The Man With the Iron-On Badge Read online

  It occurred to me that I didn’t really know anything about this guy and that my steak was getting cold, so I said: “I’m going to need some background. What can you tell me about you and your wife?”

  So, while I ate my steak and fries, Parkus told me that he worked in international distribution of movies, selling them to TV networks overseas. His office was in Studio City, a straight shot east on the Ventura Freeway. He said it took him about forty minutes in good traffic to get to work, which is where he met his wife Lauren ten years ago. She was temping as a receptionist. One day he just stepped out of the elevator and there she was. Bluebirds sang. The clouds parted. Their souls kissed. It was as if he’d known her his entire life.

  He made it sound a lot more romantic and personal than that, but I was too jealous to pay attention to the exact words. You get the gist of it. They were married six months later up in Seattle, where she was from.

  Lauren Parkus didn’t work, and they didn’t have any kids, so she spent her time on what he called the “charity and arts circuit,” working on fundraisers to stop diseases, feed Ethiopians, buy Picassos for the museum, that kind of thing. And when she wasn’t raising money and organizing parties, she was in charge of decorating and maintaining their home, which he told me was practically a full-time job in itself. I thought about asking him to hire me for that job when this was over, but that would have been getting ahead of myself.

  Nothing, Cyril Parkus said, was more important to him than his wife and her happiness.

  “Even if she’s cheating on you?” I asked, and from the tight look on his face, I’d gone too far. Before he could say anything I’d regret, I kept talking. More like babbling. “I guess that’s a question you won’t be able to ask yourself until I find out what, if anything, is going on.”

  That lightened him up a little. “So you’ll take the job?” Parkus asked.

  “For one hundred and fifty dollars a day plus expenses.”

  Jim Rockford used to ask for one hundred and twenty-five dollars a day, so I adjusted up for inflation. I probably hadn’t adjusted up enough, but anybody could see I wasn’t James Garner, or even Buddy Ebsen, and besides, it was more than double what I got paid to guard the gate.

  “What expenses?” Parkus looked amused. I tried not to look embarrassed.

  “You never know, sir.”

  “No, I guess you don’t.”

  Parkus reached into his pocket, pulled out a thick money clip, and peeled off five one-hundred-dollar bills onto the table.

  “This should cover the first few days,” he said.

  It was Tuesday, so the retainer would carry me through until the weekend when, I figured, we’d review the situation and make new arrangements.

  “When will you get started?” Parkus asked.

  “Tomorrow, after my shift. I need to get some things sorted out today, before I jump into this.”

  “Of course,” he replied. “Do you have a camera?”

  That was one of the things I had to get sorted, but instead of admitting that, I just nodded.

  “Then I guess that’s it, Harvey.” Parkus peeled off a twenty to cover our dinner, slid out of the booth, and stood for a moment at the edge of the table, looking down at me. “I really hope this turns out to be nothing.”

  I really hoped it would take a week or so to find out.

  “Me, too,” I said as if I cared, which, at the time, I didn’t.

  He walked away and I ordered a slice of Chocolate Chunks and Chips, the most expensive pie Denny’s had. I could afford it now.

  Chapter Three

  I live in the Caribbean.

  I love saying that, and I knew that I would, which is the only reason why I chose to live in that stucco box instead of the Manor, the Palms, or the Meadows. All the buildings in that area charged the same rent for a one-bedroom with a “kitchenette,” which is French for a crappy Formica counter and a strip of linoleum on the floor.

  The Caribbean is built around a concrete courtyard that’s got a kidney-shaped pool, a sickly palm tree, a couple plastic chaise lounges repaired with duct tape, and a pretty decent Coke machine that keeps the drinks nearly frozen, just the way I like them. The whole courtyard smells of chlorine because the manager dumps the stuff into the pool by the bucket-load. Stepping into the water is like taking an acid bath.

  The tenants are evenly split between retirees, Hispanic families, Cal State Northridge students, which I was when I first moved in, and young professionals, which is what I am now. It’s what losers like me like to call ourselves, so we don’t feel like losers.

  Carol was already at the pool when I came into the courtyard around ten. She was a young professional like me. She was my age, worked at a mortgage company, and was probably a little too chunky in the middle to be wearing a two-piece bathing suit, but I certainly wasn’t going to say anything. She’d lived in the Caribbean about as long as I had and, when she was really lonely and desperate, we’d fuck sometimes. She wasn’t lonely and desperate nearly as often as I’d like. It wasn’t love, but we’d loaned each other money, taken care of each other when we were sick, and, like I said, fucked a few times, so you could say we were good friends.

  You’re probably wondering how this squares with my earlier comment that I don’t know anything about women. I didn’t really consider Carol a woman, for one thing. I mean, she was definitely female and she was straight, but to me a woman was more beautiful, more mysterious, more aloof than Carol. A woman was unattainable, and Carol was eager to be attained, only by a better guy than me, which I didn’t blame her for. That isn’t to say I understood her. I’ve known Carol six or seven years and she still doesn’t make sense to me.

  So, like I said, Carol was by the pool when I came in. I was carrying a Sav-On bag, because on the way home I’d stopped to buy myself three disposable cameras, some candy bars, two six-packs of Coke, a spiral notebook, and a couple pens. I even treated myself to the latest Spenser novel at full cover price. That’s how good I felt.

  I sat down on the chaise lounge next to her and set my bag on the ground between us.

  “You know what’s in this bag?” I asked her.

  “This is not like the time you bought me some magazines with the idea I’d look in the bag and also see the big box of Trojans and think you were some kind of stud and be overwhelmed by an uncontrollable urge to hump you.”

  “That was years ago. When are you gonna forget about that?”

  “Never,” she replied. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m sunbathing on a weekday, instead of going to work?”

  “No, I want you to ask me what’s in this bag.”

  She sighed. “Okay, what’s in the bag?”

  “My private eye kit.” I leaned back and smiled. “Everything I need for long-term surveillance.”

  She leaned over and peeked in the bag. I couldn’t help stealing a look at her cleavage.

  “Snickers bars and a paperback.” Carol leaned back on the chaise again, giving me a look. She knew where my eyes had been. “Isn’t this the same as your security guard kit?”

  “It’s a little different,” I said. “For one thing, this job pays one hundred and fifty dollars a day plus expenses.”

  It was an awkward segue, but I was eager to get to the big news. I took out the hundreds and waved them in front of her face. That made her sit up again.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “It’s my retainer.”

  “The only retainer you know anything about is the one you wore in high school, so you can drop the bullshit. Are you doing something illegal?”

  I didn’t think so. And after I told Carol all the details, neither did she. But she did have questions.

  “What do you know about detective work?” she asked.

  “What’s there to know? All I have to do is follow her,” I replied. Besides, I intended to brush up on my skills that night. There was a Mannix marathon on TVLand I was going to watch, and I’d have the new Spenser book to ref
er to during the lulls in my surveillance.

  “So you’re going to keep working your midnight-to-eight shift and follow her during the day.”

  “That’s right.”

  “If you’re supposed to watch her all day, when are you going to sleep?”

  “At one hundred and fifty dollars a day plus expenses, who needs sleep?”

  “This should be interesting.”

  “Which is why I’m doing it. When was the last time my life was interesting?”

  Carol smiled. “You have a point.”

  She wasn’t lonely or desperate or in the mood to help me celebrate in the lusty way I thought we should, so I went to my apartment to prepare for my new job.

  My apartment is a second-floor unit with a “lanai,” which is Hawaiian for a tiny little deck you can barely fit a lawn chair on, and has a spectacular view of our dumpster, which is usually left wide open. So I use the “lanai” to store stuff, like a bike I haven’t used in four years, a Hibachi grill, and that lawn chair I mentioned.

  My place is decorated in a casual style I like to call Thrift Shop Chic. Most of my furniture comes from garage sales and hand-me-down stores, with the exception of my bed, which is just a mattress and box spring on a wrought-iron frame. I practically live on this big, black, leather couch I bought at the Salvation Army for a hundred bucks that’d been softened up and creased all over by years of pounding by heavy butts long before I got it.

  I’ve also got a bunch of those white particle-board bookcases, the kind you put together with those little, L-shaped, screw-in-tool thingies that come in the box. Most of the shelves are sagging under the weight of books, videos, and stereo components, but it doesn’t bother me as long as the bookcases don’t collapse.

  I took a frosty can of Coke from the fridge, a bag of chips from the cupboard, and settled on my couch, put my feet up on the coffee table, and turned on the TV set.

  For the next six hours, I watched Mannix reruns on TVLand and here’s what I learned.

  Getting shot in the arm, which happened to Joe at least three times that afternoon, is really no more painful or debilitating than pulling a muscle. A few days with your arm in a sling and you’re fine. You can also relieve the pain of a concussion by just rubbing the back of your neck and shaking your head. However, you can probably avoid a concussion altogether, if before you walk through a door you peek around the corner first; that way, no one can surprise you with a karate-chop to the back of your neck.

  Picking a mobster’s henchmen out of a crowd isn’t really too hard. They are usually the grimacing, muscle-bound guys who look very uncomfortable in their turtleneck sweaters and blazers. They will also be staring at you menacingly, which is a good tip-off about their intent.

  I also learned some important pointers about following people. If you’re a private eye, to follow someone driving, you just have to stay one car behind your target; and to tail him walking on the street, stroll casually ten yards back and pretend to window-shop and you’ll never be noticed. However, if you’re a private eye and someone is following one car behind you, you will spot him immediately; and if anyone is shadowing you while you’re walking on the street, you can usually see him by checking out your reflection in a store window.

  It’s a good idea for a private eye to drive a sports car of some kind, especially if you want to get away from someone by driving around corners real fast, your tires screeching. Intelligent, well-educated criminals drive Cadillacs or Lincolns, psycho killers and thugs drive Chevys or pickup trucks, while just about every law enforcement officer thinks he will be inconspicuous in a stripped-down, American-made sedan with a huge radio antenna on the trunk.

  If you have a female client, no matter what she says, deep down she wants to fuck you. The same goes for any other woman you meet, especially waitresses, secretaries, nurses, and strippers. Apparently, nothing is sexier to a woman than a private eye doing his job. That bit of information was especially nice to know.

  Hey, I’m not some kind of cartoon character. I knew Mannix wasn’t the real world, that if, say, someone shot me in the arm, I’d probably piss myself and start weeping in agony, then spend the next few weeks zoned out on painkillers I couldn’t afford. But I figured any knowledge was better than nothing at all, and that I couldn’t help but pick up a few useful pointers from watching a private eye, even a fictional one, at work.

  Maybe they used real private eyes as technical advisors on the show. Who knows?

  By three P.M. I thought I was ready for bed, but it turned out I was too keyed up to sleep, even though all I’d done was watch TV and eat Cheetos all day. So I put my favorite whack-off tape, The Wild Side, into the VCR and went back to the couch.

  The tape was already cued up to the scene where Anne Heche and Joan Chen have simulated, lesbo sex, but in light of Anne’s later frolicking with Ellen DeGeneres, I like to think her lust was real. Though you got to wonder if Anne had made it with Joan Chen, why she would want to rub herself against Ellen DeGeneres. Put Joan and Ellen side-by-side naked and, whether you’re a man or a woman, the choice is obvious.

  Anyway, I watched the tape, jerked off, and thirty seconds later, I was ready for bed again. This time, I had no trouble falling asleep.

  I dreamed I was Joe Mannix, wearing the checked blazer and all, tooling around in a Dodge Charger convertible with Joan Chen in the backseat, her shirt open to her crotch.

  Even asleep, I knew it was just a dream, but I also thought that it could actually happen.

  Chapter Four

  The drive from Northridge to Camarillo takes you out the northwestern end of the San Fernando Valley, past the wealthy, four-car garage suburbs of Calabasas, Agoura, Thousand Oaks, and Westlake Village, and down the Conejo Pass into Pleasant Valley.

  Around Camarillo, the number of Mercedes, Volvos, BMWs, and Range Rovers thins out and you see a lot of farm workers crammed into shitcans like mine. The area between Camarillo and Santa Barbara is filled with farms, and it takes a lot of low-paid, mostly Hispanic workers to do all the planting and picking.

  The area is considered far enough from real places like LA and Santa Barbara that there are two big outlet malls for travelers who find themselves caught in middle of the two-hour journey between the two cities with no place to shop.

  Above all of this, looking down on everything like the imperious Greek gods in those old Hercules movies, are the people who live in the gated communities on the graded peaks of Spanish Hills.

  On the off-chance that those farm workers ever rise up in violent revolt and storm the hills, they’ve got to get past the guard in the shack first.

  I like to think that the terrifying prospect of rousing me from reading a paperback is what keeps them in line.

  The night before my first day as a detective went fast. The only memorable moment was the flash of breast I saw while staring at the scrambled picture of the cable porn channel on TV. That was another perk of the job I forgot to mention.

  I practically ran out of the shack when Victor showed up in the morning. I didn’t want to get caught by surprise, just in case Lauren Parkus decided to meet her lover promptly at eight A.M.

  I hustled down the street to my car, which was parked beside the grassy embankment, and changed into a polo shirt and sunglasses as a disguise. As soon as I was in the car, I stripped off my uniform pants and put on jeans. Actually, that was a lot harder than it sounds, and I was really afraid Lauren Parkus would pick that moment, while my feet were up against the dashboard and I was struggling with my pants, to leave for her erotic romp.

  But she didn’t.

  In fact, she was taking so long to get going that I was getting mightily pissed. I was eager to begin detecting, and she was sapping my enthusiasm by not doing her part.

  I sat there for two hours, my hands on the steering wheel, staring at the gate, playing out various surveillance scenarios in my mind, and I got so into it that when she finally drove out in her Range Rover, I thought it was an illusion
.

  I resisted the temptation to stomp on the gas pedal and instead showed my calm professionalism by easing into traffic, not that there was any. I was the only other car on the road, so I stayed way back behind her until we got down into the sprawl of shopping centers and gas stations.

  The traffic was pretty heavy down there, so I hesitantly let two cars slip between us. It was a good thing she was driving such a high car, or I would have had a hard time following her.

  She turned into the Encino Grande Shopping Center and parked right in front of a place called The Seattle Coffee Bean. I parked in one of the aisles so I could watch her inconspicuously. Lauren went inside and ordered something. I deduced it was coffee.

  My hand was shaking as I made a notation in a notepad of her activities. All she did was buy a cup of coffee and my heart already was pounding with excitement. If this kept up, I figured I’d have a stroke when her stud finally appeared.

  She sat down at a table outside and took her time sipping her coffee. It gave me a chance to really look at her for the first time.

  Lauren Parkus was in her early thirties, with long, black hair and the same lean physique and tennis tan as her husband, which made sense to me. They probably worked on it together, unless she was bonking her tennis pro. I figured I’d soon find out which it was.

  Her face had a sculpted beauty, as if God was concentrating very hard while he was working on her slender nose, her sharp cheekbones, the gentle curve of her chin, and her long, graceful neck.

  She was clearly deep in thought over something, giving her a pensive expression that did nothing to dull the startling intensity of her eyes, which I could feel from twenty yards away.

  She wore a large, loose-fitting blouse that was casually unbuttoned down to the swell of her perfect breasts. And I mean perfect, the kind of breasts you only see on women on movie posters, book covers, and comic books.

  I picked up one of the disposable cameras and snapped a picture. It wasn’t for Cyril Parkus. It was for me.