When Joy just stared at him blankly, Gunner told him about the two women the Beverly Hills Police Department’s Kevin Frick had said the Digga entertained in his hotel room only hours before his death.
“Okay. So he had some company,” Joy said simply.
“Were they friends of yours?”
“Friends of mine? Why would they be friends of mine?”
“You were his manager. Some managers might consider that sort of thing just another service within their purview.”
“Not this one. My clients do their own pimping. Any more questions?”
“Just a small one. There was a freak in a bronze Lexus pulling out of the parking lot as I was pulling in a few minutes ago. Almost tore my car in half, and looked disappointed when she didn’t. She wouldn’t be a friend of yours, would she?”
Joy frowned, as if the question were the one he’d least wanted Gunner to ask. “That would’ve been Danee,” he said.
Gunner didn’t know why, but that was exactly what he’d thought Joy would say.
f i v e
FOR THE COST OF ONE NIGHT AT THE BEVERLY HILLS Westmore, a man could fly from L.A. to New Orleans and back and still have change. Some considered it the premier luxury hotel in Los Angeles, and anyone who’d ever set foot on its grounds would be hard-pressed to argue the point. Set back from the northeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and Beverly Drive, behind a fortresslike wall of green landscaping, the Westmore was an old, Spanish-style monument to comfort and overindulgence that catered only to the rich and famous.
As Gunner was neither of these things, his Tuesday afternoon visit to the historic hotel was his first, and most likely last. But that was all right with him. He had lived this long without having his tea served from a sterling silver tray, and he could go right on doing so.
He had made the trip in order to talk to the security man named Crumley, who, Kevin Frick said, had read the Digga’s alleged suicide note along with Desmond Joy. But Crumley—whose first name turned out to be Ray, not Rod—wasn’t there. Tuesday was his day off.
“You should’ve called ahead,” his supervisor said. He was a middle-aged, potbellied white man wearing an illfitting version of the security staff’s blue blazer. His name was Bob Zemic, and he greeted Gunner’s arrival with all the hospitality of a border patrol officer.
“I thought I’d surprise him,” Gunner said.
“Looks like you surprised yourself. What’s this all about?”
When Gunner told him, Zemic scowled and said, “You wouldn’t be trying to make a case for liability here, would you, Mr. Gunner?”
“Not at all. Should I be?”
“Only if you enjoy wasting time. The hotel did everything that could have possibly been done for Mr. Elbridge, I assure you.”
He had said “Mr. Elbridge” as if the rapper had no more deserved such lofty recognition than a bug he might scrape from his shoe.
“I’m sure that’s true,” Gunner said, filing the man’s obvious distaste for the Digga away for future reference. “But like I said—liability isn’t my interest here. I only came by to hear Mr. Crumley’s account of his discovery of the body, and maybe ask him for a short tour of the room, if that’s possible.”
“The room is occupied at the moment,” Zemic said.
“I see. Maybe you could just walk me quickly past the door then.”
“The door?”
“Call it going through the motions. My client’s getting charged for the time, the least I can do is take a quick look around, right?”
It was a rationale that fit in perfectly with Zemic’s low opinion of Gunner and those in his profession. Calling himself being generous, he shrugged after a moment and said, “Sure. No harm in that.”
The last room C.E. Digga Jones would ever sleep in—number 504—was, predictably, up on the hotel’s fifth floor. It was one of ten large suites arranged symmetrically on either side of a freshly painted mauve hallway. To reach it, Zemic had to guide Gunner past a gauntlet of fine southwestern art pieces and kaleidoscopic flower arrangements, and wrought-iron light fixtures that mimicked the soft radiance of kerosene lamps.
Zemic stopped at the appropriate door and said, “This was Mr. Elbridge’s suite here. Five-oh-four.”
“Sure we can’t go in?” Gunner asked.
“I’m afraid so. Like I said, the room’s occupied.”
“Really? How do you know? I never saw you check.”
“I don’t have to check. Part of my job here is always knowing what rooms are vacant, and what rooms aren’t.”
Before the white man could stop him, Gunner reached out with his right hand, rapped on the door three times. “Let’s just make sure,” he said.
Zemic was furious. “That wasn’t smart, Mr. Gunner. The Westmore doesn’t appreciate having our guests disturbed unnecessarily.”
When no one answered his knock, Gunner said, “You can’t disturb guests who aren’t in.” Letting the security man see he never believed they were there in the first place.
“All the same. We can’t go in there,” Zemic said.
Gunner peered down the hall, saw a housekeeper’s cart parked outside an open suite door. Zemic watched him start toward it, moved quickly to follow him.
“What are you doing, Mr. Gunner?”
Ignoring him, Gunner reached the open suite, stepped inside just far enough to get a look at the interior side of the door. A uniformed housekeeper stood in the bathroom nearby, eyeing him warily, as Zemic appeared alongside him.
“I asked you what you’re doing,” the security man said testily.
“Just wondered what the locks look like. This the same setup as the one in five-oh-four?”
“Yes. But I’m not sure I care for the question.”
The door featured a dead bolt with a large, wedgelike knob, and above that, the latest replacement for the old standby chain lock: a swing bar. A thick U-shaped brass bar that swiveled on a hinge when the door was closed to interlink with a brass ball mounted to the jamb. Gunner was no expert in such things, but it didn’t look to him like an arrangement that could easily be manipulated by someone working on the outside of the closed door.
The investigator stepped out of the suite as Zemic watched, and found the twin camera domes he knew had to be there, this being the high-cost establishment it was. They were mounted to the ceiling at either end of the hallway. The domes’ mirrored skeins made it impossible to see how the cameras inside were aimed, but it seemed safe to assume that one of them must have had a fairly decent view of the door to suite 504 the night Carlton Elbridge died.
Following Gunner’s gaze, Zemic said, “We have surveillance cameras like that on every floor here. Security at our hotel is the finest in the industry, as you can see.”
“The video feed is recorded, as well as monitored?”
“Of course.”
“And are the tapes recycled, or archived?”
“They’re archived for thirty days, then recycled. But look—”
“Any chance I could see the ones for this floor recorded the night Elbridge died?”
“No. No way. We already let the cops borrow one, no way I’m gonna run ’em now for you.”
“The cops borrowed one? What do you mean?”
“I mean they asked Ray if they could take one down to the station for a while, and he let them. If we hadn’t gotten it back a few days later, he’d be looking for work right now, and so would I.”
“Hold on a minute. You’re saying Beverly Hills PD took a copy of the tapes we’re talking about off-site? For what?”
“You’d have to ask them, not me. I imagine they were just being thorough, not wanting to rule Mr. Elbridge’s death a suicide until they were absolutely certain that’s what it was.”
Gunner was somewhat surprised. Kevin Frick hadn’t said anything about having viewed any surveillance tapes, and in fact had led the investigator to believe he wouldn’t have cared to. He and his partner had been convinced from the first that C
arlton Elbridge had committed suicide, Frick said. Wouldn’t so closely monitoring who Elbridge’s visitors were the night of his death have been more appropriate behavior for a cop who smelled a homicide?
“They only took one tape?” Gunner asked Zemic. “Not the whole series?”
“You mean—”
“I mean for the entire period between the time Elbridge last entered his room on Saturday and Crumley entered it on Sunday, when you say he and Joy discovered Elbridge’s body. That couldn’t have all fit on one tape.”
Zemic shook his head, said, “No, of course not. That would have been five, maybe six tapes at the least. If Ray had given them all that—”
“But you say he didn’t. He only gave them one.”
“Yes. That was plenty.”
Another curiosity, Gunner thought. To adequately rule out the possibility that someone had entered the Digga’s room to murder him, then slipped out afterward, Frick and his partner would have wanted to examine the full series of tapes Gunner had just described to Zemic; one tape alone would have told them nothing, unless it caught the murderer entering and exiting the scene of the crime just before, and just after, the Digga died. The two cops could have taken a shot with the single tape covering that time frame, hoped it alone showed them what they were looking for, but it would have been damn shoddy police work to do so. And if there was one thing Frick hadn’t appeared to be to Gunner, it was a cop who liked to do shoddy police work.
“Crumley gave them the tape without your consent?” Gunner asked.
“Absolutely. It was against all hotel policy to do so without checking with legal first. I personally would have never allowed it.”
“So how did you find out he’d done it? I don’t suppose he told you himself.”
“Actually, he did. But only in reply to direct questioning. I’d noticed the tape missing from the shelves in our office, and asked him if he knew where it was. He told me then he’d given it to the detectives who were investigating the Elbridge suicide. The only reason I didn’t fire him on the spot was because he thought he was doing the right thing, cooperating fully with the authorities.”
“Do you recall which tape it was, exactly, that he gave them? What time period it covered?”
“Of course. It was early evening that Saturday, I believe. Sixteen hundred to twenty hundred hours.”
“That would be four p.m. to eight p.m.”
“Yes.”
“But Elbridge reportedly died around midnight. You’re saying they took a tape that ended a full four hours before that?”
“I’m simply answering the question you posed to me, Mr. Gunner. The tape they had ran from four in the afternoon that Saturday to eight in the evening. Why they chose that particular tape, I couldn’t tell you.”
Again, this was something else that didn’t add up. If the Digga had been killed only thirty minutes shy of midnight that Saturday, and Frick and his partner only took one surveillance tape—it should have been the one relevant to that specific time frame. None of the others, recorded either before or after the Digga died, would be capable by itself of proving who had or had not been in the room with him when he was shot.
“When did you say you got the tape back?”
“A few days after they took it. Two or three, tops.”
“And was it returned to you personally, or …”
“It was returned to Ray. Ray went down to the station when they were done with it and brought it back here himself. He gave it to me and I refiled it, after checking it over to make sure it was the right tape, of course.”
“You viewed it?”
“Yes. Not in its entirety, naturally, but I scanned through it. Four hours of what was mostly an empty hallway, I certainly wasn’t going to look at the whole thing in real time.” Zemic eyed Gunner suspiciously, said, “I don’t know where all of this is leading, Mr. Gunner, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to get back to my office now. I trust I’ve answered all your questions?”
“All but one.” Zemic looked annoyed, having already taken one step toward the elevators. “I’d still like to have that talk with Mr. Crumley, if I could. Would it be possible to get his home number from you?”
“I’ve got a better idea. I’ll take yours, and have him call you.”
Gunner smiled good-naturedly, said, “You could do it that way, sure. But my way would look more like cooperation on your part, if anybody were to ask me later how helpful the Westmore’s been to my investigation. Don’t you think?”
Zemic visibly stiffened, stung by the veiled threat. Carlton Elbridge’s death on the premises had already brought Zemic’s beloved hotel all the negative publicity it could ever use; if stories were to start circulating now that the Westmore’s staff was impeding Gunner’s investigation into the rapper’s alleged suicide, rumors that the hotel was engaged in a cover-up of some kind wouldn’t be far behind.
“Follow me down to my office, I’ll give you Ray’s number there,” the security man said.
Biting down hard on every word.
Gunner used a pay phone in the lobby to make three calls before leaving the Westmore. His first one went out to Kevin Frick, who wasn’t at his desk at the BHPD; Gunner left a message on the cop’s voice mail for him to call. Next, Gunner tried Ray Crumley, but the security man too was out; Gunner left the same message he’d left with Frick on Crumley’s answering machine. Finally, the investigator checked in with his unofficial secretary, Mickey Moore, looking for messages of his own.
“It’s about damn time you called,” the barber said immediately, clearly in a panic.
“Why? What’s up?”
“You got the biggest brother I ever seen waitin’ for you over here, that’s what. Damn near blotted out the sun when he walked through the door.”
“He give you his name?”
“He says his name is Jolly. Jolly Mokes.”
“Jolly Mokes?”
It was a name Gunner had nearly forgotten. The last time he had seen William “Jolly” Mokes was on television, during a news report of the giant black man’s arrest for the murder of his wife, Grace. He had strangled his pretty little woman to death in a drunken, jealous rage the day before, and would soon offer the police a full confession to the crime. When they shipped him off to prison shortly thereafter, Gunner thought he’d never see his old Vietnam War partner again.
But that had been nineteen years ago. Time enough for Jolly to make like a model citizen inside and maybe earn himself an early release. He wouldn’t be the first convicted killer to get off so lightly.
Gunner told Mickey he’d be right in, then hung up the phone. Later, sitting in the idling red Cobra, he checked and reloaded the clip in his nine-millimeter Ruger before putting the car in gear.
Mickey was waiting for him out on the street upon his arrival. The barber ran up to the car as Gunner pulled it to the curb and said, “He’s still in there. Lookin’ like somebody shot his mother. You sure I shouldn’t call the cops?”
“I’m sure,” Gunner said, joining his landlord on the sidewalk. “I told you, he’s a friend.”
“A friend, huh? Baddest-lookin’ friend I ever saw. Whoever named ’im Jolly must’ve had one helluva sense of humor.”
“Anybody else in there right now?”
“No. I closed up early. If what I think is gonna happen when you go in there happens, I don’t want nobody around to get hurt and sue me afterward. I can’t afford that kind of trouble, I’m sorry.”
The two men entered the silent barbershop together; then Gunner went straight back to his office, waving at Mickey to stay put out front. He stepped into the muted light of the room and Jolly jumped up from the couch like a man caught sleeping with another man’s wife. Gunner noticed immediately that he hadn’t changed much in nineteen years; prison food had thinned him out some, but he still stood six-foot-six in his stocking feet, and was as wide across the chest as a small forklift.
“So there you are,” Jolly said, smiling nervously.
“Jolly. What’s up?” Gunner answered.
The eyes in his friend’s peanut-shaped head turned to the nine-auto Gunner was training on his midsection, and the big man’s smile lost a fraction of its enthusiasm. “Hey, man. It ain’t like that, is it?”
“I don’t know, partner. You tell me.”
“I didn’t come here to bust you up, if that’s what you’re thinkin’,” Jolly said, angry now. “I just wanna talk to you, that’s all.”
Gunner searched his smooth, babylike face for deceit, couldn’t really find any. He took a calculated risk and slipped the gun back into the front waistband of his pants. “What do we have to talk about, Jolly?” he asked, starting forward to take the chair behind his desk.
Jolly let him take two steps, then lunged at him to throw a right hand, nearly broke Gunner’s jaw with a blow that barely landed. Gunner hit the back of his head on his desk as he fell to the floor, tried to draw the Ruger from his pants before the big man could reach him, but Jolly wouldn’t have it. He pounced like a cat, seized the Ruger with his left hand and Gunner’s throat with his right, then slowly drew the investigator to his feet, intent on looking Gunner straight in the eye when he broke his neck.
“You should’ve stopped me, Gunner,” Jolly said.
Mickey burst into the room seconds later, armed with the only weapon he ever kept in the place, a Louisville Slugger signed by Ken Griffey, Jr.—but he was too late. All the excitement was over. Jolly was sitting on the couch again, hunched over and breathing heavily, while Gunner lay in a heap on the floor, right where the giant black man had dropped him.
“It’s okay, Mickey,” Gunner said, rising slowly to his feet.
“I told you this was gonna happen! Didn’t I tell you?”
“Nothing happened. We’re okay. Get the hell out of here, will you?”
But Mickey wasn’t easily reassured. Still holding the bat at the ready, his body poised for attack, he glared at Jolly, who had yet to even glance his way, and said, “Nothin’ happened, my ass! He tried to kill you, just like I said he would!”
“No. He didn’t.” Gunner crossed over to take Mickey by the arm, guide him forcefully to the door. “Man just needed to let off a little steam, that’s all. You can leave us alone now, he’s all right.”
All the Lucky Ones Are Dead Page 5