by Avery Duff
Erik: “Say, how many square miles?”
“I know. I need to narrow that down a bit.”
“You think?”
“No more outbursts, please. Ms. Marquez, if you’ll continue.”
“‘Very small areas of the Mojave also extend into Utah and Arizona. Its boundaries are generally noted by the presence of Joshua trees, which are native—’” Gia looked up. “Erik, listen to this. ‘Its boundaries are generally noted by the presence of Joshua trees, which are native only to the Mojave Desert.’”
“Native only to the Mojave Desert,” Robert repeated.
“When did you do all this research?” Gia asked.
“This afternoon. After we came home and, you know, talked about all that stuff.”
“Oh, right,” she said. “That stuff.”
Meaning made love.
“Now look,” Robert said. “I gotta believe Carlos and Teo each went to the same place in the desert. Teo first, two years back, and Carlos, recently. Delfina said the destination was about three hours from LA, and Teo went into a ranger station. So if you take all we know—three-hour drive, a state or federal park, a desert where Joshua trees grow—oh, and there’s spaceships. What does that tell you?”
Robert stopped. Waited for one of them to confirm what he believed.
“Spaceships? I don’t follow,” Gia said.
Erik said, “Those wind farms . . . the wind turbines out by Palm Springs. I tell my boys they’re robots—they kinda believe it.” Erik kept going. “Three hours from LA, the desert, wind turbines.”
“Oh, near the designer outlets. Morongo Outlets—it’s Asian American Xanadu,” Gia said.
“Priya would live in Morongo if she could,” Erik added.
“What’s the park near there?” Gia asked.
Robert said, “Joshua Tree National Park. According to Wiki, it’s only one thousand five hundred square miles. See? Already knocked down the search area from forty-seven thousand.”
Before Erik left that night, Robert had nailed this much down for sure: years and years ago, the Famosa family had visited Joshua Tree National Park. More recently, Teo and Carlos had each driven there, too. For some reason, that desert was important to the Famosa brothers. And somewhere inside that park, Carlos had hidden millions of dollars of Robert’s clients’ money.
CHAPTER 32
On the street at the base of Gia’s front walk, Kiril drove past Erik’s Prius. End of the street, he braked for Penko. Acting the late-night, sweatshirted jogger, Penko jumped into the front seat. The reek of garlic and nicotine reached Kiril, a toxic reminder of the shkembe korba Penko had eaten for lunch.
“What did you see?” Kiril asked.
“Nothing to see from back alley, so I climb over fence. Check it out close-up.”
“You did not go inside that house,” Kiril said.
“Was told not to go inside, so I do not. From outside, I see them talk, they laugh. Nobody look worried about nothing. The young girl looked like she was sleeping.”
Kiril looked at him. “How do you know that?”
“I see through her bedroom window,” Penko said.
The young girl again, Kiril thought.
Penko knew how to infiltrate in silence, a skill he’d learned in the army. Other habits he’d picked up in the service, Kiril was beginning to see those, too. He recalled the blue jewelry box he’d seen on Penko’s bedside table—Penko had asked Sharon Sloan where to buy such a box—but Kiril had assumed the question was only Penko’s crude come-on. When Penko had been taking a rare shower, Kiril opened the box. Inside it: a shrink-wrapped index finger, no doubt from that dead girl’s hand—the one Penko had killed up north in the Emerald Triangle.
Kiril rolled down the window against Penko’s smell, knowing that sooner or later, this deranged man sitting beside him would somehow bring him down, too.
“What about the cop?” Kiril asked. He had seen a blue-and-white bumper sticker—LAPD Retired—on Erik’s Prius.
“He don’t act like a cop. Act more like friend. Cop drives woman’s car, not car for man.”
Kiril thought about joking—if Spartacus was alive today, he’d drive a Prius—and decided against it. Winding up Penko never went anywhere good.
Instead, Kiril asked, “If Spartacus was alive, what car does he drive?”
Penko said, “Black Enzo Ferrari, six hundred sixty horsepower, top speed two twenty. Serious mindfuck, that car.”
He answered so fast, Kiril knew he’d already thought about the absurd question. Rather than mention the $1 million LaFerrari, with its 790-horsepower hybrid engine, he gave in to the conversation.
“Enzo Ferrari, black, yes,” Kiril said. “Great car driven by Spartacus, a great man.”
That night in bed, Gia wore a long T-shirt with a HoneyBaked Ham logo. Robert joined her, and once the lights were out, they caught up on the nuts and bolts of their lives. Midday tomorrow, he was headed downtown for a get-acquainted meeting with the probate lawyer, Bruce Keller. Taking the Metro, for once, so he could meet up with Erik and ride back together.
“Erik’s downtown, too?” she asked.
“He wants to look into those guys who sued the trust, see if they had a criminal background.”
“You two big boys rolling home in his Prius?” she asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“Just asking,” she said. “Your negotiating strategy on the house is working. Brady Bunch asked us over for drinks, and Full House wants to know if we like charades.”
“We’re not going, are we?”
“I don’t care. Want to?”
“Charades? Tempting.”
He understood why their reactions jibed. A week or so back, Gia’s dueling neighbors had seemed important. Now, selling Gia’s house had receded into the background because a nine-year-old girl slept across the hall. How long would this situation go on? A few days? Longer? Much, much longer?
Dr. Wan hadn’t shed any light on Teo’s timetable. This morning, she’d told Gia she wanted to wait a few more days before bringing Teo up. Her prognosis after that? She couldn’t and wouldn’t say.
“This isn’t like taking out a gall bladder,” she’d told Gia. “Not an exact science.”
Reaching over, Robert touched her, stroked her belly, and waited. Hearing her exhale, he lay back to watch her get out of her T-shirt, something he never tired of doing. Sometimes she slipped her arms inside the shirt and slid it over her head. Other times, she’d reach around her body and pull it over her head. Either way worked for him, because afterward, she’d be sitting up in bed, looking at him in the dark. Her thick, black hair tousled, waiting for him to make a move. No matter how he made it—reaching for her arm, her neck, around her waist—she always made it look like his move was exactly what she’d been waiting for.
Later, she quartered the bed for her missing T-shirt: “Where the hell’d it go?”
“Beats me,” he said, holding it in the air.
“Damn it,” she whispered. Leaping on him, she grabbed it. “I can’t believe Delfina slept through that,” she said.
“We were quiet, no?” he asked.
“I meant out in the living room. You, me, and Señor Oso.”
“Didn’t think we were that loud,” he said.
“We weren’t, but I closed her door, and later it was partway open.”
“She probably cracked it open, likes hearing us talk, more light in her room . . .”
CHAPTER 33
Yuccas.
That word rolled around in Robert’s mind, picking at him, until it woke him at 5:00 a.m. Slipping out of bed, he eased into the kitchen and put on a pot of Urth’s Honduran coffee, light roasted for an extra caffeine boost. Once he’d turned on Gia’s iMac in the living room, he jacked Evelyn’s flash drive into the port and pulled up Carlos’ work notes.
Something else Gia had read aloud about the Mojave Desert last night stuck with him: Joshua trees belong to the yucca genus of plants.
&nbs
p; That’s what woke him up: his certainty that Joshua trees—yuccas—would lead him closer to the trust’s money. Back in the kitchen, he poured a cup of coffee, grabbed a banana, and headed back to her computer.
In LA, yuccas were plentiful: green plants with radiating, pointed fronds. Two or three feet tall, when they stuck you—he knew from hiking—it hurt like hell. Occasionally, the plants bloomed white flowers that came and went in a few months.
But Joshua trees? For starters, they were trees, not plants; evergreens, not cacti. Then there were their trunks. Not friendly-looking at all, their trunks looked hairy, like tarantula legs.
Looking at online photos, even a layman like him could see why they were classified yuccas—the branches had LA yucca plants growing from their tips, and in mature trees, that meant twenty feet aboveground or higher.
“Yuccas,” he said out loud.
The trees’ limb formation gave Joshua trees their name. Mormon pioneers first came upon them in the Utah desert and decided the limbs resembled upheld human arms. That brought to their minds the prophet Joshua, Moses’ brother, waving to the children of Israel, beckoning them into the Promised Land.
At that point, Robert turned to Carlos’ accounting software.
Gibberish. Carlos’ word games.
That, he no longer believed. The notes were dated over the last two weeks of Carlos’ life and appeared to show him meeting new clients. Evelyn hoped that he’d been getting back to work, trying to generate cash as a CPA.
Robert knew better. The dates of so-called meetings were real-time dates, built into the software, and couldn’t be fudged. And Robert now knew: by that point in Carlos’ life, Svetlana had left him. Carlos feared Boris. His life had become a two-pronged effort: to make amends with Teo in person, or failing that, to guide Teo to the trust’s assets.
Stoned and drunk? Probably, and he’d been under extreme stress, but as Robert began reading the work notes again, he knew he was on the right track.
Valerie, What follows looks so great!
Client: Monument Park West Only
Hours Worked: TBD
Description of Work: Startup company/advise
Notes: Profits. Evergreen, Yuck
Yuck, he was thinking, underlining that word. Yucca.
Closing his eyes, he put himself in Carlos’ shoes and went over it again: I feel you, Carlos. Boris is coming. You feared him. You wanted Teo to meet you at the courthouse, even if you met after the hearing date. It was safe at the courthouse, right? You could talk, and if you didn’t make it, even if Boris got to you first, maybe Teo gets to your study. He’s your only heir, your brother. He would’ve known what your clues meant, right? But Teo can’t help me now. There’s a good chance he’ll never be able to help, so let’s find the money, all right? Help me find the money, Carlos—
“I heard you.” Delfina was standing behind him.
He must’ve been mumbling. Turning to her: “Morning. Did the grown-ups make too much noise out here last night?”
“No. What are you doing?”
Communing with your dead uncle?
“Not much,” he said, standing up. “Want pancakes for breakfast?”
And later, as he poured batter on the stove-top griddle, he knew that it was just a matter of time before he headed out to the Mojave Desert.
The Metro Rail from Culver City let Robert off at Pershing Square; he walked the remaining five blocks east to Stanley Mosk Courthouse. Pausing at the courthouse door, he gazed up at Magna Carta Man. That first trip downtown had been slated as a quick in and out, but a phrase he liked using with clients came to mind: You never know.
He pushed through the courthouse doors and took the escalator to the third floor. Ten minutes early for his meeting with Bruce Keller, he came to a hallway of probate lawyer offices. Not a bad job. Nine-to-five job, great benefits, a little courthouse power on top of that.
Each office door had memorabilia of some sort affixed to it: a sport’s team pennant, a Star of David, family vacation photos, that Hang in There, Baby! cat hanging from a tree limb. Taking a seat across from Bruce Keller’s plastic nameplate, Robert noticed Bruce wasn’t memorabilia averse: a rainbow motif notepad, a Key West postcard, Madonna ticket stubs from the MGM Grand.
Sitting there, his thoughts returned to the Famosas. What was it Evelyn had said about the Famosas? Welcome to Crazy Town. Better get used to it.
Guess what, Evelyn? I’m getting used to it.
“Robert Worth,” he heard.
Robert stepped inside Bruce’s office; Bruce sat behind the only desk. On his wall and desk: photos of Bruce cuddling another man at various spots: the beach, a bistro . . . and was that another bistro?
As they shook hands, Bruce said, “Gonna let you in on two little secrets, Robert. I’m beginning to suspect I’m openly gay. And my handle down here is Killer.”
“Keller . . . Killer, not bad,” Robert said, liking the guy already. “We met in court.”
“Got it. The Vincent Famosa Family Trust.”
Then Robert explained that his clients were indigent, Evelyn was in poor health, and he planned to take over as trustee. Pleading general ignorance of the nuts and bolts of how probate court worked, Robert asked what he needed to know before signing on.
“Not too much.”
Bruce explained that by looking into similar files in the clerk’s office—Bruce would help with that—Robert would get the hang of things. Also, it was Bruce’s job to make sure everything was in order before it was presented to his boss, Judge Blackwell.
“So don’t worry too much about having things exactly right. They will be by the time you come to court. In that trust, there’s no way to pick a successor trustee, is there?”
“Nothing like that, no.”
“Any other heirs besides your two clients? Any creditors?”
“None known. My minor client’s mother’s been MIA, going on two years. Before his accident, Teo Famosa told me she could well be deceased. Meth,” he added.
“A drug most unkind,” Bruce said. “Pretend you’re under oath. Are the assets truly in a shambles?”
“I’m doing what I can to raise cash. I’d be lucky to get my hands on thirty thousand.”
Not mentioning the hoped-for desert money—the truth for now, as far as it went.
Bruce said, “Down here, we don’t turn a blind eye to reality. Let’s face it, you already represent every known trust beneficiary, and Evelyn won’t have any objection?”
“I’m actually here at her suggestion.”
“So if the court appointed an outside attorney to act as guardian for the minor, that will eat up twenty percent of that thirty thousand. Pretty sure that money can be better spent elsewhere.”
“Anywhere else,” Robert said.
Bruce seemed to like that lawyer jab. “Then a simple motion to the court to change trustees would suffice, but for your own protection, publish notice in a paper of record with the hearing date, saying you’ll be the new trustee. Makes it harder down the line if some troublemaker comes out of the woodwork, raising hell about your appointment.”
Robert asked, “And that notice process takes how long?”
“Six weeks, start to finish.”
Six weeks. That’s why Carlos didn’t bother sending out a formal notice through the court. He didn’t know if he had six weeks. And his primary purpose was seeing Teo—not the hearing itself.
Bruce said, “You’d show up with the minor and her father, health permitting; Evelyn would appear for Carlos Famosa’s estate, or file a motion waiving any objection to your taking over. After that, the judge would consider—and grant, I’ll make sure of it—a court order making you sole trustee. I suggest you submit a revised final accounting, too. That way, unless that random creditor or heir shows up . . .”
“Very unlikely on both counts,” Robert said.
“If not, you’d wind the whole thing up then and there, and make application for your fee.”
Bru
ce explained the usual lawyer’s fee was one percent of the trust’s assets: $300.
“Good chance I’ll waive my fee,” Robert said.
“I hear you, but that will indeed be a first,” Bruce said.
After that, Bruce filled him in on what he thought of the Metro Rail, STAPLES Center, the downtown Arts District and condominium prices, freeway traffic during Dodgers season, and the LA Rams. Meanwhile, someone was blowing up Robert’s pocketed iPhone with vibrating texts.
“That about does it,” Robert said. Standing to leave, he asked Bruce, who was standing, too, “Tell me—all the people who showed up at the hearing, back of the gallery, who were they?”
“Oh, them,” Bruce said, sitting down again. Robert followed suit. “You see, Robert, down here, we don’t get too much excitement.”
“What about that incident out in the hall?” The two men fighting.
“Alas, all too rare. Thing is, heirs might show up for probate and find out Uncle Belvedere loved his dog more than them, and things might overheat, like you saw. But with the Famosas’ trust, everyone knew the hearing was coming because of that final accounting. ‘Your Honor, I lost all the trust’s assets. All of them, Mr. Famosa? Yes, Your Honor. Pretty much all of them.’”
Robert got it now. “And that kind of admission never happens.”
“Never ever,” Bruce said.
“So the other probate lawyers sat in, all except Dragon Lady. She had a conference call, then some kind of lunch after.”
“Dragon Lady? Who lucked into that handle, Killer?”
“Sharon Sloan, three doors down. Somebody—beats me who—found out her maiden name was Draganov. The name stuck for a while because she’s the nicest person you’d ever want to meet.”
Draganov? Not European, not Asian. Had the ring of a Slavic name. His pulse quickened. Trying to act conversational, he said: “Sure, like you’re not really a killer. Draganov. That’s from where?”