San Diego Noir

Night before last, when they were goofy, James on liquor and Greg on his prescribed sinsemilla, they rehearsed bumping off Maurice, the creep whose lawyers would steal James’s little sister’s nice home.

As Greg threw open the fridge, he recalled the rush of excitement and purpose he had felt beneath the stairs to Maurice’s apartment.

He finished chopping the lettuce and tomatoes, put out the mild salsa fresca Chez liked, for which he always remembered to make special trips to the People’s Co-op. He zapped tortillas in the microwave, wrapped them in one of the red, orange, and yellow napkins they had bought in Tijuana. He set them on the table alongside the chicken meat he had peeled off, shredded and piled neatly on a serving platter. Before he called them, he poured Barb’s red wine, Chez’s lemonade, and his own juice.

Barb must’ve prayed for patience and coached Chez, reminding her that Daddy was sick and needed their love. Four times, Barb told him what a special dinner this was. Every time he glanced at Chez, she beamed a phony smile. But their acts played out. By the end of the meal, Barb was staring dreamily out the window or sneaking furtive glances. Checking to see if he had died yet, Greg imagined.

He wondered if Chez had, on her own, guessed he was dying. While she dipped her last hunk of chicken in salsa and gobbled her peanut butter cookie, he caught her staring at him as though at a strange and scary creature. Maybe she already saw him as a ghost.

His girls watched Veggie Tales. He washed and dried the dishes, put them away, cleaned the stove and polished it shiny white. Then he fetched his pillbox and picked out two tranquilizers. A Restoril and a Soma. He tried to decide which he should use then laughed and swallowed both without washing them down. Feeling a new pain like steel teeth biting his liver, he opened the box again and debated between one and two Vicodin. Might as well use them up. “Waste not, want not,” he muttered, and made himself chuckle.

In the living room, he flopped on Chez’s beanbag beside the sofa where his girls were snuggling. He pretended to watch the adventures of a cucumber and a tomato. Actually, he peered out the corner of his eye at his pretty family and grieved doubly, feeling sure that his life meant nothing to them anymore except trouble.

Chez complained of a headache. Barb said, “That’s funny, I have one too.”

Yeah. Me, Greg thought.

They gave Greg his goodnight kisses, brushed their teeth, and retired to Chez’s bedroom. He listened to his daughter read a couple pages of Charlotte’s Web before Barb took over for a minute then stopped in midsentence. When he summoned the energy to heave himself out of the beanbag, he went to Chez’s room and found both his girls asleep, tucked under the covers of the skinny bed, where Barb spent half the nights these past few weeks. To escape Greg’s snoring, she claimed, as if he snored worse now than ever before, which he didn’t believe.

The only cure for self-pity Greg knew was to shift from brooding over his problems to thinking of somebody else’s. The effort delivered him to memories of James’s sister.

Since Greg’s ninth grade year, when Olivia was in seventh, he would’ve quit surfing or anything else to please her, if she’d asked. But she never even hinted. After high school, she moved to Vegas, pranced onstage in a feathered costume, and met Maurice, an older guy whose smooth talk and fists full of cash she fell for, Greg supposed.

Every summer, he saw her at the beach with her kids. The last time was two or three Saturdays ago. He sat with her awhile, thinking he might not see her again. But he didn’t tell her about his disease. She didn’t need any problems of his.

A few times, Greg had invited Olivia to the One Way Inn to watch his favorite Christian musicians. She would pat his hand or arm and say, “Not this time.” He knew what she meant was I’ll go when Jesus shows up at my door and drags me kicking and screaming.

And now, with her and Maurice separated and him awaiting trial for conspiring with his Vegas connections to take over the action of an Indian casino, some Beverly Hills sharks were going to snatch her home in exchange for their fees. Banish Olivia and her kids to a roach-infested welfare apartment next door to the one where his death would send Barb and Chez.

On a sudden impulse, he stood too fast, got woozy, but managed to stagger to the hall cabinet next to Chez’s bedroom door. One of his girls made breathy whistles in her sleep. He tiptoed and pulled the door closed, taking pains to latch it quietly even though he saw double knobs.

He went to the dining nook for a chair and returned to the hallway. Twice he started to mount the chair but wobbled. The third attempt succeeded because he grasped the cabinet handles in time.

When he opened the cabinet, he bonked his forehead with the door’s sharp corner, drawing a little blood but not enough to dribble into his eye. The object of this expedition, his high school annuals, were in the back of the cabinet. He had to move things, a pewter vase and picture frames, and the shoe box sealed with duct tape in which he had stashed his .25-caliber six-shot revolver. The maker, he suspected, was German, something like Plfstk he couldn’t pronounce. He’d bought it at a pawnshop and used to carry it on risky assignments, back when he was a security guard.

He climbed off the chair, balancing with one hand, all of his high school annuals tucked beneath the other arm, though only his senior year would have photos of Olivia. He must’ve left the shoe box teetering on the edge of the cabinet. As he stepped down, it fell, grazed his shoulder, made a bong sound as it hit the chair, and landed on the floor with a sharp thud. Ouch, Greg thought, and waited for Barb to shout, Hey, be quiet!

But if the crash had woken her, she ignored the disruption. He picked up the shoe box, set it on the chair, and went to the dining nook table. He opened his senior yearbook, turned one page, and found the first picture of Olivia, above the caption Most Popular. She wore a pleated skirt, an inch or so above the knees, and a purple short-sleeved sweater Greg remembered he’d always wanted to rub his nose in. She was made up heavy like the Portuguese babes from tuna fishing families. Like Angie Silva.

Olivia’s dark lipstick looked especially exotic haloed by her wavy golden hair. But gorgeous as she was, what set her above the other beauties was her goodness. She wasn’t shy or proud, but natural and gracious. Loyal to her friends, pleasant to everyone. She earned good grades without showing off. Greg remembered a girl saying, Olivia can afford to be sweet, cause she’s got nothing to prove.

“Phooey,” Greg mumbled, and turned the page. “Everybody’s got stuff to prove.” He found six more pictures of Olivia. The booster club, the French club. “French, huh?” Something else he’d forgotten. Maybe French classes had helped prime her to choose a guy with that name.