by David Chill
Aaron Zellis’s living room was an unholy mess, the kind only a teenager could live through. There were clothes strewn here and there, and a half-eaten Taco Bell burrito supreme sitting atop a coffee table. Across from the table was a 60” flat-screen TV mounted to the wall. Five empty bottles of Bud Light sat haphazardly on the table, the sixth was lying on the floor. There was no sign that a girl had been here, and no sign that any girl would want to come here. I heard a rustling sound in the bedroom and a young man of about nineteen walked out. He was a good-looking kid, tall and well-built, with a mop of light blond hair. He had on a gray t-shirt and gray underwear, and was trying to focus on the stranger in his unit.
“Hello, Aaron,” I said. “My name’s Burnside and I need to talk with you. I’m working for your father.”
“Oh yeah. My dad said he was hiring someone to look into what’s going on with my sister.”
I pointed to the couch and motioned for him to sit down. I walked into his bedroom and opened the closet. Nothing. I walked into the bathroom and peeked behind the shower curtain. Empty. If there were a fire escape I would have looked there, too, but there was none. Satisfied that Amanda wasn’t in the apartment, but dissatisfied I was no closer to finding her, I walked back into the living room, picked up a dining room chair and plopped it down across from Aaron.
“You heard about what happened at Amanda’s apartment building the other morning? About Moose Machado?” I asked.
“About Moose, sure,” he said. “My dad told me. Plus, it was all over the news. That was messed up.”
“Do you know where your sister is?”
“No, like I told Dad. I haven’t heard from her in a week. She hasn’t turned up?”
“She’s still missing. Do you have any idea where she might possibly be?”
He shook his head. “No idea. She has her life, I have mine. Sounds like she’s in some kind of trouble.”
I scanned the empty beer bottles on his coffee table. “I don’t know, Aaron. She was reportedly with Moose when he was killed, but she hasn’t been seen since. I need to ask you a few questions. I apologize if this is coming off as brusque. But I need your help.”
“Um. Okay.”
“Do you know many of Amanda’s friends?”
“Not so much anymore. I know she was seeing some guy from Fox. Wyatt, I think his name was.”
“Okay. Let me ask you about Moose. What was Amanda’s relationship like with him?”
Aaron Zellis continued to frown. “I don’t know. Not exactly, anyway. They had a thing for a while, but that was when Amanda was younger. High school. I think she liked being with an older guy for some reason. I didn’t like it, but it’s not my life. Last few years they’ve mostly been friends, I guess.”
“Odd friendship, don’t you think? All things considered?”
“Yeah. Odd.”
“What did they have in common?” I asked.
“Football,” he replied without hesitating. “Moose played it, he knew a lot about the game. He helped Amanda out.”
“Helped her out? How so? Like in prepping for her broadcasts?”
“Yeah, that. And also something else, I think.”
“What?”
Aaron started to fidget. His eyes focused on the floor. I looked down there, too, and didn’t see anything. I looked back up at him.
“Listen,” I said, “your sister is very likely in some trouble. Anything you can tell me that might help find her would be good. You never how a small detail might turn out to be very important.”
“Yeah,” he started. “Okay. Well, you knew that Moose was a gambler.”
“I did. Not a very good one, from what I understand.”
“He had his ups and downs. But Amanda got interested in it. And last year they were winning some money on football games. Serious money.”
“Okay,” I said expectantly. “How were they doing it?”
Aaron took a breath, as if to work out what to say next. Finally, he spoke.
“She said they had some inside information. Tips. They knew things other people didn’t.”
I stared at him. Betting on sports was a common thing in America. Lots of people did it. I personally never liked gambling, and I viewed it as a waste of time and money. Many bets involved point spreads and these could often be decided by a dropped pass, a deflected field goal attempt, or a fourth down conversion that came up just short. Football was indeed a game of inches, the winds of chance deciding a lot of wagers. But if someone had inside information, then that was a different story. Knowing a star player was injured, or learning some other hidden tidbit could be incredibly valuable. The problem was that these insider tips could rarely be confirmed, and lots of people lost huge sums following bad leads. But it sounded like Amanda and Moose might have had a more reliable source.
“How did they know this?”
“Someone told them,” he responded and held up his hands. “I don’t know who.”
“Was it Moose or Amanda that had this source?”
“I think it was Amanda. Moose knew some bookies. Why they didn’t just fly to Vegas and place the bets is beyond me.”
I didn’t say anything. If Amanda was getting inside information and using it to gamble, the network would fire her immediately. And if she were betting large sums of money, her winnings would be taxable if she did it at a legal sports book in Nevada. There were reasons people still used bookies, and there probably always would be.
“So she began doing well,” I said, waiting for more.
“Yeah. She actually started to win a lot. She liked to joke that it was beginner’s luck. I don’t know if that actually exists.”
“It doesn’t exist,” I said. “Especially not in gambling.”
Beginner’s luck was a misnomer. You sometimes see a rookie in pro sports or a freshman in college appear unstoppable at first. But in the following year, they often take a step back and aren’t as terrific. Some people called that a sophomore slump. But it was really just that opposing teams had more game film, and someone diagnosed a good way to defend the player. Then all the other teams see that it’s worked and they copy it. The freshman phenom stops being so phenomenal. That’s when the hard work comes in for them to improve. If the beginner was at all lucky, it was simply because the other teams didn’t know much about them.
“Doesn’t the law of averages come into play here?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I finally said. “But when most people start something new, they often have no fear. It allows them to take risks, and they usually do it in small increments. Once they start winning a little, they bet more and the stakes get higher. Not everyone handles the pressure well, and they start getting nervous. Beginner’s luck isn’t really luck. A lot of it is lack of fear.”
“Okay.”
“There’s an explanation for everything,” I said, starting to wonder if it was true in the Amanda Zeal case, and if I’d ever find out what that was.
“Yeah. But she was doing really well at first.”
“And Moose?”
Aaron gave me an odd look. “He was just doing what Amanda was doing. If she was winning, he was winning. When she lost, he lost.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Let’s back up a little. The more I look at your sister’s background, the more incongruent it gets. Grows up in Beverly Hills and has a good-paying job, but seems overly concerned with money. She’s a beautiful girl, but she takes up with someone twice her age, a guy who’s broke and doesn’t have all that much going for him. And she seems to have gotten into a few physical altercations along the way. How does all that add up?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay, but you’re her brother. You must have some idea.”
Aaron thought about this for a minute. “She’s got some anger issues,” he finally said. “I guess we both do. Divorce and all. Maybe she’s a little self-destructive, I don’t know. My girlfriend’s a psych major we talk about this sometimes. Plus, Dad doesn’t give us a lot. I
mean, he pays for college, but like, he told me to get a part-time job to earn spending money. I started working at a frozen yogurt shop. I don’t mind, but it’s a little weird.”
“How so?”
“Dad’s got all this cash, but he hoards it. Thinks he needs to teach us about the real world, that we live in some kind of bubble because we grew up rich in Beverly Hills. We did, but he’s the one who put us there. We were born into this. When I was seven, he enrolled me in karate classes. Did the same for Amanda when she was young. Told us never to take any crap from other kids. That’s fine if you grew up in the hood, but it caused some problems for us along the way. Beverly Hills isn’t the hood.”
“Okay,” I said, starting to wonder what lessons I was providing for Marcus. “How’d that work out?”
“I got into a lot of fights in school. Amanda got into a few, too. One time some guys were bothering me, she came over and punched one of them in the face. He was so shocked he didn’t know what to do.”
“And this is all because your father directed you to not take crap from anyone.”
“Yeah. He wanted us to be able to take care of ourselves. Solve our own problems. We can, but, like I said, it led to bigger problems. I had to learn when to throw punches and when to walk away.”
“Not a bad lesson to learn,” I said. ”Okay. Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything at all about Amanda? I’m really at the end here. I’m looking for her and there aren’t a lot of avenues to go down. Any direction you can give would be helpful.”
Aaron shrugged. “Not really. I have no idea. Now I’m a little worried.”
I stood up and handed him my card, not bothering to tell him I was a little worried, too.
“I hope you find her,” he managed. “None of this sounds good.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said, and walked out into the hall. There was one student waiting there for me. She turned on her phone and pointed it in my direction, recording my walk down the hall. I briefly thought of ripping the device out of their hands and throwing it against a wall. Ultimately, I decided that would accomplish little, other than to serve as an outlet for my total frustration at the pace with which this investigation was moving. As I walked downstairs and out of the building, all of that changed suddenly. I called Phil Zellis to give him an update. I got something entirely different.
“Burnside,” he said, the background noise indicating he was in his car. “I can’t believe what just happened. I just got the call. I’m on my way over there now.”
“What call? Over to where?” I asked.
“My father’s house. Up on Culver Crest. The police just called me. There’s been, a, well, a shooting, I guess. It’s bad. They found him. My father. They found him in the house. He’s dead.”
Chapter 9
The narrow street on Culver Crest felt even more congested with a half-dozen black-and-white SUVs parked there unevenly, a few still keeping their red and blue lights flashing. A number of plain black sedans were also nearby, indicating that the Culver City detective squad had arrived. I finally found a spot two blocks away and hiked up the street. A thuggish looking uniformed cop stood at the entrance of Ed Zellis’s house, a bored expression on his pasty face. When I approached, his small eyes lit up.
“Hi there,” I began, showing him my P.I. license. “I’m working for the family.”
“Doing what?” he said, ignoring my license.
“Looking into the disappearance of a family member.”
“Who?”
“The granddaughter,” I said and pointed to the house. “The owner’s granddaughter.”
“Uh-huh. Come back some other time. This is a crime scene.”
“Ah,” I said, briefly considering asking a question about why there wasn’t any yellow crime scene tape put up, like the way they always have it on TV. “Me thinks not.”
He no longer looked bored, but rather, gave off the distinct impression he wanted to take me aside and work me over. An ugly sneer came across his lips. It did not improve his appearance.
“Take a walk, dude,” he growled, and pointed to the street. “I’m not telling you again.”
“Good,” I said, feeling the impatience starting to boil over. “Because I don’t want to hear it again. I have information that’s related to this case. Police business. I’d like to speak with the detective heading up the investigation.”
“Oh, you’d like that, huh?” he said, his sneer getting nastier.
“Yes, please. Pretty please. I hope I don’t have to say it again for it to sink in.”
“You may not have to. I may bounce you off that curb.”
“I suppose you can try,” I said, pretending to stifle a yawn. It was harder to do than I thought.
“I can do more than try, pal.”
“You’re not my pal. But if you want to try, I hope you took out that extra disability insurance. You may need it.”
“Officer!” came a voice behind us. We turned to see a man in an ill-fitting brown suit wearing an unknotted rep striped tie, pulled halfway down his shirt. It was warm this morning, but it wasn’t that warm.
“Yeah, Sarge?”
“Who is this guy?”
“Private dick. Says he’s been working for the family.”
“Is his name Burnside?”
The officer turned and looked at me. “Your name Burnside?”
“Last I checked.”
He turned back to the detective. “Uh-huh.”
“Bring him in here,” the man in the brown suit ordered, and then he walked back into the house.
The officer gave a sigh and glared at me. He moved his chin toward the front door, an exercise that barely took any effort. He didn’t move out of my way, but neither did he give any indication I was welcome. I wondered if he would still be here on my way out.
Ed Zellis’s home looked roughly the same as it did a few days ago. The marvelous city view was still visible through the wall of glass in the living room. The only thing different was that the living room was now loaded with cops, and a dead body was now lying under a sheet, about ten feet away from the burgundy recliner. Phil Zellis was sitting on the recliner, but he was not leaning back. Rather, he was bent forward, staring down at the shag carpet. His mouth was tight and his eyes were intense.
“Hi Phil,” I said, walking up to him. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Burnside,” he said in a low voice. “Thanks for coming. Any word on Amanda?”
“Not yet,” I told him. “I still have a few leads to chase down, but I haven’t caught up with her yet.”
“This is horrible,” he said, picking up his head and looking out the window. “Dad never should have involved himself in this mess with Amanda.”
I gaped at him. “How did he get involved?”
“Someone called him yesterday, said they had kidnapped his granddaughter. Wanted a ridiculous amount of ransom money. Dad told me he was going to find Amanda on his own. Said he was the best detective around and he was going to mess up the people who took her.”
I shuddered at this. There’s an old saying that a lawyer who represents himself in court has a fool for a client. The same logic applies here. An investigator who looks into a personal matter involving family, be it a child or grandchild, often does not think clearly. Their emotions are raw and they are often unleashed. No matter how good a detective might be or might have been, they can’t be impartial and they are prone to make mistakes. They had a vested interest in the outcome, and things could boil over in a hurry. That Ed was likely pushing seventy years old made the issue even more problematic.
“So he went and tried to find Amanda on his own?”
“Dad said he had a plan. He didn’t tell me what it was.”
At that point, the detective in the brown suit approached and wagged his index finger at me. He walked to the other side of the living room. I patted Phil on the shoulder and followed him across the room.
“I’m Detective Gottschalk. I’m
leading this investigation.”
I nodded and tried to look impressed.
“What’s your role here? Burnside, is it?”
“Right. Ed’s son Phil brought me in. Phil’s daughter Amanda and her boyfriend were assaulted earlier this week. Side street in Beverly Hills. Phil then hired a friend, Anthony Machado, as a bodyguard for her. The next day Machado gets killed in the garage of Amanda’s building. Then Amanda disappears.”
“You find out what happened?”
“Nope.”
Gottschalk raised his eyebrows. “You end up doing anything this week? Aside from collecting what’s probably a healthy fee?”
I rolled that around for a minute, and started to get annoyed. “Yeah, actually I did do something. I found out that Amanda and Machado had a thing once. And Amanda had a carefree lifestyle and hung out with pro football players. And they both had a gambling problem, the biggest problem being they were losing a lot of money. I also learned Ed was a crooked cop down in Largo Beach. And Phil has a problem with marrying too many women. I found out the L.A. City Attorney is corrupt. I also found out that waffles taste a lot better with maple syrup than without.”
“The City Attorney?” he frowned. “Sutker? He’s running for mayor, isn’t he?”
“Not for long,” I said, casually.
“How do you know all this?”
“I do my job thoroughly,” I said, thinking in the back of my mind that I still hadn’t come up with answers to the questions I was paid to get answers for. I also wondered how much of what Arthur Woo told me about Jay Sutker I should be sharing. But I was getting to the point where I didn’t care much about who knew what. There were now two people found dead the day after I’d spoken to them, and the leads were spurious.
“Thorough, huh?” he muttered. “All right. What do you make of this?”
I looked around the living room. “Was a weapon found?”
“Nope. Nothing nearby.”
“That rules out a suicide,” I mused.
“Yeah, we’ve already gotten that far. Crooked cop, you say? Well, crooked or not, who’d want to kill a retired officer from a city thirty miles away?”