“ So if one causes harm to another living creature…”
“ One is compelled to understand the effects of his harm…even on animals.”
“ Who compels?” I asked.
He smiled again. “The laws of the Universe, Jim.”
“ And who put these laws into place?”
“ Perhaps,” he said, winking. “That can be a question for another time.”
Chapter Thirty-four
I was in my office with Junior when the phone rang.
He was lying on a doggie bed near my chair. Now that he had come out of the closet, he didn’t want to leave my side. I didn’t blame him. Being by my side was a good place to be.
Junior jumped at the sound, and then settled down again. His paws were healing. Only a slight discoloration now showed in the fur. I had spent the bulk of my morning sitting by the doggie bed and brushing out his fur, although sometimes I had to cut the knots out, too. He was a true ragamuffin. Part poodle, part long-haired terrier, part anything mangy and not very cute.
Except, to me, he was cute as can be.
I picked up the phone on the third ring. “Knighthorse.”
“ Is this Jim Knighthorse?”
“ Would be a hell of a coincidence.”
“ Yeah, right.” There was a pause. The guy on the phone was young, maybe twenty. Sounded like a surfer dude. “I, um, have one of your flyers.”
I sat up a little. “What about it?”
“ Look, I have some information about Mitch Golden. But no cops, okay?”
“ Okay.”
“ Are you free now?” he asked.
“ As a bird,” I said, and we made arrangements over the phone where to meet. When we hung up, I looked down at Junior. “You up for a road trip?”
With Junior waiting in the van’s front seat, surrounded by treats and chew toys, I met Ryan Wiseman in a trendy bar in Costa Mesa. By trendy, I meant uncomfortable and not very cozy. From the metal counter down to the backless stools. I mean, give a brother something to lean on. After all, something has to keep the drunks upright. Anyway, the floor was wood, which was okay, but I wasn’t sure about the ladder that reached up to the more expensive drinks high above the bar. A ladder? If I want a drink, I want it now. I don’t want to wait for some goofball to climb up and down a ladder.
“ Great bar, huh?” said Ryan. Ryan was a little older than I had pictured. He was maybe thirty and sported a long, scraggly goatee that was all kinds of filthy. He wore stained cargo shorts and a stained tee shirt, and it looked like I was picking up the tab. Again.
“ Maybe the greatest ever,” I said.
“ No shit, huh?”
“ No shit.”
Ryan was drinking a dark beer that had about an inch of head still on it. The bartender came by and asked what I wanted and I said a stool with a back on it and he laughed. I didn’t laugh. Since the stool wasn’t going to happen, I ordered a Foster’s because I liked their commercials.
As I ordered, I noticed Ryan looking me over. He nodded, seemingly impressed. “Jesus, you’re huge.”
“ I am huge,” I said. “And don’t call me Jesus.”
He blinked hard, and his goatee quivered. Hell of a blink. Then he started nodding and his goatee flapped in nine different directions. “I get it. From Airplane. Man, I love that movie.”
My beer came and I took a healthy pull from it. This was beginning to feel like a bad date. A mandate. Time to get to business.
“ You called me about the flyer,” I said, and I was beginning to wonder if the guy was just here for the free beer.
Ryan nodded eagerly, yet his goatee somehow flapped sideways, which defied logic and gravity. I was certain he was on something. Or maybe his goatee was.
“ Yeah, man. A buddy of mine over at Pipeline had this flyer in his backpack. And I was like…whoa! I know this dude!”
“ How do you know him?”
“ He’s the candy man.”
“ Candy man?”
“ You know…jive sticks.”
“ Jive sticks?”
“ Puff the magic dragon, broheim. The wacky terbacky.”
“ Marijuana,” I said. “You’re saying Mitch was your supplier.”
Now Ryan began shaking his head. “He was more than a supplier, dude bro. He was a man with a vision.”
“ What kind of vision?”
“ The big picture, mister. He didn’t just sell the love weed…he sold dreams.”
“ Sure he did,” I said. “And what’s the big picture?”
“ Life, man. Living. Live and let live. His money didn’t just line his pockets.”
“ Where did it go?”
“ To the cause, boss. Mitch Golden was a good guy, with a big heart. He sold the jolly green to help the little guys.”
“ Little guys?”
“ The animals, man,” he said.
“ Of course,” I said. “How close were you to Mitch?”
“ We were close. We were dude-bros.”
“ Dude-bros. Got it. So why did you call me down here, Ryan?”
He blinked hard and his red eyes seemed a little redder. And wetter, too. “I’m pretty sure I know why he was killed.”
Stoner or not, Ryan seemed sincere. Either way, I wanted to hear his story. I waited. Ryan collected himself. He even stroked his goatee as if it were a pet squirrel. Maybe it was.
“ He stole from them, man.”
“ Stole from who?”
“ His hookups in L.A.”
“ How do you know this?”
“ Because we were dude-bros.”
“ And dude-bros tell each other everything?”
“ Most certainly,” he said. He wiped his eyes, and you couldn’t help but feel for the pathetic pothead. “The Interceptor needed massive repairs.”
“ The Interceptor?”
“ The rig, man. The boat Mitch used to stop the fucking finners. Like a fucking superhero. The Interceptor needed repairs and Mitch skimmed some of the money. He was going to pay them back…”
“ But he didn’t.”
“ He asked for more time.”
“ But they didn’t give it.”
He shook his head. “They wasted a good man. He was doing the right thing, you know. Helping the little guys.”
Ryan drank deeply from his beer, which, I was certain, would only add to his melancholy.
“ I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “Any idea who might have wasted him?”
“ The drug lords, man. The big guys.”
“ The big guys,” I said.
Ryan nodded and finished his beer, and sat back on his backless stool. After a short while, I left a $20 bill on the bar, well away from Ryan, clapped the stoner on the shoulder, and headed out to my own little guy.
Chapter Thirty-five
I was in Detective Hansen’s office in Huntington Beach.
He was leaning back with his feet crossed at one corner of his desk. His ankles were tan in a way that suggested artificial lighting. He wore thick-soled loafers that could have been hand-stitched. I doubted these were regulation shoes. Cops in Huntington Beach were rebels.
Hansen was nodding. “Makes sense. All signs were pointing to a drug hit on our end, too,” he said. A file, now a good deal thicker than the file I had seen earlier, was open on his lap. The pages were held in place by folded prongs. Hansen lifted one of the pages absently.
“ There were rumors of a drug hit at first,” he said. “But his girlfriend was adamant that it had been these shark hunters.”
“ She claimed Mitch was threatened by one of them.”
“ Right,” said Sanchez. “Except most of these illegal shark hunters, according to you and according to my pals at the DFG-”
“ Your dude-bros?”
“ My what?”
“ Never mind,” I said. “Go on.”
Hansen stared at me for three seconds, then shook his head. “Anyway, it appears most of these illegal shark hunters, or finners, are poor Mexicans simply venturing deeper into American waters.”
“ Hardly an organized group.”
He nodded. “Exactly. And from what I understand, Mitch and his boys used their boat to give these hunters hell, harassing them, cutting lines, and generally chasing them off.”