Angel’s Gate

by p. g. sturges

  THIRTY-NINE

  Burying the Hatchet

  Peedner hadn’t talked to Henry since he cut him loose in the Violet Brown murder. What was there to say? If he, and not Dick, had shot Elton Reese four times, the results would have been the same, his career ruined, but at least he would have been responsible for his own fate. As it was, the tincture of victim had stuck with him for years. Bad Luck Lew.

  And it had crept into his own soul, too. He expected to be ripped off at Coke machines. Washing machines to fail a week after the warranty had run out. To buy a winning lottery ticket and lose it.

  There was one unalloyed pleasure in his life. Kristy. His one hostage to fortune. No bad luck there. Or with her mother. Marilyn brought him some coffee, the smell of her good cooking in the air. “You find Dick yet?”

  He was running through the DVD. Perhaps there were other faces he would recognize. Derian had paid him $1,500 cash to check it out.

  “I think we might get Kristy’s ears checked,” said Marilyn.

  “Her hearing’s perfect,” said Peedner. Dick was supposed to come up around 2:35 a.m.

  “Perhaps you should find out what she learned at school today.”

  School was the ruin of children. Until the time they went, they were truly yours. They reflected the things you taught them, in the manner you taught them. After enrollment, you could never defend them adequately. Ideas came from everywhere, like viruses. Maybe ideas were viruses. Like grafitti was a footprint. Everyone liked leaving footprints. Kilroy was here. Lew looked at his wife. “What did she hear at school?”

  “About President Lincoln.”

  Lincoln? Why were they teaching a seven-year-old about Lincoln? What could she really internalize? Though, all in all, it was a mild stupidity, not like passing out condoms to first graders. You put this on your what?

  Kristy entered defiantly. “My hearing is perfect.”

  Lew nodded. “Of course, it is. Now what did Mrs. Nichols teach you today?”

  “President Lincoln treed the slaves,” stated Kristy.

  Marilyn smiled in a sunny manner.

  “What? You mean he freed the slaves.”

  “That’s what Mommy said. You’re wrong, too. He treed the slaves.”

  “No, dear. He freed the slaves.”

  His daughter regarded him with a cold, reptilian patience. “Fine, Dad. But he treed them first.”

  Lew looked at his daughter. Someday she would be married. He considered the young man. Singled out by fate. A young man presently chewing a wad of gum and rattling a skateboard down the sidewalk. Would he have bitten off more than he could chew?

  Perhaps. The question was—was he good enough for an angel?

  In that moment Lew decided he would visit Dick Henry.

  • • •

  I hadn’t expected any communication from Lew Peedner, so I was a little wary when he rang. “Lew? What’s up? You alright?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  There was a pause.

  “Guess it’s been awhile.”

  “It has.”

  “I was wondering if I could stop by for a few minutes.”

  “Unofficially?”

  “Unofficially.”

  Something was up. It wasn’t a matter of counting the toes I’d stepped on recently. I step on toes for a living. “Uh, sure. When?”

  “Tonight sometime?”

  “Come now. Know where I live?”

  “Yup. See you in twenty.”

  Devi walked in. “What’s up?

  “My old partner is stopping by.” I guess I looked furtive.

  “You mean your ex?”

  I hadn’t explained Georgette and the crew to Devi. It wasn’t her business. I guess she’d seen the pictures on the wall. “My ex-partner from LAPD.”

  “That’s nice.”

  Maybe.

  “I’ve heard that’s like a marriage,” she said.

  “It’s better than marriage.”

  “Better? Why?”

  “No sex.”

  “No sex?”

  “And you don’t argue about money.”

  “What do you argue about?”

  “Everything else.” Yeah. Lew. We were brothers. And we fought like brothers. Loved like brothers. Shared a million greasy Hollywood pizzas and a million dirty jokes. And we’d taken some righteous assholes off the streets of Los Angeles. Then I gave Elton Reese the quadruple ventilator. I missed Lew.

  • • •

  Twenty minutes to Lew meant an hour to anyone else. He wasn’t late like Lynette had been, constant and outrageous, but there was only one Lynette.

  I heard a car stop in front of my house. I felt a little nervous. I looked out the window. It was Lew.

  I opened up and waited. He opened the gate, walked up the brickway, climbed the three stairs to the porch.

  He looked at me. I detected no anger in him. “Hey, Dick.”

  I was still wary. “Hey. Come on in.”

  In the living room, I gestured him into the couch. “Can I get you a beer?”

  “Still drinking Coors?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. I’ll have one.”

  He sipped it with satisfaction, looked around. “Nice place.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How’s Georgette?”

  “I don’t know specifically. Guess she’s fine.” She’d been bugging me lately about a serious conversation. Which could be good or bad. “I’m supposed to have dinner with her tomorrow.”

  There had to be a reason Lew was here. I guess I’d have to wait until he told me. “How’s Marilyn? And the little one? Kristy, right?”

  “She’s not so little anymore. She’s studying Lincoln. Marilyn’s alright, too.”

  “Good.” A pause turned into a silence. “This is like our first date, Lew. Why are you here?”

  My tall, gaunt ex-partner let his hands fall into his lap. “What do you know about the Hollywood bigwigs?”

  “Which Hollywood bigwigs? I party with them all.”

  “Like always. I’m talking about Nazarian and Shea. The refrigerator-boxers.”

  “Why are you mixing me up in all this?”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Dick. I saw the surveillance DVD from Dunkin’ Donuts. And there, plain as day, in the middle of the night, was Dick Henry. I’m thinking, that’s no coincidence.”

  Devi entered from the kitchen. “I can explain.”

  Just what I didn’t want. I pointed a rigid finger at her. “You’re not going to explain a thing. Go out on the back porch and read a book or something.”

  Devi’s face went red, but she left.

  “The next question is obvious,” said Lew.

  “She’s a friend of mine.”

  “What does she want to explain?”

  “She’s a lamb in this whole thing. Well, pretty much a lamb. Half a lamb.”

  “Rack of lamb.”

  Lew knew I loved rack of lamb. Though the name was more formidable than the dish itself. Anticipating my first Rack of Lamb I thought I might need an ax. Instead, I could’ve used tweezers. “Look, Lew. I’ll tell you everything about her if you really need to know. But first let’s deal with what’s up.”

  “Fine. What is up?”

  I studied my former partner. “I don’t want to put my head in a noose, Lew.”

  “Have you done anything nooseworthy?”

  “No.”

  “Then let’s talk,” Lew said.

  “Off the record.”

  “Off the record.”

  “I mean really off the record.”

  “Fine.”

  “Shea, Melvin Shea, is Howard Hogue’s dog robber. Shea decided to pimp out one of Howard’s girls out to Eli Nazarian.”

  “The director.”

  “Him, yeah. Well, Nazarian rearranged her face, shoved a gun up her snatch. Fucked her up. The girl called Hogue’s girl scout leader—”

  “Girl scout
leader?”

  “Hogue’s got thirty girlfriends. Stashed all over town.”

  “Girl scout leader. Got it.” Lew pointed to the kitchen. “That’s her?”

  “That’s her.”

  “She goes over there to help, didn’t know Nazarian was still there. He decides he’s going to kick her ass, too. But she’s an ex-Marine and things didn’t go down as he planned. In fact, she thought she’d killed him. That’s when she called me. I’d met her earlier that night.”

  Lew shook his head, smiled.

  “What?”

  “You never change.”

  Lew was right. I attracted trouble like better men attracted women. “I don’t try to get into these situations, Lew. I’m thrust into them.”

  “I like the ex-Marine factor.”

  It was my turn to smile. “So do I.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Early yesterday morning.” Jesus. It felt like years ago.

  “Ask me if I’ve missed your drama.”

  “I know you have.” I was just being me, but I had a sudden intuition Lew wasn’t angry at me any more. Where had that thought come from?

  “You know what,” Lew paused, as if putting a thought together, “I’m not . . . I’m not . . . pissed at you anymore.”

  “You crazy? You got grounds.”

  “Maybe I have. And maybe I am.”

  I grinned and he grinned and we left it at that.

  Once, during my time in the Navy, probably in the vicinity of hops and a fattie, a shipmate and I declared we were each other’s best friend.

  Which ruined everything. Whatever being best friends entailed, it meant different things to both parties, and was as rife with misunderstanding as the concept of love. Soon we detested one another.

  Lew and I went back to business. But I was feeling—I was feeling sunny.

  “You’ve explained Nazarian,” continued Lew. “What about Shea?”

  “I’m not sure how Shea got there, I think the doctor called—”

  “What doctor?”

  “Girl scout doctor.”

  Lew just shook his head.

  “So when Shea knocked at the door, I, uh, uh . . .”

  “You what?”

  “I hid in the closet with the director. Who wasn’t as dead as I’d been led to believe.”

  “Jesus, Dick.”

  “And when Shea opened up the closet door, I, uh, I knocked him out.”

  Lew squinted, trying to stuff the facts into a single sack. “Do you know how they ended up at Dunkin’ Donuts?”

  “I called for transportation and the transportation crew improvised. Next thing I know, I’m listening to local news and thinking, this is one hell of a happy ending.”

  “Take off someone’s pants, add a dead dog, it’s always a happy ending.”

  “What do you know about Nazarian, Lew?”

  Lew shook his head. “He always makes money. And every so often he hurts someone. Big cash pay-outs.”

  “How many times?”

  “Three, four times over the years.”

  “Who turned you on to the surveillance tape?”

  “One of the Ivanhoe shysters. They’re talking kidnapping.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “They know it’s bullshit. They want some quid pro quo. To drop possession charges against Jack Wilton.”

  “What’s he into?”

  “H.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, anything on the surveillance DVD?”

  “No. Just you. Talking.”

  Of course there was nothing. I had just sat and waited. Then Lew’s words hit me. “What did you just say about the surveillance DVD?”

  “Nothing. There was nothing on it.”

  “You said something else.”

  “What did I say? Buncha night crawlers and then you, sitting there. Talking.”

  “Talking?”

  I didn’t remember talking to anyone. I did remember Hogue’s question: Had I ever talked to Davis Algren?

  “Can we take a look at that DVD, Lew?”

  Lew took the DVD out of his pocket.

  • • •

  Lew fast-forwarded, and then, there I was. Talking. To the bum. With whatever he had wrapped in the white blanket. The bum turned directly into the monitor. And suddenly I saw the face under the face. Davis Algren.

  “What did you just see, Dick?”

  “I thought I recognized one of the night crawlers.”

  “Did you or didn’t you?

  “No.”

  Lew gave me his famous I-detect-bullshit squint. But he didn’t push it. “This Nazarian character bothers me.”

  “He should. He’s going to kill somebody. One of these days.”

  “What’s the difference between a sociopath and psychopath?”

  I’d read something. But a long time ago. But a few crumbs came back. “Nazarian is . . . he’s a psychopath. They’re smooth, socially, they have manners, they can mimic the emotions of others. But they have no conscience . . . about what they do, or lying about it later. These people are often very intelligent and they get along in society.”

  “That sounds like our boy. Will the woman he hurt file?”

  “No. She wants money.”

  “That’s pragmatic.”

  “A million dollars.”

  “That’s dangerous money.”

  “Sure is.”

  “She better wise up.”

  Lew picked up his keys. “Keep me informed about Nazarian.”

  “He could use a little justice.”

  Lew grinned. “But your girl kicked his ass?”

  In all honesty she wasn’t my girl. And she probably was listening. “She’s her own girl, Lew. But she did break his jaw.”

  “Broke the man’s jaw. You gotta like that.”

  Lew got to his feet, all six foot four of him. “I ever tell you the one about the dude farmer?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “And his prize mare?”

  “Yes, Lew, I’ve enjoyed that particular joke many times.”

  “With the shroud?”

  “The shroud that turns into a handkerchief. Yes, you’ve told me. Funny then, funny now.”

  “So you don’t want to hear it again?”

  I grinned. “I do, but I’m restraining myself.”

  And that was that.

  We parted, for the first time in years, in friendly fashion. I was smiling from deep inside.

  • • •

  Devi had come in, angry, as soon as Lew was gone. “Thanks for humiliating me in front of your friend.”

  “He’s more than a friend. He’s a cop. You don’t talk to cops.”

  “Sorry.”

  There are eight million ways to enunciate “sorry.” Giving rise to many millions of interpretations. And misunderstandings. It was my impression she wasn’t sorry at all.

  “You talked to him, Dick.”

  “After I found out it was going to be private.”

  “Man to man.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Man to man. What bullshit.”

  She was right. The term man to man usually meant tell me now and later I’ll screw you later for your own good.

  But she didn’t know Lew.

  Her phone rang. She examined the incoming ID, shrugged in my direction, answered. “Hello?” She stepped into the kitchen.

  Davis Algren. What did he know? Obviously, something Hogue feared he would tell me. That’s why Hogue had offered me twenty-five thousand dollars. I’d copied Lew’s DVD. I ran it again, studied Algren.

  He wasn’t worth a hundred bucks, lock, stock and barrel. So why hadn’t Hogue taken care of the Algren problem beforehand? Because he didn’t know he was around. I’d inadvertently brought him to Hogue’s attention, and the billionaire had assumed that chance was plan. Why? Because Hogue was guilty. Of something. Something he was still afraid people would find out. Maybe Hogue was
protecting someone.

  All in all, Algren’s life was worth far, far less than a hundred dollars. I’d have to warn him.

  Devi came in, looked at me.

  “What?”

  “That was Rhonda’s sister. Rhonda isn’t at Fairfax anymore.”

  “What?”

  “She checked herself out.”

  “That doesn’t sound right.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Because it’s impossible. They also told her why she was there in the first place.”

  “I think we know that.”

  “Exhaustion.”

  I had a rush of dark feeling. Exhaustion was the Hollywood euphemism for addiction or other bad behavior.

  “What do you think, Dick?”

  “I think she’s in trouble. I think she did some blabbing. Million-dollar blabbing.”

  “To who?”

  “Nazarian and/or Shea? They have the most to lose.”

  “Melvin’s life would collapse completely.”

  “And Nazarian?”

  “Nazarian’s movie made two hundred eighty mil domestic. So far. That means it’ll do equal that in DVD, and half of that in foreign. Which means he’ll be forgiven an indiscretion here and there. He might be embarrassed.”

  “Psychopaths don’t get embarrassed.”

  “I heard you guys talking about them.”

  “I knew you were listening.”

  “I couldn’t help it. Both you guys are old and deaf. Lew sounds like a nice man.”

  “He is.”

  “You guys had a falling-out?”

  No, darling, we had more of a falling-in. We fell into a world of shit which I stepped out of and he couldn’t.

  My phone rang. “Hello?”

  “This Dick Henry?”

  The voice carried threat. I didn’t recognize it. “Maybe. Who’s this?”

  “This is a friend.”

  “Yeah? Speak your piece, friend.”

  “You’re playing a dangerous game.”

  “I don’t like threats.”

  “This isn’t a threat. It’s an opportunity.”

  “Get to the point.”

  “I’m talking about Davis Algren.”

  “You must work for Howard Hogue.”

  “I’m talking about Davis Algren. You’ve got to choose. His side or the other side.”

  “I don’t know Davis Algren.”

  “You’ve abandoned the field of opportunity. That’s too bad.”

  “I don’t know Davis Algren.”

  “So be it, Mr. Henry.” The connection was broken.