Hail Mary (7 page)

“
Yes.”

“
Then I would call the Department of Fish and Game and you would lose your license and be heavily fined. There’s a chance your boat might even be confiscated, as well.” He stopped and looked at me long and hard. “Look, Mr...?”

“
Anderson,” I said.

“
Look, Mr. Anderson, I run a very up and up wholesale business. I work with well-known and respected fishermen. I respect the laws of California and elsewhere. If you are considering anything less than legal, then I think our business here is done.”

“
That’s good to know,” I said. “Do you know anything about the murder of Mitch Golden?”

He didn’t blink. He didn’t react. His not reacting was, in effect, a reaction. “Excuse me?” he asked after a moment.

“
Mitch Golden was a conservationist for Sharks Now. They found his body yesterday. Apparently he’d been shot and dumped overboard. Chained and everything. I saw the body. Not pretty.”

“
I don’t understand,” he said. “Are you a fisherman?”

“
I’m told that one of your shark hunters might have threatened him,” I said. “I’m also told that you buy illegal shark fins.”

“
Get out.”

But I didn’t get out, even when he opened the drawer and removed a handgun. It wasn’t the first time a gun has been shoved in my face.

“
Who are you?” he asked.

I reached carefully into my back pocket and withdrew my wallet. From it, I extracted my business card and handed it to him. I had nothing to hide. From anyone.

He took the card, looked at it, still holding the gun on me. “You’re a fucking private investigator?”

“
I’m also a righter of wrongs,” I said.

“
What the hell does that mean?”

“
It means that if you are who I think you are, you’ll be seeing me again.”

I got up and left, all too aware that the gun was pointed at my back.

Chapter Thirteen

Sanchez and I were working out at the 24-Hour Fitness in Newport Beach.

Today was our “pull” day. That meant biceps, lats, abdominals and hamstrings. Like anyone who’s serious about getting bigger and stronger, we never work the same muscles two days in a row. Amateurish. Muscles need time to rebuild, especially when you hit them as hard as we hit them. Tomorrow would be our “push” day...any exercises that consist of a pushing motion, with bench presses being the obvious one.

Right now we were doing sets of old-school pull-ups on the horizontal bar. I was on pull-up number fourteen when Sanchez said, “Taking you long enough to do twenty pull-ups.”

I cranked out three more, then paused while hanging from my hands. “It’s my third set, asshole.”

“
And your skin’s all red and blotchy.”

“
Latinos sweat,” I said, resuming my pull-ups, grunting as I spoke. “Gringos blotch.”

Sanchez shook his head. “You gringos are weird.”

I finished my third set, and now Sanchez cranked out his own final set of pull-ups. I mentioned how he looked like a girl, with his legs curled up the way they were. He paused and said something about the unappealing lack of pigmentation in my skin, then finished his own third set.

Next, we hit the row machine hard, and by our second set, I had gotten him caught up on my current case. Sanchez, a homicide investigator with the LAPD and an ex-teammate at UCLA, was a good person to bounce cases off of, although I would never let him know that.

“
This guy, Trujillo...”

“
Is Latino,” I said.

“
What does being Latino have to do with anything?”

“
I thought we were finishing each others’ sentences.”

“
We ain’t fucking finishing each others’ sentences.”

“
See,” I said. “I could have finished that one for you.”

Sanchez shook his head and finished his third set of rows. He was wearing a tank top and his muscles bulged and rippled and I caught more than one woman admiring him. I didn’t need to tell him the women were admiring him. Sanchez noticed everything. Besides, his wife, Danielle, would have
my
head on a platter if she knew I had pointed out any women.

Sanchez said, “So why do we think this guy Trujillo plugs our golden boy and dumps him in the Long Beach Harbor?”

I was on the machine now, pulling the chromed bar back slowly and with near-perfect form. “Because Mitch Golden was giving him grief. Hurting business.”

“
Hurting business how?”

“
Exposing the shark finners for the shitbags they are. Helping the game wardens arrest his suppliers.”

“
So Trujillo is like, what, a shark fin kingpin? And his fishermen provide him the fins?”

“
Way to make it sound street,” I said. “But yeah.”

“
Street makes sense to me,” said Sanchez. “Shark fins don’t. There any money in fins?”

“
Enough to kill,” I said.

Sanchez stood and stretched and generally looked like a peacock parading around. He showed me his tan bicep. “See, no blotching. It’s brown and beautiful.”

“
And sweaty,” I said.

Sanchez shook his head, careful not to look at the women looking at him. He was afraid of his wife, too. As we all should be.

He said, “And they really use dogs?”

“
Some do. Not all of them.”

“
Ain’t right.”

“
Nope.”

We were silent as we caught our breaths. The gym wasn’t so silent. Music pumped. Machines clattered. People grunted.

Sanchez looked around. “Lots of splotchy people here.”

“
It’s Newport,” I said.

He looked at me. “You can’t save all the dogs, Knighthorse.”

“
I know.”

“
Or the damn sharks.”

“
I know that, too,” I said.

“
But you’re going to try, aren’t you?”

“
I’m going to do something.”

“
What about finding Mitch Golden’s murderer?”

“
That too,” I said.

Chapter Fourteen

I was driving south along Seal Beach Boulevard, and when I made a right turn, I literally left behind Orange County and entered a whole new world.

Leisure World.

Before me was a massive, revolving globe, which was kind of fitting. I waited in line behind some shuttle buses, and when my turn came to approach the security gate, the world’s oldest security guard came out sporting a clipboard and a frown.

“
Who’re you here to see?” he asked.

“
Poppie,” I said.

“
Poppie who?”

“
Just Poppie.”

“
You don’t have a last name?”

“
That’s all she gave me.”

“
What’s your business here?”

“
I’m going to apprehend a flasher.”

“
A what?”

“
A flasher. A man who reveals his genitalia to women. Or a woman who reveals herself to men, although I’ve never been so lucky.”

He looked down at his list, looked at me, and then asked me to pull around and park. I did as I was told. A minute or two later, I found myself sitting in an old office that could have doubled as an interrogation room.

Shortly, another man appeared. He was wearing the same security outfit, but this one had bars on the sleeves. A captain security guard. I nearly saluted. He asked to see my private investigator license and I gave it to him. He studied it closely and left the office. I heard a copy machine whir on. I next heard him typing on a computer, and about five minutes later, he came back in. He handed back my license, sat in a squeaky chair behind the simple wooden desk. He introduced himself as Tony Hill. He smelled like Old Spice and sweat.

“
You check out,” said Tony Hill.

“
That’s a relief.”

“
Your license is in good standing with the state, and there are currently no complaints against you.”

“
Today must be my lucky day.”

“
I Googled your name. Are you the same Jim Knighthorse who played for UCLA?”

“
One and the same.”

“
I hate UCLA.”

“
Those are fighting words.”

He sat back and studied me. I often wondered what people thought about when they studied me. Impressed? Terrified? Envious? All of the above?

“
I don’t like you,” he finally said.

“
Doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “Most guys don’t like me. They tend to feel inferior. Less than a man. Especially if their ladies are around. It’s hard to measure up.”

He didn’t move a muscle. His stomach was mostly flat and he had some muscle around his shoulders. If I had to guess, I would say he was in his sixties. Finally, he said, “You think you’re pretty tough, don’t you?”

“
Compared to a charging rhino? Not so much. Compared to you, I think the answer is obvious. But if you want, we can duke it out old-school style. Throw on some gloves. Or better yet, dueling pistols.”

He shook his head and a grin might have appeared on his lips. “You’re a cocky son-of-a-bitch.”

“
I might have heard that once or twice. The thing is, I can back it up.”

He rubbed his smooth jaw. “I don’t have to let you in, Mr. Knighthorse. I have guys working on this case now. Except...”

“
Except the flasher is still out there.”

“
Fucking pervert. Got all the women here up in arms. The park president is breathing down my neck.”

“
You could use the help,” I said.

He got up, stepped out of the room, and came back with a visitor’s pass. “Just try not to cause too many problems.”

“
Me? Never.”

“
And let’s catch this old pervert, okay? He’s making my life a living hell.”

“
We can’t have that,” I said.

“
You have free rein in the park. Talk to whomever you want. I trust you will be discreet.”

“
Discreet is my middle name. Well that and
Badass
, of course.”

He shook his head and waved me off, and I happily left, clipping my visitor’s badge to the sleeve of my tee shirt.

Chapter Fifteen

Driving in Leisure World is an adventure.

I was adventuring now, trying to make sense of street signs, seemingly random crosswalks, painted road markers with arrows pointing to nowhere. All designed to make driving easier, but only serving to make things messier.

There were no less than 22,000 “15 MPH” speed limit signs, all of which were distributed evenly along the side of the road every few feet or so. At a stop sign—a stop sign, mind you, that was actually posted
between
the lanes—I pulled up next to one of the many security guards sitting in what appeared to be a luxury golf cart. I rolled down my window.

“
Excuse me,” I said.

He looked at me. “Yeah?”

“
What’s the speed limit here?”

“
Fifteen miles per hour.”

“
Thank you, Officer.”

He nodded and seemed about to say something; no doubt something to the effect of
not
being an officer. But he must have liked the title because he nodded again, flipped down his shades, and pulled forward slowly.

At 15 MPH, no doubt.

I somehow found Poppie’s address, and parked in what I assumed was a designated visitor parking space, but it could have been another of the thousands of shuttle pick-up areas. Soon, I was rapping on her door.

“
Who is it?”

“
Not the flasher,” I said.

She opened the door, blinking into the afternoon sun, which was hanging somewhere above my shoulder. “Oh, heavens, I’m just a nervous wreck whenever someone comes to my door these days. Please come in, Mr. Knighthorse.”