Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 16 - The Murder Book

by The Murder Book(Lit)

  Schwinn had sat on whatever he'd known for two decades, pasted photos in an album, finally decided to break silence.

  Why now?

  Maybe because Broussard had reached the top and Schwinn wanted his revenge to be a gourmet dish.

  Using Milo to do the dirty work...

  Then he falls off a docile horse...

  Headlights from the north end of Robertson slapped him out of

  his rumination. Two sets of lights, a pair of vehicles approaching the Melrose intersection. The traffic signal turned amber. The first car passed through legally and the second one ran the red.

  Both pulled up in front of Sangre de Leon.

  Vehicle Number One was a discreet, black, Mercedes coupe -surprise, surprise! - whose license plate he copied down quickly. Out stepped the driver, another business-suit, moving so quickly the pink ladies had no time to get his door. He slipped a bill to the nearest valet, anyway, let Milo have a nice, clean look at him.

  Older guy. Late sixties to midseventies, balding, with a sparse gray comb-over, wearing a boxy beige suit, a white shirt, and a dark tie. Medium height, medium build, clean-shaven, the skin falling away from the bone at jowls and neck. No expression on his face. Milo wondered if this was Larner, Senior. Or just a guy out for dinner.

  If so, it wouldn't be a solo dinner, because the occupants of the second car nearly tripped over themselves to get to his side.

  Vehicle Two was also black, but no feat of German engineering. Big, fat Crown Victoria sedan, anachronistically oversize. The only places Milo'd seen those things, recently, were government offices, but this one didn't have state-issue e plates.

  But neither did lots of unmarkeds, and for a second he thought, Department brass? and experienced a rush of expectations met too easily: documenting cop honchos with the Cossacks, why the hell hadn't he remembered to bring a damn camera?

  But the moment the first guy out of the Crown Victoria turned and showed his face, it was a whole different story.

  Long, dark, lizard face under a black pompadour.

  City Councilman Eduardo 'Ed the Germ' Bacilla, the official representative of a district that encompassed a chunk of downtown. He of the serious bad habits and poor work habits - Bacilla attended maybe one out of every five council meetings and a couple of years ago he'd been nabbed in Boyle Heights trying to buy powdered coke from an undercover narc. Quick and frantic negotiations with the DA's Office had led to the draconian sentence of public apology and public service: two months on graffiti-removal detail, Bacilla working alongside some of the very gang-bangers he'd favored with city-funded scam rehab programs. Lack of a

  felony conviction meant the councilman could keep his job, and a recall effort by a leftist homeboy reformer sputtered.

  And now here was ol' Germ, kissing up to Tan Suit.

  So was Crown Victoria Rider Two, and guess what: another civil stalwart.

  This guy had looped his arm around Tan Suit's shoulder and was laughing about something. No expression on Suit's CEO face.

  Mr Jocular was older, around Tan Suit's age, with white temples and a bushy, white mustache that concealed his upper lip. Tall and narrow-shouldered, with an onion-bulb body that a well-cut suit couldn't enhance, and the ice-eyed cunning of a cornered peccary.

  City Councilman James 'Diamond Jim' Home. He of the suspected kickbacks and briberies and ex-wives hush-moneyed to silence back in the good old days when domestic violence was still known as wife-beating.

  Milo knew through the LAPD gravevine that Home was a longtime, serious spouse-basher with a penchant for pulverizing without leaving marks. Like Germ Bacilla, Diamond Jim had always managed to squeak through without arrest or conviction. For over thirty years, he'd served a district that bordered Bacilla's, a north-central strip filled with ticky-tack houses and below-code apartments. Once solidly working-class white, Home's constituency had turned 70 percent poor Hispanic, and the councilman had watched his vote pluralities tumble. From 90 percent to 70. A series of opponents with surnames ending in 'ez' had failed to topple Home. The corrupt old bastard got the potholes fixed, and plenty else.

  Germ and Diamond Jim, walking arm in arm with Tan Suit, heading for the steel door of Sangre de Leon.

  Milo returned to the Taurus and, using the ID of a Pacific Division Vice detective he despised, pulled up the Mercedes coupe's plates.

  He half expected another corporate shield, but the numbers came back matching a four-year-old Mercedes owned by a real-life person.

  WE. Obey The three hundred block of Muirfield Road in Hancock Park.

  Walter Obey. He of the billion-dollar fortune.

  Nominally, Walt Obey was in the same business as the Cossacks - concrete and rebar and lumber and drywall. But Obey occupied a whole different galaxy from the Cossacks. Fifty years ago, Obey Construction began nailing up homes for returning GIs. The company was probably responsible for 10 percent of the tracts that snaked parallel to the freeways and sprawled across the smog-choked basin that the Chumash Indians had once called the Valley

  of Smoke.

  Walt Obey and his wife, Barbara, were on the board of every museum, hospital, and civic organization that meant anything in the lip-gnawing, over-the-shoulder uncertainty known as L.A. Society.

  Walt Obey was also a model of rectitude - Mr Upright in a business that claimed few saints.

  The guy had to be at least eighty, but he looked a good deal younger. Good genes? Clean living?

  Now here he was, supping with Germ and Diamond Jim.

  The Cossacks and Brad Larner had been inside for one hour. No shock, it was their restaurant. Still the question hung: table for three, or six?

  He obtained Sangre de Leon's number from Information and called the restaurant. Five rings later a bored, Central European-accented male voice said, 'Yes?'

  'This is Mr Walter Obey's office. I've got a message for Mr Obey. He's dining with the Cossacks, I believe they're in a private room-'

  'Yes, they are. I'll get the phone to him.' Eagerness to please had wiped out the boredom.

  Milo hung up.

  He drove home trying to piece it all together. The Cossacks and Walt Obey and two city councilmen noshing on designer grub. Brad Larner along as a gofer, or his dad's surrogate? Alex had pulled up something about the Cossacks trying to bring a football team to L.A., maybe reactivating the Coliseum. The scheme had died, as had nearly everything else the Cossacks had tried - movies, tearing down landmarks. On the face of it the brothers were losers. Yet they had enough clout to bring Walt Obey from Hancock Park to West Hollywood.

  The Cossacks in their chauffeured Town Car with personalized plates screamed new money. But Obey, the real money man, drove himself in an anonymous, four-year-old sedan. The billionaire was so unobtrusive he could pass for your average, middling CPA.

  What got vulgarians and bluenoses together? Something big. The Coliseum sat in Germ Bacilla's district, and next door was Diamond Jim Home's domain. Was this one of those complicated deals that always managed to elude zoning laws and whatever else stood in its way? Taxpayers footing the bill for rich guys' indulgences? Something that might be jeopardized by the rehash of a twenty-year-old murder and the exposure of the Cossacks' role in covering up for their crazy sister and junkie-murderer Willie Burns?

  Why had Georgie Nemerov gotten so antsy?

  The only possible thread between Nemerov and the rest of it was the department.

  And now the department was verifying his vacation time and maybe sending that Bartlett asshole to spook him.

  Health facilitator. Meaning what? Be careful not to get unhealthy?

  Suddenly, he wanted very much to make someone else deathly ill.

  When he pulled into his driveway, the white Porsche was parked up near the garage, little red alarm light blinking on the dash, extra-strength lock bar fixed to the steering column. Rick loved the car, was as careful with it as he was with everything else.

  He found Rick at the kitchen table, still we
aring his scrubs and eating warmed-up Chinese food from last night. A glass of red wine was at his elbow. He saw Milo and smiled and gave a weak wave and the two of them shared a brief hug, and Rick said, 'Working late?'

  'The usual. How'd your day go?'

  'The usual.'

  'Heroics?'

  'Hardly.' Rick pointed to the empty chair across the table. The final dark hairs in his dense cap of curls had faded to gray last summer, and his mustache was a silver toothbrush. Despite being a doctor and knowing better, he liked to tan out in the backyard and his skin had held on to summer color. He looked tired. Milo sat down opposite him and began picking at orange chicken.

  'There's more in the refrigerator,' said Rick. 'The egg rolls, the rest of it.'

  'No, I'll just take yours.'

  Rick smiled. Weary.

  'Bad stuff on shift?' said Milo.

  'Not particularly. Couple of heart attacks, couple of false alarms, kid with a broken leg from falling off a Razor scooter, colon cancer patient with a serious gut bleed that kept us busy for a long time, woman with a darning needle in her eye, two auto accidents, one accidental shooting - we lost that one.'

  'The usual trivia.'

  'Exactly.' Rick pushed his food away. 'There was one thing. The shooting was the last case I pulled. I couldn't do anything for the poor guy, he came in flat, never beeped. Looks like he was cleaning his nine-millimeter, stared into the barrel, maybe making sure it was clear, and boom. The cops who came in with the body said they found gun oil and rags and one of those barrel-reaming tools on the table next to him. Bullet entered here.' Rick touched the center of his mustache, under his nose.

  'An accident?' said Milo. 'Not suicide? Or anything else?'

  'The cops who came in kept calling it an accident, maybe they knew something technical. It'll go to the coroner.'

  'Sheriff's cops?' said Milo.

  'No, you guys. It happened near Venice and Highland. But that's not what I want to tell you. The body had just gone to the morgue, and I came back to chart and the cops who brought the guy in were in the cubicle next door and I heard them talking. Going on about their pensions, sick leave, department benefits. Then one said something about a detective in West L.A. division who'd tested HIV-positive and put in for retirement. The other cop said, "Guess what goes 'round comes round." Then they both laughed. Not a joyful laugh. A mean laugh.'

  Rick picked up a chopstick and seesawed it between two fingers. Looked into Milo's eyes. Touched Milo's hand.

  Milo said, 'I haven't heard anything about that.'

  'Didn't assume you had, or you'd have told me.'

  Milo withdrew his hand, stood, and got himself a beer.

  Rick stayed at the table, continued to play with the chopstick.

  Tilting it deftly, precisely. A surgeon's grace.

  Milo said, 'It's bullshit. Fda heard.'

  I just thought it was something you'd want to know.'

  'Highland and Venice. What the hell would Wilshire Division know about West L.A.? What the hell would blues know about Ds?'

  'Probably nothing... Big guy, is there something I should know? Some tight spot you've gotten yourself into?'

  'Why? What does this have to do with me?' Milo didn't like the defensiveness in his own voice. Thinking: the goddamn department rumor mill. Then thinking: Health Facilitator. You never know

  Rick said, 'Okay,' and started to get up.

  Milo said, 'Wait,' and came around and stood behind Rick and put his hands on Rick's shoulders. And told him the rest of it.

  I got on the computer, typed in 'Paris Bartlett' as a keyphrase on several search engines, and came up with nothing.

  Next, I tried 'Playa del Sol' and its English translation: Sun Beach, and connected to hundreds of resort links all over the world. Costa del Sol. Costa del Amor. Playa Negra. Playa Blanca. Playa Azul. Sun City. Sunrise Beach. Excursion packages, time shares, white sand, blue water, adults only, bring the kids. Also, a guy who'd devoted an obsessive site to the old song 'Cuando Caliente El Sol.' The joys of the information age...

  I stuck with it for hours, felt my eyes crossing and broke for a midnight sandwich, a beer, and a shower before returning to the screen. By 2 A.M., I was fighting sleep and nearly missed the article in a three-year-old issue of the Resort Journal elicited by yet another try at Playa del Sol. This time, I'd logged on to a pay service - a business-oriented data bank that I hadn't used since last fall, when I'd considered selling a lot of municipal bonds. I clicked my assent to pony up by credit card and continued.

  What I got was a rear-of-the-magazine piece entitled 'Seeking the Good life on Distant Shores: Americans Looking for Foreign Bargains Often Find Themselves on the Losing End.' The article recounted several real estate deals gone sour, among them a construction project down in Baja named Playa del Sol: high-end condos peddled to American retirees lured by American-style luxury living at Mexican prices. Two hundred units out of a planned four hundred fifty had been built and purchased. The first wave of retirees hadn't yet moved in when the Mexican government invoked a fine-print provision of an obscure regulation, confiscated the land, and sold it to a Saudi Arabian consortium who turned the

  condos into a hotel. The Playa del Sol Company, Ltd, incorporated in the Cayman Islands, dissolved itself and its American subsidiary, Playa Enterprises, declared Chapter 11. The retirees lost their money.

  No comment from the president of Playa Enterprises, Michael Larner.

  Recalling the obscure business journal references that had come up on my first search for Larner - magazines not in the Research Library's holdings - I looked for anything else I could find on the former Achievement House director and came across several other deals he'd put together during the past five years.

  Larner's specialty was real estate syndication - getting moneyed people together to buy out incomplete building projects that had run into trouble. High-rise apartments in Atlanta, defunct country clubs in Colorado and New Mexico, a ski lodge in Vermont, a golf course in Arizona. Once the deal was inked, Larner took his cut and walked away.

  All the subsequent articles had the rah-rah tone of paid ads. None mentioned the Mexican debacle, Playa Enterprises, or the Playa del Sol Company, Ltd. Larner's corporate face was now the ML Group.

  No mention of the Cossack brothers, either. Or any of Larner's fellow venture capitalists, though showbiz and Wall Street affiliations were implied. The only other ML staffer named was Larner's son, Bradley, executive vice-president.

  Using 'ML Group' as a keyphrase, I retraced all the search machines and obtained the exact same articles, plus one more: a two-year-old stroke job in a glossy rag titled Southwest Leisure Builder.

  Centered amid the text was a color photo: Larners, father and son, posing on a bright day in Phoenix, wearing matching royal blue golf shirts, white canvas slacks, white smiles.

  Michael Larner looked around sixty-five. Square-faced and florid, he wore wide steel-framed aviator's glasses turned to mirrors by the Arizona sun. His smile was self-satisfied and heralded by overly large capped teeth. He had a drinker's nose, a big, hard-looking belly, and meticulously styled white hair. A casting agent would've seen Venal Executive.

  Bradley Larner was thinner and smaller and paler - barely a nuance of his father. Late thirties or early forties, he was also bespectacled, but his choice of eyewear ran to gold-framed, narrow, oval lenses so tiny they barely covered his irises. His hair was that lank, waxy blond destined to whiten, and it trailed past his shoulders. Less enthusiasm in his expression. Barely a smile at all, though to read the article, the Larners were riding the crest of the real estate wave.

  Bradley Larner looked like a kid forced to sit for yet another obnoxious family snapshot.

  An accompanying picture on the following page showed Michael Larner in an ice-cream suit, blue shirt, and pink tie posed next to a white-on-white Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit. To his father's right, Brad Larner perched atop a gold Harley-Davidson, wearing black leather.

/>   The caption read: Different generations, but the same flair for the Ultimate Ride.

  The Playa del Sol link meant 'Paris Bartlett' was likely an envoy to Milo from the Larners.

  Warning him off the trail of Caroline Cossack.

  Because the Larners and the Cossacks went way back.

  The families had something else in common: big deals that often went bad. But all of them managed to stay on top, maintaining the good life.

  The Ultimate Ride.

  In the Cossacks' case, inherited wealth might've provided a nice safety blanket. Michael Larner, on the other hand, had bounced from job to job and industry to industry, leaving scandal or bankruptcy in his wake but always managing to position himself higher.