Kingdom Come

by Paul Neuhaus

  “Okay, sure, but she doesn’t look scared. Like at all. At the risk of being rude, is she impaired?”

  I started to answer for her, but she interrupted me. It was the first time I’d heard her say more than a syllable in a week. “No, I’m not impaired, you self-important shit bag. Cult leaders and Congressmen, you’re all the same. You think you’re better than the rest of when, in fact, you’re worse. Much, much worse. What’s it like being an amoral viper?” She looked over at O'Connor. “What’s it like snuffing the life out of someone to further your own sick ends?”

  Liam and Patrick looked at one another and both of them laughed. “Wow,” Patrick said. “I stand corrected. She’s no dummy—in either sense of the word. I think I’m liking her.”

  I watched as Ava crossed her arms over her chest. I had no more cards to play. “Could we get this over with? I’m getting bored.”

  Patrick sighed and gave in to the inevitable. “You heard the man,” he said to O'Connor. “Do your thing.”

  O'Connor stood and put his hand on my right bicep. I picked up the knight with the lance and jammed the pointy-end into his eye. I shoved it good and hard, but it didn’t have the hoped-for effect. It didn’t penetrate his brain. That notwithstanding, it was a shock to his system, and he went down screaming, equal parts pain and panic. I stood and pushed Patrick’s desk across the hardwood floor. He was too surprised by everything going on around him to react and, before I was done, Ava had joined me in pushing the desk. Together we succeeded in not only pinning Dankworth against the wall, we knocked the wind out of him.

  Miss Amelia didn’t need to be told what to do. We joined hands and ran out of the office. As soon as got into the living room, we skidded to a stop. We’d come face to face with four uniformed policemen with their guns drawn. All of them yelled, “Freeze!” at the same time. We’d already frozen, but we threw up our hands to seal the deal. Behind me, Patrick came in supporting Liam by the shoulder. Like us, he was surprised to see the cops in his home. Also like us, he threw his hands up and O'Connor, the newly christened cyclops, fell to the floor with a thud.

  Behind the policemen, Dennis Hill came through the front door. “Jack, Ava, come ‘round to this side.” He pointed at the cult leader and the fallen hit man. “Those’re the two you want,” he said to the uniforms.

  Jeeves came in from the back of the house and said, “Aye yai yai” before throwing up his hands.

  5 Stupid

  On the way back to Sherman Oaks, I sat in the front of Dennis’ car and Ava sat in the back. My lady friend had gone back to her usual quiet self. Dennis was in the middle of explaining how he’d affected our rescue. “After our last conversation you didn’t think I’d put a tail on you? I told you: You can run the investigation into Albright’s disappearance for the time being, but the murder investigation is mine. And it’s a murder investigation that’s not only still hot, you were the person most likely to flush out the perpetrator—whether you wanted to.”

  “Your timing was good,” I conceded. “We made it out of Dankworth’s office, but I had no idea where we were gonna go next.”

  “Instinct kicks in when you’re looking down a gun barrel.”

  “Yeah, no shit.”

  Dennis spared a glance away from the road so he could grin at me. “The big guy… The David Lynch hair guy…”

  “Liam.”

  “Right. He says he’s gonna press charges.”

  “Press charges for what?”

  “He says you’re the one put out his eye.”

  “Well, sure, but only because he kidnapped me and was gonna kill me and my girlfriend.”

  “Let the judge sort it out.”

  We sat in silence for a while. I watched the businesses go by on Ventura Boulevard. “While we were talking, Patrick Dankworth bragged about how easy it’d be for him to wriggle out of a couple of petty murders. Given the miracle he pulled with the Internal Revenue Service, I believed him. What do you think? Are the two of them just going to be on the street again in a few hours?”

  Hill was straight with me. “O'Connor’s not going anywhere. We got a witness to a murder he committed—that’d be you. And we got two witnesses for the kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder he was in the middle of committing—that’d be you and Ava. Patrick… I dunno. He’s got influence…”

  “There’s that word again.”

  “Huh?”

  “Dankworth trotted it out. Influence. You know how they say no one is above the law?”

  My friend laughed. “Yeah, it’s bullshit. Plenty of people are above the law.”

  Dennis dropped us off in the driveway of our place. Ava went inside while I recovered my cell phone from the Jeep. I vowed to pay better attention to it in the future. It could do things other than solitaire. It could call for help when you’ve been kidnapped.

  When I got inside the apartment, I plopped down on the couch, threw back my head and closed my eyes, intending to pump some of the adrenaline out of my system. Ava was in the bedroom making some nondescript noise. After a while, the nature of that noise became clear. Miss Amelia came into the living room and cleared her throat. I raised my head and opened my eyes.

  Ava was standing there wearing her shoes and carrying a suitcase. “I called my cousin in Encino. She will take me to my other cousin’s in Costa Mesa. I’ll crash there until I figure out what to do.”

  The news was too much for me to process. “You’re leaving? Why?”

  She gave me a duh look. “We could’ve kept going like this forever,” she said. “I guess my only rule was that I not get involved in some ugly way with your work. But I just got involved in some ugly way with your work. I need to cut my losses and run. I know it’s not your fault, but…”

  I continued to sit, stymied. “Are you sure? I mean isn’t there some way I can make it up to you?”

  “Can you promise me one hundred percent nothing like that will ever happen again?”

  She had me there. “No… But look at it this way: Now that it’s happened, the odds of it happening again are slim.”

  “That’s what I figured.” She came forward, bent at the waist to give me a long, heartfelt kiss, and then she headed for the door.

  While she still had her hand on the knob, I said, “Can I call you?”

  “Jack, I think that’d be a terrible idea.”

  She left, and I stayed where I was, not knowing how to feel.

  Wallowing is dangerous for me. Once I get into a good wallow, it’s hard to get out, and I can’t cope with that kind of inertia. I know myself: Once I’m down, I’m down for a good long time. The only solution is not to let it happen.

  I got up from the couch and headed out. Destination: Glendale.

  I took surface streets to my destination. It was after three at that point, meaning Rush Hour traffic had begun. At the risk of invoking a cliche, Rush Hour in Los Angeles begins at two-thirty in the afternoon and runs until two the next day. Driving through neighborhoods meant a lot of traffic lights and especially poor drivers, but it was better than the alternative. I went north from Sherman Oaks into Valley Glen and then cut east through Valley Village into Burbank. The route I chose took me past the Walt Disney Studios. It went that way whenever I could. Something about driving past the Buena Vista Street entrance of the facility always gave me a little Zen. Between the original entrance (which hadn’t changed in decades) and St. Joseph’s Hospital across the street where both Disney himself and my parents had died. The passage centered me.

  With my pilgrimage done, I continued east into Glendale itself. I was on autopilot until I reached the part of the neighborhood I’d been in the day before. Where Yousefian's was and where Kohar Gasparyan’s house could be reached via an easy walk. This time I didn’t bother going into the bakery. I wasn’t feeling very sociable. I went straight to the scene of the stake-out and parked on the street at an angle to the home. Kohar hadn’t seen my vehicle, and I brought my ball cap. I had to trust I wouldn’t be spo
tted. It’s funny how an octogenarian with a vise-like claw can throw off your whole game.

  Nothing had changed since the last time I was there. There was no car in the driveway. I assumed that, despite Kohar’s vigor, she probably didn’t drive. There was also nothing about the house itself to indicate it was occupied. You had to get close to draw the spider out of its lair.

  I put my seat back about halfway and settled in for a long late afternoon of boredom. When someone went into or out of the house, I’d have something to go on. Until then, it was just me. I couldn’t resort to solitaire because I didn’t trust myself not to get engrossed and miss something. After five minutes, I wished I had stopped at the bakery. In a little while, I’d be hungry, and I was car-bound without anything to nosh. Typical, really. If I could think ahead, I’d be dangerous.

  I was in a lousy place for non-wallowing. Trapped in a car waiting for something to happen. I thought about how Ava and I had come together. It’d been on a case. Ava hadn’t hired me. That’d been her older sister, Margot. It’d been a kind of job I rarely take. A protection gig. Margot and Ava’s father—a feisty D.A.—had gotten on the wrong side of a Mexican cartel and, as they say in the movies, failed to appreciate the gravity of his situation. Mr. Amelia was, come hell or high water, gonna get his prosecutions. He’d be damned if a little thing like murderous drug lords got in his way. Against his wishes, Margot brought me in to see to her’s and her sister’s welfare (and if I could do anything for the old man, so much the better).

  Long story short, I failed. Mostly.

  On the day of the arraignments, Margot and Mr. Amelia were tortured and killed. But I wasn’t a total fuck-up. I tracked the bad guy to his lair and stopped him from flaying the skin from Ava’s back. My first ever on-the-job kill. When I cut the girl down, she latched onto me and didn’t let go until Patrick Dankworth and Liam O’Connor queered the deal. Meeting the two religious nutbags showed my days of protecting Ava were over.

  Too bad since the entire relationship was built on protection.

  A silver sedan pulled into the Gasparyan drive. Once it was parked, a short but powerfully built young man in dark trousers and a wife beater got out and went into the house. He was tatted up and down both of his bare arms. Very Yakuza.

  I raised my seat and leaned in toward the windshield. Now we were getting somewhere. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long before Arsen came back out. He was carrying two Tupperware containers and a plate of something covered in Saran-wrap. From the looks of it, Kaspar had made food for her grandson and for Tad Albright. Something about that really amused me. How very… domestic of her. Arsen fumbled the food into the passenger seat and backed out of the driveway. He made a left onto the street which took him past where I was sitting. At first that made me paranoid, but then I realized he’d never seen me before. No big deal, I’d just have to give him a minute before I put on the tail. Once he was around the corner, I started the Jeep and spun myself around so I was a good ways behind the Armenian gangster. As I drove by the house, Kaspar came out, saw me and flipped me a wicked bird. That was much worse news than Arsen setting eyes on me. She could call him and tell him he had a shamus on his trail. Whatever. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

  Despite there being a preponderance of silver sedans in the San Fernando Valley, it wasn’t hard to pick up the one I was after. I followed at a safe distance and he mostly stuck to Pacific, a main thoroughfare pointed northwest. He didn’t have too far to go in that direction since a big chunk of Glendale’s Northern Territory is occupied by the Verdugo Mountains and a nature preserve. He took a left onto Kenneth Road. From there it was a straight shot to his destination, an abandoned Taco Bell that’d been purchased, rebranded as “Pepe’s” and then had failed. I went past the building and around the corner of the cross street. I drove down a few blocks before parking the Jeep on a residential stretch. In my head, I was playing it safe, but if Gasparyan knew I was coming, my precautions wouldn’t matter. It was one of those rare occasions when I wished I carried my gun. I had no intention of shooting anyone, but I like to return fire when it’s given.

  Old trees shaded the sidewalk. Trees old enough to have roots that made the passage treacherous. The squares of concrete in front of me were like frozen ocean waves because of the displacement from underneath. As I watched the ground to keep my footing, I reviewed my plan—which was easy since, as usual, I didn’t have one. What I wanted to do was talk to Arsen, find out why he’d kidnapped Tad Albright, and convince him to release the action star. I’m not sure what made me think Gasparyan would be amenable to that approach. I guess I still wanted to believe in people’s basic reasonableness. Didn’t Arsen know he was putting Randall Dunphey’s job at risk? Probably not, but once he did, surely he’d play ball, right? Chalk it up to too much Mr. Rogers as a kid. There was a downside to all that positivity in children’s television. It could turn you into a simp.

  When I reached Pepe Bell’s parking lot, I was surprised to see Arsen Gasparyan leaning against the back of the building and looking in my direction. He was waiting for me. His grandmother was nothing if not a reliable pain in my ass. “Howdy,” I said, which, in retrospect, was an odd opener.

  The guy was about four inches shorter than me and, like his grandmother, built like a fireplug. I know my way around a scrap but there was no way I could take him unless I caught an unusually lucky break. Also—as much as I hate to stereotype—he probably had tons more street fighting experience than I did. But that was probably just my Non-Armenian Gangster Privilege talking. “Why’re you following me?” he said, showing not a trace of concern. (Here’s one thing I had to give him: He was handsome as all get out. Soap opera handsome. Helen Dankworth was no dummy.)

  “Didn’t your gran tell you? I’m looking for someone. Someone I think you’ve been hanging with.” I decided it’d be bad form to insinuate a kidnapping. Wrongdoers don’t like being implicated in wrongdoings.

  Gasparyan smiled. “You got me all wrong, mister. I’m a loner. I don’t hang out with no one. I come here to be with my thoughts.”

  I returned the smile. “Here? At Pepe’s?”

  He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Church is where you find it.” That was, I thought, an unexpectedly profound thing for him to have said.

  “Okay, well, far be it from me to come between a man and his contemplations. Let me just give you the rundown on why I’m here and we’ll see if we can’t work something out. Kaspar told you I’m a private detective, right?”

  “She might’a said something…”

  “Okay, good. I’m a private detective and I’ve got a client. A client who asked me to look for Tad Albright. See, if I don’t find Albright by Monday morning—tomorrow morning—my client loses his job. And he’s just a schlub. A working stiff. He thinks—and I would agree—that he shouldn’t get booted because Tad went on sabbatical.”

  Again, the shrug. “What’s that got to do with me? I told you, it’s just me, myself and I.”

  “Along with the ghost of Pepe’s shattered dreams.”

  He liked the sound of that and replied with humor. “Aw. That’s heartbreaking.”

  “Look,” I said. “Would you mind if we talked in hypotheticals for a minute?”

  “Okay, but only a minute. I gotta get back to my… musings.”

  “Of course. Just hear me out...Suppose for just a second I talked to a guy who saw you and Tad get into that silver car in West Hollywood a few days ago. Now, suppose this guy also told me you didn’t seem to be coercing Tad, that Tad seemed to go with you of his own free well...”

  “Should I suppose that guy was Tad’s boyfriend?” Arsen said.

  “Would that be a problem?”

  “Not especially. I’m a Millennial. We don’t give a shit about that kind of stuff.”

  “Okay, fine, but you see what I’m getting at, right?”

  “Do I? What do I see?”

  “If you didn’t force Tad to come with you—if he’
s here of his own volition—I’m not investigating a crime, I’m just helping a friend. If I’m not investigating a crime, you and I got no beef.”

  He folded his tattooed arms in front of his chest, a twinkle in his eyes. “So, if I’m hearing you right, you and me should be friends.”

  “Meh. Maybe. More likely, we should just be wildly indifferent to one another. Can I ask you a question? ‘Cause I wanna get to a solution here as quickly as possible.”

  “I guess.”

  “Why is Tad here? With you now? Holed up in a former Taco Bell?”

  “Don’t say ‘holed’ in connection with me and Tad Albright.”

  I sighed. “I thought you weren’t hung up on that shit...”

  “Right, no. I’m just fucking with you.”

  “All I wanna do is remind Tad about my friend—the one that’s likely to lose his job thanks to Tad dropping off the grid. I think Tad would wanna do something about it. I’m told he likes my friend. So, do you think you could either tell me what your issue is or, barring that, let me talk to Tad myself?”

  Arsen unfolded his arms. “Issue? Who said anything about me having an issue?”

  “If you didn’t have an issue, you wouldn’t be here. I’m sure you could find better things to do with your time than eat gran gran’s cooking in an abandoned restaurant.”

  Gasparyan sighed and leaned his back against the wall. “Jesus, you talk a lot.”

  “It’s what I do.”

  “Alright, well, I’ve reached my limit. I’m gonna go back inside and have my dinner. Only here’s the problem: I gotta figure that, since running your mouth didn’t get you what you wanted, you’re gonna call the cops and tell ‘em to get on down to Pepe’s. Tell ‘em there’s a pissant pendejo holding a big movie star ransom. That ain’t good for me.”

  “Sure. But we both know you’re not doing the ransom thing.”