No Human Involved - Barbara Seranella Page 5

  He hung up the phone with a bang and turned to face her. She spoke first.

  "You looking for a mechanic?"

  She felt the man size her up. She tried not to flinch when he looked at the toes showing through the tops of her Keds.

  "You know someone who's looking?"

  "Me."

  He started to smile. She stared him out of his dismissive grin.

  "Look, kid, no offense. I don't think you could handle it."

  "Jack—" A skinny mechanic in coveralls burst into the office, then stopped in mid—sentence. "Oh, sony I didn't realize you were busy"

  "What you need, Lou?"

  "I can't figure out what's wrong with that Thunderbird we tuned last week. It got towed in last

  night. The note says it just quit on the guy"

  "That was him on the phone. He's really pissed."

  Munch stood. "If I get it running, can I have the job?"

  Both men stared at her. Lou's eyes lingered on her shoes, and she glared back at him.

  "What have you got to lose?" She held out her hand. "I'll need a screwdriver."

  Jack nodded. "Ler her try"

  Lou shook his head and mumbled something under his breath.

  They all walked out into the lot together. The hood of the Ford was up and the air cleaner rested on the ground. All Lou had been able to do was hook the car up to various life supports. Cables from a battery charger and scope snaked out from the engine. She disconnected the scope and shut off the charger. The smell of rotten eggs was telling her that the battery was roasting inside. At the cab company she had had a milk crate that she stood on. When she worked on bigger vehicles she scrambled up the front and sat in the engine compartment. Now, she hoisted herself up on the fender and lay across it belly down. She peered inside the carburetor. Her sneakered feet dangled a foot above the tarmac.

  "It's getting plenty of gas," Lou said when he saw her work the throttle.

  She sniffed the opening of the carburetor and then stuck a finger inside and tasted the gas. Lou and Jack exchanged amused looks. "Turn the key on, will you?" she asked him.

  "You want me to crank it?"

  "Nah, I'll do it from the solenoid." She pulled out the coil wire and held it a quarter-inch from the center tower of the distributor cap. She jumped the solenoid connections with the screwdriver. The spark coming out of the coil was erratic: blue, then yellow, then nonexistent, then blue again. The engine sputtered, backfired, tried to run, then died. She popped off the distributor cap, loosened the screw holding the ignition condenser, and carefully pried loose the small silver cylinder. "Got a lighter?"

  "You gonna have a cigarette?" Jack asked, looking more baffled than happy

  Lou handed her his Zippo. She held the flame under the lead wire of the condenser. The insulation melted away "Watch," she said and the terminal end of the wire dropped off. "You had a break in the wire inside of insulation."

  "That was a brand-new condenser," Lou said. "It was right off the shelf, Jack. You handed it to me yourself. How was I supposed to know?"

  "There was a service bulletin on this last month."

  She looked at the two men. "Do I have the job?"

  "Sure, kid. What's your name?"

  She looked past his shoulder to the window of the ofiice. "Daisy"

  "Daisy what?"

  "Daisy . . . Sign . . . man."

  "OK, Miss Daisy Signman, let's see if we got a set of coveralls that'll fit you."

  Lou set his mouth. "She just got lucky"

  "Why don't you read those service bulletins?" Jack asked.

  Lou glared at her.

  ***

  When Mace got to work Monday morning, he received thumbs-up from the other detectives of the morning shift. They all congratulated him on his keen detective work that resulted in the discovery of the legs. Mace acknowledged their praise, but was worried about commands reaction. Captain Divine was sure to be upset at what he would perceive as an undermining of his authority.

  On the way to the morning briefing, Mace spotted a group of visiting dignitaries walking down the hallway with the captain. There were several elected officials from City Hall, among them a congressman. Mace held his breath as the senior officers approached. The congressman stretched out his hand. "Good work, son."

  Divine picked up his cue. "Well done, Detective."

  Mace wondered if this would be a good time to bring up the issue of overtime.

  The morning briefing was mercifully short. Accounts were given of ongoing investigations. Mace delivered a brief report on the weekend homicides. At the close of the meeting, Divine asked if there were any grievances. The detectives stayed wisely mute.

  As far as the Ballona Creek Butcher case was concerned, it was agreed that all the detectives could do now was wait hopefully for a lead, a phone call, some tip. The fingerprints taken from the arm had already been checked against known records, but no matches had been found.

  Someone put a hand-drawn portrait on the station's bulletin board. A legless woman with one sleeve knotted at the shoulder and the caption: "Have you seen me?"

  When Mace returned to his desk, the results of the Flower George lab work were waiting for him. The prints on the van and the glass had been a match. No-brainer there, he thought. The girl had been ID'ed at the house by Vice and seen driving the van. The computer delivered a name and picture to go with the prints. Miranda Blowme was one of the names she had given when she was booked. Cute, he thought. In the picture her thin lips compressed in an angry line. Mousy light brown hair spilled out of a short ponytail secured with a rubber band. One eye was blackened. In the darkness of the bar he hadn't been able to determine the shade of her large eyes, only that they were set in a tiny face and underscored with dark gashes. The mug shot was in black and white. A written description listed her eyes as "hazel." Her face reminded him of the camp art that had surfaced in the early sixties. She looked like one of that artist Keane's big-eyed waifs with the oval faces and long necks. He pinned the picture to the bulletin board behind his desk. She'd probably turned a trick on her way home from jail. Thats how those whores were. It was stupid to waste manpower busting them.

  He dialed the switchboard and asked them to call the Santa Monica probation department. The officer assigned to his suspect was Caroline Rhinehart. That right there was reason enough for a follow-up. He'd been drooling over Miss Caroline Rhinehart since the first time he'd seen her cross her slender legs. There was something so orderly about her, pure class. She wore her blond hair shoulder-length and he liked the way it flipped outward at the bottom. Her makeup was subdued, not overdone. She didn't paint her lids blue to bring out her eyes or overdo it with the eyeliner and mascara till she looked like Elizabeth Taylors Cleopatra. Her whole attitude seemed to say, "This is who I am and its damn good enough." There was a competence about her that he appreciated. She'd been labeled a cold bitch by the other cops, who misread her dedication. He'd immediately seen beyond her aloofness. She had a reputation for being tough but fair with her clients. She'd give anyone the benefit of the doubt, he'd heard, but she was also a realist. In this business, you had to be. It had taken him a marriage to catch on, but he'd learned.

  She said she didn't date cops. He hadn't been able to get a fix on the kind of guy she did go for. Probably some touchyfeely cry-at-sad-movies kind of wimp.

  Maybe she wanted a "talker," like his ex had. Whats to talk about? he'd asked his wife when she voiced her unhappiness. There's them and us, he told her. She hadn't been interested in his "negative philosophies." They'd tried counseling. What a joke that had been. Waste of money The big Fight that drove them there had been just as stupid. She wanted to go to Midnight Mass and he told her absolutely not. He had just spent the previous forty-eight hours investigating a double homicide. Two women out at night alone. Did she want to talk about the damage done to a womans chest by a couple of double-ought shells fired at close range by some asshole in need of gas money? He wasn't about to burden
her with that disturbing image. He told her she would just have to trust him on this one. She told the shrink that he was interfering with her right to worship God. He said she could worship God to her heart's content at the morning mass. The psychiatrist suggested a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Among other things, the doctor said, the test measured Mace's degree of protectiveness. He scored a ninety-eight percent. What more did she want? In the car on the way home, she told him that the good doctor said a normal score was thirty to seventy percent. Like the asshole had any idea what normal meant. Then she had asked him to move out, but he still paid half the bills. How did his buddy Bob, put it? The fucking he was getting for the fucking he got. It would have been simpler to just pay for it straight out. When Mace told his then-partner, Ernie Potts, about the results of the test, Ernie had been incredulous. "You ever take that test again," he said, "you come see me first. Nobody can pass that test who's been a cop for any length of time. You gotta know how to answer those questions. Next time, talk to me first; you'll ace that test."

  The switchboard patched him through to Caroline Rhinehart's office.

  "Miss Rhinehart? Mace St. John here with the Venice PD."

  "What can I do for you, Detective?"

  "Well, it's a rather complicated matter involving one of your clients. I really think it would be best if we met in person to discuss this. How about lunch?" The furthest he'd ever gotten with her was a shared cup of coffee from the vending machine.

  "I have a previous engagement. Does this so-called client have a name?"

  "Blowme, Miranda."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Hey you asked."

  "Oh, you mean Munch. What's she done?"

  "It's looking like murder one."

  "Oh God. I'm really sorry to hear that." He heard her sigh and he wished he hadn't been so flip.

  "Who's she accused of murdering?"

  "Some lowlife pimp named George Mancini. Street name Flower George."

  "That poor kid." She sighed again. He wondered if she was crossing her legs and if she was wearing that beige suit with the skirt that hiked up her thigh. "I know the name. Flower George was her father."

  A little twist went off somewhere in Mace's intestine like the tightening of a knot. "We're not

  looking for her that hard."

  "Do me a favor."

  "Anything." He wasn't thinking about her legs anymore. He was thinking about a scrawny little throwaway complaining that sex with her pimp old man took too long. He felt queasy

  "Let me know if anything more comes up."

  "I'll be in court most of the day In fact, I'll be right by your office. If we get out early enough, would it be all right if I stopped by and looked at the girl's file?"

  "I'll wait for you," she said.

  6

  AT NOON ON MONDAY, THE SHOP BROKE FOR lunch. Munch used the time to go to the bathroom, where she gave herself a sponge bath with her bandanna and the cold tap water. The stomach cramps were much worse. The pain centered around her belly button and radiated outward till it reached the insides of her arms. A spike stabbed between her legs. Every cell in her body craved relief. Just a taste. When she came out of the bathroom, Jack and Lou were sitting together on the low block wall at the front of the shop. They were eating sandwiches and drinking coffee out of white ceramic mugs smudged with greasy fingerprints.

  "Come join us," Jack called out. "You can help us decide a very important matter. What kind of flowers to plant." He pointed to the squares of brown earth beneath his feet and an empty bed around the base of a pine tree that grew incongruously in the center of the lot.

  "Why'd you plant a tree there?" she had to ask.

  "I didn't." He swallowed and waved towards the tree with his sandwich. "The damn thing pushed right through the asphalt. I was planning to pull it, in fact I did once. Damn thing grew right back. I was going to pour gas on the sapling, kill the roots, and then fill in the hole. Then I figured anything that worked that hard to survive deserved a chance. So I broke up the asphalt around it and made another flowerbed."

  "It looks nice." She nodded to the empty office. "I need to make some phone calls. Is that all right?"

  "As long as they're local." He resumed his discussion with Lou. She heard him say something about petunias as she climbed the steps to the office. Her legs felt as if they were made of cement. Fresh sweat broke out on her forehead as another stomach cramp almost made her double over. She sat at the desk and pulled open a local phone book. She pulled the handful of assorted little containers of jams and jellies that she had liberated from the Denny's out of her shirt pocket. While she searched, she peeled open a little box of marmalade and licked it clean. She found what she was after on the third call.

  "St. Anthony's," a woman answered.

  "I need to get baptized. Do you do that?"

  There was a pause on the line while the woman considered. "Yes, we do. Babies, usually Would you like a meeting with Father Frank?"

  "As soon as possible. I don't have much time."

  "All right, dear. It sounds very important to you. How about this afternoon?"

  "How much does it cost?" .

  "It's customary to make a donation."

  "I don't have much money either. "

  "Just bring your faith, dear. I'm sure everything will work out."

  "You'll give me a certificate and everything, right?" Happy Jack had finished his lunch and was walking towards the office. The woman assured her that they would.

  She got directions and swept the jam wrappers into the wastepaper basket next to the desk. A shadow fell across the desk as Jack's big torso filled the office door. "I need you to fill out a W Four while I got you in here."

  He fished in the file cabinet till he found what he was after and then handed her the form. "I need your Social Security number, address, and I'm going to need a copy of your driver's license for our insurance."

  "It's gonna take me a couple of days to get all my stuff. I gotta go somewhere at four." She challenged him with her eyes to say no. If he did, fuck him, she didn't care. She was looking for a job when she found this one. He just looked back at her like she'd hurt his feelings. For some reason, that made her feel bad. "It won't take long." She tried to make her mouth smile.

  "All right, we'll see you first thing in the morning." He picked up the application she had begun to fill out. "Thats good you live so close. You can finish filling this out later. I see you left the ‘next of kin' and who to notify in case of emergency lines blank."

  "What kind of emergency?"

  "If you get hurt or something."

  "I'll have to think about that," she said.

  She tore out the page in the phone book that listed community services and stuck it in her pocket. The Social Security office was only two blocks away She knew from recent experience that all she had to do was tell them that she'd never had a card before and they'd type one up for her on the spot.

  "I can work till three-thirty By the way, when do I get paid?"

  Happy jack gave her an amused look. "Friday. You a little short?" He smiled at his own pun.

  "I'll get by"

  "You remind me of my wife's chihuahua, Missy Nine pounds of pure terror." He chuckled. "She's a feisty little thing. Shes bitten me twice, thinks I'm trying to hurt my wife when I hug her. The little mutt thinks she's a Doberman. Dog's got heart all right."

  "Why don't you just kick her or something?"

  "Nah, why? Shes got the right idea. She's just being loyal. I can't punish her for that. Ever had a dog, Daisy?"

  "I never wanted one." She poked at the desk leg with the toe of her tennis shoe. "They just die."

  Lou walked through the door. "Daisy" he said and looked from the flowers by the window to her.

  "That sounds like something you'd name a dog. Is that a nickname you picked up? I don't see how."

  He spit out the door. "Sure isn't very much flower-like about you."

  "She's got a
way with an engine, you gotta give her that," Jack said. He put a hand on her shoulder.

  "She's one of those natural-born mechanics, woman or no. She's got the ear for it." He patted her back and said, "We're gonna have to get you some small coveralls. These mediums make you look like a little kid."

  After the girl left the office, Happy Jack started clearing his desk: writing bills and totaling work orders. He tore off an invoice carbon, balled it in his meaty hand, but paused before he threw it away The empty tubs of jam on top of the trash caused him to hesitate.

  Daisy was already back at work, jacking up the front end of a Chevrolet. The two men watched her stand on the lug wrench and use the weight of her body to loosen the lug nuts, like she was kick-starting a motorcycle.

  "Smart." Jack put his big palm over his mouth and massaged his jaw. "Better to work smart. See, a woman has to use her brain more. She can't just bull it through with brute strength."

  Lou turned to his boss. "What the hell did you hire her for? Just because she got lucky with that Ford?"

  "You got a problem working with a woman, Lou?" He raised a brow at his employee.

  "All I'm trying to tell you is that a woman isn't built for this kind of work; she's got no future here. This is crazy She's taking a job from a man. Maybe some man with a family to support." Lou glanced down at Jack's desk. He picked up the photograph there and showed it to Jack. "She reminds you of your sister, doesn't she?"

  "Maybe. Listen, we'll give her a couple of weeks and see how she does. If she can't cut it, she's out of here."

  ***

  The probation department where Munch Mancini had been assigned was on the first floor of the Santa Monica courthouse. Caroline Rhinehart's office was a three-sided cubicle. She stood when Mace announced himself by rapping lightly on the jamb of her open doorway.