Hogue smiled. “There was.” But Huntington Derian had seen to that.
Hames stood up. “I’ll get started immediately, sir.”
“Fine.” Hogue watched him go. Good man.
TWENTY-FOUR
A Regiment of Dummies
In life, there is no small accommodation of evil. You accept it—or you don’t. And though I felt I’d acted with relative decorum over the last twenty-four hours, I could see that a prosecutorial mind could see things differently. Assault. Melvin. Kidnapping. Both assholes. Grand theft. The golden Smith & Wesson.
And since I was no longer paid by the county to solve crimes, I would have to add blackmail to the list if I wanted to be paid for my time and effort.
Terminal Velocity—Eli Nazarian—from Howard Hogue. The gun was worth money.
Hogue would pay to keep it from becoming bad publicity for Ivanhoe.
Nazarian would pay more to keep the incident from Hogue’s attention. And police attention.
But Melvin would pay the most. His position wasn’t based on demonstrated talent. If Hogue learned that Melvin had procured Rhonda for Nazarian, Melvin’s days on the gravy train were over. Emperors did not share their concubines. No matter how many they possessed. The golden gun would also give Melvin vantage over Nazarian.
Yes, there was money to be made. But did I want to make my money that way, assisting evil men to escape justice?
I’d have to think about it.
• • •
The Cadillac growled up the Kirkwood incline from the Country Store. Devi looked over at me. “You alright, Dick?”
“Yeah.” But not really. Rhonda and the contemplation of the day’s events had chastened my natural liking for Devi. She had accommodated evil. Evil was not always the slippery slope of legend, sometimes it was the gentle downward path into shadow.
We got back to the house, I put on a pot of coffee. She picked up her keys from the kitchen table.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Home. Where else?”
“Home isn’t safe yet, Devi.”
“Jesus, Dick.”
“What?” Her eyes were full. “What? What’s with you?”
She set her keys down. “I’m embarrassed. I’m fucking embarrassed.”
“Why?”
“The nature of my, uh . . . life’s work.”
“Be embarrassed. But going back to your house isn’t safe. Some bad people are very angry at you.”
“I need to feed my cat.”
“Feed him later.”
“You don’t know how I feel.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s like, suppose you helped a woman who dropped her groceries outside the market.”
“And?”
“And then you found out that she was a shoplifter.”
“You’re a shoplifter?”
“Damn you. I’ll tell you what I am. I’m somebody who’s been looking the other way. I’m no better than Melvin.”
“Moral relativism.”
“Call it whatever you want.”
“But you’re not Melvin. You take care of people. You do take care of the girls. Someone has to take care of them.”
“Yeah. Somebody.” She ran her fingers back through her hair. “What’s my job? My job is to ensure that a regiment of dummies is always ready for Howard Hogue to bang ’em in the can.”
Well, okay. That was pretty much what I’d been thinking. But something about her choice of words, the regiment of dummies, attacked my funny bone. Fibissedah face showed everything.
“You think that’s funny?” she demanded, her lip in an Elvis curl.
“Not at all,” I deadpanned. I tried to breathe evenly and deeply, calmly, like a Beverly Hills yogi, but my facade cracked and I stood there quivering, eyes narrowed with effort, desperately trying to restrain my mirth. Devi stared at me, if looks could kill, but then she started to laugh, too.
Maybe it was the release of tension from all we’d been through. Maybe it was the poetry of the moment. But we laughed and laughed and laughed. We sank into our chairs, slapped the tabletop, spluttered until we were sore and tears ran down our faces. I hadn’t laughed like that since Lynette in Ojai, where I’d been proven a clueless musical bankrupt.
Finally we arrived at a delicate silence. We eyed one another suspiciously. My mood had changed. I appraised Devi with open friendliness. She got up from her chair.
“Where are you going? I asked her.
She looked stern, but then a smile broke across her face. It was a beautiful thing to see. She walked around the table.
“I’m going to sit in your lap, Dick.” So she did.
• • •
Later, when she was asleep, Rojas checked in. He apologized. “Look, dude, I didn’t mean to cause a sensation. I guess it’s been all over the news. Man, I got to thinking one place was as good as another. I should’ve called you, but I wanted those dudes shamed. Shamed. The gun in the coño did it to me. Struck close to home.”
“I see.” Did Rojas’s actions change anything? Not specifically. Only in the way that everything that happens now affects everything that happens later. Rojas was a longstanding friend and colleague. He had done what I might have if our positions had been reversed. Better absolution than permission. “Look. Just tell me next time. So I can stay on top of things.”
“Sorry.”
“No problem.” Something struck me. “But the dog. Where’d you get the dead dog?”
“I bought him, dude.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Wells-Fargo
Melvin, in pain, hurried across the lot to his office. It was nowhere near Hogue’s. It was in the lot’s oldest office building. A losers’ warren, if truth be told. Eddie Sanderson had blown his brains out in Melvin’s office. But who remembered Eddie Sanderson?
He hurt all over. Getting beat up on television was one thing. You got up, fought on, the folks watched a commercial, when they came back you were fine. You were laughing. In real life a punch hurt for a month. Put things out of whack. Kneebone connected to the thighbone. It felt as if your skeleton had been reassembled by amateurs. No wonder boxers mumbled. And the son-of-a-bitch who clocked him—dead man walking.
And the asshole. From fucking Armenia. Hadn’t wanted to talk about reimbursing Derian. Well, fuck him if he thought Melvin Shea was going to pay. Melvin Shea wasn’t going to pay shit. Melvin Shea needed another line of cocaine.
Mary, his secretary, pasty-faced poster girl of mediocrity, looked up from her desk through smudged glasses. How the fuck did she see? She was a great, woozy blob of cells. Held together by forces only God understood. Feet the size of baguettes. “You just had a call, Melvin.”
“I’ll get to it later.” He needed that line.
“You better get to it now.”
“Devi Stanton?”
“No. Mr. Hogue.”
Hogue. Hogue. Hogue. Had Hogue seen through the pitiful charade he and Nazarian had mounted? Ro-fucking-hypnol. He should stuff the Armenian full of Rohypnol and set a herd of goats to fuck him in the ass. Death by congo-bongo.
He shut his door behind him. Alone. At last. Freed from the wounded-animal syndrome of pretending everything was fine. He sagged into his chair, reached into drawer, pulled out his cocaine apparati, made it right. That golden light slowly kindled inside him. He’d . . . get through this.
Now Hogue.
“Howard Hogue’s office.”
He slipped into his cheerful, Boy Wonder persona. “Hi, Helena, Melvin, for the boss.”
“One moment.”
He had waited ten minutes at this juncture on prior occasions. Was Melvin Shea a lapdog? But you didn’t hang up on the emperor.
“You’re on with Howard,” intoned Helena in her best professional contralto.
Boy Wonder. “What can I do for you, Mr. Hogue?”
“Two things, Melvin. I’m, uh, running a little low. On supplies.” Hogue paused.<
br />
Running low. On Starlet Fuck Powder. “Supplies. I’ll take care of that.”
“Great.”
“And something else, sir?”
“Yes. I’ve decided on the young ladies I’d like to see next.”
“Who and when, sir?”
“Tonight I’d like to see Michelle d’Orsay.”
“Michelle d’Orsay.”
“Yes. And tomorrow . . . tomorrow night . . . I’d like to see . . . uh, the Wells-Fargo girl.”
“The Wells-Fargo girl?” Had Hogue actually said those words?
“The Wells-Fargo girl, Melvin. Uh, Rhoda, Rinda . . .”
“Rhonda Carling?” No. Please, no.
“Yes. That’s the one. Couldn’t remember her name for the life of me. That’s why I call them darling.”
Then Hogue was gone.
• • •
Melvin hung up the phone. He was fucked. Dead. Ruined.
Smashed. They would feed him to the pigs. He was naked on the anvil of bad decisions, the hammer of fate about to fall upon him.
He picked up his landline, jabbed for Mary.
“Yes?”
“Absolutely no visitors.”
“No visitors.”
“None. Nobody. Nada.”
“No visitors.”
He hung up. Her stupid loavish feet.
He reached into his desk again. Pulled out the cocaine, in the powdery ziploc. Pulled out the vial of Persian heroin, that lovely and subtle shade of green, mint-cream. Jackie, who operated out of that pool room above Pla-Boy Liquor, always had the best.
Fuck it. Fuck Hogue. He chopped up a little green line for himself. Mixed in some flake. A few seconds later it slipped through the blood-brain barrier.
Jesus God. The up of the coke, the down of the heroin. There was no more sublime feeling this side of paradise. Ask Belushi.
He began to mix Hogue’s cocktail. He would get through this. When the powders were proportioned and mixed properly, he cut four six-inch squares from the thick paper of the centerfold of a Hustler magazine. Brandy Dafoe was airbrushed perfection. And, for the right price, he, Melvin Shea, could blow a wad down her throat tonight. Undoubtedly she espoused world peace and the ethical treatment of animals. He would get through all this.
Each of the paper squares he folded into a little envelope, a bindle; each bindle would contain an eighth ounce of heaven.
The bindles were put into an envelope. The envelope was sealed, folded, inserted into a larger envelope. That envelope was put into a cardboard shipping tube. The tube was taped thoroughly. He shook it. There was no audible clue as to the contents. Just something moving up and down.
He jabbed for Mary, handed her the tube when she entered. “To Helena. Only. Her hand. Got it?”
“Yes,” said Mary. “Her hand.”
TWENTY-SIX
Dick Rings the Coincidence Bell
Hames had rung Derian and Derian had told him to just come on by. He’d picked up the surveillance from Dunkin’ Donuts. It wasn’t raw, live feed, just a silent snapshot every fifteen seconds. From 2:00 a.m. until 8:00 in the morning.
That particular Dunkin’ Donuts had its toe in East Hollywood, and its clientele reflected its location. A raft of ratty losers, some drunk teenagers from nearby Hancock Park. And some faces that stood out from the crowd. Hames didn’t know all the faces around Los Angeles, but he could detect backgrounds from body language. Military or law enforcement personnel had a particular posture. The individuals who stood out he would show to Derian. Otherwise there wasn’t very much. A general rush outside around ten of six. Some laughing faces returning to their doughnuts, their egg sandwiches. Later, flashing lights and police.
Derian had asked him about Blackwater operations in Iraq and Hames told him some tales. Well, some lies. Bales of cash, bricks of hashish, camel spiders the size of wolves eating children by the side of the road. The spiders went right for the eyes.
He fast-forwarded through the tape to the people of interest. At 02:37:345, Derian raised a hand. “Hold up.”
“Recognize this guy?”
Derian smiled. “That’s Dick Henry.” Henry was holding two cups of coffee.
“Who’s he?”
“He’s the Shortcut Man.”
“The Shortcut Man? Don’t know him.”
“I do. He’s an ex-cop. Shot some people.”
“He’s got a different vibe from the riffraff. What does he do now?”
“He’s a freelance opportunist. Gets things done.”
“This kinda thing?”
“I don’t know what this kind of thing is. Yet. But it rings the coincidence bell. Him being right there, obviously waiting around, right before the shit goes down.”
“Where’s the money in it?”
“I don’t know. Yet.”
Hames had learned nothing at the Grill. Shea and Nazarian had left in reasonable shape, not even too drunk. “You bailed ’em out of Hollywood Precinct?”
“Bail is a legally precise word.”
“You secured their release.”
“Yes. And I delivered them to Dr. Wolf.”
“Beverly Hills Wolf?”
“Our man from Berlin.”
Over the course of the conversation, Derian had assessed Hames. Every idea man needed muscle. Hames had whacked some civilians in Baghdad. Theoretical civilians.
He would teach Hames some of what was what and Hames would be grateful. “Wolf is Ivanhoe’s in-house physician. For things and procedures that shouldn’t go public. If you know what I mean.”
Hames had become Ivanhoe’s security chief forty days before. Derian was a good man to know. He would cultivate the relationship. “Do we show the tape to Mr. Hogue?”
We. Derian appreciated the we. And of course they would show the tape. A monarch should always be made aware of potential enemies. Those who stood for and against him. Derian smiled at Hames. “We’ll visit Mr. Hogue tomorrow.”
Tomorrow, because if you moved too soon, the monarch might think your job was easy and he was paying you too well. “Tomorrow afternoon, then,” said Hames, standing to depart.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Impound Blues
The endless day continued. Then Hogue requesting Rhonda Carling. Didn’t even know her name. He was in a bad movie with many reels to go before the end. Did they have reels anymore? Yes. In Lhasa. The cocaine and heroin were providing less and less respite with each whack. He wanted to hibernate for a thousand years. But the endless day wore on.
First, Rhonda. Obviously, she was in no shape for Hogue’s alimentary predilections. A story was needed. A tale.
Uh, she was out with a date—no. A girlfriend, yes . . . in Hollywood. No, downtown L.A. No, North Hollywood. North Hollywood. The little theater district that backed up to the barrio. That was it. Perfect. Lots of dangerous mongos. With guns. Drugs. Drug problems. Meth. Drug of the week. Hanging with performers after the show. One thing lead to another. Fuck, it was 2:00 a.m. Ten feet from the stage door—two assholes. Knives. Flashing in the light. Three assholes. Next thing she knows, darkness—then Dr. Wolf. Good ole Dr. Wolf. And Fairfax Convalescent.
Good. A scenario. It would have to work. Dr. Wolf would be on board for that. Where did the doctor meet her? She, uh, she, uh, she . . . managed to get back to the El Royale. That would work. She just managed.
That took care of Rhonda and the Nazi. Now, Nazarian.
Simple. And too bad. Because the North Hollywood pulp fiction took the Armenian a-hole off the hook. A freebie for the assault that threatened everything. Information that could never get out. Shea on the scrap heap of history. No, the truth could never get out. Luckily, it was not in Nazarian’s interest for the truth to get out, either.
But what to do with the Armenian? What Nazarian hadn’t done was come to him and apologized for the disaster. Begged his forgiveness, his forbearance, acknowledged his unpayable debt.
Yes, Armenian Asshole, you fucked with the wrong dude. Y
ou messed with Melvin Shea and terrible and long-lasting will be my—
Well, it would be. When he could give some time to working out the details.
And the lesser details. Devi. And the dude who hit him. Devi couldn’t hide forever. He’d put the squeeze on her and she’d give up Mystery Man.
Christ. It all might work.
But before all that. His Beemer. He’d left it near the El Royale. It had been towed. Mary had found it. The impound yard on Fuller, south of Santa Monica.
The cab was twenty bucks. The yard was full. Every hour new hostages arrived. People who’d lost their cars for one bad reason or another.
There it was. Lonely and forlorn. But looked in good shape. Then he saw the vehicle next to it. A Bentley. Nazarian’s? Same model. License plate: Naz. Well, well, well. No one was watching. He drew back his foot, put a big dent in the driver’s door. Take that, Asshole from Armenia.
In the cluttered office, radios on the blare, the impound lady presented her bill. $187.50. A rip. The usual Hollywood rip. This would go to the Armenian’s account. Too bad Nazarian’s car had been damaged at the yard. The yard would hire anyone.
• • •
The Beemer rolled smoothly over the wretched, potholed Melrose pavement, turned south on Fairfax. Melvin checked his watch. 7:37 p.m.
There it was. Fairfax Convalescent.
• • •
In the forty-two years of his existence, Eli Nazarian had never considered, even for one moment, the concept of liquid food. Walgreen’s sold a variety. It came in any flavor you liked as long as you liked grainy vanilla. Like the early Ford Motor Company philosophy: any color you want as long as it was black.
The bitch had broken his jaw. She must have hit him with a rock.
He’d slept like a dog all afternoon, after the humiliating reprimand, then he’d awoken famished. With his jaws wired shut. Now, with incredible longing, he recalled Fritos corn chips. And pretzels. He relived the crisp snap of celery slathered with chunky peanut butter. He reinhabited the warm, false resilience of a Chicken McNugget.
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