Chapter 34
In Jimmy’s dream there was thunder, a pounding on heaven’s gate, growing louder and more insistent . . . he woke up in darkness and heard someone knocking on his front door. He checked the clock, then eased out of bed and pulled on a pair of shorts. Before checking the peephole, he picked up the baseball bat he kept beside the door.
Sugar Brimley waved back at him.
Jimmy set the bat against the wall again, unlocked the dead bolt, and opened the door. “My building better be on fire, Brimley.”
Brimley held up a red plastic cooler like it was the holy grail. “I come bearing gifts.”
Jimmy stepped back as Brimley edged past him. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the retired cop, a combination of salt, sweat, fish, and beer.
“I don’t know why you’re so grumpy. It’s Wednesday morning, not the weekend. You should be up anyway. What’s the fun of being retired unless you working stiffs got your shoulders to the wheel?”
Jimmy yawned.
Brimley set the cooler down on the kitchen floor, then bent down beside it. His light blue trousers were soaked, stained dark with fish guts, the fabric glistening with iridescent scales, a sheath knife on his belt. His hooded blue sweatshirt was equally grimy, the neck torn. He dug into the cooler and scattered crushed ice across the floor as he pulled out a couple of yellow-striped fish, holding them up by their tails. “This one’s about five pounds,” he said, jiggling it, “and this little beauty is over seven.”
“Congratulations.”
“See how clear their eyes are? Hooked not more than a couple hours ago, one right after the other, just when I was about to give up and go home. No gaff. Netted. Just plucked from the sea, not a mark or a bruise on them. Look at them, Jimmy. Yellowjack is the best eating on earth.”
Jimmy yawned again. “I’ll make us some coffee.”
“Now you’re talking.” Brimley laid the fish back into the cooler.
Jimmy filled the teakettle and pulled mugs and a jar of instant coffee out of the cupboard. “You want a Band-Aid?”
“What for?”
“Your cheek.”
Brimley wiped at the scratch and looked at the blood on his fingers. His eyes were exhausted and wild, his hair sticking out.
“You okay, Sugar?”
“Never better, but thanks for asking. You don’t mind me dropping in unannounced, do you?”
“No, I did the same thing to you.”
“That you did. By the way, were my notes any use? You find anything I missed?”
“I’m still going over them.”
“Well, if anybody can catch me, it’s you. I asked around about you. Lot of people don’t like you, but they all say you know your stuff. I think you can tell a lot about a man by the quality of his enemies.”
“You sure have a way with a compliment.” Jimmy turned away as the kettle started to whistle, then poured water into the mugs, stirring up the coffee crystals. “Black, right?”
Brimley blew on his coffee and took a sip. “One of those Kreamy Kruller doughnuts would hit the spot right about now, wouldn’t it? Wish I had thought of it on the drive over. They got an outlet in Newport Beach.” He slurped the coffee. “I drank plenty of lousy java in my time. Some even worse than this.”
“Thanks.” Jimmy put a couple of extra spoonfuls of instant in his cup. It was bitter and sludgy, but it goosed the brain cells. He had made a few calls after leaving the porn shoot yesterday. Trunk Jones said he had never heard of April McCoy, but he promised to ask around at vice. His voice was so soft and weak that Jimmy was sorry he had called. A search in the county records had been more fruitful; Jimmy found a business license in April’s name for an office in Paramount. He was going to drive over there later today, see if anyone knew what had happened to April’s secretary, Stephanie. Office gossip was more reliable than the headlines.
Brimley set his mug down onto the counter—he had a strange smile on his face, weary and excited at the same time. He pulled a wadded-up black plastic trash bag out of his pants pocket and shook it out. “Thanks for the java. Time for me to get down to business.” He whipped out his knife, the curved blade flashing, and if he noticed Jimmy tense, he didn’t show it, reaching into the cooler. He set the fish down gently into the sink and rinsed them off under cool running water. “I got an urge just after sunset last night. Decided to head out toward Catalina and see what happened.” He lightly held the smaller fish, his knife rasping across it, scales flying. “Didn’t get a nibble all night. Then about an hour before dawn, these two beauties introduced themselves. Yellowjack—they’re not just good eating, they’re fighters. They make you earn it.”
Jimmy leaned against the counter and watched the big man rake the flat of the knife across the fish, working from the tail up, scales flying, iridescent in the morning light.
“Figured I’d share these yellowjack with an old buddy of mine who lives in Balboa,” said Brimley, head bent, concentrating on the task. “Got him a place right on the water. Did that guy ever hit the jackpot! Married some rich dame already gone through three husbands, thought she’d try an ex-cop now that she didn’t need money anymore. I docked my boat next to his and rang the bell for five minutes before the maid answered.” Brimley shook his head. “Arnie Peck with a maid. I seen it all now. Arnie walks out from the master suite scratching his rump, and I hear his wife yelling at him from the other room. What a sound. Voice like that should be a felony.”
Jimmy enjoyed the knowing movement of Brimley’s hands, the blade an extension of him as he scaled the fish. A guy changing a tire or laying brick, Jane Holt going over a crime report, her eyes alert— watching someone who knew what they were doing, really knew—it was better than going to a museum and checking out the dead art.
Brimley put one hand in the fish’s gills and lifted it over the sink, then plunged the tip of the knife into the belly, just below the head. The blade worked its way down toward the tail. “Arnie said he didn’t want any fish. Man used to live to throw a line in the water. Now he says if he wants fish, he just tells the cook. Doesn’t even use his boat anymore, just lets it sit there collecting cankworm. I got out of there as fast as I could. Then I thought of you. I wasn’t sure I could find my way back to your place after taking you home that one time. I dearly hate to see fresh fish go to waste.” He looked at Jimmy. “You like fish, don’t you?”
“Yeah, sure.”
The yellowjack trembled in Brimley’s grip, as the knife sliced a perfectly straight line down its midsection. “Arnie—he loaned me his car. I’m not saying he was happy about it, but he did it. Made the maid cover the seat with plastic trash bags, though.” He put down the knife, spread the fish open with one hand, and deftly scooped out its guts with the other, a dark mass flopping into the sink. He looked up at Jimmy. “I tell you, a woman will ruin a good man faster than cancer. The wrong woman anyway. Head on or head off?”
“On.”
“Good man.” Brimley set the cleaned fish onto the counter.
“How about a beer?”
“A beer? Don’t mind if I do.” Sugar waited while Jimmy took a couple longnecks out of the refrigerator, opened one with a twist of his wrist, and handed it over. Waited while Jimmy did the same for himself. They clinked bottles, and neither of them came up for air until the bottle was half-empty. Sugar wiped his mouth, leaving a single fish scale glistening on his upper lip. “You can always tell a bachelor. He’s the man not afraid to have a cold one first thing in the morning. He’s the one who doesn’t have to answer to anyone.” He took another long swallow. “You ever been married?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“Is she the right one, Jimmy?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Maybe? I think you’d know if she was the right one.”
Jimmy shook his head. “I’d have better luck explaining the theory of relativity than why a woman is right or wrong for me. I found a good woman, but don’t ask me if she’s the right woman.”
Sugar finished his beer and set it down hard on the counter. “A good woman—you are a lucky man.”
“So far.”
Brimley chuckled. “If you found a good one, don’t let her go. That’s my advice. Free advice is worth what you pay for it, but that’s the best I got. You find a good woman, you hang on tight. There’s better things in life than standing around drinking beer in your skivvies, chasing any wild hair that comes along. What’s your girl’s name?”
“Jane.”
“Jane. I like that.” Sugar nodded. “Jane. If I had ever found a good woman, I tell you, Jimmy, I’d have never let her go. I’d have kept a grip.” He turned away, embarrassed, and started in on the other fish, his movements jerky now.
“What’s wrong, Sugar?”
The knife tore roughly at the flesh. “Here I am, talking your ear off like some old fart can’t get anyone to listen to him.” He kept his face averted. “I haven’t been myself lately.”
“What’s really bothering you? Did something happen?”
“You happened, Jimmy.” Sugar forced himself to slow down, the knife gentler now, smoother. “That’s what happened.”
Jimmy put down his beer. Standing there in his own kitchen, the first warm light of dawn easing in through the curtains, Jimmy felt a shiver run through him.
“I had a pretty sweet thing going on until you showed up looking for me,” said Brimley, working away. “Puttering around on my boat, fishing when they were running and fishing when they weren’t, store-bought pies and football games on satellite TV. Then you come along and dredged up a lot of bad memories. I haven’t been sleeping so well. I wake up and I’m not rested.” He looked up at Jimmy and tried to smile. “Man like me needs every minute of his beauty sleep. Otherwise he ends up in a strange kitchen spouting off about love and marriage, making a fool of himself.”
“You didn’t make a fool of yourself, Sugar, and I’m not going to apologize for trying to find out the truth.”
“No apologies, huh? I like that. Me, I’m the exact same way. No wonder I took a shine to you.” Brimley gutted the fish with one swipe of his hands, rinsed out the cavity with cold water, and set it down on the counter beside the other one. “I just hope this project of yours, this story or profile or whatever it is, I hope it’s worth what you’re stirring up.”
“It’s worth it.”
“If you say so.” Brimley rinsed off his hands. “You got some newspaper I can use?” he waited until Jimmy fetched him yesterday’s paper, then wrapped the larger fish, tucking the ends in before slipping it back into the cooler. He wrapped Jimmy’s fish equally carefully and put it into the refrigerator.
“Any tips on how I should clean my floors or iron my shirts?”
Brimley didn’t answer, still bothered by something. He cleaned out the sink, put the innards and scales into the plastic garbage bag, and rinsed the rest down the sink. Then he hit the garbage disposal, watching Jimmy as it churned away, and flipped it off. The silence echoed. “You think Heather was targeting Walsh the day she was killed, don’t you? That’s where you’re going with this. Just like Walsh’s lawyers.” He washed his hands with soap and water and worked the lather under his nails. He tore a paper towel off the roll, almost tearing the roll off the wall. “You think she tried to flirt her way into the movies?”
“I’m not sure.” Jimmy liked Sugar, and Sugar had helped him, but he wasn’t about to tell him what he had found out about Heather and April McCoy. The only people he trusted with the truth were Jane and Rollo, and even with them—well, “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”—that was just courtroom bullshit, something judges and lawyers used to fool the rubes.
“There’s plenty of girls would have sex with a kid popping popcorn in the cineplex because they think he’s in show business, but that don’t mean Heather was one of them.” Brimley’s eyes hardened. “Even if she was, it don’t change that fact that she’s dead and that Garrett Walsh killed her.”
“I’m not trying to insult her memory or step on your work, Sugar. I appreciate all the help you’ve given me. I know you didn’t have to. It’s like I told you at the beach house, you’re not the bad guy here.”
“Then how come I feel like the bad guy?”
“You had evidence and Walsh’s confession. No one could fault your work.”
Brimley balled up the paper towel in his big hands and tossed it into the garbage. “You want to do justice to that yellowjack, rub it inside and out with kosher salt and crushed black pepper, then slip a half-lemon and a dab of butter inside, maybe a pinch of fresh tarragon. Put it in a hot oven, a very hot oven, and roast it until it’s crispy. Angels in heaven don’t eat so well.”
“Why don’t you sit down for a while? We’ll have another beer.”
“No, I got to get going, but thanks.” Brimley gently laid a big hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “After I found Heather Grimm . . . after that I had to see a shrink. I didn’t want to, but it was departmental policy, so I went. I was glad I did.” He gave Jimmy a squeeze. “You find out I messed up, you tell me. I can take it.”