“Nice boots, Jack.” Lou Lou offered him a chunk of fried whitefish. “Good shine. We were all glad Mary Lisa didn’t toss them into the Pacific last night.”
“If she had, there would have been hell to pay.”
“Hell to pay,” Mary Lisa repeated slowly. “I wonder where that phrase comes from.”
He looked momentarily flummoxed. “Well, I could have thrown you in jail again.”
Mary Lisa nodded to Lou Lou. “See, he’s careful to make a believable threat since he’s already plunked me down in jail once, no reason to believe he wouldn’t do it again.”
“Are you ever going to tell us what Mary Lisa did in Goddard Bay, Jack? Graffiti the gas station? Steal a wrench from Goose’s Hardware?”
“How do you know about Goose’s Hardware?” John asked as he walked up.
“Mary Lisa’s a great storyteller, when she wants to be. I thought I knew all about Goddard Bay, but she never told us about the jail part, until Jack showed up.”
“I’ll tell you what, John. I’ll tell Lou Lou all about my night in jail if you tell me where Pitty Pat comes from.”
John grinned. “Actually, I’ll get that out of Jack sooner or later. Given what a straight arrow he is, Lou Lou, I’m sure you know she deserved it. You got a juvie record now, Mary Lisa?”
“No thanks to him that I don’t.”
John snagged a French fry from Lou Lou’s dwindling pile and ate it. “Thanks, Lou Lou. Great relish.”
“Yeah, I finally taught the guy down at the fish ’n’ chips place how to do it right.” She laughed. “He’s got a great place, old and decrepit. It’s called Vinegar by the Sea. On Moravia Street.”
“It’s delicious. We knew you’d be out here, and didn’t want to miss mooching some lunch. And Daniel wants to see you, bring you up to date about Jamie Ramos’s van. Turns out Elizabeth called him.”
Mary Lisa jumped to her feet. “I told you people would respond to Elizabeth’s appeal last night on the news. Let’s go see now-rats, I’ve got another couple hours’ shooting. Hey, I can call Elizabeth, she’ll tell me since the calls went to the station.”
“Don’t bother. Daniel said they haven’t found anything yet, but they’re following up leads. Why don’t all of us come by your house after work?”
“That’d be great, John. Elizabeth too.”
John took one last French fry. “Hey, Jack, you think we can find this vinegar place on Moravia?”
“It might be fun to try.”
“Your local tax dollar in action,” Mary Lisa said. Before Jack walked away, he leaned down next to Mary Lisa’s ear. “I make you laugh, huh?”
She couldn’t help it. She turned and said, not an inch from his mouth, “Since I’m thinking about other things right now, I’m not really thinking about laughing.”
Mary Lisa thought he was going to grab her, but he didn’t. He straightened like a shot. “I’ll see you later.”
She and Lou Lou watched Jack and John walk away, their heads together.
Lou Lou said thoughtfully, “At least John doesn’t act like his heart’s broken.”
“No,” Mary Lisa said, “he doesn’t. It would have been nice of him to appear a little hurt though, don’t you think?”
Lou Lou laughed and ate her final French fry.
“I hate yogurt,” Mary Lisa said.
She felt Lou Lou’s hand on her arm. “Laughter is good. It holds the crap at bay. And I know you use it to keep people from seeing that you’re scared. Talk to me, Mary Lisa. How are you holding up, sweetie?”
Mary Lisa came crashing back to earth. She swallowed. “I’m holding up. Don’t worry, Lou Lou, I’m dealing with it.”
“I know you are. You also know I’ll worry. You want to talk about this Jamie Ramos guy?”
Mary Lisa’s voice shook only a little bit. “I really don’t like to talk about him, it’s just too scary. But I know he’s out there, Lou Lou. I know it, you know it, everyone knows it. No way did he leave, Jack’s right about that.”
FORTY-TWO
“Sixteen calls about the Harley van,” Elizabeth panted as she hunched down into her stationary bike. The Mad Bitch leading the spin class was shouting instructions again-“Pedal faster, you girlie girls-get those quads burning-this is where we chase Lance Armstrong. Go!” The sound of thirty bikes spinning on a manic high over the dance music was deafening. Headbands were soaked, legs pumped, and muscles screamed.
It was impossible to talk now. For three minutes they chased Lance. Then the Mad Bitch shouted out, “Lance is going up the Matterhorn! No way you’ll catch him now! Back off, slow down. Cool off. Not great but not too bad. Maybe you can ask him for an autograph.”
After the five-minute cooldown, Lou Lou crawled off her stationary bike, wiped her face with her towel. “Thank God Lance went up the Matterhorn-I was ready to pull out a gun and shoot him. Is my face still above my neck or has it sweated off?”
Mary Lisa laughed. “Only the eyebrows. They’re down by your mouth, kinda like cute mustachios.”
“Har har.” But Lou Lou’s fingers traced over her eyebrows. “I’m pitiful, you get me every time.”
Elizabeth tucked a long damp hank of hair behind Lou Lou’s ear. “That’s only because your brain is too tired to care. I feel so limp you could pour Bolognese sauce on me, with a sprinkle of Parmesan. Hey, maybe I should call my boyfriend, see if that gives him any ideas. Wait a second-I don’t have a boyfriend. Well, damn, so much for a spaghetti fantasy.”
Mary Lisa, whose water bottle was tipped up to her mouth, spewed water. Lou Lou smacked her back.
The three women walked out of the World Gym in the shopping center off Webb Road a few minutes later, bedraggled and sweat-soaked, all their pre-spin-class makeup sweated off. They hadn’t showered, since they were close to Mary Lisa’s house, but they looked buff, their muscles warm and glistening, virtue oozing out of every pore. Their first stop was the Subway on the corner for some diet sodas, and of course some bags of potato chips: barbecue for Mary Lisa, onion and cheddar for Lou Lou, original for Elizabeth.
They waved to Chad in the kiosk at the gate and walked past him toward Mary Lisa’s house. Deciding on the beach rather than the shower, they grabbed some towels and sat down on the soft sand.
“So as I was saying before I had to catch Lance,” Elizabeth said, “I told Daniel there was one call that sounded interesting, from a guy named Scooter who lives here in Malibu. He said he’d get back to me. Actually, I think it’s the only one with possibilities. Anyway, Scooter claims he saw that van yesterday, heading down PCH past Santa Monica. He was riding his Harley, passing the van, and waved to the driver, said the driver gave him a thumbs-up.”
“He was on the driver’s side? They were both driving south?” Mary Lisa asked.
“Yeah.”
“What’s wrong, Mary Lisa? What are you thinking?” Mary Lisa couldn’t answer because she’d stuffed a barbecue potato chip in her mouth. She automatically chewed, swallowed. “Well, the thing is, I thought Puker said the motorcycle and the sign were on the right side of the van.”
Elizabeth slugged down a big drink of Diet Seven-Up. She wiped her hand over her mouth. “So if they were going south, Scooter would have been passing on his hog on the driver’s side-the left side, not the ocean side where the logo was. No road there to ride on.”
“So it sounds like this Scooter guy was putting you on,” Lou Lou said. She wadded up her empty bag of potato chips and tossed it hard toward a trash can Mary Lisa had put on the beach. The bag banked off the back side and plopped right in.
“You never miss,” Mary Lisa said, waving at her very nice trash can, painted a bright blue with a yellow happy face on it. The teenagers who lived in the Colony used it for target practice.
Elizabeth shook her head at herself, and dug into the sand with her toes. “How slow can I get? The lying little jerk. I’ll never live this down. However am I going to get out of this with Detective Vasquez? Good shot, Lou Lou.”