The Taciturn Hottie: Part Three

 

September 29, 2009  

 

A Joe Downing Mystery
 

The following is fiction:  

 

 

 

 

 

PART THREE: 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. This Hal’s was nicer than the one in Rancho Verde — more neon, more shiny stuff, more babes. The sound of plates clinking importantly and silverware tinkling merrily filled the whole busy, hurrying place. Young men and ladies in yellow or white long-sleeve dress shirts continually whisked plates laden with hot food off the raised counter under the heat lamps, taking them to their ultimate destination and ultimate fate of your table and your big pie-hole. The front window of the place boasted an “A” grade 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 ninety-degree turn, whereupon it crashed neatly into the wall. I sat down there so I could lean back lazily 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.  

 

Presently an older black man appeared, but not quite like the black man who was the witness in The Great Gatsby, however, and he was slowly making his labored way through the two sets of double doors. He was clearly a regular (what a sharp eye!), and was picking up some take-out stuff, like burgers and onion rings. Gwyneth Paltrow was cheerfully taking his order for a free cup of coffee while he waited.

 

This gave me a chance to see him: he was gray and wizened, but perhaps not unlike like a sturdy, battered, hollowed-out old oak tree refusing, steadfast in the drear wood, to surrender to the depredations of Father Time. He wore a dusty, grimy, sable-colored old Stetson rather jauntily, having it pushed back, Clark-Gable-in-The-Misfits-style, upon his white hair. He sported a full grayish-whitish curly beard, stark and low against his smooth dark skin, making him appear like a Greek god about to reach yet again for a thunderbolt or two to hurl down at the mortals on the Peloponnesus. Long navy-blue pants of the Dickies type covered his legs, and these were complemented nicely with rugged black work boots and white socks.  

 

Furthermore, his dark green, opened, waist-length nylon jacket partially covered a soiled, brown-and-white checkered flannel shirt, which was itself opened to about the fifth button, just above his navel, and which consequently formed an unfortunate big “V” across his hairless, flat chest. One noticed that he was extraordinarily cheerful. Amiability oozed from him like molasses from a Maple tree in Canada…..or something. He had a life-loving, melodious voice, and he used it to spread goodwill to all. Then he noticed me.  

 

“I ain’t seen y’all here befo’ — I’m Lester. Good to meet ya, sir.” We shook hands melodramatically as he sat down on one of the swiveling seats. Racial goodwill and all that.  

 

“I’m Joe. 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.”  

 

“I understand that only too well, young man,” Les chuckled in a friendly, ironic way, and looked down at his cup of coffee. People came in and went out all around us, paying at the cash register, going to the restroom behind us to the right, leaving through the double doors out into the brilliant 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 and blinged-out. Quite a curious contrast to the family atmosphere of the Hal’s in Rancho. I continued:  

 

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

 

“That killing?”  

 

“Exactly. Making sure it’s all done right, above board.” Ms. Thurman arrived with my chili and set it down, then refilled my lemonade.  

 

“Would you like a taste?” I asked Les.  

 

“Nooo, thank you, sir, I got burgers coming.” After a pause, I said:  

 

“Guess it was the Diablos.”  

 

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

 

“Some kind of turf war with Saliciamon, I bet.”  

 

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

 

“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 piranha. So it was probably pretty messy.”  

 

“That’s good thinking,” Les averred, then turned in his seat towards me and went on, “Yeah, maybe the guy gets on top of the strangling, and got the guy what was sticking him. Maybe wounded him. Man got back what he was giving out.”  

 

“Yeah…..that’s my hunch…..” I replied, then added, musing, “but I thought they were in cahoots, the Diablos and Saliciamon.”  

 

“Not no more. They was. It’s the distribution — the Diablos done it a long time, but now Salicia do it themselves — got the soldiers up from Guatemala. No need for no Diablos no more: big trouble.” Les nodded grimly.  

 

“Gotcha…..but I wonder now where I can meet this Pancho Rodriguez cat?”  

 

“Not in the park. And he ain’t went to the killing, neither. Never do go. Try Pico/Union. But watch yourself, boss, he’s a live wire, a real live wire. Be very, very precautious.”  

 

“Thanks, Les, I will. I appreciate your take on all this.”  

 

“Forget it, man.” I offered to pay for both our lunches, but Les declined and offered to pay for mine instead. In the end, after some awkward and uncomfortable racial jockeying, we both just paid for our own. Fictitious moral redemption was not to have its say this day. I then 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.  

 

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

 
 

 WELL, SOUTH PASADENA MY FOOT. The address that Mrs. B. had given me was in downtown L.A. in some high-rise crapshoot of a building. It was dingy, to say the least, and tall. It was residential, to be sure, but it looked like an industrial animal. Not very inviting, not very savory. Drug dudes loitered and lurked around the front of the entrance, looking like death-warmed-over. They avoided eye-contact, as if not knowing you were there, yet still managed to be threatening. The still heat did not dissuade them from wearing coats. The park was nearby, too, how very convenient.

 

A sleek new black BMW was parked at the curb, shiny in the sun to the point of eye-pain. A bumper sticker on it read: “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, we will all know peace.” I remembered then that the Dalai Lama meditates six hours a day: goodness gracious, six!

 

I entered the eye-sore, and walked over to the directory to confirm that Ingrid lived there 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 a pretentious whiteboy art movie, pretending to be street-smart: very self-conscious, cool tackiness. A glowering, tall man then came over to me like he wanted to tear me limb from limb. He was dressed in a dirty white tee and old 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’m paying a visit on the fourth floor.”

 
 

“I’ll just bet you are, buddy. Wait a minute!…..” he said sternly, as if I had made a sudden move to kill him, whereupon he walked over and looked up at the top seam of the elevator door and shaft, as if he could see through into the dark, cool emptiness there. He pushed the button precisely, like he was invoking some secret knock, to summon the ancient old conveyance.

 
 

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

 
 

“Are there any stairs?” He responded to me 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 as I departed. Possibly he had done some maintenance, but it hadn’t taken.

 
 

I exited the stairs on the fourth floor, emerging into a hallway through a creaking door: dark, shadowy interior scene. I walked down the carpeted hallway, ancient with smells from before the war. (Any war, just name one.) 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 intrepidly, nevertheless. No response. Big surprise there. Druggies aren’t known for jumping up to get the door unless it’s healthy time from the poppy fields of Asia.

 

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? 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 my comeuppance in a minute!) The deadbolt turned, the door opened, sticking, and then the chain jangled taut. A sleepy face peered out at me. I could discern enough to figure out who it was.

 
 

A tawdry, yet magnificently 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 features. 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. Downing?’” she asked, emphasizing my name sarcastically. I nodded courteously and added,

 
 

“Yes, Ingrid, I am.”

 
 

“Yes, Ingrid, I am,” she repeated instantly, even more in-your-face. She made a grimace at me, then went on: “Well, yeah, my fuckin’ mother told me you were coming, but why don’t you just do me the favor of just fucking off instead, you little bitch? Huh?! Why doncha? You little fuckin’ wussified, emasculated, neutered, cuckolded little fuckin’ idiot! Huh?! Are you listening, motherfucker? Do thine eyes see?! Just go away, asshole! You bourgeois oppressor of the proletariat! You tiny fuckin’ imperialistic Nazi motherfucker! You neo-fascist Hitler moron! You Nazi motherfucker — go away!!!” She stared bullets at me like a cornered animal. She leaned forward menacingly. There was a pause as she fell into a sullen silence. The potential tenor of my inevitable response hung in the air. Well, I guess, in retrospect, I can now say I was somewhat taken aback: I had really expected that charming Hawaii thing with the lei.

 
 

But beyond all doubt, this girl was simply a comedy show. First of all, she looked so coked-out as to be incapable of lifting those proverbial two stamps. I think a new-born kitten could have won a Smack-Down against her. Her pallor was white and wan, a sickly hue that could come only from a long period of ill 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. Her voice was a bit hoarse and strained, but still musical like her mother and sister’s.

 
 

Her long elegant arms were slender to the point of evincing in the mind the image of toothpicks. Her feminine hands shook violently with longing for her white medicine and perspiration glistened on her delicate forehead. She finally let me into the place in a resigned way, and shuffled over to a tatterdemalion couch and collapsed tiredly. Her knees bobbed up and down ceaselessly as she sat, her hands all the while moving up and down the length of her jeans nervously, even desperately. 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 very picture of degradation and sickness.

 
 

After the initial shock, though, I could hear a brave noise wandering within her voice, a misguided, ludicrous posturing somehow suggesting indirectly a just-discernable and forgotten 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. But she was obviously destroying herself, and one took no joy in that. Mrs. Biddleman was right to be worried, but what had taken her so long to act? Her daughter, Ingrid Maureen Biddleman, 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.

 
 

“About a year, not that it’s any of your business, asshole.”

 
 

“Oh, yeah!!!” I shouted, “I think I could do without any more abuse, little girl, so wise-up, would ya, dumb female!!!” I glared at her. She was somewhat admonished, she knew I had a point. 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. Phineas had a yarmulke on his head and a prayer shawl on his shoulders. A Menorah was in the background.

 
 

“If you’re so smart, why are you addicted to that stuff?” I gestured at the personal stash she had on the low, unpretentious 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, Downing.”

 
 

“Did Pancho order the murder of Gomez?”

 
 

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

 
 

“Yeah, I did, I just picked up the phone and said, ‘giddy up!’”

 
 

“That’s it, Murderer! Get him! 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, 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.”

 
 

“You were once a close family,” I said, motioning to the picture, “what happened?”

 
 

“Mind your own business, dude! What are you here for, anyway? Are you a chaperone, baby? Mind your own business!”

 
 

“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 your family.”

 
 

“Oh, boy, isn’t that touching! She wants Pancho gone for my sake! What maternal care! What familial bliss! 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 ‘People’s Justice’ car!”

 
 

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

 
 

“What?” her voice cracked nervously, her manner a pretense of being appalled. She sat up straight on the lumpy couch, staring at me, astonished. Her hands spread out on the couch like a sprinter’s on the track in the 100 meter final.

 
 

“How much do you take?” I persisted.

 
 

“What!!!” she shrieked, ”What are you saying, mister?!”

 
 

“I’m saying $4 million is a lot of white snow off the top of Mount Baldy. 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, one resplendent with 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, stupid “people’s justice” slogans written by hand high on the wall:

 

“When they kick in your front door, how you gonna go? Shot down on the pavement, or waiting on death row?”

 

(That’s The Clash, I believe.) Meanwhile, Ingrid squirmed uncomfortably. She glanced enviously at the cat. Lying didn’t sit well with her.

 
 

“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 just a damn fuckin’ minute, mister! Where you going with this? Are you some lawyer creep?”

 
 

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

 
 

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

 
 

“Pancho. How much?”

 
 

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

 
 

“Who’s Reggie?”

 
 

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

 
 

“I’ll have to talk to him at the museum. So how does the war between the Diablos and Saliciamon come into all this?”

 
 

“I don’t know, who says it does?”

 
 

“I dunno, I guess I do. Did Saliciamon find out about the endowment skimming, and want in on it, too? Just like Pancho found out about it?”

 
 

“Now how in the blue fuck did you know that, dude?! Is there anything you don’t fuckin’ know? God!!!”

 
 

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

 
 

The meeting drew to a close after more revelations, mostly not very enlightening. Ingrid had to go out somewhere, so we went down together. She briefly disappeared into the bedroom, then re-emerged wearing some orange, hideous hat.

 
 

“I guess you couldn’t find your hat,” I kidded her, “but what is that thing on your head, a pair of old socks?” She stopped to stare, incredulous at my rudeness.

 
 

“Very funny! How timely! But what’s that in your pants, a Kool-Aid push-up Popsicle? Oh, yummy! I know you’re glad to see me, dude, but chill.” We exited the apartment out into the hall, which was unaccountably still there. I moved over to the stairs. She looked at me quizzically.

 
 

“There’s an elevator.” She motioned at the thing.

 
 

“It’s not working. The Commish tried to get it to work, but it wouldn’t,” I said, and she laughed.

 
 

“He’s a blithering idiot. Didn’t you see that, Downing? It works perfectly well. 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, and soon here it was. It worked perfectly, she was absolutely right. Then outside, on the sidewalk, there was an awkward moment between us. We were parting allies, I think, she had cooperated, but there was indecision in the air. Just then an old, rattling, yellow car heaved by. It looked just about to die on the spot. It was a ramshackle relic of another era. I grimaced playfully at it as it passed and laughed. I made the following observation:

 
 

“It’s okay to have an old car — no problem,” I said, smiling a bit and gesturing significantly, “but just don’t have a yellow old car.” Ingrid threw her head back and laughed fully, a beautiful sound emanating from that beautiful neck. You had to be there. Next stop: Pancho.

 
 

…..to be continued…..