by L. J. Martin
"You drive a tough bargain."
"And I'm very tough on people who mean to do my clients harm. And if Forbes knows, you're knocking down five mil a month and that alone will attract some scumbags."
"Yeah, but I have a lot of expenses." She's silent for a moment. "Will you be at this number? I've got it on my phone here."
"I'll be here until I take a buddy to supper. Maybe an hour or so."
"I'll call you back."
"Whatever," I say. I saw that in some hot shot young Hollywood movie, so I guess it's the thing to say to twenty-five-year-olds, almost twenty years my junior.
"I'll call. I've got to clear it with Emory."
"Whatever….or maybe I should say, whomever." There, I've said it twice. Am I hip, or what?
So I hang up. It's good to have money in the bank and be independent.
She calls back in fifteen minutes, with an affirmative.
1
I'd returned Tammy's call on a Friday and she asked me to be front and center at her condo in Beverly Hills at 9:00 AM on Monday morning to meet with her manager, Emory, and get up to speed on the job. He was to have a check for me in the amount of forty-five grand, the twenty-five she'd cost me and the twenty grand retainer.
Not as bad as Sunday night, still even Monday morning is a terrible time to drive from Vegas to L.A., as you're taking your life in your hands with the last of the weekend traffic. Those folks may have knocked down the free booze at the tables right up until they climbed in their SUVs and headed for the City of the Angels. So I climb in my classic red and white Vette at three AM. The drunks are still on the highway, but fewer of them and you have a little room to duck and dodge. As I'm not applying for a job at IBM I wear a soft brown pullover, black Wranglers, and black Reeboks. When Tammy was young, two years ago, she required her security to be in coat and tie. So we looked like security—ties, ear buds, and serious demeanors. Easy to spot from a hundred yards. I hope she's outgrown that affectation.
The condo is in a high rise—at least twenty stories—on Wilshire actually in Westwood. I guess Tammy thinks Beverly Hills sounds more prestigious as she said the latter, and, after all, it's only a stone’s throw. I guess the condo building at twenty stories, as Tammy's address is No. 2001. With, of course, a three-hundred-pound guard—with simian brows and a low growl to match—at the entrance to the parking garage. He informs me that he does not have me on the visitor list, so "…please back it up and let me see your tail as you disappear." He's a real card for a knuckle dragger. I find a parking place on the street three blocks away, and call the number Tammy left for me earlier.
No answer.
I'm not anal about much, but being on time…in fact doing what I say I'm going to do…is on top the list.
The entry to the building is lined with video cameras, and like the garage there's an attendant, a doorman behind a counter in the foyer. He’s a little classier than the parking lot gorilla, with a pinned collar and perfect crease in the tie. The foyer is marble—floor and walls—and the ceiling is brass with tiny inset LED lighting. There's a ten by ten foot brass relief of a number of old stars—Bing Crosby, Elvis, Sinatra, Al Jolson, and others—on one wall and a smaller one on the face of the counter, the counter itself is brass. There's one bench, uncomfortable cold marble, for those asked to wait.
I'm not surprised to find the large glass entry door locked and a video camera and press-to-talk box on the wall nearby. When I try the door the well-dressed guard points at the brass box so I comply.
"Here to see Tammy Houston's people, have an appointment. I'm Mike Reardon."
Without looking at a calendar, he replies. "I have you on the calendar." And buzzes me in.
As I head for the elevator, he adds. "I don't think there's anyone up there. You a cop?"
Where'd he get that? I glance down at the way I'm dressed, brown shirt and all, and say with all seriousness, "Undercover with UPS."
He nods. I guess there's no IQ test for even well-dressed doormen.
It's a fast elevator to the penthouse floor, where I observe as I step out, there are only two penthouse apartments. Tammy's wasting no time blowing her five mil a month. I guess she's never studied the phrase “fame is fleeting.”
Maybe already flown.
But I’m stopped short. The door with 2001 in brass letters has yellow crime tape crisscrossed across the opening.
Neither the parking garage attendant nor the doorman mentioned the fact the place was sealed up…but that explains the doorman asking if I was a cop.
Nonetheless, I ring the bell and can hear the notes to Tammy's first big hit, Houston Hottie in lieu of the standard two tone.
No one answers. Which does not surprise me as cops don't normally seal someone inside a crime scene.
Not to be easily dissuaded I return to the brass-accented foyer and as I leave wave my phone at the guard. "I'm ten minutes early. The detective said he'd be a little late. I'll be right back."
My well-worn lock pick set and rubber gloves are in the Vette. These days fingerprints are less important as there are probably a half dozen video cameras trained on me between my parking spot and the building, and some real good close-ups taken from front door and foyer cameras, and as I felt no need I've not employed any facial disguise. Still, I don't want the absolute proof of prints left at the scene.
No, I don't think my check will be waiting on a kitchen counter, but I do want to see what the hell's up. This time the door guard buzzes me in as I top the entry stairs.
I'm operating on the premise that the "do not enter" on the crime scene tape is advice, not an order. And, after all, I've been invited by the owner occupant.
It takes me all of thirty seconds to pop the entry lock, and another full minute on the dead bolt. It takes longer to work my way through the crisscross crime scene tape without ripping it off the jamb.
The condo is at least six thousand square feet with living room, kitchen, expansive dining room, powder room, two guest rooms with baths, and a patio larger than the average city apartment on the entry floor and a winding stairway to a second floor. I do find the chunk out of the fireplace, which was the reason I was called in the first instance. If it came through the sliding glass door leading out to the patio, it's been repaired. After seeing nothing else out of order on that floor, I ascend the stairway to an interior balcony with four doors, one of which is a double door and I presume the master.
And I'm right as I enter to see a bed about the size of a soccer field.
Opposite the headboard is a floor-to-ceiling window wall, and I quickly spot the reason for the crime scene tape.
The bad news: a perfect bullet hole, head high in the glass, with cracks spider-webbing out at least a foot all around. Someone was serious, as it again appears to be a fifty caliber.
Am I too late to protect Miss Houston? I have to consciously relax my jaw as my teeth are beginning to ache. No matter how young and ignorant Tammy had been during our first mutual experience, I liked her and would hate to think of her shot by some Neanderthal stalker…or anyone else for that matter.
The good news: no bloodstains anywhere in the bedroom.
The ceiling is at least ten feet high, and the first thing I look for is a bullet hole in the opposite wall, and it's not hard to locate as it's near the ceiling next to the bed, with an orange felt-tip pen circle around where a bullet's been dug out of the wall by some CSI dude.
So the shot came at an upward angle, as is not surprising firing at a twenty story condo. Even though there are a half-dozen other buildings within a half mile of the condo, it's fairly simple to determine the likelihood of where the shot came from and I note the location of a twelve to fifteen story building a few hundred yards to the west, also fronting on Wilshire Boulevard. Its rooftop is a couple of stories lower than Tammy's building, thus the up angle.
There's no question in my mind that LAPD or whoever is the "power that be" in Westwood has worked the building from which the shot obviously
came, so I don't bother creeping that location.
It's more important to discover what happened to Tammy.
And to have breakfast. I contemplate better over a plate of flapjacks.
Every once in a while I splurge with calories, and I know a spot close by. Mon Amour Café is only a couple of blocks and has crepes that will break even an old country boy who loves flapjacks into a cold sweat. I grab an L.A. Times on the way in and am only two bites into their “original crepe” that comes with bananas and strawberries, slathered with whipped cream, when I find an article in the local section. "Country Star Houston Flees Attempted Murder." The article goes on to say after a gunshot was fired into her condo, she disappeared into the night with her entourage. The cops have no clue who tried to drop our diva.
After dusting off the original for breakfast and a chocolate one for dessert, I am ready to get to work. Don't go to this joint for service, only if you love crepes and can stand creeps.
Once settled back in my Vette, I call my buddy Pax in Vegas.
"Hey, I need a little keyboard magic."
"Make it quick, I'm busy."
"Do I need to find a new best friend?"
"Fuck you, Farley. Ask."
"Somebody tried to dust my new client before she becomes my new client. See what you can find out about what happened and to where she might have flown. She's hiding out and not answering the number I have. You might try her manager for a phone number, some guy named Emory something."
"I'll put Sol on it. He can be your next best friend."
"Good, he's better than you anyway."
"Sit on it, Sunshine, where the sun don’t shine."
"I'll stand by."
I read the rest of my paper, and it's a good thing I read fast as my phone buzzes and it's Sol, who's one of those twenty-five-year-old computer genius types who's worked for Pax since he was a teenager.
"She has a place in Malibu." He gives me an address near Point Dume State Park. "The land line there is unlisted but it's 555-6720."
"Also 310, right."
"Right. And her manager, Emory Coogan, is 805-555-3433."
"I owe you a tall cold one."
"How about a five-foot-two blonde one."
"Drinks I can do, Sol. You got to take care of your own love life."
"But you're so much better at it."
"You're in Vegas, my man. A blonde on every street corner."
"Yeah, but I don't pay for it."
"Thanks for the help."
"De nada."
So I dial the Malibu land line. No answer, get a machine, and leave a message. So I dial Coogan and likewise get a recording and leave a message.
I can be there in thirty minutes, traffic allowing, so head out. It's a great drive and a great day, so I put the top down on the Vette and enjoy it.
Nothing like a drive up the California coast on a beautiful day with an ocean breeze and California King Gulls circling overhead. And the plethora of young starlets, or starlet wannabes cruising by.
And I'm happy, until I work my way through the maze of roads at Dume Point and arrive at Tammy's ocean front address…and there's yellow crime scene tape strung all over the driveway.
A half-dozen L.A. County sheriff cars.
An ambulance.
What the hell?
2
I duck under the crime scene tape and am immediately confronted by a deputy. I flash my bail enforcement officer's badge at him and being a young guy new to the job he doesn't take a hard look and waves me on by. It's sometimes a wonder what thirty-five bucks for a chunk of brass can do for you.
A gurney is loaded with a very big, blond Nordic type, who is being hoisted by a couple of EMT's who look about to bust a gut trying to get it up so it can be rolled into the back of the bus. So I pause long enough to get a good look at the passenger and help them.
While I'm doing so, a plainclothes guy walks over.
"Who are you?" he asks.
As soon as we get the gurney up, I nod and extend my hand. "Mike Reardon. I'm security for Miss Houston. What's happened here?"
The guy does accept the handshake. Then asks in a cold tone. "You got some I.D.?"
As I'm showing the pudgy rumpled cop—jelly stains on his yellow power tie—my badge wallet which also contains my legitimate Nevada driver's license, another guy of equal weight to the two-hundred-sixty-pound guy on the gurney walks over. He's no Nordic type, more swarthy Italian.
"This guy is not Tammy's security," he snaps, with a bit of a Southern drawl, and the plainclothes cop places a hand on the semi-auto clipped to his belt.
"Miss Houston hired me over the phone," I say.
"You're Mike Reardon?" the swarthy dude asks, and the cop relaxes a little.
"I am."
"You're not needed any longer." He's smiling with only one side of his mouth, more a smirk than a smile.
"And you are?"
"I'm Emory Coogan, Tammy's manager." Not Italian, black Irish, I conclude.
"So, where's Miss Houston?"
The cop steps closer. "She's been abducted, forty five minutes ago. We've got an APB out."
"So," Coogan repeats, "you're not needed. Sorry you made the trip." He says it, but doesn't mean it. Then he turns back to the plainclothes guy. "Detective, can you show Reardon off the property."
The cop gives Coogan a look that says I ain't your butler, and doesn't move.
"Hold on, hotshot," I say to Coogan, feeling the heat creep up my neck. "Miss Houston and I go way back—"
"Yeah," he says with a slight guffaw, "she fired your ass a couple of years ago, right before she hired Butch."
"And she hired me back a couple of days ago."
"She has a contract waiting for you inside, and a check, but you're not getting it now. I'm in charge of Tammy's affairs, so beat a trail back to Vegas."
I bite my lip, wishing I could bust his. But rather merely nod and turn to the detective. "I didn't get your name?"
"I didn't offer it, but it's Adamson, Detective Howard Adamson."
"Thanks. And who's the boy in the bus?"
"That's Horrigan. Butch Horrigan. He got blindsided and stun-gunned and hit his head on the way down. He's going in for observation."
"How's he play into this?"
"You should know if Miss Houston hired you. He's the head of security for her."
I nod, and give Coogan a disgusted look, and start for the crime scene tape, and can't help a little sarcasm. "I guess he doesn't give good head. I can show myself out."
"Humph," is all I get from Coogan, but Adamson calls after me.
"Hey," he steps over and hands me a card. "Call me this afternoon."
"Will do."
"Yeah," Coogan says, "call him from Vegas."
I have the urge to give swarthy Coogan the middle finger, maybe extended but more likely stuck in his eye…but neither is considered professional.
As I head for the crime scene tape and my Vette beyond, I hear footsteps behind and a ladylike voice calls out, "Mike Reardon."
I turn, and see it's a tall brunette, lithe but bulges in all the right places, with laser-blue eyes that would melt metal. She's about Tammy's age. "Yes, ma'am."
"He's leaving," Coogan's voice is raised from fifty feet away.
"I'll only be a moment," the brunette says, over her shoulder, then turns back to me and extends a well-manicured and polished hand. "I'm Tyler…Tyler Thompson. I handle Tammy's bookings and travel, and we're good friends. She told me lots about you."
Tyler slips me a card as she speaks and I stuff it in a back pocket of the Wranglers as Coogan is heading this way, imitating a freight train.
"He's leaving," he snaps, and with a little too rough a hand drags Tyler Thomson back a couple of steps. Coogan keeps moving as if he's expecting me to give ground, but instead I step into him and give him a sound chest bump as if someone on our team just made a touchdown.
"Oof," he manages, and before he can get anything else out, I
give him a stiff one-finger poke in the plexus and he "oofs" again, and back steps, a little wide eyed. I think he's going to swing and am hoping he does, but he reconsiders as he's still trying to catch his breath from the finger jab.
So with a voice low and serious, I say, "You know something, Coogan, had that lady not acted like she was used to you jerking her around, I'd be standing over you with one foot on your chest and you swallowing teeth and blood. I'm not much for some asshole pushing women around. And I'm tempted to drop you nonetheless."
"Who the fuck do you think you are? Get the hell off this property," he stammers.
I turn to Tyler. "You okay, Miss Thompson?"
"I'm fine, thank you." She says, then, unseen by Coogan, gives me the telephone receiver signal with thumb and little finger extended from mouth to ear, and mouths, "Call me."
I nod. And move toward the tape, then stop as I duck under and look back at Coogan, who's standing with his arms thrown back as if he's about to charge across the twenty-five feet separating us.
So I invite him. "Sure you don't need some help, fat man?"
"Not from you, dipshit. Beat a trail back to Vegas."
So I do. No check here. I'm all the way down to Sunset and thinking of stopping and messing around town until I can go to Dan Tana's for some great Italian before heading back to Vegas, before my adrenaline wears off.
Then it begins to creep into my pea brain that Tammy hired me so only Tammy can fire me. And what kind of guy am I who ignores a woman so obviously in peril, if still alive? I presume this is a kidnapping for ransom, so she's a damsel needing rescue.
Money or no, check or no, I gotta turn around.
She wanted my help, and even though I gave her a bad time, she employed me with a verbal contract…and like I said before, I always do what I say I'm going to do.
And I said I'd take on the job of protecting Tammy Houston.
3
As I'm driving back I poke the voice activation on my hands free and call Pax.
Rosie, his receptionist and one of my favorite ladies, all two hundred pounds of her, answers with her normally cheerful voice. "Weatherwax Internet Services."