“Do you think Bodhi’s in danger?” Good old Hondo, he got me back on point.
“Ahh, you’re right, we need to focus on finding her first. He did say he hadn’t seen her.”
“He looked sincere when he said it.”
“That’s what bothers me.”
Our office was only a few blocks away, so we walked, and Hondo used his cell to order Chinese to be delivered. We tied with the delivery man on getting to our office. I invited Archie over, and he came through the door a few minutes later. We sat at the table and Archie ate two spring rolls while Hondo and I loaded chicken fried rice on our paper plates.
When he took a third spring roll, I said, “Hey, that one’s mine.”
“I need the extra carbs after leading the pregnant women in pre-birthing cardio all morning.”
I looked at our eighty-year old friend, landlord, agent, and gym owner sitting across from me. He wore a white tee shirt with cut-off sleeves, and his arms looked like large oak branches, all sun-browned and hard. His bodybuilding years still held him in phenomenal shape for his age, as did exercising daily with weights. He still bench-pressed three-fifty and could walk across the gym floor on his hands.
I had a hard time picturing him coaching cardio of any kind, but especially showing pregnant women a fourth his age how to strengthen and tighten their female regions for delivery. My mind suddenly pictured a faceless woman in the delivery room, wearing a hospital gown that said, Trained by Archie, shooting a baby out to a waiting nurse ten feet away wearing a catcher’s mitt and pounding the center of the glove saying, “Put ‘er in there!”
Archie caught me looking and said, “Okay, I’m sorry. I was a little hungry. Thanks for sharing.”
Hondo said, “At least Archie doesn’t steal chocolate milk.”
Now I was being double-teamed. I put a spoonful of hot and sour soup in my mouth and mumbled around it.
Hondo said, “What was that?”
“God bless us every one.”
Archie said, “Haw! Good one, Ronny.” He slapped me on the back in his normal way, and knocked soup out of my nose.
~*~
We checked Bodhi’s credit card receipts to see the last time they had been used, and found one receipt from the Red Lobster on Century Boulevard. We drove to it and talked to the manager. Next, we interviewed several of the staff. It seemed they didn’t remember her, but remembered the order. I said, “Seventeen Maine lobster dinners for takeout, is that a common order?”
“No way, man,” Jerry, the Manager said, “That’s a lot of lobsters.” He had an odd way of moving his mouth when he spoke. Jerry’s sparse-haired blond moustache seemed to be crawling across his upper lip like an anemic caterpillar staggering across the ridges of a Ruffles potato chip.
Hondo held the photo of Bodhi up again, “She wasn’t the one who picked it up?”
“No sir, I’d remember somebody that attractive. I’m sure it was a man picked them up. Guys like us, we always like to see the ladies.” He winked at Hondo and me, and moved his lips in what he considered a knowing leer. His moustache appeared to convulse in death spasms.
“Did he have any help?”
“No, just made lots of trips back and forth.”
“Describe him.”
“He’s an Indian.”
I said, “What kind of Indian?”
“A woo woo.”
“Come again?”
“You
know, not a red dot, a woo woo. The kind that kicked Custer’s butt.”
Man, this guy. “How did he dress?”