Write Me a Letter (Vic Daniel Series) Read online

  Write Me a Letter

  David M. Pierce

  Copyright © 1993, David M. Pierce

  For my sisters Debbie, Peggy, and Judy

  A Greek señor named Persius once suggested that hunger was the "bestower of invention." If this be true, I must have felt moderately peckish when I created the characters, bars, businesses, streets, and a town or two herein, but it took someone a lot hungrier than I've ever been to invent Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter the Last

  1

  The most beautiful woman in the world turned up the wattage in her deep violet eyes, crossed her slim, nylon-clad limbs, leaned slightly forward toward me, and murmured in a smoky half-whisper, "What do you think?"

  The tallest detective in the Greater Los Angeles Area—if not the world—one V. (for Victor) Daniel, thought he was dreaming is what he thought.

  I have encountered many a lovely mademoiselle in my time and in my wanderings. I say this both truthfully and, I hope, modestly, without in any way trying to give the impression I am, was, or ever will be a professional charmer, a thé dansant gigolo, a Burt Reynolds look-alike, a Formula 1 racing car pilot, or a hairdresser. It is merely that in Hollywood and its environs, in one of which I dwell, gorgeous girls are everywhere. I've had my package of baloney, jar of pickled wienies, and six-pack of Mexican beer checked out at Ralph's Supermarket by a girl whose smile alone made my knees tremble uncontrollably starting from the tummy. During the course of an investigation once, I had to regularly visit a health club for women, mainly actresses, strippers, and dancers, out Ventura Boulevard; it pains just to think about it. There was one black goddess on a rowing machine—but that's another story, and one that will not, alas, be told by my humble pen.

  And did I not once shake hands with Miss Joan Collins in a bikini? She, not me, in the bikini, thank God. And, once upon an unlikely dream, Miss Tuesday Weld smiled her dangerous smile my way. And was not my own, my beloved Evonne Louise Shirley, one of the world's most fetching of blondes and most lovely of creatures?

  True, all true.

  But.

  I tore my eyes away from the vision who was gazing at me intently from the far side of my desk and indulged in a few more passing thoughts before producing an answer to her query. Some of the thoughts were even printable. Her face was uncannily like that of Vivien Leigh, her eyes resembled those purple wells of Elizabeth Taylor, her anatomy surely was stolen from Janet Leigh, legs courtesy Miss Lauren Bacall, feet by Claire Trevor. . . .

  No, no, I thought. That way lay madness, I thought. That way lay direct to the funny farm, nonstop, under severe restraint—but what a way for a guy to go. I thought I'd better wrestle what was left of my bemused brain back to dry land is what I thought.

  The time was 11:15 A.M., that was dry land. It was undeniably Monday, April 4, four days to my mom's birthday; dry land again.

  And unless I'd done a Rip Van Winkle recently, the century was the twentieth, and the weather in my part of the San Fernando Valley—Studio City, just over the Hollywood Hills from the famed Tinsel Town itself—was thick and muggy, as was a large percentage of the local citizenry.

  My office, in which myself and my visitor from another reality were ensconced, was where it always was, on the corner of Victory and Orange, snuggled in between a weed-and wino-filled vacant lot and a Vietnamese takeout. On the wall to the right as you came in was a last year's calendar I'd forgotten to take down that pictured a bevy of Armenian beauties at play.

  My visitor's name was Ruth Braukis, which wouldn't look that good up in lights but what's in a name, anyway, as Percy Bysshe once quipped. She'd shown up at my low-rent place of work a half-hour earlier, and after I had, with some ceremony, seated her in the spare chair opposite mine, she had introduced herself and handed across to me a sealed envelope, which I proceeded to open and peruse, after excusing myself politely for the nonce.

  The note was written on flashy cream-colored paper, in red ink, under the heading, "Lew Lewellen Productions," and read: 'Amigo mío—this will introduce Miss Ruth Braukis, a good friend of mine [with the 'good' underlined twice]. Help her with her baby-sitting chore if you can, and if you can't, never darken my door again.

  "Yore pal Lew," it concluded.

  "Do you know what this note says?" I asked her.

  She nodded; one wing of her raven hair fell across one perfect cheek.

  "So who is it you want baby-sitted, or is it sat, Miss Braukis?"

  "Or is it whom," she said. "Although I'm not sure either one is the right word. I do need someone collected and then delivered, and Mr. Lewellen said when I called him that if you could look after him when he was on a toot, you could look after anybody."

  "Oh, well," I said, scuffling my size twelves bashfully. Then she smiled at me; then my foolish old heart sang.

  "He can be a bit of a handful, old Lew, when he's riding the sauce express, that much is true," I said, understating the matter considerably. When the moon was high and full and yellow around the edges and Lew donned his dancing shoes and drinking cap and was ready to howl, even six foot seven and a quarter inches and 241 pounds of V. Daniel had all he could do to drag Lew's carcass home the following dawn, and once it was the dawn after the following dawn, relatively unscarred.

  "Who is it you want collected, Miss Braukis?"

  "My uncle," she said.

  "I had an uncle once," I said. "He had false teeth and his name was Clarence."

  "Fascinating," she murmured. "My uncle's name is Theo. He's coming from Estonia."

  "Even more fascinating," I said. "Is that the Estonia that's just a few miles east of Kansas City?"

  "No," she said, "it is the newly independent country of Estonia, which is next to the newly independent countries of Latvia and Lithuania."

  "Oh, that Estonia," I said. "On the Baltic Sea, I believe, not far from Leningrad, or whatever it's called these tempestuons times. From where, I also believe, on the one or two days a year when the blizzard abates, one can see all the way across to brave little Finland." As I've said before, kids, try to stay awake in school, you never know when you might have to impress a walking rhapsody.

  "Theo is my mother's younger brother," she said. "I've never met him but I've seen pictures of him and my mother talked about him a lot." Her voice choked slightly; she looked away.

  "Talked?"

  "That's really why I'm here," she said. "In L.A., I mean, and not back home in Bismark, where we live."

  "What a strange coincidence!" I said. "I eat your herring all the time."

  She gave me a brief glance—of appreciation, no doubt.

  "Mother was on a tour out here with some of her girlfriends, and, of course, also to meet her brother. She suffered a stroke two days ago. One of her friends got in touch with me, and I flew right out."

  "Bad?" I asked inanely, as if there was any such thing as a good stroke, medically speaking.

  "Bad. She's alive, but that's about it, she's still unconscious."

  "Ah, hell," I said. "I'm sorry." I thought about telling her about my mom, who had Alzheimer's and who was in a home in the hills o
ut past Glendale, but I figured one mom at a time was enough for her to worry about; it was more than enough for me.

  "How can I help?"

  She sighed. "It's all such a mess. I don't know what to do. She was supposed to meet Theo at the airport, and then she was going to rent a car and drove him up north to some place near Lafayette, do you know where that is?"

  "I do," I said. "It's not far from Walnut Creek, which is not far from Oakland, which used to have a football team, which is not far from the home of a banana-fingered, no-hit baseball team, San Francisco. But why Lafayette?"

  "That's where my uncle Teddy lives," she said. "My mother's other brother."

  "Why doesn't Uncle Teddy meet Uncle Theo?" I said.

  "Because Uncle Teddy is on a home kidney dialysis machine," she said. "He's waiting for a transplant but until then he has to wash his bood or whatever it is every day, which takes hours."

  "Gotcha," I said, beginning to think I'd fallen into a particularly melodramatic episode of "General Hospital."

  "So Mr. Lewellen suggested you," she said in her husky voice.

  "And how do you know him?"

  "I don't, really," she said, "but he and mother went to the same college. I think they were sweet on each other because they stayed in touch and still send each other Valentine's cards."

  "Ahhhhh," I said. I checked my watch. "Excuse me a sec, I have to make a quick call."

  I dialed the number of the courier service I always used. When the girl at the other end answered, I asked her if George was in.

  "Just got back," the dispatcher said.

  "Tell him Vic says make it four o'clock, not three, would you please, sweetheart?"

  "Consider it done, honey," she said.

  I rang off. "Sorry about that. Now, Miss Braukis, I take it that as Uncle Teddy can't meet Uncle Theo, and you naturally want to stay near your mother, and there's no other family available, you would like to meet Uncle Theo and escort him north to Uncle Teddy's."

  "Well, a hotel right near Uncle Teddy's," she said. "Yes, please. Could you?" She turned on her Lillian-Gish-in-Orphan-of-the-Storm look.

  "I might be able to," I said. "When does he get in?"

  "Saturday morning. I know that's six days away and mother might even be better by then, but I thought I'd try and make arrangements now just in case, so if you were tied up, I'd have time to think of something else."

  "Let me just check the little old schedule," I said. I put on my specs reluctantly, got out the little old schedule, which was in fact a Cosmopolitan magazine's "Desktop Diary for Today's Woman," a thoughtful present I'd uncovered in my stocking the previous Christmas from my favorite, thoughtful blonde, who was not without a flash of humor from time to time. The year before she had given me a hunter's and fisherman's diary, so if you ever want to know how much the largest pike ever netted in American waters weighed, you know who to call, except I chucked it out when I got the new one.

  I opened the diary to the appropriate week, making sure that Miss Braukis didn't get a peek at it. Aside from such domestic trivia as "buy Mom present," "have brakes checked," "thpaste," "mthwash," "1 case ginger ale," and "Jockey shorts," it was as blank as a doctor's expression just after you've asked him how much longer you had to live.

  "The time I could find," I said truthfully. "But why me? I mean, why anyone? Why doesn't Uncle Theo just hop a connector flight to Oakland, then take a cab?"

  "Because he can't speak English," she said.

  "Not at all?"

  "Not at all."

  "What does he speak?"

  "Estonia," she said. "And of course Russian."

  "Of course," I said. "What luck my Russian is flawless, Tovaritch."

  It was then that the amazing Miss Ruth Braukis leaned forward, gazed at me earnestly from those marvelous orbs, ran the tip of her adorable tongue over her equally if not more adorable upper lip, and oh, dream on, big fella, dream on, asked me in that voice redolent of late nights and saxophones, "What do you think?"

  At that point, precisely what would you have done in my position, may I ask? Made some lame excuse, mayhap a pressing appointment with your gum specialist, and turned her out into the swirling smog? Of course I said I'd do it. Of course I said, in the most reassuring tones, "Leave it to me." Of course there did occur a brief but satisfactory discussion of monetary matters, including a hefty chunk up front.

  Then I elicited the necessary details from her—the time Uncle Theo was due in—3:44. Where—LAX. What airline—TWA. Coming from where—New York. She also gave me Uncle Teddy's address up north and his phone number; her address in town, the Fairfax Hotel (on Fairfax, appropriately); another number where I could leave a message for her; and the name of the hospital where her mother was—the Hollywood Kaiser, an establishment of healing I knew all too well and have the scars, the bills, and a certain redheaded nurse's home phone number to prove it. . . . Now, now, rumor mongers, simmer down. I hasten to add at this point that said redheaded's moniker is Duke, he once played tackle for Arkansas State, and as well as being a nurse, he's also an osteopath who makes house calls. Mummy's name—June Braukis—a photo of Uncle Theo, and a letter from Uncle Teddy to Uncle Theo he'd air expressed down explaining all to Uncle Theo in Russian. One the envelope was written "Fioder Bièlken," which, on inquiry, turned out to be Uncle Theo's name writ in a westernized form of the Ruskie alphabet.

  Oh. Speaking (as I just was) of bits and pieces, of bitty bits and patchwork pieces torn from some greater whole—oftentimes, especially, in bars late at night—I think that perhaps all my days (and most of my life) consist of nothing else. And unlike those who search for religion, truth, love, forgiveness, or oblivion in the bottom of their glasses, all I was hoping to find was some sort of cosmic superglue. I thought about asking madam if she happened to know where I might purchase a large, family-size tube of same, but I didn't.

  I thought about asking her what her favorite color was, or if she liked yellow roses, tangoing, big bands, bigger men, Dolly Parton, autumn leaves, and bygone days, but I didn't. Evonne, I didn't even think of it.

  When I had all the legitimate details I thought I might need from her jotted down safely in my memo pad (courtesy M. Martel, Stationers), I escorted her to the door. She said she'd call later in the week if there was any change of plan. I said she could call anyway, just to say hello, merely to hear a friendly voice, if she wanted. She declined my offer to chase up or call a cab for her, saying she had some shopping to do before returning to the hospital. She held out one dainty hand. I took it gingerly in my big mitt. She laid her other hand atop mine as gently as a goosedown feather settling on black velvet, gave me her tremulous smile again, and then she was gone.

  I went back inside.

  The office looked shabby suddenly. . . but then it always did.

  I looked at the six hundred dollars in traveler's checks she'd signed over to me.

  I looked at the chair in which she had so briefly reposed. I thought I could detect an elusive, lingering trace of her perfume still in the air. What an enchanting woman, to put it mildly, what a vision of incredible loveliness. And she was tall, too, of course. Great beauty of person requires that one should be tall, shorties can't cut it, Aristotle wrote, although maybe not in those exact words. Would I ever see her again? Who knew what tricks impish Fate had yet in store up his tattered sleeve for V. (for Victor) Daniel.

  I had but one slight twinge of unease, or regret—too bad she was so full of shit.

  2

  Don't get me wrong.

  I didn't suspect Ruth Braukis of being the biggest liar since the Big Bad Wolf merely because she was stunningly beautiful, although lesser males might be so inclined. That sort of juvenile, chauvinistic prejudice I eradicated from my character eons ago—to be precise, last Tuesday morning just before lunch. Believe me, I had other reasons for my suspicions.

  Lew Lewellen was a film producer. Was it likely a film producer would send Valentine's cards to anyone except himself, l
et alone a college sweetheart from thirty years ago? And I could have been wrong but didn't I vaguely remember Lew's wife telling me once Lew had never even finished high school let alone got into a university. And all that stuff about uncles and Estonia and kidney machines, really. I may be gullible, especially when violet eyes are batting my way, but even I have my limits.

  First thing I did of course was to call up the Lewellens. A pretty señorita I'd seen several times at Lew's but whose name I couldn't recall answered, and after I'd said it was me, she said the Lewellens were away for the weekend and could she take a message. I said, "No, gracias," and hung up.

  Away for the weekend, eh? A likely story. No doubt Mrs. Lewellen had so instructed her minion to say if I called as she was too nice to lie to me directly. And was Monday, which day it was, a part of the weekend anyway? Not even in Beverly Hills it wasn't. So what was going on? How and why were my old friends the Lew Lewellens involved? Curious, eh, amigos?

  I called the Fairfax Hotel; there was no one by the name of Ruth or June Braukis registered. Well, conceivably Ruth was staying in her mom's room and conceivably mom had a girlfriend roommate as double rooms are cheaper than two single rooms and conceivably the room was registered in her mom's girlfriend's name, if you are still conceivably with me, so then I called Kaiser, and guess what, no Mummy there, either.

  Then I called up Uncle Teddy in Lafayette or thereabouts. No answer. Then, just to see if there was any truth at all in Ruth's tissue of fibs, I phoned TWA. Lo and behold there was a flight arriving daily from New York at 3:44 P.M., which was some small progress, although toward what, who knew? Then, just for a giggle, I took down my Reader's Digest World Atlas from the small shelf of reference books that hung a mite lopsidedly between the Armenian beauties and the fire extinguisher to see if there still was an Estonia. There was, south across the icy floes from Helsinki.

  I looked fondly at the loving dedication inside the front cover of the atlas: "God knows where ya came from. Maybe this'll help ya figure out where you're goin'. Luv, Sara. XXX."