He meant Dexter Fucking Duck, but I let it go.
CHAPTER 11
We had one more stop to make before we could head for the office. We still hadn’t solved last week’s murder mystery, so we took the 405 to LAX to interview a JAL flight attendant.
Kiro Hakai was built like a Japanese jockey. I’ve never been totally comfortable around tiny men, and the fact that he had shaved his head and his eyebrows made him extra creepy. He was also screamingly effeminate.
We had proof that Hakai had been at Bottoms Up, a gay bar on Sunset, the previous Thursday night. We also had reason to believe that he had been in a stall in the men’s room at the very moment that Alan C. Trachtenberg, a dentist from Sherman Oaks, wound up with a six-inch ice pick between his third and fourth ribs.
Unfortunately, Hakai didn’t remember being at said club on said night and swore he had spent that evening at the Galleria 12-Plex with a friend. We had no doubt that the friend would back him up. They always do.
When we held up the grainy black-and-white photo of him, dated and time-stamped by the surveillance camera at the front door of the bar, Mr. Hakai remarked that there was a slight resemblance, but then don’t all Japanese men look alike. Only the ones who shave their eyebrows, I thought.
I know when to throw in the towel with a hostile interviewee, but Terry wouldn’t quit. “What movie did you and your buddy see that night?”
“Pearl Harbor,” he said, with a smirk. An hour later the hairless little bastard was on a 777 bound for Tokyo.
We had already asked Trachtenberg’s widow what her husband was doing in a gay bar. She swore up and down that the man was straighter than Warren Beatty. There aren’t too many reasons why heterosexual men find themselves surrounded by the other team, so I asked her the next obvious question. Did the good doctor use recreational drugs? This time she did not swear up, down, left, or right. She started crying.
Our pint-sized flight attendant friend probably thought he screwed us by not cooperating. But his reluctance to talk said a lot. Truly innocent bystanders are quite vocal when it’s a crime of passion. They clam up when drugs are involved. Usually, on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate them.
A drug-deal-gone-sour seemed like a worthwhile avenue to pursue, so I called my old buddy Irv Ziffer in Narcotics. Ziff the Sniff they call him, because he’s probably caught more drug pushers than the entire K-9 Corps at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. Ziff knew the bar in question and asked me if the stabbing had occurred last Thursday night. Bingo. I asked how he knew.
Apparently he keeps flow charts of when stuff hits the streets and when the supply dries up. That Thursday was a buyer’s market after a ten-day product shortage. But the sellers are particularly paranoid after a long drought, plus there was a full moon that night. “In a volatile business environment,” Ziff said, “shit happens.” He’s quite the philosopher.
He also knew who was dealing at the clubs in that area, and it was clear to me that our Homicide team could use a little help from Narcotics. In the spirit of interdepartmental cooperation, we asked, and Ziff said sure. I felt that much closer to finding the guy who left three kids fatherless and hundreds of Valley residents without adequate dental care.
CHAPTER 12
It was 4:45 by the time we got to the precinct. I plopped down on my pea green vinyl chair and rolled it up to the cigarette-scorched, coffee-ringed slab of laminated pine that the City refers to as Detective Lomax’s office.
My messages were stacked in a neat little pile. Four of the nine were from my boss, Lieutenant Brendan Kilcullen, a ruddy-faced Irishman who believes in The Good Lord and Bill W. The latter had shown him the twelve steps to getting sober twenty-three years ago, which is how Lt. Kilcullen came to believe in the former.
He was on the phone when I knocked, but he waved me in. His office is a photo gallery, so there’s always plenty to look at while you wait. The desk top is reserved for family pictures, and there are lots of them. Brendan Kilcullen is a good Catholic who procreates the way the Pope told him.
The walls are divided into sections. On the left side are the Kilcullen Career Highlight photos. Promotions, awards ceremonies, and other dress uniform occasions. The period from Academy graduation to getting his Lieutenant’s bar spanned eighteen years and about forty pounds.
The center section features a dozen or more pictures of Kilcullen With People of Consequence. The coolest by far is Kilcullen with his arm around Jack Nicholson. It was taken at a Lakers game, and they appear to be the best of friends, which I know for a fact they’re not. I doubt if Kilcullen had met the actor before or after that single click of the shutter. The picture I had long ago voted Most Pathetic is an eight-by-ten glossy of Kilcullen and Walter Mondale.
The right side is dedicated to bowling. Kilcullen is a league bowler who averages 180. There are a number of shots of a victorious Kilcullen holding up a trophy with his pinmates, none of whom is Jack Nicholson.
About ninety seconds later I heard Kilcullen say, “I love you too, Sweet Pea.” He hung up the phone and smiled at me. “That was the Mayor.”
“I’m glad you and Mayor Sweet Pea are on such good terms.” I dropped his four messages on the desk. “What can I do for you, Loo?”
“Catch this rabbit killer, and catch him fast. A lot of people in important places are rooting for us.”
“Did the real Mayor call you?” I asked.
“No. The real Governor did.”
He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t kidding.
“Did he call out the National Guard to protect the rest of the animals?”
“No, but I suspect he called a couple of publishers. Don’t look for this rabbit shit to be on Page One of tomorrow’s Times. Or Page Forty-One for that matter.”
No press. It sounded like Amy Cheever had been busy.
“I’m doling out your case load to the other boys and girls in the squad.”
I told him we’d already recruited Ziff the Sniff to help us out on the Trachtenberg stabbing. “Good,” he said. Then Terry knocked.
“Gentlemen, I got a riddle for you. What’s white and fluffy and likes to bugger little boys? Give up? It’s Rambunctious Rabbit, also known as Eddie Elkins, also known as Edward Ellison, convicted sex offender.”
He threw a computer printout on Kilcullen’s desk. “We ran his prints. He’s been a busy little pervert.”
Kilcullen stood up. “Jesus, Lord, how in Christ’s name does a fucking pedophile get a job hugging and fondling kids all day?”
“He must’ve interviewed really, really good,” Terry said.
Kilcullen, the father of six, ignored the crack. “What do you got so far?”
“We got dick,” I said. “Murder weapon and a sicko calling card. Terry was thinking it could be a serial killer stepping up to the plate.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, that is exactly what they’re shitting bricks about. They’re afraid some bozo is going to start picking off their cartoon characters one at a time. Biggs, I was just telling your partner, this one is on you boys. In fact, if you have anything else to do, like eat, sleep, or wipe your ass, cancel it.”
Brick shitting and ass wiping. Kilcullen was usually good for at least three scatological references.
“Yes, sir,” Biggs said, answering for both of us.
“Good, because I got the Governor of Cali-fucking-fornia crawling up my butt,” he said, completing the trinity of rectal references.
“Now that we’ve made Elkins for a sex offender,” I said, “I’m leaning back to our original instinct. It’s just as likely this is a vendetta against Elkins as a crime against the company. It could be some father whose kid got manhandled by Elkins, and now he’s getting revenge.”
“I agree,” Kilcullen said. “If some bastard violated one of my kids, I’d cut his dick off and shove it up his…” The phone rang and interrupted yet another trip down Hershey Highway. Kilcullen grabbed the phone. “Hold on,” he said, putting his hand over the mouthpiece
.
He turned to us and stared hard. His Irish eyes were definitely not smiling. “Solve it,” he said. “Fast.”
We didn’t stick around to hear if the person on the other end of the phone was the Governor, Sweet Pea, or the King of Siam.
We walked to the coffee room. It was 6 p.m. and the stuff in the pot was like mud, so we each only had half a cup. Terry added half a cup of sugar to his. “I still think we got the makings of a serial killer,” he said, “but let’s run a check on all his victims and see if any were in the vicinity of Familyland yesterday.”
“Maybe we should track down some of the victims themselves,” I said. “Remember that case in Jersey? Thirty-year-old guy murders a priest who molested him back when he was an altar boy?”
“When do we tell Amy and Brian that the dead guy inside the rabbit suit was a wolf in sheep’s clothing?”
“Let’s wait till tomorrow. First let’s toss Elkins’s apartment,” I said. “Is Muller around? We’ll need him.” Muller was our resident computer guru. When you visit a pedophile’s apartment, you head straight for the PC.
“Gone for the day. I saw him split about five,” Terry said.
“Good. If he were still around I’d feel obligated to search Elkins’s place tonight. Now I can get out of here and not be late for dinner with Big Jim.”
“That reminds me,” Terry said. “How can you spot a Teamster’s kid in the schoolyard?”
I took a sip of mud and shrugged.
“He’s the one sitting on the side of the sandbox watching all the other kids play.”
I dumped the rest of my coffee in the sink. “Like I said, Detective Biggs, don’t quit your day job.”
CHAPTER 13
Terry drove me home and we beat out a game plan for the next day. Pick up Muller, search Elkins’s apartment, meet with Brian and Amy, get a list of people who had a grudge against the Lamaar Company.
He said good night, pulled out, and headed toward the Valley. He was probably thinking about Marilyn and the kids before his car was out of my sight.
I live in a sweet little house on Selma just on the edge of Laurel Canyon. It’s a rental. A white saltbox with blue shutters. More New England than L.A. Joanie found it. We were going to live there a few years, have a baby, then buy a real house. We had it all planned, didn’t we, Joanie?
It took me fifteen minutes to shower, change clothes, skim the mail and check my messages. For fourteen of those minutes Andre got to take care of Official Poodle Business in the back yard. Then he joined me in the kitchen, where we popped the tops on a couple of cans. Bud Light for me, Alpo for him. We male-bonded for five minutes, while the cold beer and the chunky beef with gravy washed away some of the cares of the day.
There was a message on the machine from Big Jim. A pilot friend of his might join us for dinner and could I pick up a bottle of wine. Jim flies his Piper on weekends, and he has a habit of striking up instant friendships with the other part-time pilots.
There was a bottle of Murphy-Goode Sauvignon Blanc in the fridge that Joanie never got around to opening. I figured with a name like Murphy-Goode, what could be bad? I grabbed the bottle, turned on the Animal Planet channel for Andre, and told him not to wait up for me.
Big Jim lives in Riverside, less than an hour from my place if the 10 is moving. It’s close enough so he can commute to the studio every day, but far enough from 90210 that he can afford to own a four-acre spread.
He needs the space. He owns over fifty cars and trucks which he rents to film crews. Jim is a card-carrying member of the Teamsters Union who spent his entire career working for the TV and movie studios as a Transportation Captain. He’s driven everything from eighteen-wheelers hauling film equipment to super-stretch limos hauling the world’s biggest assholes. If it has wheels and an engine, Big Jim can get it for you, and he can deliver it wherever you want. Assuming, of course, he can fit into it. The man wears shirts marked XXXXX-L.
He’s built like an offensive lineman. Six-foot-four, three hundred pounds, some of which are a direct consequence of too many idle hours around the catering trucks, but a lot of Big Jim is solid muscle. Let me put it this way: If he walked into a biker bar wearing silver slippers and a ball gown, nobody would fuck with him.
On the outside he looks like the poster boy for the World Wrestling Federation. Inside, he’s three hundred pounds of marshmallow. He’s an avowed Oprah-holic. Loves her. Tapes every show. When Oprah flew to AIDS-infested Africa to bring Christmas to fifty thousand kids, Jim asked me to watch the tape with him. He cried openly while he watched. That’s who he is. All my grown life I’ve heard guys complain about fathers who weren’t there, didn’t hug them, kiss them, or say ‘I love you.’ Not me. I’m blessed. Jim Lomax is the most loving, adoring Dad a kid could grow up with. If I’m screwed up, it definitely was not his fault.
My mother was equally fantastic and even more colorful. When Big Jim first met Tess Delehanty, she had just fallen off a horse. She had to fall off three more times before the director felt he had it on film. She was one of the top stuntwomen of her day and worked in over two hundred movies, five of them with John Wayne. Every now and then, Joanie and I would be watching an old video, and some woman would fall down a flight of stairs, jump off a bridge, or get hit by a truck, and I’d smile and proudly say, “That’s my Mom.”
Jim and Tess got engaged two months after they met. A week later they broke up, and for the next three years they were on-again-off-again. They were so well matched that I never could figure out why their courtship was so stormy. But family legend has it that Mom had trouble letting go of an old boyfriend. I could understand how that would piss Big Jim off. They finally got married on a ranch in the Napa Valley. Mom was three months pregnant at the time with me.
After I was born my mother stopped taking the high-paying, high-risk Hollywood stunt jobs. Instead, she opted to help Jim with the driving and do the occasional job as a film extra. But she never lost her stunt skills, and at an age when most kids are learning their ABCs, Tess was teaching me how to fall down the porch steps, crash my bike, take a fake punch, and do a roll and tuck without getting hurt. I thought she was the coolest Mom in the neighborhood. My kid brother Frankie, on the other hand, was totally embarrassed having a truck-driver father and a daredevil mother. He wanted Ozzie and Harriet. Mom and Dad didn’t even come close.
During her heyday my mother broke seventeen bones, got three concussions, lost four teeth, and punctured a lung. She took it all in stride. No fear. Always relying on her God-given talent, a vigilant stunt coordinator, and the occasional air bag. When she died of congestive heart failure five years ago, she went just the way she always said she would. Peacefully, in her sleep.
Big Jim, of course, was a mess. Some people drink to deal with death. Some eat. Jim shut down. One of the most outgoing guys on the planet just went into hibernation. He asked Chico, one of his drivers, to take charge of renting out the vehicles, and then notified the studios that he personally was not available. After four months he started driving long hauls, which got him out of the house, but kept him isolated for weeks on end.
Thank God for Oprah. One of her shows was about widowhood. A grief counselor suggested that the surviving spouse return to a place where they had the happiest times of their marriage. Then she gave a list of spiritual exercises to help them accept the death of their husbands or wives.
If I had suggested it, my father would have blown me off. But I didn’t suggest it. Oprah did. So he went to the spot where he and my Mom had spent some of the happiest moments of their lives.
The Hillview Country Inn is a hundred-year-old estate in the Napa Valley, just off Highway 29 between Napa and Yountville. Mom and Dad went there on their honeymoon and about twenty more times after that. Except for the color TVs in every room, central air conditioning, and the annual price increases, time has pretty much stood still at The Hillview. The Old English Rose Garden looks just like it did when they saw it together for the first tim
e. Entering the parlor, where you start your morning with a two-thousand-calorie country breakfast, is like stepping into the nineteenth century.
Dad has told me every detail of his journey back to The Hillview, and every year on the anniversary of my mother’s death he tells me the story again. When he first drove up to the property his chest clenched so hard he was sure he’d have to be taken to the ICU instead of his room. The owners, Victor and Gerri Gomperts, greeted him the same way they had greeted him every time since his honeymoon—with a pot of tea, a basket of scones, and a gargantuan side of clotted cream and jam. They gave him their best suite and their deepest sympathies. For a while he just sat there on the big white iron bed, staring out the window, wondering if this was such a good idea. Finally he undressed and got into this big, Spanish-tiled shower built for two.
And every time he tells the story, he says these exact words: “Son, there’s nothing sadder than a two-person shower, a two-person bed, and a two-person room, when one person is gone forever.”
I wasn’t there, but I’ve heard him tell it enough times to be able to picture what happened next. The big man slowly sank to the shower floor and let the water beat on him for twenty minutes while he wept for the piece of him that was missing. Oprah, he thought, you were wrong.
That night, he was sitting in the parlor when Angel came over and extended her condolences. Angel Cruz is at least twenty years younger than Jim, with wide dark eyes, creamy caramel skin and that lustrous black hair that so many Mexican women are blessed with. She had been a fixture at The Hillview for years. By day she waited on tables; at night she served espresso and after-dinner drinks to the few guests who actually hung around after dinner. She had always taken excellent care of my parents, and my Mom adored her.
“Face it, Jim, she’s your fantasy girl,” my mother used to say. “Beautiful, exotic, and she waits on you hand and foot. Next time we go up to The Hillview we should bring her back home with us.”
The Rabbit Factory Page 5