The Delta Star (21 page)

***

Mario Villalobos had already drunk three vodkas by the time Lupe Luna arrived at the Mexican restaurant.

“Hi, Sarge,” she said, sitting with him at a table in the barroom.

It was a surprising little restaurant to find on the barrio fringe. The waiters wore jackets and black ties and each table had a linen tablecloth, cut glass and a long-stemmed rose. The women’s rest room was full of flowers, another surprising touch
Lupe Luna noted. Of course there was the inevitable painting of an Aztec chief weeping over his dead maiden, proving that even Aztecs needed a little soap opera in their lives. Mexican music played on a tape deck and the salsa was fresh and hot, as were the tortilla chips with which Mario Villalobos ladled the salsa.

“Does a waiter help me lift this margarita?” she asked.

It was a fishbowl-sized snifter. He licked the salt off the rim of his glass and said, “Have two of them. I’m capable of any dirty trick with a woman like you. I’d even take you out to my car and play the police radio if I thought it would help.”

“Yeah?” She smiled, showing him the overbite that was driving him crackers. “Does cops ‘n robbers usually help?”

“Lady, nothing helps at my time of life,” he said. “All my neurons’re almost petrified. About the only pleasure I get these days is from solving murders.”

“Murders? I thought it was a jewel theft?”

“Yeah, well … I prefer solving murders is what I meant. Right now it’s a jewel theft.”

“I don’t know how sexy I might find a police radio,” she grinned, lifting the enormous glass with two hands. “But I confess to liking cop shows. And I read mysteries.”

“I hate any kind of mystery,” he said. “Mysteries drive me bonkers. In fact, I might go bonkers if I don’t solve the one I’m working on. It’s making me work. I’m too tired to work. I haven’t worked so hard in years.”

“Nothing very mysterious about it, is there? You just have to find out which professor was chasing around with a young girl in the restaurant that night. Pretty straightforward.”

“Pretty straightforward,” Mario Villalobos said. “How do you like the salsa?”

She scooped up a portion on a tortilla chip and said, “Just like mother used to make. Even better.”

The music and conversation was interrupted occasionally by the whirring blender mixing margaritas, a not unpleasant sound to a borderline alcoholic like Mario Villalobos. He was starting to glow.

“Are you being nice to me so I’ll help you with your investigation?” she asked.

“Cops’re like basketball players,” he said. “We peak early and then we drop like a sandbag. I’m being nice because I don’t have much time left. And I love white teeth and an overbite.”

She chuckled and said, “Do you have kids?”

“Two,” he said. “I know a cop named Ludwig with eyes as big as yours. But his’re yellow and yours’re chocolate.”

“Yellow? He must look like an animal.”

“He does,” Mario Villalobos said, and he was getting more than a glow. “Alfonso!” he called to the waiter. “One more margarita. The big one!”

“Do your kids live with you?”

“They live with my ex,” he said. “My first ex. My second ex wasn’t around that long, lucky for her.”

“What’s it like having sons?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “One of them ignores me. The other hates me.”

“Hates you?”

“Yeah, I give him a target. That way he doesn’t hate himself. How about another margarita?”

“You’re a curious person.”

“Whadda you expect from a counterfeit Mexican?” the detective said, and he was getting bagged in a hurry. “How do you like the huge American flag at York and Figueroa? Patriots, us Mexicans. No wonder we win so many Medals of Honor.”

“Okay,” she said. “Tell me about your Hispanic name and how you came to be a counterfeit Mexican.”

“First, there’s absolutely no chance of my making a move on you, is there?”

“Not tonight,” she grinned. “I’m going straight home to my daughter.”

“In that case I may as well get wrecked and tell you how I became a counterfeit Mexican. It’s a boring story but it’s all I got. I can tell you one thing: everybody dumps on poor beaners. Even on counterfeit beaners …”

***

Jane Wayne came to Leery’s from a beauty parlor appointment after work. She looked startlingly new-wave when she stalked into the bar in leather pants, boots, cleavage for days, and a steel-banged hairdo that shocked the crap out of everybody but The
Bad Czech. He said she looked sweet and cute and adorable, even if she did sort of resemble Adolf Hitler.

She played some heavy-metal rock on the jukebox and the two of them got up on the dance floor and started doing some play-punk which involved make-believe slams. It ended in an erotic slow dance that got everyone except Leery and Ludwig aroused, and excepting Dilford, who was just happy that his teeth stopped chattering and his body temperature got back up to 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

The only thing that almost ruined the evening was that The Gooned-out Vice Cop showed up. He wasn’t wearing a headband or thong this time. His long sandy hair was parted in the middle and hung softly around his rather delicate face. He wore an old army shirt and faded jeans and hiking boots, and he went straight to his favorite barstool.

Before he took his first drink of Leery’s bar whiskey, he looked strangely at Dilford, and Dilford thought he knew. But he couldn’t have known. Dilford had by now stopped shivering and Dolly was no longer warming his hands with hers.

Dilford got nervous when The Gooned-out Vice Cop looked at him. Dilford suddenly made an unsolicited statement. He said, “The suicide rate is terrifying these days.”

Dolly followed with a non sequitur of her own. She said, “Homicide is one of the leading causes of death of children in America.”

Jane Wayne, who had returned to the bar with The Bad Czech, said, “When parents start killing their children, it’s the most unnatural thing imaginable.”

“Kiddy porn, child murder, suicide,” Cecil Higgins said, looking up from the bottom of his glass. “Maybe it’s the end a the world.”

The odd thing was that they were not so much looking at each other when they made these uncharacteristic, unsolicited remarks. They were looking at The Gooned-out Vice Cop, who was looking at nothing but his own bifurcated image in the broken shards of pub mirror. His face was green from the neon, and his mirror image resembled a Cubist portrait. His eyes were like bullet holes.

The Gooned-out Vice Cop had two shots of bar whiskey, never grimaced when he downed them, paid Leery, and left without comment.

As usual, he walked on cat feet, like a vice cop. And he seemed to float through the smoke and gloom out onto Sunset Boulevard.

When he was gone, The Bad Czech said, “I think that vice cop is gooned-out on PCP. A duster is what I think.”

“Really?” Dolly said. “I was thinking he’s more the free-base type.”

“Uppers, is what I think,” Jane Wayne said.

“It’s coke,” Dilford said. “Internal Affairs is gonna nail him one a these days.”

“Naw, he’s a hardballer,” Cecil Higgins said. “That’s what speed and Mexican brown does to ya. A hardballer.”

Never one to discourage any paying customer, Leery said, “Long as he pays his tab, he don’t bother me.”

“I don’t like cops havin zoned-out eyes,” Cecil Higgins said.

“He looks like the freaks on our beat,” The Bad Czech said. “Maybe he ain’t real. Next time he comes in let’s make Ludwig bite him. See if he’s real.”

Jane Wayne, with her new steel bangs and evening makeup didn’t look quite real herself when she said ambiguously, “It’s the most unnatural thing imaginable.” Then she said, “Well, if it’s the end of the world, let’s have another dance, Czech.”

After a few more drinks no one thought about the end of the world or The Gooned-out Vice Cop, and everyone got back to normal.

Chapter E
leven
BRAVE NEW WORLD

Because of
M
ario
V
illalobos, The Bad Czech and Hans were in the detective squadroom the next morning, dressed not in their uniforms but in civilian clothes. Hans wore a blue leisure suit and a pink nylon shirt with a pastel necktie. The Bad Czech wore a sportcoat that looked like something that should go over an animal at Santa Anita, and was about the right size for it. His necktie ended halfway to his belt, so lengthy was his massive torso. They were all dressed up and on loan to Mario Villalobos. It made them really cranky.

“I’m no freaking detective, for chrissake,” The Bad Czech griped to the black detective lieutenant who was trying to figure what would happen if the Dodgers beat San Diego and Atlanta got knocked off by Chicago.

“Whaddaya think, I asked for this?” Hans said in his whiny singsong voice which was driving The Bad Czech goofy this early in the day.

“It’s enough I gotta listen to ya at Leery’s when I got a drink and can cope” The Bad Czech said to the skinny K-9 cop.

“I got Ludwig all locked up in the yard at home. He misses me. You think I like this?”

“Just try to make the best of it,” the detective lieutenant said, deciding that if Fernando could stop them one more time and
Garvey could start to hit, the Dodgers might get their shit together yet.

Mario Villalobos, who was off getting the work of Chip Muirfield and Melody Rogers sorted out for the next few days, strolled into the squadroom drinking a cup of coffee. After his early date with Lupe Luna he had, unbelievably enough, gone straight home and listened to Cole Porter’s “Just One of Those Things,” which he had actually taken to be a happy song when he first heard it as a youth. He was not hungover and was not as weary as usual. But he could see that The House of Misery victims were not feeling good about things.

“Look,” he said, anticipating the gripes. “We’ll go up there to Caltech and just look at some photos of the faculty. And then . .

“Mario, I didn’t get a good look at the guy!” The Bad Czech complained. “He jist walked by on the sidewalk, is all.”

“I hardly noticed him,” Hans whined. “You think I look at every guy walks by? Gimme a break, Mario.”

“Here’s my problem,” Mario Villalobos said, lighting his eighth cigarette of the morning. “The guy at the Wonderland Hotel described him as a tall guy in a pinstripe suit with black hair and a black moustache.”

“So?” The Bad Czech said.

“So the whore said she thought the moustache was phony, and maybe the hair was too. Except he wore a hat.”

“So?” Hans said.

“Both the whore and hotel clerk see this tall dude, probably with a phony moustache. Maybe with a wig. You’re better witnesses.”

“How do ya know that?” The Bad Czech demanded. “He had the same moustache when I saw him.”

“And horn-rim glasses,” Hans added.

“And black hair,” The Bad Czech said. “I don’t know if it was a wig or what. Whaddaya mean, better witnesses?”

“You both said he wasn’t as tall as the whore and the clerk thought he was,” Mario Villalobos said. “You both thought he was in his fifties. They thought he was much younger.”

“Maybe it’s a different guy,” Hans said.

“I know it’s the same guy,” Mario Villalobos said. “I can sense it.”

“Sense it!” Hans whined. “Who you think you are, Ludwig? And that reminds me, I was supposed to give Ludwig a bath today. How would you like it if nobody ever gave you a bath?”

“Listen to this shit!” The Bad Czech groaned. “On top a everything else, I gotta put up with this noodle-neck doggie cop all day. Gimme a break, Mario!”

Finally the lieutenant put down his sports page, unable to solve the problems of the National League with all this bitching going on. “Fellas,” he said, “the bottom line is that two policemen should be a sight more reliable than a street whore we can’t even find and a hotel clerk who drinks a fifth a day.”

The Bad Czech almost asked the lieutenant how the hell much he thought Hans drinks, but he could see it was no use.

He looked at Hans and thought, he had to trade Cecil Higgins for this?

Hans looked at The Bad Czech and thought, he had to trade Ludwig for this?

Mario Villalobos pulled out the American Express card and said, “If it weren’t for you finding this, we wouldn’t have a single clue in our clues closet, Czech. If anything comes outa this, I’m gonna ask the lieutenant here to write a nice ‘attaboy’ for your personnel package.”

“I can’t wait” The Bad Czech grumbled. Then he said, “That reminds me, on the way to Caltech let’s stop by the Pusan Gardens. They got my American Express card in their lost-and-found drawer.”

“Hope nobody used it to buy won ton,” Mario Villalobos said as he got his reports together. Then he looked at the dead private eye’s credit card for a moment and said, “I wonder why this card didn’t work for Missy and Dagmar? The American Express people didn’t know Lester Beemer was dead, and he kept his bill paid.”

“Mine always works,” The Bad Czech shrugged.

“This couldn’t be a forged card, could it?” Mario Villalobos wondered. “When we pick up your card, I wanna compare the two of them closely.”

“What’s the credit card got to do with murder, for chrissake?” The Bad Czech asked.

“I don’t know what anything’s got to do with anything,”

Mario Villalobos said. “I’ve told you guys everything I know.”

“This is just a goddamn fishing expedition,” Hans whined. “Ludwig should be getting groomed today. I hope Ludwig don’t get ringworm or something.”

“I hate mysteries,” The Bad Czech complained. “This case is gettin as complicated as this doggie cop’s fetishes.”

Mario Villalobos and Hans waited in the detective car while The Bad Czech went into the Pusan Gardens to collect his American Express card. When he returned to the car, Mario Villalobos had Lester Beemer’s card in his hand. He examined them side by side.

“That’s a legit card,” The Bad Czech said. “Looks jist like mine.”

“The same,” Hans agreed, leaning over the front seat of the car.

“Damn,” The Bad Czech groaned. “You smell like Ludwig. Sit back, will ya?”

“The Korean B-girl said Missy complained about the card not working, remember, Czech?” Mario Villalobos noted. “Yeah, so what?”

“It didn’t work when Dagmar and Missy used it on Restaurant Row either.”

“Mario, we gonna screw around all day?” Hans whined. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Okay,” Mario Villalobos said. “Lemme just make one stop. I wanna take this to a bank and have them run it through in a normal transaction and see if it’s an ordinary legit card.”

And while both Hans and The Bad Czech moaned about Mario Villalobos, and detectives in general, they stopped at a downtown bank on their way to the Pasadena Freeway.

The bank officer returned with the credit card and said to Mario Villalobos, “Sergeant, there’s no information on this card. That’s the problem.”

“Whadda you mean, no information? Is it a forged card?”

“No, it’s a proper card,” the man said. “But the magnetic stripe doesn’t contain any information.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s been erased. I don’t know how. I’ve heard that a magnet can do it.”

“A magnet can wipe out the information on the magnetic stripe? Like the magnetometer at an airport terminal?”

“No, I’ve carried mine lots of times in airports. A strong magnet can do it, that’s all I know. Why don’t you use our phone and talk to someone who knows more about it?”

The Bad Czech and Hans both turned their persecuted faces to Mario Villalobos when he returned after thirty minutes.

“If we had Ludwig, we’da sent him looking,” Hans said.

“A strong magnetic field can erase the information on these cards,” Mario Villalobos said. “That’s why it didn’t work for Missy and Dagmar!”

“So, what’s that mean?” The Bad Czech asked.

“Mean? Nothing, yet.”

“It’s amazing the irrelevant things that make detectives so happy,” Hans said.

The K-9 cop looked unhappily out the car window at the downtown pedestrians dodging and careening into one another. An army of blinded worker-ants sweating in the smog.

Mario Villalobos wisely decided to buy Hans and The Bad Czech something to eat before going to Caltech, so they wouldn’t be quite so difficult. The Bad Czech insisted on Chicken McNuggets, so they stopped at McDonald’s and he ate four orders of them, and had two chocolate shakes and three bags of fries. So that he could cope with the afternoon.

They went straight to Lupe Luna’s office and found her working away on a typewriter, looking even better than Mario Villalobos remembered her from last night. He thought that if he were a real Mexican, he might have beautiful hair and teeth and skin like Lupe Luna.

“Hi,” she said brightly when the detective walked in with The Bad Czech and Hans. “Thanks for dinner last night. It was great.”

The Bad Czech and Hans gave each other a look that said, Is this why we’re here? To give old Mario a crack at a foxy secretary?

And then Mario Villalobos almost panicked when he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to include one detail when he briefed the cops as to the nature of their “work” as restaurant employees. He’d never told them what kind of employees they supposedly were.

He never got the chance. When he introduced them to Lupe Luna as “Czech” and “Hans,” Lupe Luna said, “Which is the waiter and which is the busboy?”

In that Hans thought quicker, he said, “I’m the waiter.”

And when The Bad Czech caught on, his demented gray eyes started to bulge and pulsate. Mario Villalobos prayed that he wouldn’t scream something like, “I gotta play like I’m a fuckin busboy?”

But Lupe Luna said, “Let’s get started. It’ll take you a while to look at all the pictures.”

Mario Villalobos offered a placating glance at the monster cop, who was glaring murderously at Hans because the K-9 cop started giggling. He was the waiter and The Bad Czech was the busboy!

They reminded Mario Villalobos of typical witnesses looking through police department mug books. At the start, witnesses have some interest and diligence. Very quickly diligence wanes and confusion reigns. Then they give the photos a perfunctory glance and realize that they must see the person in the flesh if they’re even to have a chance.

At four o’clock that afternoon, Mario Villalobos said, “Enough. There’s no point looking at them again.”

“I just have six maybes,” Hans sighed.

“I jist have four maybes,” The Bad Czech sighed.

“Lemme go talk to Lupe for a minute,” Mario Villalobos said. The Bad Czech rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, stretching the fabric on his
double-knit
pants with a pair of thighs the size of Hans’ waist.

When the detective returned he was grinning. “Lupe’s taking us to their bar. We’re gonna get some drinks, compliments of her boss.”

“Aw right!” The Bad Czech said.

“A couple drinks helps me recognize people,” Hans said.

“Let’s not take advantage,” Mario Villalobos warned. “Her boss is gon
n
a get our bill.”

As it turned out, the afternoon’s bar tab wasn’t as high as it once was when Lupe Luna’s boss hosted a cocktail party for thirty in the Caltech dining room. But it was close.

The Caltech Athenaeum was one of the older buildings. It was built in 1929, just before the crash, during the golden age of California architecture. An age of tile roofs, Moorish arches, Corinthian columns and vaulted gold-leaf ceilings. Lupe Luna took them on a tour of the building, past an elegant dining room into an enormous sitting room.

The Bad Czech said, “Primo! You could play basketball in here!”

Hans walked on the Oriental carpet and said, “That rug’s big enough for a hundred ayatollahs to roll around on!”

“What a fireplace!” The Bad Czech said. “It’s big enough to roast Ludwig in.”

“Look at the patina on that walnut paneling,” the detective said. “They don’t make things like this anymore.”

“I never saw a busboy so big,”. Lupe Luna said suspiciously to Mario Villalobos.

The detective hushed her and whispered, “He’s sensitive about it. He used to be a waiter and got demoted for dropping dishes.”

She looked as though she didn’t believe that either. They passed back through the lobby to the Hayman Lounge. It was a restful cocktail lounge with upholstered chairs and a bartender in black tie.

“This is where donors and trustees drink,” Lupe Luna explained. “The students and faculty prefer it downstairs.”

“Let’s go downstairs,” Mario Villalobos said.

The downstairs Athenaeum bar was in a basement lined with sturdy, unpretentious wooden tables and chairs. The floor was thinly carpeted and the basement walls were painted concrete. But the bar, even without the upstairs luxury, had a pub quality which Hans and The Bad Czech were comfortable with.

Mario Villalobos liked it here because it was obviously the kind of “neighborhood” saloon in which people talked. And as all detectives knew, talk was finally what solved crimes, “scientific” detection serving only as public relations sop. He just hoped he could pay attention to business, what with Lupe Luna distracting him.

The students had decorated the walls of the bar with allusions to current events. A chalkboard posed a question: “Should 40,000 Falkland penguins be guaranteed political asylum?”

Another offered an answer: “Only if they wear ‘Save the Whale’ stickers epoxied to their flippers.”

The dress of scientists, be they student or professor, seemed to range from careless to grungy. There was a slim, attractive woman tending bar and she was just opening for the evening. The Bad Czech took one look at her and made himself right at home on the first stool by the door.