“Her eyes.”
“Yeah, Dickie, her eyes, the news, the case they were there covering—some gang murder trial out of Compton—what else? We talked about my tie—which she happened to find quite striking—then she gave me her card and said something about if I had any news, give her a call.”
“Oh, I’m sure she did.”
“I just happened to notice she wasn’t wearing a ring, too, FYI, in the event you would like her number.”
“I’m sure you had me in mind when you took her card.”
“Of course, Dickie. Why, I’m a married man.”
Ray stood behind us now with his notebook and computer printout in his hands, waiting. We stopped chatting and looked at him. Ray held his notebook out for me and said, “Just to double check, partner, this is what you gave me, right?”
I glanced at his notebook while retrieving mine. I looked from one to the other, comparing our notes. “Yeah, five, Frank Edward Tom, three two nine.”
He sighed and closed his notebook. “Doesn’t make sense.”
Floyd said, “Maybe they’re mafiosos.”
I looked at him and frowned, and then glanced at Ray who just shrugged.
“They looked like feds.”
Ray said, “I’d agree.”
As Floyd turned to leave, he said, “Just trying to help. You guys don’t want to listen to me, I’m going to go check in with the Channel Five News desk.” As he rounded the corner I could hear him say, “Come on, Mongo, let’s get out of here. It’s half-past beer time already.”
Ray pulled a chair from a nearby desk and rolled it next to mine. “The man is odd.”
“Floyd?”
“No—well, yes—but I meant Chaney.”
“He is.”
“Now we find out his visitors who looked like feds are driving a cold-plated ride. What’s up with all of that, partner?”
I shook my head and thought for a moment before replying. “Everything he said was like it had been scripted, did you notice that?”
“It did kind of seem that way.”
“Kind of, nothing. It was too clean, Ray. It was like he had prepared for what would be asked. He laid it all out there chronologically—just as you asked him to do—from their first date until the moment he last saw her. No contradictions, no mistakes. Perfectly executed as if reading from a teleprompter. And with no emotion.”
“Not perfectly, partner.”
I cocked my head.
Ray said, “Did you catch it when he referred to his wife as being dead?”
I began nodding, recalling the conversation.
“It hit me just a while ago, thinking back to the conversation, and I remembered him saying it.”
“Yeah, I do remember that, Ray. Something about he knows we consider him a suspect in her death.”
“Exactly, partner. ‘I know you consider me a suspect in my wife’s death.’ I think that’s pretty much exactly what he said.”
“So, what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking we need to crawl up this guy’s ass with a fine-toothed comb, that’s what I’m thinking. You?”
“I’d have to agree, Ray. I say we start with the exes.”
“Yep, the exes and then the daughter. He never did say why she wasn’t there today. He told me she would be there. Something is off with this guy, partner.”
I turned back to my desk that held no photographs or files or signs of life, only a lonely blue notebook with a Homicide Bureau logo complete with the bulldog, a case file number handwritten across the top, and the words ‘Santa Clarita 187’ below that. I sat silent, in thought for a moment, when Ray finally said, “What do you say we call it a day for now, get at it tomorrow, partner?”
I nodded. “Sounds good, Ray. I’ll see you in the morning. I’m going to be here for a while tonight, getting settled into my new desk here. I might also play around with this a little more, see if I can dig anything up on hubby, or something with that license plate.”
He stood and pushed the chair back to the unoccupied desk. “Sounds like a winner, partner. Mañana.”
“Goodnight, Ray.”
Before walking out the door, Ray turned back and asked, “Hey partner, you think Floyd was onto something?”
“With the news girl?” I joked.
Ray smiled. “Mafia.”
“I don’t know, Ray. But it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.”
I was pleased to find the bureau mostly empty when I walked back in with a box I’d retrieved from the trunk of my car. I put it on the floor next to the empty desk that I had homesteaded, then sat down and checked the desk phone for a dial tone. You never knew around this place. I called Val’s cell, and again there was no answer, only the standard greeting that prompted the caller to leave a voicemail message. Which I elected not to do.
Instead, I sat quietly staring at my new desk. There were no framed photos of loved ones and no awards or fancy name plates. It seemed fitting, in some ways, as I found myself struggling to feel at home here at the bureau with no permanent partner and no assigned team. I was “on loan” to Unsolved Homicides. Great.
To make matters worse, there was no one to go home to or even stay late to avoid.
I pulled open a couple of drawers to find empty files, half-used notepads, miscellaneous pens, pencils, paperclips, rubber bands. I pictured finding a half-empty bottle in one of the drawers and thought that’s what I needed right now, but there was no such luck.
I leaned back in my new, old chair and again found myself staring at the phone. It sat solemnly staring back, apparently unmoved by my predicament. I grabbed it and tried again. This time the call went to voicemail quickly, the way it does when someone swipes the ignore button.
At least now I was pissed, not so much worried anymore. If she didn’t have the decency to take my call, then so be it. As I stood, prepared to storm out and hit a liquor store on my way home, it occurred to me that our office phones were private numbers. She would have no way to know it was me calling. I retrieved my cell phone from my pocket and tried again, but the result was the same. Now I really was pissed. She wants to be a bitch, so be it. Good for her, I thought, and then for an instant told myself I didn’t care if she was safe or not, and didn’t need to worry, she wasn’t my problem any longer. The fact some psycho was running around whacking real estate ladies in Santa Clarita didn’t matter. But the other side of my brain argued that I did still care and that I still loved her.
Jesus, women . . .
I sat back down and tossed my cell onto the desk. Then I propped my feet up, removed my hat, and leaned my head back against the wall. I thought about Valerie, then I pictured the news lady with her blue eyes and saw Floyd at the side of the van laying the charm on her. Before long I was visualizing the scene photos, seeing the woman without a head or hands who may be the late Mrs. Marilynn Chaney, and then I fell asleep, leaving the door to a dark room in my mind wide open and once again vulnerable.
Each time her phone vibrated on the nightstand, he walked over and looked at its display. The first two calls were private numbers. The third showed ‘Richard Cell’ and a 323-area code, which he knew to be one of many for the Los Angeles area. He looked over at her motionless body and said, “Dick called.” Then he laughed and went to the bathroom where he started the shower. While waiting for the water to heat, he stood in the doorway admiring her curves and the shape of her backside and thought, not bad for an old broad. Valerie lay motionless.
13
THE COUCH MAY have been new in the eighties, its orange, red, and yellow floral motif dark with stains and reeking of unidentifiable odors from the hundreds of tenants who had used it as their own. Leonard sank deep into its worn cushions. It reminded him of prison, how the mattresses and the bedding and the clothes and socks and everything else smelled like all the convicts before him. Sometimes he wondered about the men who had previously worn his pants or slept on his bunk; what had they done while wearing those pants or slee
ping on that bunk? He’d try not to think of it, but he couldn’t help himself at times. In the joint, he fought germs by wiping everything down with his bath towel. When issued new clothing, he washed those items in his sink though they had been laundered. He could never seem to remove the stench. Leonard looked around at the furnishings of his temporary home and decided he needed to buy something that would sterilize and remove the odors in this place.
Having finished reliving the moments he had shared with the young Asian girl, he was now angry with himself and wished he hadn’t succumbed to the temptation of her young flesh. There would no doubt be more. He had sworn to himself he would fight to abstain from them, though he knew sometimes he would not be able to always resist.
Still thinking about the afternoon with her, he retraced his steps again, this time thinking about evidence he may have left behind. It was possible he left fingerprints as he hadn’t worn gloves. He pictured knocking on the front door. That wouldn’t have been a problem; she had been the one to open it. Did he push it open with his palm? He didn’t remember. He only remembered stepping in as the frightened little girl stepped back saying, “No . . .”
He had spun her around with one hand while putting another over her mouth before forcing her up the stairs and into a bedroom. He didn’t think they could get fingerprints from her skin, but he wasn’t certain. Once they entered the room, she really began to fight. She squirmed, tried to scream. He had his hand on her mouth. Would that leave DNA? On him, he thought, not her. He was having trouble controlling her. That’s when he wrapped his hands around her throat. He knew he wouldn’t stop once he started choking her, but so be it; this was always the best part.
The struggle ended and she slumped to the ground peacefully.
He didn’t pleasure himself. Not then. Not once she was dead; he wasn’t sick like that. Though, the pictures he took, well . . .
Her body had still twitched and gurgled as he removed her panties and explored her body. This was something he very much enjoyed, and he took his time. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken the pictures, he now considered. But he dismissed the thought as he lifted his phone and scrolled through the pictures once more. He treasured the photographs. If only he had pictures of all of them—the ones from many years ago. Leonard had learned to use the phone’s camera and map, and was glad he had. But he wasn’t sure he should keep such evidence stored on the device he would have with him at all times. Maybe he would enjoy them just once or twice more, and then delete them forever.
Leonard recalled his departure, and saw his hand reach to open the sliding glass door that led to the backyard. That may have been his only mistake. Damnit, he knew better. He saw himself reaching for the door again, only this time using his shirt or a towel rather than his bare hand. It frustrated him to think he had overlooked such a fundamental precaution.
The phone vibrated in his hand and the display showed Moses was calling. He took another pull on his Camel and reached to extinguish it in a gold translucent ashtray that sat on an adjacent table. He pushed the button to answer the phone, raised it to his ear, and waited silently.
After a moment, the familiar, high-pitched, whiny voice said, “You there?”
He calmly replied, “Yeah.”
“Well, why didn’t you fucking say so? Normal fucking people say ‘Hello’ when they answer the phone, or ‘How may I help you,’ or ‘This is fuckface, who’s calling?’”
“How may I help you? . . . Is that better, fuckface?”
The phone was silent for a moment.
“Boss wants an update. Did you get the message?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“And?”
“And, what? I got it today.”
“Have you located him?”
“Have I located him? You gave me an address. I picked up the message today. I haven’t done shit, I’ve been busy. If he needed it done today, he should have said today, not sometime in the next couple weeks, or thirty days, whatever.”
“It was sent four days ago.”
“Well, maybe, but I picked it up today. I have twenty-nine days left.”
“You have twenty-four.”
Leonard frowned across the empty room, seeing a clock on the wall but not a calendar. He didn’t need a calendar or a calculator to figure out that Marty fucking Feldman, aka: Moses, or fuckface, was full of shit. “Even if we go off of when it was sent, how the hell do you get twenty-four?”
“Look it, shit-stain, I’m not here to argue. Boss wants an update, I’ll tell him you’ve been fucking off, not doing your job. I told him we shouldn’t have hired a squirrelly little prick like you anyway. You’re just proving my point.”
Leonard pulled the phone from his ear to look at it, as if the device itself were his source of irritation at the moment. He brought it back slowly and held it to his ear while lighting a fresh cigarette and taking a long drag. As he exhaled, he said, “It will be done, don’t get your panties all wadded up. Tell the boss I’m all over it. And you should try not being such a suck-ass douchebag.”
“Twenty-three days, the clock is ticking, dickwad.”
This fucking guy.
“Hey, why the cop anyway?”
“What, are you writing a book?”
Leonard started to ask who it was that wanted a cop croaked but thought better of it. He also thought about saying he needed to double his price for this one, you don’t just whack a cop in this town. The cops here will hunt you like a rabid dog and beat you and kill you and then beat you some more after you’re dead—you saw it all the time on the news. Nobody gave a shit about most killings in L.A. Hell, yellow tape was part of the landscape. There were too many bodies to worry about a dead bitch here and there, a little Asian girl, or a dead store clerk. But you kill a cop, they’re coming for you. He would have insisted on more money had he known he was scheduled for a pig hunt.
“No, I ain’t writing no books. But I can tell you one thing, I’m not staying around here after that job. No more jobs on the west coast after that one, you let the boss man know. I’ll be on a plane or bus a half hour later headed east or south or maybe north, I don’t care. So, tell him I might need a travel bonus.”
“Fuck off, little man,” was all Moses said before disconnecting the call.
Leonard fumed as he held the phone out and stared at it again. He decided right then that one day he would kill Moses, the pockmarked, Marty Feldman-looking asshole with his squeaky, whiny, little bitch voice. The fucker.
He opened the photos on his phone and began scrolling through them again, trying to get Feldman off his mind. As he did, he began to light another cigarette, but stopped. The cigarette dangled from his mouth as he stared at the lighter in his hand, realizing now he had carried a different one in his pocket, the yellow one. He loved the color yellow. Not the blue one. He hated the color blue. Where was his yellow lighter? Had he lost it? Where? His eyes darted around the room, and he thought of his car, thinking maybe he had left it there. He checked both pockets again, but they were now empty.
Leonard grabbed his keys from the table and went out to his car.
14
DAVEY LOPES LEFT the hotel in Brookings, Oregon, late Friday morning. He was pleased with his conquest, though a part of him wished she hadn’t given in so easily.
He had enjoyed the evening, the drinks, the conversation, the mutual bullshitting of one another as they looked into each other’s eyes and smiled and laughed while a baseball game played on the big screen. Lopes noticed the patrons that came and went, and he noticed that she, Maria Lopez, was also aware of their surroundings. He assumed she had developed the habit while working as a corrections officer at Pelican Bay. But he also knew she could have just as easily brought the skills with her from the neighborhood. Growing up in The Avenues would require street smarts, and she seemed to have plenty of that to go with her good looks and foul mouth.
He’d had a study going, an informal one of course, but one he spoke of with his male par
tners and friends, usually over drinks. His theory was that all of them were sluts. Every last one. His exes, his girlfriends, his past female partners, hell, even his sisters. Only his mother and his daughters were excluded from this presumed group of the terminally promiscuous. Only they were worthy of an ivory tower, in his mind, so he was destined to a life of bachelorhood.
Maybe it was the age, he had to consider, knowing he was long past the days of meeting untainted women. He understood that, but even so, he did pretty well with the younger ladies—ladies like Lopez with a Z—and they too failed the test repeatedly, one after the other. There seemed to not be a mature woman left on the planet who possessed even a trace of modesty when it came right down to it. He decided it was just the day and age, and the influences of pop culture. Which made him feel old. Lopes wasn’t old, not in his mind. He was a young fifty-two-year-old who kept himself in excellent physical and mental shape.
He thought about her from last night and smiled through his windshield as the white lines raced past him and the road hummed beneath his rental. He had the window down and was lapping up the fresh coastal air before returning to the city. He did love playing the game, a little cat and mouse with the ladies. He enjoyed it nearly as much as playing cops and robbers. Maybe more in some ways, less in others. He understood robbers, but he’d never figure out the mice.
He considered it a challenge when a woman would insinuate that he didn’t have a chance. Most of the time, he knew that meant his odds were even or better. He actually stood a good chance, as far as he was concerned. It seemed the best strategy was to shrug it off as no big deal, whatever, lady, giving the impression it was they who would be missing the prize. It seemed to drive them crazy, and that was the part he loved most. What, you’re not even interested?
Hard-Boiled- Box Set Page 39