“Whatever it is you guys are trying to do. I’ll help by getting the old man off your backs.”
I could see Nelson internally deliberate the offer. He was trying to determine if this was a trick. Over-selling the offer would only increase his suspicion that it was a trap, so I decided to pull back a bit in order to enhance its legitimacy.
“I don’t even want to hear the plan. I assume it’s a horrible one,” I said with disgust. “But I’ll do what I can. Probably won’t be successful but I will try.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Help us.”
“You look like you could use it.”
After some shuffling of feet and more pouting, I got him to agree on a place and time to meet later that night. I tried to get him to bring us to Jeanette but he wouldn’t go for it.
“I have to talk to her first,” he explained. “You guys show up with me…she wouldn’t forgive me if I did that.”
I didn’t have much choice but to trust him.
“Okay,” I agreed and proffered my hand and shook the dead fish he offered back. “Come on, kid, first thing you have to do is tighten up that shake.”
I left a smiling Nelson to finish packing and walked back to the car where Hector waited by the driver’s door. He looked past me as if expecting to see Nelson in tow.
“We’re going to meet him tonight at a Rally’s out in the Valley,” I explained. Off his quizzical look, “He’s going to bring Jeanette with him.”
Hector said nothing but he didn’t have to. I could hear the doubt in his silence.
“He’ll bring her,” I said.
***
He didn’t bring her. He didn’t even bring himself.
We wasted four hours driving out to Sunland and sitting in a Rally’s parking lot waiting for Nelson and Jeanette to show. But they never did. Just as we were about to call it a night, Hector’s phone buzzed.
“Is it her?” I asked.
“No,” he said and studied the number. “It’s Valenti.”
We both sensed what was about to happen next. I observed Hector answer and casually look away to some random spot across the parking lot as he listened to the old man. It was a short conversation.
“He wants to meet us at the club,” he said.
Hector said nothing on the drive. Perhaps it was my imagination, but he started to resemble the Hector I knew when we first started out on this work. He was morphing back into his old role before my eyes. Or, I was projecting my feelings onto him because I knew at the end of this drive I was going to be fired.
I knew the termination walk very well. I had walked it too many times with associates not to recognize that feeling of a distinct distance growing around me. The banter, if there was any, was small talk of a different sort than the kind engaged around the coffee machine or in the elevator. There, you talked of the weather and last night’s game to non-sports fans. Here, you made hollow observations on anything at all just so you wouldn’t have to listen to the silence.
“Be nice once they open up another lane on the 110 interchange,” I said, but Hector never acknowledged me.
I desperately wanted to crawl into the back seat for the remainder of the ride.
DEAD MAN WALKING
We pulled into the loop under the Coverdale Building and parked under the canopied entrance, a completely unnecessary design as the building above already shielded us from the rain and sun. Rows of exposed light bulbs lit up the space like a Broadway theater.
Inside, I was led to the antiquated dining room and pointed to a table in the corner where Valenti sat. The tuxedoed fellow who was helping me eyed my coatless frame and quietly brought over the house’s blue blazer with shiny, gold buttons. I slipped it on and made the long walk across the burgundy carpet. I slowed as I reached the table and took the coat off. I was growing tired of being told what to do.
Valenti started to dress me down before I even sat down. I held out my hand to stop him.
“No more speeches,” I said. “Not today.”
I looked around for the waiter. Valenti wasn’t going to offer me anything and I was damn determined to get a free cocktail out of the deal before being dismissed. I tried to think of one of the expensive, aged scotches but none of the names immediately came to mind so I ordered a gin instead. A double.
“What happened in 1963?” I asked after a long pull on the glass.
“That’s not what we are here to discuss.”
“Yes, it is. You pushed me in that direction.” I gestured to the area by the entrance. “You insisted that I work closely with Hector. You insisted that I talk to Gao—”
“Jimmy,” he corrected with his usual smirk.
“What actually happened that day?”
I didn’t expect him to answer, and he obliged.
I was coming to the uneasy conclusion that I was being played the entire time. All along it wasn’t about his granddaughter but it was about the museum and Gao and getting what he wanted. Jeanette might just have been a pawn in the whole thing.
“Was Hector covering up for you? Or did you cover up for Hector to gain his loyalty? Whatever this feud was between you and Li, I imagine it manifested itself in some sort of proxy war among the people down a few levels. At least you paid Hector back with some lifetime employment driving you around. I guess that was a fair bargain. The other guy didn’t fare so well.”
Valenti stared at me with no emotion.
“And now it’s all come full circle with the younger Li,” I said, being deliberately vague with the details. He took the bait.
“How do you mean?”
“Just what I said. He’s involved. And maybe trying to exact a little payback.”
I decided to leave it at that. If I was going to be dismissed, there was no reason to give him any information I had discovered. Hector would probably fill him in later anyway.
Valenti was intrigued by the developments I alluded to. I wanted to pretend that didn’t mean anything to me but it did. In a strange way I felt all along like I needed to impress this man, or the money that elevated this man to such a stature. Sometimes we look for validation wherever we can get it.
“Why’d you hire me in the first place? Look, I am my own biggest fan, but if I wanted this task done, and done right, I would have hired a real private investigator or gone to the police.”
“Ironically, you were hired for the same reason you’re being dismissed — indiscretion.”
He slid over a printout from a local gossip blog.
“You know I didn’t place that article,” I said. “But you’re pissed off or scared or humiliated or whatever it is and you’re going to relieve yourself as you have all your life — on someone else. So if it makes you feel better, have your speech about indiscretion. At least let me order another drink.”
I pointed to my glass, and the attentive waiter hurried off to bring a refresher.
“By the way,” I said when the waiter returned. “She had the baby. That’s probably what the forty thousand was for — to pay for the right to have her baby in some crummy building in Alhambra with a bunch of strangers.”
“What?” he whispered.
“Trust me that you wouldn’t want to see this place. Ten to a room, not exactly sanitary. Hector can fill you in,” I told him, somewhat uncomfortable with the cruelty of the words coming out of my mouth. “Maybe because she didn’t know where else a fourteen-year-old with no support can go to have a baby. Or maybe the family didn’t want her to have that baby. You would know why, not me.”
“I’ll make your life a living hell,” he hissed and white spittle formed on his lip.
“Too late,” I replied. “Now that I give it some thought, I think you knew about the baby the whole time. At least at the very end before she went ‘missing’. You conveniently left out those little details,” I reminded, “so before you give me another speech about indiscretion or whatever, look within, pal, look within.”