“He didn’t say,” said Binchy. “Something about going over to the Marina for lunch. I think there was more to it, but that’s what he said. Usually he ends up explaining.”
*
An hour later, Milo showed up at my house and explained.
“Had a nice cool drink at Bobby J’s,” he said, rubbing his gut. “Found a waitress who recalls Flora and Degussa eating there several times. Brunch and dinner. She remembered them because she thought they were an odd couple.”
“The teacher and the thug.”
“She said Degussa flirted with her shamelessly, and Flora just sat there and took it. She also said Degussa ate funny— all hunched over his food, like someone was going to steal it.”
“Prison etiquette,” I said. “She ever see Flora with Van Dyne?”
“Nope. Either it wasn’t on her shift, or ol’ Brian didn’t make an impression. Extra kudos to you for the Marina lead. I found an address there for Bennett Hacker.”
“Thought he lived on Franklin.”
“As of seven months ago he’s got two addresses, apartment on Franklin, condo on Marina Way. Maybe his weekend getaway.”
“Guess what paid for it,” I said. “I wonder how much kickback he got from Sentries.”
“Total billing was over a million and a quarter during the sixteen-month period, so there’d be enough for everyone. Larsen and Mary could have shot him and Degussa a third and still ended up comfy.”
“Maybe that’s what they used Gull’s phony billings for.”
“That’s Zevonsky’s job to iron out. I’m concentrating on four homicides, meaning when Bennett Hacker leaves the parole office today, he gets tailed. I found a nice, unobtrusive car in the department pool, plan to be downtown in half an hour. Binchy’ll be in radio contact. Wanna come along, maybe take pictures if my hands aren’t free?”
I said, “Smile and say cheese.”
*
“Nice and unobtrusive” was a dark gray Volvo station wagon with black-tinted windows and an I LOVE L.A. bumper sticker. The interior smelled of tobacco and incense. On the passenger seat was a Polaroid camera and five film cartridges. I placed them on my lap.
“Hot wheels.”
“Confiscated from a drug dealer,” he said. “Peppier than it looks, he installed a turbocharger.”
“Drug dealers drive station wagons?”
“Life’s full of surprises,” he said. “This one was a junior at the U., selling ecstacy to his frat brothers. Daddy’s a surgeon, Mommy’s a judge. It used to be her car.”
As he drove toward downtown, I filled him in on my encounter with Kelly and Sheila Quick.
“The high-achieving kid,” he said. “Quick called her home to help out.”
“He knows he’s in trouble, and he wants his family out of the way. And he needs someone to take care of Sheila.”
“Another stash at Eileen Paxton’s house?”
“When I mentioned that, Kelly clammed up.”
At the next red light, he scanned his notepad for Paxton’s numbers and punched in her office. He got her on the phone, talked very little, did plenty of listening, hung up and clicked his teeth together.
“Sheila and Kelly were indeed supposed to show up at her place tonight, but Kelly just called, said there’d been a change of plans, wouldn’t specify what they were. Paxton tried arguing with Kelly but Kelly hung up and when Paxton called back, the car phone was switched off. Paxton says Kelly was always stubborn. Says her sister’s deteriorating psychologically, she’s never seen her this bad. She was just about to call me. Sheila look that bad to you?”
“Pretty fragile,” I said. “Everything she thought she had is slipping away. Sean wondered if he should put a Be-on-the-Lookout on the van.”
“Sean’s been watching too much TV. Sheila and Kelly aren’t suspects, they’re a couple of scared women. With good reason. A BOLO would put them in the cross hairs, and hell if I’m gonna do that.”
He got on the 405, transferred to the 10 East. Two exits later: “Wonder if the Quicks have passports.”
“Family escape?” I said. “If Jerry’s got enough money saved up, could be.”
“Makes me feel sorry for him,” he said. “Until I think about all those impaled bodies. For all we know he flew somewhere already and is having wifey and daughter meet him. Or he just cruised across the border to Mexico.”
“Wifey and daughter and Angie Paul?” I said.
He clicked his tongue. “Yeah, there would be that little problem . . . I’ll have Sean check with the airports and the border patrol, then do another look-see at Angie’s place.”
He switched to the fast lane, made the call to Binchy at seventy miles per. “Sean, I’ve got a few tasks for you— really? Think so? Okay, yeah, sure, give it to me.” To me: “Could you copy this down?”
I found a gum wrapper in the glove compartment and wrote down the name and the 805 number he recited.
He gave Binchy his orders and hung up. “When it rains, it El Niños. What just might be a solid tip on Christina Marsh just came in. This guy claims he’s her brother, saw her picture in the paper. Grad student at UC Santa Barbara, lives in Isla Vista. Once we finish with Hacker, I’ll see if it’s for real.”
*
California Department of Corrections, Parole Division, Region III, was located on South Broadway near First, in the heart of downtown. We got onto the 110, left the freeway at Fourth Street, drove south and got stuck in gridlock near Second. Milo had me call the parole office and ask for Bennett Hacker.
“Can you sound like a con?”
“Hey,” I said, deepening my voice. “Don’t crowd me, man.”
He laughed. I maneuvered voice mail structured to make me give up, finally ended up talking to a brusque, hurried woman. How many felons would have the patience?
She barked, “You one of his assignments?”
“That’s what they tell me,” I said.
“Got an appointment?”
“No, but I—”
“You need an appointment. He’s not here.”
“Oh, man,” I said. “Any idea when he’ll be back?”
“He left,” she said. “Like a minute ago.”
I gave up.
*
Milo cursed. “Three o’clock, and the guy takes off.”
“She said a minute ago,” I said. “If he parks outside the building, maybe we can spot him leaving.”
Traffic wasn’t moving. Then it crawled. And stopped. Four cars in front of us. Downtown shadows turned the sidewalk charcoal.
“What the hell,” said Milo, slamming the station wagon into PARK. He got out and looked up and down Broadway. The right lane was closed, blocked by groupings of orange cones. The cones demarcated oblong excavations. The air smelled of asphalt, but no work crew was in sight.
Milo flashed his badge at four startled drivers, got back in, watched them veer to the right, perilously close to the cones. He drove through the parting.
“Power,” he said, waving his thanks. “Intoxicating.” He coasted another ten feet, found an illegal parking spot next to a cone-surrounded hydrant. Right across from the parole building. The sidewalks were crowded, and no one paid attention.
Seconds later, a husky female parking officer approached, pad in hand. When she reached his window, out came the badge. He talked fast, gave her no chance to speak. She left glowering.
He said, “I’d cast her in a prison movie. The ruthless matron with no heart of gold.”
We waited. No sign of Bennett Hacker.
“A minute ago, huh?”
“Maybe there’s a rear exit,” I said.
“Wouldn’t that be sad.”
Five more minutes. Big, gray government building, lots of people coming and going.
Three minutes later, Bennett Hacker was disgorged through the front door, in a crush of other civil servants.
*
He was easy to miss, stepping away from the crowd to light up a cigarette.
But when the view cleared, he was still puffing. Wearing an ill-fitting gray sport coat over navy chinos, a dark blue shirt, a silver and aqua striped tie. Still smoking, he walked up the block to a hot dog stand.
Milo cruised forward, and I took Hacker’s picture. Mouth full of chili dog.
Hacker walked another block, eating and smoking. Unhurried. Not a care in the world.
Following slowly enough so as not to be noticed was a challenge. Traffic either sat still or spurted ahead. Milo broke lots of traffic laws, managed to pull it off. I took Polaroids when I had a clear shot. The prints revealed the ultimate forgettable man: tall, lanky, unremarkably featured and colored. One noticeable trait: slightly pigeon-toed. It made him seem unsteady, almost drunk.
At the next corner, Hacker finished the chili dog, tossed the greasy paper wrapping at a wastebasket, and missed. He turned without stopping to pick it up.
“There you go,” I said. “You can bust him for littering.”
“I’m keeping score.” Milo edged up to the corner.
Hacker entered an outdoor municipal parking lot.
Milo said, “We stay here and wait till he comes out. We’re looking for a ’99 Explorer. The reg says black, but that coulda changed.”
“He has two addresses, but just one car?”
“Yup.”
“He doesn’t spend on fancier wheels,” I said. “Or clothing. The place in the Marina is his prize.”
“Got to be. His crib on Franklin’s a dump. One-bedroom walk-up in an old three-story building. I drove by last night, figuring to catch a glimpse of him, maybe with Degussa. No luck. His mailbox is full. Now I know why. He prefers the sea breeze.”
*
The Explorer was black turned to gray by weeks of dirt. Bird shit speckled the top and the hood.
Bennett Hacker avoided the freeway and took side streets west: through the downtown crush to Figueroa, then south to Olympic, past Staples Center, all the way to Robertson. Then a right on Pico, to Motor, southward to Washington, where the avenue dead-ended at the Sony studio lot. Another right turn, and we were heading for the Marina.
A circuitous route; it took nearly an hour. Hacker made no attempts at shortcuts or slick maneuvers. He drove the way he walked. Slow, easy, not even a lane change unless it was essential. He smoked constantly, rolled the window down and flicked butts.
Milo stayed three cars behind him, and there was no sign Hacker noticed. At Palms, Milo phoned Sean Binchy and told him to forget about joining the tail, it wasn’t looking complicated. Binchy was mired in bureaucracy and enjoying it: airline records, the border patrol, querying the IRS for Jerome Quick’s tax records.
Milo told him, “Glad it’s fun for you, Sean.”
At Washington, just east of Palawan Way, Bennett Hacker stopped at a 7-Eleven and bought himself a Slurpee, and I took a picture of him sipping through two straws. Still drinking, he got back in the Explorer, turned onto Via Marina and drove right past his apartment. Tossed the empty cup out the window where it bounced along the median.
He continued through the Marina— past Bobby J’s and a spate of other harborside restaurants— and pulled into a strip mall on the south end.
Coin Laundromat, liquor store, window grate company, boat outfitters.
HOG TRAIL MOTORCYLE SHOP.
Fat-lettered, Day-Glo banners above the garage entrance said a big sale was going on. Big shiny bikes, many of them chopped and customized, were arranged in a tilting chorus line out in front.
“Here we go,” said Milo. “A new toy for our civil servant.”
I photographed Hacker entering the shop and kept clicking away when he came out a few moments later talking with another man.
His companion bummed a cigarette. Big, solid guy in a white T-shirt and tight blue jeans. Work boots. His hands and arms and the shirt were grease-stained.
Multiple tattoos, slicked-back dark hair. Raymond Degussa looked heavier and older than his most recent mug shot. He’d grown back his mustache, now graying, and added a soul patch that emphasized a heavy lower lip.
“Well, well,” said Milo. “Mr. Ray does have a day job. Probably another cozy cash situation, like the club. No papers filed, no tax returns.”
“Look what’s on the floor to his right,” I said.
Three rolls of black tarpaulin. Neoprene; a shred had been found at Flora Newsome’s crime scene.
Milo’s jaw set.
“I don’t want to push good fortune,” I said, “but that window grate company over there has got to keep iron bars in stock. Talk about one-stop shopping.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Milo. “How about some more pictures?”
Click click click.
Degussa found a rag and wiped his hands. Bennett Hacker talked, and both of them blew smoke that vanished in the beach air. No expression on Degussa’s long, hard face.
Then he nodded and grinned and snapped the rag and flicked it ten feet away into a white bucket just past the Neoprene rolls. Two points. This one could shoot.
He peeled off his greasy T-shirt, revealed slab pecs, a hard, protruding belly, bulky hirsute shoulders, arms, and neck, a thick waist softened by love handles. Some definition, but mostly size. Prisons had free weights for bulking up, no fancy toning machines.
Crumpling the shirt, he returned inside the bike shop, came out wearing a short-sleeved black silk shirt that hung loose over the same jeans and boots.
“Untucked,” I said. “Wonder if he’s armed.”
“Wouldn’t shock me.”
I reloaded the camera and photographed Degussa and Hacker as they got in the Explorer. The SUV hooked an illegal U, returned to Washington, turned south on Inglewood and pulled to the curb just shy of Culver Boulevard, in front of a bar called Winners.
One of those clay-colored, cinder-block masterpieces with a Bud sign in the single fly-specked window and a HAPPY HOUR WELL-DRINKS discount banner above the door.
Milo spotted a space across the street, ten yards north. He hung his own illegal U and parked.
I click-clicked the front of the bar.
Milo said, “Too small for us to go in without being noticed, so we just wait.”
*
An hour later, Hacker and Degussa still hadn’t emerged. Half an hour in, Milo had chanced a walk down the block and a look-see around the back of the bar.
“The rear exit’s bolted. Eventually, they’ll have to show at the front.”
As we sat there, he checked with Sean Binchy a couple more times. No record, so far, of Jerome Quick or Angela Paul flying anywhere.
Jerry and Angie.
Gavin and Christi.
Like-father-like-son had spawned a nightmare, and I found myself feeling sympathy for Quick, no matter what else he’d done.
Milo groused, “No record at the Mexican border, but what the hell does that mean? After 9-11, you’d think they’d register every damn car, but they don’t, it’s still that stupid random crap. Leaving a big fat hole for Quick to walk through.”
I was about to commiserate when movement in front of Winners caught my eye.
“The party begins,” I said.
*
Hacker and Degussa and two women stood on the sidewalk as their pupils adjusted to the light.
A blonde, a brunette, both in their late thirties. Big hair, heavy in the hips and bust. The blonde wore a black tank top over epidermal jeans. The brunette’s tank was red. Backless high-heeled sandals gave them both a mincing, butt-jiggling walk. Alcohol added some wobble.
Faces that had once been pretty had been paved over by bad decisions.
Hacker stopped to light up, and Degussa stretched his arms around both the women. Cupped their breasts. The blonde threw her head back and laughed. The brunette made a playful grab for his groin.
Milo said, “Classy.”
The four of them got in the Explorer and returned to Hacker’s apartment, entering the subterranean garage through an electric gate.
“Party
time,” said Milo, “and yet again, I’m not invited.”
CHAPTER 43
The building’s manager was a man in his sixties named Stan Parks. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt and gray slacks, had thinning hair and a disapproving mouth. A thirty-year-old Caltech engineering diploma hung behind his desk. His office was on the ground floor, next to the elevator, and the rumble of the lift shook the room at random intervals.
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