Flat Spin (40 page)

Savannah thought about it for a minute. “I’d prefer busting your
huevos
.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

J
ingle’s Happy Place was anything but. Just another dive watering hole on Lankershim Boulevard, across the street from an empty used-car dealership gone bust. A big screen plasma was tuned to Sports Center. A hockey game was on. The Fun Room regulars, a handful of aging bikers and what looked to be blue collar retirees on fixed incomes, paid little attention to the television, preoccupied as they were with getting hammered on long-necked Buds and shots of tequila. They nudged each other and checked out Savannah as she walked in. We laid claim to two stools near the door.

The bartender was bald, with a wife beater T-shirt that afforded an unobstructed view of his heavily tattooed arms and neck—a multicolored kaleidoscope of hobbits, skulls and dragons. Five gold loops dangled from each of his earlobes. He tossed down a couple of cocktail napkins and stared in sullen silence at us, waiting. I ordered club soda with a lemon twist. Savannah went with a glass of Chardonnay.

“Something dry,” she said.

The barkeep stalked off to get our drinks without a word.

“I just realized something,” she said. “I don’t even know what your favorite season is.”

I looked over at her.

“I’m serious. We were married for how long? That’s how private you were, Logan. Always distracted, rarely engaged—except when we were in bed. And every year, it just got worse.”

“You should’ve said something.”

“Are you kidding? I said everything I could think of. Over and over. You just never heard me.”

A covert life is lived in boxes. Marriage and family are locked in one box; career in another. The arrangement isn’t for everyone. Every member of Alpha had been divorced at least once. Perhaps if I’d had it to do all over again, I might have gone a different route. Left the Air Force and gone to work for the airlines. Moved Savannah to the suburbs and started a family. Shared a life together. A
real
life. But that was the past. A Buddhist doesn’t dwell on the past. He concentrates on the present.

“Fall,” I said.

She looked over at me.

“My favorite season.”

“I would’ve guessed summer,” Savannah said. She got up to go to the ladies room.

“You coming back this time?”

“There’s a possibility.”

I smiled.

The regulars ogled her as she walked.

Our drinks arrived. There was no lemon twist in my club soda, but I let it slide. You pick your battles. My phone rang. Caller ID indicated it was Buzz.

“That was quick.”

“How long does it take to go rooting around somebody’s anus and write a prescription?” Buzz said. “The guy tells me I need more fiber.
More
fiber? Talk to my wife. I’m already tooting like a foghorn.”

“You run that plate?”

“No. I’m calling because I went to the doctor and now I’m conflicted about my sexual orientation and need some advice from somebody who’s been there. Even though I now realize that there’s no gift certificate in it for me to my favorite restaurant, yes, Logan, I ran your license plate. Because I love you, man.”

“Maybe you are conflicted, Buzz.”

“You ready to copy, wise guy?”

“Go.”

“The plate belongs to a 2007 white Honda coupe. Registered to an address on Sea View Lane in the Mount Washington area of Los Angeles.”

“Who’s it registered to?”

“The owner of record: Richard no middle initial Smith.”

My mouth went dry, the same way it used to just before I pickled a bomb or pulled the trigger on a target.
Richard Smith.
The same name on the stolen American Express card used to buy the Sawzall at the Home Depot in Phoenix.

Being the pro that he is, Buzz had gone one step further, looking up Smith’s driver’s license description: five-feet-eight and 178 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. He was sixty-one years of age, considerably older than any suspects that witnesses to Echevarria’s murder had described to police. He didn’t match the description of the suspect that Abnorman Buckhalter said he’d seen fleeing the house where Ortiz, the math teacher, was killed, nor did he resemble the man I’d seen on the Home Depot surveillance tape, exchanging heated words with Robbie Emerson before buying a power saw.

“What’s the deal with the Honda?” Buzz wanted to know.

“The week before Echevarria got hit, there was another shooting, same address, one street over. Retired schoolteacher. A witness said he saw the shooter drive off in a Honda with that license plate. Richard Smith also reported his credit card stolen. That card was used to buy a power saw in Phoenix that might be connected to another murder linked to Echevarria’s.”

“You’re thinking this guy Smith with the Honda took out the teacher
and
Echevarria?”

“That’s the thing. Smith doesn’t match up. Witnesses described a different shooter. I’m wondering if somebody else might’ve been driving his car.”

“The same somebody else who was using Smith’s allegedly stolen credit card,” Buzz said.

“Read my mind.”

“So why don’t you go ask him.”

“Maybe I might just do that.”

“Good. That way, you can stop demanding favors from me every twenty seconds. You’re worse than my kids. At least they remember me on Father’s Day. You, I get nothing from but empty promises.”

Savannah returned from the ladies room, drawing another round of lustful glances from the regulars.

“Hold the fort,” Buzz said, “did you say
power
saw? What’s up with that?”

“We’ll talk later.”

“What’s wrong with now?”

“I love you, too, Buzz.” I got off the phone as Savannah sat back down.

“I didn’t know you loved anybody,” she said.

“You’d be surprised.”

“What’re you, some kind of fuckin’ narc or something?” the bartender said accusingly, having overheard my phone conversation with Buzz.

“Me? I’m just a simple country doctor.”

Savannah sipped her drink and made a rancid face as the taste settled on her tongue.

“Yuck.”

“You want wine? Go to the west side.” He snatched Savannah’s glass and dumped it out into the sink.

“Not to resort to clichés, amigo,” I said, “but that’s no way to treat a lady.”

“This is my bar. I’ll treat her any way I want.”

“C’mon, Logan, let’s go,” Savannah said, sliding off her stool.

“We’re not going anywhere until Lord of the Rings here apologizes to you for his crass behavior.”

“You want an apology?” He reached under the bar and produced an aluminum baseball bat. “I got your apology right here.”

I held my ground and stared him down.

“Please don’t do this, Logan,” Savannah said, tugging on my arm. “Let’s just go.”

“Listen to your bitch, Logan,” the barkeep said.

“My
bitch
?” Something inside me snapped. “Now I’m afraid you’re going to have to apologize twice.”

“Bullshit.”

He jabbed the bat at my face. I twisted it out of his grip and rammed the knobbed handle into his belly. He collapsed to his knees behind the bar, gasping for breath.

“Apologize to the lady.”

“Sorry,” he groaned.

“Again. This time with feeling.”

“I’m really sorry for calling you a bitch.”

I tossed the bat on the floor and followed Savannah out to her car.

“About damn time somebody put that turd in his place,” one of the regulars said.

“Hell, I don’t even know why I even drink here,” said another.

The others all murmured in agreement.

W
e drove up Mount Washington toward Richard Smith’s house. Not much of a mount. More like a hill. Savannah acted like she was irked that I had resorted to violence defending her honor. And, while she wouldn’t admit it, maybe a little flattered.

“I never realized Buddhists go around pounding people.”

“Only when they deserve it.”

She shook her head like she was disappointed in my behavior and downshifted.

“Well, anyway, I guess I should thank you.”

“Just don’t expect me to hold your umbrella or throw my coat down over any mud puddles. A man does have his limits, you know.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Sea View Lane was twisty and narrow, an eclectic hodgepodge of old and new homes, most with canyon views. Smith’s house was a flat-roofed affair with stucco walls and metal-frame windows, cantilevered precariously over the lip of the canyon on wooden stilts that looked as if they might collapse with the mildest temblor. A black Lexus sedan with Nevada plates was parked out front, behind a VW Beetle with California tags and a bumper sticker that read, “Don’t Forget to Floss.” The white Honda coupe was nowhere to be seen. I tried not to look too obvious as we drove past.

There are thousands of Richard Smiths in America. And, as Czarnek had so astutely pointed out, the country is filled with white Hondas. So, yes, it was very possible that the Richard Smith who’d reported his credit card stolen, and whose Honda was purportedly observed by a crazy ex-cop leaving the scene of one murder, had nothing to do with another. But, I mean, c’mon. What are the odds?

Buddhists believe that events rarely happen by chance, that karma truly does govern the universe. As a budding Buddhist, I suppose I was about to find out. I directed Savannah to park down the street, around the corner and out of sight, which she did. I told her to stay put and got out of the car. She ignored my instructions and got out, too.

“You’re not in charge of me, Logan.”

“I’m not ordering you, Savannah. I’m asking. For your own good. Stay here.”

“If this man was involved in Arlo’s murder, I have a right to confront him.”

“You have a right to get hurt, too. I don’t want that to happen.” And then I said, impulsively, “I care too much about you.”

The expression on her face was something between disbelief and rapture. At least I think it was. Hell, I never could read the woman anyway.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“You said you cared about me. Isn’t that what you just said?”

“Yes, OK. I said I cared about you, Savannah. Can I go now?”

She smiled. “I care about you, too, Logan.”

“If he has anything relevant to say, I’ll come and get you.”

“Just call me. We do live in the Digital Age, you know. Most of us, anyway. Some of us still live in the Pleistocene Era.”

“Was that an insult?”

“Scientific observation.”

I grinned and started walking.

R
ichard Smith’s doorbell chimed like Big Ben. No one responded. I pushed the button again and pounded my fist on the door because nothing says “You have a visitor” like pounding and impatiently ringing at the same time. I tried the doorknob. Locked. No one appeared to be home.

There was an attached two-car garage. I stood on tiptoes and peeked in through a narrow transom window at the top of the door. No vehicles inside. No newspapers piled up on the short driveway. Two large terracotta clay pots planted with pink geraniums flanked the front door. I checked the soil in the pots. Damp. I looked in the mailbox out front. Empty. The postal carrier would’ve already come and gone, this late in the day. Somebody had to have picked up the mail.