A few minutes later, two guards came in. One of them knelt beside the moaning man while the other one stood facing the bunks. He shouted, “Who did this?”
I lay on my back, studying the underside of Flaco’s bunk above me. I was still thinking about what Bud Tanner said and what Haley would have said if only she were there. Step one is, you go on. You don’t take the easy out. Semper Fi, no matter what.
Again the guard shouted, “Who did this?”
Nobody answered.
A minute later, two other guards arrived. The four of them each gripped a corner of the sheet under the moaning man. They picked him up and carried him away. The door slammed behind them. Everyone was quiet. After a few minutes, someone in a nearby bunk began to snore.
32
In the morning the guards led us out and down a hall into a large recreation area, where we lined up for chow. Powdered eggs, powdered milk, some sort of orange-colored liquid, cold bacon, and a slice of white bread. It wasn’t any worse than a meal ready to eat in the Marines. I found a seat at a round steel table and dug in.
About nine o’clock, four guards came into the recreation area and announced they would be calling names for court. Mine was the third name on their list. When I walked over to the deputies, they put cuffs on my wrists and chains around my ankles, which were connected by another chain to the cuffs. After they had called a dozen prisoners up to be restrained, we all shuffled off in single file.
It turned out the Orange County Superior Court had a courtroom right there in the jail. They kept us waiting in a holding cell until our names were called. When it was my turn, a deputy removed the cuffs and shackles and led me into the courtroom. It wasn’t a very big space. The ceiling was low. The public seating area was limited but completely full. I figured most of the observers were reporters. Obviously, a home invasion at a congressman’s residence was big news. I figured the reporters had already checked my criminal record and learned I was one of the butchers of Laui Kalay. Toss in a movie star like Doña Elena mortally wounding one of her attackers, and you had a global story.
I thanked God for the presence of mind that had led me to answer “self-employed private investigator” when they booked me into jail the day before. I told myself there was no reason the reporters would care about my employment history, no reason they would look into it hard enough to learn I was once Haley Lane’s chauffeur and bodyguard. I told myself the police file on Haley’s murder wasn’t public, so the reporters wouldn’t know I was the other victim on the night she died. I told myself those things and prayed they were true.
Teru was waiting for me beside a table in front of the raised platform where the judge was sitting. He looked good in a well-tailored black suit with a red paisley tie and a pair of tasseled Italian-looking loafers.
“Nice shoes,” I said.
“Can’t say the same about yours.”
Looking down at the slippers, I shrugged. “Comfort before fashion.”
We sat at the table. He put a piece of paper and a ballpoint pen in front of me. “Sign this power of attorney so I can tell Howard Williams to cover your bail,” he said.
“Howard Williams?”
“The lawyer in New York.”
“I know who you mean. But can’t I use my own savings and a bondsman?”
“With a bail bondsman, you’d have to cover ten percent. Do you have a hundred thousand?”
“You think it will be set that high? A million dollars, really?”
“At least.”
I sighed, picked up the pen, and signed where he pointed on the paper.
The bailiff called the court to order, and the judge asked the lawyers to go to work. A middle-aged woman sitting at another table rose and explained that the people believed I had participated in a home invasion. She listed their evidence against me. The judge asked me how I wished to plead. Teru and I stood up, and I told her I was not guilty. We sat down again. The middle-aged woman said the judge should refuse to grant me bail, because I was a highly trained ex-soldier with a criminal record, capable of great violence, and an obvious flight risk who had spent years traveling all over the world. Teru stood up and said the judge should grant bail because I was a highly decorated marine with strong connections to the community.
The judge cast her eye over the crowd of reporters and said, “Bail is set at one million five hundred thousand dollars. Bailiff, call the next one.”
The middle-aged woman at the other table looked smug. She probably assumed I wouldn’t be able to make that much bail.
Teru said, “Should I tell Williams to use a bail bondsman and pay the full amount directly?”
I thought about it for a minute. “If Williams pays it in cash, would the reporters find out?”
“No. The source of bail payments isn’t made public.”
“If I appear when I’m supposed to, the county returns the money?”
“That’s right, unless there are fees. They’ll take those off the top.”
I decided it didn’t make sense to pay one hundred and fifty thousand to a bondsman when I didn’t have to. Haley would want me to be smart with the money. “Tell Williams to go ahead and cover the whole million and a half.”
About two hours later, a deputy took me to the intake and release center, where my clothing and the contents of my pockets were returned. They didn’t return my firearm or my knife. Teru met me outside in the lobby. So did half a dozen reporters, including two camera teams. Everybody started asking questions at the same time. I had learned how to handle it from watching Haley. I smiled as widely as I could and looked straight at the cameras so my photos in the media would look wholesome and friendly, but I didn’t say a word. It was a great relief that nobody mentioned Haley.
Teru and I jaywalked across Flower Street, with the reporters all around us. He guided me toward the parking garage next to the municipal stadium. Questions kept flying in spite of our silence. I admired the reporters’ persistence.
At the parking garage, we took the stairs to the second level and got into Teru’s Porsche. He put his unlit pipe in his mouth, gunned the engine a couple of times to warn the reporters standing behind the rear bumper, and backed out of the parking place. He drove well through the little crowd. Not everyone knows how to drive a Porsche in low gear.
When we were on the road, I said, “Where’s the limo?”
“At the house. Detective Harper called and told us where to find it.”
“Good for him. How long has it been since you were in a courtroom?”
“Twenty years, give or take.”
“You were pretty good.”
“That was the easy part. Anyone could do it. But you’re gonna need somebody, Malcolm. Somebody very good. The assistant district attorney gave me their case file. They have your fingerprints in the house. They have Doña Elena Montes and Congressman Montes saying you told them you’re working for the URNG. They have your gun, and it was discharged in the commission of the crime. They have photos of you and Castro together in a couple of places.”
The photos surprised me. I wondered who had taken them and why Harper hadn’t mentioned them before. I said, “What places?”
“The cemetery in Newport. In front of Musso and Frank in Hollywood. Did you know the cops had you under surveillance?”
“I did not. Does the file say they took the photos?”
“No, I just assumed the Feds or LAPD were watching the Guatemalans for the congressman when you came along. Who else would have taken them?”
“Those two guys who tried to kill me, maybe. Or maybe not. I didn’t see them at the cemetery. That was Haley’s birthday, so I wasn’t in the best state of mind. I wasn’t paying much attention to my perimeter. But I did see them outside Musso and Frank.”
“Why would they give pictures to the police?”
“I don’t know.”
Teru aimed us at the on-ramp to the 55 and gunned it. The Porsche accelerated nicely.
I said, “How many m
iles on this thing?”
“Hundred twenty-two thousand.”
“I thought you said the miles were low.”
“Low for the price.”
Teru, it’s a Porsche. You don’t buy a high-mileage Porsche. What were you thinking?”
“I figured you could keep it running.”
“You did?”
He turned to smile at me, pipe clenched tightly in his teeth. “I did.”
“Okay. Was there anything else in that file they gave you?”
“They know you’ve been looking into Doña Elena’s finances.”
“How do they know that?”
“They took your computer. It was in your search history.”
“Oh boy.”
“It’s a motive, Malcolm. They’ll say you went looking to find out exactly what her assets are and exactly where they are. They’ll say it’s what you would do if you were thinking about a kidnapping.”
“I know.”
“Another thing. Doña Elena says Delarosa was in on the home invasion.”
“I know that, too.”
“Okay, but they have a statement from your buddy, Tom Harper. He says you were asking lots of questions about Delarosa but wouldn’t tell him why. And that Detective Russo with the LAPD confirms it in a separate statement.”
“Yeah, we had a talk over lunch.”
“Not good, Malcolm. Like I said, you’re gonna need a better lawyer. Maybe somebody who gardens in his spare time instead of the other way around.”
“If you say so.”
“Oh, I definitely say so.”
33
We rode in silence for a few miles. I ran through all the possible explanations for the Montes’s home invasion. The more I thought about the possibility that Vega had intended to murder the congressman and frame me for it all along, the more sense that theory made. With my court-martial conviction and dishonorable discharge, I was the perfect patsy. In fact, I had been a fool not to see it coming.
I said, “You got an hour or two?”
Teru said, “Sure.”
I pointed at an upcoming exit. “Take the 405 to LA.”
Teru took the exit, and we rode north.
We got off the highway at Century Boulevard, and I directed Teru to the Renaissance Hotel near LAX. He pulled under the porte cochere and waved off the valet. I hopped out, told the valet we would only be a minute, and went inside the lobby.
The desk clerk was convinced he had a moral duty to safeguard the privacy of the hotel’s guests until I placed a pair of twenties on the counter. He put the money in his pocket, turned to his computer, and started tapping keys.
He said, “Mr. Brown checked out this morning.”
I wasn’t surprised. I said, “Did he happen to mention where he was going from here?”
“No.”
“He was here for quite a while, wasn’t he?”
The clerk checked the screen. “Twenty-three days.”
“Maybe he got to know someone on the staff. A maid? A manager?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“What room was he in?”
“I couldn’t say.”
I said, “Answer me.”
He looked up. We made eye contact. I gave him the stare that had motivated many good marines to follow my commands.
He said, “Six sixteen.”
“Has it been cleaned?”
“I doubt it.”
“Give me a pass card.”
“You could get me fired, going up there with a card.”
“I can get you fired for taking that money, and I will unless you give me the card.”
He gave me the card. I crossed the lobby to the elevator. When I got to the room upstairs, the door was open and a cleaning cart was parked there in the hall. I went in.
A short Latino woman came out of the bathroom, carrying used towels. She wore a pink uniform and Reebok running shoes. She said, “Jes?”
I spoke to her in Spanish. “Mr. Brown left something in the room. He asked me to come back and get it.”
She frowned. “Okay…”
“It is not a problem. I have his key. Look.” I swiped the card in the mechanism on the open door. A small green light appeared.
She said “Okay” again, this time with more sincerity.
I went to a table and picked up a pad of scratch paper which had the hotel’s logo at the top. I held it at an angle to the window so the daylight fell across it, hoping for indentations left by the last note. There were none that I could see.
As the maid was leaving the room, I said, “Mr. Brown asked me to leave you a tip.”
She stopped and turned back to face me. I gave her a twenty. She said, “He is a very nice man.”
“Your accent. You are Guatemalan?”
“From Guatemala City, yes.” She lifted her chin a little. “But I have a green card. So does my husband.”
“I am sure you do. And you have family in Guatemala?”
“My mother and three sisters, and their children.”
I had moved to the bedside table. Opening the drawer, I said, “No father? Brothers? No men?”
“All dead, sir.”
“I am sorry,” I said, continuing my search of the room by looking in the trash can. “It is a very dangerous city.”
“Yes. There is much crime.”
“Well, it appears Mr. Brown was wrong. He left nothing here.”
“Maybe those other two found it already.”
“What other two?”
“The men from the consulate.”
“Oh, of course. Antonio and Manuel. I am sorry I missed seeing them. That Antonio, he is so funny looking, the way he wears that big gold chain.”
“You think that is funny? I like it. I was going to get one for my husband.”
“What do I know about fashion? Your husband will undoubtedly be very handsome with your gift around his neck.”
I passed her at the door, then left the room.
Back down in the lobby, I found a room marked “Business Center” and used the pass card to enter. In the room were several computers and printers on built-in worktops, available for hotel guests. I sat at a computer, brought up the Internet and did a little surfing. I found the address for the Guatemalan consulate, then went back outside, where Teru stood leaning on the Porsche with his arms crossed and smoke rising from his pipe.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Vega’s gone.”
“I assume he didn’t leave a forwarding address.”
“Nope.”
“Where should we start looking?”
“I have no idea. But the two guys who tried to kill me were here earlier. They might have a clue.”
“Where would we find them?”
“They claimed they’re with the Guatemalan consulate.”
“So let’s get over there.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
I gave Teru the address. We got back on the 405 and took it to the 10. We exited at Normandie Avenue and turned north, past Rosedale Cemetery on the right and Seoul International Park on the left. We turned left on Wilshire.
The consulate was in a fifteen-story steel-and-glass building at the corner of South Ardmore. On the corner was something called the “Woori America Bank.” I thought it was a strange address for them to choose, being in the middle of Koreatown, until I remembered that the next neighborhood to the east was Pico-Union. The government had picked a spot as close as they could get to the majority of the Guatemalan population in LA without having to expose themselves to the distasteful poverty and gangs that afflicted their people.
Teru dropped me at the curb across the street and drove on in search of a parking spot. I went inside and found suite 100.
There was a crest on the door, the same one I had seen a few blocks away in Pico-Union on the giant flag in the window of the Guatemalan Benevolence Society building. I wondered if the old men playing dominoes over there knew the Guatemalan government preferred an
office here among Koreans rather than in their neighborhood.
I opened the door and entered a small room with chairs along two walls and a stack of Spanish-language magazines on a table in the corner. In the opposite corner was flag draped just so and hanging from a varnished wooden flagpole. Beside the flag was a modular work cubicle with a low countertop facing the room. In the cubicle sat a young woman in a tight red dress. She wore red lipstick to match the dress and large plastic hoop earrings, also red. The only thing missing was a hat with tropical fruit.
I considered telling her why I was there but decided that was unlikely to get me answers, so I just gave her my card and said, “I’m Malcolm Cutter, here to see the consul general.”
She checked her computer. “Forgive me. Your name again?”
“Cutter. I don’t have an appointment.”
She knitted her brow and shook her head. “I’m sorry. You must make an appointment.”
I said, “You speak English very well.”
She smiled. “Thank you. Now, if there is nothing else?”
“Would you mention one thing to the consul general?”
“Probably not. He is a very busy man.”
“Oh, come on. It’ll be fun. Just pick up your phone and mention Valentín Vega’s name. Also a failed attempt to murder me in the Santa Ana Mountains a few days ago. And while you’re at it, let him know the man who was arrested yesterday for breaking into Congressman Hector Montes’s house is standing in his lobby.”
She stared at me. I flashed my most winning smile. Many women have reported weak knees and butterflies in response to my smile, but the receptionist appeared to be immune. She simply continued to stare. There must have had a panic button behind her desk somewhere, because two soldiers in uniform entered the reception area through an opening behind her, a corporal and a sergeant. They joined the receptionist in staring at me with deadpan expressions on their Indian features. Their hands rested on their sidearms.
I said, “And here I thought we were getting along so well.”
January Justice Page 22