Eats to Die For! (28 page)

“And Regina. You killed Regina, too?”

Mendoza nodded.

“Why?”

“She was catching on, that's why. She thought nicotine was being put into the food, so I proved to her she was wrong. That black bitch found out the hard way what an injection of pure nicotine can do to a person.”

“My god, you really are a maniac, aren't you?”

“Fuck yourself, asshole. As for that pussy Klemmer, he saw me going through your girlfriend's apartment, so I had to improvise that one. That's why I used the zip ties. Normally I try to make my actions look like the work of amateurs.”

“Like the break-in and bugging of my office looked like the work of an amateur.”

“You know a better way to disguise the fact that you're a professional than to look like an amateur? Hell, why am I asking you? Like you'd
know
the difference.”

“But why, Hector?”

Then another epiphany hit me.
She was catching on, that's why
, he had said. Regina Fontaine had been discovering, or at least suspecting the truth about the addictive Burger Heaven burgers, truth that the Temple could not risk being exposed. She had to be silenced.

“You're part of it, aren't you?” I said. “You're in the Temple.”

“You say it like it's a bad thing,” Mendoza replied.

“That's why Bedekian called you, not because the Ali Baba was in your turf. Your turf is Hollywood. He called you because you're one of the cops the Temple has bought-and-paid-for.”

“Pretty well, too.”

Behind us, Louie Sandoval was pounding her fists on the rear windshield, indicating that she was either trying to break out or she and Hanley were running out of air.

“You know, the guy that started this precious Temple of yours is suffocating in a car,” I said. “Lot of respect you're showing him.”

“That old shitbag? Sure, he started Theotologics, but as a joke. I don't know why they've kept him alive, frankly, but it's not my decision.”

“Oh? You're not going to kill him down here?”

“Nope. Not the girl either. We still have to find out from her where she stashed all her notes on her investigation, after which both of them will be taken back for safe keeping. Hanley goes back to his happy home until he has the good sense to die, and the cunt gets sent to a place we have for people who prove particular difficult.”

“And where is that?”

“The Temple owns several mines in Africa. They always need new workers. People keep dying.”

“God,” I muttered.

“Hey, look at it this way? She'll spend the rest of her days surrounded by diamonds.”

“You're insane, you know that, Hector?” I said.

He leveled the gun at my head, which would have scared the piss out of me had I any left.

“Don't ever say that to me.”

That struck a nerve
! said the voice of William Powell inside my head.
Keep it up.

“They're going to come for you, Hector, and put you away in a padded room.”

“Shut up!”

While he wasn't lowering the gun, his grip on it was so tight his hand was starting to shake. Continuing with this strategy was a risk, but I didn't have any other options.

Behind me I heard Louie continuing to pound on the glass, as well as her muted cries from the car.

“I get it now,” I went on. “You joined the Temple because you couldn't accept the fact that you were crazy, and they told you they had an alternative treatment for insanity. Is that it? It all goes back to your mother screwing a private eye, doesn't it?”

He fired at me, but he was shaking so much that he missed. I heard it whiz past my right ear. I forced both my legs—the dry one and the pee-soaked one—to remain upright.

“That must have scarred you for life, the thought of dear old Mommy doing the Chicago shagnasty with a twenty-five dollar a day man. You're so crazy even the Temple can't fix you. They can only use you to do their dirty work.”

“You're a dead man, Beauchamp,” he cried, now holding the gun with both hands. “But before I kill you, maybe I'll beat the shit out of you, just for fun.”

I think you should let him
, Bogie said.
I mean it, kid. Dare him to fight you. He can't shoot you if he's punching your lights out.

It was such an idiotic idea, that it almost made sense. And I didn't have any better ideas at the moment.

“You're going to beat me up, Hector? Get real,” I said, fighting to keep my voice from shaking.

“Oh, you don't think I will?”

“I don't think you
can
. Oh, sure, you can shoot me, because I'm unarmed. I hear they teach a special class in killing unarmed suspects at the Police Academy.”

“You are so fucking asking for it, man,” he said, dangerously.

Taking a deep breath, I said: “But you don't have the
cojones
to fight me, and I know you don't have the
cojones
because yours were driven up into your frontal lobe last year by a woman at the stationhouse, right in front of all your cop buddies, who think you're the wuss of the galaxy. I've heard how they laugh when you're not around.”

Whatever dungeon we were in wasn't very well lit, but even so, I watched Mendoza's eyes turn crimson. Maybe he'd have a stroke right now and I wouldn't have to worry about his pummeling me into corned beef hash.

No such luck.

Tucking the gun in his coat pocket, he charged me, grabbed me by the shirt collar, and threw me a car length across the bunker, like I was a medicine ball. I hit the concrete and rolled, and he was on me again, wrenching me up, and this time driving his fist into my cheek. The world went orange and the next thing I knew I was being slammed into the concrete wall.

Bogie, maybe this wasn't such a great idea.

Mendoza hit me in the face again and I thought that punch would be the one that sent me under, but somehow I remained conscious, barely, just enough to hear the lugubrious voice of Alfred Hitchcock say in my ear:
Have I ever shown you how to strangle a man with one hand? It's quite amusing
.

Yeah…I remembered that I had seen Hitchcock do that trick on a television show. It was apparently one of his favorites at parties. While he didn't actually strangle anyone, he demonstrated how you could grab another person by the side of the throat, with your fingers in back and your thumb on their Adam's Apple, and squeeze…

Mendoza hit me again, this time in the gut, hard, knocking the wind out of me.

Then he stepped back and smiled. “No balls, huh?” he said. “If I'm the one with no balls, how come you're not fighting back? Go ahead, Mary, try and hit me.”

I looked up at him, gasping for air, lurched over and put a hand on his shoulder, an almost friendly gesture that made him laugh.

Then I patted his cheek, like he was a good boy, which made him laugh even harder.

Then with every ounce of strength I could muster, tempered by desperation, I grabbed his throat and squeezed as hard as I could, driving my thumb as far into his trachea as I could, trapping that laugh in a crushed windpipe.

He began to shake and then broke out of my grip, wheezing and gasping. He went down on one knee, doubled over, fighting for air intake.

I used the opportunity to haul back and kick him in the face as hard as I could. He was spluttering now, and I sensed that if he'd had enough wind to form words, he'd be calling me every name he'd ever heard.

His hand started to go into his pocket, the one containing the gun, and I stomped on his elbow before he could reach it. Then
I
went for the gun.

Sure, I could have shot him, but then I'd be just as bad as him.

Instead I went to his car and motioned for Louie and Hanley to get their heads down and shot out a window. I rushed to the car to try and open the doors, but they were still locked. Louie instead crawled through the broken window, managing to avoid any damage from the glass shards, after which the two of us then pulled Hanley through.

“My god, Dave, you were unbelievable,” she said. “But your face looks even worse now.”

“I love you too, honey,” I replied.

By now Mendoza had enough breath back to cough and enough strength to rise to all fours. I stood over him and pointed the gun at his head.

“You don't fight fair,” he wheezed.

“Sue me,” I replied.

Louie walked over to us. “Even though I couldn't find the car door release, guess what I did find?”

She held up a pair of steel handcuffs.

“Nice. No cable ties for you, mister,” I told Mendoza, as Louie went around behind him and kicked him prone then roughly cuffed him.

She was so quick, efficient and brutal about it that I wondered how much experience she'd had at it. I'd put off thinking about that until later.

“Smells like someone took a leak in here,” Palmer Hanley said, his face registering offense. “Damned hoboes.”

“Yeah, they ruin everything, don't they?” I muttered. “Let one into an underground bunker and there goes the neighborhood.”

“Damn straight!”

“Speaking of underground bunkers, does anyone have any idea how to get out of here?”

“That thing he used to open the door must still be in the car,” Louie said, rushing back to look.

“This looks like it,” she told us, and half-crawled back into the car to get it, yelping once out of pain from having found a bit of the broken glass. She came back with what looked like a television remote in one hand and a growing drop of blood on the other, which she sucked away.

Then she pointed the device at the seemingly solid wall and started hitting buttons until it began to slide. It had opened nearly all the way when I saw someone on the other side.

As soon as he stepped into the light, such as it was, I whimpered, “Oh, no…”

It was Detective Dane Colfax, his right hand clamped around a gun.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

“Is the Police Protection League a wholly owned subsidiary of the Temple of Theotologics?” I cried.

Colfax lowered the gun. “What are you talking about, Beauchamp? And what the hell happened to you?”

Only then did I notice that there was an entire phalanx of uniformed officers behind him.

“Your friend Mendoza expressed his displeasure with me,” I said. “And be straight with me, Dane. Are you in the Temple?”

“I'm not even Jewish.”

“Oh, god.” For the second time in the last quarter hour my legs gave out and I sank to the floor of the bunker. “Why are you here? Not that I'm not happy to see you. I'm thrilled, in fact. But why are you here, detective?”

He didn't answer at first. Instead he walked over to the prone, cuffed figure of Detective Hector Mendoza.

“Hi, Hector,” Colfax said.

“Fuck you,” Mendoza spat back.

Turning back to me, Colfax asked: “Did you do this?”

“It was a joint effort between this lady and myself.”

“Jesus, Beauchamp, you sure have a taste for tough women.”

Welcome to the club
, the voice of John Garfield said inside my head. Or maybe it was Gene Kelly.

Detective Colfax motioned for two of the uniforms to come and pick Mendoza up off the floor, and for one horrible moment I was afraid he was going to release him.

Instead he instructed the cops to Mirandize him and put him in the back of a cruiser. Then he started examining the opening wall, and said, “I've never seen anything like this in my life.”

“Colfax, please, why are you here?” I asked.

“I've been working with internal affairs regarding Hector,” he replied. “I've been following him. The brass thought he might be hinky. I didn't want to believe that at first, but you do what you're assigned. I figured this was a chance to exonerate him. The more I tailed him, though, the more suspicious he started looking. When I saw him coming out of that apartment building in Palms, right before the murder of that kid Klemmer was reported, I had to admit something wasn't right.”

Dane Colfax; master of the understated emotion.

“And you know, Dave,” he went on, “if you hadn't told me that cell phone of yours we found by Klemmer's body had been lifted, I might have suspected Hector of taking it and planting it to frame you.”

“Oh…yeah. Lifted. Right.”

“Are you trying to tell me something, Dave?”

“Me? No, I've just been through quite a lot in the past week. I'd almost forgotten about my phone.”

“Yeah, you do kind of look like dog crap—pardon my honesty.”

That seemed to be the prevailing opinion. I guess if Jesus' face can appear on a piece of toast every now and then, mine can appear on a turd.

“As to why I'm here,” Colfax went on, “we were tailing Mendoza because he got a call on his cell, and then ditched his new partner Willford and took off.”

My own guess was that call was from Antranig Bedekian at the Ali Baba Motel, summoning Mendoza to take care of the people his cousin had been brought to the “safe” house.

“We followed him into this structure,” Colfax continued, “and then he just disappeared. We couldn't figure it out. We were going nuts, to be honest about it. It just didn't make any sense. And then all of a sudden, the wall opens up and there he is and there you are. What is this place, anyway?”

“I don't know exactly, but I'm pretty sure it is owned by the Temple of Theotologics,” I said.

“That's the second time you've mentioned them. What have they to do with all this?”

“Detective Colfax, take us out of here, get that old gentleman over there to a nice bed, get the young woman he's with to a phone so she can call the Associated Press, and if it's not too much trouble, take me to the nearest emergency room, because talking has suddenly become quite painful, and in return I will tell you absolutely everything I know.”