Roses Love Sunshine (Vic Daniel Series) Read online

  ROSES LOVE

  SUNSHINE

  David M Pierce

  Roses Love Sunshine copyright © 2014, David M. Pierce

  For Bonnie Lee

  Critical praise for David M Pierce and the Vic Daniel series:

  "Pierce has an original voice and puts a sweet spin on genre conventions."

  -New York Times Book Review on DOWN IN THE VALLEY

  "Down in the Valley is a wonderful addition to private eye literature. It's witty, literate, and wise."

  -Tony Hillerman

  "Madcap storytelling and nutso types whose smart mouths run in overdrive…Pierce is a master of off-center characterizations and the oddball narrative view."

  -Publishers Weekly

  "If there isn't already a cult following for David M Pierce's V. (for Victor) Daniel novels, there soon will be. Now is your chance; pick up these novels, and read them right away. Impress your friends with your savvy, clairvoyance, and impeccable taste."

  -The Drood Review on WRITE ME A LETTER

  "Vic is a free spirit, an easygoing chap with a realistically cheery outlook on life…An entertaining, off-beat series."

  -Washington Post Book World on ROSES LOVE SUNSHINE

  "Full of clever tricks and surreptitious preparations. Just the right book for an upbeat mood."

  -Library Journal on ANGELS IN HEAVEN

  "The effort of having his tongue planted firmly in his cheek has not kept David M Pierce from crafting a delight in WRITE ME A LETTER."

  -Washington Times

  "A delightful addition to a wonderful series."

  -Baltimore Sunon WRITE ME A LETTER

  ROSES LOVE SUNSHINE

  David M. Pierce was born in Montreal, Canada. He lived for some years in London, where, among other things, he wrote songs for the pop group Meal Ticket and acted in a Shakespearian theatre group. He coauthored a musical with fellow Canadian Rick Jones and has written songs with Jeremy Clyde. His other publications include three volumes of verse and a cookery book, written with singer Annie Ross. He has written two other books featuring private investigator Vic Daniel, Hear the Wind Blow, Dear and Down in the Valley, both published by Penguin.

  I invented many things herein including streets, people, bars and businesses, but someone with a more macabre imagination than mine is responsible for dreaming up Hollywood, West Hollywood, Studio City and the rest of the San Fernando Valley.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER ONE

  Promises are made to be broken, someone – probably awoman – once said.

  I'd promised myself never to fly again, yet there I was stuffed to the gills with downers, a drink in each hand, God knows how many thousands of feet up in the air, my precious and unique life in the careless hands of some happy-go-lucky goofball who thought he was still piloting mail over the Andes.

  The plane hit an air pocket; I hit the made-for-midgets washroom. Crouched there on the floor, I pondered anew the mysterious and deadly power one small blond person, attractively packaged, to be sure, can have over a massive hunk of macho maleness like V. Daniel, aging but you better believe still tough private investigator. And one bat of her deep blue eyes was all it had taken.

  Fool, fool!

  Our flight, Aero México 227 from sunny Mazatlán, finally arrived at LAX on time, if you count in Mexican time, forty-five minutes late if you don't. I was worn to the proverbial frazzle, sunburnt (nose and shoulders) and extremely thirsty. Evonne was tiresomely vivacious, beautifully tanned (all over) and so hungry she had even eaten the plane food, a kind of chipped burro on last week's rice.

  After the usual holdups at Immigration, baggage retrieval and Customs, we caught the free hotel shuttle to the International, in whose parking lot I'd cleverly left my car for nothing at the start of our vacation ten days earlier, thus avoiding the airport's extortionate parking fees. Then we joined the traffic on the San Diego Freeway and headed north toward the San Fernando Valley. It was late on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of July in the Year of Our Lord 1986, and Los Angeles was swelteringly hot and sickeningly smoggy, and the cars were bumper to bumper. The rent-a-wreck in front of us sported a sticker that read 'Honk if you believe in Jesus. Or geese'.

  In other words, welcome home.

  Some thirty minutes later I dropped off my darling at her house. Naturally I helped her in with her luggage. She had surprisingly little, merely two large trunks, one medium-sized one and two smaller ones. Plus, of course, the enormous raffia basket in which she had packed her collection of souvenirs and gifts, of which I will only mention three rolled-up paintings on bark, one hand-dyed rug, a large wooden box that said 'wooden box' on it in Mexican, a varnished candle-holder made from a gnarled chunk of driftwood and a decorator lamp fashioned from a stuffed iguana. The lamp had been sprayed a bright lime green, and the bulb screwed into the unfortunate reptile's mouth – the perfect gift for the man who had nothing, including taste. I was terrified she was going to give it to me.

  After a farewell smooch I drove east to my adobe hacienda over on Windsor Castle Terrace, which was needless to say neither adobe nor a hacienda; at that time my mom and I shared the top floor of a stuccoed duplex, one flight up from the building's owner and my mother's best pal, Phoebe (Feeb) Miner. Mom wasn't in; she'd been staying over at my brother's while I was away. When I was unloading the car Feeb leaned out of her front window to tell me Mom hadn't been too well and I should give her a call.

  As soon as I'd aired out the apartment, I did so. My brother Tony answered. He was two years younger than me and looked about ten years younger. Thanks for the card, he said. Feeb was right, he said. Mom had suffered, well, not a relapse, but she had taken one more seemingly inexorable step inwards to wherever it is people with Alzheimer's disease go. His wife Gaye was finding it hard to cope, he said. Did I want to get together sometime soon and have a word about it? Sure, anytime, I said. Give her a kiss from me, and I'll see you soon.

  I hung up, closed the windows, turned the air conditioner on, then unpacked my one piece of luggage in which, among other holiday items, were the tasteful and well-chosen gifts I had brought back – a double hammock for Tony and his family, a cotton blouse for Mom, and for Jim, a bartender friend of mine, a dirty bottle of something yellow and disgusting that had a dead worm in it. A thoughtful choice, I thought. In fact, after a shower I thought I'd take it over to him right then and have an American drink for a change. Not that I'm particularly chauvinistic, but I'd had enough pitchers of lethal margaritas and deadly daiquiris for one lifetime; the only problem with Mexico is that it's so relentlessly and insistently Mexican.

  Jim was the night barman at the Two-Two-Two, a friendly, well-lived-in haven up on Dakota not far from me where I was wont to sit and muse and sip brandy and gingers and exchange witty repartee with Jim's stunning bar girl Lotus and play the occasional canny game of eight-ball.

  When I walked in Jim was reading the paper and sipping a glass of red wine.

  'Goodness gracious, a customer,' he said when he saw me. 'I'm agog with surprise and pleasure.' And, indeed, the place w
asn't exactly hopping that Sunday evening; there were a couple of regulars at the bar playing some sort of game, two kids shooting noisy pool, and two young men in lookalike fawn jumpsuits sitting on one of the old leather sofas holding hands.

  'Here's another surprise,' I said when he had served me up my usual. I put the bottle on the bar with exaggerated care. 'This is a demijohn of extremely rare Yucatan nectar, goodness knows how many weeks old. I brought it back especially for you as I know you love fine things.'

  Jim was so delighted with his gift that for a moment he was speechless.

  'That is one of the nastiest-looking objects I've ever seen,' he said finally, peering at it closely, 'and I've been a bartender all my life.' Jim was a thin fellow, with a thin, lined, almost handsome face; he always wore long-sleeved white shirts with old-fashioned arm garters when he was working. He cleared a space on one of the shelves behind him and eased the grimy bottle into it, making sure it was lined up neatly.

  'Reminds me of the temperance preacher,' he observed when he turned back.

  'That right?' I said.

  'He was preaching on the perils of the demon drink and to demonstrate he dropped a worm in a glass of cheap whisky. The worm took one sip and died. "Now brethern and cistern, what does that prove?" he asked. Voice from the back said, "Drink enough and you won't get worms."'

  When I was done laughing, which wasn't all that long, he leaned over the bar toward me and said, 'Will you be receiving chez vous tomorrow?'

  'Sure,' I said. 'Office hours nine thirty to one, two thirty to five, Monday to Friday. Saturdays by appointment.'

  'Got time for me like at ten?' He looked around secretively.

  'Sure. What's up, Jim?'

  'Better I tell you tomorrow,' he said in a stage whisper, taking another look around.

  'OK by me,' I said. I had another drink, then Jim stood me one, then I stood him and the two regulars, whom I knew slightly, one each, then they stood me one, then I had a quick one at the Corner Bar down the street, then I went home, stopping at a 7-Eleven on the way for a few staples: baloney, bread, milk, butter, buttermilk, that sort of thing. I was tucked up in bed eating a baloney sandwich and reading the new John D. MacDonald I'd bought at the airport ten days ago but still hadn't finished when Evonne phoned. She was in bed too, she told me.

  'I just called to say I had a lovely time, mi corazón, in case you hadn't deduced that for yourself by now,' she said.

  'Me too,' I said. 'A lovely time. Sandy, but lovely.'

  'Tomorrow I'm going to do nothing but sleep and eat and weed,' she said.

  'All right for some,' I said. She worked at one of the local high schools so was, of course, on summer vacation. 'Oh. I got a client already.'

  'Who's that?'

  'Remember Jim from the Two-Two-Two? Jim.'

  'What's he want?'

  'God knows,' I said. 'But from the way he was acting it could be big. I'd like a big case, something I can get my teeth into, like a missing heiress or maybe some gorgeous young starlet who's being blackmailed because years ago she posed inadvertently for some nudie pictures.'

  'Hmm,' Evonne said. 'Hanging around with younger women seems to be waking up your hormones.' She blew me a kiss and hung up. I thought for a moment, decided she had meant it as a compliment, and blew her one back.

  'It's going pansy,' Jim said.

  'What is?' I said.

  'The bar, for Christ's sake,' he said. 'What else?'

  'The world?'

  I looked at him. He looked at me. Then we both gazed out the front window for a spell. I noticed it needed a wash again; hell, it had only been a month or two.

  It was morning, just after ten o'clock. We were in my office on the corner of Victory and Orange, sitting on opposite sides of the desk. I'd been a little late getting in so I had hardly started working on the accumulated mail when Jim had pulled up in his five-year-old Toyota, parked right outside, then had entered my office as reluctantly as if some high-priced dentist with the shakes was waiting inside instead of a moderately priced (cheap) private investigator with the shakes.

  'So?' I put to him after a while.

  'So? What do you mean, so?'

  'So what?' I said. 'You can always get a job somewhere else if you don't get along too well with our gay brotherhood.'

  'Make that sisterhood,' he said glumly. 'Listen, Vic, I don't want it to get around, but I happen to own that cobwebbed estaminet.'

  I raised my eyebrows, but I wasn't all that surprised. It was a common-enough practice for apartment owners and bar owners and suchlike to claim the real (mythical) owner was lurking in the background so they could pretend to pass on hassles without doing anything about them.

  'I bought it over five years ago,' Jim said, tilting his chair back on two legs. 'My God, is it that long already? We had a house in Sherman Oaks almost all paid up, there was a fire, one of the kids died in it after God knows how many operations, my wife couldn't stand the blame or the guilt or me or whatever, so we split the insurance and she took the other kid and moved back East to Mater and I in a fit of folly purchased the Two-Two-Two. I've an apartment right above it, and I don't want that to get around either, it makes me too easy for the thirsty and the indigent to find. And now I'm going queer, Jesus, at my age.' He managed a wan smile and waved one hand at me in an effeminate fashion.

  'Tsk, tsk,' I said.

  The phone rang. I excused myself and picked it up.

  'Vic? Oh, good, you're back. It's me, Cissy.'

  'Hi, honey, how is everybody? How's Maria?' Maria was her pet tarantula; she kept it in a glass case in her kitchen, over the stove where it was warm.

  'OK, I guess,' Cissy said. 'Her appetite seems to be better.'

  'Glad to hear it,' I said insincerely. 'So what's up?'

  'It's Wade,' she said, referring to her brother-in-law.'Someone broke into the garage the night before last and trashed the place some, but he won't even talk about it. We're worried it might happen again. And something else happened, too, which was worse. Maybe you can get something out of the dope.'

  'I can but try,' I said. 'Around noon suit you?'

  'Anytime,' she said. 'Thanks, Vic.'

  We both hung up.

  'Trouble?' Jim wanted to know.

  'Sounds like it. Guy I know runs a film-processing business out of his brother's garage, or he used to until someone broke in and tore up the place. Anyway. Back to you. I saw those two guys on the sofa last night at your joint, but I'd hardly call that going gay.'

  'You should have been in there Saturday,' Jim said. 'The bar was loaded with them. My regulars come in, have one round, then make some weak excuse and take off. I don't know what the hell to do about it. I was working bar down in Manhattan Beach one time when the same thing happened; a couple of lavenders waltzed in, then a few more couples, and in a month the whole place was wall-to-wall limp wrists.'

  'Why did they pick your place?'

  He shrugged.

  'Who knows, it's just another bar.'

  It wasn't really just another bar, Jim was being modest. He and Lotus and an English bartender now long gone had over the years created a special feel to the place, almost a literary atmosphere built around competitions, most of them word games of one kind or another that Jim stole from puzzle magazines, blew up on to cardboard sheets with magic marker and then tacked up along one wall and all behind the bar. There were anagram competitions with weekly winners and letter-square puzzles and monthly competitions to see who could make the most words out of a given set of letters. Jim also ran regular football pools and pools on potential Oscar winners and movie quizzes; at one end of the bar was a whole shelf of well-thumbed reference books. It seemed there were always a couple of guys somewhere in the place arguing bitterly over whether or not, say, the word 'demi-tasse' was still foreign or could it now be considered American by usage.

  So the Two-Two-Two wasn't just another bar, and even if it was, a man tends to love what is his, even if it is just another
gin joint on another dirty street and not Le Bar Ritz. Or is it estaminet?

  'That place make you any money?' I asked him after another while.

  He made a face. 'The short answer is no. And so is the long one. I was pulling down more tending bar for someone else. You know what the action is like, a lot of beer, a few shorts, a little lunch business. But, Goddamn it, I like it the way it is. I don't want a war, but I was hoping maybe you could come up with something that might make your gay crowd uncomfortable so they'd get the message and go somewhere else, say San Francisco.'

  'How about that cute sign you already got over the bar?' I said. The sign I was referring to read 'No toggafs (anagram!)' 'What do they think of that?'

  'They smile,' he said.

  'You could put one in the window,' I said. 'A bigger one. In neon. And maybe spell it right this time.'

  'Very funny,' he said.

  'A scream,' I said. 'Also, you must know, being an educated man and all, that there are such things as customers' rights, I mean legal ones, never mind the moral ones.'

  'I know, I know! But what am I supposed to do? I'm going crazy serving all those banana daiquiris and tequila-fucking-sunrises; they make me nervous, I can't relax in my own place.'

  'How does Lotus feel about it?'

  'She's cool,' Jim said. 'I think she likes the action, in fact, because it means she doesn't get hit on all the time.'

  'Let me have a think about it,' I said, 'but I don't see any easy answer. I have a feeling something's got to give.'

  'Well, it's not going to be me,' Jim said. 'I'll close up first.'

  'Maybe I'll get inspired,' I said. 'Who knows? Anyway, leave it with me for a couple of days.'

  'With pleasure,' said Jim, getting to his feet. 'Got over those Mexican trots yet?'

  'Any day now,' I said.

  'Where were you exactly?'

  'A tourist trap called Mazatlán,' I said. 'I should have gone to ye olde Yucatán where the Mayans once lived and built those huge pyramids so they could chuck screaming pop fans off the top of them. You should visit it sometime.'