Jeff Sherratt - Guilty or Else

“Yeah, the night guy, he didn’t show. I stayed. Momma won’t go home without me.” He leaned in close. “ Donna Bella , they’re all after my bod,” he whispered. A furtive grin filled his face. “Momma has to protect her interests.”

The bod that all the beautiful women lusted after stood about five foot-six, weighed in at around two hundred-fifty pounds, and waddled when it walked.

“Yeah, Luigi, she can’t be too careful.”

I glanced around the deli and looked out at the parking lot. There weren’t any other customers in the place, but there were two cars in the lot: mine, and a blue Buick sedan. I thought I saw a shadow inside the car. The shadow moved.

Someone sat behind the wheel.

I called to Luigi, wiping down tables across the room. He waddled over and I pointed to the Buick. “Hey, Luigi, is that a customer out there?”

He looked out the window. “Dunno, but I’m getting ready to close.”

He went outside and spoke to the guy in the car. Shortly after, the engine started and the Buick pulled away slowly.

Luigi came back in and went directly to the kitchen. A few minutes later, he emerged and walked to my table, carrying the pizza and Coke.

Curious about the sedan, I asked him, “What did the guy in the car say?”

“He was trying to decide if he wanted to come in and eat, but I told him he’d better hurry and make up his mind, that I’m closing soon.” He sighed. “It’s been a long night.”

“I can take the pizza home if you want to close up and leave,” I said.

“Nah, stick around. Momma’s gotta count the drawer and tidy up.”

The bod waddled to the front entrance, flipped the sign to read ‘closed’ and locked the door.

I started in on my meal. The banner out front said it was world’s greatest pizza. I had no reason to doubt it. But I couldn’t eat the whole thing. They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Might as well start the day right; I’d have the leftover pizza in the morning.

It was around midnight when I carried the half-eaten pizza to my car.

Downey tucks itself in about nine every night. By nine-thirty, the stores are dark and the streets quiet. By ten o’clock, most of its citizens were home watching the Wacky World of Jonathan Winters on TV, howling at his stunts. By eleven, they were all asleep. At twelve, the crickets chirped.

When I zipped past Mathews amp; Son gun shop on Paramount Ave., next to the deli, I saw the Buick from Luigi’s lot parked there. I hung a right on Florence. But when I turned on Fifth Street, the street where I lived, something flashed in my rearview mirror. I wasn’t alone. I glanced back.

The flash became twin beams. I continued down Fifth, past my apartment building, and made a U-turn. Flipping off the lights, I pulled to the curb, killed the engine, and waited.

The Buick accelerated and blew past me. I turned to see its crimson taillights fade. I sat in my Corvette surrounded by darkness and silence.

Was I becoming paranoid, a little jumpy, seeing boogiemen in the shadows? Maybe the Buick was a coincidence, some guy going home after a night out. Of course, that had to be it. What’s the matter with me? Is the pressure of defending a murder case getting to me already? I started my car, left the lights off, and edged toward my apartment.

I lived in a monument of sorts to the 1970s musical taste of America. The Carpenters, the singing duo-Karen and her brother, Richard-had a ranch-style house north of Florence Ave. in Downey. The house came fully equipped with wall-to-wall carpeting, built-in washer and dryer, and a professional recording studio.

Unlike most of the musicians and singers I’d met during my drinking days and others I’ve read about, these youngsters seemed to have their heads screwed on straight. They took some of the profits from their hits and bought half a block on Fifth Street, tore down the pre-war tract houses and built two apartment buildings. They named the buildings after a couple of their blockbusters.

I lived-or at least slept-in the apartment building known as “We’ve Only Just Begun.” My bedroom window looked directly into my neighbor’s window across the street, “Close to You.” I’d rented the one-bedroom unit the same week that I had hung out my shingle. I thought the name was a good omen. The song title matched my high hopes.

The apartment came unfurnished and mostly stayed that way. In the living room, an old armchair faced a black-and-white TV. The chair had been part of my divorce settlement. Barbara didn’t want the chair, or me, but I loved the big ratty old thing. It was warm, comfortable, and cozy to come home to at night. I could talk to the chair. It rarely talked back.

I put the leftover pizza in the refrigerator, my prized possession. Luigi got it for me wholesale from a commercial restaurant supply in Norwalk. It was overkill: the unit was too large for me but too small for a restaurant. The only things in it right now were the pizza, three cans of Coke, and several boxes of my laundered white dress shirts, folded and pressed.

In the bedroom, a box spring mattress-no headboard or frame-took up most of the space. I didn’t have a chest of drawers, hence the shirts in the fridge. It was a good idea. In the winter, I had to remember to take a shirt out before I showered to warm it up a bit, but in the summer, it was great. I left the shirts in until the last minute. Very refreshing.

I didn’t know what time it was when I nodded off, but when I awoke, I was still engulfed by the big armchair with the file opened in my lap. Sunlight streaked in through the living room window, and the sounds of morning traffic rumbled around me. I looked at my watch: seven-eighteen. I showered, got a shirt from the refrigerator, gobbled a pizza slice, and headed for the office.

My heart almost stopped when I walked out the front door of my apartment. The blue Buick, the same one I’d seen the night before, was parked across the street about twenty yards away. I stared at it for about fifteen seconds. A big guy with a buzz-cut sat in the driver’s seat reading a newspaper. I debated walking up to the guy and asking him why he was stalking me. But then I thought he’s probably a private eye keeping tabs on my neighbor, Poppy Jasper. She had several boyfriends, all of them married, or so I’d heard. If it was the same car I saw last night, then the guy had probably mistaken me for his client’s husband. If this were a movie, my character would jot down the guy’s license plate number, and in the last reel, he’d turn out to be the mad-dog killer. I chuckled and walked to my Corvette.

But when I drove past it, the Buick pulled out and followed me. What the hell? I turned on Downey Ave. The car stuck with me and remained three car lengths behind.

Enough is enough. I had to straighten out his mistake. I veered to the curb, parked in front of the Meralta movie theater, and started to climb out of the Vette.

I flagged the driver of the Buick, figuring he’d stop as well. But the car crawled up next to me without pulling over. The driver pinned me as he passed and pointed his finger like a gun. Our eyes met, and he mouthed the word “Bang.” This guy was no P.I looking to snag a wayward husband. No, the ugly son-of-a-bitch knew who I was. I sensed it. Something in his eyes told me he knew he had just shot Jimmy O’Brien.

When I reached the office, it was 8:30 and Rita hadn’t arrived yet. It was just as well. My hands shook a little when I made the coffee. Guys shooting you can do that; make your hand shake a little-unless they use real bullets, of course.

While waiting for Mr. Coffee to complete its cycle, I sat at my desk, picked up the telephone, and called Welch’s district office in South Gate.