As I closed in on the pair, they responded by lumbering across the lot to a familiar-looking black van, a Ford. They climbed inside and accelerated toward the exit. I managed to read the license number: industrial plates. I couldn’t quite decipher the logo on the side; the van was too far away. There were three initials, but the design was quite small, with an even smaller phrase printed underneath. I mentally recited the license plate as I fished a pen out of my bike case. I jotted the sequence of numbers and letters on the back of my hand.
My ribs were heaving. I thumbed Bill on my speed dial.
“What? I’m on my way into a meeting. We can’t keep meeting like this, Ten.”
“… run a plate … me?” I gasped.
“Slow down,” he said. “As a guy I know likes to say: breathe.”
I steadied my breath and tried again. “I really need you to run a plate for me. A van. Commercial, I think.”
“Ah,” he said. “Sorry, but no. I’m too busy massaging crime statistics.” Bill spent most of his time now attending meetings, pressing the flesh, and managing data. His newer, safer job came with a daily dose of mind-numbing, energy-draining bureaucracy. “Use that fancy service you subscribe to.”
“I’m on my bike. And there’s no time. Please?”
“The magic word,” he said. “Fine. I’ll get to it after the powwow.”
I guess he must have heard my loud silence, because he said, “Okay, okay. Jesus. What’s the number?”
I read it off the back of my hand.
“Let me switch to my other line to make a call. Gimme thirty seconds.”
I counted through five impatient breath cycles.
Finally, Bill was back. “It’s commercial, part of a permanent fleet.”
“Who’s it registered to?”
“Some business called GTG Services, Incorporated. Their headquarters is downtown. That’s all I know.”
“Thanks,” I said. I meant it. I was sure that the black van was either the same vehicle or the identical twin of the one I’d passed on Mac Gannon’s private road, on my way to meet with Bets McMurtry. I finally had a lead of sorts, though where it led to I had no idea.
“I owe you a beer,” I added.
“Yes, you do. And if I don’t get to my meeting, you’ll owe me a job.”
CHAPTER 10
I pedaled home in record time, my normally sluggish uphill pace fueled by the information from Bill. I had a name, and in a moment I would have an address. I’d put in a second call from the Zuma lot, this one to Mike. My personal data-jockey was on the hunt as I powered up Topanga Canyon Boulevard.
For the second time today, I blasted my skin with cold water. Before my cropped hair was even dry, Mike called back.
“Okay, boss. Here’s what I got. GTG Services, Incorporated, is like one of those freshwater polyps—you know, a hydra: one head, a shitload of tentacles. Not just here, either. These suckers—pun intended—reach statewide and into a few other states as well.”
“But the headquarters are downtown, right?”
“Right. I can see the building from my living-room window.” Mike and his live-in girlfriend occupied a spacious loft downtown, filled with DJ and electronic equipment and little else. “You know that tall, skinny rectangle on Wilshire?”
“With all the black glass?”
“That’s the one. The Aon. Sixty-two floors, but the lobby counts as two. Somewhere on the sixty-first, or penthouse floor, is GTG, the hydra’s nerve center, you might say.”
“So they own the van?”
“Vans, plural. Over a hundred statewide, maybe twenty-five of them here in L.A.”
“What business are they in?”
“You’re not listening. Businesses, plural. As in, what service business aren’t they in? It’s all GTG, but they switch up the slogan depending on the service rendered. Here’s the shortlist: ‘GTG Services: We Bring Healthy to You.’ That one’s medical supplies. ‘GTG Services: We Bring Safe to You’—barbed wire, chain link fences, et cetera. That little offshoot took off post-nine-eleven and lately has expanded to all the states that border Mexico. Wonder why. Let’s see, what else? ‘GTG Services: We Bring Clean to You.’ Some kind of very high-end maid service. And then …”
“Stop,” I said, crossing to my computer desk, phone to my ear. “That’s the one. Can you follow that tentacle?”
I heard mad tapping on the other end of the line. Mike started humming off-key, under his breath, which was a very good sign. “Interesting,” he said. “Their office is based in the cracked-out broken heart of East L.A.”
“Gangland?”
“Exactamundo.”
“Got an address?”
“Does one hand clapping in a forest make noise?” Sometimes I think Mike’s mind is solely populated by Zen meta-masters spouting confused koans.
Mike gave me an address in Boyle Heights, not that far from Los Gatos Cantina of ceviche fame.
“So, boss,” he said, “got any idea who’s behind this thing?”
I admitted I didn’t.
“Okay, well, let me know when you do. I’ve accessed their business slogans and addresses galore, but the actual identities of G, T, and G are in data lockdown. You know how I much I fucking hate firewalls. Ciao.” The last thing I heard before he hung up was the peel of a pop-top, probably belonging to Mike’s sixth Red Bull of the day.
I stared at the two addresses in front of me. Unless I could do a fast clone of myself, I was faced with a hard choice: Do I post watch at the head of the hydra? Or do I start my surveillance by tracking down the tentacle that recently crawled into view? I flipped and flopped until a brilliant third possibility came to me: I could eat something and then decide.
I was inhaling my latest invention, “Greek” pizza—warm pita layered with black olive spread, creamy hummus, and tart tzatziki, topped with a heap of chopped and olive oil–drizzled tomatoes, feta, cucumbers, and avocado—when my business line rang. I glanced at the caller ID, instantly suspicious. I had just deleted seven more useless, annoying requests from the message center. I smiled. This caller was from my past, and someone I was happy to reconnect with.
“Ten, my man! I just heard your story on the radio. Almost crashed my car. You’re more gangsta than Diddy!”
“Hi, Clancy.”
“Too bad I quit being a pap—I’d be all over your Tibetan ass right now.”
We shared a laugh. I pictured his wide smile and coffee-colored skin, topped with a crown of black dreadlocks.
“How’s the private eye business?” I asked. “You official yet?” Clancy had helped enormously with the Marv Rudolph case last year, multitasking as both paparazzo and amateur investigator. In return, I’d finagled a way for him to get that elusive freelance photographer’s prize known as the “money shot”—an exclusive, preferably forbidden snapshot of a major celebrity doing something unusual. Gossip sites hand over tens of thousands of dollars for a money shot, and paparazzi live to take one. Clancy had used the windfall from his photograph of megastar Keith Connor embracing a mystery woman—Heather, long story—to pay off his student loans, get ahead on his mortgage, and quit a job he’d come to loathe. The last I’d heard Clancy was in the process of getting a P.I. license for himself. It turns out the skill sets necessary for both paparazzi and private eyes are startlingly similar.
“Nah. Still interning,” Clancy said. “I’m on’y fifteen hundred hours into my three thousand. You got off easy, bein’ a cop and all.”
“Yeah, well, now you know why so many ex-cops are private investigators. If police hours didn’t count and we had to clock three thousand working under someone else, we’d never make it.”
“Right. Well, I’m gettin’ there, little by little. Some dude in Glendora’s my supervisor. I musta sent out fifty résumés; he’s the only P.I. called me in. All he did—looked me over, walked outside to my ride and looked it over, then handed me a list of hardware I needed: digital camera, laptop, like that. All of it I already
had, except puttin’ the tint on my windows. He had me doin’ surveillance on some dude with a bogus liability claim the next day.”
“Wow. Good for you.”
“Pay’s for shit, but it’s steady. Or was. Things are slow right now in the slip-and-fall world, don’t ask me why. How about you? Did you really off those two guys?”
“I’m afraid so,” I said.
“What was that like?”
“I don’t recommend it.” My voice was clipped.
“I feel you,” Clancy said, after a short silence. “Well, I just wanted to say ‘hey.’ See how you were. Let’s keep in touch, a’ right?”
“You got it,” I said.
I hung up. A minute later, the lightbulb went on, and I was speed-dialing Clancy back. I didn’t need to look any farther; the solution to my surveillance dilemma had actually just found me: Clancy Williams, recovering paparazzo and P.I.-in-training.
“Yo.”
“Me again,” I said. “I might have a job for you, Clancy. Surveillance.”
“For real? When?”
“Now, actually.” I checked the time. “Can you meet me downtown in an hour? I could really use your help.”
“I’m there.”
I gave him the Boyle Heights address. “Park two blocks south, on East Cummings Street.”
“I’m there,” he said again. “Look for a sweet gangsta ride with tinted windows … Oh, wait: Boyle Heights. Never mind. I’ll look for you.”
Using my computer, I printed out a business label, attached it to a manila envelope, stuffed it with three empty sheets of paper, and sealed it. Then I crossed to the bedroom and grabbed several $100 bills from the envelope of cash locked in my closet safe, along with my gun, binoculars, Dodgers cap, and new camera—a Canon EOS 1-D Mark IV, identical to Clancy’s. Before I left, I made two more calls. The first was to Mac’s cell. I finally had something to report. I got his voice mail again. Maybe he’d caught the news and was avoiding me. I didn’t leave a message. The second was to Heather. She picked up immediately.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hay is for horses,” she answered, her voice teasing.
“I can’t talk,” I said. “But I forgot to say something before. I don’t think you should come over here right now.”
“Okaaay …” Her tone had cooled noticeably.
“No, not that,” I said. “I just … I don’t think it’s safe yet, that’s all.”
“Is this even open for discussion?”
“Heather …”
“Oh, great: now you’re Heather-ing me.”
That tone had crept into Heather’s voice, a sour, dull tone I interpreted as “I’m unhappy and it’s your fault. You’re not meeting my expectations.” It usually led to information I didn’t want, like a wet newspaper landing with a thud on my doorstep.
Heather’s sigh matched my own.
“I just … I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she said. “Call me to tell me you can’t talk.”
The irritation crept from my shoulders to my jaws. I tamped it down. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought it was important.”
She plowed ahead. “Maybe if I knew we were solid it wouldn’t bother me so much.”
Her logic seemed shaky. I smiled, remembering a conversation I’d had with Julie once, when I was upset at her for doing something without including me. “Ten,” she’d explained, “handing out claim checks on your well-being to other people is just … is never a good idea. If you think it’s my job to make you feel okay, you’re not only avoiding responsibility but you’re giving all your emotional authority to me. Eventually, you’ll resent me for that, guaranteed.” Wise woman, that Julie, but somehow I didn’t think Heather would appreciate my ex-girlfriend’s insight.
I said, “I disagree, but now’s not the time.”
Heather made a sound like the low speed on a dental drill. “There you go again.”
“What?”
“And now that … that other infuriating thing: pretending not to know what I’m talking about.”
I started to emit a small peep of defense but didn’t have the heart to push it into the air. Any conversation that leaned toward the personal was becoming impossibly complex between us. And if Julie was right, we shared equal responsibility.
Heather’s voice was small. “Maybe it’s good I can’t come over,” she said. “Maybe we should take a little time off, you know, apart from each other. Get to know ourselves again, maybe explore other options …” She trailed off, but I knew what she was doing. The daisy Post-it was proof she had already started down that road, and now she wanted my permission. The nerve she touched was shockingly raw.
In my early training as a monk, the principle of ma chags pa, nonattachment, was drilled into me constantly until it was part of every breath I took. In spite of all that training, I’d experienced the polar opposite of nonattachment with girlfriends. Especially Heather. I clung to her at times like a parasite. I’d never been with such a physically exquisite woman, and I still wondered at her beauty. But nobody mentioned that the experience came with a price tag. My gut clutched whenever another man gave her a second look or talked to her, innocently or not, and such incidents happened all the time.
As I started a downward slide into a sinkhole of past jealousies and futile arguments, Lama Sonam’s calm face came to my rescue. “Clinging doesn’t lead to suffering, Lama Tenzing,” he told me. “Clinging is suffering.” I used a deep breath to help propel me up to firm ground.
“Let’s not decide anything right now, Heather. We’re not at our best.”
“Okay,” Heather said. “Okay. You’re right. Sorry.”
As I hung up, it occurred to me that I might actually be the more emotionally mature partner in this relationship. Now, there was a terrifying thought.
I took another long breath, inhaling deep into my belly. En route, I passed a cluster of emotions. Sadness, for sure, and a queasy sensation of fear. But underneath the fear I tuned in to a slight bubble of elation. What if I was a free man again—not now, but soon? A certain female reporter’s face floated up, unannounced and uninvited …
I activated my Guard-on before leaving. I had to smile: You’ll be a free man, all right. A free man who lives inside an electronic fence.
Within the hour my Toyota was parked behind Clancy’s Impala. Clancy climbed out and stretched, unfolding like a ruler. He had shorter hair and more muscles than the last time we’d met. He looked great. I made a mental note to start lifting weights again. I joined him on the sidewalk, and we did an awkward man-hug consisting of shoulder clapping and hip avoiding, before stepping back and grinning at each other.
“Good to see you, man,” Clancy said.
“And you.”
We got right down to business. I had just done a quick drive-by of the address and was able to tell him about his target.
“It’s a one-story storefront,” I said. “Some kind of housekeeping service. Their logo is on the window, with the slogan ‘We Bring Clean to You.’ But I’m primarily interested in the lot behind the building. It’s full of maybe a dozen of their vans, and I’m hoping there’s one van in particular with this plate.” I gave him the license number and described the two heavyset men I’d seen at the beach. “You bring your telephoto?”
Clancy nodded.
“Good. I want you to try to locate that van, without being too obvious. If it’s not there, call me. If it’s there, call me and start watching it. If you see two huge cholos approaching that or any other van, call me. If they or anyone else visits the van, if the van so much as changes parking places, you call me. If it hits the road, you follow it, and you call me. I want to know everything, okay?”
“Dude, you lookin’ at the king of surveillance. I plan on rackin’ me up some serious extra hours. I even brought an empty super-size cup, ’case I need to take a piss.”
“Okay, that I didn’t need to know.”
We shared another laugh. My smile faded.
; “Clancy, be really, really careful, all right? These are not good guys.”
Clancy nodded. “I figured.” His eyes narrowed. “How ’bout you? You doin’ okay?”
“I’m fine. Why?”
“I dunno. You seem a little skeeved out to me. Like, not as mellow as I remembered.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it again. I shrugged. “Long week,” I said.
I left Clancy getting all his gear in order before he set up shop down the block from the GTG lot.
In 20 minutes, I was circling the slender, stealthy black skyscraper known as the Aon. My first order of business was to determine how to get in and how to get out. According to their website, the underground in-house parking facility was open to visitors. But it wasn’t that big, and I suspected it was already full. I quickly discovered the entrance to a second underground lot, for valet parking and residents with monthly passes, located just around the corner. I drove down the ramp to the valet area. An attendant ambled to my window.
“Help you?”
“I’m a messenger. Can I get to the Aon easily from here?”
He nodded. “Tunnel’s that way,” he said, motioning with his chin.
“I’ll only be here a few minutes,” I added.
He gave me and my beat-up car a chilly once-over, but his eyes widened at the sight of a folded $20 in my hand.
“I’m really backed up. Time is money,” I added.
He pocketed the $20. “Over there,” he said, pointing to a space right next to the cashier’s window and very close to the exit ramp back to the street.
I grabbed the labeled and sealed manila envelope from the back seat, jammed the Dodgers cap low over my face, and ran through the underground pedestrian walkway connecting the lot with the skyscraper. Three decades ago a fatal fire had broken out in the Aon building, and firefighters had used this tunnel to evacuate panicking occupants. Thanks to that tragedy, every office building, old or new, is now required to have an installed and functioning sprinkler system. I wondered what other history these reinforced walls contained.
I found the elevator leading up to the main lobby and pressed the button. Checking my phone, I saw that Clancy had left me a message while I was traversing the underground tunnel.
The Third Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery Page 12