by Ace Atkins
“Is that why you kept bringing up Eric Collinson?”
“Exactly,” she said. “I really am very worried about her. I told you they had a very unpleasant breakup. Have you made any progress?”
“You bet,” I said.
Nanook wasn’t able to complete the task at hand, and we kept on walking down the street, searching for his perfect target. We followed. Just a nice couple out for an evening stroll talking missing girls, little white lies, and secret empowerment clubs. I thought about offering my arm and serenading her with “Buffalo Gals.”
“Why all the secrecy about HELIOS?”
“The program isn’t a one-and-done seminar,” she said. “It’s a lifestyle.”
“And to my understanding, the more recruits you bring in, the higher you go?” I said. “Kind of like that mountain climber on The Price Is Right.”
“That’s a little simplistic.”
“But true,” I said. “If I read the materials correctly.”
“And that’s how you found out about my involvement?”
“Executive board member,” I said. “A little bit more than just involved.”
“I’ll tell you whatever you like, but don’t get us involved with the police,” she said. “That would be a waste of your time, their time, and Gabby’s time. I can assure you whatever happened to her didn’t happen on our watch. HELIOS is a sisterhood of professionals. This is a very tough city that supports a very harsh and misogynistic industry. We look out for each other. We guard one another’s interest and watch one another’s backs.”
“Has Gabby had some bad experiences?”
“Of course,” she said. “She’s young, beautiful, and very ambitious. She might as well have come from Massachusetts with a target on her forehead.”
“Maybe with a major head of a studio?”
“Like I said, she didn’t share personal stories with me,” she said. “She worked for me. We were friendly. But not friends. I’m not privy to her personal details.”
“But you did get her into HELIOS?”
We walked for a few moments, Nancy Sharp thinking on the question. She took a deep and very long breath and let it out slowly. “Yes,” she said. “I brought her to her first meeting. But HELIOS is like a river with endless branches and tributaries. She started with me but went on her own journey.”
“Perhaps she’s still on that journey?”
Nancy Sharp stopped cold and stared at me. “If you want to accuse me or the group of some kind of hidden agenda, go ahead. I’d really like to hear it. All we do is help people. Enable people. Gabby was a broken woman when she came back to me, needing my help. Used up and spit out by some horrendous people.”
“I thought she didn’t discuss personal matters?”
“Goddamn you,” she said. “Are you always this insufferable?”
“Always,” I said. “I’ve worked on it for years and years.”
She rubbed her neck with her free hand, tired, and cut her eyes at me. She closed them for a moment and then opened them wide, asking me if I’d like to come back to her house and have a cocktail. “Let’s slow down,” she said. “Okay? Let’s talk about things like rational people. HELIOS does great work for so many. Dragging us in the mud isn’t what Gabby would want.”
“Do you know a woman named Mallory Riese?”
“Of course,” she said. “She’s the director of communications. Her mother is a great mind. A visionary. She assisted in designing many of our programs.”
“I met with Mallory earlier today and she explained the entire HELIOS directive.”
“And that didn’t set your mind at ease?”
“For a few minutes,” I said. “Until a couple of really nasty guys, one who’d doused himself in a quart of Axe body spray, started to follow me back to my car. I’d seen them before when they shot my friend not long after I spoke with you.”
“And what does that mean?”
“They didn’t follow me,” I said. “They came with her.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Mallory Riese was pretty fast to want to meet with some guy who just walked in off the street to a HELIOS center.”
“She was being generous with her time.”
“I want to meet Joe Haldorn.”
Nancy Sharp started to laugh and pressed her hand to her mouth. She made it seem like I’d just asked if Jesus Christ or Buddha might be willing to meet me at the corner bar to answer all life’s questions. She laughed some more, the hysteria seeming to bubble up involuntarily.
“Or I can call the police and tell them what I know.”
“Do whatever you want,” she said. “This is harassment.”
“Might make it easier on ol’ Joe to talk to me than a bunch of detectives with search warrants.”
“Search warrants for what?”
“Gabby Leggett.”
“HELIOS saved Gabby,” she said. “Why would you blame us?”
“Call me tomorrow,” I said. “Let me know where and when.”
I walked back to the car and crawled back in with Z. I started the engine and pulled away from the curb.
“How’d it go?” Z said.
“I believe I just got us an audience with the Great and Powerful Oz.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Once you get through all the green smoke.”
24
You caught one of the dudes who ambushed you and Sonny Sixkiller and then let him go?” Samuelson said. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
“He gave me a lead.”
“A lead?” Samuelson said. “What is this, fucking Adam-12? I was calling you to let you know these people are coming for your head. We jammed up Sarkisov pretty good the other night and he wasn’t exactly thrilled about it. In fact, he was downright pissed.”
“Arrests?”
“Nope,” Samuelson said. “None of the guys on camera were there. Because they were out and about, looking to finish what they started.”
“This guy said Sarkisov would eat up my asshole.”
“Jesus,” Samuelson said. “What the fuck does that even mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But it sounds unpleasant.”
We were seated at a long table on the bottom level of Philippe the day after I spoke with Nancy Sharp. The place was so old it still had a row of wooden telephone booths by the front door, sawdust on the floor, and a candy counter where they offered a check-cashing service. On the walls were pictures and newspaper clippings from old L.A. One close to us offered the headline FATTY ARBUCKLE CHARGED WITH MURDER.
“Did Sarkisov tell you about his interest in Gabby Leggett?” I said.
“Says he never even heard of her,” Samuelson said.
“I’m shocked,” I said. “You ask him about Yamashiro?”
“Sure,” he said. “He said he didn’t know Yamashiro or know anything about blackmail.”
“That part actually may be true,” I said.
“So did you want to meet with me about something or just shoot the shit for old times’ sake?” Samuelson said, tossing his tie over his shoulder so it wouldn’t land in his au jus. He dipped his sandwich and jabbed its pointy edge at me. “I took it that you had come across something important. Or did you want to just underscore all the shit that my detectives don’t know?”
“Ever hear of a group called HELIOS?”
“Nope,” Samuelson said. “Should I?”
“They claim to have thousands of members over several continents,” I said. “Empowerment. Sisterhood of strength. The leader claims he’s found a way to hack into the human brain to unlock a treasure trove of potential.”
“Sounds like a truckload of bull crap to me,” he said. “And I know of about a thousand other groups just like them in this city.”
“Gab
by Leggett was a member,” I said. “When I went to one of their centers they shooed me away. And then yesterday morning, out of the clear blue, the director of communications for HELIOS wanted to buy me a nice cup of coffee and chat.”
“And?”
I took my first bite of the French dip sandwich. I’d had one before, and ever since I’d looked forward to having one again. Maybe better than Kelly’s on Revere Beach.
“Lots of bullshit,” I said. “But also two of Sarkisov’s guys were loitering outside. They’d been sent to tail me after the meeting.”
“Aha.”
“Exactly what I was thinking.”
“And now you want me and an LAPD SWAT team to bust down the doors of these HELIO fucknuts and demand to know where they put Gabby Leggett?”
“Sure,” I said. “For starters.”
“Need a little more, pal,” Samuelson said. “All I have is your word that some guy you snatched up might be connected to these people. Can you see my position here? A judge might find the situation slightly humorous.”
“Gabby Leggett was also working for a high-ranking member of HELIOS,” I said. “And when I called on her, she didn’t say a word about their organization.”
“Maybe she’s a private person.”
“Maybe she’s hiding something.”
“Again,” Samuelson said. “My detectives would need more.”
“Just like Jimmy Yamashiro?”
“Jimmy Yamashiro is a better suspect,” he said. “Now we know about the blackmail. He had quite a bit to lose.”
“And Eric Collinson. That’s where you’re going, right?”
“Tell me this, Spenser,” he said. “When you were a cop, how many times was it the husband or the boyfriend?”
“Almost always,” I said.
“Nearly ninety percent,” he said. “This is between me, you, and the pickle on my plate. But the detectives are taking a serious look at Collinson. He had a pretty unhealthy fascination with Miss Leggett for a very long time.”
“How so?” I said.
“Nope,” he said. “That’s all I got for you. But you seem to think they’re looking in the wrong direction.”
“When a crew of Armenian gangsters ask you to butt out and then shoot your partner, you get a little suspicious.”
“Somebody doesn’t like you asking questions,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”
“That’s all I get?” I said. “I bought you an extra pickle.”
“I’m saying keep all options on the table,” he said. “And watch your ass with those people. You pissed someone off for sure.”
“What can I say?” I said. “It’s what I do.”
Samuelson bit into his free kosher pickle. He gave me a hard look from behind his tinted glasses. Chewing, he seemed to be deep in thought. “Next time you see that son of a bitch Sarkisov, he’s gonna put one right behind your fucking ear,” he said. “You got that, Boston Blackie?”
“You do realize I’m not on my own,” I said. “I have the best backup in town.”
“Really?” Samuelson said. “You got a one-armed Tonto and fucking Pedro Infante trailing along. These guys aren’t nice. They don’t play fair. And you’ll never see them coming.”
“Pedro Infante?”
“What can I say?” Samuelson said. “My old man played ‘Cielito Lindo’ about a thousand times when I was growing up.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “The other night I asked a bartender to play Johnny Hartman.”
“Why not Mel Tormé?” Samuelson said. He dug into his potato salad. “Or the fucking Ink Spots. How old are you, Spenser?”
“Age has nothing to do with it,” I said. “I am a man of the classics.”
“Kind of like the Hollywood Forever Cemetery,” he said. “That place is filled with all types of fucking classics.”
25
It was a bright blue and cloudless day in Los Angeles. Chollo and I were parked a few blocks away from Haldorn’s gated mansion along West Adams. The mansion had been built in an Italian renaissance style, with elegant columns and balconies, and, from what I could see through the gate, offered precisely manicured grounds of bright blooming flowers and more species of palm trees than I knew existed. We’d been watching the property since sunup and had watched many cars come and go. Lots of cargo vans and trucks, workers unloading tables and chairs, setting up for some type of event in the back of the mansion.
“Looks like a wedding,” Chollo said.
“Is this mansion to your liking?”
“Sí.” Chollo nodded. “It’s even larger than Mr. del Rio’s. But this neighborhood is not Bel-Air.”
The old neighborhood was far from Beverly Hills or Bel-Air, a hodgepodge of decrepit mansions and rows and rows of aging bungalows in a variety of conditions. Some of the mansions had been split into apartments and many of the old houses looked as if they’d been slathered in stucco and left to rot. Chollo said it had once been the toniest neighborhood in Los Angeles, with movie stars and millionaires. In the last few years, it seemed to be making a slow comeback.
There was a tall stucco fence and black metal gate in front of the HELIOS property. Several guards patrolled the grounds.
“For a man who eschews wealth,” I said. “This is quite a place for Joe Haldorn to hang his hat.”
“And what do we know about this man?”
“He is a riddle wrapped in an enigma and then deep-fried in an egg roll.”
Chollo turned to stare at me from the passenger seat. He was dressed in black jeans, a black T-shirt, and black boots. All he needed was a bandolier strapped over his chest. Without it, he resembled a Mexican Johnny Cash.
“That means we know nada.”
“This girl,” he said. “Miss Leggett. Might she be inside?”
“It’s worth asking,” I said. “Since the police seem to think we are on shaky ground.”
“The police are only on shaky ground when it comes to money,” Chollo said. “Where I grew up, in my neighborhood in East L.A., the police were never shy about kicking in a door. Here, this might as well be a castle on a hill.”
“And Haldorn the king and spiritual ruler.”
I got out of the car and stretched, crossing the street to the mansion and again walking past its gates. Whatever they were setting up for had culminated in a symphony of drills and hammering. A woman emerged from a black cargo van holding a large and intricate flower arrangement. The air was cool, a nice breeze along the sidewalk as I doubled back to the car.
I texted Z to look into what kind of event the HELIOS people might be hosting over the weekend. I crawled back into the car and thumped at the wheel.
“This woman you met,” Chollo said. “What did she say about Miss Leggett?”
“Mallory Riese said she didn’t know her,” I said. “And couldn’t confirm if she was among the rank and file of HELIOS.”
“And now?”
“She hasn’t returned my calls,” I said. “Nor will Nancy Sharp. I think the proverbial gate has been shut on the castle. My meet-and-greet with the king has been denied.”
Chollo nodded. “If we are sure Miss Leggett might be alive and inside, Mr. del Rio said he’d be honored to loan you Bobby Horse and some more of our people. But only if you are positive. He doesn’t want trouble with the Armenians.”
“A rescue mission?” I said.
“If you wish.”
I watched as the black metal gate swung back and a white SUV pulled out ahead of us on West Adams. It appeared very different from the workers and delivery vehicles we’d been watching all day, with its tinted windows and bright silver wheels. I pressed start and knocked the car in gear.
“What did you see?”
“Not a thing,” I said. “But I’ve run out of ideas.”
“You think it’s maybe H
aldorn?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe someone of importance.”
“Sixkill showed me a picture of this woman, Gabby,” he said. “She is very beautiful. The kind of woman who might break a man’s heart in many places. Her eyes are so large and green. I have seen few like them. Like emeralds.”
“Since I touched down in L.A., it seems I’ve been following a long list of lovers,” I said. “Her former agent. A couple more boyfriends, a movie executive, and now it appears Joseph Haldorn.”
“Have you thought perhaps this woman brought on her own demise?” he said. “Playing games with the wrong people?”
“It’s one of my working theories.”
We followed the white SUV down West Adams, toward the USC campus, and then turned toward downtown on Olive Street. They turned again on Seventh and we followed for a long way through downtown and the urban sprawl of storefronts and office buildings. I had the windows down and played a local station offering up a nice mix of Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, and Dave Brubeck. A fitting soundtrack to the scenery.
“These people don’t seem to know where they are going.”
“Nice day for a drive,” I said, tapping at the wheel in time with the music.
“I think they know we are here, amigo,” he said. “They are leading us somewhere.”
They continued slow and steady for a long while before turning south and dipping under the 10. The storefronts and offices were soon replaced with modern steel buildings and old brick warehouses. The streets were cracked and broken and colorful graffiti decorated the old brick walls. Telephone poles, not palms, adorned the sidewalks.
“Maybe they came to do business.”
“With us?”
“With the Armenians,” Chollo said. “We are going into Furlong.”
“Nice town?”
“If you like to be beaten and shot,” Chollo said.
“Sounds lovely.”
We followed the white SUV in and out of several small streets by welding shops and grocery distribution warehouses. I hung back as far as I could without losing sight of them. But down here, there were few cars, mainly trucks and trailers coming and going. I thought I’d lost them for a moment and took a U-turn on a long stretch of industrial road.