He shrugged, maybe yes, maybe no—who cared?
Pop’s phone continued to ring like a rock falling through space. He wasn’t picking up. His hearing wasn’t that great, but it wasn’t that bad, either. Had he been so addled with bravado that he’d opened the trunk? Maybe he’d forgotten to open the door from the garage into the utility room and couldn’t hear the phone through the closed door. Or Spectrum had called someone on his cell who managed to track down the BMW. But how? It didn’t seem possible, unless he’d equipped his wheels with a GPS tracking system, the receiver signaling the car’s location to a remote computer. Too much time was passing. I needed to make it look good if nothing else. “About time,” I said to the ringing phone. “She’s here and okay. You can let him go.” I disconnected the cell and stuffed it into the side pocket of my jacket.
“Did you mean to implicate your brother when you raped her?” I shifted in the chair to face Jagger, both feet planted to move quickly. “I’m confused, because I can’t figure why else you’d steal his clothes to wear when you abducted her.”
“I didn’t steal his clothes,” he said. “I borrowed them.”
“And now, thanks to you, he’s dead.”
“The little traitor deserved everything he got.”
“You don’t sound like you’re grieving.”
“So the weakest bird in the nest fell to his death. More food for us all.” He tapped his fist on the table and opened it to reveal a microcassette recorder. “Goodness, look what I found.”
“You get a kick out of recording things,” I said. “I already know that.”
“The little bitch was carrying this.” He flipped his wrist and the recorder clattered onto the table. “I think she wanted to record something incriminating.”
Cassie stared at the drink in front of her, the whipped cream substance melting over the top rim, the flare of her nostrils with each deep breath a sign that she worked to control her temper. Then she looked at me, and from the heat of her glance she seemed angry with me as much as at him. She was working on something, the look said, and I was interfering. If she was working on something, tough. It was my turn.
“You ever meet Andrew Luster?’ I asked.
He glanced up, surprised to hear the name, and spun the microcassette recorder around the table with his forefinger.
“Your friends at the next table, any of them meet Andrew Luster?”
He smiled and spun the recorder faster and faster, said, “You can’t print any of this anyway, so what does it matter?”
“Did you know Stewart had a crush on Christine before you killed her? Or did that make it an even bigger thrill for you?”
He slapped the recorder to stop it from spinning.
“I didn’t kill her,” he said.
“Who did, then? Ozzy?” I cocked my head toward the table where Kane and Edwards sat. “Bryan, or maybe Dustin?”
Jagger spun the recorder and watched it go with a studied diffidence.
“Stewart didn’t betray you,” I said. “He knew you were raping and killing girls. He wanted to make you stop. That’s why he leaked the video to me. But he never mentioned your name, or the names of the others either.”
Jagger lifted a single finger and said, “Just one died.”
“Just one? Charlotte McGregor’s lucky you didn’t kill her, too.”
“Charlotte who? Who’s that?”
“You don’t even remember her name? The woman in Palmdale.”
He rolled his eyes, spun the recorder again. “How the fuck am I supposed to know her last name?”
“Maybe because you almost killed her.”
He shook his head. I had it wrong.
“I remember that one, just not her name,” he said. “She was pretty hot. But this super moral attitude you’re copping, it only means you don’t understand the scene. These girls are players. They know the score. They get drugged out of their minds all the time. So what if they wake up and can’t remember what happened? It’s like, what’s the big deal? If you ask for it, don’t complain when somebody gives it to you.”
Cassie said, “Then you admit to drugging her?”
Jagger had the courage to look at my niece that he lacked when speaking to me. “I’ve got your tape recorder, darling, so go ahead, ask all the incriminating questions you want, or better, just shut the fuck up.”
“I first thought your brother had been there, in the room when you raped her.” I tapped the table to get his attention. “I figured he felt so guilty about it he sent me the video, but I was wrong about that. He didn’t participate, but he knew what was going on. He couldn’t go to the police, couldn’t tell the cops his own brother was raping girls. The only thing he could do was try to make it stop another way, by involving me.”
He spun the tape recorder again.
I lunged forward to stop it with a clenched fist.
“Did your brother beg you to spare Christine? Did you taunt him with an invite to join in the fun of raping and killing her?”
“She wasn’t supposed to die.” He stared forward, eyes fixed to the table, waiting for me to remove my fist. The physical intrusion on his personal space disturbed him, and he glanced up and away, pretending to be bored with it all. “Ozzy got a little carried away, put too much pressure on the strap, and I didn’t notice until it was too late. It was a mistake. Regrettable. But hey, shit happens.”
I said, “So it was an accident.”
“Totally.” He drew out the “o” in that word, sounding like just any another affected Southern California kid. “I mean, half the fun was imagining what happened afterwards, you know, after they came out of their trance.” His brows compressed and he leaned forward, animated by the importance of what he wished to say. “You can’t take it so fucking seriously. I mean, the girl who died, sure, that was a shame, but the others? It was just a game, a little harmless sport. Most of the girls, they didn’t have a clue what happened. They’d wake up the next morning, or whenever, and—I’m imagining this part—they’d go, like, whoa, I’m a little sore, where was I last night?” He laughed, finding that funny. “Only one bitch even got as far as the police. The rest of them? Nothing. Nada. They never knew what happened.” He stared at me head on, daring me to understand the logic. “It’s a victimless crime, don’t you see? Like the tree that falls in the forest. If you don’t remember it, did it really happen?”
“If you kill someone, the victim doesn’t remember either,” I said. “Does that mean you didn’t kill her?”
“I didn’t think you’d understand,” he said.
“She’s too old,” Cassie said. “She’s, like, thirty. She doesn’t get the joke.”
Jagger slipped his head back to give her a sidelong glance, said, “Well, aren’t you the freaky one.”
I think he meant it as a compliment.
“Freaky-deaky,” she agreed. “How many bitches did you play?”
“Nine. Too bad, you could have been number ten.” He shook his head, regretting the loss. “Come back and see me when you make eighteen. I don’t want to corrupt the morals of an underage girl.”
“I’d cut you up with a knife and stuff the flesh down your throat as you died, starting with your balls,” she said. “And then I’d stick your head in a box and mail it to your dad as punishment for bringing your sorry ass into the world.”
Jagger inched away from Cassie as though she spooked him.
“You drugged and raped nine girls,” I said, stunned by the number.
“And the true shame? You can’t do anything about it. Even if you go back on your promise to Ray, I’ve got other resources you can’t even imagine.”
“You hired Spectrum?”
He shrugged.
“You’ve got a rich, powerful daddy.”
“The police can be bought. Shocking, isn’t it?”
I figured he was referring to Logan.
“Does he know what you’re doing” I asked.
“Dad?” The cell phone in one
of the multiple pockets of his cargo pants riffed a tune. He ignored it. “Dad taught me everything I know.”
“Like father, like son?”
He winked at me, deadpan.
“Look, we’re sorry about your friend. We promise not to be bad boys anymore.” He glanced at his friends in the corner. “But really, considering the fact that our families practically own this town and your family aspires to the level of white trash, you should be happy that you’re not dead or in jail, understand?” The cell phone continued to ring, as though the caller had hung up before the call switched to voice mail and called again. He glanced down to lift the phone from his pocket and gave the calling number a puzzled look. His voice morphed to an agreeable whine when he lifted the phone to his ear. “Hi! What’s up?” His smirk straightened and then drooped to open-mouthed surprise. He listened, shoulders slumping as his chest deflated, curling him over the surface of the table. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I will. He can talk to them right now if he wants.” He listened again. “Okay. I’m really sorry about this. I’ll tell them.”
He hung up the phone and dropped it onto the table, still clutching Cassie’s microcassette recorder in his opposite hand. “Someone who says he’s your father just broke into our house. Can you fucking believe it? He’s holding my dad at gunpoint and won’t let him go until he knows you’re okay.”
“Pop?” Cassie backed sharply from the table. “What’s he doing there?”
“Give me your house number, I’ll call him,” I said.
“He won’t accept that,” Jagger said, calculations of bloodshed flickering in his eyes. “Dad said he demands to see you in person before he’ll back off.”
“Just give me the listing,” I said.
I punched the numbers as he recited them and listened to a distant phone ring unanswered. I wondered then if he’d given me the correct number. I turned to Cassie and told her we had to move—fast.
She stood and thrust her hand palm up toward Jagger.
“Give me my recorder back,” she said.
“Fuck off, you skank.”
I didn’t think about it. My feet shifted and hips rolled with the muscle memory of a right cross, my fist crashing into the smirking point of his full lips. His head snapped over the chair back and he toppled spine first to the floor. I leapt to my feet. He lashed out, his mouth smeared with blood, and tried to stand. I kicked him in the face as he rose, the force and weight of the Doc Marten boot breaking his nose to the side like a branch from a tree.
Kane and Edwards backed from their table in the corner, the sudden violence sucking the testosterone straight from their veins. Across the café, the barista bent over the service counter, stunned still while handing a cup of cappuccino to a T-shirted young woman. The recorder clattered to a stop on the floor. Cassie dashed to retrieve it and despite my shouted command to hurry, she stopped to look down at Jagger Starbal writhing on the floor.
“This is just the start,” she said and spat on his face.
33
THE RAM’S TIRES played a serenade on asphalt peeling out of the Starbucks parking lot, rubber smoke drifting across my rearview mirror as we sped onto Gower. No one popped from the café to give chase or record our license plate number, and from what I could tell from brief glances in the mirrors as I drove, no one staked us out from a car parked in the lot. I accelerated around a floral delivery van to catch the tail end of a yellow onto Sunset, the pickup truck careening through the turn like a wild beast. We were twenty minutes from Beverly Hills in thickening traffic. I chased the next pack of cars ahead, intent on working to the front and then timing the traffic lights.
“That was awesome!” Cassie shouted, fumbling with the buttons to her blouse. “Will you teach me to hit like that?”
“Ask Pop. He’s the one taught me.”
“He says my arms are too thin, I got no power.”
“If your form is right, you’ll have power enough.” I sped into the far right lane, cleared of curbed parking at the start of rush hour. “You might not have the strength to lay someone out like that, not unless it’s someone your own size, but you can hit hard enough to surprise them, sure.”
“We’ve already been working out together, you know, with the gloves.” She plunged her hand into the gap in her shirt and pulled from behind the padding of her bra a microcassette recorder, the twin to the one she still held in her hand.
“You had two recorders? You were recording that?”
“I let him see the first figuring he wouldn’t look for the second,” she said and pressed the rewind button. “Always give a sucker a little something to let him think he’s winning. It’s something Mom taught me. And always keep your real stash separate from your giveaway stash—the money or drugs it won’t hurt to lose if you’re robbed.”
“Your mother taught you that?”
“Don’t sound so shocked. I did my first cons in diapers.” She pressed play long enough to confirm Jagger’s voice had been recorded on the tape, muffled, but audible. “Rich daddy or not, I think we got him.”
I held out my right hand, palm out, and she slapped it. I’d promised Spectrum that I wouldn’t seek to publish photographs or stories about Starbal; I never vowed to keep my niece from taking evidence to the police. Spectrum might expose the videotape in retaliation, a risk I’d be willing to take if it yanked Jagger Starbal and his pals out of the breeding pool. Anger mixed with pride, and I felt compelled to play the role of cautioning auntie. “What you just did was incredibly stupid and dangerous,” I said.
“No, what I just did was justice,” she replied, her self-certainty unassailable. “You want to see stupid and dangerous, I’ll tell you about some stuff I did before I met you.”
“They could have seriously hurt or killed you.”
“Those punks?” A burst of disdain blew from her lips. “I used to hang with a crew who’d steal the wheels and wallets from punks like that and leave ’em stark naked by the side of the road. Pop get his instructions mixed up?”
“What do you mean?”
“He wasn’t supposed to call you for another hour. And then I was late getting here because of the stupid bus. I can’t wait until I get my driver’s license.”
I glanced at her between lane changes. No doubt or remorse troubled her brow. Criticizing her just then wasn’t going to help. Later, given time and a quiet place, I might sit her down to explain things. “How’d you set up the meeting?” I asked.
“I called him, said I wanted to hook up, the kinkier the better.” She ejected the tape from the recorder and dug into the front pocket of her pants for another cassette. “The first time I called him, it was from Phoenix. I told him I was visiting relatives, I’d contact him when I got back to L.A.”
“He didn’t think you were a cop?”
She gave me a scornful look, eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed.
“I think I know what cops sound like. Trust me, I didn’t sound like a cop. And that shit he was trying to sell you about not knowing my age? He knew. That was part of the turn-on. Besides, how many fifteen-year-old cops do you know?” She stuffed the recorded tape down the front of her pants—another trick her mother probably taught her. “What’s going down with Pop? What’s he doing at Starbal’s, and why are you driving his truck?”
Cassie cursed violently when I told her what happened to the Rott. The swear words she used and the way she strung those words together shocked me. “I know you’re mad,” I told her, “but you have to learn different language to express it. Those words you’re using, they’re just plain ugly.”
“Okay, Mom,” she said. “Next time I lose my temper, I’ll hit somebody.”
“You’re right, I’m an idiot,” I said, and we laughed together, laughed a little of the tension off.
“Did he just lose it, or what?” Cassie asked. “Why didn’t he stay home?”
“I suspect he thinks he’s got something to prove.”
“Like what?”
“That he
loves you, for one.”
“Not just me.” She turned away to stuff the recorder back under her bra. “He talks about you all the time, at the house. It’s kinda weird, actually, how much he talks about you.”
“I’m sure he taught you a few swear words talking about me.”
“No, it’s like he admires you.” She buttoned her blouse over the recorder, then looked down to make sure her falsies lined up. “Says you were the only person with the guts to stand up to him and it taught him something, only he’s sorry it took him so long to learn. Says if he ever loses his temper with me, I should stand up to him like my Aunt Nina.” She shifted in the seat to face me, asked, “Does it show? The recorder?”
Not to anyone who didn’t know she had yet to grow much in the way of breasts, I thought, but just shook my head. “Do you see a cell phone, maybe between the seat and the door?”
Cassie squirmed and reached behind her, the cell phone emerging with her hand. She’d been sitting on it. “Wondered what that was,” she said. “Whose is it?”
“Spectrum, the private investigator I was telling you about. Do me a favor and see if you can figure out the last person he called.”
She tucked her feet under her and brought the display close to her face, pressing buttons in rapid trial-and-error style. It took her less than five seconds to find it. The ten-digit number she recited sounded familiar. I asked her to repeat it, then said, “Call it.”
I grabbed the phone and pressed it against my ear, listening to the signal buzz and then click over to voice mail. One word into the announcement I recognized the voice and flung the phone against the windshield, the cell bouncing off the dash and out the open window on Cassie’s side. The tears came to my eyes unasked and brought little solace.
“At least you didn’t swear,” Cassie said, “Who was it?”
To stay silent was to admit to weakness.
“Sean,” I said.
“That cop? Why would the P.I. call him?”
We swung right onto Hillcrest and into Beverly Hills, sweeping past the manicured lawns, sculpted shrubbery, and ornately turned gates of fairy-tale estates that sheltered princes and dragons in equal number. I tried not to think. I needed to get Pop away from Starbal before the cops were called to arrest him on charges of breaking and entering. Holding a shotgun on someone, what kind of crime was that? False imprisonment? Hostage taking? Making criminal threats? If things turned out badly, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Zero to the Bone Page 29