by P. A. Brown
“I can’t find Des. He’s not at home. Where is he, Chris? Where’s Des?”
“Looking for you. Where are you? What’s wrong—”
“Someone’s following me.”
“What?” Chris sat down on the bed, shoving Trevor away when he tried to take the phone away. Trevor responded by stripping his jeans off. “Who’s following you?”
“I don’t know.” Fresh panic tightened Kyle’s voice, raising it in pitch. “I don’t know, but they’re right behind me in a truck.”
Oh good. California good old boys out for a night of fun.
“Where are you now?” Shit, if anything happened to Kyle, Des would never forgive him. He might as well kiss their friendship good-bye forever. “Do you know where you are?”
“Santa Monica. I just passed Bundy.”
Chris reached for his shirt, still protecting the phone from an amorous Trevor. “What are you driving, Kyle?”
“My Boxster, of course.”
That had been a major sore point between Chris and Des. Chris had thought it a foolish indulgence to buy any car for his latest boy-toy, let alone a pricey little sports car like the Porsche Boxster. But Des had insisted, and now Kyle drove everywhere in it. At least when he wasn’t letting Des chauffeur him around in the Mercedes.
Right now Kyle was driving through territory ripe for carjacking. He refrained from telling Kyle that—no sense having the fool freak out even more.
“Come to my place—”
“I can’t. I’m almost out of gas. I didn’t bring my bank cards—”
Idiot, Chris wanted to say. Instead he took a deep breath. “Okay, whatever you do, don’t stop until you get to a well-lit place with lots of people. In fact,” he thought hard.
“Go to Freddie’s. Then call me back on my cell.”
“Are you going to call Des?”
“I’ll call him, but in the meantime I’m coming out there. Go to Freddie’s.” Trevor reached for him; Chris twisted away.
“You can’t be serious,” Trevor muttered. “You’re leaving?”
Chris hung up and scrambled to his feet, tucking himself back into his jeans.
“Kyle’s gotten himself lost out in Santa Monica. He’s begging me for help. Des is my best friend, Trev. I can’t leave Kyle out there on his own. Des would kill me if anything happened to him.”
“You’re killing me, is what you’re doing.”
Chris tried to smile as he admired Trevor’s naked body. “Wait for me. I won’t be long—”
“Fuck that.” Trevor grabbed discarded clothes off the floor and threw them back on.
“Trevor doesn’t wait.”
“Give me a lift—” Chris stared at the empty doorway. Downstairs the front door slammed. He sighed. “Or not.”
Trevor was long gone by the time Chris left the house to wait for his cab.
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CHAPTER 16
Monday, 11:00 pm, Cove Avenue, Silver Lake, Los Angeles IT TOOK CHRIS forty minutes to reach Santa Monica. His BlackBerry remained stubbornly silent the whole way. Freddie’s was packed. In the barely legal crowd it took Chris nearly half an hour to establish that Kyle wasn’t there. Pushing through the solid press of bodies he forced his way back outside.
He scanned the street. No sign of Kyle or his Boxster.
Idiot. How the hell was he going to explain this to Des? Where was Kyle?
He pulled out his BlackBerry. “Hey, Des,” he said when his friend answered. “Any word?”
“No,” Des said.
“Call the cops, Des—”
“You know what they’d tell me?” Des’s voice rose a notch. “They’d tell me I’m some hysterical queen who had a tiff with his boyfriend.”
“You called them already, didn’t you?”
“Twice. They won’t even take a report for forty-eight hours—what’s it to you anyway?
Since when do you care about Kyle?”
“Des—” Chris stared into the half-filled parking lot attached to Freddie’s. No Boxster.
“Des, you gotta call them again. Kyle’s in trouble.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He was being followed. You tell the cops that. They have to do something if they know that.”
Monday, 11:20 pm, Northeast Community Police Station, San Fernando Road, Los Angeles
David wearily tossed his jacket aside and dropped into his chair, his elbows finding support on the desk. His phone rang. It was Martinez.
He sounded as exhausted as David. “I’m heading home.”
“The arcade a bust?”
“Found a couple of guys claim to be good friends of Anstrom. They may have seen him around the time he disappeared. Any way you can round up some pictures of Bellamere?”
David looked around the squad room. “Don’t we have a camera here somewhere?”
“Check the top drawer of my desk.”
The camera David pulled out fit into the palm of his hand.
“Digital?”
“Beauty, ain’t it? Plug some new batteries in it and we're all set. Does pretty decent zoom photos.”
“I’ll catch him before he leaves for work.”
“Sounds good. I have to get the kids ready for school, Inez’s sister is in the hospital having a baby, so I may be a few minutes late. Get your pics, we’ll head out to the valley later.”
David managed to grab a few hours’ sleep, and woke himself up with a shower while Sweeney prowled the bathroom, impatient for breakfast. By seven David was parked up the street from Chris’s in his unmarked. Less than thirty minutes later a cab edged its way around him and pulled into Chris’s driveway.
David couldn’t see inside the courtyard, so he didn’t see Chris come out, but he did see him slide into the backseat of the cab. Within minutes the cabby’s lights flared and they headed down the hill.
David stayed on their tail in the light traffic that got heavier as they cut over to Santa Monica. He managed to keep the cab’s dome light in view. The cab finally stopped at a Hertz. Parked across the street, David watched Chris rent a car and emerge thirty minutes later in a pale blue Lexus.
But instead of heading back over the mountain to work, Chris turned west toward Beverly Hills. Once he parked and David saw where he was going, he cursed low and grabbed his cell phone off the seat beside him.
“He’s in with his lawyer,” David said when Martinez answered. He could hear kids talking in the background and a TV blaring.
“Think he’s on to us?” Martinez sounded harried. “Our boy must be shitting bricks—
”
Abruptly Martinez cut off. David could hear a small voice in the background. “No, honey, er, Daddy didn’t mean to say that. So don’t tell Mommy, okay? Now you go pick out a toy to take to school.”
Martinez was trying to suppress his laughter when he got back on the phone. “Dios, how much you want to bet she asks Mom about that tonight?”
David laughed. “Your wife’s gonna kill you.”
“Let’s see if we can take our boy down with me. Any luck getting pictures?”
“Not yet.” David glanced around the busy street. “I think I can catch him coming out of the office, if I can get into position. Call you later.”
He dropped the phone back on the seat and picked up the camera. A car pulled away from the curb three cars down from Chris’s rental and David grabbed the spot away from an irate Jaguar driver. When the driver approached him with a scowl and a few choice words David settled the beef by flashing his tin.
While he waited he managed to capture a couple of other young, blond men as they left the building, knowing it would be useless to present a photo lineup unless they had a variety of similar types to show potential witnesses.
By the time Chris emerged from Weiss’s building, David had half a dozen pictures saved in digital memory. He snapped four more in rapid succession as Chris made his way to his rental.
Martinez called a few minutes
later.
“All done here,” David said. “I’ll stop at Keiko’s and get prints made.
“We’re gonna be early. Grab some breakfast?”
“Sure. As long as it doesn’t involve sauerkraut.”
“Even the Germans aren’t that crazy.”
They met in a greasy spoon two blocks from the arcade where Anstrom had hung out.
Martinez looked over the shots and between them they picked out half a dozen, all similar in body type, dress, and hair color.
“Now that’s an honest six-pack,” Martinez said, rearranging the pictures so Chris’s was on top. He tapped the picture. David had considered how he was going to put this, but in the end he just said, “Do we both need to run this lineup?”
“What have you got in mind?”
“Think you can get another warrant from Judge Harris?”
“What do you want it for?”
“Chris’s work place. Let’s find out what his schedule should have been and get a list of who to contact to confirm if he showed up when he claims he did on those off-site jobs.
And let’s have a look at his computer. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Meanwhile, I’ll hit the arcade, snoop around, see if anyone recognizes Chris from this lineup.”
Tuesday, 8:30 am, Canon Drive, Beverly Hills
Simon frowned across at Chris, clearly not happy with his newest client. Chris didn’t really care. He had spent half the night prowling the streets of Santa Monica, without any luck.
Finally he had called Des back and insisted they file another report with the Santa Monica Police, but Chris could tell they weren’t going to be taken seriously.
“So, the police impounded your vehicle and have probably already searched it.”
Simon studied Chris shrewdly. “What might such a search yield?”
“What do you mean?” Chris felt renewed panic. He had thought once Simon heard his story he would dismiss the police allegations without hesitation. “They won’t find anything! Jesus, I’ve never done anything to anyone in my life.”
“Except you misunderstand the role of evidence in the police mind. They are looking for proof that this man you met, this Bobby, was in your vehicle. You admitted as much to them.”
“I drove him around. Is that a crime?”
“Sexual misconduct will strengthen their case.”
“What sexual misconduct?”
“Proof that sex of any kind occurred in your vehicle.” Simon opened a drawer and pulled out a legal-sized pad of yellow paper and a gold pen. The pen scratched as he wrote. “We must immediately seek to have the warrant and subsequent search quashed.
Then it won’t matter what they find.”
“Are you saying if they can prove this guy and I had sex it means I killed him? Is it because we’re gay?”
“In their minds, your sexual orientation may strengthen their case.”
“What case?” Chris couldn’t believe this. “I didn’t do anything. How often do I have to say that?”
“I agree their case is weak. They know it, too, otherwise they would have moved to arrest you by now.” Simon tapped his thumbs together and held Chris’s gaze, as though testing his fortitude. Abruptly he nodded. “We will move to strike the results of the search. Then they will have no case. That will force them to act quickly to secure one, which should play in our favor.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t want to force them to do anything—except leave me alone. Can’t you do that?”
“In the long run—yes. But for the short term, the police are like bulldogs, very tenacious. They will not want to give you up since I’m sure they have convinced themselves you look better than you do.”
“Maybe if I talked to them again—”
“No, that will definitely not do. At this point anything you say will only further their interest. You should not have talked to them at all.” Simon looked hard at him. “If they come for you again, you will not only not speak to them, you will invoke my name and refuse any comment until I am beside you. And I mean any comment. That was an incredibly foolish thing you did.”
Chris ignored the jibe. “If they come for me—you think they’re going to arrest me?”
“Doubtful. But neither are they going to leave you alone.”
Chris swore and ground his teeth together. “How long do I have to live with them watching me, trying to trip me up?”
“Until they find a better suspect.”
Tuesday, 11:30 am, Vanowen Street, North Hollywood, Los Angeles The Jungle Arcade was filled with a mix of teenage boys and girls. Even the proprietor barely looked old enough to be out of school. His prime job seemed to be dispensing quarters to feed the insatiable video machines.
The front lobby, littered with the usual gang tags, opened into a cavernous hall lined with video machines. The noise was a steady roar. Behind the counter, the proprietor’s head bobbed to music from his headphones.
He noticed David the minute he walked in. The headphones came off and he watched David approach.
“Yeah?”
“I’m looking for Smitty.”
“That’s me. Who’s looking?”
David flashed his shield. “I got some pictures I’d like you to look over.”
“Pictures of who?”
“You just tell me if you recognize anyone.” He laid the six-pack of images out on the scratched, glass-topped counter. “Any of these people ever come in here?”
A girl drifted over, thin as an apology, pink hair tied back in a careless bun, wearing enough metal piercings to keep an airport security checkpoint buzzing. Her kohl-blackened eyes fastened on the six pictures and she studied them avidly, picking the sheet up with fingers that sported inch-long bright-fuchsia nails.
“Who’s that?” She was pointing a nail at Chris’s picture.
“Ever see him around?” David asked casually.
She shook her pink head. “Nah. Too bad. He’s cute.”
Smitty scowled at her words.
“How ’bout you?” David asked him. “See any of them?”
Smitty glared at the girl, then shook his head at David. “Sorry.”
“Mind if I ask around?”
“Go ahead. Marcia.” Smitty laid the sarcasm on thick. “Take him back and find Ant and Digger.”
She stuck her tongue—pierced in two places—out at him and sauntered back toward the dimly lit central arcade. David picked up the pictures and followed.
“Miss...Marcia,” he called as she strode through the crowded machine-filled room.
“Marcia.” She stopped so suddenly he nearly plowed into her. She twisted around to look at him.
“What did you call me?”
“Marcia...That’s not your name?” David felt as though there was some big joke going on around him and everyone else was in on it. “That is what Smitty called you.”
“He’s always calling me something. Marcia’s his ‘get off your high horse, bitch’
name for me.”
David just looked at her, knowing he was missing something, without a clue as to what. “You don’t get it?” She rolled her eyes. “Marcia? The Brady Bunch?”
“Wasn’t that a seventies show?”
Another roll of the eyes said it all. Suddenly she caught sight of someone and abandoned the jaded act, squealing like the sixteen-year-old he figured she probably was.
“Hey, Dig!” She flashed a huge grin his way. “He’s the one you wanna talk to. Oh, man, he’s so hot.”
David suppressed a smile when the skinny blond “hunk” squeezed through the crowd in answer to her call. Digger was dressed like all the others in the pseudo-gang style they all affected; his baggy pants hung off his hips, showing a pair of red and black boxers underneath. His plaid flannel shirt flopped open at the neck to reveal a concave chest that hadn’t filled out yet with any muscle. The kid couldn’t have been over eighteen.
Not-Marcia had gone back to affecting a pose of bored sophistication. “We still going t
o see that show tonight?” she asked, her nails raking through strands of hot-pink hair.
“Sure, whatever.”
“You Digger?” David stepped between the two before their budding romance could take over. “Either of you know a Daniel Anstrom?”
“DJ? Sure, I know him.” Digger’s dark eyes moved from Not-Marcia to David.
“What’s up?”
“He’s got some pictures he wants you to look at,” Not-Marcia said.
“I’m looking for anyone with a connection to Daniel—DJ.”
“Ain’t seen DJ in ages. What gives there, huh?”
Apparently word hadn’t filtered down that their friend was dead. David didn’t want to tell them here, like this.
“Listen, is there someplace we can talk?” he asked. “Bring along anyone else who might have known Daniel.”
“Oh, you want to talk to Ant. Him and DJ were like this.” Not-Marcia crossed her fingers.
Digger and the girl found Ant, who looked like a Digger clone, and they moved toward the rear of the arcade, where some kind of renovation was under way. The floor underfoot was littered with paint chips and old plaster board. David sidestepped a rusted tin can filled with old nails.
Light came from a pair of overhead bulbs. A drop cloth covered a counter like Smitty’s. David set his six-pack of pictures down on it.
“I’m afraid I have bad news,” he said, catching Not-Marcia’s gaze, then moving on to Digger and Ant’s. “Daniel Anstrom, DJ, is dead.”
Not-Marcia looked dazed. “Dead?”
“DJ?” Digger shook his head. “No way, he can’t be—”
“I’m afraid he is,” David said gently. “He died several weeks ago. His mother has identified his body.”
“But I saw him—” Digger froze. “Shit, maybe that was awhile ago. I don’t believe this. How—?”
David dug out his tin and held it out for them to see. “Daniel was murdered. That’s why I’m here.” He pinned Digger with his gaze. “When and where did you see him last?”
“Here,” Digger said. “He was always here. ’Less he was working...Man, homicide?”
“Did you ever see any of these men here? Ever see Daniel talking to any of them?