In the dark cab, Gale feels Daniela’s eyes on him.
“Are you sizing up how Indian I look?”
“No. God, sorry. Yes.”
“Mom’s Indian and Dad has mostly Spanish blood. I’m the Native and the conquistador, rolled into one. That’s where I get my crazy good looks.”
Mendez thinks of Jesse. A Mexican-American mom and an Irish-American father.
A quick shudder passes through her as she thinks of what happened just hours ago.
The three Harleys make a flatulent exit, passing the oil pump on their way toward the beach. Fog rolls in.
“Ready, partner?” Gale asks.
“Not quite,” says Mendez. “How are we going to do this? Get him to talk to us?”
“Just a meet and greet for starters. The key here, Daniela, is not to really worry him.”
“Just make him think?”
“Let him cook,” says Gale. “And don’t name Amanda Cho. Go vague on her.”
“Let him cook. I like that. Vamos.”
Two bikers at the jammed bar turn and check them out. They look like distance runners, thin bodied, with inked, ropy arms and vests emblazoned with flaming crosses and the words
The bottom rocker says
They glance coolly at Gale, but one offers Daniela a beard-framed smile, and they give up their stools near the serving station.
“You look good enough to eat,” he says. “Jesus loves you and so do I.”
“I’m pure poison,” she says with a sharp little smile.
Gale notes the tables and booths, the kitchen behind a brick half wall in back, the hallway to the restrooms, the low roar of the patrons and the music on the jukebox.
He locks looks with one of the bartenders, filling a pitcher from the tap. He’s tall and wide. Clean-shaven, with short red hair. He’s got the look of menace that Amanda Cho described. Small eyes. Like Vernon Jeffs in his hairy jacket mugs.
The big man sets two full pitchers at the serving station, and a lean woman in a short leather skirt and a sleeveless Bear Cave T-shirt carts them away.
Presumed Jeffs turns to Gale, who shows his star briefly, then slips it away.
“We like cops,” he says, leaning close to cut through the din.
“We like bartenders, Mr. Jeffs.”
Who gives Gale a so-what look. “What’ll it be?”
“Draft Coronas with lime for the lady and me.”
He’s back a minute later with the beers, limes notched into the rims of the glasses.
“I’m Lew, and this is Daniela,” says Gale.
“So cough it up, then.”
“We’re working the murder of Bennet Tarlow.”
“Two little detectives for a big shot like him?”
“You know,” says Mendez. “It’s the size of the fight in the dog, and all that.”
“Cute,” says Jeffs. “You serve, Lew?”
“Three-five, Sangin.”
Jeffs nods. “Bosnia for me, then Congo.”
“Congo?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Got it,” says Gale. “Did you know Bennet Tarlow?”
“No. He came in here a couple times with some friends.”
“Ever been to his home in Newport?”
“Never. Wouldn’t know it if I saw it.”
“Must be some mix-up, then,” says Gale. “We’ve got a witness who said you were at Tarlow’s place last Thursday, the evening he died.”
“Nice bluff,” says Jeffs. “But you don’t have a witness. What you have is someone who saw a guy who looks like me. Or maybe has bad eyesight, or hallucinations.”
“He described you pretty well,” says Mendez.
“I don’t know where he was, lady, but Thursday evening I was with my wife. Right, Mindy?”
The skinny woman in the black leather skirt sets down two empty pitchers and Jeffs takes a handle in each hand, lowers them into the stainless sink.
“Right what,” she says.
“Me and you at home Thursday. Our day off. These cops think I was down in Newport Beach at some rich guy’s house.”
“Well, hell, Vern — let ’em think what they want.”
She gives Gale the once-over, Mendez a dismissive glance.
“The trouble with cops is there’s too many of you,” she says to Gale. “No one’s safe anymore. It’s a police state. We were both home Thursday last, watching TV.”
“Anything good on?” asks Mendez.
“Piss on you,” Mindy says and walks away.
Vern Jeffs shrugs. “I can’t remember. Probably Ozark, again. Like, it’s our fourth time through.”
The other bartender yells something at Jeffs.
“Sorry, Deputies, I got a job to do,” he says. “You want to talk again, charge me for whatever you think I did. I’ll have a lawyer with me.”
He’s back in five minutes.
“What do you need a lawyer for?” asks Mendez.
“’Cause I know you people think you’re tricky. You make shit up. I know that, because I was with my wife on Thursday and I didn’t know Tarlow.”
“We have a few more questions,” says Mendez.
“Arrest me.”
“You don’t want that,” says Gale. “You tell us the truth about that Thursday night, and we’ll be happy if it’s one big mistake.”
“You already know it was a big damned mistake. Fact, I might have to file a complaint against you. Harassment at my workplace. Drinking alcohol while on duty. Harassing my wife.”
“Speaking of alcohol,” says Gale. “A shot of Maker’s Mark?”
Daniela shakes her head.
By now the crowd has thinned out but Jeffs, Mindy, and the second bartender are still hopping.
Jeffs delivers the shot of Maker’s, then hustles off to the other side of the horseshoe bar.
A few minutes later he comes back, wiping his hands on a white towel.
“Your van was seen near the murder site the night Tarlow was killed,” Mendez says. “The rusty white Econoline, down by Hair Affairs right now. It was parked next to Tarlow’s new Suburban. They got it on the Caspers Park campground security camera, plates and all.”
Gale thinks the security camera lie is unnecessary and bad. Didn’t think to tell Mendez not to, but now wishes he had.
Vern smiles, and his tan, mountain-lion eyes glitter.
“Nice try,” he says. “They don’t have security cameras out there. I know ’cause me and Mindy and our club camp out at Caspers a lot.”
“The security cameras are new, and your van is on the video,” says Mendez. “Look, Mr. Jeffs, we think you were with Tarlow before he died. You probably had a perfectly good reason. You probably parted ways long before he was killed. We just want to know why you were there in the first place. Maybe some others were there, too. We need solid intel on Mr. Tarlow to find out who shot him. Can you make a few minutes for us tomorrow morning, downtown sheriff’s building in Santa Ana? Real informal. No lawyers. Mindy, too. Just to clear up some details? Give you a chance to sleep on things.”
“Better yet,” says Gale. “Give us a few more minutes tonight. After your shifts. Coffee’s on us.”
Jeffs sets another pair of beer pitchers into the big sink. Squeezes a plastic bottle of dish soap, runs the water.
“I got nothing to hide and I’m not talking to you. I wasn’t anywhere near Tarlow that night, or any other. Except for here, like I said. I don’t believe you got my van on video. That’s a bluff. Fuck you. Get out of my bar.”
“You and Tarlow walked past the Cottonwood Creek Campground bathrooms the night Tarlow was killed,” says Gale. “We have a witness to that. Tarlow died about fifty yards from there, later that night.”
“I read about the Laotian weed growers,” says Jeffs. “Talk to them. Not a one of them saw me because I wasn’t there.”