Golden Orange (13 page)

“You asking us to go outside and ice the junkman?” Winnie asked.

“Pardon me?”

“Your pal, the junk bond broker. You obviously know he's working with us. You want us to cap him and dump him in the bay?”

“I wouldn't mind,” the doctor said, smiling ironically. “He's set me up.”

“You've set yourself up,” Winnie said.

“What's the nature of my crime?”

“Soliciting murder,” Buster said.

“Ridiculous. I imagine that that's a very technical and complicated charge. I mean, my word against his, isn't it? And I certainly haven't admitted anything to you, have I? I admit I paid him twenty-five thousand. I owed it for a bond deal he did for me. That gentleman has a very shady reputation in the market. As for me, I've never even gotten a traffic ticket. He's trying to blackmail me.”

Winnie looked up sharply when Buster, still staring at the pile of money, said, “That's a lot a Ben Franklins.”

Winnie said, “Yeah, well, we're wasting time, so let's take the doc and …”

“Tell me, Doctor,” Buster said, “how you gonna continue your plastic surgery practice after we bust you? I mean, you gonna still be able to cut and stitch after the state jerks your license off the wall?”

“It takes a severe episode of ethical misconduct or moral turpitude for a physician to lose his license in this state,” the doctor said. “I don't think merely an arrest or even an indictment would justify it.”

“How about a conviction?” Winnie said.

The doctor shrugged and said, “Easier said than done. Soliciting murder? I don't know why he'd say such a thing. But I would imagine that your reports could be a little vague and weak. I know your informer lacks credibility given his reputation. And your personal assessment of his credibility, well, I imagine that if you believed my story you'd write your reports a certain way, and inform the district attorney that the case is probably untenable. If those things come to pass, I probably wouldn't even be brought to trial. And I'd certainly never be convicted of anything. What do you think?”

It was Buster, not Winnie, who drew the handcuffs and said, “Time to hook you up,” cuffing the doctor's hands behind his back. “Siddown on the bed next to the Ben Franklins.”

Then he turned to Winnie and said, “I wanna talk to you, pardner.”

He walked Winnie to the doorway leading to the staircase, where they could watch the handcuffed surgeon and still talk. Buster stared at Winnie for a second without speaking. Then he said, “He didn't offer us a bribe.”

“The implication is there.”

“The implication is that we can have it all. All two hundred and ten thou. This guy wants to keep his life-style going. This guy …”

“Is a bag a pus!” Winnie said. “But since he didn't really offer us anything directly, let's just let him tuck his Franklins back in the safe and take him on down and book him for soliciting his wife's murder. 'Cause he's getting me so mad I might jist kick him down the fuckin staircase and I think maybe that's polished granite down there at the bottom in the entry hall and it looks real hard.”

“But he's right, Win! We might not be able to make a case against him no matter how hard we try. He's right about our bond broker. That guy's a bigger hemorrhoid than this croaker here.”

“Let's get the money back in the safe and book this maggot,” Winnie said. “I gotta check out Spoon's new waitress. I'm sure you got something to do too, don't you, Buster?”

Buster stared at his partner for several seconds. Sweat was beading on Buster's forehead, and Winnie felt his own flesh getting cold and clammy. Then Buster showed his “this-is-just-a-shuck” gleaming white grin. And his violet eyes stopped throwing sparks, and he said, “Sure. I guess we'd never be able to make a case for attempted bribery even if we did pretend to go along with him. That's what I was thinking we could do,
pretend
to go along.”

When they got back inside, Buster was all business. He said, “Okay, Doc, on your feet. You're gonna witness us puttin your money back and I'm gonna let you set the lock and the alarm. Don't wanna get accused of not protectin your goods. It's a shame but I think you're gonna get your knife taken away. Goddamn Gold Coast tragedy, ain't it, Doc?”

For the first time the surgeon looked worried. A tear even formed in his left eye, which made Winnie Farlowe very happy.

When Winnie finished his story, Tess, who had stood motionless in the shadows the entire time, stepped out into the moonlight.

“What happened to the doctor?” she asked.

“Did about ten months,” Winnie said.

“And the license?”

“Probably in some other state where they need a guy who's real hot at sucking out all those pizzas topped with buffalo steak and macadamia nuts.”

“So you think your friend Buster was on the verge of accepting the money if
you'd
gone along?”

“I don't wanna think so,” Winnie said. “Buster was a good friend. Still is. And a good cop when he wants to be. I don't like to think he could do business with that sociopathic doctor.”

“So it appears you'll live your life as a poor man, Winnie Farlowe,” she said.

“Guess so,” Winnie said. “Must be written in my genes somewhere. Kismet. Winnie Farlowe's a …”

“Straight-ahead guy,” she said, sliding the spaghetti strap chemise off her shoulders and letting it fall to the floor.

He could see her glasses flash in the moonlight. She took two steps and leaped into bed playfully. She rolled on top of Winnie and took his face in her hands.

“So am I through after tonight?” he asked. “You dumping me or what?”

“What the hell makes you think that?”

“I can't afford to take you out even for hamburgers except maybe on Thursday night when they drop the price at this joint I know.”

“So if you're
that
broke with no job and no prospects, what do you plan to do about it?”

Winnie looked up to her, then enveloped her bare torso in his arms, tracing the valley between those health club back muscles. He kissed her shoulder for a moment, thought it over and said, “I dunno. I just
don't
know.”

“You may just have to depend on the kindness of strangers,” Tess Binder said.

9

Oasis

A
t ten o'clock the next morning, having had a swim and eggs Benedict with Tess Binder at her club, Winnie was back in his apartment trying to put together a suitable wardrobe for a desert weekend. Tess had said she'd pick him up at noon and that he “shouldn't ask questions.”

She wasn't dumping him. She wanted more of what he offered, whatever the hell
that
was. She said he was funny. She said he made her feel more like a woman. She wasn't tired of him. Not yet!

Winnie was tuning the radio on an L.A. jazz station when there was a knock at the door. He opened it to find Buster Wiles and a huge young cop named Hadley, a rookie he knew only slightly. They were wearing tan shorts and white sneakers with their tan uniform shirts and Sam Browne belts: the outfit of the police department's beach patrol.

“I
don't
believe it,” Winnie said to Buster. “You?”

Buster drew out a little towel he'd tucked inside his Sam Browne, mopped his neck and grinned. “Easter week, baby. They need some big beef out here to bust all these Newport Beach felonies.”

Winnie knew that “felonies” meant writing beer tickets, citations for drinking in public around the Fun Zone and the piers. During Easter week the town's population of seventy thousand could double, with twenty to thirty college and high school kids crammed into every available rental. Not to mention tens of thousands of day-trippers.

“Peninsula looks like Calcutta already,” Hadley said. “Million beer cans on the beach.” The young cop had the cylindrical legs of a juvenile elephant, and a back you could shoot snooker on.

“Like a war zone,” Buster said. “They're tryin to reinvent the South Bronx with white people.”

“I didn't think you'd
really
leave narcotics,” Winnie said.

“I told ya I'm through puttin myself in situations where some cretin can spit slugs at me with an Uzi on full auto. Beach patrol, baby. Six miles a tits 'n ass. I mighta had a shot at being a trash cop—pardon me, an
environmental services coordinator
—but I figure litterbugs in progress're harder to catch than bank robbers. So I managed to slide into the beach patrol. You should see the new four-wheeler the other team uses for sand safaris. When Hadley's drivin, he digs those foot-deep trenches around anything bigger'n a thirty-four B cup. Needs a coolie with a shovel fillin in behind him.”

Winnie said, “Now I know who to call about all the dog crap, and people that park in front a my carport.”

“That's what we're here for, baby!” young Hadley said, imitating Buster Wiles. “People around here don't give a shit about burglars and muggers, but they want red zone parking to carry capital punishment!”

Buster looked at the old Adidas tennis bag Winnie had thrown on the daybed in his living room. There were two pair of faded socks and more ragged underwear packed in it, along with a freshly laundered aloha shirt and jeans.

“Blowin town before the rent's due, or what?” Buster asked.

“Going to Palm Springs for the weekend,” Winnie said. “Well, not exactly Palm Springs. La Quinta. Ever been there? Out where they built that monster golf course? Where they play the Skins game on TV?”

“Heard of it,” Buster said. “Desert ain't for me. Dries out my sinuses and makes me sneeze for a week.”

“I'll take along some nose drops,” Winnie said.

Winnie worried for the furniture when young Hadley sat down at the kitchen table, lifting one of those massive legs onto a chipped and rickety kitchen chair. The kid said, “You can't escape spring break out there in Palm Springs. They got just as many vacationers as we do.”

“Yeah, well, I'll be with a friend,” Winnie said. “We'll be staying outta their way.”

Buster didn't say anything but he looked curious, so Winnie said, “I got a sponsor for this trip. Somebody's taking me.”

Slyly, from Buster: “That new waitress at Spoon's musta had a good week, huh?”

“Naw, she's outta the tip zone with her bad attitude,” Winnie said. “She can't afford an on-time guy like me.”

Buster turned to the kid and said, “Come on, Junior, Winnie's bein mysterious and we got a wienie wagger down by Seventh Street we oughtta try to catch sometime this year or next.” He said to Winnie, “Guy wears a winged Mercury hat like an F.T.D. florist. Rings people's doorbells, but instead a presentin them with a parcel a pansies, he shows them the blue thimble.”

“This couldn't be the career change you had in mind the other night?” Winnie asked, as the two beach cops walked to the door. “Working the beach patrol?”

“Not quite,” Buster said. “But it'll do for a while. By the way, poverty-stricken as you are, it's only fair to warn that ya can't sleep in your car between the hours a nine
P.M.
and nine
A.M
., 'less you wanna risk the wrath a the beach patrol.”

“Oh,
thank
you, Officer!” Winnie said. “I'll just sleep on the beach during the day and drive around all night.”

“And you can't fish in the bay after six
P.M
., jist in case you're hungry enough to eat the mutants that live off the refuse from all the illegally dumped Porta Potties.”

“I see you already learned every one a the felonies,” Winnie said. “And no dogs on the beach, right?”

“I can overlook that one,” Buster said, before closing the door. “We got lots a Cambodians and other gooks fishin off the piers nowadays. They'll catch 'em and
eat
'em for us.”

As they were descending the treacherous wooden staircase, Winnie heard Buster say to his young partner, “Don't introduce me to any more broads with no eyebrows and no personality. I been datin one like that for thirteen years. In fact, she caused
both
my divorces.”