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Black Sapphire Pearl: Part Two
Roy Park's hunt for the missing LS 460 turns weird.
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by mark haskell smith | illustrations by tavis coburn
I'm pretty good at reading people›. I can recognize crooks, liars, dissemblers, nut cases, and those special few who are naturally inclined to go postal if you just look at them. Sometimes it's their eyes that give them away; sometimes it's the neurotically gnawed fingernails or a little smirky twitch of the lips that tips me off. Once it was a pair of pink tennis shoes covered with messages written in Elvish.
But I didn't always have this skill. When I first started as a beat cop I couldn't tell the difference between the normal and the nutty. I'd listen to the stories, nod my head sympathetically, and reach for my notepad. I'd dutifully take down the facts-usually it was something like they suspected their landlord was stealing their mail or coming into their apartment when they weren't home-until they got to the part about how he was also listening to their thoughts and that's why they'd had to cover their ceiling with aluminum foil. That's when I'd shut my notepad and promise I'd look into it. You'd be amazed at the number of people who think aluminum foil will protect them from telepathic mind invasion.
Lydia Stark› didn't strike me as the kind of person who'd reach for the Reynolds Wrap, so I have to admit I was a little surprised when she told me she thought the fictional hero from her detective novels had stolen her car. I'd like to say I turned to her with a cool and witty comeback, but I think I squeaked out something like "What?"
She laughed. It wasn't a crazy laugh. Actually, it was a pretty sexy laugh.
"I thought that would get you."
"Mission accomplished."
She smiled and looked out the window.
I guided the loaner GS hybrid onto the Pacific Coast Highway and quickly headed north for Neptune's Net.
. . .
As we pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant I scanned for the car. There was the usual mash-up of pickups and vans with surfboards sticking out the back, family SUVs, and fancy cars from the celebs who live in Malibu. But no brand-new Lexus LS 460 in Black Sapphire Pearl.
"Doesn't look like he's here."
"So what do we do?" she asked.
"We wait."
Her eyes lit up. "A stakeout?"
I nodded. She rubbed her hands together. "Goodie."
"Goodie?"
"I've always wanted to go on a real live stakeout."
Only people who've never been on a stakeout are excited about being on one. Those of us with experience anticipate the hours of boredom, cramped legs, overextended bladders, and subtle whiff of deodorant failure with a genuine sense of dread. She looked at me expectantly, "So? How does it work?"
"We wait."
I parked next to an old MG Midget with a surfboard roped to the tiny luggage rack and hit the power button on the car.
We sat there for a few minutes, looking out at the parking lot, the ocean, the people going in and out of the restaurant. Lydia turned to me and asked, "Can we do the stakeout while we eat?"
My cell phone began to chirp. The display showed that it was Jared Lutz, Esq.›, Esq., mouthpiece to the stars and, more important at this moment, attorney to the best-selling author sitting next to me. I turned to her and said, "I have to take this call. Why don't you get us a table and I'll be there in a minute?"
She nodded and hopped out of the car. I answered the phone, "Park."
Jared's voice came crackling over the line. "Dude! How's it going?"
Strange as it sounds, it's not abnormal to be called "dude" in L.A. Studio heads and mega-agents, CEOs and surgeons, Internet millionaires and even the mayor all refer to their friends and acquaintances with this uniquely Californian sobriquet. For some reason I've never been able to say it.
"You find the car yet?"
"No."
"What've you been doing?"
"We're staking out Neptune's Net."
Jared let out an appreciative sigh. "Dude. I love the fish and chips there. Is she with you?"
"If you mean right next to me, no."
"Do me a favor, Roy. Keep an eye on her. I'm worried about her."
Now he tells me.
"What kind of worried?"
"Just, you know, let me know if she starts acting weird."
This is not the kind of conversation you want to be having with your client's attorney. But I decided not to press it. Jared hung up without calling me dude again.
I sat in the car for a moment and went over the facts. Best-selling author has her car stolen. She doesn't want to go to the police; she wants to deal with the situation privately. She hires me to help but won't tell me who took her car or why. Then she lets slip that Theo Rose›, the fictional hero of her novels, might have taken the car. Or not. Finally her lawyer calls and says she might start acting weird.
I didn't know what to think. My stomach finally decided for me. I went in to get some lunch.
. . .
Lydia was sitting out on the patio-she'd somehow managed to snag a table-and was gazing out across the road to the ocean. She looked beautiful, like a movie star, the sun warming her face and the sea breeze catching her hair and making it twist and dance. A subtle smile played across her lips. She looked happy, content-like someone in a commercial for falling in love. Usually when I see this commercial, I reach for the remote. It's a product I've spent most of my adult life avoiding. But for the first time in a long time, I didn't want to change the channel; I wanted to watch. It would make my parents happy›.
I sat down across from her.
"You order?"
She nodded. "I got you fish and chips."
I didn't think now would be the appropriate time to go into the details of my aversion to deep-fried foods, so I just smiled and looked over at the surfers changing into their wet suits and walking toward the beach.
"You surf?" she asked.
I laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"Theo Rose surfs. I don't."
It was true. The fictional hero of her novels was an avid surfer who always seemed to find the inspiration that cracked his cases wide open while balanced on a plank of wood out in the water. For me, wobbling on a board over the gaping jaws of hungry sharks doesn't inspire deep thoughts. I'm more of a lie-on-the-sofa kind of thinker.
"You've never tried?"
I smiled at her. "I try to avoid the water."
"You don't even swim?" She seemed astonished by my obvious common sense.
"Thank Steven Spielberg for my fear of the ocean," I said.
She laughed. "Well, nobody's perfect."
"That's not what my mother says about Theo Rose. She says he's the perfect man." I don't know why I said that, but I continued to chew on my foot: "I mean, how many detectives can cook a gourmet dinner, tell you in five different languages what kind of wine to drink with it, and defuse an improvised nuclear bomb before dessert?"
Lydia flashed me that wicked grin of hers as she leaned forward conspiratorially and said, "Don't tell your mom, but he's lousy in bed."
I blinked at her like a big dork. I don't know how to flirt. I wish I did. It could come in handy at a time like this. Thankfully they called our number and Lydia went to pick up the food.
. . .
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