“Two-seven May of this year. That’s all it shows.”
May 27. The day before Dorian Munz was executed.
“Anything else I can do for you today, Logan? Take a bullet for your sorry ass? Lose my pension?”
“Thanks, buddy. The Three Tenors are in the mail.”
“Yeah, right. And if you believe that…”
Buzz grunted and signed off.
Janet Bollinger resided in a tired, two-story four-plex at Calla Avenue and Florida Street. The place was less than a mile from the beach, but about a million miles from anything about which the Beach Boys ever waxed poetic. Steel security grates covered the doors and windows. Black asphalt covered the grounds. Plenty of off-street parking and not a single flower in sight. A home on the downside of life’s bell curve. I checked the bank of tarnished brass mailbox slots bolted to the front wall. The mailbox marked “B” had a slip of paper Scotch-taped to it. Printed in a woman’s careful hand it said, “J. Bollinger.”
Apartment B was on the first floor, on the east side of the building. I rapped on the door. There was no answer.
On the second floor landing directly above Bollinger’s apartment, a chubby, brown-skinned dude in his mid-twenties leaned with his forearms on the wrought-iron railing. He was shirtless and in boxer shorts, smoking a doobie. His underwear was blue and was adorned with little yellow San Diego Charger lightning bolts. A likeness of the Virgin, her hands outstretched, was inked across his flabby gut and man boobs. A tat that said “Esmeralda” in cursive script took up much of the left side of his neck. He eyed me with unbridled disdain.
“How do you think the Chargers’ll do this season?” I asked with my most disarming smile.
He shifted his gaze dismissively, sucking in some weed, and stared out at the ocean.
“I’m looking for the lady who lives downstairs.”
“Wouldn’t know nothin’ about it.”
“You haven’t seen her around today, have you?”
Silence.
“I’m not a cop, homeboy.”
“Like I said, wouldn’t know nothin’ about it.”
“Well, what do you know?”
He turned his head and spit, like it was meant for me, then looked back out at the ocean.
“Guess what? I know something.”
He looked back down at me. “Yeah? Whadda you know?”
“I know that the Buddha never claimed to be a god, which has to make you wonder: is Buddhism a philosophy or a religion, because every other major religion entails some essential form of theism, right? But not Buddhism, which many scholars consider non-theistic or even atheistic. Your thoughts?”
“Mierde.”
“What’s your name, homeboy?”
He glared down at me. “Pinche marica come mierda.”
Making friends wherever I go.
I climbed into the Escalade and went to find some coffee. I’d wait for Janet Bollinger to come home.
There was a McDonald’s on Palm Avenue a few blocks away. I ordered a small cup and took my time swilling it. It tasted like something that could’ve leaked out of the Exxon Valdez. I didn’t care. Coffee’s coffee. Anything else brewed from a bean is overpriced pretense.
I called Mrs. Schmulowitz to check on Kiddiot. He remained a no-show.
“He’s probably got a girlfriend out there somewhere,” Mrs. Schmulowitz said. “Don’t think I don’t know how all you tom-cats are, bubby. That kitty of yours, he reminds me of Irving, my third husband. Could be he’s Irving’s reanimation.”
“I think you mean ‘reincarnation,’ Mrs. Schmulowitz.”
“Carnation, animation, whatever. I’m telling you, to look at him, you would’ve sworn Irving had brain damage—‘The Schmo,’ my father called him. But lock the bedroom door and, oy, the man was a Hebrew Mount Vesuvius. The bimbos went after him like flies at a picnic. They never bothered me much, though. He’d get tired of the floozies after a couple days and come slinking back to me, just like your kitty’s gonna do.”
Mrs. Schmulowitz said she’d gone to the market and was already cooking the brisket she was confident would lure Kiddiot home. She promised to call as soon as he turned up.
“Gotta run, Bubeleh. I’m off to the doctor. We’re discussing post-op procedures. When this is all done, I’ll have the tummy of a thirteen-year-old Nubian princess. Who knows? Maybe I’ll finally get bat mitzvahed.”
“Give ’em hell, Mrs. Schmulowitz.”
Two fork-tailed fighter jets streaked overhead, F/A-18 Hornets climbing in trail out of the Navy’s air station at North Island. Somebody once said that piloting a combat aircraft at high speed is like having sex in the middle of a car crash — dangerous, a total rush, and when it’s over, it’s over fast. They forgot to mention that once you’ve flown combat aircraft, nothing else compares. The Hornets banked north in a sweeping right turn and headed out to sea. I was watching them wistfully when my phone rang.
“Just checking to make sure you made it to San Diego OK.”
“If I hadn’t made it, Savannah, your call would have gone to voice mail, would it not?”
“You don’t have voice mail, Logan.”
She was correct. One more thing I couldn’t figure out on my phone.
“You made it down in one piece, though?”
“I wasn’t involved in any midair collisions, if that’s what you mean.”
“Why are you being so obnoxious to me?”
“Why do you think?”
“Logan, Arlo’s gone — and my relationship with him began dying long before he did. I feel like I’m ready to move on with my life. I’m hoping you are, too.”
“His dying didn’t wipe the slate clean, Savannah. Walking out of a marriage isn’t some computer game. You don’t reboot and start over.”
“I understand that.”
“No, Savannah. I don’t think you do.”
I’m not sure I understood, either. If a man is lucky, he meets that one woman in his life and is forever transformed. She becomes all he thinks about, even when she’s no longer his. It’s like a favorite song you love and come to hate because you can’t get it out of your head. I wanted Savannah out of my head. And, at the same time, that was the last thing I wanted.
“In any case,” she said, “I have a surprise.”
“I hate surprises.”
“I’m aware of that, Logan. But maybe you’ll like this one.”
“Fire away.”
“I’d like to come down to San Diego, to stay with you for awhile, see how it goes.”
“I thought you wanted to go to neutral corners.”
“I did. I thought about it, and now I’d like to try again. We don’t have to go to SeaWorld if you don’t want to. I admit, I was being…”
“Petulant?”
Her tone took a sharp turn. “If you don’t want me to come down, Logan, just say so.”
I took awhile to answer, my heart thumping in my ears, a thousand disparate thoughts swirling inside my head. But even as I ruminated, I knew what I planned to say.
“I want you to come down.”
“You sure?”
“I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t.”
“Good, because I already bought a ticket.”
She said she was catching an 8:30 P.M. train out of Los Angeles’ Union Station, scheduled to arrive in San Diego at 11:15. I suggested she bring along plenty to read, considering that Amtrak in Southern California runs on time about as often as the Dodgers win the World Series.
“Can’t wait,” she said.
“Makes two of us.”
The dinner hour was approaching by the time I returned to Janet Bollinger’s apartment building. I parked up the street and walked back, not wanting to arouse the attention of her pot-smoking, gangbanging neighbor for fear he might set off alarm bells, but he was gone. An older, dark green Nissan Sentra with a dented back bumper that had a faded Castle Robotics parking permit on it took up the space directly in front of Bollinger’s unit. I could see diffuse light behind the angled mini-blinds covering the front window. She’d come home. I knocked.