by Robert Crais
I sipped the coffee. Bush coffee, bitter and black, made by putting grounds in a pot, adding water, and boiling it down. Amazing, what you can grow to like. “How do you know so much about it?”
The twitch again. “I’m into ritualized death. You know that.”
I ate more pancake. “Is this your contribution to the case?”
“What’d you have in mind?”
“A small clue, perhaps. A small note, a small eyewitness. Anything, really. I’m easy to please.”
“We’ll see.”
I got up, found two bananas in the living room, and brought them back to the table. I put one by Pike and sliced the other over my pancakes. Pike didn’t touch his. He said, “I don’t see how you stand dealing with these screwups.”
“People didn’t screw up, we’d be out of a job. Screwups are our business.” I liked the sound of that. Maybe I should call Wu, have him put it on the cards.
Joe said, “Guy like Mort, laughing when they laugh, nodding when they nod, sucking up the slimeballs.” The cat came in off the deck, hopped up onto the table, and stared at Pike. He held out a bit of egg. The cat ate it with delicate bites. “I know this Mort. I’ve known men like him. I don’t like people with no will and no commitment and no pride.”
“Your problem is your lack of a clear-cut opinion.”
Joe stopped feeding the cat, so the cat walked across the table and sat beside me. I ignored him.
“It’s never that simple,” I said. I told him about Carrie, about the photo album, about the pictures of Mort and Ellen and the kids around the pool.
Joe said, “Everybody’s got pictures. People pose for pictures. I’ve got pictures of me and my old man with our arms around each other, smiling, and I haven’t spoken to the sonofabitch in twelve years.”
I didn’t say anything. I had pictures, too. I finished off the pancakes and the eggs and speared the last slice of banana. “Mort gave himself up,” I said.
Joe Pike sat erect at the table, chewing, mirrored lenses immobile, lean jaws flexing, one veined, muscled arm in his lap, the other against the table, elbow not touching. He swallowed, finished his coffee, wiped his mouth. Impeccable. He said, “No. He gave nothing. He lost himself. The distinction is important.”
After a while I gathered the dishes, brought them into the kitchen and rinsed them. When I finished, Pike was back out on the deck, holding the cat, staring off toward Hollywood. I went out to the rail. He didn’t turn around. “Somebody screws up, I clean up after them. That’s why people come to the agency. That’s what I’m good at. You’re good at it, too.”
“Hell of a way to make a living,” he said.
“Yeah,” I turned and went back inside. “Come on, Yukio. Let’s take that ride.”
16
Pike had parked his red Jeep Cherokee off the road by the carport. It was one of the older, full-size models, blocky and tall and resting on immense knobbed tires. It dwarfed the Corvette. Three years ago we’d taken it north into the mountains, fishing. I’d used the fender for a shaving mirror. You still could. I shook my head. “Hate a man lets his car go to hell.”
Joe nodded, looking grim. “Me, too.” He wiped a finger along the Corvette. It came away dark.
“The wind,” I said. “Blows the dirt right through the carport. Hell on the rolling stock.”
Joe stared at his finger like it was something from Jupiter, then grunted and said, “You amaze me.”
We dropped down Laurel Canyon and swung east on Hollywood Boulevard. It was warm and sunny and Hollywood was in full flower: a wino sat on a bench eating mayonnaise from a jar with his finger; four girls with hair like sea anemone smoked in front of a record store while boys in berets and red-splattered fatigue shirts buzzed around them like flies; young men with thick necks, broad backs, and crew cuts drifted in twos and threes past the shops and porno parlors—marines on leave, come up from Pendleton looking for action.
Ah, Hollywood. Down these mean streets, a man must walk who is himself not mean. How mean ARE they???? So mean … well, just ask Morton Lang …
We turned north at Western and climbed past Franklin toward Griffith Park, then right on Los Feliz Boulevard, winding our way past the park into the cool green of the Los Feliz hills. On a clear day, when the sun is bright and a breeze is in from the sea and the eucalyptus are throwing off their scent, Los Feliz is one of the finest places on earth. The hills are lush with plants and the right houses have a view all the way to the ocean. Hollywood legends lived and died here in homes built by Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra and Rudolf Schindler. People who made fortunes in oil or off the railroad built mansions that are now bought by gay couples, renovated, and resold for fortunes themselves. But with poor Hispanic areas to the south and east and the Hollywood slimepit to the west, New Money now buys above the Sunset Strip and points west. Los Feliz has seen its day.
Pike left Los Feliz Boulevard for a narrow, overgrown street that wound its way higher in tight curves, climbing steeply in some spots, leveling or dropping in others. Traffic thinned to nothing, just us and a woman in a champagne-colored Jaguar. Then she turned off. Three quarters of a mile from where we’d left the boulevard we cruised past the sort of stone gateposts I had always imagined guarding Fort Knox. Pike pulled to the curb and killed the engine.
It was so quiet the engine’s ticking sounded like finger snaps. Pike got out and walked to the gate. It was black and ornate and iron. It probably weighed as much as the Corvette. There were crossed swords over some kind of coat of arms centered on the gate. The tips of the swords were bent. Sometimes I felt bent, too. Maybe it was phallic.
I got out, opening the door easy, like when I was a kid sneaking out to do something bad and not wanting anyone to hear. This place did that to you.
An eight-foot-high mortared stone wall grew off the gateposts. It was overgrown with ivy and followed the street both uphill and down to disappear around the curves. There were eucalyptus and scrub oak and olive trees inside the wall and out. Old trees. Gnarled and gray and established and quiet. I walked over to the gate and stood by Pike. The drive rose rapidly and disappeared behind a knoll. You couldn’t see the house. You couldn’t see anything. The trees were so thick it was dark. Ten o’clock in the morning and it was dark. “That does it. From now on I carry a crucifix and a sharpened stake.”
Pike said, “The Nova came here. Other side of that knoll there’s a motor court and the main house. Garage for eight cars. There’s a pool in the back with a poolhouse, a tennis court to the northeast of it, and a guesthouse. Main house has two levels. These walls follow the topography. This gate is the only way in or out, unless you go over.”
I looked at him. Pike shrugged. “I took a look.”
“I suspect you went over.”
“Unh-hunh.”
“You get the Nova’s tag number?”
“Unh-hunh.” He handed me a slip of paper with a license number written on it.
“I suspect the guys driving the Nova, they don’t own that place.”
“Unh-unh. Had a few other guys walking around in there. Big necks.”
We walked back to the Jeep. I leaned against the fender. Pike didn’t mind. “Dom,” I said.
“Unh-hunh. On the gate, that sword with the bent tip. It’s called an estoque. It’s what the matador uses to kill the bull.”
I looked at him.
“I checked the address. Domingo Garcia Duran.”
I looked at him some more.
Pike’s mouth twitched. “You said you wanted a clue.”
17
Joe dropped me back at the house to pick up the Corvette, then I drove in to the office. I parked in the basement and rode up alone, listening to an instrumental rendering of Hey, Jude that John probably would not have liked. I unlocked the outer door and went in. Nobody sapped me. Nobody stuck a gun in my face. I went to my desk, put the Dan Wesson in the top right drawer, sat, and stared out the glass doors.
Other detectives ha
ve partners with whom they could discuss the case. Me, I get dropped off in my driveway, grunted at, and left to fend for myself. Did Percival drop off Galahad? Did Archer drop off Spade?
Garrett Rice had mentioned a party. Kimberly Marsh said Morton Lang had taken her to a party. The party had been at the home of a Mexican gentleman named Dom. Dom had grown angry with Morton, probably about Kimberly Marsh, so Mort and Kimberly had left. The next day Morton Lang phoned Kimberly Marsh and told her he was in trouble and not to answer the door. A large dark man, possibly Mexican, was reported asking for Kimberly Marsh. Later, two men of Hispanic descent in a blue Nova spent hours outside Kimberly Marsh’s apartment. Joe Pike followed them to a home belonging to Domingo Garcia Duran. Men with thick necks were observed.
I tapped the desk. I shifted from my right side to my left. My stomach growled and produced a vision of myself riding down to the deli for a lean corned beef with hot Chinese mustard on rye. Maybe I would sit at a little table for one they have down there. Maybe the slim blonde behind the register liked John Cassavetes. Maybe a lot of things.
It did not seem credible that Morton Lang had been murdered because he objected to Kimberly Marsh sleeping with Domingo Duran.
Men with thick necks.
I picked up the phone and called Eddie Ditko at the Examiner. He said, “What? I’m busy. What?”
“That’s why I like talking to you, Eddie. Always anxious to share a human moment.”
“You want a human moment? I got bowel trouble. I’m worried I gotta get cut and wear a bag the rest of my life.”
That Eddie. Class all the way. I said, “You got any clippings on a guy named Domingo Garcia Duran?”
“Shit, know him from when I used to work sports. Bullfighter. A Mexican. Right up there with El Cordobes and Belmonde, those guys, when he was young. Made millions. Got himself into oil, Acapulco beachfront, hotels. Liked the high life. Always something on the wire about him hanging with the guys from Phoenix, Jersey, Bolivia, like that. I think he retired around ’68, ’69, something.”
“He step over the line himself?”
“He supposed to be worth, what?, a couple hundred million? You flip up the rock, he’s in bed with the wrong people somewhere. His name came up in a laundering scheme once, then again with some assholes who were transporting dope up from South America. No indictments. No convictions. Shit, he’s always on Rudy Gambino’s yacht, that kind of thing. What, Rudy’s gonna have him around because he likes tacos?”
We shot the breeze a little longer, me trying to cadge some freebie Dodgers tickets for the upcoming season and him pretending not to hear, then we hung up. I tapped the desk some more. Cocaine. Organized crime. Rudy Gambino. Murder was beginning to seem more credible.
I picked up the phone and punched the numbers for the North Hollywood P.D. A voice said, “Detectives.”
“Lou Poitras, please.”
“He’s out. Take a message?”
“Ask him to call Elvis Cole. He’s got the number.”
I hung up.
Outside, a brown gull floated on the breeze. He looked at me. I made my left hand into a gun and pointed it at him. He banked away from the building and disappeared. I called Janet Simon. She answered on the sixth ring. “How are you doing?”
“Okay.” Her voice was flat.
“Was it rough?”
A hesitation. “I couldn’t tell them.”
I nodded, but she probably didn’t see it. “What’d you tell them about Ellen?”
“I really can’t talk now.”
“Why don’t I pick up some sandwiches or some chicken and come over?”
“No.”
“I guess I’m calling at a bad time.”
“Yes.”
“Well, you have my number.”
“Yes, that I do.”
We hung up. It’s always gratifying to be appreciated.
I called the deli, ordered a lean corned beef with Chinese hot mustard, told them I’d be down in ten minutes, and went out onto the balcony. There was a slight haze to the south and west and a thin band of cirrus clouds up high over the Santa Monica mountains to the north. The air felt glassy and damp. It hadn’t turned hot yet, but it would soon. That was L.A.
I thought about Mort, wearing his U.S.S. Bluegill tee shirt in the little snapshot. Mort from Kansas. Mort of the paint store. Mort with his traditional wife and his traditional kids and his not-so-traditional life. Don’t look now, Toto, but this ain’t Kansas.… Would Mort be stupid enough to try to move some dope? Laugh when they laugh, nod when they nod. Partners with Rice, not on a movie deal, but on a dope deal that had gone bad? Had Mort picked up the boy from school, then been kidnapped on the way home? That would explain why Mort’s clothes were still at the house and why he’d left no note. But with Mort dead, why grab Ellen and tear up the house? Because somebody thought Mort had something and thought Ellen Lang knew about it. Maybe that somebody was Domingo Garcia Duran. Maybe Ellen and the boy were up at his place now.
I was thinking about the big walls and the big gate and the big swords with the big bent tips when the outer door opened and the biggest human being I’d ever seen off a playing field walked in. If anything, I am consistent. First I thought Mexican, then Indian, then Samoan. Lots of Samoans come over to play middle guard for USC. He was six-eight easy and slim the way I’m slim, but on him that meant two-forty. When he moved I thought shark, sliding through the water. He had large, thick-fingered hands and big bones. His cheeks were high and flat. So was his forehead. So was his nose. His eyes were black and empty and made me think shark again. A shorter man came in after him, this one Mexican for sure. Shorter than me, but wider and heavier. About one-ninety. Beer barrel body on little pin legs. You could tell he thought he was a hitter because he carried himself sort of hunched over with his arms away from his body. His hair was short and combed straight back the way Chicano kids do when they’re in a gang. His right eyebrow was broken into three pieces by vertical scars. A long time ago someone had hit him very hard on the left side of his mouth and it hadn’t healed right. I said, “Wrong door. Beauty supply is down the hall.”
The big guy stopped just inside the inner door, but the Mexican came in all the way. He opened Joe Pike’s door, glanced in, then closed it again. He turned in a full circle, looking at the cartoon characters on the wall and the clock and the stuff I keep around. His mouth was open. He said something in Spanish I didn’t get, then shook his head and put his left foot on my desk and looked at me. I didn’t like the foot on my desk. I also didn’t like the lump in his windbreaker beneath his left arm.
The big one said, “Are you Elvis Cole?” Perfect diction with a slight accent I couldn’t place. I was back to thinking American Indian.
“Sometimes. Sometimes I’m the Blue Beetle.”
He said, “Domingo Duran wants to see you. You’re to come with us.” Talk about hard evidence.
I didn’t move. “Navajo?” I’d just read Tony Hillerman.
“Eskimo.”
“Some heat down here, huh?”
The Eskimo reached behind his back and came out with a black automatic. Looked to be a .380 but it could have been a 9mm. He held it loosely down at his side. “Come on,” he said.
I stared at the Eskimo for a very long time. He let me. He was probably the guy who asked around at Kimberly Marsh’s place. He may have been the guy who pulled the trigger on Mort. We started. I didn’t like him and I didn’t like what was happening.
The Mexican was handling one of the figures of Jiminy Cricket on the desk. I walked over, took it from him, put it back in its place. He said something in Spanish. “I don’t speak it,” I said.
“It’s just as well,” the Eskimo said. “Manolo doesn’t like you.”
“Tell Manolo to get his goddamned foot off my desk.”
The Eskimo studied me for a while longer, then made a sighing sound and took a step back, taking himself out of it. He rested his gun arm on top of the file cabinet. He said
something in Spanish. The Mexicans eyes narrowed and he smiled. One of his front teeth had a design etched into it. He said something back.
The Eskimo said, “He wants you to take it off for him.”
“Tell him it’ll hurt.”
He did. The Mexican gave one barking laugh, then put his right hand under his windbreaker. I stepped in, swept his support leg out from under him, kicked him in the groin when he hit the floor, and followed it down hard, driving my knee in his chest. Something gave with a loud snap. I hit him twice on the jaw with my right hand. His eyes rolled back, shiny and black as marbles, he stopped trying to cover up, and that was it.
The Eskimo hadn’t moved.
“He’ll need a doctor,” I said. “Maybe for the groin shot, but more likely for the chest. A couple of ribs went. Could be some liver damage.”
Manolo rolled onto his side and coughed. The Eskimo looked at him with bottomless eyes. Maybe your eyes get that way from looking down through thin ice to see killer whales looking back at you. I read somewhere that in the Deep Ice Tribes young kids still have to kill polar bears to pass into manhood. By themselves. With sticks.
The Eskimo turned the eyes to me, nodded at whatever he saw, and made the .380 disappear. “Let’s go.”
“I didn’t want you guys to think I was too easy.”
“No problem.”
He picked up Manolo like I’d lift an overnight bag. Manolo moaned. I said, “Those ribs are probably grating together.”
“No problem.”
We went out my office, along the hall, down the elevator, across the lobby, and out the side of the building.
18
A black Cadillac limo waited in the service alley. The Eskimo put me against the car, patted me down, then said, “Okay.” He shoved Manolo into the front, then he and I got into the back. There was an Asian guy at the wheel. I said, “Hey, just like the Green Hornet.”