Hotline to Murder

CHAPTER 18

Tony upshifted smoothly as he merged onto the 105 Freeway eastbound from the 405 northbound. The 105 was a godsend to the commuter who lived near the coast and commuted inland-or vice versa. It was the newest of the L.A. freeways, and Tony drove it constantly for his work. Only infrequently did he think about the hundreds of people who had once lived along here and had been displaced during its protracted period of construction.

He glanced at Shahla, sacked out on the seat beside him. She had fallen asleep almost as soon as he had backed out of her driveway. So much for companionship. Remembering his own days as a teenager, he knew that they often didn’t get enough sleep. But he couldn’t play his radio or his CDs, which he would have been doing if he had been alone. Maybe she was more trouble than she was worth.

She was wearing her hair down, not in a ponytail. Her jeans were cut higher than usual on her hips and her top lower, closing the gap. The changes made her look older, and Tony knew enough about women to realize that this was a calculated look, to impress Paul. He admitted to himself that the more mature Shahla was more appealing. But he must not get carried away. She was still only seventeen.

“Where are we?”

Shahla’s sleepy voice jolted Tony out of his reverie. The Porsche had been humming along on Interstate 15, and he had been humming under his breath, in perfect synch with it. How much better than the stop-and-go driving in town. He was only going a few miles-per-hour over the speed limit. Speed wasn’t the issue. It was-freedom. Besides, he felt responsible for Shahla’s safety, especially after talking to Rasa. He felt very protective of her. Almost like a father. Almost. He would have been going faster if she weren’t with him.

“We’re approaching Barstow.”

“I’ve never been to Barstow.”

“Neither has anybody else who doesn’t drive to Las Vegas from L.A. It’s not exactly the garden spot of California.”

“I’m hungry.”

“We’re making good time. We’ll stop and grab a bite to eat. How did you sleep?”

She gave him a smile. “I had a good sleep. This is closer to the time I usually get up on Saturday.”

Tony downshifted as he cruised along an off-ramp. The desert community had plenty of fast-food restaurants and gas stations. It was designed for the traveler passing through. But, surprisingly, quite a few people lived here, also. It was a bustling place. What did the residents do? Besides cater to tourists. He pulled into the parking lot of the first restaurant they came to, in a space with campers on either side.

“It’s hot,” Shahla announced after getting out of the car.

“No cooling ocean breezes in the desert, like we get at the beach.”

However, the air-conditioning was cranking away inside. They found a booth amid the weekend visitors, with their hats and loud shirts. A waitress, who had been waitressing for a long time and would continue more or less forever, took their orders. Shahla ordered orange juice and an English muffin. Tony ordered coffee and thought the muffin sounded good, so he also asked for one.

After a couple of sips of coffee, Tony said, “We need a plan for dealing with Paul. We should get there before he does, which is good.”

“I thought we’d sit at separate tables, and I’d talk to him while you keep an eye on us.”

“No way. I don’t want to be separated from you. And I need to hear everything he says.”

“You’ll scare him.”

“No I won’t. I’ll be your…brother. Don’t you think we could pass as brother and sister?”

“In a dim light, maybe. But let me do the talking.”

Tony chuckled. “You’re really a control freak, aren’t you?”

“I’m just trying to protect you, Tony. You don’t know poetry. You might say the wrong thing.”

“I thought I was supposed to protect you. That’s what your mom wants. And speaking of, you must really have her buffaloed to convince her to let you run off to Vegas with a character like me.”

“Quit running yourself down. And she exaggerates. I’m a good daughter. Especially compared to some of the others. One of the girls at school won’t live at home. She lives with a friend and communicates with her mom mostly by e-mail.”

“Whew. No wonder I’m not married.”

“You’ll make a good father.”

“That’ll be the day.”

They made a nonstop run from Barstow to Las Vegas. Shahla, now fully awake, became quite talkative, commenting on the desert scenery, talking about her plans for college and life. She was in the process of filling out applications to universities. Tony reflected that she was doing a lot more planning than he had done at her age-maybe than he did now.

“Have you written a lot of poetry?” Tony asked her at one point.

“I started writing poetry when I was eight or nine. Mom sent me to my room for a time out, and I didn’t have anything better to do so I wrote a couple of bad poems. I’ve been writing poetry ever since. I’ve had some published in the school paper and a few other places. I’ve also written articles for the paper.”

“You’re so busy. When do you find time to write?”

“Oh, when I’m sad. Or depressed. Or happy. I can write pretty much any time. I have a notebook full of poems.”

They parked in a lot in downtown Las Vegas, near Fremont Street, and walked several blocks to the Tortoise Club. It was a typical downtown casino-loud and flashy, but without much substance beneath the facade, as Tony knew from experience. A good way to lose your money in the slots or at the blackjack tables slowly, with minimum bets, without the distraction of shows. Perfect for the businesslike gambler who didn’t have a large stake. And the small gamblers were out in force today-the retirees who came on buses and lost their Social Security checks before returning home to their empty lives.

Tony steered Shahla into the coffee shop, away from temptation, a half hour before their appointment, and they sat down at a table, both of them on the same side, facing the door. A quick glance at the other tables convinced them that Paul had not preceded them here. Tony suggested they order lunch.

“Can we drive by some of the big hotels on the way back?” Shahla asked between sips of a soft drink.

Tony didn’t know whether her excitement was at the prospect of meeting Paul or from the effect Las Vegas had on people. It was probably a combination. He had avoided Las Vegas Boulevard on the way in because traffic on it was so miserable-worse than in many parts of Los Angeles.

“Why not? We’ll give you a look at plastic city. They’ve recreated some of the great places in the world here-Paris, Venice, New York, Egypt. You just have to remember that it’s all fake.”

“Don’t be so cynical. This is all new to me.”

Paul didn’t appear at 1:30, the scheduled time. Tony wondered whether he was going to show up. They finished their lunches and continued to nurse their drinks.

“How much time should we give him?” Shahla asked. She sounded restless, as if she would rather be sightseeing than playing detective.

“We’ve driven all this way. Let’s give him until two.”

At five minutes of two a tall young man walked into the coffee shop, or rather eased his way in. Considering his dominating height, he looked a little timid, as though he wasn’t sure how the world would treat him. Skinny as a broomstick, he wore thick-lensed glasses and had sandy hair that stuck out at odd angles. He had on a T-shirt with some writing on it and carried a notebook.

“That’s him,” Shahla said. She raised her arm and waved at the man.

Tony wondered how she could be so sure, but he spotted them and came toward their table with a shambling step, looking relieved. Maybe it was because they weren’t monsters.

“You must be Paul,” Shahla said, standing up and extending her hand. “I’m Sally. And this is my brother, Tony.”

Tony stood up and shook hands with him across the table. “Sit down,” he said. “Would you like something to eat?”

“Maybe a coke,” Paul said, his first words other than hello.

Tony signaled the waitress while Shahla said, “So what’s this limerick on your shirt?” She read it aloud:

“ Now God was designing a mammal,

With beauty and grace, without trammel,

By computer, of course,

The genetics said ‘horse,’

But the disk crashed and out came a camel.”

“The Association for the Prevention of Cruel Statements About Camels is not going to like that,” Tony said.

Paul looked uncertain, as if he didn’t know whether Tony was serious. But then he smiled. He said, “I won a contest on the Internet for writing it.”

“I like your sense of humor,” Shahla said. “I could see it in the poems on your website. “Does that book have your poems in it?”

Paul nodded shyly.

“May I see it?”

He slid the notebook across the table to her. It was a three-ring binder, crammed full of pages. Tony wondered whether he spent all his time writing poetry. Didn’t he have to work for a living? And did all poets have a similar notebook? Shahla had said she kept her poems in one.

Shahla started leafing through the book, reading and commenting on some of the poems, always positively. She and Tony had agreed that if he brought poems with him-and she had asked him to in her e-mails-that they would try to look at all of them. Of course, if they could find a copy of the spaghetti strap poem, that would be a coup. If not, they would look for other poems with similar style or subject matter.

Tony was relying on Shahla to do most of the work. In retrospect, it was a good thing she was here. He would never have been able to fake enough of an interest in or knowledge about poetry to fool Paul. When Shahla excused herself to go to the lady’s room, he was stuck for something to say. He decided on a subject he knew something about.

“Do you ever do any gambling?” he asked.

“People who live here will tell you they don’t gamble,” Paul said, “but that’s not necessarily true. I like to play video poker once in a while.”

“Where’s a good place to play?”

“I like the New York-New York because it has some machines that pay eighty to one for four of a kind. They’re hidden in a corner as you curve around from the theaters.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Tony said.

Shahla came back, and the discussion returned to poetry.

“I notice that a lot of your poems are about pain,” Shahla said. “You use metaphors for pain.”

Paul didn’t immediately reply. Tony knew from his Hotline training that he and Shahla should remain silent and wait for Paul to say something. The silence dragged on for several minutes. Shahla continued to leaf through the book, looking completely at ease. Tony admired her composure.

In his calls to the Hotline, Paul had sometimes talked about an abusive aunt. Or abusive parents. Somebody had abused him. Maybe that’s where the pain came from. If so, did that trauma color his feelings toward all women? Tony leaned toward Shahla and read pieces of some of the poems. The figures of speech in the poems, such as “a fire inside that makes me scream” must be the metaphors Shahla was talking about. They were not specific as to where the pain originated.

“I’m feeling better,” Paul said finally. “The pain is going away. Maybe I won’t be able to write poetry anymore.” He smiled.

“Has something good happened to you?” Shahla asked.

“I have a new girlfriend.”

“You should have brought her with you.”

“She’s working today.”

“When was the last time you were in Los Angeles?” Tony asked, hoping to speed things up. They didn’t seem to be accomplishing anything and he was getting bored.

Paul hesitated and then said, “I’ve never been to Los Angeles.”

“Never?” Tony said, not believing him. Everybody who lived in the West had been to Los Angeles.

“My parents don’t like big cities, and I just never got there on my own.”

Shahla had finished going through the book. She glanced at Tony and imperceptibly shrugged her shoulders. What now? It was time for direct action. Tony reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a copy of the spaghetti strap poem. It was folded and wrinkled.

He smoothed it out and said, “I’m not much of a poet, but I found one poem that I kind of like. He pushed it across the table and watched Paul’s eyes as he read it, hoping to see a spark of something. He didn’t detect anything.

When he finished reading it, Paul said, “It sounds like it was written by a teenage boy with raging hormones, but very few teenage boys can write poems like this.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it takes a lot of practice and a certain amount of ability to achieve that use of meter, rhyme and organization.”

“So who do you think wrote it, then?” Shahla asked.

Paul pushed his glasses up on his nose. He did that frequently. He said, “It was probably written by an older man who wishes he were still a teenager.”

After some further discussion about the poem, Paul excused himself to use the restroom.

Tony said, “Well, do you think he wrote it?”

“Definitely not,” Shahla said.

“Then we have no more use for him. Let’s get rid of him.”

“Tony. You know as well as I do that our callers have fragile psyches. We can’t just dismiss him.”

“Well, what do you suggest then?”

“I read about an art exhibition at one of the hotels. We could invite him to accompany us to see that.”

Was she falling for this geek, just because he was tall and wrote pretty words? Tony caught himself before he said anything he would regret. “Great idea.”

When Paul came back, Shahla brought up the subject of the exhibition.

Paul said, “I’d…really like to, but I’m meeting my girlfriend after she gets off work. If fact, I should be leaving now. It was really nice to meet both of you.”

He picked up his notebook. Tony shook his hand. Shahla gave him a hug, which apparently surprised him. He turned and almost ran to the door of the coffee shop. As he went through the doorway, he turned and looked back at them, giving a tentative wave. Then he was gone.