“That’s all for now,” I said. “You can go back to your regularly scheduled meeting.”
If there’s such a thing as a sheepish look, I saw it from both of them.
I got back to the motel as dusk settled on the city. I missed home, the beach, where I could have watched the orange sun descend into the dark Pacific. I put on jazz and did some push-ups and crunches. Then I jotted some notes in my chrono-log.
As I was finishing up I heard a soft knock at the door. I went to the peephole.
It was Jenna, from the pool.
I opened up.
“Hi,” she said. “I saw your light.”
“You want to come in?”
“No, I’m getting ready to fly back home. I just wanted to tell you I saw two men at your door earlier today.”
“Oh? What did they look like?”
“One of them had a suit on. The other one looked like some kind of biker, I guess.”
“Big, tattoos, that sort of thing?”
She shook her head. “He wasn’t all that big, but he looked like he was in shape. And he was Asian.”
“You would make a good detective,” I said.
“Maybe I’ve watched too many crime shows,” she said. “But I took pictures of their car anyway.”
She held up her phone.
The car in the picture looked like the one that carried the little man and Nick when they came to see me in Paradise Cove. She swiped, and a pic of the license plate appeared.
“You are brilliant,” I said. I took out my phone and took a picture of the license plate.
“So,” I said, “you’re all set to leave?”
“Yeah. But I’ll be back.”
“To follow the dream.”
“That’s what you’ve got to do,” she said.
“Indeed,” I said.
She put her hand out. I shook it.
“Stay safe,” she said.
“Safe travels,” I said.
Convinced it was San Dae-Ho she had described, I went down to Spinoza. I popped the trunk and got the tire iron and wrapped it in a beach towel. I didn’t know if I was being watched or not. But I was hoping Mr. Dae-Ho would return. It was long past time for us to chat.
Back in the room I called Ira.
“I’ve got a license plate for you to trace,” I said.
“Let’s have it.”
I gave it to him. He told me to do something productive until he called back.
I opened to the last chapter of The Long Goodbye. Twist ending. Just what you’d expect from Chandler. And, more and more, what I was expecting from the Clint Cunningham case. Which meant it was time to do some out-of-box thinking.
I went to the room table and opened my log to the first page. Here I recorded in summary all the people I’d questioned. The names were listed in order.
Clint Cunningham
Trista Cunningham
Bianca Aiken
Brian Cunningham
Nick
Mandi McGuane
Shane McGuane
Gavin McGuane
John _______ (Nick’s landlord)
Danny Durant
Next, I removed a blank page from the notebook and set it on the table, lengthwise. In the upper left quadrant I wrote Mandi McGuane. In the lower right, Brian Cunningham. I drew a line connecting the two.
In the upper right, Bianca Aiken. In the lower left, Gavin McGuane, and a line connecting them. I now had four names and a big X on the page.
At the bottom of the page I wrote TBD. I drew a line from the T and wrote Trista. And one from the B for Brian.
It hit me there should be another B for Bianca. She’d broken up with Clint. Maybe that’s why he was crying the way Mandi McGuane had described. Maybe that would be enough for a troubled sixteen-year-old to fantasize about her death.
Ira called back.
“Curious,” he said. “The car is registered to a corporation called Verecundus Libri.”
“Libri is book,” I said. “Verecundus is modesty.”
“Very good. What’s another word for modest?”
“Humble. Shy. Bashful.”
“Work with shy. What do you see?”
“Shy book?” Ding ding ding. “Shibuk, the name.”
“Coincidence?”
“Hardly,” I said.
“So how is it out there on the street, translated like this?”
“I got that name from Danny Durant,” I said. “Could be a code for the corporation. But what does it do? Where is it located?”
“Every California corporation is required to have a physical address and an agent for service of process.”
“Which you’ve got, you clever genius you.”
“The name is Adrian Hart. I did a search. He appears to be a CPA.”
“Any pictures?”
“None.”
He gave me the address, an office building on Ventura Boulevard in Encino.
“I’ll see what I can turn up tomorrow,” I said.
“That would be the correct deadline,” Ira said. “Clint’s been granted an emergency hearing on Friday afternoon.”
“Three days.”
“Two and a half.”
“You’ll want me to testify.”
“I’d rather submit your affidavit.”
“Why?”
“I’ll issue a subpoena for the deputy who saw Clint’s outburst. If he doesn’t show, I may be able to get a continuance.”
“Gamesmanship,” I said.
“The law is not a game, but it is a gamble. You have to know how to improve the odds.”
“I’ll bet on you anytime, Ira.”
“I love you too, Michael.”
That night I slept on the floor, under the window, the tire iron by my side. If a midnight visitor were to break in with a SWAT-type battering ram and make for the bed, I could give him a warm welcome.
It was a little strange, lying there with a weapon, and my thoughts moving inexorably toward Holly Samara and Sophie Montag. What was this? High school? Who to ask to the prom? Not as simple as that. Nothing’s simple with you, Romeo. You’re lying here hoping somebody comes after you, for crying out loud. People shoot at you. What kind of future would that be for a woman? “Goodnight, honey, and don’t mind the steel baton under the pillow.”
I fell into a restless sleep that was uninterrupted. Maybe the best I could hope for.
Encino is tucked between Tarzana and Sherman Oaks. Before the lockdowns it had a thriving business corridor along Ventura. It was starting to show a little more life now, though there were still a lot of FOR LEASE signs posted up and down the boulevard. At ten o’clock in the morning there was some good activity going on outside the building I was scoping.
It was the biggest one in the area.
I parked Spinoza at a meter and popped the trunk. In a small duffel I had a few items courtesy of Ira Rosen, who had them courtesy of some old contacts with Mossad. One of these was a GPS tracker. The best and most compact GPS devices are made in Israel. These little beauties are the color and size of a junior league hockey puck, adhere via rare-earth magnets, and have the most advanced antennae in the world. I pocketed one, closed the trunk, and headed into the building.
The lobby directory had lawyers, dentists, various companies, a real estate brokerage, a lot of names and a few CPAs. Nothing there listing Verecundus Libri or Adrian Hart.
There was a back door to the parking garage. I went out and took a stroll around the tenant parking. It took up the entire lower level, and half the incline up to the next. That’s where his car was. It was parked in a spot reserved for 661.
I attached the GPS tracker to the car’s frame just inside the rear wheel well.
Back in the lobby I scanned the directory for 661, but didn’t find the number.
I got in an elevator with a woman wearing a mask.
“Nice day,” I said.
She looked away and stepped to the corner.
On the sixth floor I
walked down the corridor to the end and found 661. There was a metal sign on the door—Accounting Office.
I gave it a knock.
And waited.
Another knock.
A woman’s voice said, “Who is it?”
I said, “Package for Mr. Hart.”
“Package?”
“Signature required.”
The door opened. The woman was in her fifties, dressed for the office, with glasses on a chain around her neck.
I stepped in.
“Wait!” the woman said.
“I’m the package,” I said. “You don’t have to sign.”
“You can’t come in here!”
“Tell Mr. Hart that Mr. Romeo would like to see him.”
“He doesn’t see… he sees no one without an appointment. Please leave.”
“He’ll see me,” I said.
She pulled herself up with authority. “Sir, if you don’t—”
“It’s all right, Linda.” Adrian Hart was standing by the reception desk. He wore navy blue slacks, a white shirt and burgundy tie. His expression was hard yet serene, like an undertaker with a busy mortuary.
Linda gave me the stink eye as she answered her boss. “Are you sure?”
“Quite sure. This way, Mr. Romeo.”
I stepped past Cerberus—I mean, Linda the Assistant—and followed Hart to his office. He closed the door.
“Please sit,” he said,
I did. He sat behind a neat desk. Two computer monitors dominated the desk. A glass bowl with Hershey’s Kisses and mini Mr. Goodbars sat on the corner nearest me. I resisted temptation.
As if I were a prospective client, he said, “What can I do for you?”
“Well, for starters, you can compensate me for some damaged petunias.”
“Excuse me?”
“When you left your rent-a-thug behind, I had to subdue him and he ended up on top of my flowers.”
“Are you being serious?”
“A hundred bucks, and we’ll call it even.”
“I don’t have any intention of paying you anything, Mr. Romeo.”
“That puzzles me,” I said. “Since you came out to my place to threaten me.”
“No, sir,” he said. “I came to make a reasonable request.”
“With Nick.”
“He was with me purely for protection,” he said. “Your reputation had preceded you.”
I snorted. “That’s a good one. You were the one who told him to go ahead.”
“As I recall, you grabbed me and threatened me. Is that not correct?”
“You woke me up from a peaceful sleep.”
“You are not a serious man,” Hart said.
“How serious are you?” I said. “You took off as soon as Nick took over.”
“I wanted no part of violence.”
“You’re a good liar,” I said. “You might even be able to beat a machine.”
“If the insults are over, you can leave now.”
“The insults are just getting started,” I said. “I haven’t moved on to miscreant.”
With a cool demeanor, Adrian Hart leaned back in his chair. “I don’t imagine either of us has time for this.”
“I have lots of time,” I said.
“I don’t,” Adrian Hart said. “Anything else?”
“How did a guy like you hook up with a guy like San Dae-Ho?”
Not even a jaw clench from Adrian Hart. “You’ve done some homework.”
“I was one of the few kids who liked homework.”
Hart put his hands out. So?
“Here's some other self-study. Code name: Shy Book.”
He blinked a couple of times without moving any other part of his body. “I’m sure I don't know what you mean.”
“Verecundus Libri,” I said.
“What?”
“Latin.”
“Okay.”
“A clever name for an accountant who likes to keep a low profile.”
Finally, I got a reaction. His cheeks tightened. Not enough for a complete confession, but it would suffice for my purposes.
I said, “Low-profile accountants usually have clients who would like to remain off the books.”
He leaned forward to say something. I heard a buzz. At least he said “Excuse me” as he looked at his phone. Apparently, a text.
He put the phone down on the desk. “Mr. Romeo, let’s have a reasonable conversation, shall we? I know some things about you. I know that you are considered a very smart fellow. You can obviously fight. Those two things come into conflict with each other from time to time, wouldn’t you say?”
“Are we doing psych profiles now?”
“Only tangentially,” he said.
I couldn’t help smiling. “Anybody who uses the word tangentially isn’t exactly dumb.”
“You’re right about that. You may think you’re the smartest one in the room, but perhaps not in this office. Where did you go to college?”
“Yale.”
“Not bad. Stanford for me.”
“Not bad yourself.”
“I majored in Economics. Got a Masters at the University of Chicago.”
“You should be teaching somewhere,” I said. “Not hiding clients and money.”
“So much you don’t know,” Hart said.
“Fill me in,” I said.
“You present yourself as a man with a moral vision,” Hart said. “That is quaint, but most outdated. There is no moral vision. There is only buying and selling, and always has been. Throughout history, however, the buying aspect was rarely by way of a free market. Buying was usually more via acquisition and conquest.”
“True enough,” I said.
“The Mongols, for example, once ruled the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world.”
“Genghis Khan.”
“Precisely. From this the Mongols facilitated trade and unprecedented exchange between east and west. Some argue they made possible the modern world.”
“While slaughtering millions of people,” I said.
“Which you would call immoral,” Hart said. “Others would call it the cost of doing business.”
“So you’re going to tell me that hidden accounts and drug money laundering are just part of today’s costs?”
He smiled. “Of course not, because that’s a fantasy which you hold in your head. It is to tell you that you have no idea who you’re dealing with, and the cost to you of further proceedings could get quite expensive. I trust I’ve made myself clear.”
I stood. “I’d love to traipse through the lessons of history with you, but I don’t have the time for it. Maybe when you’re in prison I can come for a visit and we can chat some more about the rise and fall of empires.”
“I’ll show you out.”
We walked back through the reception area.
Linda wasn’t there.
I had ten minutes left on the meter. I would not be cheated! I put Spinoza’s top down, got in and called Ira. I filled him in on the meeting and told him about the tracker. He said he’d run it through a program he’d designed that would collect the addresses of every stop that lasted over a minute.
Which meant a long wait before figuring out the next move. It was frustrating. I was in a cul-de-sac with the investigation. No one left to interview. I’d have to backtrack and try to shake something out of a tree I’d already pruned.
When the meter changed I waited another minute, just to squeeze a little extra time from the city. It owed me that. It owed all of us that. It had asked us to abide by rules and lockdowns and orders handed down from unelected bureaucrats with Robespierre Syndrome.
So yeah, a little bit of grace from my town was called for.
I decided to go to Jimmy’s gym and work out. Maybe by late afternoon or evening Ira would have something on Adrian Hart’s car. Maybe by punching the heavy bag I’d blast open a new thought or two.
There was mild traffic on Ventura.
Which m
ade picking up the van following me easier.
It was dark blue with an illegally tinted windshield. I couldn’t see the driver. But he was keeping a steady distance between himself and Spinoza. I increased the speed a bit. The van did too.
To confirm the tail, I made the standard move. I turned right at the next corner and headed into a residential area. The van followed. I took the next right on a side street. Ditto the van. One more right at the next corner, heading back to Ventura. The van stayed with me.
Now I knew, and the van knew I knew.
And at that precise moment it made its move.
Engine gunning, it moved into the next lane. It reached me just before I slowed so it would shoot past. Somehow, the van anticipated what I’d do. A real pro at the wheel.
And then something thunked into my back seat.
Something thrown from the van.
Which hit the gas and made for the boulevard.
I knew I had only seconds.
I jammed the brakes and burned rubber. Just before Spinoza was completely stopped I opened the door and jumped out, heading across the street.
Halfway across I heard the explosion.
Something hard and hot hit me in the left calf. I stumbled forward, conking my head on the curb.
You’re laying stunned and bloody on a street, you expect maybe the next car to stop and offer to help a fellow human being in some distress. Instead, I heard a honk as a car swerved around me and kept on its merry way. I was conscious enough to crawl out of the street and onto the sidewalk. Woozy, on my back, I felt my calf. Blood covered my hand. A chunk of flesh was missing, as was a portion of my jeans.
Somebody said, “What was that?”
I looked up and saw a woman outside the door of a house. She looked at me with fear in her eyes, and who could blame her these days?
“I’m hurt,” I said. “Can you call—”
She scurried back inside and slammed the door.
Across the street, where Spinoza was, a man with gray hair and an ample belly looked angrily at the convertible in front of his house. Then around, as if searching for the driver. He spotted me.
“Hey, what’s going on?” he said.
I struggled to my feet. My calf burned. “Can you call the police?” I said.
“This your car?” he said.
Romeo's Town (Mike Romeo Thrillers Book 6) Page 18