EQMM, June 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Custer Malone casually sipped his beer and I leaned back, watching the door to the club's entrance.

  "He figured out real fast that janes dig musicians, too,” Jett continued. “I don't think he was ever very interested in the sounds for their own sake. Z just had the knack of knowing what would sell. That's what made it so easy for him to slide over from jazz to rock ‘n’ roll in the eighties. Scuttlebutt is he's experimenting with Latin music these days, looking for another big score."

  I don't know much about jazz, except that my man Frank cut a couple of albums with Basie and Ellington, but I don't mind listening to it when not immersed in Turandot or La Boheme. Jett, on the other hand, is one of those people who can read the liner notes on ancient bebop LPs and understand every word, making him not all that different from Jesuits and nuclear physicists, at least from where I'm standing. But then, when he's not working for our agency, California Operatives, Inc., he plays string bass with the Jett Quartet at places with names like the Jazz Bakery and the Blue Beet Cafe, not to mention Jezebel's, something he's done all his life, even when he wore a six-pointed star for the old L.A. sheriff.

  "Was he ever abusive to his girlfriends?” Malone asked in his slow drawl.

  "That's the big question, isn't it?” Jett replied. “I don't know. He never hit them or anything, not that I ever heard of. But there are other kinds of abuse, aren't there? Less obvious kinds. And he always went through females faster'n gas through a Cadillac."

  I sat up. “Here he is."

  For a man who was trying to avoid the public eye, you'd never know it from the way Zeno Duke was dressed. He wore a white rough-silk suit over a vivid scarlet-and-purple aloha shirt, and his long hair, dirty gray as Chicago slush, flowed out from his little head onto his shoulders like he thought he was some shampoo model. There were earphone buds in his ears leading to an iPod in his breast pocket.

  We knew he was the same age as Jett, but whereas Jett looks twenty years younger than he is, Z looked a good twenty years older. Yeah, I know that white guys rarely age as well as blacks do, but there was much more than that to the contrast between the two old acquaintances. Z's face was lined like a corner cobweb in a derelict attic. It was the face of an old hedonist.

  He noticed Jett, and slowly walked over, keeping his back to the bandstand.

  "Hey, J,” he said, smiling nervously. He pulled the buds out of his ears and removed the iPod from his pocket

  They didn't shake hands.

  "How do you turn this damn thing off?” Duke muttered. Jett leaned over and tapped the credit card—sized device once and it died.

  "These are my bosses,” Jett said, indicating us. “Custer Malone, senior partner, formerly of the Texas Rangers, and Carmine Ferrari, junior partner, late of NYPD."

  "Am I glad to meet you,” he said with forced enthusiasm. He lighted on the chair across from Jett. “These past several weeks have been absolute torture. I really need your help."

  "We've seen the news accounts,” I said. “I'm only wondering why it took you so long to hire an investigator."

  "Oh, I hired one, all right,” he said, “or rather my lawyer did. But he's in jail. The investigator, I mean, not the lawyer."

  Malone nearly spat up his beer. “In jail—you don't mean you hired Tomasso Carlucci?"

  "Tommy's arrest had nothing to do with my case,” Duke said defensively, “at least, I don't think so. Who else was I going to hire? I've got Champagne tastes, and Tommy is—or was, anyway—the best. Everybody said he was, at least everybody in the business. Show business, I mean. How was I to know about the illegal wiretapping? I'm just a record producer."

  Like Lance Armstrong is just a bicyclist.

  "I think you need a new lawyer, amigo,” Malone said in his most Southern Senatorial style. “You say you have Champagne tastes, but let me tell you, Tom Carlucci ain't worth a pop-top can of warm pee."

  Malone doesn't usually disparage the competition like that, thinks it's unprofessional, but we'd crossed paths with Tommy Terrific more than once, so I forgave him.

  "You got that right,” Duke said. “About needing a new lawyer. I fired mine. He wanted me to cop a plea."

  "So you don't have an attorney right now? That's not good,” I said. “It means we can't invoke confidentiality."

  "Listen, Pancho—why else do you think I need you? Nobody will touch the case. Nobody good, I mean. You've got to find some kind of evidence proving I didn't do it. After that, trust me, the shysters will line up like groupies at Lollapalooza."

  "My name isn't Pancho,” I said calmly, “it's Carmine. Maybe you didn't catch it. I understand that loud music destroys the hearing."

  "Sorry. Carmine."

  "What's with you, anyway, Z?” Jett asked. “ ‘Pancho'? This Latin gig has gone to your head. Hell, you don't even speak Spanish."

  "You don't need to talk to those stacked Mexican babes to know what they want, Jack,” Duke said, smirking.

  "You know, Mr. Duke, it's never a good policy to lie to your investigators,” said Malone. “Everybody knows that prominent defense attorneys don't give a rodent's rump if you're guilty as a Hun in a nunnery. The press alone on a case like yours is cash in the bank. Player mouthpieces only care that you can pay them the big bucks. Right?"

  Duke fidgeted. “Yeah, well, maybe I do have some cash-flow problems at the moment."

  "So how do you figure on paying our firm?” Jett asked. “It's not like I owe you any favors, Z."

  "Hold on. There's money, it's just that I can't get to it all, not right now. I posted my bail in cash."

  "Cash? Five million dollars—in cash?” I blurted. This guy was full of surprises. Of course, that wasn't all he was full of.

  "Yeah,” he said, smiling crookedly. “A five and six zeroes. Get me off the hook, Carmine, and it's all yours, every red cent. Well—no, it's not—I prevaricate. Tell you what. I'm thinking two hundred and fifty grand. That enough for you?” He was sweating, although the club was as freezing as only an air-conditioned L.A. night spot in August can be. “I can't go to prison. I can't. All right, yes, I did her, I mean I did have lots of sex with her. After all, you've seen her and she was damn hot, and I admit that things might've gotten a little kinky now and then. But not that kinky, not like murder kinky. I didn't kill Jenna, guys. I swear I didn't kill her."

  "Break's over,” Jett said woodenly, standing and immediately filling the room with all six-foot-four of him. “I got a set to play."

  * * * *

  We sent Jackie Jett to talk with the sheriffs who made the arrest, since he'd been one of their own for most of his sixteen years there. Custer's job was to get as much as he could from the D.A.'s office. He enjoys access there more because Brenda, his wife, produces a cable forensics show that makes prosecutors look like heroes than because of his famous Senator shtick. Brenda's very active in the Crime Lab Project, an advocacy group that's trying to correct the abysmal funding for forensics labs in the U.S., so agencies will bend over backwards for her. Most people think forensics labs and coroner's offices are rolling in cash, and they're dead wrong—that's one reason why Jenna's body had been stacked with the other stiffs in the hall. The other reason is that too many people get murdered in L.A.

  Our other three Cal Ops investigators, Stan Stowicz, Nora Moon, and Jessie Zavala, were working other cases. That left me to run down to Orange County, where Tommy Terrific was staying in a rent-free room with vertical steel bars down one side instead of a wall. Plus, I was the only one who wasn't likely to try to choke the crap out of him at first sight.

  Carlucci is Italian, like me. A lowlife turd of an Italian who thinks Puccini is a shoe designer and makes the Gotti clan look like they got class, but an Italian nevertheless. We know how to talk to each other, even without our hands.

  I got in to see him through the offices of his lawyer, Jacob Burroughs, a standup guy I've known for years—Carlucci needed an attorney with an un-sullied rep, given the trouble he was in with the Feds—who thou
ght that demonstrating cooperation with a criminal investigation might cut Carlucci some slack with the U.S. Attorney. Jake came with me to the interview and busied himself with paperwork while Tommy and I talked.

  You'd think a guy who used to charge five thousand dollars a day plus expenses (of the six-bill-lunch at Ginza Sushiko variety, no less) might be reluctant to share his hard-earned information. Not Tommy. Tommy listened to Burroughs, as he should, given Burroughs's own pretty hefty rates. And he liked to talk.

  "Nice suit, Carmine. Armani knockoff, right?” he said.

  "No. It's genuine."

  "Sure it is,” he said, snorting an irritating little laugh. “How do you like mine? The latest look."

  He was in an orange jumpsuit.

  "So ask your questions. Anything to keep me out of that stinking cell. I share it with this big affectionate brute, Thumper, he's called, got this big red heart tattoo right on his—well, hey, he's sweet, just not my type."

  "I hope you're very happy together,” I replied. “Tommy, I'm here on behalf of Zeno Duke."

  "A surprise. What do you know, Z himself. Il impresario."

  "Producer and promoter."

  "Same thing. Did you know his real name is Zayden Herzog? Changed it, thought it was too Jewish."

  "So what? I knew that already. Jackie Jett has known him for more than thirty years and mentioned it."

  "Then let me tell you what you don't know. The little piscione is guilty. Jenna Wells had been feeding off him for five years. He wanted rid of her."

  "Tell me about it."

  "Jenna Wells was a professional girlfriend."

  "There's no evidence she was actually a prostitute, even if that's what the sheriffs thought when they found the body."

  "I didn't say prostitute, Carmine. I said professional girlfriend, as in gigolette. Coming down in the world, too, hooking up with a burnt-out old rocker like Z and sticking with him for so long. Before him, it was a succession of stupid pretty-boy actors with six-pack abs, either that or skinny big-haired rockers smeared with tattoos. None of them ever amounted to much, although they all somehow managed to keep her in style. At least until they were out of money, and then she'd move on. Eventually, though, fast times—not to mention real time—started to catch up with her, and everybody could see she wasn't twenty anymore, and she couldn't really compete with all the promiscuous and ambitious young babes pouring into Los Angeles from Peoria and Pascagoula and God knows where else. Suitable guys got harder to find. And then, as they say, there were none."

  Carlucci's wide evil grin made him look like a happy sidewinder. He continued with relish. “Poor, sweet Jenna. She worked hard at it, I'll give her that. She went under the cosmetic surgeon's knife so many times that her nickname was Beverly Hills."

  "Cute. You really are one unequivocal figlio di puttana, Tommy."

  He shrugged. “You want to hear what I have to say or not?"

  "Go on."

  "Right. Enter Zeno Duke, record guru. Z was on the slide, too, of course, ever since the hip-hop gangstas managed to kick his pasty metal white boys off the charts, but at least he'd been something back in the day, and of course he was in the middle of reinventing himself by moving into salsa or whatever that spic crap is called. She must have thought, better a has-been in the hand than take a gamble on another never-will-be, even if she could get one. Big mistake."

  "You said they were together five years. Longer than a lot of marriages, especially in L.A."

  "You kidding? Z couldn't keep his pants up if they were fireproof and he was farting blue flames. I keep telling you, Jenna Wells wasn't some indiscriminate service-sector sex laborer looking for her next trick and open wallet. She was a professional girlfriend, she lived to be admired, to be photographed next to her current conquest, preferably at some post-awards show party, or at an ultra-hip Melrose club, or maybe dining at some chic celebrity chef's bistro. When she landed a guy, Carmine, she meant him to be exclusively hers. No competition tolerated. You can imagine how well that sat with a cheap Casanova like Zeno."

  "So?"

  "So she was making his life a living hell. He began to hate everything about her. He wanted her out of his life. But she wasn't budging, not this time. She had nowhere to go."

  "So how do you know he killed her?"

  Carlucci shook his head, frowning. “You Sicilians are all idioti."

  "Only half Sicilian, on Mama's side. Pop's half is Piedmontese. But at least I'm not some sleazy reject from the Camorra. Neapolitans are all bastardi. Like you. Answer the question."

  He laughed. “On the advice of my attorney, I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me."

  "This interview is over,” said Jake, slamming his attaché case shut. I guess he'd been listening after all. “We're leaving. Now."

  * * * *

  I debriefed Malone in my office because our IT guy, Benny Bergsman, was installing a new computer in Malone's. We have to have an IT guy because we use a lot of tech, and what Custer and I know about computers wouldn't fill the backside of a gnat.

  "Then the little stronzo clammed up,” I told him. “Jake wouldn't let him say another word. Now here's an idea. I'm a professional detective. So let me see if I can work this out. Tommy's under indictment for illegal wiretaps. He claims to have certain knowledge that Zeno Duke is guilty of murder. He pleads his right not to incriminate himself when asked about it. So, what do we got? Illegal wiretap, certain knowledge, Fifth Amendment—gee, Senator, you think maybe Tommy Terrific was surveilling his own client? He practically shoved it down my throat."

  "Slow down, Red,” said Malone. “We can't prove it, even if Carlucci was telling the truth, which we both know comes real hard to him. He can't help it if he's a big fat lying rat bastard who would sell his own sister to a waterfront whorehouse for pocket change. Show a little sympathy."

  "There's got to be a tape somewhere."

  "If there is, the D.A. sure hasn't found it. Frankly, son, I think ol’ Tom was just winding you up."

  "Nah. Why would he lie?"

  "Maybe Tommy has his own reasons for wanting Duke put down,” replied Malone. “I haven't told you about my own recent adventures in the exciting and glamorous world of private investigations yet."

  "I'm all ears. Fire away."

  "There wasn't much to learn at the morgue that we didn't already know,” Malone said, “but on my way out, I ran into an old friend of ours. Candy Carrasco."

  Cal Ops is a private detective agency, not a police department, but we'd encountered Candélio Carrasco more than once in the course of dealing with drug-addled celebrity clients between stints in rehab.

  The word was that Candy was the point man for the Sinaloa cartel in Southern California—a sort of Executive VP of Operations for one of the Mexican syndicates that controls most of the South American cocaine traffic on the West Coast. Along with the Felix (Tijuana) and Fuentes (Juarez) cartels, the Sinaloa gang has largely supplanted the old Caribbean smuggling routes used by the Colombians in favor of moving dope to the U.S. through Mexico. That makes California the new Florida, as far as crack is concerned, as if we didn't already have our hands full with crystal meth labs every twenty feet.

  Carrasco's visa was perfectly legal—he represented a company that imported authentic jalapeños, serranos, guajillos, and other peppers for sale to gourmets, chefs, and restaurants. But on the side, like every gangster who ever lived, he was into the Business, as it is called in L.A. Associate producer of this or that direct-to-DVD film featuring one of his nose-candy clients. That was legit, too, as far as it goes. Nevertheless, his name was on a DEA watch list, and although he had so far managed to escape criminal conviction despite numerous arrests, he was someone you didn't really want to tangle with.

  "Our favorite agricultural commodities broker. Surely he wasn't alone."

  "Oh, he had some boys with him, cute little niños they were, too, each of ‘em about as tiny as your basic well-fed rhi
no. Truth to tell, I didn't so much run into him as into them, seeing as they were standing like the Great Wall of China between me and my Ford."

  "Now that's just rude, keeping a cowboy from his pickup truck."

  "You'da thunk so. But come down to it, he seemed friendly enough."

  "That doesn't quite sound like the Candélio Carrasco I know and love."

  "Friendly,” insisted Malone. “Real friendly. That is, until he suggested I could either lose the Zeno Duke account or maybe both my kneecaps."

  "Only your kneecaps? Again, that doesn't sound like Candy. Not the Candy more likely to cut your heart out of your chest with a machete than floss his teeth."

  "Now, Red, don't be that way. I reckon oral hygiene is his life. Them big pearly whites of his are as purty as money can buy, the better to eat you with. And he'd never use a machete himself, not with some soldier to do it for him while he watched. But heck, I don't know. Maybe he found Jesus or Paramahansa Yogananda or L. Ron Hubbard or something and is trying to avoid the tempting byways of sin for a change."

  "Washed in the blood of the lamb, you mean? You can bet he's up to his neck in somebody's blood. And I didn't know you could even pronounce Paramedic Yogi Berra."

  "I can also say ‘nuclear,’ which, as you know, is a very troublesome word for us Texans. Back to Candy, though: I know what you're thinking. One, he's a cocaine king. Two, lately Zeno Duke has been promoting Latino recording artists, which could very easily have put him in touch with Carrasco's entertainment ventures. Three, before her untimely demise, Jenna Wells smoked enough crack to make the whole L.A. basin fog up like San Francisco in the summertime. So you're asking yourself if there could somehow be a connection here."

  "The psychic cowboy strikes again."

  "But that ain't the interesting part, Red."

  "Sounds plenty interesting to me, Senator."

  "No, son—the interesting part is that Candy says to me, he says, ‘I told Tomas, and now I'm telling you, vaquero. Lay off or else.’ “