Bones Read online

  Soto yawned through the trial and Bob ended up with a massive fine and ten days at County Jail, cut to five. Then reduced to an overnight stay because of overcrowding but, man, one day in that hellhole was enough.

  The fine was a more enduring problem. Thirty-five hundred bucks that he needed to come up with in sixty days and none of his landscaping jobs had come through and he was already behind on his rent. Not to mention the child support. If Kathy decided to make trouble for him, he was screwed.

  He missed the kids living in Houston with Kathy’s folks.

  Truth be told, he missed Kathy.

  His own damn fault. Screwing around with women he didn’t even care about, he still didn’t understand why he kept doing it.

  He’d borrowed five hundred dollars from his mom, telling her it would go toward the fine. But the city wouldn’t take partial payment and he needed something to generate income so he could square up his rent as well as the fine.

  Yesterday, the tree-moving company out in Saugus had called back, told him to come in, fill out forms, maybe that would pan out.

  Meanwhile, he was doing what he could.

  Up at four a.m., making sure he’d sail on the drive from Alhambra to Playa Del Rey, be at the storage facility when it opened.

  He’d read about abandoned property auctions on the Internet a few months ago, forgot about it until being slapped with the fine. Not stupid enough to think he was going to come up with one of those treasures that made the papers—a Honus Wagner baseball card or a rare painting—his hopes were pinned on eBay.

  Because people bought anything on eBay. You could sell a stool sample on eBay.

  So far, he’d attended four auctions, driving as far as Goleta—which turned out to be a total bust. But striking gold—silver, actually—right close to home.

  Pasadena facility, seven-by-seven room piled high with neatly sealed boxes. Most of it turned out to be old moldy clothes that he ended up tossing in a Goodwill box, but there were also some jeans full of holes and a wad of rock-concert T-shirts from the eighties that eBayed pretty good.

  Plus the bag. Little blue velvet Crown Royal drawstring full of coins, including buffalo-head nickels and a few silver dollars. Bob took all that to a coin dealer in Santa Monica, walked away with two hundred twenty bucks, which was a fantastic profit, considering his bid on the entire contents had been sixty-five.

  He thought of paying his mom back, but decided to wait until everything was squared up.

  A yawn overtook him and his eye blurred. Pete the auctioneer coughed, then said, “Okay, next unit: fourteen fifty-five,” and everyone dragged themselves up the murky tunnel-like hallway to one of the padlocked doors that lined the cement-block walls.

  Flimsy doors, flimsy locks, Bob could’ve kicked any of them in. The storage facility got two hundred a month per, talk about a good scam.

  “Fourteen fifty-five,” Pete repeated unnecessarily. Rubbing a rummy nose, he fiddled with a ring of keys.

  The other bidders worked hard at looking disinterested. Two were chunky old women with braided hair, looked like sisters, maybe even twins. They’d gotten a sealed steamer trunk for forty-eight bucks. Behind them was a tall, skinny heavy-metal type wearing an AC/ DC tee, fake leather pants, and motorcycle boots, veiny arms more tattoo-blue than white skin. He’d just won the last two lots: a room full of dirty-looking, mostly creased paperback books for a hundred and fifty and what looked to be rusty junk for thirty.

  The last participant was the Asian guy, midthirties, athletic-looking, wearing a spotless royal blue polo shirt, pressed black slacks, and black loafers without socks. So far he’d bid on nothing.

  Freshly shaved and aftershaved, the guy looked sharp in the Beemer convertible he drove up in. Bob wondered if he was some kind of art dealer, had the nose.

  Worth keeping his eye on.

  Pete found his key to 1455, released the lock, opened the door.

  “Stand back, folks, private property,” he said. Saying the same darn thing every time.

  Due to some weird state law, abandoned goods belonged to the owner until the moment they sold. Meaning you couldn’t approach them or touch them until you’d bought them. Then poof, the owner’s rights disappeared like a minor fart.

  Bob had never understood the legal system. When lawyers talked at him, it might as well have been in Martian.

  Pete ran his flashlight over the contents of the cell-like space. Bob had heard of people jerry-rigging electricity and bunking down in storage units, but he didn’t believe it. You’d go nuts.

  “Okay,” said Pete. “Let’s start the bidding.”

  The Asian guy said, “Could you please illuminate it one more time.”

  Pete frowned, but obliged. The space was mostly empty, except for half a bicycle frame and two black garbage bags.

  Pete coughed again. “See what you need to?”

  The Asian guy nodded, turned his back on the unit. Maybe a fake-out, planning to jump in at the last moment. Or maybe he really didn’t want it.

  Bob didn’t see any point in bidding on this one. So far he’d found that garbage bags held mostly garbage. Though he needed something to eBay, so if no one bid and it went cheap enough . . .

  “Let’s hear a bid,” said Pete, not waiting before adding: “Fifty, do I hear fifty, fifty dollars, fifty, fifty dollars.”

  Silence.

  “Forty, forty dollars, bargain at forty dollars, metal on the bike is forty dollars.” Running the spiel, but without enthusiasm. So far, his commission hadn’t even added up to chump change.

  “Forty? Nothing at forty? Do I hear thirty-five—”

  Without turning around, the Asian guy said, “Twenty,” and Bob sensed something in his voice. Not shifty, more like . . . calculated.

  Figuring the metal on the bike was worth something—just the pedals might be valuable to someone who needed pedals—Bob said, “Twenty-five.”

  Silence.

  Pete said, “Twenty-five, do I hear thirty, let’s hear thirty, thirty dollars—”

  “Sure,” said the Asian guy. Shrugging, like he couldn’t care less.

  Bob waited until Pete spieled a bit more, then came in for thirty-five.

  Asian half turned. “Forty.”

  Bob said, “Forty-five.”

  The old ladies started looking interested. Uh-oh.

  But they just stood there.

  Heavy Metal edged closer to the open unit. “Fifty,” he whispered.

  “Sixty,” said Asian.

  The mood in the passageway got alert and tight, like strong coffee kicking in for everyone.

  Asian pulled out a BlackBerry, read the screen, turned it off.

  Maybe the bike was super-rare and even half of it would bring serious bucks. Bob had heard of old Schwinns—like the one he’d ditched when he turned sixteen and got his license—going for crazy money—

  “Sixty-five,” said Heavy Metal.

  Asian hesitated.

  Bob said, “Seventy.”

  Asian said, “Seventy-five.”

  “Eighty,” a voice awfully like Bob’s nearly shouted.

  Everyone stared at him.

  Asian shrugged.

  Pete looked at Heavy Metal, who’d already walked away and was massaging a tattoo.

  “Eighty dollars for this trove,” said Pete. “Do I hear eighty-five? Eighty-five dollars, still a bargain at eighty-five.”

  Going through the motions, not pushing it. “Going once, going twice . . . eighty it is.”

  Banging that little plastic palm-gavel against his clipboard. Scrawling on his sheet and telling Bob, “You’re the lucky winner of the trove. Eighty bucks, cash on the barrel.”

  Holding out a mottled palm for payment.

  Everyone smiling. Like there was some private joke and Bob was the butt. A cold, soupy feeling filled his stomach.

  “Cash, sir,” said Pete.

  Bob dug into his pocket.

  Later, out in the parking lot, loading the bags an
d the half bike into his truck, he caught the Asian guy before he got in his Beemer.

  “You do this a lot?”

  “Me?” Guy smiled pleasantly. “First time, actually. I’m an anesthesiologist, have to be at Marina Mercy by six, thought it might help wake me up. And it kind of did.”

  “What got you bidding on fourteen fifty-five?”

  Guy looked surprised by the question. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  Back home by seven, flies buzzing around the yucca plants that fronted his apartment building, a cruel sun fizzing through his dusty windows, Bob unloaded the garbage bags onto the floor of his grubby little living room.

  Figuring he’d catch some sleep before the first Bloody Mary of the day, then go through his haul, then call the tree farm in Saugus.

  He collapsed in his bed, still wearing dusty auction clothes. Closed his eyes.

  Thought about Kathy. His fine. What his brothers said behind his back.

  Got up and fetched a kitchen knife and sliced through the first garbage bag.

  Inside were game boxes—Monopoly, Scrabble, Risk. But cracked and messed up, missing everything except the boards.

  Great.

  The second bag—the heavier one—held crumpled-up newspapers. Period. Why would someone pay to store shit like this?

  With a real bad stomachache coming on, Bob got down on the floor and pawed through weeks of L.A. Times. Nothing antique, no historic headlines, just newsprint and those stupid ad inserts that fell all over the place.

  Oh, man, he should’ve stayed in bed.

  He said “Idiot” out loud and examined the half bike.

  Cheap, flimsy junk. Made in China sticker pasted to what remained of a crossbar that Bob could bend with his hands.

  Disgusted, he mixed a Mary in the kitchenette, sat down on the floor, and drank. Thinking about eighty wasted bucks made him more tired than ever, but leaving the bags around reminded him he was an idiot.

  Time to haul the whole damn load out back to the Dumpsters.

  Finishing his Mary, he labored to his feet, tossed the papers back in the second bag, lifted.

  Something rattled. Bottom of the bag.

  Probably his imagination. He shook the bag hard.

  Rattle rattle rattle—like one of those maracas they sold on Olvera Street, Kathy had bought him a pair of those when they were dating. Figuring, what? He was half Mexican, so he’d half like it?

  He pawed through the papers, reached bottom, found the source of the noise.

  Wooden box, dark, shiny. Long as a shoe box but wider, with curly brass inlay, nice lacquer finish, little brass latch holding it shut.

  EBay here we come! The box alone . . . he’d call it exotic, imported, whatever, maybe make up a story about it coming from . . . Malaysia? No, something more mysterious, where was Mount Everest—Tibet . . . Nepal.

  Exotic box—exotic jewel case—from the Nepal alps, made of solid choice mountain . . . looked like mahogany, he could play that up—solid choice rare Asian mahogany. Maybe stick on a Buy It Now for a hundred, hundred thirty. Now, let’s see what’s inside. And if it was dry beans, who cared? The box alone meant he was No Longer An Idiot.

  He freed the brass latch, raised the lid. Inside was a gold velvet tray.

  Empty; the noise was coming from below.

  He lifted the tray, exposed a bottom compartment. Inside were . . . little white knobby things.

  He picked one up. Smooth and white, with a pointy tip, and all of a sudden Bob knew what it was without being told.

  Even though biology had never been his strong point, he’d flunked it once in high school, repeated, managed a D.

  A bone.

  Like from a hand or a foot. Or a paw.

  Lots of little bones, so many they nearly filled the compartment, didn’t make that much noise.

  Had to be what . . . three, four dozen.

  Bob counted.

  Forty-two.

  He examined his own hand. Three bones on each of the four fingers, two for the thumb, making . . . fourteen per hand.

  Three hands’ worth. Or three paws’ worth. No reason to think these weren’t from an animal. Then he thought of something—maybe these came from one of those skeletons they used in medical schools, people willing their bodies to science.

  Getting cut up and examined and reconstructed into skeletons using wires to hold it all together.

  Nope, none of these bones had holes for wires.

  Weird.

  Bob picked up another of the smallest ones, held it alongside the top joint of his own index finger.

  Not as big as his.

  Maybe a small dog.

  Or a woman.

  Or a kid . . .

  No, that was too . . . had to be a dog. Or a cat. How many bones in a paw or a claw?

  Too small for a cat.

  A medium-sized dog, like Alf. Yeah, this might fit Alf.

  He missed Alf, living in Dallas with Kathy.

  Was thinking about all that when he shut the latch.

  The box rattled.

  Bones.

  He’d do a little research on the Internet. Maybe sell the collection as antiques—like from an Indian archaeology dig. Out in . . . Utah. Or Colorado, Colorado sounded more . . . exotic.

  Antique collection of exotic bones.

  Stuff like that eBayed great.

  CHAPTER 3

  Milo had a fancy job title, courtesy the new police chief: Special Case Investigator, Lieutenant Grade.

  Or as he put it: “Hoo-hah Poobah Big-Ass Sitting Mallard.”

  What it came down to was he avoided most of the paper-pushing that came with his rank, kept his closet-sized office at West L.A. Division, continued to work his own homicides until Downtown called and pointed him elsewhere.

  Two calls had come in over the last fourteen months, both Rampart Division gang-revenge shootings. Not even close to whodunits but the chief, still feeling his way in L.A., had heard rumors of fresh Rampart corruption and wanted liability insurance.

  The rumors proved false and Milo had concentrated on not being a nuisance. When the cases closed, the chief insisted his assignee’s name be on the reports.

  “Even though I was as useful as a stone-blind trapshooter. Made me real popular.”

  Easy metaphor; the morning he came up with it, the two of us were blasting away at clay pigeons on a Simi Valley firing range.

  Late June, dry heat, blue skies, khaki hills. Milo lumbered through all five positions of the voice-activated trap setup, hitting 80 percent without much effort. Last year he’d been the target of a shotgun-wielding psychopath, still carried pellets in his left shoulder.

  I’d emptied an entire box of shells before accidentally nailing one of the bright green disks. As I racked the Browning and drank a warm soda, he said, “When you shoot, you close your left eye.”

  “So?”

  “So maybe you’re right-handed but left-eyed, and it’s throwing you off balance.”

  He had me form a triangle with both hands, positioned my fingers so the space between them was filled by a dead tree off to the east.

  “Shut the left one. Now the right. Which one makes it jump more?”

  I knew the eye dominance test, had run it years ago as a psych intern, researching brain laterality in learning disabled children.

  Never tried it on myself. The results were a surprise.

  Milo laughed. “Sinister-eyed. Now you know what to do. Also, stop rejecting the damn thing.”

  I said, “What do you mean?” but I knew exactly what he was talking about.

  “You’re holding it like you can’t wait to ditch it.” Hefting the gun and handing it over. “Embrace it—lean forward—yeah, yeah, like that.”

  I’ve fired pistols and rifles in ugly situations. Don’t enjoy firearms any more than going through dental work, but I appreciate the value of both.

  Shotguns, with their elegant lethal simplicity, were another story. Up till today, I’d avoi
ded them.

  Twelve-gauge Remingtons had been my father’s playthings of choice. An 870 pump-action Wingmaster purchased at a police auction stood in a corner of Dad’s closet, almost always loaded.