As She Rides By (Vic Daniel Series) Page 7

  The latest addition to the gang trotted in then, had a drink of water, turned around a couple of times, then collapsed on his blanket by the door. I felt like joining him, due no doubt to the unaccustomed early-morning exertions out at Phineas's, but I got down to work instead, as there wasn't much time before lunchtime and there wouldn't be all that much time after lunch before I got picked up for delivery.

  Speaking of delivery, I then opened my real mail, not junk tucked into my letterbox at dead of night by noddleheads. It all got chucked into the wastepaper basket except for a letter on good quality bond from a lawyer friend of Mel (the Swell); his name was James Callahan and he wanted to know if I was, generally speaking, available, and also, was I, generally speaking, available at very short notice? He also said he would appreciate knowing my rates, hourly, daily, and weekly, and that he looked forward to hearing from me soon, let alone working with me, as I had been enthusiastically recommended by Mel. I answered Mr. Callahan by saying yes and yes to his queries, and listing my rates. Well, my rates for lawyers, anyway. Which, quite frankly, are none of your business. I do not charge more if the job looks like it might involve violence either to me or to others; then again, nor do I charge less if the client is ravishingly beautiful. A man needs some standards, after all.

  Then I sent out two bills, then I paid three, then ran the mini carpet sweeper over the rug, then put my glasses back on, and made a short list:

  V.D. vs. P.C.A.C. Co.

  To contact:

  Injun Joe

  Father Romero

  Reporter from local rag

  Benny (the Boy)

  Evonne Louise Shirley

  Local politician?

  Local do-gooder?

  Historian/museum curator?

  Mel (the Swell)

  Top exec. from P.C.A.C. Co.

  To obtain:

  Snips

  Artifact

  Indian garb

  Also to contact:

  Elroy, my landlord, property owner/developer

  "Hmm," I thought, looking it over. Who I needed to get in touch with first was Injun Joe, because it all revolved around him, but Injun Joe wasn't around, was he, now that the Great White Father had stolen a little more of his land, and who knew where he spent the days now? His girlfriend might, I thought, or at least he might drop by her place for seconds of macaroni in the near future, and did I not know her name and address? So I looked her up in the phone book, and called her. Sure she remembered me, she said. Thanks for what I did for Joseph. No, she hadn't seen him for a couple of days, but when he did drop in, sure she'd ask him to call me, why not? I gave her both the office number and my home one, then rang off.

  I ran my eyes back down the list. An historian—I could always talk to one of those in the meantime, but where did historians hang out when they weren't off in the Negev digging trenches with spoons and was that historians anyway?

  Then it dawned on me—belatedly, but that's better than never—one thing historians do is teach history. In places like high schools, which gave me a good excuse, as if I needed one, to call up my honey bunch, who, as you know, only worked in one just up the street a few blocks. I caught her in her office where, she said, she was tidying up her desk before going down to the canteen for lunch and did I want to join her there for a quick bite? Having already eaten once in the school canteen, I declined, saying I had a previous appointment, unfortunately, with a pastrami on rye down at Fred's Deli, but I would be thinking of her with each bite.

  She laughed, then we talked for a bit, then I asked her about historians. She said the school was loaded with them, practically, and what historical period was I interested in?

  "American Injun history," I said.

  "Why, for goodness sakes?"

  "I always did want decent recipes for pemmican and squirrel kebobs," I said.

  "Pull the other one," my darling said.

  "With the greatest of pleasure," I said. "Remember two nights ago when I gave you my last profiterole?"

  "How could I forget?"

  "When I told you all about what they were planning to do with King's vacant lot? It's got to do with that, I'll tell you all about it when I see you, I'll try and come by and meet you after school tomorrow."

  "Good," she said. "You can carry my books home for me. Who you want is John Chandler. He's a Welsh historian and archaeologist and a bit weird, but the kids love him. Maybe that's why they love him. He usually eats at the canteen, I'll put it to him."

  "I'm more or less available from one to six this afternoon," I said. "It'd be a help if I could drop by and pick his brains for an hour sometime today."

  "I'll get right on it, boss, and get back to you. Over and out, sweetheart." She blew me a kiss and severed the connection.

  Then I tidied up my desk and went off to have my lunch. I took the dog, although of course he wasn't allowed in to Fred's, or any other restaurant in town, which I always thought was pretty stupid. If the reasons are those of hygiene, take a peek at the average restaurant kitchen some time. The French are reputed to know just the merest trifle about food and the serving thereof, but I read somewhere, I think in one of those in-flight magazines you read on airplanes when you've read everything else including the ditching instructions and what it says on the bottom of the sick bag, I read that in France they not only let canines into restaurants but give them their own chair. And probably let them order vino, too.

  I left my dog tied up in the shade outside Fred's back door, as I had done many times before, King putting up no protest whatsoever. From the innocent looks on his and the cook's faces when I picked him up after lunching, I deeply suspected he was getting the occasional leftover slice of boiled brisket slipped to him, but I never could catch either of them at it. Did I try that hard? Need you ask?

  I didn't have the pastrami after all, I had a plate of corned beef with a couple of potato pancakes on the side, then a generous slice of raisin pie, with a glass of milk to wash it all down. On the way out I stopped for a quick word with Two-to-One Tim, the house bookie, who was adding up some figures on a small pocket calculator in the booth by the door that he had permanent squatters' rights on.

  "I read this book," I said, sliding onto the seat across from him. "And in this book was a bookie in a bar and he used a little portable computer, the advantage being that not only could he do higher mathematics on it, like figuring out what five-to-four on meant, but he had programmed in it every nag in the country and their past performances and on what track and like that."

  "Well, well," Tim said without looking up. "If it ain't Bet-a-Million Brady again. What're you betting two bucks on today?"

  "Ten bucks, if you please," I said with dignity. "On the Dodgers, who you may know are receiving the Mets ce soir."

  "I think someone did mention it to me," he said, making a note in a small pad he took out of his breast pocket. "That to win, or do you want it both ways?"

  I grinned, then departed. I wasn't back in the office for more than a minute or two when Evonne phoned saying John Chandler was free from two o'clock on and that he was expecting me any time thereafter, that his office was on the second floor of "B" wing, that the security type at the front desk had already been advised of my visit, and that I should try for once to stay out of the girls' locker room. I said, I'd try to be strong.

  Then I asked her if she'd consider taking care of the dog for one night only; she could pick him up from my car in the school parking lot. No problem, babe, she said.

  Having a good hour and a half to kill before my appointment, I went shopping. At the hardware store over on Orange I purchased a sturdy pair of long-handled metal cutters, also a new green trowel for Evonne, as her old one was rusted up, also a fake bone made out of dried cowhide for guess who. Then it was around the block to the post office for stamps and to mail what had to be mailed, then I popped in next door to say hello to Mrs. Martel in the stationery shop where I bought all my office supplies and whose weedy son did all my
printing from the back room without asking any questions at all except how many pieces of writing paper bearing the heading "A-One Bill Collection Services (Estab. 1978), P. Campbell, Exec. Off." did I want, and by when did I want 'em?

  On the way back, a friendly lady in a two-inch miniskirt and a peek-a-boo bra told me I had a cute dog. She also informed me that she had the time if I had the fifty bucks. I said, darn, I did have the fifty bucks but it was the time I didn't have. She gave me a sweet smile and an acrobatic suggestion. "Aren't you lucky we men can't," I remarked. "It would sure put you out of business in a hurry." I bowed politely and continued on my way.

  Chapter Six

  And that's gotta be as safe as U.S. money in the bank,

  'Cause we've been drinkin' buddies since we met in '63.

  IT WAS JUST on two when I pulled into the school parking lot, with which I was very familiar. Not only from sitting out there waiting for my beloved to finish work, but once upon a spring the school's vice principal, a nice gent called Lowenstein, had hired me to do what I could about the school's rapidly growing problems with drugs, the takers thereof and the pushers thereof. So I did what I could; it all ended satisfactorily for some and sadly for some, which is how most affairs end, I guess. Sadly for Artie, who ran the hamburger joint across the road, which inexplicably was blown up into little bitty pieces late one night. He'll be able to start on the rebuilding in 1996—if he gets parole, that is. Sadly for Dev Devlin, ex-head of security at the school, sadly for a half a dozen kids and their parents, but highly satisfactorily for V. Daniel, and, I like to think, for E. Louise Shirley, as it was on the second floor of the school's "A" wing, at 11:25 one fateful morning, when Cupid's arrow swooped down out of the smog and smote us both.

  So I had no trouble finding the visitors' parking section. I told King to be good and I'd see him soon and that he was a lucky dog, getting to spend the night at Evonne's and didn't I wish I had his luck. I left the trowel on the seat beside him where she'd be sure to notice it; I have found it is these thoughtful little gestures that women prize so much.

  A few jocks passed me on the way to the front entrance, heading for the combination football, baseball, and soccer field. Inside, the halls were quiet as the kids had finished changing rooms for their last class of the day. I found Mr. Chandler's office without being queried by anyone at the front desk, as there wasn't anyone at it, and without any trouble, up on the second floor of the science wing, right where it was supposed to be. The door was open, so I said, "Hi, anyone home?" and went in.

  "Be right out," a voice called from the inner depths of a closet to my right. "Have a seat." There was only one seat to be had—aside from the old stuffed armchair behind the desk which was obvious for the use of J. Chandler—a spindly affair wedged in between two bookcases, on which I perched gingerly. The desk itself, I was pleased to note, was cluttered to overflowing, and not only with piles of papers, folders, books and magazines, and the like, but also with a gorgeous hand-painted wooden duck decoy, life-sized, a ship in a dusty bottle, and a heap of buttons, bits of broken pottery, and arrowheads—in other words, amigos—artifacts!

  After a minute out came J. Chandler, Esq., dusting his hands. He was a short, wiry individual with a lot of brown hair and a drooping brown mustache, wearing brown corduroys and a baggy brown cardigan. I introduced myself, standing up to do so, and he shook my hand enthusiastically, then bounced over to his chair and sprang into it.

  "So you're the man in my darling girl's life!" he said. "Well, well, well! Sit, take the weight off, tell me what's up, man."

  So I sat and told him the story so far while he lit up and puffed away on a long-stemmed clay pipe of the kind I believe is called a churchwarden.

  "A scheme to delight the heart of any Welshman, boyo," he said excitedly when I was done. "You may be assured of my complete, utter, and total cooperation. Now. If my ears have not betrayed me, your problem dissects into four separate elements: Element the First—were there indeed settlements of the Amerind peoples in the culture area you stipulated. Element the Second—if so, were their burial traditions compatible with your requirement? Element the Third—if so and if so, could physical evidence of the same be obtainable? Element the Fourth—if so and if so and if so, would some suitable authority on the subject be willing to publicly testify as to the authenticity of said physical evidence?" Here he ran a hand through his mop and beamed across the room at me. I beamed back.

  "A brilliant summation, Mr. Chandler, if I may say so," I said.

  "Otherwise known and more familiarly appellated as Taffy," he said.

  He put his pipe down in what looked like a cereal bowl, laced his fingers together, then proceeded to give me a short, sharp, fast, and highly informative lecture on the American Indian, the most interesting and most potentially useful parts of which I will now pass on to you. Useful to me, I mean, I do not mean useful in that afterward you will be able to make you own birch bark canoe or conical tepee, or know how to leach the tannin out of acorns to render them edible.

  So, briefly, then: A culture area is a geographical area occupied by groups of peoples whose cultures are roughly similar to each other but dissimilar, roughly, to those of other areas. North America, historians managed to agree some few years ago, now for convenience is divided into seventeen such culture areas. The one that concerns us is called, aptly, California, and contains about two-thirds of the present state.

  Rough population count of Amerinds from Alaska down to, say, Costa Rica, in 1492: 30,000,000.

  Rough population count today: 142 (my estimate).

  Number of distinct and separate languages then (both continents): 1,000–2,000.

  Number of written languages then (both continents): 3, all in Central or Northern South America.

  California culture area: Distinguished by a great diversity of types and speech. Little or no farming. Some coastal fishing. Little game hunting. Diet mainly consisted of twenty-seven varieties of acorns, seeds, rodents, birds, worms, grasshoppers, and caterpillar sandwiches, much like the diet of many present-day Californians, give or take. Narcotics in general use included tobacco, Jimson weed, datura, and, later, peyote, much like the indulgences of present-day Californians, give or take. The Californians of that time were known for their mild manners and peace-loving temperaments, which brings to an abrupt end our comparisons with then and now.

  The population in the LA area at the start of the 1700s was perhaps 150–375 per hundred square kilometers, moderately dense for those days. Its decline began with the arrival of the Spanish in 1770, and the Gold Rush of 1849 put an end to it all as far as our redskin brothers were concerned. The major tribes in California included the Miadu, Miwok, Pomo, and Yokuts, unfamiliar names all, and none of which was ever represented by Jeff Chandler, Burt Lancaster, or even Susan Peters, in the movies.

  Another sad story. Where did they all go to, the fifty thousand Yokuts, for example? Back over the mountains, to be set upon by the more aggressive Plains Indians? Surely many remained, only to be set upon by the early Christian missionaries. Selfishly, I hoped that some stubborn tribelets did, as it was the missionaries who converted them from the cremation of their dead to the burial thereof.

  When Taffy had finished his recital, he got a new pipeful going to his satisfaction, then said to me, "Bones. I'd love to get you some bones; who do I know who would have bones?" He thought for a moment, then sighed. "Too difficult. We'll have to use witchcraft."

  "We will?"

  "Which was commonplace," he said, nodding. "Witchcraft equals medicine men, which equal the religious leaders of the day, so to speak. Now, if I were a Yokut pestered into interring the remains of his tribe's medicine man by interfering busybodies, might I not slip a few of his most prized possessions—the tools of his trade, so to speak—into the grave with him, which he will surely need on the Other Side?"

  "Absolutely," I said.

  "His split-stick clapper, for example," he said. "But, being wooden, it would
probably not have survived until now. Or his rasp. But I'll tell you what could have survived 150 years underground—aside from a Welsh tin miner—his deer-hoof jingler, which was a kind of rattle. It might well be decorated, too, with some typical tribal design, which would place it geographically." He looked innocently over at me. I gave him a wide-eyed stare in return.

  "Be pretty hard to track down a thing like that, though, I bet," I said.

  "How many d'you want, boyo?" he said. "I've a dozen on the wall at home."

  "I think one should do it," I said. "One doesn't want to overdo things."

  He grinned, showing a flash of white teeth below his bushy mustache.

  "So I'll try and remember to bring one in tomorrow and give it to your lady, that suit you?"

  "Marvelously," I said, getting to my feet. "Thank you. It was a pleasure listening to you and you've been an enormous help."

  "The fewer lies the better, perhaps," he said, getting to his feet in turn. "By which I mean it is better, if more roundabout, that your lady gives it to you, you bury it, then you dig it up, then you give it to me, dirty, to clean and authenticate, so you can truthfully say you dug it up, gave it to me, and I can truthfully state I cleaned it, identified what it was, whom it belonged to, and roughly, its age. Then I will forward to you a formal statement delineating my qualifications as an expert, followed by authentication, followed by anything else I can think up to throw in."