Chapter 12

It was completely dark out by the time he got to the Xalaxy building on a frontage road close to the freeway. Despite the ten foot muddy colored brick sound wall, Henry could hear the trucks and cars going by heading south and back in the direction of his beloved Palm Springs. Henry thought there were too many people in this part of California. If someone had told him that he was in the middle of Los Angeles, he’d of believed them.

He parked across the street from the building with a canvas banner on it that said Xalaxy in front of a similar looking building that just had “Building C” painted on the side. The entire frontage road was full of similar buildings, all concrete wall tilt up construction, and he was convinced these would all fall down like stacked cards in the next big Northern California earthquake. He was surprised at how many cars were still in the Xalaxy parking lot.

Henry spotted at least two of the Mercedes SUV’s similar to what Wayne said Anchula drove. He sat there and watched the building for about thirty minutes and every once in a while, someone would walk out and get into their car and drive away. Right after a tall woman carrying a briefcase walked out and climbed into one of the Mercedes SUV’s, Henry decided not to wait any longer and got out of his car and walked across the street.

The front door was unlocked and Henry walked right in and stood just inside the door. The building was filled with cubicles and didn’t look that much different from Rosie’s office. Except here there were inflatable pool toy animals hung from the ceiling, Christmas lights strung in an arch over an aisle way, he could hear at least three different stereos playing various kinds of music, there was the clattering noise from what sounded like a pinball machine from the back of the space and a rhythmic droning that sounded suspiciously like a dribbling basketball. What was obviously the reception desk right in front of him had a telephone and laptop computer with a slide show going with pictures of a small child and a large fluffy white cat.

Henry walked through the maze of little hallways orienting himself on the pool toys and Christmas lights so that he wouldn’t get lost as he had at Rosie’s office. Hmmm, why did he keep thinking about her? Once he arranged a hotel room for himself, he was determined that he was going to call her to ask her out for Saturday night. Maybe she’d enjoy a movie, he was probably too forward when he asked her during lunch the other day. Or should he ask her over to the house so that he could throw something on the grill for the two of them. That sounded better, he hoped she would come over, it was much easier to talk at home than during a movie and he did like talking with her. He could ask Charles to go visit one of his many friends and stay away.

He kept looking at the little name tags on the cubicle walls and saw a lot of names that he couldn’t pronounce but not Anchula’s.There was a glass door to what looked like a conference room that had a bunch of people in it looking studiously at what a short heavy set guy with long black hair tied in a ponytail was writing on a white board. Henry opened the door and poked his head in; “I’m looking for Amit Anchula; can any of you help me find him?”

The long haired man that was standing in front of the white board looked at him with wide eyes, threw the marker that he had been using at Henry and leaped for the other door in the conference room that headed directly outside. Henry left the general commotion of the others in the room behind as he took off after what was obviously Anchula running through the door. He pushed past the people in the room and went through the door just a few seconds behind Anchula. He was outside now in a little courtyard that had a bunch of chairs and a low wall surrounding it. Anchula was climbing over the wall but he was not as fast as his pursuer and Henry caught up to him just as he jumped down on the other side and started running across the lawn. Henry leapt at him, caught him around the mid-section and tumbled on the grass holding onto Anchula.

“Goddamn man, get the hell off of me. What the fuck do you want from me anyway?” Anchula was breathing hard and swearing worse. “Why are you running?” Henry was sitting on top of the sturdy man and reached inside his jacket for his handcuffs. “Well, shit don’t shoot me for chrissakes.” Anchula obviously mistook Henry reaching for his cuffs as him reaching for a weapon. “Put your hands behind your back, I’m going to cuff you.” Henry pulled the cuffs out and showed them to Anchula. “Did they send you all the way from fucking Palm Springs to pick me up and bring me back? Ouch, shithead, you’re hurting me!” Henry put the cuffs on Anchula’s wrists and patted him down for weapons. The only thing he found were Anchula’s wallet and keys which he put in his own jacket pocket. “Quit your complaining and answer my question, why are you running?” Henry stood Anchula upright as a lot of his coworkers were yelling at them across the low wall. “I’ll be all right you guys, go back to work. I’ll be back in an hour.” Anchula yelled at them, at which they went back inside the conference room.

“Let’s go over to my car and talk, I still want to know why you started running.” Henry led Anchula around the side of the building and back across the street to his car. He opened up the rear passenger door and helped Anchula inside. It was obvious that Henry had helped a lot of suspects into the backs of cars, and Anchula went in without any trouble. Henry flipped the small child safety lock on the back door to prevent Anchula from getting out before climbing into the front passenger seat of the Taurus. He turned around and looked at Anchula, raised an eyebrow and said “Well?”

“Look asshole, I got scared ok. I thought you were someone else, who the fuck are you anyway?” Anchula had settled down somewhat, Henry figured he probably always talked like that. “You’re partially right, I am from Palm Springs. My name is Henry Wright and I’m on assignment to the Palm Springs Police Department, I want to talk to you about the murder of Rex Thornbird.” Henry explained. “So you’re not with the goddamn Immigration Service?” Anchula seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Immigration? No, of course not. Whatever gave you that idea?” Henry was puzzled. “And the Palm Springs fucking Police didn’t send you up here to get me deported?” Anchula looked questioningly at Henry. “Is that why you started running, you’re afraid of getting deported?” Henry asked. “Yeah, long fucking story. So you want to know about the fucking real estate guy’s body in the goddamn house, right?” Anchula asked.

“Yes, I want to know about the body. I want to know everything that you know. And at some point I want to know why you’re worried about being deported as well. I have all night.” Henry looked straight at him. “Oh fuck whatever. You gotta know that I didn’t do it. I’m actually glad to get this whole fucking thing off my chest, it’s been hanging over me since it happened. Not here though, let’s go someplace, I’ll buy you dinner and I’ll tell you the whole fucking bit. But you have to take these goddamn cuffs off.” Anchula leaned forward to take his weight off his handcuffed hands.

“Ok, for some stupid reason I believe you. I’ll take the handcuffs off at the restaurant. I don’t want you taking off again – besides, you know I can catch you.” “Shit, ok man, whatever. As long as you’re not with Immigration, I got no fucking reason to run.” Anchula settled back in the seat.

Henry slid over to the driver’s seat and started the car. He went east for a few blocks and Anchula gave him directions to a combination beer brewery and restaurant near downtown Mountain View. Henry parked the car in a gravel lot behind the restaurant and helped Anchula out of the car. He unlocked the cuffs put them in the pocket of his jacket and handed Anchula his wallet. “If you’re going to pay for dinner, you’ll need this, but I’m going to keep your keys so that you can’t take off on me.” “Yeah, thanks.” Anchula stuck the wallet back into his pants and rubbed his wrists where the cuffs had been. “We can go in the back way.” He walked to a hidden door between some outdoor tables and umbrellas. They walked past the brew house part of the restaurant up to the hostess stand.

“Hey Amit, what’s happening?” A young kid at the stand greeted them. “Dude, how’s it hanging? A table near the windows, ok?” Anchula said. “Sure man, right this way.” The kid picked up a couple of menus and led them to a table for two next to a window at the front of the restaurant. “This is fine, thanks.” Anchula waved the kid away and sat down, he motioned with his head at the departing youngster. “That kid is a decent programmer, he worked at a startup I was involved with, they went broke, now he works here. Tough fucking break.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Let’s hear your story.” Henry picked up the menu. “Oh shit man, I was in that empty house and that dead guy scared the piss out of me.” Anchula started fiddling with the silverware that was rolled up in a napkin. “I just wanted to fucking talk to him and he’s laying there in the largest goddamn blood puddle I’ve ever seen.” “Let’s take this from the top.” Henry said. “We should start with what brought you to Palm Springs, how you met Rex Thornbird and why you’re worried about being deported.” “Ok, ok, I’ll tell you the whole damn thing.” Anchula put the silverware down.

“I came over to this country nine years ago to go to Stanford. I had a student visa that was good for five years. I got a B.S. in software engineering at Stanford and four years ago I went to work for a small startup company. We worked our asses off, and about a year and a half ago, the company went public. We all got a shitload of money.”

“Do you need a little more time, or can I get you started with one of our homebrews?” A waiter interrupted Anchula’s story. “Do you drink beer Henry? They make a good pale ale here.” Anchula looked over at Henry. “That’s fine.” “Two pale ales, we’ll let you know when were ready to order.” Anchula told the waiter. “Where was I?” He asked Henry. “You got a boatload of money when your company went public.” Henry reminded him.

“Boatload, oh yeah. Well, we all had a lot of cash, and some of us took some time off work. Like I took a fucking year off and traveled around the Southwest, I originally wanted to go home to see my parents, but I couldn’t leave the country.” Anchula continued as the waiter set their beers down in front of them. “You see, my goddamn student visa expired, the startup wouldn’t sponsor me since they didn’t have the money at that time, once I had the money myself I didn’t have the time to deal with the attorneys, so I’m kind of here illegally. ”

“So basically you’re an illegal alien.” Henry took a sip of his beer. “You’re right, this is good.” “Not basically, I am an illegal alien; the Immigration guys can deport me without as much as a fucking hearing. Anyway, one of the places I traveled to during my time off was goddamn Palm Springs. That time I fell in love with the place, now I wish I’d never stopped there. When I found out that a lot of movie stars had vacationed there, I decided to buy a movie star house. I remember Bette Davis from the movies I went to when I was a kid at home, so when Rex Thornbird told me that he had her home for sale, I fucking snapped it up. I was shocked at what a shithole she had lived in but I figured hey, she’s a fucking movie star and they’re eccentric, right?” “Yeah, I suppose so.” Henry answered.

“So anyway, I decide to take a job at Xalaxy at about the same time I decide to spruce up this shithole house. So I hire this asshole, know nothing contractor with two first names who can’t read a drawing to save his ass.” “Howard James?” Henry interrupted. “Yeah, that’s right. James. Anyway, I hired him and I came back up here to see if I can get another IPO under my belt.” “IPO, Initial Public Offering?” Henry interrupted again. “Yeah, when you take a fucking company public and get shitloads of money for all the goombahs who have been working their asses off for nothing. Are you hungry?” Anchula asked.

Henry looked at his watch, it was eight thirty. “Yes, I think I’ll have the fish and chips. I know what an IPO is, I never looked at it that way though.” “I said I was buying, you can have fucking steak,” Anchula waved at the waiter who came over right away. “Two steak dinners, make mine rare, his is?” “Medium.” Henry answered. “And an extra side of French fries.” Anchula told the waiter who was writing as he walked off towards the kitchen.

“So after I hired this James guy, he told me that he worked on Bette Davis’ real goddamn house while she lived there sometime during the sixties. So I figured Thornbird snookered me for some fucking cash and I wanted to talk to him about it. Anyway, he didn’t call me back and I figured I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.” Anchula stopped talking long enough to take a sip of his beer.

“So anyway, last week I flew down to Palm Springs to check on this James asshole and wouldn’t you know it, I’m driving back from downtown towards my house and I saw Rex Thornbird’s car parked on the street in front of one of the houses he had for sale.” “Go on, what did you do?” Henry encouraged Anchula. “Well, I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, tell him I was on to his little scam, so I parked behind his car, the front door of the house was open so I walked in to talk with him.” Anchula shook at the memory. “That son-of-a-bitch was lying face down in the biggest fucking puddle of blood that I have ever seen. I was grossed out and scared. I figured if I called the cops, they would find out that I’m an illegal and would deport me.”

The waiter arrived with their steaks and the extra basket of French fries. He set them on the table and walked off without a word. “I ran out of the house and came back up here a day earlier than I had planned hoping that you guys would never find out that I was even there. When I saw you poke your head into the conference room, I knew that you were from Palm Springs, and I knew that you were going to deport my ass, and that’s why I ran.”

“How did you know I was from Palm Springs?” “Well, you look like a cop and the tan gave it away. Cops up here don’t have tans like you do.” Did you touch anything in the house?” Henry started cutting his steak. “Fuck no man, I watch that show on TV, you know those CSI guys can get fingerprints off a candle flame. My prints are on file with the Immigration guys.” Anchula started in on the French fries.

“Did you close the door on the way out?” Henry asked.“Well, not directly, no. I ran into it as I was running out, it bounced off the wall behind the door and it slammed shut behind me. It scared the shit out of me as I was running for my car. I thought the killer was still in the house and was coming after me.” Anchula cut off a big piece of his steak and started chewing on it. “I got the hell out of there.”

“What day was that?” Henry asked. “Day, day? Shit, I flew down on Wednesday, so this had to be Thursday morning.” Anchula answered. “You know, as odd as it sounds, I believe you.” Henry said putting his fork down. “Hey look man; I want to stay in this country. I don’t want to be deported, there’s no fucking way I’d kill a guy, even for the few grand that I overpaid for that little cracker box house there.” Anchula grabbed some more French fries, “Hey I got these to share you know.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that, but the steak is plenty for me.” Henry drank some more of his beer. “Amit, what are you worth?”

“Shit, I don’t know man. Ten maybe twenty?” Anchula shrugged. “Twenty million dollars?” Henry asked, pausing his fork midway between his plate and his mouth. “Yeah, something like that, north of that I think.” Anchula finished his beer.

“So why don’t you hire an Immigration attorney and get rid of this sword of Damocles hanging over your head? The government likes immigrants with large bank accounts. You should be able to get a permanent visa based on your bank account alone. It’s not going to take you any more time than one phone call.” Henry put his steak into his mouth. “You think so? Will the government overlook the time that I was here without a visa?” This time it was Anchula who paused his fork midway between his plate and his mouth. “Yeah, you might have to pay a fine or something but I think you should definitely make a couple of calls to attorneys who specialize in immigration law.” Henry said. “Wow man, if that is so, that is certainly worth the price of a fucking dinner!” Anchula raised his glass to salute Henry.“Money talks!” Henry raised his glass to Anchula’s.