Guest Fiction: A Snowy Night In Beverly Hills

April returns with another automotive tale!

This was his third, and if he was honest with himself, last new car. It was time for a new set of wheels and a goodbye to the old one, even though he had the unfailing knack of selling his cars just before they became valuable collectors’ items.

His mind went back to the Packard roadster he’d traded in for peanuts when he’d bought the 300. If he had just pushed it into the garage, he could have made a sizable down payment on today’s purchase. No point crying over spilt milk. Anyhow, who wants to keep a car in storage for over a quarter century? Jesus, he wouldn’t have even bet a saw buck he would have survived to the science fiction sounding year of 1980.

The 56 Chrysler 300 had served him well, the glove compartment held bills for two carb rebuilds, one alternator and four Sears batteries all on warranty for as long as you own your car...suckers.

The twin four-barrel hemi used some oil these days and the bright red paint had turned a dull pink from the unrelenting California sun. The rear passenger window had a bullet hole. Had to make sure he showed it to the dealer with the coupe’s four power windows in the down position. But she sounded great and had four almost new Sears Superguard whitewalls. Not quite good enough for the valets at the Chateau Marmont, but cool enough to park at the taco stand at the cove.

Still, A man in his line of work couldn’t be seen to be too down at heel. And to be honest, he would like to have working air conditioning. He was heading over to Downy where the highways meet, as the radio jingle went, to check out a new Riviera. Motor Trend’s car of the year for 1979; he had read that issue in his dentist’s office. He liked the looks, reminded him a little of his old Packard.

Parking the 300 a good twenty feet from the sales office, and remembering to leave the windows down, he entered the hushed showroom, shivering a little at the exhale of artificially cold air. His attention drawn immediately to the black Eldorado that had pride of place beneath the big light fixture at the center of the floor. He hadn’t completed his second circle of the Caddy when a saleswoman glided up, her approach only forewarned by the click of heels on the tiled floor.

A woman his own age, give or take a year, though she had clearly taken better care of herself than he had. Expensive designer clothes he assumed. Halston perhaps? A detective’s job was to notice the details. If she was wearing an outfit that cost more than all his suits put together, she was no doubt good at her job. And it was a real job for her: no ring. So perhaps divorced, condo, mortgage, and kid in college?

“Want to take a ride?” Startled out of his momentary reverie, he answered yes to whatever the question was. In the time it took for the car jockey to free the Eldorado she told him that this was no ordinary car, it was a Penske RS, which meant all the Biarritz’s lily gilding was removed or painted back. Touring suspension, 368 Cadillac big block, Goodyear Wingfoots, and real wire wheels.

By the time they hit the on ramp at extra-legal speeds, accelerating steadily onto the 403, he was sold. He feigned indifference and claimed he was also looking at a Mercedes. Her laugh suggested that she didn’t believe him any more than if he had said he was considering an elephant but hadn’t read up on the mpg figures yet. Doing the favor of not asking which Mercedes, she instead suggested a cruise along the PCH.

“Heck, if I sell this baby, I will cover a few months draw and the sales manager won’t care how late I come back.” He admired her candor.

The sun was going down by the time he had completed the paperwork and bid goodbye to the 300. Myra had been gentle with him, overly generous on his trade in, taking into account that he’d paid a substantial premium to get the RS over a base Eldorado. The already installed Motorola car phone added another grand to the purchase price. He cursed the dealer add-on but admitted it could be useful in his line of work.

The new car was his first Caddy and the flirtation with Myra should have put him in a good mood, but he kept coming back to the morbid thought that this might be his last new car unless he was still living and driving into his nineties. By the time he drifted into the Buggy Whip on La Tijera, he was in the market for liquid forgetfulness and, if truth be told, some company. The bar was quiet, the Eldorado’s stereo (with optional weather band radio) had forecast some unseasonable weather. He wished he had invited Myra.

He imagined the conversation they might have had. “Tell me about yourself, Bill”, the imaginary Myra said with genuine interest.

Not much to tell, he began modestly. An aging private eye, ex-cop. Was in Europe during the latter part of the war, enlisted man. Perhaps by the second drink he might mention driving a jeep in mountains hunting werewolves with OSS spooks. Jesus, the things he had seen. Being first through the gates at Dora had been the worst.

German grandparents meant he had some of the local lingo and a hence undiscovered knack for ferreting out the facts and picking up on things. Clues was the wrong word, that was for Sherlock Holmes and Boston Blackie. He just knew when things looked wrong, were wrong.

Not a fan of Michigan winters, he’d made his way to LA after the war. OSS contacts got his foot in the door at LA police headquarters, but he soon remembered from his time in the army that he really didn’t like taking orders from anyone. He didn’t last long before putting out his shingle. Cheating husbands and wives were his bread and butter, but movie studio work was the most lucrative.

It was only when he stepped out of the supper club that he realized that it had been snowing, a good four inches already blanketed the parking lot, thick flakes muffling the ever-present sounds of the freeway. How long had it been since he had seen snow — two maybe three decades?

After brushing off the Eldorado with his bare hands, he headed back to the small canyon home that he’d bought after the divorce. It was his best financial decision ever. The home, not the divorce. Set into the hillside like a Hobbit hole, the bungalow had belonged to a former B-movie actress. He could never remember the name. Creature features. Tame sex comedies.

Snow was a very rare occasion in LA but not unheard of. The biggest snowfall recorded up till now had been in 1949. He and another patrolman had even made a snowman, the crowning touch a sombrero. Snowed again in ‘62, making a mess of the Rose Parade.

The front wheel drive Eldorado took the snow in stride and Bill’s long dormant winter driving skills slowly returned. Like riding a bike or driving a jeep, he mused.

It was the tire tracks that looked wrong. Someone else would have driven on by. But his radar got switched on and he had to look closer.

Something with wide tires had come off the road fast at the outside edge of a long curve. Out of the car now he followed the trail of through one hedge and two back yard fences. A Porsche 911 Turbo had come to rest at the bottom of a swimming pool.

Bill looked down at the pool, then back at the trail of devastation wrought by the German sports car’s power slide through the neighborhood.

The pool was lit but not heated and a perfect gossamer layer of ice had covered the now still waters. The 911 sat squarely in the deep end, all four wheels resting on the azure concrete.

The pool lights illuminated a faint rainbow of oil and gasoline below the ice. Bill could clearly read the all too prescient new style vanity plate. TOO FAST. More disturbingly, he could see the pale face, blonde hair, and wide staring eyes of the driver. Nobody he knew. But she had the look of someone that other people knew. Maybe the look of someone whom everyone would eventually have known.

No one was home. The family was maybe back to see the grandparents in Minnesota or something. Bill called in the wreck on his car phone, wondering if the charges would be a deductible work expense. He hoped the IRS would agree.

He was only a little surprised when a baby blue ‘79 Firebird pulled up, sliding the last few inches and narrowly missing the mailbox.

“Bill,”

“Gail.”

“Thanks for calling it in.”

“I didn’t call you.”

“No, but someone at the station let me know before the press gets wind, you should have guessed that.”

So far, she had avoided gazing into the blue glow of the frozen swimming pool. The sun would be up soon, and the remaining unbroken ice would quickly melt, maybe take the snow with it.

“Jesus Bill, you didn’t try to get her out?”

“Unless she is part mermaid, she ran out of air hours ago.”

Ice had formed over the pool; the tracks partially obscured by snow that stopped falling around three am.

“So Gail, who is it that gets you out of bed so early. Who at the studio wants this finessed?”

In truth he did feel a little guilty. A younger man, a younger version of him, would have dived through the ice and pulled her out even though it was a fool’s errand, right? He suspected the thought would fester at the base of his skull, and it would take more than a few drinks to keep it quiet.

“The cops and the paramedics will be here soon, Bill. Do you really want to hang around in the cold and answer stupid questions for a few hours? Maybe they will smell your breath, or maybe you will catch your death of cold…. could easily happen at your age.”

That last part stung. He reluctantly trudged back through the tracks he’d left in the snow, feeling all the day’s unlikely cold in every bone. Defeated, he dropped into the Eldo’s leather seats and cranked up the heat into virgin climate-control territory, a hitherto unseen 80 degrees.

Roads were still treacherous, but he made good time to his Hobbit hole and tucked the Eldo into the single car garage. Inside, the answering machine was lit up, a curt summons to police HQ. “Fuck that”, he said to the room, and headed for the cozy bedroom. Well, that’s what the real-estate agent called it. More like a second-class cabin on a on a third-class liner.

A five-hour restless sleep later, he was stuck in traffic headed downtown to the “Glass House”, LA police headquarters. The snow had disappeared, leaving nothing but a few newspaper stories. He sat cocooned in the Eldorado’s air-conditioned cockpit, pretty much insulated from the noise, heat, and smog all around him. Once he’d travelled the same route in the Packard, roof down, smelling the orange blossoms. It had been like heaven then.

On the Motorola, he placed a call to his former drinking buddy and 3rd armored comrade, now deputy coroner.

“What can you tell me about last night’s delivery? Young girl, drowning, car accident?”

“Screw you Bill. I’m not your secretary/ Cost you premier tickets. Still got contacts at the studios?”

“I got VIP comps to something called ‘Heaven’s Gate’, want ‘em?”

“Deal. ID says Mary North, born Oct 11, 1963, which would make her all of 18 come the fall. Cause of death, drowning. No drugs or alcohol in her system, she was likely trying to protect the baby.”

Leaving the Eldorado in the underground garage of the Parker Center, he headed upstairs and deigned to answer last night’s summons. His old beat partner Bobby, upgraded to Detective Robert now, had just gotten off the phone with the mother in Ann Arbor. The girl wasn’t even legal yet. Ran away, dreams of stardom, hitched a ride with a girlfriend who got wise and left six months ago.

“Here’s the kicker. She didn’t have a driver’s license.”

“Well, no wonder she lost it on that curve. That kraut wonder weapon. Likely more tail happy than my ex’s old Corvair.”

“No shit, Sherlock. According to mom, she didn’t have a license because she couldn’t see. Born premature. Hair’s breadth from being legally blind”.

Bill had driven that road a million times, there was no way a blind-as-a-bat novice could have gotten that far in the snow. She hadn’t been out joy riding in the boyfriend’s Porsche. Someone else had been the driver.

“Gail beat you to the punch on this, pal. The DA wants this little problem to go away. Celebrity murderer looks bad on the books. There’s the studio connection. I’m trying to save you some shoe leather Bill. Just let it be another traffic fatality.”

Gail saw to it alright, Bill thought. New movie coming out, the studio, heck the industry doesn’t need another Teddy Kennedy, doesn’t play well in Peoria. Forget an Eldo; Bill suspected she would be trading her the Firebird for a 450 SL soon.

“You did you know she was pregnant. You knew that, right?” Bill left the question hanging.

Some things don’t sit right.

He found the 911 at the yard, no need for serial numbers and long-distance phone calls to Stuttgart. Paperwork was still in the glove box. European Motors, leased to the studio. Vanity plates were gone.

A guy pulling up to a sportscar dealership in a new Caddy, especially an old guy, got their attention. Mentioned how he was at a premiere, saw a stunning Turbo, plate was TOOFAST. Everyone likes to name drop in LA. Tactfully asked around and found out where he lived…. pretty damn close to the scene of the accident. I should have seen the tracks; did he brush them away then cut through back yards to get back to his rented villa?

Back in his third-class cabin, Bill thought about confronting him, calling the cops. No point. Too much money had been invested, it would be a futile gesture. It wasn’t really his problem and stirring things up would be the end of any studio work.

Three years later, business had slowed down, things were more violent, gangs, drugs. Bill was seriously thinking about retirement. Still driving the Eldorado, almost paid off too.

The Beverly Hills street was quiet. Too early for the illegal gardeners and assorted staff to arrive. A perfect 72-degree California day. Bright red Countach at the light. TOO FAST under the bumper. Bill pulled alongside in the Eldorado. The driver turned to look as Bill powered down the passenger window. A look of annoyance crossed his face, no doubt expecting a question about cost followed by “what kinda’ mileage does it get?”

Only to be faced by a Smith K-38. LAPD issue. Given to him in a box when he’d left. With gratitude, to a devoted servant of the public. Inside the Eldorado, the noise was something you could feel. The light turned green. Bill started to ease his foot off the brake. The next thing? Maybe would drop a postcard to her mom back in Ann Arbor.

Or maybe he’d would wait for Gail to show up.