G Is For Gumshoe

15

Dietz and I went to the office first. I checked my answering machine (no messages) while he glanced at the mail from the day before (no letter bombs). I locked up again and we went next door to the California Fidelity offices, where Vera was just getting in. She was wearing a two-piece outfit of red parachute material, long flowing skirt, blousy top with long sleeves and a red belt at the waist. Since I'd seen her yesterday, her hair had turned very blond, with streaks, and her glasses had changed to aviator shades with blue lenses. As usual she looked like the kind of woman any guy would love to jump out of an airplane with, an effect that wasn't lost on Dietz. She was carrying a garment on a hanger, covered by a cleaning bag. "Oh hi. You guys going tonight?"

"That's what we stopped by to tell you," I said. "Should I call the hotel?"

"I already did that," she said. "I figured you'd be there. This is for you." She indicated the cleaning bag. "Come on back to my office and you can take a look. This is girl stuff," she said to Dietz. "You still off cigarettes?"

"Day three," he said.

I hadn't realized he was counting.

"This is day seven for me," she said.

"How are you doing?"

"Not too bad. I've got all this manic energy. I feel amped. I must have counted on the nicotine to mellow me out. What about you?"

"I'm okay," he said mildly. "I like to do things to test myself."

"I'll bet you do," she said and laughed down in her throat. "We'll be back in a sec." She breezed on toward the back.

"Was that nasty, what you said to him? It sounded nasty," I asked, scurrying to keep up.

She glanced over her shoulder. "Listen, babycakes, when I get around to nasty you won't have any doubts."

She anchored the hanger over the edge of her cubicle and stuck an unlit Virginia Slim in her mouth, dragging on it cold. She closed her eyes, as if praying. "Oh God, for a light… for smoke… for the first heady hit of a cigarette…" She opened her eyes and shook her head. "I hate doing things that are good for me. Why did I decide to do this?"

"You were coughing up blood."

"Oh yeah. I forgot that part. Ah well. Take a look." She eased the plastic bag off the hanger. Under it was a black silk jumpsuit with spaghetti straps and a tiny belt. The matching jacket had a Mandarin collar and long sleeves. "What do you think?"

"It looks perfect."

"Good. Make sure it fits. Otherwise give me a call and I'll scare up something else. You can bring it with you at six and get dressed in my room. I'm staying at the Edgewater so I won't have to drive myself home afterward. I hate having to monitor my alcohol intake."

"Don't you have a date? I thought you'd be coming with Neil."

"I'm meeting him there. That way he's free to do anything he wants. I'll bring the jewelry tonight and maybe help you do something with your hair. I can tell I'm going to have to dress you."

"Vera, I'm not helpless."

"Of course you're not helpless. You're completely ignorant when it comes to clothes. I'll bet you've never even had your colors done."

I gave a little noncommittal shrug, trying to look like I had my colors done sometimes twice a week.

"Don't bother. You're a Summer. I can save you the fifty bucks. You shouldn't wear black, but to hell with it. You'll look great." She paused to study my face. "Very becoming, those bruises… especially the one turning green." She began to ease the plastic bag back over the outfit, unlit cigarette bobbing from the corner of her mouth. "How's it feel to spend twenty-four hours a day with a hunk?"

"You mean Dietz?"

Vera sighed and rolled her eyes. "No, I'm talking about Don Knotts. Never mind. You probably like him because he's competent, right?"

"Well, yeah. Isn't that the point?" I said. "You know what puzzles me? How come I'm surrounded by bossy people? Rosie, Dietz, Henry… now you."

"You're cute, you know that? You think you're such a hard-ass."

"I am a hard-ass," I said defensively.

"Nell's going to love you. Have you called him yet?"

"I haven't had a chance. We just got back."

"He's only coming tonight to meet you. Just remember. Don't eat."

I squinted at her. "How come? This is a retirement dinner, isn't it?"

"Suppose you want to go to bed with him."

"I don't," I said.

"But suppose you did."

"What's that got to do with eating dinner?"

She was losing patience with me, but stopped to spell it out. "Never go to bed with a guy after a big meal. Your stomach will pooch out."

"Why would I go to bed with a guy I can't have a big meal with first?"

"You can eat later, when you're married."

I had to laugh. "I'm not getting married later, but thanks for the tip."

"You're welcome. See you tonight."

I found Dietz sitting out by Darcy's desk, leafing through a pamphlet on uninsured losses. I took the outfit downstairs with us, tucking it carefully in his trunk when we reached the parking lot. "There's no way I'm wearing any body armor under this," I said.

Dietz made no comment and I took that for assent.

On our way to the firing range, we stopped by the gun shop and spent an hour bickering about guns. He knew far more than I did and I had to yield to his expertise. I left a deposit on an H K P7 in 9-millimeter, filling out all the necessary paperwork. I ended up paying twenty-five bucks for fifty rounds of the Winchester Silvertips Dietz had insisted on. In exchange for my compliance, he had the good taste not to mention that all of this was his idea. I'd expected to find it galling to take his advice, but in reality, it felt fine. What did I have to prove? He'd been at it a lot longer than I had and he seemed to know what he was talking about.

Dietz drove up the pass in his little red Porsche like a man pursued. Maybe we were practicing for a car chase later on. The Porsche was not equipped with passenger brakes, but I kept my foot jammed to the floorboards in hopes. From where I sat, it looked like one of those camera's-eye views of the Indy 500, only speeding straight uphill. I was wishing I believed in an afterlife, as I was about to enjoy mine. Dietz didn't seem to notice my discomfiture. Since he was totally focused on the road, I didn't want to spoil his concentration with the piercing screams I was having to suppress.

The gun club was deserted except for the range-master, to whom we paid our fees. The May sun was hot, the breezes dry, scented with bay laurel and sage. The rains wouldn't come again until Christmastime. By August, the mountains would be parched, the vegetation desiccated, the timber primed for burning. Even now, looking down toward the valley, I could see a haze in the air, ghostly portent of the fires to come.

Dietz set up a B-27 human silhouette target at a distance of seven yards. I'd been practicing with the Davis at twenty-five yards, but Dietz just shook his head. "A.32's designed for self-defense inside fifteen yards, preferably inside ten. The round has to penetrate deeply enough to get to the vital organs and blood vessels, eight to ten inches in. The Silvertip has a better chance of getting far enough to make a difference."

"Nice business we're in," I said.

"Why do you think I'm getting out?"

I loaded the magazine on my little Davis while he detailed an exercise he referred to as a Mozambique drill. He had me start from the guard position: pistol loaded, round chambered, safety on, finger off the trigger, pointing at a forty-five-degree angle downward. "Bring the pistol up to shooting position and fire two quick shots into the upper chest, level with the sternum. Do a quick visual check to see where you've hit and then fire a third more careful shot into the head right around here," he said, indicating his eye sockets.

I put on my ear protectors and did as I was told, feeling self-conscious at first under his scrutiny. It was clear that in the years since the police academy, my skills had deteriorated. I'd come up here often, on an average of once a month, but I'd begun to think of it almost as a meditation instead of schooling in self-defense. Left to my own devices, I'd been neither rigorous nor exact. Dietz was a good teacher, patient, methodical, suggesting corrections in a way that never made me feel criticized.

"Now let's try it with your gun in your purse," he said when he was satisfied.

"How do you know all this stuff?"

He smiled faintly. "Weapons are a passion of mine. My first formal training in defensive pistolcraft was a class designed for certifying security guards to carry weapons on the job. The practical shooting part was minimal, but it did give me a fair grounding in the laws related to firearms. I went to the American Pistol Institute after that." He paused. "Are we up here to work or chat?"

"I get to choose?" I said.

Apparently not. He had me try the.45, but it was too much gun for me coming off the.32. He relented on that point and let me continue with the Davis. We went back to work, the smell of gunpowder perfuming the air as I concentrated on the process. I'd ceased to think about Mark Messinger as a person. He'd become an abstract-no more than a flat, black silhouette seven yards away-with a paper heart, paper brain. It was therapeutic firing at him, watching his midriff shred. My fearfulness began to fall away and my confidence returned. I fired at his paper neck and hit an inky artery. I pretended to tattoo my initials on his trunk. By the time we packed up and left the range at noon, I was feeling like my old self again.

We had lunch at the Stage Coach Tavern, tucked up against the mountain with a stream trickling down through the rocks close by. Live oak and bay laurel kept the tavern shrouded in chill shade. The quiet was undercut by the gossiping of the birds. Only an occasional car climbed the grade out in front, heading for the main road. Dietz was still vigilant-scanning the premises-but he seemed more at ease somehow, sipping beer, one foot propped up on the crude wooden bench where he sat. I was seated on his left with my back to the wall, watching as he did, though there wasn't much to see. There were only three other customers, bikers sitting at one of the rough plank tables outside.

We'd ordered the chili verde, which the waitress brought: two wide bowls of fragrant pork and green chili stew with a dollop of cilantro pesto on top and two folded flour tortillas submerged in the depths. This might be as close to heaven as a sinner could get without repenting first.

"What's your deal with California Fidelity?" he asked, between bites.

"They provide me office space and I provide them services maybe two or three times a month. It varies. Usually I investigate fire and wrongful death claims, but it could be anything."

"Nice arrangement. How'd you set that up?"

"My aunt worked for them for years so I knew a lot of those guys. She used to get me occasional summer jobs when I was still in high school. I went through the academy when I was nineteen and since I couldn't actually join the PD till I was twenty-one, I worked as the CF receptionist. Later, after I finally left the police force, I joined a private agency until I could get licensed, and then I went out on my own. One of the first big investigations I did was for CF."

"A lot more women getting into it," he said.

"Why not? It's fun, in some sick sense. You end up feeling pretty hard-bitten sometimes, but at least you can be your own boss. It's in my nature. I'm curious at heart and I like sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong," I said. "What about you? What will you do if you leave the field?"

"Hard to say. I'm talking to a guy out in Colgate who sets up antiterrorist training exercises for military bases overseas."

"Simulated attacks?"

"That's right. Dead of night, he takes a crew in, breaches perimeter fences, infiltrates the compound, and puts the whole maneuver on film to show 'em where they need to beef up their defenses."

"Cops and robbers without the firepower."

"Exactly. All the hype and none of the jeopardy." He paused, mopping the bottom of his bowl with a folded tortilla. "You look like you've got all your ducks in a row."

"I feel that way," I said. "Vera would disagree. She thinks I'm hopeless. Too independent, unsophisticated…"

"What's the story on her?"

"I've never figured it out, to tell you the truth. She's the closest thing to a friend I've got and even then, I can't claim we know each other very well. I'm gone a lot so I don't socialize much. She tends to circulate in the singles scene, which I've never been good at. I do admire her. She's smart. She's got style. She doesn't take any guff…"

"What is this, a sales pitch?"

I laughed, shrugging. "You asked."

"Yeah, well she's one of those women I've never figured out."

"In what way?"

"Don't know. I never figured that out either. Just something about her puzzles me," he said.

"She's a good soul."

"No doubt." He finished cleaning his bowl without another word on the subject. It was hard to tell sometimes what he was really thinking and I didn't know nun well enough to press.