That’s the way the girls are from Texas. Houston to San Antone!
That’s the way the girls are from Texas. Gotsta love ‘em right or leave ‘em alone!
James Lewis/Jimmy Holiday/Cliff Chambers
So there you have it. That’s how I ended up back in Fresno sleeping on my parents couch at the ripe old age of 36. It’s a revelation how fast a marriage and career can dissolve. One night I was sleeping next to my wife, the next I was in the hospital. A week later, I was staying over at Stacy’s place a few blocks away while I sort of healed up and things played out at work. I settled up with the Border Patrol for $800 a month of disability/retirement every bit of which went straight to Jennifer.
My attorney (I was being sued by Villarreal’s family) got me a job working as an investigator for a friend of his up in Woodland Hills. I ended up in Van Nuys in a crappy apartment on Sepulveda Blvd. On the weekends, I’d drive back to San Diego to visit Michelle and test the waters. The waters were ice cold. I spent six months in L.A., driving around serving subpoenas and doing public records searches. Eating too much pizza and reading too much James Ellroy.
Eventually my parents found out what was going on and they offered to let me stay with them to save money. I went to work with my old pal Dave Jensen building swimming pools just like I did when I was 21. Down in San Diego things weren’t going nearly as well for Jen. Even with my disability money and the little extra I sent each month she couldn’t keep the bills paid.
I drove south one weekend with a plan. I told Jen we could just keep on going the way we were and loose the house and get a divorce, or we could sell the house, and buy a decent home in Fresno, pay my attorney and still put some in the bank. Get back on an even keel and work out our problems for Michelle’s sake. I look back now, and I have to wonder if it was the prospect of decorating a new home that made her pick door number two.
We moved into a nice neighborhood in Clovis just east of Fresno at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Clovis is known for two things, the Rodeo and one of the finest school districts in America. It’s like Stepford for rednecks. Jen threw herself into the soccer mom trip and I concentrated on working my ass off to pay for everything. Dave and I were busy building pools and hustling side jobs on the weekends putting in sprinklers, landscaping and redwood decks for cash under the table.
On the surface things were working well. Michelle loved her new school and friends. The Villarreal’s dropped their civil suit, Jen had new tile in the kitchen and I was getting lots of sun and fresh air at work. But that was all I was getting. Today I can look at pictures that were taken around that time and I can tell which ones were taken B.C. (before Claudia) and which ones were taken afterwards, just by all my gray hair and the look in Jen’s eyes. Eventually we came to a truce and could even enjoy being together but something had irrevocably changed between us.
Slouching towards 40, I began receiving subtle hints that I couldn’t keep building pools forever. I’d get pneumonia in the winter and my back would seize up in the summer. Dave was already making moves to start up a motorcycle repair shop, something that he’d been talking about for a long time. Not my line of work by any means.
Then Jack Pembroke decided to get himself a swimming pool. Like a lot of people that get swimming pools, he needed some other work done too. We got to know each other over beers on his back patio. He told me his family owned and operated an investigations firm. I looked around at the tennis court and the pool we were building and said “You’ve been looking through a LOT of keyholes Mr. Pembroke.” He got a big kick out of that. I told him I’d done a little bit of investigative work myself and before I knew it, I’d talked myself into a new career.
The first day at the new job Jack called me into his office.
“You need to know that I’m breaking a longstanding rule in hiring you, I don’t hire ex cops.”
“Well I guess I should be grateful, what made you change your mind?”
“I need somebody here that I can count on. Do you know you were the only contractor we had that always showed up when you said you would?”
“Yes I have heard that before.”
“I like working with people that I can trust. This firm is all about keeping our clients happy and making money. That’s why we can give you a company car and gas card, an expense account and a good salary. We deal in information here. We don’t solve cases or get the bad guys. And if I ever find out you’re high on the job or packing a gun you’re gone.”
“Fair enough, Mr. Pembroke.”
“I don’t care if it’s fair or not, that’s just the way it is.”
…Back on the westside, that Coleman lantern just kept hissing. The two dead Armenians and their Lexus were a problem. Big Dave had told me to skedaddle, but I was connected to this address and this time by the Declaration of Service on the subpoena’s I’d previously served. I briefly thought about just torching the place but that would just add arson to the equation and wouldn’t solve a thing. I had to get moving, but I had to get the bodies and the car away from the shack. I realized now why there were two of them. Two to get my body into my car, one to drive my car and the other to follow and give him a ride back to…wherever. I’d just modify their plan a little.
The guy by the door looked a little older. I figured him to be the driver and I was right, the keys were in his front pants pocket. I went out though the back door and out of habit, unlocked the car with a ridiculously loud CHIRP!
Shit!
God I had to get out of there quick. I opened the rear doors and went back inside. I grabbed the little machinegun and the Glock and stashed them in my truck behind the seat. Then I figured I should pull the truck around back. Back inside the house I took a look around and spotted my folio on the floor. That was everything right? I stashed it and my work shirt in the truck too.
I had to get those bodies into the Lexus. Again I started with the older, heavier man and drug him by his feet out the back door to the Lexus. It was pure panic and adrenaline that lifted him up into the backseat. The shooter was closer to the back door and lighter and I was able to get him inside the car a lot easier. Those safety slugs had performed exactly as advertised with no exit wounds and thankfully, there was very little blood. I went back in the house to take one last look around and found my grandpa’s .38 lying on the floor. I stuffed it into my pants and turned the lantern off. Then I thought I should take off my T-shirt and use it to wipe my fingerprints off the lantern and back door like they do in the movies.
I drove the Lexus back through Cantua Creek towards Three Rocks. There were no cars on the road as I approached the California Aqueduct so I turned off the headlights as I drove off the road and up onto the canal bank. The moon was bright and I had no problem driving south now down the canal, away from the main road. After half a mile or so I slowed way down and swung the car around pointing right at the canal. I rolled all the windows down about a foot then began wiping down the steering wheel and interior with my T-shirt just like they do on TV. Then I slipped the transmission out of Park and into Neutral, turned off the engine and got out of the car and wiped down all the doors.
Out there in the dark on the aqueduct it was quiet but for the sound of all that water headed south and the cars and trucks faintly hissing along I-5 a mile or so to the west. Then a cell phone started ringing inside the car. It was like somebody had turned a spotlight on me, and a voice was saying “there he is!” It only rang twice though and it gave me enough adrenaline to get the Lexus rolling through the gravel then down into the canal. I was shocked at how fast and far the current carried it along before it sank into the deep black water.
For awhile, I walked south along the canal. I pulled the gun out of my waistband and swung the cylinder open. First I threw the four spent shell casings and two live rounds in. I walked a little further and wiped down the old revolver one last time and threw it in. “Sorry Grandpa.”
I got down off the canal bank and kept the few lights of Cantua Creek to my left as I cut east through an almond orchard. Eventually I crossed San Mateo Ave. and turned back north through an alfalfa field. Halfway through the field the irrigation sprinklers came on. I just kept walking north looking for those old shacks. Every now and then a sprinkler would catch me. The lukewarm water felt good so I decided to walk over to one of the sprinklers to wash out my shirt and rinse the sweat off my face.
All in all I figure I’d walked 2-3 miles back to my truck. It was 10:20, about an hour from the time the shooting started. I got out of my T-shirt and put my work shirt back on and got the hell out of there. By the time I made it into Tranquility I began to feel like I just might pull this off and relaxed my death-grip on the steering wheel slightly. I still had work in Tranquility and San Joaquin but would handle those the next day. Before I hit White’s Bridge I stopped and tossed my dirty T-shirt into the James Ave. canal.
I made it home around twelve. Jen was up in bed nursing her Courvoisier on the rocks and watching Letterman. He was doing Top Ten Things about being Saddam Hussein’s stepson. Number one? “You get to call bin Laden Uncle Osama. Ohhh”
“This guy is just not funny anymore. And look at that asshole Paul laughing it up like a hyena.”
“That’s kind of harsh, what happened, nobody hit on you girls at the bar?”
“Yeah, right”
She was pissed about something though, I could tell.
I got in the shower and had the water going good and hot when it all hit me like a ton of bricks. I had to grab the shower head and hold myself steady and then just slipped down to my knees to let the water pound me.
“You OK in there honey?”
“Yeah just slipped there a little.”
I was going to be OK. I was going to get through tonight and then, in the very near future, I was going to kill Varoosh Donabedian. Anger is a wonderful thing sometimes.
I got into bed and read some of my new magazine. Later, Kelly Willis and I were in a motel room with a couple acoustic guitars and a video camera. I was sitting on one of the beds singing away, while Kelly was up on the other bed in her bare feet filming all the action and laughing.
“Hey what’s so funny?”
“What?”
“You were talking in your sleep. You said “Meanwhile back at the ranch” and then you started giggling.”
“I guess I was having fun, why’d you wake me up?”
“Because I’m not having any fun, and you’re not going to stand me up twice in one night.”
“Yes ma’am. How may I be of service?”
“Well lets just see. Oh! This should do quite nicely.”
The next morning we met Dave and his wife Pam at Irene’s Café down in the Tower District for breakfast. Between sips of coffee, I commented that Jen had just been right across the street the night before having drinks with the girls at The Landmark. Arlene said “Oooh I love Deep Cover. They were playing last night right?”
“Yes they were…Marcus is the drummer now though…I think I liked them better with him on guitar.” There was that slick scripted tone in her voice again. I couldn’t resist twisting the knife a little more. ”Jen, you should have called Pam she was just down the street.”
“Well I was with Denise and Cheri…I didn’t even know we we’re going there till the last minute” She put her hand in my lap to shut me up, or get me to change the subject or at least distract me. Dave’s eyes twinkled mischievously. It was Pam that came to her rescue though “Oh it’s OK, I was busy painting the bathroom. You guys have to come over and check the place out. It’s almost all done.”
Off the hook just like that, it was just as well. I didn’t know exactly what was going on between Jen and Donabedian, but I knew she had nothing to do with what happened out on the Westside the night before.
When we got over to Dave’s, the women were soon hip deep in catalogues and fabric swatches, giving Dave and I the opportunity to retire to the garage. I swapped the guns from behind my seat for some Frozen Yellowfin Tuna Dave had recently caught down in Baja.
“I’ll be needing that Glock back pretty soon.”
“I think I’ll be keeping this for myself it’s kind of cute. I’ve always wanted one of these Tupperware guns. Damn it’s light. And this MP-5 is beyond cool.”
It looked like five years in prison to me. Dave was just a big, hairy, loveable kid. Always had been, always would be. I watched him as he quickly field stripped the guns, wrapped them in butcher paper and put them in the false bottom of his freezer.
“Dave I owe you big time for last night, but I will be needing that Glock and after that it will be gone.”
“Luke all you need is to take your wife out dancing more man. That woman loves to dance.”
“So how bad was it? Last night?”
“When I got there, she in a booth up close to the band that lawyer guy was there with her just like you said. I didn’t see any friends with her. I was out on the patio and could see them through the window. No hanky panky at all though, just listening to the band and having a couple drinks.”
“Then that black guy Marcus, climbed out from behind his drums and got her to get up and dance with him.”
“He always does that. Marcus is cool.”
“Yeah everything was cool, but then the Armenian gets up and starts dancing with her too. Gets behind her and starts all that nasty, hands on her ass stuff.”
“Oh shit”
“You got that right. I was out on the patio and I could hear her tearing him a new asshole. He followed her back to the booth and was trying to apologize but she wouldn’t let him sit down. She just pointed to the door and said ‘Stay the fuck away from me unless you want you another nosejob!’”
“That’s my girl!”
“You know it man. Then the band started in on him, and everybody was laughing. I almost felt sorry for him.”
“Well don’t, that asshole deserves it and he’ll get it real soon.”
“Yeah? Good luck finding him. That lawyer, he left to go make a phone call out in his car and never came back. He never will come back.”
“What are you saying…?”
“I’m not saying anything except that if you had tried anything cute with that lawyer, you’d sure as hell get caught.”
This was something new. I started to ask something else but Dave just held up his hand and shook his head. Case closed. Then he said “When are we going fishing again?” I’ve got some good catfish dip getting all ripe out back, come on and check it out.”
He’s like that.
