Stein Stung Read online

  “Mostly almonds,” Renn confirmed. Like everyone else up here, he pronounced it amands. “Some pistachios too. Some oranges. Hear a couple of folks are trying pomegranates.”

  Hollister chuckled at the mention of pomegranates, like they might as well be trying to grow trout.

  The road jogged to the right and elevated up an easy grade. A fully loaded flatbed was laboring about fifty yards ahead of them, chugging in one of its lower gears. The driver was looking for signs at each small turnoff into the orchards that bounded both sides of the road. “Yep,” Renn said. “He’ll be making his drops at ol’ Jim Bottomly’s.”

  As predicted, the driver came upon the turnout he was looking for and began making his left. Lanes had been laid wide enough to accommodate trucks this size but the driver was not experienced and overshot, leaving his load jackknifed at an angle that blocked the road. He needed to back up, and doing so now blocked lanes going in both directions. The kid had a busted front tooth and a brush cut. He yelled out his window, “Sorry, man,” and commenced a laborious effort to put the truck into the angle to make the turn. Renn shut off his engine. They were going to be here for a while.

  “Too early in the day to be unloading, isn’t it?” asked Hollister.

  “Not by the time he makes that turn.”

  Stein recognized the cargo of white boxes neatly stacked and loaded on the back of the semi. He felt protected enough to be curious. “How does this work? People just bring their bees in and turn them loose? How do they get paid?”

  Moody let his seat recline and closed his eyes. “I told you I’d give you a ride, not an education.”

  “Seemed to me you like teaching.”

  “I teach Hollister because, God willing, he’ll learn enough to take over my operation when I retire.”

  Hollister had likely hoped for that announcement before, and resisted the urge to ask Renn to repeat what he’d said.

  The kid in the truck was making little headway. Each maneuver got him in deeper. With Renn feigning a nap, Stein turned his questions toward Hollister about how the whole bee-renting thing worked. The pupil waited deferentially for Renn to answer. When there was silence, both out of politeness and to validate Renn’s faith in him, Hollister gave Stein a decent enough overview of the business. That it cost two hundred dollars to keep a healthy hive alive for a year and they could make nearly all that in one month’s rental fee. That left honey and wax and pollinating other crops to make a profit. Some went north to Oregon and Washington for blueberries and cherries.

  The conversation flourished with Renn excluded, a position he could not abide. He jumped in at an unguarded intersection and took it hostage. “In a few days the call of ‘Bloom’s Up’ is gonna go out, and this whole valley is going to look like Cinderella at the ball. Half a million acres of almond trees in blossom all at once, every blossom needing to be cross-pollinated from another species. Hell, in the old days they were happy to pull down eight hundred pound per acre. Now they cry poverty if they don’t get four thousand. Back in the day there were plenty of local bees. There were forty different kinds of flowering plants for them to feed on and stay healthy. Look around. Do you see anything else growing? Don’t bother looking. The answer is no. They spray till they kill off everything that drains water, soil nutrients away from their trees. There’s no pollen for them to forage. You see those yellow patties on top of the bee boxes, look like little pumpkin cheeseburgers? They’re pollen patties. We have to feed them pollen. That’s like putting out dishes of blood for mosquitoes.”

  “He’s right,” Hollister concurred.

  “That’s not farming,” Renn spat. “It’s manufacturing. They’ve killed off the environment that supports the bees but they need ten times more.” He nodded toward the laboring truck. “They get shipped in from Worshington, Oregon, the Dakotas, Florida. We had a guy last year ship in from Maine; I think he’s coming back.”

  “I heard that he was,” Hollister said.

  “Doesn’t it get expensive shipping them across country?”

  “Hell, yes! Cheaper to steal ’em.”

  Stein waited a moment and then asked quietly, “If that’s what Frank Monahan was doing, how would I find out where he was delivering his shipment?”

  Before Hollister understood that Renn did not want to get into the whole matter, the young protégé volunteered that Stein should probably check with Henny Spector. Henny was the local contractor that put together most of the independent and especially the last-minute deals.

  “Doesn’t matter who’s taking the shipment,” Renn growled. “Growers don’t give a damn where their bees come from. Half of them never had their hands in dirt. They’re not farmers. They’re agricultural management practitioners.”

  “Or Russians,” Hollister added.

  “Don’t get me started on the Russians.”

  The truck ahead of them finally made it into the orchard lane. The kid waved back a sincere apology. Stein was still working to connect all the dots. “So the bees that were on Monahan’s truck … somebody had contracted for them. And since they didn’t get delivered, that owner still needs that same number of bees, right? So how do they get replaced?”

  “Well now you have asked your first intelligent question,” said Renn, and he restarted the engine.

  ***

  Butch and Burleigh Branston were forty-one-year-old identical twins, star linebackers on their high school football team twenty-five years ago. They went through life with two basic thoughts: About any man they saw, Could I take him in a fight? About any woman, What are my chances of fucking her? They could be told apart only by the legs on which they wore their knee brace. Butch blew out his right meniscus in a post-game dare involving a flatbed truck going sixty. Burleigh blew his left jumping off the same flatbed, even though by then it had slowed down to forty-five. He had never lived down the stigma of being outdone by his younger brother.

  Scraggy wild blackberry bushes grew alongside the busted wood fence that bounded their rain-gullied driveway. It widened out to a level area in front of the house that with a woman’s touch (or really with the touch of anyone remotely sane) would have been a yard of some sort, a place for grass or trees. Instead it looked like a hoarder’s closet. Stein counted ten industrial-sized sewing machines, half a dozen refrigerators with and without doors, the skeletons of two rusted Oldsmobiles interlaced in a perpetual embrace, and the promise from beneath unseen piles of much much more.

  The brothers greeted Doc Moody with respect. Their quarry would never be anyone who knew more than they did. When Renn presented Hollister as “the young fella I told you might be looking for equipment,” their expressions turned herpetological. Renn was cryptic in his introduction of Stein, just saying he had driven up from Los Angeles in a brand of car nobody had ever heard of. Burleigh gimped over to the brothers’ red pickup truck and fished a creel of Coors out of the cooler. He tossed one to Renn, who snatched it one-handed, and offered one to Hollister, who declined, laughing that he ought to keep his wits about him.

  “In other words, Ruth Ann don’t let him drink in the daytime,” Renn chuckled.

  “It’s not her.” There was something sweet in the way Hollister smiled when he talked about Ruth Ann.

  “Does your friend who drove from Los Angeles like an adult beverage?” Burleigh asked.

  “Thanks,” Stein said. He readied his hand for the can to be tossed to him. Instead Burleigh popped it open and handed him the brew. Stein wasn’t sure whether to read the gesture as sarcasm or as hospitality.

  “Cheers,” he said, and took a guzzle.

  “Why don’t you show Hollister what you’ve got,” Renn suggested. “He may be in the market for a honey extractor.”

  “Sure. Just tell us which arm and which leg he’s willing to pay.” Butch punctuated his humor with the slinging of his python left arm around Hollister’s shoulders. “Come on around back. We’ll see what we got.”

  “Mind if I tag along?” Stein asked
. “There’s some equipment I might be interested in too.”

  Surreptitious looks passed between the twins and Renn Moody.

  “We wouldn’t want to have two buyers going against each other and us take unfair advantage,” said Burleigh.

  “That matches my first impression of you,” Stein said. “My needs are pretty specific, though. Equipment branded with three circles inside a triangle. Like ones you found for Dr. Moody.”

  “Hellfuck if I ever look. But I tell you what. My brother’s gonna take Hollister to find that extractor. You come around with me to the back of the house, and we’ll see what we turn up. Truth to tell though, you’re likely to be disappointed.”

  “First time for everything,” Stein said amiably.

  Hollister had already disappeared with Butch. Burleigh limped ahead. His gimp made every other step look like he had just come up with a great idea he couldn’t hold in. “Coming, Hollywood?”

  “Buyer Beware,” Renn chuckled. “Burleigh’s crazier than a two-dick dog, and he’s the sane one.”

  Stein was led around a circuitous path through an archipelago of junk that made Stein think of a losing army’s battlefield piled high with body parts. A piece of a tractor. Vacuum cleaners. A stack of tires. Some bicycle frames. Stein thought about archaeologists a thousand years from now unearthing this site and trying to piece together a picture of twentieth-century civilization.

  “You’re Butch, right?”

  “Burleigh. But you can call me Butch. A lot of people do.” He hauled a croquet mallet out of a pile. He took a few practice swings.

  Stein looked askance at the pile of rubble. He wasn’t going to look through all this crap. He repeated again that he was only interested in more of the boxes they sold to Dr. Moody.

  “Some doctor,” Burleigh scoffed. “Nobody he ever treated came away feeling any better.”

  “Can you tell me how the boxes came into your possession?”

  Something small scurried out from under a pile. Burleigh took a whack at it with the mallet—made good, solid contact that sent it flying. He held his follow-through and watched the full parabola of its flight. “Ever play possum golf?”

  Stein slapped his own hand down hard on Burleigh’s shoulder. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I came up here on my own. Big people are interested. You know what happens to the little man when he plays against the house?” Stein didn’t crack or blink as he let that settle in through the strata of Burleigh’s brain tissue. “I’m not looking to hurt you boys. I just need to talk to whoever got you those boxes.”

  Burleigh’s attitude became all helpful and verbose. “Well, hellfuck, Hollywood. Why didn’t you say so before? Those boxes came here from a guy.”

  “And suppose I wanted to talk to this guy? How would I find him?”

  “Why’nt you just leave that up to Henny Spector? He wants you to find him, he’ll find you.”

  Henny Spector again.

  Butch’s knee suddenly buckled and he grabbed onto Stein’s shoulder for support. “Damn other knee’s going bad. Know where they want to take a ligament? From my brother. Only his is going bad too. Know where they want to get a new one for him? From me.”

  Linked at the hip, they returned to where they had begun. Hollister was happily loading a trove of new acquisitions into the back of Renn Moody’s truck: some decent-looking frames and a box/tub apparatus. Upon seeing Stein, Hollister proudly proffered a white box, worse for wear. Its roof was cracked in and it looked usable only as spare wood, but its frame bore Karma Moonblossom’s brand.

  “How do ya like that?” Burleigh said. “Looks like everyone leaves happier than they came.”

  “What about the bees that came in it?” Stein asked.

  “Pssssss,” Butch flicked his wrist up toward the sky. Stein tried to look dubious but didn’t have a leg of knowledge to stand on. Even Renn confirmed this information. “They might find another home if they had a queen, or try to join another colony. But you’ll never see them again.”

  ***

  True to Burleigh’s diagnosis, everyone was relatively happy on the drive back. Hollister was happy with his honey extractor even though he knew he had paid too much for it. Renn had brought the young man along another small step. Stein could sense him extrapolating whether there was enough time for his protégé to learn enough to take over his bees. And Stein at least had a box or two he could ceremoniously return to Karma. But he wasn’t happy. It didn’t compute that here were two people, Renn and Hollister, whose equipment had been stolen and who didn’t seem motivated in getting it back.

  “Who’s Henny Spector?” Stein asked, as they pulled into Hollister’s driveway. Stein’s Kia had gotten doused in sap and white-crusted bird shit. “He seems to be in the middle of everything. I should talk to him.”

  “My advice,” said Renn, “And I’m a doctor. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Take your stuff and go home.”

  He popped the back so Stein could get out and remove his boxes. Even with Hollister’s help it was an awkward fit trying to wedge them into the trunk of his own car. The lid wouldn’t shut no matter how many different angles he tried. He gave up and decided to find room in the car’s interior. He pushed the passenger seat forward and wedged the box into the rear. Hollister clambered in through the driver’s side and reached over the flattened seat back to pull while Stein pushed. The box became inverted during the effort, spewing a minor avalanche of fine dirt and pine needles onto the back seat and floor.

  Hollister apologized profusely. Stein told him not to worry about it.

  “I’ll just get the car vac from inside.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s a rental.”

  Hollister was already hustling toward the house. Renn slung himself out of the cab and watched his eager, young protégé. “He ain’t the world’s fastest learner but he’s a good boy.”

  Stein empathized. A psychic had once told him his daughter would do great things. But after he was dead.

  He still couldn’t let the other thing go. “I had a feeling from Ruth Ann the other night that you all know who the bee thief is.”

  Renn took Stein firmly to task. “I don’t know how it is where you were brought up, but here we don’t talk personally about another man’s wife.”

  Hollister returned chagrinned, with a whiskbroom and dustpan. “Ruth Ann must’ve taken the vac to work.” Despite Stein’s protestations he fell to the task of cleaning the mess.

  “Hollister.” Stein grabbed hold of his whisk-brooming hand. “You know who’s taking the bees around here, don’t you? Why won’t you say?”

  Something else had gotten Hollister’s attention. “Look at this,” he said and held out the dustpan toward Stein and Renn.

  “If it’s a condom it’s not mine.”

  “No, it’s these pine needles and these white oak leaves.” He sifted more carefully, rubbed some soil between his thumb and two fingers and watched it float. “See how thin this soil is?”

  “Hollister, I’m sure Mr. Stein needs to started heading back and doesn’t care about thin soil.”

  “He would be if he wanted to know where the box has been. White oak grows in fine soil around twenty-five hundred feet elevation.”

  “Hollister.”

  There was a strong storm warning in those three syllables, but Hollister sailed on. “Doc,” he said, “I appreciate your helping me get back on my feet, but I’d feel a lot better getting back what was mine.”

  “What do you think the city boy can do?”

  “Something, maybe.”

  “You boys know who who’s doing all the pilfering, don’t you!”

  “Knowing’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Moody scowled.

  Stein pressed them to know what the damn problem was.

  Almost on cue, the county sheriff’s car drove past. “There’s the damn problem,” Moody grumbled. “Sheriff Slodaney. If he wasn’t wearing a b
adge he’d be wearing stripes.”

  “There’s two problems,” Hollister amended.

  Alongside the sheriff was none other than the ubiquitous Captain Anthony Caravaggio. Stein’s eyes got wider than a vegan baby’s at his first taste of sugar. “You boys were going to deprive me of the chance of having some fun? Shame on you!”

  Chapter Seven

  “Stein!” Lila’s voice rang out with the gusto of the two glasses of Beaujolais she had quaffed that afternoon while trying to finish The O’Reilly Factor for her second reading group. Stein’s phone call was a welcome respite.

  “How are things going there?” Stein asked. He was standing in Hollister’s kitchen not long after Caravaggio and the sheriff had driven past.

  “We can talk about it when you get home. I’m putting dinner on.” She covered the receiver with one hand and with the other pointed out a series of tasks for Mercedes to do, indicating dishes, refrigerator, microwave. She glanced at the clock. It was five. Then back to the phone, and Stein. “Things actually have gotten a little strange.”

  “Oh, shit. Don’t tell me. I’m too young to be a grandfather.”

  “I’ll tell you all about it when you’re home. And you’re not.”

  “What?”

  “Too young to be a grandfather. But that’s not it.”

  “Listen, it’s gotten a little complicated up here.”

  “Did you meet somebody?”

  “Lila … ? Jeez. There’s something I have to do here that I can’t do until tomorrow.” Silence. “I have to stay over another night.”

  Lila’s anger, long since dammed by her own emotional Army Corps of Engineers, registered as stony silence.

  “I understand it’s an imposition. On the other hand, you said you wanted to be more directly involved. This is what that looks like.”

  All the right words were rattling in her head. Words like: To me, it looks like you indulging your quirky unpredictability because you know you have a dependable safety valve. But what she said was nothing.

  “Okay. I get it,” Stein said. “I’ll see you as soon as I see you.”