Potshot

Bernard gestured at the bartender.

"Two more Mai Tais," he said.

I left.

Chapter 22

"BUT I DON'T want to stay at nineteen," Susan said. "I want him to hit me."

"But unless he hits you with an ace or a two," I said, "you bust."

"But staying is boring," she said.

"Of course it is," I said.

"You're humoring me."

"Of course I am."

We were in Beverly Hills, walking up Rodeo Drive, the silliest street in America, holding hands, discussing blackjack.

"But what's wrong with my approach," Susan said.

"It guarantees that you'll lose."

"I'm going to lose anyway."

"Very likely," I said. "But the point of the exercise is to try to win."

"I get bored standing there waiting for the proper cards."

I nodded. We were quiet for a little while as we marshaled our arguments.

"Are you thinking sexist things?" Susan said.

"Like `women, hmmph!'?" I said.

"Like that," she said.

"Not me."

Susan smiled.

We were staying in a hotel at the foot of Rodeo Drive. We liked the hotel. It was expensive, but I'd gotten a supportive advance from the Potshot cabal. And we were right in the heart of Beverly Hills, so we had continuous access to comic relief.

"So much to buy," Susan said, "so little time. How long do you think we'll be here?"

"I need to do a little background on Steven and Mary Lou Buckman," I said.

"I need a new wardrobe," she said. "For fall."

"Didn't you buy a new fall wardrobe last year?"

She gave me a withering look.

"How will you go about checking on the Buckmans?" she said.

"I'll start with Mark Samuelson. He's the one who sent Mary Lou to me."

"Why are you checking on them?"

"Better to know than not know," I said. "Nothing seems quite plumb in Potshot. I want to know about them before they went there. In fact it might help if I knew why they went there."

"To get away?"

"From what?"

"It would probably be good to know that, too," Susan said.

"Hey," I said. "You're detecting. That's man's work."

Susan ignored me, which probably accounts for the longevity of our relationship.

"I have women's work to do," she said. "Why don't you go about your business and let me do it."

Which I did.

Chapter 23

MARK SAMUELSON HAD been a lieutenant with a drooping moustache and no hair when I last did business with him. Now that I was doing business with him again, he was clean shaven, a captain, and had no hair. He was still wearing his tinted aviator glasses. And he had a healthy outdoor look about him.

His office was in the Parker Center now. It was bigger. It had higher partition walls. And the airconditioning worked.

"You look the same," he said.

"Yeah," I said, "crying shame isn't it."

"You working with Mary Lou Buckman?"

"Yeah."

"And you want to know what I know about her."

"And her husband," I said.

"My oldest kid played for him at Fairfax High," Samuelson said. "That's how I know him."

Samuelson had his coat off, and his gun was high on his hip on the right side.

"He used to ask me to come talk to the kids a few times, warn them to stay out of trouble. Rah-rah them about physical fitness and staying clean. That kind of crap. Bored the shit out of the kids."

"What kind of coach was he?"

"He was a hard-on," Samuelson said. "He thought he was Vince Lombardi."

"Kids like him?"

"Nobody liked him. Lot of kids quit."

"Yours didn't?"

"No. Ricky's good. He couldn't afford to quit. He was in line for a full ride at San Diego State."

"He get the scholarship?" I said.

"Yeah. Wide receiver."

"Buckman help with that?"

"Buckman didn't help with anything. When the college coaches were around, looking at the kids, Buckman was trying so hard to impress them that he got in the way."

"Looking for an assistant's job?"

"Looking to be head coach, I think."

"Too late now," I said. "He have a temper?"

"Yeah. I don't know how real it was. He was one of those guys who thought he ought to have a temper. Liked people to be scared of him, you know? Watch out for Steve, he's got a temper. He'd been in the Marines. Figured he could chew up a crowbar."

"Was he any good?"

"Oh he could bully the kids okay," Samuelson said. "And he probably won all the fights in the faculty lounge. But you and me have spent most of our lives with genuine tough guys," Samuelson said. "Buckman was just another Semper Fi asshole."

"How come he left coaching?"

"Got me," Samuelson said. "Ricky graduated three years ago. I lost interest."

"How about the wife?"

"I met her a few times. She was okay as far as I knew."

"They have any trouble at home?"

Samuelson shrugged.

"I'm not their pal," Samuelson said. "When she come in here, told me her husband got clipped in the desert, I wasn't sure who she was."

"You look into it at all?"

Samuelson got up and went to a coffee machine and poured a cup. He looked at me. I shook my head.

"Yeah, a little. Called a guy I know out there, dick in the Sheriff's Department named Cawley Dark. He said the case was dry. Said he probably got whacked by a bunch of local thugs, but there was no evidence and no witnesses and nothing that looked like a lead."

"So you passed her on to me," I said.

"Always looking to help out," Samuelson said.

"You bet," I said.

"She asked me who could help her. I figured you could make something out of nothing, if it got your attention."

"First time I saw you out here, I made nothing out of something," I said.

"You had a bad run. But I liked the way you handled yourself."

"Better than I did," I said.

"I've fucked a few cases myself," Samuelson said.

"People get killed?"

"Once or twice."

I shrugged. "Where'd she get the money?" I said.

"To pay you?"

"Yeah. Wife of a high school football coach? How much could she have saved up?"

"She's good-looking," Samuelson said. "Maybe she figured there'd be some way to broker a deal."

"It's a thought," I said.

Chapter 24

FAIRFAX HIGH SCHOOL is located at the corner of Fairfax and Melrose, not very far from CBS and The Farmer's Market down Fairfax, and excitingly close to the center of black lipstick and body piercing a little further east on Melrose.

The principal looked like a short John Thompson, black, about six-foot-five, and heavy. I introduced myself.

He shook hands. "Arthur Atkins."

He asked to see some ID. I provided some. He read it carefully.

"You are a private investigator," he said.

"Yes."