Cruel Vintage

by Huston Michaels

  “Howard, I have nothing to hide. Avi’s dead. What am I gonna do, insult him?” She turned to Kaye. “You want to know? I’ll tell you. At his age, after all these years together, for some reason my husband decided he didn’t have to keep his zipper up when he wasn’t home.”

  “He had a girlfriend?” Kaye said.

  “Ha!” Geller blurted. “The meshugana putz didn’t have a girlfriend. He had a shiksa whore, and he thought I didn’t know. I could smell her on him when he came home. Do you know what that’s like?”

  Kaye ignored the question, instead asking, “Your husband was a movie producer, correct?”

  “Among other things,” Geller said. “He was…” She stopped and stared at Kaye for a moment, then said, “I see where this is going, but, no, Avi wasn’t like that. He wasn’t a casting couch kind of guy. He gave a lot of actresses – I guess they’re all called actors now, such a shame -- breaks, and never took advantage.”

  “But he cheated on you,” Kaye said.

  “I’m going to stop this right here,” Feinmann interrupted. “I thought this was about background, not trying to establish that Mrs. Geller had motive to kill her husband.”

  “Counselor, I’m trying to find out if there was anyone else, maybe a jilted lover, or a lover’s husband, I need to talk to.”

  “It’s okay, Howard,” Geller said, patting her attorney on the arm before turning to Kaye. “My husband was a very successful movie and television producer. He worked hard at it, and was very, very good at it. He had more projects brought to him than he could ever handle. Directors and investors lined up to work with Avi.”

  “Somebody killed him, Mrs. Geller,” Kaye said. “I don’t think it was random target practice. Are you sure he hadn’t made someone mad, maybe a deal gone bad, or financial trouble?”

  “Financial trouble? Avi?” She laughed. “No, Detective. We started dirt poor. Three kids in a two-bedroom, third-floor walk-up in the Fairfax. He was always careful with money. You’ve seen our house. Does that look like financial trouble to you?”

  “You never can tell, Mrs. Geller,” Kaye said. “You know what they call the front of a house, right?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A façade,” Kaye said.

  “Okay,” Feinmann said. “I think we’re done here.”

  “I have one more question,” Kaye said. “If it’s okay.”

  “Go ahead and ask,” Geller said.

  “You said a few minutes ago that, what, maybe six months ago, your husband started cheating on you,” Kaye said. “What changed? And I’m not looking for personal specifics. I’m interested in external factors, like a problem with a project, or the company, maybe some new friends suddenly showing up, things like that.”

  Ziva Geller went quiet, thinking, and Kaye got the impression she was unsure about something.

  “Anything at all, Mrs. Geller,” he prompted. “It may have seemed trivial at the time, but it could be important now.”

  “There was one thing,” she said at last. “But it was almost two years ago. It was the only time we ever fought about money, and it wasn’t because we didn’t have enough.”

  Kaye waited.

  “Avi came to me,” she went on, “to tell me he was going to diversify. That’s what he called it. Diversify. He’d been approached by some people about investing in a real estate project, some kind of exclusive resort, up the coast north of Santa Barbara somewhere. I told him he was crazy.”

  “Why would you think that?” Kaye asked.

  “Because it was crazy,” Geller replied. “I’ve known the man since the fifth grade. The only thing Avi knew about real estate was that you have to put a sign in front of your house to sell it. Then all of a sudden he wants to give some schmuck fifty million dollars?” She shrugged. “We fought.”

  “Fifty million dollars?” Feinmann spoke up, dumbfounded. “Ziva, why didn’t I know about this?”

  She just shrugged.

  “What happened after that?” Kaye asked.

  “He gave them the money,” she said. “He said they promised him his fifty million would be worth ten times that when the project was done.”

  “Was it?” Kaye asked.

  “I don’t know,” Geller whispered. “If they ever paid him back a dime, Avi didn’t put the money into our joint trust account.”

  “Oh, Ziva,” Feinmann said, shaking his head, “I wish you’d come to me. We could have talked to Avi, straightened all this out. At least made sure the deal was on the up and up.”

  “I couldn’t,” she said, still whispering. “It wasn’t about the money. We have more than we’ll ever need. It was what happened after, not long after last Hanukkah, that I started noticing…things. People started mentioning…things. Avi was there, but he wasn’t, if that makes sense.”

  “Such as?” Kaye prompted.

  “Ziva, you don’t have to answer that,” Feinmann said.

  “Thank you, Howard,” she said, then looked at Kaye. “It’s not important now, is it? Avi’s dead.”

  “Who were these people?” Kaye asked. “The real estate developers?”

  “I don’t know,” Geller said. “After we fought about it, Avi put a wall around it. He wouldn’t even introduce me to them.”

  “I’m sure that information will be in the Gellers’ financial records,” Feinmann said.

  “You’ll turn them over?” Kaye asked, surprised.

  Feinmann smiled in that way only lawyers can smile.

  “Let me clarify,” he said. “If you bring me a specific enough subpoena, I’ll honor it as best I can.”

  Kaye turned to Geller.

  “Mrs. Geller, there’s no guarantee your husband’s murder had anything to do with this real estate thing, but I’ll check into it. Is there anything else I should know?”

  “Not that I can think of right now,” she replied.

  Kaye turned to Feinmann.

  “What happens to Geller’s company?”

  Feinmann studied him for a moment, digesting the question.

  “I don’t think you need to go there, Detective,” he said. “It’s privately held. Mrs. Geller maintains a strong equity position, and Mr. Geller had a succession plan in place.”

  “You don’t think anybody got, shall we say, anxious to move up?” Kaye asked.

  “No,” Feinmann replied, shaking his head for emphasis. “Nobody in the company even knows about the plan, and they won’t until the will is read after the funeral, whenever that might be.”

  “I think we’re done,” Kaye said, standing up. “I’ve got a couple places to start. Thanks for coming in. I’ll show you out.”

  “We can find our way,” Feinmann said, offering Kaye his hand. “Please, if you need anything else from Mrs. Geller, work through me.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Kaye stayed in the interview room, going over his notes, looking for any hints or nuances he might have missed. Ziva Geller was a tough read. One the one hand, she said she was ready to divorce her husband, but on the other he got the impressions she was telling the truth when she said she still loved him. He knew from experience that love and murder were frequent bedfellows.

  But unless he was seriously mistaken, there was no way in hell Ziva Geller was capable of putting two rounds into her husband’s chest, then hitting a running, partially obscured target, at well over two hundred yards, in mere seconds.

  Strange way to live, he thought idly as he got up.

  Time to go home.

  DAY 4

  Thursday Week 1

  Kaye rose early. It was overcast, and during his yoga session he realized the days were shortening and he’d soon have to move inside if he stuck with the early schedule.

  His plan for the morning was to visit Avi Geller’s offices first, since they were closer than, and on the way to, the station.

  Kaye rode the Flight Red ’41 Knucklehead FL, and the bike drew the usual honks, thumbs up signs, stares and comments on the ride to Cent
ury City.

  AZG Productions occupied a large suite on an upper floor of one of the iconic three-sided skyscrapers.

  He saw a knot of reporters and cameras on the sidewalk outside the main entrance, kept going and turned into the parking garage. He had no desire to talk to the press.

  When Kaye pushed through the door his first impression was that he was in a motion picture museum. Mannequins in recognizable costumes and special effects were numerous, and the lobby walls were covered with framed posters. Most bore signatures of cast and crew members.

  If these were Geller’s films, Kaye knew why the guy had an estate at the top of Paloma Canyon and fifty million to toss at a real estate deal.

  “How may I help you?” the young woman behind the polished mahogany desk asked, jarring Kaye from his reverie.

  “Sorry,” he said. He held up his badge. “Detective Kaye, LAPD.”

  “You’re hear about Mr. Geller.”

  “I am.”

  “I’ll get Mr. Baruch.”

  She rose and disappeared around the edge of the wall behind the desk. Less than a minute later she reappeared, trailed by a slight, casually dressed man. A black ribbon was pinned to the breast of his polo shirt.

  “Les Baruch,” the man introduced himself. “What can I do for you, Detective Kaye?”

  “I was hoping to get a few minutes of your time.”

  “Sure, sure,” Baruch said. He turned to the receptionist. “No calls, Denise.”

  Baruch led Kaye to a conference room, where Kaye counted sixteen chairs around the sculpted stainless steel and glass table. The view toward the Pacific was spectacular, with the Santa Monica pier Ferris wheel visible in the hazy distance. Baruch took the end chair closest to the door and Kaye took the chair directly to the man’s right.

  “Now,” Baruch said, “I assume you’re investigating Avi’s murder. How can I be of help?”

  “Your assumption is correct,” Kaye said. “What I’d like to do is get a feel for Mr. Geller’s business, his friends, enemies, things like that. And,” Kaye smiled, “if you happen to know who shot him, you can save me a lot of time by just telling me.”

  A flash of panic crossed Baruch’s face, then he chuckled sardonically.

  “Very funny. Believe me, if I knew who killed Avi I would have already saved you the trouble of an investigation.”

  “So you two got along?”

  “Avi was like a brother to me, Detective. I’ve known him and Ziva forever. I owe him everything. His death is incomprehensible to me, to all of us, really. We don’t know what we’re going to do without him.”

  “Did Mr. Geller have enemies?” Kaye asked. “People whose projects he turned down, maybe? Or competitors who weren’t happy with him?”

  “No,” Baruch replied instantly. “People Avi turned down simply became disappointed friends, always welcome to come back and pitch the next blockbuster.”

  “If what I saw up front was any indication, he had quite a few of those.”

  “That he did,” Baruch said. “In my opinion, while I admit I’m a little biased, Avi was a genius. He had an eye for great ideas and a nose for great scripts. He made a lot of people in this town a lot of money.”

  “What about his other business?” Kaye asked. “The real estate.”

  Baruch’s brow furrowed and he made a face.

  “Real estate? You must be mistaken, Detective. Avi made movies. He didn’t do real estate.”

  “That’s not what I heard,” Kaye said. “Most recently, fifty million dollars, and my source is solid. Did you know his wife was considering divorcing him?”

  “What?” Baruch said, his eyes wide. “I don’t believe that. Avi and Ziva have been together forever. He loved her.”

  “Did you notice any changes in Mr. Geller’s routines, his behavior, over, say the last six or eight months?”

  Baruch looked away briefly and shifted nervously in his chair.

  “Yeah,” he said, staring at Kaye again. “I did. Nothing real big, but…”

  “What did you notice?”

  “It was nothing, really. I only noticed because we’d been friends for so long. Nobody else ever said anything. Ever.”

  “Okay. And?”

  “This is a funny business,” Baruch said. “You saw the office. But would you believe it’s pretty much window dressing? The real deals aren’t done here. They’re done on the golf course, at the marina, maybe over dinner at a charity event. Places like that.

  “Avi was a creature of habit. For years he only took office meetings on Monday and Thursday mornings, hammering out deals, signing contracts. You know, nuts and bolts stuff. The rest of the time he was out and about. Business development, he called it.”

  “That changed?” Kaye asked.

  “Yeah,” Baruch replied. “Several months ago I noticed he started to occasionally miss his Monday meetings. Then there were weeks he didn’t come to the office at all. He even almost blew a major deal, which was not like him at all.”

  “Did he lose any projects?”

  “Avi? Hell, no. Avi could schmooze anybody. He just called, made a few jokes, apologized and rescheduled. But when I asked what was going on, he told me to mind my own business. Over twenty-five years together, he never told me that. Not once. I wonder now if it was because him and Ziva were having problems.”

  “So, to your knowledge, Avi Geller had no enemies?”

  “Not that I know of,” Baruch said. “Besides, this is Hollywood. People don’t get even by killing each other. They get their revenge at the box office and on HBO and Netflix.”

  “A young woman was with Mr. Geller when he was killed. She was killed, too. Did Mr. Geller have a girlfriend, or girlfriends, maybe?”

  “Avi? Never. He wasn’t like that.” Baruch’s brow furrowed and he asked, “Who was she?”

  “I don’t know,” Kaye replied. “Yet.”

  “This is just surreal,” Baruch said, collapsing back in his chair. “It’s like a bad gangster movie. Life imitating art.”

  “We can argue Aristotle and Oscar Wilde all day, Mr. Baruch,” Kaye said.

  Baruch looked closely at Kaye, then said, “I’m impressed, Detective.”

  “Don’t be. I don’t have a side in the argument. It’s just my job to find the killer.” He rose to leave and handed Baruch a business card. “I may want to come back and talk to the staff at some point, and please call me if you think of anything in the meantime.”

  “Certainly,” Baruch said. “And can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Ever thought about being in the movies? I know a guy with a great concept and script looking for… Well, honestly, he’s looking for you. You are his character. Interested?”

  Kaye just laughed.

  ***

  Kaye rolled into the station parking lot just before 11:00 a.m. There were more cars in the parking lot than he’d seen all week.

  The activity level inside had gone up, too. Uniformed officers walked the hallways, and when Kaye walked into the squad room he saw two detectives, Chet Hilliard and Melody ‘Mel’ Lister, sitting in Lister’s space studying her computer monitor.

  Hilliard was a twenty-five year-plus cop, almost twenty of those as a detective. Lister had just been promoted to detective about a month before Kaye went on leave. Thompson had partnered her with Hilliard so she could learn the trade.

  Lister saw Kaye, leaned back and smiled.

  “Hey, Chet,” she said. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  “Why, as I live and breathe,” Hilliard said. “Ben Kaye. Nice to see you back where you belong. What? They laying off at Harley?”

  Kaye smiled.

  “I’ve been back all week,” he said. “What are you two doing back?”

  “Draggin’ the line,” Lister said. “Making a living, even if it is the old, hard way.”

  “But I thought…” Kaye said.

  “Yeah, well,” Hilliard said, “even the idiot who hatches a bad i
dea figures it out eventually. They started calling people back yesterday.”

  “Right decision,” Kaye said. “I heard it got ugly.”

  “Ugly doesn’t begin to describe it,” Lister said. “Town without pity, man. We damn near lost, Kaye. A few more days, the thin blue line would’ve been gone. It would’ve taken regular troops to restore order.”

  “That’s what the Captain said, too,” Kaye said. “Did you stay on?”

  “They put me in uniform for the duration,” Lister said. “Workin’ in the coal mine.”

  “So, how was the vacation?” Hilliard asked. “Did you miss us regular folks while you were rubbing shoulders with the jet set?”

  “Uneventful,” was all Kaye said, staying true to his word that he wouldn’t talk about the events in Aspen. “Nice place, but I don’t know if I’d live there.”

  “So why’d you come back to loading sixteen tons every day?” Lister asked. “Hotel California, maybe? Big difference between checking out and actually leaving.”

  Kaye thought about it for a moment.

  “Big yellow taxi.”

  It only took Lister about three seconds before she grinned and nodded knowingly.

  “What are you talking about?” Hilliard said, exasperated and looking back and forth. “I don’t get it.”

  “Jesus, Chet,” Lister said, playfully punching her partner in the shoulder. “How do you function with such a limited knowledge base?” She turned to Kaye. “I’ll explain the ironies of paradise, parking lots and tree museums to him later.”

  “We’re glad you’re back,” Hilliard said before he glared at Lister and made a face.

  “Likewise,” Kaye said. “What are you working?”

  “Thompson’s letting us pick and choose from the overload,” Hilliard said. “If you can believe that.”

  “Yeah,” Lister added. “He’s suddenly gone all Lovin’ Spoonful on us. Pick one, leave the other behind, you know?”

  Hilliard just looked at Kaye, shook his head, and said, “I give up.”

  Back at his desk, Kaye sat back and took stock of what he had going on.

  If he hustled, he could pay a visit to Black Scimitar and start building background on Leigh Howell.