The Jook

Chapter 16

I cooled out at a fat farm in Hesperia up in San Bernardino County. It was co-owned on the sly by Burroughs and Monique Gold. She was a retired actress who did all those Fugitive and Mannix TV shows back in the day. She always had on a ton of black mascara and still wore her dyed coal-black hair way up in one of those beehives. I'd been to the place a few times in the off-season when I was the top dog 'cause they had a complete gym, sauna, massage, and whirlpool facilities. Back then it made for a good hideaway from reporters who were always getting in my face, and I sure didn't think Chekka, Weems, Trace, or anybody else would find me at this joint.

It was hotter than shit up there. I worked out on the machines and did laps in the pool, which was shaped like a giant teardrop.

''Representing the tears I shed for Hollywood," Monique said. She had to be pushing seventy, and as usual was holding a club glass in one hand and a thin cigar in the other. She stood at the edge of the pool in heels and a robe with leopard spots. The wraparound she had on was too short for a Barbie doll. But I had to admit, she had pretty good legs for an old girl.

"How many times a day you say that line, Monique?" I hauled myself out of the pool, sitting on the edge. A few of her clients were also doing their laps and splashed water like walruses.

"Many times, many times, darling." She put her glass on a table with an umbrella in the middle of it. She grabbed a towel from a chair next to it and bent down. Monique dried my back and shoulders.

"You've managed to keep your figure, sweet boy." She talked with the cigar hanging from her plump red lips. As usual she had on a fistful of mascara over her dark eyes and enough hairspray to knock out mosquitos from twenty feet away.

"What else have I got, Monique?"

She looked me up and down, puffing on her cigar. "You've got that right, darling."

"Better be cool. Some of your Newport Beach customers might not dig you flirting with Mandingo."

"They'd only be jealous. Maybe I'd have to share you."

I got up and was surprised to find the hip had moved wrong when I was sitting. I gritted my teeth in pain. The goddamn thing was getting to be unpredictable. Guess all the stress I'd been putting my hip through lately was starting to add up. Now it looked like I was gonna have to get that operation after all.

"You've been aggravating that condition." She touched my hip.

"How do you know?" Irritated, I started to walk off.

"Come with me," she said.

"I ain't got time for no games, Monique."

"No games."

I followed her into the main building, which was done up like a temple you'd see on an old rerun of Ben-Hur. We went into her office. It looked like a set from Xena.

"Here." She pointed at a shelf filled with weird-ass statues in the shape of half-animal, half-human creatures that had wings and horns and so on. Same kind of shit Nap had in his office.

"That's real nice, Monique."

She picked a good-sized statue off the shelf. It looked like a bear, but had long fangs and bat wings. "This is Nap."

"You're wig hat's on too tight, girl."

"Burroughs does illegal cremations and has the remaining ashes mixed with clay and resins, then baked into these forms. So even if the law should suspect, they'd never be able to find a trace of the missing person."

She held the creature out for me and I took it in both of my hands. I didn't know what to say.

"I thought you knew and that's why you came up here. But for the last three days you never said anything about it as you pushed yourself through your exercise routine. I figured it was only right I tell you. I suppose I'm just sentimental." She sat on her desk and crossed her legs, showing a lot of thigh.

I was staring at the statue's monster face, looking for some sign that it was Nap. All it did was make me mad at Wilma again. It was her fault Nap had been shot, her fault me and my ace had tussled. I put the thing back on the shelf, looking closely at the other figures.

"Not every statuette represents somebody real," she said, "but there's enough on those shelves from over the years."

"Thanks, Monique."

"Sure, Zelmont."

I walked out and went into the sauna. Sitting there with the towel around my waist, I cried quiet-like to myself. The other people in there noticed, but nobody asked me what I was going on about. Not that I could have told them if they had.