The solitary image was of a broad, ungainly-looking white-haired man with a benevolent, somewhat bleary-eyed frog-face, arm in arm with a tightly coiffed, tightly toned, tightly tucked brunette half a head taller.
Milo said, "Sounds like Tristram got his looks from Mommy."
Pairing wydette and stanford pulled up a three-year-old article in the university's magazine about a trio of incoming freshman, ostensibly picked at random. Annie Tranh was the granddaughter of Vietnamese boat people and a Westinghouse Science Award winner. Eric Robles-Scott was a biracial kid from Harlem who'd won a national competition in foreign languages by demonstrating proficiency in French, Swedish, and Gullah dialect.
Aidan Wydette of L.A. was the tenth member and fourth generation of his family to grace the Palo Alto campus.
Aidan's headshot revealed a dark-haired, thick-necked boy with an open, confident smile. Note was made of the Wydette clan's long history of contribution to higher education but no dollar amounts were mentioned and care was taken to list Aidan's qualifications: "outstanding scholar and athlete" at Windsor Preparatory Academy in Brentwood, National Merit Scholar, summer internship at a Washington, D.C., think tank where he'd co-authored a paper on fiscal policy in emerging democracies, followed by a summer at the sports section of The New York Times.
Achievements at Prep included "a full academic load," varsity letters in golf, hockey, and soccer, captain of the Model U.N. team and mock trial, co-captain of the business club, co-founder of a program donating unused restaurant food to the homeless.
Milo said, "Guess the Nobel comes in his sophomore year."
I said, "Three sports for him, only two for Tristram, Tristram serves on Model U.N. and mock trial, but Aidan's the captain of both teams."
"If Li'l Bro doesn't make National Merit, he's reduced to peasant status? Yeah, that would kick up the pressure."
"Merit scholarships are based on PSAT scores. Your percentile's high enough, you write a legible essay, you're in."
"Fake a score, get an award," he said. "Hell, maybe we're not just talking Tristram. For all we know Aidan's resume got pumped up the old-fashioned way."
"Cheating as a way of life."
"You read the papers." His pocket jumped as his phone played a too-fast Bach prelude. No more "Fur Elise." Did that mean something?
Moe Reed broke in. "Can't find a single link between Tristram Wydette and Garret Kenten, though Garret did graduate from Prep four years ago."
"He goes to college somewhere local?"
"There's no record he goes anywhere, the only thing that comes up under his name is a band. You'll love this: the Slackers. But there is a kid in the yearbook who's with Tristram in ten photos. Seven are from the baseball team, but there're also shots of the two of them horsing around on campus. To me they look like buds, Loo."
"What's this prince's name?"
"Quinn Glover. He doesn't have a record and neither does Tristram but your idea about parking was good because Tristram has piled up a lot of paper on or near Los Angeles Street, downtown. That's industrial but there used to be rave clubs in vacant buildings so maybe there're strip clubs."
"They bother enforcing parking there?"
"A while back there were complaints about drug deals so Central blocks off the area after six p.m. I guess once in a while they do enforce."
He read off the addresses on the citations. "One more thing, Loo. Quinn Glover's daddy is CEO of Trident Agriculture--that's the outfit Tristram's daddy sold his orchards to."
"Multigenerational ties that bind," said Milo. "Make up six-packs with each of these kids' faces. I'm gonna troll for a couple of pole dancers."
The block was grubby, dim, lined with warehouses and industrial buildings, a good half of them vacant. Loose garbage specked the sidewalk. The air smelled oddly of raw pork and rubber cement. Signs every ten yards warned No Parking 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. No one in sight but for a few homeless men lolling or driving carts. Some of the drivers managed a straight line.
The Hungry Lion Gentleman's Lounge occupied a windowless maroon cube. A stretch of dirt and broken asphalt running behind the buildings served as parking. The space behind the club was empty. Posted hours on the gunmetal door out front said the merriment wouldn't start for another two hours.
A sign above the building featured a leering simba wearing a red paisley shirt and mirrored sunglasses and sporting a slicked-back mullet-mane. One manicured paw clutched a glass of something fizzy. The other held a wild-eyed, grinning, unclad blonde. The girl's expression said her ultimate life goal had been achieved.
Milo said, "King Kong was ambivalent, this critter's licking his chops. Hungry, indeed." He rapped the metal door, evoked a barely audible thud.
One of the cart-pushers rounded a corner, spotted us, and nearly overturned as he attempted a sharp U-turn. Contents shot out of the cart. We caught up as he stooped to reload cardboard boxes, newspapers, cans, bottles.
Milo bent to help him with the last few treasures.
"That's okay, Officer, I'm fine."
"Know anything about that club, friend?"
"I know to stay away, Officer."
"Bad influence, huh?"
"Bouncer getting upside your head is a bad influence, Officer. Used to be quiet around here, nice place to spend the night, then that place opened and it's like they own the whole street."
"Ever get close enough to see the girls?"
"The girls go in through the back."
"Same question, friend."
"Something happen there, Officer?"
"Still the same question."
The man said, "Sometimes the girls come out in front to smoke."
Milo produced Brianna Blevins's and Selma Arredondo's DMV photos. "That include these two?"
"These two," the homeless man echoed. "Big and little." Massaging his chest. "Yeah, they're always together."
"When's the last time you saw them?"
"The last time... hmm." Something changed in the man's eyes. Clearer, more purposeful. "I could sure use some breakfast, Officer."
"It's closer to dinnertime--what's your name, by the way?"
"I'm called L.A."
"Love your city?"
"It's for Loving Albert. My auntie who raised me called me that. She was a moral lady, would sure like me to have breakfast--I like breakfast anytime of day, Officer."
"Help me out, L.A., and you'll be breakfasting with the best of them. When's the last time you saw these two girls?"
"The last time... I'm thinking two nights ago, yeah, two, not last night, last night was the Ebony Princess contest, they had only black girls. Plenty of white guys coming in to watch, though."
"Two nights for sure or a guess?"
"For sure, Officer."
Milo gave him a twenty.
The guy stared at the bill. "I guess that could go two breakfasts."
"Who said anything about two?"
"My auntie was big on nutrition."
"Ever see these girls with the same customers consistently?"
"No, sir," said the man. "They with each other, always laughing, you know?"
"Know what?"
"I get the feeling they like each other." Three rapid winks caused the opposite side of his face to contract like a harried sea anemone. "Wonder which one gives and which one gets."
The twenty remained in his outstretched palm. Filthy palm but when he closed it over the money, he exposed trimmed nails. Go know.
"Twenty more, I could have three, four breakfasts, Officer."
Milo peeled off an additional ten.
"Another twenty would be nicer, but thank you, Officer."
"You lie to me, we're going out for a four-course dinner and you're picking up the tab, L.A."
"Whoa." Laughter. "That could clean out my 401(k)."
As we edged out of the downtown business district and got on Sixth Street, Milo said, "I'll be back when it opens, need to figure out a good watch-spot."
"Let's buy gold c
hains, return as gentlemen."
"Acrylic shirts I've already got--all that breakfast talk got me thinking Paul Revere."
"Little too early for a midnight munchie ride, Big Guy."
"I'm talking one by land, one by sea. As in surf and turf, as in the T-bone-fillet-langoustine combo at that place on Eighth."
I said, "Don't want my patriotism questioned."
We were well short of the steak house when Sean Binchy phoned in.
"Got Bri and Selma, Loot. Right in front of the father's house, I barely turned off my engine when they showed up."
Dropping names as if he and the strippers were old friends. Sean loves the world, an attitude unchanged by facing felonies daily.
Milo said, "Take 'em into custody."
"Already done, we'll be at the station in twenty. They've got interesting stories, Loot."
"About the murders?"
"No, nothing like that, just how they're thinking of turning religious, leaving the life."
"Tell 'em to hold off on repentance, Sean. I need 'em in full sinner-mode."
CHAPTER
33
Brianna Blevins and Selma Arredondo wore white tank tops cut high enough to expose drum-tight midriffs, second-skin jeans, backless high-heeled sandals, oversized hoop earrings, gold-plated bangles cuffing their right wrists.
Both girls had eyebrow pierces, tongue studs, multiple holes in their ears. Selma sported a diamond between a perky mouth and a cute chin.
Brianna's visible tattoos were: a left forearm sleeve filled with roses and thorns, a barbed-wire biceps ring, a female devil's face in the hollow beneath her neck, Love inked in black gothic across one collarbone, Devotion stretching the length of the other.
Selma's neck was circled by a blue-and-red-ink necklace of yellow diamonds and red links "supporting" a pear-shaped black pearl that was a masterpiece of trompe l'oeil. Both of her arms were slave-braceleted three times. Chinese characters rose up from where cleavage would be if her breasts could produce such.
Milo asked her, "What does that say?"
"Something about life."
Cell phones confiscated and purses searched, the girls were placed in separate interview rooms and left to contemplate.
Fueled by adrenaline, detective room coffee, and a vending-machine roast beef sandwich that made him grumble about "turf that didn't deserve surf," Milo started with Brianna.
The girl, looking older than nineteen, eyes already running to crow's-feet, kept her eyes on the table.
"Hi, Bri. Me, again. And this is Alex."
"Uh-huh."
We sat down, crowding her. "Tell us about Tristram and Quinn, Bri."
"Don't know 'em."
"Actually, you do, Bri."
"I don't."
Milo showed her pictures. "Tristram Wydette and Quinn Glover, hot guys, I can see the attraction. Hot rich guys, Tristram drives that Jaguar, Quinn's got that yellow Hummer. They tip well for lap dances?"
The girl barely glanced at the images. "I still don't know 'em."
"Actually, you still do, Bri."
He gave her a few seconds to reconsider. When she remained mute and sullen, he scooted even closer. She looked over her shoulder, searching for room to escape. Saw blank wall and exhaled.
"Bri, we already know a lot, so you might as well help yourself. Let's start with you and Selma meeting Tristram and Quinn at the Hungry Lion, then partying together for months. We've got their credit card records, so we know when they started coming in, how much money they spent on you. We've got other sources, so we also know about the promises they made."
Pausing to give her a chance.
Bri Blevins shook her head.
"Promises of amazing stuff," he went on. "Like taking you guys on a private jet to Aspen. And all you had to do was be nice."
He let the last word sink in. The taut flesh sheathing Bri Blevins's scapulae turned rosy, bottoming the love-devotion message in rose.
She still had the capacity to blush.
Milo said, "We don't care about that kind of nice, Bri. The only nice that interests us is a favor you did for them on a certain night. Something you worked out with Gilberto Chavez. Know who that is?"
"No." Emphatic.
"He's a Spanish guy you paid to buy dry ice, out in Van Nuys."
False eyelashes quaked. The blush across her chest seeped out as if liposuctioned. "Remember that, Bri?"
No answer.
"Different kind of ice from what you're used to," said Milo. "We found that nice little chunk of meth in your purse. Selma said you're the one always bought, she just shared."
"That's a lie!"
"Your word against Selma's, Bri, and Selma's being helpful. But honestly, Bri, the dope's no big deal, I couldn't care less about that kind of ice. What I do care about is dry ice. 'Cause that was used for something bad, Bri. You know what I'm talking about."
The girl blinked, crossed her arms across her torso, and dropped her head. "Uh-uh."
"Actually, you do, Bri. And unfortunately for you and Selma, you also knew the dry ice was going to be used for something really bad. And guess how we know that?"
Shrug.
"We know because Selma told us, Bri. How else would we know? You buy ice for some rich dudes, no problem. You buy ice knowing it's going to be used to kill someone, big problem, that's called accomplices before the fact. According to the law, that's the same as committing murder."
Bri Blevins looked up, tried to match his stare. Couldn't handle five seconds before she dropped her head to the table.
"Selma's already cooperating, Bri, and that's buying her a lot of goodwill. She may be your homegirl, Bri, but she's smart enough to realize that a life sentence for murder changes everything."
The girl's head shook from side to side. I'd heard moans like hers on the cancer ward.
Milo said, "It doesn't need to be bad, Bri. You've got one chance to tell us your side. After that, it's Selma being smart and you being stupid and ending up in the same situation as Tristram and Quinn. Up to you."
The head shaking rotated in a strange way, morphing to a nod.
"They're bad," she said.
"Tristram and Quinn."
"Yeah. Not the good kind of bad."
CHAPTER
34
We've been partying like... months," said Brianna Blevins.
"Where'd you meet them?"
"They came into the Lion, paid for lap dances, bought champagne, got into the VIP room."
"After that, then you started partying."
"Yeah."
"They party with anything besides meth?"
"Single malt," she said. "They always had bottles of it."
"Booze and ice," said Milo. "Then there was a different kind of ice."
Brianna Blevins grinned.
"Something funny, Bri?"
Her smile died. "Not, it's just... when they asked us to buy it we're like a different ice? Selma said it. Being funny."
"Did Tristram and Quinn laugh?"
"Um... uh-huh, they laughed all the time."
"Coupla happy guys."
"Why not? They had everything."
"What's everything, Bri?"
"Money, cars, they could do what they want. They're hot."
"And on top of all that, they had you and Selma for partying."
The girl's eyes drooped as her face turned ancient. "We knew we were like... a game, you know? They were going to Stamford College, said they'd take us but we knew that was bullshit."
"Stanford University in Palo Alto?"
"I guess."
"Tristram and Quinn promised to bring you and Selma to college."
She snorted. "Set us up in our own apartment. To be their mistresses. They liked that word. Mistresses. Like how kings and princes do it."
"Two fresh princes from Bel Air, huh?"
"Guess so."
"Did you believe the private-jet promise?"
"Probably not."
"But maybe
a little at first," said Milo. "You were hoping."
"We thought it would be cool." Tears rolled down the girl's cheeks, tracked through thick foundation. "We were just a game. They showed us pictures. Of the place--Q's place, it's his family owns it. Up in the mountains, they walk out of the house, go skiing."
"Q being Quinn Glover."
"Uh-huh. Place was fiercely huge, they got a movie theater. We're like that would be cool. But no way, we knew they were lying."
"Same for the promise to set you up at Stanford."
"Stamford they'll meet girls like them, we're like stuck in a stupid apartment, can't dance, they're like you're our mistresses. No friggin' way."
"You're a smart girl, Bri."
"Not so smart. I'm here."
"Maybe we can clear that up. Let's talk about the day you paid Gilberto Chavez to buy dry ice."
"We didn't know him, we just found him."
"Where?"
"Walking on Saticoy. They said go there, there's always Mexicans need money."
"Selma take offense at that?"
"Huh? Why?"
"Selma's Mexican."
"Half, only her dad. She don't know him." She wiggled her fingers. "Could I have a smoke?"
"Not yet, Bri, but I can get you something to drink."
"Um... diet orange?"
"If we've got it. Second choice?"
"Diet Sprite."
He left the room. I smiled at her. She said, "I could really use a smoke. Is it like no smoking all the time?"
"He can be flexible."
"Oh."
Milo returned with a can of Diet 7UP, popped the tab. She sipped.
Milo said, "You found Gilberto Chavez walking on Saticoy."
"They surprised us. Tris and Q. We were gonna go to work then they called. They're like call in sick, we'll party all day. We're like no way, we'll get in deep shit with Leandro--that's who owns it. They're like fuck Leandro, we'll pay you boo-koo more than Leandro's gonna pay you, you say you got the flu, Leandro's gonna be cool 'cause you're the hottest dancers in the place."
Deception: An Alex Delaware Novel Page 23