Slow Squeeze (Iris Thorne Mysteries Book 2) Page 11

“You shouldn’t allow that.”

  “The police have already chased him out half a dozen times. He just keeps coming back.”

  “Santa Monica cops. Bunch of bleeding hearts.”

  The street man turned his head slightly to look at them out of the corner of his eye but said nothing.

  “Did you come for a reason? I’m kind of busy. I need to pack for the weekend.”

  “That’s what I came to talk to you about.”

  “The weekend?”

  “Well, not just about the weekend.”

  “Are you going to tell me or do I have to drag every word out of you?”

  He reached into his jeans pocket, took out a piece of paper, and handed it to her. “Chloe found this.”

  Iris read it. It was the note she’d shoved into Chloe’s pajama bag. “Did she finally fess up to stealing my bracelet?”

  John faced her with his hands on his hips. “She did not steal your bracelet.”

  “John, I found it hidden in her bedroom.”

  “What were you doing snooping in her room?”

  “She stole my bracelet. You’re forgetting the point.”

  “The point is that you were snooping in my daughter’s room.”

  “Well, your daughter stole from your girlfriend. I only went looking for it because you wouldn’t believe me. I can’t win. I’m always going to have less credibility with you than she does.”

  “You don’t understand what it’s like to have children.”

  “Here we go.”

  “Iris. This isn’t working out.”

  “What’s not working out?”

  “Us.”

  “Oh, c’mon. Why do you take a small issue and make it a life or death thing? We can work this out.”

  John’s eyes grew red.

  “You don’t mean it.” She turned away from him, leaned against the terrace railing, and looked at the ocean. She suddenly felt both light-headed and lead-footed.

  “I’ve feel like I’m giving Chloe mixed messages about premarital sex. And now, with this bracelet thing, I feel like you’re putting a wedge between me and my daughter.”

  “That’s what Chloe said, right?”

  “But I agree with her.”

  “And Penny’s view?”

  “Penny says that if Chloe had a more stable family life she wouldn’t be having problems.”

  “Like mother, like daughter. They dangle the guilt out there and you just bite right into it. Of course your own happiness is a nonissue.”

  “I think it’s best if we break up. I’m sorry.” He put his hand over hers on top of the terrace railing.

  “Don’t.” She jerked her hand away.

  He stepped close behind her and put his hands on each of her arms. “C’mon, Iris. Can’t we be friends?”

  She raised the wineglass toward her lips, then impulsively jerked it over her shoulder. The wine splashed in his face.

  “Damn!” He released her arms and tried to wipe the wine from his eyes.

  The street man continued to look straight ahead through the bushes, giving no indication that he must have heard everything.

  Iris walked back inside the condo, holding the glass upside down by its base, dribbling wine onto the floor. She sat on a corner of the raw silk couch, set the glass on its side on the floor, tucked her feet under her, wrapped her arms around herself, and stared into space.

  John came in from the terrace, still wiping his face with his hands. She didn’t acknowledge him. He walked through the living room and down the corridor to her bedroom. When he returned, his face and hair were dry but his shirt still showed splashes.

  She hadn’t moved. She spoke without looking at him. “This is stupid, John. You caving in to Penny is not going to make a better life for anyone in the long run. You can’t live a lie.”

  “‘Bye, Iris.” He closed the door behind him.

  She remained quietly on the couch for a long time. Finally, she unfolded her legs, which had grown cramped from sitting on them, stood, and walked through the bedroom and into the master bathroom.

  The water she’d run in the sink had seeped out, leaving behind sudsy, snakelike pantyhose. She was running more water when she spotted the towel he’d used to dry his face. She snatched it from the towel bar and threw it into the bedroom, intending to wash it later with the hottest water possible and lots of soap. While the water was running into the sink, she turned and leaned against it. John had left the toilet seat up. She reached out from where she stood and tipped it down with a bang. A sob escaped. She dropped to her hands and knees, grabbed the toilet seat, and lifted it and slammed it down over and over again against the porcelain. Tears streamed down her face. A crack appeared in the toilet seat’s thick plastic.

  She stopped only when she heard the phone ring. She stumbled to the phone on her nightstand.

  “Honey, it’s Barbie. You sounded so tired when we hung up, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  Iris started sobbing.

  “Sugar, what’s wrong?”

  Iris couldn’t speak.

  “Iris, tell me what it is.”

  “Oh, Barbie. John left me…”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Art rang the doorbell of Barbie’s apartment. The doorbell was a cheap, spring-activated model in a little plastic box that chimed a shallow ding-dong when pushed.

  Barbie’s voice rang through the other side of the thin door. “Just a minute!”

  Art waited, facing the door, holding his hands behind his back.

  Barbie’s apartment complex was on Tahiti Way in Marina del Rey, built between two basins. The complex was three stories tall, the seventies-style woodsy units built in a zigzag pattern to give each tenant maximum window exposure to the marina. Each unit had a small terrace, most of them holding a barbecue, a small patio table and chairs, and a bicycle. Many terraces were decorated with wind socks shaped like colorful fish and with wind chimes.

  The marina air resonated with tinkling noises from the wind chimes ringing in the omnipresent breeze, steel fittings clanging against aluminum sailboat masts, ice clinking in cocktail glasses, and laughter rising from folks at play. A few boats were heading out for sunset sails. Most were coming back in. Many boats hardly ever left the dock but served as floating rec rooms for their owners. It was the dinner hour and owners were now screwing little portable barbecues onto boat rails. The scent of saltwater mingled with barbecue starter fluid, grilled steaks, and gasoline.

  Barbie swung the door open. She cooed, “Hello, Arturo.”

  She was wearing a deep purple silk jumpsuit in a military style with long sleeves, gold buttons, and epaulets. A broad gold belt cinched her waist, and her flesh bubbled over it. The jumpsuit’s top buttons were undone, the opening filled with round mounds of pale Barbie. A long gold chain encircled her neck. She stepped into the doorway and put her hand on his cheek. “Lovely to see you, sugar.”

  He stepped closer and handed her the flowers he’d been hiding behind his back. “For you.”

  “Aren’t you just the sweetest thing?” She set the flowers on the bar of the kitchen.

  Barbie’s apartment was a small studio with the living room and bedroom sharing the same space. The bedroom area was on a raised platform separated from the living room by three steps. The closets and the bathroom were to the left of the bedroom. The outside wall was composed of two large sliding glass doors that opened onto Barbie’s terrace, which had no patio furniture, wind chimes, or wind sock. The apartment had been rented furnished, and the furniture was made out of cheap pressboard and upholstered in a sturdy, drab brown plaid fabric.

  Barbie gave Art a peck on the lips. He flung his arms around her waist, jerked her close, and locked his lips on hers. She squirmed, trying to free herself from his grasp. He held tight, standing with his legs staggered, rubbing her back and waist through the purple silk and pulling her hips against him.

  “You want to fight me today, huh?” Art suddenly let Barbie go. He ran
his hand over his mouth, trying to rub off the pink lipstick that was smeared there.

  “Hi, Art,” Iris said. She stood in the small living room wearing black leggings with a long, bright red pullover.

  Barbie gave Art an I-told-you-so look.

  “Hi, Iris,” Art stammered. “I thought you were going up to that Mariah place with John.”

  Barbie put her hand on Art’s sleeve. “I invited her, sugar. Her trip got canceled.”

  “John dumped me,” Iris said.

  “Dumped you? You mean like he really dumped you?”

  “Right down the crapper.”

  “What happened?”

  Iris’s eyes welled with tears. She shook her head bitterly.

  Barbie put her arm around Iris’s waist. “Let her be, Arturo. She didn’t want to come out, but I couldn’t let her sit at home by herself on her birthday.”

  Iris wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.

  Barbie patted her waist. “So we spent the day shoppin’ and going around. I bought this.” She pirouetted in her jumpsuit. “Like it?”

  “It’s great.”

  “And Iris bought that sweater and I bought her a little gift and I bought you a little gift too, sugar.”

  Art leaned close to Barbie’s ear and whispered, “But I’m taking you to meet my uncle.”

  “I know you’re going to meet your uncle,” Iris said.

  He looked at Iris with surprise. “You’re not mad?”

  Iris flipped her wrist. “If Barbie wants to invest in a club, she’ll invest in a club.”

  “Well, okay. Great.” He walked into the small living room.

  “Good. We’re all friends again.” Barbie leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, “I’ve got a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator. Let’s have a little toast.”

  “Thanks, Barbie, but I don’t feel like having anything.” Iris sat listlessly on the couch.

  “C’mon, honey. Just have a little glass.” She directed herself to Art. “Poor thing’s hardly eaten anything all day.”

  “Maybe you need a little tequila.” Art winked at her.

  “I don’t want anything. Nothing sounds good.”

  “You’re gonna be a barrel of laughs tonight.” He opened the sliding glass door and walked onto the terrace. “Hey, Barbie? Did you find a burgundy pullover? I think I might have left it here.”

  Barbie busied herself with the champagne bottle and glasses in the kitchen. There was no formal dining area, just two bar stools beneath a Formica bar on the kitchen’s outer wall. She said, “No, I haven’t, sugar.” There was the pop of a champagne cork being released.

  “When’s that bigger apartment coming through? This place is starting to look more and more like a cheap motel,” Art said.

  Barbie walked from the kitchen holding two wineglasses that were three-quarters full of champagne. “Apartment manager told me I’m the next in line for one of the penthouse, three-bedroom units. I can hardly wait to get all my crystal and china and knickknacks and things out of storage. Go ahead and take a sip, Iris. Just for a toast.”

  Iris accepted one of the glasses. “So that’s why there’s no personal stuff around.”

  Barbie went back into the kitchen and got the third glass. “Of course that’s why. What didja think?”

  Iris shrugged. “I didn’t think anything. I just wondered why someone of your means didn’t have more stuff.”

  “Oh, I’ve got stuff all right. Once I get set up, I’ll have a big dinner party for y’all. I’m a hell of a cook. Betcha didn’t know that.”

  “A woman of many talents.” Art raised his eyebrows.

  “Let’s toast, to Iris’s birthday.”

  “Let’s pick something else,” Iris said.

  “C’mon, sugar. We’re gonna have a ball tonight.”

  Iris raised her glass. “To my birthday. For she’s a jolly good fellow, hip hip hooray, hi de ho ho, screw everything and bottom’s up.” She took a sip and set the glass on the coffee table.

  “So how old are you?”Art asked.

  “Chronologically or mentally?”

  Barbie took a small sip of the champagne, then put her glass down on the pressboard coffee table. “Honey, you’ll feel better once you get a change of scenery. Let’s go. Let me fix my makeup and get my coat.” She pranced up the three steps that led to the bedroom, then turned left into the short corridor lined with closets on either wall.

  “So, what happened between you and John?” Art asked.

  “Johnny thinks I’m putting a wedge between him and his daughter, the devil girl child Chloe, and that he’s giving her mixed messages about premarital sex.”

  “But you guys have been dating for over a year. Why now?”

  “His ex-wife, the high, holy, and most righteous Penny, was dumped by her own live-in boyfriend of six years, the initially clueless but finally wise Philip. So John starts to look pretty darn good to Penny again and she starts coming around, punching his guilt buttons like there’s no tomorrow. And boy, has he got ‘em.”

  “So, what’s he doing tonight?”

  “Who knows? Penny’s probably cooking up seared tofu steaks and wheat germ.” Iris picked up the glass and took another sip. “I’ve had it up to here with them and their screwed-up family life. I’m not gonna beg anyone to stay with me.”

  “‘Atta girl.” Barbie came back into the living room, her fox draped over her shoulders. “Plenty of fish in the sea for someone like you. You just wait.”

  Iris blew out air. “I’m done with men. I don’t want them near me, touching me, talking to me, nada.” She gestured toward Art. “You don’t count.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Barbie put her arm around Iris’s shoulders. “C’mon, darlin’. Don’t worry about being lonely. You won’t be. Everything’s gonna be just fine.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  East L.A. is colored in shades of brown, gray, and gold. It comes from the patches of vacant land covered with wild grass, wheat, and mustard that are green just briefly in spring before turning gold in summer, then churned into brown again when the city tractors the earth to reduce the fire hazard. It comes from the smallness of the houses and buildings in relation to the broad asphalt streets and from the brown tint of the sky when the smog pools against the hills that are far from the ocean breeze.

  There are few trees to break up the monotone of the natural landscape other than palm trees planted years ago by new residents who wanted those sunny Southern Californian icons in their own yards. The palm trees are now impossibly tall, their long trunks neatly trimmed up to the reach of a man unsteadily standing on a ladder with garden shears held above his head. Above that point the trees are cloaked with brown, dead fronds where mice and other opportunistic creatures find homes. Occasionally one of the trees catches fire in the dry heat and burns like a huge torch.

  Art got off the freeway onto a broad boulevard lined with small businesses. A pastelería displays thickly frosted traditional wedding cakes with plastic brides and grooms on top; a tuxedo rental shop offers sky blue ruffled shirts buttoned onto molded plastic chests; a trophy shop supplies the local schools with athletic and academic awards; auto repair shops feature an impressive array of specialties. Small food stands with hand-lettered signs advertise tacos, burritos, hamburgers, and taquitos. A bar’s flat stucco facade is painted with musical instruments, music notes, and long-haired, big-busted, high-bottomed fantasy women in string bikinis, implying that the bar has exotic dancers. There are none. The owner just likes the pictures.

  Business owners attempt to cover the gang placas on their walls with neutral-colored paint, only to have the street gangs repaint them the next night. The spray-painted placas juxtaposed with the shades of neutral block-out paint create unintentional abstract art.

  Art’s parents’ house was at the bottom of a hill on a corner, next door to their neighborhood grocery store. Art parked on the str
eet. The house was small and Spanish-style, in creamy white stucco molded into smooth and rough textures, and had a tile roof. The windows and doors were built inside arches. A tall wrought iron fence encircled the house, and a cement path began at the front gate and meandered as best it could across the short distance to the front door. The path was lined with well-tended tree roses in neat, circular beds, blooming showy red, salmon, pink, and violet, releasing their fragrance into the smoggy day. Art’s uncle lived in a sister house across the street.

  A sign made out of painted carved wooden letters stood on the roof above the market’s door and announced: SILVA MARKET. The store windows had been boarded up years ago after the era arrived when storefront windows begged to be broken. Hand-lettered signs in black paint on white butcher paper were thumbtacked into the square areas where the windows had been. ORANGES .39/LB. CERVEZA $2.39. TORTILLAS 2 DOZ $1.

  They piled out of the car. Barbie in her purple was as incongruous in the surroundings as a splashy orchid pinned to a favorite bathrobe. Iris laced her fingers, pushed her hands up over her head, and arched her back, standing on her toes, grunting as she stretched. She brought her hands down and rubbed her belly. “When are we eating?”

  “Is food all you think about?” Art asked. “Thought you were too upset to eat.”

  “Well, I no longer have a sex life.”

  Art pulled open the market’s screen door which jangled a bell fixed to the ceiling. He waited for the women to enter, then released the door, which closed with a slam.

  “Artie,” said a boy behind the counter, putting down his comic book. “Your pops said you were stopping by.” He was tall and gangly and wore a short-sleeved, abstract-print cotton shirt tucked into black jeans and enormous, spotlessly white, name-brand athletic shoes with very high tops and very thick soles. The smooth skin of his face lay close against his bones as if every ingested calorie fueled his upward growth, leaving little to flesh out the rest.

  Art swung his palm back then forward toward his cousin. “Victor! What up, carnal?”

  “I made the J.V. football team, first string.” Victor spoke with extended vowels, an enunciation unique to the barrio.