As She Rides By (Vic Daniel Series) Page 5

  It was toward the latter that I directed my size twelves. During the short stroll, I spied with my all-seeing eye the bloody remains of two pigeons, a needleless Christmas tree sticking up in a pail of sand, a well-dressed woman sitting at a bus stop bench, crying, a cat scooting across the boulevard and just managing to escape extinction, and a file of cyclists all dressed up for the Tour de France and all wearing gauze masks tied around their mouths.

  The church itself was a simple white-finished, one-story structure set back from the street, with a bell tower in the rear and a wooden cross mounted in the front. A couple of steps led up to the front door, which was open. In I went, to blessed coolness. Not a creature was stirring, so I sat in the rearmost pew and ruminated. Time passed. An old lady dressed in black appeared briefly from behind the altar, looked around, then disappeared again before I could get her attention. Time passed. Finally a gentleman in a long black robe emerged from a door at the side. He was toting an armful of papers, which he proceeded to distribute at regular intervals on all pews. When he'd covered the whole church, he tucked the remaining papers under his cassock, dusted his hands vigorously, came over to me, smiled, and said, "Good afternoon."

  "And to you, sir," I said, getting to my feet.

  "Please," he said. "Sit. I'll join you." We sat.

  "Victor Daniel," I said.

  "Father Romero," he said. We shook hands, extremely firmly on his part. He looked to be a man in his forties, very fit, with a brown, pockmarked face, round steel-rimmed glasses, and black hair swept straight back from a pronounced widow's peak. What he saw was a man also in his forties (just), fairly fit, all things considered, with a broken-nosed puss hastily assembled from a few spare parts and some leftover scar tissue. As I only wore my wretched specs for reading, he got the full force of my world-weary hazel eyes, those once-bright orbs that had seen it all once too often.

  "And what can I do for you, Mr. Daniel, if anything? If you've just come in for a few moments' peace, please don't let me disturb you."

  "Well, there is something, Father," I said. "They're planning to put up a porno house down the road, right next to my office, maybe you've heard?"

  "I have indeed," he said, folding his hands. "I cannot say I am overjoyed at the prospect."

  "Me neither," I said. "And my dog's not exactly wagging his tail over it either."

  He smiled. "The question is," he said, "can anything be done about it?"

  "Well," I said coyly, "I did get this little idea earlier today when my dog was digging up what I was afraid might be chicken bones. I said to myself, what if he dug up a bone that wasn't a chicken bone, but a people bone? What if, I said, he'd uncovered the remains of, say, a burial ground or some old cemetery? Then that vacant lot would be hallowed territory and maybe we could stop construction on it."

  "Hmm," the father said. "Most interesting."

  "So OK," I said, "who could have been buried there? Who was there before us white trash came along? Who else but Mexicans, I said, who only built missions all over these parts, and if you got a mission, you probably have a cemetery right next to it, or at least you could have."

  "You could have indeed," he said. "And, often, you did have. Unfortunately, what you cannot have is a mission where you would like there to have been a mission."

  "Oh?" I said.

  "Because," he said gently, "the first mission built by our church was in San Diego, in the year 1796, and the last one, in Sonoma, in 1823, if I recall correctly."

  "How about in between?" I said.

  He shook his head. "Without being an expert, even I know the location of all our California missions, and, alas, there was none within fifty miles or so of your dog's beloved playground."

  "Among other things," I said.

  "Records," he said, "were kept of everything, as the Mother Church oversaw every detail of those early missions; indeed, as she still does, for better or worse. Every peso spent had to be accounted for, details of construction had to be submitted for approval, all births, baptisms, first holy communions, confirmations, weddings, and deaths listed, and these documents still exist, I can assure you."

  "Oh, shoot," I said. "So much for that bright idea."

  "Oh, I don't know," Father Romero said, smoothing down the front of his robe. "Our races were not the only ones to settle in these parts."

  "Too true," I said. "Look at all the Chinese they brought in to build the levees and the railroads. Then, of course, you've got the Armenians."

  "I was rather thinking," he said, "of your native American Indians. Were they not here before us?"

  "Sure were," I said.

  "Did they not bury their dead? Surely some tribes did."

  "You bet your beaded moccasins they did," I said. "At least they did in the movie I saw."

  "And there seems to be rather a lot in the newspapers these days about Indians asserting their rights and land claims and what have you, does there not?"

  "Father," I said, "does there not indeed. Why, only yesterday I was reading about those Mohawks in Canada who've barricaded some bridge or other as a protest because some golf club wanted to add a few more holes to its course on Mohawk land."

  "Indeed," said Father Romero.

  "So all I would need to get started," I said, "isn't even a bone, it could be a bit of authenticatable Indian pottery or an old bowstring or whatever they used to bury along with their dead, which I don't have, and a cheap lawyer, which I do have."

  "I would suggest a friendly Indian, as well," the father said. "It would give your protest more weight if it were headed by a Native American."

  "Like a distant descendant," I said. "I know the very man." And did I ever—Injun Joe. If I could keep him out of the clink, relatively sober, and persuade him to wear a couple of feathers and a bark loincloth for a few days.

  "A committee," said the father. "Which might include aroused citizenry"—here he nodded in my direction—"a spokesman for the Indian people, and perhaps some local politician who is strong on minority rights, or at least likes to be so seen."

  "And, mayhap," I said, with a nod in his direction, "how about a religious leader?"

  "Neatly done, sir," he said. "Why not."

  And on that amicable note we parted. The father saw me to the door, picking up a broom from a closet en route. When I left he was sweeping down the front steps and I was pondering over such things as Indian artifacts and how to beg, borrow, or steal one; Indian history, just to make sure there were Indians once camped on my vacant lot; committees and how to set one up; and—now you're talking—a press conference and how, when, and where to hold one. That'd do to be getting on with, I thought. Pussycat Adult Cinema Co., I thought, look out, and before many moons have passed, too.

  Unfortunately, it was two days before I could put any of the above into motion, because when I arrived back at the office a client was sitting on the fender of a huge, gleaming white '74 Mercedes, with tinted windows and all, waiting for me. "Mr. Daniel?" he said as I was opening the last of the three locks.

  "In the flesh." I took down the sign on the door that said, "Back soon, or even sooner," neatly lettered on cardboard by Yours Truly, said, "Mind the dog," and ushered him in. In he strode. I gestured him to the chair on the far side of the desk from mine, in which he sat primly. King bounded over to say hello, and was rewarded with a gingerly pat. When the dog had quieted down somewhat, I sent him back to his blanket, switched on the desk light, unlocked the top-left desk drawer, took out a note pad, selected a pen from the assortment that stood in a mug by my red Touch-Tone phone, looked businesslike, and then inquired how I could be of assistance.

  "My card," he said unnecessarily, extracting a magenta calling card from a slim and expensive-looking wallet.

  "Thank you," I said, taking it from him. The card said, "Flora by Phineas," then gave a phone number and a Beverly Hills address. I didn't give it back to him. I collect calling cards, among other things. I have a sizable stack of them in the bottom left desk
drawer. A guy in my business never knows when a card that reads, say, "C. A. Wigram, Los Angeles Water Authority," might come in handy, although I had my doubts that I'd ever be able to use a magenta item declaring the bearer to be "Flora by Phineas."

  "At high noon, in two days," my visitor said, adjusting one puffed yellow cuff, "my presence is requested in criminal court number four, to give evidence. I shudder at the very thought, but what is one to do? One is a good citizen or one is not."

  "That's very commendable," I said. "Evidence of what, may I ask?"

  "Extortion is the term, I believe," he said with distaste. "Two ruffians in the worst-looking gabardine suits you've ever seen muscled their way into my private office, which is in the rear of my humble boutique, several months ago when I was right in the midst of planning the floral displays for the Kretzmer wedding, and you certainly must have read about that, goodness knows."

  "I think I did see something," I said.

  "And what did these two straights proceed to do but try and extort me," he went on.

  "How?"

  "Not only," he said, "not only did they want me to change my major local supplier, but also the import house I use for all my Dutch blooms. Threats were uttered!"

  "No!" I said.

  "Which was only to be expected, I suppose," he said, touching the curls at the back of his neck carefully. "I mean, there they were, two big brutes dripping menace, and there I was, naught but a poor, trembling pansy."

  "Yeah, I bet," I said, taking a close look at him as a person—rather than at his pastel wardrobe and matching accessories—for the first time. Once I got past the manicured and highly buffed nails, I noticed the inner edges of both hands were heavily callused, and you don't get that from snipping the dead bits off dwarf dahlias, you get it from screaming in Japanese and disintegrating stacks of bricks with one downward chop. Like his cuffs, his shirt sleeves were puffy, too; they probably had to be to hide his rippling deltoids.

  "Shivering with abject terror as I was," he said, "I did remember to switch on a darling little pocket recorder I have to catch those elusive flashes of pure genius one gets from time to time that otherwise would be lost to posterity. After a while, mercifully, they departed, vowing to return, as I claimed I was, first of all, in too much of a dither to make any decisions right then and second of all, I couldn't possibly make any business decision of such magnitude without baring all to my silent partner."

  "No doubt nonexistent as well as silent," I said.

  "Well, one isn't a complete fool, is one," he said, "if you leave such wayward emotions as love and young lust out of the picture." Here he arched his eyebrows heavenward.

  "I take it you called the cops," I said. "And I take it they did come back."

  "By appointment, the following week," he said. "Naturally they were almost an hour late, presumably to give me more time to quiver in me Guccis."

  I grinned. "Yeah, I bet," I said again. "Also presumably this time the boys in blue brought their own wire along."

  "I won't tell you," he said, "how embarrassing it was to have to strip to the waist in front of total strangers, then have this . . . this machine taped to that cute little area just above one's derriere, and from there the itchiest wires ran practically everywhere. I've hardly slept a wink since. I just count my blessings I'd put on clean bikini bottoms that morning, just like Mother always advised."

  "Have you seen or heard anything since from your gentlemen callers?"

  "Please!" he said. "Callers, yes. Last night, I was just sitting down to a candlelit supper with a dear, dear friend of mine—poached turbot avec trois sauces, with a small salade endive to follow—when, wouldn't you know, ring, ring, ring. A voice that sounded like it was talking through a filthy hankie asked me if I wanted to go on walking. Also dancing, I said, and I did take a ski holiday every year as well. Why wait for winter? he said. Now's a perfect time for a holiday. Get me? I said I comprehended him, if that was what he was endeavoring to get across. Then he hung up, thank God; I just managed to rescue the turbot."

  "That was lucky," I said. "I take it your friends are out on bail until the trial?"

  "You take it correctly, sir," he said. "That's nice." He pointed to an expensively framed drawing I had up on the wall next to the fire extinguisher. "A Dufy, isn't it?"

  "A fake," I said, perhaps unnecessarily. "So then what happened?"

  "After the Brie," he said, "which was perhaps just the teeniest bit overripe, I called the gendarmes, and said, 'Au secours!' They said they could only secours me adequately if I moved into a hotel and stayed there. I said I had no intention of moving into some third-rate flea pit surviving on room service and take-out Chinkie-chink and passing my precious time away either playing gin rummy with some beery policeman or, even worse, watching afternoon television, although I do confess a secret fondness for Queen for a Day."

  "Me too," I said.

  "Besides all that," he said, "I have thirty mixed bouquets of Duet, Honor, Bewitched, Charisma, Cathedral, Tropicana, and Angel Face to prepare for a luncheon tomorrow, to say nothing of my normal business. And of course, Lauren Hutton, that bitch, would have to choose tomorrow night to open in that depressing play of hers, you must know the one, it's all about this humble housewife who turns the tables on her would-be violator and bricks him up in the fireplace."

  "What's an Angel Face?" I inquired.

  "A rose, dear, what else?" he said. "The most beautiful mauvey lavender color; highly fragrant."

  "How many roses would you use in, say, a month? Just out of curiosity."

  "It does rather depend on what month," he said, "but on an average, twelve to fifteen hundred."

  "I'm beginning to see why your callers called," I said. "You are talking sizable sums, especially when you throw in all those carnations and mother-in-law's tongues. Did the cops ever tell you who those guys were?"

  "One particular one did," he said. "We were, briefly, lovers, as a matter of fact. I wonder if there are any gay private eyes?"

  "I know there's at least one," I said. "He hired my services once to do something he didn't want to do himself."

  "And what was that, I wonder?"

  "Nothing spectacular," I said. "Run a check on his sister's husband."

  "What happened?"

  "He didn't check, but at least the guy who hired me is still talking to his sister. The two; who were they?"

  "A Phil something and a Ted nothing, both originally from Pittsburgh, fittingly. My friend sent me copies of their records, too, or their 'sheets,' as you insiders would put it, which were roughly as clean as the bed linen in a Piraeus boarding house. Low-level frighteners, my friend called them. No firearm convictions, no record of ever having mucked about with explosives, I am only too delighted to report. And that's quaint," he said, pointing to a needlepoint hanging I had next to the 'Dufy,' which did not say something vulgar about bowel movements but depicted, in a deliberately childlike fashion, an airport at night.

  "Umm," I said. "The chap who gave it to me lives in a mobile home park in Sacramento."

  "Even quainter," he said, glancing at the elegant timepiece on his tanned wrist. "So how about it, Mr. Daniel? Care to stick closer to me than a second skin until twelve Wednesday, or does the idea of spending so much time with a screaming queen upset you?"

  "Scream all you like," I said. "It doesn't upset me at all. Wait till you hear my daily rate, that might upset you." It failed to do so in the slightest. "Who put you on to me, by the way?"

  "You're the detective," he said. "Detect, maestro."

  "Well," I said, "unless you saw my cunning little ad in the last month's Gay News, I detect you have been drinking recently."

  "Correct."

  "I detect you have been drinking recently in a bar called the Green Flamingo, which is on the corner of Santa Monica and South Tangerine, not ten minutes from your place."

  "A hit, sir," he said. "A veritable hit."

  "Where you undoubtedly talked to the manager,
Richard, aka Miss Peggy, when he's working, who's an old friend of mine. Did he tell you he saved my ass once, and maybe my life as well?"

  "No, not a word did he utter," Phineas said.

  "Well, he did," I uttered. "In his full getup including blond beehive and stilettos, too. Anyway. You, sir, have just hired yourself a bodyguard starting now, or you will have as soon as you fork over half my fee in advance. My fee will also include a dozen Angel Faces for the little woman. If you are missing a kneecap or two by noon Wednesday, I will waive the other half of my fee."

  "That's considerate," he said. He extracted a check from his wallet, borrowed one of my pens—the one that had "Welcome to Parrot World" written on it—scribbled away, then tossed the check in my general direction.

  "Who do I make the receipt out to?" I said, donning my spectacles.

  "Phineas will do," he said. Then I scribbled away.

  "Naturally, King's services are included as well," I said. "He is a highly trained watchdog—he watches every bite I eat."

  When I handed Phineas the receipt, I said, "As for me, Victor will do." We shook hands on it, and both stood up. "One thing. Please do me a favor, Phineas. Don't put me through it unnecessarily. No gay steam baths, if there are any left. No transvestite balls or gay liberation parades, I get too many mixed signals, which confuse me, then make me nervous."

  He looked at me, then nodded. "Deal," he said.

  "Let me make a call or two first," I said. "Try not to listen to the juicy bits."

  "I'll be in the car," he said.

  "No you won't," I said. "You'll be right here where King and I can keep an eye on you."