J. Rain: Hail Mary

Cindy and I were at Buca di Beppo in Huntington Beach, and I couldn’t have been happier.

“ You love it here,” said Cindy.

“ They serve large portions,” I said.

“ They serve family-sized portions,” she corrected.

“ That’s just a fancy way of saying large.”

“ It’s not that fancy.”

“ What can I say, I’m a simple man.”

“ With a huge appetite,” she said. “And for the love of God don’t say, ‘It ain’t easy being me.’”

I winked. “I didn’t have to.”

The waiter came over and took our order. The family-sized portions were meant to feed four. In our case, one, although Cindy would nibble on it here and there, but not enough to do any real damage. Mostly she would fill up on salad and bread and tiramisu.

I was drinking a pint of Pyramid Hefeweizen, a new favorite. Cindy was working her way steadily through a house chardonnay. I don’t like chardonnay, or wine for that matter. It tastes funny. The problem with wine is that it doesn’t taste like beer. If wine tasted like beer, well, we would be in business.

I only see Cindy about three times a week, which works out to be about perfect. Just enough days off to miss her, and just enough on to feel deeply connected.

She asked me what I was working on and I told her. About the time I finished telling her, I finished my beer. Synchronicity at its best. Our waiter came by, saw the pathetic condition of my empty beer mug, and promptly did something about it. Good man. A few minutes later and I was once again drinking from a full pint, as happy as a mole with eagle eyes.

“ So is that why you ordered vegetarian tonight?” asked Cindy. “Because of the mistreatment of these animals?”

“ It got me thinking,” I said.

“ Thinking how?”

“ About the mistreatment of animals in general. Humans are bastards to our creatures.”

“ Humans are also hungry,” said Cindy.

“ Well, this human might change his ways.”

“ Change how?” asked Cindy. “I thought real men eat meat.”

“ Real men stand up for what they believe.”

“ And what do you believe?” she asked.

“ I’m working on that,” I said.

“ And in the meantime, no more meat?”

“ For now,” I said.

“ And what if I want meat? And for the love of God don’t turn that sexual.”

“ I haven’t a clue what you mean,” I said innocently, wiping away what I was certain was a foam mustache. “And eat what you want. I’m not trying to change the way you eat.”

“ Thank God. I love bacon.” She swirled her wine in her glass. Professor Cynthia Darwin was blond and blue-eyed and looked nothing like the distinguished anthropology professor I knew her to be. A distinguished professor with the pedigree name. Yes, she’s related to that Darwin. Survival of the fittest and all that.

She said, “So, in the meantime, you’re not going to eat meat?”

“ Nope.”

“ Do you think you’ll ever eat it again?”

“ Dunno.”

She looked at me from behind her glass. Her pupils were growing increasingly dilated, seemingly with each sip.

“ So, you’re doing it for the animals?” she asked.

“ Something like that.”

“ Somehow,” she said, setting down her glass and reaching across the table and taking my hand, “I find that kind of sexy.”

“ Protecting animals is sexy?”

Except I knew that after one glass of wine, Cindy found just about anything I did sexy. She didn’t have to think about it long. “Yeah, I find that very sexy.”

I was sitting in my van and studying the outside of a bar in Belmont Shores. The bar where Mitch Golden had last been seen.

It was called Panama Joe’s. Belmont Shores is a trendy little subdivision of Long Beach, and parking is at a premium here, which is why I was currently mostly blocking a driveway into a Bank of America. I also mostly didn’t care.

Although it’s highly illegal to do so, Detective Hansen had “accidentally” emailed me some of the pertinent information from his missing person file.

Any police investigator worth his salt appreciated help on a case, even from a private eye, just as long as that private eye didn’t get in the way. Hansen appreciated the help, although he would never admit it.

So now I was sitting in my newish Ford Cargo Van, which I had recently purchased for the sole purpose of surveillance work. I loved the Mustang, and I still owned it, but the classic car was proving not to be very practical during stakeouts. People tended to remember classic Mustangs; not so much nondescript Ford Cargo Vans, which are a dime a dozen.

My Cargo Van had been heavily customized. The windows were tinted. A divider separated the front seats from the rear of the van, accessed via a small door, which I could climb through and shut behind me. The cargo area featured a small desk, two swivel recliners, a TV, electrical jacks, a mini-refrigerator, a sink and a small bathroom that I really hate to use, but will if I have to. Stacked near the desk was a pile of various magnetized company names. Bogus companies, of course. A van that said “Al’s Plumbing” drew less attention than a plain-unmarked van.

I flipped through Hansen’s notes. Seven days ago, Mitch Golden went missing. His girlfriend, Heidi Mann, filed a missing person’s report the next day. Detective Hansen had been assigned the case later that day, which was when he made his initial phone call to Heidi Mann. She had come down to his office where he’d asked her all the usual questions.

I read his question and her answers now. Nothing stood out, other than the vague threat made by owners of a fishing vessel near San Diego. The vessel apparently hailed from Mexico and allegedly hunted hammerheads off the coast of California and Mexico. Hansen never followed up on it, although he did forward her concerns to a game warden friend of his at the Department of Fish and Game, who oversees commercial fishing.

A car pulled up behind me, its headlights blasting into my side mirrors. I verified that it wasn’t a police car, then ignored it.

There was no indication that the DFG had received Hansen’s report or done anything about it. Then again, I wasn’t sure what they could or should do about it. From all indication, Mitch Golden and his crew had been threatened by Mexican fishermen poaching illegally in U.S. waters.

A minute or two later, after some grade-A investigative pondering, I realized the car was still behind me. I looked again in my side mirror. The driver appeared to be doing a lot of angry gesticulating.

By my estimates, I had left enough room for a car to squeeze in behind me. In a city where parking was at a premium-even illegal parking-I wasn’t about to give up my spot, not when I had such a clear view of Panama Joe’s.

The driver waited some more, then turned into the driveway, heading no doubt for the bank’s drive-thru ATM. He might have clipped my rear bumper as he did so but I didn’t give a damn. Hell, a nicked bumper gave my van a sort of authentic, shabby-chic look.

A few minutes later, my van rocked slightly again, and a quick glance in my driver’s side mirror showed that my pal had left the bank, and none too gracefully. He pulled up next to me and stopped, effectively blocking traffic. His passenger side window slid down.

“ Hey, asshole,” he said. “You’re blocking the fucking driveway.”

He’d stopped in the middle of the street to relay this information to me. I glanced back at the traffic he was creating, which was quickly piling up behind him. “You don’t say?”

“ Yeah, I do say, muthafucka.” He was a smallish guy with a thick neck and red hair. He leaned across the passenger seat and used his smart phone to snap a picture of the fake magnetized sign along the side of my van. “And we’ll see what your boss has to say, muthafucka.”