and ran back along my skull and down my neck, which felt like it was impaled with ice picks. My tongue felt coated and I could smell my own breath. I walked to the kitchen and drank two large glasses of water, then went to the bedroom and put on my gym shorts, running shoes and a white tee shirt and went out the door.

  The first mile was probably equal to the death march on Bataan. In the first four hundred yards, I struggled, with my calves and thighs aching like a bad tooth. I huffed and croaked, gasping as I tried to pull in enough air through lungs that felt as small as soda straws. The sweat started early and my shirt was soaked at the end of the first five minutes. I kept at it. At the end of the second mile, I thought I might live. I continued for a third before slowing to an easy walk and circling back to the house. I was okay physically when I got there, and I showered, changed, drank coffee, and ate toast while I waited for Hondo.

  He drove up at seven-thirty and we headed to the office.

  He said, “How are you feeling?”

  “Okay.”

  “I talked to Hunter last night after I got home. She stayed in a hotel last night, but I talked her into coming over to talk.”

  “I didn’t plan for that to happen.”

  “I told her that, but I couldn’t tell her you and Bond weren’t sleeping together. Seems Bond put the knife in and twisted it while she and Hunter were talking, made it out that you and she were long time lovers, that she’d been living with you for months. You can sure pick them.”

  “Can’t I. By the way, Bond fired us last night after you left.”

  “You told her to leave, didn’t you?”

  “Uh-huh. That was her parting shot.”

  Hondo let a big smile spread across his face.

  I said, “What are you smiling about?”

  “We get to send her money back and don’t have to be tied to her anymore.”

  “Yeah, but we do have to eat, pay bills, stuff like that.”

  “I’ve still got a few dollars in the bank, and we don’t have car payments – well, we’ve got to pay for Shamu’s body work, and we can wash towels and clean up for Archie in the gym to take care of rent. We’re on top of the world.”

  “What about food?”

  “I’ve got three bags of Julio’s chips and three jars of salsa that Hunter brought. They’re in the trunk. Between that and the large box of uncooked spaghetti in my cabinet, we can live large.”

  “These the chips we were getting for Vick?”

  “He’ll never know.”

  Everything else was going to hell, so I said, “Why not?”

  To celebrate our new independence we took the bags of chips and jars of salsa into the office. We opened one bag and one jar and ate them while we talked. Both of us had a mouthful when the phone rang.

  I pushed the speaker button so we could both hear and said around the food, “Heawoe.”

  “Baca, is that you?” It was Sergeant Vick Best.

  I chewed faster and swallowed, “Hello, Vick. How you doing?”

  He was silent a moment before saying, “You eating something? Say, those better not be my chips!”

  “Vick, it’s nine o’clock in the morning. What in the world would we be doing eating your chips at this time of day? I mean, jeez, think about it.” Hondo scooped what looked like a half-cup of salsa on one chip and raised it to his mouth.

  Vick said, “Hondo, you’d tell me if Ronny was eating my chips, right?”

  Hondo stopped the chip an inch from his mouth and said, “I’m looking at him right now, and there’s not a thing in his mouth.” He opened wide, put the chip in his mouth and smiled as he chewed.

  “All right then. What I called for, the crime scene team finished up at Landman’s Malibu home. Now, I know you two said you weren’t there and I’m not gonna push it, but I thought you might want to know what we found.”

  I sat a little straighter, “Yeah, Vick, we would.”

  Vick said, “There were blood types from three people, so it was quite a fight. We also found the top part of an ear that had been bitten off.”

  “Is Mike Tyson a suspect?”

  “Very funny. The ear was from a white guy. We also found some long hair that had been pulled out of someone’s head.”

  “The roots come with it?”

  “Yeah, male, O positive.”

  “The ear and the hair from the same guy?”

  “Nope, two different people.”

  “What color was it?”

  “What, the hair?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Blond.”

  “Blond-blonde, or some other kind of blond?”

  “If you know something, Baca, you’d better tell me.”

  “I just want to help, Officer Vick. If I run into some blonde with a chunk of hair missing, I want to be clear on whether to call you or not.”

  “It’s sort of dishwater blond, like that. Hell, I’m not a beautician.” We could hear somebody in the background talking to him. He said, “I have to go. There’s another meeting with the press. Got the Mayor and the Governor both here with me on this one.”

  “Your right profile’s your best. It’s very Clint Eastwood. Keep it toward the camera.”

  “Yeah, funny guy. Just you and Hondo be careful. We’ve got two missing persons now, and lots of blood around. I don’t want you going into anything with your eyes closed.”

  “Thanks, Vick.”

  “Get me my chips.”

  “We’re on it. I tell you, they’re so close I can taste them.”

  “Asshole.” He hung up.

  Hondo rolled the top of the bag to close it and said, “That’s enough. We need to save some for Hunter, she brought them.”

  My insides fluttered. “When’s she coming?”

  “Any minute.”

  “My hands are clammy.”

  “Dig into your chi. Chant one of those sayings you always tell me, like, ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping’, one of those.”

  I didn’t have a chance to reply because Hunter opened the door. I hadn’t seen her in over a year but she still looked great. I felt a jumble of confused feelings: guilt, sorrow, joy, affection, and yes, love, but the way one loves a lifelong friend. Well, maybe a little lust, too, because she was so good looking.

  Hunter walked over, sat in the chair by Hondo’s desk, and turned it to face me. “Hondo and I talked a lot last night. You’re lucky to have such a good friend.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  I started to say more but she held up her hand, “Let me say this, then we’ll see where things stand.” I nodded and Hunter continued, “I don’t know what to feel. I was ready last night to get back with you, be with you from now on.” She leaned forward, put her elbows on her knees, and looked at the floor as she clasped her hands together. She raised her head and looked at me, “When that Meadows woman started laying it on last night about you and her, well, my self confidence has never been very high when it comes
to me being able to keep a relationship. I bought everything she said, and she was good, going into detail about how she pleased you, doing this and that,” I started to speak but she held up her hand again, “Let me finish. So she convinced me, and adding that to the surprise of finding her in your home, well it was too much. I left and called Hondo later. I was ready to book a flight back to El Paso when he talked me into coming to his house.”

  She sat up in the chair and looked at both of us. She said to me, “You know what the first thing was he said to me?”

  I shook my head because my throat was too constricted to talk.

  “He said, ‘Quit trying to convince yourself you want Ronny as a lover. It makes it too hard on all of us.’ I sputtered and cried and fumed and stomped around, and Hondo let me. He let me get it all out. We talked a lot after that, and I thought more about it after I left him. And here’s what I think.” She got up from the chair and went to Hondo, held his face and kissed him on the lips, then came to me and did the same. When she sat back down she said, “I love you both, as friends, the way it should be for us. Ronny, you and I never, ever should have gotten involved. Man, that was doomed from the get-go.”

  Hondo said, “What she told me last night was you were an idiot around beautiful women.”

  Hunter interrupted him and said, “I meant you had strong desires and weak control in that area.”

  Hondo said, “I told her you stayed as horny as a forty-balled tiger.”

  Hunter nodded, “Yeah, that’s what Mr. Eloquence said. But the point is, that’s my problem to deal with, and for all the years before we got involved, I was fine with it. It was only after I brainwashed myself that you and I were meant to be together that it became a big deal.”

  I said, “You’re not wrong, we were meant to be together.”

  Hondo said, “Yep, we were.”

  Hunter said, “The three of us. Maybe so. Just give me some time to work on it. Now, you have anything to eat?”

  Hondo reached for the bag of chips, “I’ve got just the thing.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  While we ate the rest of the bag, we filled Hunter in on the case. She was particularly interested in Carl Rakes.