I made a beeline up the elevator and out the door to the sixth-floor duty station. A couple of nurses had their heads together, chatting, their voices low. I quick-scanned the in-patient message board and soon spotted a “Ms. Jane Smith” in room 617. Nothing, if not original, these people. There was a Sally Williams in the room next to hers.
One of the nurses said, “May I help you?”
I shifted the flowers. “Just checking in on Sally,” I said. “Sally Williams. Room 618, right?” She glanced at the board, and nodded, smiling at me. “That way,” she said, pointing at a hallway to her left.
An armed security guard, his hair gone to gray, his belly putting pressure on his shirt buttons, was slouched in a folding metal chair outside a door halfway down the hall. His nose was buried in a Guns & Ammo magazine.
Bingo.
As I drew closer he reluctantly tore his gaze from the centerfold, which featured the latest in sexy munitions. He narrowed his eyes with as much gravitas as a minimum wage rent-a-cop can muster. As gatekeepers go, he was a piker compared to the receptionist downstairs.
The patient’s door was open. White curtains bunched across a metal frame, blocking any view into the room.
“Hello,” I said. “I’m here to see the assemblywoman.”
A crease deepened between his eyebrows. “First I hearda this. She expecting you?”
I waved the box of Godiva chocolates before him. I’ve found that sometimes no answer is the best answer. Let him fill in the blanks, work out what I meant by the gesture.
His imagination appeared to be stalled, or at best struggling. I guess I had to spell it out.
“Errand of mercy,” I said. “Chocoholic.”
As he wrestled with this piece of intel, a raucous voice rang like a bell from inside. “Who’s talking? Who the hell’s out there?”
I interpreted that as an invitation. I parted the curtains and stuck my head inside. Bets was propped up in bed with a glossy magazine on her lap, the subject matter, in this case, high fashion; the ammo, clothes and cosmetics. She was dangling her left hand like royalty before a tiny Vietnamese woman, who was sitting on a folding metal chair and applying bright orange polish to Bets’s long nails.
Bets snatched her hand back and pushed herself upright. “Tell me you found her. Tell me you found Clara.”
I shook my head.
“Well, shit,” she said. She flopped back onto her pillow. “Shit on a fucking stick. Now what?”
I shot a meaningful look at the manicurist.
“She’s okay,” Bets said. “Doesn’t speak a lick of English. None of them do.”
I winced, but the manicurist didn’t appear to react. I set the flowers on a side table and moved to the foot of the bed. Up close, I could make out dark circles, like smudged coal dust, under Bets’s eyes, and the unsuccessful attempt to erase them with makeup. And her eyes? Her eyes looked more catlike than ever, with their slightly yellowish tinge. And yet, she exuded charisma.
From my years of observation, both as a cop and as a student of humanity, there seem to be four basic facial types—bird, horse, pig, and fox. Bets was mostly fox. She’d gotten herself a world-class haircut and a brand new color of hair since the last time I saw her: the streaky-blonde cap, short and shiny, was as vivacious as she was. Although her politics repelled me, her animal energy was strangely forceful. A memory from my teenage years flashed through my mind, a fleeting image of the sexy mother of one of the novice monks. I reached for his name. Lama Chodak? No, Choden, that was it. His mother lived in Lower Dharamshala, the lonely wife of a carpet merchant who was away a lot on business. My father had ordered me to accompany the young monk to his mother’s house one afternoon, shortly after he took his initial vows, probably to make sure he didn’t break any. Lama Choden wasn’t the one my father should have worried about.
Choden’s mother greeted us at the door wrapped in a gauzy Indian sari that outlined her curves in all sorts of interesting ways, especially to an 18-year-old. While her son chattered away over cups of tea, she studied my mouth, my shoulders, my hands as I lifted my cup, as if simultaneously appraising and devouring every motion I made. I found the encounter highly confusing, and for weeks afterward that look in her eyes invaded every meditation. Bets McMurtry had the same Sexy Mother energy, and I was sure it had won her more than a few votes.
I handed her the chocolates.
She glanced at the box. “Sweet,” she said. “But not why you’re here. So why are you? Take a load off, why don’t you?”
The manicurist immediately moved from her chair and retreated to the other side of the room, her eyes lowered.
Bets didn’t make the connection, but I smiled my thanks to the woman, making a mental note never to assume people don’t understand a language they don’t speak.
“I’ve hit a wall,” I said, sitting. “I need some answers from you.”
Bets nodded. “Go for it.”
I did, a full-frontal assault. Time was awasting. “Bets, why and how are you involved with Chaco Morales? What’s the connection?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Chaco who?”
“Morales. The drug lord. Mexican cartel.” As if she didn’t know.
Her face purpled with rage. “What the fuck are you talking about? Who sent you here? Are you wired? Goddamn Democratic pricks. I should have known. Goodhue told me you weren’t to be trusted. You get the fuck out of here! Now!” She swept her arm, knocking over the manicurist’s rolling tray of implements. Little glass bottles of maroon and blue and peach polish clattered onto the floor. One of them exploded, and red liquid dotted the floor and wall like blood spatter. With a small cry, the Vietnamese woman dropped to her knees and started trying to mop the stains with some cotton balls.
I jumped to my feet as the security guard burst in, hand at his gun.
“Everything okay?” he said.
“How dare you,” Bets spat at me. “You’re fired, do you hear me?” She turned to the guard. “Get him out of here!” she ordered.
“I’m leaving, I’m leaving,” I said as I tried to squeeze past the guard, his bulk blocking the doorway. He grabbed me by the shoulders.
“Hey! I said I’m leaving!”
I was face-to-face with a large expanse of overfed solar plexus and sorely tempted to drive my fist straight into it. For once, I practiced restraint, instead executing a police academy-style twist-and-drop to slip free of his grip. I brisk-walked past the stares of the nurses at the duty station. The guard didn’t follow. Bets must have come to her senses and called him off. I got out before one of us made things much, much worse.
Driving home, still trying to breathe through the anger, I received a text from Mac Gannon. YOU’RE OFF THE CASE, it said. KEEP THE CHANGE.
In a way, I felt relieved. If I really was just working for myself now, I didn’t have to be so cagey with everyone. I hadn’t signed any nondisclosure agreements, right?
I called Bill at work.
“I think I may have stumbled onto a connection between the politician Bets McMurtry and Chaco Morales,” I said.
“Jesus Christ, Ten, what’s next?” he said. “Did you figure out where Hoffa’s buried, too?”
“Bill, I’m serious. I met with Chaco last night. He’s changed his appearance, but it’s him. He’s still alive.”
“Oh really? Then why are you?” He sighed. “Do you have any proof?”
“I don’t,” I said.
“I suspected as much. FYI, I sent a few of our drug and gang guys down to San Diego to meet a few of their drug and gang guys, to check out that warehouse. And guess what they found?”
I didn’t have to guess. I knew. “Nothing.”
“Nada. Zip-all, my friend. Oh, except for two thousand gallons of organic cleaning solution. All of which have now been tested and therefore contaminated, which means a hefty reimbursement is forthcoming from my department’s already over-stretched budget. Which makes me look like a newly promoted D-Three asshole.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Yeah, well, what are you gonna do?” Bill sighed again. I pictured him rubbing the bridge of his nose. “The hell of it is, I believe you, Ten. But listen: from now on, I need absolute, irrefutable proof before I lift another finger. And I’m not talking about a few baggies of untraceable prescription pills and medical marijuana from a missing woman’s backpack.”
“I understand.”
“And Ten, you know how you get these vibes about things?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m getting a real strong vibe that you should leave this noodle alone.”
One of Bill’s earliest pieces of advice to his overzealous rookie partner came while we were eating rice noodles at Sanam Luang Cafe, a Thai place in North Hollywood. Our case at the time, a hit-and-run vehicular homicide, wasn’t going anywhere. Bill was ready to call it quits for the day and head home to relieve his exhausted wife of babysitting duty. I was lobbying hard to keep knocking on doors.
Bill had pushed his empty plate to one side, while I tried, unsuccessfully, to fork up my three remaining rice noodles. I’d already swished a final mushroom through the last of the spicy black soy sauce and popped it in my mouth.
Bill pointed the tip of his fork at my plate.
“Some cases? They’re slippery.” He nudged at one noodle. “Frustrating, you know, like pushing a noodle around, trying to pick it up. No matter how many different ways you try, you can’t get ahold of it.” He illustrated, and I watched, fascinated, as the noodle kept slithering away. “See?”
“So, what’s the secret?” I remember asking him. “What do you do?”
He shook his head. “There aren’t any secrets. You just keep pushing the noodle around the plate until something happens. Sometimes you break a case with actual detective work. You uncover a clue—some new piece of forensics, say—or you catch a weasel in a lie. Sometimes, it’s more like dumb luck.”
“Luck, huh?” They didn’t talk too much about “dumb luck” at the Police Academy.
He’d shrugged. “Maybe luck’s the wrong word. More like a reward for not giving up. You know, like that old saying, Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then.”
“So that’s your advice? Just keep pushing the noodle around until you get hold of it?”
“Or don’t. Sometimes cases just never break.”
I had trouble with that last part. My face must have given me away.
“You know those crime statistics they pass around every month back at the shop?” Bill smiled. “The last one I saw? Guess what? Even the FBI, with all their resources, only closed sixty-five percent of their homicides.”
“So what’s your point?”
“My point is, sometimes you just gotta walk away. Say to yourself, That’s one mysterious noodle there, and I’m just gonna leave it that way.”
I remember setting my own fork aside and using my finger and thumb to pincer up the noodle and place it in my mouth.
“And sometimes,” I said, chewing, “you make your own luck.”
Clancy was the next guy to bail on me, for an entirely different reason.
“Bets McMurtry? Man, you didn’t tell me she was part of this deal. My other boss is nutso about her and not in a good way. He catches wind I’m involved, he’ll take away all my intern hours. He already did that to this other dude. They got into a shouting match over McMurtry’s speech dissing Obamacare. Next thing you know, he shows the guy the door, takes away his hours, and now the poor bastard’s back to square one. I want to help, Ten, and I can’t stand that bitch, you know I can’t. But we’re talking about me risking losing two thousand hours …”
“I understand.”
“I wish you woulda told me earlier, man.”
“I’m sorry.”
Finally, I called Heather and recounted my run-in with Bets at County-USC, just in case it came up.
“What the hell were you thinking?” she said. “Do you know how much trouble I could be in?” Then she said, “Wait, are you telling me you were working for her? For Bets frigging McMurtry? And you didn’t let me know?” I could practically hear her teeth gnashing.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I’m never ever talking to you about work stuff again.”
“I understand.”
I didn’t bother calling Mike (asleep), or Cielo (trouble). I trudged into my house exhausted and embarrassed, my shoulders bowed under the weight of all my missteps and apologies. Tank met me at the door.
“Looks like it’s just you and me, Tank,” I said. I spooned a can of food into his bowl. Then I sent myself to bed without supper.
CHAPTER 18
But the next day found me hunkered down in the Shelby with my binoculars, my camera, and a large cup, listening on the radio to a KNX 1070 news report on none other than Tea Party darling Bets McMurtry. According to the newscaster, the assemblywoman had checked into the hospital overnight for some routine tests but was absolutely fine and back on the fund-raising trail for her causes. I could confirm that information, because at that very moment I was looking through my binoculars at the candidate herself. She and Goodhue had stepped out of the J.W. Marriot downtown, where KNX told me Bets had just delivered a rousing speech to a herd of hedge-fund managers.
I’m sure they loved her.
Bets, her larger-than-life, red-rimmed sunglasses shielding her face, climbed into the front passenger seat of Mark Goodhue’s Mercedes, which I had followed from the Aon two hours earlier. I’d been parked downtown since 7 A.M. What can I say? I had woken up with lots of free time on my hands and a gigantic flea bite to scratch.
Goodhue was the only route left to the flea.
I didn’t have Bill. I didn’t have Clancy. I didn’t even have Heather, not really. But I did have my intuition, my determination, misguided though it might be, and $93,000 dollars left in the fund willed to me by Julius Rosen, who represented the real beginning of the Chaco Morales tale. I hoped it was enough.
The Mercedes swerved out of the hotel parking lot. I could see the two occupants having what looked like a heated conversation in the front seat. Good. As long as they were fighting, they wouldn’t pay any attention to me and my yellow Mustang, trailing a few cars behind them. As soon as we merged onto the 105, I knew. Bets was about to become airborne again. This time, I was determined to follow her all the way to her destination.
I ignored the heart palpitations, letting me know I hadn’t addressed my recently acquired fear of flying in toy planes or any other small aircraft.
I skirted around the cavernous pothole, now marked by traffic cones. It was even deeper, if that was possible. Two blocks on, the Hawthorne airport looked as innocuous and unobtrusive as the last time I paid it a visit. The diner was quiet, the parking lot virtually empty. I circled the block and reclaimed my previous surveillance post, keeping watch as Goodhue continued past the entrance. Now what? He drove along the fenced perimeter, continuing past three large helicopters lined up in a row, and pulled into the private parking area of a small building next to the control tower. Goodhue helped Bets out of the car, and both disappeared through the door.
I started my car and circled the large block surrounding the airport. I lucked out. There was a commuter parking area directly across from the tower. I claimed a good space, facing the airport. I zoomed in on the building across the road from me and found the name of the business, etched in glass on the front door.
Oh, no. No, no, no.
The sign on the door said:
PREMIER CHARTERS
HELICOPTER CHARTER SOLUTIONS SINCE 1989
I sat for a few minutes, hoping I was mistaken. Watched as McMurtry and Goodhue stepped out the backdoor of the building and slowly crossed the tarmac toward the metallic flying impossibility awaiting them. Goodhue and another man—the pilot, I assumed—helped Bets into the creature’s stomach.
You don’t have to do this, Tenzing.
The last time I was this close to a helicopte
r, there was a crazed man inside, aiming a gun at my head. Which felt safer than the last and only time I was inside one. We had just landed, if you could call it that. I was in pursuit of the same crazed man when the giant iron insect dangled precariously off one side of a precipice, holding on by one thin strut. I bailed out immediately. Since then, my healthy discomfort about flying in anything dependent on rotary blades had deepened into what I considered a completely rational terror.
I aimed my binoculars at the chopper. The body was cream-colored, the dark blue undercarriage striped in white, turquoise, yellow, and red. With its twin engines and dual rotors—large blades overhead, small ones at the tail—the machinery seemed sturdy enough, but my innards weren’t fooled.
“Fear,” I announced out loud. No doubt about it this time, Lama Yeshe. My belly is one big ball of fear.
The front and back rotors whirred to life, quickly accelerating into a blur of blades. The helicopter rose, hovered for a few moments like a hummingbird, and then angled up, up, and away. I pulled on my windbreaker and packed my weapon of choice—the final wad of bills from my Julius Rosen Memorial Petty Cash Stash. Chaco’s three-step route to the top echoed in my brain: bribes, bribes, and bribes. Like a martial arts master, I would now turn Chaco’s best offensive move against him.
I crossed the road after checking both sides for oncoming traffic, though getting hit by a car might be preferable to what lay ahead. I entered the office of Premier Charters. The décor was ‘coptor-centric, with several framed aerial photographs of Los Angeles on the walls and a small tin helicopter dangling from the ceiling like a toy bug. I counted two small offices to the left and a fridge and coffee maker to the right. A hidden speaker blared an old Doors song, “Riders on the Storm,” which I recognized because Valerie, my mother, played it incessantly when I was a child.
Maybe I’d get lucky. Maybe Premier Charters owned only one of the choppers outside. I approached the counter, where a young, bouncy blonde, her hair streaked with purple, peered at a computer screen as her jaws worked a wad of gum.
The Third Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery Page 23