No offence Intended - Barbara Seranella (12 page)

"Were you asleep?" Danielle asked.

"No, I had the vacuum on. What's up?"

"Just calling to see how you were."

"Oh, just lovely How are you?"

"I went out with Derek last night."

"How was it?"

"I don't know. Okay I guess. Sometimes these
guys on the program seem like such wimps."

"I know what you're saying. It's like show some
spine. I don't want to hear about your childhood."

"Exactly"

Munch looked out the window.

"What are you doing today?" Danielle asked.

She almost said waiting, but then Danielle would ask
waiting for what. "I'm just going to hang around here. I've got
a lot of stuff to catch up on."

"All right," Danielle said. "Maybe
I'll catch you later."

"Sounds good."

* * *

Lisa's call came at twelve-thirty.

"I didn't know who else to call," she said,
her tone flat.

"Lisa? What's wrong?" Munch asked, hating
the necessity of her playacting.

"He's been dead since Friday. John is dead."

"How?"

"He was shot."

She heard the baby crying in the background.

"You want me to come over?"

"I'm not too proud to ask," Lisa said.

Munch set down the phone, realizing too late that she
should have asked Lisa if the cops were going to be there. That was
all she needed, to be over at Lisa's house when the detectives
arrived with their questions.

At one o'clock, just before she left, Munch called
the Snakepit again. This time a woman answered. Munch asked if Deb
was there and the woman said to hold on. Munch took in a deep breath
and noticed she had crossed her fingers.

"Hello?"

"Deb?"

"Munch?" They both laughed with excitement.

"Oh . . . my . . . lord," Deb said, her
Southern drawl as pronounced as ever. "Where are you, woman?"

"L.A."

"How the hell are you?" Deb asked.

"I'm good. Wow, it's good to hear your voice.
How's my little Boogieman?"

"He's growing like crazy" Deb said. "He
asks about you. Shit, I thought we'd lost you forever. Nobody ever
sees you anymore. What's taking you so long to get back to us?"

Munch felt a twist in her stomach and wondered if it
was possible to be homesick for a place she'd never been. "You
say Boogie's gotten big, huh?"

"Why don't you come see for yourself? Get your
ass out of L.A. and come visit. Hell, come stay. You know there's
always room for you here."

"Doesn't he have a birthday coming up?"

"Thats right. You haven't missed one yet. The
Medford airport is about a hundred miles from here. You could be
there in three hours."

"I've got a job," Munch said.

"Just tell Wizard you need some family time."

"I don't work for Wizard anymore. A lot of
things have changed."

"I've got a lot to tell you, too."

"Deb, I have some bad news. It's Sleaze. He's
dead."

Her words were met with silence.

"I know," Munch said. "I still can't
believe it."

"It's worse than that," Deb said.

Munch wondered what could be worse than being dead.

"He was a snitch," Deb said.

"Where did you hear that?" Munch asked,
feeling a prickly sensation up the back of her neck. Did Deb feel
that his murder was justified? Deserved?

She was talking about Sleaze, not some stranger.
Besides, Sleaze would never rat. "No way Who told you that?"

"Oh, you can believe it all right. When's the
last time you saw him?"

Surely she meant alive. "He came by my work a
couple of days ago."

"You know about Karen?"

'Yeah, I heard all about it. Lisa said Sleaze found
her with the needle still stuck in her arm."

"He changed a lot after that—weirded out on
us."

"I met his kid," Munch said.

"I bet she's a cutie."

"She is. It's gonna be rough for her, being an
orphan and all."

"Karen's people will take her, I guess, or
Sleaze's. She's too young to know any different." Deb paused to
cough. "How about you? You been good?"

"You wouldn't believe how good," Munch
said, wrapping the phone cord around her fingers.

"Roxanne's been staying with me. C'mon, just hop
on a plane and we'll pick you up. I've got my ol' man's truck."

"Sleaze said you had an ol' man."

"Forget about Sleaze. Here, Roxannes right here.
She wants to say hi."

Munch heard more shouting and laughing while the
phone changed hands. She could almost smell the beer, picture the
hazy veil of smoke hovering over the pool tables. "Hey"
Roxanne said.

"How's it going?"

"You're coming up?"

"I'm thinking about it."

"Don't—" Roxanne was cut off as Deb
grabbed the phone back.

"This will be great, the three of us together
again. We'll cause some fun."

"What about your ol' man? Whats his name,
anyhow?"

"Tux. He's out of town right now, but he should
be back by the weekend. He's a long-haul trucker." Deb laughed
suggestively

"Sounds good. How is he with Boogie?"

"Real fine," Deb said. "He takes him
with him sometimes on overnight runs."

"Really?" Maybe he wasn't an asshole. "That
sounds great. Do they ever get down my way?"

"He goes all over. I know what you're thinking."

"I just——"

"Forget it, he's mine."

"I've missed you, Deb."

"Hey Munch?"

"Yeah?"

"Call me Deborah now."

"Sure," Munch said, happy to see that Deb
was obviously growing. "I'll see about coming to visit and call
you back."

"I can't wait."

"Me either."

* * *

On her way to Inglewood, Munch stopped at the market
and loaded up on supplies. She didn't get to Lisa's until after two.
Juggling the groceries to one arm, she knocked on the frame of the
screen door. Lisa's eyes were red and her face puffy and blotched
when she appeared in the doorway She nodded once to Munch, unlocked
the door, then turned around.

"This is terrible. How did you hear about it?"

Munch asked, following her into the dark living room.

"Two pigs came over this morning with pictures.
They pulled my name from his rap sheet." Lisa showed Munch the
policemen's business cards and then threw them in the trash. "They
wanted me to come down and look at the body" she said.

"I'm sorry" Munch said. "That had to
be the worst."

"I didn't go."

"Why not?"

"What was I supposed to do with the kids? Take
'em with me?"

Munch could see her point. "I brought some
stuff." She pushed a bag of groceries into Lisa's hands. "Where
are the kids?"

"The girls are in their room. The baby's
sleeping."

Lisa took the bag of groceries into the kitchen.

Munch sank down to the floor and began sorting the
laundry piled there.

Lisa popped open a beer and watched without interest.
"They said I needed to make arrangements. You know, like the
funeral shit."

Munch stuffed a load of whites into the machine,
sprinkled it with the detergent she had brought, and started the
cycle, turning the controls to HOT.

"When is the funeral? I'd like to go."

"I don't have money for a funeral. That shit
costs thousands."

"So what happens now?"

"They said the coroner had a release form for me
to sign and then he'd take care of it."

"Are you going to sign it?"

"What difference does it make? He's dead, right?
Buying some big expensive coffin ain't gonna bring him back."

"Will they let you know where they bury him? I'd
like to put some flowers on his grave."

"Cheaper to burn him."

"Yeah, you're probably right about that."
Munch moved on to the sink and began washing the dishes stacked
there. She turned the water on hot—as hot as she could stand it—and
held her grease-stained cuticles under the rush. "I'd rather you
didn't say anything to the cops about me going over to his place,"
she said.

"I don't tell the pigs nothing," Lisa said.

"Do you know something?"

"Like what?"

Munch scraped at something hard and yellow stuck to
the inside of a coffee mug whose handle was broken off. "When
Sleaze stopped by my work, he told me that he was fixing to split."

"He was always going somewhere."

Munch handed her a dish towel and a wet plate. 'Yeah,
you got that right. How long was he in Oregon?"

Lisa looked at her before answering. Munch detected a
note of hostility before Lisa said, "Long enough to piss some
people off."

"I talked to Deb," Munch said. "She
said Sleaze was a snitch."

Lisa flinched. "She told you that? What a cunt."

Munch handed Lisa another plate. Lisa apparently
still held a grudge for the time Deb slept with Lisa's ol' man. Not
that either woman was still with the guy so who cared anymore?
Besides, shouldn't she be pissed at the guy?

"I told her no way Sleaze wouldn't talk to the
cops."

Lisa spun around and faced her "You know you're
really something. You don't come around forever, then you show up
talking long shit about who would do what." She threw down the
dish towel, discovered her beer was empty and opened another one.
"Don't fuck with what you don't understand?

"What does that mean?"

"It means some things are better just left
alone."

Munch held up a baby bottle. "Where does this
go?"

Lisa took it from her and jammed it into a cabinet
over the sink.

Munch dried her hands on the dish towel. "
didn't come here to fight with you. I'm just trying to help."

"Yeah? Well, who died and made you Glenda the
fucking good witch?"

"Hey I'm hurting, too."

Lisa concentrated for a moment on getting the cabinet
shut before all the assorted plastic containers and plates fell out,
leaving that calamity for the next person. "Fucking Deb really
thinks she's some kind of hot shit," she said, "her and
that little nigger kid of hers."

'Watch it," Munch said, feeling her muscles
tense. There was talking trash and there was crossing the line. Lisa
treaded on dangerous ground when she put Boogie down.

"Sorry" Lisa mumbled. She walked out to the
front room and grabbed a cigarette from the open pack on the coffee
table.

Munch turned to the stovetop. Dirty pots and pans
were stacked two deep above the burners.

"There was a guy with him on Friday" she
said as she poured rancid grease from a heavy cas-iron skillet into a
can she dug out of the trash. "Long black hair, had a jail
tattoo on his neck—one of those Aryan Brotherhood lightning bolts.
Any idea who he was?"

"No," Lisa said.

"You sure?" She lifted the lid on a
saucepan and saw that it was filled with hard cold rice.

"What? You writing a book?" Lisa asked.
"Just drop it. It's over now."

"What are you talking about?" Munch dumped
the rice in the trash and put the pot in the sink to soak. "How
can it be over? Doesn't it bother you that the killer is still out
there?"

"And they'll always be out there," Lisa
said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means the world is full of assholes and all
we can do is all we can do." She lit her smoke, slipping the
spent match into an empty beer can. "Speaking of which, I'm
calling my social worker tomorrow"

"About?"

"My niece." She exhaled in the direction of
the baby "Karen had her at home and never registered the birth,
which was pretty stupid, you know? How you gonna get welfare if you
can't prove you had the kid?"

The sound of something heavy falling in the bedroom
carried to them, followed by a child crying. Lisa made no move to
investigate.

"So theres no record of her birth anywhere?"

Munch asked.

"No."

"Do me a favor, Lisa. Don't sign her away too.
I'll help you out with diapers and food. Just give me a little time
to see what I can work out." She walked into the front room and
stood over Asia's crib. The baby smiled in her sleep. Munch stroked
her cheek. It was soft and warm. How hard could it be to raise a kid?
Her apartment was plenty big enough to accommodate a crib, a playpen.
She'd need to find a good babysitter for during the day while she
worked. "You gonna be here tomorrow evening?"