Romeo's Town (Mike Romeo Thrillers Book 6)

by James Scott Bell

  I drove back to the motel where C Dog was waiting for me leaning on his car.

  “Did you see that?” he said, arms out wide. “Was I great or what?”

  “A regular Brando,” I said.

  “A what?”

  “A who. Brando. The actor.”

  He shook his head.

  “I forgot,” I said. “Your movie knowledge begins with Shrek.”

  “Shrek is cool.”

  “You were a regular Shrek.”

  “Thanks, man,” C Dog said.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “What? Oh!” He took a little plastic baggie out of his pocket and handed it to me.

  “What’re you gonna do with it?” he asked.

  “Take it to the police.”

  “Why don’t you just flush it down the toilet?” he said.

  “You want all those alligators in the sewer to get high on this stuff?”

  “There’s alligators down there?”

  “We’re going to do this legally,” I said.

  “I’m cool with that.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “You have done well, Doggerel. You may return to your domicile and sleep well. And dream of lions.”

  He beamed.

  Back in my room I called Ira and, as usual, made my confession.

  “Was that really necessary?” Ira said. “Wait, don’t answer that. I already know what you’re going to say.”

  “At least I got something,” I said. “A name. Shibuk. S-H-I-B-U-K, I’m thinking. Some kind of criminal accountant. Turn your skills toward finding him.”

  “Do you have a clue in what haystack this needle might be located?”

  “Maybe the Valley.”

  “Ah, that narrows it down.”

  “Happy to help.”

  Pause.

  “How do you feel, Michael?”

  “Feel? Okay.”

  “No. Really. Because every time you go through something like this it affects you, and I need to know how.”

  “Why?”

  “This may come as a shock. Because I care about you.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Pause.

  Ira said, “Will you at least stay calm?”

  “Of course. I’m a laid back kind of guy.”

  I think I heard a snort.

  But Ira was right, as he usually is. I was not feeling okay. I took a walk and went into a liquor store and bought a six-pack of Corona and a packaged burrito. I came back to my room, turned on the TV news, and cooked the burrito in the microwave.

  Living the dream.

  The burrito tasted like an old paperback. The beer was necessary to wash it down.

  The news was not helpful for anything.

  A six-year-old boy had been shot and killed in a road rage incident in Orange. His mother was driving on the freeway and a guy in a white sedan cut her off. She laid on the horn. The guy changed lanes, slowed, and came up behind her, and fired two shots. One of them killed the boy. Police put out the word for anyone who might have seen the incident to get hold of them.

  At a tony restaurant in Beverly Hills, five masked men shouting anti-semitic slurs burst in and started spraying diners with mace. Two men in yarmulkes having dinner with their wives were dragged off and beaten. The attackers took off and have not been found.

  But the weather was nice! The TV weatherman—I mean “meteorologist”—flicked his hand up and down in front of the green screen, showing mild temperatures throughout the Los Angeles basin. His smile was wide and his teeth so white they burned my retinas.

  When they announced an upcoming story on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, I forced the last of the burrito down my throat and turned the thing off.

  For a moment there was silence in my room. No sirens or choppers or honking horns.

  All the noise was in my head.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about the six-year-old boy.

  Next morning I showered, shaved and treated myself to a real breakfast at Las Fuentes, an authentic Mexican restaurant in Reseda. I ordered huevos rancheros and ate them at an outdoor table, where I had a view of the auto body shop across the street.

  What looked like a mourning dove flapped down onto the railing near my table. It gave me the side-eye. Or maybe it was looking at the flour tortilla I’d just filled with beans and rice. I tore off a small bit of tortilla and tossed it onto the empty table next to me. The dove winged over, picked up the fragment in its beak, and flew off.

  Feeling at one with nature, I finished my meal and allowed myself a few minutes of sated satisfaction before returning to the world of men.

  First order of business was calling Shane McGuane’s talent agency.

  A pleasant female voice answered. “Barkley-McClellan.”

  “I’d like to speak to Shane McGuane, please.”

  “This is Mr. McGuane’s agency.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “He does not take personal calls here,” she said.

  “Then just give me his phone number.”

  “We certainly cannot do that. May I ask what this is regarding?”

  “Publicity,” I said.

  “Are you with a PR firm?”

  “I work alone.”

  “If you’d like to leave your name and number…”

  “I’d rather you get a message to Mr. McGuane. Can you do that for me?”

  “I can put you through to Mr. Barkley’s assistant. Please hold.”

  I held.

  “Mr. Barkley’s office,” said a man’s soft voice.

  “Hi there,” I said. “I was told you’re the one to talk to. I’ve got a very important message for your client, Shane McGuane, one that he will definitely want to hear. Can I give it to you?”

  “What is the message?”

  “Tell him I’m the guy he met at Tab’s Hot Dogs the other day, and I think I can keep the bad publicity from getting out there.”

  “Excuse me, did you say bad publicity?”

  “He’ll understand. Give him my number and tell him to call me sometime today so we can straighten things out.”

  “Um… can I place you on hold for a moment?”

  “Only a moment,” I said.

  Some music came on that sounded like a Bernard Herrmann score from a Hitchcock movie. Good choice for being on hold with a Hollywood agent.

  A minute later a man’s voice snapped, “Who is this?”

  “You first,” I said.

  “Milt Barkley, I’m Shane’s agent. Who are you?”

  “My name’s Romeo.”

  “Sure it is.”

  “First name Mike.”

  “Sounds fake.”

  “You can call me Justin Bieber if you like.”

  “What’s this about bad publicity? And hurry it up.”

  “Shane can give you the details. I tried to have a decent conversation with him the other day at Tab’s Hot Dogs. I’m an investigator for an attorney here in town.”

  “What are you investigating Shane for?”

  “Not Shane. His son goes to school with a client of ours, and I needed to get some information. Shane was not forthcoming, and unleashed a couple of his stuntmen friends on me.”

  He said, “You threatening a lawsuit?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “I just want to talk to Shane. Nothing more.”

  “What if he doesn’t want to talk to you?”

  “Then maybe I’ll file a lawsuit.”

  F-words started flying out of his mouth. He went on a rant telling me what I could do with my lawsuit and how he’d bury me in lawyers and if I knew what was good for me I would never contact Shane or Barkley-McClellan or—

  “Drugs,” I said.

  Pause.

  “Drugs and kids,” I said. “How would you like a story like that planted in the trades?”

  Silence.

  “You’re weighing costs right now, Mr. Barkley. Otherwise, you would have hung up on me. You know you’re not goin
g to follow through because this is precisely the thing Shane needs to avoid, and you want him to avoid, if you ever hope to recoup your investment in him. How’m I doing so far?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Good,” I said. “And the price for keeping things on a nice, even keel is a small one, just encouraging Shane to have a talk with me, and that’ll be the end of it. Why don’t you talk it over with him and have him give me a call?”

  Pause.

  “What’s your number?”

  I gave it to him.

  He said, “But if you threaten any trouble after this, I will unleash holy hell on you.”

  “I believe you are sincere,” I said.

  “I am.”

  “Which makes you the exception.”

  “The what?”

  “My grandfather told me about the old time radio comedian Fred Allen. He once said, ‘You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood and put it into a gnat’s navel, and still have room for two caraway seeds and an agent’s heart.’”

  Pause.

  “You’re really a legit investigator?” he asked.

  “Authorized and approved.”

  “You ever do freelance work?”

  “Seldom.”

  “It might be worth both our whiles to have a meeting sometime.”

  “It’s funny how our relationship has changed,” I said.

  “This is Hollywood, my friend. Things move fast. Give me a call.”

  “And we’ll do lunch?” I said.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “I’d appreciate your getting my message to Shane.”

  “It’ll be done.” He then reminded me that if I effed with him holy hell would be unleashed upon me.

  I went back inside Las Fuentes and refilled my coffee. I came out again and saw the mourning dove pecking away at my crumbs. I sat and put my feet up on another chair and watched a tow truck pull into the auto body shop with a sad-looking Corvette. Half the car’s hood was gone, the other half smashed into a V shape.

  Fifteen minutes later Shane called.

  “I don’t appreciate this at all,” he said.

  “Let’s talk about it.”

  “I can’t believe you called my agent.”

  “How else could I get to you?”

  “You could sneak up on me when I’m eating.”

  “Now you can do the same to me,” I said. “I’m outside at Las Fuentes. You know it?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “I thought this would be a good place to talk.”

  “You want to talk in person?” he said.

  “Yep. And only to you, not your buddies.”

  “Why should I?”

  I said, “I went over all this with your agent. A sharp blade, that Mr. Barkley. It’ll be a relatively painless fifteen minutes or so. I’ll even buy you breakfast.”

  “I ate,” he said.

  “Coffee then,” I said.

  “Fine,” he said.

  Twenty minutes later he showed.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said.

  “Can we get this over with?” he said.

  “Have a seat. Take anything in your coffee?”

  “Black,” he said.

  I went in and got him a coffee and came back and set it on the table. He was looking at his phone.

  “Unbelievable,” he said.

  “What is?” I said.

  “People are bat crazy.”

  “That’s entirely believable.”

  “Fear porn,” he said. “They want us to be afraid forever, like little gerbils.”

  “Good image,” I said.

  He put his phone down. “I gotta be careful what I say.”

  “Oh?”

  “Hollywood’s a small town. Say the wrong thing and you’re toast. Think the wrong thing, and you’re burnt toast.”

  “Really? I thought Hollywood was a vast, verdant meadow of free thought and the rational exchange of ideas.”

  Shane McGuane smiled. “You might be okay.”

  “Let’s not be hasty,” I said. “Tell me about your relationship with Gavin.”

  “It’s fine,” he said.

  “How much time does he spend with you?”

  “Why does this matter?”

  “Humor me.”

  “When he wants to, he comes over.”

  “When he wants to?”

  “He prefers living with his mother.”

  “She has a nice house.”

  “Courtesy of me, thank you very much. Part of the settlement, only…”

  I waited. He gripped his coffee cup like he wanted to break it.

  He said, “It’s a hell of a thing, having an ex who makes more money than you do, after she took you to the cleaners.”

  “She does pretty well, does she?”

  “You met her, right?”

  “Right.”

  “She’s one of those top producers. She never lets an opportunity go by to remind me of that.”

  I nodded.

  “Let me tell you,” he said, and leaned forward like it was important. “There was some domestic abuse, okay? I don’t like to admit it.”

  “Were you ever charged?”

  “Not me! Her! She was the one who laid it on. There was a time when I was sleeping and she smashed my head with a book! You know how that hurts?”

  Thinking of Sammie Sand, I said, “I have an idea, yes.”

  “Another time she turned on me with a frying pan full of bacon and threw the whole thing at me. She’s crazy.”

  “That sounds like reason enough for divorce.”

  Bitterness bent his mouth. “What was that old country song? She got the gold mine and I got the shaft.”

  He sat back and got a faraway look.

  “You know,” he said, “there was a time they compared me to James Dean. The critics. Said I had the magnetism. Can you imagine that?”

  “I can see it.”

  “Thanks for saying so. But that was then. It only takes a flop and crazy ex-wife to turn magnetism into sh—”

  “I get it. And hard times follow.”

  “A comeback is a long, hard road,” he said. His look was pleading. “I can’t have anything go wrong.”

  “I’m not interested in anything going wrong,” I said.

  “But what does any of this have to do with Gavin?”

  “Who bought Gavin his car?”

  “His mother. Why?”

  “Just checking. Does Gavin do drugs?”

  Shane McGuane shook his head. “Nothing outside some weed like everybody else.”

  “Do you really think your ex is supporting her lifestyle on what she makes as an agent?”

  “Why wouldn’t I think that?”

  “Just asking.”

  “She’s good at what she does, which is flinging bull—” He stopped himself, thought about it. “You know, that’s part of it, isn’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “Lying. You’ve got to be a pretty good liar to sell things.”

  “Not always,” I said.

  “Call it tweaking the truth then,” he said. “That’s what you do as an actor, right? That’s what you do when you sell.”

  “Do you think she’s capable of covering a great, big lie?” I said.

  “Like what?”

  “She likes money,” I said. “She needs money. Maybe she gets it all from real estate. But then again, maybe there’s something else going on. And maybe she’s got Gavin involved.”

  He sat up straight. “Involved in what?”

  “Selling drugs at Elias.”

  If a face can drain of color, his did. “What evidence do you have of that?”

  “I had a talk with Gavin and his girlfriend on Friday.”

  “Where?”

  “At a park. Gavin knew something about drug dealing at Elias. He denied he was into it, and put me on to a guy. But that could have been a lie.”

  Shane McGuane frowned.

  I said, “You cou
ld be lying, too.”

  That hit him like a slap. “Is that what this is about? You brought me here to accuse me? Accuse my kid?”

  “Just asking questions.”

  “That stinks. You butt into people’s lives. You don’t care what you say.”

  “Maybe I care more than you think.”

  “About what?”

  “Truth.”

  “Sure,” he said. “We done?”

  “I’ll give you the last shot,” I said. “Do you think your boy or your ex might in some way be involved in dealing, even at a low level?”

  “I don’t know anything anymore,” he said. “Who does?”

  He looked like he wanted to say more, so I waited.

  He sighed. “When I married Mandi I was the hot one, the one with all the money and potential. She didn’t even have her license then. After Gavin came along she was a good mom for awhile, but got antsy. Wanted to do something on her own. Started cheating on me.”

  “Did you ever cheat on her?”

  “No. I did not. I can tell you that face-to-face. And I could have. I had lots of opportunity.”

  “Is she seeing anyone now?”

  “I’m sure she is. I just don’t know who.”

  “Suppose I wanted to find out,” I said.

  “You kidding?”

  “Why would I kid?”

  He drank the last of his coffee, then said, “I don’t think you’d have a problem, if you put some effort into it. She’s, what’s the word…”

  “Insatiable?”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “An appetite that isn’t satisfied.”

  He pointed at me. “That’s it!”

  We left it there. I got back in my car feeling a little nauseous. Not because of the food, but at the prospect of acting like a run-of-the-mill shamus looking for evidence of infidelity.

  I called Ira.

  “I’m a window peeper now,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  I explained.

  “Is that the best use of your time?” Ira said.

  “What else have I got?” I said. “I have to run down every lead in this thing.”

  “Well, there’s another item to consider. My contact at the coroner’s office had a very interesting bit of news about your friend Nick. The presumed cause of death is smoke inhalation. The body is badly burned. But they did find a sign of trauma to the trachea.”

  “Meaning he could have been strangled.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Great. Something more to think about as I wait to testify.”