The Captain
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 259
I started this tale on another thread and was encouraged to give it a thread of its' own. I hope you folks won't be disappointed.
TIKI NOIR
RGCardella ~ 2004
Usually a double shot of Jack Daniel’s would have been my libation of choice, but since that chance meeting with “The Dragon Lady”, as I had dubbed her, my choices in everything had changed. She had effected me more in these few short weeks than any other person I have known in my life.
It all started when I got a call from an old friend. His given name was Homer, but only a fool would have called him that. Among the crowds of surfers, beach-bunnies and the flotsam and jetsam who just “hung” at the beach, he was known as, “Spider”. Spider held sway at the little hamburger joint on the beach called, “Bonnie’s”, where the phone was answered, “Bonnie’s at the beach, where the debris meets the sea”. Sitting on his favorite stool next to the jukebox, he would counsel anyone who approached with coins in hand, as to the best "sides" to choose. The box at Bonnie’s was known far and wide as having a great assortment of jazz, both “West Coast” and “East Coast”. Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Jerry Mulligan, Horace Silver, Sonny Rollins, Ahmad Jamal – they were all there. There was a huge speaker attached to the front of the building and the sounds, both cool and be-bop, floated out over the beach.
I met Spider for lunch at Bonnie’s on one of those days that the local fathers would like to patent. The sky was as blue as the finish on my .45. The beach was covered with multi-colored blankets, which were in turn covered with young, firm, tan flesh. A grouping of surfboards, their tails stuck in the sand, stood totem-like in front of the building. As I entered, he waved me over. The place was small – tiny, really – and most everyone took the food out on the beach to eat. I shouldered my way past the counter, and as I did, my eyes locked with a pair of eyes that almost matched the sky. She had long, sun-streaked hair and was wearing a green one-piece bathing suit. She also was wearing green nail polish. Color coordinated all the way. She was all of nineteen or twenty, a little too young for me, so I broke the eye-lock that we had and sidled on over to Spider.
With his sunglasses pushed up over a shock of blond hair, Spider looked the part of a local surfer, but in reality he was a private gumshoe like me. The big difference between us was that he came from a well-heeled family. Spider’s dad had invested heavily in real estate about a dozen years ago, in a place called Anaheim. Either he was lucky or had some inside information that Disney was going to build a theme park there. The bottom line was that dear old dad made a fortune. Spider never had to worry about paying the bills. If he didn’t have any clients for a while, he just dipped into his trust fund. If I didn’t have any clients, you could find me dipping into dumpsters. Not really. Things never got that bad. Spider and I were friends, but we were also competitors. If he wanted to see me, it was because he either needed a favor, or he had bitten off more than he could chew.
“Rico. Good to see ya’ man,” he said, “I ordered when I saw you parking your car”. I knew that he hadn’t seen me in the parking lot. The windows in the place were never washed and the salt spray that continually assaulted them rendered them almost opaque. I knew he had made me by the sound of my car.
“Been a while, kid, how ya’ doin’?”
“Bitchin’ man, just bitchin’. I was thinking about you yesterday and figured it was time we touched base.”
I knew this was a line of crap, but I learned a long time ago that you never passed up a free lunch even if it was a burger and fries. Anyway, the clients that I had had recently weren’t exactly into French cuisine.
Our food was put on the counter in front of us by a short, stocky woman in her late fifties. She had salt and pepper hair that was held in place by a hairnet and the look on her face was one of perpetual disdain. Bonnie herself had brought us our food. Oh, oh, I thought. She never leaves the kitchen area unless she is going to lay into someone.
“Hi, Bonnie, how are you?” I said.
“Good to see you Rico. How come you never come by to see me anymore?”, she answered, a look on her face that told me she was neither glad to see me or gave a damn if I ever came back.
“You know how it is Bonnie, you get so tied up with work that you lose track”, I said, and added, “Spider and I are just having a bite to eat and talking over some business.”
She leaned in close to us and said, “Remember the last time you boys were down here doing ‘some business’? I had to shut down for two weeks smack dab in the middle of July to get all the blood and brains off of the sidewalk and my front door. Is that what I have to look forward to?”
I looked at her and said with the most conviction I could muster, “I swear, Bonnie, just burgers and fries and cherry pies are on our minds. Nothing more.”
The incident she was referring to had happened about two years back. I had been sitting on the beach soaking up a little sun, reading a Raymond Chandler novel, and listening to the Modern Jazz Quartet, when I see Spider hot-footing it down the narrow road that ran in front of Bonnie’s place. He was in pursuit of a man that was knocking over people like pins in a bowling alley. As the guy neared the front door of Bonnie’s, he suddenly turned and, reaching into his waistband, pulled a snub-nosed .38 revolver. Someone yelled “He’s got a gun!” and everyone within earshot dived for the sand. Spider must have been anticipating this move, because before the guy could draw a bead on him he let loose with a shot that hit the guy in the right shoulder and spun him into the wall. So here I am, sitting on the beach minding my own business and this thug with a .38 still clutched in his mitt is looking right at me. What’s a guy to do? I reached into my beach towel, withdrew my .45 and shot him in the head. That’s where the “blood and brains” thing came in. Bonnie exaggerated when she said she was closed down for two weeks because of this incident. It was more like two days to get the front of the place back in order, but while the cops were there sorting out the details, someone -- in search of a donut, no doubt -- got a good look at the kitchen and called the Health Department. The cleanup back there took the rest of the time. The best thing that came out of that shooting was my introduction to Detective Sergeant Anthony Leone. He and I had had our differences, but he was a straight shooter and fair on all counts. He knew the deceased was a bad boy and that Spider was trying to apprehend him – a wanted fugitive – when the firefight broke out. An inquest was held and everything was kosher.
I had only taken a bite of my too-raw hamburger when the window next to Spider’s head exploded into needles of glass. Everyone in the place tried to hit the deck, some ending up on top of others, and all of them screaming like schoolgirls. Spider, with blood running down his tan cheekbone, went for the piece he had stashed in the small of his back. Me? I tried to hit the floor like all the rest of the schoolgirls. No dice. Too many bodies had beaten me to it. The best I could do was huddle there against the counter with Miss Green Nail Polish of 1960 staring back at me looking like a deer caught in the headlights. Spider hurdled a body next to the jukebox, stepped on a hand -- more schoolgirl screams – and charged through the ragged screen door that covered the side entrance. He was met by a chaotic scene of people running for cover and a black ’40 Ford coupe disappearing in a cloud of dust out of the beach parking lot. I met him at the door and he gave me the description of the car. It was no use contemplating a pursuit. People were milling all over the lot and we would have a hell of a time getting out. As we returned to the building, I saw that my questions to Spider as to just why someone was trying to whack him would have to wait. Everyone in the place that hadn’t ran screaming as soon as they thought it safe to get up off the floor, was looking over the counter. It wasn’t pretty. Bonnie, who had exited her kitchen sanctuary to give us her special brand of crap, was lying face up on the floor behind the counter. There was a small, oozing, black hole in her forehead just a tad above her left eye. Her expression was one of surprise, as if she had had time to register what had just happened to her. Her dress and apron had slid up and I could see that she rolled her nylons to just below her knees. Poor Bonnie, I thought. This was going to take a lot more than two days to clean up. I wondered if I could buy her jukebox?
To be continued
TIKI NOIR
RGCardella ~ 2004
Usually a double shot of Jack Daniel’s would have been my libation of choice, but since that chance meeting with “The Dragon Lady”, as I had dubbed her, my choices in everything had changed. She had effected me more in these few short weeks than any other person I have known in my life.
It all started when I got a call from an old friend. His given name was Homer, but only a fool would have called him that. Among the crowds of surfers, beach-bunnies and the flotsam and jetsam who just “hung” at the beach, he was known as, “Spider”. Spider held sway at the little hamburger joint on the beach called, “Bonnie’s”, where the phone was answered, “Bonnie’s at the beach, where the debris meets the sea”. Sitting on his favorite stool next to the jukebox, he would counsel anyone who approached with coins in hand, as to the best "sides" to choose. The box at Bonnie’s was known far and wide as having a great assortment of jazz, both “West Coast” and “East Coast”. Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Jerry Mulligan, Horace Silver, Sonny Rollins, Ahmad Jamal – they were all there. There was a huge speaker attached to the front of the building and the sounds, both cool and be-bop, floated out over the beach.
I met Spider for lunch at Bonnie’s on one of those days that the local fathers would like to patent. The sky was as blue as the finish on my .45. The beach was covered with multi-colored blankets, which were in turn covered with young, firm, tan flesh. A grouping of surfboards, their tails stuck in the sand, stood totem-like in front of the building. As I entered, he waved me over. The place was small – tiny, really – and most everyone took the food out on the beach to eat. I shouldered my way past the counter, and as I did, my eyes locked with a pair of eyes that almost matched the sky. She had long, sun-streaked hair and was wearing a green one-piece bathing suit. She also was wearing green nail polish. Color coordinated all the way. She was all of nineteen or twenty, a little too young for me, so I broke the eye-lock that we had and sidled on over to Spider.
With his sunglasses pushed up over a shock of blond hair, Spider looked the part of a local surfer, but in reality he was a private gumshoe like me. The big difference between us was that he came from a well-heeled family. Spider’s dad had invested heavily in real estate about a dozen years ago, in a place called Anaheim. Either he was lucky or had some inside information that Disney was going to build a theme park there. The bottom line was that dear old dad made a fortune. Spider never had to worry about paying the bills. If he didn’t have any clients for a while, he just dipped into his trust fund. If I didn’t have any clients, you could find me dipping into dumpsters. Not really. Things never got that bad. Spider and I were friends, but we were also competitors. If he wanted to see me, it was because he either needed a favor, or he had bitten off more than he could chew.
“Rico. Good to see ya’ man,” he said, “I ordered when I saw you parking your car”. I knew that he hadn’t seen me in the parking lot. The windows in the place were never washed and the salt spray that continually assaulted them rendered them almost opaque. I knew he had made me by the sound of my car.
“Been a while, kid, how ya’ doin’?”
“Bitchin’ man, just bitchin’. I was thinking about you yesterday and figured it was time we touched base.”
I knew this was a line of crap, but I learned a long time ago that you never passed up a free lunch even if it was a burger and fries. Anyway, the clients that I had had recently weren’t exactly into French cuisine.
Our food was put on the counter in front of us by a short, stocky woman in her late fifties. She had salt and pepper hair that was held in place by a hairnet and the look on her face was one of perpetual disdain. Bonnie herself had brought us our food. Oh, oh, I thought. She never leaves the kitchen area unless she is going to lay into someone.
“Hi, Bonnie, how are you?” I said.
“Good to see you Rico. How come you never come by to see me anymore?”, she answered, a look on her face that told me she was neither glad to see me or gave a damn if I ever came back.
“You know how it is Bonnie, you get so tied up with work that you lose track”, I said, and added, “Spider and I are just having a bite to eat and talking over some business.”
She leaned in close to us and said, “Remember the last time you boys were down here doing ‘some business’? I had to shut down for two weeks smack dab in the middle of July to get all the blood and brains off of the sidewalk and my front door. Is that what I have to look forward to?”
I looked at her and said with the most conviction I could muster, “I swear, Bonnie, just burgers and fries and cherry pies are on our minds. Nothing more.”
The incident she was referring to had happened about two years back. I had been sitting on the beach soaking up a little sun, reading a Raymond Chandler novel, and listening to the Modern Jazz Quartet, when I see Spider hot-footing it down the narrow road that ran in front of Bonnie’s place. He was in pursuit of a man that was knocking over people like pins in a bowling alley. As the guy neared the front door of Bonnie’s, he suddenly turned and, reaching into his waistband, pulled a snub-nosed .38 revolver. Someone yelled “He’s got a gun!” and everyone within earshot dived for the sand. Spider must have been anticipating this move, because before the guy could draw a bead on him he let loose with a shot that hit the guy in the right shoulder and spun him into the wall. So here I am, sitting on the beach minding my own business and this thug with a .38 still clutched in his mitt is looking right at me. What’s a guy to do? I reached into my beach towel, withdrew my .45 and shot him in the head. That’s where the “blood and brains” thing came in. Bonnie exaggerated when she said she was closed down for two weeks because of this incident. It was more like two days to get the front of the place back in order, but while the cops were there sorting out the details, someone -- in search of a donut, no doubt -- got a good look at the kitchen and called the Health Department. The cleanup back there took the rest of the time. The best thing that came out of that shooting was my introduction to Detective Sergeant Anthony Leone. He and I had had our differences, but he was a straight shooter and fair on all counts. He knew the deceased was a bad boy and that Spider was trying to apprehend him – a wanted fugitive – when the firefight broke out. An inquest was held and everything was kosher.
I had only taken a bite of my too-raw hamburger when the window next to Spider’s head exploded into needles of glass. Everyone in the place tried to hit the deck, some ending up on top of others, and all of them screaming like schoolgirls. Spider, with blood running down his tan cheekbone, went for the piece he had stashed in the small of his back. Me? I tried to hit the floor like all the rest of the schoolgirls. No dice. Too many bodies had beaten me to it. The best I could do was huddle there against the counter with Miss Green Nail Polish of 1960 staring back at me looking like a deer caught in the headlights. Spider hurdled a body next to the jukebox, stepped on a hand -- more schoolgirl screams – and charged through the ragged screen door that covered the side entrance. He was met by a chaotic scene of people running for cover and a black ’40 Ford coupe disappearing in a cloud of dust out of the beach parking lot. I met him at the door and he gave me the description of the car. It was no use contemplating a pursuit. People were milling all over the lot and we would have a hell of a time getting out. As we returned to the building, I saw that my questions to Spider as to just why someone was trying to whack him would have to wait. Everyone in the place that hadn’t ran screaming as soon as they thought it safe to get up off the floor, was looking over the counter. It wasn’t pretty. Bonnie, who had exited her kitchen sanctuary to give us her special brand of crap, was lying face up on the floor behind the counter. There was a small, oozing, black hole in her forehead just a tad above her left eye. Her expression was one of surprise, as if she had had time to register what had just happened to her. Her dress and apron had slid up and I could see that she rolled her nylons to just below her knees. Poor Bonnie, I thought. This was going to take a lot more than two days to clean up. I wondered if I could buy her jukebox?
To be continued
Dare I admit here on the Lounge that the only books I tend to read in one sitting are true crime? By then it's 4AM and I have to sleep with the light on, I'm so scared, which of course only makes it easier for The Zodiac to find me in the house....They never caught him, you know.
