Grist 01 - The Four Last Things (14 page)

“Now let’s hear you cough,” I said. “This should be in the minor.”

The laugh subsided into a complacent smirk. “Tax exemption for religions, as I’m sure you remember from school, is just a manifestation of the separation between church and state, which is absolute—to use the exact words of the California Supreme Court—‘no matter how preposterous the belief.’ It may relieve you, though, to know that we pay for our tax-exempt status. We have Internal Revenue camping on our doorstep eighteen hours a day. Even if we don’t file returns.”

“Poor you,” I said. “The Church is a business.”

“What’s the L.A.
Times
!” Brooks said. “Amnesty International? Greenpeace? The League of Women Voters? The
Times
, like all newspapers, clings frantically to its First Amendment rights in the name of truth, justice, and the American way. And then they devote their hallowed pages to lingerie ads and half-baked exposes. Please. We’re all adults here, even though Miss Chan’s I.D. would probably be checked in any bar in town. The Church is completely candid about what it offers and what it delivers. You can pretend any kind of piety you like for your readers, but in this room it doesn’t wash. If you’ll excuse a lapse into the vernacular, give me a break.” He shifted around in his chair and pressed something under the desk.

“
You’re
not a religion,” I said. “What are your annual fees from the Church?”

“We’re not a publicly held corporation either,” Brooks said winningly, “and our fees are none of your business.”

The door opened.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Marcy said.

“Don’t be sorry,” Brooks said, stroking his chin. “These lovely people were just going.”

“Don’t get up,” I said. “I’d hate you to lose the shine on the soles of your shoes.”

Brooks pulled the thick gold bracelet out from under his cuff and buffed it on his lapel. “Polish is everything,” he said. “Nice to have met you.”

“I hope you enjoy the story,” Eleanor said, standing and stowing her notebook in her purse.

“I won’t. I never read the
Times
. Marcy will show you out.”

Marcy did, closing the door behind us firmly and leading us back toward the reception area.

“What a greaseball,” Eleanor said disgustedly. Marcy made a reproving noise.

“What my colleague is suggesting,” I amended, “is that Mr. Brooks is certainly smooth.”

“Smooth?” Marcy chuckled. “Darling, the man makes Teflon look like stucco.” She pushed her miniature garage door opener and we were in the lobby. “The elevator’s waiting,” she said. “Have a safe trip, now. It’s a long way down.”

Chapter 13

“I
‘m not quitting, and that’s all there is to it,” she shouted over the music. “You may have gotten me into this, but I’ll get me out of it, when and if I want to. You think I’ve got an On and Off switch that you can flick whenever you want?”

“Jesus,” I said. “You mean there’s an On switch too?”

“Of course there is,” Eleanor said in as silken a tone as the volume level in the Red Dog would allow. “You used to know where it was, as I recall.”

I hoisted my whiskey. “That seems like a very long time ago,” I said. The whiskey burned its way down toward my stomach like a gunpowder fuse.

“Not to me, it doesn’t. Time flies when you’re enjoying yourself.”

Off-duty cops and cop groupies boogied like white people in a little clear area in front of the jukebox. I’d never seen a cop who could dance. Under different circumstances I would have shared that insight with Eleanor.

As it was, we glared at each other over the dirty table. We’d been squabbling ever since we left Brooks’s office. She picked up a handful of peanuts, started to eat one, changed her mind, and threw them angrily onto the sawdust-covered floor.

“Fooey,” she said.

“What was that for?”

“The bunny rabbits,” she said, curling her inverted upper lip. Normally, her upper lip was one of the prettiest things in an unreasonably pretty face. Now it looked like she was trying to imitate Ricky Nelson trying to imitate Elvis Presley.

“There aren’t any rabbits here, and if there are, they eat red meat.”

“Then I’ve been misinformed,” she said, sipping at her fourth club soda. “I thought this was bunny rabbit central. It’s so
cute
.”

Her fourth club soda, my third whiskey. Not anything as good as the stuff in Skippy’s hip flask, just crappy old rotgut guaranteed to give you ulcers when you were sober enough to notice. I signaled for another, then reached over and picked up her glass. “Cheers,” I said, pouring the club soda vengefully on the floor. “For the bunny rabbits.”

“Okey-dokey,” she said between her teeth, just as a weatherbeaten, miniskirted waitress threaded her way between dancing cops to reach the table, staring down at the splash of club soda in the sawdust. “I’ll take a whiskey too.”

“Oh, no, you won’t,” I said.

“Hey, bub,” the waitress said in a well-smoked basso profundo, “the lady‘ll take anything she wants.”

“Fine,” I said. “You get her home.”

“It’d be a pleasure,” the waitress said, looking appreciatively at Eleanor. “Where do you live, honey?”

“Solvang,” Eleanor lied.

“Stick with the club soda,” the waitress said, picking up our glasses. “Unless you’d like to stay in Hollywood tonight, that is.”

“I can’t,” Eleanor said sweetly. “Cats, you know.”

“Let ‘em eat mice,” said the waitress, paraphrasing Marie Antoinette. “We could go to Duke’s for breakfast in the morning.”

“Two whiskeys,” I said. “If I’m not intruding, that is.”

The waitress looked longingly at Eleanor, who stared obliviously through the window onto Hollywood Boulevard. “Any special kind?”

“Bottled,” I said.

“With a label,” Eleanor added.

“I get it,” the waitress said. “Well, you can’t blame me for trying.” She winked at Eleanor and sashayed toward the bar.

“You certainly can’t,” I said bitterly.

“You certainly can,” she said with feminine illogic. “What if I’d accepted?”

“You’d have something to write about for the
Times
,” I said.

“I already do. And I’m going to stick with it.”

“Eleanor,” I said. “Darling. This isn’t Parcheesi. This is murder, and a couple of particularly unpleasant murders to boot. I saw the way they went through Sally’s house. We’re dealing with professionals here.”

“What this isn’t,” she said, “is ‘Style.’ This is front-page stuff, and you’re not going to cut me out at this late date. You may be passing yourself off as Algernon Swinburne,” she added, apparently forgetting that she was the one who’d given me the name, “but I’m plain old Eleanor Chan, and all these professionally murderous individuals know it. I’m in the darned phone book, Simeon,” she said, lapsing into what was, for her, profanity. “Anyone who’s managed to memorize the alphabet and learned how to use Information can find me. And where can they find Algernon Swinburne? In Norton’s
Anthology
, that’s where. So who’s more exposed, you or I?”

“So quit already.”

“Too late. Anyway, I’m having fun. The cookbook, with all due thanks to you,” she said, “is a drag. A cup of organic tofu, two tablespoons of grated kelp, a teaspoon of soy sauce, and don’t let it boil.” I shuddered at the thought of eating whatever it was. “This is something I can get my teeth into.”

“We’re talking about murder,” I said as the waitress plunked down our drinks.

“These
shoes
are murder,” the waitress said winningly to Eleanor. “Arch support is a doctor’s delusion. I need a massage.”

“So find a masseur,” I said shortly.

“A woman’s touch is what I had in mind.”

“Find a woman, then,” Eleanor said.

“Well, excuse me,” the waitress said in an aggrieved voice. “I thought maybe I had. Enjoy your whiskey.”

She retreated toward the bar. “I hate it when someone tells me to enjoy something,” Eleanor said. “Enjoy your dinner, enjoy your trip. Either I can enjoy it by myself or not at all.”

We both drank. On the jukebox the Monkees, sounding even younger and more ragged than I remembered, shrilled the schedule for the last train to Clarksville, wherever that was. It was old cop’s night at the Red Dog; they were too old to have the mustaches that seem to be issued with the uniforms to all cops under forty. I suddenly realized that Eleanor and I were probably the youngest people in the place. Even counting the cop groupies. A couple of them
did
have mustaches.

“Lovely establishment,” Eleanor said. “So romantic.”

“We’re not here to bill and coo. This is a cops’ bar and we’re here to talk to a cop.”

“Not I,” she said. “I’m here to listen. And your cooer broke years ago.”

“Yeah, but my bill’s in great shape.”

“I’ll take your word. So where’s this cop of yours?” She took a tough journalist’s slug off the whiskey, real
Front Page
stuff, and gave me the pleasure of watching her choke slightly as it went down. “All of three years old,” she said when she could talk.

A beefy, red-faced cop with white hair cut military-close and blue eyes so close together that he could have worked undercover as a flounder appeared at the table. “Wanna dance?” he said.

“I can’t,” I said. “Old war injury. It’s sweet of you to ask, though.”

“I’d love to,” Eleanor said, getting up. “Nothing too fancy. I’ve got a pulled hamstring.”

“You’re going to break the waitress’s heart,” I said.

“So comfort her. She looks like she depends on the kindness of strangers.”

“Have a nice twirl, Miss Dubois,” I said to her back. “Try not to step on his feet.”

I picked up my drink, thought better of it, and drank hers instead. It was decidedly better than what I’d been drinking, which tasted like something you’d use to start a barbecue. The hopeful waitress had upgraded Eleanor free of charge.

A heavy hand fell on my shoulder, startling me. ”Yo, as that musclebound asshole always says in the movies,” Al Hammond said. “One for me? Good planning.”

He picked up my drink and downed it. His eyes started to water “Holy shit,” he said. “You must have been mean to Peppi.”

“Peppi?” I said, watching Eleanor sway in the arms of the beefy cop. An old Dionne Warwick song was on the jukebox. “Who the hell is Peppi?”

“The dyke who served you this stuff.” Hammond was a vehement homophobe. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t have been in Records. The alleged perp whose rights he’d neglected to recite before breaking his nose had been of the gay persuasion.

“How’s Um Hinckley?” I said as he sat in Eleanor’s chair.

“About as useful as a flat tire,” he said, finishing the drink with a grimace. “Where are the men these days?”

“There’s always Peppi,” I said, waving for her attention. She looked past me, then saw Hammond and started toward us, jostling the cop who was dancing with Eleanor with unnecessary force.

“They’re not joining the police,” he said, pronouncing it, as all cops do, “pleece,” “and that’s for sure. ‘The boys in blue’ has taken on a new meaning.”

“Al,” Peppi said, looking down at the empty glass in front of him. “You didn’t drink that, did you?”

“Peppi,” Hammond said, “you should join the force. We need your kind of random malice.”

“I can do more harm here.”

“Well, don’t do it to us. Give us a couple good ones, wouldya? Something that won’t threaten my friend’s private eyesight.” He chuckled, emitting a sound that suggested gravel in a cement mixer. That was Hammond’s idea of light banter.

“Two?” Peppi said. “Or three?”

“Three,” I said. “Let her get home alone.”

“Who’s three?” Hammond said.

“Little Miss Chopsticks,” Peppi said unpleasantly, “out there on the dance floor.”

Hammond followed her gaze. “Cute,” he said. “Why are you letting her dance with Monohan?”

“It’s not a question of letting,” I said.

“Lib,” Hammond said. “I liked it better when it was short for libido. What’re you, waiting for the bourbon to age?” he asked Peppi, who was looking moonstruck at Eleanor.

“Every minute counts,” she said sulkily, heading for the bar.

“You want to watch her,” Hammond said. “You want to watch Monohan too. He’s old and fat and his eyes are on top of each other, but they go for him.”

Monohan was younger and thinner than Hammond, but I let it pass. “So,” Hammond said conversationally, “you’re withholding information on a murder.”

“This is withholding? Why are we here?”

“Why’d you stand me up the first time?”

“Oh, Al,” I said, putting my hand on his. “I didn’t know you cared.”

He yanked his hand away and looked around to see if anyone were watching. “Some things I care about. Murder, for example. You may be a friend, Simeon, but you’re still a civilian. Murder is a cop’s landscape.”

“Oh, good, the police are here,” Eleanor said behind me. “Not another word, now, not until I come back. Where’s the ladies’ room, Monnie?”

“I don’t think there is one,” Hammond said. “Lady cops do it standing up.”

“I’ll show you,” Monohan said gallantly.

“Monnie?” I said. “As in mononucleosis?”

Monohan’s red face got a little redder and he opened his mouth. Then he looked at Hammond and shut it again.

“If there is a ladies’ room, Monohan can show you to it,” Hammond said with exaggerated politeness. “He uses it all the time. Don’t you, Monnie?”

“How’s Records, Hammond?” Monohan asked with a practiced sneer.

“If we had a ladies’ room,” Hammond said, “it’d be perfect for you.”

“Come on, Eleanor,” Monohan said in a dignified tone. “The conversation will be better in the ladies’. Even if you’re by yourself.” He took her elbow and guided her away.

“God, I’m glad to know cops are as rude to each other as they are to everyone else,” I said.

Hammond ignored me, watching them. “Ah, the mystery of the East,” he said.

“Careful, Al. This is not just a squeeze.”

“That’s obvious. If your blood pressure were any higher you’d explode. Calm down, you look like a cop. What’s her name?”

“Eleanor.” She and Monohan disappeared down a corridor together.

“I already heard that, you twit. Monnie used it, remember? The girl who was killed. What was
her
name?”

“Sally, by which I mean Sarah, Oldfield. Is he going to go into the bathroom with her?”

“Not unless she lets him.” Peppi showed up with three doubles. Hammond gave her a minimal smile in return. “Three more in five minutes,” he said. “My friend’s paying.”

“I never would have guessed,” she said.

“Put a sock in it,” Hammond said. “And get us another chair.”

“Get it yourself,” Peppi said. “What do you think I am, a furniture mover?”

“There’s a future in it. Nobody stays put these days.”

“You couldn’t prove it by me. Some people have already outstayed their welcome.”

“Peppi,” Hammond said, “this display of pique is not becoming.”

“Yes, it is,” I said. “It’s becoming boring.”

“Tell it to someone who cares,” Peppi said. “This ain’t TV. If you can’t change channels, try changing bars.”

“Three more,” Hammond said. “Five minutes. Now, beat it.”

Peppi beat it.

“Sugar and spice,” I said.

“She’s okay,” Hammond said, displaying all his sensitivity in one fell swoop. “It’s not easy to be a dyke these days.”

“It probably never was.”

“Tell me about Sarah Oldfield.”

“Tell us both about Sarah Oldfield,” Eleanor said, seating herself on a chair that she’d pulled up herself and picking up her glass.

“That was quick,” I said.

“It was awful,” she said. “Too awful to use. Completely outside my frame of reference. Monnie’s sweet, though.”

“Well, I’m really glad to hear that,” I said.

“I’m Al Hammond,” Hammond said, putting out a paw. “And you’re Eleanor. Simeon’s told me so much about you,” he added untruthfully.

She shook his hand and blushed. “He has?” She glanced at me.

“You’re Topic A.”

“Topic or toxic?”

Hammond laughed, a trifle uncertainly, and took refuge in business. “Sarah Oldfield,” he said.

“This is not a gift,” I said. “It’s a trade.”

“What do you want? And what are you giving?”

“To take it in reverse order, I’m giving you a name, an address, and some background. What you’re giving me is in. I want in on everything you find out, and I want to know everything you can put together about three people. Make that four people.”

“Have you got a client?”

“No. I’ve got a grudge. I don’t think Sally Oldfield should be dead.”

Hammond pulled out a tiny notebook, dwarfed in his hamlike hands. He felt around in his jacket pockets for a pen. “What’s the background?”