The Detective & the Chinese High-Fin (10 page)

I
t's a mostly unpleasant drive down the 405 and then the 5 to get to the greater San Diego area. Long stretches of bleak gray concrete, car dealerships on both sides, weird highway-bordering office buildings housing people doing who knows what. And then, as you get near the towns north of San Diego—Carlsbad, Oceanside, Encinitas—the drive starts to take on a different feel. You begin to see glimpses of ocean, of trees, of beautiful cliffs standing tall above a beautiful beach.

And then when you turn off the highway and head due west to enter one of those little seaside towns—that's when the California magic really hits you. That's when you can smell the salt in the air, see the white sand and the big green
sea, roll the window down and feel cool air and hot sun simultaneously.

And that's what I did. Off the 5, into Oceanside, and then into Marlon the Marlin's marina. The Oceanside Marina. Before I got out of the Focus I called Dave Treadway, nobody home, left a message on his cell saying I was in the area and to please call me.

Here I was at another marina. Two marinas in four days. Was I in danger of becoming a boat person? Holy smokes, that's frightening. I walked through the lot, then wound my way through the marina toward Marlon's sailboat. I knew my way, had been many times. Right before I got to Marlon's slip, I ran into another marina dweller I'd met a few times while visiting. Hunter Clavana, an Aussie.

“The Darv? How you doing, mate?”

How convenient, he's got two reasons to say “mate.”

“Hey, Hunter. What's happening?” I looked at him. I had literally never seen a white man that color. He wasn't tan. He wasn't brown. He was a deep, disturbing, almost charcoal gray. His skin had literally been cooked.

He said, “Oh, all's good. I've felt better, though. Birthday was yesterday. Had too much of that.”

He pointed at the half gallon I had in my hand.

“Right,” I said. “How old?”

“Thirty-seven.”

He looked a hundred. He did. Maybe a hundred and ten.

“Well,” I said, moving on, “happy belated.”

When I got to Marlon's
sailboat, he was on the deck, asleep. Or at least it looked that way—he had his eyes
closed. I stepped aboard, walked over, and sat in a chair that was built into the side of the boat. A nice blue cushion. A sly smile appeared on Marlon's face, his eyes still closed, and he said, “How you doing, John?”

“I'm great, Marlon. How are you?”

He opened his eyes and said, “Look at me. I'm fucking wonderful.”

I did look at him. Lean and strong into his sixties. With ropy arms, bird legs, and a little old-man gut. A charming shark smile set against dark, suspicious eyes. He was wearing shorts, deck shoes, and an open Hawaiian shirt. And of course, he was tan. Too tan.

I pointed to the silver aviators I was wearing and said, “How do you not wear sunglasses out here, Marlon? It's bright. I mean, the sun bouncing off the water, it's
bright
.”

“Fucks with my tan,” he said. “If it gets too bright, I just close my eyes. Like I was doing just now when you showed up. I wasn't sleeping. I was sitting, resting, with my eyes closed. And tanning my lids.”

“When's Fran coming back?”

“Soon, I hope. Back when I used to play around, I'd love it when my old lady would leave. Shit, back in Jersey, when Fran would go visit her mom, her sister, I'd be looking out the blinds as she left in the cab. And the second that cab left, the second that fucking cab left, I'd run to my car and go to a strip joint. It didn't matter if it was 9 a.m. I'd find one that was open. And I'd have my face buried in some dancer's tits before Fran got to the airport. But now? I don't play around. I don't do that stuff. So I just get bored and lonely. Shit, I'm even glad to see you.”

I gave him a smile and handed him the jug of booze.

Marlon said, “You want a rum drink?”

“Yeah, I'll have one. Not too strong.”

“I'll make it how I make it.”

He had everything he needed right next to him on a little table. He made two drinks at once, going through a careful, meticulous process. Drop the ice in, squeeze the lime, squeeze in the liquid sugar, top it all off with booze. He stirred both drinks up and handed one to me. It was cold, just a little sweet, delicious. And after one sip, one sip, I felt a tiny buzz. I looked around the marina, rum drink in hand, felt the soft breeze coming in off the Pacific, the boats tilting just slightly back and forth, a little sway to the whole world, a little sway to the reality of life.

“I get it,” I said.

“Yeah, you do,” Marlon returned, taking a big sip. And then, “What can I do you for?”

“You know anything about the tropical fish business?”

“Sure. That's one of the stops people make when they're looking around for a way to get rich without having to do much. You know, think they can get their hands on some really rare fish, sell a few, and make a bunch of coin. Black pearl business is similar. Gold rush mentality. Lottery players. There's this mystery to those trades, like you are going to find some rare fucking gem. Truth is, it's just like most businesses. Like all businesses. A few people do it right, do it well, make money. Most people don't do it very well. Get lazy real quick. Get flaky. Fail.”

He closed his eyes and pointed his face to the sun. “Flaky, just like the food they feed those goddamn things.”

He laughed at his own joke.

“See,” he continued, opening his eyes back up and looking at me. “Above all, like everything, it's competitive. Unless you work hard, work really hard, know what you are fucking doing, commit to doing it for a long time, or have a scam running, you'll lose.”

“What do you mean, a scam running?”

He gave me his hard, dark eyes. “I mean like running a business the way we used to sometimes, back East. Where you said to people: Buy this thing from us—whatever the fuck the thing is—or get shot.”

I laughed. “Right. That kind of scam.”

Marlon took a big sip of his drink, two, three swallows. “Why do you ask, Johnny?”

“Case I'm on. Murder case. One of the many trails I'm following took me to a high-end tropical fish broker called Prestige Fish. In the Valley, Thousand Oaks. The guy who runs it finds rare, expensive tropical fish for people. Guy by the name of Lee Graves. No idea if this guy's up to something or not. I don't like him. And I've got a bad feeling. But I'm not sure. I don't have anything on him. Yet. But, Marlon, you know how much some of these fish sell for?”

“Oh, yeah. Twenty, thirty large. Sometimes more. Especially when two, three of those crazy fucks who buy them want the same fish and there's only one available.”

“Yeah. It's crazy. Imagine if you bought one, got it home, and it died?”

“They have insurance for them. That's a whole other business.”

Marlon just knows shit. It's that simple.

A nice breeze came through, rocking the boats and
making the little bells hanging off the tops of some of the sails ring, at just the right volume, randomly throughout the marina. I took another sip of my stiff rum drink. The bells, the buzz. It was pleasant.

My cell rang, breaking the moment. Not going to answer it. Not going to take a call while in a conversation with Marlon the Marlin.

He said, “It's okay. You're on a case. I get it.”

I sent the call to voice mail anyway.

“That's nice,” he said. “People and their phones these days. Jesus H. Fucking Christ. Back in my day, when I was working in Jersey, New York, working for some serious fucking people—you behave the way people do now? Taking calls when you are already talking to someone else? Looking down at the goddamn screen right in the middle of somebody's goddamn sentence? You might get whacked. I'm not kidding. You might seriously get whacked for that.”

I laughed. “Might not be a terrible way to handle the problem. It's pretty horrible.”

Marlon nodded. “Let me look around for you, put my ear to the ground, see what I can find out about Lee Graves and Prestige Fish.”

That's the thing. Marlon had trained himself to listen, to zero in on and remember important information. Sipping his drink, half asleep and half shitcanned on his boat, but he got the name and the company just right.

“Thanks, Marlon.”

“Come down sometime just for fun, why don't you. Fran would love to see you. We'll make some dinner, eat it right out here. After the sun goes down, nice and cool, you can see all the lights on the boats.”

“That sounds really nice, Marlon. I will.”

He said, “Let me show you my new tattoo before you leave.”

He held out his right forearm. There was an anchor tattooed on it. I'd seen it before, many times.

“You already know I have that one,” he said. He then stood up, took off his Hawaiian shirt, and turned to show me his left side. “Now I got this one too.”

It was an octopus, about six inches in height, wearing a captain's hat. I laughed. The choices people make when it comes to their tattoos never cease to amaze me. This girl who lived down the street from me growing up, Lucy Farina. Nice, friendly girl with this big, friendly smile. Always sweet. So sweet. She got a tattoo on her back of a massive flying pterodactyl with blood dripping out of its huge beak. And now? A former mob guy, a former—and still—tough guy, a guy who has killed people, has a googly-eyed, captain's-hat-wearing octopus on his side.

“How'd you choose that?” I said carefully.

“I always wanted an octopus with a fucking sailor hat on my body.”

“Yeah?”

“No. Fran and I went into town and got shit-faced, fucking blotto, and I made a mistake. But now he's my friend and I like him.”

“There's a lesson in there somewhere.”

“I'll call you when I got something, Johnny.”

I shook Marlon's hand, hopped off the boat, and started back toward the parking lot. I called my voice mail on the way. Mr. Dave Treadway getting back to me. How nice.

D
ave Treadway had left me a friendly message saying he was happy to talk and that I should call him back to set something up. So I did.

“Hey, Dave. It's John Darvelle. Thanks for getting back to me.”

“You bet. What's happening? How can I help?”

“As I mentioned in my message, I'm a detective—”

“Yes. Sorry to interrupt, but Greer Fuller actually told me you might be calling. So I know the basic gist, his parents hired you . . . you want to talk about Keaton . . . cool, yeah, I can talk.”

“Great. Well, as I also mentioned, I'm in the area. I'm in Oceanside right now. Any chance you can meet somewhere to talk in person? I can drive down to La Jolla.”

“Um, let me see . . . I'm actually at work now but was planning to go home soon.” He thought for a second. “Yeah, we could meet somewhere, or . . . do you want to just come by my apartment?”

I said, “Sounds good.”

Now, from Oceanside to La
Jolla, that's a drive. Full views of big, dramatic cliffs; deep, forest-green trees lining the highway; and an often not-so-pacific Pacific crashing around out to the right.

I powered my windows down, the air getting a little cooler now, the sky darkening a bit too, making the colors it was holding contrast and pop more, a swath of sherbet orange going into a darker tangerine orange going into a wispy pink sitting right above the horizon.

You could knock San Diego, and the greater San Diego area, as the land of perma-tans and hot tubs and fake boobs—I know, I know, how is that a knock?—but nowhere can you feel the magic of California as strongly as in
this
part of California. Even the airport in San Diego, the one all the surrounding towns use, has a dreamy California energy. Ever been? It's like walking through the Love Boat, in a good way. Beautiful blondes strutting around in pantsuits, golden light cascading across groovy circular bars that look out on the runways. I swear, I think I saw Isaac there at one point.

I drove through Del Mar, then Torrey Pines, then made my way into downtown La Jolla. A little bit of a tourist vibe, but still pretty damn charming, pretty damn California. A little city with a few reasonably tall buildings, a little town center with restaurants and shops I'd never
go in, all built around and funneling down to the La Jolla Cove. Lots of those California folks who seem to have plenty of money but no jobs. And some after-work folks too, in their business casual, strolling around, feeling the soft late-afternoon breezes, the big Pacific hanging in the background of the cove, ever present.

Dave Treadway's building was in downtown La Jolla. Near the beach, but not on it. I don't know about you, but when I think of someone living in San Diego or La Jolla, I don't really think of an urban, semi-high-rise apartment building. I think of a light blue clapboard house on the beach, or a Spanish number stuck to the side of a cliff. Not the case here. This was a twenty-or-so-story, sharp-looking building with lots of glass and silver steel. Treadway told me how to park underneath it. I did, and then I was out of the Focus, in a garage elevator, then a lobby, then another elevator up to the fourteenth floor, then walking down a slick, clean hallway.

Right as I got to 14F, the door opened. Dave Treadway was lean and tan and tall, six-three, with dark hair and light eyes.

“Hello, Dave.”

“Hi,” he said, sticking out his hand and smiling.

He had a friendly smile but a slight underbite to his jaw, giving his traditionally handsome look a little tension.

We walked into the apartment. It was big, with an open feel. It was well decorated, modern but not overly stark or uninviting. Some furniture that had probably been passed down from a parent was mixed in with some sleeker, more contemporary pieces. It all felt very hip, stylish, but also comfortable. You could see hallways heading out of the
main room in both directions, more rooms. And, of course, there was the main attraction: big windows lining the whole back wall that held views of downtown La Jolla to the right and the cove to the left, the Pacific sitting, looming, rocking in the distance. There was a balcony outside with some comfortable, stylish furniture, to enjoy it all the more. It all looked good. Either Dave had parents like Keaton and Greer's, or this cat had done well for himself.

Treadway looked at me. “Can I offer you a drink? You want a beer?”

I moved my eyes from the distant ocean and said, “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

“Budweiser okay?”

I chuckled to myself. “Yeah. Great.”

Treadway went into the kitchen, which was in the corner of the main room, rattled around in there for a second, came back out and handed me a cold, canned Budweiser and a small white cocktail napkin. This young man appeared to have a clue. “Want to sit outside?”

I looked out the big glass wall again and nodded.

Out on the balcony he took a couch, I took a chair. There was a nice breeze, soft sunset light, some faint sounds of traffic. Yeah, it was nice.

“So what's the latest?” he asked.

“What you said on the phone. Keaton Fuller's family has hired me to look back into the case. That's really it. That's the latest. I'm talking to everyone the cops talked to, and some new people too.”

He nodded.

I said, “So, how did you know Keaton?”

“Family friend. My mom remarried when I was thirteen. Married a guy in Hancock Park, up in L.A. So we moved there and I became their neighbor.”

“You moved from where?”

“Here. Well, San Diego.”

“And your dad?”

“San Diego. Never left. He remarried too, by the way, but stayed put. If you were wondering about my dad's love life after he and my mom divorced.”

He chuckled. I did too.

“Okay. So you moved to Hancock Park.”

“Yeah. Became neighbors with the Fullers. Better friends with Greer, he's my age. But I knew Keaton pretty well too. Really well, I'd say. Spent a lot of time with both those guys over the years. Always at the same neighborhood parties. Always at each other's houses. Same middle school as Greer. We all drifted apart a little as Keaton went off to college, Greer and I went to different high schools and colleges . . . But I still know the family, even now. And my mom and her husband are still their neighbors.”

“I know you told the cops this already, but, if you don't mind going over it again . . . what are your thoughts about Keaton Fuller?”

Dave Treadway looked down at his feet, then he looked at me with his blue eyes and his slight underbite.

He said, with some sensitivity, “Keaton Fuller was a guy with some problems.” And then, “He wasn't a great guy.”

Treadway appeared to be a person who knew how to say things in a way that wouldn't come across as overly
crass or offensive or disrespectful to the dead. That said, he had just come right out, in his own way, with a negative assessment.

And why wouldn't he? Ultimately, here was another guy with nothing to hide. Another rock-solid alibi. The building's cameras had Dave getting off the elevator with his wife and child and going into their apartment the night before the murder. At 6:30 on the morning of the shooting, Dave had talked to the doorman from inside the apartment, using the apartment's intercom system, to tell him about a couch delivery happening that day, which was also confirmed by the furniture company. At 7:45 a.m., the building's cameras had Dave leaving his apartment for work, same time as he left every day. The garage cameras had both his cars sitting in the garage all night. Not to mention the fact that the Treadways live in a different city. You're talking about 125 miles of traffic-laden highway between Dave's place and Keaton's place. And, for good measure, on the morning of the murder there were two accidents on the freeways: one on the 5 South, the other on the 405 South, putting the travel time from Los Angeles to La Jolla at roughly three hours no matter which way you went. Of course, like the others, he could have hired someone, could have been involved in some other way, but right now it looked like he didn't have to watch what he said.

I thought Treadway was about to say something else, maybe something a little harsher than “he wasn't a great guy,” when the sliding glass door to the balcony opened. A tan, tall, athletic woman with sandy blond hair and very friendly eyes stood there. A blond little boy with wet, just-
combed hair stood next to her, holding her hand. Apparently Dave's wife had been in one of the back rooms giving their son a bath.

“Hiiiiii,” she said, drawing out the word in a singsongy, charming way.

I instinctively stood up. And then a feeling came over me that was foreign, unsettling. I was intensely dizzy. I felt, for an extreme few seconds, that I was going to throw up or fall down or both. I got a strange, sickening taste in my throat, like that taste you get when you put your tongue up to a battery. I looked around for the arm of the chair or the railing of the balcony, something to hold on to, when the feeling suddenly surged in intensity. I was definitely going to vomit.
Right now
. And then, and
then
, it disappeared. Vanished. Instantly. Went away as fast, faster, than it had appeared. I took a breath, thinking, Holy shit, what
was
that? The height? Being pretty far up in the sky? Realizing, I guess subconsciously, that if I stumbled and the railing gave way I could die? Maybe. But I don't know. I had never been afraid of heights, and I've been on lots of fucking balconies. Was it something about this woman? Did I know her somehow? Had I seen her before? No, I didn't. And I hadn't. I definitely had not.

Dave said, “John, this is my wife, Jill. Jill, this is John Darvelle, the detective.”

“Hello,” she said, an amiable smile spreading across her face as she extended her hand and we shook. “And this is young David. We call him Davey.”

I looked at the child. “Hi, Davey!” I said and smiled, doing my best to talk to a very young kid even though I really
didn't know how to. Davey smiled and then his face went blank for a second, that blank faraway look children can get, and then he looked up at his mom and smiled again.

Jill said to Dave, “I'm going to put Davey down and make dinner.”

Then she and Treadway shared a brief, very brief, silent communication through their eyes, and then she said to me, “Would you like to stay for dinner? I'm just making some pasta and a salad. Just something simple.”

I thought about it. I was hungry. It was a long drive back to my place . . .

“That sounds nice. Yes. Sure.”

“Great,” she said, like she meant it. And she and Davey slipped back inside and out of view.

I looked back at Dave Treadway. “So, Keaton Fuller wasn't a good guy?”

Something about his wife inviting me for dinner had loosened him up a bit with regard to this subject. Because he said, this time without much sensitivity, “He was, like, the worst guy ever.”

And we both laughed. Like he had cut the tension of the moment by just saying what he knew I already knew.

Treadway began to talk, telling me much of the same stuff that everyone else had. That Keaton was a prick, that he let people down, that he could be charming, that he could be the life of the party, but that he fundamentally, at his core, just wasn't a good guy. “Like he just had a chip missing or something. That part of you that tells you not to, you know, be really uncool to a girl. Or break a promise you made to someone in a business deal.”

“Craig Helton,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Not the smartest thing in the world to go into business without a contract, and a lot of people wanted to tell Craig how stupid he had been. But a deal is still a deal. I manage people's money for a living. I study companies all the time. And there are lots of companies out there, huge companies, that started the same way, with a handshake, a verbal agreement. Nike, for example. And I don't think anyone is telling Phil Knight how stupid he is.”

Treadway took a contemplative pause, like he was unsure about releasing the next bit of information, then said, “You know, Greer told me that Keaton punched their mom one time.”

I said, “Man. This guy. Wow. Really?”

Treadway said, “Yeah. I don't know if he, like, fully beat her up, but yeah, he punched her in the face. When he was a teenager. And Jackie had to make up some story about why the whole side of her face was black-and-blue. Greer told me that, you know, many years later, after too many cocktails.”

“Jesus. I'm starting to wish I was the one who killed this guy.”

Treadway laughed. “Totally.”

We continued talking, Dave now saying that it's almost strange to know someone like that or, more specifically, be a sort-of friend, through family and the neighborhood you live in, of someone who's just kind of despicable.

Eventually I said, pursuing a path of, you know, beating the bushes, “Did you ever know anything about Keaton getting into the tropical fish business?”

Treadway said, “No. That's . . . weird. And kind of cool. What's that about?”

“I don't know. I'm looking into it. I think it was one of the things Keaton got involved with, and then, although I haven't confirmed this . . . it didn't work out. Which reminds me, what's the story with the USC guys who Keaton pissed off? The ones trying to make the movie? Craig Helton mentioned that story to me.”

“Right,” Treadway said. “You know, that wasn't some major falling-out. That wasn't on the same level as what happened with Keaton and Craig. Some film students were trying to make a short film. Keaton promised them some money, and then when it came time to, you know, actually give them the money he bailed. I really just told Craig that story to help him understand that what happened with
their
business . . . well, that Keaton was just like that. That he would break a promise, that he would fuck over anyone. Some privileged USC guys, or a guy like Craig trying to make it.”