Orange County Noir Read online

  I still had no idea what he was getting at, but I figured, I'll try to get this gun and if he kills me, that's cool. Maybe this is where I die. Everything slowed down. My blood felt like roofing tar. All I saw was that gun and the hands that held it and everything else went away. I figured if I was going to let this fucker shoot me, well, so what? I just didn't care.

  That's when I jumped into his chest, head down. I slammed him over the side bar of the dying man's bed and started punching his sides. I know I hit Rick, but I also hit the bed rails, and I hit IV tubes, and I punched the dying man's chest, and one landed hideously on his ventilator tube. Rick clawed at my back. I felt that he had both hands on my back, which meant he didn't have the gun. I smelled piss from the catheter bag spilling to the hardwood floor, and a moment later Rick and I were sloshing in it, the dying man's bed rolling off sideways like a drifting luxury liner, me still punching at Rick's guts, because that's where you hurt a man. Idiots punch heads. I'm not tough, but I know that much. I kneed him in the balls repeatedly until he was making sounds like a little kid and spit bubbled slowly from his mouth. I did it hard enough for my knee and thigh to start hurting.

  By the time Doc pulled me off of him, I think I was ready to kill the guy. I never saw that coming. I was willing to let him kill me, but I hadn't anticipated the savage rush I was still feeling. I was briefly sickened by the notion that my father, in all his animal brutality, would have been, for once, proud of me. I felt like puking in a corner.

  Doc held the gun and Sandra busily tried to reattach the tubes and wires I had ripped out of her patient, whose machines, I now noticed, were all going faster and louder than before. I didn't know if the guy was worse off, or if I was just in some adrenaline-fueled space where noises were louder. Rick was at my feet clutching his balls in a puddle of the dying man's piss. I was drenched from the piss, from the tub, and from sweat, which flowed out of me like my pores had tripled in size.

  Doc said, "Sandra, we're going to take what we came for."

  She nodded. "What about Rick?"

  "We could call the cops after we leave," I suggested.

  Sandra shook her head. "If he talks, cops are going to start asking me questions." She paused. "And then they'll talk to you.

  We should kill him, I thought. This is not a thread to leave loose. My father would have killed him.

  I said, "Maybe you don't know its as well as you really do. When Rick wakes up, you tell him we're strangers."

  Doc turned to me. "He'll come looking for us."

  I said what I was thinking: "It's that or we kill him. And the biggest idiot cop on the planet would connect the dots to its in one interview with her." This was when it occurred to me that if we killed Rick, we'd have to kill Sandra. But that would still leave way too much connective tissue from its to this scene. And I couldn't believe I was even thinking about it. I at least had enough sense to pull back. Rick rolled around semiconscious on the floor. Doc kicked him in the thigh. Then again.

  "Fucker." Doc shook his head. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

  I got my bag. Doc put the gun in his pants and started to collect more of the patches and pills from Sandra, who I'm guessing already had the money, or else she was too scared to ask about it.

  Regardless, I went out the side door I'd noticed earlier. Doc followed me. I walked by the recycling and garbage cans and out the side yard gate. The driveway had a newer Lincoln next to Doc's car. Rick's car, I logged, in case I ever saw it again. I stopped, glanced left, away from the dead end and toward 17th Street, my hair still wet and the sun warming me as I peered down the street and then walked toward Doc's car, trying hard to look like what I was. A man stepping into the passenger side of a car on a beautiful day.

  We got in. Doc took a deep breath and then another and had both hands on the wheel without starting the car. He lit a cigarette and said, "Dude, you were a fucking hero in there."

  I didn't look in his eyes. Lawn sprinklers whirled on at the neighbor's house. He fired the ignition and we pulled out of the driveway, away from the Lincoln I hoped to never seen again in my life.

  Doc said it again. "Dude, you are fucking heroic."

  And this time, just to shut him up, just so I'd never have to hear it again, I said, "Yeah."

  ae was Hank's daughter. She had it and she flaunted it, and though some of it was starting to sag, when you're on the downside of your sixties and living in Leisure World, you can let stuff like that pass.

  So when Hank suggested walking to the pier, and that Rae-who'd been staying with him for a month or so-would pick its up and have lunch with its and drive its back, I couldn't say no. Sheila was still my world, but a guy can have fantasies. So I told Hank yes and we met at the giant metal globe out by the guard gate and crossed to the other side of Seal Beach Boulevard, by the Naval Weapons Station. We figured they were up to something diabolical over there, like in that movie The Mist that Hank got on Netflix, where the military types open a rift to another dimension and giant insects show up and eat everyone. We thought it would be fun watching three-foot dragonflies chasing down the ladies from the quilting club.

  Someone coming the other way might've thought we were brothers. It was more than just the old-white-haired-man thing. Our faces were the same shape and our eyes the same watery blue and our mustaches were like caterpillars from the same batch. Every once in a while we'd catch someone looking. I'd never had a brother, and it was kind of fun having at least a pretend one.

  Maybe a quarter mile along some moron had taped a cam paign sign to the fence that kept the riffraff out of the naval base and the overgrown cockroaches in. The senatorial election propaganda had started showing up lately, on bumpers and stuck in lawns and stapled to light poles. I planned on voting for Roger Elliot. He wasn't much of anything, but his heart seemed in the right place.

  The other guy, Tim Swift, was a right-wing maniac better suited for a turn-of-the-century hanging judgeship than the U.S. Senate. Which was how he'd gotten elected to Congress for eleven terms in Orange County. But I guessed it wasn't enough for him, because since he'd gotten himself nominated for senator, he'd ramped up the Neanderthal stuff. Truth be told, the guy scared me, especially after that reporter got roughed up. Swift was playing for keeps.

  The sign taped to the fence was his. A Real American, it said, like Roger Elliot was only playing one on TV. I muttered, "Goddamn politicians."

  Hank looked at the sign. Something started to come over his face, but he got hold of it before I could figure out what it was. I said, "What?" and he said it was nothing and that we should pick up the pace.

  Things were a little off the rest of the way down the boulevard and onto Electric Avenue, like I'd stepped over some line I didn't know about. But just before we hit Main Street he looked at me and said, "Sorry I got weird. Some shit I'm dealing with."

  I almost asked if it was about what had happened back in '92. Which he didn't know I knew about. Instead I said, "Want to talk about it?"

  "Nah. No big deal. Getting-old shit. If it ain't one thing it's another."

  "You can say that again."

  We turned the corner. More foot traffic there on Main. Lots of kids out of school for the summer, yelling and screaming and running around like wild Indians. Lots of young ladies with skimpy outfits. We dodged the kids and took in the view. Just a couple of old coots out for a walk.

  After a while we passed the Jack Haley Community Safety Building and stepped onto the pier. My back was hurting a little and my legs a lot, but I didn't mind. It seemed right. Pain I'd earned, as opposed to the gallbladder I was missing through no fault of my own.

  About a third of the way to the end we were suddenly surrounded by kids. Dozens of them, ranging from maybe eight to twelve, boys and girls, all wearing blue bathing suits. All shapes, all sizes, though a few of the girls were starting to develop and looked sort of out of place. There were a couple of adults mixed in, hollering instructions. The whole kit and caboodle swept by its and mo
ved on down the pier. Then they stopped, gathering round one of the adults, listening in varying degrees to what he had to say, and we caught up.

  One of the boys caught my eye. He was bigger than the rest. Taller than most, and fat. He had a big stomach and creases in his sides where the top half of his flab met the bottom. He was gingerly walking barefoot along the planks where all the other kids were scampering carefree. He had a little friend, a skinny kid, urging him along. "You're gonna have to," the friend said, and the chubby one shook his head. Poor kid. His parents signed him up for swim camp when he wanted nothing else than to sit in his room eating Fiddle Faddle.

  We moved on to where most of the fisherman were stationed. Then there were splashes behind its. The kids, bless their hearts, were climbing over the rail and jumping into the water. "Feet together, arms at your sides!" one of the adults yelled. They continued leaping, at least fifteen feet down into the depths, boys and girls, in ones and in twos, some slicing right in and some splashing. They'd pop up and shriek and bob in the water, and they'd look up for their buddies and urge them in.

  Over on the other side of the pier, the fat kid's friend was pulling on his arm.

  "Hey!" It was Hank.

  I turned back to him. "Yeah?"

  "Come on. Let's grab some coffee."

  There was a Ruby's at the end of the pier. Assembly-line Americana. We went in and came out a couple of minutes later with our coffees. Passed the fishermen again. Got to where the kids had gathered. Most had jumped, and were paddling in toward the shore. The stragglers were making a big show of leaping in, acting like they were about to and pulling back at the last minute.

  The fat kid was still there too. He'd been deserted by his little friend. One of the adults, a guy in his twenties, was eyeing him, like he knew he had to deal with him but was hoping he'd disappear first. Then he sighed and meandered over. "Chuck!"

  The kid looked around, like maybe there was another Chuck to take the heat. No luck. He turned to the grown-up. "I don't want to."

  "We went through this yesterday. You have to. Look, it's easy. All those little kids did it. All those girls did it. You're not going to let them show you up, are you?"

  "Nope."

  "Then get your big old butt over there and jump on in."

  Chuck took a step. Then another. Two more, and he was even with the counselor or lifeguard or whatever he was. He stopped and said, "Do I hafta?"

  "Yes, you-"

  "No, you don't," I said, inserting myself between Chuck and the grownup, whose name, according to his badge, was BILL JAMISON.

  "I'll handle this, sir," he said.

  "You've been handling it, and you're doing a miserable job of it."

  "Sir, please. We're trained in-"

  "Shaming kids into jumping way down into the ocean by saying the girls do it? That doesn't sound like very good training to me."

  Chuck detected a possible reprieve. He shuffled sideways toward the shore.

  "Chuck Pemberton, you stay put," Bill Jamison ordered. To me, "Look, they know they have to do this when they sign up. It's no big deal, really. All the kids do it." A sick little giggle. "I haven't lost one yet."

  "That supposed to be funny?"

  "Shit," Hank said. "I'm gonna call Rae. Get our asses out of here before you get its arrested."

  Bill Jamison had his hand on the whistle around his neck like he was going to call time-out. "Sir," he said, "these children are none of your business. And I don't think it's right for you to be hanging around like this."

  "Hanging around? Hanging around? Are you playing the child molester card?"

  "Well, I-Shit."

  Mission accomplished. Chuck was in full flight toward shore, his chunky frame bouncing along like a cartoon character. Bill Jamison tossed me a truly fine dirty look and took chase.

  I turned to Hank. "And that is a good day's work. Call Rae."

  We'd lived in Seal Beach before, around 1980, when Sheila's job at the bank took her to Orange County. We moved to Laguna when things got good, and then to Garden Grove when they got not so good. But she always talked about moving back to Seal Beach. Which was a fine ambition. Nice little beach town, clean air, tucked into the armpit-and I mean that in a good way-of Orange County.

  First time we lived there, I was friends with Ralph O'Brien. Who got mixed up with a girl half his age. I saved him from his wife finding out, and he owed me one. After we moved I'd still see him a few times a year, and when we came back it was a lot more than that. He'd gotten himself elected to the city council, which meant I learned a lot more than I needed to about Seal Beach politics. He was also still married to the wife, so I figured he was right about still owing me one.

  I called him and said it was time I collected. He said, "Anything," and I told him what I wanted. He said I was out of my fucking mind. Then he said if anyone ever found out where I'd gotten the address he'd cut my balls off. And that he'd call back within the hour. Ralph knew about Jody. Knew that was what was driving me.

  He called back as promised and half an hour later I was at a house on Balboa Drive. It had signs for Roger Elliot all over the place. Stuck in the lawn, in the front window, stapled to the mailbox post.

  I rang the bell and a man answered. He had what we used to call an Ivy League look, hair cut short, button-down shirt, khaki pants. He looked me over and said, "Yes?"

  "You Chuck's father?"

  "You from the swim camp?"

  "Not exactly."

  "Look, I already talked to him about it. He'll do as he's supposed to." Then he realized I was a little old to be from the swim camp and his eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"

  "I'm the guy who let your kid get away with not doing as he was supposed to."

  "What-"

  "Look, Mr. Pemberton, you don't know me from Adam, and I'm fine to keep it that way. But I've got something to say, and I'm going to say it, and if you care about your kid you'll listen. Don't make him do things he's scared to."

  "You'd better get out of here before I call the police."

  "I'll be gone before they get here. Now listen. The kid doesn't want to do something dangerous, something scary, don't make him."

  Some maniac was on his stoop, with no one else around. "Sure, sure," he said. "Whatever you say."

  "You don't sound like you mean it."

  "Who are you?"

  "A concerned neighbor. Remember. No scary stuff if he doesn't want to. No man stuff if he doesn't want to."

  I did a one-eighty and went down the walk and I heard the door close behind me. I was guessing he was still just inside it. Thinking about what I'd said. That was all I could ask for.

  Jody was eleven when he went to sleepaway camp. He didn't want to go. He said the woods and the animals scared him. But I thought it was time he learned to deal with his fears. Sheila wanted to let him stay home. I compromised. Said if he felt the same way after three days, I'd let him come home. It only took two for the bee to find him. We didn't know he was allergic to bee stings.

  Thirty years on, I'd never really gotten over it. Sheila'd done better, far as I could tell, and she kept me together for all those years I acted like a prick. Supported me when I couldn't keep a job.

  Eventually we bought the apartment in Mutual 14-they call it a co-op, but an apartment's all it is-and there we were, sixty-six apiece and in a retirement community, and I finally started to let it go. Being there with all those old folks, with my own mortality looming, I'd been able to put things into a little perspective. The thing with Chuck's father was my first episode since we'd been there.

  When I got home Sheila knew something had happened. She asked if I wanted her to stay home from her painting club. Leisure World had a wagonload of clubs. Dance clubs, hobby clubs, nationality clubs, religion clubs, about six dozen fucking clubs.

  I put on a happy face and said I'd be fine. She didn't believe me, but she knew not to push. So she went to her club.

  But I wasn't fine. I was eating myself up from in
side. Making myself sick. I went outside for some air. Before I knew it I'd wandered down the road to Hank's.

  He let me in and went for a couple of beers and when we were all arranged in the living room he said, "Something eating you?"

  Before I knew it I'd told him the whole Jody story. When I was done, I guess he felt obligated to reveal something to me. He said, "I've got something to tell you too."

  "I know," I replied.

  "Know what?"

  "What you're about to tell me."

  "Since when?"

  "First time I met you."

  "How?"

  "Because when you were in the news everyone told me I looked like you. So I had your face in my head. When I saw you-

  "No one here knows."

  "At Leisure World."

  He nodded. "Except Rae, of course."

  "No reason that should change. Hell, I doubt more than a few even heard of you. The timing. How'd you manage that?"

  "Pure dumb luck, I guess."

  The timeline of Terry Bouton's-that was Hank's real name-arrest and trial for killing Allison Lopez Bouton, his second wife, pretty much paralleled that of the cops who beat the shit out of Rodney King. The case against him was sloppy, and he got off. It would have caused a lot more of an uproar were it not for the timing. His verdict came in an hour after the cops', and there was no room on the news for Hank, not with L.A. in flames.

  Life and death were on my mind. "Did you do it?"

  He leaned back, leaned forward. Took a long pull on his beer.

  "Stupid question," I said. "Forget I asked."

  "It was an accident," he said.

  "Look, let's just let the last minute or so-"

  "I found her with another guy."

  "Hank-"

  "But when I busted in ... he was ... hell, my wife, for Christ's sake. I just ..."

  "Look, I-"

  "I nearly shot him too."

  "How come you didn't?"

  "Because the bastard jumped up and said neither one of its wanted people to find out what happened there that night. He said he knew a lot of lawyers. He said if I didn't bring him into it he'd be sure I got off."