The chairs squeaked as Budd positioned himself once again.
The concierge remembered Esther because she was always complaining about something: air conditioning was too cold, champagne was too warm, or the room service people were rude. And he also remembered a handsome Latino man in his thirties. The concierge said that the man was not only a frequent guest, but he thought he’d been there the day of the shooting. Only The Princess was registered, and upon questioning wouldn’t give up the man’s identity. The case had already gotten a lot of attention, and she said she didn’t want him involved. The Princess got snotty and refused to cooperate; Budd got hardnosed and threatened her with obstruction of justice. Reluctantly, she revealed that her friend was Father Jesus Cortez, a Catholic priest. The reason for his visits was to discuss her converting to Catholicism.
“In a hotel room?” I asked.
“Yeah,” snickered Budd, “where most religious conversions take place. And on top of that she’s a Jew, for Chrissake!”
“And?”
“Jews don’t convert to Christianity, particularly the Catholic Church. Outside of these so-called Messianic Jews, the last Jew to become a Catholic was five hundred years ago, and he had a fucking sword at his throat,” laughed Budd. “So we go see Cortez,” he continued. “Yeah, he confirms her alibi. He’s not real forthcoming with information, but he’s cooperative and a nice guy. And yeah, he says yes, he knows The Princess, and yes, they’ve discussed her becoming a Catholic. My partner tries to rattle him, but he doesn’t rattle. He proves to be a stand-up alibi witness. Still, we know what’s going on. He’s a good-looking guy—I mean a real good-looking guy—and while The Princess might be a royal pain, pardon the pun, she is just as beautiful as her namesake. But the question of the good father’s chastity isn’t our concern, and we never liked her for it anyway. Ergo, we move on with the case.”
Budd laughed.
“I miss something?”
“It’s just what my partner said after we left the parish rectory. Freebie says, ‘Whaddya think? Think the reverend father’s been giving it to The Princess in the ass? Or maybe her being a prospective convert, think maybe he’s duty bound to fuck her missionary style?’ ”
As Budd laughed and dribbled more tobacco juice into his cup I realized that I’d had my fill of policemen and priests. Yes, whether they were active or retired, dead or alive, drunk or sober, I had decidedly had my fill of policemen and priests.
“One thing I didn’t tell you about The Princess,” said Budd. “Esther was her legal name, but she went by her middle name—her professional name as she called it—Muriel.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
When I asked Budd if the gun that killed Lichtman was a limited edition Beretta Panther, I thought he was suffering a stroke. A large glob of tobacco fell through his beard and onto his sweatshirt. His eyes bulged and his pink face turned scarlet as he choked and gasped for air. Two men ran in and asked if he needed help, but he waved them away. I took a cup of water to him as he finally caught his breath.
“How in the fuck did you know that?” he demanded.
“I didn’t until just now,” I replied.
“Look here, Doc Holiday, you better tell me and tell me fucking now how you know what type of piece killed Lichtman,” shouted Budd. “That information was never released. Nobody outside of the task force knew that.”
When, a few minutes earlier, I’d asked Budd about a murder-for-hire scenario with Lichtman he’d responded that the killing was done by an amateur. He said professionals favor a .22 caliber revolver because that type of weapon has good velocity, high accuracy, low noise, and it doesn’t jam. He said a professional usually doesn’t use an automatic, particularly a .25 caliber. It was then that I asked if the ballistics indicated a Beretta Panther Limited Edition manufactured in the early sixties.
“Like I say,” I went on, “I didn’t know that until just now, but both Cortez and Lichtman were shot twice in the left temple. Both sitting in their cars. Both execution style, although their watches and wallets were taken to make it look like robbery. I think these cases are related, and further related to a murder in Portland thirty years ago. But ballistics will tell us, won’t they? You must have had a good slug from Lichtman, or you wouldn’t know the manufacturer or model.”
“Right. So how are they related? At the time we tried to match ballistics on open and closed cases and came up with zilch. When was the homicide in Portland?”
“Thirty years ago. It was solved. A closed case. Maybe it was in a database you could have checked?”
“I doubt it like hell. So what’s going on here?” demanded Budd.
“I’m involved in a case that looks like straight-up fraud. Someone is laundering millions, maybe five or six so far, through a strawman. The strawman doesn’t know he is doing this or that he holds title to ten to twenty million dollars in rental properties. All indications lead me back to the murder of his wife thirty years ago.”
“How the hell can that be?”
“This guy is a burn brain in his seventies. No one else on title, no spouse, and no next of kin we know of. Why use this guy? One reason may be a familial motivation. There may be a will somewhere we don’t know about or one of the kids may be orchestrating the show.”
I explained about the missing gun from the murder, how the kids had claimed to have “thrown it in the river.”
“If my theory is correct, then it’s out there and being used. Long shot, but what else do we have? The first order of business should be ballistics. I know who Hobbs can call in Portland, but who does he call at the San Diego PD?”
Budd shifted in his chairs and wiped tobacco out of his beard and sweatshirt. He was quiet for a moment before he said, “Lieutenant Jimmy Lopez. Hobbs can mention my name. Assuming we have a match, how do you put these cases together?”
“I don’t know. It seems it somehow goes back to Portland. Hobbs thinks it’s no accident that Cortez and I became friends, that we know someone in common, and that I was a safe house in case Jesus got jammed up.”
The chairs creaked again as he seemed to lean in to hear me better. “Jammed up how?”
“Once again, I don’t know. But he was scared, very scared, when he came to me. As for who we knew in common, that’s Hobbs’ theory. I can’t even guess.”
“So once again, how do these cases fit together?”
“They don’t. To use your term, it’s oddball. Lichtman could be a key, if ballistics match. But I sense there is more oddball in that case than you’ve told me.”
Budd sipped his cup of water, first checking to see it wasn’t his tobacco cup. He seemed to gather his thoughts before he spoke. “We may have had a motive, and the operative word here is a very strong may. I liked the wife, Grace, for it and still do. But she had a truly airtight alibi and no motive, except for what The Princess told us. Get this: from the jump The Princess says that Grace is the murderer. We know Grace wasn’t the shooter, and we can find no connection to her or whoever the killer was. Like I said before, we found no large cash withdrawals. Nothing.”
Budd’s chairs strained and squeaked as he shifted his weight. He sipped some water and wiped again at his sweatshirt, then continued, “About a week or so into the investigation, The Princess is back in our faces again about her stepmother. This time she says she has the motive. Diamonds in a safety deposit box. Seems Lichtman had told his daughter that he had eight million dollars in diamonds that was there for her in case something happened to him. When they opened the box they found approximately eighty thousand, so The Princess says Grace stole the missing gems. Problem is Grace didn’t have access to the box. As I said, we had forensics’ accountants look through all accounts, and if she had acquired any unexplained large sums of cash, we couldn’t find evidence of that. We started looking when the investigation began and we were still looking when probate closed six months later. Nothing to support the theory of stolen diamonds. Nothing to substantiate the fact that there w
as eight million there in the first place. Nothing to indicate that there was ever any more than eighty thousand worth, except the hearsay word of a dead used-car dealer. We looked and looked and came up empty.”
“You say you liked the wife for the murder. Why?”
“Instinct, maybe. Fifteen years in homicide and always looking at the spouse, maybe. Or maybe it was just her looks. She looked like an ice-cold blonde out of a Hitchcock movie—beautiful, classy and so cool that when she gets a blood transfusion they have to hook her up to a tank of Freon. But when you get to the facts of the case, thing is, there isn’t even any decent circumstantial evidence against her. The case was just as oddball as Mutt and Jeff. Just as oddball as it gets.”
“You had a princess, a wicked stepmother, and a stolen treasure. All the makings of a fairytale,” I offered.
Budd looked into his Red Man pouch and then looked at me. He said, “A fairytale? So where’s the happy ending?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Before we parted, Rosselli gave me a lead on Jackie Polo, a man he described as an old queen who owned a bondage shop, and had been, to quote Budd, “in Boy’s Town since Tab Hunter got his first blow job.” And also a lead on someone who knew Jackie Polo. Right after I left Budd I called Hobbs and told him about the Lichtman and Smith cases. I gave him the contact information.
“What’s the causal relationship?” he asked in an annoyed tone.
“I’m not a living legend of crime detection, so you tell me.”
“Holiday, from where I sit, you aren’t even a fucking detective. Where’s Muriel?”
“As it happens I have a lead on her, and may have her identity and whereabouts soon.”
“I talk to her first. Not you.”
“Hobbs, I don’t work for you.”
“Holiday, with the progress you’re making, you don’t seem to work at all,” he said, and as was his custom, he hung up without saying goodbye.
At 7:30 the next morning I was awakened from a sound sleep by a loud knock at my door.
“Hotel security,” said a voice through the door. “Mr. Holiday?”
I got out of bed and looked through the peephole to see a small Latino man wearing a Holiday Inn jacket.
“Mr. Holiday, we think your vehicle may have been vandalized,” he shouted through the door. As I saw him start to knock again, I opened the door, and as I did so he put his left hand flat on my chest and pushed me back into my room. With a motion like a boxer’s right hook he pulled a chrome-plated automatic pistol from behind his back and placed the barrel directly under my chin. A large man who looked to be Samoan followed him in and closed the door.
“Everything is cool, so get chilly, Chief,” the Latino man said. “Just give up your piece.”
“What do you want?” I asked, too shocked and scared to be angry.
“Your pistol. Just so you don’t get stupid with us,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.
I just stared at him. He raised an eyebrow to the Samoan, who was behind me. The Samoan grabbed my hair, pulled a Rambo-style hunting knife, and placed the blade to my throat. I felt the razor sharpness. The Latino put the barrel of his gun close to my left eye, so close that I couldn’t blink, and my eye began to tear up.
“What do we want? First we want your Walther. You’ll get it back. Then we want you to shower, shave, and get dressed. You got a luncheon date. The man you’re meeting dresses for lunch so you’ll be wearing a suit, or at least slacks, jacket and a tie. Don’t have a tie? We got a couple in the limo.” He eased back on the pistol for a moment. “Nothing to it. We take you to the man for lunch, and we bring you back. No muss, no fuss. A day at the beach, as long as you stay chilly.” He still spoke in a voice so calm and flat, it was almost a monotone.
“Who are you people?” I demanded.
“Chief, for now just think of us as the last people in this world you want to fuck around with,” he said, pushing the barrel of the gun closer to my eye.
I told him where the Walther was. The Latino found it, took out the clip, and placed it in his pocket, then checked the chamber and placed the gun back in the drawer. The Samoan let go of my hair and put away his knife. The Latino came back to where I was standing with his gun now at his side. He gave me a quick pat down with one hand, although I was wearing just a T-shirt and boxers.
“Are you going to tell me who the man is?” I asked.
He just smiled and said, “Let’s get ready.”
“Are you going to tell me why he wants to see me?”
“What I get are whos, wheres, and whens. I don’t get a lot of whys. Once again, let’s get ready for lunch,” he said, always in that same casual monotone.
“It’s not even eight o’clock yet.”
“We got a ways to go. Do you want my associate here to help you shave and pick out your wardrobe selections, or do you want to do it yourself?”
I told him I could manage, but I fumbled with the shave cream and razor. They never took their eyes off of me, and in fifteen minutes I was ready to go.
As we were about to leave my room the Latino again pulled his gun in a right hook fashion, and placed the barrel flush under my chin. “I want you to stay chilly. I have orders to deliver you in good condition. If possible. I am going to deliver you; the condition part is up to you.”
As we left the motel, a maid walked by. The Latino man said something in Spanish that I didn’t understand and made her laugh.
The Latino led and I followed with the Samoan behind me. We entered a stretch limo that was so long I couldn’t see the hood to determine the original manufacturer. I sat in back, flanked by the Samoan on my left and the Latino on my right.
“Stop at the first Starbucks you see,” the Latino ordered the driver. In front of me was a table set for one. It had two flavors of my preferred brand of yogurt and a box of my favorite granola cereal. Alongside were a bowl of fresh blueberries and strawberries and a liter bottle of fresh grapefruit juice.
The limo stopped, and in a few minutes the driver came back and handed a cup to the Latino. “Venti Americano with room, right?
“Right?” asked the Latino, looking at me. “Room. But you take nothing in it?”
I nodded and took the coffee. Intimidation comes in many forms. You can choke someone with piano wire, put a knife to his throat, or place a gun in his face. But when someone knows what you eat for breakfast, down to exactly how you take your coffee, it can give you serious pause. I remembered what the hollow-voiced man had said, “Holiday, where you are is the major leagues. What you are is strictly bush league.”
I ate breakfast as the limo jerked through the Monday morning Los Angeles traffic. When I finished the last of my coffee, I turned to the Samoan. “Is this about Jesus Cortez?”
He shrugged and his face showed no sign that he recognized the name.
I looked at the Latino, who turned to me and said, “Who?”
I repeated the name.
“Never heard of him. You need to stay chilly, Chief. You need to sit back and enjoy the ride.” Though still casual, his tone implied he was finished answering questions.
I sat back, and from my position I could see that we were heading east toward San Bernardino. After twenty-five miles or so we left the highway and approached a small, private airstrip where the limo dropped us off in front of a hanger. Pointing to a Lear Jet, the Latino said, “Your chariot awaits.”
The Gulfstream interior was appointed with elm burl woodwork and rich almond-colored leather. During takeoff I sat in a jump seat at a conference table across from the Samoan and next to the Latino. Once we were at cruising altitude, I moved over to a divan and read a long article in the New Yorker about Edward Albee. I then caught up on current events with the day’s Wall Street Journal.
Three and a half hours into the flight, the Latino came up to me and said that we would be landing soon. Before we began our descent, he blindfolded me, and once on the ground he took my arm and helped me out of the plane and into
a car. I heard no airport-type noises so I surmised we were on another private airstrip.
Fifteen minutes later, I was helped out of the car, and had been walking for about one hundred feet when I heard a door open and then close behind me. After my blindfold was removed, I rubbed my eyes and found myself in a large and elegant foyer with a squat Spanish man in his fifties standing in front of me. He had the flat black eyes of a bird, a nose that had been broken more than once, but not recently, and ragged knife scars on both sides of his face. The Latino introduced him as Nestor and told me not to engage him in conversation, as the man had no tongue. He also cautioned me that when I meet The Man to refer to him as Colonel.
“Is this where you tell me again to be chilly?”
“That’s right, Chief. Stay cool. I’ll be waiting for you when you’re done. Nestor will take you from here.”
Nestor ran a metal-detecting wand over my entire body and then examined the inside of my loafers. He was smooth, thorough, and professional as he patted me down. When he was finished, he grunted for me to follow him. We walked up a winding staircase, down one hallway and then another hallway until we reached a room with double doors.
Nestor escorted me into a huge room containing shelf after shelf of books that went up almost to the top of the twenty-foot ceiling. The room was slightly larger than the average neighborhood branch of a big city library. Certainly the furniture was nicer, and the books were better kept. Nestor, standing in front of the double doors, seemed to pay me no attention as I wandered through the library. But I doubted he ever missed anything. As I walked around the huge room I noticed a line of glass-encased pedestals that ran between two shelves. They held books that appeared to be in mint condition—first editions, I imagined. The room smelled of mangos and fresh-cut flowers.
The Big Bitch Page 12