Turn Left at Doheny--A tough-edged crime novel set in Los Angeles

by J. F. Freedman

  Cumming waited until the waitress put steaming plates in front of them, then seasoned his poached eggs with Tabasco. ‘The investment I put you in.’ He forked up a heaping of hash and eggs, swallowed, and said, ‘It’s gone crazy.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Wycliff replied. He had been afraid Cummings was going to tell him the opposite, that the money had disappeared down a rabbit hole.

  ‘Good?’ Cummings exclaimed. ‘This is better than good, my friend. This is spectacular.’ He took a swallow of coffee, and continued. ‘Normally we get in and out of these deals quickly. But this one has turned out to be extraordinary. It’s already gone up twenty percent.’

  ‘Great,’ Wycliff said. He didn’t have to know anything about finances to know that was impressive.

  ‘You know the saying: pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. We’re already fat. So I’m offering all my clients the option of cashing out.’

  Wycliff was thrown off-balance. ‘How much would I make?’ he asked.

  ‘After broker’s fees and my commission, about twenty-five thousand dollars. Not a bad week’s work, if I say so myself.’

  Wycliff was frozen. He had just made twenty-five thousand dollars by doing nothing. Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined this. There actually was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Was this a portent that he was going to luck out across the board, that he could skate the bad shit and embrace the good?

  If Amelia hadn’t come into his life he’d be gone in a cloud of dust and a hearty Hi, ho, Silver. But she had. So here he was. ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘You’re good, man. I mean great.’

  ‘I do my homework,’ Cummings said. ‘And sometimes we get lucky. This is one of those times.’ He pointed to Wycliff’s plate, which was untouched. ‘Eat up, before it gets cold.’

  Wycliff was too wired to eat. ‘Let me ask you a question.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I can cash out now, but I don’t have to. Is that right?’

  Cummings took a moment to answer. ‘Yes, that’s right. You can let it ride, and hope it keeps going.’

  ‘How many of your other clients are doing that?’

  ‘Not cashing out?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Cummings drank more coffee before answering. ‘All of them.’

  ‘Everyone’s staying in?’

  ‘So far,’ Cummings answered. ‘There are a few investors I haven’t contacted yet, but the ones I’ve talked to want to keep going.’

  ‘Is Charlotte one of them?’

  Cummings leaned back. ‘I don’t discuss clients’ business with other clients. I told you that.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Wycliff apologized. ‘I’m not used to this.’

  ‘I understand,’ Cumming said. ‘You could ask her,’ he suggested. ‘If she wants to tell you what she’s doing, that’s her business.’

  Wycliff knew asking Charlotte would be pointless. She would stonewall him and would be annoyed to boot.

  ‘You think this is going to keep doing good?’ he asked Cummings, moving off the subject of Charlotte.

  ‘I do,’ came the confident reply.

  ‘Let me ask you another question, then. If I wanted to put more money into this, could I? Is anyone else doing that?’

  ‘Some are,’ Cummings acknowledged. He gave Wycliff a quizzical look. ‘Is that what you want to do?’

  The question threw Wycliff. Was Cummings trying to talk him out of it? Maybe this investment had been a favor to Charlotte. The favor had been repaid. Was this the end of their trip together? ‘You tell me,’ Wycliff said. ‘Should I stay in this investment?’

  Cummings hesitated before answering. ‘We’ve done nicely, but as I told you before, there are no guarantees.’

  ‘But what do you think?’ Wycliff persisted.

  ‘What I think is that this year is going to be good for me. And my clients. It’s all about the clients.’

  ‘So what about me? Aren’t I a client?’

  ‘Yes, you are. So you want to stay in?’

  The small man inside Wycliff said no. He ignored that voice. That was the past. He was living in the present now, looking to the future. ‘I have more to invest,’ he told Cummings. ‘More than what I have in now.’

  Cummings looked surprised. ‘How much more?’

  Hold back some for a rainy day, he cautioned himself. Don’t be a hog. But he couldn’t hold back. This was too good a deal not to go all in on. ‘Three hundred thousand dollars.’

  Cumming whistled. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Serious as a heart attack.’

  Cummings put his fork down. ‘Let me think about this,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ Wycliff asked.

  ‘I know how you got this money,’ Cummings answered. ‘It fell out of a tree and hit you on the head. I have no problem with that. Several of my clients inherited their fortunes. But from what Charlotte’s told me, you’ve never had this kind of money. It can play games with your mind. I want to make sure you’re thinking this through.’

  He thinks the first investment came from money he’d gotten from his brother, Wycliff realized, just as Charlotte had planned it. He wasn’t going to set him straight, now that it had actually happened. ‘My money’s not good enough for you?’ he asked, trying not to sound cocky.

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ Cummings responded.

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’

  ‘There is none.’

  He shouldn’t be with Charlotte. He sure as hell shouldn’t be in bed with her. Now that he was in a serious relationship with Amelia it was morally wrong. Not only to Amelia but to Charlotte, too, although he didn’t think matters of morality mattered much to Charlotte. But here he was.

  He had come over to thank her for setting him up with Cummings, and as it usually did when they were alone together, nature took its course. The last time they had fucked he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do it again. Yet here they were in bed, naked, sated.

  ‘This woman you’ve been seeing,’ Charlotte asked. ‘Are you still seeing her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘More than seeing her?’

  He had come clean with her before. No reason not to now. ‘Yes, there’s more.’

  She got up, put on a robe, and lit a cigarette. ‘Do you want one?’ she asked, offering him the pack.

  ‘No, thanks. I’m trying to quit.’

  ‘She must be one tough cookie if she can get you to quit smoking.’ Charlotte spoke with a twinge of bemusement, but also regret.

  ‘She’s strong. She was strong for me when I needed it.’

  ‘Which I wasn’t. Touché.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You didn’t have to. It’s true. I was weak when you needed strength.’ She French inhaled. ‘Now I’m getting my just rewards.’

  ‘Charlotte …’ He swung his legs over the side of the bed.

  ‘You don’t have to apologize. You’re doing what’s right for you.’

  ‘I want to do what’s right for you, too. You’ve done everything for me. I wouldn’t be where I was if it wasn’t for you.’

  She waved a distracted hand. ‘I’ve gotten what I wanted out of our relationship, too. No regrets.’

  He started to get dressed. ‘I’m glad about that, then. Because you really have helped me. I’m going to be rich because of you.’

  ‘You already are rich. Your brother saw to that.’

  ‘Then richer.’ He tucked in his shirt, zipped up his pants, put on his socks and shoes. ‘I don’t know how I can pay you back for what you’ve done for me, but I want to.’

  She ran her hand along the front of his shirt. ‘Don’t abandon me, Wycliff. That’s what I want from you. We don’t have to be romantic. We don’t even have to have sex. But I want to stay connected to you.’ She stroked his chest with her perfectly manicured fingertips.

  He felt a surge of gratitude towards her, mixed with emotion and lust. There was no reason they couldn’t have a relationship. Older woman
and younger man, mentor and student. There was much more he could learn from her. It would be hard not to keep fucking her, though. They’d have to taper off gradually. The more he was with Amelia, the less he could be with Charlotte. Once he and Amelia moved in together this affair would come to an end. But until that happened, he didn’t think he had the strength to withstand Charlotte.

  Stop kidding yourself, his inner voice mocked him. You’ll be fucking this woman until your cock falls off.

  That was the old him doing the mocking, the old him being mocked. He was changing. He could do it.

  They arranged to get together later in the week on a night when Amelia would be working. A dinner between two friends, for old time’s sake. He would wine and dine her royally, a modest payback for all the money she had spent on him, and everything she had done for him.

  ‘Thanks again for the connection to Cummings,’ he said as he was leaving. ‘He has the magic touch.’

  ‘He does,’ Charlotte agreed. ‘Take care of yourself, Wycliff. Be careful out there.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  It was a heart-stopper to see his bank balance plummet from three hundred thousand dollars to thirty at the speed of a keystroke.

  ‘Are you sure this was the right thing to do?’ Amelia asked with concern. He had waited to tell her until after he did it, because he knew she would react this way. ‘Have you really thought this through, Wycliff?’ she implored him. ‘You’ve never been in the stock market. And you don’t know this man very well.’

  He understood her fears. He’d had them, too, that first time he had invested with Cummings. But everything Cummings had told him had happened exactly as he had predicted it would.

  There was another reason he was taking this step, besides desiring to get richer. This was found money. He hadn’t earned it. It was a gift. If he lost some of it, that’s the breaks. He was already ahead of the game. And he knew that Cummings was going to watch this investment like a hawk. At the first sign of anything going south, he would pull out. His clients might lose something, but they wouldn’t lose their shirts.

  ‘I understand why you’re worried, but I feel okay about this.’ They were having dinner at home, lamb chops, one of her specialties. ‘I have the house, I have other savings, I can do this. Trust me.’

  ‘I do trust you,’ she told him. ‘But I want you to be careful. Look what happened with Madoff. Thousands of people lost everything.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen.’ Even he knew about Madoff; you would have had to be Rip Van Winkle not to know about Madoff. She was putting him on the defensive, and he didn’t like it. It was his money. He could do whatever he wanted with it. He had earned it. With blood, through Laurie, and with time and compassion with his brother.

  ‘It’s going to be fine,’ he told her. ‘I can pull out anytime.’ He poured some more wine into her glass. ‘After this deal, I’ll sit on the sidelines. I’m not going to get greedy. You know the saying: pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. I’m not going to be a hog.’

  She shook her head. ‘That saying is out of a movie, Wycliff. That’s not real life.’

  ‘After this one I’ll stop,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

  ‘I’m going to hold you to that.’

  The brief three-paragraph story was under the fold on page three of the LA Times Metro section. The composite drawing that accompanied it was generic, but it was close enough to raise the hair on the back of Wycliff’s neck.

  A new witness had surfaced in the Beverly Hills murders. He had seen a man running away from the building where the murders had taken place. This witness, a writer on a television drama, had been on location, which was the reason he had only come forward now. His description was not accurate enough to nail Wycliff, but he did add some features to those given by the first witness that were more specific. Height, about six-two, right on the money. Blond or light brown hair. Most critically, he had seen the perpetrator get into his car, a 3-series BMW, California plates. The witness had been too far away to read the license number before the car took off.

  Wycliff could feel the walls closing in. He needed to push them back.

  ‘Look what the wind blew in,’ Juan, the chop shop owner, sang out. ‘Where you been, man? You got fresh product to lay off on me?’

  ‘Not today,’ Wycliff answered. He pointed to the BMW, parked outside in the lot. ‘I was wondering if you could take the Beemer off my hands.’

  Juan squinted at the car through the midday glare. ‘What’s wrong, it ain’t running good?’

  ‘It’s running fine. But I’m starting a business, so I need a truck.’

  ‘I can always use a BMW,’ Juan said. ‘What kind of truck are you in the market for?’

  ‘I already have one, a used Ford-150.’ Wycliff smiled sheepishly. ‘I bought it legit.’

  Juan laughed. ‘You going square on me?’

  ‘I got a good deal.’

  ‘No skin off my ass,’ Juan said. ‘What did you pay Ricardo for these wheels?’

  ‘Five thou.’

  Another laugh. ‘He saw you coming, white boy. I can’t give you more than three.’

  Wycliff shrugged, as if to say you sharp Latinos got me. ‘I’m down with that.’

  Two minutes later he had three thousand dollars in crisp hundreds in his pocket and was waiting for a taxi to pick him up.

  ‘Where’s your car?’ Amelia asked, as she took groceries and a bottle of zinfandel out of a Whole Foods shopping bag.

  Wycliff had rented a Nissan Altima from Enterprise. A nondescript vehicle, the blandest available. ‘In the shop. I may sell it. It’s a great car, but it’s too expensive to maintain.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘As if you can’t afford to service it. But it’s your money, your decision.’

  ‘Every housewife in Santa Monica drives a 3-series BMW.’

  ‘Then you should buy a huge truck with a gun rack behind the seat. You won’t find many housewives driving those.’

  ‘No guns,’ he answered, his tone angry. ‘There’s nothing a gun can do except get you in trouble.’

  She was taken aback by his brusqueness. ‘I’m glad to hear you say that. I wouldn’t have expected that attitude from you.’

  ‘Because I’m so macho?’ He uncorked the wine and poured each of them a glass. ‘I’m trying to get in touch with my feminine side.’

  Her hands were wet from washing lettuce. She flicked water from her fingers at him. ‘If you had a feminine side, which you don’t.’

  ‘You’re hurting my feelings.’

  ‘Poor dear.’ She kissed him on the cheek. ‘Better now?’

  His response was to tickle her ribs. ‘I’m working here,’ she squealed as she squirmed away. ‘Save the mushy stuff for later. Get out of my face and let me create.’

  He went into the living room and turned on the television. The six o’clock news faded in over a newscaster saying ‘A break in the recent murders in Beverly Hills.’ On the screen, a police spokesman faced a bank of microphones in front of the Beverly Hills City Hall.

  Wycliff listened intently as the spokesman read a prepared statement. ‘This morning, we received results from the FBI regarding evidence we sent to their lab, relating to the person we believe committed the recent murders in this city. We are hopeful we will be able to identify this person within the next few days, and we will be conducting an extensive manhunt to find him.’

  Amelia came into the room, wiping her hands on a dish towel. ‘Won’t that be great,’ she said as she watched. She rested a hand on his shoulder, as if by touching him she felt fortified. ‘Do you know how frightened I am sometimes, coming home at night by myself?’ She shuddered.

  Wycliff’s gut was twisted in knots. ‘I would never let anything bad to happen to you.’

  She squeezed his arm. ‘I know. That’s what’s make you special to me.’

  Amelia spent the night, then left early in the morning. She wouldn’t be able to see him until the next day, her schedule w
as jammed. Left alone, Wycliff brooded. That police bulletin had to be bullshit, another ploy to smoke him out, entice him to do something stupid. If they really had the goods on him they wouldn’t broadcast the news and give him a heads-up. They must think their suspect was a colossal dumbass.

  Even so, it would be smart to go to ground for a while. He could tell Amelia (and Charlotte, she was still part of his life) that he had to go out of town. Unfinished business from before he came here, not sure how long it will take to resolve it. He had plenty of money, he could go wherever he wanted. He didn’t have a passport, so he’d have to stay in the country, but that was okay, it’s a big country, easy to get lost in.

  The important item he had to take care of before he left was get back into cash. Amelia was right, he shouldn’t be in the stock market. Stick with what you know, and he didn’t know squat about that. It was all rigged, anyway. He had plenty of money, he could live forever on what he already had. He wasn’t going to be a hog.

  He called Cummings. As had been usual in the past few days, there was no answer, so he left a message. ‘We need to connect, it’s important. Call me as soon as you get this.’

  He puttered around the house, becoming increasingly antsy. He called Cummings again same result. Cummings was supposed to be available any time of the day or night, he had made a point of that. That he wasn’t returning phone calls felt weird, disconcerting.

  He couldn’t stay put. He left the house and took off.

  Cumming’s office was locked. He knocked on the door, but there was no reply. He knocked again, harder. Banged. Nothing. He dialed Cumming’s number and put his ear to the door. No ring tone from inside.

  Something was wrong here; but what? Charlotte had to know what was going on. She was the one who had turned him onto Cummings. With all the shit going on in his life, he needed reassuring.

  Charlotte didn’t answer, either. He left word for her to call him back as soon as she got his message, ASAP. Frustrated, he got in his car and drove to the ocean and up the Pacific Coast Highway to Leo Carrillo state beach. He changed into his trunks and swam out through the board surfers and wind-surfers past the first set of breakers, stroking hard so that he wouldn’t get sucked towards the rocks. He had swum here before and he knew the riptide was strong.