Last Looks

by Howard Michael Gould

  Waldo looked back at Gaby in the hallway. “Go tell Rosario I said not to open the front door until I come downstairs. Tell her it’s important.” Gaby ran to the stairs and back down.

  Waldo went into Alastair’s room, slammed the door behind him and said, loud, “Hey.” Alastair didn’t stir. Waldo grabbed one of the canopy posts and gave the bed a hard shake. Alastair groaned annoyance. Waldo yanked at the comforter underneath him.

  Alastair groaned louder. “Go away.”

  “Wake up. The cops are coming.”

  That got a response. “What?” He rolled onto his back.

  “Put some clothes on. How hungover are you?”

  “I am not hungover.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “For your information, Detective, I am still drunk.”

  “Where’s your closet?” Alastair pointed to one of the hallways. Waldo followed it and came to an enormous walk-in closet. He picked an Oxford and a pair of khakis and rifled through a highboy until he found where Alastair kept his underwear and socks, and not just some socks, either—dozens and dozens of pairs, probably a hundred Things in the sock drawers alone, even counting the lenient way.

  Waldo came out of the closet to see Alastair padding toward him nude from the bedroom proper; the actor took the pile of clothes from Waldo without comment as he passed and continued into his bathroom and shut the door. “Don’t lock it,” Waldo said. “There are helicopters all over—news. LAPD is putting on a show. You need coffee. You keep any instant?”

  From behind the door, Alastair said, “Does my home resemble a Holiday Inn Express?”

  Chimes rang downstairs. Waldo said, “Is that your doorbell?”

  “Detective Waldo,” the actor bit off from behind the door, “would you please allow a living legend to move his bowels in peace?”

  Waldo had had his day’s fill of Alastair and the day hadn’t started yet. “Come downstairs when you’re dressed.”

  He could hear the pounding and shouting before he got to the staircase. In the foyer he found Rosario standing looking scared and wondered if she might have INS worries too. “Policemans,” she said.

  A cop pummeled the front door incessantly, adding an “LAPD, open up!” every few thumps. Waldo opened the door wide, recognized the lead officer and grinned at him. “Pete!”

  Lieutenant Pete Conady, shoulders like an ox and a face like a manhole cover, the residue of unfortunate childhood acne, scowled at Waldo. As academy recruits they had been close, and when Waldo became a star and began rising through the ranks, he had done all he could to pull Conady up behind him. Their longtime affinity apparently left Conady all the angrier when Waldo launched his post-Lipps nuclear assault on the department without warning his friend it was coming, and angrier still when Waldo didn’t return his phone calls; at least, that’s what Waldo had heard from a reporter from the Times, who also told him that it was Conady, of all people, who’d torn apart Waldo’s old desk in a rage after his notorious 60 Minutes interview. When Waldo learned that, he had almost called Pete to try to mend fences, but it was right about the time he decided to disappear and he knew that if he wasn’t calling Lorena, he wasn’t calling anybody.

  Seeing Conady now, almost shaking with long-held resentment, a grim passel of uniforms behind him, Waldo knew the chance for mending fences was long past. Conady looked him in the eye and said, “We’re here for Pinch.”

  Waldo stalled to buy Alastair a little more time. “That’s all you have to say to me?”

  “Go fuck yourself. How’s that?”

  “It’s a start.”

  Conady kept his voice low but didn’t muffle his bitterness. “Ten thousand good men and women and you knew it, but you couldn’t live with your own fuckup, so you had to take it out on everybody else, make the rest of us look like the fucking Klan.” One of the patrolmen put a hand on Conady’s arm but he shook it off; if anything, that made him angrier. “You were too much of a pussy even to tell your own lieutenants you were turning in your badge.”

  Waldo felt his own blood rising. “What would be different if I told you? What would you have done?”

  Conady took a step toward him. “I’d’ve made you eat the fucking thing.”

  “Yeah? How about we go around to the backyard and you take off your badge, see which one of us is pissing through tin tomorrow?”

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen, no fisticuffs, please.” Alastair strode into the foyer, somehow looking like he’d had a full night’s sleep, a shower, and maybe a massage. He gestured to the skies beyond Conady. “Not with the good people of the fourth estate hovering.”

  Conady stepped into the house, brushing past Waldo, and said, “Alastair Pinch, you’re under arrest for the murder of Monica Pinch.”

  Waldo calmed and said quietly, “Come on, Pete. Let him come in and surrender himself.”

  Conady ignored him and reached for his belt. “Hands behind your back.”

  Waldo said, “Cuffs? You don’t need to—”

  “Step back, Waldo, or I’ll bring you in, too, for interfering with an officer.” He turned Alastair around. “You have the right to remain silent and to refuse to answer questions. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law.”

  Waldo said, “Why are you doing this to him?”

  Conady looked him in the eye and said, “He runs with scum, he gets treated like scum.”

  It took a second to get his meaning. “This is about me?”

  Conady turned back to Alastair. “You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning.”

  Waldo said, “Pete—”

  Alastair, voice full of mock wonder, said, “This is just like on television!”

  “If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish.”

  Alastair said, “I can probably afford one, but may I call my broker first to make certain?”

  Waldo turned from Conady. “Stop talking. Don’t say anything else, no matter how fucking cute you think it is.”

  Alastair said to Waldo, “Oh, Detective—are you helping me? I couldn’t tell.”

  Their relationship was growing knottier by the second. Waldo said, calmly, “Don’t talk. I’m serious.”

  Conady, finishing up with the handcuffs, said, “If you decide to answer any questions now without an attorney present, you will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to an attorney.”

  Waldo said to Alastair, “I’ll call Fontella Davis.”

  Conady said, “You can tell her the DA’s going for no bail.”

  Alastair held his tongue, but the withering look he gave Waldo needed no words.

  Conady pointed Alastair to the door. “Say good-bye to your pretty house. Last time you’ll ever see it.”

  “Daddy?” They all turned and saw Gaby, in the foyer now, watching with Rosario. Everyone froze.

  Then Conady said, “Let’s go,” and steered Alastair to the door.

  Waldo asked Rosario, “You can get her to school?” Rosario nodded. He said to Gaby, “Your dad’s going to be okay.” Gaby watched her last parent being led out of her house. Waldo knelt in front of her and said, “I promise,” and hoped she couldn’t tell he was lying. Then he headed out after Alastair and Conady.

  There were four black-and-whites in the driveway. Conady shepherded Alastair into the one nearest the house, putting his hand on Alastair’s head and pushing it down to keep it from banging on the roof. Waldo counted seven news helicopters, the local stations no doubt cutting into morning programming and the cable news channels breaking away from deconstruction of the new president’s latest tweet to broadcast the spectacle. Waldo approached the cruiser. Conady said, “Where do you think you’re going?” and Waldo realized he didn’t have an answer.
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br />   As the cherry tops came to life and the black-and-whites started backing out of the driveway one by one, Waldo phoned Fontella Davis and told her what was happening. She asked a couple of gruff questions and hung up on him. He knew she’d take over from here but he felt partially responsible for the morning’s drama and thought it was important to be there for Alastair at his arraignment, so he ran inside for his backpack and an orange from the counter, then got on his bike.

  It was easy enough to stay close to the police caravan as it made its careful way down the residential hills, but as soon as they reached Laurel, the cops hit the sirens to clear traffic and avoid stoplights and Waldo realized he’d have no chance of keeping up. Still, it would take a while for them to process Alastair and get him in front of a judge, so he had time.

  Taking the less-trafficked Moorpark to bypass the morning rush on Ventura, he pedaled hard, pissed. The last thing he wanted was to become the story himself, especially in this new role, an ally and employee of a guilty man. It would trivialize what had happened to Lydell Lipps, could even tarnish Lydell with Alastair’s brush. Maybe that was exactly what Conady wanted. But Conady didn’t have to do what he just did to that little girl, make her see her father handcuffed and scare her after all she’d been through already, all she still had coming. Waldo reproached himself for his own role in bringing that on her. The world was full of collateral damage, collateral damage he couldn’t stop causing.

  Thus preoccupied, Waldo didn’t notice the absence of cars in front of him until he heard a honk. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a long line crawling behind him at bike speed, led by a blue Cadillac coupe. There was no need for it, though; Waldo was well to the sidewalk edge of the broad single lane, leaving more than enough room to pass, but for some reason the Caddy was being overly cautious. The penned-in rush-hour drivers were all joining in a full serenade now to let the Caddy driver know how they felt about being made late for work. More collateral damage. Waldo turned up Fulton to get away from the noise.

  When he got to the courthouse complex he found a bike rack and dialed Fontella Davis to ask her the time and courtroom of the arraignment, but she didn’t answer. News vans were lined up and Courthouse West seemed to have more than the usual bustle, so he headed that way.

  Among a pack of waiting reporters, Waldo saw the overweight cameraman from Channel 7 who’d been on his mountain last week. Waldo asked him, “Are you here for Alastair Pinch?”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Do you know where the arraignment is?”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Come on, I’ve got to be in there.”

  “Too late. They just finished.”

  “Already? Did he get bail?”

  The Channel 7 reporter, Tiffany something, worked her way over to where they were standing and heard Waldo’s question.

  “Twenty million,” she said. “Will you go on air?”

  “Twenty. Holy— Are they still in there? What floor?”

  “They’re coming down to talk to the press out here.”

  Waldo thought about running inside to intercept them but suddenly remembered the gun in his backpack and realized he’d have a problem with security. He should have thought about that before he left the house—one more reminder that he wasn’t ready for this.

  Fontella Davis and Wilson Sikorsky came out and reporters bombarded them with questions. Davis said that despite the arrest they were as certain as ever of Alastair’s innocence and Sikorsky said they had no plans to shut down production of Johnny’s Bench.

  Waldo couldn’t tell if they noticed him, but as soon as Davis said they had nothing further at this time, she pushed through the pack to where he was standing, put an iron grip on his bruised elbow and pulled him back toward the building, Sikorsky on their heels. Just inside the door Waldo said, “Where are we going?”

  “We’re getting a conference room.”

  “I can’t go through security.”

  “Why not?” He looked at her and she got it; it only ticked her off more.

  Waldo said, “How did the arraignment happen so fast?”

  Davis steered them to a corner. A sympathetic courthouse guard kept overeager reporters from coming too close. Keeping her voice low, she said, “How it happened so fast is I raised holy hell that they didn’t let him surrender himself, and I got them to expedite. Apparently LAPD decided to turn this into a circus to let us know how happy they are you’re involved.” She turned to Sikorsky. “Let’s deal with this now: you have to get rid of him.”

  Waldo said, “I’m happy to quit. I don’t want to make this worse for anybody.”

  Sikorsky scoffed. “Worse? You’re making it better.” Clearly he wanted to end this conference and get on with his day. “What time is it? I think Charlie Sheen’s waiting in my office.”

  Davis practically exploded. “How is this better?”

  “Basic storytelling: the bigger assholes the cops are, the more sympathetic our protagonist is. And it plays to our greatest strength—people fucking love Alastair.”

  Waldo said, “You think? Still?”

  Sikorsky said, “Believe me—I just bought a fucking boat on how much people love him.” He clapped Waldo on the back. “Just keep being yourself. You’re doing great.”

  SIXTEEN

  It was the same car, it had to be, a blue Cadillac behind him on Oxnard and refusing to pass. He hung a right on Hazeltine to see what would happen, and when he looked over his shoulder half a block later, sure enough, it was right there. Left on Hatteras, same thing. Waldo pulled over by a hydrant and the Caddy stopped about twenty yards back without leaving his lane. Waldo stared at the driver, an ordinary-looking white man behind sunglasses, middle-aged or balding early. They waited each other out.

  A Lexus SUV came up behind the Cadillac and was forced to stop. The Lexus driver tapped the horn but the balding guy just glanced at his rearview and looked back at Waldo. The SUV waited for a break in the opposing traffic, then pulled around the Caddy.

  Waldo started pedaling again. He picked up speed, found a double driveway and glided onto the sidewalk. He braked hard, spun the bike and headed down the sidewalk in the opposite direction and, as the Cadillac went into a K-turn, tore down an alley and didn’t look back.

  Waldo was pretty close to his old neighborhood and knew the streets. Costello ended in a cul-de-sac, which backed onto the parking lot of a Mormon church; he got there just as the Caddy found him, walked his bike across the dirt divider where the Caddy couldn’t follow and he was free. Crossing the church parking lot toward its front on Burbank, he glanced back and saw the Caddy backing up.

  The guy would expect him to go left and parallel his original path on Oxnard, so Waldo jogged down to Chandler to go east that way instead, then overshot his target by passing under the freeway and going left back up to Burbank, where he took another left and came around from the far side with no sign of his tail.

  Before he knew it he was in front of North Hollywood Division again, again racked with anxiety. But this time he knew he didn’t have a choice.

  He decided the play was to take it hard. He slammed open the glass doors with a force that stopped conversation dead in the precinct lobby. Three uniforms and a couple in street clothes, probably civilians, were standing in front of the reception desk, behind which sat a sergeant he didn’t know, a black man with white hair whose name tag said STENNETT. Waldo thought two of the uniforms might look familiar but focusing to place them would slow him down.

  He came right at the sergeant. “Charlie Waldo,” he snapped. “You heard my name?” He didn’t give the man a chance to answer. “Bet your ass you heard my name—I used to own this place. Fuck are you?” Sergeant Stennett opened his mouth but Waldo jumped him again. “I don’t give a shit, that’s who. Who I want is, first officer on the scene of the Pinch murder. Then I want info on: one, everyone on crime scene
security; two, all transport, emergency and medical personnel who had contact with the victim; and three, all who had contact with the suspect.”

  Stennett caught the eye of one of the uniforms and tilted his head. The patrolman hustled through the doors that led to the squad room.

  Waldo kept up the assault on the sergeant. “I just gave you a full morning’s work, sweet cheeks—why you still sitting there?”

  “I—I—”

  “‘I—I—’” he mocked. “If I still had my desk here, you’d be at K-9 with plastic gloves and a pooper scooper.”

  The sergeant gathered himself and said, “Lieutenant Conady’s in charge of that investigation, but he’s at lunch.”

  “Then who else you got?”

  “Sir, I understand the position you had in the department, but I don’t believe you have the authority—”

  “I don’t have the authority? Let me explain how this is going to go if the LAPD impedes the rights of the accused to gather exculpatory evidence—”

  The squad room doors opened and an Asian-American police captain about Waldo’s age came into the lobby. Waldo’s relationship with Pam Tanaka was one of his most quietly complex during his North Hollywood years. She’d arrived at the precinct a year after Waldo, an atypical rookie in a bundle of conspicuous ways—not just intelligent but a USC grad with plans to get a law degree at night, not just attractive but eye-catching enough that Waldo once saw a modeling agent hand her his business card. She was effortlessly charming, great company over an after-work beer, and the way she looked at Waldo made him think she was interested until he realized she had the same effect on everyone. Naturally she was the object of all sorts of talk—desire, gossip, speculation—but the truth was Waldo never heard of her actually saying yes to any of his colleagues’ overtures, and if her work and her law studies left her time for a romantic life, she kept it to herself. The two of them became easy pals without chemistry or sense of potential, and in time Waldo came to appreciate the additional challenges a woman with Pam Tanaka’s gifts faced in that environment and to respect the ways in which she couldn’t have handled those challenges better.