The Call of the Mild

Chapter Nineteen

The man in the wheelchair didn’t seem to notice Shawn and Gus as they came up behind him. His eyes were fixed on the spot in the water where the Town Car bobbed on the waves. But before they were within a dozen feet of him, he spoke out in a voice that was cragged with age and grief.

“I said I wanted to be alone,” he said, without looking around to see who was coming up behind him.

“And I said I wanted my breakfast burrito with no meat, but when Patty the waitress brought it, it had more bacon in it than anything else,” Shawn said. “And you know why that is? Because Patty knows that when I say ‘no bacon,’ what I mean is stick in as much of the pig as can possibly fit inside a tortilla, including the snout and the trotters.”

Now the man did turn around. If he was surprised to see Shawn and Gus, he didn’t betray it with even the slightest look. Typical, Gus figured. A guy like this probably hasn’t been surprised by anything since Pearl Harbor.

“And which part of the pig are you?” he said, giving them a long, appraising look.

“I’m Shawn Spencer,” Shawn said. “I’m a private detective. And this is my henchman, Bertie O’Myrmidon. Or he’s my myrmidon, Bertie O’Henchman. I keep getting that confused.”

Normally Gus would have jumped in and given his real name at this point in the conversation. But one look at Rushton suggested he might be better off if the old man didn’t know who he was. Even confined to an electric wheelchair that had sunk an inch into the sand, he seemed to tower over Shawn and Gus. His hand-tailored gray suit, his perfectly symmetrical fingernails, his shoes cobbled from the hides of several endangered species-all these announced his great wealth. But there was something else about the man, something money couldn’t buy, that exuded power.

Up the beach, a winch started up with a loud whine, and the raft began to float in towards the shore. The old man turned back to watch its approach.

“I’ve hired and fired the best private detectives in the country,” Rushton said. “I’ve never heard of you.”

“Yes, you have,” Shawn said.

If he thought he could do it without Rushton’s noticing, Gus would have kicked Shawn. Or at least held his head under the water until he stopped struggling. Until this moment they had been doing just fine without antagonizing one of the few men in Santa Barbara whose name scared even your average beat cop. He didn’t know what kind of enemy Rushton would turn out to be, but he wasn’t so curious he felt compelled to do the research.

“You overestimate yourself, Mr. Spencer.”

Gus winced. Bad enough he was rich and powerful; he had to have a good memory as well.

“Not at all,” Shawn said. “Guy like you wants to hire and fire the best, first he’s got to make sure they’re really the best. Which means studying all the competition, just in case there’s some new best guy you could brag about firing instead.”

Gus had the strong sensation that if Rushton lifted his arm and spoke the right word, lightning would flash down out of the clear blue sky and strike Shawn dead. Or, with Shawn’s luck, miss him and strike Gus dead instead. But when he sidled around the wheelchair to get a glimpse of the old lawyer’s face, Gus thought he could see a trace of a smile there.

“Maybe you’re right,” Rushton said. “That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here, unless you’ve tracked me down simply to give me a baseline for comparison.”

“We’re here for the same reason you are,” Shawn said. “Because while we know the truth, we’re still hoping against hope that it’s actually some unlucky joyrider in that Town Car, and not one of your closest and most dedicated employees.”

The raft had reached the shore a few dozen feet away from them. Rushton didn’t waste a glance on Shawn. He hit a lever on his armrest and the wheelchair powered out of its rut, cutting two deep lines in the sand as it headed towards the Town Car.

“What are you doing?” Gus whispered to Shawn as they followed Rushton’s chair.

“Same thing we’ve been doing since yesterday,” Shawn said. “Looking for a necklace.”

By the time they reached the Town Car, one of the police divers was already reaching for the handle on the driver’s-side door. Gus noticed that before he pulled it he glanced at Rushton, and waited until the lawyer gave him a curt nod of approval.

The diver yanked on the door handle and jumped back as salt water flooded out of the interior and soaked into the wet sand. As he jumped back to keep his shoes from getting soaked, Gus saw that there was a man belted into the driver’s seat. His white shirt and khaki slacks were, not surprisingly, soaked through; his dark hair was plastered to his head.

One of the cops stepped in Gus’ line of sight, so he didn’t have a chance to get a good look at the dead man’s face. But he saw enough to be pretty sure it wasn’t covered in white makeup, and there was no doubt its owner wasn’t wearing a blue-and-white-striped shirt, white gloves, and a beret. If this man was their mime, there didn’t seem to be an easy way to prove it.

Rushton wasn’t having any similar problems making his identification. He stared at the body in the Town Car, and even though his expression didn’t seem to change, Gus could feel his sorrow.

“That’s him,” Rushton said. “That’s Archie Kane.”

There was commotion at the police tape, and Gus glanced up to see a team of paramedics struggling to wheel a stretcher down the soft sand. Before they could reach the Town Car, Shawn stepped up to its open door.

“Do you mind?” he said to the cop stationed there.

The officer was about to tell Shawn how much he did mind when he noticed the look on Rushton’s face and stepped out of Shawn’s way. But not before Shawn snagged a ballpoint pen from the cop’s pocket.

Shawn bent into the open car door and examined the body closely. After a moment he straightened up. “Come here, Gus,” he said.

Gus didn’t want to. It wasn’t that he was squeamish around dead bodies, just that he found one per week was perfectly sufficient. But Shawn was glowering at him, and the EMTs were getting closer. If he was ever going to do what Shawn wanted, it had to be now, and if he wasn’t, he should have started yesterday before he agreed to go to La Canada.

Gus stepped up to the car, trying not to look too closely at the dead man.

“Recognize him?” Shawn said.

Gus forced his eyes to the body. He couldn’t say for sure that he’d never seen the man before, in the same way he’d never be able to guarantee he hadn’t noticed a specific grain of sand. He was just an average guy with average features and average hair. It was ridiculous to think that Gus would be able to say it was the same man he’d only ever seen covered in whiteface.

“No, and neither do you,” Gus said.

“What if I told you he didn’t listen to his mother?” Shawn said.

“When she told him not to drive off cliffs?”

“When she told him to always wash behind his ears.” Shawn took the pen and gently folded back one of the dead man’s earlobes. In the hollow behind his jawbone was a thick smear of white makeup.

“That’s him,” Gus said. “That’s-”

Shawn stomped on Gus’ foot before he could say the word “mime.” He glared at Shawn until he heard a voice behind him.

“That’s who, Mr. Guster?” Rushton said.

While Gus was still reeling over the fact that the lawyer had known who he was all along, Shawn answered.

“That’s our client.”