All the Lucky Ones Are Dead (10 page)

“Maybe it doesn't prove anything. Maybe the tape he took wasn't the one Zemic said it was at all, but the one that was recorded during the actual time of Elbridge's death.
That
one could have been worth killing for, right?”

“You're saying Zemic lied about which tape it was?”

“Either that, or he was misled. He sounded too certain to be simply mistaken. All Crumley would have had to do was swap or replace the labels on two tapes to make Zemic think the one you borrowed was for the earlier time period.”

“That's true, sure. Only—”

“Why would he do that? Yeah, that's a good question.”

“Sounds like he was gonna be in hot water if Zemic found out the tape was missing, no matter which one it was, right? Why go to all the trouble of changing labels?”

“Because Zemic would have been unduly suspicious otherwise?”

Frick paused to think that over, said, “Possibly. But I still think that's a stretch.”

Gunner's silence said he agreed. “All right. Let's consider another option then. One we haven't even mentioned yet.”

“You wanna know if there's any chance my partner got the tape from Crumley without my knowing about it.”

“Yes.”

“The answer's no. But thanks for taking so long to ask.”

“You understand I'm not accusing either one of you of anything. I'm just wondering—”

“You don't have to wonder. I just told you. It didn't happen. You wanna leave it at that, or get on my bad side?”

“Sorry, Detective. I didn't mean any offense. I'm just trying to find a scenario here that follows some kind of logic, that's all.”

“Yeah? Well, how's this one? Zemic's the head man over there, right? Put yourself in his shoes for a minute. Some private ticket you've never seen before comes around asking to see something you don't particularly feel like showing him—a series of hotel surveillance tapes the ticket might be looking to use in a wrongful death lawsuit against your employers—what are you going to tell him? The cops have already seen them. They had one down at the station for three days, didn't see a damn thing on it.”

“That's a fine theory, Frick, except for two things. Zemic brought Ray Crumley into the mix on his own, number one, and he gave me more detail than I asked for, number two. If all he'd wanted was for me to go away, he'd have told me he personally gave you guys every tape in the sequence, not just one, and left Crumley completely out of it.”

“If he could think that fast on his feet, you mean. Not everybody can.”

And that was true. Most lies were told on the fly, without the benefit of premeditation, so it wasn't unusual for a string of them to add up to something that, when viewed as a whole, made little or no sense. Caught off guard by Gunner's request to see the Westmore's surveillance tapes, and determined to dissuade him from doing so, a panicked Zemic could indeed have concocted an argument against the investigator's need to view the tapes that included the very gaps in logic Gunner had just mentioned. And yet …

“I just don't think he was lying,” Gunner said. A gut feeling that returned him and Frick right back to square one: Why would Ray Crumley take the tape Zemic claimed had been missing if it couldn't prove someone besides Carlton Elbridge had been inside his room at the time of his death?

“The hell if I know,” Frick said.

“Then you agree there's something here worth investigating.”

“For you? Oh, yeah.”

“Wait a minute, Frick …”

“No, Gunner,
you
wait a minute. Our investigation is closed, remember? We've already decided what happened to Elbridge. He committed suicide.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Okay, so maybe it's a little funny, Crumley lying to Zemic about us having that tape, then getting his head bashed in ten days later. If I could drop what I'm doing now to help you solve that little conundrum, I probably would, I'm that curious about it myself. But I can't. My plate's too full. You had some concrete evidence to support your theories, maybe it'd be different, but you don't. Do you?”

“Assuming Crumley's corpse doesn't count? No. I don't.”

“Crumley's corpse
doesn't
count. Why the hell should it? All his murder's proof of right now is that somebody wanted
him
dead, not Elbridge.”

“But if he was murdered over the tape—”

“A, we don't know that he was, yet, and B, what of it if he was? There could've been a million things on that tape somebody might have wanted to kill him over, Gunner. It didn't have to relate to Elbridge's suicide at all.”

“No, but—”

“Listen. The Elbridge kid wasn't the only guest staying on the Westmore's fifth floor that night. As I recall, there were eleven others, and I bet you more than a couple of 'em had been walking the halls all weekend with people other than their husbands and wives. If Crumley was the blackmailing type, as you suspect, he could've used that tape against any number of people, and if he was unfortunate enough to choose the
wrong one
…”

Frick couldn't see it, but Gunner was nodding his head, conceding the fact that the cop's suggestion was a sound one. For the moment at least, they had no reason to believe that Ray Crumley's homicide was related to the death of Carlton Elbridge, short of Gunner's questionable sense of instinct, and profound lack of faith in coincidence. Two things, for all Gunner knew, the LAPD's Steven La Porte and Pete Chin would prove completely invalid tomorrow.

“I hear you talking, Detective. But. I still wish to God Zemic would let me see that tape,” Gunner said forlornly.

“So go ask him to see it again. Nicely, this time.”

“To hell with that. I'll just tell him
you
sent me. That ought to scare a little cooperation out of his ass.”

“Tell him anything you like. Just don't mention me by name,” Frick said.

That had been over four hours ago.

Now Gunner was here at the Deuce with Lilly and Del, allowing all their impassioned admonishments to feed his nagging fear that, despite all of Frick's rationalizing to the contrary, Ray Crumley's murder not only was connected to the case he was working, but was somehow indicative of the far-reaching power of Bume Webb.

“All right,” Gunner finally said to Lilly with great impatience. “So there are safer things to do than play in Bume's sandbox. I get that. But you're the one who got me involved in this mess in the first place, remember? If something happens to me, it's not gonna be my fault, it's gonna be yours.”

“My fault? What the hell did
I
do?”

“You were the one who called me down here to talk to Pharaoh's friend Benny Elbridge yesterday, weren't you?”

“Yeah, but—”

“But what?”

“But Pharaoh never told me what they was gonna ask you to do. All he told me was he had a friend from church needed a private investigator.”

“So you recommended me.”

“You needed the job, didn't you?”

“That's beside the point, Lilly.”

“Shit. Not if you wanna keep comin' in here drinkin' my liquor, it ain't.” She broke out laughing, and Del followed suit, both of them finding endless amusement in the disgruntled look on Gunner's face.

“From the lady,” Pharaoh said, suddenly appearing among the trio to slide a fresh drink under Gunner's nose. He was grinning like somebody who'd just heard the punch line to a very ribald joke.

“Aw, shit,” Lilly said to Gunner playfully. “What'd we tell you?”

Gunner was the last to look over, see the strange beauty behind him waiting patiently for his reaction to her offering. He lifted the glass of bourbon for her to see, nodded thanks, and she returned a nod of her own, smiling pleasantly.

“Is that all you're gonna do?” Del demanded when he and his cousin had turned around again.

“You don't at least go over there to say hello, she's gonna think you're very rude,” Lilly said, her red lips turned up in a smile filled with wicked satisfaction. Even Pharaoh was still standing there, watching to see what Gunner was going to do in the face of such an enviable gift.

Gunner frowned at them all, threw back a long swallow of Wild Turkey, and started over to the lady's table, taking his drink along with him.

When he had finally reached her, she laughed and said, “They made you come, didn't they?”

She had a full, throaty laugh that Gunner found hard to resist. He chuckled himself and said, “It was that obvious, huh?”

She nodded and held her right hand out for him to shake. “Brenda Warren.”

“Aaron Gunner.” He shook her hand and sat down, conjuring up an image of Yolanda McCreary and affixing it to a corner of his mind, just to remind himself of his limitations. “Many thanks for the drink.”

“It's going to sound like a line from a really bad movie, but I don't do this very often. Only under special circumstances.”

“Yeah?”

“It's a self-defense mechanism. Whenever I come to a strange place like this, somewhere I've never been before, I'm almost always approached by somebody, and it's usually somebody I'd just as soon not be bothered with. I've learned if I make a move first, pick somebody out who looks halfway interesting, before somebody else can step up to the plate …”

“I get it. It's a preemptive strike.”

“Exactly.”

“Well. Lucky me,” Gunner said, tipping his glass to her again.

“Not all that lucky. I'm only here for the conversation. I hope that doesn't disappoint you.”

Gunner was surprised to discover that it did. Maybe his intent to keep this meeting short and uneventful had been less genuine than he thought. “Frankly, that suits me just fine,” he said. “Only I'd be lying if I said my pride isn't a little bit hurt.”

“Please. Don't take it personally. Conversation's all I'm ever looking for lately.” She smiled, but her eyes did something altogether different.

“I'm sure there's a good reason for that,” Gunner said, stepping lightly.

“Yes. There is.”

“A husband back home, maybe? Or a boyfriend?”

“A husband. But not at home. Almost never at home. We don't need to mention his name.”

“No. Let's not.”

“He's a good man. When he's around. I only do this to save my sanity in his constant absences, that's all. I'm not looking to get laid, Mr. Gunner.”

“I understand.”

“You really do, don't you? Damn. Now
my
pride's a little hurt.” She laughed her throaty laugh for him again.

“If you were thinking the thought never crossed my mind, forget about it,” Gunner said. “You're all that, and more. Thing is, I've got reasons of my own to be good tonight. And we don't need to mention her name either.”

“Wife or girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend. For now.”

“For now, huh? Sounds serious.”

“I think it is.” Gunner took a deep breath, braced himself for the monumental move he was about to make. “Which is why I'm going to stand up now, get the hell out of here before I do something stupid to screw it all up.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Because I would, given half a chance. Conversation's a wonderful thing, Ms. Warren, but …”

“Yes, I know. Sometimes, what you want from someone goes a little farther than that.”

For the first time that night, she gave him a look fully intended to deliver a sexual message, and it was enough to make Gunner take a step back, fight to maintain his balance.

“Thanks again for the drink,” he said. “I owe you one.”

Then he proved himself a man of his word and went home.

Leaving the Deuce that night, Gunner had the feeling he was being followed.

He'd sensed the same thing earlier that day, during his long drive from Mickey's out to Ray Crumley's apartment, but he'd shaken it off as a by-product of the dread he was already feeling, knowing the scene of an ugly homicide awaited him. Now he had no such excuse.

But neither did he have any evidence to support his suspicion. Nothing in his rearview mirror struck him as unusual, or particularly familiar. Just headlights and parking lamps moving north along Vermont Avenue, winking on and off as they went their own way.

Still, to ease his mind, he played some of the tricks he knew to shake an unwanted tail out of hiding—making illogical turns to see who would follow, pausing at the curb to catch someone else abruptly doing likewise—but such efforts proved futile. No one appeared to take the bait; no one did anything even mildly incongruous.

If there really was someone back there, Gunner finally decided, they had to be better at hiding than he was at flushing them into the open.

s e v e n

“S
O
?
WHAT YOU GOT FOR ME
?” B
ENNY
E
LBRIDGE ASKED
Gunner the next morning. It was only a few minutes after seven, and the sound of the ringing phone had nearly fried the investigator's brain waking him.