Contains characters from April’s previous stories here: Casa de Muerte and A Snowy Night In Beverly Hills. Publishing it in two parts so Substack’s email system doesn’t blow up; Part 2 will appear next week.
Part 1: Man in the Beaver Hat
Myra was getting desperate. She hadn’t had a sale in over four months, closer to five if she was being honest with herself. Worse than that, she was upside down; although she had never taken a draw before, preferring to work on full commission, she’d needed the advance this time. Now, she owed the dealership.
She was living on her savings and behind on the mortgage. She didn’t even have the scratch to get her Jaguar XJ6 repaired. Head gasket leak, and she’d caught it in time, but the car was parked until she could afford to take it to the service department at Jaguar of Long Beach.
As punishment for her recent poor performance, she’d also lost her late-model demo, a beautiful sable-black ‘91 Fleetwood. The replacement was a banana cream pie-colored ‘86 Seville. She was convinced that the only reason the downsized baby Cadillac hadn’t gone to auction was that it could be used by the sales manager to shame anyone who was ‘in the bucket’.
The two-tone yellow sedan with matching yellow leather meant that anyone could see you coming or going, so you’d better not be late for your shift.
She was at her desk early, grabbing a coffee from the service department’s old two burner Bunn. The takeout lattes had vanished in the interests of economy.
Myra had been diligently working her way through her Rolodex. It was the biggest model available and looked like a flea circus Ferris wheel. She had the sinking feeling that she was already on her second go-round.
Every day she turned on the charm, cajoled, flirted, talked about children and grandchildren, but just couldn’t make a sale to save her life. It was a different version of the same story over and over again.
“Hi, this is Myra from Penske Cadillac. I am the sales associate who sold you that beautiful ‘81 Fleetwood coupe. I hope you and Mr. Schwarz have been enjoying trouble-free motoring. Perhaps it is time to trade up to a new Brougham.
Oh, I am sorry to hear that Seymour passed. Maybe you would like to try one of our easy-to-park front wheel drive models.”
At which point she would find out that the widow no longer drove, or that her helpful nephew - he’s a CPA, don’t you know ‒ had convinced her to trade that Fleetwood in on a cute little Accord….so good on gas.
On to the next card, her luck didn’t improve. This former client had the misfortune to have traded in his ‘76 Talisman on a diesel Seville. He gave her an unwanted review of the Oldsmobile 350’s shortcomings and then hung up with gusto.
Others were more polite but regretfully informed her that they had moved on to Mercedes, BMW, or the Japanese newcomer, Lexus.
Of course, she knew Cadillac’s recent missteps hadn’t done her any favors: the 4-6-8, the HT4100, and some shocking downsizing. Her dealership was still doing well, but others weren’t so lucky, succumbing to changing tastes and an aging customer base. Hillcrest Motors, the Cadillac dealer in Beverly Hills, folded early in ‘86, its celebrity clientele being the most keenly attuned to the whims of automotive fashion. The yuppies didn’t see Cadillac as the final step up that their parents or grandparents had.
How long had she been doing this, anyway? She’d started her career at the Cadillac dealer in the late seventies, when it was still Bob Spreen’s dealership. She was a natural. First day on the floor, she sold a left over ‘78 Biarritz in Colonial Yellow, full laydown. He was a soap opera star and as they used to say, confirmed bachelor, who wanted something flashier than his partner’s lavender Mark V.
The job had found her. She’d turned up at the dealer looking to unload the baby blue ‘66 Calais her ex had given her. She suspected that the only reason she had the Caddy was that he liked to brag that he’d bought his wife a Cadillac. He had left her earlier in the year for his EST instructor — leaving her holding a hyperactive preschooler and a stack of unpaid bills. Selling the Calais would only address some of them.
This particular Standard of the World had seen better days. Passing the reflective glass outside the dealer on the way in, she realized how embarrassing it looked. The faded blue paint and the battle scars of many a supermarket parking lot were evidence of a hard life. It was the closest she’d gotten to crying over her predicament. The dealer principal had come out to see what his salesmen were laughing at.
He offered her a job as a receptionist, which she gratefully accepted. It was a great vantage point to learn the business, and a year later, she was on the floor ‒ the only woman on the sales team.
Enough reminiscing.
Myra had given herself one more day to make a sale and had come up snake eyes. She needed to raise some cash now, "extremis malis extrema remedia," as her father used to say. The ring was the only thing of value she’d received from her marriage apart from her son. It was a family heirloom and quite valuable.
Myra chose her parking spot with care, secreting the Seville in a quiet alleyway beside the shop. She was not a celebrity but still felt embarrassed by her looming penury and would rather have died than have any of her fellow salesmen know how bad her dry spell had been.
She was dressed casually for LA: designer jeans, silk blouse and delicately tinted Saint Laurent sunglasses with amber yellow frames.
She had done her research. This Hollywood establishment had a reputation as the pawnshop to the stars, or rather, stars that had dimmed or were between pictures. The building was painted a light pink in an attempt to disguises its cinderblock construction. The sign out front proclaimed, ‘International Auction and Appraisals.’ The Yellow Pages description was ‘high-end collateral lender,’ but it was really a pawnshop.
She had called beforehand to set up an appointment, describing the ring and getting a tentative offer based on inspection.
To enter, Myra had to be buzzed through an artfully disguised pair of security doors. A discreet sign announced that the premises were monitored by video camera. Once inside, the supplicant was greeted with a forest of faux wood paneling meant to evoke the library of an English manor house or maybe the captain’s quarters on a pirate ship. This was no downtown hock shop; there was no hanging garden of junk, no tarnished fondue sets, no cheap Sears electric guitars.
Instead, the center of the floor was dominated by a large rectangle of illuminated display cases. The carpet below her feet was blood-red mouton. Along the walls, paintings and objets d’art were arranged as if in a museum or private collection, each item floodlit by a hidden bulb.
She recognized a Wyeth beside a black statuette of a falcon. A framed silent movie poster for something called London After Midnight had pride of place. A terrifying visage with filed teeth glared out from the broadsheet.
“Mrs. Johnson? A few minutes early I see. ‘Punctuality is the soul of business.’”
The owner had appeared while she was distracted by the exotic wares. He had the build of a heavyweight fighter but not the height, and light grey suit tailored unsuccessfully to hide his wide build. She guessed she had an inch on him, even out of her heels.
“It’s Mrs. Jones,” replied Myra, and ‘better three hours too soon than a minute too late,’ Shakespeare.”
His response was calm and measured, each word considered, like a surgeon delivering bad news to a waiting family.
“Show me the ring now please.”
Myra stepped up to the glass counter, inside which one could see a better selection than half the jewelry stores on Rodeo Drive. She watched as the pawnbroker examined her ring with an eye piece. The ornate gold band housed a constellation of diamonds around a large square cut emerald, of uncommon clarity. When she used to wear the ring, she would sometimes stare into the emerald; it was like losing oneself in a deep forest pool.
“Is this stolen, Mrs. Jones? In fact, I am not convinced of its authenticity; some of these gems could be paste.”
Myra drew herself up on her heels and unleashed, like Charlton Heston delivering the Ten Commandments:
“Let me stop you right there. I had this ring appraised in 1965, the year I was married. It was valuable then, and even more so now. My fiancé had been given the ring by his great grandmother; it had, in turn, been given to her by her mother. The ring was crafted in Richmond, Virginia, over a hundred years ago as her engagement ring. It was a copy of the one President Jefferson Davis gave to his second wife Varina. Her ring resides today in the Smithsonian. This one is bigger.
The man who commissioned this ring and gave it to my ex-husband’s great-great-grandmother is buried in a muddy field in Gettysburg. She lost her betrothed, the child she was carrying out of wedlock and had her home burnt to the ground by Sherman. But she kept the ring, so even though I might need to sell, I won’t sell cheaply. And I don’t have to sell to you.”
Myra left with $500 more than she had been quoted over the phone. The ten grand would be enough to cover the missed mortgage payments and condo fees. Maybe even get her Jaguar fixed.
Pleased with herself, she laughed at the story she’d spun, improvisational genius. As a professional, she knew that one of the most powerful sales tools is a good story. This one should put her in line for a screen writing Oscar, but she’d settle for an Emmy.
She hadn’t felt this carefree in a long time. Maybe tomorrow would be her big comeback. Myra searched for the keys in her Bis & Beau denim handbag, careful not to dislodge the manila envelope full of cash.
“OK lady, give me the bag.” The voice was the first indication that someone was standing between her and the driver’s door of the Seville. A young man, a kid really, in torn jeans and a shapeless brown leather jacket. He held a pearl-handled switchblade six inches from her abdomen.
“Please, I need it,” was all she could whisper.
Before she could find the rest of her voice to scream or cry out, he had snatched the bag from her, breaking the narrow strap. Plunging his hand into the bag, he extracted the envelope and dropped the bag, along with its contents, on the pavement.
He had his back to her now, presumably counting her money.
Myra could not believe her bad luck. She could lose everything: the home she had worked so hard for, her Jag, maybe even her job. As it was happening, she couldn’t help but wonder at the sensation - the incandescent primitive anger. Later, she reflected that she really did see red. Had the kid been more thorough in his search, he would have found the Nambu 8mm her father had brought it back from the Pacific. She fired twice at his back.
Myra stared at the body. Not much blood. She could feel swelling panic. Not a child’s trepidation at reciting a poem in front of a DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) gathering, but in the ancient Greek sense ‒ fleeing in unreasoning terror.
I shot him in the back. Did that rule out self-defense? Her mind conjured up a court room scene ‒ cameras and celebrity prosecutors. What would her son think? She just wanted it all to go away. Off-screen the great god Pan was laughing at her.
She willed herself to calm down and look around. The alley was quiet, no one had come running. She could hear traffic moving on the boulevard. She looked up ‒ no closed-circuit tv cameras, though there had been one inside the pawn shop.
If I leave now, the body will undoubtedly be found sooner rather than later. She had to assume she had been captured on VHS tape inside the store. Would the cops be able to place her at the scene? Had her father ever registered his little war souvenir? She had no idea.
She had to move the kid’s body – risky, yes, but without a corpse (shudder), they wouldn’t be looking for her. It took almost fifteen minutes to shove the dead weight into the Seville’s trunk. By the time she was finished, her silk blouse was damp with sweat and beads of perspiration had broken through her makeup.
The car’s air conditioning cooled the sweat on her body, making her shiver. Or was it shock? Where should she go? Where to get rid of a body? She drove aimlessly until she spied a pay phone in the dusty parking lot of a strip-mall. With grateful realization she knew who to call. She was even more grateful the glass and aluminum booth still had a working phone.
Bill picked up on the third ring, “Alliance Partners, how can we put your mind at ease?” She could tell from his slightly distracted tone that he was driving - speaking on the Motorola equipped Eldorado she had sold him ten years ago.
“Bill, I’m in trouble. It’s serious.” She told him the story, starting with her dry spell and ending with a body in her trunk. “He was trying to rob me.”
“I get it doll; you had no choice.”
“No, I had a choice. I couldn’t let him have the money ‒ I saw red. I wanted to kill him.”
“Forget it. The punk picked the wrong dame and got his comeuppance. You know that Shylock likely set you up? Anyway, you made the right decision. Blonde lady living in Malibu shoots a ‒ what, was he? Mexican? black?”
Myra didn’t answer. The adrenalin was fading, the enormity of what she had done was sinking in. She looked down at her hands, sticky with blood, leaving damning smears on the black plastic handset.
“It’s a different world”, remarked Bill. “Back in the old days, before they finished the 101, you would get a hit from the bottle in the detective’s desk and a commendation. Today you might get a Bonfire of the Vanities treatment or worse. Trust me. its better this way.”
Bill was on a case out in Laguna. He told her to go home, park the Caddy in the garage, lock the door, and he would see her bright and early the next morning. He told her not worry; he would think of something.
“Don’t forget to wipe the phone for prints,” he ordered, then broke the connection.
Her condo’s master bedroom was still finished in whatever off-white the builder had chosen. The drywall tape was visible below the single coat of paint. The only decoration consisted of a hardy fern that had proved unkillable, and an oil painting of a sailing ship tossed on a stormy, psychedelic sea. Both were housewarming gifts.
The ornately framed painting was one of those you find on sale at the mall, advertised as a genuine oil painting for only $24.99. Myra had been tempted to leave it at the curb with the trash.
However, the more she’d looked, the more the painting seemed to have a spark of human creativity. She liked to think that some poor pieceworker in Tijuana or Taiwan had chosen this canvas into which to pour a little of their soul.
If she stared long enough, the ship seemed to rock on the waves, the torn sails trembling beneath the dark purple and green skies. She couldn’t make out a signature, but there was a small figure ‒ really just a dab of paint ‒ behind the ship’s wheel, alone, trying to steer the stricken craft.
Myra awoke from a fitful sleep, well before first light. At first, she couldn’t place the noise but then, with terrible clarity, she realized the thumping was coming from the garage. The corpse she thought she had put in her trunk was still alive.
Throwing on her robe, she grabbed the keys and remote garage door opener from the hall table. Entering the garage from the side door off the front hallway, she could see the Cadillac sharing the mostly empty space with a ten-speed Peugeot and a sealed box of Christmas decorations, heavy with two seasons of dust. The out-of-commission Jag had been exiled to the driveway.
Still in her bare feet, she stared down at the Seville’s trunk. The banging stopped, replaced by a weak voice: “Let me out lady. I know you are out there. I’m hurt.” A pause, then; “I don’t like the dark.”
Carefully pushing aside the Cadillac crest, she gently inserted the key and turned the lock.
The crumpled form could have almost been a child. Pitifully, he asked for water: “I don’t want to die in here. Please lady.” Before she could extend her hand, he was out of the trunk slamming her body against the sectional garage door. The center hinges gouged into the flesh of her back, and her head leaves an impression in the door’s aluminum skin. Her head was ringing. He had his hands around her throat.
Black motes started to appear in her vision. She tried to use the keys in her hand as a weapon, but her uncoordinated fumbling fingers instead activated the garage door opener. A bright light flared, gears engaged, and a chattering chain drive started to lift the door .
Startled, they both fell through the opening in space left by the ascending garage door. The kid lost his grip on her windpipe. Pushing her body away from him, she slammed a hip, on the Jag’s left fender, on the way down. Myra hit the pavement hard, knocking the wind out of her. That is going to leave a hell of a bruise — but she remained conscious.
Her adversary was not as lucky. He had fallen forward in a perfect arc, onto the hood of the Jag. His head took the full force of his weight and momentum ‒ against the leaper hood ornament. For the second time in less than 24 hours, she struggled to put his lax body back into the trunk of the Seville before anyone might come around to see what all the commotion was about. Is he really dead this time, or just stunned? A moment’s indecision, calculating the odds. Then she closed the garage door and started the Seville. Once inside her condo, she turned off the AC and opened all the windows in her house, just to be safe. How long would it take? How deadly was carbon monoxide, anyway?
Sitting at the patio table in her postage-stamp backyard, Myra chain smoked an almost full pack of stale Virginia Slims she’d found in the kitchen junk drawer, straining to hear anything from the garage except the civilized idle of the Seville’s engine. Not wanting to run the cheerful little car out of gas and add that complication, she gave it half an hour before holding her breath, reopening the garage door, and fleeing back to the condo.
The first hints of dawn began to appear on the horizon. There would be just enough time to make herself look presentable before Bill arrived.
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