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.