Try Fear

by James Scott Bell

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Didn’t seem like that to me.”

  “You haven’t been around him that much.”

  “Why would Eric hate his brother?”

  “Because he was gay. Pure and simple.”

  “You think?”

  “I know.” He shot me a new look, filled with skepticism. “Why are you asking me all this?”

  “I’m representing Eric.”

  Larchmont’s mouth played the chin-drop scene.

  “You were at the Christmas party where Carl got drunk and went off in a Santa hat,” I said. “You recall that?”

  “Who told you? Was it Barstler?”

  “Can you just tell me if you were there?”

  “He is such a jerk. He hates me.”

  “Why don’t you just tell me what happened?”

  “Sure. And there’s lots of witnesses, too. Carl was drunk off his butt, is what he was, and I didn’t even talk to him. He kept trying to make eye contact with me and I kept not making it. And trying to avoid him.”

  “Why?”

  “I broke up with him and he wasn’t happy about it.”

  “Did you break up with him because of that Sonny Moon guy?”

  Larchmont shook his head. “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but it’s a crock.”

  “So you don’t know this Moon guy?”

  “He’s not Moon guy. He is a prophet, and he has prophetic powers.”

  “Telling the future and stuff like that?”

  “That’s part of it,” Larchmont said.

  “Why doesn’t he bet the ponies?” I said. “He could really bring in the dough.”

  “He’s not into that. He’s into helping people.”

  “How much does it cost?”

  “Only what you can give.”

  “Are you and he together?”

  Larchmont turned to me like a little bulldog. “I don’t have to answer that.”

  “Because that could make for bad blood between the Rev and Carl.”

  “The Son of God would never kill anybody. He is about reconciliation.”

  “Let me ask you something,” I said. “How can you believe that a guy hanging out on Hollywood Boulevard is the Son of God? Wouldn’t he have better hair sense?”

  Larchmont didn’t flinch. “He got me a commercial the first day I met him. He knew I was an actor without me even telling him.”

  “Tim, if you toss a Mentos at random around here you’ll hit an actor. Or a screenwriter.”

  “But he knew about this call, for Pepsi and—”

  “Tim, I’m happy for you. But help me out. Can you think of anybody who might have had a reason to kill Carl?”

  “No, man. Carl was big but he wasn’t mean, okay? And I have to go to rehearsal.”

  I gave him a card. “Call me if anything occurs to you.”

  He took the card and headed back to the theater. I didn’t have much. Morgan Barstler provided a couple of names. The Rev, and this actor, and who knew what was up? For all I knew Barstler could have killed Carl.

  What I needed was an alternate theory that had some legs, that a judge would allow me to argue. I needed facts, and they weren’t coming.

  Superman walked by me, pausing for a picture or two with people on the sidewalk. There was only room for one superhero here, so I walked down to Skooby’s and ordered a hot dog with kraut, and fries. I sat on one of the sidewalk stools and called B-2 at his office.

  He told me there was nothing on the e-mails. Whoever the guy was, he was careful not to leave a trail. I asked him if he could get one of his guys to identify a man named Nick who worked for Ezzo Cement, that I had to track him down, and he said he would.

  I ate my dog and listened to swing era music being piped out of one storefront, and acid rock out of another. What happens when swing collides with acid rock in the middle of Hollywood? Maybe it rains Perry Como.

  Just as I was about to run my last fry through its ketchup bath my phone bleeped. A private number.

  “Mr. Buchanan?” The voice was male, soft and articulate.

  “Yep.”

  “My name is Turk Bacon. I understand you’ve been looking for me.”

  I sat up. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Hollywood.”

  “Then it should take you about half an hour to get here,” he said.

  64

  THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY and Botanical Gardens is out in San Marino, named for a Huntington named Henry, a train man who made a fortune in L.A. Had this idea that you could link the city with train and trolley lines. So he did it, and it all worked beautifully. The city was a model of urban transit.

  So naturally the oil companies and local politicians on the take choked off the system so everybody would have to drive cars. There is a documentary about this conspiracy, called Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

  Bacon said he’d be waiting by a painting called The Long Leg by Edward Hopper. I asked one of the staff where it was, and got directions.

  When I got there I saw a lanky man with silver hair standing in front of the painting. It’s a seascape, East Coast, with a lighthouse and three quaint homes on the shore. A sailboat is churning past, leaning with the wind.

  I stood next to the man and looked at the painting.

  “Everyone prefers Nighthawks,” the man said. “Do you know Nighthawks?”

  “Is that the one in the diner?”

  “Very good. I’m impressed. Yes, that’s the famous one. But this is the Hopper I like. It’s hopeful, don’t you think?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Unless the boat is about to capsize.”

  He looked at me with questioning gray eyes. “Are you Mr. Buchanan?”

  “That’s me,” I said.

  “I’m Turk Bacon,” he said. He shook my hand. He was dressed in an Italian-cut blue suit and a cerulean silk tie. “Walk with me.”

  We walked. And ended up in the gardens. The desert section. He stopped at a spike of pointed green leaves, shooting up about thirty feet, like a fuzzy telephone pole.

  “Agave vilmoriniana,” Bacon said. “It’s Mexican. It’s drought tolerant. A hardy plant for a desolate landscape. But it is also opportunistic. It will seize upon any water it finds and use it to grow faster. And it can bloom in all kinds of soil. It’s an all-purpose plant, you see. That’s why I like it. That’s how I view my own work.”

  “You bloom where you’re planted.”

  “Something like that. Mostly it’s about survival in any environment, and not just surviving, but prospering. I’ve managed to prosper, sometimes in very forbidding circumstances.”

  I cleared my throat. “Okay, I’ve enjoyed the metaphors. Can we do clichés now? Like getting down to brass tacks?”

  “You’re well educated for a lawyer.” He laughed. “I like that. I’ve dealt with too many legal chuckleheads who are all costs and benefits, no poetry.”

  “I once memorized ‘Casey at the Bat,’ ” I said. “Does that count?”

  “I prefer Robert W. Service myself. ‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew’ is a particular favorite. About death. Over a woman. Isn’t that always the way?”

  “Now that you mention it, there’s a woman involved in the case I’m defending. One I am trying to find.”

  “And that concerns me how?”

  “I understand you are a dealer of certain services, the escort variety.”

  “Why am I talking to you, Mr. Buchanan?”

  “You can help a man accused of murder. If he was with a woman at the time, he’s innocent.”

  “A rarity among defendants these days.”

  “So what about it?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he said.

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “I am a gardener and a businessman, Mr. Buchanan, and when it comes to flowers—”

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s cut the poetry and posing, okay? I want you to produce the hooker.”
/>   “That’s an odious term.”

  “Will you?”

  “Your request is crass and unimaginative,” he said. “I have no idea who you’re talking about, or what you think my connection to all this is.”

  “Then why’d you drag me all the way out to this place?”

  “To introduce you to plant life,” he said. “And also to tell you not to disturb me again, or try to interfere with my affairs. I like to keep a low profile, as it were.”

  “It won’t be so low if I subpoena you, will it?”

  He didn’t flinch. “I found you, remember? If I don’t wish to be served, I won’t be. I am going to wish you luck with your trial, Mr. Buchanan, and tell you, in very polite terms, to lay off. No hard feelings.”

  He walked away with a conversation over finality.

  Or maybe it was case over.

  I was in a foul mood driving away. I wanted to kick a squirrel. Nothing was clicking and I was getting that running-in-mud feeling, like in bad dreams. What else could go wrong now?

  Glad you asked.

  I was almost to the 118 when I got the call from Father Bob.

  “We got another e-mail,” he said.

  65

  I COVERED THE rest of the way as if in a dark tunnel. I was making like an Andretti. It was a wonder I wasn’t pulled over by the CHP and slapped in cuffs.

  It was road rage, but not leveled at another driver. It was at this e-mail guy, a coward, looking to instill fear from afar.

  When I finally got to St. Monica’s the sun was just about to drop behind the hills. A few of the Sisters were in the courtyard, including Sister Perpetua. As I approached the office she put her hand out to me. “It’s the devil,” she said. “He’s after Sister Mary.”

  I patted her wrinkled hand and continued to the office. Father Bob met me outside the door and we went in together.

  Sister Mary was in front of the computer, staring at the monitor.

  I went to the desk and turned the monitor my way.

  Mary, Mary,

  not OK

  just a whore

  with hell to pay

  someday

  I bit the insides of my cheeks.

  She shook her head. “I just wish I knew why.”

  “Let’s find this guy and beat it out of him,” I said.

  She looked at me reprovingly.

  “In love,” I said.

  “Will the police be able to find him?” Sister Mary said.

  “Maybe we can help,” I said.

  66

  JONATHAN BLAKE BLUMBERG works on the top floor of his own building on the west side, with a killer view of Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean.

  He is in his fifties but looks like he could tow a boat with his teeth. When I entered his office the next morning, he jumped up, slapped me on the back, and handed me a one-page printout.

  “Nicholas Molina,” B-2 said. “Ezzo Cement. You’ll find his home address and phone there.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Now take a look at this.” He motioned to his enormous desk, which was packed with prototypes.

  His R&D people had come up with a great stun gun that B-2 playfully called the iProd. I’d actually used it to great effect.

  Then there was his pepper spray, which I called the iFog, but he called Face Melter. It was not yet legal. Which wouldn’t stop either of us from using it if we had to.

  Now he picked up an item that was the size and shape of a toilet-paper tube, only capped at both ends and made of some sort of plastic.

  “I call this the iFist,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “You remember that Chuck Norris joke? How Chuck Norris doesn’t have a chin under his beard, he has another fist?”

  “How could I forget it?”

  “That’s what this is. It’s sort of like those cartoons, too. Remember, where the boxing glove shoots out of a box or something, attached to a collapsible extension?”

  “Right. It’d always hit Sylvester in the chops.”

  “That’s this baby.” He held it like a light saber, pointing it away from us. “You trigger it with a little button, here.”

  Boom. The iFist split, and the top third shot out about five inches.

  “The secret is what we use for the extension,” he said. “A new alloy. Flexible but firm, like a good nanny. Only the impact is like being hit by Tyson on his best day.”

  “Did Tyson have a best day?”

  “Good point. Then you just collapse it back in.” He pushed it into place with a click. “See?”

  “It’ll make bar fights a thing of the past.”

  “Not,” he said. “But it might settle ’em faster. You like it?”

  “Ahead of its time, as always.”

  “You got to move fast if you want to catch the lightning.” He set the iFist on his desk and picked up a white item the size of a large fountain pen.

  “And this,” he said, “is the iHear.”

  “Aren’t you going to get sued by Apple?” I said.

  “Let ’em. Now, this is sweet.” He took up a set of earbuds, plugged them into the iHear. He walked to the door of his office, opened it, motioned me over. He pointed to the open door at the end of the long hallway. I could see some cubicles and a few people moving around.

  “Put these in.” He handed me the earbuds and I stuck them in my ears.

  He clicked the end of the iHear and pointed it at the open door. Immediately I picked up a conversation, as clear as if the people were five feet away. Two male voices.

  “… breaks up with him right there in the theater.”

  “Cold.”

  “Yeah it is. Movie wasn’t even over.”

  “I heard it’s bad anyway.”

  “At least watch the movie, then you can dump him.”

  I took the earbuds out. “Wow.”

  “Wow is right,” B-2 said.

  “It takes invasion of privacy to a whole new level.”

  “And what would America be without that? It records everything digitally, too.” He tucked the iHear in my pocket. “A gift. Use it at parties. Please and amaze your friends. And have a good time.” He closed the door to the office and walked me to a chair. He took a seat behind his desk. “So how’s the little Sister?”

  “Sistering on.”

  “You know, there’s something about her. She’s got something inside that’s not cut out for that life. It’s got to have expression. It’s an energy thing. See?”

  “I’m not going to get involved in that,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to get hit by lightning.”

  “You believe God might do that do you?”

  “It would be the ultimate iProd, wouldn’t it?”

  B-2 laughed. “Just keep your eyes open with her. I think you’re in for some surprises.”

  “Can we talk about the e-mails now?”

  “Right.” He opened his phone and hit a key, waited, said, “Sid, come on in.”

  A minute later a T-shirted, curly blond guy with a scraggly beard came in.

  “This is Sid Vacuous,” B-2 said.

  My look said, Are you serious?

  “He’s in a band,” B-2 said, “and I don’t argue with people what they want to be called. I want to know can they deliver. The kid’s our go-to computer guy. So talk to him, Sid.”

  “Hey, what’s up?” Sid said to me, then, “The guy’s a gamer. I know it. I can smell it. His e-mails have a pattern. Each one is based on a rhyme.”

  The last one, the third, had a sexually graphic Dr. Seuss riff.

  “I want him,” Sid said. “I want to get this guy. I want to shame him.”

  “You must be a gamer too,” I said.

  “Oh, you have no idea.” Sid smiled proudly.

  “Dude’s using an IP address routing through some library in Atlanta, only it’s a bogus setup because he’s spoofing the library’s router address, bypassing the need for any type of identifi
cation at the front end. So the guy could be anywhere and he’s set it up so we can’t follow him back. We’ll get stuck in Atlanta, and you do not want to get stuck in Atlanta, believe me, all they have is fried food and—”

  “Sid, focus,” B-2 said.

  “Okay, okay,” Sid said. “It’s just interesting this isn’t routed through Romania or something. Tells me the guy’s arrogant. That’s kind of why I think he’s got the gamer thing going on. Anyway, there’s something I want to try to get this guy. It’ll have to go on your network out at the nun place—what do they call that again?”

  “Abbey,” I said.

  “And if I put in some key words, it can trace the route in real time, alert me, and maybe get us another geographic on this guy. Kind of like a reverse Trojan horse we’ll ride back to the scene of the crime. Or not. So can we?”

  “We can,” I said. “All we have to do is sneak it by Sister Hildegarde.”

  “Who?”

  “Head nun.”

  “That’s nice,” Sid said. “That’ll be a good sneak.”

  67

  ERIC’S PRELIMINARY HEARING got started on a looming Thursday morning, the kind L.A. seems to offer every now and then as an apology for having great weather. Stratus clouds blanketed downtown like a notice of audit from the IRS.

  The courtroom belonged to the Honorable Judge Steven Prakash, one of the younger judges, maybe forty or so. Black hair, dark brown skin, slight M. Night Shyamalan accent.

  The deputy DA was Tom Radavich. I knew nothing about him except that he’d been on the first Phil Spector prosecution team for a short time. He was about five-ten, with thinning hair the color of a cowhide briefcase. He wore a plain but crisp gray suit.

  Experience has taught me these are the lawyers you really have to watch. There was a guy my old firm tangled with more than once, a defense lawyer for the insurance companies. The guy pulled down a million and a half a year, but when he showed up in court you’d have thought he was a cheese knife salesman from Schenectady.

  And juries loved him. They had no idea he was a wealthy lawyer with homes in Beverly Hills, Vail, and Orlando. He was a “man of the people,” who just happened to be representing an insurance company.

  He cleaned our clocks a couple of times. The third time Pierce McDonough was ready for him, got his own rumpled suit, and beat him to the tune of fifty million in a medical malpractice case.