“Think about this,” Lena said. “If Rod Peebles was such a close associate of Emily Duchamps, why is it that when I requested his federal dossier under the Freedom of Information Act, there wasn’t a single document relating to him on file? No surveillance logs, no booking slips, no indictments, not one scrap of political writing?”
“You’re the scholar,” I said. “You tell me.”
“I just did.” She had said her piece and was edging away from me, back toward the elevator. I walked with her.
“Why do you work for Rod if he’s such scum?” I asked.
“Ongoing research.” She punched the elevator call button. “Rod is one of the political ramifications of the Peace Movement.”
“Thanks, Lena,” I said. “Call if I can ever do anything for you.
I waited until she was gone; then I walked back up into the light of day.
If Lena had been telling the truth, the only old friend I could eliminate was Rod Peebles. I thought it wouldn’t be too difficult to track down Aleda when I was ready. I had a more pressing agenda to work on first: I needed something from Celeste.
Celeste lived on the far west side of town, in the posh Holmby Hills area bordering UCLA. I had to retrieve Max’s car to get out there.
First things first. There was a rank of public telephones across Flower Street. I waited for the light, then walked over and waited my turn in line for a phone. I didn’t have any heavy gold chains, or shopping bags, or even a baby in a stroller. I felt awfully out of place.
Mr. T’s jeweler was behind me, waiting impatiently for the phone. I turned my back on him, dropped in two dimes and dialed Mike’s office.
“Robbery-Homicide. Pellegrino speaking.”
“Is Mike Flint back yet?” I asked.
“This Maggie again?” Pellegrino asked.
“Yes.”
“He’s in. Hold on.” I heard him call out, “Hey Flint, call for you on the love line.”
Mike snapped, “Get a life, Elmer,” before he picked up the phone.
“Flint here,” he said. “Don’t pay any attention to these juveniles. You’d think they didn’t have anything better to do than butt into other people’s private affairs. Hi, Maggie.”
“Hi, Mike. You left your tie under the chair.”
He laughed. “Is that where it was? I had to stop and buy one on my way in. Found exactly what I wanted in the newsstand downstairs. Hand-painted hula dancer. Best one in the place. The only one, too.”
“Are the big boys giving you a hard time?”
“Just something for them to do. How are you?”
“I dropped in on Rod Peebles at his office. Very interesting.”
“Oh.”
“That’s all?” I asked. “Oh?”
“I hoped you were going to say something like, last night was fantastic and what am I doing after work.”
“Mrs. Lim is making noodles for dinner. Enough for two.”
“Is she?” he said, drawing it out.
“What time are you off?”
“Three,” he said.
“I thought it might be a good idea to go hang out by the wishing well around four, the time Emily was supposed to be there, see who walks by. Maybe you could meet me there.”
“You’re all business, aren’t you?”
“Not all business.”
“In that case, I’ll meet you by the wishing well at four. What are your plans for the rest of the day?”
“Not much. Get Max’s car. Visit a few old friends.”
“Maggie,” he said, suddenly all seriousness. “Take care of yourself.”
“I’ll see you at four,” I said.
After I hung up, I caught the Dash bus and took it back up through town. I got off at the end of the line on Bernard Street, just north of Chinatown. The Police Academy was maybe a little over a mile further, straight uphill. As long as it wasn’t raining, I thought it would feel good to walk. I crossed under the freeway and found Stadium Way.
The neighborhood below the stadium was interesting, just about all that’s left of old Chavez Ravine. I walked up a steep, curving road, past woodframe and stone houses, heard a few backyard chickens. The storm the night before had given everything a good scouring, washing away the usual coat of dust and smog residue. The houses were pretty rundown, but the air smelled fresh and everything looked bright and shiny. Leftover rainwater dripped from huge trees onto weedy lawns. A rare morning.
There was no sidewalk, so I walked at the side of the street. People greeted me; a toddler honked his trike horn for me. The neighborhood was so peaceful it could only exist in some space warp light years from L.A.
I heard a car approach behind me, so I stepped onto someone’s lawn to give it more room to pass me. The driver went very slow. I hardly looked at the car, an old green Volvo, because, as any woman will tell you, you make eye contact with an asshole who is looking for a pickup and you have a nuisance on your hands. So I only glanced to make sure he wasn’t going to run me down.
A little Toyota truck sped up the hill behind the Volvo and honked impatiently. The Volvo accelerated and passed me with gears grinding. I glanced at his rear as he drove on, noticed that the driver sat low and wore a baseball cap. That is a generic “he.” The hat is all I saw of the driver.
When I came out at the top of the hill, the entire city was fanned out below me. As I skirted Dodger Stadium, the view below was so clear that I could see the ocean, a streak of silver on the horizon where the sun broke through the clouds. I had to stop for a moment to take it all in.
The entire trip had taken less than twenty minutes, but at the end, I felt better than if I’d had a full night’s sleep.
I saw Max’s car ahead in the Police Academy lot, just where I had left it. And in the same pristine condition. Actually better; the rain had washed away the sand and windshield bug kill I had picked up in the desert the day before. The BMW shone.
There were joggers in the hills above the academy. I could hear the police shooting range at a distance, shots fired in pairs—crack crack—followed by a third, single shot. Not quite dancing rhythm, but regular.
Police bodybuilders hung around the weight room above the training field. There was plenty of activity, but overall it was very quiet. I felt mellow.
I took out Max’s keys and set off across Academy Road to the parking lot.
There are a lot of medium green Volvos in this world. Emily drove one. I thought little of the one that had passed me on the way up. Except that it put me in mind of Emily. I started thinking hard about the car when I saw it again, creeping toward me.
As I had before, at first I was thinking only that here was a horny bastard looking for a woman to give a little grief to. Nothing else was logical—I was walking into the Police Academy parking lot. Everything may have seemed quiet, but there were police all around. A guy would have to be insane to bother me there.
In a few seconds, I thought, I would be in Max’s car, and out of there. I knew the acceleration of the Beemer could humiliate an old Volvo with no effort. Still, the situation gave me the creeps—I was glad I had on long pants and a jacket, little flesh showing.
I was still thinking about Emily. Em was shot at close range. With a 9mm automatic of the sort used on Emily, a marksman can regularly hit a target within about fifty yards if he’s good; within seventy yards if he’s lucky. When the distance between me and the Volvo was somewhere between the range of good and lucky, I started to run, flat out, between the rows of parked cars.
Just as I reached the driver’s side of Max’s BMW, I heard the first shot. I ducked. A reflex.
I heard the Volvo rev its motor, as much as a station wagon can rev its motor. I couldn’t tell if the driver was speeding in for the kill or making a fast retreat.
Staying low, I put the key in Max’s lock, turned it, and opened the gates of hell. That’s what it felt like.
A fiery blast rocketed me into the air, flipped me over a couple of times, then slammed
me against a stone retaining wall. As I slid to the ground, I felt the stones and mortar peel the skin from my palms. I landed on my butt, dazed and deafened for the moment. I had enough presence left to cover my head against the flaming debris raining down around me.
When the rain of fire stopped, I took a sort of inventory. My right shoulder had taken the brunt of the impact. Though it throbbed, it functioned. The sleeve of my jacket was now a tattered wristlet, and bare skin showed through the knees of my jeans. I wondered about the blood running down my face, but what really bothered me was that I had no idea where I was or what had happened.
An incredible example of female beefcake vaulted the wall behind me and landed hardly rippling the muscles of her Schwarzenegger thighs. She was an Amazon goddess with LAPD 1989 WEIGHTLIFTING CHAMPS stretched across her remarkable chest. I thought I must be hallucinating. She crouched down beside me.
“You okay, ma’am?” she asked in a sweet, concerned soprano voice.
“I think so.” I could hardly hear her, but my own voice boomed in my ears.
“Think you can get up?” the Amazon asked.
“Sure,” I said, but I spoke too soon. I couldn’t find solid ground.
She took my arm and gently assisted. She was a lot to lean against.
“Sure you’re okay?” she asked again.
Being upright made me feel a little queasy, but I nodded. I was glad that she kept a grip on my arm because the ground still felt like pudding underfoot.
I managed to brush myself off. Then I looked out at the parking lot. Billowing black smoke poured into the clean air. The green Volvo was reduced to a smoking chassis at the bottom of a crater. The first row of cars in the lot were completely engulfed in flame.
And so was Uncle Max’s Beemer.
Chapter Nineteen
“Crackhead named Theophilus came after me with a steak knife.” Officer Paula, the Amazon goddess, pulled up her trouser leg to show me the five-inch zipper in the skin of her muscular left calf. “He pulled out a boot gun. My partner got him, right in the ten ring. What a mess.”
I turned over my wrist to show her the faint-white half-moon gouge in the skin. “My pony, Sugar, balked at a jump and threw me into a sprinkler head. I was ten.”
We were in the emergency room of French Hospital, comparing scars. Paula was winning. She had shown me the war trophies on only one of her legs. I had nothing left to offer, except an episiotomy and the head gash Dr. Song was closing up.
“All finished.” Dr. Song made a few snips and laid his scissors and a roll of tape on the stainless steel tray Paula held for him.
“Nice job,” she said, leaning in for a close look. “You’ll have to part your hair on the other side, Mag, but the scar won’t be too noticeable, given time.”
“Good to know,” I said. “Thanks, Dr. Song.”
“You may need a little painkiller tonight,” he said. “How are you with codeine?”
“It makes me throw up.”
He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I’ll see what I can find. Go ahead and get your things together. I’ll be right back.”
I got up from the table and tried not to look as wobbly as I felt. Paula didn’t seem so imposing when she had her muscles covered with street clothes. She was very nice, and very funny, but not what anyone would call sweet. I didn’t want to pass out on her. She had given up part of her afternoon off to bring me in for repairs. I didn’t want her to think it was effort wasted on a wuss — her word.
I went to the mirror over the doctor’s wash basin to look at my new stitches. There wasn’t much to see. The hair he hadn’t shaved off he had braided over his handiwork as a sort of home-grown bandage. The whole mess was covered with light gauze and taped down. I thanked God for giving us Novocain.
Dr. Song came back and handed me a small sealed envelope. “This is pretty mild stuff,” he said. “Take two when you get home. If your head starts to hurt after about four hours, take two more. Keep ice over the area. And don’t wash it for a couple of days.”
“But it’s gross now,” I protested.
“Sorry. The end of next week, have your own doctor look at it.” He held my arm and walked me toward the exit. Paula followed with the remains of my jacket rolled under her arm.
Outside, Dr. Song put a tentative arm around my shoulders. “I’ve been waiting for you to come in and say hello. I’m sorry it was under these circumstances.”
“This isn’t an easy place for me to come for a social call,” I said.
“I understand,” he said. “I spoke with Stanford this morning. Emily is hanging in.”
“Did they say anything about her prospects?”
He shook his head. “I hope this officer takes good care of you, Miss MacGowen. First Emily, now you …”
I reached for my jacket from Paula. “Thanks for everything, Dr. Song. If you send the bill to Emily’s address, Mrs. Lim will forward it.”
He raised his hands. “This hospital does not bill a Duchamps.
“Good-bye,” I said.
“Dang, you rate,” Paula said as we walked toward her 4-by-4 truck. “Where can I drop you?”
“What time is it?” I asked.
She checked her watch. “Two-fifteen.”
“Do you have plans for the next hour or so?”
“Nothing special.”
“You saw what happened to my car. I have no wheels. I really want to pay a quick visit to an old friend in Holmby Hills. She won’t come to the phone. Can I talk you into driving me?”
“After what just happened, you want to go see a friend? If you want to go visiting, let’s drop in on the coroner and see if he’s IDed the driver of the Volvo yet.”
“I’d rather go to Holmby Hills.”
“Must be some pretty good friend,” Paula said, sounding a lot like Mike. “Who is it?”
“Mrs. T. Rexford Smith.”
“Oh yeah?” Her expression told me I had just found a driver. “She’s some bitch.”
“Do you know her?”
“Just stories.” We had reached her shiny red truck.
“I have a few stories of my own,” I said. “You go first.”
Paula’s little truck was as cute as it could be, the ultimate in road toys. Sensaround CD, Posturepedic seats, tinted glass, whatever. It was still a truck. I felt every pothole like a knife through my head. Paula was a fearless driver and a great storyteller.
“Swear to God?” I said, as Paula came to the end of a long, lurid tale about Celeste.
“My partner rolled on the call,” she said. I trust it. This guy, the banker, had sucked his revolver. Brains everywhere. My partner read the note he left. The banker said he couldn’t take the pressure anymore. He’d covered some of Mr. Smith’s dirty dealings in exchange for a weekly blow job from Mrs. Smith. They’d got him into a deep hole, and when he asked them for a hand up, they threw him in a shovel. Symbolic end for the guy, don’t you think, his gun in his mouth?”
“Was this story in the papers?”
“Not the part about Mrs. Smith. I’ve heard other stories, how she invited a rookie cop up to the mansion and screwed her way out of a DUI rap, and how she got drug charges against her daughter dropped after an hour in private consultation in judge’s chambers.”
“You’re making this up,” I said.
“I’m not making it up. It’s what I heard. She’s a slut. A rich and powerful slut.”
The mansions of Holmby Hills may not be as showy as those in Bel-Air or Brentwood, but the wealth is there. The difference is old money versus Hollywood.
The Smith house was nice. About the size of a small European hotel. Vines clung to the faux stone facade. In the gathering afternoon, tiny white Christmas lights outlined the bow-front windows and the hipped roof and twined among the shrubs that lined the circular drive. The effect was antique doll house.
Paula pulled her truck into the porte cochere, and we walked around to the front.
“She’s expecting you?” Pau
la asked.
“No. I doubt whether she would even open the door if she knew I was coming.”
“If we’re lucky, we’ll catch her in the sack, see what she’s got.”
Paula pounded on the front door. When it was opened by a uniformed maid, Paula whipped out her police ID.
“Like to talk to Mrs. Smith,” Paula said.
“Come in, please.” The maid bowed. I will see if Mrs. Smith is in.”
The maid left us in a foyer festooned with garlands of fresh cedar and holly tied with mammoth red-velvet bows and braided gold cord. The foyer was an oval, with a staircase curving up one side, and tall polished oak doors opening off the other. There was good art on the walls, old architectural prints, and an exceptional oil portrait of the Smith family: Celeste, T. Rex, the deceased Carrie, Rex, Jr., and Paix. The overall effect was intentionally subdued; a lot of money, it said, doesn’t have to advertise.
“Holy shit,” Paula said after making a circuit. “My apartment isn’t as big as this entry.”
“We can leave now,” I said.
“We haven’t even seen the lady of the house yet,” Paula protested.
I reached for the door. “We don’t have to. I’ve learned everything I need to know.”
It was just past three-thirty when we got back to Chinatown. Mike had already staked out the wishing well. When we drove up, we saw him pacing around the plaza that fronted Broadway. I watched him stop an elderly housewife and try to question her. She did a lot of bowing, backward. She left in such a hurry that the parcels in her arms took a good bouncing.
Paula parked in the red zone in front of Sun Yat-sen’s statue. “Won’t you get a ticket?” I asked.
“Who gives a fuck?” She flexed one mega bicep for me. “I’m the police.”
“Mike says that even the mayor gets ticketed in L.A.”
“Sure,” she snickered. “The mayor gets ticketed all the time. He left his limo unattended at the airport—in front of the Tom Bradley Terminal, no less—and it got towed. But that’s the mayor. I said, I’m the police.”
She locked her truck and met me on the sidewalk. “So, where’s your squint?”
Telling Lies Page 20