Coyote Blue (4 page)

Chapter 6 – A Malady of Medicine

Santa Barbara

"Look, Sam," Aaron said. "I can see that you're not thrilled about the buy-out. So be it. I understand that you've put a lot into this agency. I can give you forty cents on the dollar, but you'll have to take a note. I'm a little cash poor since Katie made me put that trophy room on the house."

Sam looked down from the deer head. "Aaron, I didn't hire an Indian to attack Jim Cable. I still had half of the deal wrapped up with Cochran, which would have put me in the door at any time in the future to close Cable. I wouldn't have jeopardized that."

Aaron took two hand mirrors out of his desk drawer and began to juxtapose them to get a glimpse of the back of his head. Sam was used to this – it was Aaron's hourly balding check. "Cochran's secretary saw the Indian get out of your car," Aaron said matter-of-factly. Then, looking back to the mirrors, he said, "I've been mixing Minoxidil with a little Retin A and that stuff the Man from U.N.C.L.E. sells on TV. Do you think it's working?"

Sam thought of the feather on the car seat. He was sure he'd locked the car; there was no way the Indian could get in without setting off the alarm. "I don't care what anyone saw, I didn't hire the fucking Indian to attack Cable and I can't believe you bought their story without asking me." The anger felt good. It cleared his head a little.

Aaron put the mirrors down on the desk and smiled. "I didn't buy it, Sam. But if it was true you can't blame me for taking a shot at your shares."

"You greedy little fuck."

"Sam." Aaron lowered his voice and took his "fatherly" tone. "Samuel." A little wink. "Sammy, hasn't my greed always been in your best interest? I'm just trying to keep you sharp, son. Would you have had any respect for me if I hadn't tried to make the best of a bad situation? That's the first thing I taught you."

"I don't know any Indian. It didn't happen, Aaron."

"If you say it didn't, it didn't. You've always been straight with me. I don't even remember the time you cut all the cords off those smoke alarms we were selling because that lady wanted cordless models."

"You told me to do that! I was only seventeen years old."

"Right, well, how was I to know she smoked in bed?"

"Look, Aaron, I'll find out what happened at Motion Marine and take care of it first thing in the morning. If they call back while I'm out, try not to sign a confession for me, okay? I've had an incredibly shitty day and I've got to meet someone on upper State Street in a few minutes, so if that's all…"

"You really like the new head?"

Normally Sam would have lied, but with so many questions filling his head his highly developed lying center seemed to have shut down. "It sucks, Aaron. It sucks and I think you should sue the Man from U.N.C.L.E." He walked out as Aaron was snatching up his hand mirrors.

Gabriella was just hanging up the phone when Sam walked in. "That was the security director from your condominium association, Mr. Hunter. He'd like to talk to you right away. The association is holding an emergency meeting tonight to discuss what they are going to do about your dog."

"I don't have a dog."

"He was very upset. I have his number, but he insisted upon seeing you in person before the" – she checked her notepad -" 'lynch mob gets hold of you.' "

"Call him back and tell him that I don't have a dog. Dogs aren't allowed in the complex."

"He mentioned that, sir. That seems to be the problem. He said that your dog was on your back patio howling and refused to let anyone get near it and if you didn't get up there he would have to call the police."

All Sam could think was
Not today
. He said, "All right, call them and tell them I'm on my way. And call the garage down the street and have them come up and fix the flat tire on that orange Datsun out front. Have them bill it to my card."

"You have a three o'clock appointment with Mrs. Wittingham."

"Cancel it." Sam started out of the office.

"Mr. Hunter, this is a death claim. Mr. Wittingham passed away last week and she wants you to help fill out the papers."

"Gabriella, let me clue you in on something: once the client is dead we can afford to be a little lax on the service. The chance of repeat business is, well, unlikely. So reschedule the appointment or handle it yourself."

"But sir, I've never done a death claim before."

"It's easy: feel for a pulse; if there isn't one, give them the money."

"I am not amused, Mr. Hunter. I try to maintain a businesslike manner around here and you continually undermine me."

"Handle it, Gabriella. Call the garage. I have to go."

It was only five minutes from Sam's office to his condo in the Cliffs, a three-hundred-unit complex on Santa Barbara's mesa. From Sam's back deck he could look across the city to the Santa Lucia Mountains and from his bedroom window he could see the ocean. Sam had once rented the apartment, but when the Cliffs went condo ten years before he optioned to buy it. Since then the value of his apartment had increased six hundred percent. The complex offered three swimming pools, saunas, a weight room, and tennis courts. It was restricted to adults without children or dogs, but cats were allowed. When Sam first moved in, the Cliffs had a reputation as a swinging singles complex, a party mecca. Now, after the rise in real estate prices and the death of the middle class, most of the residents were retirees or wealthy professional couples, and the cooperative agreement they all signed set strict limitations on noise and numbers of visitors. A team of security guards patrolled the complex in golf carts twenty-four hours a day under the supervision of a hard-nosed ex-burglar named Josh Spagnola.

Sam parked the Mercedes by Spagnola's office in the back of the Cliffs' clubhouse, which, with its terra-cotta courtyards, stucco arches, and wrought-iron gates, looked more like the
casa grande
of a Spanish hacienda than a meeting place for condo dwellers. The door to the office was open and Sam walked in to find Spagnola shouting into the phone. Sam had never heard the wiry security chief shout. This was a bad sign.

"No, I can't just shoot the damn dog! The owner is on the way, but I'm not going into his townhouse and shooting his dog, rules or no rules."

Sam noticed that even in anger Spagnola remembered to use the word
townhouse
to refer to the apartment. No one wanted to pay a half-million dollars for an apartment; a townhouse was another thing. People were touchy about how one referred to their homes. When Sam was selling to people who lived in trailers he always referred to them as
mobile estates
. The term added a certain structural integrity; you never heard on the news of a tornado touching down and ripping the shit out of a park full of mobile estates.

"I
am
listening, Dr. Epstein," Spagnola continued. "But you don't seem to understand my position on you missing your nap. I don't give a desiccated damn. I don't give a reconstituted damn. I don't give a creamed damn on toast. I don't give a damn. I'm not entering Mr. Hunter's home until he arrives."

Spagnola looked up and gestured for Sam to sit. Then he grinned, mimed a mimic of the caller he was listening to, looked bored, feigned falling asleep, gestured the international sign language for being jerked off, then said, "Is that so, Doctor? Well, as far as I know I have no superiors since the Crucifixion, so give it your best shot." He slammed down the phone.

Sam said, "Got something on Dr. Epstein?"

Spagnola smiled. "He's porking the Cliffs' highly ethical Monday-Wednesday-Friday masseuse."

"Everybody's porking her."

"No, everybody's porking the Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday masseuse. Monday-Wednesday-Friday is very exclusive."

"And highly ethical."

"Says so in the brochure." Spagnola grinned, then casually picked up a legal pad from his desk and looked it over. "Samuel, my friend, your puppy has kept me on the phone with charming folks like Epstein all day. Shall I read you the log?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Josh. I don't have a dog."

"Then you will want to notify security about the large canine that is currently on your back deck disturbing Dr. Epstein's nap."

"I'm not kidding, Josh. If there's a dog on my deck I don't know anything about it." Sam suddenly remembered that he'd left the sliding door to the deck open. "Christ!"

"Yes, the door is open. I've told you about that before, it's an invitation to burglars."

"That deck is twenty feet off the ground. How did a dog get up there? How did it get in my apartment without setting off the alarm?"

"I was wondering that same thing. If it isn't your dog, how did it get up there? It looks bad. The other association members are having an emergency meeting tonight to discuss the problem."

"There isn't a problem. Let's just go get the damn dog and take it to the pound."

"Yes, let's. I'll read the log to you while we walk over." Spagnola rose, picked up the legal pad, and led Sam out the door, then paused, locked the office, and set the alarm. "Can't trust anyone," he said.

They walked brick paths shaded with arbors of pink and red bougainvillea while Spagnola read. "Nine A.M.: Mrs. Feldstein calls to report that a wolf has just urinated on her wisterias. I ignored that one. Nine oh-five: Mrs. Feldstein reports that the wolf is forcibly having sex with her Persian cat. I went on that call myself, just to see it. Nine ten: Mrs. Feldstein reports that the wolf ate the Persian after having his way with it. There was some blood and fur on her walk when I got there, but no wolf."

"Is this thing a wolf?" Sam asked.

"I don't think so. I've only seen it from below your deck. It has the right coloring for a coyote, but it's too damn big. Naw, it can't be a wolf. You sure you didn't bring home some babe last night who forgot to tell you that she had a furry friend in the car?"

"Please, Josh."

"Okay. Ten fourteen: Mrs. Narada reports that her cat has been attacked by a large dog. Now I send all the boys out looking, but they don't find anything until eleven. Then one of them calls in that a big dog has just bitten holes in the tires on his golf cart and run off. Eleven thirty: Dr. Epstein makes his first lost-nap call: dog howling. Eleven thirty-five: Mrs. Norcross is putting the kids out on the deck for some burgers when a big dog jumps over the rail, eats the burgers, growls at the kids, runs off. First mention of lawsuit."

"Kids? We've got her right there," Sam said. "Kids aren't allowed."

"Her grandkids are visiting from Michigan. She filed the proper papers." Spagnola took a deep breath and started into the log again. "Eleven forty-one: large dog craps in Dr. Yamata's Aston Martin. Twelve oh-three: dog eats two, count 'em, two of Mrs. Wittingham's Siamese cats. She just lost her husband last week; this sort of put her over the edge. We had to call Dr. Yamata in off the putting green to give her a sedative. The personal-injury lawyer in the unit next to hers was home for lunch and he came over to help. He was talking class action then, and we didn't even know who owned the dog yet."

"You still don't."

Spagnola ignored Sam. "From twelve thirty to one we had mass sightings and frequent urinations – I won't bore you with details – then one of my guys spotted the dog and followed it to your building, where it disappeared for a minute and reappeared on your deck."

"Disappeared? Josh, aren't you screening these guards for drug use?"

"I think he meant that he lost sight of it. Anyway, it's been on your deck for a couple of hours and all the residents are convinced that it's your dog. They want to boot you out of the complex."

"They can't do that. I own the place."

"Technically, Sam, they can. You own shares in the whole complex, and in the event of a two-thirds vote by the residents they can force you to sell your shares for what you paid for them. It's in the agreement you signed. I looked it up."

They were about a hundred yards from Sam's building and Sam could now hear the howling. "That apartment's worth five times what I paid for it."

"It is on the open market, but not to the other residents. Don't worry about it, Sam. It's not your dog, right?"

"Right."