The Amazing Harvey (15 page)

Mrs. Fisher looked at Hannah. She blinked rapidly.

Hannah said, “Bye, Mom.” She leaned down and kissed her mother on the cheek.

Mrs. Fisher smiled. She nodded at me, turned, and walked slowly back to her Chevy.

As we started toward my car, Hannah gave me the bag. Through the paper, I felt the warm chili container. I could smell the oatmeal cookies. My stomach screamed
Rip it open and bury your face in it.

She said, “You want the food?”

Yes!
A day without a frozen dinner. “I couldn't do that. She made it for you.”

“I'll throw it away if you don't take it.” Hannah went around my car, toward the passenger side.

Balancing the bag, I opened the driver's door and looked at Hannah over the car roof. “Why would you throw it away?”

She opened the door. “I'm sticking to healthy foods these days.”

“So why does your mother bring you this kind of stuff?”

“She can't accept the fact that I've changed my eating habits. Mom keeps trying to get me back as a binge buddy.” She ducked her head and climbed into the car.

“Well, okay. Thanks.” I pushed the driver's seat forward and started to put the food in the backseat.

Hannah said, “Could you put it in the trunk?”

“Huh?”

“I don't want to smell it the whole time.”

“You don't like the smell?”

“I love the smell. Put it in the trunk.”

I put the bag in the trunk, then got in the car and pulled the shoulder belt across my chest. “You think your mother is trying to sabotage your diet?”

“Yes.”

“Why would she do that? Isn't she proud of your weight loss?” I started the car and put it in gear.

“Mom equates food with love. If I reject her food, she thinks I don't love her. So I take the bag every week, then toss it.”

“Have you tried telling her to stop?”

“Only a few hundred times.”

As we drove, I listened to the whoosh of the air conditioner.

I said, “Your mom and dad are really … different.”

Her head snapped toward me. “Are you saying that because my mother is a big woman?”

Well
 … yeah … “No.”

Hannah looked out the side window. “She didn't look like that when they got married.”

Why do I feel like I'm walking on dynamite? I said, “I'm not talking about her looks. She just seems more … down-to-earth. You have to admit, they're pretty different.”

Hannah blew out a breath. “Well, the truth is, my father also thinks they're pretty different. He left her fifteen years ago.”

*   *   *

We didn't talk until we were a few miles from Venice Beach.

I said, “Is it a good sign that I haven't heard from the cops?”

“Not really. Most likely, it just means they're still building a case.”

“You always know how to make a guy feel better.” I turned into a public parking lot.

She half-turned toward me in the seat. “You want the truth, or you want sunshine pumped up your ass?”

“Maybe throw a little light into my small intestine?”

*   *   *

After I parked the car, Hannah, Lisa, and I walked a few blocks down Venice Boulevard and turned onto the Boardwalk. It was jammed with people, as it usually is on sunny spring weekends, with loud conversations, music from radios, and the scrape of Rollerblades. The air smelled like cotton candy.

We passed Muscle Beach, where an African-American man bench-pressed a bar that was loaded with enough iron disks to flex the bar like a hunter's bow. A man in a turban roller-skated past us, playing an electric guitar that was wired to a small amp on his back.

We headed north on the Boardwalk, weaving through the crowd. In the front window of a tattoo parlor, a handwritten sign offered a 10 percent discount before noon. Probably a safe bet. Its customers weren't likely awake by then.

I said to Hannah, “Have you noticed that no one's looked at me twice?”

She kept walking, eyes straight ahead.

We found the first pizza joint, which was more like a serving counter. I walked up to the window. Hannah edged in front of me and said, “Is there a Kevin who works here?”

The frizzy-haired man behind the counter said, “You a cop?”

“No. Is Kevin here?”

He adjusted the white paper hat on his head. “You look like a cop.”

“I'm not a cop.”

A big guy behind us said, “Speed it up.”

Hannah spoke louder. “Is Kevin here?”

“Never heard of him, Officer.”

Hannah huffed away.

I hustled to catch up with her, then said, “I'll take the next one.”

*   *   *

A few doors down was a white wooden structure with screened windows. Its faded sign said
NERO'S RETREAT.
I walked up to the woman behind the outdoor serving counter. “Hey, is Kevin around?”

She screwed her mouth to the side. “Who?”

“You guys have a three-cheese pizza?”

“Only if you want the same cheese three times.”

“No one named Kevin works here?”

“Sorry. What's he look like?”

Hannah smirked at me.

I said, “About six foot three. Bald. Tattoo of a goat on his forehead.”

The woman shook her head. “No one here like that, dude.”

As we headed down the walkway, I saw a crescent-shaped crowd forming. A skinny man with a giant Adam's apple, wearing a dented black top hat, stuck his arms into the long sleeves of a straitjacket. He stood next to a twelve-foot-tall metal contraption that looked like an Erector set on steroids. Dangling from a pulley at the top of the device was a rope with an iron hook on the end. A blond woman in sequined leotards cranked a handle on the machine, lowering the hook.

I said to Hannah, “Hang on a sec.”

She looked at the guy in the straitjacket, then at me. “I don't have time for this.”

“Only a sec.”

She looked at her watch. “Thirty seconds.”

The skinny man invited a large man in a red-checked lumberjack shirt to tie the straps on the straitjacket. Lumberjack put his foot in the small of the thin man's back and pulled the canvas tight. I noticed how the thin guy braced his arms to pick up some slack, just like Houdini did. He knows what he's doing. That'll give him room to wriggle free.

Lumberjack's face reddened as he fastened the leather straps into the belt hooks. Skinny said, “Now, could you please tie my feet?”

The assistant handed Lumberjack a length of rope. He took it, squatted down, and tied the escapist's feet together.

From behind me, Hannah said, “Ten seconds.”

Without looking back, I waved for her to hold on.

The assistant grabbed the rope dangling from the tall machine and pulled it over to where the magician was standing. She attached the iron hook at the end of the rope to the ties on his feet, then went back to the contraption and turned the crank. The roped tightened. The magician squatted, sat, then laid down on the ground. The assistant kept cranking. His feet went up in the air, then the rest of his body. The top hat fell off.

Hannah said, “Glad to see your case is less important to you than a sideshow.”

I said, “Just a second.”

The magician went up higher, swaying on the rope. His assistant stopped cranking when his head was about five feet from the concrete.

I saw him give her a nod, though the audience probably didn't notice. She took out a cigarette lighter, flicked it on, and lit a torch.

The assistant said, “It took Houdini two minutes and forty-four seconds to get out of a straitjacket.” She walked over to the escapist, raised the torch, and held it up against the rope just above the magician's feet. The rope caught fire. The crowd gasped.

The magician started writhing like a butterfly in a cocoon.

The assistant said, “It takes two and a half minutes to burn through the rope. If Les doesn't get out in time, he can't use his arms to break the fall. He'll go headfirst into the pavement. Last year, a magician didn't make it. He cracked his skull and is still in a coma. Anyone mind if I take up a collection in advance?”

She dunked the torch in a bucket of water. The flame hissed out.

The crowd stared at the struggling magician. The assistant scooped up the magician's top hot and walked through the crowd. Still watching the escapist, people absently tossed money into the hat. The rope blackened. Strands popped out.

I reached into my pocket and gave her a dollar that I couldn't afford. She looked at Lisa and my jacket, then gave me a wink. Did she know I was one of them?

I saw the magician make a lurching move. I could tell he was free of the jacket, though he kept it around him for effect. He watched until she'd made the last collection, then he tossed it off.

The crowd cheered. Lisa flapped her wings. She likes applause.

The magician pulled his upper body toward the hook on his feet, like he was doing a sit-up in the air. Wow. He's got incredible abs. Just like Houdini.

The rope burned to a thin strand.

The audience was focused on the magician. I shot my eyes between him and the assistant. Just as he got hold of the foot hook, the assistant threw a hidden lever on the lifting machine. The burning rope snapped. As the magician fell, he straightened up and landed on his feet. The crowd cheered.

This guy is good.
I started forward to congratulate him, then glanced back at Hannah.

Gone.

I'm in deep shit.

Maybe I can take a second to congratulate him. Magicians like to know they're appreciated by other magicians.

A bunch of people had gotten in ahead of me. I tried to push in. Got elbowed in the ribs.

C'mon, move it.

I looked at my watch. I shouldn't piss off Hannah any more than necessary.

I waved at the magician. Didn't catch his eye.

I looked at my watch again.

Maybe I'll catch his next show.

I gave him one last wave. He didn't see it.

I started up the Boardwalk, glancing back.

I found Hannah two pizza parlors down the way. As I walked in, she was talking to a bald man behind the counter, who was shaking his head. Hannah turned and walked past me. I hurried outside and tried to get alongside her. She can really move.

When I caught up, Hannah stopped. She turned to face me. “I don't know why I'm giving up a Saturday if you're more interested in a street entertainer than you are in your own case.”

I took a half step back, panting from the run to catch up with her. “That magician had a technique I'd never seen before.” Well, not for a while anyway.

“Great. I'm sure you can get extra privileges by doing tricks for the prison guards.”

“Hey. I'm a professional magician. I have to keep up with the latest techniques. Don't you read the newest law cases?”

“Not when I'm doing client business.” She took off, walking fast.

I hurried alongside. We both looked straight ahead.

Lisa nibbled at my earlobe. I pushed her away. She came in for another bite.

*   *   *

Hanna and I tried three more pizza places, which proved equally Kevin-free.

We next walked into Vesuvio, a tiny redbrick building that smelled like pizza dough. There was a white Formica counter, with a menu board hanging above it, and two wooden picnic tables covered with plastic red-checkered tablecloths. A spiky-haired man walked up to the counter when he saw us. He wore a white apron over a wifebeater undershirt, and his arms were so inked with skulls, barbed wire, and jungle cats that it looked like he was wearing a colored shirt.

The man looked at Lisa and said, “Cool bird.” When he spoke, I saw a stud glint on his tongue.

“Thanks.”

He took a pencil from behind his multipierced ear, opened an order pad, and flipped over the top page. “What'll you have?” Despite the warrior tattoos, his voice was gentle.

I looked up at the menu board.

There it is!
Right under the Romana Special.

Three-Cheese Pizza.

I smiled at the guy. “Is Kevin around?”

He looked at Hannah, then back at me. He squinched his eyes. “Who are you?”

“Harvey Kendall. This is Hannah Fisher. We're private investigators.”

“What do you want with Kevin?”

“Just some information. You're Kevin, right?”

Keeping his eyes on me, he put the pencil behind his ear, let go of it, and gave a single nod.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

 

Kevin looked at Hannah, then at me. “Is she a cop?”

Hannah said, “No. We're working for one of the defendants. Someone who didn't do it.”

Kevin looked back and forth between us. “How come you're here before the cops?”

She shrugged. “Frankly, we're ahead of them on the case.”

I said, “Help us find the sonofabitch who did it.” I watched him closely, looking for a defensive reaction. Didn't see one.

Kevin yelled toward the back. “Ernie, can I take a few minutes?”

A man with a stubbled gray beard stuck his head over the kitchen counter. “Make it quick.”

We went outside and sat at a concrete table whose red-checked plastic tablecloth flapped in the ocean breeze. A thick crowd of people milled past us.

Kevin picked up a glass shaker of red pepper flakes and tilted it to the side, forming a red-flecked slope.

Hannah said, “How'd you meet Sherry?”

He turned the shaker, reengineering his slope. “I used to babysit for her when she was ten. I'm five years older than her.” He spoke so softly, it was hard to hear him over the crowd noise. I leaned in closer.

Kevin said, “Her father was a single dad. Real protective, you know? He never liked me much, but I lived in the neighborhood and I was cheap.”