Tough Baby (Martin Fender Novel) (12 page)

You and I both know I wouldn’t have beaten her, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t do anything with her that would truly hurt you. All right, I kissed her, and I may have gone back to her room with her. I don’t know. I don’t remember. I blacked out and I’m ashamed of it. Not because it was my fault, but because . . . I don’t know what the
because
is. I’m just a guy who wanted to take in some bright lights and loud music on his first night back in town because my own gig didn’t do it for me.

I knew I wasn’t going to call Ladonna. The Ladonna of my imagination didn’t like the things I was going to explain to her any more than the real one would. And the waitress was looking at me like I was on drugs.

And maybe I still was. It takes more than a day or two to flush a drugstore’s worth of barbiturates and hypnotics out of your system. I still had a metallic taste in my mouth and sometimes, like now, my skin felt like it was on fire. Maybe a cigarette would help. I took out the pack I’d bought for Retha Thomas and rubbed it on my cheek, on my forehead, like an amulet.

I dropped one out of the pack and set fire to it, sucking the smoke down deep into my lungs. My lungs fought back, trying to kick the monkey. I coughed. The spasm hurt, like a rock thrown against my sternum. I inhaled again, blowing it out slow and even, letting it fan across the table, swirling around the sugar dispenser, colliding with the window glass, scrolling out in every direction.

Cars seemed to float by on the hot boulevard like boats. A centuries-old oak tree hugged the street corner, its knotty branches flowing out from its massive trunk like an upside-down lava flow, its massive mounding crown like a mushroom of green smoke. The poison felt natural, tingling nerves from toes to scalp, and I settled back in the booth, cozy, getting reacquainted with the demon.

The waitress looked good in her tight white skirt and black apron, padding around the diner in white institutional shoes. She wasn’t wearing hose, and her legs were firm and smooth and pale. The rest of her was firm, too, except for a slight roll around her waist that showed when she bent over to get hot bread out of the warmer. Her blond hair was double-braided in back, with a few fine strands wisping down around the nape. Her bra strap cut into her back as she reached up to clip another order on the wheel. I thought about that strap, cutting into her skin, and I thought about her skin. After sucking in another lungful of smoke I closed my eyes and thought about what kissing her would be like. Another kiss came to mind. It loomed large in my memory, like a traumatic blow, like a physical transaction. Not a kiss, but a promise.

“Would you like more tea?”

I said yes and watched only her hands as she refilled my glass with the pitcher. I stubbed out the cigarette and picked up the pack and stared at it. The camel looked sleepy-eyed and innocent, the palm trees and the pyramids and mosques looked classic, unchanging. On the side of the pack was a warning.

I put the pack away and tried to wash the cigarette taste out of my mouth. It was time to visit Retha Thomas.

&&

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Life still hung around her like a lazy aura, like a tourist who’d come to the River City and picked up some of the local bad habits, like indecision, tardiness, slow motion. The bank of machinery hooked up to her reminded me of a huge alien beast. The doctor cleared his throat.

“It’d be nice if she’d open her eyes and say howdy, wouldn’t it?” he said.

I swallowed hard and nodded. I felt his gaze as I stepped up and touched her hand. Her skin was cold. I tried remembering her as hot and sweaty. The thought seemed inappropriate. Her body, encased in the white sheet and blanket, still showed off its curves, but now it was more of a thing, a thing whose functions had been farmed out to machines and tubes. It seemed like she needed a miracle, but her surroundings didn’t smell or sound or feel like a place where miracles were made.

“Who was the girl with the spiky black hair who left when I got here?” I asked the doctor.

“Her name is Barbra. She’s a good friend of Retha’s.”

&&&

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas were in the waiting room. He was tall and broad-shouldered with large, strong-looking hands, kind eyes, and salt-and-pepper hair. She came to about his chest, and her blue dress, like his dark suit, had the sad, deformed shape of clothes on people who’d been able to do nothing but sit, and pace, and wait. The doctor introduced us and excused himself. There were places to sit but we remained standing.

“The police say that you were the last person with her before she was attacked and beat up,” Mrs. Thomas said abruptly.

Mr. Thomas coughed into his fist and glanced away. I got the feeling that this wasn’t the way he would have started things off.

“That’s true,” I said. “I drank a drink that had been spiked. It was her drink.”

“They told us that, too,” said Mr. Thomas.

“Who would want to do that to Retha?” she interrupted. “Why? What did she do to anybody?”

He put his arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. She broke away and sighed, massaging the back of her neck.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe it was originally intended for me, but I don’t think so. It could be that it was a random thing. It was a large party and this is a big city, not near as big as Los Angeles, but there are a lot of crazy people here. Someone could have made the drink for themselves and she ended up with it by accident, I don’t know. I’d like to help.”

“We live in Valencia,” she said, “just thirty minutes out of Los Angeles. We know about parties and big cities and crazy people. Retha got her own place down in Hollywood when she left high school. She’s got an apartment on a hill above the Capitol Records building.”

“She’d been trying to get a job at a record company, and they kept jerking her around,” said Mr. Thomas. “That’s what I got out of it, anyway. She said they were calling her back and she was waiting for the right opening to come up, but it seemed to me they were jerking her around. I work for Lockheed, which you might think would be way different, but I’ve found that executives are pretty much the same wherever you are.”

“So she just came out here for a break?” I said. “Did she know anyone in Austin?”

Mrs. Thomas answered that question. “Some of her friends had been talking it up. They said there was a lot going on here, a lot of opportunities in the music business. I think she thought that somebody here might have a job for her.”

“Did she tell you who she’d been seeing here, where she might have gone for a job?” I asked.

They both shook their heads. “She really likes music,” said Mrs. Thomas finally, her eyes downcast. “She thought she could do something with it.”

“We always encouraged her in whatever she wanted to do,” said Mr. Thomas. His voice was quiet, solemn. He seemed to be running out of steam. I was trying to find a way to say goodbye that wouldn’t sound trite or unrealistically upbeat when I heard footsteps approaching, clattering on the tile until they reached the carpeted floor of the waiting room.

“Does somebody have a quarter so I can call Triple A?” It was the somewhat hoarse voice of a female. Bracelets jangled. “I locked my keys in the Mercedes.”

I turned around. It was Retha’s friend. Her hair was black with reddish highlights, with a daring, uneven cut that framed her heart-shaped face like a jagged helmet. Her complexion was light brown and flawless, but I couldn’t figure out whether her features were Asian or Hispanic. Tall and swizzle stick thin, she wore a white sleeveless top and matching pants, a wide brown suede belt and matching boots. She had a white blazer draped over one arm, a leather carry-on bag hanging from the other, and jangling bracelets on the wrists of both. Her wide, sensual mouth was working over a wad of chewing gum.

“I thought you left fifteen minutes ago,” said Mrs. Thomas.

“Well, I tried to,” she said. She took off her wraparound shades and dug in her purse for something. As she rummaged through the bag one of the straps of her top dropped over her shoulder, and she had to twist herself around to get it back in place. I watched, fascinated, giving her the same berth a defensive driver gives a swerving, battle-scarred automobile.

“Barbra,” said Mrs. Thomas, “this is Martin Fender. Martin, Barbra is a good friend of Retha’s.”

She gave up on the purse and gave me a wide-eyed look. Her eyes were red rimmed from crying, the irises a grayish blue, like a rainy sky. “You’re that guy?” she said.

I nodded. “Maybe I can help you.”

“Martin Fender?”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Barbra Quiero. You have a coat hanger?”

&&&

I followed her out the hospital doors. A light breeze rushed past us from the parking lot, but the air felt dry and abrasive. Barbra pointed to a dark brown Mercedes fifty yards away. “Was Retha visiting you here?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” she said, her voice going up in pitch. “I know her from L.A. I flew in this morning, as soon as I heard. I’d like to find the psycho who tried to kill her.”

“So would I. Let’s get that coat hanger from my car. Is that a rental?”

“Nah. Belongs to someone I know.” She blew a bubble the size and color of a ripe plum and popped it. There was a deep scrape down the side of the Mercedes. It looked fresh.

Luckily, she’d left a window rolled down an inch or so because of the heat and I was able to unhook the latch after just a few minutes. During that time, she explained to me that she had a small but airy one bedroom in Laurel Canyon on Wonderland Avenue. It was a guest house, and the owner was crazy for pink—pink walls, pink trim, pink tile. He even had two pink cars, an old Packard and a ’59 Cadillac Eldorado. Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum lived practically next door and so did that old movie star Lizabeth Scott. Did I remember her? She was the one who was like a Lauren Bacall substitute back in the ’40s and ’50s. I said I did. Barbra had been dating a club deejay for several months, she said, and she’d gotten to be friends with Retha during her frequent trips to Tower Records.

“I’ve got a few connections in the business, you know,” she said, “and I tried to help her get a job after she left Tower. She really wanted a job at a record company. But you know, record companies don’t really pay that well unless you’re high up in the structure, and most of those jobs are held by men. And most of them are jerks.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ve had some experience with them. It’s a pretty closed society.”

She nodded. “All they’d offer her was an entry level position, even after all her experience as a buyer and assistant manager. She knew all the promotion guys really well and had even managed a couple of bands who were real popular on the LA scene, but all they offered her was what they call ‘administrative assistant,’ at two hundred dollars a week.”

“ ‘Administrative assistant’ is
Los Angelese
for ‘secretary,’ isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“Maybe she found a job here.”

“But she hadn’t moved. She still had her apartment and phone, and you know, her
car
is still there. Why wouldn’t she tell anybody?”

“I don’t know. I’d still like to pursue the job angle. Maybe someone called her boss at Tower Records for a reference. Did she bring a lot of money out here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was she getting her unemployment checks sent out here by someone?”

“How would I know? What are you getting at?”

“I’m just thinking out loud, I guess. I don’t think they’d forward her unemployment checks out here. So if she had a friend or someone sending them out to her, then maybe they’d know what she was doing here.”

“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t know any of her other friends. But I could make a couple of calls. I’ve got to do something, or I’ll go crazy. You know?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’d like to help, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” she said, tight-lipped. The wraparound shades hid her eyes, but I felt their intensity. “Have you got any other ideas?”

“A couple. What gave her the idea to come out here?”

She shrugged. “People she’s worked with, people in the business, me included, I suppose. There’s a buzz about this town, with Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimmie Vaughan and the Fabulous Thunderbirds and all your other bands that are hitting it big now. I guess she thought she’d have a better chance getting a job here than in LA.”

“Did she ever mention anybody she knew here?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t even know she planned to come out. I think it must have just been an impulse, you know. She was that way sometimes.”

“Maybe so,” I said. “I’ve got a couple of things I’m checking out. Maybe something will turn up.”

“I sure as hell hope so.” She adjusted her shades and said, “I’m staying at the Hyatt. Why don’t you give me a call later?” I said I would. She tossed her belongings in the back and got in. She cranked the ignition and turned up the air conditioner before closing the door. I noticed that she had fake fingernails. I wondered what the police had done with Retha’s.

I went home and fed the cat.

&&&

I went home and fed the cat.

I still had a few hours to kill before driving out to pick up the money from Bingo so I sprawled on the couch and kicked off my shoes. I watched the cat hungrily dispatch the bowl of pellets and thought about Retha’s parents. They needed faith and reassurance. They wanted their daughter to recover, they wanted justice. More than anything, they needed resolution. Their daughter wasn’t dead but she wasn’t really alive, and they didn’t know what the hell happened or why. But they didn’t need to know everything I knew about the case.