The Cactus Club Killings (Joe Portugal) (31 page)

“Let me go look in his book.”

She got me the number and we signed off. I called Paul’s and got a machine.

I drove Gina, then myself home. I thought about things
for a while and went to bed. In the morning my worst nightmare came true.

I’d set the clock for seven but woke up before it went off. I lay there, letting my day sort itself out in my head, then got up, made the bed, went through my bathroom routine.

I padded into the kitchen in my robe and karate slippers, made a cup of a nice Darjeeling, went out the back door and into the yard. It was cool, around sixty. The June gloom had taken a hiatus; we had a clear sky but for a few high clouds and a rapidly fading moon. I stared up at it, thinking how weird it was that thirty years ago men had walked there, odder still that we’d given up on it so soon after.

I tossed the tea bag in the trash bin and approached the greenhouse. I pulled the U-bolt, undid the latch, put the bolt back through, opened the door. I took a step inside. I saw wasps.

Just two at first, a yellow jacket and a golden polistes. Sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart when they’re aloft, but the polistes have an odd way of letting their legs drag down behind them that’s usually a tip-off. Both of them were buzzing around near the top of the A-shaped roof.

I sensed rapid movement over to my left. Another yellow jacket was examining a pachypodium.

A flash of gold and black to my right. A polistes cruised over some cacti. A few feet beyond it, a mud dauber was smashing itself against the wall.

I shifted to a wide-angle view. At least a dozen wasps occupied the greenhouse. Panic froze me in place.

I heard footsteps outside. “Help!” I yelled as I turned, just in time to see the door slam closed. I could see someone’s
outline through the translucent fiberglass. Somebody not too big, maybe Gina’s size. I heard the clank of metal against metal. Then nothing but receding steps.

“What the hell?” I said, pushing on the door. It didn’t budge.

Another yellow jacket appeared from under a bench. I smashed my shoulder into the door. The greenhouse shook, but the latch held. “Who’s out there?” I said. No one was, not anymore.

Another shot at the door. Nothing doing.

I turned and surveyed the greenhouse. Wasps filled the airspace. Perhaps a score of the black-and-yellow guys—the yellow jackets and golden polistes—as well as a half dozen mud daubers. And somewhere off at the edge of my vision, I caught a glimpse of something bigger. Something that was black and orange and altogether too frightening to focus on.

Buzzing came from overhead. A yellow jacket hovered not two feet above my scalp. I pulled my robe up over my head. The belt came undone and the robe drew open. I felt as if someone had drawn a bulls-eye on my penis. I jerked the robe closed, held it with one hand, turned back to the door. It had two fiberglass panels separated by a horizontal two-by-four. I could probably kick right through the bottom one. But then I’d have to crawl out through the opening, and that seemed a perfect opportunity for some gung-ho wasp to sting my ass.

My right hand tickled. I looked down. A golden polistes rested atop my knuckle. Its hind end bounced up and down a sixteenth of an inch from my skin. I flailed. This had the desired effect on the polistes, which went up, up, and away. It had the opposite effect on the other wasps. They all came over to see what the fuss was about.

I dropped to the floor and rolled under a bench. For a
moment I was alone down there. Then one of the mud daubers joined me. It hung out across the aisle, secure in the knowledge it could have me any time it wanted me.

I thrust at the walls with my feet. But the angle was lousy, and the large fiberglass panels had a lot of give, and I succeeded only in shaking the bench enough to tip something over. I mistook the dribbles of potting mix on the back of my neck for the wanderings of a wasp, and I drew away violently, smashing my head against the bottom of the bench. I cursed and yowled and vigorously rubbed the back of my head until I realized this behavior was an excellent wasp attractant and got myself under some semblance of control.

I felt a sort of nauseated dizziness from my head way down to my bowels. My breathing was quick and shallow. I thought I would hyperventilate. I tried to force myself to take deep, even breaths. I got
deep
right, but
even
escaped me.

One thing seemed apparent to my addled mind: Someone was unhappy with me. Knowing my overwhelming fear of wasps, they’d introduced a nice assortment into my greenhouse, then lurked in my yard, waiting to lock me in with them, knowing that in my frenzy I would smash into a wall and knock myself unconscious, after which the wasps could sting me at will. Maybe somebody
was
methodically killing off CCCC’s leadership. Unable to come up with an appropriately brilliant way of offing me with a euphorbia, they’d switched to the animal kingdom.

But for the moment I was safe, I thought. Most of the wasps didn’t know I was down there. As far as they could tell, I’d just disappeared. Their pinhead-size brains weren’t capable of anything more.

The simultaneous appearance of three yellow jackets under the bench proved that brilliant theory wrong. I had to get out of there soon. It was only a matter of time until the big stingfest.

I tried another kick at the walls, drew the attention of a golden polistes, retreated into the corner. Up above, through the gaps in the bench, I could see the big black and orange thing, could hear the hum of its wings as it searched for a fat, tasty mammal to sting.

The gravel beneath me was making my ass sore. Sweat ran down from my hair into my eyes.

Suddenly, as if at a signal from the barely seen black and orange giant, half a dozen winged creatures surrounded me. Everywhere I looked, wasps gazed back at me through faceted eyes.

Ten times. In the same place. Without dying.

I pulled the robe over my head again and rolled out into the aisle. I vaulted onto the center bench, knocking over half a dozen plants. Across the aisle a spot amidst a batch of cacti looked big enough for my foot. I took a flying leap.

I looped over the aisle, brought my right foot down right on target. I willed it to contribute just the extra bit of momentum I needed and pushed off on it, plunging forward, directing my shoulder at the corrugated fiberglass wall, hoping that I wouldn’t just bounce back, fall on the bench among the cacti, and become lunch for the wasps.

As I hit the wall I was virtually certain that was exactly what was happening. I felt resistance, tensed for the bounce-back—

—and crashed through the wall.

I heard the crack and felt the shudder. Ragged edges scraped my skin. Suddenly the balding lawn was rushing up at my head. As was a rather large lava-rock planter, filled with dudleyas, a gift from Sam Oliver.

I twisted in midair like a Flying Wallenda and managed to miss the planter. Almost. My head grazed the rock, then hit the dirt. The rest of me followed shortly thereafter.

I lay there for several seconds, idiotically worried about the plants I’d knocked over during my escape. I threw a look
at the greenhouse. A tear in one fiberglass panel followed a corrugation from the top of the bench to the roofline. The gap was only a couple of inches. I didn’t see how anything as big as me had gone through such a small opening. While I was trying to figure this out, a mud dauber peeked out of the crack, decided freedom was a good idea, and flew off.

“They’re getting out,” I said.

The dual blows my head had taken were affecting my thinking. I thought if the wasps escaped into the outside world, they’d all show up to harass me again. So I hopped up and grabbed some duct tape from the garage and gingerly fastened the edges of the crack back together. The vents remained stuck closed, and the metal flaps on the outside of the fan enclosure sealed that portal.

Finally, all was quiet. No wasp-waisted fiend buzzed anywhere in my vicinity. Just a normal Tuesday morning in Culver City.

Until, as the adrenaline drained, I realized I’d been stung.

It started as a pinprick in my right side, near my waistline. Just enough to notice, to reach for, to begin to scratch. Suddenly it flared into its full painful glory. Like someone had stuck a hot wire a quarter inch into my skin and wiggled it around. I clapped my hand to the area just as the pain spread, flaring through my entire right side. A wave of nausea passed through me. Then dizziness. Next thing I knew I was lying facedown on the lawn.

I got to my feet and bumbled inside and into the bathroom, ran cold water on a washcloth, slapped it to my side. For an instant the pain brightened, then the agony began to recede. My breathing approached normal. The nausea ebbed to a dull rumbling in my gut.

When I dared to pull the cloth away, I discovered a red welt decorating my waistline, three, maybe four inches in
diameter. At its center a tiny, redder spot, the assumed point of attack. I rewet the cloth, plastered it to my side, and went into the bedroom to use the phone.

The woman at the exterminators’ said they could come Thursday. I told her it was an emergency. She said Wednesday. I said, “There’s a million wasps in my fucking greenhouse, lady,” and she hung up on me.

I’d show her. I found a bug bomb in the garage left over from one of my biennial ant invasions. I pulled on long rubber gloves and brought the bomb over to the greenhouse. I jerked the U-bolt from the latch, got down on my knees, opened the door just enough to slip the bomb in with my gloved hands, activated it, and shut the door.

The pain in my side had lessened to a dull roar. The welt was bigger now, six or seven inches, and a lovely rose pink.

I went inside, considered phoning Burns, decided against it. What would she do, send the police entomologist? Instead, I called Gina. But she was with the city council lady and couldn’t talk. She said she’d come over around dinnertime and hung up on me.

I got in the shower and let cold water beat down upon my sting. By the time I emerged I was functioning more or less normally. I dried off and applied some witch hazel. That helped some, though now an element of itchiness had joined the discomfort parade. I found some shorts whose waistband fell below the distressed area and went out to the Jungle to think.

Who knew about my aversion to wasps? The sad answer was, just about everyone I knew. The insects were common in L.A., and anyone who’d spent any time with me outdoors had been subjected to my insane behavior when one showed up. Sam, for instance.
“Nothing to worry about, my boy.”

I wondered if he was right. Now that I’d actually been
stung and lived to tell the tale, maybe my relentless fear over the last thirty-five or so years had been a gigantic waste of energy.

But I’d only been stung once. What if it had been more?

What if it had been ten times in the same place?

I phoned Paul’s Poinsettia Plantation. “May I speak to Paul, please?”

“Which one?” said the woman who’d answered.

“How many are there?”

“Four. Bill Paul Senior, Bill Paul Junior, Tommy Paul, Annie Paul.”

“Oh. I thought Paul was a first name.”

“Everyone does.”

“Sorry. I’m with McAfee’s up in L.A. We’ve had a little change of management here, and I need to go over a few things.”

“McAfee’s?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” Silence for several seconds. “This is Annie Paul. I handle the account. I was so sorry to hear about Dick. What did you say your name was?”

I told her, then thought the hell with it and said, “Look, Mrs. Paul—”

“Ms. I’m Bill Senior’s daughter.”

“Ms. Paul, then. I don’t work for the nursery. The truth is, I’m a friend of Dicks, and I’m trying to figure out who killed him. And I’ve developed a suspicion the whole thing is somehow related to poinsettias.”

“That sounds ridiculous.”

“Yes, I know. And I don’t have any real evidence, but—”

“It sounded ridiculous when I thought of it too.”

Had I heard her right? “You thought of the same thing?”

“I did. Thought of it right off. I just didn’t know what to do about it, and the more time that passed, the easier it was to think it was a silly idea.”