Hardboiled Crime Four-Pack

by Jack Bunker

  The furniture is all the same and configured just as it was in the old digs, except in the spanking new office it looks more decrepit. Angel scans the DVD-cover art on the wall with a look of distaste, then turns his gaze to Robert, implying an unflattering association.

  “Just go in,” says Robert, in no mood for small talk today. He turns back to his plant and starts at the splatter on the carpet.

  I do a little bow and extend my arm, inviting Angel to precede me into Jane’s office. I want him to lead, just in case she’s in the mood to take another swing.

  We walk in to find Jane seated behind her desk beneath the Cheeks Asunder poster. The Sultana of Swat is wearing a pink sweat suit—no standing on ceremony for me. She’s got a file on the desk in front of her with a buckie note on it. I don’t recognize the name embossed on the note, but I’m proud of myself for remembering what it’s called.

  The place looks almost identical to the old one, except the view of the Simi Hills beats the hell out of the view of the self-storage joint on Van Nuys Boulevard. As with the reception area, they’ve simply moved in all the old furniture. No fancy upgrades for the porn queen.

  Sitting beside Jane’s desk, angled to look in our direction, making it clear that she’s on Jane’s team, is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a female albino. She wears a bright-red, conservatively tailored knit suit on a trim frame. The red contrasts starkly with her pale skin like the stripes of a barber pole. She’s in one of those ergonomic chairs whose base sprouts levers and looks like it could eject her if she were to hit the wrong one.

  “Gentlemen?” She gestures toward two wannabe club chairs facing the desk. We sit without shaking hands. “I’m Hilda Priest, of counsel, Masaoka and Rosenstiel.” The name on the buckie note.

  I’ve always been wary of lawyers who claim to be “of counsel.” It means they don’t work at the firm, but they work for the firm. Legal guns for hire. Have tort, will travel. You wonder how much responsibility the firm will take for them when they fuck up.

  “Jack Angel,” says Angel, “representing Mr. Brown.” I notice he doesn’t ID his firm, showing a bit more respect for the impropriety of the meeting than did Ms. Albino.

  Angel gives me a glance that I take to express empathy for my disappointment that Cogswell is not here. I had pretty much convinced myself that he would be, even though Jane never even hinted as much.

  “I believe the ball is in your court, Mr. Brown,” says Hilda.

  “All right. We all know why we’re here,” I say, intending to avoid stating it explicitly.

  “Why is that?” asks Jane.

  I don’t go for the bait. “Look, only you know what was going through your head when you assaulted me.” I half expect Hilda Priest to jump up and object on the grounds that no assault by her client has been established. Too many middle-of-the-night Damages reruns. Priest says nothing, unnervingly happy to stipulate to my injury.

  “As far as I could tell,” I continue, measuring my words before letting them loose, “you didn’t recognize me in the dark and mistakenly thought I was a prowler. You probably grabbed your bat, just to be safe. I don’t think you meant to hurt me. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you slipped on the steep slope and struck me accidentally.”

  “Is that what you saw?” Jane asks.

  “From my perspective, I saw nothing that would contradict that chain of events. But I was hoping you’d give me your perspective.” I feel like I’m tiptoeing through a minefield and Angel’s doing nothing to help.

  “I’ve advised my client not to do that,” says Hilda.

  “You’d rather do it in court?” I ask.

  “Are you trying to intimidate my client, Mr. Brown? Because if—” Jane silences her lawyer with a flash of her palm. The great white shark snaps her mouth shut. I can see the muscles of her jaw straining against her instinct to bite.

  “Mr. Brown,” says Jane. “I am frankly surprised at your interpretation of the events that brought us together today. Without detailing what happened, I will tell you that I was frightened that night. I knew I was being stalked.”

  “Because Cogswell spotted me on your tail and tipped you off?” A flare of surprise tweaks her eyes pretty close to the speed of light, but I see it anyway. It’s all the confirmation I need.

  “Because it was obvious, even to an amateur like myself. I saw you turn your lights on when you followed me onto Ventura Boulevard. One of them’s out, by the way, which made you very easy to spot. Then, when I got home, you almost came to a stop when you cruised past the bottom of my driveway. It was clear that I was being followed by some rank amateur.” The remark cuts to the quick. I make a mental note to fix my headlight.

  “I grabbed the nearest weapon and waited to see whether you had the nerve to trespass. I get a lot of fans who see me act out a rape fantasy in a video and think it’s real. They think it’s what I like, what I want them to do to me. They think I want them to choke me or gag me while they rape me to make my orgasms more intense. That’s the kind of person I’d expect to sneak up my driveway with his shoes off in the dark, Mr. Brown. That’s who I thought I was protecting myself against. We take the threat of stalkers very seriously in my business. I don’t think there’s a jury on earth who would fault me for what I did under the circumstances.”

  “You have a lot more to lose than I do,” I say. “No matter which one of us is charged—”

  “That’ll be you,” says Hilda.

  “That’s a factual leap,” says Angel, weighing in at last.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Either way, if this winds up in court, it’ll be all over the Internet and TV. I’ll just come out looking like a green detective. It won’t help my self-image, but it won’t hurt my career. I’m not a private dick, I’m a writer. You, on the other hand, go from plain Jane to slutty Vajayna in the eyes of your neighbors, friends, relatives, and maybe even the IRS. Not to mention the fact that I’ll have to reveal where I picked up your trail, which I’m sure won’t make your boyfriend very happy.”

  Jane blanches, almost matching the pallor of her lawyer and confirming my suspicions.

  “I can just see the headlines now,” I conclude. “‘Mobster’s Porn Queen Girlfriend Attacks Ex-Cop Crime Writer.’ That is every tabloid’s wet dream.”

  “If this gets so much as a mention in the papers—” begins Hilda, but I cut her off.

  “Hey, don’t blame me for the Constitution. If this goes to court, it’s public record.”

  “We get your drift,” says Jane. “What do you want?”

  “Two things. First, I know you’ve got privacy issues, but I want to compare the list of witnesses that the police interviewed during the Lana Strain murder investigation against your client list.” Her nostrils flare in anger, but before she refuses outright, I sweeten the pot. “You don’t have to let me see your records, just have your lawyer compare my list to yours and tell me if you get any matches.”

  “And second?” Her voice is unenthusiastic, but I get the feeling she’ll go for number one if number two isn’t too bad.

  “I want some face time with your boyfriend.”

  Angel gives me a horrified look, like I’ve just ordered a strychnine gimlet, but Jane breaks into a smile.

  “Sure, I can set up a little tête-à-tête with Gary,” she says cheerfully. “But if you don’t have major medical, you might want to pick some up before you meet.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  The porcelain teapot was already an antique in 1899 when Toulouse-Lautrec gave it to Boom-Boom Laphroig’s great-grandmother before drinking himself into a sanatorium and dying at the grand old age of thirty-seven. It bears no maker’s mark, but is hand painted with a red Greek geometric design around the top rim as well as the lid. It sits in a place of honor, alone on the top shelf of a built-in china nook in Boom-Boom’s dining room.

  “It’s beautiful,” I say.

  “My mother told me he gave it to arrière-grand-mère as payment for a blow
job. My great-grandmother was apparently famous for having the best in Montmartre.”

  “She was French?”

  “Algerian.” She takes the teapot off the shelf. “Something to drink?”

  “I’m not much of a tea fan.”

  She laughs easily. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s got a built-in strainer. Perfect for Martinis.”

  Boom-Boom pulls off the lid and tips the pot to show me that the inner wall has holes poked in it where the spout is attached, creating a filter so that you can steep loose tea in the pot and pour directly into a cup.

  I check my watch to make sure it’s after five. No problem. “A gentleman never lets a lady drink alone.”

  She walks into her kitchen, and I’m struck by the effortless grace with which she moves despite hips so broad that they almost don’t clear the doorway. In her youth, Boom-Boom was wild, obese, and powerful. She was the sort of frenzied rock drummer you’d expect to smash right through the drumhead of her snare if her stool didn’t collapse first. She’s still big and powerful, but she must have lost a hundred pounds since she beat the skins for Lana Strain. Her frame is still imposing, but her padding is not nearly as thick. Her kinky hair, once Afroed out to the size of a basketball, is now pulled straight back, tight against her scalp, tied taut in a small bun. There’s a touch of gray at her temples that she makes no effort to hide.

  I watch her pull an ice tray from the freezer compartment of her small fridge. As she twists it out, I remember how Gloria couldn’t catch a cube to save her life and wonder how Boom-Boom would do with my ice maker. Does it take some kind of advanced skills in hand-eye coordination like diving to catch a fly ball?

  “My arrière-grand-mère would die all over again if she thought I wasn’t putting her teapot to good use.” She steps back into the dining room to grab some Gordon’s gin from a small selection of bottles on a round metal Corona beer tray. She pours a lengthy splash into the pot.

  Boom-Boom lives in a gray pseudocastle with fake turrets on Franklin in Los Feliz. Her small apartment is decorated with lots of textiles. The walls are covered in a pale-yellow feltlike fabric. Her couch is draped in colorful Mexican and Central American woven blankets, accented by African-print pillows. A handcrafted shawl or afghan hangs over the back of every chair. And the floor is a patchwork of eclectic flea-market throw rugs. The stylistic discordance is surprisingly pleasing, exuding a mood of warmth, comfort, and diversity.

  “You like it dry, I hope?” she asks.

  “Parched.”

  She takes a bottle of vermouth, wets her fingertip, flicks a few drops into the gin, then covers the teapot and gives it a swirl.

  She fills two martini glasses, plops an olive in each, and hands me one. We clink without toasting and each take a sip. It hits the spot.

  “I’m not sure what I can tell you that hasn’t been reported,” she says.

  “What do you know about Gary Cogswell?”

  “Not too much. We rarely said more than hello and good-bye. I was just a fat-chick drummer as far as he was concerned. If you weren’t a client, he didn’t acknowledge your existence. Billy hated his guts.”

  “Why is that?”

  She scratches her scalp, and a few flakes of dandruff snow onto her blouse. She brushes them off. “I don’t know. Maybe because Lana slept with him. Billy didn’t like her fucking people she knew.”

  I hand her some Xeroxed pages from Lana’s journal. “Do you think she could have been referring to Cogswell here? She used a pseudonym.”

  Boom-Boom squints at the first page.

  “Where’d you get these?”

  “Billy Kidd,” I lie. She seems to buy it.

  She rummages in her purse for a pair of tortoiseshell readers, then scooches around to settle in on the couch. She starts reading out loud in a strong, deep voice.

  “I thought about calling Hyde back but ate a whole bag of Oreos instead. Then I got depressed about the Oreos and barfed. Then got depressed about barfing and took a ’lude. Then got depressed about the ’ludes and took a nap. Woke up feeling better. Had scrambled eggs and watched Jeopardy. I’d like to fuck Alex Trebek.”

  She looks up with a grin. “Lana loved Alex Trebek.” She goes back to the journal. “Hyde called five times today. He’s getting on my nerves. He wanted to take the girls ice-skating. I finally told him to go fuck himself and hung up depressed.”

  “You’d think she’s talking about someone whose name starts with H,” she says.

  “I don’t think that was her system. For example, I’m pretty sure she called Ginger ‘Kitty.’”

  “For Kitty Foyle?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Lana loved classic movies. She named her girls after stars. Sophia for Sophia Loren, Ginger for Ginger Rogers. Ginger Rogers won an Oscar for playing Kitty Foyle.”

  She looks back at the pages with renewed curiosity.

  “It’s dated August fifteenth,” she says. “What year was it?”

  “Nineteen ninety-four. Just before she was killed.”

  Boom-Boom’s eyes narrow in thought. She whispers the date, apparently trying to locate the memory. “I think that was the week we played the Greek Theater.”

  She resumes her reading.

  “Went to the Pleasure Chest with Ducky and bought some toys. Always wanted to try a ball gag, but the one Ducky bought turned out to be flavored like Tang. Yuck. Got home exhausted. It took four shots of tequila to get the taste out of my mouth.”

  She looks up. “Ducky would be Vern Senzimmer,” she says. “Put a condom on a boy toy you get a rubber ducky.” She grins at some memory.

  “I’ve been trying to track him down. He doesn’t seem to be making music anymore.”

  You’d think with a name like Vern Senzimmer he’d be pretty easy to find, but I’ve scoured six search engines with no luck.

  “He wasn’t making much music back then either.” She takes a sip of her martini. “Sticky White played the small clubs, but as far as I know, they never signed with a label.” She returns to the text.

  “Bozo got home late, and we fought as usual. We’re leaving for a gig at the Cow Palace the day after tomorrow, so the girls will be on their own. I told Kitty about the Fillmore gig where Bozo got the trots onstage and Gomer had to do a ten-minute bass solo while Bozo hit the shit house. Kitty got the hiccups from laughing.”

  “Bozo is Billy, Gomer is Don Patt,” I say, as if it weren’t apparent.

  She continues. “Then Kitty went upstairs to crash, and Hyde tried to slide his disgusting hand up my crotch. I had to knee him in the balls and push him out the door on his ass.”

  “Does that sound like Cogswell?” I ask. “Did she ever talk about him pulling stunts like that?”

  “Oh, yeah. She complained about him putting the make on her all the time, called him a dirty old man.”

  I had a repetitive fantasy in my teens about a concert at the Troubadour where Lana shows up to do a surprise walk-on. She starts singing “Go Down Hard” when her eyes find me in the crowd and lock there. She’s singing just for me. When she leaves the stage, she wordlessly grabs my arm and pulls me back to her dressing room. She locks the door and, never taking those eyes off mine, yanks my belt open and slides it free. Then she throws it around my neck and drags me in for a torrid kiss that scorches my tongue. I’ll spare the carnal details, but for the rest of the night she teaches me new, uninhibited ways to exult in the pleasures of the flesh. The thought of something even remotely like that happening to Cogswell makes me slightly nauseated.

  “You lost me,” I say. “You say she complained about him putting the moves on, but you told Billy they were having an affair.”

  “That was later. After he’d been working for her awhile. She never told me why she finally gave in, but I know it wasn’t because she found him attractive.”

  “When was this?” I drain my glass.

  “Around New Year’s, I think. They were hot and heavy by Valentine’s Day. I remember because Gary
sent a dozen red roses, and she hid them from Billy.”

  She pours more gin into the teapot.

  I do the math. “So the affair lasted a couple of months.”

  “That’s about right.” She swirls the teapot without even glancing at the vermouth and pours me another. She tops off her own. “Gary was not a happy camper when she ended it.”

  “And that was how long before she was shot?”

  “I don’t know. A month maybe?” She takes a sip.

  “So in terms of timing, this Hyde character could have been Cogswell.”

  “I guess.” She reaches up with both hands and scratches her head vigorously, as if her scalp were suddenly overrun with ants. A wayward flake of dandruff drifts across to the coffee table and settles on the surface of her drink.

  “But she also wrote about Hyde wanting to take the girls ice-skating,” I say. “That doesn’t sound like Cogswell, does it?”

  A little rain on the parade. She reconsiders.

  “Gary barely knew the girls. Before Lana died, I doubt he could have even named them.”

  Boom-Boom lifts her glass and sees the floating flake. She closes her eyes and shoots the rest of her drink to get it over with, then notices I’m watching and gives me an impish grin. A little girl caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

  Is Cogswell the guy she called Hyde? If so, he would have had a motive for killing Lana. Scorned lover turned obsessive. Could Cogswell have been the Asshole?

  “Do you think Cogswell was still in love with Lana,” I ask, “after she broke up with him?”

  “Not likely. Lana’s father told her Gary hated her.”