tomeubanks.com

                                            CHAPTER FOUR

                                         Partners

11:25 a.m.

Joe handed the picture to Leah Levin. She was professionally dressed in a solid royal blue, waist-length jacket over a white button-up blouse and knee-length skirt. Joe was especially fond of her nails. Long and painted pale pink, they matched her lipstick and a ceramic carnation pinned over her left breast. Her long, wavy red hair parted on the left. Her eyebrows were thin and straight. Like her smile, Joe thought.

She held the picture of Jackie Weldon by the corner. "What do I do with it?"

From behind his crescent-shaped oak desk, which took up most of his office space, void of any trinkets or decorative knick-knacks, Joe fondled the phone. "What?"

"The picture. What do I do with it?"

"Put it in the file."

"What file?"

"The one you're going to make." She grimaced. Joe punched a number out on the phone. "Someone's gotta."

"Why'd she run away?"

"Mother-daughter thing." The line was picked up. "Hey, Dick, Joe. Good, you? Great. Need an ANI....Robert, Ocean, Lincoln, Lincoln, Edward, Mary....Yeah."

While he waited, Leah took the opportunity to ask:

"What's a mother-daughter thing?"

Before he could answer, Dick came back on the line. Joe wrote down the registration for the VW plate. He small-talked a minute, thanked Dick and pushed the receiver button then dialed another number.

"Who did you call just then?" Leah asked, throwing her leg over the other one and settling back in the side chair next to his desk. She was ready for his secrets. Joe wasn't.

"One of my sources–"

"One of our sources," she corrected. "Who was it?"

"Guy at Pasadena P.D."

A Velveeta-smooth voice on the other end of the line answered, "Sad Café Theater."

"Dutch in?"

"He's expected back tomorrow," the secretary replied. "May I take a message?"

"I'm returning his call from Tuesday."

"Does he have your number?"

"I guess so," he said lightly. Then he pretended to talk to someone else in the room, saying: "When Dutch called Tuesday, did he call on the phone or did he call on the congas?"

The secretary hesitated. When she got the joke, she courteously giggled. "I'll let him know you drummed."

Joe hung up, dialed another number from memory.

Leah's eyebrows went up. "Who's Dutch?"

"People from Holland."

She looked exasperated, closed her eyes and slowly asked, "Is he one of our sources?"

"No. He's a friend."

"Ours?"

"Mine."

"Oh." She re-crossed her legs, flipping the left over the right. "Should I write some of this stuff down?"

"If you want."

She hurried to the file cabinet behind Joe's desk, found a tablet of white legal paper, got a pen from his pen holder on his desk and returned to a studious pose in the side chair.

"Who're you calling now?"

"Another friend."

"We have lots of friends."

"Key to success. Hey, Arthur, how's it hangin'?" He owed Art LeBeaumont a lot of favors. Joe was in a position to return a few now that he was on his own.

"Gettin' by, Art. Yeah, if Asshole can do it, so can I."

Asshole was their name for Otto Steiger, Joe's previous employer. "Thanks, Art, appreciate it....Hey, need some help. I can pay this time....No, no. I insist. Really." He glanced up. Leah nipped smugly at her lip, poised for notes. She was starting to annoy him. He wasn't used to having someone in the room while he did business. Felt like someone listening at the bathroom door while he passed a Taco Bell burrito.

"Need a full crim on an Ivan Quist Sonneborn. Address: 14487 Radford, Apartment B, North Hollywood. Get me a CDL....Runaway. Seventeen. She's hangin' with this loser....When? Perfect. Smoke the same cigars? I'll send some over. Thanks, Art. You too."

"What was all that about?" Leah asked when he hung up.

"Personal business."

"So what's a"–she read her notes–"a full crim?"

"DOJ, NCIC," he said purposely being difficult.

She huffed through her nose, put on that Give-Me-A-Break grimace again, providing Joe with the instant gratification he wanted.

"You know damn well, Joe, I don't know what that means. How'm I supposed to learn all this stuff if you don't speak English?"

If he didn't tell her, he knew she wouldn't let up. She was determined. "DOJ is the Department of Justice. NCIC is the national criminal index. Doesn't matter. I ordered a rap sheet on Sonneborn." She looked up from her notes, a question in her eyes. "A rap sheet. Arrest and conviction record."

"I got it. And a CDL?"

"California Driver's License record."

Tapping the pen against her chin, she said: "So it wasn't personal business then?"

Joe hesitated. There was no way out.

She screwed up her mouth like she wanted to say something obscene but calmly set her pad and pen on the edge of Joe's desk. He recognized the moment for what it was. It was time to–what was his grandpa's expression? Iron the hanky and wipe snot off the iron. He folded his hands on his desk, tore off all expression from his face and delivered it to his voice.

"Look, Leah. I need a little room to work here. I'm not used to this yet."

Evenly, she replied: "Perhaps you should get used to it."

"You know, just because you're part owner–"

"Half owner," she corrected discordantly. Joe tried not to notice, but she uncrossed her legs, re-crossed them and pulled her skirt over her knee in a gesture of impatience.

"Whatever. I can't work like this. A little at a time, that's all I'm saying."

"I know what you're saying. A partnership is...delicate. Like a rose. The way the stem and flower are connected by physical necessity, yet: one is pleasing to the eye; one is shapeless and thorny."

Joe quipped: "Don't I smell nice?"

"You always have something to say. But I'm supposed to be learning the business–that was our deal, Joe. I buy the computer, the software, the furniture"–she swept her hand around the room like a Price Is Right model–"and the microfiche thingy, and those whatchamacallits"–she wiggled her hand in the general direction of a stack of criss-cross directories stacked on Joe's credenza–"and I provide the management skills that keep our embryonic enterprise from succumbing to something akin to The Rockford Files–namely, living in a dumb trailer and driving a Chevy."

He couldn't let that slide. "Rockford drove a Pontiac."

She folded her hands in her lap, cocked her head to one side. "You're avoiding the subject."

"Yeah, and I'm good at it," he retorted with a grin.

Trying not to appear hurt, she crossed her arms. "I just want to make it like a real partnership around here. Nothing wrong with that. Partners talk about their business." Her eyebrows raised. "Don't they?"

Joe sighed. "I don't know, Leah. Never had one."

"Me either. But there is the fact that I own and operate a chain of frozen yogurt shops–"

"Three is hardly a chain. Maybe a link of frozen yogurt shops, but certainly not a chain."

"Three shops, thirty shops–what's the difference?"

"Twenty-seven."

She came to her feet, fists clenched. Couldn't take a joke, that was for sure. Gritting her teeth, she left Joe's office, leaving the foyer door open, and headed for the other end of the seventh floor where she traded hats and became the founder and president of Valley Girl Fro-gurt Emporiums, Incorporated.

Joe closed his eyes. He deserved this. He took her up on her offer to be his partner. What was he thinking about? Easy: money–she had it, he didn't.

Footsteps in the hall. She's coming back, he thought. Maybe he should apologize; maybe not. Maybe if she was apologetic first.

Surprise brought him to his feet.

"Hi," the boy said, coming into the foyer to the threshold of Joe's private office. He wore a pastel blue and green t-shirt, blue jeans and Reeboks. Carefully, the boy scanned the entire office like he was going to have to paint it. His blond hair was short on the sides with thick, straight-up hair that ran down to the nape of his neck. He was about thirteen, Joe guessed, maybe older, with a boyish skin and handsome alertness usually possessed by a kid screaming to grow up.

Joe looked behind him. No adult. "By yourself?"

"Yes, sir. I'm Robby Catlin? I live here in Tarzana? I have a work permit? And I was wondering if you were hiring?"

"For what, kid?"

"My mom knows the owner of the building," he said. "Mr. Kanawyer? Said you just opened for business." He sat down in the Naugahyde chair. "Bet you could use a good detective."