“Oh I think so. ’Course, then I think all murder investigations are pretty interesting.”
“Murder huh?”
“The big M.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Funny, I was just gonna ask you that question. Dead guy goes—went I should say—by the name Michael Ensinger. Ring a bell?”
I scrunch my brow all up in a way I hope appears I’m giving this some real thought, then shake my head and say: “Nope. Should it?”
“Well, guy was in the Times a while back. He got arrested for stalking and raping a girl by the name of Elizabeth Lowery. Hurt her pretty bad too.”
“If he got arrested, what was he doing out?”
“He got off. Girl wouldn’t testify. Too scared.”
I shrug. “Maybe she did it. You think a that?”
“We did, but I don’t think decapitation would be her style.”
“I really wouldn’t know.”
“So I guess that means you don’t know Elizabeth Lowery either, huh?”
“Now look who’s the good guesser.”
The detective’s face settles into a comfortable frown that looks very natural on him. “Where were you last Monday night?”
“Here.”
“All night?”
I go through the big contemplative act again and nod. “Yeah, except for running a few errands.”
“These errands, did they happen to take you by the fourteen-hundred block of Ivar?”
“No,” I say too quickly.
Coombs notices, but pretends not to. “Well, the reason I ask is because I talked to a guy who says a red Mercedes matching the description of yours was seen parked just up the street from the crime scene.”
There’s nothing there for me so I just grunt.
“You do own a red mint-condition ’57 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster, don’t you?”
I feel my head nod a response.
“Yeah, see, we got lucky, ’cause this guy who saw it happens to be a real car buff. He lives in the area and he pulled over to really check it out. Even got a look at the plate.” Coombs fishes some reading glasses out of one rumpled suit pocket and a notepad out of another. He puts the glasses on and flips the pad open and reads my plate number out to me. “That yours?”
The one drawback to having a one-of-a-kind set of wheels is people tend to notice.
“Yeah. It’s mine,” I say, with that sinking feeling that only comes when being interrogated by cops and women.
“Seems a funny coincidence, but I guess if you say you weren’t there, then you weren’t there.”
Coombs sits back, scratches his Friar Tuck dome, and waits to see if I’ll hang myself with the length of rope he’s run out for me.
I snap my fingers like I’ve just had a thought. “Oh wait, did you say Monday night?”
“Yeah, Monday.”
“Tuesday is when I ran the errands. But Monday, Monday I was near Ivar.”
“Mind if I ask what you were doing there?”
“Just visiting a friend.”
“Can I get the name of your friend? You know, for my records.” He finds a pen and gets ready to write.
“I’d rather not say.”
Coombs doesn’t give me much, just raises his eyebrows a little. It’s a neat trick. The awkward silence sits like a guilty plea between us, making me feel like I should explain, so I do. “See, my friend, she’s a married woman. Her husband travels. She gets lonely. You know how it is.”
“Oh I know,” he nods. “Tell ya what. You give me her name and I’ll be real discreet when I go talk with her. You have my word on that.”
Okay, damage-control time. I’m reluctant to use the hypnotic gaze, not knowing how many people know what at this point, but the damn guy has me painted into a corner. Moving fast, I bolt out of my seat and smack the reading glasses off the detective’s surprised face. There’s a lot at stake. Can’t take any chances on them screwing with the works. Floored by this development, Coombs sputters and spews and tries to jump out of the chair, but I pin him in place, stare deeply into his shit-brown eyes and say, “You’re fine. Calm down.”
“I’m fine,” he says, growing calm.
“Nothing out of the ordinary has happened here.”
“Nothing... ”
“The woman’s name is Marla Dupree.”
“Marla Dupree,” he mumbles.
“Write that down in your pad.” He writes it. “You already went and talked with her.”
“I talked with her.”
“That’s right, and Marla, she backed my story up. It all checked out.”
“It checked out.”
“Right. So, I’m no longer a suspect in this investigation. If it ever comes up you’ll find a way to explain it all. But aside from that, you won’t even think about me again after you leave here. We’ve never met. I don’t even exist.”
“Never met. Don’t exist.”
“That’s right. Very good, Detective,” I say, bending and retrieving his glasses from the floor. I set them back on his face and return to my chair and my cigarette. “Now I think we’re done here, so why don’tcha scram.”
Coombs stands abruptly, his meaty hamstrings screeching the chair back on the wood floor. “Scram,” he says.
I watch from behind a veil of cigarette smoke as the Detective zombie-walks to the door and opens it. In the doorway, he stops and looks back at me, a bewildered smile spread on his face.
I smile, wave. “Nice talking with you, Detective.”
“Uh yeah. Y-you too.”
“Keep up the good work,” I tell him as he steps out of my office, pulling the door shut behind him.
When he’s gone, I sit and smoke and fret. Goddamn Michael Ensinger is turning out to be more trouble dead than alive.
I could just kill the guy.
7
“Can you tell me if Dallas is working tonight?”
“Who?”
“Dallas. I think that was her name. She danced for me the other night and I wanted to come in and see her again.”
“No girls here by that name, pal, but we got lotsa others—”
“That’s all right. Thanks anyway.”
I hang up. I cross the number out in the book and move on to the next one. I’ve spent the last thirty minutes calling every strip club I can find a listing for. Working the phone is tedious, but sometimes it pays off. I’m an hour in and halfway through my third L.A. directory when it finally does. Dallas works at a joint called the Blue Veil in Hollywood. The woman’s voice on the other end tells me Dallas will definitely be in later. I thank her and hang up.
I have some questions for Reesa so I head to the Tropicana where I am directed backstage to her dressing room. The star on the red painted door bears her name. I knock.
“Yes?”
“It’s me. Mick.”
“C’min.”
The room is only half as big again as a good-sized walk-in closet, but it is crammed full with amenities that include a costume wardrobe, an old-timey dressing blind, a television, an antique bureau, a mini-fridge and a futon. I find her seated at the bureau, painting her face in the lighted mirror there. She wears the red silk kimono I like so much. From the way it folds open invitingly just below the neck I can tell she isn’t wearing much underneath.
“Well this is a nice surprise,” she says, standing and taking my hands in hers and painting my stubbly cheek with red brushstroke lips. “Oh, look what I’ve done,” she says, rubbing out the lip-mark memento I would just as soon have kept. She takes my hat and directs me to the futon. “Sit. Make yourself comfortable.”
Like a good soldier, I do as I’m told.
“Can I pour you a drink?”
“What have you got?” I ask.
With a sly smile, Reesa delves into a bureau drawer and comes out with an unopened bottle of Macallen Eighteen. “I asked the bartender what you drank after you left the other night. Hope you don’t mind.”
I don’t and tell her
so. She locates a couple of glasses, pours us each a healthy belt and hands me mine.
“To new friends,” she says, glass held out.
“New friends,” I agree.
We clink glasses. We drink. She pulls the bureau chair closer and sits so that our knees touch. Times like this I wish I had more feeling in my limbs.
I start to get a cigarette out, but stop. “You mind if I smoke?”
“Not so long as you share.”
I stab two smokes between my lips, set them on fire, hand her one. She takes hold of it delicately, branding the tip with her lips like she did my cheek. “So, are you here on business or pleasure?”
“Business.”
“That’s too bad.” She smiles. “Okay, what can I do for you?”
“Well, for starters, you can tell me why you lied to me.”
The only tell that the remark has hit home is the slight catch of smoke in her throat. “What do you mean?”
“You told me Raya just ran away from Vin’s. But that’s not how it happened, is it?”
Long pause. “No,” she says softly, eyes in her lap.
“How do you expect me to help you find your sister if you won’t level with me?”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have lied.”
“Why did you?”
I wait. The smoke from our cigarettes mingles like spirits in the air.
“Because. Because I was ashamed,” she says, surprising me by meeting my eyes now. “I caught them together and even though I knew deep down what kind of man he was I took his side over hers. I was weak and scared of losing what I had with him so I blamed Raya.” She shakes her head, blows smoke, shrugs. “The fact that you gave your own sister the boot after your boyfriend raped her isn’t such an easy thing to tell a stranger in the first five minutes you’ve known him.”
A tear makes a break for her jaw-line, but Reesa catches it and bats it angrily away. I can’t tell if she’s mad at herself or the tear or me. Maybe all three. “Now look what you’ve gone and done.” She does her best to catch the other conspirators on the brink but there are too many for her and she gives up.
“I’m sorry. I just had to know.”
“Well, now you do.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again, taking my own stab at wiping away the tears. I don’t have any more luck than she did.
“You probably think I’m a horrible person to do something like that, don’t you?”
“No,” I say, meaning it. “You were a drug addict. Drug addicts do all kinds of things when they’re hooked that they aren’t proud of later. It goes with the territory.”
There is a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. “You sound like you know.”
“I know.” When the kiss comes it takes me by surprise. So much so that I pull away. A fact that surprises me even more than the kiss.
“What’s wrong? Don’t you like me, Mick?”
“Sure I like you,” I say. She has no idea.
“Well then?”
The statement sits like an unread contract between us. As tempted as I am to grab a pen and sign my name, I stand up instead. I’ve got rules about this sort of thing. A junkie like me can’t go breaking his rules. Bad things happen once that starts.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” She pouts all cute and girlish.
“I’ve got rules.”
“What kind of rules?”
“About getting too involved.”
“Does that go for clients or for everyone?”
“Take your pick,” I say, looking around for where she put my hat. Why is it you can never find your goddamn hat when you’re in a hurry?
Reesa stands now and kittens up to me. Her fingers walk my tie. “Well, you know what I always say—”
“What’s that?” I ask, knowing I shouldn’t; knowing I’m just opening the door for her to wedge one of those perfect little size six feet in it.
“Rules are like hymens—made to be broken.” She grins, too cute for her own good. Too goddamn cute by half. My turn to smile.
“You always say that, huh?”
She shakes her head, making her red curls jingle and bounce. “Not really. First time.” She looks me deep in the eyes, and blows smoke as she stubs her butt out in her glass. “Well, I guess if you feel that strongly about it then a kiss goodbye is out of the question.”
I nod. “Completely.”
She raises her face to kiss me anyway, her lips opening like flower petals in bloom.
“I’ll mess your hair and makeup all up,” I warn, our mouths almost touching now.
“It wouldn’t be much worth doing if you didn’t.”
I grab hold of those curls and we kiss like an electric shock. Her mouth tastes of Scotch and smoke, which could be unpleasant but isn’t. I haven’t let myself get this close to a woman in ages because of my penchant for picking the wrong ones. Call it a knack. I am overwhelmed by fear and desire. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt either. Since I’ve felt much of anything. The numbness that comes with being undead isn’t just physical, it’s emotional too. Anger is the one exception. There always seems to be plenty of that on hand. Maybe it’s what makes us vampires capable of the things we’re made to do. I don’t know. What I do know is that right now with her I feel more alive than I have in longer than I care to consider.
“There, now that wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asks when we part.
I don’t trust myself to speak, so I just shake my head. I want more. Lots more, if you want to know the truth.
“Well, I’d ask you to stay, but I have a show to do in a half hour.”
“And I have a girl to find.” I locate my hat in plain sight on a low shelf and mash it on.
“How about if we get together later when we can take our time with things? I’m off tomorrow night.”
I open my mouth to say forget it, but what comes out sounds a whole lot more like “Sure”.
She grins playfully. “Your place or mine?”
“Better make it yours. I don’t have a bed.”
“You don’t? Then where do you sleep?”
“In a freezer,” I deadpan. She laughs. She thinks I’m joking. I let her keep thinking it. “Where’s your place at?”
Reesa moves toward the dressing blind at the back of the room, unknotting the red silk belt that holds the matching kimono in check as she goes. She stops beside it, turns back to me. Red silk puddles like blood at her feet. I try to keep my eyes polite, but sometimes they get fresh all on their own. This is one of those times.
Clad only in a smile brimming with mischief, she shrugs. “You’re a detective. Find me.”
I need a pay phone. I aim the Benz for Canter’s Deli. As I roll south down a car-barnacled Hollywood surface street an unchanging pair of headlights in the Benz’s rearview makes me think I’m being tailed again. I take a couple of turns out of my way just to be sure. Whoever is following me doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing. The tail is too obvious and amateurish even for cops. So then who? The possibilities are practically endless. I haven’t exactly been racking up acquaintances who would fall into the ‘new friend’ category just lately.
I take a right, then a quick left into a narrow alleyway that curls behind a set of overpriced condos. I pull in behind a brown dumpster and cut the lights. I don’t have to wait long before my tail—a familiar-looking ’77 Ford pick-up as it turns out—pulls in after me.
When I see he’s committed, I throw the Roadster into reverse and punch it, hoping I can get close enough to at least get a look at the driver. The white-wall tires smoke and squeal as the powerful engine drags me back the way I just came. Seeing me bearing down on him like the hammer of God, my tail panics, turns rabbit. A lot closer to the mouth of the alley than me, the pick-up manages to back out into the street before I’m even halfway there. Through the passenger-side window, I just catch a glimpse of a white male face and over-styled blond pompadour behind the wheel before the Ford lays rubber
and peels away into the night.
Canter’s.
I park in the side lot, step over the bum that lies like a speed bump on the sidewalk out front, and shoulder my way through a pair of smudged glass doors.
I wave off the cute hostess who offers to seat me, and beeline it over to the pay phone. There I chase a quarter with a dime and hunt-and-peck out the number Vin gave me for Leroy Watkins.
He answers on the first ring, with a wary, “Who dis?”
“Leroy?”
“It’s Leh-roy. Leh-roy. Get it straight, fool.”
“Sorry, didn’t realize you were French.”
“French? I ain’t no motherfuckin’ French. I’m straight up red-blooded American, fool. Who is dis?”
“The name’s Mick. Mick Angel. I got your number from a mutual friend. Vin Prince?”
“Yeah, so? Whatchoo want?”
“I was hoping maybe we could do some business.”
“You want to do business? Man, I don’t even know you. You sound like a mufuckin’ cop.”
“I’m not a cop. I’m just a fella with some extra cash on his hands and no place to spend it. Vin thought maybe you could help me out.”
Silence on the line, then. “Gimme your number, fool. I call you back after I talk to Vin.”
“I’m at a pay phone. No number. How ’bout I call you back?”
“You ain’t got no cell phone? Everyone got a cell phone.”
“Not me.”
A derisive puff of air like you hear during a glaucoma exam crosses the line. “A’ight, fine. Gimme ten minutes, fool.”
“Right,” I say, responding to the guy’s natural salesmanship. I like him already.
We get off. I go sit at the counter and order a coffee—black—from the wrinkled blue-hair there.
“That’s a smart-looking suit,” she tells me as she pours it. “I wish more people of your generation dressed like you.”
I smile at her. I’m probably old enough to have banged her mother. Hell, maybe I did. I thank her and drink my coffee and wait. Then I get up and go call Leroy back.
“Who dis?”
“Who do you think?”
“Don’t get smart with me, mufucka. Who you think you be talkin’ to?”
“All right, sorry. It’s Mick again. So how ’bout it?”
“Yeah, you check out. Vin says you cool, you cool. You got a ride, Mr. No-cell-phone-having-mufucka, or you short one a them too?”
Angel of Vengeance Page 6