G Is For Gumshoe

9

By 10:35, he was helping me ease my battered bones into the passenger seat of a bright red Porsche. I watched him move around the front of the car and slide in on the driver's side.

"You rented this?"

"It's mine. I drove down. I didn't want to wait for my buddy with the plane. He couldn't leave soon enough."

I snapped on the seat belt and settled into the low, black leather seat. He fired the engine up with a rumble and pulled out of the parking lot, adjusting the air conditioner. The compact interior of the car smelted of leather and cigarette smoke. With the tinted windows rolled up against the desert heat, I felt insulated from the harsh realities of the spare countryside.

"Where we headed?"

"The body shop where your car was towed."

"Will it be open on Sunday?"

"Now it its."

"How'd you manage that?"

"I called the emergency number. The guy's meeting us there."

We headed into Brawley to an auto body shop that was housed in a converted gas station just off the main street. My VW was parked in a side lot, surrounded by chain-link fence. As we pulled into the service area, the owner emerged from the office with a set of keys in hand. He unlocked the padlock on the chain-link fence and rolled the gate back. Dietz pulled into the lot and parked the car, placing a restraining hand on my arm as I moved to open the door.

"Wait till I come around," he said. From his tone, I didn't think good manners were at stake. I did as I was told, watching the way he positioned himself as he opened the car door for me, shielding my exit. The owner of the station didn't seem to notice anything unusual in the interaction between us. Dietz handed him a folded bill, but I couldn't see what denomination it was. Large enough, apparently, that the man had agreed to meet us here on a day when the place was ordinarily closed.

We circled my car, surveying the damage. There was scarcely a spot on it that wasn't affected in some way.

"Looks like she got banged up pretty good," the owner said to Dietz. I didn't know if he was referring to me or the vehicle. I wrenched open the buckled door on the passenger side and emptied the glove compartment, tucking the registration in my purse, tossing out the collection of ancient gasoline receipts. I still had some personal belongings in the backseat: law books, a few hand tools, my camera equipment, odds and ends of clothing, a pair of shoes. Many items had tumbled onto the floor in the course of the attack and were now sodden with the muddy water from the ditch. I checked the much-abused box of old china and was gratified to find that nothing had been broken. I loaded what I could into the trunk of Dietz's Porsche. What I didn't immediately toss, I packaged in a large cardboard box that the shop owner obligingly rustled up out of the shop. I tucked the box of dishes into the larger box. I wrote a check for the towing, arranging at the same time to have everything shipped to me in Santa Teresa. I'd file a claim with my insurance company as soon as I got back, though I couldn't believe the car would net me much. Ten minutes later, we were heading north on 86. As soon as we were under way, Dietz put a cigarette between his lips and flicked open a Zippo. He hesitated, glancing over at me. "My smoking going to bother you?"

I thought about being polite, but it didn't make much sense. What's communication for if it isn't to convey the truth? "Probably," I said.

He lowered the window on his side and tossed the lighter out, flipped the cigarette out after it, and followed both with the pack of Winstons from his shirt pocket.

I stared at him, laughing uncomfortably. "What are you doing?"

"I quit smoking."

"Just like that?"

He said, "I can do anything."

It sounded like bragging, but I could tell he was serious. We drove ten miles before either of us said another word. As we approached Salton City, I asked him to slow down. I wanted him to see the place where the guy in the Dodge had caught up with me. We didn't stop-there wasn't any point-but I didn't feel I could pass the spot without some reference to the event.

At Indio, we pulled into the parking lot of a small strip shopping mall where a Mexican restaurant was tucked between a VCR repair shop and a veterinarian. "I hope you're hungry," Dietz said. "I don't want to stop once we hit the outskirts of Los Angeles. Sunday traffic is the pits."

"This is fine," I said. The truth was I felt tense and needed the break. Dietz handled the car well, but he drove aggressively, impatient-every time he found himself behind another vehicle. The highway was only two lanes wide and his passing style had me clinging to the chicken stick. His attention was constantly focused on the road ahead and behind, watching (I surmised) for suspicious vehicles. He kept the radio off and the dead quiet in the car was broken only by the thump of his fingers tapping out a beat on the steering wheel. He had the kind of energy that set me on edge. It might not have been objectionable in the open air, but in the confines of the car, I felt crowded to the point of claustrophobia. The idea of having him at my side twenty-four hours a day for any length of time at all was worrisome. We pushed through glass doors into a long, blank rectangular space that had evidently been designed for retail sales. A clumsy partition separated the kitchen from the dining area where a few tables had been arranged. Through the doorway, I could see a stove and battered refrigerator that might have come from a garage sale. Dietz told me to wait while he strolled through to the rear, where he checked the back door.

The place was chilly and echoed when we scraped back our chairs to sit down. Dietz angled himself so he could keep an eye on the car through the plate-glass windows in the front.

Someone peered out of the kitchen at us with uncertainty. Maybe they thought we were from the health department inspecting for rat turds. There was some sort of whispered consultation and then a waitress appeared. She was short and heavyset, a middle-aged Mexican in a white wraparound apron decorated with stains. Shyly, she tried out her language skills. My Spanish is limited to (approximately) three words, but I could swear she offered to serve us squirrel soup. Dietz kept squinting and shaking his head. Finally, the two of them rattled at each other in Spanish for a while. He didn't seem fluent, but he managed to make himself understood.

I studied him casually while he fumbled with his vocabulary. He had a battered look, his nose slightly flattened, with a knot at the bridge. Mouth wide and straight, turning lopsided when he smiled. His teeth were good, but my guess was that some of them weren't his. Looked too even to me and the color was too white. He turned back to me.

"The place just opened yesterday. She recommends the menudo or the combination plate."

I leaned toward him, avoiding her bright gaze. "I don't eat menudo. It's made with tripe. Have you ever seen that stuff? It's white and spongy-looking… all these perforations and bumps. It's probably some internal organ human beings don't even have."

"She'll have the combination plate," he said to her blandly. He held up two fingers, ordering one for himself.

She shuffled away in huaraches that she wore with white socks. She returned moments later with a tray that held glasses, two beers, a small dish of salsa, and a basket of tortilla chips still sizzling with lard.

We snacked on chips and salsa while we waited for our lunch.

"How do you know Lee Galishoff?" I asked. The beer bottle had a little piece of lime resting on the top and I squeezed some in. Both of us ignored the glasses, which were still hot from a recent washing.

Dietz reached for his cigarettes before he remembered that he'd thrown them out. He caught himself and smiled, shaking his head. "I did some work for him, hunting down a witness on one of his first trials. After that, we started playing racquetball and became good friends. What about you?"

I told him briefly the circumstances through which I'd ended up tracking Tyrone Patty for him. "I take it you've done security work before."

He nodded. "It's a lucrative sideline, especially in this day and age. Tends to limit your personal life, but at least it's relief from straight private-eye work, which is a yawn, as you know. Last week I sat for six hours looking at microfiche in the tax assessor's office. I can't stand that stuff."

"Lee told me you were feeling burned out."

"Not burned out. I'm bored. I've been doing it for ten years and it's time to move on."

"To what?" I asked. The beer was very cold and made a nice contrast to the fiery salsa, which was making my nose run. I kept dabbing surreptitiously with a paper napkin, looking like a junkie in need of a fix.

"Don't know yet," he said. "I got into the business in the first place by default. Started out doing repos, serving papers, stuff like that for a guy who eventually took me into his agency. Ray hated doing fieldwork- too rough for his taste-so he did all the paperwork and I dealt with the deadbeats. He was the cerebral type, really had it up here." He tapped his temple.

"You're using past tense. What happened to him?"

"He dropped dead of a heart attack ten months ago. The guy jogged, worked out lifting weights. He married this gal, gave up alcohol and cigarettes, gave up dope, gave up staying out all night. Bought a house, had a baby, happy as a pig eating shit, and then he died. Forty-six. A month ago, his widow started talking like she expected me to step in and fill the gap. It's bullshit. No thanks. I had her cash me out."

"You've lived in California?"

He gestured dismissively. "I've lived everywhere. I was born in a van on the outskirts of Detroit. My mother was in labor and the old man didn't want to stop. I got hauled all over hell and gone as a kid. Pop worked the oil rigs so we spent a lot of tune in L. A… this was in the late forties, early fifties when the big boom was on. Texas, Oklahoma. It was dangerous damn work, but the money was good. Pop was a brawler and a bully, very protective of me as long as I was tough myself. He was the kind of guy who'd get in a bar fight and tear the place apart… just for the hell of it. If he had a clash with the boss or decided he didn't like what was going on, we'd pack up and hit the road."

"How'd you manage to go to school?"

"I didn't if I could help it. I hated school. I couldn't see the point. To me, it all looked like preparation for something I didn't want to do anyway. I was never going to work in a feed store so why did I have to know how many bushels in a peck? Is that an issue that comes up for you? Two trains leaving different cities at sixty miles an hour? I couldn't sit still for junk like that. Nowadays they call kids like me hyperactive. All those rules and regulations, just for the sake of it. I couldn't stand it. I never did graduate. I ended up with an equivalency degree. Took some kind of written test that I aced without ever cracking a book. The system's not designed for transients. I liked phys ed and shop, woodworking, auto mechanics… stuff like that. But nothing academic. Doesn't make any sense unless you start at the beginning and work straight through. I always showed up in the middle and had to leave before the end. Story of my life."

Lunch arrived and we paused to study our food, trying to figure out what it was. Rice and a puddle of refrieds, something folded with cheese leaking out, something fiat. I recognized a tamale because it was wrapped in a corn husk. This was real basic fare-no parsley, no orange slice twisted open and resting on the top. My plate was so hot, I could have used it to iron a shirt. The cook appeared from the kitchen shyly bearing a stack of steaming flour tortillas wrapped in a cloth. The two hospital meals had left my taste buds craving astonishment. I wolfed the food, slowing only long enough to suck down another cold beer. Everything was excellent, the sort of flavors that make you whimper. I reached the finish line slightly in advance of Dietz and wiped my mouth on a paper napkin. "What about your mother? Where was she all this time?"

He shrugged, mouth full, waiting till he could speak. "She was there. My granny, too. The four of us traveled in an old station wagon with our gear shoved in the back. Everything I know my mom or my granny taught me in a moving vehicle. Geography, geology. We'd buy these old textbooks and work our way through. Usually, they'd be drinking beers and cutting up, laughing like lunatics. I thought that was neat and learning was a hoot. Put me in a classroom, I withered from the quiet."

I smiled. "You were probably the kind of kid I was afraid of in school. Boys mystified me. I never understood where they were coming from. When I was in fifth grade, we used to give these plays every Friday afternoon. Improvisational stuff we'd rehearse in the cloak room. The girls would always do love stories full of tragedy and self-sacrifice. The boys had sword fights… lots of mouth noises and bumping. They'd stagger against the wall and then fall down dead. I couldn't figure out why that was fun. I didn't much like what the girls did, but at least people weren't getting stabbed with imaginary rapiers."

He smiled. "Were you raised in Santa Teresa?"

"I've lived there all my life."

He shook his head in mock amazement. "I couldn't even list all the places I've been."

"Were you in the service?"

"I was spared that, thank God. I was too young for Korea and too old for Vietnam. I'm not sure I could have passed the physical in any event. I had rheumatic fever as a kid…"

The waitress returned and started clearing our plates.

"Can you tell me where the ladies' room is?" I said to her.

"Gracias," she said, smiling at me happily while she loaded the tray.

"El cuarto de damas?" Dietz supplied. "Oh si, si!" She laughed at herself when she understood her mistake. She gestured toward the kitchen. I pushed back my chair. Dietz made a move as though to accompany me, but I stopped him. "God, Dietz. There are limits here, you know?"

He let it pass, but I noticed that he watched me carefully as I moved toward the back door. The damas did their business in a mop closet in the rear. While I was washing my hands afterward, I caught sight of myself in a shard of mirror that was propped up on the sink. I looked worse than I had the night before. My forehead was black and blue, my eye sockets smudged now with lavender. The red streaks beneath my eyes made it look like I had conjunctivitis. The dry desert climate had affected my hair, causing it to look like something I'd swept up from under the bed. I couldn't believe I'd been out in public without having people shriek and point. My head was starting to pound again.

By the time I reached the table, Dietz had paid the bill. "You okay?" he asked.

"You don't happen to have any pain pills, do you?"

"I have some Darvocet in the car."

He bought a can of Coke and we took it with us when we left. I watched him scan the parking lot as he unlocked the car. He opened the door for me, waiting until I was safely tucked in before he moved around to the driver's side. Once in his seat belt, he searched the glove compartment for the vial of pills.

"Let me know if this doesn't do the job. I've got prescriptions for everything." He checked a label or two, found what he was looking for, and shook a pill out onto his palm. I murmured a thank-you. He popped the can of Coke open for me and I washed the medication down. Within minutes, the pain began to recede. Shortly after that, I fell asleep.

I woke as we crossed the Ventura County line. I could smell the ocean before I even opened my eyes. The air was moist and briny, the surrounding countryside lush with green, a peculiar juxtaposition of junipers and palms. After the lean monotony of the desert, the coastal vegetation seemed lavish and strange. I could feel every cell in my body respond, drinking in the damp. Dietz glanced over at me. "Better?"

"Much." I sat up and ran my hands through my hair, scratching at the flattened strands. The medication had erased the pain, but I was feeling slightly out of it. I leaned my head back again and slouched down on my tail bone. "How's the traffic been?"

"We're through the worst of it."

"If I don't get a shower soon, I'll have to kill myself."

"Twenty-five miles to go."

"No sign of a tail?"

His gaze crept up to the rearview mirror. "Why follow us? He probably knows where you live."

"A happy thought," I said. "How long is this whole thing likely to go on?"

"Hard to say. Until he gives up or gets caught."

"And who's doing that?"

He smiled. "Not me. My job's to look after you, not catch bad guys. Let's leave that to the cops."

"And what's my responsibility in all of this?"

"We'll talk about that in the morning. Most of what I want is 'obedience without whining.' Very few women master it."

"You don't know me very well."

He peered over at my face. "I don't know you at all."

"Well, here's a hint," I said dryly. "I was raised by my mother's sister. My folks were killed in an accident and I went to live with her when I was five. This is the first thing she ever said to me… 'Rule number one, Kinsey… rule number one…'-and here she pointed her finger right up in my face-'No sniveling.' "

"Jesus."

I smiled. "It wasn't so bad. I'm only slightly warped. Besides, I got even. She died ten years ago and I sniveled for months. It all came pouring out. I'd been a cop for two years and I gave that up. Turned in my uniform, turned in my nightstick…"

"Symbolic gesture," he interjected.

I laughed. "Right. Six months later, I was married to a bum."

"At least the story has a happy ending. No babies?"

I shook my head. "Not a one."

"With me, it's just the opposite. I never had a wife, but I've got two kids."

"How'd you manage that?"

"I lived with a woman who refused to marry me. She swore I 'd leave her in the end and sure enough that's what I did."

I stared at him for a while, but he subsided into silence Soon afterward, the outskirts of Santa Teresa began to speed into view and I felt an absurd rush of joy at the notion of home.