“The taxpayers respectfully decline your offer,” Church said. “You’re a high-profile target, but my people won’t just be there to protect you. They’re also there to let me know what you’re up to. Whatever measures your security people are taking, I need to know about. With one exception, you’re free to do what you have to do, but I need to be kept in the loop.”
“What’s the exception?”
“Everything you heard here tonight, especially about Kennedy, Barber, and Lebrecht, is classified. You could do a lot of damage if you told anybody what we know, what we suspect, and what we plan to do. Understood?”
“Have no fear, Agent Church,” Rose said. “I’ve spent the last four years working with Arabella Leone. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
“Alright,” Church said. “Now that we’re all squared away, there’s one last thing I would like to get to the bottom of tonight.”
“What’s that?” Rose said.
“That vodka bottle with my name on it. Good night, gentlemen.”
Terry and I had left our cars at Familyland when we took the helicopter. Curry had his people drive them to the hospital and leave them in the parking lot, keys in the visor.
I drove home in time to catch the eleven o’clock news. The death threat to the Lamaar organization and anyone who came near it was on every channel including the Spanish stations.
There were five messages on my machine. One from Diana saying she was going to bed and not to call after ten. One from Kemp letting me know that Andre was a great chick magnet, and he’d be glad to dogsit as long as I needed him. And three from Big Jim, who told me to call any time of the day or night. There was no immediate Frankie crisis. He just wanted to know what I knew about this Lamaar business that the TV wasn’t telling him. I called him back, told him I knew plenty but I wasn’t at liberty to discuss it.
I was in bed a few minutes after midnight. It was now Friday. It had been less than two weeks since Terry called me and said we had a dead guy in a rabbit suit. To say that my little homicide case had escalated to monumental proportions would be an understatement.
CHAPTER 82
The telephone woke me at 6:30. It was Terry. “There’s a strange man lurking at your front door,” he said. “He’s got hot coffee and he’s here to help you with that baffling case you’ve been trying to solve.”
I stumbled to the door and let him in. “What the fuck are you doing here so early?” I said.
He had two Starbucks coffee cups. “Amazing how much time you can save in the morning if you don’t have to shave.” He stepped in and I got a better look at his face. I could still see the cuts, but the redness had calmed down.
“You look a hell of a lot better than last night,” I said.
“I’ve never heard that before. It used to be some broad would wake up next to me in the morning and say ‘Christ, you’re even uglier in the daylight.’ Marilyn fixed me up with some kind of homeopathic powder so I don’t look like a full-blooded Cherokee.”
“How’s your chest?”
“I now know how Dolly Parton feels when she runs into a brick wall.” He handed me a coffee. “They hit again. Lamaar has a kids’ radio network. A bomb went off at their station in New York. They were off the air for the night, so it only destroyed the transmitter. But it scared a lot of people. Minimum casualties, maximum message. Get dressed.”
I drank the coffee in the shower, dressed, and went to the kitchen. Terry was eating a bowl of Cheerios, and there was a second bowl for me. “I thought of something that might help when we talk to the three old men,” he said.
“And you just couldn’t wait to wake me up and share.”
“Did you ever read The True Believer by Eric Hoffer? I read it in college.”
“I was too busy getting laid in college. Can I get the Cliffs Notes?”
“The book gets inside the mind of fanatics; what makes them tick. You ever wonder how a suicide bomber can get on a bus and blow himself up just so that a few innocent civilians will die with him?”
“I pretty much figure he’s out of his fucking mind.”
“He is. But he believes he’s doing the right thing. The people who crashed those planes into the World Trade Center, they were what Hoffer calls ‘True Believers.’ They really thought this is what God wanted them to do. I think maybe that’s what’s driving these three old men.”
“God is telling them to destroy the Lamaar Company?”
“Not God. Dean Lamaar. Don’t laugh, but to them, he’s God.”
I didn’t laugh. “Interesting,” I said. “The first time I talked to Big Jim about Lamaar he said something like ‘If your name’s on that front gate, you are God Almighty.’ But Lamaar is dead. Did he leave instructions telling them to destroy the company, or do they just think this is what he would want them to do?”
“Jesus is dead,” Terry said. “He left instructions, and lots of people follow them. You and I can’t make sense out of how a fanatic thinks. But Hoffer’s book not only tells you how their minds work, it explains how your basic Joe Average can wind up crazy as a shithouse rat.”
“These guys worked for a movie studio,” I said. “At what point along the way did they start believing they’re on a mission from God?”
“Marilyn thinks that…”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Your wife came up with this?”
“No. I did. And at four in the morning, I wanted to talk to somebody about it, and I had two choices. Wake you or wake her.”
“Good call. What did she say?”
“In the beginning, Dean Lamaar created the company. She said it biblical like that to make the point. Lamaar is God. He’s the Father. But for the next fifty years Kennedy, Barber, and Lebrecht shaped the company. They nurtured it. It became their purpose in life. Then along come the Japanese and Ike Rose, and the company doesn’t need them any more, doesn’t want them any more, and starts changing everything they built. Bingo, they have no purpose.”
“That happens to lots of guys,” I reminded him. “Sometimes you see a cop who retired from the force, and he’s like a zombie.”
“These guys didn’t retire. You told me last night. They got shanghaied by the Japanese. Hostile takeover. And then Ike Rose shows up with the sexy movies and the casino in Vegas and all the smut they bitched about yesterday before they blew up the van. To them Rose is the Devil. And the company is his evil empire. So now they found a new purpose in life. If the company can’t be the way the great God Dean Lamaar intended, they’re going to destroy it.”
“Marilyn came up with this idea?”
“I told you, I landed on it. She just helped talk me through it. You seem to be having real trouble accepting the fact that I am funny and smart.”
“You’re right. Maybe it’s because your face looks like somebody used it as a dartboard. But it’s a good theory. Should we call Church and tell him?”
“I’d rather talk to Kennedy, Barber, and Lebrecht first. We can’t arrest them without evidence, so let’s get inside their heads. The more we understand how they think, the better chance we have of getting something out of them.”
I finished my Cheerios, cleared the table, and washed the dishes. It gave me time to let it all percolate. “It fits,” I finally said. “These guys have spent most of their lives treating Dean Lamaar like he’s God. Not just because he created the Lamaar Company, but because he created them.”
“I like that,” Terry said. “Marilyn will like that. Dean Lamaar created them.”
“Last night Ike Rose gave me some more background on the three of them,” I said. “After the war Kevin Kennedy went back to Boston and got a job driving a bus. If Dean Lamaar hadn’t sent for him he would have wound up being just another bus driver who could draw.”
“How about the other two?”
“Different details, same story. Lamaar helped all of them to live lives that were beyond their wildest dreams. I think you hit it right on the head, partner. These guys believe
they owe it to his memory to destroy the new company.”
“Yeah,” Terry said. “The hard part is going to be catching them before they actually do.”
CHAPTER 83
Terry and I drove to Mitchell Barber’s house in Bel Air. Nobody was home. Kevin Kennedy lived half a mile away. “He’s gone for the day,” his maid told us. “You should have called first. I could have saved you a trip.”
“There’s a helpful hint for homicide detectives,” Terry said, when we got back in the car. “Call ahead to let the murder suspect know you’re on the way.”
“Actually the fact that the first two weren’t home bodes well,” I said. “I’ll bet the three of them are hiding under the same rock. If they’re all together in Ojai, you want to run the business card play?”
“It’s worth a shot. Who’s our weakest link?”
“From what I read, and from talking to Ike, Mitchell Barber.”
“You know what he looks like?” Terry said.
“Yeah, the Fortune article had pictures of all of them.” I tapped my pocket. “And I got all the business cards I need right here.”
We stopped in Ventura for gas, then merged onto Route 33. Counting the pit stop, it took us an hour and fifteen minutes to get to Ojai. I spent twenty of those minutes on the phone with Muller. I gave him the broad strokes, then I told him the FBI was already searching the ether for anything that would connect Kennedy, Barber, and Lebrecht to Innocenti in Sicily, Benjamin in Israel, or the tall guy from Eastern Europe. “But I thought you might have fun playing the game.”
“This is a mercy assignment, isn’t it?” he said. “You knew how bummed I was when Lucas got murdered and my pedophile research got thrown out, so you’re just throwing me a bone. Right?”
“Right,” I said. “It’s strictly out of pity.”
“Yeah, well all I can say is this is the best bone I’ve been thrown in a long time. Thanks, Lomax. I won’t let you down, man.”
I hung up. “Good news,” I said to Terry. “There’s joy in Geekville.”
Compared to the Kennedy and Barber estates, Lebrecht’s house was modest. Assuming you consider the five-million-dollar range modest. There were four cars in the driveway. In most places that would be a sure sign that the three people we were looking for were all there. In Southern California it’s just as likely to mean that nobody is home, and the guy who owns the house is tooling around in Car Number Five.
A man in his early fifties answered the door. He was blue-eyed, thick-lipped, with a bald dome that was polished to a high gloss. He had on black pants, a starched white shirt, a pearl-gray tie, and one of those striped vests you see butlers wear in old movies. We flashed our badges and politely answered, No, we did not have an appointment. “Just a moment,” he said in the same tone of voice that most people save for “fuck you.” He closed the door in our faces.
“Seems like a pleasant fellow. A bit authoritative, but then, who isn’t?” Terry said, clicking his heels and snapping to attention.
A minute later the door re-opened. “Mr. Lebrecht will see you in the Media Room,” the butler informed us. “Follow me.”
We followed. Terry, of course, had to take a few goosesteps, because what’s a mass murder investigation without a few yucks.
The furniture and the art on the wall were minimalist, very Bauhaus, which made sense, considering Lebrecht’s heritage. The Media Room had three television sets, all of which were tuned to different news channels. It also contained the three old men. Before any of them could get up I walked over to Mitch Barber and shook his hand. “Mr. Barber, how are you today?”
I turned to Lebrecht. He stood up. He was tall and lanky, Lincolnesque, but without the beard. He extended his hand. I put my business card in it. “Detective Mike Lomax, LAPD, and this is my partner Detective Terry Biggs.”
He looked at the card and put it in his pocket. “How do you do, Detective. I’m Klaus Lebrecht.”
As soon as he spoke I recognized the voice. Amy had been right. It was the same voice I had heard in Dean Lamaar’s farewell video. I turned to Kennedy and gave him a card. “And you, sir?”
“Kevin Kennedy.” He put the card in his pocket without looking at it.
Barber stood up. “I’m Mitchell Barber. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
He was short and squat with a comb-over that had to take at least ten minutes to blow-dry into place. I gave him a puzzled look. Of course we haven’t met, but I want to convince your buddies that we have. “Oh, right,” I said. “My mistake. Good to meet you.” But no business card for you, Mitch.
Terry jumped in. “This is sure a coincidence. We’ve been hoping to talk to you gentlemen, and here you all are. Together.”
“We come here often,” Barber said. “It’s a short enough drive and it’s the only way we get to spend time with Klaus. He hates to leave the compound.”
“This will sure save us a lot of time,” I said, winking in Barber’s direction. “I see you’re watching the news about Lamaar. We’ve been sent to ask you a few questions. Believe me, it won’t take long. Why don’t we start with you, Mr. Lebrecht? Is there a place where we can be alone?”
Lebrecht gave me an amused look. “Detective Lomax, these men and I have been partners for more than half a century. Whatever you have to say to one of us, you can say to all of us.”
“Fine by me,” I said. “It’s not exactly by the book, but like I said to the lieutenant, you don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out why somebody would want to put the Lamaar Company out of business.”
“We were just wondering that ourselves,” Lebrecht said. He turned off the three TV sets and gestured for everyone to sit down. “Why would somebody want to put Lamaar out of business?”
“Sir, look at the garbage they’re turning out,” I said. “I realize that’s no reason to be killing people, but it happens all the time. I mean if someone murders an abortion doctor or blows up one of his clinics, how smart do I have to be to figure out the motive? Believe me, I don’t condone it. It’s against the law, and if I find the guy, I’ll arrest him. But I know where he’s coming from.”
“I agree that my old studio is putting out some offensive films these days,” Lebrecht said, “but isn’t that what the young audiences want?”
“I don’t care what the young audiences want,” Terry said. “I’ve got three little girls. What about what I want? You think I want them seeing movies about incest? And don’t think that just because it’s rated R, they can’t sneak in.”
“Have you seen the video games?” I said. “I won’t let my boy Hugo play them anymore. If he keeps watching all that random violence, don’t you think he’s going to be trying to find where I keep my gun? But, hey, I apologize. We’re wasting your time. The question is, what do you think is going on? Do you have any ideas who might be behind this and why?”
“We worked with a man named Lars Eeg,” Lebrecht said. “His son is suing because he says Deanie cheated his father, but that’s patently untrue. He might be angry enough to try to bring the company to its knees.”
If I had any doubts that Lebrecht was the off-camera voice from the tape, I didn’t now. As soon as he said Deanie, I was positive. “We’re aware of him, sir, but so far that’s going nowhere. How about you, Mr. Kennedy? You have any ideas on who may be behind this and why?”
Kennedy had been cleaning his eyeglasses to give himself something to do. He looked up. “Beats the piss out of me, officer.”
I completely ignored Barber and turned to Terry. “I told the boss this was a waste of time.”
“Not for yours truly,” he said. “It’s not every day I get to meet the people behind some of the best movies and most popular characters of all time. I’m a big fan. Hey, tell me Mr. Lebrecht, what was Dean Lamaar like in person?”
“Deanie was a prince,” Lebrecht said. “So talented, so loving, so caring. It was a joy to work for him and an honor to be his friend. There was still so much more he could have given th
e world. He passed on far too soon.”
“No disrespect, sir,” I said, “but maybe it’s for the best. Don’t you think he’d be pretty miserable to see what they’ve done to his company?”
I could see Barber’s flabby chest rising and falling. He turned to Lebrecht, waiting for him to field the question. “I’m sure Deanie would be less than thrilled, but he did sell the company to a Japanese conglomerate,” Lebrecht said. “He knew that the new corporation would no longer reflect his personal sensibilities or his commitment to the traditional values of the American family.”
“American family values!” Terry said. “That’s what the Lamaar Company was always about. I understand a company has to make money. And me, I’m as open-minded as the next guy…”
“Ha!” I said, turning to the old men. “He’s not. He’s a real throwback. Come on, Terry, we’ve bothered these gentlemen enough.” I stood up. “Nice to meet you all. If you think of anything, give me a call.”
Lebrecht stood as well. “I can assure you we will. Thank you for driving all the way up here. Freddy will show you out.”
Apparently, the humorless, bald, Nazi manservant was named Freddy. He showed us out.
CHAPTER 84
A white van was blocking our car. Irwin’s Market was making a delivery. “Move the fucking van now,” Freddy dictated, in a very un-butlery manner.
The driver, who obviously knew better than to argue with the Gestapo, shrugged his shoulders, put the carton of groceries down, and backed the van out of our way, as the hulking Freddy glared at him.
“What’s your take on Larry, Curly, and Moe?” Terry asked, as we pulled out of the driveway.
“They’re all guilty of something, which is probably why they were glued to the tube catching the latest Lamaar disaster news. And don’t tell me it’s big news, and the whole world is glued to the tube. These guys had three tubes.”
“You really nailed Barber,” he said. “First you give him the big nice-to-see-you-again hand pump, then you pretend you don’t know him, then you totally ignore him, so now the others are sure you’ve been talking to him.”
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