Harbor Nocturne (14 page)

Hollywood Nate Weiss got out, shined his light on the scarred hood, and said, “AP stands for Armenian Power.”

“No shit!” Hector barked. “Some Armo cocksucker keyed my new Benz!”

“Probably a local vandal,” Nate offered.

He was joined by Britney Small, who also shined her light on the scarred hood and said, “That’s a shame. A beautiful car like that.”

“Aw, fuck!” Hector said. “I may as well make a police report for the insurance company as long as you’re here. My name’s Hector Cozzo. Here’s my address.”

He took out his driver’s license, but Nate said, “Sir, we’re very shorthanded and our superiors want us out here on patrol. That’s the kind of report you need to make at the front desk of Hollywood Station. It’s at One three five eight North Wilcox.”

Hector said, “You mean my car gets keyed by some Armo son of a bitch and I can’t even make a police report at my convenience?”

“You can, sir,” Britney said. “Whenever it’s convenient, drop by Hollywood Station and—”

Hector sneered, “This is the kind of police service us taxpayers get, huh? Well, forget about it. I’m calling my councilman.” He turned to Nate and said, “So thanks a lot, Officer . . .” He looked at Hollywood Nate’s nameplate and said, “I shoulda known.” Then he got into his car, started it up, and drove away.

After they got back in their shop, Britney said, “What’d he mean when he said, ‘I shoulda known’?”

Hollywood Nate Weiss said, “He means that he shoulda known that I’m a Jew.”

Britney was incensed. “What a rude dirtbag!” she said. After she was driving for a few minutes she asked, “
Are
you?”

“Am I what?” Nate said.

“Jewish.”

“I used to be,” Nate said, “a long time ago.”

“What’re you now?”

Hollywood Nate thought it over and said, “A fair to middling copper and a failed actor.”

Britney Small shook her head slowly and drove for a while before saying, “Nate, even it that were true, which it certainly isn’t, it would still be better than the other way around. Can you see that?”

Hollywood Nate looked at his earnest young partner in surprise. Then he smiled ironically. “Britney, I think you’re absolutely right. Which means you’ve just succeeded in wrecking a lot of the enjoyment I get from self-pity. I owe you another soda for that. No, make it a burger with the works. You’re a little too lean from spending too much time in the weight room.”

NINE

L
ate the next
morning Dinko Babich was doing something he thought he’d never do in his lifetime. Lita Medina had him strolling with her along Pacific Avenue in San Pedro, exploring various low-end stores and examining goods sold on the street by vendors as she chattered in Spanish to practically everyone she encountered, especially young Hispanic mothers with babies riding on their hips. And the most astonishing thing was, he was actually enjoying himself!

Lita was wearing faded jeans, a tank top, and tennis shoes, and Dinko thought she looked sensational. And so did just about everyone else on the avenue, as he could tell by the appreciative glances she received.

At one point he said to her, “You really rock those jeans.”

She said, “‘Rock’?”

“Never mind,” he said. “Everyone around here thinks I’m one lucky gringo.”

She shrugged and said, “You think I talk funny? I think
you
talk funny.”

“I’d buy us a taquito or something,” he told her, “but I’m still stuffed from breakfast.”

“Your
mamá,
” Lita said, “she make for us the most food I ever see on a morning table. I cannot eat nothing until tomorrow maybe.”

“She’s trying to make a Croatian outta you,” Dinko said. “But I like you just the way you are.”

Lita smiled at the compliment and said, “And you? How can you stay so . . . how you say . . . ?”

“Tall and handsome?”

She laughed and said, “No. I mean, jes, you are tall and handsome, but . . .”

“Y-y-yes,” he said.

“Y-y-yes,” she said, laughing again. “But what is the word for not fat?”

“Skinny,” he said, “
Flaco.
That’s me. But super handsome.”

She gave him a light poke for his banter and said, “I am very happy today. I am never so happy since I come to this country. You are very lucky man, Dinko. This San Pedro is place of magic, I think.”

Dinko Babich looked around and wished he could see his Pedro world through the eyes of this girl. And suddenly it occurred to him that he, too, was very happy today. He hadn’t been so happy since he was a kid going out fishing with his father and other Croatian men and their sons. Back when his life was full of possibilities and Pedro was the only world he wanted.

“Dinko, look!” she said, grabbing his hand and rushing him toward a man selling knockoffs of famous clothing brands from a display on the sidewalk. The man wore a black beret and a Zapata mustache and had a large green parrot on his shoulder. He was feeding the parrot nuts to make it talk to customers.

When Lita stood in front of the parrot, her eyes shining with excitement, the man said to the parrot, “¿
Qué
piensas, mi hijo?
”

And the parrot looked at Lita and said, “
Muy hermosa
.”

Lita clapped her hands like a child and Dinko gave the parrot man a few dollars, saying, “That bird’s got good taste.”

A few minutes later they were strolling again, not talking, just looking at the street and the sky and feeling the breeze from the Pacific blowing through their hair. She took his hand once more and they walked, with Dinko Babich imagining she could hear his heart thrumming a powerful pulse into his throat.

This girl! he thought. What was happening to him? The tiny world in which he lived was shape-shifting. Nothing seemed the same when he looked around now. Was he truly seeing everything through
her
eyes? Was that good or bad for him? She was so . . .
alive
.

She held his hand firmly and he raised her hand up and looked at it. “You have beautiful hands,” he said. “
Muy hermosa
.”

Lita smiled self-consciously and pointed to a flower vendor, saying, “I wish to buy flowers for your
mamá
.”

He watched her carefully checking how much she had in the pocket of her jeans, and he realized that whatever she had there and in her purse back at the house was
all
she had. She peeled ten dollars from a small fold of bills and said, “What you think, Dinko?” She pointed to a yellow rose. “She likes the yellow
rosas
?”

Her pronunciation of “yellow” came out as “jellow.”

“Jell-O is something we eat for dessert,” Dinko said, “particularly when we’re counting calories.”

“¿Cómo?
”

“I’ll explain it later. You pronounce the color ‘yellow.’ Y-y-yellow.”

“Y-y-yellow,” she said. “You think I ever learn?”

“I’ll teach you with the greatest of pleasure,” he said, “no matter
how
long it takes.”

She stopped smiling and studied him for a moment, then shifted her gaze back to the flowers, pointed, and said, “
Lila
.”

“We call it ‘lilac,’” Dinko said. “It figures. Your mother’s maiden name means ‘flowers’ in English.”

“I do not understand,” she said.

“Lita Medina Flores,” he said. “You’re a child of the flowers.”

“My funny boy,” she said, squeezing his hand.

She paid for a small bouquet of lilacs and Dinko pulled a sprig from the bunch and held it up beside her face. “Yes, that’s your flower,” he said. “No doubt about it. Shall we go home and give my mom your
lila
?”

Brigita Babich was leaning against the kitchen counter and talking on a wall phone that had been there for thirty years. When she heard them come in the front door, she finished her conversation with one of the women from church who was planning a huge wedding at Croatian Hall.

Brigita entered the living room and found Lita standing shyly next to Dinko with a bouquet of lilacs, which she held out, saying, “Señora, I thank you with my heart for the kindness I have receive from you here.”

“For me?” Brigita said. “You bought lilacs for me?”

“She did,” Dinko said.

“Oh, sweetheart!” Brigita said, taking the lilacs and wrapping a sturdy arm around the willowy girl.

Dinko looked solemn when he pulled the cell phone from his pocket and said, “Lita, take this into the bedroom and call your apartment. Find out if Daisy has returned.”

Her mouth turned down at the corners with this sudden intrusion from her other world and she said, “Yes, I must call. Is time for me to go back.”

After Lita was in the bedroom and out of earshot, Dinko looked his mother in the eye and told her, “If that girl Daisy is still missing with only the clothes on her back, I’m not gonna let Lita go back there today.”

Brigita Babich said, “Son, she’s not a stray puppy you can find and just keep. She has her own life to live.”

“That’s a dangerous life.”

“Then take her to the police.”

“There’s nothing that can be proved at this point. A Korean roommate left suddenly in a car with a Korean they work for. That’s according to Lita. But what if the guy denies it and Daisy doesn’t come back? What is that guy gonna do if Lita drags him into a very suspicious missing persons case with her suggestion that he knows what happened to Daisy?”

They stopped talking when Lita rejoined them in the kitchen, holding Dinko’s cell phone in her hand.

She said gravely, “Violet says that Daisy is not there. She is not phoning nobody. Violet says she made a phone call to Mr. Kim but he says he don’t know nothing about Daisy. He says he is not seeing Daisy for a week. Mr. Kim is saying a lie!”

“Lita,” Dinko said, “this is very important. Did Violet let Mr. Kim know that you saw Daisy with somebody in a black car outside their apartment?”

“She says no, she does not tell him that.”

“Do you believe her?”

Lita thought it over and said, “Violet is not such a good girl like Daisy. I think maybe she tells him if he pays her money for telling.”

“Does Violet know that you left that place with my son?” Brigita asked with urgency.

“No,” Lita said. “I never tell nothing about Dinko. I tell to Violet that I go to my old job because I no longer wish to work at Club Samara.”

Both Dinko and Brigita Babich could clearly see the fear on the girl’s face, and it was Dinko’s mother who spoke first. She said, “Please stay with us for a few days, sweetie. We’ll need a little more time to figure this thing out.”

Hector was still in bed at 2:00
p.m
. He had drunk nearly half a bottle of vodka the night before, and he’d swallowed a couple of zannies with it. For the past two hours he’d been lying there thinking of how to escape the trouble he was in. There had to be a way to avoid the twenty-grand obligation to Kim, but no matter how he figured it, the only answer was to go over Kim’s head to Markov.

Then again, the way things were falling apart, he wasn’t even sure if Markov was the main man in the human-trafficking operation. Christ, maybe there was somebody making them
both
dance? Kim had flat-out claimed that Markov had lost money in that calamity too, so how eager would Markov be to answer a plea for intercession from Hector Cozzo?

Hector tried to convince himself that Kim was all bluff, that he was basically a pimp and a smuggler but not a killer. That pitiful attempt at solace sustained him for about sixty seconds, and then the fear resumed. Hector was positive that Kim could kill him and that it wouldn’t be a merciful death. And death made him think of the missing Daisy, who’d threatened to go to the cops and report all of them, including Hector the collector.

He had never before tried the cell number Markov had given him, along with orders to use it only in an emergency. Well, if there was ever a fucking emergency, this was it. He dialed, hesitated, then pressed the send button.

Markov answered so fast it startled him: “Yes?”

“Sir,” Hector said, “I’m sorry to be calling you like this, but it’s an emergency.”

“What is it?”

“Can I talk on the phone?”

“From this end, yes. I hope your end is secure. Be discreet in what you say.”

Hector said, “Sir, I paid a visit to Mr. K., and he’s very unhappy with me and he’s being very unfair. He thinks some of what happened to his . . . recent overseas shipment is my fault. He thinks I promised to rescue the situation, but I never promised that. I only said I’d try to help. It turns out I couldn’t, and now he’s punishing me in a very severe way. I need you to get him off me. Would you like to know what he’s done to me so far?”

“No,” Markov said. “I will talk to him and get back to you. Is that all?”

“No, sir,” Hector said. “Another thing is, one of our employees went missing the other day after making very serious threats. I thought you should know.”

There was quiet on the line, and then Markov said, “Why have I not been told of this before now?”

“You gotta ask Mr. K. about that,” Hector said. “I’m jist trying to be loyal to you.”

“Is that all?”

“Not quite,” Hector said. “You remember the thing you asked me to inform certain employees about? Regarding the kind of person that Mr. B. f
rom Moscow would be interested in? Well, I think I have someone who Mr. B. will be excited to meet.”

“A woman?”

“No, that’s the only drawback. But he got the work done down in T.J., so I think this meeting is gonna work for Mr. B. Maybe I could pick up one of the girls and invite this guy to a party that’d make Mr. B. so thrilled he’d be begging to do business with you. But if something don’t work out, please don’t put all the blame on me the way Mr. K. does.”

“All right,” Markov said. “Set it up the way you usually do at the usual place. If the investment comes in from Mr. B., I will make sure that Mr. K. never troubles you again.”

“Thank you, sir,” Hector said.

“But before you hang up,” Markov said, “I want you to find out all you can about the missing employee. I am very surprised and very disappointed that I have not heard about all this from Mr. K.”

“I’ll do that right away,” Hector said. “And thank you again, sir.”

Hector Cozzo immediately dialed the number Ivana had given to him for her peg-leg customer named Kelly.

The cold phone at the Hollywood vice unit was answered by Sergeant Hawthorne, who simply said, “Hello.”

Hector said, “Can I speak to Kelly?”

Sergeant Hawthorne had given up on his wild idea and could hardly believe this. “He’s not here at present. May I take a message?”

“When’s he coming back?”

“Hard to say, but can I have your number?”

“Never mind,” Hector said. He was about to terminate the call, but Sergeant Hawthorne said, “Wait! I can get a message to him. Can you call back in an hour?”

“Okay,” Hector said, and clicked off.

“I can’t believe it!” Sergeant Hawthorne told one of his bearded vice cops working at a computer. “It worked!”

“What worked?”

“My apotemnophilia idea!”

“I can’t even say the word,” the vice cop said, “but I’m glad it worked.”

Sergeant Hawthorne looked at the clock. The surfer cops were on Watch 5, and their roll call started at 5:00
p.m
., two hours from now. He dialed Jetsam’s home number. No answer. Then he dialed Flotsam’s home number, with the same result. Then he said to the vice cop, “Those surf monsters couldn’t still be at the beach this late in the afternoon, could they?”

It turned out that they could. Both of the surfer cops’ cell phones rang, but the phones were wrapped in a large towel on the warm white sand of Malibu Beach. Jetsam was doing his famous (by now) barrel ride after he’d caught a juicy, and two surf bunnies were on the shoreline cheering on the brave surfer with a carbon-and-polyurethane prosthesis attached to his stump.

Flotsam was in a black wet suit, floating on his board nearby and watching the action, ready to move in when Jetsam came ashore and personally invite the bunnies to a rager they had planned. He felt thirsty and decided to walk back to their beach towels to get a soda he’d packed in an insulated beverage container.

That was when he checked his cell phone and saw the message. Three minutes later he was running through the surf, yelling to Jetsam, who was waiting for the next wave: “Hey, pard, we gotta go to work
pronto
!”