Angel Eyes

by Ace Atkins

  “Good to know.”

  “If they had this girl, she’d be dead by now.”

  “We’ve faced worse odds.”

  “Proctor,” Chollo said.

  I nodded.

  “Furlong makes Proctor seem like Disneyland.”

  “It’s a Small World After All.”

  We walked back the way we’d come. “Is Susan with you?”

  “No.”

  “Hawk?”

  “No.”

  “So now you are here, alone?”

  “Sí,” I said.

  Chollo stopped and gave me a hard look. “No,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  “What about the churros?”

  “Churros can wait, my friend.”

  15

  Icalled Susan from the waiting room at Cedars.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “How is he?”

  “Z ate two In-N-Out burgers with fries,” I said. “And now he’s resting.”

  “But his arm?”

  “Shattered,” I said. “The doctors put in some pins. He’s going to be out of commission for some time.”

  “Getting shot isn’t like twisting your ankle,” Susan said.

  “He said it only hurts when he laughs.”

  “Good thing you’re not funny,” Susan said.

  “I know you don’t mean that,” I said. “My humor isn’t an easy thing to contain.”

  I’d found a grouping of empty sofas and chairs in the emergency room lobby. It was a grand, tall-ceilinged space with serpentine leather sofas and a glass wall that looked out to the entrance. The front doors were pneumatic and opened and closed frequently. Chollo sat in a tall, upright chair, leafing through a medical journal.

  “Should I let Hawk know?” she said.

  “No,” I said, looking to Chollo. “Not now.”

  “Are these men in custody?”

  “No,” I said. “Not yet.”

  “Have you been able to link them with Gabby?”

  “I have solid suspicion.”

  “And are you sure these men won’t continue to attempt to do you harm?”

  “Nope,” I said. “I can pretty much guarantee it. At least I know where to find them. A lawless little town within L.A. County called Furlong.”

  Susan didn’t say anything. She let the silence fall and hold for several seconds between Los Angeles and Boston. The stillness was prolonged and electric, as Susan Silverman wasn’t a woman who was ever at a loss for words. Chollo crossed his boots at his ankles in repose.

  “Do you think that’s where Gabby might be?”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “Or maybe she’s at a Holiday Inn in Reseda. Or Knott’s Berry Farm.”

  “How will you find out?”

  “It’s complicated,” I said.

  I told her more about my meeting with Jimmy Yamashiro. And that Yamashiro had accused Gabby of trying to blackmail him.

  “Gabby?” she said. “That doesn’t sound like the young woman her mother described. The headstrong student athlete from BU.”

  “California changes people,” I said. “Don’t you East Coast shrinks know that?”

  “Or maybe Gabby is just being used.”

  “That scenario has crossed my mind once or twice,” I said. “Samuelson said Yamashiro wants to talk with me. Apparently he withheld some key information.”

  “So you will make some discretionary planning before you barge into Far Far Away with both guns blazing?”

  “Furlong,” I said. “It’s supposed to be a lovely little town.”

  Chollo lifted his eyes from the magazine and then glanced back down, licking a finger, and flipping a page. He shook his head.

  “To get killed,” she said.

  “Would you rather me get killed in Plymouth?”

  “Plymouth is too far,” she said. “How about Chelsea?”

  “Perfect,” I said. “I’ll save my demise for my own turf.”

  16

  Jimmy Yamashiro lived in Beverly Hills, right along Sunset Boulevard, in a mod-looking mansion only slightly smaller than the Quincy Market. The house was mainly concrete, built in a harsh, angular style, with gigantic picture windows making the house almost seem naked as we drove through the gates. Along the roadside, a sprawling orange grove stood with trees planted in a neat, orderly symmetry.

  I parked my rental in a circular drive and Chollo and I got out and walked toward the front door. Before we had a chance to climb the steps, the older bodyguard with the crew cut opened the door. He was wearing the same dark nondescript suit from when we’d met in the studio. His face was as weathered and worn as a secondhand pair of boots.

  “You said you were coming alone,” Crew Cut said.

  I looked to Chollo and shrugged. “I changed my mind.”

  “Who’s he?” the man said, jacking his thumb at Chollo.

  “My life coach,” I said. “He’s helping me sleuth to my maximum potential.”

  He looked over to Chollo with clear blue eyes and then back to me. He didn’t answer, walked back inside, and shut the door behind him.

  “Is that it?” Chollo said.

  “Maybe we could steal a few oranges,” I said. “The vitamin C wards off seasonal colds.”

  “Sure,” Chollo said. “I could sell them at the freeway exits.”

  “Is that a local ethnic joke?” I said.

  “Sí,” Chollo said.

  A minute later, the door opened again and Crew Cut ushered us inside. The house was big and airy, with gray slate floors and some kind of trickling waterfall along a rock wall decorated with live orchids. The back of the home was wide open, looking out onto a courtyard and then a large swimming pool. Everything smelled bright and clean of citrus and chlorine.

  “Pays to be the boss,” I said.

  “Mr. del Rio’s house is much nicer,” Chollo said. “He would never live in Beverly Hills. Too common.”

  “Have you forgotten your roots?” I said.

  Chollo didn’t answer, only grinned.

  Jimmy Yamashiro was seated at a wrought-iron table in the middle of a courtyard. He looked up from his morning Los Angeles Times and lifted his chin to the open chairs. He wore a white terry-cloth robe, tight and snug against his rotund frame. “Mr. Spenser,” he said. “You didn’t say you were bringing a guest. I thought this was a private conversation.”

  “This is Chollo,” I said. “Whatever you say to me can be said in front of him.”

  “So you say.”

  “Yep,” I said. “I do.”

  “Chollo?” he said. “No last name?”

  “Cher, Madonna, Prince,” I said. “Chollo and Spenser.”

  “Really?” Yamashiro said.

  Chollo hung back by the hedgerow as I took a seat. Crew Cut lingered on the pathway, trying, but not succeeding, in looking inconspicuous. I watched as he took in Chollo, spotting a slight bulge on Chollo’s right hip under the suede coat. It was ever so slight but comforting to know.

  “Would you like anything to eat?” Yamashiro said.

  “Sure,” I said.

  Chollo shook his head.

  “He doesn’t talk much,” Yamashiro said. “Is he your sidekick or something?”

  “I’m his,” I said. “I do the talking. He does the shooting.”

  Yamashiro laughed, believing I’d made a joke. I looked to Crew Cut, who had his eyes on Chollo now, hands on his waist, as if trying to look tough and in charge. Chollo lifted a hand to his mouth and stifled a yawn.

  “My apologies on our first meeting,” Yamashiro said. “I thought you were trying to extort me.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I thought you might have kidnapped my client’s daughter.”

  Yamashiro’s friendly smile dropped and he leveled his black eyes at me.
I tilted my head, staring back at him, and waited. A Hispanic woman dressed in a gray-and-white servant’s getup appeared with a carafe of orange juice. She poured me a sizable serving.

  “Fresh squeezed,” he said.

  “Living amid a citrus grove?” I said. “What are the chances?”

  There was black coffee and then a basket filled with assorted pastries. I grabbed a croissant and reached for the butter. “How is L.A. suiting you?” he said.

  “Like a sharkskin suit.”

  “I heard there was some trouble last night?”

  I shrugged while I buttered the warm croissant. The butter spread nice and smooth off the knife. He asked if I would like anything else and I told him I was dandy.

  “Captain Samuelson said a friend of yours had been shot,” he said. “By some hoods.”

  “A crew of Armenian gangsters,” I said. “They wouldn’t happen to be friends of yours?”

  “I can see how you might think that,” Yamashiro said. “But if I wanted to get rid of you, I could use more threatening means through legal channels.”

  “The calls of high-paid attorneys weaken my knees.”

  Behind Chollo’s back, two women in bikinis appeared, holding straw bags. They set up shop in a couple of lounge chairs before one mounted the diving board. The whole time I watched them, Chollo never took his eyes off Yamashiro or Crew Cut. I figured I had the better view. The women giggled and frolicked. Their bikinis seemed to have been made of dental floss.

  “Tell me about the blackmail attempt,” I said.

  Yamashiro didn’t say a word as the server appeared again with a plate of lox over a bagel, slathered in cream cheese and sprinkled with capers. He seemed not to even notice it as the woman reached gently around him and ground pepper for what seemed like half an hour. When she disappeared back into the kitchen, Yamashiro said, “I don’t see why not,” he said. “Captain Samuelson said you could be trusted.”

  “Shucks.”

  “And always deliver on what you set out to do.”

  “True.”

  “Two weeks ago, the threat came to my personal email account and contained a four-minute video,” he said. “The video contained an old encounter between me and Miss Leggett.”

  “I take it that you two weren’t playing rock, paper, scissors,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “We were not. The images were of an intimate nature.”

  “Ah,” I said. I reached for the coffee. Before I could even touch the pot, the stealthy Hispanic woman had it and performed the task for me. I thanked her before she again disappeared. She exchanged some quick words with Chollo in Spanish and she walked away, smiling at something he’d said.

  “You have described the relationship between you and Gabby as consensual,” I said. “And that you and your wife had what you called a modern agreement.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Do you think Gabby sent the email?”

  Yamashiro nodded. He defied convention and dropped the knife-and-fork act and went right for the second half of the bagel. “I had some very good tech people on this,” he said. “It was a junk email account sent from a coffee shop in Burbank.”

  “Why would she blackmail you if she was complicit in the relationship?”

  “As I’m sure you’ve read, Hollywood is going through tremendous changes,” Yamashiro said. “What might have seemed commonplace in the old days is frowned upon now. Just the idea that I had had this relationship with Miss Leggett might be construed as harassment by the twenty-four-hour outrage machine. The truth wouldn’t matter. This whole so-called Me Too movement has taken down powerful men.”

  “Many have done some very bad things,” I said. “To both women and to potted plants.”

  “And some have been vilified for just being men,” he said. “What are we supposed to do? Subvert our masculinity? Surely, as a man, you understand that.”

  “I don’t think being a man gives you a freebie for acting like a creep.”

  “Are you saying I’m a creep, Mr. Spenser?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m still gathering information.”

  Yamashiro didn’t seem pleased with the answer and went back to eating his bagel and lox. As he chewed, I noted a slight tic in his right eye.

  “Did you abuse your position at the studio to cultivate this relationship?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then what did this email exactly say?” I said.

  “They wanted ten million,” he said. “If not, they’d send the email out to all the gossip sites.”

  “May I see this threat?”

  “No, you may not,” he said. “It’s not something I’m proud of.”

  “Are you sure the message was sent by Gabby?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It said I was a lecherous old fuck that was about to get a taste of his own medicine.”

  “Ouch,” I said. “And then?”

  “And then nothing,” he said.

  “No follow-up?” I said.

  “No,” he said. “When you appeared, apparently representing Gabrielle’s interests, I assumed the extortion had ratcheted up. And that her so-called disappearance was timed to make me look more sinister.”

  I finished the last of my croissant and brushed the crumbs from my lap. Despite my best efforts, I remained a messy eater. Where was Pearl when you needed her? “Besides you, can you think of anyone who might like to see Gabby disappear?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “Our relationship was purely physical.”

  “Like them,” I said, nodding to the frolicking girls.

  “Yes.” Yamashiro nodded. “Exactly like them.”

  “Ah,” I said. “The stars of tomorrow.”

  As he smiled, his robe opened up at the top, exposing his saggy and hairless chest.

  “I guess I don’t really know if Gabby actually sent it. Or if someone put her up to it.”

  “The timing looks bad for you,” I said. “Before I even have a chance to unpack my underwear, some local toughs try to intimidate me and my associate into leaving this alone.”

  “Not my doing,” he said.

  “So you say.”

  “That is correct,” he said. “Don’t you know who I am?”

  “I know you’re a top-notch movie fireplug who follows his privates like a divining rod.”

  “Excuse me?

  “None of this looks good, Jimmy.”

  “If I’d kidnapped or killed Gabby and then sent some Hungarians to threaten you, why would I now be meeting you?”

  “Not sure,” I said. “And they were Armenian. Not Hungarian. Different as baklava to goulash.”

  The server swept away his plate and refilled both of our coffees. Yamashiro took a long sip, watching the frolicking mermaids by the pool. They both had long legs and curvy hips, wet hair plastered down their bare backs as they dried in the sun like contented seals. I was pretty sure the Smith & Wesson I wore under my coat was older than both of them.

  “I want this stopped,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I’m willing to pay for this to stop.”

  “And what does that have to do with me?”

  “Find Gabby,” he said. “However this started and whoever is involved, she’s the start of it. Without her, there wouldn’t have been a tape.”

  “Did you consent to a video of your activities?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “I’m not a goddamn idiot. But how would I know? These days, they can put a camera in a ballpoint pen or the eye of a needle. You find Gabby and stop this and I’ll pay for your services. The longer she’s missing, the worse things look for me.”

  I shook my head and stood up. I took one last sip of coffee and nodded over at Chollo. Chollo nodded back, his eyes still on Crew Cut.
They didn’t seem to like each other very much.

  “You don’t want my money?” he said.

  “Nope,” I said. “I have one client. Gabby’s mother. I’m being paid to find her and return her safely. Your blackmail issue is not my problem.”

  “Even if she’s involved?”

  “Even then.”

  Yamashiro shook his head and gave a little chuckle. He looked over at Chollo, who leaned against a low brick wall, arms crossed over his chest.

  “Your friend,” Yamashiro said. “Is he always this stubborn?”

  Chollo nodded. “Sí.”

  “Okay, good,” Yamashiro said. “I think this was a productive meeting. Are we at least clear with the situation?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Not in the least.”

  Chollo and I walked back out through the house and the front door. Before I got into the rental, Chollo snagged a fresh orange from a nearby tree.

  17

  That afternoon, Chollo and I parted ways.

  I returned to the Loews, worked out in the hotel gym, ate a club sandwich with fries, and followed up with some phone calls. A few hours later, I found myself drinking beer with five of Jeffrey Bloom’s acting students in North Hollywood. Besides the hazards of the industry and their latest auditions, they talked a little about Gabby Leggett. To hear them tell it, Gabby ranked somewhere between Sister Aimee and Mother Teresa.

  “She was lovely,” said a young woman, fittingly named Bridget. She was very tan and very blond, looking like she’d just stepped off the set of Bikini Beach in a cropped red gingham top, high-waisted jeans, and tall clogs. “Inside and out. She was so giving. Like when you were in a scene, she was totally present with you.”

  “Being present is good,” I said. “I like being present.”

  “Actually,” Bridget said, fingering a large gold hoop earring, “it’s everything.”

  A few of her classmates nodded along. There was Bridget, Olga, and Claudia.

  The boys were Austin and Dani. “Dani with an i,” he said.

  We all sat in a beer garden in back of a Depression-era building shaped like an enormous whiskey barrel. In the garden was another vintage roadside attraction, a small café shaped like a bulldog smoking a pipe. The whole bar exuded a vibe of the Hollywood of yesterday. It was cool and pleasant in the little garden. An attentive waitress continued to refresh my Lagunitas IPA on draft. I could think of no finer place to conduct interviews while I watched the bubbles rise in my pint glass.