Private Eyes

“I’m Dr. Delaware- Melissa’s doctor.”

“Oh…” The worry lines deepened. “Hold on a second- just wait here.”

The door closed and locked. A few minutes later she opened it. “Sorry, it’s just… You should have… I’m Bethel.” Shooting her hand forward. Before I could take it, she added, “Noel’s mom.”

“Good to meet you, Mrs. Drucker.”

Her expression said she wasn’t used to being called Mrs. She dropped my hand, looked up and down the boulevard. “C’mon in.”

Closing the door behind me and locking it with a hard twist.

The restaurant’s lights were off. The leaded windows were frosted and thinly spaced and a dishwater-colored haze struggled through them. My pupils labored to adjust. When they stopped aching, I saw a single long room lined with tuft-and-nailhead red-leather booths and floored with honey-brown carpet patterned in mock peg-and-groove. The tables were spread with white linen and set with pewter drink plates, blocky green glass goblets, and stout- looking flatware. The walls were vertical pine planks stained the color of roast beef. Bracketed shelves just below the ceiling line housed a collection of mugs and steins- easily a hundred of them, many of them featuring pink- cheeked Anglo-Saxon visages with dead porcelain eyes. Suits of armor that looked like studio props stood in strategic locations around the restaurant. Maces and broadswords hung on the walls, along with still lifes favoring dead birds and rabbits.

An open door at the rear offered a glimpse of stainless-steel kitchen. To its left was a horseshoe-shaped, leather-topped bar backed with a St. Pauli’s Girl mirror. A stainless-steel serving cart sat at the epicenter of the faux-wood carpet, bare except for a rotisserie spit and a carving set hefty enough to handle bison surgery.

Ramp was at the bar, facing the mirror, brow resting in one hand, one arm dangling. Near his elbow was a glass and a bottle of Wild Turkey.

Clatter came from the kitchen, then silence.

Unhealthy silence. Like most places designed for social intercourse, the restaurant was deathly without it.

I approached the bar. Bethel Drucker stayed with me. When we got there, she said, “Can I get you something, sir?” As if brunch had been restored.

“No, thanks.”

She went over to Ramp’s right side, leaned low, tried to catch his eye. He didn’t budge. The ice in his glass floated in an inch of bourbon. The bar top smelled of soap and booze.

Bethel said, “How ’bout some more water?”

He said, “Okay.”

She took the glass, went behind the bar, filled it from a plastic Evian bottle, and put it in front of him.

He said, “Thanks,” but didn’t touch it.

She looked at him for a moment, then went into the kitchen.

When we were alone, he said, “No problem finding me, huh?” Talking so low I had to move closer. I took the stool next to him. He didn’t move.

I said, “When you didn’t come home, I wondered. It was an educated guess.”

“Got no home. Not anymore.”

I said nothing. The St. Pauli girl grinned with Aryan joy.

“I’m a guest now,” he said. “Unwanted guest. Welcome mat worn clear the hell through… How’s Melissa?”

“Sleeping.”

“Yeah, she does that a lot. When she’s upset. Every time I used to try to talk to her she’d doze off.”

No resentment in his voice. Just resignation. “Lots to be upset about. I wouldn’t trade what she’s been through for twenty billion. She got dealt a lousy hand… If she’d’ve let me…”

He stopped, touched his water glass, made no attempt to lift it.

“Well, she’s got one less thing to be upset about,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“Yours truly. No more evil stepdad. She once rented that from the video store-The Stepfather. Watched it over and over. Downstairs in the den. Never watched anything else down there- doesn’t even like movies. I sat down to watch it with her. Wanting to relate. Made popcorn for two. She fell asleep.”

He heaved his shoulders. “I’m gone, hit the dusty trail.”

“From San Labrador or just from the house?”

Shrug.

“When did you decide to leave?” I said.

“ ’Bout ten minutes ago. Or maybe it was right from the beginning, I don’t know. What the hell’s the diff?”

Neither of us talked for a while. The mirror shot back our reflections, sullied by dishwater light. Our faces were barely discernible, distorted by the imperfections in the silvered glass and the painted face of the grinning frAulein. I made out just enough to know that he looked awful. I didn’t look much better.

He said, “I just can’t see why the hell she’d do it.”

“Do what?”

“Drive up there- break her appointment at the clinic. She never broke rules.”

“Never?”

He turned and faced me. Unshaven, pouch-eyed. Instant old man; the mirror had been kind. “She once told me that when she was a kid in school, she used to get straight A’s. Not because she especially liked to study, but because she was afraid of the teachers getting mad at her. Afraid of not doing well. She was straitlaced as they come- even back when we were at the studio and things got pretty loose, she never relaxed her standards.”

I wondered how that kind of morality would fare after coming up against Todd Nyquist. I said, “Chickering’s pushing a suicide theory.”

“Chickering’s a goddam ass. The only thing he’s got any talent for is keeping things quiet. Which is what they pay him for.”

“What kinds of things?”

He closed his eyes, shook his head, faced the mirror again. “What do you think? People making asses of themselves. They come in here and get plastered, want to drive home and get all pissed-off and abusive when I tell Noel not to release their keys. I call Chickering. Even though this is Pasadena, he comes right down and escorts them home- he or one of his troopers, but they do it with their own cars, so no one will see anything out of the ordinary. Nothing gets written up and the ass’s car gets delivered to his driveway. If it’s somebody local. Same with nice old ladies caught shoplifting, or kids smoking dope.”

“What about outsiders?”

“They get put in jail.” Grim smile. “We’ve got great crime statistics.” He ran a finger across his lips. “That’s why we’ve got no local paper- thank God for that now. I used to think it was a real pain in the ass from an advertising point of view, but thank God for it now.”

He put both hands over his face.

Bethel came out from the kitchen carrying a plate of steak and eggs. She put it down in front of him, then quickly went back in.

After a long time he looked up. “So. How’d you enjoy the beach?”

When I didn’t reply, he said, “I told you she wouldn’t be out there. Why the hell’d you bother?”

“Detective Sturgis asked me to check.”

“Good old Detective Sturgis. We sure wasted each other’s time, didn’t we? You usually do what he asks?”

“He doesn’t usually ask.”

“Though it wasn’t exactly dirty work, right? Drive to the beach, catch some sun, check up on the client.”

“It’s a beautiful spot,” I said. “Get down there much?”

He tensed his jaw. Touched his whiskey glass. Finally said, “Used to. Few times a month. Never could get Gina to go with me.” He turned and looked at me again. Stared.

I held his gaze.