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But it was as good a way as any to
waste time and, at the moment, I had nothing better to do.
As I clicked and dragged, I thought
back to when I was just a kid, maybe eight or nine years old. I
remembered lying on the floor at my great grandmother’s house in Oxnard,
the deck of cards in my left hand, my right hand counting off three at a
time. The carpet was shag so the cards didn’t lay flat and you couldn’t
have perfect little stacks there. Instead, the columns kept sliding
together, making it more difficult to keep the cards where they were
supposed to be and easier to use the mess as an excuse to cheat.
There was no way to cheat playing
solitaire on the computer, at least no way that I was aware of. And what
would be the point, anyway? It was just another mundane activity to
count down the seconds as I waited for the phone to ring or for someone
to come through the door and ask for some detecting help. I tried to
spice things up by imagining I was in Las Vegas, playing video poker at
the bar. But I wasn’t playing for real money and there wasn’t a server
offering me free cocktails so that fantasy died in its tracks.
The mouse danced beneath my fingers and
the flashing cursor grabbed an eight of spades and dragged it across to
the corresponding pile. A tinny shuffling sound came from the cheap
computer speakers. It sounded artificial.
And I guess it was.
I tried to imagine Mickey Spillane’s
Mike Hammer sitting at a computer, Googling the name of a suspect
instead of hunting him down the old-fashioned way, but I couldn’t see
it. Hammer’s porkpie hat just didn’t seem right in the glow of an LED
screen. Still, I tried to take solace in the fact that Hammer’s job and
my job were primarily much the same: a lot more waiting and watching
than doing.
I pulled the deuce of clubs from the
draw pile and digitally slid it over on top of a red three. A few
moments later, I dragged the last ace from the pile, placed it at the
bottom of a column, and it was all over. I knew this because the cards
started cascading down the screen in a kind of psychedelic rainfall
pattern.
There was no euphoria on my part. The
only emotion was the dread of starting a new game.
I sat back and surveyed the office.
Nothing had changed since I started playing solitaire about two hours
before. The phone sat smugly on the desk in front of me, content in its
silence. The mini-fridge on the table in the corner hummed contentedly,
keeping my Cokes and beer at just the right temperature. The coat rack
stood in the corner, empty, of course, being more of a novelty item than
a practical item here in the warmth of Ventura, California.
The one potential customer I’d had that
day had turned out good for one thing: He’d bought me breakfast.
Hopefully, he’d go home to his wife tonight, pay her a little more
attention, and things would be all right.
If not, he knew where to find me.
I thought about pulling out the
checkbook and reviewing my account but decided digital solitaire was far
less depressing than an $11.41 bank balance.
My heart leapt as the door to the
outside office clicked open and three people came in. I could see their
blurry silhouettes through the marbled glass that separated my office
from the reception area. More potential clients? This might be a banner
day! More likely, though, it was someone selling sandwiches door to
door.
Well, I had $11.41. I could afford a
sandwich. At the moment, my receptionist was ... okay, I had no receptionist, so I stood, stepped around from behind the big wooden desk I had purchased at one of the four hundred or so thrift stores in downtown Ventura, and opened the separating door. There, reaching for the doorknob from the other
side, was Johnny Caesar. Two of his bodygoons stood nearby him, one on
each side of him like massive, fleshy bookends. Both of them were
big-shouldered, big-mustached Mexicans. They gave me the evil eye they
reserved specifically for pinche
gringos. I tried to win them over with my dazzling smile but, alas, to
no effect.
The four of us shared a moment of
silent, mutual displeasure and then Caesar said, “Heller.”
“Caesar,” I replied.
Another moment passed. The room
temperature seemed to drop a few degrees as the silence dragged on.
“Can we come in?” Caesar finally said.
“You
can,” I told him. “They can stay out here.”
The bodygoon on the left started to
argue but Caesar cut him off. “Do what he says,” he told him, and then
pushed past me into the inner office.
“Have some coffee,” I told the other
two, pointing to the stainless steel pot in the corner. “Have to make it
yourselves, though. My receptionist is out today.” They glared at me,
making those scary faces that kept people from messing with them. I
offered them another brilliant show of teeth but, again, they seemed
less than impressed.
I closed the door behind me and walked
back behind my thrift store desk. Caesar had already taken the clients’
chair. I sat, causally checking to make sure the Sig Sauer was in the
top right hand drawer and that the top right hand drawer was slightly
open. If I needed it, I could get to it.
Caesar and I sat across from each other
in silence. He still wore that close-cropped haircut that gave him his
street name. “Johnny Caesar” was far more menacing than “Juan Garcia”
even if the haircut wasn’t menacing at all. Caesar wore a pair of black
slacks and a sleeveless, wifebeater-style shirt. A brick-and-black plaid
button-up shirt hung loosely over that.
There was something in Caesar’s eyes
that I hadn’t seen before, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Whatever
it was, it was something that didn’t fit his reputation or his attitude.
A few more moments passed. More
silence. I waited patiently. Caesar was the biggest crime lord in Santa
Paula, and he and I had a rocky history. Not only were we on opposite
sides of the legal fence, we just didn’t like one another. Still, I was
curious what had brought him the thirty or so miles to my office in
downtown Ventura. But I was willing to wait until he was ready to talk.
He shocked the hell out of me when he
suddenly began to sob. And then I recognized the out-of-place look in
his eyes.
It was vulnerability.
“They killed him,” he said between
gasping breaths and a shuddering, Herculean effort to stop the tears.
“My baby brother. Someone shot him in the head last night and I need to
know who done it.”
I snatched a Kleenex from the box on
the desk (usually reserved for troubled wives who wanted me to catch
their cheating husbands in the act) and held it out to him. He didn’t
take it. I let it drop there on the end of the desk. Only then did
Caesar pick it up and dab his eyes. He blew his nose delicately.
“I’m sorry,” I told him, and hoped it
sounded sincere. It wasn’t. Caesar’s brother, Diego, was a well-known
scumbag. He was the Uday or Qusay Hussein of Santa Paula. His brother
was the big cheese and he knew he could get away with murder. And,
reportedly, he sometimes did. He had a rap sheet as long as a Columbian
python and the reptilian personality to go along with it. Everything
from petty theft to aggravated assault had won him jail time and those
were just the things he’d been caught at.
The one thing Diego didn’t have was his
brother’s smarts. While Johnny Caesar was the pride of the Garcia
family, Diego was the black sheep. He was the younger sibling that
wanted everything his older brother had but he didn’t have the brains,
the talent or the drive to get it. And, because of that, he was bitter
and he took that bitterness out on anyone and everyone.
“Tell me what happened,” I said.
“Shit, man, don’t you read the papers?”
Caesar spat. He took a deep heaving breath and finally got his sobbing
under control.
I glanced guiltily at the still-rolled
Ventura County Post on my desk. I guess maybe there had been something
to do other than play solitaire after all. And I hadn’t listened to the
radio on the way in this morning either. Usually, I would have gotten
the local news from the KVTA morning show but this morning I was
listening to a CD I’d picked up the night before at a local club. The
band was called Slam Alice and I liked what I heard.
But none of that helped me with Johnny
Caesar at the moment.
“I haven’t had a chance yet, Johnny.
Tell me.”
“That’s the problem. There’s not much
to tell. Diego ...” His voice broke with the sound of his brother’s
name. “...Diego was on his way home from Rigoberto’s ...”
“The nightclub?”
“Yeah, the nightclub. He always hangs
out there on Sundays. Usually gets drunk. Usually gets laid.”
“Usually?”
Caesar shot me a glance. “What the fuck
difference does that make?”
“I need to know if he was alone, or if
he left with somebody.”
“Yeah, okay. He was alone when they
found him.”
“But you don’t know if he left with
anyone?”
“No. But I can find out.”
“It would help. But if you can’t, I
can.”
“I can,” Caesar said firmly.
“Go on.”
“That’s all I know. They found him
about halfway between Rigoberto’s and his house. You know he lived just
a few blocks away?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t known that.
Was glad I didn’t.
“Yeah, just a couple blocks down, off
Harvard. He never drove because the cops always put up drunk stops
there. They catch a lot of them there.”
“What about the cops?” I asked. “They
have any leads?” “Shit,” Caesar said, drawing the word out
angrily. “They got nothin’. And they aren’t gonna bust their balls
lookin’, either, you know what I mean? Diego was my brother, man.
They don’t give a rat’s ass about him.”
I couldn’t disagree. He was right.
“Anything else you can tell me?”
“Like what?”
“Like did your brother have any enemies
that you know of?”
“Shit, man, half of this city is his
enemy. A lot of people hated his fucking guts.”
There was no denying that, either.
“So, look,” Caesar continued. “I know
we got a lot of baggage between us, you and me, but I need your help
here, Heller. You and me, we got issues, but I know you’re a
straight-shooter. You’re all I got.” He was tearing up again and nearly
strangling himself to try and stem the flow. After a moment, he lost the
struggle. “I need you,” he blathered. “It would mean a lot to me.” And I
knew it was killing him to say so.
It wasn’t an easy decision. I didn’t
like Johnny Caesar and I hadn’t liked his brother, Diego. As far as I
was concerned, Diego’s death was simply good riddance. Still, no matter
how much I disliked Caesar, he was a powerful and important part of the
local crime scene. It wouldn’t hurt to have him owe me a favor. There
was no question that, someday, I’d have to ask him for one.
“Yeah, I’ll help you,” I told him. It
felt wrong to say it but sometimes you have to deal with the devil. “On
two conditions.”
Caesar actually managed a weak smile of
gratitude. “Okay.”
“One: I find out who did this we go to
the police first. They choose to ignore us, you do what you have to do,
but I want them to have first crack.”
Caesar froze for a moment, and then
reluctantly nodded.
“Two: I do this alone. I don’t want any
of your boys following me, checking up on me. It cramps my style and it
scares witnesses.”
“You got it,” Caesar told me. “I give
my word.”
“Two hundred a day,” I continued, “Plus
expenses. Five hundred dollar retainer up front.”
I thought Caesar might blanch, but
instead he stood up, pulled a wallet out of his back pocket (it was
attached to a belt loop with a long silver chain and bore a bright green
marijuana leaf on its side) and counted out five one-hundred dollar
bills from a stack that looked a half-inch thick.
“You find out who did this,” Caesar
said strongly, making it sound like an order. He stuffed his wallet back
into his pants.
I gathered the money off of the desktop
and stacked it neatly. “That’s what you’re paying me for,” I told him. |