Eats to Die For! (26 page)

“I'll try to get you another one,” I said, then asked Zarian where we were going.

“To a safe house,” he called back, running a red light.

The
Los Angeles Independent Journal
utilized a safe house? Who knew?

I had barely finished wondering how safe it was when the voice of Dustin Hoffman entered my brain saying,
It's so safe you wouldn't believe it
.

Thirty-five minutes later, we pulled into the Ali Baba Motor Hotel located in one of the more scurrilous sections of southern Hollywood.

Bette Davis's voice provided the commentary:
What a dump
!

At first glance it was hard to tell if the place was even open for business or not.

“
This
is a safe house?” I asked, getting out of Zarian's van. “It doesn't look safe enough to spend the night in.”

“That's the entire point,” Zarian replied. “Would
you
look for somebody important here?”

“How long did it take you to find this little bit of heaven on earth?”

“My cousin owns it.”

“Swell.”

“Oh, stop grumbling, Beauchamp and get your ass inside.”

Zarian led us into the lobby, where a bored-looking woman sat behind the counter.

“Is Antran here?” he asked.

The woman looked up at Zarian and rolled her eyes.

“He's in the back,” she offered, before turning to the room behind her and shouting, “Antranig, your cousin!”

Moments later Antranig came out.

“Zari!” he cried, embracing his cousin. “Who are we hiding this time?” Then looking at me, he added: “And what the hell happened to you?”

“Picked a bar fight with a midget,” I told him. “Never do that. They're short, but they're mean.”

“Okay.”

“I worked with Billy Barty once,” Hanley said. “He was nice as all get out—”

“I believe you, sir,” I said, cutting him off.

“Antran, you're not going to believe it,” Zarian broke in, “but this is Palmer Hanley. You know, the Temple of Theotologics Palmer Hanley?”

The manager looked the old man up and down. “You're joking.”

“I'm not.”

“He's right, he's not,” Hanley added.

“Why is he here?”

“They're looking for him.”

“Who's looking for him?”

“The entire Temple,” I interjected.

“So who are you, midget-puncher?”

“My name's Dave Beauchamp, I'm a private investigator.”

“Like Magnum with a purple nose?”

“Yeah, just like. Except I don't have a stunt double like Tom Selleck does.”

“You should think about getting one. I am Antranig Bedekian. I don't have a stunt double either.”

He laughed heartily.

“Look,” Zarian said, “I need two, maybe three rooms. Do you have them?”

“Well, I don't know, we're pretty booked…” Antranig said.

Sure. The empty parking lot told how booked up the place was.

“The usual safe house rate.”

“For family, I always have room.”

“Two should be sufficient,” I offered. “Louie and I can stay in one room.”

The proprietor looked at us. “Are you married?”

I was about to lie to him and say yes when I heard Louie say instead: “I'll stay in one room and the boys can stay in the other.”

“Fine, two rooms,” the proprietor said. “Ten and twelve, next to each other.”

“That will be fine,” Zarian said.

“How long will they be here?”

“That I can't answer. Tonight, obviously, maybe another night.”

Well, if I had to be stuck in a room in a fleabag hotel somewhere on the bad side of town, at least I'd be with someone to whom I could talk about the old days of Hollywood, if Palmer Hanley was up for it.

Then another thought struck me. “Did you ever get in touch with Detective Colfax?” I asked Zarian.

“Just got his machine and left a message. I'll try again when I get back to the office.”

“If we can get him involved, I'm sure we can get out of here and back to our own places.”

“I don't have a place anymore,” Hanley said.

“Don't worry,” Louie chimed in, “when my story breaks, you'll be able to stay anywhere you want.”

Bedekian now handed us the keys to our respective rooms. “If you need anything, call the desk,” he said.

“I don't suppose you have breakfast, do you?” I asked.

The proprietor laughed. “Anything you can catch, you can eat.”

I hoped he was kidding.

As the four of us stepped out of the office, Louie said to Zarian: “I need to go back to the Temple complex, you know. I have to get absolute proof regarding that meth lab.”

“But it has to be done the right way,” the editor argued.

“Z, if we wait too long, they'll dismantle the lab and hide all the evidence!”

“And if we fly off the handle and don't do things exactly by the book, whatever you do find will be tossed out of court. You don't want that, do you?”

“What I want is to lie down,” Palmer Hanley said. “Think we could go to the room?”

“Sure, come on,” I said, “but you two come with us.”

We walked to Room Ten and opened it, and at least bats didn't fly out. The place was actually relatively clean, though there was only one bed. It was probably technically big enough to hold us both, but I wasn't particularly looking forward to finding out.

Sometimes ya gotta do what ya…gotta do
, John Wayne helpfully intoned inside my head.

Sure, Duke, like you ever bundled with Walter Brennan.

While Louie and Zarian continued to argue about the best way to storm the movie studio that was the Temple of Theotologics' fortress, Palmer Hanley crawled onto the bed and in less than a minute began to snore, and I doubted he could be awakened even by the rising volume of Louie's voice.

“Guys, can we have a truce here?” I asked, and the two stopped arguing. “I really think I can make everything a lot easier by involving Detective Colfax. Zarian, you must have a cell phone. Let me try calling him again.”

“All right,” he said, pulling a smart phone from his pocket and handing it over. Since I didn't have Colfax's number memorized, and I didn't have my wallet, which probably wouldn't have mattered, since I don't think I put his card in it, I dialed 4-1-1…and then handed the phone back.

“This is out of juice,” I said. “I thought I was the only one who forgot to charge his phone.”

“That's not like you, Z,” Louie added.

“It blipped earlier to tell me it was hungry, and then you guys called, and I forgot all about it,” he protested.

“Okay, fine, I'll call from the room,” I said. “There is a phone in here, isn't there?”

“On the desk.”

Desk
. That was a creative name for the rickety pile of wood that was pushed against one wall of the room. But it did hold a phone.

“Z, at least take me back to the office,” Louie was saying. “I can make some calls there.”

“Look, kiddo, I can't risk losing my best reporter,” Zarian replied. “You stay here tonight. The world won't end in one night. I'll go back and call my shysters and get some advice from them on how to proceed. Okay?”

Louie didn't like the arrangement, but she finally agreed.

“Good. I'll be back in the morning. Until then, don't do anything visible.”

“In this neighborhood?” I said. “I don't think I'll be taking any long walks.”

After a quick hug of Louie, Zareh Zarian turned and headed out, leaving her, me, and a snoring nonagenarian to the delights of the Ali Baba Motor Hotel.

“God, I hate this!” Louie said. “I hate just sitting around and waiting!”

“Hanley's sawing some pretty big logs,” I said. “Maybe I could just leave him here and come over to your room…”

“Nice try,” Louie said, smiling warmly and revealing those dimples again, “but I need to think, and make some notes.”

Seeming to read my expression (which, if on the outside it looked anything like I was feeling, I could have taken the Gold in Pathos), she put and hand on my shoulder and added:

“Aw, turn off the hurt puppy look, okay? I like you, Dave, I really do, but we're no longer in enough danger.”

“I could run with scissors,” I argued.

“Or you could hotwire a car and drive me back to that movie studio so I can get my evidence. That would be dangerous!”

Suicidal
was my word for it. I shook my head.

“Even if I knew how to hotwire a car, I wouldn't do it,” I told her. “You're going to have to go with your boss on this one.”

“He's never going to follow up on it,” she said. “He's terrified of the Temple.”

“You still have Palmer Hanley, live and in the flesh, to tell his story. Shouldn't that be enough to get the DA's office interested?”

“I know you're trying to help, Dave, but…shit.” She gave me a chaste peck on the cheek. “That's for trying to help.”

Then she went out and unlocked her room, Room Twelve. I heard her moan, “Oh, god, what a pit,” right before the door closed behind her.

Fine
, I thought,
I'll call Colfax on the house phone.
If there was a charge for it, Zarian would be paying anyway.

Maybe I should call my cousin in Cleveland while I was at it. I went to the parody of a desk and picked up the phone and hit the “O” button.

Antranig answered a second later: “Yes?”

“Hi, it's Beauchamp in Ten.”

“My cousin's friend?”

“Yes. I need to get an outside phone line.”

“Hang up, hit star-nine, and that will take you out. It will be put on your bill.”

“Your cousin is paying, remember?”

“Of course,” he laughed, “but I hope you know better than to try to fuck with him regarding money. I've known him longer than you.”

This was followed by another laugh, which I did not respond to, because I had suddenly turned colder than young Charles Foster Kane sledding down the hill.

“Right…thanks,” I said, putting the phone receiver in the cradle on the second try.

I'm wrong
, I thought;
I have to be wrong
.

You're not wrong, kid
, Bogie told me.

I must have made a mistake.

No mistake
, Duke Wayne chimed in.

“What do I do now?” I said aloud.

Well, stop shaking like a leaf, for one thing
, Lauren Bacall admonished.

That was easier said than done, because listening to Antranig Bedekian on the phone just now, I thought I recognized his voice, and hard as I tried to tell myself I was being ridiculous, I knew I had heard it before.

And I knew where.

Furthermore, because I spend so much of my time hearing and placing disembodied voices, to the point where I could even tell those of Gene Kelly and John Garfield apart (and if you think that's easy, try it blindfolded sometime), I was confident in my identification of Bedekian, the manager of the ten-cent hotel and the cousin of Louie Sandoval's editor and friend.

It was his voice on the threatening message that was left on Louie's phone machine in her apartment.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Antranig Bedekian was one of
them
, and we had just been delivered into his hands. Did that mean Zareh Zarian was
also
a Theotologician? That made no sense whatsoever.

Are you certain about that
? the skeptical voice of Edward Everett Horton asked.

“Yeah, I am,” I told the room, which contained only me and the sleeping form of Palmer Hanley. “He's a crusader for the truth, at least in his own mind.”

Or is he someone who uses his position to make certain that the truth never actually emerges?
This time the questioner was Spencer Tracy.

Was that possible?

It still didn't scan, but even if Zarian was an innocent bystander, the fact that his cousin was not only involved in the Temple but at a high enough adjustment level that he could leave threats against people suddenly made Zarian untrustworthy.

I had to let Louie in on this.

Dashing out of the room I practically pounded on her door.

Opening the door, she said, “Look, Dave, I told you once—”

“We're in dan…trouble,” I blurted out.

“What kind of trouble?”

I told her, and her first reaction was to tell me I was wrong, then that I was crazy, but I persisted.

“Louie, think. Did Zarian ever act as though he didn't want you to follow the Burger Heaven story?”

“Hell no, he made it easy for me.”

Then she stopped and her face became thoughtful.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Dave,” she said, finally. “He made it
too
easy. He let me have
carte blanche
, never questioned any of my decisions or actions, the way he normally would when I'm on a story. I assumed it was because he was as excited about the outcome of this one as I was, but now…oh, god, do you think he was playing me? What an idiot I've been!”

“Louie, we don't have time for recriminations. We have to get out of here, and we have to take Hanley with us.”

“You make that sound like it's a problem.”

“Go next door. He's snoring so loudly I doubt you could roust him if you lit a fire under him. I guess we could try calling for a cab, if Antranig isn't listening in on the phone, but I wouldn't bet against that. If it was just you and mean, we could simply leave and start walking.”

“Dave, you're not working yourself up into leaving him here, are you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Because I need him for my story.”

“I know, and I'm not so heartless as to abandon an old man who's been held captive for thirty years. I just don't know what to do.”