Jeff Sherratt - The Brimstone Murders

“Oh Christ , Sol. Call my office.”

The limo turned left onto Artesia Boulevard and soon we were in Dairy Valley, a city of milk barns and cow shit. The smell complemented my mood.

Sol’s safe house wasn’t ahouse at all, but a barn. To be precise, it was a one bedroom suite-kitchenette, small bedroom, sitting room with an old-fashioned console TV-built into the middle of a milk barn. Long rows of stalls, each a rectangle four feet by eight feet and each loaded with a Holstein cow, hid the entrance to the suite. Hooked up to the cows were milking machines with suction nozzles and long hoses, contraptions that made loud slurping and clanking noises, a mechanical cacophony mingled with the occasional moo.

Sol ran around the suite like a bellboy, opening doors, adjusting the thermostat; he even turned on the TV. “Welcome to the Holstein Hilton, Jimmy.”

“Yeah, rooms with a moo.”

“A Guernsey getaway.”

“No bull.”

I agreed to stay in the so-called safe house until I felt better, a couple of days at most. Sol’s men would secure my apartment, setting up an alarm system and attaching professional deadbolt locks on my door. Who knew-Moran might attempt to follow through on his sentence of death. As Sol had said, “He’s a real badass, makes Attila the Hun look like a nun. His boys might try something rash.”

The barn stood on Herman Van den Berg’s farm in the community of Dairy Valley, twenty miles east of downtown L.A. The town, established by milk farmers, was set up to protect their lands against the encroachment of urban sprawl. But the sprawl went on unabated, devouring everything in its path like molten lava, an eruption of tract houses and strip malls. Now it had already been decided that the dairies would be closed, the cows hauled to Chino, joining others that had been relocated from South Gate, Norwalk, and Downey years earlier. Dairy Valley would then be a memory, and what was left of the community would be merged into the city of Cerritos, its nearest neighbor to the north.

I crashed on a ratty Naugahyde sofa, a piece of furniture straight out of a ’50s TV sit-com. The Honeymooners came to mind. Cubby ambled into the kitchenette to warm up a can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle.

Sol left and returned a few minutes later with Herman Van den Berg. Herman was a big-boned, gangly man of about sixty with a tangled mess of burnt-orange hair, which crowned his thin, pinched face. His round blue eyes were close set, separated by a spider-veined, misshapen nose. The eyes seemed to be asking a question, but I didn’t know what it was and Herman didn’t say. He might’ve been asking something like, what in the hell is this guy doing sprawled on my Ralph Kramden couch? What could I tell him? Could I tell him a bible-thumping monster was out to get me? He’d probably say, aren’t they all?

Could it be that everyone in the dairy business was named Van something or other? Van Hoek at Sunnyville Farms and now Van den Berg out here. When Sol introduced us, he said that the name meant from the mountains in Dutch. After mulling it over for a moment, I realized there weren’t any mountains in Holland. That is, unless they were referring to the mountains of Holstein dung at all those diaries there. So, I reckoned, loosely translated, his name meant Herman, who came from a pile of shit. His body odor confirmed my reasoning.

“Jimmy,” Sol said. “Herman here was gracious enough to let us use his hideaway for a few days until you’re better.”

I waved. “Thanks, Herman.”

“Yaw, Immy. I help Sol. He’s my friend,” Herman replied in a heavy Dutch accent.

Herman explained how, sometime ago, he had a problem and Sol had helped him out of a serious jam. It seems that Herman had a fire on his farm. A year’s supply of baled hay-worth thousands of dollars-had caught fire and burned up. The hay had been insured of course, and at first the insurance company disavowed the resulting claim when it was discovered that the fire had been purposely set. But when Sol had proved that a fanatic animal rights activist had hired an arsonist to start the fire, the insurance company promptly cut the check.

Herman had built the bedroom suite inside his milk barn as living quarters for his foreman, who had later married and moved away. As a gesture of his appreciation for Sol’s efforts in the insurance matter-along with a sizeable check-Herman granted the use of the suite whenever Sol needed to stash someone out of sight for a few days.

Everyone cleared out as soon as the soup was served. I took a few spoonfuls, but my appetite was gone and the soup was terrible. It wasn’t just because it was canned; Cubby had decided to spice it up and dumped in about a gallon of Tabasco. I like Tabasco, but give me a break. Making my way to the bedroom, I stretched out on top of the covers. I stared at the ceiling and thought about Rita. Maybe I should’ve just leveled with her from the beginning; then, if she didn’t want to be my lawyer, so be it. At least I wouldn’t be a liar in her eyes.

She was gone by the time I’d called the office from Sol’s limo. Would she come back? Would she stay on with our little law firm? She wouldn’t for sure if she found out about the gun that Mabel had hidden.

I must have dozed fora couple of hours, because when I awoke, sunlight was no longer filtering through the thin cloth curtain covering the window. I glanced at my watch: almost seven o’clock. I carefully made my way into the bathroom and winced as I examined my image in the mirror. I looked like hell, about the same as I felt. The guy who stared back at me wore an animal doctor’s lab coat, had bloodshot eyes and a three-day growth of stubble. I looked more like the Wolf Man than a criminal lawyer. Some people said criminal lawyers were monsters, and my appearance tonight would certainly reinforce that. I leaned in closer to the mirror and flinched when I lightly touched the blue and yellow puffiness growing just below my left eye. The bruise was as big as a tomato; I figured it would get as big as a rutabaga before it healed.

I opened the medicine cabinet. It was fully stocked, filled with shaving gear, a couple of new toothbrushes, toothpaste, and a large economy-size bottle of aspirin.

A fresh terrycloth robe hung from a hook on the door. I slipped out of the lab coat, turned on the water in the shower, and brushed and shaved while I waited for the water to get hot.

While in the shower, I was careful not to disturb the bandages covering my gunshot wound, and when I was through, I shrugged into the robe and wandered back into the sitting room.

I stood in the center of the room and stared at the phone. Should I call her? It was seven-thirty; she’d be home by now.

I made a couple of calls to Rita’s apartment, and each time when the answering machine came on, I hung up without leaving a message.

Turning on the TV, I sprawled on the sofa and flipped through the channels with the clicker. Mannix, a private peeper, with not a hair out of place beat up the bad guys without breaking a sweat-click-The FBI-click-A live variety show, fresh-faced youngsters dancing and singing. Some kind of oddball disco thing, like disco as performed by Lawrence Welk. It was a pop religious number, young women telling viewers, “…let’s get down and funky with Jesus…” Wait, the reverend leading them was the guy I’d met with Bickerton at his White Front church. Snavley, Hazel Farris’ pastor, the guy who told her about the teen drug center. The one who told her to send Robbie out to the base at Rattlesnake Lake.

I noted the station. The live broadcast originated from the school in the valley where Robbie had killed his professor, Golden Valley College. When the dance number ended, Bickerton walked out on stage and introduced the audience to Reverend Elroy Snavley and his dancers, J.C. and the Sunshine Singers-the J.C. of the group being there in spirit only.