Cruel

by Jacob Stone

  The Nightmare Man would always be waking after his long slumber.

  Chapter 20

  “Do you mind if I join you?”

  Lori was too groggy after a fitful night of sleeping to realize that the slight woman standing by her table holding a coffee and pumpkin-spice muffin was talking to her, at least at first. A quick look around showed that all of the other tables in the bakery were taken, and once she finally understood what the woman was asking her, she nodded, embarrassed that she had sat like a doofus for a good thirty seconds before responding. The woman took the seat across from her and held out her hand.

  “Rosalyn,” the woman said.

  It was a small, delicate hand, which made sense because it was attached to a small, delicate-looking woman. She was somewhat older than Lori. Early thirties, thin, light brown mousy hair that framed a moon-shaped face, slightly upturned nose. Not a very memorable face. Plain, bordering on pretty. The kind that you see a dozen times a day. Maybe that was why she seemed vaguely familiar.

  Lori took the hand and introduced herself.

  “Thank you for letting me sit here,” Rosalyn said. “I got here ten minutes too late this morning. Maybe sometime in the future if you come in and the place is crowded, I’ll be able to return the favor.”

  “I wouldn’t mind that at all,” Lori said. Something about this woman put her at ease, and she found herself smiling despite her fatigue and anxiety. “It would be nice having company when I come here.”

  “Nobody should eat breakfast alone.”

  Rosalyn said this so earnestly that Lori broke out laughing. “True, that,” she said.

  Rosalyn winked at her. “We can be pioneers starting a new tradition in West Hollywood,” she said. “Strangers sitting together at breakfast, whether it be at diners, bakeries, or wherever. Wouldn’t that be nice? Although you’re not exactly a stranger. I’ve seen you in the neighborhood walking a huge black dog. That’s the kind of dog that gets your attention.”

  For several minutes Lori had been feeling like her old self. Carefree and unworried. Thinking of Lucky brought back feelings of impending doom. For a brief heartbeat she imagined a voice whispering in her ear: he’s coming for you and he’ll be doing terrible things to you.

  “Are you okay?” Rosalyn asked, her eyes opening wide with alarm. “You just turned white as a sheet.”

  Lori had no doubt that was true. She felt so cold all at once. Lightheaded, too. She picked up her coffee in both hands and took a long drink, trying to draw some warmth into her body. She heard a catch in her voice as she told Rosalyn how Lucky had run away. Her voice sounded so distant to her own ears that it seemed nearly impossible to think that it came from her.

  “I’m so sorry,” Rosalyn said, compassion flooding her face. “I saw the lost dog posters you put up around the neighborhood, but I guess I was being a ditz, or maybe hoping you’d found him already. I do chatter on sometimes. But a dog that looks like yours can’t hide for long. Someone will find him and contact you. I’m sure of it.”

  Lori lowered her gaze to the coffee mug she was holding. Her lips pressed together so tightly that the muscles around her mouth began to ache. She knew this other woman was only trying to be helpful, but right then she only wanted to be left alone in her misery. After a long, uncomfortable silence, Rosalyn seemed to sense that also. She murmured an apology and left the table.

  Chapter 21

  Morris and Bogle tracked Benjamin Chandler’s agent to a private room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The agent, Matt Brownstein, had a thick bandage wrapped around his skull and one of his eyes. The other eye had been blackened, his jaw swollen, and his left arm bent in a ninety-degree angle with a fiberglass cast that started at the shoulder and ended at the wrist. His blackened eye shifted toward Parker when the bull terrier made a pig grunt.

  “Mr. Brownstein?” Morris asked.

  Brownstein didn’t answer him and shifted his gaze back to the TV, his bruised face settling into a sullen expression. A soap opera was on, and a fiery brunette was staring angrily at a smug-looking blonde with big hair. Bogle used the remote to turn off the TV. Before Brownstein could object, Morris showed him his badge.

  “I know about you,” Brownstein said, his voice slurring because of his injured jaw. “You’re that ex-homicide cop who caught all those serial killers. You consulted on The Carver. Another movie also. If you ever want film representation, give me a call. I’ll get you better gigs.”

  “Thanks. I’ll think about it. I also want to make sure you’re Matthew Brownstein because the hospital has you registered as Ira Gold.”

  Brownstein winced as if from a piercing pain. When the pain passed, he acknowledged that he had checked in under an alias. “I don’t want clients seeing me like this,” he said. “In this town they’d flee me like rats from a sinking ship. Or fleas from a drowning rat.” He shifted his blackened eye toward Morris to give him an appraising look. “I’m surprised you were able to find me.”

  “It wasn’t easy,” Morris said. “In fact, it took all morning.”

  A knowing smile twisted Brownstein’s lips. “But you got connections.”

  “I do,” Morris admitted. “You want to tell me what happened?”

  “Why? You’re investigating what happened to me?”

  From out of the corner of his eye, Morris caught Bogle smiling thinly and knew what his friend was thinking. Another Hollywood smart-ass.

  “I’m looking for one of your clients. Benjamin Chandler. I’m guessing his disappearance and your injuries are related.”

  “I doubt that.” Brownstein was a scrawny man with not quite enough flesh on his face. He reminded Morris of Niles from the old TV show Frasier, and the churlish look Brownstein showed made him appear even more like the sitcom character. “I slipped in the shower,” he insisted stubbornly. “I don’t know how that could have any connection with Ben going missing.”

  “So you know your client’s missing?”

  “Of course I do. The film company called yesterday to bellyache about Ben not showing up on set.”

  Bogle caught Morris’s eye as he slipped his cell phone from his jacket pocket and stepped out of the room. He was going to call his bosses at Starlight Pictures and check whether they had called like Brownstein was saying.

  “Your partner checking up on me, huh?” the film agent said, a glint of amusement briefly displaying in his eye before pain wiped it away. “He must be an ex-cop also.”

  “Your client is in trouble,” Morris said. “The odds are good that the same bent-nosed thug who worked you over is going to do far worse to Chandler if he finds him before I do. You could help him by filing a police complaint against your assailant.”

  “It wouldn’t help me any,” Brownstein complained bitterly under his breath. He caught himself and focused his good eye on Morris. “Look,” he said, “Ben’s a fun guy to hang with, and he’s been a good earner for me. But he’s only one client, and while I genuinely like him, I like breathing more. So all I’m saying on the matter is that I slipped.”

  “Can you give me a name? Off the record?”

  “Sure. Dove.”

  Brownstein said this with a straight face, and it took Morris a second to realize he was referring to Dove soap and he wasn’t going to budge from his slipping in the shower story. Charlie Bogle walked back into the room and offered a curt nod to let Morris know the agent was telling the truth about the studio calling him yesterday.

  “If Chandler was going to hide out for a few days, where would he go?”

  The obstinacy in Brownstein’s good eye weakened. “He’d probably fly to Maui. He loves that island.”

  “He didn’t fly anywhere. He’s too afraid to use a credit card. And he didn’t drive to Mexico either.”

  Brownstein’s lips pursed as he gave the matter more thought. Half a minute ticked off before he turned back
to Morris.

  “Ben’s a bit of a hound dog. A guy with a girl in every port, or in his case, in every LA neighborhood. He’s also old-fashioned in that he keeps a little black book in his night table drawer. I think it’s something he read Sinatra did, or one of his other idols, I’m kind of fuzzy right now from the pain medication. Get that black book and check the addresses. You’ll find Ben hiding in one of the beds.”

  Morris’s cell phone rang. Polk. He stepped away to take the call.

  “I picked up Melanie Penza’s trail,” Polk said, sounding pleased with himself. “Some of the money I spread around paid off, and I got a call that she’s at a bistro on Rodeo Drive. The lady’s sitting alone at an outdoor table, and I’m parked half a block away looking at her right now with field glasses. A nice dish. Her, not the salad she ordered.”

  “Good. Let me know how this progresses.”

  “Will do.”

  Morris turned back to Brownstein, kept his voice from dripping with sarcasm as he thanked him for his help, then signaled Bogle that they had a little black book to find. Brownstein seemed surprised by their imminent departure.

  “Do you have a lead on where to find Ben?” he asked.

  “Not exactly.”

  Despite himself, Brownstein asked, “What did Ben do to get himself in this trouble?”

  Morris said, “Either something incredibly stupid, or this is all nothing more than bad luck.”

  Parker had been lying quietly on the floor. A short whistle from Morris had the bull terrier flipping himself onto his feet, and Parker happily led the way out of the hospital room.

  Chapter 22

  While Melanie Penza sat alone eating salad and sipping on what Polk guessed was an herbal ice tea given the hibiscus flower floating in it, he sat in his car and munched on one of the salami and American cheese with mustard on rye sandwiches he had packed away earlier that morning. He had brought a copy of the Los Angeles Times and had spread open the sports section. This was partly so he could hide that he was surreptitiously using his field glasses to spy on Joe Penza’s twenty-seven-year-old blond dish of a wife and partly so he could read how the LA Rams were planning to fix their stagnant offense. He’d been doing this kind of work long enough that he could put away the field glasses and know by instinct when she left the table, but it was still better to keep an occasional eye on her in case someone stopped by to talk to her.

  Polk continued to do serious damage to his sandwich as he held up the sports section to use as camouflage while sneaking another quick peek at Melanie Penza. A knock on the driver’s side window caught him by surprise. He turned his neck and saw a scruffy-looking teenager holding a skateboard grinning at him. Polk lowered the window.

  “You’re spying on someone in that café,” the kid said, his grin spreading so that it was an ear-to-ear job.

  “Is that so?”

  “Yep. Definitely. You must be a cop.”

  “You figured me out.”

  The kid looked so ridiculously pleased with himself that he could burst. “I knew it! What can I do to help?”

  Polk gave the kid a hard look and decided it would be better to keep him busy than to chase him away.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Finn.”

  Polk made a face as he dug his wallet out of his back pocket and pulled a business card from one of the compartments. He handed the card to the kid, who gave it a careful read.

  “It says here you’re a private cop,” the kid said.

  Polk showed him his badge. “Deputized by the city,” he said. “I’m a little bit of both public and private. You see that blond babe sitting at that table? The looker? I want you to take your skateboard and hang around by the front door, and when she leaves text me the plate number and model of her car. You think you can do that?”

  An intensity burned on Finn’s face. “Sure,” he said, his voice cracking.

  “If you make contact with her, I swear to God I’ll break your neck. Your skateboard also.”

  “I won’t. You got my word.”

  Polk took a twenty from his wallet and handed it to Finn. “I’m counting on you,” he said.

  Finn’s expression became one of deadly seriousness. He dropped his skateboard onto the sidewalk, got on it, jumped the curb, and headed toward the restaurant’s front entrance, zipping across four lanes of traffic and ignoring the cars blasting their horns at him as he maneuvered around them. Polk smiled watching him. The enthusiasm of youth.

  He wasn’t counting on anything from Finn, but twenty dollars was a small price to pay to keep the kid from causing him trouble. Once Finn was out of sight, he continued munching on his sandwich, reading about the Rams’ offensive woes, and using his field glasses to make sure Penza’s pretty behind was still seated at the table. When his gut instinct told him it was about time for her to be finishing her lunch, he looked through the field glasses and saw that she was settling up with a waitress. He waited until traffic was clear and then swung a U-turn so he could pick her up by the valet station. Immediately he heard a burst of a police siren. It had to be from an unmarked car.

  Polk wanted to ignore it, but he had a couple of minutes before he’d be losing his prey. He pulled over to double-park and watched in his rear-view mirror as the unmarked Dodge Charger with blue and red flashing lights pulled up behind him. He knew the detective who stepped out of the car. Darryl White. The two of them had never liked each other when Polk was on the force, to put it kindly. As far as he was concerned, White was a pencil-necked geek who more often than not mucked up his investigations, and White made it known he considered Polk a lout who needed a good ass-kicking. He wasn’t the only one on the force who believed that, but White’s holier-than-thou attitude particularly bugged him.

  Polk attempted to appear unconcerned as he watched White casually stroll up to his driver’s side window. He showed White the badge deputizing him. The detective didn’t seem impressed.

  “I’m on a job,” Polk said.

  “You made an illegal U-turn across four lanes of traffic.”

  “Mail MBI the ticket. Otherwise you’re going to screw up my investigation.”

  “Uh uh,” White said. “We’re playing this by the book. License and registration.”

  Polk maintained an inscrutable expression as he handed these over. He didn’t want to give White any satisfaction. He also got out his cell phone.

  “You know what this is for?” he said. “I’ll be calling my boss, Morris Brick. Morris will be calling his buddy in the mayor’s office, and this time tomorrow you’ll be busted down to patrolman and walking a beat in Skid Row. Hope you got yourself a comfortable pair of shoes. For your wife’s sake, I also hope you got a good supplemental life insurance policy.”

  “How about you shut your trap?”

  White walked back to his unmarked Charger, and Polk called Morris and gave him a quick rundown on what was happening. “I’m about to lose my target because of this jerkoff,” he complained. “If I take off, White will make it into a police chase, and I’ll be starring on the six o’clock news.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Morris promised.

  Morris must’ve done something, because a minute later White left his car and was walking back to Polk. The detective had a hard sneer frozen on his face, but he also had a look in his eyes of someone who’d been seriously chastised.

  White handed him back his license and registration and told him to get lost. Polk peeled away from the curb, not giving him a chance to change his mind.

  Melanie Penza was already gone. Finn, though, had texted him make, model, and license plate number. He had also texted that she had taken a right onto Santa Monica Boulevard. Not bad for twenty dollars. If the kid’s information turned out to be good, he’d find a way to slip him more money, maybe even use him for future jobs, but that was something he’d th
ink about later. Melanie Penza had a two-minute head start on him, and for now he had to worry about finding her.

  Two blocks ahead he spotted a yellow BMW convertible taking a right onto North Canon Drive. He sped up and watched as she pulled up to a day spa and handed the car over to the valet. There was public parking on the same block, and he guessed that was where the valet would be taking the car. He had to circle the block to get back to the public garage, but sure enough he spotted the yellow BMW convertible, its plate matching Finn’s text. He pulled into a nearby spot, and as he walked past Melanie Penza’s car, he dropped to one knee so he could better tie his shoes. He also used the opportunity to attach a GPS tracking device to the BMW’s undercarriage.

  Swift move, he thought with a smirk.

  A minute later he was loitering near the entrance of the spa. Not long after that he spotted a man heading into the spa who looked familiar enough that Polk snapped a photo of him with his cell phone. The man was in his late thirties and looked like someone who could’ve played linebacker in high school and kept himself in football shape. Broad shoulders, square jaw, narrow waist, impeccably dressed in a light gray suit and matching Italian loafers. A good-looking Hollywood type, except there was a hardness about him that these actors and movie executives didn’t have; there was also something reptilian about his eyes. Polk knew he had seen him before, but he couldn’t figure out where. He texted the photo to Morris.

  * * * *

  They didn’t find a little black book in Benjamin Chandler’s bedroom or any of the other rooms they searched. They were discussing what their next step should be when Morris received a text from Polk filling him in on what had happened so far and asking if he knew who the man in the photo was. The man looked familiar to Morris, but he couldn’t place him. He showed the photo to Charlie Bogle.

  “That’s Bobby Gallo,” Bogle said. “Big Joe Penza’s right-hand man.”