Everything was Jodi, even the business about not telling me the whole story. Putting the blame on her.
When Markowitz was finished weaseling to Beldon Stone, he looked back at me. “Rebenack was threatening to sell the stuff to the tabloids. Hey, all the guy wanted was thirty grand and thirty grand’s nothing to keep the lid on something like this, so we paid him. Everybody agreed.” He glanced at Beldon Stone like he expected Stone to chime in with how much he agreed, but Stone was silent. Markowitz said, “I don’t see what you’re so pissed about, Cole. We were paying this guy, and we wanted to find out if what he had was really real.”
Really real.
“We didn’t wanna stir the water, so we didn’t hip you to the whole deal. So sue us. We wanted you to go into this with a fresh eye. That makes sense, doesn’t it? We wanted to see if you’d get to the same place as the goof with the hair. If he had bupkis, you didn’t need to know. If it was emmis, then you’d confirm it and we’d know it’s real. Okay, it’s real. We know what we wanted to know and you got paid. Whattaya makin’ a case for?”
“The goof with the hair was found murdered two days ago. He was probably murdered because I was in something that I should’ve known about but didn’t.”
Sid Markowitz rolled his eyes. “Oh, a fuckin’ blackmailer was murdered! What a loss!”
I grabbed Sid Markowitz and pushed him against the table and the woman in the short skirt made ee-ee noises and the younger guy tripped over himself trying to get out of the way. Markowitz tried to back away from me, but there was no place to go. “Lemme go! Lemme go! There’s witnesses here!”
Everything seemed to slow and grow silent. My eyes felt large and dry, and my shoulders felt swollen. The woman in the short skirt kept making the noises, and I pressed Markowitz back into the table, but once he was there I didn’t know what to do with him, as if he was suddenly beside the point. Jodi Taylor said, “I’m sorry we lied to you. I didn’t know what else to do and I’m sorry.”
I let go of Markowitz and stepped away from him. I was breathing hard and blinking, but my eyes still felt dry. I said, “Maybe it hasn’t dawned, genius, but when an extortionist turns up dead, they always suspect the extortee.”
Markowitz said, “Hey, we didn’t even know!”
Beldon Stone had not moved. I guess people at his level grab each other all the time. He said, “The gentleman who was extorting Ms. Taylor is dead?”
“Yes.”
“And his documents?”
“I have them.”
He nodded. “And what do you want?”
“I don’t know.” My head began to ache, and that made me even more angry. I thought I had known why I was coming back, but now I didn’t. Maybe I was expecting to find some great evil, but instead there was only a frightened woman and the greedy men around her.
Beldon Stone settled onto the couch beside Jodi Taylor and patted her leg. Reassuring. Fatherly. He reached into his jacket and came out with a slender cigar, looked at it for a moment, then ran it beneath his nose. He neither put it in his mouth nor lit it, but the smell seemed to comfort him. “I realize you’re upset, Mr. Cole, but would you do me the courtesy of telling me if Mr. Rebenack’s assertions were correct?”
“Yes.”
“And how do you know this?”
I blinked at him.
He made a small gesture with the cigar. “You were paid for your services, were you not?”
Sid Markowitz said, “Goddamn right he was. Three grand.”
Stone made the gesture again. “Then please tell these people what you found.”
I didn’t give them all of it, but I gave them enough. I told them about finding the woman who I believed to be Jodi Taylor’s birth mother, and I told them about Leon Williams. As I told it, Jodi Taylor watched me as if she were peering out from a cave. When I finished, she said, “You found my birth mother?”
“Yes.”
Stone patted her knee again. He was larger and older, and his touch cut her off. He said, “And no one else knows these things, or suspects?”
“The man responsible for Rebenack’s death probably knows, but he’s not interested in Jodi Taylor. He probably killed Rebenack because this business with the blackmail put some other crime he’s got going in jeopardy.”
Jodi Taylor peered out from the cave again. “Crime involving my birth mother?”
Beldon Stone patted her knee again, again cutting her off. There, there, little girl. “The important thing is that the information is contained.” As if he couldn’t care less what Jodi Taylor was feeling or what she wanted to know.
I said, “Are you people crazy? Who cares if Leon Williams was Jodi Taylor’s father?”
Beldon Stone looked at me with great empathy. “Well, certainly none of us, Mr. Cole. But perhaps not everyone is as generous as we.”
The younger guy said, “Songbird’s a solid hit. We’re looking at a five-year run and a potential back-end profit exceeding two hundred million dollars.”
Sid Markowitz nodded. “Fuckin’ A.”
Stone said, “Jodi Taylor has been given a gift that many dream of but few are granted. She’s a star.” He patted her knee again, and she stared at the floor. “Our audience sees her every week, mother to four adorable blond children, wife to a blond Nordic husband. Would that audience accept a person of color in the role?”
“Jesus Christ, Stone.”
“Our series has built its popularity on traditional family values. Our advertisers pay for that popularity and expect us to protect it. We have enemies, Mr. Cole. Every left-wing, ultraliberal reviewer and special interest group has taken shots at this series since the beginning. They make fun of us. They criticize us. They condemn us for portraying a white, middle-class nuclear family in a fragmented multicultural world. Wouldn’t they love to learn that our star is not only part African-American, but illegitimate?”
Jodi Taylor sat with her head down, as if she were shrinking away from what he was saying, as if she could just make herself small enough the words would pass by and be gone and her life would continue on its way.
Stone said, “I regret that you were brought into this matter, Mr. Cole, but considering the way things have worked out, I think some sort of bonus is in order.”
“I didn’t come sucking around for a payoff.”
Stone raised an eyebrow. “No?”
“I have information pertaining to a homicide, and by withholding that information I am violating the law. I don’t like that.”
Sid Markowitz said, “Jesus Christ, Cole, I’m sorry Rebenack died and I’m sorry you feel bad about it. You want an apology? I apologize. The guy was put-tin’ it to us, all right? He was trying to ruin Jodi Taylor. Who’d Jodi Taylor ever hurt? Huh? Answer me that?”
“Tuck in your shirt, Markowitz. Your ten percent is showing.”
Beldon Stone smiled the fatherly smile at me. “It seems that everyone is sorry, Mr. Cole. I am certainly sorry that you were brought into this, and I am also sorry that a man has died, even a man such as Mr. Rebenack.”
“Sure.”
He patted Jodi again. “But now it appears the ball is in your court. If you wish to go to the police, I suppose you can do that.” The pat again. “We didn’t want Jodi hurt.” Leaving it on me, saying do what you do and bring it down on Jodi Taylor. Elvis Cole, Bad Guy. My head was splitting, and it felt like a couple of steel rods had been jammed into my neck.
I said, “Fuck you.”
Beldon Stone smiled and stood. It was over, and he knew it. I knew it, too. He paused at the door to the motor home and fixed the hawk eyes on Sid Markowitz. The warm, fatherly expression was gone. “I’m disappointed that you went behind my back, Sid. We’ll have to speak about this again.”
Sid Markowitz looked as if he’d just received a positive biopsy. “You gotta understand, Bel. Hey, we hadda know.”
Beldon Stone stayed with the killer eyes another moment, and then he left, the younger guy and even younger woman afte
r him.
It was quiet in the motor home except for the air conditioner and the generator and the sound of Jodi Taylor crying. They were small sounds, pained and somehow distant.
Sid Markowitz brightened, coming up with the big idea. “Hey, how ‘bout that bonus? You came through. You’re playin’ it straight. We’ll give you a fat bonus. You deserve it.”
I said, “Sid?”
“Yeah, a bonus. We’ll treat ya right. Whaddaya say?”
I shook my head and then I walked out. If I had stayed any longer, I was afraid that I’d kill him.
It was twenty minutes after six when I left the General-Everett lot, picked up my car from the Shell station, and drove to the Lucky Market on Sunset. The traffic was heavy, with plenty of horn-blowing and fist-shaking, but I drove without a sense of personal involvement, as if I were somehow apart from the world around me. I parked in the Lucky’s lot, went inside, and selected two baking potatoes, green onions, a very nice Porterhouse steak, and three six-packs of Falstaff beer. Nothing like a well-balanced meal after a hard day at the office.
I pushed my cart to the registers and stood in line behind an overweight woman with a cart filled with Dr Pepper, chicken parts, and jumbo family packs of Frosted Flakes and Cocoa Puffs. The Cocoa Puffs were open, and the woman was eating them dry. She would reach into the box and pluck out a handful and put them into her mouth and then repeat the process. The woman stared blankly into a huge display of Purina Dog Chow, and the process seemed without conscious thought or direction. Automatic eating. A little girl maybe two years old stood in the cart surrounded by the Frosted Flakes and the Cocoa Puffs, bouncing up and down and going ga-ga-ga-ga. The overweight woman ignored her. Maybe that’s what I needed to do. Ignore what went on around me. Maybe I could become Elvis Cole, Zen Detective, and let the ugly realities of life flow around me without affect, like water passing over a stone. A client hires you under false pretenses? No problem! Withholding evidence from the police during a homicide investigation? No big deal! A guy gets zapped because you shoot off your mouth? Those are the breaks! The road to inner peace through Cocoa Puffs was sounding pretty good. Of course, you probably had to eat Cocoa Puffs to achieve this state of grace, and I didn’t know if I was up to that.
When I got closer to the cashier there was a little four-pocket TV Guide rack above the Certs and the chewing gum, and Jodi Taylor was staring at me from the covers. She was sitting on one of the Songbird kitchen stools, surrounded by the guy who played her husband and the four kids who played her children, and everyone was smiling. The slug line on the top of the picture said “America’s Favorite Family.” Funny. I had just left Jodi Taylor, and she had looked small and frightened and nauseous. Amazing how pictures lie, isn’t it? The overweight woman was already gone, else I would’ve asked to try the Cocoa Puffs.
I drove home and let myself into the kitchen. It was just before eight and the house was quiet. I opened a Falstaff, put the others in the refrigerator, and left the meat and the potatoes and the onions on the counter. I brought my suitcase upstairs, put the dirty things in the hamper and the clean things away, and then I changed out of the travel and client clothes and into something more suitable for a gentleman of leisure: sweatpants and a Bullwinkle T-shirt. No maiden to save, no dragon to slay, no client to serve. There would also be no money coming in, but what’s that to a tough guy like me? Maybe Pike and I would go river kayaking in Colorado. Maybe we’d run with the bulls in Pamplona. Why not? When you’re between jobs, you can do things like that.
Halfway through the sorting and changing I discovered that most of the Falstaff was gone. Leaky can. I went back downstairs, opened another Falstaff, then got KLSX on the radio for Jim Ladd, the best disc jockey in the universe. Jim was playing George Thoro-good. What could be better than that? I went out onto the deck and stoked the Weber. The sun was down and the air was cool and smelling of mint and honeysuckle. George finished, and Jim put on Mick Jagger singing about his lack of satisfaction. I layered mes-quite charcoal into the kettle, splashed on the starter fluid (EPA approved), and fired up. The flames rose tall and orange and a wave of heat rolled over me, and in that moment of warmth I wondered what Lucy Chenier was doing. I had more of the Falstaff and thought that it might be pretty nice if Lucy were out here on the deck with me. Maybe we’d spent the day at Disneyland, and now we were back and feeling good about it. We’d be a little bit sunburned and a little bit tired, but Lucy would be smiling. She’d stand at the rail and think the view was fine, only she’d find the desert nights chilly and I’d put my arms around her to ward off the cold. I had the rest of the Falstaff. Funny. Thought I’d just opened the can.
I washed the potatoes, slit the tops, and wrapped them in foil. I put them in the oven at five hundred degrees. They were small and wouldn’t take long. I took the steak out of its package, stabbed it with a fork a zillion times on each side, then sprinkled it with pepper and garlic powder and soy sauce. I washed the green onions, chopped them, then mixed them with a container of non-fat yogurt. Everything was ready to cook. Your basic fast meal. Of course, since I was unemployed, fast wasn’t a requirement. A nine-course Julia Child extravaganza would have been appropriate. Goose in aspic, perhaps. Or oyster-stuffed quail in chili poblano sauce. Maybe Pike and I should head down to Cabo San Lucas and go after billfish. Our friend Ellen Lang might like to go. So might my friend, Cindy, the beauty-supplies distributor. I opened another Falstaff.
The cat came in while I was thinking about it, and hopped up onto the counter the way he does when he’s hoping I won’t notice. You could see his nostrils working, smelling the steak. I said, “Bet you missed me, huh?”
He made a little cat nod.
I carved a piece of steak, then put the cat and the steak on the floor. He sniffed once, then went to work on the meat. I said, “I missed you.”
I was sitting on my kitchen floor, drinking beer and petting the cat when the doorbell rang, and there was Jodi Taylor. She was wearing a gray sweatshirt over jeans, and no makeup. Her hands were in her pockets, and she looked closed and pensive, not unlike she had in the motor home. Awkward. I said, “Well, well. The TV star.” It was only my fourth beer, wasn’t it?
She said, “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Why should I mind? It beats getting lied to.” Maybe my fifth. I held up a hand, shook my head, and stepped back. “Forgive me for saying that. I’m feeling sorry for myself, and I’ve been drinking. It’s a boy thing.”
She nodded.
“Please come in.” I showed her in, only moderately embarrassed by the Falstaff and the Bullwinkle shirt. “Have you eaten?”
She kept her hands in her pockets. “I’m not hungry. I feel bad about what happened and I wanted to talk about it.”
“Okay. I was just about to put a steak on the grill. Do you mind talking while I eat?”
She said of course not and followed me to the kitchen. “Oh. You have a cat.”
The cat looked up from his piece of steak, lowered his ears, and growled. “Don’t try to pet him. He doesn’t care for people and he bites.”
She moved away. The cat stopped growling and went back to work on the meat. I said, “Would you care for a drink?”
“That might be nice. Do you have scotch?”
“I do.” I put ice in a short glass, then dug around for the Knockando.
“Do you live here alone?”
“Yep. Except for this cat.”
“You’re not married?”
“No.”
She looked around at my home. “This is very nice.” Like she wanted to talk but didn’t know how to begin.
I held out the glass and she took her hands from her pockets to accept it. I went back into the kitchen, opened the oven, and squeezed the potatoes. They were soft. I put them on a wooden trivet on the counter, then removed the little bowl of yogurt and green onions from the fridge. I brought the steak and the steak tongs outside to the grill. Jodi Taylor watched me do these things and followed m
e out onto the deck without speaking. Her face was creased and intent and I hoped that she wasn’t thinking me a drunk. She said, “I love the way barbecues smell. Don’t you?”
She held the glass with both hands, and I saw that the glass was already empty. Nope. She wouldn’t be thinking me a drunk. I brought out the bottle of Knockando, refreshed her drink, then put the bottle on the deck rail. “Your mission this evening, Ms. Taylor, is the care and handling of this bottle. You are to replenish your drink at your discretion without asking for my permission or awaiting my action in same. Is this clear?”
She giggled. “I can do that.”
I smiled back at her. “Fine.”
I put the steak on the grill. The coals were a fierce, uniform red, and the meat seared nicely with a smell not unlike the hamburgers we’d cooked at Lucy Chenier’s. Put her out of your head, Elvis.
Jodi said, “I’m sorry about what happened.”
“Forget it.”
“I want to apologize.”
“Accepted, but forget it. It’s over. It’s time to move on.” Would Lucy like Cabo? Stop that!
The canyon was quiet except for a couple of coyotes beyond the ridge. Below us, a single car eased along the road, its headlights sweeping a path in the darkness. The sky was clear and black, and the summer triangle was prominent. Jodi said, “This isn’t easy for me.”
I turned the steak and prodded it with the tongs so the fat would flame on the coals.
“My dad died in 1985. My mom died two years after that. They were everything to me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I know who my mom and dad were. My dad was Steve Taylor. My mom was Cecilia Taylor. Do you see?”
“Yes.”
“I loved them more than anything. I still do.”
Something dark flicked by overhead. An owl gliding along the ridge. Jodi Taylor had more of the scotch and stared at the flames licking the meat. “There are things about Louisiana I want to ask.” Her voice was soft, and her eyes never left the flames.