Dead Famous (Danny Costello)

by Tony Bulmer

  ‘The elusive Roxy Barrington.’ I said quietly.

  ‘What the hell is she doing here?’

  ‘A real conundrum.’ I mused thoughtfully, peering through the scope.

  Joe wasn’t satisfied. ‘Here, let me take a look, see what kind of trouble we are dealing with here.’

  I gave him a look.

  He gave a low chuckle. ‘It has all become much clearer,’ he said, ‘His eyes stuck tight to the viewfinder.

  I took a deep philosophical breath and looked up to the stars, seeing the wide canopy of night spreading open before me. ‘Let me guess she is screwing the help—or maybe vise versa?’

  ‘Pretty smart Costello, you should take this up professional, you got a talent for the frickin’ obvious.’

  ‘Hilarious.’

  ‘You think the old man knows?’ asked Joe.

  I looked back at Joe, his eyes still glued to the night scope. ‘He knows his little cookie has been down the boulevard and back, if that’s what you mean. Short time I have known him Barrington seems like the controlling type. And if the rumor mill is spinning correctly he is a man who won’t take kindly to having his daughter fraternizing with the help.

  ‘There isn’t a damn thing he can do about it,’ snickered Joe, Looks like young Roxy is big enough to make her own decisions in life.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to do anything about it,’ I said. ‘That task is down to us.

  Dead Famous 19

  As Inez stalked through the nightclub with the Barrington team, the crowd went crazy. Hot sweating bodies crushed in around them, hands grasping out to fondle and touch. The club team cut a swathe to the VIP cave, a low light cavern of bordello banquettes and zebra hide accessories—Gross. Inez hated animal cruelty, she thought the use of dead animals as interior decoration accents was despicable and vile. But that wasn’t the end to it, as Barrington melted into his waiting throne, Inez noticed a savannah sized collection of wild beasts staring down from the walls, their ghoulish faces frozen in fearful bug-eyed terror. Impala, Wildebeest, Lions, Gazelles, even a monstrously guillotined rhino, head hanging sadly alone. Club Zoo indeed. The place was a mausoleum of tortured wildlife. Inez felt sick. She melted back towards the wall, hanging in the shadows, underneath a canopy of sumptuous velvet drapery. The team moved on her command, forming a double guard perimeter between the entrance to the VIP area and the rest of the club. Already Barrington’s acolytes were arriving: scantily clad clubettes, with big hair and whorehouse heels, shaking their assets for all they were worth. The business associates—were no better, throw-away fashion trash, whose budgets dwarfed their sense of esthetics by a considerable margin.

  Inez stood alert, drinking in details, of every person who came within a twenty-yard radius of Barrington. A second of lapsed vigilance could lead to a potentially fatal mistake. Any one of the so-called guests could be an attacker. She had given her boys orders to play things light because Barrington was crybaby feisty. Knowing that heavy pat-downs would be unpopular, Inez designed the game plan accordingly—ordered her team to go visual, in their search for concealed weapons, only make a pull if they were damn sure they saw a weapon. Inez wasn’t happy. Her instinct was to go heavy, search every person who made an approach. Her only reassurance was her team’s skill, they were good, damn good. Barrington’s life would be uneventful, whether he liked it or not.

  Inez stood ready, from her vantage point watching for the distinctive body language of a potential assassin. She had been doing this long enough now to know the difference between nervous fandom and bad crazy kookery. She saw a hitter, she would swoop in, take them down fast.

  Head of venue security was a thick-necked colossus named Steve, who said he used to play football. He told Inez his crew were wanding down clubbers, in the lobby, so there was no need to worry about weapons. Inez wasn’t convinced. She had walked in with her Glock seventeen strapped under her arm and Big Steve hadn’t even noticed it.

  Amateur hour.

  Inez knew from experience that a front of house pat down wouldn’t be enough to prevent a determined assault. There were a dozen work-arounds to beat out scanners. If someone wanted to get at Barrington they would come, no matter what the precautions.

  True psychopaths made plays so dangerous and calculating, there was almost no warning. It was part of their condition. Big groups were dangerous too. Gangbangers were particularly adept at hiding intent behind sleight of hand movement and the subterfuge of numbers. There were a lot of gangbangers in the club tonight, many of them inked heavily with ugly black tattoos—numbers and hieroglyphs that stated their claim to territory, in the hard-living world of street thuggery.

  Inez struggled against the tension, tried to stay relaxed, yet alert. The going was tough. The fetid gloom enveloped her, crazed lighting pulsed and shimmered, and all the while, the Barrington entourage grew, as did her feelings of unease.

  Dance floor beats pounded heavy.

  A groove beyond music.

  Inez felt a heady, hypnotic sensation coming over her. She felt a yearning to unleash, let her body sway in time to the pulsing sounds. How long had it been since she had cut loose? Too long. Never enough time in the day. Her life revolved around three things: work, her mother, and the problems with her brother, Hernán, no time left after that. No one to share that down time with, even if she had some. Pathetic really, that her life had come to this. Not that she could blame CCP for that, no, that was down to the long career minded years in the US Marshalls Service. Seven years of excellence on the fast-track to big things, until the business with Hernán derailed her life and career in one swift go. After everything she had been through, everything she had done. Years of study and training, long hard-fought hours in the field, learning her trade in personal protection, then suddenly, one September morning, called into a glass meeting room in the Office of Protective Operations down on Constitution Avenue. An ugly meet, that went badly from the start.

  They told her that her position had been compromised, due to a family association that fell foul of the RICO statute. Her brother was a bad man they said, in business with criminals, whose stock in trade included drugs, money-laundering, and murder. There had been no signs—no warning at all. Far as she knew Hernán was, a charity worker doing his best to help the poor in Central America. But to the US Marshalls Service, Agent Santos, was now the compromised sister of a Central American Drug Cartel member. She was a security risk and that was the end of it.

  So here she was, back in Los Angeles after the long years away. Her mother had never been well after her father died—it had been tough working across country, she visited when she could, but Mom was difficult sometimes, and she didn’t like to fly. Her mother’s idiosyncrasies got worse when she got sick. Inez figured the business with Hernán had triggered the cancer. It seemed like too much of a coincidence. But the Doctors told Inez that the tumors had been working their way for years, building in size and strength, until they finally made their presence known. If only they had found the tumors before. The Doctor had told Inez—we can do marvelous things today, cancer needn’t be the death sentence it was back in the old days. The doctor looked like he knew what he was talking about, a senior consultant at John Wayne Medical centre in Santa Monica. But underneath, everyone knew the doctors included, that Marisa Santos’s life would never be the same again.

  Dead Famous 20

  Bar Vivaz on Sunset Boulevard and Rocco Calina was waiting to connect. He had called that no-show prick Remi Martin a dozen times or more already. Left all kinds of messages to no avail, almost like the cat had left town, or been busted. Rocco shuddered. The very idea gave him the creeps. The idea was unthinkable, besides, if Remi had been busted, there would be some kind of sign out front of his crib—Rocco knew what to look for: broken door, boarded windows, maybe a little crime scene gift wrap—nothing—not even a note from the County Sheriff. Rocco had driven the block five or six times already and the suspense was driving him crazy. Then there were the wit
hdrawal symptoms too: pounding heart, crawling-skin, his eyes bugging-out on stalks.

  Whiskey helped of course, the Heroin too, but what he really needed, was a lift and fast. Heroin is for losers, who needs it? But sometimes a guy has no choice right? Rocco caught himself. He had the jitters, that’s all. But the bar was filling up and it was starting to freak him out—those girls in the booth for example—he had the goods, he could make a quick hundred maybe two. But there was a problem. He could only deal with bullshit interaction when he had medicine and lots off it. Besides, it was getting late and pretty soon there would be business to be had all over the Strip. All his regular customers whining for blow and here he was sitting dry. He pounded another double but he could see the barkeep was giving him the stink-eye. Rocco shot him a nervous smile, ordered up a Pacifico just to be friendly. But the barkeep just popped the beer, slid it wordlessly across the bar and turned away quickly, to serve another customer.

  Rocco shrugged it off, looking around nervously to see if anyone had seen. An hour late already and still the prick wasn’t answering his cell, what the hell was he playing at? Rocco knew he hung at the Vivaz any longer, he would burn out his welcome and that would never do, the place was a dealer’s paradise if you knew the moves.

  The girls in the booth were looking again—he scoped them again, figuring he knew them from somewhere, but he couldn’t think where. Customers? Friends of friends, of friends—or something seedier? Rocco could feel his skin writhing with need, and his stomach—man it was flip-flopping something cruel. Maybe he should take a drive down Fairfax again—see if could see lights at Remi’s place? No wonder the cat was on the skids, he kept doing business like this. Rocco cursed. He had other choices, after all. He could swing south get an eightball off Pachuco Montez, trouble was the gear Remi was selling was snow-white pure compared to the street-dreck the Southside boys peddled.

  Rocco swilled down his Pacifico, headed for the door. He had to get mobile, hit Remi’s place one last time, see if he was home, and then—and then. As the warm night air hit him in the face Rocco felt the pounding burn of the whiskey take hold of his head, a hit so brutal he almost laughed out loud. He checked himself, wondering if he really was laughing in the street like some crazy wino bum, or maybe it was all a powerful dream. Suddenly a thought hit him, stronger and more inspired than anything he could remember having thought of before: If Remi Martin wasn’t home, he had like a million dollars worth of high end movie making equipment sitting around on it’s lonesome and the kind of pissant security system that a fifth grader could jack past.

  Rocco reached inside his jacket with jittering fingers fumbling for his car keys. The laughter was real now coming in waves. He pulled out his keys, popped the chirruping lock on his Camero and headed forth into the night chuckling like a demon.

  ‘How you doing Haze?’

  Rocco froze, still holding his car keys out front, as the dark figures strode up beside him. He tried to palm the key fob, slip it nonchalantly into one of his pockets, but it was no use, a thick meat pie hand clamped over his, effortlessly extracting the keys from his jittering fingers.

  ‘You going for a little night time drive buddy?’

  The mumbled denial would not be enough, he knew that from the off, but he tried it for size anyway. No luck.

  Ramirez flipped Rocco Calina around, then pushed him back hard against the custard colored Camero.

  ‘Nice car you got there Haze, I am trusting you got receipts and all attendant paperwork?’

  ‘You smell the stink on this guy?’ barked Kozak.

  ‘Smells like a trip to DUI city—you been there before Haze Huh?’

  ‘You fucking kidding me—I wasn’t even in the car.’

  ‘Let me guess, you were ambling home to get your license, insurance and registration,’ asked Ramirez.

  Rocco looked sulky.

  ‘Kozak said, ‘My betting is the punk doesn’t have a single piece of documentation.’

  ‘That right Haze, You riding around town with out documents?’ asked Ramirez.

  ‘I got a fucking license, and I will damn well show it to you,’ pouted Calina, his voice amping upwards.

  Ramirez raised an eyebrow. ‘You can show me you got a sick note from George Washington himself Haze, that isn’t going to help you—’

  ‘Give me a break Ramirez, this is harassment, you keep fucking around with me I am liable to get my prick-wad lawyer come visit you at that fancy new pig-pen you got going, down town, see how your buddies at IAG like that.’

  Kozak swung a fast right that hit Rocco Calina square in the guts. The force of the blow sent Calina barreling backwards into the side of his custard colored Camero. The impact, although slight, caused Calina’s knees to buckle. He sank to the floor and started puking on the asphalt.

  Kozak cringed. ‘That is an ugly looking mess there, you want me to snap a picture for IAG?’

  ‘I don’t think that will be necessary Kozak, soon as Mr. Piss and wind finishes barfing up the last useful pieces of his torrid little life, we will call in the uniforms to ship his shit-stink corpse down the drunk tank.’

  Dry heaving now, Rocco Calina let out a broken sob.

  Ramirez reached out experimentally with the toe of his boot and nudged Calina, who rolled over on his back and stared up at them helplessly. ‘I am looking for something special Haze, you help me out, I might be willing to swill you down with a fire hose and make pretend that none of this ugly shit ever happened—what you say buddy?’

  Rocco Calina lay helpless. He blinked meekly, the offer churning through his addled brain. ‘What do you want?’ he whispered hoarsely,

  ‘Thiopental.’ smiled Ramirez, like it was the most normal request in the world.

  Rocco Calina looked frightened. ‘That’s shit’s a myth, not something you can get on the street—not that I’ve ever seen it anyway.’

  ‘Real fucking modest tough guy—me and detective Kozak have been asking around—turns out you are a real popular guy with the stoner set these days.’

  ‘Real popular,’ confirmed Kozak.’

  ‘Kind of popular that has been jangling a lot of tempers on the Southside,’ said Ramirez evenly. ‘You want to tell us about that, or maybe we could go back and chat with your punk assed little buddy Pachuco Montez.’ Some kind of friend you got there, he seems to think you been stiffing him out in favor of some big-time connection.’

  ‘Looked real upset when we talked to him,’ confirmed Kozak.

  Rocco Calina, inched backwards, his eyes popping wide; like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  ‘But what’s a dope pushing little pimp like that know anyway? You probably been working on yourself right? Feathering your nest with other peoples property, am I right Haze—you up to your old tricks—how about me and detective Kozak give you a lift home right now, so we can discuss just exactly how you been spending your time recently?’

  ‘I been minding my business is what I been doing.’

  ‘I am sure you have,’ replied Ramirez soothingly. ‘So tell me Haze, where you been buying the dope? And think carefully before you respond, because if you tell me something I know to be false, your sordid little life will be under the fucking microscope, faster than you can say probation violation. You understand me?’

  ‘What about my rights?’

  ‘You don’t have any rights maggot,’ snapped Kozak. ‘What you want—a camera phone—so as all your freak friends can see you getting trammeled on U-tube?’

  Calina’s tone was almost tearful, ‘I don’t know anything about no Thiopental, I swear to you Ramirez.’

  ‘So who is your connection lame brain?’

  Rocco Calina lay supine on the hard asphalt, the cops looming over him. He needed a hit so bad he thought he would explode. The insects under his skin were on the move again, squiggling and squirming beneath his flesh—he could see them—surely the cops could too? Worse, the need had spread, to every muscle and sinew in his entire body. The nee
d was overwhelming, insurmountable. He tried to resist, but his subconscious took over. He heard himself blabbing everything to the cops, the words burbling uncontrolled from his lips, like he had no say in the matter. He felt sordid, dirty, and yet as he told the cops about Remi Martin and his endless supply of Venezuelan dope, Rocco Calina felt strangely euphoric, thinking of only one thing now: the nearest street-corner he could score some more dope.

  Dead Famous 21

  The thing about my partner Joe Russell is he is a man of enthusiasms. It takes a lot to fire him up, but once he is burning there is no stopping him. Driving over to the Weinman residence Bel Air Crest. I had one revelatory moment, then another. Firstly it was clear that my longtime nemesis Al Weinman was playing a double game. Instrumental in assigning us the Barrington account, he had failed to mention he was shtupping the boss’s daughter. An oversight that had far reaching ramifications. Secondly the beautiful Roxy Barrington was working a subterfuge of her own. Under the circumstances I decided it would be wise to make introductions, see if the young lovers had any thoughts regarding the share price of Slycorp and whether or not Barrington senior would be forking out for a the tabloid wedding of his daughters dreams, when he discovered she was playing giddy-up with shark-tank Al, his number one chum at Law.

  ‘The girl is hot—blowtorch hot,’ said Joe, as I pressed on Weinman’s doorbell.

  ‘You got no shame?’ I asked.

  ‘It was your idea to crawl out here in the dead of night Costello.’

  I pulled a face, told him to keep it buttoned—fat chance of that, but I had to throw the idea out there anyway—planting seeds.

  When the door finally opened, a butler, stood ready to greet us. I strode past, flipped him a wink and a comedy arm punch. He didn’t like it—but he didn’t have to.