All or Nothing (13 page)

“Well, he does with me. And the blood found in the car was not Steve’s.”

Al whistled. A pleased grin spread over his blue–stubbled face––he had no shaving gear at Marla’s place, which is where he had ended up after a glamorous and horrifyingly expensive dinner at the Bel Air Hotel, watching swans float by and eating delectable food that he figured cost about ten bucks a bite. Marla had said he owed her for her good work on the John MacIver boyfriend situation. He’d given in easily enough. Sometimes you just had to pamper your woman, make her feel good . . . and boy had she looked good, and had she enjoyed it. And afterward, they had enjoyed each other in an even more deliciously carnal way.

But he was digressing. “Any idea whose blood it was, then?”

“None. And they can’t match it with Laurie’s because there’s no body. Yet.” Lister always added “yet” because he firmly believed the body would turn up any minute now. “They’re still out there looking, as we speak,” he added.

Al laughed. “Meanwhile, the cops don’t seem able to come up with any concrete evidence against our client. It’s purely circumstantial.”

“But there are no other suspects.”

“True. I guess I’ll just have to find some for them.”

Lister said, “You do that, buddy. Let me know how you get on.”

“Will do. And thanks for the good news, Lister. I appreciate it.”

Al glanced at his black Olympics 95 Swatch watch––the one Marla despised, along with the Corvette––then dialed her car phone. She answered at once and he heard the rumble of traffic as she said loudly, “Hello?”

“Hi, honey.” He knew she was on the speaker.

“I’m in traffic,” she yelled. “You have to speak up.”

“Put the windows up, Marla. And pick up the phone.”

“What?”

He ran a hand exasperatedly through his thick dark hair. “Honey, I said put your windows up. Then you’ll be able to hear me. I mean, they make those Mercs practically soundproof, don’t they?”

“Better than old Corvettes anyway.” She had put up the windows and was on the phone and coming through loud and clear now. “What’s up,
honey
?”

“The blood found in the Lexus is not Steve’s.”

“Whoopee . . . then he’s off the hook?”

“Not exactly. It’s probably Laurie’s blood, but they’re unable to do any tests.”

“Because they have none of her blood to compare it with.”

“Marla, sometimes you’re so smart I just don’t believe you.”

“Listen, you bastard, I’m only a
trainee
private eye, remember? And you have been in business for fifteen years. Give me a break, why don’t you?”

“Okay, so here’s the deal. I’m on my way to Florida.” He flinched as he heard the screech of brakes.

“You’re what?”

“I’m on a one–thirty flight via Atlanta.”

“What happened to Miami?”

“This auto didn’t come from Miami, babe, it’s from Panama City.”

“Mmm, doesn’t sound like my kind of town,” she said doubtfully.

He grinned. “Of course, if you’d care to come along   .   .   .   ?”

“No . . . no, I think I’ll let you take care of this one,
boss.
Sure you can manage without me?”

“Honey, I’ll do my darndest.”

Her voice dropped to a purr. “I’ll miss you tonight, though, Giraud. I’ll be lying in my big, lonely bed, thinking of you . . . remembering last night. . . .”

“Hold on to that memory, honey. I’ll be back in your bed real soon.”

“Promise?”

“Well, now, I’m not a promising kinda guy, but I am a betting man and the odds are ten to one.”

“I’ll take ’em,” she said, laughing. “And take care, Giraud. Don’t get into any trouble without me.”

He said he would try not to, then put down the phone, picked up his bag, locked up his office with the glass door that said who he was and
PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, ALL WORK CONFIDENTIAL
––just like in a forties movie. Then he strolled across Sunset and joined the young folk drinking lattes in the café, except he ordered a double espresso. A guy had to do something to combat lack–of–cigarette fatigue.

Panama City was a little seaside town with that flat–fronted, low–rise prefabricated Florida look about it. The sun blazed in a cloudless hard blue sky, grilling through Al’s T–shirt until he felt like a kebab approaching medium rare. It was definitely not his kind of town, let alone Marla’s.

He’d spent the night in the kind of cheerless motel he wished he had only read about, and was driving a rental car he could have lived without. It was a conspicuous and particularly hideous shade of electric blue, the steering was loose and the brakes slow and his heart ached for the red Corvette.

Plus the motel had been the kind with holes in the screens that let in droves of mosquitoes. It had doors that rattled and flapped in the hot wind, and a neon sign that flickered green and red all night through his flimsy window shade. Humphrey Bogart never had it this bad.

But the folks were nice in Panama City and it didn’t take him long to find the information he wanted. A Buick Regal with that license plate had belonged to a marine based in Pensacola. Marine James H. Victor. Only trouble was, Jimmy Victor was dead. Died in a tragic fire in his trailer about ten years ago. It was in all the newspapers at the time.

The local Pensacola newspaper had carried it in a couple of editions and Giraud read them both, ensconced in the archives, sneezing with the dust of ages flying off the pages along with the story.

Apparently the propane tank had exploded, leading to a conflagration. Jimmy’s wife, the former Bonnie Hoyt of Gainesville, Florida, had been out walking the dog at the time. She had come running back, but the trailer was already engulfed. They said how brave she was, she had tried to drag him out of there and had gotten quite a few burns herself in the process. Jimmy’s body was found half in and half out the door.

He had been buried in Pensacola, and when Al found the cemetery only a plain headstone with his name and the dates of his birth and death marked the spot. There were no flowers, no grass, no shade trees. Only the relentless Florida sun to burn Jimmy all over again.

From experience, Giraud knew that the place to find any information––especially in a naval town––was the nearest bar. This one was dark and secretive. Half a dozen pool tables took up the back of the large room with shaded lights hung low over the green baize and the few guys lounging around waiting to take their shot. The long, scarred wooden bar had a shiny layer of acrylic varnish that failed to obliterate decades of stains. Peanuts and pretzels were definitely not served along with the Budweiser at this establishment. You were lucky if you got a paper coaster.

Al slid onto a stool and ordered a draft Bud from the tough–looking woman behind the bar. Her hair was what had once been known as strawberry–blond, a kind of reddish–gold fluffed to immense heights then falling in a cascade of curls down to her shoulder blades. Her ice–blue eyes were rimmed in black pencil and her lipstick was a shiny pink, generously applied. She had the look of a sixties teenager grown middle–aged without ever changing her style.

Al leaned an elbow on the bar, swiveling on his stool, checking out the action. It was late afternoon. Not the busiest time. He hoped he wouldn’t have to hang around here too long, drinking Bud and possibly wasting his life. Meanwhile, there were few customers at the bar.

He turned back to the barkeep. “You worked here long, honey?”

She favored him with a glossy pink smile. Apparently she was not bothered about sexual harassment. Al guessed it came with the job.

“Sure have, mister. Around ten years now. Once my kids were grown I got myself out of that house and out of that marriage and into this job. Best move I ever made.”

“Sounds good.” He sipped the beer.

“I ain’t seen you here before?”

“I’m just passin’ through, as you might say. I was hoping you might know about a friend of mine. A guy called Jimmy Victor. Knew him a long time ago, when he was a kid. Heard he’d become a marine and then he was killed in a fire in his trailer. . . .”

“Sure, I remember that. Many years back it was, though. It was in all the papers––and on TV.”

Al took a good slug of the beer. “He have many friends out here?’

“Sure. He was a popular kinda guy, y’know what I mean? Good–lookin’, all the girls were after him.”

“I thought he was a married man.”

She gave him another pink smile and a broad wink. “Isn’t everybody?”

“I guess you’re right there.” Al laughed with her. He resisted glancing at his watch and thinking about the next flight out. “You know where I could get in touch with some of his friends? I’d kinda like to hear about him, you know, for old time’s sake.”

She frowned with the effort of thinking, patting her lacquer–stiff golden–red curls gently. “Well, now, they don’t come in here so much. I think you might find a couple of them, though, over at the Fishin’ Shak, a few blocks down the street. Marty Knudsen used to hang out there with Jimmy, I know. And Frankie Alford.”

“Thanks, hon. I’ll be sure to give that a try.”

He paid for his drink with a ten, told her to keep the change and found himself on the receiving end of another glossy pink smile.

The Fishin’ Shak was much the same, only without the pool tables. This was strictly a drinking joint, despite the phony fishing nets and dusty lobster pots cluttering up the wood–plank walls. The whole place, including the makeshift bar, looked as though it had been cobbled together from two–by–fours, and it felt as though the powerful air–conditioning might just pick it up and blow it away like in a hurricane.

The barkeep this time was a guy, older and wiser and a bruiser. His broken nose and pudgy fists pegged him as an ex–boxer and his shaven head as a man who followed trends. Either that or he belonged to a white supremacist skinhead group.

Again Al ordered a beer, asked if he knew Frankie Alford or Marty Knudsen.

“Who’s askin’?”

Al remembered Marla’s technique and tried a winning smile. It got him nowhere. “A friend.”

“So how come you’re so friendly if I ain’t never seen you here before?”

“I’m a friend of a friend. An old buddy of Jimmy Victor’s. We palled around together there for a while. Before he was killed in the fire. I was in town and remembered he was stationed here. Just kinda wanted to hear about him. How it happened. Where he’s laid to rest, so I can pay my respects. That kinda thing.”

The barkeep stared at him for a long time, head lowered like a bull about to charge, and Al was glad of the width of the bar counter between them. Then he lifted his head, flicked his eyes over Al’s shoulder and called out, “Hey, Frankie, here’s a guy says he knew Jimmy Victor real well.”

“Oh yeah?”

Frankie was tall, beefy and about thirty–five years old, with a cropped marine haircut and a face red from too much sun and a great deal of booze.

Al offered his hand. “How’re ya doin? Name’s Al Giraud. I knew Jimmy way back when, before he even got into the marines. Knew his family too. Kinda lost touch later, though. Our lives took different paths, so to speak. I was just passing through town and I remembered this was where he had died. Wanted to pay him a visit, at the cemetery, y’know. Pay my final respects.”

“Oh. Oh, sure. I understand.” The marine squeezed the hell out of Al’s hand and let it drop. “Good guy, Jimmy. Terrible, what happened to him. Jesus, I can only imagine the hell he went through. . . .”

“You went to the funeral?”

“Sure. His wife and a couple of us buddies were the only mourners. As far as I knew he had no family. Oh, and the little black mutt––Clyde, she called him––was there. Always wore a red bandanna. Bonnie took him everywhere.”

Al ordered up a couple more beers. “What was the wife like?”

“Bonnie?” He shrugged. “Dark hair, dark eyes. Kinda strange, if you want the truth. Something about the way she looked at you. But a good body, nice legs. Jimmy cheated on her all the time, y’know. Couldn’t keep his hands off any woman. He was a good–lookin’ guy. Anyhow, Jimmy heard Bonnie had taken up with someone else. They were always arguing, him and her. Never saw her again, though, after the funeral.”

Al asked for directions to the cemetery. He had already seen Jimmy’s grave but he asked just to keep up the charade. He bought another round for the barkeep and Frankie Alford, wished them good–bye and was on his way.

Well, well, well, he thought with a big grin on his face as he drove hell–for–leather––or as fast as the fluorescent–blue rental car would push it, to the airport in Pensacola, hoping to make it in time to catch the six o’clock flight to Atlanta.
Bonnie and Clyde.
Did he have a lot to tell Marla.

Sometimes, Marla thought impatiently, being a private eye was just plain boring. Like now, for instance. Al had delegated her to search out every blood bank in the San Diego area to see whether Laurie Martin had ever given blood. Armed with her credentials as Steve Mallard’s attorney, Marla had spent two days doing just that. She needn’t have bothered. The police had been there before her and with the same negative result.

She burned rubber on her way back to L.A., bitching mentally about being sent on a fool’s errand. Sometimes she wondered if Giraud really knew what he was doing.

Her car phone beeped and she snatched it up.

“Hi, honey, how’re y’doin’?”

Al’s voice had a breezy tone that she knew meant he had something up his sleeve. “Thanks to you I’ve had a terrific day, hanging out in hospitals and watching people donating blood. How could you ask me to do this, Al? You know I can’t stand the sight of blood.”

“Put you off your lunch, did it, honey? Well, never mind, I’ll treat you to dinner tonight.”

“Well, thanks a lot!” Then, “Where?” she asked, suddenly interested.

“Typhoon? Meet you there about seven–thirty?”

“You’d better be on time,” she said suspiciously.

He laughed. “Sure I will. If
you
will.” He was still laughing as she slammed down the phone.

Typhoon was an interesting little place built into the second floor of an old aircraft hangar overlooking the runway at Santa Monica Airport. Entertainment was provided by the cute little incoming Cessnas and the lavish private jets decanting rock stars and businessmen and sometimes movie actors, as well as by the sun setting in a blaze of gold and red over the not too distant Pacific Ocean. The martinis were good and the food an eclectic mix of California–Pacific Rim, including Thai spring rolls and curries, whole crispy–fried catfish in an Oriental sauce, Singapore spicy noodles and all–American tiny spareribs. Plus an interesting section of the menu labeled
INSECTS,
though Giraud had never yet seen anybody partake of a locust or a grasshopper.