“You better come on in.”
Stallings went in and found himself back in the early 1960s. On the floor was a Stonehenge cotton shag rug in shades of white, red, brown and black that was a duplicate of one Stallings and his late wife had bought in 1961 at the Hecht Company in Washington, D.C.
There was also a tweedy couch on chrome legs and a wing-back chair upholstered in a nubby green fabric. The coffee table was of oiled teak and its smaller cousin, a side table, was placed next to the green chair. Scandinavian modern thirty years later, Stallings thought as he sat down uninvited in the wingback chair.
The young woman on the tweedy couch wore a plain black T-shirt and black jeans. She sat, her knees pressed together and clutching a balled-up handkerchief. She had a pretty oval face despite her swollen eyes, a too-pink nose and no makeup of any kind. Stallings guessed she was 23 or 24. She stared at him, sniffed and asked, “You knew Carlos?”
Stallings handed her a business card. She read it carefully, then looked at him and said, “He didn’t tell me he’d joined anything.”
“He only joined last month, around the first of the year.”
Voodoo, Ltd. —119
“And you came by to say you’re sorry he’s dead. That’s nice. I thank you.”
“I also came to tell you about the death benefits,” Stallings said and shot a go-away look at the still-hovering Helen from next door.
Helen said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes, hon.”
After she left, Stallings took out the certified check, rose and presented it with some formality to Rosa Alicia Chavez.
“Two thousand?” she said with disbelief.
Stallings shook his head regretfully, sat back down and said, “I’m sorry it’s so little, but he was a member for such a short time.”
“So much,” she said.
“I know this is difficult, Miss Chavez, but one of the main reasons for the limo drivers association is to look after each other and stop terrible things like this from happening.”
She nodded, again studying the check. “You wanta ask me some questions, right?”
“If it won’t upset you too much.”
She looked up. “I can tell you what I already told the cops.”
“That’d be fine.”
Rosa Alicia Chavez talked for nearly five minutes about the Lincoln Town Car she had seen speeding away from Carlos’s house. She gave its year of manufacture, its color, its probable Blue Book value and its license number. She then talked about the man she called “el chino grande,” and also the other one, who she said was real tall and dark and mean-looking. She described how they had rushed out of Carlos’s house, sped off in the Lincoln and what she would like to do to them—
especially el chino grande. Stallings took notes.
After she finally ran down, he said, “Did Carlos recendy mention any strange or difficult clients?”
She shook her head. “Just the ingleses.”
“The English?”
She nodded with an expression that was a curious mixture of revulsion and fascination. “A man and a woman who tell Carlos they are Mr. and Mrs. But he tells me they look like twins.”
“You mean brother and sister?”
“Yes, brother and sister,” she said, shuddering slightly.
“Did he mention their names?”
“No, he just says he drives them to a place in Topanga Canyon and then goes back and gets them maybe a week later and drives ‘em someplace else.”
“He say where?”
“To a motel.”
“In L.A.?”
Voodoo, Ltd. —120
“In Oxnard.”
“Did he say which one?”
She studied the check again, then looked up and said, “All he tells me is they’re locos and he drives ‘em to Oxnard, a motel there. You think maybe these locos are mixed up with the big Chinese and the tall guy with the real dark tan?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible, of course.”
“So if I don’t tell you what motel Carlos took ‘em to, you’re gonna take back the check, right?”
“No.”
She waved the check a little, almost admonishing Stallings with it.
“Look. If this is some kinda trick or joke, I don’t think I can stand it.”
“It’s no trick or joke and you have our deepest sympathy,” Stallings said and rose.
She looked up at him and said with great formality, “I thank you for coming and for the money. You’re a very nice man. Can I offer you something to drink—some coffee maybe?”
He smiled. “Thank you, no.”
“Can I ask one more question?”
“Of course.”
“How long were you a limo driver?”
“Over thirty years.”
She nodded gravely and said, “I thought it must be something like that.”
Voodoo, Ltd. —121
Twenty-five
It took Otherguy Overby less than half an hour to win nearly $500 at the draw poker club in Gardena. He won by playing what he thought of as “sullen style”—never speaking other than to say “three cards” or
“fold” or “raise ten” or “call.” He also kept looking over his left shoulder.
The player to his right was a fiftyish woman with a 30-year-old body and a face that too much sun had baked into a filigree of fine lines.
She wore a blue tank top and a Dodgers baseball cap with the bill turned sideways to the left. After Overby looked over his shoulder for what could have been the sixteenth time, she said, “You expecting reinforcements?”
“A guy’s supposed to meet me here.”
“Way you’re squirming around, he must owe you a bundle.”
“I’m looking to pay, not collect—if he ever shows up.”
The woman lowered her voice and leaned toward Overby. “If you’re really hurting, I can give you a number.”
Overby scowled at her. “I look like a doper?”
“Who mentioned dope? But come to think of it you do look like every narc I ever saw.”
Overby made his scowl go away. “I buy home videos.”
They played two more hands before the woman asked, “Home videos of what?”
“Of people doing things they shouldn’t.”
“You mean sex stuff?”
Overby glared at her again. “What’s with you, lady? First I’m a doper. Then I’m a narc. And now you’ve got me in the porn business.”
She leaned closer to him and whispered, “What about a video of a couple trying to drown their four-month-old baby?”
Overby’s glare changed into a speculative gaze. “You want a cup of coffee?”
“Sure,” the woman said and gathered up her chips.
She said her name was Cheyne Grace. She spelled Cheyne and told Overby it was pronounced like Shane, the old movie, or Shayne, the old detective.
“What old detective?” Overby asked.
Voodoo, Ltd. —122
“Michael Shayne, private eye. What’s his name, Lloyd Nolan, used to play him in pictures.”
Overby stirred his coffee for almost fifteen seconds, looked over his left shoulder and said, “Tell me about the baby-drowning video.”
“This guy I know says he knows somebody who saw it.”
“Maybe I oughta talk to him—this guy you know.”
“I’m sort of his agent.”
“Sort of?”
“Okay, I’m his agent. You wanta talk to him, you talk to me first.”
Overby nodded, looked over his shoulder again, leaned toward the woman, lowered his voice and said, “Okay. Here’s how it works. I represent a guy I’ll call Mr. Z—okay? Mr. Z is outta London—in England—and he’s putting together a TV show for worldwide syndication. It won’t need any actors and hardly any voice-over because everything’ll explain itself. That’s because it’ll all be home videos of real shock stuff.”