6
THE STUDIO HAD RENTED a house in Wellesley for Jeremy
Franklin Nelson and staff after the death of Dawn Lopata. The house
had a swimming pool and tennis courts, and when I arrived with Rita
Fiore, Nelson was sitting in the atrium, looking at the courts and
the pool, and having a late breakfast. A Filipino man in a white
jacket was serving, and a large Native American with long hair was
sitting in a wicker chair in the corner of the atrium, reading the
Los Angeles Times. There was a carafe
and a coffee cup on the side table next to him.
Jumbo was still in
his bathrobe, his sparse hair somewhat disorganized. Rita
introduced us.
"Call me Jumbo,"
Nelson said. "Mean-looking fella in the chair over there is Zebulon
Sixkill. Everybody calls him Z. He's a full-blooded Cree
warrior."
Z looked up from his
newspaper and stared at me. I nodded at him. He remained
impassive.
"Bodyguard," Nelson
said. "Nobody fucks with old Jumbo when Z's around."
Z sipped from his
coffee cup.
As he was talking, I
was inventorying Jumbo's breakfast. He had started with a pitcher
of orange juice, and now he was working on a porterhouse steak,
four eggs, home fries, and hot biscuits with honey. There was a
champagne flute from which Jumbo sipped between bites, and a bottle
of Krug champagne was handy in an ice bucket.
"You the man going
to make this cockamamie fucking legal shit go away?" Jumbo said to
me.
He poured honey on a
biscuit, ate the biscuit in one bite, and wiped his fingertips on
his bathrobe.
"Maybe," I
said.
"Whaddya mean
maybe," Jumbo said. "Hot pants says you can jump over
skyscrapers."
I looked at Rita.
Hot pants?
"I'm going to see if
I can find out what the truth is," I said.
Jumbo did a pretty
good Jack Nicholson.
"You can't handle
the truth," he said.
"I don't get to very
often," I said.
"You know that
line," Jumbo said.
"I do," I
said.
"You know who said
it?"
"I do."
"Recognize the
impression?" Jumbo said.
"You bet," I
said.
"Pretty good,
huh?"
"Marvelous," I said.
"You want to tell me about Miss Lopata?"
"I already told the
fox here; she didn't tell you."
"She did," I said.
"But I'd like you to go over it again."
"She is a fox, isn't
she?" Jumbo said. "Hey, lemme tell you, I have wet dreams about her
and I'm not even sleeping."
The Filipino
houseman stepped forward and poured some more champagne into
Jumbo's glass, and put the bottle back in the ice
bucket.
Rita
stood.
"I'm your attorney,
and I'll give you the best defense I can contrive. But I'm here
today as a courtesy, to introduce our investigator. I don't need to
be here."
"So?" Jumbo
said.
"So I'm going to
wait in the car," she said, and turned and started for the
door.
"This mean you don't
want to fuck me?" Jumbo said.
Rita stopped and
turned.
"You bet your fat
ass it does," she said, and left the atrium.
Jumbo looked after
her.
"Hot," he said.
"Ever get a little of that?"
He cut off a chunk
of steak and ate it.
"Tell me about your
evening with Dawn Lopata," I said.
"First you gotta
tell me about Rita," Jumbo said. "Was she as hot as she looks? She
noisy? She move around a lot?"
He looked at me,
popped his eyebrows like Groucho Marx, and drank some
champagne.
"Jumbo," I said.
"There are two things standing between you and the slam. One is
your defense attorney. The other is me. You've already managed to
offend her. And you are right on the verge of offending
me."
With his mouth full
of steak and eggs, Jumbo said, "Wha's your fucking
problem?"
"There isn't a jury
in the world wouldn't send you up for life if they spent five
minutes with you."
"Hey, man," Jumbo
said. "I don't need to listen to shit like that from some two-bit
fucking peekaboo."
"Yes, you do," I
said.
"You're fucking
fired, then," Jumbo said. "How d'ya like them apples?"
"I don't work for
you," I said. "I work for Cone, Oakes. Unless I quit."
"You better quit,
because I'm gonna talk to some people," Jumbo said. "And you can
take this to the bank, buddy, you'll be out on your
ass."
"So what happened to
Dawn Lopata," I said.
Jumbo swallowed
another biscuit and drank some champagne.
"Z," he said. "Get
him outta here."
The Indian stood,
his face still expressionless. He jerked his thumb toward the
door.
"Out," he
said.
He radiated menace.
I looked back at Jumbo.
"I may stay on this
case just to annoy you," I said.
"Fuck you and the
mule you rode in on, pal," Jumbo said.
"Plus, I'll get a
chance to listen to the witty things you say."
The Indian took a
step toward me. He moved oddly, as if the floor was slippery. I
hated to beat a hasty retreat. But I couldn't think of anything to
be gained by duking it out with Zebulon Sixkill.
So I beat a hasty
retreat.
Zebulon Sixkill IThey lived in a shack with a kerosene stove, an outhouse, and no running water. As far back as he could remember, they had been a family of four: himself, his mother and father, and a bottle. They paid more attention to the bottle than they did to Zebulon. In good times, when his father worked, it would be a bottle of Jack Daniel's. In bad times, and that was mostly, it would be some sort of clear hooch with no label at all. By the time he was six, he was pretty much on his own. He was a big boy and got what he wanted by bullying the other kids in school. Somewhere in the early years, Zebulon couldn't quite remember when, his father had run off, and by the time he was eight, he already had a reputation for making trouble. By the time he was ten, his mother had died "from drinking too much," as he understood it, and he went to live with his maternal grandfather, whose name was Bob Little Bear, whom Zebulon called Bob. Bob was a widower. He spoke very little. But he didn't drink much. And when Zebulon got in trouble, Bob came down and got him and brought him home and explained to him why he shouldn't do it again. For Zebulon, Bob became a fixed beacon. He was always the same. He did what he said he'd do. He had rules, and he knew what they were and explained them to Zebulon. He taught the boy to shoot a rifle, and build a fire and cook, and generally see to himself. He explained sex to him. Zebulon found it odd to think that Bob had ever done that. Bob said he, too, found it odd, but that in fact sometimes he still did that."Who with?" Zebulon said."None of your business," Bob said.He smiled, though, when he said it. And Zebulon could tell he was kind of proud about it. Zebulon thought for a while."My mother was your daughter," he said, quite suddenly."Yes," Bob said."You must have been sad when she died," Zebulon said."Yes," Bob said."I never thought of that," Zebulon said."No reason to," Bob said."You know my father?" Zebulon said."Yes.""You like him?" Zebulon said."No," Bob said."I didn't like him so much, either, I guess.""No need to," Bob said."You're supposed to love your father," Zebulon said."If he'll let you," Bob said."And how come they named me Zebulon?""After Zebulon Pike," Bob said."Who's he?""Famous explorer," Bob said. "Discovered Pikes Peak.""Where's Pikes Peak?""Colorado," Bob said."Famous white explorer?""Yes.""So how come they named me after some white person?""Don't know," Bob said."How come not a famous Cree person?""I don't know," Bob said."How come they drank all the time?""Don't know," Bob said."Why'd my father run off?""Don't know.""How come you don't know anything?""Know we're here," Bob said. "Know we got to deal with that, and not a lot of stuff we got no way to deal with.""Least your white-person name is easy to say.""Easier than Zebulon," Bob said.