I grinned. Len was in a good mood, considering. If he’d really been pissed, I would have gotten a call from Carlos, his assistant, telling me Len couldn’t make it. More and more, I talked to Carlos more than Len. I’d been dreading Carlos’s cancellation call. It was a minor miracle the man was even standing there.
“Sorry, man,” I said, giving Len a quick, heartfelt hug. Len is a couple of inches shorter than I am, a little thick-bodied, with Clark Kent glasses and curly blond hair spiked with gel. His manicure was probably fresher than mine. Agents and actors are the only straight guys who spend half their money on grooming. “There’s no sushi on this block. But I brought you something to hold you over.”
I opened the sack I was carrying from Pink’s, where the scent of grease and processed meat floated free. Two hot dogs, two bags of fries. Len has low blood sugar. If you want to be on Len’s good side, feed him. I learned that a long time ago.
“What the hell…?” Len scowled, but dug into the bag anyway, snagging a fry. If he didn’t lift and stretch and treadmill for ninety minutes every morning, Len would weigh three hundred pounds. The man likes to eat.
“Mustard’s already on the dog, just the way you like it. Hey, man, is your law license still valid?” Like many of the former mailroom employees at William Morris, Len also had a law degree. Apparently, the courses in bullshit they teach in law school translated to the world of agents, too.
“What kind of question is that? Tennyson, why are we standing on the street?”
Instead of answering, I pointed half a block east. Hollywood division.
“What am I looking at?” Len said.
“The police station.”
He looked pained. “I know that. Allow me to rephrase:Why am I looking at a police station?”
“I need to pass you off as my lawyer for a minute.”
Len’s known me a long time, like I said. He didn’t see any jokes in my face.
“Jesus H….”
“It’s a long story, but I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Everything’s straight, I promise. I just need a lawyer to sit with me while I’m questioned.”
“Questioned about what?” he said with a rather owlish expression. “Should I be afraid to ask?”
“Yeah, probably,” I sighed. I would have to admit aloud that Serena Johnston was dead. I had to slow down to dredge up the words. “You know the rapper Afrodite? She was—”
“Youare being questioned in the Afrodite murder?”
I hate the sound of that word,murder. Especially when it follows the wordYou. OrAfrodite. Damn. “It’s not as bad as it sounds, man.”
Len fumbled inside the sack for his hot dog. He bit off a mouthful like it was a giant dose of Xanax. “Fucking unbelievable,” he said, his voice muffled as he chewed. “I’m due at Lions Gate in an hour, and you have me out here to hold your hand while you get interrogated by the police? Tennyson, for God’s sake, have you been arrested?”
“Not yet.”
“Good. Understand, there are a million reasons this isn’t going to happen.”
“It’ll take twenty minutes,” I said. “It’s just another meeting.”
“Another meeting my ass. I’ve never practiced criminal law. All I know is what I see onLaw & Order. You need a real lawyer.”
“You’re right, I do. But you’re all I’ve got. I’m asking for twenty minutes.”
I’d never begged Len for anything. Here was a man who dined with Hollywood royalty, whose Rolodex of home telephone numbers was fatter than the Yellow Pages, and I was stealing precious moments out of his day. I would have killed me, if I’d been standing in his place.
“Jesus H. Christmas,” Len said. But he was thinking about it. He took two more bites of his dog, filling out his cheeks like a chipmunk’s. “You promise me you had nothing to do with this?”
That pissed me off. I gave him a look. “Please.”
“Then I don’t understand how—”
“Shit happens, that’s how. All you have to do is go in there with me and tell the friendly officers that your client has nothing to say. That’s it. I know the guys who’ll be questioning me, and we can handle them. No big deal.”
“Jesus H….”
“I need you to be a pricy-looking white man in a suit. Nothing else, Len.”
I knew he would do it. Len was bored with his life of dining with Hollywood royalty. He’d rather go surfing and rock-climbing on weekends like he did back when he had free time. During the Maui Film Festival once, Len and I scored weed at a local park and passed it out like candy at after-parties. Len enjoyed a good adventure nearly as much as I did. He owed me. I had a favor coming.
“I take it you knew Afrodite,” Len said, with a glance that saidTell me straight.
“Serena. Yes, I knew her.”
“How?”
“The old days.”
Enough said. Len knew how I’d maintained my lifestyle during the lean years.
“I was always afraid that would come back to haunt you, Tennyson.” He sounded like a sad older brother, blaming himself. He was one of the few people who hadn’t lectured me about my former job, but I’d always known how he felt. Sometimes I traveled with clients for weeks at a time. I’d missed a lot of auditions.
“Come on, man,” I said. Arm around Len’s shoulder, I led him toward the squat brick building at 1358 North Wilcox. “Cops don’t like to be kept waiting.”
Call me crazy, but I felt safe walking into that police station, Ten and Len, like the old days, about to take a meeting that might change my life. I couldn’t even remember the last time Len came with me to a meeting. I would have given anything to be going with Len to Lions Gate, and he would have given anything to be taking me there instead. If a whiff got out that I was questioned in the murder of Afrodite, I’d be lucky to work at a Hollywood hot dog stand. And itwould get out. Everything did.
Still, I felt more at ease than I had any right to with Len Shemin at my side, even if we both understood we’d been riding this particular train far beyond the end of the line.
O’Keefe and Arnaz weren’t around. The desk clerk, a buzz-cut youngster who looked about fifteen, told me I would be meeting with Lieutenant Rodrick Nelson instead. Lieutenant Nelson was from Robbery-Homicide. I figured Nelson was there at Hollywood division instead of behind his own desk at the Parker Administration Building because he was picking up the murder book. High-profile cases always go to RHD.
More resources. More manpower. The case had been kicked upstairs.
“Shit…” I muttered after we took our seat in the folding chairs to wait.
Len leaned close to me. “What? You know that guy?”
I shook my head. That was the problem. I didn’t know him, and he didn’t know me. He might not know my father. And even if he did, Dad had retired. I was alone, adrift in LAPD bureaucracy, and I’d never missed Dad more. And if Robbery-Homicide decided I was a suspect in this case, Dad wouldn’t survive the news.
The reality of the moment stabbed me, and Len must have seen a change in my face. He leaned close, concerned. “Tennyson, listen, my ex brother-in-law’s a trial lawyer. He hates me, but he’d know people. Let’s call him and be sane. I don’t know the first fucking thing about—”
“We’re here. It’s too late now.”
“Jesus H….” Len slumped in his chair, loosening his tie, tightening it again. He slicked back his hair, wiped his hand with his handkerchief, digging between his fingers. His complexion had gone from ruddy to gray as soon as we walked inside. My lawyer looked like he needed my doctor.
But I understood. LAPD was on the other side of the universe from any meetings Len knew about. In his world, you were offered cold water or a soft drink the moment you walked in, and everyone lived by a carefully practiced veneer of overpoliteness and chipper delight. We were at Hollywood division, but we weren’t in Hollywood.
Len and I looked up when our light was blocked. A shadow stood over us.
Lieuten
ant Rodrick Nelson was casting the shadow. He was six-three, so solid that his dress shirt looked too tight.Any shirt would look too tight on him. He had a face like Richard Roundtree’s. Sometimes it does you good to run into another brother, but I knew better this time. Black cops could be the worst ones. Black suspects are an embarrassment to them. And a lieutenant? He was on his way to captain, and he wasn’t about to let my monkey ass fuck that up.
Lieutenant Nelson’s clothes told me Brooks Brothers. The sheen of his shoes told me he had landed at LAPD via the United States Armed Forces. Probably joined ROTC in high school. I knew the type, and we had never gotten along.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Hardwick,” Lieutenant Nelson said with a firm but friendly pump. “I’m glad you could spare a few minutes to talk to us. Hope it isn’t too inconvenient.” His politeness almost sounded sincere. Lieutenant Nelson nodded toward a back room where a door hung open, waiting for us.
Len cleared his throat. “I could use some water,” he said.
Lieutenant Nelson smiled, but it wasn’t a smile I trusted. No cop likes to see a lawyer show up at questioning. “No problem. Can I get your client anything?”
“All I want is my time, brother,” I said.Just cut the crap, man.
Lieutenant Nelson’s smile went south, becoming a sneer as he walked past me. “Oh, you’ll get your time. This won’t take long. Go sit down.”
The conference room was empty except for a metallic table and a half-dozen folding chairs. And bone cold. While we waited for Lieutenant Nelson to return with Len’s water, we sat there in Zenlike stillness. All I heard was Len clearing his throat. Len, widely regarded as a fearless asshole, was scared shitless. Under different circumstances, I would have thought it was funny. As it was, I was wishing I’d searched the Yellow Pages for the first criminal lawyer I could afford.What happened to Serena must have made me lose my damn mind.
Mostly, I hoped I wouldn’t be forced to look at that photograph of Serena’s lifeless face again. O’Keefe and Arnaz had been pricks to shove that picture in my face, and I should expect Lieutenant Nelson to be a higher-ranking prick. Feeling sad about Serena made me want to go back to bed. I was exhausted.
Nelson came with a Styrofoam cup filled with what I guessed was tap water. Len would be lucky if Nelson hadn’t spat in it first, but he drank it like he was on fire.
Niceties behind him, Nelson slammed his palm down onto the tabletop with a thumping sound that made Len jump. When the lieutenant moved his palm away, I was staring at my business card in a plastic baggie in the center of the table.
“Mr. Hardwick, you told detectives O’Keefe and Arnaz that you only saw Serena Johnston at Roscoe’s Monday morning. I thought we’d start with what happened between you and Serena at her house later in the day.” He was looking at me like he knew something, eyes twitching because he could hardly contain his glee. That’s a part of any decent cop’s job skills, but he was so good, I believed it. Maybe my face had shown up on a security tape. Maybe the cabbie had said something. Or a gardener I hadn’t seen. Lieutenant Nelson had gut-punched me without taking a step.
Len’s sideways glance told me,Yeah, I’d love to hear about that myself. He hurled back his last shot of water, whiskey style.
I spoke up. “Look, I—”
“We have a problem, Lieutenant,” Len finished for me. “Mr. Hardwick would love to help you find the person behind this heinous act. That’s why he’s here. But he knew Miss Johnston as a business associate, and he’s an actor with a very busy schedule. While he has no information about the killing, he does have a set call—so he needs to make it very clear to you, very fast, that you’re wasting your time. That’s whyI’m here.” Rumor was, Len had once told Bob Weinstein to go fuck himself.To his face. Len never copped to it, but right then I believed the story.
Nelson gave Len a glance no one wants to see from a man wearing a gun. That glance said that if Lieutenant Rodrick Nelson had his way, on a designated day each year, any man, woman, and child in the country could shoot a lawyer dead for a nickel.
Then, his eyes came to me and sat, simmering. “I know you were there,” Lieutenant Nelson said. He tapped an unsharpened pencil on the desktop, eraser side first. Three times. Four. Five. “What I don’t know is…why don’tyou want me to know?”
Suddenly, that sounded like a damned good question. I felt the same impulse I’d felt with O’Keefe and Arnaz to divulge things that were none of their business.
“Trust me, though, I’ll find out,” Nelson went on. “You hooked up with Serena for business, all right, but acting’s a funny word for it. Don’t piss this opportunity away…brother.You’ll be back to see me soon, and your lawyer won’t be in lockup with you. Captain Hardwick’s son or not, don’t plan on any trips.”
I wavered at the border of his trap, ready to tell him everything for the sake of getting on his good side.It’s not like you think, man. She didn’t pay me this time. And she was alive and beautiful when I left her, not that broken girl in the picture.
Len didn’t give me the chance. “I’ll refer you back to my earlier statement, Lietenant Nelson,” he said, and I noticed that the gray had left my agent’s face. His skin was flushed with the power ofthe game. “If you have an arrest warrant, let’s see it. If not, have a good day.”
I might never get Len on the phone again, never mind another lunch. I would be lucky if his assistant would accept my calls now. But take it from me: Leonard Shemin is the best lawyer 10 percent can buy.
Len rushed off with hardly a good-bye, but my feet stopped just outside the front doors. I wanted to be anywhere else, but I couldn’t move.
At the door at Hollywood division, there’s the Walk of the Dead. That’s what I called it when I was a kid. See, in Hollywood, there is no higher honor than to have one’s name forever memorialized in the “Walk of Fame” on Hollywood Boulevard. So at Hollywood division, every officer killed in the line of duty gets a star on the sidewalk outside the station house. There are seven names; the first, Clyde Pritchett, died in 1936, and the most recent, Charles D. Heim, died in 1994. My father used to make me memorize the names of the fallen.
I learned it from Dad, maybe. The dead should be honored.
I made the decision right then: I was going to find out who killed Serena. A cynic could say that decision was made on the basis of feeling the first sparks of LAPD heat on my ass, and that’s part of it. But the Walk of the Dead did it.
I knew Serena would get her tributes, that the legend-building was already underway. She would have a celebrity-infested funeral I probably couldn’t get an invitation to. Her friends and family would remember what made her laugh, her fans would hear her soul through her music, and two DVDs would preserve the first glimpses of her wings as a caterpillar morphed into a butterfly before our eyes.
But after all was said and done, I knew most people would sum up Serena’s life as JADR: Just Another Dead Rapper. Tupac, Jam Master Jay, Biggie Smalls, Shareef. And I was tired, like I said. I was tired of dead rappers, and I was tired of no one getting caught. This was going to be different.
That day, I knew two things: Number one, someone was going to jail for killing Serena Johnston. Number two, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be me.
I swore it under my breath on the Walk of the Dead.
Three news vans were parked across the street by the time I left the police station, and I didn’t have to wonder why. I’d been avoiding television and radio since I heard about Serena, but even in a jaded town like Los Angeles, a celebrity murder is news. I slipped on my shades and pulled down my white Howard University baseball cap, in instant invisibility mode. Not that anyone would recognize me. But just in case.
A woman climbing out of a dented old rose-colored Toyota Camry caught my eye, even if I wasn’t in the mood to notice women. This one made me look longer than usual because I was sure we had met. I have a nearly photographic memory for faces, and I’m almost as good with names. I knew her from somewhere.
The woman looked like a kid, about twenty-five. She was ginger-skinned and cute, with her hair cut short in a bold natural you don’t usually see in Hollywood, where the weave rules; if she was a reporter, she wasn’t in television. A slim reporter’s notebook fell to the ground, and she cursed under her breath as she leaned over to pick it up, struggling to hold a sheaf of papers in place under her arm. As she bent down, two healthy half-moons sprang into view behind the back pockets of her faded jeans. Even on a day as bad as that one, her ass commanded proper admiration.
My game must have been way off. She caught me looking. And she didn’t smile.
“Can I help you?” she said, ready with an attitude. Before I could answer, she lost control of her papers, and they flurried around her in the breeze.“Damn.”
“Looks like you’ve got that question backward, darlin’,” I said, snatching a loose page that had cleaved to my thigh. “You’re the one who needs help.”
Attitude gone. She shook her head and gave me a sheepish smile that dimpled her cheeks. “Yeah—get that one behind you, too, please. Thanks.”
I’ve studied people all my life, the closest thing I got to acting lessons before college. I examine their faces, their style, their gestures. Sometimes I can see things people have missed after a lifetime in their own skin. So, I knew what this woman was about. Her clothes were neat but not fashionable, she used minimal makeup, and she wore flats, not heels. She was a worker. Ambitious, trying to impress somebody, and she was in over her head.
And she had no idea how pretty she was. I knew all of that right away.
Suddenly, I knew her name, too. “April Forrest,” I said.
She was the reporter from theLos Angeles Times who had covered my father’s retirement dinner, and she had interviewed me, briefly, over my half-eaten Caesar’s salad. I never saw the story she wrote. I’ve put some newspapers and certificates aside to make a scrapbook one day, but I’m not good at collecting the stories. With Dad, it feels too much like writing his obituary. I can already feel the questions I’m going to regret never asking him, but I still can’t bring myself to ask most of them now.
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