He fretted for more than an hour about the business card from the LAPD detective, but he finally persuaded himself that it was only natural that his name would’ve been dropped by someone at Club Samara, where Daisy had worked. He figured that Markov would also be contacted by the detective. But even if he could convince himself that he was still okay, he was positive that the detective would know about the peg-leg cop’s investigation of him as an employee in a massage parlor brothel. He didn’t want to talk to any cop just yet.
At 11:00 a.m. he returned the call from Markov that he’d been avoiding thinking about. His employer answered on the second ring.
“Yes?”
“It’s me,” Hector said. “Sorry I didn’t get a chance to call sooner.”
“I will not be ignored,” Markov said.
“Sorry, sir.” Hector always avoided names during phone calls, per Markov’s orders.
“I wanted a report,” Markov said.
“That’s why I didn’t get a chance to call,” Hector said. “I was working for you.”
“And?”
“I found what you wanted me to find.”
“Good!” Markov said. “When can I receive your report? I want it delivered in person.”
“Today,” Hector said. “I made your deadline, so I’ll expect you to keep your part of the agreement.”
“If you will recall, that will take place only when the third party deals with the matter.”
“No, that’s been changed,” Hector said. “This has been too hard and too risky, so I’ll need you to keep your part of the deal today, when I give you my report. That means I want all of it.”
The silence lasted so long that Hector thought Markov had hung up, until he said, “You are making a mistake if you think you can give orders to me.”
Hector mustered all the courage he had left. “No, you’re the one making the mistake. I’m moving outta the house today, and you ain’t gonna be seeing me no more. So if you wanna wait till all the shit in the sky comes down, that’s up to you. I can tell you this much: the person in question ain’t gonna stay quiet for long, not if she gets a visit from Five-Oh and . . .”
“You have said enough!” Markov interrupted.
“Call me when you’re ready to keep your part of the deal,” Hector said, and closed his cell phone.
He took a shower and shaved, then packed his car with all his clothes and personal items, which were the only things in the furnished house that belonged to him. He had to make frequent nerve visits to the bathroom, and his hands remained clammy. He decided not to wait around long enough for Kim to drive to Encino from Koreatown, if Markov had alerted him.
He looked at his watch and had just decided it was time to go when he heard the ringtone.
“You called jist in time, sir,” he said.
“All right,” Markov said. “I can make the arrangements for half of the promised trading material by four o’clock. I will see you at my house. Be on time.”
“No, you won’t,” Hector said. “You will see me at six o’clock on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame with the correct trading material. And I mean all of it. Look for Frank Sinatra’s TV star. He’s got other ones too.”
Markov virtually hissed when he said, “Have you gone completely insane?”
“You won’t think so when I tell you about some dangerous things that you don’t know about.”
“This is outrageous!” Markov said.
“I forget the address of the star, but if you Google it, you can find it,” Hector said. “When you get there, I’ll be close by. And if I was you, I’d buy a new go-phone tomorrow.”
Hector could hear Markov’s breathing when he said, “Why are you doing this?”
“The star meeting place?” Hector asked. “Because Sinatra was Italian and it’s a place where we can be safe. I don’t want no surprises from your Korean business associate or any of his friends when we make our trade, like what might happen to me if I went to your house all alone. He showed me what he can do when he’s unhappy. So if any Asian approaches me on the Walk of Fame, even if it’s the Dalai Lama or Yoko Ono with her dumb hats and goofy shades hanging off her nose, you’ll never see me again. And you and your associate can take your chances with what’s sure to come down on both of you very soon.”
More silence on the line, until Markov finally said, “What do you mean when you say you know dangerous things that I do not know about?”
Hector said, “I have some critical information that I been holding back from you, and when you hear it you’ll be ready to liquidate your holdings ASAP and take that trip to Costa Rica. I can buy you a little time to get that done, but only if you show up at Sinatra’s star with the correct trading material.”
Hector shut his cell phone again, and no further calls came in other than one more from Kim, which he ignored. He wondered what Markov would say when he heard about the investigation already under way by the peg-leg cop and his cohorts at Hollywood Station. He decided to go to the phone store tomorrow and buy another go-phone, but he needed this one until the meeting with Markov. He hoped he wasn’t keeping the phone a day too long. If they were already surveilling him and bugging his house, there might be more than Markov waiting for him at Sinatra’s star. But at this point, what choice did he have? The money made all risks worth taking.
There was one more essential call he had to make. He speed-dialed her number and, knowing the hours she kept, hoped she’d be awake. She was, but barely.
“Ivana,” he said. “It’s me. I got an important question. Are you awake?”
“What time is it?” she groaned.
“Listen to me!” he said. “Remember the time a couple months ago when you did a job for our Korean associate and some of his friends? You said you were at his house in Koreatown, right?”
“No.” She cleared mucus from her throat. “It was a condo of his friend. A woman he knows even before they come to America. Maybe he lives there with her, but I am not for sure.”
“But they were tight, weren’t they?” Hector said.
“What?”
“He was fucking her, wasn’t he?”
“I do not know!” she said impatiently. “I guess so. He fucks everybody he can fuck. One way or other.”
“What’s her name?”
Silence on the line and then: “Madame Wang or Tang, something like that. I think it is Tang.”
“I want you to take me there,” Hector said. “I need the address.”
“I do not got to take you,” she said. “It is the top-floor condo above the big restaurant with name of Kimchi Heaven.”
“Thanks, go back to sleep,” Hector said.
Now I got you where I need you, buckethead, Hector thought. You and your woman. Yin and yang, Kim and Tang. I got you on my GPS!
Sergeant Murillo had finished reading the lineup very quickly. There were only five cars on Watch 5 that night, and with Chester Toles gone and no replacement from Watch 2 or Watch 3, he was juggling car assignments until the new deployment period started.
“Got some roll call training to kill time,” he said, and, of course, the announcement brought no enthusiasm from the troops.
“More on racial sensitivity?” Flotsam moaned.
“Is it because of the deaf Samoan?” Jetsam asked. “Did his girlfriend, like, come in and make a complaint on us?”
“Did you have to write up a one twenty-eight?” Flotsam asked.
That made everyone turn toward the surfer cops, so Sergeant Murillo said, “No, but now that you’ve got everyone’s attention, go ahead and enlighten us about what you did with a deaf Samoan last night.”
Flotsam said, “The dude was, you know, King Kong tall and weighed only a little less. And he’d just finished smoking dope with a Hispanic guy and a white chick on the corner of Hollywood and Gower. And we pull up and we know what they’re doing ’cause we can smell it on them. And the Hispanic guy’s a smart-ass, and when I ask them what they’re doing he goes, ‘
Jerking off and smoking dope, but we’re done with both now.’”
Jetsam picked up the story: “And the deaf Samoan starts bitching at us and we’re supposed to, like, understand sign language, right?”
“Then how did you know he was bitching?” Sergeant Murillo asked.
Flotsam said, “His banana fingers got to flying all over the place, saying he wanted a sergeant.”
“How did you know he wanted a sergeant?” Sergeant Murillo asked.
Jetsam said, “He only made these spooky grunting sounds, but he stuck up three big fingers and started pounding them on his bicep. Three fingers for sergeant stripes. We figured it out.”
Flotsam said, “That’s when the chick stepped in and started mouthing off, but the Hispanic guy, he decided to bounce and was gone in a flash.”
“How did this saga end?” Sergeant Murillo asked.
Jetsam said, “We wrote FIs and decided to kick them loose after the chick said they were in love and were gonna get married. Except they had to wait for his divorce ’cause he’d been married six times back in Samoa and had lotsa kids, and the last divorce wasn’t final.”
“That’s what she called to complain about, right?” Flotsam asked. “What came next?”
“You’ve gone this far,” Sergeant Murillo said. “Tell us what came next.”
“It was just a little . . . banter, Sarge,” Jetsam said. “Me and my partner were talking to each other, and the Samoan couldn’t hear us, of course. And she looked too smoked out or shot out to hear a frog fart, but I guess she did, and . . .”
Flotsam said, “I just sorta gave my impression to my partner of a six-time-loser deaf Samoan, standing at the altar with number seven and talking to her in sign language. So I do signs with my fingers and I go, ‘Me love you long time. Not!’ That’s all I did.”
With the whole watch bursting into cackles and hoots, Sergeant Murillo said, “See, that’s just the kind of ethnic banter we’ve got to avoid these days! Lucky for you, I took the call and told her you guys have never been the same after you both fell from the police airship during a daring rescue and got brain injuries. She said she sympathized and didn’t make me cut paper on you. But don’t push your luck.”
“Roger that, Sarge,” Flotsam said.
“Ditto, boss,” Jetsam said.
“Now about police business,” Sergeant Murillo said. “We’ve been asked by West Bureau to inform you that there’s been a lot of activity at local gas pumps. Skimmers are being put inside selected pumps without so-called parasite devices on the outside that might tip off the station owners. They’re manufactured in China, and they dump info onto cell phones nearby. It’s an Armenian game, done only in gas stations that can be seen from the freeway. An SUV pulls up to a pump and gets quick access. One key fits certain types of pumps all over the state and, probably, all over the country. It’s the same kind of key that opens every motor home. So, it’s like having Stephen Hawking in a wheelchair spitting out numbers for them. They get the credit card info and run up purchases as fast as they can. Techs say that a skilled DNA lab can take apart the electronic skimmers to look for sweat droppings.”
“What good is that?” Flotsam asked. “DNA from some Chinaman in Shanghai? Don’t their DNA all look alike?”
“And any DNA that comes from Little Armenia would be all degraded by onions, garlic, and olive oil,” Jetsam added.
“I protest and I accuse!” Mel Yarashi said in an outraged voice. “Sarge, I’m reporting these racially offensive surf Nazis to the inspector general’s office as soon as I leave this room.”
His partner, Always Talking Tony, said, “Me, I’m turning these here Mel Gibson imitators into the EEO Commission. Those government tools and fools always take the side of us brothers against white trash.”
“And here we were gonna invite you both to a rager at Malibu two weeks from Saturday,” Flotsam said to Mel and A.T.
“Seven surf bunnies promised to be there in butt-floss bikinis,” Jetsam added.
“And we’re buying all the beer,” Flotsam said.
“I withdraw my complaint, Sarge,” Mel Yarashi said.
“I’ll give them another chance, too, Sarge,” Always Talking Tony concurred.
“Okay, if the Comedy Club is finished for the evening, let’s go to work,” Sergeant Murillo said, “and remember to check the action around Club Samara and report anything unusual or interesting to Detective Villaseñor. He’s still interested in locating a big middle-aged Korean, possibly named William Kim, who drives a black, four-door sedan with chrome wheels. And yes, we are aware that there are thousands of Kims in L.A., so no further ethnic commentary from the surfboard chorus is needed on that subject.”
D2 Bino Villaseñor was working late, as he usually did these days. His junior partner, D2 Flo Sanders, was a single mom, twenty years younger than Bino, and had three young children to care for. Bino seldom asked her to work overtime unless he was forced to do so.
The DNA lab had actually acceded to his rush request for once, and he’d received a disappointing telephonic report. The fingernail scrapings taken from Daisy—whose name, as far as he knew at this stage of the investigation, was Soo Jeong, and whose previous known address was in Hong Kong—had not yielded enough material to make a positive identification. All that the LAPD crime lab had come up with were some silk fibers that had been gouged into her throat when she was garroted. It was sad to think of shadow people like Daisy, who’d traveled the waters of the world inside awful steel containers on lonely cargo ships, ending up in a trash dumpster, garroted by a band of silk that had possibly also made its journey to America from her part of the world.
All he had now was the inconclusive witness statement of Lita Medina as a way to link the big middle-aged Korean who Markov had referred to as William Kim, talent agent, to the murdered girl. Neither the criminal databases, nor DMV records, nor Immigration and Customs Enforcement files were of any value with such little information to feed into them. A man named William Kim would be harder to find than a William Smith, because the given name had undoubtedly been chosen to replace a Korean passport name, if indeed Kim even had a valid passport. But it was all Bino had to work with, so he was determined to keep at it.
* * *
The south side of the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame was seldom as crowded as the north side, where Captain America was busy posing with tourists. Hector arrived fifteen minutes early and found throngs of tourists and stargazers milling about. But there weren’t so many that they were bumping into each other yet, except for the distracted overgelled teens outfitted by Tommy Hilfiger and J. Crew, with cell phones glued to their ears. These entitled children wouldn’t stop texting and talking while driving Daddy’s car if the traffic fine turned into a five-year jolt in San Quentin.
Hector had to endure some smack talk from strolling couples who breathed in his cigarette smoke while passing by. He ignored the comments from guys that were way too young for Social Security and thus might kick his ass if he retorted. But when an elderly couple passed and the old man said, “Those things will kill you, young man,” Hector pointed to the old woman and said, “Yeah, then I’ll be deader than Gramma’s clit.”
At a few minutes before 6:00 p.m., with the summer sun still blazing down on Hollywood Boulevard, Hector spotted Markov walking east among a group of tourists with cameras, and he was relieved to see that none of the tourists was Asian. Markov would always look like a foreigner, with his wraparound shades and dyed Elvis do, especially when wearing a tacky aquamarine shirt with eggshell trousers, and reptilian wingtips that looked like snakeskin knockoffs. It was easy to see he wasn’t armed, unless he had a weapon in the tan valise he carried under his right arm, with his left hand gripping the handle.
Hector stood directly on Sinatra’s star and said, “Thanks for being on time.”
Even behind Markov’s sunglasses, Hector could see the dark eyes glaring. “We cannot do our business here,” Markov said.
�
��Let’s walk,” Hector said.
They were silent as Hector led Markov to Highland Avenue and turned south, all the time looking behind him.
“I came alone,” Markov said.
“So far, so good,” Hector said. “I moved all my stuff outta the house. The key’s under the flowerpot on the back porch.”
“Fuck the key,” Markov said, the first time Hector had ever heard him utter an obscenity. “Why are you playing this cloak-and-dagger game?”
“Because I’ve come to realize that you and Kim are partners in everything. What’s yours is his, and vice versa. And I know he ain’t gonna be happy about giving up fifty pictures of Grover Cleveland.”
“I am not happy either, especially because I do not know if what you have is worth very much.”
“It is,” Hector said.
By the time they were approaching Hollywood High School, Markov said, “This has gone far enough, has it not?”
“Do you and Kim keep all your money in safety-deposit boxes or what?” Hector asked. “I mean, you do have fifty grand in that little suitcase, right?”
“Let us sit down,” Markov said. “I am too old for this.”
There wasn’t anything going on at this hour of a summer evening at Hollywood High School, so they walked onto the campus and sat on the concrete steps.
Hector held a scrap of notebook paper in front of Markov with Dinko Babich’s address printed on it in block letters.
Markov reached for it, but Hector said, “Don’t touch. Jist memorize it.”
After a few seconds Markov said, “All right, it is memorized.”
“A guy my age named Dinko Babich lives there with his mother, Brigita,” Hector said.
“Croats,” Markov said, and his lip curled slightly.
Hector grinned. “I always figured you for a Serb. I grew up with Croatians.”
Markov said, “Who are these Croats? And why is Lita Medina with them?”
“I went all through school with Dinko,” Hector said. “He happened to be in the sleazebag saloon in Wilmington the day I went down there to persuade her to come dance at Club Samara. Dinko almost jerked off on the spot when he first laid eyes on that girl. But right then I got a call from Kim telling me he was on his way down to the harbor to talk about the container with the people in it. Somehow he thought me and the Dodge City Crip could jist bust them outta there like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
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