by Gil Reavill
“You’re too tough to die, Dad,” Remington responded, and rang off.
Snagging a usable print from Angle the chimp turned out to be fairly easily done. “I brought a mango juice for him—is that okay?” she asked Mace Arthur, as the two of them entered the dome. The ape lolled in the overhead netting, tossing a handful of feathers into the air. Angle hooted when he saw Remington.
“That’s his hello,” Arthur said. He told her that Angle loved mango, and the creature did in fact suck the twelve-ounce juice down in one greedy gulp. Remington retrieved the can from him after a brief struggle. She slipped it back into her backpack without Arthur’s noticing, busy as he was tidying up the chimp’s home.
“You’re going to be hearing something about the Odalon staffers,” Remington said. “I need to know where you were last evening.”
“I was here,” Arthur said.
“All night?”
“All night, yeah.”
“People see you?”
“Well, yeah. Every Thursday night there’s contra dancing around here. Young barefoot hippies and old people, lots of fiddle and banjo. So a good two dozen of those folks saw me, clogged with me, witnessed me make a dancing fool of myself.”
“Are some of those witnesses here? Could you point them out so I can speak to them?”
Arthur paused and gave her a long look. “What is this? Are you trying to say I need an alibi for some reason? Should I be calling Harry?”
“How about Angle?”
“Angle? Yeah, Angle, too, of course, he was here. With me. He’s not about to go anywhere else, is he? Look at him.”
Remington did. She had been. It was difficult for her to connect the lolling, infantlike chimpanzee with the slaughterhouse school van she had encountered earlier in the afternoon. The sweet little ape would have to be some sort of Care Bear killer. But looks could be deceiving. Ted Bundy was a handsome, smiling, personable chap, and appeared in that guise right up to the point when he bludgeoned his victims to death.
Angle Bundy. It didn’t sound likely, but then again, the case was loopy enough for almost anything.
“What’s tonight?” she asked Arthur.
“What?”
“Thursday is contra dancing at the old commune. What’s tonight?”
“Um, tonight is pizza night,” Arthur said, still looking as if he was a little freaked out about the trend of Remington’s questioning.
“Dancing, pizza—what else?”
“Uh, we usually have music, a band set up over in the mansion, something like that.”
“Just hopping from one lily pad of pleasure to the next. That’s what life is like up here at the People’s Republic of Harmony, is that it?”
“That’s how it is, baby,” Arthur said with a laugh. “Maybe you should look into moving in up here. You have a lot of lily-pad-hopping in your life, Detective?”
She left Mace Arthur and Angle Bundy in the Graham estate dome without informing either one of them that they were suspects in a homicide.
On the drive home to Los Feliz, Remington had to admit to herself that aspects of the Odalon case bothered her. It was too neat, the time element too compressed for her to fully believe her own theory of the crime. She thought of loose ends: the visiting “buyer” that Ian Terry had mentioned, and the part-time workers at the sanctuary—what was the other African immigrant’s name, the Thomas guy? Plus, she wanted to know more about Hollywood Animal Rescue, the nonprofit that operated Odalon.
In criminalistics, the simplest explanation often wasn’t the one that turned out to be true. Things didn’t go down the way they did in the movies. Real-life human interaction was messy, complicated, liable to spin off unforeseen repercussions.
“Take it one step at a time,” her father had told her, once she had sketched the outlines of the case to him. “For Pete’s sake, don’t get ahead of yourself on this one. It sounds like a great big can of worms.”
All right, Layla thought. One step at a time. Next up was the little can of worms she had concealed in a plastic bag inside her backpack. She’d be willing to bet her dad a six-pack of imported that it would be the first time CAU was ever asked to match a chimp fingerprint.
12
Pia Liebstein’s law office in the Century City complex was just about what Remington expected, a statement of wealth, power, and prestige expressed in mahogany paneling and deep-pile carpets. It wasn’t strictly Liebstein’s office, but that of the firm in which she was a junior partner, Buffum, Buffum, Oatman & Stanfill. BBOS had three floors in the soaring Century Plaza One tower. Liebstein’s office was located on the middle of the three, which suggested to Remington her middling position in the firm’s power structure.
Remington gave her name to the receptionist, who sat at a stylishly minimal glass-and-steel desk. The receptionist herself was anything but minimal. Come to Los Angeles to break into the movies, wind up as corporate window dressing. Former governor Schwarzenegger, now returned to making films—Remington could see the Fox Studios lot down below, out the window of the skyscraper—once said the reason he liked Thanksgiving was that turkeys were the only place you encountered natural breasts anymore.
A carbon copy of the receptionist emerged from the inner offices with a stricken expression on her face. “Detective Remington?”
“Yes?”
“I’m terribly sorry,” the woman said. “I’m Ms. Liebstein’s personal secretary.”
If she was sorry that she was a secretary, Remington thought, she should get herself another job.
“Ms. Liebstein has been called out to a conference and won’t be able to see you this morning.” Somehow the woman managed to look both sorrowful and pleased to be the bearer of this news.
At the same moment, a gaggle of a half-dozen attorneys and their underlings emerged from a different door and headed for a bank of elevators. From her Web search of the lawyer before she came, Remington recognized Liebstein among them.
“Pia Liebstein,” she called out, and the woman turned, gave an uncertain wave, and stepped into the elevator.
Her secretary moved to block Remington from following. “As I said, I’m sorry. She’s really not available.”
“Maybe I can convince her otherwise,” Remington said, going around the secretary and heading out of the office.
The staff elevator might have been faster than the one reserved for guests, since by the time Remington got down to the garage level Liebstein’s driver was already pulling a Lexus out of the parking space reserved for her. The detective stepped in front of the luxury sedan. The driver powered down his window. Remington took out her badge wallet and held it up. Then Liebstein lowered her own back window.
“I’m sorry, but I thought Ginny told you,” she called out. “I’m afraid I’ve been summoned away.” She sounded as though the Almighty had commanded her presence elsewhere.
“Well, I’m sorry,” Remington said. “You know this has just been kicked up into a homicide investigation.”
“Perhaps I can take it up with your boss—” Liebstein began.
“Perhaps you can,” Remington agreed, cutting her off. “But right now you’re going to talk to me.”
A beat passed as Liebstein considered her options. “Can you come downtown with us? Lenny will drive you back after.”
Remington walked around the big sedan, opened the back door opposite the lawyer, and slid in. The air inside was temperature-controlled and perfumed with the attorney’s scent, something expensive.
“Do you mind if I work as we talk?” Liebstein asked. “Lenny, this is Detective Remmings.”
“Hello, Detective,” the driver called back.
“Layla Remington.”
“I’m sorry—Remington, rather,” Liebstein said, making an ostentatious display of flopping open an enormous leather-bound three-ring binder.
“I’d like you to tell me the story—” Remington began, but Liebstein held up a finger, paged through her papers, located her place, and took
out a pen. She began to make notes on a page of briefs. She glanced up at the detective.
“It’s okay, really—I can do two things at once. It’s a right brain, left brain sort of thing.”
Remington reached over and shut the binder. Liebstein glared at her.
“This is a murder case,” Remington said quietly. Have some respect.
Liebstein made as though she was about to argue—lawyers were always ready to argue—but then an expression crossed her face as if she thought better of it.
“Yes,” she finally said, setting her work aside. “Yes, of course. Terrible news about this Ian Terry fellow. I learned about it from a news feed we get at the office. I never met the man, and no one is really sure that his death has any connection with his work at the sanctuary, unless you’ve turned up some facts that aren’t yet released to the public. You’re in the Malibu satellite office of the county D.A., is that right? A detective investigator? Is there an ADA out there now?”
“Rick Stills,” Remington said.
“My, my, really? I thought for sure we’d be seeing him on television for the Ro-Co-Co prosecution. Rick’s such a handsome devil. You know, I’ve always suspected that the teams on the big cases get picked by how telegenic they are.”
“And here I thought justice was blind,” Remington said.
Liebstein laughed. “Such a quaint idea. Back when I was litigating”—she said it as though she were saying “Back when I was sweeping floors”—“first thing, before I would do research on the laws and the charges involved, I’d do due diligence on the people, the judge especially, and the prosecution, the defense. When you get right down to it, the law is people.”
“Some of them dead people,” Remington said. “What I need to know is how a group of chimpanzees wound up in the foothills above Malibu.”
“Yes, Hollywood Animal Rescue,” Liebstein said. “Do you want anything? I’ve got Fiji water, something with bubbles, too, and I think there may be a Coke somewhere.”
“I’m good,” Remington said.
“All right,” Liebstein said. “Then I have another question. Have you ever heard the name Norman Dorian?”
“A movie guy, I think, older, back in the fifties, maybe?”
“Very good,” Liebstein said. “He was one of the greats, and he is so much forgotten today that it’s tragic.”
“TCM did a night of his movies once,” Remington said.
“Then you may have seen Sunday in the Jungle.”
“I might have fallen asleep for that one.”
“That movie changed Norm’s life,” Liebstein said. “Nineteen sixty-two, didn’t do much box office, had some success much later on DVD.”
Lenny merged onto the Santa Monica Freeway at Overland, but the traffic looked slow. Remington saw her morning evaporate. Pia Liebstein was going to have time on the drive for her story, plus whatever other work she had in the binder. The attorney picked up her tale.
“Norm was on set a lot for the production of Sunday in the Jungle. There was an animal trainer named Leah Larsen on the crew. Later on she worked with Clint Eastwood on his orangutan movies. Norm started seeing her socially. The comic Sammy Petrillo headed up the cast, but the animal star of Sunday was a chimpanzee named Ruben. Norm sort of went nuts over Ruben.”
She turned from Remington to address her driver. “Lenny, we’re going to have to try surface streets or we’ll be here all morning.”
Lenny dutifully changed lanes to approach an exit.
“From what I hear,” Liebstein continued, “Ruben the chimp was terrific, a real winning personality. On the basis of their relationship, Leah Larsen went to work on Norm, talking to him about the fate of show-business chimps. They formed a foundation together.”
“Hollywood Animal Rescue,” Remington said.
“Right,” Liebstein said. “Even though it was called ‘animal rescue’ because Norm liked HAR for the acronym, the facility itself didn’t take any other animals apart from chimpanzees. Mostly show-business chimps, but as time went on the sanctuary got requests to house chimps from everywhere—research labs, circuses, roadside zoos. At one time more than forty animals were kept out there. Norm used to visit every once in a while.”
“I’m assuming Norman Dorian is no longer with us,” Remington said.
“Well, he lasted a good long while,” Liebstein said. “His mind was sharp right up until the end. You would have liked him, Layla. He made for one very classy old guy. He passed in his sleep last summer. There were over two hundred ‘in memoriam’ ads in Variety. The man was loved.”
“So the sanctuary…?”
“Yes?” Liebstein said.
“The founder dies, what happens—I mean, legally?”
“Oh, Odalon Sanctuary will continue just as it always has.”
“Really?”
“There’s an endowment that Norm left for it.”
“Who administers it?”
“HAR is one of a whole spectrum of initiatives under the aegis of the Norman Dorian Charitable Trusts. His good works live on after he’s gone.”
“What I’m trying to understand is who, exactly, is responsible for the Odalon Sanctuary’s operations?”
“Dorian Trusts has a board of directors, of course. I’m on it, Hank Squadron from Disney, our law firm’s director, Trevor Oatman, people like that.”
“But the day-to-day hiring and firing?”
“The HAR director handles that. I believe the position is currently unfilled. One or another of the associates takes care of sanctuary business. I can assure you that the staff out there at Odalon is perfectly capable.”
The attorney was pleasant and forthcoming but somehow evasive at the same time. She had just referred to the staff at Odalon. What staff? They were scattered to the winds, and one of them had just been made dead.
“You do understand that the place is burned flat?”
Liebstein emitted a fake laugh. “Well, yes, Detective. You must give us some credit. But it’s not exactly like I ever went out there myself, you understand. The latest developments have all been so sudden, the board of Dorian Trusts hasn’t had a chance to meet.”
“What will happen when it does?” Remington asked. “The apes are all dead, all but one.”
“We’ll have to see about developments, pending action by the board,” Liebstein said. Her tone indicated that the discussion had come to a close. She called up front to the driver. “Why don’t we try Olympic, Lenny, since Washington seems absolutely petrified?”
—
Russell Dorian floated far, far away. His hands were not his own. The Dilaudid in his bloodstream made the weed he had smoked earlier in the morning redundant. Two mellow-outers. He usually liked to mix his highs and lows, get them to duke it out along the neural pathways, see which one hit the canvas first. More entertaining that way; you never knew what was going to happen.
Yum, yum, yummy. Dizzle-fer-shizzle. This was Russell’s new life, and he was grabbing all the pharmaceutical gusto he could.
He hated New York, hated Manhattan, couldn’t wait to get away. Why hadn’t he chosen Miami? All the European turistas down there, stunning women going topless on the beaches like it wasn’t even America. Fish ’em out, darling, let’s have a look at ’em.
“I don’t like the life here,” Nikita Khrushchev once said of Manhattan. “There’s no greenery. It would make a stone sick.” Russell Dorian couldn’t quite locate Khrushchev in any familiar historical space-time continuum right at the moment, but he agreed with the sentiment. He was a California boy.
But now it couldn’t be helped, and New York City it was. Silly, and probably overcautious, but he had decided to play his hand this way, and that meant he had to play it through. Three consecutive nights at charity banquets—two at the Waldorf and one downtown, a big bin of a place called Terminal Five. Making sure the society photographers shot him and his table of rent-a-broads. Inedible, rubber-ass chicken, but the meth took the edge off his appetite anyway.
Then, during the day—or actually, since he never got up before noon, the last half of the day—giving a lot of face time to the Four Seasons concierge. Making sure the prim bitch knew that he was present and accounted for.
So he rewarded himself with a day off after all his hard work. Or two days off, three days, right through the weekend. Then maybe the Hamptons, the American Hotel. Stay away from the West Coast, anyway, until it all shook out.
He first mistook the disembodied voice that sounded in the suite for one of the alkaloid buzz bombs (Zz-zz-wow-wow-whooosh!) that he had been aurally hallucinating since the Dilaudid hit. What a drug. Elvis’s favorite.
“Mr. Dorian?” the soothing female voice cooed.
The hotel’s state-of-the-art intercom system. The voice seemed to materialize out of thin air.
“Yes?” he said.
“I have your two o’clock video conference.”
“What?”
“Mr. Fats Tremont.”
“Who?” Russell said. “What was that name you said?”
“Mr. Fats Tremont.”
“Sorry, still didn’t get it,” Russell said, leading her down the garden lane a little, just for the fun of it. “The caller’s first name?”
“Fats.”
“Again?”
“Fats.” The electro-bionic switchboard woman’s voice was a little flustered now.
“Okay, yeah, sure,” Dorian said. “I’ll take it in the…”
“The personal office?” prompted the voice.
Russell was already staggering in that direction. The Ambassador Suite at the Four Seasons on Fifty-seventh Street sprawled pleasurably, opening up, room after room, like some huge blossom made of money.
Fats’s face already lit up the flat-screen above the desk.
“Hey, trips,” Dorian said. “You look like freeze-dried shit on TV.”
“Mr. Dorian,” Fats Tremont said grandly. “You can see me, why can’t I see you?”
“ ’Cause I have my fucking finger over the lens,” Dorian said.
“I thought you lost your fucking finger,” Fats said, confident he could be a smart-ass because he was separated from Dorian by a whole continent.