Nameless Dame, page 15
turned out I was littler than I thought.
The second shock was to see Custard, his head down on a cocktail table near the bar. He stood and made a grand apology when he saw us.
“You want to file charges against this prick?” Sabbatini asked.
“Back off, Poesy,” Custard said.
“You don’t tell me what to do, you fucking redneck. You may have deviated this man’s septum.”
Custard looked confused. He turned toward me. “Like I said, I’m totally sorry. I kinda lost it there.”
“You sure the fuck did,” Sabbatini said. “This man needs to go to the hospital.”
“Hey, I’ll pay whatever it costs.”
Sabbatini nodded. “Yeah, you will, and before I get him over to the clinic in Sebastopol, we’re having a talk, Gordo.”
Manzy came over to ask if we wanted drinks, but Sabbatini shook her off. “No, we’re going for a little ride.” To Custard he said, “You better leave Manzanita a gaudy tip for her trouble.”
Custard reached into his buckskin wallet, pulled out a five, and dropped it on the table.
Sabbatini shook his head. “You can do better than that.”
Custard protested, “All I’ve got is a hundred-dollar bill.”
“Well?”
Manzanita, who was standing a bit back from the table, said that she’d be happy to change the hundred.
“You don’t have to do that,” Sabbatini said.
It was nice to see Sabbatini showing a little force. I was afraid his West County life had taken it from him. He and my assailant had a brief staring match, which Sabbatini won. His stare, I noted, was fixed directly on Custard’s eyes.
Clearly a day of firsts. I’d never before seen a man in Sufi-wear stare down a strapping redneck. The old Golden Gloves champ picked up his five-dollar bill and extracted a C-note from his wallet, grumbling something under his breath as he tossed the bill onto the table.
A Higher Form of Being
Once outside, Sabbatini ordered Custard into the backseat of his Volvo. I was a bit amazed by the authority that the old police detective assumed and the way Custard minded it. I guess that’s what comes from winning a staring match. I wouldn’t know.
The Volvo smelled of Sea Ranch Tsunami. The sweet, smoky aroma brought on a fresh series of waves.
“Smells like you’ve been taking your medicine, Poesy,” Custard said in his most pleasing voice.
“Ca me met la puce a l’oreille. Il y a anguille sous roche.”
“What was that?” Custard asked.
“I smell a rat.”
“Hey, I’ve got some really righteous stuff to lay on you, Poesy.”
Sabbatini didn’t respond.
I flipped down the mirrored visor in the front passenger seat and had a look at my swelling nose. The blue-black of the bruise seemed to be marbling actively across a wide swath of my face.
“Where are we going, Poesy?” Custard asked.
Sabbatini didn’t answer.
I could hear Custard rustling around inside his saddlebag in the backseat, but I didn’t turn around to see what he was up to.
After we pulled out of the parking lot and headed north on Highway 1, Custard said, “No, I’ve really got something nice for you guys.”
Sabbatini smiled at me. “Here’s where the bribes begin.”
As if on cue, Custard leaned over the backseat and handed us each fat baggies filled with premium, pinup-worthy buds. The stuff looked like it came straight from a centerfold shoot at High Times.
Sabbatini grabbed the bag offered to him, but I shook my head, and just as Custard was going to take back the second baggie, Sabbatini grabbed it.
“What would you say the street value of this is?” the old police detective asked.
“That there is some potent bud. We’re not talking your run-of-the-mill Fuck Face.”
“Then what are we talking here? What do you get for a baggie of bud this size?”
“Baggie like that,” Custard said, pausing as if he needed to consider the price, “baggie like that, a fat ass of an ounce like that goes for $300, to friends.”
“So that suggests that Augie and I are better than friends since you’re giving us this shit.” Sabbatini turned to me. “See, here’s where a shyster like Custard is really shitting us. Nobody’s getting $300 an ounce anymore. Too much of a surplus.”
I groaned after the second of two hairpin turns and Sabbatini put a hand on my shoulder. “We’re just about there, Augie.”
“Where are we going?” Custard asked.
Sabbatini pulled into a turnout on the ocean side, parked, and turned the engine off. This was the same turnout that Coolican had taken this morning. It seemed as if the locals had an affinity for ghoulish tourist spots.
“You know what that beach is down there, Gordo?” Sabbatini asked.
“Nope.”
I didn’t bother to turn around but could see that the two were facing each other via the rearview mirror.
“You sure you don’t know? That’s Fish Head Beach where those two Christian kids were murdered in 2004. You know anything about those murders, Gordo?”
“Hell, no, why would I know anything about that?”
“So, you’re telling me that you don’t know about those murders.”
“Just what I read in the papers, and various theories, you know, you heard people expousing in taverns.”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, Gordo, but expousing ain’t a word. You can go with exposing or espousing, but you’ve got to really make a choice between ’em.” Sabbatini winked at me, clearly enjoying his little detour into the pedantic. “So what’s your theory about who killed them, Gordo?”
“I don’t have a theory. And quit calling me ‘Gordo.’”
“Isn’t that your name, Gordo?”
Custard winced audibly.
I’d started to become obsessive about my nose. I couldn’t take my eyes off it in the mirror. I checked and rechecked my breathing, wondering if in fact I did have a deviated septum.
Sabbatini dropped a hand on my shoulder. “How’s the schnozola doing?”
“I’m thinking it will live.”
“I bet you’d like to smash Custard.”
“Not especially.”
“You’re really lucky that Augie’s a higher form of being, Gordo.”
Love Underrated
Sabbatini turned around now and looked at Custard. “So you have no theory you’re willing to expouse about the murders down there?”
“Probably was just some drifter,” Custard said.
“Without a motive?”
“Hell, I don’t know what his motive was. He didn’t take any money from them.”
“So are you saying that money is the only sensible motivation for committing a crime?”
“No, I’m not saying that.”
I turned sideways so Custard could see my face. “I’ve always thought love was underrated as a motive,” I said.
Custard narrowed his eyes, a nuance lost on Sabbatini, whose husky laugh at my line filled the car.
“That’s so Augie.” Sabbatini said. “He’s such a romantic.”
I supposed that was true, although I couldn’t imagine myself far gone enough to kill for the sake of love.
“It takes one to know one,” Custard said, with a sneer.
“What is that supposed to mean, Custard?” Sabbatini demanded. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Custard went mute and I did my best to disassociate.
Only the lovesick
detective sees love
as a possible motive.
Dark Deeds
A couple of moments later, Sabbatini changed his tune. He caught Custard’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Hey, Gordo, how many plants do you have growing?”
The pot rancher shrugged. Without turning, I could hear him trying to buzz down his window.
“Hey, how do I get this window open, Poesy? I got to spit.”
Sabbatini unlocked the window, and just like that, Custard had the window down and was shooting long wads of tobacco loogie from the backseat.
“I’d guess you have a good two hundred plants or so, huh, Gordo?” Sabbatini continued. “You’ve really got great sun exposure out there. You should see this guy’s operation, Augie. He’s one of the biggest outdoor growers in the area. He’s absolutely brazen, grows these big, motherfucking plants right out in the open. Nobody’s gonna touch Custard’s shit. Come harvest time, he’s got these beatific two-pound shrubs, most ravishing bud you’ve ever seen in your life. How much you get a pound for that bud, Gordo? Around three Gs wholesale?”
“No, barely two. Like you said, prices are down. The indoor growers are the only ones making the big money.”
“But you’re not suffering, Custard, not by my calculations. So let’s see, what’s Custard’s crop worth? That’s, say, two hundred and fifty plants at two pounds, times two grand a pound.” Sabbatini pulled a phone out of his pocket and punched in some numbers. “I’ve got a calculator on here. Damn, that’s a cool million for one crop. How many crops you have in a year, Custard?”
“Believe me, it’s not all profit. I’ve got plenty of expenses.”
“How much do you pay in taxes, Gordo?”
“I pay taxes.”
“How much you want to bet we pay more taxes than he does, Augie?”
“So what’s your point here?” Custard shouted.
“Who said I have a point, anyway? Maybe I’m just making conversation. You see, Custard’s part of the 1 percent. Instead of occupying Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa, we should be occupying the pot ranches of West County.”
The pot rancher turned to the open window and spat out another wad of tobacco custard. I began to feel like a captive in the car and willed myself to open the car door and step outside.
“Where you going, Augie?”
“Just need a little air.”
“Be careful out there.”
I was surprised by the force of the wind. It had really come up since Coolican and I were there in the morning. Whitecaps checkered the belly of the ocean. I walked gingerly toward the cliff and looked down the hilly crags toward the beach. Hard not to picture the two young Christians dead in their sleeping bags. Killed the very same way as Ruthie Rosenberg.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Detective Sabbatini Returns
I WENT BACK to the car, figuring that Sabbatini was probably waiting for me. No such luck, I realized, as soon as I settled back into the front seat. Custard and Sabbatini were still jousting.
“What the hell do you want from me, Poesy?” Custard asked. “I mean, I’m sorry I clocked your buddy.”
Sabbatini ignored him and turned toward me. “How is it out there?”
“Big wind.”
“Hey, Gordo, how many people do you have working for you?” Sabbatini asked.
“I don’t know, maybe a dozen. It’s seasonal work.”
I turned to look at Custard. He’d taken off his Stetson and his thin, stringy hair looked as if it hadn’t been washed in a while. I noticed for the first time that the skin over his chin and right cheek had small black flecks embedded in it. I guessed he’d once been sprayed with buckshot. His cheeks were both puffed with tobacco. I’d lied to Sabbatini—I would have loved to clobber this creep. Sabbatini pulled a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and started poking between his teeth with the plastic toothpick. Custard yanked out his tobacco tin and took a few pinches. Jeez, if I’d had my clippers with me, I’d have given myself a manicure.
Before Sabbatini could ask his next question, I jumped in with one of my own. “Who was the Russian you were waiting for at the River Rose yesterday?”
Sabbatini winked at me.
Custard groaned. “Dmitri.”
“Dmitri from the Reno casino outfit?” Sabbatini asked.
Custard nodded.
Sabbatini grinned. “What kind of business are you doing with him?”
Custard paused before answering. “He’s . . . a good customer.”
“What are you selling him,” Sabbatini asked, “your ganja or your wife?”
“Fuck you, Poesy.” Custard made a fist with his right hand.
“What are you going to do, clobber me, too, Gordo?”
“Hey,” Custard said, with a snarl, “I hear you got a fat tub of shekels from the casino, Poesy. Now take me back to town. I don’t know what you’re giving me all this shit for.”
“Sure, I’ll take you back to town, Gordo. But one more question: How long did Ruthie work for you as a trimmer?”
I was surprised by the question, but Custard took it in stride.
“I don’t know,” he said, “a few years. On and off.”
Sabbatini turned the key and let the Volvo idle for a minute. “And how about Yevgeny, how long’s he been trimming for you?”
“I thought you said one question.”
“It’s one question with several parts. You should see this scene, Augie. Gordo’s got a little cabin out on his property. I’m not talking about his house, but this small cabin where there’s this big ol’ oak table that practically fills the main room. So you got five or six people sitting around the table, smoking weed. There’s usually a bottle of Jack Daniel’s going around, and these folks are just sitting there bullshitting. Meanwhile, they’ve got these small manicure scissors clip-clipping away through the buds with the mechanical fluency of hummingbirds.”
“Maybe you should write a poem about them, Poesy,” Custard grumbled.
“There’s an idea.”
I turned sideways so I could see Custard. He had his Stetson back on now and an inscrutable look fixed on his mug.
“A better idea,” Sabbatini continued, “would be to have all those trimmers reciting poems as they trim.”
Custard shrugged. “You think everyone should be reciting poetry.”
“Bien sur! Imagine if you had all the trimmers in West County reciting poems. I’d start them out with Gary Snyder’s ‘Hay for the Horses.’” Sabbatini shifted into reverse, and then pulled the car back onto Highway 1, aiming south. He turned back to catch Custard’s eye. “When did you start suspecting that Yevgeny and Ruthie might be stealing from you?”
“I’m not talking anymore.”
Sabbatini nodded. “Fine, we’ll just talk around you. Talk among ourselves, as it were.” Bobby flashed me a big smile and continued rapping a blue streak. “The problem, Custard discovered, was that he couldn’t be everywhere at once. If he was in the fields, he couldn’t keep track of what was going on in the cabin, or vice versa. He thought he was paying his people well, but they were still stealing from him. He had some folks he trusted, but all of a sudden he couldn’t trust anybody anymore.
“Hey, final part of the question, Gordo. Did Ruthie Rosenberg steal enough from you for you to want her dead? Take your time with your answer. I could even find you a pad of paper and a pencil, in case you’d like to write it down,” Sabbatini said, sounding like the old police detective.
“Hey, Custard,” I said, turning to face the man directly, “how long had you been sleeping with Ruthie by the time she died?”
I expected to get nailed again by the rancher, but he just puffed out his cheeks and looked grim.
“Wow,” said Sabbatini, “that was a real blockbuster. Thing about Augie is he’s a pretty good sleuth when he puts his mind to it. And you got to appreciate the foreshadowing, Gordo. I mean the way Augie laid that egg of a line about love being underrated as a motive.”
“Hey, I had nothing to do with that girl’s killing,” Custard volunteered.
“No?” Sabbatini said, “you just slept with her.”
“That didn’t make me exactly unique.” Custard buzzed down the window and spat again.
“Did you love her?” I asked.
“No,” he said, but he squinted his eyes in a surprising way. “I tried to protect her.”
“From whom?” I followed.
“I just tried to keep her safe.”
“From whom and from what?” Sabbatini persisted.
Sabbatini eyed Custard in the rearview mirror while I looked at him directly, but the pot rancher had clammed up again.
Cazadero Castrato
“Well, think about your answer a little, Gordo. Meanwhile, how about we roll up a joint of your righteous bud? What do you call this shit? What do you call it, man? You can tell us that much.”
Custard wasn’t budging.
“Anyway,” Sabbatini said, “I’ve got some slow-burning papers here. We’ll take our time getting back.”
Sabbatini pulled out one of the baggies of bud and juggled it in his hand for a moment. He tossed it to me with a pack of papers, and said, “Augie, will you do the honors?”
After I rolled up a decent fatty on the open tray of the glove compartment, I handed it to Sabbatini.
“Not bad for a teetotaler, Augie.” Bobby fired up the doob and passed it to me. I wasn’t having any. The waves of Tsunami were getting fainter and I didn’t want to do anything to amplify them. I turned to my assailant and offered him the joint. He took it and spent a moment looking at it. Then he found his voice again.
“I’m not much of a smoker anymore,” he said. “I’ve got so I prefer edibles.”
“But weed’s your business, Gordo. You’ve got to know your business; you’ve got to know it from the inside out. And to know it, you have to smoke it. It’s like me and poetry.” Sabbatini took both hands off the steering wheel and held them aloft for a moment. “Do I know my business, brothers, or do I know my business?”
Custard zipped down his window and spat a couple wads of tobacco. Then he drew on the fat joint, savoring it like a prize cigar. After taking a half-dozen hearty hits, he said, “You’re right, Poesy, nothing wrong with the direct approach. All I’m saying is that with edibles, you’re looking at the future.” He passed the fatty back to Sabbatini.
The old detective nodded. “Could be, could be.”
Custard reached into the pocket of his jean jacket and pulled out a handful of chocolate bars wrapped in bright lavender foil. “I just picked up some chocolate cannabis bars from one of my associates. They’re supposed to be a killer high.”
