The Interview (12 page)

We took our drinks outside. Sat down at a picnic table. “How do
you do that?”

“What?”

“Don’t play stupid. How do you do it?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I sighed. Looked around. Bored. “Let’s go.”

“Not thirsty.”

“No.”

“So why did we stop?”

“I wanted some big, tough biker guy to start some shit.”

“Why?”

“Are you feigning innocence right now?”

“Why, Kelly, what ever do you mean?”

“Fine. I wanted someone to get all bent about you being black
and me being white so I could watch you kick his ass.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Maybe next time.”

“Whatever. Let’s go.”

As we walked to the car one of the bikers said, “Nice car.”

“Fuck you,” I replied in a last ditch attempt to start a
brawl. He just laughed and said, “Fuck you, too, buddy. Have a
good one.”

I WOUND MY WAY THROUGH the hills of South County on the way to Ortega
Highway. I was having fun with the Cayenne. It cornered well. I was
loving the turbo. I turned left at Ortega. Punched it.

Alex asked, “What’s in the case?”

“Later. Quiet. I’m driving.”

I followed the twists and turns of Ortega Highway through the
relatively unpopulated hills. The sun was gone in the west. The
Cayenne was a blast. Eventually we hit population near the 15 and
Lake Elsinore. I took the 15 north and caught the 91 and headed back
to the Beach Cities.

IT WAS TEN O'CLOCK WHEN we pulled onto the Row. All was quiet. No
naked coeds ran down the street to greet us. There were street lights
every other house. Rich neighborhoods are always well lit at night. I
drove to the end of the street and parked at the curb. I didn’t
see my truck anywhere. That was all right. I’d just take the
Cayenne. Alex wouldn’t mind.

A metallic blue Hummer sat in the driveway. They used to be real
popular in this part of town. Then gas went over four bucks a gallon
and it became cool to drive a hybrid and very un-cool to drive a
truck that got ten miles to the gallon. Course the Cayenne only got
fifteen, but I wasn’t paying for the gas. Didn’t bother
me a bit.

I got out. Walked around the front and opened the door for Alex. I
grabbed the briefcase out of the back and we strolled up Tristan's
driveway.

When we reached the door, Alex asked for the keys. I handed them to
her. She picked out a key and slipped it into the lock. She turned
the knob, pushed the door.

“Thank you for the sightseeing tour. I had a nice time.”

“Thanks for letting me drive the Porsche. I might have to get
me one now.”

The house was still. No gorillas. No strippers with stars upon thars.
I followed Alex into the kitchen. Tristan was sitting out back. He
watched us through the glass. I set the briefcase on a table and
pointed at him.

“Thing sounds heavy,” said Alex.

“It is.”

“What's in it?”

“Later. I’m having a staring contest right now.”

I was, too. Tristan was staring at me hard. I feared the glass would
break beneath the force of his gaze. Jealous? I thought not.
Something though. He stood up, entered the house. Dressed in shorts
and nothing else. The kid was a surfer. His whole act was a lie. But
why?

“Mr. Jenks. You keep leaving abruptly, only to return once
more.” He looked at the case. “But with gifts this time.
Curious.”

“It’s not by choice. Believe me.”

“Alex, how was your evening?”

“Very nice. I watched Kelly strike out. Then we went for a
drive. Enjoyable.”

“You struck out at slow-pitch softball.”

“I did.” I pointed at Alex. “Her fault.”

Tristan smiled and said, “She can have that effect.”

“Can we knock all this off?”

“What would you like to knock off?”

“You. Your act. Look at you. Fuckin’ Adonis in a
swimsuit, but you’re trying to act like some badass, eccentric
billionaire who talks weird. You got my attention. I’m here.
Cut the shit.”

Alex and Tristan shared a look. I waited. Tristan dragged the moment
out. Then abruptly said, “I've been trying to make that drink
you made last night but I can't get it right. Alex said it was your
private recipe so she wouldn't help. I've been dumping those same
four bottles in the blender but it's not working for me.”

“There you go. Much better.” It was, too. The atmosphere
in the room changed instantly. The house was a much nicer place
suddenly. Tristan was still a bad man, but now at least I could talk
to him without wondering why his demeanor didn’t fit in the
clothes he was wearing.

“What’s in the case?”

I avoided the question for the moment. “Where's all your
gorillas?”

“That was for show. Whole street's on camera. The guys are in
the first house on the row. Nobody comes down this street without
them or I knowing about it. Golf course, too. A rabbit moves out
there and my guys make sure it's a rabbit. If it's not, then they
come here. I couldn't hang with those guys in my space all the time.

“'Sides. I'm a middleman. Nobody fucks with me, because I have
too many people's interests in my hands. Somebody moves on me,
they're moving on a whole bunch of people that make my guys look like
toddler tykes.”

“Why the act?”

Tristan spread his arms wide, smiled, and said, “I’m
rich. Really rich. I get bored. I couldn't figure your angle. You
shake the tree and see what falls out.”

I fall out of trees.

“Look at it from my perspective. I get a call from one of my
restaurants. A guy has just beat the shit out of another guy. I got
enemies, same as everyone. They can‘t touch me, but they can
mess with me. Could be just a drunken brawl. Could be it’s hot
and a guy got irritable. Or, could be, somebody is trying to give me
a headache.

“Tacqueria is legit. I like sitting down at my computer,
opening up one of Ashley’s financial reports, and seeing that
my tiny Mexican restaurant made me some money. I don't need headaches
from my legit stuff. I got enough already.”

“You shouldn’t be a pimp then.”

He threw his head back in frustration with my apparent lack of
intelligence. “Alex, will you tell him? I’m not a pimp.”

“He’s not a pimp, Kelly.”

“See. There you go. Look at her. Do you really think that this
woman would work for a pimp? I think not.”

I thought not, as well. Still.

“Ashley?”

“Dude, you got so many questions. Ashley is Ashley. No harm no
foul. It's her gig not mine. She's smart, that girl. Does a lot of
accounting stuff for me.”

“OK, Jenna and Kristi?”

“Man, you gotta lighten up. Women dress like that to go out on
a Friday night. I can’t help that. Jenna is Jenna. She’s
hot. She does what she wants. Kristi is Kristi. You think I told her
to start masturbating while we were talking? That was her. She likes
to masturbate. She’s good at it.”

I couldn’t argue with that. She was.

“I got twelve more girls living in these houses just like Jenna
and Kristi. They’re not here as prisoners. They have jobs. They
work for me. But they’re not whores. Ask yourself this
question, ‘If you were rich, and you needed some people to do
things for you, would you hire homely, prudish girls? Or would you
hire girls like Jenna and Kristi?”

“I would hire the best qualified.”

Tristan laughed. Alex laughed.

“Right. Sure you would. OK, back to what I was saying about my
perspective. So I’ve got this unknown in you. We’re
sitting around doing nothing. I’m rich. I’m bored. I have
a twisted sense of humor. I have my guys pick you up. I put you in
the room with the five of us and see what happens. Never did I expect
you to be the way you were. Most guys who fit the generic description
of a guy who will beat the shit out of another guy would jump at the
chance to take me up on the offer of having Jenna or Kristi or
Ashley. Not you. You sat there and called it for exactly what it was.

“Lucky for you, too. If you had taken me up on the offer, you
would have ended up just like that guy you put down. Broken,
bleeding, and missing a couple teeth. I'm telling you, we were just
fucking with you. And you passed man. Your head is in the right
place, I just wanted to know what you were all about.”

Weird. It was like talking to the anti-Tristan. I liked this one a
lot more. That didn’t mean I liked the position I was in,
however.

“I’m a businessman. I know I don’t look like one,
and believe me, I’d much rather be worrying about tomorrow’s
waves than dealing with some of the crap on my plate. But those are
the breaks. I got some things I could use a guy like you for. Could
be a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“And the cop and the freak? They‘re just part of your
get to know me scheme?”

He shook his head in denial. “I mean it when I say I’m
sorry about those two. I’m looking into the Batman thing. And
the cop is starting to be a pain in the ass. I didn’t know how
much of one until you told me what she did. I‘m going to have
to figure out what to do with her. I have some ideas, but I have to
be careful with her. She‘s not predictable.”

“Obviously. What are your ideas?”

Tristan waved his hand at me. “Later, man. Let's talk about
that briefcase, then we'll go from there.”

I threw up my hands in surrender. The latches popped on the case and
the lid rose up slowly.

Tristan whistled. “Lot of money.”

“One point one million according to the guy who gave it to me.”

“Who's it from?”

“That guy I told you about. Batman.”

He made a face I couldn't read, tilted his head to one side, then the
other. “OK. What's it for?”

I reached in and grabbed the legal envelope. I tossed it on the
counter in front of him. “Tell you what. You read, and I'll
make a pitcher of Screaming O's.”

“Cool.”

We switched places. Tristan sat at the table, Alex sat next to him,
and they went through the envelope's contents while I went about
making the drinks. I got the ice and poured the alcohol without
thought. I could make these suckers in my sleep.

I focused on Tristan. His face was smooth and his blue eyes were
alert and thoughtful. Gone was the pompous, arrogant asshole. Here
was a guy I could identify with. Laid back, surfer guy, with an
exterior that belied what was contained within. He looked like a
businessman at home after a day at the office. I liked him. He
flinched a bit when I turned on the blender, but he didn't look up
from the paperwork.

I poured the drinks.

He took a drink. “See, I was way off. I was making a premature
ejaculation. This is so grubbin'.”

He scratched his face in thought. He pushed the paperwork in front of
Alex. She started reading again.

“So why’d Batman give you this?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“What's that mean?”

“I'm a mailman, Tristan. If I hadn't been here Monday night, I
don't think I would have been brought into this. Shit, I know I
wouldn't. This is way out of my league. I don't do this stuff. You
brought me into it by inviting me to your house Monday night.”

“So there's one point one in the case?”

“I didn't count it. That's what he said. I didn't think it
would be in my interest to doubt him. I'm just a delivery boy.”

“Well, I guess we should count it then.”

THE ACTUAL COUNTING OF THE money was anti-climatic. Tristan carried
the case into his office, set up an electronic money counter on the
desk and fed stacks of bills to the machine. The hardest part was
snapping the paper wrappers on the bundles. I had pictured us
counting the money by hand one bill at a time.

“Your guy's smart. The bills have all been on the street before
and they're real, if you were curious. This machine has a laser that
determines if a bill is counterfeit or not. If it hits a fake bill,
it spits it out. I don't think we even need to do this, but, better
safe than sorry.”

“What's your interest in this?” I asked.

“Don't have one really. This guy, Romanovich, came to me a
couple years ago. He thought he was ready to make a move on the big
boys in the area. Did you know that at the height of the real estate
market there were more licensed realtors in the state than there were
houses for sale? Crazy shit. Anybody and everybody took the classes
to become a realtor thinking that it was a no-brainer way to make
some cash.

“Remember this, Kelly. If you weren't doing it before everyone
started making money, then you missed the window. Move on to the next
big thing. That applies to most business decisions.” He tapped
his head. “People don't think, man.”

“Amen to that.” I channeled Mr. Allen.

“Romanovich wasn't a newbie, though. He'd been around for ten
years, give or take. He made a decent enough living. Nice house. Nice
family. I think he was tired of looking up at the “big four”
and decided he would either make it the “big five” or
knock somebody down a peg. Personally, I would have loved to have
seen him take that prick Bergstrom down. That guy is nothing but a
used-car salesman. Slimy and slick. He sells houses though.”

Bergstrom is exactly as Tristan described. He had parlayed his real
estate success into a seat on the City Council a few years back. He
was responsible for a series of decisions that had left the city
saddled with properties that they could do nothing with and the
accompanying debt. He made his commission then hopped off the council
at the next election.

“Rom's idea was sound. He just needed some financial backing to
make his idea a reality. I introduced him to the backing. He made his
pitch and got what he wanted. Then the market tanked. Bergstrom
called in some favors and the City Council never quite got around to
approving Romanovich's proposal for a new strip mall. The money guys
got tired of waiting. They wanted return on the investment, not a
piece of land with nothing but weeds growing, so Rom got stuck with
the bill.”