Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 16 - The Murder Book

by The Murder Book(Lit)

  Concourse Auto Restorers was one of the many car-oriented businesses lining Van Nuys Boulevard between Riverside and Oxnard. Modest setup - not much more than a double tin-roofed garage behind an open lot filled with chrome and lacquer. A sign above the garage, done up in red Day-Glo Gothic lettering, advertised 'custom paint, plating, and body-off restoration' above a cartoonish rendering of an equally red, priapic Ferrari coupe. I parked on the street and made my way among muscle cars, hot rods, and one very white stretch Mercedes with its

  roof hacked off and a blue tarp spread across its interior. Years ago the state had passed laws restricting outdoor spray painting, but the air above Concourse Auto was chemically ripe.

  Midway up the lot, two men in greasy T-shirts and baggy cutoffs were inspecting the doors of a seventies Stutz Blackhawk done up in the same copper finish as a gourmet frypan. Both were young and husky and Hispanic, with shaved heads and mustaches. Face masks hung around their necks. Their arms and the backs of their necks were brocaded with tattoos. The inkwork was dusky blue, square-edged and crude - prison handiwork. They barely raised their eyes as I passed, but both were paying attention. My nod evoked squints. 'Vance Coury?' I said.

  'In there,' said the heavier of the two, curling a thumb toward the garage. His voice was high-pitched, and a teardrop tattoo dripped under one eye. That's supposed to mean you've murdered someone, but some people brag. This fellow had a hunched posture and flat eyes, and boasting didn't seem his style. I moved on.

  As I got closer to the garage, I saw that my first impression of a small lot had been wrong. A driveway ran to the left of the building, and it led to a rear half-acre of chain-linked dirt piled high with tires and fenders, bumpers and broken headlights and random garbage. Two spray booths were affixed to the rear outer wall of the garage, and a few intact cars were parked in the dirt, but most of the land was dumping ground.

  I returned to the front of the structure. The garage door to the left was shut and bolted, a wall of corrugated iron. In the open right-hand bay sat a red, white, and blue Corvette Stingray. The 'Vette's windows were tinted amethyst, its nose had been lengthened a foot, a rear spoiler arced over the trunk, and twenty-inch, chrome-reversed wheels extended several inches wider than the body. Primer spots blemished the passenger side, and another shaved-head Latino crouched at one of them, hand-sanding. Yet another tattoo-boy sat at a workbench to the rear of the bay, arc-welding. The decor was raw walls, cement floor, bare bulbs, gasoline reek. Tacked to the wall beams were auto-parts calendars and foldouts of naked women with an emphasis upon luxuriant pubic hair and angles that bespoke an interest in amateur

  gynecology. A scattering of hard-core shots was dispersed among the collection; someone had a thing for skinny, crouching, supplicant blondes with dope-eyes performing oral sex.

  The sander ignored me as I edged behind the 'Vette, avoided the sparks from the welding gun, and stepped into the sealed section of the garage. Half a black Porsche roadster occupied this bay - a racer sliced neatly in half so that the number 8 on the door had been bisected and turned into a 3. At the rear of the room, behind the truncated torso, a broad-shouldered man sat at a metal desk, phone nestled under his chin, fingers busy at a calculator.

  Fortyish, he had long, thick silver hair slicked straight back and tucked behind his ears, incongruous too-black eyebrows, and an equally inky goatee. The bulb hanging above the desk greened an already olive complexion. Dark, brooding eyes were bottomed by pouches, his neck was creased and soft, and his face had long surrendered to flab. Remnants of the good-looking high school kid were hard to find, and I didn't want to stare. Because Vance Coury had his eyes on me, as he continued talking and calculating.

  I walked over to the desk. Coury gave off a strong whiff of musky aftershave. His shirt was black silk crepe with blousy sleeves rolled to the elbows and a high, stiff collar that nearly reached his earlobes. A gold chain flashed around his neck. A gold Rolex the size of a pizza banded a thick, hirsute wrist.

  He studied me without acknowledging my presence. Stayed on the phone, listening, talking, listening some more, adjusting the instrument in the crook of his neck. Never ceasing the tapping of the calculator keys. The desk top was littered with papers. A half-empty bottle of Corona served as a paperweight.

  I left him and strolled over to the demi-Porsche. The car retained no internal organs, was just half a shell. The edges had been smoothed and painted. Finished product; no one was intending to put this one back together again.

  All the king's horses...

  'Hey,' said a raspy voice behind me.

  I turned. Coury said, 'What do you want?' Alert, yet disinterested. One hand rested on the calculator. The other was cupped and aimed at me, as if ready to collect something.

  'I'm thinking of some custom work.'

  'What kind of car?'

  'Seville. Seventy-nine. Are you Mr Coury?'

  He looked me over. 'Who referred you?'

  'Read your name in an auto magazine,' I said. 'From what I could tell you seem to work on a lot of contest winners.'

  'It happens,' he said. 'Seventy-nine Seville? A box. They built 'em on Chevy Two Nova chassis.'

  'I know.'

  'What do you want done to it?'

  'I'm not sure.'

  He smirked. 'Can't think of any contest you'd enter that in -unless it's one of those AIDS things.'

  'AIDS things?'

  'They're trying shows, now. To raise money for AIDS. Some little fruit came in, wanted me to cherry up his '45 BMW.'

  'Take the job?' I said.

  The cupped hand waved off the question. 'Seventy-nine Seville,' he said, as if offering a diagnosis. 'It's still gonna be a box unless we get radical. And then there's the engine. It sucks.'

  'It's been good to me. No problems in fifteen years.'

  'Any rust on the belly?'

  'Nope. I take care of it.'

  'Right,' he said.

  I said, 'It's here, if you want to see it.'

  He glanced down at the calculator. Punched numbers as I stood there. 'Where's here?'

  'Out in front.'

  He snickered. 'In front.' He stood to six-three. His upper body was massive, with meaty shoulders and a swelling gut, outsized for the narrow hips and long, stalky legs that supported it. Tight, black, plain-front slacks slimmed the legs further and accentuated the effect. On his feet were black crocodile boots with silver straps banding the shins. He came around the desk jangling. Walked right past me and out of the garage.

  Out at the curb, he laughed.

  'Tell you what, we wreck it, give you four hundred bucks, call it a day.'

  I laughed back. 'Like I said, it's been good to me.'

  'Then leave it the hell alone - what the hell would you want to do with this?'

  'I was thinking about turning it into a convertible.'

  'Figures,' he said. 'What, chain-saw the roof off?'

  'Only car you can do that with is a Rolls Silver Cloud,' I said. 'Not enough tensile strength in any other chassis. I was figuring take the roof off, strengthen the frame, install an automatic soft-cover with a mohair liner, rechrome, and do a custom-color. You guys still doing lacquer?'

  'Illegal,' he said. 'Listen, man, you want a convertible, go buy yourself one of those little Mazdas.'

  'I want this car converted.'

  He turned his back.

  I said, 'Too complicated for you?'

  He stopped. Caught his lower lip between his teeth and bit down. The pouches beneath his eyes rode up and obscured the bottom half of the irises. The two homeboys working on the Stutz looked our way.

  Coury kept his lip between his teeth and rotated his jaw. 'Yeah, that's it,' he said. 'Too complicated.'

  He left me standing there and walked back toward the lot. But he only made his way halfway through, paused by the Stutz. As I drove away he was watching.

  Milo stared into his coffee cup, pretended the soil-colored liquid was a bog and he was sinking. If this was a
normal case, he'd have gotten himself backup. As much as he hated meetings and personalities and all the other crap that went with teamwork, multiple suspects demanded it.

  An army of suspects on Janie. Six, with Luke Chapman dead. And then there was after-burn: Walt Obey and Germ Bacilla and Diamond Jim.

  And the glue that held it all together: J.G. Broussard.

  And now, yet another unknown: Alex's theory about a rogue cop.

  Milo'd spent some time thinking about that, trying to come up with a possible name, but all he could conjure was an abstraction. Some ass-hole doing Pierce Schwinn's postmortem bidding, playing games and yanking his strings. Someone with the gall to rip off Rick's car and return it detailed, with a nice little gift.

  Vance Coury was in the car biz and wasn't that a coincidence? But Coury sure wouldn't have delivered the real murder book.

  So maybe the use of the car meant someone was pointing him toward Coury. Or was he really getting overly complicated now?

  The anger that had percolated within him since the first murder book had surfaced kept rising in his gorge.

  Coury. The bastard shaped up as a sadist and a rapist and a control freak. Maybe the dominant one in the group. If he and his rich buds were cornered, they'd be likely to ambush the enemy, cut his throat, and burn his body.

  One army deserved another, and all he had was Alex.

  He laughed silently. Or maybe he'd let out sound because the old lady in the second booth over looked up, startled, and stared at him

  with that antsy expression that takes hold of people when they confront the weird.

  Milo smiled at her, and she retracted her head behind her newspaper.

  He was back at DuPars in Farmers Market, trying to sort things out. Vance Coury had stayed in his head because it had been Coury who'd raped Janie the first time and maybe initiated the scene that led to Janie's murder.

  Normally, he'd have investigated the hell out of the guy. But... then something hit him. Maybe there was a safe way to learn more.

  He threw money on the table and left the coffee shop. The old woman's stare followed his path to the door.

  The Shining Light Mission was five stories of brick-faced stucco painted corn yellow and sided by rusting gray fire escapes. No friezework, no moldings, not the slightest nod to design. It reminded Milo of one of those drawings little kids do when asked to render a building. One big rectangle specked with little window squares. The place even tilted. As a hotel, the Grande Royale had been anything but.

  Old men with collapsed jaws and runny eyes years past self-torment loitered in front and every one of them greeted Milo with the excessive amiability of the habitual miscreant.

  Knowing exactly what he was - no way could he be taken for anything else. As he entered the mission, he wondered if the cop aura would stick after he left the department. Which might be sooner rather than later; going up against the chief wasn't a formula for career longevity.

  Even an unpopular chief who might be leaving soon himself. Milo had been scouring the papers for Broussard stories, and this morning he'd found yet another one in the Times. Pontification on the chief's rejected raise by two members of the police commission. Defying the mayor who'd appointed them, which meant they were serious.

  'Chief Broussard represents a long-entrenched police culture that contributes to intracommunity tension.'

  Politico-blab for 'Update your resume, J.G.'

  Broussard had come into office in the aftermath of the Rampart

  scandal, and the commission had offered no hint at new corruption. The chief's problem was his personality. Arrogance as he bucked the commission at every turn. In that sense, the chief still thought like a cop: Civilian meddling was the enemy. But Broussard's imperious nature had alienated the wrong people, well past the point where even pals like the mayor and Walt Obey could help him.

  Then again, maybe Broussard didn't care about losing his job, because he had something waiting in the wings.

  Converting his unpaid position as security consultant to Obey's Esperanza project into a nice, fat corporate gig that would guarantee him long-term status and bucks, keep the wife in Cadillacs and whatever else floated her canoe.

  If so, what was Obey getting out of the deal? The Cossacks' participation as refinancers fit perfectly. They owed Broussard big-time for the Ingalls cover-up, would go with the flow. Could Alex be right about Obey getting himself into a financial bind, needing the brothers as white knights?

  Any way you turned it, Milo knew he was a flea. What the hell, safety and security were for wimps.

  He entered the mission lobby. The vaulted space had been converted to a TV room where a dozen or so bums sat slumped on folding chairs, staring at a movie on big-screen. The scene featured actors and actresses in long hair and beards and camel-colored robes wandering through a desert that looked like Palm Springs. Despite the camels. Some biblical epic that asked you to buy the Hebrews as blond and blue-eyed. Milo shifted his attention to the reception desk - maybe the very desk where Vance Coury had obtained the key to his rape den. The counter was topped by several plastic, screw-top cookie jars, and the bookcase behind it was jammed with red-bound Bibles with crosses on their spines. Off to the left were two brown-painted elevator doors. A metal-railed staircase ran straight back and hooked sharply to the right.

  The place smelled of soup. Why did so many places dedicated to salvation smell of soup?

  An old black guy, more cleaned up than the others, got up from his chair and limped over. 'I'm Edgar. May I help you, sir?'

  Big bass voice but a little bandy-legged fellow wearing pressed

  khakis, a blue-gray plaid shirt buttoned to the neck, and sneakers. Bald except for tufts of kinky white cotton above his ears. White-white dentures made for smiling. The total effect was clownlike, benign.

  Milo said, 'Is Reverend Fred or Reverend Glenda in?'

  'Reverend Fred's at the City of Orange Mission, but Reverend Glenda's upstairs. Who shall I say is calling?'

  The guy had a refined way of enunciating, and his eyes were clear and intelligent. Milo could see him doing butler time at some country club, kissing up to rich folk using perfect grammar. Different skin color, and maybe he'd have been the one getting served.

  'Milo Sturgis.'

  'And this is about, Mr Sturgis?'

  'Personal.'

  The old man regarded him with compassion. 'One moment, Mr Sturgis.' He made his way slowly up the stairs and returned a few minutes later. 'Reverend Glenda's waiting for you, Mr Sturgis. Next floor up, second door to the right.'

  Sitting behind a small oak desk in a small, nearly empty office fitted with an ancient radiator and masked by yellowed Venetian blinds, Glenda Stephenson looked exactly as she had ten years ago. Fifty pounds over-weight, way too much makeup, a teased-up meringue of brunette waves atop a broad, welcoming face. Same kind of clothes too: pink, dotted Swiss dress with a frothy collar. Every time Milo'd seen her she'd worn something frilly and inappropriate in that same soap-bar pink.

  He didn't expect her to remember him but right away she said, 'Detective S! It's been so long! Why haven't you brought me anyone in so long?'

  'Don't hang out much with the living these days, Rev,' said Milo. 'Been working Homicide for a long time.'

  'Oh, dear,' said Glenda Stephenson. 'Well, how have you been with that?'

  'It has its moments.'

  Til just bet it does.'

  'How's the soul-saving business, Reverend?'

  Glenda grinned. 'There's never a lack of work.' 'I'll bet.'

  'Sit down,' said Glenda Stephenson. 'Cup of coffee?' Milo saw no urn or pot. Just an alms box on the desk, next to a neat stack of what looked to be government forms. Impulsively, he reached into his pocket, found a bill, dropped it in. 'Oh, that's not necessary,' said Glenda.

  'I'm Catholic,' said Milo. 'Put me in a religious environment, and I have an urge to donate.'

  Glenda giggled. Little girl's giggle. For some reason it w
asn't as foolish coming out of that dinner-plate face as it should've been. 'Well, then come by often. There's never a lack of need, either. So... Edgar said this is personal?'

  'In a way,' said Milo. 'Work and personal - what I mean is it needs to be kept confidential.'