Stalking the Angel

by Robert Crais

  She looked at me.

  “I’m going to talk to Bradley and Sheila and I’m going to get them to agree to this, but I don’t want to do it at Bradley’s office. I want you to get them together at home. Can you do that?”

  Carol Hillegas said, “How are you going to convince them?”

  I ignored her. “Can you do that, Jillian?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you?”

  “Yes.”

  I stood up. “Then let’s do it.”

  28

  I went to my office and Jillian went to hers, and fifty minutes later she called and told me to be at the Warrens’ home at three that afternoon.

  When I got there, Jillian’s white BMW was parked behind Bradley’s chocolate-brown Rolls convertible. The Rolls’s top was down and it looked very sporty. Sort of like a tank with the turret blown off. A sky-blue Mercedes 560SL was parked in one of the garages just past the motor court. That would be Sheila.

  At three in the afternoon, it was clear and bright and warm in Holmby Hills. Quiet. Mockingbirds chirped and bees floated around the snapdragons and poppies that lined the drive, and high overhead a single light plane buzzed east. Out on the street, somebody’s Salvadoran housekeeper walked toward Sunset Boulevard and her bus stop. She didn’t look at me and she didn’t look up at the plane.

  I went to the front door, knocked, and Sheila Warren let me in. She was wearing a white and pink Love tennis outfit and had a short glass containing ice and a dark liquid in her hand. Always after five somewhere in the world. She looked defiant and sullen, a woman who’d had to make too many sacrifices to get where she was. “I certainly hope I was called off the court for a good reason.”

  Sacrifices.

  She closed the door and we went into the den. Bradley Warren was half sitting on one of the bar stools, thumbs hooked in his vest’s watch pockets, looking sour. The stern affluent businessman as pictured by GQ. Jillian Becker was standing by the other end of the bar, not looking at him and not looking at Sheila. Bradley said, “Let’s get something straight, Cole, and get it straight now. You are not in my employ, nor have you been since you were terminated, so I don’t intend to pay you a dime. If this is just a ploy to maneuver yourself back onto my payroll, you can forget it.”

  Sheila said, “I didn’t leave the court to listen to you. If he knows something about Mimi, for God’s sake, let’s hear him.”

  Jillian said, “I’ll wait outside.”

  Bradley said, “You stay here. I want a witness in case this fraud claims I agreed to pay him for additional services.”

  Jillian’s face was pale. She looked like she had been hoping no one would notice her. “I can’t do that, Bradley.” She started for the door.

  Bradley said, “What do you mean, you can’t do that? I want you to stay.”

  She kept going. “Not this time.”

  Bradley said, “What do you mean, not this time? You made me come here. You’d better remember who you work for.”

  Jillian stopped at the door. She looked at me, then Bradley. She looked at him for a very long time. “Bradley,” she said. “Go fuck yourself.” Then she left.

  Sheila Warren laughed. Bradley said, “Jillian,” but he said it to a closed door. He looked back at me. “Jesus Christ. I don’t have time for this. Tell me about Mimi. Is Mimi all right?”

  “No,” I said. “Mimi is not all right.”

  Sheila stopped smiling and put her drink on the bar.

  “Mimi has not been in an accident and has not suffered a physical injury and isn’t in a hospital somewhere, but she is not all right.”

  Bradley said, “What the hell does that mean?”

  Looking at them, I could feel the muscles in my neck and shoulders tighten the way they had tightened when I was with Mimi. I said, “Mimi wasn’t kidnapped. She ran away. I found her and talked with her.”

  Sheila said, “Good Lord, why didn’t you bring her home?”

  “She didn’t want to come home.”

  Sheila opened her mouth, then closed it. “Well, what kind of answer is that? Where is she?”

  “I won’t tell you that.”

  The famous Bradley Warren frown. “What do you mean? You have to.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  Bradley looked at me the way you look at someone when you’re thinking maybe they’re up to something. Then he started around the bar for the phone. “I’m going to call the police.”

  I said, “We’re going to talk about some very personal things now. You’re not going to want the cops here.”

  Bradley stopped, his hand on the phone. Sheila’s eyes wobbled from me to Bradley and back to me. She said, “What’s going on here? What’s this about?”

  I was looking at Bradley. “Mimi has the Hagakure, Bradley. She stole it to hurt you and she pretended to be kidnapped for the same reason.”

  Bradley moved slightly as if a strong wind had pushed him. “Mimi has the Hagakure.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t bring it back.”

  “No.”

  “She stole it to hurt me, and now she is pretending to be kidnapped.”

  Sheila said, “That’s silly.” She made a little gesture of dismissal with her left hand, picked up the drink with her right, and had some.

  “Your daughter is in trouble. She’s got serious problems and she’s had them for years and she will probably need professional help for a long time if she’s ever going to have a chance to be right. You’re going to have to be a part of that.”

  Sheila said, “I don’t know what all this is about. Teenage girls get confused. It’s hormonal.”

  “It has to start now, Bradley. The problems have to come out in the open now and the healing process has to begin.” It was just me and Bradley. Sheila might just as well have been on Mars. “Mimi will have to go into a halfway house for a while or you will have to leave home.”

  Bradley’s left eye started to spasm and veins bulged in his forehead and on the sides of his neck. He said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Tell Sheila, Bradley.”

  The spasm got worse. He shook his finger at me. Angry. “You’d better tell me where the Hagakure is, goddamnit. That book is priceless. It’s irreplaceable.”

  “Tell Sheila about Mimi.”

  Sheila put the glass down again. The defiance and the sullenness were gone. Bad dreams coming true. “Tell me what?”

  “I don’t know what he’s talking about. What did Mimi say? What’s this all about?” You could see his hands tremble.

  I said, “Bradley, your daughter is never going to have a chance to heal until you admit that you’ve been molesting her.”

  Sheila’s face faded and went pale and became something ghostlike. She didn’t move and Bradley didn’t move and then Bradley shook his head and smiled. It was the sort of smile you give to someone you don’t know well when you’re correcting them. He said, “That’s not true.”

  Sheila made a small sound, very much like her daughter’s giggle.

  Bradley said, “Mimi made it up. You said she wanted to hurt me.”

  Sheila threw what was left of her drink in his face. Her eyes filled and her nose grew red and she said, “You bastard. You no good shit bastard.” She hit him. She flailed wildly, slapping and punching and calling him a bastard, her face blotchy, spit flying. He didn’t move.

  The hitting went on until I went over and caught her wrists and pulled her in close to my chest. She said, “You bastard,” over and over.

  Bradley spread his hands the way they do in a comic strip. His you-must-be-mistaken smile didn’t waver. “Why would Mimi say such a thing? It’s not true. It’s outrageous.” The eye fluttered madly.

  I brought Sheila over to one of the couches and sat her down. “Sheila. There’s a woman named Carol Hillegas who is a counselor who’s worked with people who’ve had to go through this. You can talk to Carol, and she will talk to Mimi, and then she will talk to al
l of you together. Will you do that? Will you talk to Carol?”

  Sheila held herself as if there were something hard and painful in her chest. She nodded.

  Bradley said, “I’m going to sue you if you spread rumors about this. There’s no proof.”

  I left Sheila and went around behind the bar to where Bradley was standing and took out the Dan Wesson.

  Bradley backed up until he hit glass shelves lined with liquor bottles and then he couldn’t back up anymore. He said, “Hey.”

  I pulled back the hammer until it locked and I pointed the muzzle at the center of his forehead. “Bradley, your child needs you and you are going to do right by her.” My voice was even and calm. “Do you understand?”

  He did not move. “Yes.”

  “She needs you to be honest about this. She needs you to admit that this should never have happened and that this is not something she precipitated and that she is not at fault. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Department of Social Services is going to be notified, and one of their people is going to work with you and a counselor and Sheila and Mimi. It is very, very important for Mimi that you accept the therapeutic process and participate in it. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  I stared at Bradley Warren past the Dan Wesson, and then I moved a half step closer. I said, “I’m told that what has happened here is complex and that you are not what we less sophisticated types call a bad man. That may be. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you are helped in this process or not. I don’t care if you have to fake every moment of therapy for the next ten years. You will see to it that everything that can be done to help your daughter will be done. If you do not, I will kill you, Bradley. Do you understand that?”

  He nodded.

  “Say it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Say it all the way.”

  “You will kill me.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stay here. Don’t go back to your office. Carol Hillegas will call you. If you don’t come through with this, Bradley, I will be back.”

  We stood like that for another few seconds, then I lowered the gun and left.

  Jillian Becker was sitting inside her BMW. Even with the mirrorshades you could see that she’d been crying. I went around to her side of the car and squatted down by the window. “You learned a very hard thing today,” I said. “Time passes, you’ll steady down. You’ll see if you can live with it or if you’ll have to make some changes.”

  She took a deep breath, then sighed it out. “Do you have to do that much? Make changes?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes you can change what’s there, sometimes what’s there changes you.”

  She nodded and looked toward the house. Big changes coming. She said, “I was thinking of what Carol said about people who hurt themselves, about how what they’re really doing is looking for someone who loves them enough to make the pain stop.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Jillian Becker started the BMW and put it in gear and looked at me.

  After a while she drove away.

  29

  When I got home I called Carol Hillegas and told her that I had spoken with Bradley and Sheila and that they were expecting her call. After Carol hung up, I called Kira Asano’s place and asked for Mimi. Bobby came on and said, “Who’s this?”

  “The Shell Answer Man.”

  “Eat shit.”

  Frank came on and said, “Are the cops on the way here?”

  “No.”

  “She’s in the back. Wait.”

  In a little while Mimi said, “Uh-huh?” She sounded like she maybe expected that her parents were really on the other end of the line and about to start yelling at her.

  I said, “It’s Elvis.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I spoke with your parents. They’re not going to make you go home. You’re going to have to leave Asano’s, but you can stay at a halfway house Carol Hillegas owns. If that doesn’t work out, you can go home and your father will move out, whichever you prefer.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Mimi?”

  “I don’t want to go home.” Dull. I wondered if she was loaded on something.

  “I’ll come get you tomorrow morning. If you want we can have breakfast and then I’ll take you to Carol’s place, and I’ll stay with you there for as long as you need me to, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Put Frank on.”

  There were noises and voices and then Frank came on. “What’s up?”

  “I’m going to come get her tomorrow. I’m going to get the book, too.”

  “Are you going to be able to keep Mr. Asano out of it?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not going to bring him into it, but I don’t know what Mimi is going to tell the cops when they talk with her. You live up to your end and help me with the kid and I’ll see that the parents don’t try to press you if the cops come in. I’ll tell them that you guys cooperated with me and wanted the best for the girl.”

  “That oughta cut a lot of ice.”

  “It’s what I can do.”

  “Yeah.” Frank hung up.

  I put down the phone and went into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of apple juice and drank it. I went back into the living room and turned on the evening news. I put my hands in my pockets and shook my head and thought, sonofagun, this thing is coming together. I went back to the phone and called Joe Pike but he wasn’t home. I dug through my wallet and found Jillian Becker’s home number and gave her a call. Nope. She was out, too. The cat door clacked in the kitchen and hard food crunched. I went back into the kitchen and looked at him eating and said, “Well, I guess it’s just you and me.”

  He didn’t bother to look up.

  I got us a couple of Falstaff out of the refrigerator and put on some music and after a while I went to bed.

  At five minutes after eight the next morning my phone rang. I picked it up and said, “Elvis Cole Detective Agency. Let us get on your case!”

  Jillian Becker said, “What’s going on?”

  I said, “What do you mean, what’s going on?” This sort of thing is covered in Advanced Interrogation at the Private Eye Academy.

  “Mimi called Bradley fifteen minutes ago. She told him she wanted to give the Hagakure back and asked him to meet her. I thought you were supposed to pick up Mimi and bring her to Carol Hillegas.”

  “Did Bradley go?”

  “Two minutes ago. I told him he shouldn’t. I told him he should wait.”

  “Are you in your office?”

  “Yes.”

  I told her I’d call her back, then I hung up and dialed Kira Asano’s. I dialed the four numbers I had and each of the four rang but no one answered. I didn’t like that. I called Jillian. “I couldn’t get anyone at Asano’s. Did Bradley say where he was going to meet Mimi?”

  “She wanted to see him at a construction site on Mulholland just east of Coldwater. He said he told her that was silly, that she should come to the office or that he would go to where she was staying but she said she would feel safe there and that’s where she wanted to do it. Why would Mimi want to give back the book like this? Why would she want to be alone with him?”

  There were a couple of reasons but I didn’t like them much. I said, “I’m on my way now. Call the North Hollywood PD and ask for Poitras or Griggs or Baishe. Tell them you’re calling because I told you to and have them send a car. Tell them to hurry.”

  Mulholland was five minutes away down Woodrow Wilson, then a single broken-backed sprint west toward Coldwater. Just past Laurel, Mulholland is woodsy and the houses have been there forever, but farther west more and more ridges were being cut and scraped and developed for homesites. A mile short of Coldwater, Mulholland flattened out and signs said HEAVY EQUIPMENT AHEAD. I slowed down. A large ridge grew away to the north, rising off the road toward the San Fernando Valley. The
ridge was big and white and had been graded clean. A fresh tarmac road had been cut up to the ridge top and clean white sidewalks paralleling the road had been poured and cement drains set. When all this was finished there would probably be guards and ornate street lamps and no trees and no coyotes and no deer. Just what the locals had in mind when they bought up here ten years ago.

  There was a chain link fence running the perimeter of the site. A sign on the wire and pipe gate that should have blocked the road said S&S CONSTRUCTION—KEEP OUT. The gate was open. I turned through the gate, and followed the road up.

  The top of the ridge had been sliced off to make a broad flat plateau with a jetliner’s view of the valley. On the plateau, the road made a wide circle so that view homes that sold for eight hundred thousand dollars could be built along the rim of the circle. Luxury living. There was a sixty-yard dumpster and two Cat bulldozers and a Ryan backhoe parked on the far side of the circle. Bradley Warren’s brown Corniche convertible and a beat-up green Pontiac Firebird were by the dumpster, and Mimi and Bradley were standing by the Firebird. Mimi saw me first. She was wearing a loose red and white cotton shirt over blue jeans and black, high-top shoes. There was a pink leather purse slung over her shoulder and her face looked pale and wild and blotchy from crying. She reached into the purse and took out a small black revolver and pointed it toward her father and I yelled and she shot him. There was one sharp POP. Bradley looked down at himself, then looked back at his daughter, then went forward onto his hands and knees.

  Mimi dropped the gun and climbed into the Firebird and screeched away. I jumped the curve and revved the Corvette across the island’s rough ground. Bradley stayed on his hands and knees for the time it took me to cross the ridge top and get out of the car, then he keeled sideways onto his side and began to make flapping movements with his arms, trying to get up. “She shot me,” he said. “My God, she shot me.”

  “Stop trying to get up. Let me see it.”

  “It hurts!”

  I put him on his back and looked at him. There was pink froth at the corner of his mouth and when he spoke his voice was wet the way it gets when you’ve a bad cold and the mucus fills your throat and sputters when you try to breathe. There was a red spot about as big around as a medium-sized orange just to the right of the center of his chest. It was growing.