Follow the Money

by Fingers Murphy

  “Wow!” Reilly went on again, no longer paying attention to me. “That must have been something. I mean, five million dollars.”

  “Yeah, well,” I hesitated at the door, aching to leave. “That’s what they said anyway. But who really knows. I mean, with it all blowing around like that, who’s to say if it was five million or three million?” I tapped the box under my arm again and smiled. I turned away from Reilly, leaving him to his thoughts and the safety of his imagination. The man with the handcart followed.

  In my car at Fifth and Fig, I waited for the light to change. I glanced at the box on the seat beside me, but could not muster a smile. Despite its contents, I was alone and escaping once again. But to where? As I drove south toward the ten freeway, I contemplated Riverside, the drive east, and what it might mean to lose myself once again in safety, in choices born of risk aversion. But most of all, I thought of my luck and of the things I wanted most in the world.

  As the sweeping concrete curves of the onramps stretched out in front of me, peeling off in opposite directions, I wavered in the center lane, careening forward at full speed, thinking of Liz and what I had done and what I had failed to do. I turned the wheel and headed west, toward Liz and the ocean.

  I sat in the parking lot outside the Legal Aid office, staring the rest of my life in the face. It was my turn to act instead of react. I took a few deep breaths and opened the door. Then I picked up the box from the seat beside me and carried it under my arm. I paused at the blue donation bin beside the entrance, lifted the lid, and dropped the box inside.

  It was my first good deed in a long time. Then I went through the door, ready for another, preparing to take a chance and maybe save myself, for once.

  Now, turn the page for a taste of the second Oliver Olson novel:

  THE FLAMING MOTEL

  Friday

  November 1

  I

  It was a banner headline, front page, above the fold: Pornography Mogul Shot by Police at Costume Party. Apparently a toy gun had been mistaken for the real thing. A hell of an error to make on Halloween. I was reading the story, both amused and appalled, when the call came in.

  I glanced up. Through my office doorway I saw Jendrek answer the phone on Ellen’s desk. He made a few grunts into the receiver, nodded, looking over at me. Our eyes met and he grinned. I heard him mention Professor Stanton. I heard him say we’d handled these kinds of cases before and that we appreciated Mr. Stanton thinking of us. I heard him say we’d be happy to meet whoever it was wherever would be most convenient. He bent over the desk, scrambled for a pen and paper, and scribbled something down.

  I was sitting with my feet up on the desk, still holding the paper, when I heard him hang up and say, “Grab your coat, Ollie, we’ve got a meeting to get to.”

  Jendrek was halfway out the door when he stopped, leaned back inside and said, “And bring the newspaper, we can learn something about this thing on the way up there.”

  I threw on a sport coat and locked the office door behind me, fumbling with the key. Ellen wouldn’t even be in for another hour. We usually sat around drinking coffee at this time of morning. Not much to do. Our law practice wasn’t exactly on fire.

  Jendrek was holding the elevator at the end of the hallway, grinning out at me. He was twice my age, but his cherubic round face would have made him look a lot younger, were it not for his shoulder-length gray hair. “Come on, man,” he hollered.

  “What is it?” I asked as the elevator closed.

  He flicked the paper I was holding with his finger and said, “The lead story. Don Vargas, the porn king. That was his son on the phone. We’re going to meet him, and Vargas’s wife too, I imagine.”

  I unfolded the paper and stared at the headline again, having already forgotten the name of the dead man. Jendrek pointed at the paper again as the elevator opened onto the parking structure two levels below ground. He spoke as he walked to his car, rushing. Always rushing. “Apparently Max Stanton represents Vargas’s companies. The family called him in the middle of the night when it happened, and he recommended me if they were interested in suing the police department.”

  He unlocked his 1974 Jaguar and hit the automatic locks to let me in. I slid into the passenger seat, still processing what he said. Jendrek laughed as he pulled out of the garage and headed east down Santa Monica Boulevard. “Hell, I knew all that adjunct teaching at the law school would have to pay off someday. If that story in the paper is even half right, we might actually have a good case.”

  He was positively giddy, which wasn’t like Jendrek at all. He was usually a stone-cold cynic. I found it amusing and called him on it. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself? You know journalists never get legal stuff right.”

  He gave me a sideways glance. “You’re one to talk about that.”

  He had me there, and his statement cut to the bone. A journalist had gotten murdered in connection with the very first case I ever worked on. It was the case that both made me and broke me, and I still felt bad about getting the journalist involved at all, even though I had nothing to do with his getting killed. It was just one of those terrible things that happen in the world, one of those terrible things I was getting more and more used to in the four years I’d been out of law school and practicing with Jendrek.

  He could sense my rumination and said, “Hey, I didn’t mean to bring you down. I was just joking.”

  “I know.” And I did. But there wasn’t much else to say. I returned to reading the paper as Jendrek took a left on Doheny and headed up into the Hollywood Hills. We crossed Sunset Boulevard and kept climbing. The houses grew larger and larger, shrouded by canopies of palm fronds and surrounded by high hedges, ivy-covered walls, and security gates. After a few minutes, I forgot about the past enough to get curious again.

  I said, “Jesus, how far up does this guy live?”

  Jendrek smiled. “All the way, baby. Up on Mulholland.”

  We wove through block after block of gated estates, trying to avoid the morning rush that clogged the main streets. Eventually, Jendrek made it up to the famous road that ran along the top of the Hollywood Hills like a highway in the sky. We turned west and I caught glimpses of the smog-covered San Fernando Valley between the houses.

  Jendrek slowed the old Jag, annoying the cars behind us, as he tried to find the address. With only two lanes, Mulholland could back up bad, and quick.

  “I think you’re irritating the rich folk.” I glanced in the side mirror to see a bright yellow Humvee riding our ass, the driver shrugging at us and yelling something we couldn’t hear.

  Jendrek checked his mirror as well and smiled. “It’s good for him. That’s what he gets for driving such an obnoxious car.”

  Two houses later we turned into a sandstone driveway that opened on to a large courtyard and a massive Spanish style stucco mansion. There were clusters of people standing around and yellow police tape was strewn across a walkway leading down the left side of the house. A single police car sat at the far side of the driveway. Two guys in dark suits stood next to it having a heated discussion.

  There were people coming and going from the side of the house where the police tape was, and the whole place had the look of an aftermath. There had been a lot going on here only a few hours before, and these were just the tired stragglers left behind to clean up.

  “That must be the wife.” Jendrek motioned with his chin as he parked the car. I looked up at the top of the wide stairs leading into the house and saw a nearly perfect blonde woman wrapping herself in a long, terry cloth robe. She hugged herself against the November morning chill, which only emphasized the curves beneath the robe.

  I scanned the paper again. “Says here Vargas was sixty. She doesn’t look half that.”

  Jendrek smiled as he opened the door. “Like I said, I think that’s his wife.”

  We must have looked liked lawyers because a guy came from the inside of the house, somewhere behind the woman in the ro
be, and descended the stairs with his hand out. “Mr. Jendrek?”

  “Mr. Vargas?” They shook hands. Then Jendrek motioned my way and said, “This is my partner, Oliver Olson.”

  I smiled and shook the man’s hand. It amused me when Jendrek referred to me as his partner, because he meant it only in the most general sense. We worked together. I got paid. But we weren’t partners in the way law firms usually used the word. There was never any question that Jendrek ran the show.

  The young Vargas couldn’t have been much more than thirty, barely older than me. He had that thin but muscular Hollywood look, like he spent all of his time in a gym. A cardio and low-carbs kind of guy. A diet rich in protein and cocaine. He was still wearing the remnants of last night’s costume: a bellhop uniform, the jacket now unbuttoned and the bowtie hanging loose. I wondered whose bags he carried in real life.

  “Eddie Vargas,” he said, and nodded at me. As I let go of his hand I noticed the thick Rolex on his wrist. Expensive and flashy, it didn’t go with the costume. It told me that this was a guy who liked to impress people.

  He moved in and stood close to us, speaking in a quiet voice. “I really appreciate you guys coming so quickly. I figured it was important to get someone on this as soon as possible.”

  He scratched the back of his head and glanced back over his shoulder. The woman at the top of the stairs had not moved. She looked far too young to be a widow, and her expression only confirmed that fact. She had a face too young to know the expression for grief. After a few seconds of gawking, Ed Vargas said, “The goddamned cops have been here all night, poking around, asking questions like we were the fucking criminals. A couple of them are still over there.”

  He motioned with his head toward the two guys at the far end of the driveway by the car. One of them stopped talking when he noticed us staring at them. Then the other one stopped and both of them stood quietly, staring back at us.

  Ed Vargas turned and headed up the steps and said, “Come on inside where we can talk privately.”

  We followed him to the top of the stairs where he paused. “Gentlemen, this is Tiffany Vargas.” He leaned into her like he was sharing a secret, and said, “These are the lawyers Stanton recommended.”

  She broke out of her trance and smiled at us. There was a glow to her smile, both innocent and mischievous. It was a face that took you in and held you hostage. I could see why a sixty-year-old man—or any man, for that matter—would want her. But why she would want him was an open question. I took her small, soft hand and she nodded at me as she shook. She looked like every stunning blonde model I’d ever seen in a magazine, and yet, she looked even better in real life. You could convince yourself that women like that didn’t really exist in the world, until you saw one, and then you were ruined forever.

  She said, “I’m sorry. I’m still in shock. My husband wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t deserve this.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Neither did Jendrek, but I caught him smiling at me. He was reminding me that he’d been right, that she was the wife, and he was awfully damned proud of himself. It was a good guess. Tiffany Vargas could have been in her early thirties, but she’d pass for a buxom twenty-two-year-old in anyone’s book. That she had been married to an old guy like Vargas seemed a shame. But she was still young.

  She sank back into her trance, looking out over the driveway and the hedges, but seeing none of it. We left her at the top of the stairs and followed Ed Vargas into the house. We stepped into a massive great room with twenty-foot ceilings and a Mexican tile floor. The far end of the room was all windows that looked out over the city. It was a clear day, and you could see all the way to Orange County, if you were interested in looking at it.

  The house, still littered with the remains of a large party, had the aura of a hurricane about it. There were cups and ashtrays and bowls of food on the coffee table in the center of the room and along the bar that stood to one side. The obviously expensive rugs were littered with stains and paper. Near my feet was a devil mask with a footprint on it. A loft space overlooked the main room, but the air was heavy despite the open layout.

  Ed Vargas stood with his hands on his hips and surveyed the area. “It happened about 11:00. This place was packed. The party was really going.” He shook his head. Anger flushed his face. “There were cars everywhere outside. It was obvious there was a party going on. We’re gonna sue the shit out of these people. I want to bankrupt the city. What the fuck were these guys thinking? Getting called on a noise disturbance? Going around the side of the house instead of just coming to the door? What kind of bullshit is that?”

  Jendrek and I stood and listened. Neither of us tried to answer the question. Ed’s words echoed in the large room, bouncing off the tile floor and lingering in the air. It was the first hint of emotion I’d gotten from him. He caught himself and stifled it, trying to keep himself under control.

  Then he turned and went through an entryway that led into a wide corridor. “You might as well see where it happened,” he said. We followed.

  As I left the great room, I noticed for the first time that a young woman had appeared at the rail of the loft and was staring down at me. She wore black gym shorts and a T-shirt that hung over her large breasts like a sheet draped over furniture. She smiled down at me with a glow much like the young widow’s. It was as if beautiful women were being cloned somewhere in the house. But her expression was strained, the smile forced, like she didn’t know how else to look, even with the tragedy still fresh in the room. Her eyes followed me. I felt something tug inside me as I followed Jendrek down the hall.

  Ed stepped into a room on his left and said, “This is where they were.”

  “Who’s they?” Jendrek asked.

  “My dad and Pete Stick, a costume guy we work with. Pete’s an old friend of my dad’s.”

  I looked down and took a quick step back. My right foot had been on the chalk outline on the floor. It seemed like a desecration of some kind and a wave of panic and disgust went through me. Ed hadn’t seemed to notice. He was standing with his back to us, staring out the wide bay window. He pointed to a hole in the glass ringed by a spider web of cracks. It was low to the floor.

  “You can see they were standing right outside. The shot came through here and, well, you can see where the body was. Pete said he collapsed right where he was standing.”

  I surveyed the rest of the room. It was nearly empty. There was a desk on one side of the room and a bookshelf and leather chair on the other side. Other than that, the room was bare. It would have been a clear shot, and the shooter would have had a clear view of what was going on inside the room.

  I asked, “So the cops were just standing outside the window and shot into the house?” I could hear a tone of incredulity in my voice. Ed heard it too and smiled.

  “Yeah. Pretty fucking amazing, huh?” He turned back toward the window with the outrage starting to spill from him again. “I mean, what the fuck? They get called to investigate a noise disturbance. They show up at a house where there’s obviously a Halloween party going on. They go around the side of the house, look in through a window, and see two guys talking, one of them has a gun in his hand, so they just shoot him through the window? No warning? Nothing?”

  Ed turned back and stared at the chalk outline on the floor. “It’s crazy.”

  I walked over to the window. There was a walkway on the ground outside and a strip of grass between the walkway and the jasmine covered wall that marked the edge of the property. I asked, “Were there any people outside who might have seen something?”

  “Not that I know of,” Ed said. “The only guy who saw anything was Pete.” He thought about that for a second, and then added, “And the cops. But I don’t expect them to be too helpful.”

  Ed walked out into the hallway and turned toward the back of the house. We followed him through a back room with leather walls and a large pool table with bright pink felt. We went through a set of French doors out onto a wide de
ck overlooking the city. The hill dropped away below us and there was very little in the way of a yard behind the house. There were some steps that led down to a pool area where the walkway from the side of the house ended. We stood at the rail looking down at Los Angeles.

  Finally, Ed Vargas asked, more to himself than to us, “So now what?”

  Jendrek leaned sideways against the railing and spoke. “Well, I’d expect the police department will complete its internal investigation of the shooting very quickly. And, not to be too cynical, I’ll bet they conclude that the shooting was justified because they’ll be expecting us to file a lawsuit.”

  Ed’s eyes swelled with rage. “Well they damned sure better expect a lawsuit. We’re going to sue the hell out of them. How could they even think something like this was justified?”

  Jendrek held his hands out in front of him. “I’m not defending the police here. I agree with you. This is outrageous. Shooting a man at a costume party because he has a gun in his hand? I mean, you’ve got to be kidding. It never occurs to them that it could be a fake gun? I hear you. I understand where you’re coming from. But you’ve got to understand that suing a police department is not an easy thing to do.”

  Ed leaned his back against the railing and stared at the house. He was grappling with a whole range of emotions that I could only guess at. The incongruity of his haggard, sleep deprived face and the cheerful luster of his bellhop uniform was almost comical. But he didn’t look like he was finding much humor in anything. Finally, he said, “I want you to do whatever it takes to make them pay for what they’ve done to me.”

  Jendrek glanced at me and raised his eyebrows. The young man’s reference to himself instead of his father struck us both like a slap in the face. But Ed Vargas didn’t catch his slip and simply folded his arms across his chest, brooding and looking more exhausted with each second. Then, with a quick burst of energy, he took a few steps forward and turned back toward us.