As She Rides By (Vic Daniel Series) Read online

  AS SHE RIDES

  BY

  David M Pierce

  As She Rides By copyright © 2014, David M. Pierce

  For friends and fellow writers

  Teddy.

  Me,

  Donny & Ronnie.

  Derry & Jeff

  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 Sun on WRITE ME A LETTER

  Cast of Characters

  The story you are about to read is true. It has been torn from today's searing headlines. All the people herein are, unbelievably, as real as the locale in which they strut their poor stuff—Los Angeles and its environs. Only my name has been changed.

  KING—a dog. Played by himself.

  V. (for VICTOR) DANIEL—his brutal, bad-tempered master.

  EVONNE LOUISE SHIRLEY—a livin' dream. Also blonde.

  BENNY THE BOY—V.D.'s compadre in crime.

  MEL (THE SWELL)—legal beagle, but an OK guy nonetheless.

  ELROY—world's only non-grasping landlord.

  "FEEB"—world's only non-grasping landlady, but . . .

  TOM 'n' JERRY—once big Limey singing duo.

  L. R. "TEX" JONES—world's only honest record producer?

  MRS. L. R. "MARY" JONES—his little woman.

  SARA SILVETTI—undisputed queen of the airheads.

  INJUN JOE—presumably an Indian named Joe.

  ESKIMO LIL—his part-time girl.

  TWO-TO-ONE TIM—house bookie at FRED'S.

  FRED—deli owner.

  JIM—literate publican.

  DAVE—illiterate publican.

  MRS. MORALES—taco/burger stand owner.

  MR. & MRS. NU—restaurateurs.

  ERNESTO ROMERO—Catholic padre.

  PHINEAS—Beverly Hills florist deluxe.

  PHIL & TED—enforcers.

  SAUL GALL—pornographer.

  Ms. GARRISON—his gal Friday. Also Sat. & Sun.

  RICKIE SHARP—Picker & Pantin' painter.

  BIG RED—his latest girlfriend.

  FIDO—a mangy cat.

  ANNIE & DICK DISTLER—music biz moguls.

  CURLY—broken-hearted car mechanic.

  FRANK DOUGLAS—CPA with a human streak.

  CHRIS—a kid.

  CHRIS—a girl kid.

  RALPH HOWIESON—top business exec.

  JOHN "TAFFY" CHANDLER—Indian expert.

  WADE 'N' WILLY—noted brother act.

  SUZE AND CISSY—their significant others.

  KATY—junior high adventuress.

  POPEYE—an old salt.

  MARVELOUS MARV, OLD LOU, PATROLMAN O'CONNOR. DON. SNEEZY. BRAV. ROTH. ANTHONY (TONY) DANIEL, bro. of V.D.—all connected in one way or another with an official law enforcement agency.

  Plus . . .

  An assortment of walk-ons, extras, passersby, rubberneckers, kibbitzers, voices on telephone answering machines, secretaries, cleaning ladies, students, flower arrangers, wives & sweethearts, moms, comics, and lonely guys in bars.

  Special Added Attractions

  1 widow.

  1 corpse.

  1 thrilling rescue at sea.

  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

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Well, I'm sittin' and I'm sweatin' in a tin bar near the border,

  Sharin' a bottle of cold Carta Blanca with my memories . . .

  DARLING," EVONNE MURMURED sleepily.

  "Yes, peaches?"

  "It's up again."

  "I don't believe it," I said. "How do you know?"

  "Because something's licking my foot," she said. "And I know it isn't you because you're licking my neck."

  "Oh," I said. "Down, King! Bad boy!" A moment later there was a thump as my puppy reluctantly hit the floor, then another, softer one as he flopped down on the rug beside the bed.

  "Don't you think it's time you started training him properly?" Evonne said into the pillow.

  "Well I did sign him up for obedience school," I said. "But he wouldn't go."

  "Darling."

  "Yes, peaches?"

  "Sometimes I think the only reason you got a dog is so you could make dog jokes."

  "You sure know how to hurt a guy," I said. "Besides, it's completely untrue. As you well know, I got him for a much more serious purpose—to help me pick up girls."

  "Ha ha," she said. "Now, are we going to get some sleep or aren't we?"

  "Let me check the old schedule on that and I'll get right back to you," I said.

  "Forget it," she said. "I am going to sleep, Victor. So for once and for all, good night."

  "Well!" I exclaimed to myself under my breath, à la Jack Benny. "And what has come over madame all of a sudden?"

  THE NEXT MORNING, after dropping Evonne off at the high school where she toiled as secretarial assistant to the vice principal, I drove back to my office on the corner of Victory and Orange, parked out front, then took King for his morning ablutions in the vacant lot next to me. Injun Joe, a well-known local derelict, was already installed in his usual spot on the southeast corner, sitting on a filthy blanket and leaning against the exterior wall of my office. He was wearing what he always wore, as it was probably all he had—a greasy red bandana holding back his straggly black locks, a couple of torn, cast-off sweaters too small for him, a pair of once-somewhere-back-in-prehistory-white chinos, and army boots with no laces. I circled around to the far side of him, as when you talked to Injun Joe you stood well upwind of him, gave him a wave, and said, "Morning, Joe."

  He looked up at me vacantly with his washed-out blue eyes, thought it over, then decided to recognize me. He should have; not only had our trails been crossing at least three or four times per day for the last six months or so, but also he
did the occasional small chore for me, and besides all that, it was good old reliable V.D. who'd sprung him from the North Hollywood clink the previous month.

  Another local character, a bag lady called Dirty Gertie or Gravel Gertie, take your pick, had been discovered with her head bashed in by the alley out back of my office. The item that did the bashing lay nearby—a blood-stained, empty quart bottle that had once contained Catawba Mad Dog sherry. Three sets of fingerprints were subsequently taken from the bottle—one set belonging to Injun Joe, who had been seen by two independent witnesses enjoying an evening aperitif with Gertie shortly before she was killed.

  Joe showed up in the lot next to me the following morning at about his usual time, not something I would have done if I'd killed someone twenty yards away, even if I hadn't noticed the two squad cars parked at the scene. Naturally, as soon as Joe was fingerprinted and the results checked, the wily detectives immediately arrested him and held him for arraignment. His problems were not helped by his refusing to say anything whatsoever to the forces of law and order. I never did find out what episode in his past was responsible for this decision, but I can't say I blamed him all that much.

  When I went a-calling, the desk sarge on duty was a beet-faced old-timer I'd seen around occasionally; he was kind enough to dig up the arresting officer's report, plus a list of Joe's possessions at the time:

  In small leather pouch tied w. thong to suspect's neck:

  1 set dog tags

  1 set honorable discharge papers from U.S. Navy

  1 blue bead

  1 (broken) seashell

  21 $1.00 bills wrapped w. rubber band

  1 letter of ref. dated Aug. '62, stating Suspect had worked at Pete's Eats, 2 miles s. Fresno, 9 months as dishwasher

  I handed the paperwork back to Lou (the sarge), and remarked, "Grouch bag. That is what a small leather pouch worn around the neck is called."

  "So sue me," Lou said. The phone on his desk rang. He picked it up, identified himself, listened a minute, then said, "Pal, what you need is a good shrink, not a cop," then he hung up again.

  "Pearl diver," I said. "Much more colorful term than dishwasher."

  "So take me to a higher court," Lou said. "Was there anything else? The Department does like me to do a bit of work occasionally."

  There was something else. After a spot of cajoling, he arranged to let me in to see Joe, which was nice of him as I was neither Joe's attorney of record, nor assistant to, nor a relative. I did not believe Joe had killed Dirty Gertie. Joe might not have been all there, but wherever the poor devil was, it wasn't a killing field. I think I did see him swat at a fly once that was after a share of his day-old baloney sandwich.

  I met Joe in a surprisingly clean and spruced-up visitors' room. He'd been bathed, forcibly or not I did not know, also deloused, disinfected, and shampooed. And this was Joe's tale:

  At six-thirty that evening he'd knocked on my office door. That bit I knew. He handed me a list of license plate numbers. That bit I knew. He handed me a list of license plate numbers. That bit I knew. I gave him thirty-five dollars in one-dollar bills, as that was the way he liked to be paid. That part of the tale I knew too, of course. What Joe had been doing for me was checking on all cars leaving the premises of a firm called Scanlon & Scanlon, Sea Foods, as the director of said firm was convalescing at home after a triple bypass and he was convinced that in his absence company vehicles were being used for noncompany business. And was he ever right, as it turned out.

  Anyway. With his riches, Joe told me, he'd purchased a bottle of Gertie's favorite tipple to share with her, which he had done, also a bottle of Myer's Navy rum, also a carton of Kools. He had then proceeded northward on foot roughly to the corners of Magnolia and Canyon, where he knew a way down to a viaduct wherein ran the trickle of water called the Tijunga Wash where, appropriately, he had a wash.

  "Ah, the ladies," I said at that point.

  "Chief, what can you do," he said. "She wants me washed, I wash." He shuddered at the very memory. I mused once again at the power frail womankind can exert over the most obdurate and determined male. Then he made his way still further northward up Woodman, where he spent the night with his lady friend, presumably a-sipping rum and a-puffing Kools. Two of her friends dropped in during the evening, one with the leftovers of a macaroni casserole, the other with a bottle of blackberry cordial. Then came the dawn, and the rest I knew.

  Well, to make a long story short—or shorter, at least—I drove out and visited the lady; she lived in a small, two-room clapboard house surrounded if not engulfed by monster cacti, with an imposing collection of empties piled up in the garage. She was a short, stocky, moon-faced woman who looked more Eskimo than anything else, and she was not pleased to see me. When I suggested better me than the cops, she said, "Just." I got a signed statement from her, also from the macaroni-maker next door but one, as to Joe's whereabouts on the night in question, and the times involved. These testaments would undoubtedly spring Joe as the time of poor Gertie's death was known to the second, as the high school kid who'd found her and who'd called the cops was with her when she died and from the savagery of the beating she'd taken the coroner had declared there was no way she could have survived more than a few minutes. At which time, I now had evidence, the newly scrubbed Joe was many a mile away.

  So sprung Injun Joe was, and with nary a word of thanks for guess who. And there he was, in the vacant lot, gazing up at me blearily.

  "Morning, chief," he said finally, nodding in my general direction.

  Then he immediately began slapping all his pockets, as if he was searching for something. "Doggone it, Vic, I'm out of Copenhagen again, can you believe it?"

  So I slipped him a couple of bucks, which he tucked down inside one boot, then he hoisted himself up smartly, gathered up his blanket, and took off briskly for the nearest booze store which, who knows, conceivably might have sold Copenhagen snuff as well as quart bottles of the cheapest and nastiest wine in the world.

  I looked around for King. He was abluting against the trunk of a scraggly-looking tree that had somehow managed to survive the combined assaults of LA smog, acid rain, school kids' switchblades, and winos' waste products. While he was so doing, never-endingly, a large panel truck drew up right in front of me, then parked. On the side of the truck there was inscribed the message, "Gilbert's Fencing & Home Security." Two large black gentlemen emerged. Both were wearing brown overalls on which was inscribed "Gilbert's Fencing & Home Security." They opened up the back of the van and began unloading various materials—heavy link fencing, aluminum posts, rolls of wire, a small jackhammer, a sledgehammer, a post-hole digger, and so on. King and I watched with considerable interest.

  Despite certain comments from a certain blonde, King had already been trained—and well trained, too—in the basics of survival in an urban environment, trained, may I say, by an expert in such affairs—one V. (for Victor) Daniel. Thus, although only just coming up to eight months of age, he stayed strictly off all streets unless accompanied, knew how to sit, lie down, stay, when it was safe to mooch and when it was not, also which felines he was allowed to chase—i.e., in particular, that mangy, flea-ridden specimen that used to sharpen its talons on my convertible top. But no longer, thanks to my good boy.

  The point is, I didn't have to keep an eye on him every second when we were out, which meant I had both eyes free to observe the activities of the men from Gilbert's. It took me no time at all to deduce that what they were doing was preparing to fence off King's vacant lot. I strolled over to the largest of the two, the one without the baseball cap.

  "Morning."

  "You don't say!" His eyes goggled with surprise. "Hear that, Amos?"

  "No, what?" his friend called over.

  "Man says it's morning."

  "You don't say!" his friend said.

  I sighed. "Putting up a fence, I see."

  "Oh," he said. "Is that what we're doing. Thought we were constructing a topless birdcage f
or birds what can't fly. Like fried chickens."

  "See right there?" I said, pointing. "That's my office. So I'm bound to be interested in what happens on this plot of real estate, because it's so close to my office."

  "Right next to it, you might say," he said.

  "I would say abutting," his pal chimed in as he passed with a heavy-looking toolbox.

  "So if it's not a state secret," I said, "what's going up here, any idea? Toddler's park? Pet store? That would be nice, eh, King?" But King didn't hear; he was following some invisible spoor with great concentration and who knew what doggy dreams.

  "Amos, where'd you put that pretty sign?" the one without the baseball cap called out.

  "Still in the truck," his friend called back.

  "In the truck," said the first guy, "is a sign. It will reveal all."

  "That I sincerely doubt," I said. I walked the few yards to the truck and looked in. Sure enough, there was a sign inside. Sure enough, it was pretty. It was facing my way, so I had no trouble reading what it said. Writ in gold lettering, with many a curlicue, on a vibrant pink background, it said, "Opening Soon! Another Elegant Pussycat Adult Cinema!! Triple XXX Only!!! New Program Every Week!!!! Opening Soon!"

  Over my dead body, I thought. I called the mutt, opened up the office, then rang my good friend Elroy, to whom I paid the office rent every month or thereabouts; as did all my neighbors in the small, L-shaped mall—the Nus, the Nus' cousin Mr. Nu; Mrs. Morales; whoever owned the laundromat next to her; and Mr. Amoyan, up at the far end. Elroy was in, and, although it was only a few minutes after nine by then, already stoned out of his gourd. Not that that was unusual, he was always stoned out of his gourd; he claimed it sharpened up his business acumen. Who knows; something sure did—he'd doubled his family holdings since he came into them a few years back.

  Anyway, Elroy was, like I said, both in and totally out to lunch.

  "Lover!" he exclaimed at the sound of my voice. "Tis thee! Hang on while I turn my croissant over."

  I hung on. When he resurfaced, I asked him if he owned that lot next to me.

  "Nope," he said. "Dope name of Lewis Montgomery owns yon fair plot. I knoweth because I once endeavored to purchase said terrain from him. He said, 'Two two five.' I said, 'Let's lunch sometime next decade, like after the earthquake.' "