The Taciturn Hottie: Part Two

             
 

_______________________

           
 

   
 

A Joe Downing Mystery
Story 

           
 

   
 

The following is fiction:  

             
 

           
 

The Taciturn

Hottie

   
 

           
 

“Down these mean streets

a man must go

who is not himself mean.”

   
 

– Ray Chandler

           
 

PART TWO:  

I STOPPED IN FOR SOME LUNCH AT HAL’S 24/7 BURGER TEEPEE IN SOUTH PASADENA AFTER THE MEETING WITH
MRS. B. I looked around as I entered into the icy air: Neon, shiny stuff, babes. The sound of plates clinking and silverware tinkling filled the whole busy place. Young men and women in yellow long-sleeve dress shirts continually whisked plates laden with hot food off the raised counter under the heat lamps, the chefs in there somewhere kicking it. The plates endlessly made their way to their ultimate destination of your table and your big pie-hole. The front window of the place boasted an “A” grade in cleanliness from the County Coroner as you came in — (whoops! I meant to say the County Health Department, sorry…..).    

Good to know the place was clean, though, all kidding aside. A long, straight, pristine white counter for the single people ran longitudinal to the main axis and then took a suicidal ninety-degree turn, whereupon it crashed neatly into the wall. I sat down there so I could lean back lazily against the wall and look out onto California Boulevard. (I’m so enthralled with traffic continuously going by, you see.) I ordered a bowl of chili and lemonade from Uma Thurman and sat back and waited.  

An older black man appeared, and he was slowly making his leisurely, labored way through the two sets of double doors. He was clearly a regular and was ordering some take-out stuff, like burgers and onion rings. Gwyneth Paltrow was taking his order and giving him a free cup of coffee while he waited. This gave me a chance to see him: He was gray and wizened, like a sturdy, battered, hollowed-out old oak tree refusing to surrender to the depredations of Father Time. He wore a dusty, grimy, sable-colored old Stetson jauntily, having it pushed back, Clark-Gable-in-The-Misfits-style, upon his white hair. Maybe he was an actor. Between roles. He sported a full grayish-whitish curly beard, stark and low against his smooth dark skin, making him appear like an Afro-Grecian god about to reach again for a thunderbolt or two to hurl down at the dumbass mortals on the Peloponnesus.

Long navy-blue Dickies pants covered his legs, and ended just above rugged black work boots and the two swaths of the white socks. His dark green, open, and waist-length nylon jacket partially covered a brown-and-white checkered flannel shirt, which was itself opened to about the fifth button, just above his navel, and which formed a big, confident, badass “V” across his hairless, flat chest. You noticed right off that he was really cheerful. Amiability oozed from him like molasses from a split-open Maple tree in season in Canada. He had a life-loving, melodious voice, and he used it to spread goodwill to all. But then he noticed me, sizing me up expertly:  

“I ain’t seen y’all here befo’ — I’m Lester,” he said, looking me smack in the eye before continuing with, “good to meet ya, sir.” He leaned over, extending his brown, leathery palm, and we shook hands melodramatically as he sat down on one of the swiveling seats, three clicks from me.

“I’m Joe,” I said. “Yeah, I’m not here too much…..first time actually.”  

“Is that right? First time?…well then, Joe, welcome to Hal’s. Whatcha gonna have?”  

“I ordered some chili. Then I gotta get back to work.”  

“Uh-huh, I understand that only too well, my friend,” Les nodded and chuckled in a friendly way, and looked down at his cup of coffee just arriving from Gwyneth. He put an incredible amount of sugar in it. She then withdrew and retreated towards Uma, and they started laughing at something, pretending, unsuccessfully, to be not laughing. I felt like it had something to do with me, and it got me bent out of shape. I kept glancing over at them.

People came in and went out all around us, moving through their day, paying at the cash register, going to the restroom behind us to the right, and leaving through the double doors out into the torrid light and torrid heat of South Pasadena. A dry whoosh of hot air (hopefully it wasn’t from me) hit us whenever the doors opened. Stylish white people mostly, not dressed up exactly, but very California Casual. A huge contrast to the wholesome, family atmosphere of the Hal’s in Rancho. I continued:  

“Yeah, I gotta get back to the grind in a minute: Macarthur Park.” He looked surprised:  

“Man, you know they had a killing?”  

“Sure do. Just making sure it’s all done right, that’s all, everything above board.” I looked into the distance defensively at the retro photos they had on the wall of old-time Hal’s from the 50′s. Sixty years in business. Pretty good. Killings in the park back then, too? Well, does a dog know where the bodies are buried? Uma arrived, smirking, with my chili and set it down, then refilled my lemonade. That kinda won me over, the lemonade refill. After a pause, I said, eating and nodding:  

“Guess it was those Diablos.”  

“Yeah, Joe, I guess it was, too. I’m with that.”  

“Some kinda turf war with the Saliciamon guys, I bet.”  

“Yeah, yeah, that would be my thinking, too.”  

“67 stab wounds, must’ve been crowded.”  

“Yep, musta been.”  

“And the guy was strangled, too — why would you strangle a dead body? Unless that came first and went wrong, so that a bunch of ‘em had to gang up on him and go at him like piranhas with blades to finish him. So it was probably pretty messy.”  

“Yeah, that’s good thinking,” Les agreed, turning in his seat towards me and going on, intensely: “Yeah, maybe the victim gets on top of the strangling, and gets the one what was sticking him. Maybe wounds the man. Got back what he was giving out.”  

“Yeah…..that’s my hunch…..that victim must’ve been pretty tough,” I replied, then added, musing, “but I thought they were in cahoots, the Diablos and Saliciamon.” I then took a humongous scoop of chili and downed it like a drooling, rabid wolf. I stared, motionless, at the oracle.

“Not no more,” Les warned, “but they was. It’s the distribution — the Diablos done it a long time, but now Salicia do it theyself – got the soldiers up from Guatemala. They do the job now, do it right. No need for no Diablos no more: Big trouble.” Les shook his head and nodded grimly.  

“Gotcha…..” I said, absently, “but I wonder now where I can meet this crazy-ass Pancho Rodriguez cat?” Les shook his head again.

“Not in the park. And he ain’t went to the killing, neither. Never do go. Try Pico/Union. But watch yourself, chief, he’s a live wire, a real-ass live wire. You gots to be precautious or you gonna end up dead. And don’t be telling those muthafuckas I talked to you.”  

“I won’t, I’m not fucking crazy, Les. And I’m definitely gonna be careful with this gang dude. Yeah…motherfuckers, that’s about it.” I paused then, a little uncomfortable. I ate in silence, just to play it safe. After a while, when I was ready to go, I finally just said,

“Thanks for the nod.”  

“Forget it.” He waved me away. He knew he had said too much. He was pissed at me and at himself. He brooded over his coffee, calculating the damage. I was done with the chili (not bad), so I got up to leave slowly and dramatically. I passed by him sitting there, and he grabbed my arm. I felt like tearing it away from this crazy loon. I was a little scared. I half expected to crap in my pants. I felt bad about drawing him in. He looked me in the eye again like he was the kingpin of downtown. I felt like I had to let it go on, since he had helped me. He just looked. But then he says to me, squeezing tighter,

“Those bitches hurt me.” He looked away angrily and abruptly and let me go. He practically shoved me away. I moved away slowly, gazing at him, a little dazed, a little uncertain what to do, my lips parted probably in confusion and fear. Who was this guy? And what in the blue-fuck was I getting into? I made my way over to the address Mrs. B. had given me for Ingrid. I decided I would save Pancho for later — I didn’t have my gun. I was gonna fuckin’ need it. I had no choice now but to work around the edges first. It’s a method I hate, though, I like a more direct type of thing. I didn’t glance back at Uma and Gwyneth as I left Hals.

             
 

************************************

             
 

The address Mrs. Biddleman had given me for Ingrid was in downtown L.A. in some two-story crapshoot shit-pile of a building. What a place. It sure wasn’t South Pasadena, to say the least, guys. It was on skid row, and it looked like the apocalypse of the damned. The spotted white sidewalk reflected the brilliant, blinding sunlight of early afternoon, and the cream-colored building itself was dingy and residential, to be sure, but it looked like some industrial thing. Not very inviting, not very savory. A loozers paradise – where they come to die. San Pedro Street. A drug dude and a homeless guy loitered and lurked around the front of the entrance, looking like walking corpses. I guess this building was the jam place if you’re an addict. They avoided eye-contact, as if not knowing you were there, yet still managed to be threatening. I don’t know how, since they looked weak. Kind of a mystery how they pulled it off. Bravo, guys. The still, calm, silent heat did not dissuade them from wearing coats.

It was quiet there, I remember that. You could hear your footsteps on the walk, it was so still. And I was pretty worried about leaving my car at the curb with those dudes right there. That time my tires got slashed in Gorge. Right at the entrance, a sleek new black Beamer was parked at the curb, shiny in the sun to the point of eye-pain. I couldn’t imagine having to touch it, it would be so freakin’ hot. A bumper sticker on it read:

   
 

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, we will all know peace.”

   
 

Jimi strikes again! I remembered the girl at Bristol. I also remembered then that the Dalai Lama meditates six hours a day. I remember stuff all the time! I entered this eye-sore, and walked over the dilapidatedness of threadbare carpeting to the directory on the wall to confirm that Ingrid lived there as Mrs. B. had said, on the fourth floor: She did indeed.

I approached the elevator to go up, since I couldn’t find any stairs. The small lobby was like something out of an art movie — it was pretending to be street-smart — made over in a very self-conscious, cool tackiness. A tall glowering white man in his 40′s then came striding over to me hard and mad-dog like he wanted to tear me limb from limb. He was dressed in a dirty white short-sleeve tee and old, formerly-pressed trousers — not jeans like me. He had work shoes on his large feet, dirty white socks easily showing. Flood pants, basically.    

“You here for someone?!” he said, as if to kill the intruder.    

“Yeah,” I replied, unconcerned, “I’m just paying a little visit on the fourth floor.” I didn’t look over at him.    

“Yeah?! I’ll just bet you are, buddy!” he responded, staring, then continued sternly with: “Wait a minute!” as if I had fully made a sudden move to kill him. I hadn’t moved a muscle, of course. I could tell he was a lunatic from the padded room, I’m not gonna provoke him. He walked over and looked up through the seam of the elevator door into the shaft, as if he could see through into the cool, dark emptiness there. He pushed the button precisely, ludicrously, like he was using some secret knock to summon the ancient old pile.    

“Gladys!!!” he yelled in through the crack in the elevator doors, “Are you up there?!” He fell silent and still and listened to the fascinating interior of the elevator shaft: No sound forthcoming, however. Then another loud sally to Gladys, but again to no avail. He was just about to give a third go, when I stopped him by glancing around and asking,    

“Are there any stairs?” He responded to me quickly by pointing irritably at the corner of the lobby, around the corner. I saw for the first time that stairs were there. He surely felt defeated that the elevator hadn’t worked — he slumped, and watched me sullenly as I departed. Possibly he had done some maintenance, but it hadn’t taken.    

I exited the stairs on the fourth floor, emerging curiosity-struck into a hallway through a creaking, beat-up wooden door. I walked down the dark carpeted hallway. Let’s not talk about it. I soon stood before a smoky brown door, number 444, Ingrid’s. It was about 1:00pm by now. No sounds from within, but I knocked anyway. I was here. No response. Big surprise there. Druggies aren’t exactly known for jumping up to get the door. I knocked again, not so intrepidly this time, and waited in the silence of the moist, dark, Gothic hallway of the old building.

Finally something shuffled forward. Was it a dog? About to puke and die? After about a century, there was some fumbling with the doorknob. I felt half-inclined to help from outside. Was she retarded? (Sorry…..that’s just anger talking. Won’t happen again. But wait to see how I get it in a minute!)

The deadbolt turned, the door opened, sticking, and then the chain jangled taut and jarring. A sleepy face peered out at me. I could discern enough to figure out who it had to be. A tawdry, haggard, yet really beautiful young woman was slouched before me. She had short and chic black hair covering her pale forehead, and shapely ears tilting out elegantly from within her unruly locks. She had sharp, fine features and delicate skin. She wore faded jeans with holes in the knees, dirty pink socks without shoes, and a tight, filthy white top exposing her waist. She looked up at me, bored to death. Then she looked down, chagrined, as if to say “how long is this gonna take?” And then she looked up again, and spoke first.    

“Are you ‘Mr. Joe Downing?’” she asked. I nodded and added,    

“Yes, Ingrid, I am.”    

“Yes, Ingrid, I am,” she repeated instantly. She made a grimace at me. Then she went on:

“Yeah, well, my fuckin’ mother told me you were coming, but why don’t you just do me the favor of fucking off instead? Huh?! Punk-ass bitch! Are you listening, motherfucker? Just go away, asshole! Got it?”  

She stared bullets and she leaned forward. There was a pause as she fell into a depressed silence. My response sorta hung in the air. Well, in retrospect, I can now say I really expected that Hawaii thing with the lei. But beyond all doubt, this girl was a cartoon. First of all, she looked so coked-out that she was incapable of lifting those proverbial two stamps. I think a new-born kitten could have won a Smack-Down on her white ass. Her face was white and wan, a sickly hue that could only come from a long time of lame health. Her sharp nostrils, sculpted originally out of beautiful white marble, were now red and irritated, and looked likely to bust out into pus at any moment, so scintillatingly and painfully abused they were. Scrofulous, yeah.

Her voice was hoarse and strained, but still musical like her mother’s and sister’s. Her long arms were slender like two toothpicks. Her feminine hands shook violently with the longing for her white medicine, and perspiration glistened on her pasty, silky forehead. She finally let me into the place in a resigned way, and shuffled over to a lumpy, tatterdemalion couch and collapsed tiredly.

Bizarrely, she sat upright all of a sudden, seemingly poised and confident. Then her knees bobbed up and down frantically without stopping as she sat, her hands all the while moving nervously up and down the length of her blue-jeans, getting caught in the scattered threads. It was very sensual and weird. It was quiet in the room, too, not just outside. Her breathing was desperate. Her nails were spotted, shattered, and brittle, her hair dull and a little frizzy. She threw her head back to breathe, closing her eyes. She was the picture of sickness. After I got past the initial shock, though, I could hear a brave noise wandering within her voice, a misguided posturing somehow suggesting a just-barely-discernable sincerity underneath the hypocrisy and the F-bombs. “Make life mean something to me,” the tea-leaves in her tone implored.

I could see she was Aly’s sister, too: a demonic determination exuded from her every pore. This family was a piece of work. But she was obviously destroying herself. Mrs. Biddleman was right to be worried, but what had taken her so long to act? Her daughter was on the edge of obliteration.    

“So, Ingrid, how long have you known Pancho?” I asked, as I sat down on an upright chair across from her.    

“A few years, not that it’s any of your business, fuckin’ asshole.” She sneered at me. I had had enough:    

“Would you give it a fuckin’ rest?!” I shouted, and glared at her. A family picture was in a nice frame on the pine bookcase against the greasy wall. It showed Ingrid, Aly, Mrs. B. and a man, probably the father, Phineas, all standing together and smiling broadly.

“If you’re so smart, why are you addicted to that stuff?” I gestured at the personal stash she had on the low coffee-table. “Your mother can’t stand it that you’re on it,” I added.    

“I don’t care what that thief thinks, she can go to hell. I’ve got Pancho, and that’s all I need. I love him. And don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”    

“Did Pancho order the murder of Gomez?”    

“No! Of course not! He’s not a murderer, he’s an entrepreneur, but not a capitalist business man thug. He’s a philanthropist. He brings justice to the people, not mayhem. But did you order the murder of Gomez, asshole?”    

“Yeah, I did, as a matter of fact.”

“That’s it, Murderer! Get him! Hey, everybody, I caught him!!!”    

“Why did you say your mother was a thief?”    

“Because she is. That bitch skims 20k a year from the endowment.”    

“What endowment?”    

“My father,” she pointed at the picture in the bookcase, “Phineas Biddleman, asshole extraordinaire, founded the Pasadena Old Heritage Museum in the sixties. It now has an annual endowment of $4 million. Mostly from the John Jakob Jones Living Trust. My mother has been skimming her 20k for years. To make ends meet, she says.”    

“Does your father know?”    

“He’s got Alzheimer’s, dude. He can’t tie his fuckin’ shoe.”    

“Why are you so cruel to your family, Ingrid? You were once a close family,” I said, motioning to the picture, “what happened?”    

“Mind your own business, motherfucker! WHAT THE FUCK are you here for, anyway? Are you a chaperone? Get the hell out of my apartment!” She pointed a slender white finger, indignation all over her strained, tired face.    

“Your mother thinks Pancho is in on the murder in the park, and wants me to find out. That’s why I’m here. The rest is up to you and yours.”    

“Oh, boy! Isn’t that touching! She wants Pancho gone for my sake! What maternal care! But Pancho cares far
more about me than she does! He’s the best thing to ever happen to me! She, on the other hand, is full of shit! Pancho bought me a Beamer! How’s that?!”
   

“Isn’t that a capitalist pig car?” I joked.    

“No!…..it’s a…..it’s a…..it’s a ‘La Raza’ car!”    

“Oh, I see. But let’s do move on. Do you see any of that 20k your mother skims?”    

“What?” her voice cracked nervously and a little hypocritically. She pretended to be appalled. She sat up super-straight on the couch, crossing her legs in defense, and stared at me, astonished. Her hands spread out on the couch now like a sprinter’s on the track.    

“How much do you take?” I persisted.    

“What!!!” she shrieked, and asked, “what are you saying, dude?!”    

“I’m saying $4 million is a lot of white powder. Obviously. How much do you get, if your mother gets 20k?” She was at a loss as to how to respond. She looked around the apartment, which was full of dirty dishes piled up in the sink of the small kitchen, a mottled cat sleeping curled-up in an old easy chair of the same color, and junk furniture everywhere. Ingrid squirmed uncomfortably. She glanced enviously at the cat. Lying through her teeth didn’t sit well with her. She tried her best, anyway:    

“Nothing! I get nothing! I mean, just….just a little…..like her…..how did you know that, anyway?”
   

“How much does Pancho get?”    

“Oh, now, wait a minute! Where you going with this? Are you some lawyer?”    

“How much does Pancho get?” I asked again, deadpan.    

“What?” she asked, irrelevantly, a little scared.    

“Pancho. How much?”    

“He…..he…..he gets some…..” she said, looking around. After a pause she then blurted out: “He gets more than us. But he sort of gets Reggie to do it for him. It’s Reggie’s fault!”    

“Who’s Reggie?” I asked.    

“Reggie Colombo, the curator of the museum. Pancho has him siphon off the funds from the endowment.”    

“OK, I’ll have to talk to him at the museum. But why are you telling me all this?”

“What?!” she almost screamed, “Are you fucking kidding me?” I started to laugh:

“I’m just joking. A little humor, that’s all.”

“A little is right, asshole.”

“So how does the war between the Diablos and Saliciamon come into all this?”    

“I don’t know,” she shrugged sincerely, “who says it does?”    

“Oh, I dunno, I guess I do. So did Saliciamon find out about the endowment skimming, and want in on it, too? Just like Pancho found out about it?” Her face grew more and more astonished as I went on, and then she thundered at me:    

“Now how did you know that, dude?! Is there anything you don’t know?!”
   

*********************************************

 The meeting ended after some more revelations, mostly not very enlightening. Ingrid had to go out somewhere, so we went down together. First she disappeared into the bedroom, then re-emerged wearing some orange hat.    

“I guess you couldn’t find your hat,” I kidded her. She glared, incredulous. We exited the apartment out into the hall. I moved over naturally to the stairs. She looked at me quizzically.    

“There’s an elevator, dude,” she informed me, motioning at the thing.    

“It’s not working,” I said, “the Commish downstairs tried to get it to work, but it wouldn’t.” She laughed in triumph.    

“He’s a fucking blithering idiot. Didn’t you see that, dude? It works perfectly. Everybody knows it but him. It’s just the contacts in the switch downstairs on the lobby level. Up here it works fine — the switch is intact. Watch.” Ingrid summoned the elevator, there was a whirr, and soon here it was. I nodded in affirmation and got in. Then outside, on the sidewalk, there was indecision and tension. The stillness was only in the air.    

       
 

…..to be continued…..

   
 

   
 

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The Moral Compasslessness of the Radicals

 
 

_____________________________

 

Thursday

March 24, 2011

 
 

The Moral

Compasslessness

Of the

Radicals

 
 

 
 

“You only know what they want you to know…

open your eyes, see the lies right in front of ya…”

Lords of the New Church,

“Open your Eyes”

 
 

 
 

Why do some people insist on criticizing religion? Is it because of their devotion to truth, feeling it necessary to point out that religion is factually incorrect when it says the Earth is only six thousand years old? Indeed, we know from science that the Earth is something like four-and –a-half-billion years old.

The supreme reason for this fashionable denigrating of religion concerns something other than religion’s being incorrect about how old the Earth is: the noble denigrating is actually about the war between the unconstrained vision and the constrained vision, as Thomas Sowell has characterized the two schools of thought.

That is, religion is the foremost exponent of the constrained vision, and it thereby is public enemy number one for some people. For them, nothing shall be allowed to hinder the progress of their unconstrained vision, and so allies such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Rousseau, and sometimes Hegel must be recruited to the cause. It’s all about self-interest, not about devotion to truth.

The unconstrained vision surely has a lot at stake, to be sure: lavish pensions, pleasures, power, moral vanity, control of thought and culture, etc. And it will never be defeated, because in order to overcome it in oneself, one must give up the falsity of the ego-image we entertain about ourselves, and instead embrace a less falsified selfhood. Not likely that a mass conversion will take place in this regard.

But on the other hand, the tragic vision of life, the constrained vision we have from Judeo-Christian religion, that too, can never be defeated, but for a very different reason: it has an obviously closer connection to reality. There will always be a market for the clearer perception of reality: the constrained vision believes that human nature is fixed and that it is permanently flawed, whereas the unconstrained vision believes that human nature is in flux and can be indefinitely improved.

Now, the ironic thing here is that this idea of historical necessity, this idea of being in the process of making a better world for the future, is exactly the excuse for all the violence committed against innocent people. But that’s the unconstrained vision! Hardly an image of progress or utopia.

Nevertheless, Christopher Hitchens, a clear advocate of the unconstrained vision, goes so far as to blame – in his desperation – even Hitler and Stalin on religion. But that is absurd, Hitchens. Those two were obviously immersed in the unconstrained vision, whereas religion is the opposite, the nemesis of those two and their wild visions. Religion’s goal would be to stop them, not urge them on.

Do you want to be on the side of kindness? On the side of decency and the highest values? Then embrace instead the constrained view, and avoid the professor’s dialectic stuff about the Brave New World. We should keep in mind that the purpose of religion is not to be factually correct about questions better left to science, its purpose is rather to put us in contact with our true selves, in contact with the most important moral strains in our nature, our better angels.

George Orwell wrote that the coming future is just a dystopian vision of a boot stomping on a human face forever. Orwell was one of our greatest visionaries, and he had no illusions about human nature. Beware, then, the unconstrained vision and its self-righteousness: it’s the vehicle of nightmarish dystopia, coming soon to a heart of hearts near you.

 

___________________________

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

  

The Taciturn Hottie: Part One

       
 

       
 

A Joe Downing Mystery

     
 

 

  The following is fiction:      

           
 

       
 

 

         
 

         
 

The streets were dark with something more than night.

– Raymond Chandler

     
 

         
 

 

 Part One:

I HAD TO GO TO PASADENA.
Mrs. Biddleman was pretty decent, and this turned out to be a very wild case. I just barely escaped with my body parts intact, to be honest. I awoke that first morning unshaven and grungy, but no surprise there. I was just on my way to the shower, hands laden with stuff, when the landline rang back in the office. I let everything fall with a nice plop. A white, soapy, oozing mess ensued.    

“Is that how you treat the shampooed carpet?” This, Sammy, the custodian of the building, demanded to know of me as he calmly, slowly came up behind me (since slow is about as fast as he can go).

“Oh…..” I said, looking down at the mess, “My bad, Sammy, I got a call right when my hands were full of all this.” I continued, gesturing towards the crap: “Sorry. I’ll clean it up in a second.”    

“Oh, that’s all right, Joe,” he responded, “I didn’t mean nothing by it…..no right to cry…..go answer the phone. And where you been hiding, boy? You know you’re killing me, Joe.” Sammy then hobbled away, saying to himself,    

“I been trying to figure that sucker out…..that white dude…..”  

         
 

********************

     
 

The San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California run kinda on an east-west axis and sit patiently behind the patios of L.A. and Pasadena like a backdrop to a puppet show. The puppet show called “L.A.,” of course. Why a puppet show? That would be because of the strings attached. But the rugged undulations really make a great backboard for the city itself — those hills, those tall, brawny, scratchy, scrub-oak filled and Manzanita-monopolized hills, they do know where all the bodies were buried in the shadowy founding of the City of Angels. It’s like those mountains are the seats to the show.

So I picked up the L.A. Times newspaper at the Bristol Farms Café in Pasadena after getting off the freeway. I was a little early for my appointment with Mrs. Biddleman, my prospective new client. It was a warm, pleasant morning in July, so I sat outside at a heavy silver table for breakfast. I stretched my legs out and glanced over the paper. The Metro-Link train came clanging by from Claremont and from even further away, come to think of it, from Berdu. Wonder what’s going on over there? Car accidents on the 10 freeway? Now, on page two — what’s this?  

           
 

Body of Saliciamon member found

in dumpster downtown: Macarthur Park

       
 

“The Times learned early this morning that the mutilated body of Ramon Gomez-Gonzalez, a reputed member of the Honduran drug cartel ‘Saliciamon,’ was found yesterday morning by a homeless man digging through the trash of a dumpster in Macarthur Park. 

 “The LAPD spokesman, Lt. William Braxton, did not immediately respond to questions whether the apparent homicide was gang-related, pending the investigation. He did speculate, however, that the steady, six-month trend charting increased violence downtown was most probably due to the recent influx here, studied by the University of California Los Angeles, of undocumented persons from cartel-controlled territory in the tri-state area of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

“The county coroner issued a preliminary report giving the time of death as approximately 72 hours ago as of 2am this morning, and the cause of death as strangulation and multiple stab wounds, 67 in all, to the stomach, back of the neck, chest, and the small of the back…..”

             
 

OK, wait — meanwhile, in the sports section….you know, I had just passed by the park on my way here. That park ain’t the place to be at 2am, not even when the big one hits. When I finished eating, I paid the nice-looking young lady wearing the black Jimi Hendrix tee, got back into the Corvette, and proceeded finally to the old Biddleman place in the heart of old Pasadena: to the residence of Elizabeth Anne Biddleman, that is, nee Astor, 60 years of age. When I at last met her, I knew she was the whole package from FedEx – the big hair, the suffocating fragrance, everything.

First, though, I stood on the public sidewalk looking over at the outside of this big house of hers. It was a tall and dun job with second-story windows peering down at you sternly and implacably, and there were several inset granite pillars supposedly holding up a faux-Renaissance front. A wide, neat, and meticulous lawn stretched out in the front and in the back garden, too, it turned out, with yellow, white, and red roses climbing six feet high and more on prickly, skinny, slanting, tensile vines. Pasadena is famous for its roses. They got a parade for them.

Mrs. B’s house was set back from Colorado Boulevard a good thirty yards, so much so you could have a scrimmage. I finished climbing up the steps to the porch. I walked up to that porch on a walkway of wide, blonde-colored stones, like so many trapezoids, under the sycamore, eucalyptus, and ash trees, which made sketchy patterns on the immaculate lawn. It was inviting. So, should I practice my putts here? No! Not now! So dive putts, down to my soul!  

A medieval light structure thing hung down portentously on a long electric cord from the porch ceiling. It looked like it could pull the cord and everything down onto your head, it was so heavy. I kept my eye on that thing. The light was still on at 10am, feeble against the morning light of a hot day in July. A very quiet woman, dressed all in white (I named her “Guadalupe” for the moment), answered the doorbell and let me into the dark, muffled, huge interior: I was certainly expected (but for what, though?!).

Once in, Lupe led me down a long, gloomy, long (did I mention it was long?), silent, and carpeted hallway. My eyes were still full of the dazzling, splashing sun of Pasadena, so I didn’t catch a lot: some Renaissance-style paintings of some old honchos in suits, beautiful Asian earthenware poised on delicate, curving, gold-leaf tables which were themselves poised under humongous mirrors — things like that — a general sense of clueless old money, in short. The air inside, too, must have come wrapped up as an addition from medieval times — a bit stuffy and sickly.   

Lupe led me into the library and motioned me to a chair: I thanked her with a nod and sat. She nodded pleasantly in return, half maid, half nurse, and went out without a sound. I busied myself with curiosity about the place while waiting for Mrs. B’s arrival. The library was barely illuminated, with bookshelves crammed with hard-cover stuff all the way up to the top of the high ceiling. More reading than you’d care to do, but it looked good. I’ve always like libraries, ever since being a kid. They’re like a church or something. The books looked carelessly put away, which made it better.

I twirled my neck all around, peering at all the strange stuff. Dark wood was everywhere. Rugs with Far Asian and Middle Eastern designs were all over the floor of the comfortable, capacious room, giving an impression of being in a crazy bazaar. I half-expected some guy named Gideon to pop up out of nowhere and try and sell me a red beret. There was certainly a lot of old junk and stuff from decades ago, still hanging around, sacred. You weren’t allowed to ever throw anything out in this household. I’m not a packrat, so I immediately notice those who are, in amazement that you could keep so much worthless nonsense around you. This room was like a giant, comfortable, old shoe. The house itself was old, too, and must’ve been built just after WWII — it had the august aura of the long-ago, talking first impression. I just sat there and waited. This went on for a while.

But as my eyes finally adjusted to the dim, I thought I beheld Miss Havisham herself perched elegantly and stiffly in front of the lacy, cloistered window which looked out onto the front lawn and onto Colorado Boulevard. Miss Havisham sat so very regally and inaccessibly behind a gargantuan wooden desk that was stained dark brown. Her eyes were closed. Then, after an interval, they slowly opened. She spoke pleasantly to me:

“Mr. Downing, I should like to thank you for arriving so very promptly, and on such short notice, too. It’s very kind of you.” Her voice was predictable sounding, a pretentious aristocratic ring to it.  

“Oh, not at all,” I responded, “it’s easy as could be, Mrs. Biddleman. I’m sorry, though, for intruding on you, and that I didn’t speak up. I didn’t know you were in the room at first. The sun!” I laughed. “My eyes weren’t used to the dark yet. A very stupid start to a case for a detective!” I looked down at my hands in my lap and chuckled in self-deprecation. My voice was a little nervous.

“On the contrary, Mr. Downing, I must beg your pardon — I was the one who neglected her manners. I was meditating overlong. I apologize. But you needn’t worry, Mr. Downing, I don’t really believe it all. But you no doubt perceived my efforts?”  

“Well, yes, I did, Mrs. Biddleman, after a while,” I replied, “and I really was taken by your meditating. Maybe I should learn it myself! Got to relax sometimes, that’s what I always say!” She beamed and smiled beatifically. I think she liked me. I wasn’t really gonna try it, though, I just said that. Being nice sometimes makes people say more than they should.     

“Indeed yes, young man!” she said eagerly, “It works wonders for the spirit in these times of trial! I feel transcendently serene after my morning efforts. Do you know, the Dalai Lama meditates six hours a day?” Putting her hand on her upper chest as if to calm herself, a feminine habit of hers I came to notice in time, she then exclaimed, breathlessly, “Goodness me!” (Effulgent praise, to be sure, but ”transcendently serene?” O, dive thoughts!) She continued presently, the kindness in her eyes turning serious now:    

“Mr. Downing, I’ll relate to you now why I called you. It’s my Ingrid. I’m concerned for my dear lost daughter, my foolish Ingrid. I’m concerned for her very safety. She’s twenty-eight, but she has a wild streak, shall I say, and she also has an awful boyfriend, this Rodriguez fellow in a drug gang downtown. He’s horrid, Mr. Downing. I think he’s a murderer and a drug-sniffer. I want you to investigate him and I want you to discredit him and I want you to find him guilty of murder so my Ingrid will forget about him. I believe he committed the murder in the park the other day, and I want you to gather the evidence and give it to the police so they can use it for the guilty verdict!” Now, is there anything else you want me to do? Light your cigarette, maybe? Wow! This was amazingly detailed for any client to be. (Not complaining.)  

“Well, Mrs. Biddleman, that’s a tall order, you know,” I began slowly, “I’m sure the LAPD homicide unit and forensics team have already gathered all the evidence and will move to make an arrest. They probably already have a good idea of who it was, or at least of who is close to who it was. There aren’t a lot of different patterns that come up. It’s surprisingly uniform. They know who they’re up against, I would bet, and it’s just a matter of playing a little chess game to make it come out clearly. They know the lay of the land and who the likely players are.You have nothing to worry about. The wheels of justice grind slow, but they do grind.”

I sat back and waited. I suspected that what I had said was a horse that wouldn’t run, as far as she was concerned, and, indeed, she sighed, annoyed, and then countered:

“Mr. Downing,” her tone evincing a little impatience at this point as she sighed, “we both know the police have always had their own reasons for what they do. They do as they please in this world. Who would stop them? Who would presume to police the police? If they find out it’s a gang-fellow (and how could it be otherwise?), they’ll just arrest anyone they wish in the gang. It doesn’t matter to them which one. But it does to me — Ingrid is in love with this wretched Rodriguez. I want you to supplement them and their information so they arrest the right one this time. They’ll believe you. It’s this Pancho Rodriguez — that is the one who did it.” She spoke with conviction, to say the least. I lifted myself up in the chair from slouching.   

“But how do you know so certainly it’s exactly this Pancho guy?”    

“Because he’s horrible, Mr. Downing — believe me, sir! I know him personally, haven’t you been listening? And because he had to be in on it: it’s his gang, he’s the chief of it, he’s the chief of the horribles!”    

“The ELD — the East Los Diablos?” I asked.

“Yes, Mr. Downing, the very same. I do believe that is the correct name of those hideous, vile people.” She crossed her legs slowly in her leather chair for the first time, pronouncing “correct” by trilling the r’s. Her countenance was ruffled with the emotion, and so was the white dress she was wearing that was like a wedding gown.

She went on: “I want you to rid my dear lost Ingrid of him since she is too far gone to manage it herself. She is utterly a cocaine addict.” I had to turn my head away from her and gaze out through the window past her head onto Colorado Boulevard and its traffic. Things seemed so normal out there, in contrast to what I was listening to now. Traffic whizzed by, heedless, on its way somewhere innocently in the bright, friendly sunshine. In a few months the Rose Parade would come meandering by — but not now, not in the heat of July with a gang war raging. Mrs. B. grew quieter, and adopted an historical tone:

“Mr. Downing, my husband, Phineas Biddleman, came to Pasadena in 1933, during the Great Depression. He was a child of three years of age. His father, Asa, was an oil man in Wyoming, and he followed in his father’s footsteps. We became rich, and we lived well. Life was wonderful. Southern California was the jewel of the country. Everyone wanted to come here. Then came these awful times, this violence, this Brave New World. My husband was unable to compete with the bigger companies, and he foolishly and stubbornly refused to sell or merge.

“We have surely fallen on leaner times, I concede, but I expect you to bring a little justice to us at least. Grind away, man! I want this man’s head on a platter! This Rodiguez! I want Ingrid free of him!” Mrs. B. glared a bit. Fire was in her eyes. This gal wasn’t kidding, and she knew what her opinion was. You couldn’t get the upper hand on her, too smart. So, eventually, after a little more back and forth, I agreed to see what I could do for Ingrid. I agreed to investigate this imbecile Rodriguez dude.

We were just about to close the meeting. But behind me, as I sat on the dark embroidered cloth of the walnut chair, the great oak door to the library cracked open a tad. In slid a small, lithe cat, except that it was not really a cat at all — it was actually a very young girl, doing all she could to look older than her twelve years, unsuccessfully (if you’re twelve, you’re just gonna have to live with it). It turned out to be Mrs. B’s daughter.  

She kept to the walls, moving laterally, eyeing me relentlessly, checking out what I looked like. She already knew what her mother looked like. And a very small, white, Bichon Frise dog had come in with her, a quiet, cute, and worshipful thing. Very unassuming creature, just glad to be included at all. And the girl knew every inch of the library, easily avoiding, without ceasing to stare me down, the green, Byzantine-patterned chair up against the mahogany panels which rose to the eleven-foot high ceiling.

This girl looked at me a ton, implacably. I glanced at her a tiny bit, quickly. She was slender, about five feet tall, athletic and svelte, wearing pistachio Capri pants, flat shoes, and a short-sleeved white top ending over the thin waist. She had long, long mahogany hair, straight as a string, like the long grooves in those mahogany panels against which she stopped, fifteen feet from me. Her delicate, fluffy dog, plodding along like a walking bathroom slipper, followed her everywhere, looking up at her from her ankles, waiting for instructions. Mrs. B. was indulgent, but not too.

“Are you talking about my sister?” the girl asked, calmly, like a grizzled, experienced trial lawyer. She took five slow steps towards me after speaking, looking deep into my eyes. (The famous Magic Johnson look-off pass was decidedly not her style.) I looked at Mrs. Biddleman briefly, then said, with mock gravity,

“I’m sorry, Miss, that’s confidential. But may I know the name of such a pretty girl?”

“Aly, don’t bother Mr. Downing, he’s–” 

“What’s ‘conn-fee-den-tial’?”

“Oh, no, please,” I replied to Mrs. B., ”it’s OK; she’s not bothering me at all.” I then smiled benevolently, trying to smooth the rift between mother and daughter. I went on: “I’m sure you know what ‘confidential’ means, Aly,” I said amiably.

“I do not,” she insisted.

“Yes, you do,” I resisted.

“No, I don’t,” she persisted.

“Are you holding out on me?” I asked her, joking.

“Don’t say that.”

“Aly!” Mrs. Biddleman exclaimed, horrified.

“You’re right, Aly, I’m sorry,” I conceded: “You’re certainly right — I thank you for pointing that out to me…..but do you spend a lot of time with your sister?”  

“No!” she said abruptly and decisively, as if everyone knew something so obvious, then walked fully up to where I sat, put her hand possessively on the arm of the very chair, leaned down to my face, and put her eyes about two inches from mine, like she was an eye doctor now. She absorbed herself in looking at the sides of my eyes as I looked over, amused, at Mrs. B., who sighed irritably at the interruption. Aly was so serious and so painstaking as she examined my eyes, so totally deadpan, that I couldn’t help chuckling. She had a likeable charisma.

Soon she was putting both hands on the arm of the chair, in single file, and still searching in my eyes for something, when she suddenly leaned forward confidentially (I was right!) with the news: “You’re outside a lot.” 

“Oh yeah?” I answered, “How’d ya know that?”

“Your eyes aren’t completely white anymore,” she answered, with finality. Her eyes were mischievous and confident of their wisdom.

“Well,” I smiled, “you’re right about that, Aly. You’re smart to notice that. Are you some kind of detective person?”

“Yes,” she proclaimed, “I read Encyclopedia Brown.”

“Really?!” I said, sitting up enthusiastically, “I love those books! I read them too when–”

“Aly! Leave us! We’re discussing business, and this is no time for a young girl’s silly shenanigans!” Mrs. B. was venting. ”Take Flapper out in the garden and be a good girl, please!” Aly slumped a little for the first time, her posture flagging a bit, but she shot me another deadpan, conspiratorial look as she slid her hands over the cloth of the chair upon exiting: “Don’t betray the cause!!!” her eyes said to me. I nodded knowingly in assent.

Aly thereupon picked up ol’ Flapper and went out unceremoniously. Flapper barked a little out in the hallway in excitement at going outside. Then I had to scream a little myself outside in the car as I finished the meeting and left the house and got back in the Corvette: the sun had made the steering wheel and the ignition switch super-hot to the touch. I could barely start the engine the switch was so hot. It was about a million degrees in that car. Anyway, now I had to go talk to dear Ingrid (and to Aly, too, but later.) Mrs. B. didn’t mind. She said that Ingrid lived in South Pasadena, a completely separate city from regular Pasadena. Well, old girl, old South Pasadena, you’re so chic, so haute couture, so nouveau riche…..you’re so something that begins with “R”….gosh, I don’t know what the hell I’m saying. I’m at a loss for words. But at any rate, in short, it was now South Pasadena or bust.

   
 

…..to be continued…..