Джо Горес - Cases

“Hey, this is great! A picture of the three of us together!” Dunc told her, “Three prints, miss.”

Pepe said sheepishly to Penny, “I thought it was a bomb. Mickey Cohen used to have his bookie joint in the basement of the haberdashery right next door at 8800 Sunset. Sell you a suit upstairs, take you to the cleaners downstairs. Somebody who wanted to take over his vice empire set off two bombs under his house.”

“Did they ever succeed?” asked Penny, wide-eyed.

“The mob, no, but he got five years for tax evasion.”

“And his vice empire?” asked Dunc.

Pepe chuckled. “Now everybody wants to take it over.”

The photo girl in her brief costume came back. It was a good shot, not as somber as the moment had felt to Dunc.

“Ah, we were young then,” said Pepe.

“Monday we’re going to the American Legion Labor Day picnic at Griffith Park,” said Penny. “Could you—”

“I’d love to! How kind of you to ask.”

“I’ll drop by midweek with directions,” volunteered Dunc.

There were still a lot of things he needed to talk to Pepe about that he couldn’t say in front of Penny. Arriving just too late to save Artis from Rafe Raffetto, Ned giving him the car, maybe even the priest’s weird penance...

“I’ll be here,” said Pepe with mock resignation.

It was too late to catch the Duke, but the Strip was still alive with moving people, honking cars, cruising police vehicles. They walked with their arms around one another; once off Sunset, they stopped every few paces to kiss. The house where Philip Marlowe might have uncovered a corpse was dark. Their eyes met.

Dunc said, “Let’s go... some where.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

Out beyond the Strip, Sunset Boulevard was wide and dark, traffic light. At Westwood Village Dunc chose a glowing red neon MOTEL–Vacancy sign, turned in. His heart was pounding.

He parked, trying to remember warnings from college studs about checking into a motel with a girl. After rehearsing his story in his mind, he rang the night bell.

A yawning woman with a round pleasant sleep-filled face came into the little office to buzz him in. Before Dunc could even fumble out his wallet, she put down a registration card.

“Double with bath is six bucks. Noon checkout.”

California! He loved it. Inside, they embraced, kissed. He unzipped the red dress and drew it down her shoulders and arms. She drew it down past her hips and thighs herself, looking like countless French paintings, Herself Surprised.

She stepped out of it, leaving the dress a crimson puddle on the floor, and caught his silver belt buckle to draw him close to her. They clung dizzily to each other, with deep, long kisses, then she was opening his buttons as he unfastened her bra and her breasts sprang free, achingly beautiful in the dim light.

In bed together, naked, touching one another, both inexperienced. When he finally began to enter her, Penny arched her back and drew in a sharp breath.

A whisper, “Dunc, please, be... It’s... my first time...”

He was wild with passion, nothing had ever been harder than the restraint she needed. Moving slowly, ever so slowly, he had not even fully entered her before he came. He had never known anything as exquisite in his life.

He withdrew, still half engorged. They clung together, entwined. She whispered, “I... I love you, Dunc.”

“Love you, my lover,” he said into her hair.

Her hand found him, he started to get hard again.

“Oh, Dunc... yes,” she whispered.

This time, no holding back. Her legs locked around him, held him tight as he bucked and thrust. Suddenly she arched with a small astonished cry and he spent, and spent, and spent again.

The Purple Cockatoo was dark except for a bright fan of gold from the open door in the back wall marking the office where the manager tallied the night’s receipts. Pepe pulled the fitted cloth cover over the piano; he wouldn’t be playing here again.

Dunc had found him, Dunc would be back to talk about the deaths of Artis and Ned, things that Pepe couldn’t talk about. This was a smart, observant kid. If he started remembering...

Pepe sipped his white wine, considered. He couldn’t have Dunc in touch with him, but it would be smart to keep track of where Dunc went, what he did. Yes. Smart. He’d make a phone call. No telling what the kid was thinking about right now.

They slept, woke, found one another, slept, woke again shortly before noon in each other’s arms to the sounds of people moving around outside, cars starting. Kissing, shyly, neither of them moving. Then moving, slowly at first, then faster, faster, then wildly to mutual explosion.

When they finally got up for a quick shared shower, there were two fine streaks of blood on the sheet. It awoke in Dunc a strange, exciting meld of emotions he had never known before: possession, an intense desire to protect, commitment to her.

Penny reassured romance-loving Aunt Goodie from a pay phone, then Dunc drove them out along winding Sunset Boulevard toward the Palisades. It was a warm and sparkling day full of music, he had a hard time keeping his eyes off Penny. She was wearing dark glasses, the windows were open and her hair was blowing around her face. Her legs were tucked under her, tracing the taut line of her thigh against the red skirt. A scant hour ago he had been between those thighs. He couldn’t believe it.

“Where are you taking me, mystery man?”

“I was thinking of lunch,” he said.

She slid over beside him to rest her head on his shoulder. “I knew there was something about you that I found attractive.”

Dunc stopped at a seafood place on the ocean side of the Coast Highway, at a window table they ate fisherman’s platters and watched swimmers splashing in the languid surf.

“I wish...” Penny left the thought unfinished.

“Me too,” said Dunc.

Farther north they saw the turnoff to Rephaim’s church and said in tandem, “Yeah, let’s,” and laughed in delight at the shared thought. Here they had first met, just over a month ago. They wanted to remember it. They would. A tan ’52 Ford and a police black-and-white were parked outside the open door with the cross over it. Three men emerged.

The first was tall and athletic with a hard-bitten face and frown lines on his forehead. The second was a uniformed bull with a revolver on his hip. The third was Rephaim in his flowing robes, his magnificent head of silver hair wild, his eyes even wilder. He raised both manacled arms to point at Dunc.

“Thy heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” He advanced toward them, quivering with righteous rage. He cried, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts!”

“I haven’t done anything to you,” said Dunc, taken aback.

Rephaim thundered, “I will feed thee with wormwood, and give thee water of gall to drink.”

“What is happening here?” demanded a bewildered Penny.

The cop led Rephaim away to the prowl car. The hard-bitten detective said, “We’re not too sure ourselves. We got a memo about the San Fernando police cracking a big illegal-alien smuggling ring out in the Valley.”

“But what does that have to do with Rephaim?” she asked.

“Well, this morning we get a call from somebody belongs to this Church of the Order of Melchizedek, complaining about greasy Mexicans, so we attend the reverend’s service unannounced, we find a couple dozen wetbacks. The reverend says they’re members of his congregation, but none of ’em has a word of English. No papers, no home addresses, no money. So we called Immigration.”

The prowl car with Rephaim in back accelerated up the road.