Nemerov tongued the inside of his cheek. "You couldn't save him for me?"
"It was over by the time we got there, Georgie."
Nemerov's eyebrow arched higher as he turned to me. "I'm impressed, Doc. Want a job? The hours are long and the pay sucks."
"Yeah," said Yaakov, "but de people you got to meet are deezgusting."
Stevie laughed. Nemerov's smile widened reluctantly. "I guess results are what counts."
"Was there anyone else?" I said. "Besides Coury?"
"Sure," said Nemerov. "Two other party animals."
"Brad Larner," said Milo. "That Lexus is his. He and Coury arrived in it, Larner was driving. He was parked near the house, waiting for Coury, when we spotted him behind the truck. Dr. Harrison and Caroline were tied up in the truck bed. Another guy was at the wheel."
"Who?"
Nemerov said, "Paragon of virtue named Emmet Cortez, I wrote a few tickets for him before he went away on manslaughter. Worked in the auto industry."
"Painting hot rods," I said.
"Chroming wheels." Nemerov's grin was sudden, mirthless, icy. "Now he's in that big garage in the sky."
"Rendered inorganic," said Stevie.
"Steel organic," said Yaakov. "Long as deyr someting left, he steel organic, right, Georgie."
"You're being technical," said Stevie.
"Let's change the subject," said Nemerov.
CHAPTER 46
"Pancakes," said Milo.
It was 10 A.M., the next morning, and we were at a coffee shop on Wilshire near Crescent Heights, a place where old people and gaunt young men pretending to write screenplays congregated. One half mile west of the Cossack brothers' offices, but that hadn't been what drew us there.
We'd both been up all night, had returned to L.A. at 6 A.M., stopped at my house to shower and shave.
"Don't wanna wake Rick," he'd explained.
"Isn't Rick up by now?"
"Why complicate things?"
He'd emerged from the guest bathroom, toweling his head and squinting. Wearing last night's clothes but looking frighteningly chipper. "Breakfast," he proclaimed. "I know the place, they make these big, monster flappers with crunchy peanut butter and chocolate chips."
"That's kid food," I said.
"Maturity is highly overrated. I used to go there all the time, believe me, Alex, this is what you need."
"Used to go there?"
"Back when I wasn't watching my figure. Our endocrine systems are shot so we need sugar— my maternal grandfather ate pancakes every day, washed them down with three cups of coffee sweeter than cola, and he lived till ninety-eight. Woulda gone on a few more years, but he tumbled down a flight of stairs while ogling a woman." He pushed an errant thatch of black hair out of his face. "Unlikely to be my fate, but there are always variants."
"You're uncommonly optimistic," I said.
"Pancakes," he said. "C'mon, let's get going."
I changed into fresh clothing, thinking about Aimee and Bert, all the unanswered questions.
Thinking about Robin. She'd called last night, from Denver, left a message at 11 P.M. I phoned back at 6:30, figuring to leave a message at her hotel, but the tour had moved on to Albuquerque.
Now, here we were, facing two stacks of peanut butter hotcakes the size of frypans. Breakfast that smelled eerily of Thai food. I corroded my gut with coffee, watched him douse his stack with maple syrup and begin sawing into it, then took hold of the syrup pitcher in my unburnt hand. The ER doctor at Oxnard Hospital had pronounced the burn "first-degree plus. A little deeper and you would've made second." As if I'd missed a goal. He'd administered salve and a bandage, swabbed my face with Neosporin, wrote me a scrip for antibiotics, and told me to avoid getting myself dirty.
Everyone at the hospital knew Bert Harrison. He and Aimee were given a private room near the emergency admissions desk, where they stayed for two hours. Milo and I had waited. Finally, Bert came out, and said, "We're going to be here for a while. Go home."
"You're sure?" I said.
"Very sure." He pressed my hand between both of his, gave a hard squeeze, returned to the room.
Georgie Nemerov and his crew drove us to the spot at the entrance to Ojai where Milo had left his rental Dodge, then disappeared.
Milo had joined up with the bounty hunters, formulated a plan.
Lots of questions . . .
I tipped the pitcher, followed the syrup's drizzle, watched it pool and spread, picked up my fork. Milo's cell phone chirped. He clicked in, said, "Yeah?" Listened for a while, hung up, stuffed his face with a wad of pancake. Melted chocolate frosted his lips.
I said, "Who was that?"
"Georgie."
"What's up?"
He cut loose another triangle of hotcake, chewed, swallowed, drank coffee. "Seems there was an accident late last night. Eighty-third Street off Sepulveda, rental Buick hit a utility pole at high speed. Driver and occupant rendered inorganic."
"Driver and occupant."
"Two db's," he said. "You know what high-speed impact does to the human body."
"Garvey and Bobo?" I said.
"That's the working hypothesis. Pending verification of dental records."
"Eighty-third off Sepulveda. On the way to the airport?"
"Funny you should mention that, they did find tickets in the wreck. Pair of first-class passages to Zurich, hotel reservations at some place called the Bal du Lac. Sounds pretty, no?"
"Lovely," I said. "Maybe a ski vacation."
"Could be— is there snow there, right now?"
"Don't know," I said. "It's probably raining in Paris."
He motioned for a coffee refill, got a new pot, poured, and drank slowly.
"Just the two of them?" I said.
"Seems that way."
"Odd, don't you think? They've got a full-time chauffeur and choose to drive themselves to the airport? Own a fleet of wheels and use a rental car."
He shrugged.
"Also," I went on, "what would they be doing on a side street in Inglewood? That far south, you're heading for the airport, you stay on Sepulveda."
He yawned, stretched, emptied his coffee cup. "Want anything else?"
"Is it on the news, yet?"
"Nope."
"But Georgie knows."
No answer.
"Georgie has the inside track," I said. "Being a bail bondsman and all that."
"That must be it," he said. He brushed crumbs from his shirtfront.
I said, "You've got syrup on your chin."
"Thanks, Mom." He threw money on the table and got up. "How 'bout we take a little digestive stroll."
"East on Wilshire," I said. "Up to Museum Row."
"You are nailing those hypotheses, Professor. Time for Vegas."
We walked to the pink granite building where the Cossack brothers had once played executive. Milo studied the façade for a long time, finally entered the lobby, stared down the guard, left, and returned to the front steps where I'd been waiting, pretending to feel civilized.
"Happy?" I said, as we headed back to the coffee shop.
"Ecstatic."
We retraced our walk to the coffee shop, got into Milo's rental of the day— a black Mustang convertible— drove through the Miracle Mile and across La Brea and into the clean, open stretch of Wilshire that marked Hancock Park's northern border.
Milo steered with one finger. No sleep for two days but beyond alert. I had to fight to keep my eyes open. The Seville had been towed to a shop in Carpenteria. I'd phone in later today, get a report. Meanwhile, I'd drive Robin's truck. If I could stand the sweet smell of her permeating the cab.
He turned on Rossmore, drove south to Fifth Street, hooked back to Irving, and pulled over to the curb, six houses north of Sixth. On the other side was Chief Broussard's city-financed mansion. An immaculate white Cadillac sat in the driveway. A single plainclothesman stood guard, looking bored.
Milo stared at the house, same hostility as when he'd eye-zapped the gu
ard in the Cossacks' lobby. Before I could ask what was up, he U-turned, headed south, then west to Muirfield, where he cruised slowly to the end of the block and stopped at a property concealed behind high stone walls.
"Walt Obey's place," he said, before I could ask.
Stone walls. Just like the Loetz estate that neighbored the party house. The kill spot. Build walls, and you could get away with plenty.
Janie Ingalls abused by two generations of men. A closed-circuit camera atop one gatepost rotated.
Milo said, "Say cheese." Waved. Jammed the Mustang into DRIVE and sped away.
He dropped me back home, and I slept until 5 P.M., woke in time to turn on the news. The Cossack brothers' deaths missed the network affiliate broadcasts but was featured an hour later on a local station's six o'clock spot.
The facts were just as Georgie Nemerov had reported: Single-car accident, probably due to excessive speed. Thirty seconds of bio identified Garvey and Bobo as "wealthy Westside developers" who'd built "some controversial projects." No identifying photos. No suspicion of foul play.
Another death occurred that night, but it never hit the L.A. news because it went down ninety miles north.
Santa Barbara News-Press item, forwarded to me by e-mail, with no accompanying message. The sender: [email protected]. That was a new one.
The facts were straightforward: The body of a sixty-eight-year-old real estate executive named Michael Larner had been found two hours ago, slumped in the front seat of his BMW. The car had been driven into a wooded area just north of the Cabrillo exit off the 101, on the outskirts of Santa Barbara. A recently fired handgun sat in Larner's lap. He'd died of "an apparent single wound to the head, consistent with self-infliction."
Larner had come to Santa Barbara to identify the body of his son, Bradley, forty-two, the recent victim of a heart attack, who'd also— irony of ironies— succumbed in a car. Bradley's vehicle, a Lexus, had been discovered just a few miles away, on a quiet street on the north end of Montecito. The grieving father had left the morgue just after noon, and investigators had come up with no accounting of his whereabouts during the three hours leading up to his suicide.
A homeless man had discovered the body.
"I was going in there to take a nap," reported the vagrant, identified as Langdon Bottinger, fifty-two. "Knew something was wrong right away. Nice car like that, pushed up against a tree. I looked inside and knocked on the windows. But he was dead. I was in Vietnam, I know dead when I see it."
CHAPTER 47
After dropping Alex off, Milo turned on the Mustang's radio and dialed to KLOS. Classic rock. Van Halen doing "Jump."
Kicky little thing, the 'Stang. Something with a little zip.
"Used to be owned by Tom Cruise's gardener," the multipierced girl at the alternative rental yard had told him. Night owl; she worked the midnight-to-eight shift.
"Great," said Milo, pocketing the keys. "Maybe it'll help on auditions."
The girl nodded, knowingly. "You go out for character roles?"
"Nah," said Milo, heading for the car. "Not enough character."
He returned to John G. Broussard's digs on Irving, sat and watched for hours. The chief's wife emerged at 1:03 P.M., escorted to the driveway by a lady cop who held open the driver's door of the white Caddy. Mrs. B. drove toward Wilshire and was gone.
Leaving John G. alone in the house? Milo was fairly certain Broussard wasn't in the office; he'd phoned the chief's headquarters, impersonated a honcho from Walt Obey's office, was told very politely that the chief wouldn't be in today.
No surprise, there. Yet another anti-Broussard piece had run in the morning Times. The Police Protective League griping about poor morale, dumping it all in Broussard's lap. Commentary by some law prof, psychoanalyzing Broussard. The clear implication was that the chief's temperament was a poor fit for modern-day policing. Whatever the hell that meant.
Add all that to the events of last night— and Craig Bosc's report to the chief— and Broussard had to know the walls were closing in.
John G. had always been the most cautious of men. So what was he doing now? Upstairs in his bedroom closet, picking out a cool suit from a rack of dozens? It was almost as if he didn't care.
Maybe he didn't.
Milo kept watching the Tudor digs, stretched his legs, ready for the long haul. But five minutes later a dark green sedan— an unmarked Ford, blackwalls, pure LAPD— backed out of the driveway.
Solitary driver. A tall man, rigid at the wheel. The unmistakable outline of the chief's noble profile.
Broussard turned south, just like his wife had. Stopped at Wilshire and sat there for a long time, with his left-turn signal blinking— what a good example— waited for the traffic to thin before swinging smoothly onto the boulevard.
Heading east. So maybe he was going to work. Toughing it out, show the bastards.
One way to find out.
Broussard stuck precisely to the speed limit, gliding in the center lane, signaling his right turn on Western well within DMV parameters. He drove south, past Washington Boulevard, picked up the 10 East and engineered a textbook entry into the afternoon flow.
Freeway traffic was moderately heavy but steady, perfect tail situation, and Milo had no trouble keeping an eye on the Ford as it passed through the downtown interchange, stayed on the 10, and exited at Soto, in East L.A.
The coroner's office?
And Broussard did drive to the clean, cream morgue building on the west end of the County Hospital complex, but instead of turning in to park among the vans and the cop cars, he kept going, continued for another two miles. Made a perfect stop at a narrow street called San Elias, turned right, and did a 20 mph cruise through a residential neighborhood of tiny bungalows packaged by chain link.
Three blocks up San Elias, then the street dead-ended and the green Ford pulled over.
The terminus was marked by twenty-foot-high iron double gates, rich with flourishes and topped by Gothic arches. Above the peaks, the iron had been bent into lettering. Milo was a block away, couldn't make out what they spelled.
John G. Broussard parked the Ford, got out, locked it, tugged his suit jacket in place.
Not dressed for the office— the chief never showed up at Parker Center out of uniform. Lint-free, all those razor-presses, his chest festooned with ribbons. During ceremonial occasions, he wore his hat.
Thinking he was a fucking general or something, said the scoffers.
Today Broussard wore a navy suit tailored snugly to his trim physique, a TV blue shirt, and a gold tie so bright that it gleamed like jewelry from a block away. Perfect posture accentuated the chief's height as he walked to the big iron gates with a martial stride. As if presiding at some ceremony. Broussard paused, turned a handle, stepped through.
Milo waited five minutes before getting out. Looked over his shoulder several times as he covered the block on foot. Feeling antsy, despite himself. Something about Broussard . . .
When he was halfway to the gates, he made out the lettering.
Sacred Peace Memorial Park
The cemetery was bisected by a long straight pathway of decomposed granite, pink-beige against a bordering hedge of variegated boxwood. Hollywood junipers formed high green walls on three sides, too bright under a sickly gray sky. No orange trees in sight, but Milo could swear he smelled orange blossoms.
Twenty feet in, he came upon a statue of Jesus, benevolent and smiling, then a small, limestone building marked OFFICE and fringed with beds of multicolored pansies. A wheelbarrow blocked half the path. An old Mexican man in khaki work clothes and a pith helmet stooped in front of the flowers. He turned briefly to look at Milo, touched the brim of the helmet, returned to weeding.
Milo circumvented the wheelbarrow, spotted the first row of gravestones, kept going.
Old-fashioned markers, upright, carved of stone, a few of them tilting, a handful decorated by sprigs of desiccated flowers. Milo's parents had been buried in a very different am
bience, huge place, not far from Indianapolis, a suburban city of the dead bordered by industrial parks and shopping malls. Mock-Colonial buildings with all the authenticity of Disneyland, endless rolling green turf fit for a championship golf course. The markers in his parents' cemetery were brass plaques embedded flat in the bluegrass, invisible until you got close. Even in death Bernard and Martha Sturgis had been loath to offend . . .
This place was flat and tiny and treeless except for the bordering junipers. Two naked acres, if that. Full up with gravestones, too— an old place. Nowhere to hide, and finding Broussard was easy enough.
The Murder Book Page 47