Flesh And Blood

I HUNG UP, tried to figure out what had just happened.

Robin knocked on the doorjamb and said, “Ready.” She’d put on a tiny little charcoal sweater over a long, gray tweed skirt and glossed her lips. Her smile made putting the call aside a little easier.

We ended up at a Japanese place on Sawtelle south of Olympic, the only business open at night in an obscure little strip mall. We were the only non-Asians in the room, but no heads turned. A gaunt chef chopped something eelish behind the sushi bar. A tiny woman showed us to a corner booth, where we drank sake, laced fingers, and talked very little, then not at all. The service was formal but perfect as another diminutive woman brought us boxes of warm sake and pinches of exquisite food. The quiet and the dimness took hold, and when we stepped out into the night ninety minutes later, my lungs and brain were clear.

When we got back Spike was baying miserably, and we took him for a short walk up the glen. Then Robin ran a bath and I stood around doing nothing. Finally, I gave in and checked my messages, thinking again about Jane Abbot’s husband.

Callbacks from Professors Hall and de Maartens. In Hall’s case by proxy – a young man identifying himself as “Craig, the Halls’ house sitter,” informed me cheerfully that “Stephen and Beverly are in the Loire Valley with their children and won’t be back for another week. I’ll pass the message along.”

De Maartens spoke for himself, in a mellow, accented, puzzled voice. “This is Simon de Maartens. I have checked my records, and Lauren Teague was indeed enrolled in my class. Unfortunately, I have no personal recollection of her. Sorry not to have been more helpful.”

Robin called out, “Join me,” from the bathroom, and I was out of my clothes when the phone jangled. I let it ring and had a good soak, took my time washing her hair, then just lying back in the womb-warmth of the tub. Scrubbing and sponging led to caressing and nibbling, then giggling aquatic contortions that flooded the floor. We tripped to bed, made love till we were breathless, left the covers soaked and foaming with soap bubbles.

I was still gasping when Robin got up, wrapped herself in one of my ratty robes, danced into the kitchen, and returned with two glasses of orange juice. She poured juice down my gullet, spilled a good deal of the liquid, thought that was hilarious. My revenge was sloppy, and we changed the sheets. When she went to dry her hair, I put on a T-shirt and shorts, stepped onto the rear terrace, propped my elbows on the redwood railing, stared out at looming black shapes – the pines and cedars and blue gums that coat the hills behind our property.

Feeling like a California guy.

I was somewhere on the way to torpor when Robin’s voice stirred me: “Honey? Milo’s on the phone. He says he called half an hour ago.”

The ring I’d ignored.

She said, “You can take it in here. I’m going down to the pond – there’s a spotlight out.”

I went inside, picked up the bedroom extension. “What’s up?”

“Your girl,” said Milo. “The Teague girl. She’s my business now.”

Nine P.M., Sepulveda Boulevard. The commercial strip south of Wilshire and north of Olympic. Discount outlets, animal emergency rooms, ironworks, furniture wholesalers. Except for the veterinarians, everything shut down for the night. A cat screeched.

West side of the street, Milo had said. The alley.

Not far from the restaurant where I’d stuffed my face three hours before. Now the thought of eating churned my stomach.

A patrol car blocked the alley, ruby-sapphire lights flashing, the crown jewels of trouble. The uniform with his foot propped on the front bumper was young and pumped up and distrustful, and his palm shot out reflexively as I edged the Seville near. I stuck my head out, called out my name. He wasn’t hearing it, scowled at the Seville’s grille, ordered me to move it. I shouted louder, and he sauntered over, uni-browed angrily, hand on his holster. My face was hot, but I forced myself to talk slowly and politely. Finally, he made the call that cleared me, and when I got out he said, “Over there,” as if imparting something profound.

Pointing south down the alley, but there was no need for direction. The knot of vehicles was a huge chrome tumor under the sizzle of power lines. As I ran toward the crime scene, the stench of rotted upholstery and gasoline and putrefying vegetables nearly gagged me.

I spotted Milo next to the coroner’s van, hunched and scrawling furiously. One of his legs was bent, and the roll of his belly protruded far beyond his lapels. He licked his pencil, then jockeyed for comfort the way big, heavy men often do.

The high-intensity spots the techs had set up turned his face white and powdery, as if dusted with flour, showcasing pouches and pits, the saggy smudges under his eyes. I continued toward him, feeling numb and sick and out of place.

When I was ten feet away, he looked up. Now his face was strangely diffuse, as if my eyes had suddenly lost acuity. Except for his eyes: They gleamed, sharp, too bright, jumpy as a coyote’s, emerald green bleached by the spots to sea foam. He had on a flesh-colored, poly-wool sport coat, baggy brown cords, white wash-and-wear shirt with a skimpy, curling collar, and a skinny green tie that glistened like a strip of tooth gel. His hair needed cutting; the top, ink black, left longish, as usual, shot off in all directions, and the spiky forelock that shaded his brow arched over his high-bridged nose. His temples, clipped to bristle, were snow-white from ear top to the bottom of Elvisoid sideburns. The contrast was unnatural; recently, he’d taken to calling himself El Skunko, was making more and more cracks about senility and mortality. He was less than a year older than I, seemed to have aged a lot during the last year or so. Robin told me I looked young when she thought I needed to hear that. I wondered what Rick told Milo.

He closed his notepad, rubbed his face, shook his head.

“Where is she?” I said.

“Already in the van,” he said, tilting his head toward the coroner’s transport. The doors were closed. A driver sat behind the wheel.

I started toward the van. He held my arm. “You don’t want to see her.”

“I can handle it.”

“Don’t put yourself through it. What’s the point?”

I continued to the van, and he opened the door, slid out the gurney, unzipped the first two feet of the body bag. I caught a nose-full of rotten-meat stench and a glimpse of misshapen green-gray face, purplish, swollen eyes, protuberant tongue, long blond strands, before he resealed the bag and led me away.

As the van drove off he sighed, rubbed his face again, as if washing without water. “She’s been dead for a while, Alex. Four, five days, maybe more, at the bottom of one of the Dumpsters, under a load of trash.” He pointed. “That one, behind the patio furniture outlet. Someone wrapped her in heavy-duty plastic – industrial sheeting. Nights have been cool, but still…”

“Who found her?” I said.

“The outlet uses a private trash service. They pick up once a week, at night, showed up a couple of hours ago. When they latched the Dumpster onto their truck and upended it, she fell out – Do you really want to hear this?”

“Go on.”

“Part of her rolled out. A leg. The driver heard her hit the ground, went over to check, and uncovered the rest of her. She was bound, hands and feet – hog-tied. Shot in the back of the head. Two shots, close range, both in the brain stem. Coroner says one bullet would’ve done the trick. Someone was being careful. Or angry. Or both. Or just liked to play with his firestick.”

“Large caliber?”

“Large enough to blacken her eyes and do that to her face. Alex, why are you-”

“Sounds like an execution,” I said. It came out calm and flat. My eyes filled with water, and I swiped at them.

He didn’t answer.

“Four or five days or more,” I went on. “So it happened soon after she disappeared.”

“Looks like it.”

“How’d you identify her?”

“Moment I saw her, I knew exactly who she was. When I spoke to Missing Persons for you, they sent me her sheet and I’d seen her booking photo.”