Blood Of Angels (26 page)

'That's not what I mean.'

'I guessed that. It was a joke.'

'You think this is funny?'

'What are you actually talking about, Brad? I'm smart but I'm not a fucking mind-reader.'

'She keeps asking me things.'

'What kind of things?'

'After they found Pete's body she called me and we were talking, this and that, about how fucked-up it all was, and suddenly she asks me if I know anything about what happened to him.'

'What did you say?'

'I said no, of course. But… she heard something, Lee. I was out the front waiting for you that night, and she was there, remember? When you walked up you said "He'll be here soon", or "in a minute", or something like that. I don't specifically remember it but she sure as hell does. She knows we were waiting for someone and she thinks it was Pete.'

'Christ. So why didn't you say it was Jed or Matt or Greg?'

'Because I didn't think fast enough, okay? I just said that we went for burgers alone. Which is the way anybody watching would have seen it when we got back, right? So why bring any of those guys into it, especially if they're just going to say no, we didn't go?'

'Yeah, okay. So what was she saying last night?'

'Nothing else. Except… she said she hoped if anybody did know anything about it, they'd go to the cops. She said the cops seemed serious and it would probably be better for that person in the long run if they just told what they knew, even if it looked kind of bad.'

'You think she was talking about you?'

'I guess so. But I agreed with her and we left it. It just makes me nervous, man. And it makes me feel… guilty.'

'You're not, I'm not. She's just doing what she thinks is right. Our friends are going to make this go away and Karen will see we didn't know anything, and everything will be cool again.'

'They'll do that even if we tell them we can't sell their drugs?'

'This isn't about the drugs. They've got something else in mind. I don't know the details right now. But something's coming up. These guys are connected. They're like the Mafia, or something, but not Italian or Columbian or any of that shit. White guys. They got some big thing up ahead and we're going to help. None of this will matter.'

'Pete will still matter, Lee. Sleepy Pete will
always
matter.'

'Yeah, of course,' Hudek said, and Brad realized he barely remembered who Pete was.

Hudek's pager went off and he glanced down and read the message. He kicked the engine up.

'That's them,' he said. 'Time to go.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

There was something surreal about walking into the Belle Isle food court. It was a place Brad knew well. Limitless taquitas and egg rolls had been ingested there in the last five years, innumerable sodas and berry smoothies sucked up during slow trawls with the gang or with Pete or lately just him and Karen. Look back far enough and he'd come here with his mom and dad and sister too, withstanding their boring shopping imperatives by asking if he could go to the court and get a chocolate shake and wait, which had generally been allowed.

At this early time of day the food concessions were still being fired up and the seating area was largely empty, just a few housewife kaffeeklatches in progress and a seat-busting monster already hunched over the detritus of enough burgers to feed a small family, fries hanging out of his mouth like the remaining legs of insectile snacks.

And there was a guy.

He was sitting in splendid isolation at a table right in the middle of the floor. This surprised Brad until he happened to look around again. Widely spread around the seating area were three other individuals who didn't look like they were there to hunt for bargain animal calendars in Waldenbooks. None had anything to eat or drink. All were looking his and Lee's way. Casually. Kind of. They ranged from forties down to very early twenties. This youngest was eyeballing them the hardest. There was something about him Brad really didn't like.

Lee had the drug bag with him. Brad didn't like that either — but that was what the pager message had specified. When he got to the main man's table Lee went as if to hand the bag over straightaway. The man shook his head, one single movement.

'In a moment,' he said. 'Take a seat.'

Lee and Brad sat opposite. Funny: the way Lee had described him, Brad had been expecting someone who looked like a famous actor or something, a person you'd notice across a crowded room. Brad thought this guy could fade into background anywhere.

'Brad, right?'

'Yeah.'

'Good to meet you, Brad. I'm Paul.'

'Okay,' Brad said. Thinking:
There is something not right about you.

The man turned his attention to Hudek. 'So you're not having much luck with sales.'

'We've done our best, but — with Pete dead it's just not the time.'

'Surely you didn't used to sell only to close friends.'

'No, of course not. But we sold in a controlled area. And to a certain class. Look, we'll keep trying if you want.'

'Don't worry. The Valley's loss is West Hollywood's gain. We'll move them over there instead.'

Hudek felt pained. This didn't feel like it contributed to the upward progression he'd begun to enjoy. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'Things are just screwed up at the moment.'

'It's not a big issue,' the man said. 'And it won't affect the Plan, don't worry.' He turned to Brad. 'Do me a favour, would you, Brad? Go get me an espresso?'

Brad's first inclination was to say hell no, he didn't run people's errands. But he got the sense that with this guy, you sort of did. Also, as he opened his mouth, he got derailed by a cramp in his stomach, and winced.

The man watched him closely. 'Not feeling so good?'

'Had this gut ache a few days,' Brad said, feeling abruptly nauseous. 'Just can't seem to shift it.'

'You're under considerable stress.'

'You could say that.'

'What are you taking for it?'

'Oh, you know.' Brad's mom had dosed him with the greatest hits of her medicine chest, as usual leaping at the chance. The man's interest made him feel awkward. 'Pharmaceuticals in depth.'

'You should try something herbal. Scutellaria, maybe.'

Brad nodded, his irritation subsided, and he realized he was going for coffee after all and somehow didn't mind. This was what the guy had. It wasn't looks. He had the quality Lee aspired to and sort of possessed, but multiplied by a factor of a zillion. He was the alpha males' alpha male. You just did what he said.

Brad headed to the nearest concession which had no one in line. As the woman got the machine whirring he looked back over to Lee. He and the man were deep in conversation. Presumably about this 'Plan' thing, whatever the hell it amounted to — Spring Break? What the fuck? Brad didn't care right now. He wanted to get this meeting over with and maybe head to Karen's and hang out. Things seemed more tethered when he was with her. He noticed that two of the men he'd seen earlier seemed to have disappeared. Only the youngest remained. He looked full of himself and as if he could leap at the chance to do people harm. Brad wondered what on earth he and Lee could help these people with, and couldn't come up with anything that sounded credible: which made him wonder whether it was not help they needed, but cannon fodder. People they could send out on deals that might go bad, like the other night. Drugs were exactly like the film business, for which Brad's father had been careful to inculcate in his son a healthy scepticism. As a battle-weary entertainment lawyer, he had reason to. People seemed to assume their stardom slot was ready and waiting for them, and all they had to do was seize the day and use a little get-up-and-go and all that talk show crapola. Actually both industries were the same as large predators everywhere: you were snackfood to them, naive morsels seasoned with hope and greed. He hoped sooner or later Lee would get this. Brad could suggest it to him ahead of time, but his friend had a way of not really hearing any sentence that hadn't started inside his own head.

He trooped back over to the table, carefully carrying the little cup of coffee. When he got back there, Lee was nodding.

'Whatever way you want it,' he said to Paul.

'You know the big sports store, level two, by the escalator? I forget what it's called.'

Lee knew it. The crew had bought a lot of gear from there over the years. 'Serious,' he said. 'Of course.'

Paul took the coffee from Brad. 'That's the one. There's a rack of bags on the side wall. Hang it there. Near the back, where it won't be noticed. One of our people will swing by for it in a short while.'

Brad frowned. 'Isn't that risky?'

'Not on a morning like this, and not with last season's bag. None of you Valley princes would be seen dead with it, right?'

The man winked and put the cup of coffee to his lips. He drank the contents in one smooth movement. Brad tried not to gape. He'd seen the stuff come steaming out of the machine and had been surprised the cup hadn't melted.

Then the man stopped suddenly, cup still at his mouth. He was staring at something. Lee and Brad turned to look.

Outside Branigan's Irish Bar a large flat-screen television was slung from the wall. Though the bar wouldn't be open for hours, the television was on to make sure no one missed a chance to be advertised at. The sound was muted, and it was set to CNN. The picture showed a bunch of cops standing somewhere in what looked like a hotel parking lot. Yes — there was the Holiday Inn sign. Some on-the-spot news monkey was talking sombrely into a microphone. Looked like somebody got killed. Brad found this concept wasn't as empty as it had once been.

Lee turned back from the screen to look at Paul. 'We'll talk later, right?'

The man nodded, still staring unblinkingly at the screen. They were dismissed. Lee seemed like he really wanted to shake hands with the guy, make some concrete gesture of comradeship, but the man's attention had left them, apparently for good.

'Later,' Lee said. There was no reply.

Brad followed Lee across the court and up the escalator. On the second level they went into Serious About Sport. Brad walked over to the desk and busked a long and complex enquiry about snowboard arcana, a matter upon which the clerks were more than happy to lavish the gravity of their slacker intellect.

They were showing him a third board when Lee wandered over, without the bag.

'Got to go,' he said.

Brad shrugged at the sales dudes, and they left.

'Kind of cloak and dagger, isn't it?' Brad said. 'How come we couldn't just hand the bag back over in the court?'

'Guy had his reasons,' Lee said.

Which he probably didn't even have to tell you,
Brad thought, as he pushed the door and walked out into the warm lot.
Because you are now all about doing whatever he says. I wonder what you think that's going to buy you. I wonder if I'm set to get a cut. And if so, how small it will be.

'So now what?' he said.

'We chill,' Lee said. 'The cops are going to get a tip-off this afternoon. They're going to hear how there was a deal with Pete Voss and a couple of kids from upstate he met at a party on Friday, the night before Karen's. A thousand-dollar deal they killed him for on Saturday night. The kids are set up and ready.'

'And why are the cops going to believe that?'

'Because it's slightly true and also the tip will hand them the position of Hernandez's body, who was Pete's accomplice, killed as part of the same deal. It's a package.'

That didn't seem too great to Brad. 'So Pete's mom is told her son got wasted while taking part in a drug deal.'

'Yeah, well, he did. Remember?'

'Can't it just be an accident or something?'

'No. It's too late. And if it was then no one but his friends would have buried him.'

'Not true, Lee. It's…'

'Brad, this is your get-out-of-jail card. You can't dictate what design it has on the back.'

'And what's it going to cost us?'

'Nothing.'

Brad shook his head.

===OO=OOO=OO===

He got dropped at home and got in his own car. Pulled the roof back and set off into the morning.

Karen's car wasn't in the drive when he got to the Luchs house. He'd tried calling on the way but got busy signals and/or voicemail redirect. He considered reversing right back out again but it would look rude and anyway the car could be in the shop.

When he rang the doorbell Mrs Luchs opened it. She seemed a little subdued. 'Hello Bradley,' she said.

'Hey, Mrs L. Is she here?'

'She went to the pharmacy. She left a note for you.'

He thanked her and took the note back to the car to read. It was a folded piece of white paper, inside a sealed envelope.

It said:

B—

Mom probably told you I went to the store but that's not true. I told her that because I wanted to get out. I've been doing a lot of thinking and we need to talk. I know what you said but I know what I heard. Mrs Voss is on the phone the whole time to Mom about how it was our party that Pete was last seen at, like it's Mom's fault or something, and it's getting to her, plus if someone knows something it's just not right that the police don't know too. I think you and Lee know where Pete went that night. Pete deserves his killers to be found. I've looked into my heart and I think I really have to tell the police something. Let's talk before.

I'm going to go somewhere quiet to think.

Please come find me. Love you — K x

Brad stared at the paper for a full ten seconds after he finished reading, the message whiting out in front of his eyes. In a semi-trance he reached for his cell phone and speed-dialled her number again. It rang, not busy, but then flipped to voicemail.

He threw it on the seat and reversed out of the drive at fifty miles an hour. He went looking. And looking. His knuckles growing white. Praying to gods he hadn't known he believed in.

Trying not to cry.

===OO=OOO=OO===

After an hour and a half he had entered some kind of weird mental zone that felt like a blurry purgatory. His head ached with sunshine and reflections. He had looked everywhere he could think of.
Everywhere.
He had been to every mall except the Belle Isle because he knew she wasn't there. He had been over the hill to Santa Monica because there were places there he knew Karen liked to hang with friends, and he'd looked up and down the 3rd Street Promenade and even run down the pier because they'd spent a date there once. He had called his own home to check she wasn't there or sitting outside. He had called all of her friends he had a number for, and as he supplied drugs to most of them that was a lot of numbers. None of them knew where she was. A couple actually asked if he had any pills but it was too fucking late now.