"Fucking-A," the banger seated at the desk muttered.
Now I recognized the deep bass voice. I had it on the mini-tape in my pocket from yesterday. Curtis Clark.
"It's too late for me to change venues, and you know it, so don't even start with that. Life is long and there's lots of business for us to do in the future. If you wanta see me down the road, you gotta leave a little something on the table, my brotha."
He listened for a moment and said, "Done. I'll have Jared send you an e-mail confirmation. Peace out, babe." He pushed the little button on his earpiece, took off the Bluetooth, and folded it up.
"Event coordinators. Buncha pirates. Sorry." He crossed to me and stood a few feet away. I could smell his cologne pleasant musk tinged with pine. Not at all bad. Maybe I'd have to check out Bust A Move products for men. "I'm Lionel Wright," he said.
"Shane Scully." We shook hands. His grip was firm and dry.
"I understand you have a badge. Want to show me?"
I fished my credentials out of my pocket and handed them to him. He took his time studying them.
"On the job almost twenty years," he observed.
I've been tinning people since '86 and he was the first one who'd actually read my date of issuance. It told me something about him.
"This is Curtis Clark," he said. "I understand your business also concerns him."
I looked over at Clark, who didn't acknowledge the introduction, but continued to glare, gangsta-style, looking through me like a pane of glass.
"Okay, Detective, this just happens to be a pretty busy day. I'm producing a big awards show tonight. I wouldn't have made room for you, but you frightened my assistant, Miss McKenzie, and she insisted. So if we could get to it?"
"Maybe you should just hear what I've got."
I pulled out the tape recorder. I'd already cued it up, so I hit Play and put it on his mahogany desk. The first recording was of Stacy and Curtis in his office on Sunset. Curtis shifted uneasily, as Stacy gave him classified information about the accounting and performance royalty thefts at Lethal Force Inc. I stopped the tape before we got to the blow job.
Lionel looked at me for a moment when the tape stopped, then said, "Okay, well, that's Louis and Stacy for you. Lou never got the memo sayin' we're leaving our weapons at home now. He still thinks it's cool to negotiate over gun sights. It's a good thing Curtis made a friend outta Stacy, or he never would a known how much they were stealing from him."
Lionel's voice was soft velvet. He had a very cultured presentation. I knew he was a record mogul and a rap star, but I was having trouble reconciling this handsome businessman with the posters of him on the walls screaming and flinging sweat around.
"Back in the day, Louis once hung the lead singer from Brothers With Voices over a balcony at the Sunset Marquis and threatened to drop the poor bastard unless BWV jumped labels to Lethal Force," he continued. "That's the day he earned the nickname Luna. But that kind of behavior is strictly yesterday. Like Stacy said, it's a different business now. The big corporate labels won't stand for that. Hip-hop's gone mainstream."
"Maybe, maybe not."
I recued the tape, pushed the Play button again and let them listen to the second recording, the one I'd made just an hour before. It was hard to hear through the slight hiss, and both Curtis and Lionel instinctively leaned forward. Curtis glanced over at Lionel when Stacy mentioned wanting to take out both of them tonight. It wasn't exactly what he'd been expecting to hear from a woman who gave him sex and inside information. The tape played on as the talk turned to the key man clause and Dante Watts. Curtis frowned again when Stacy said that Lionel still had big trouble down on Sixtieth Street.
When the tape concluded I stood there and waited. Silence can be a great tool in an interview. A subject often gets nervous and attempts to fill the lull by blurting something useful. Curtis was agitated and angry. He felt betrayed. But Lionel only nodded his head and gave me a sleepy smile.
"No comment?" I finally said.
"The man is painfully consistent," he purred.
"Seems like Stacy is a pretty manipulative woman," I said. "Playing a dangerous game. Kind of the Lady Macbeth of hip-hop. You're not worried."
"Somebody got to finally close the brotha and this cave bitch down," Curtis said, suddenly exploding to his feet.
Lionel raised a hand and silenced him. " 'Course I'm worried. Who wouldn't be? Lou's a homicidal maniac and Stacy's a lying, scheming whore. But Curtis and I are equipped to deal with them."
"Do you really trust the Fruit of Islam to protect you on a long-term basis?" I asked. "If I had a head case like Maluga coming after me I'd want my own people."
"I'm only using FOI for my event tonight. They're concert specialists, not a bodyguard service. My personal security is all taken care of, but thanks for your concern."
We locked gazes so I moved on.
"What was all that about Dante Watts and the key man clause?" I asked.
He took a moment to decide if he wanted to confide anything in me. But then, because I'd just brought him some useful information, he gave a small shrug and said, "This is already on the vine, so what the hell." He leaned on the edge of his desk. "In the late nineties Dante Watts was a label exec and A&R man for Lethal Force. He discovered a lot of new acts. But he had his own way a doing things, and that pissed the Malugas off. Two years ago, Dante discovered Curtis and Floor Score on an underground label."
Curtis Clark again shifted slightly.
"Dante hooked Curtis up with Lethal Force and got an outside attorney to cut his first two-album deal. Watts picked a good lawyer, and without telling Curtis, he had a clever escape paragraph written into the contract. The language was good and the Malugas' business affairs guys completely missed it; so did Curtis. The key man clause stated that if Dante Watts ever left Lethal Force or died, Curtis could walk out of his deal. Dante had a sweet cut of Curtis's coin and he put that clause in to protect his ass from Lou in case Lou tried to fire him or kill him. Last year he got into a big row with the Malugas over missing royalties and performance fees on Floor Score's concert appearances. He thought the Malugas were skimming net profits and holding back prepayment guarantees. In the middle of this beef, Dante Watts just disappeared. That's Lou's way of making problems go away. He disappears you. He musta whacked poor Dante before he could tell him about the clause. Stacy was the one who finally told Curtis. Apparently, she reads all the contracts and found the clause. We've been doing a forensic audit and we're still trying to get to the bottom of it. Looks like somebody over there illegally pocketed about ten million dollars. The bottom line is when Dante went missing, it gave a multi-million-dollar act his right to walk. Now Curtis is gonna record for me, but that's not gonna be a headline until we file our lawsuit."
"You guys are missing a piece," I said once he finished. "She helps Curtis break his contract and then goes to Lou and uses that knowledge to get him to commit a murder. You got a few dots that aren't connecting." The room fell silent. Then I asked, "How about your problems down on Sixtieth Street?"
"Everybody has a past, my friend, even you."
Then Lionel's desk phone rang. He picked up a headset off his desk and spoke into it. "Hang on a minute, Patch. I'm almost done here." He watched as I retrieved my tape recorder.
"Why don't you take me on as temporary security?" I said.
"With all this intrigue, it might be nice to have a badge-carrying cop on hand."
He smiled. "I run my security team under strict State of California guidelines to eliminate any hassles with your buddies down at Parker Center. So unless you've already been to the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services and have your PPO license, I can't use you."
Without my noticing, Vondell Richmond and his partner, Taylor Hays, had quietly reentered the room, and were standing just inside the door, summoned mysteriously at exactly the right moment.
"You're making a mistake," I said.
"Then you're invited to my fun
eral," he said without an ounce of sarcasm or irony.
Vonnie and Taylor escorted me out of the room while Curtis Clark practiced his Murder One stare.
The outer office was momentarily unoccupied. Patch McKenzie was off beautifying some other part of the building. I glanced down and noticed some backstage passes in envelopes lying on her blotter. While Vonnie and Taylor moved ahead of me to the elevator, I palmed one off her desk.
"You guys better strap up," I said to them as we all stepped into the elevator. "I think your boss is gonna need you tonight."
"That's why we come to work every morning," Vondell said pleasantly.
The doors closed on this plush-pile wonderland and we zipped down to the ugly realities of the street below.
Chapter 41.
IT WAS A little past two by the time I left Wright Plaza. I got into Chooch's Jeep, opened the envelope I'd just lifted, and extracted the backstage pass. The awards show was something called the Tip-Top Hip-Hop Oasis Awards. The performance segment was called: star wars. Given what I knew, probably an unfortunate choice of words. A separate printed sheet said that the show started at eight p. M., but instructed all of the performing acts and their visitors to be in the El Rey Theater by seven p. M., when the backstage doors would be locked. Sound checks were from seven to seven-forty-five. The El Rey was in the Mid-Wilshire district.
If somebody wanted to kill Lionel or Curtis, what better place to do it than a music awards show where there was a long history of past gang violence and where members of rival Crip and Blood gangs would be in attendance? There'd be enough beef jerky standing around to fill Dodger Stadium and half of them would be strapped. For the shit to jump off, all that needed to happen was one insult from a guy wearing the wrong colors. Once the guns came out, confusion would reign and people could easily die. Even though there would be hundreds of people, there'd be no witnesses because everybody from the hood is gunshot-blind.
There was nothing else I could do before seven o'clock, but I wanted to visit Alexa. I needed to hold her hand and tell her how much I loved her. I knew she wouldn't be conscious, and if the cops from PSB were there, I might get busted. But still. . . .
I headed down Ventura and turned onto Coldwater. Half an hour later I arrived at UCLA Medical Center where I parked in the main structure, went through the double glass doors to the elevators, and rode up to Neurosurgery. No cops, no trouble. So far, so good.
As I walked down the corridor, it occurred to me that this was exactly the kind of dumb-ass move I'd been making my entire life. Break the rules, ignore the consequences, go down in flames. Repeating the same behavior while expecting a different result my own definition of insanity.
I spotted Chooch in the partially filled waiting room studying his USC playbook. I cleared my throat and when he looked up a concerned look passed over his face. I indicated I needed to use the bathroom, then headed toward the men's room down the hall. A few seconds later Chooch arrived.
"Dad, what are you doing here? They're gonna see you."
"I needed to come."
We hugged each other, and then he reported that Alexa's condition still had not changed. The doctors were keeping her in a drug-induced coma that would continue until just before the operation, when the anesthesiologist would take over. "They won't let anyone but her doctors and Luther see her," Chooch concluded.
"I know, but I'm gonna try, anyway."
"Dad "
"I've got to, son." He looked at me for a long moment. "You know all this stuff on TV where they're saying your mom was in a relationship with Slade?"
"That's a total lie," he said, hotly.
"I know, but for a few hours yesterday, I was buying into that. I had some time when I didn't believe in her. Now I feel horrible about it."
"Dad, if you go back there and they catch you, they'll call security. You know where you're gonna end up."
"Just go to the front desk and keep the head nurse occupied. I'm going to find out where they keep the gowns and masks. Nobody will recognize me."
"Don't do this, Dad."
"If this goes bad tomorrow, I've got to at least tell her I'm sorry and how much I love her. It may be my only chance." He held my gaze. "What room is she in?"
"Six-ten."
I found a supply closet down the hall and grabbed a set of green surgical scrubs, a cap, mask, and paper slippers. I returned to the men's room and gowned up, then walked back toward the waiting room and nodded at Chooch.
While my son went over to the nurse's station and started an animated conversation, I crossed to a side door, opened it, and quietly slipped inside.
Alexa looked much smaller than before, like she was slowly wasting away under her surgical dressings. Her head was wrapped in gauze and she was attached to a mile of plastic tubing. Stuff was gurgling and hissing all over the room. Pumps and machines were keeping her alive. I found a chair and sat next to her bed, then took her hand in mine. I could hear my own steady breathing through the mask, feel her delicate pulse under my fingertips.
I remembered how it had started for us just five short years ago. I had hated her on sight back then. She'd been prosecuting me at Internal Affairs for a crime I'd been falsely accused of. She was I. A.'s number one advocate prosecutor with a stellar record of convicting dirty cops. Beautiful and self-assured, she was determined to get my badge. As things turned out, she got my heart instead.
Now I watched her lungs slowly filling with air, her chest rising and falling slightly with each mechanical breath. I marveled at the soft texture of her subtle beauty.
What would I do if I lost her? Even though I had doubted her, I'd never stopped loving her. That had to be worth something. "I'll always love you," I whispered softly.
The machines gurgled and hissed, while her heart monitor kept the rhythm. It was ugly, foreboding music. A concert of despair.
Chapter 42.
I MET SALLY Quinn at a restaurant called The Turf House, in the Valley. She chose the place because it had a history of health department violations and the food was so lousy it was cresting on dangerous. Cops, who are notorious chow hounds, never ate there so we had a good chance of not being seen. We sat in a booth in the back, nursing lukewarm coffee in chipped mugs.
"This place is as bad as advertised," Sally frowned. "Can you believe it? There's a fly in this coffee." She showed me the insect. It was listlessly swimming in a circle in the lukewarm sludge, trying to find a way out. I waved at a waitress to try and get Sally a new cup, but the woman studiously ignored me.
"You're not gonna tell me what this is all about, right?" Sally said. She started fishing unsuccessfully for the fly with her butter knife.
"Hard to testify to things you don't know about."
She nodded, then dropped the knife and pushed a folder across the chipped wood table toward me. The smell of burning grease wafted in from the kitchen. Sally leaned forward and lowered her voice.
"It's all in that file, but to save you time, I'll hit the highlights. As you suggested, most of this background came from the gang book downtown and from a sergeant in street intel named Dona-van Knight who works the hip-hop gang scene."
She took a breath and launched in. "Lionel Wright was born in March of seventy-two. Only his name isn't Lionel Wright."
"Don't tell me, it's Bust A Cap."
"Orlee Lemon," she said. "Broken home. Mother was a crack whore. Father unknown."
"I've heard this story."
"Pretty typical, except Orlee was really smart. A's at Jefferson High. Did two years at City College, then transferred to Cal State. Graduated with a major in business and a minor in music."
"Where's the but}"
"Orlee Lemon was a smart kid but in his youth he was also very wild. Back when he was still in elementary school, he was doing street corners around Sixtieth for a shot caller named Mister Smith." She looked up at me and smiled. "No kidding. That was his given name, Mister."
I found his mug shot, a fat guy in his late twe
nties with two or three chins.
"Mister's gang handle was Crocodile Smith because even as a kid he always wore really colorful, expensive crocodile shoes. Nothing good in that folder about him. Lots of ag-assaults. One second-degree murder. Did a long bit in the SHU at Pelican Bay. Got paroled in ninety-seven."
"So how does Lionel Wright fit?"
"Turns out, while Croc Smith is away at the Bay pounding sand, Orlee Lemon went to college, then graduated and became Lionel Wright, started rapping. The Croc gets out of the joint, sees his baby G Buddy is now all grown up and cutting underground sides in a garage. Decides to go into business with him."
"This was a voluntary partnership?"
"Who knows? I did a little extra checking before I drove over here and there's a neat story that goes with Lionel's first recording contract."
"Let's hear."
"Croc had big bucks from drugs, guns, and street crime, but the gun-dealing beefs had the Feds sniffing him and they put the IRS on his tail. With Big Brother watching, Crocodile couldn't spend his money without risking a federal tax case, so he's cash rich and money poor. He needs to find a way put his dough to work where there's no IRS paper trail. He and Lionel get a CD ready, and they target a rap impresario named Ajax Matson. Ajax is what they call a "raptrepreneur." He owns a label called Walkie-Talkie Records, which has a big worldwide distribution deal with Atlantic. Guys like Ajax are inundated with CDs from wannabe artists, so getting a mega-producer like him to play your song is like next to impossible. But Smith and Lionel think up a way around this problem. They buttonhole Matson at this dance club in Hollywood and Croc hands Lionel's CD to the man, along with ten thousand dollars in crisp bills and tells him, 'You play this while we watch. Whether you like the CD or not, you keep the ten large.' "
"Not bad," I said. "So Ajax listened to it?"
Sally nodded. "And it's good."
"So then Lionel records for Ajax, right?"
"Right," Sally said. "Two albums. Ajax came up with his hip-hop name Bust A Cap. Both albums went gold. Then Lionel leaves Walkie-Talkie and starts WYD records and becomes a raptrepreneur himself. He's his label's first big star." She glanced across the restaurant. "Man, you think we could get some coffee that's at least hot enough so this fly can't do the backstroke in it?"
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