Hollywood Moon (20 page)

“It was just one of them—those things, Mr. Kessler,” Tristan said. “It won’t happen again.”

“Don’t worry about it, boss,” Jerzy said. “The guy at the car rental was a fuckin’ moron.”

Both listeners allowed Jerzy’s remark about someone
else
being a moron to pass without comment. Then Dewey said, “The last phone call from my office said that according to the tracking
number, the delivery truck will arrive between twelve thirty and one
P.M
. You will park a block away and wait. When the truck drops the merchandise, you will drive quickly to the address on the
Post-it Note I gave you, park at the curb in front of the house, and load the merchandise as quickly as possible. Then you
will follow me to the storage facility. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mr. Kessler,” Tristan said.

This was the part that Dewey Gleason hated, waiting for the arrival of a delivery. What if some very alert employee had somehow
flagged the skimmed credit card that bought the plasma TV with a sixty-five-inch screen, as well as the big Sony home theater
system? What if the check Eunice wrote for the two computers—a bogus check she promised Dewey would sail through the Los Feliz
resident’s account that she “had thoroughly researched” online—had also been deemed suspicious? What if some cops from the
LAPD’s Commercial Crimes Division were in the back of the delivery truck, ready to bust anybody taking delivery? Dewey’s white
dress shirt was damp and sticking to his back and chest when he arrived at the Los Feliz address. He could feel the sweat
running down his rib cage.

Dewey rang the bell and knocked at the door just as a precaution. As expected, there was no answer. He strolled out to the
street to see if he could spot the van belonging to Creole and Jerzy, but it was nowhere in sight, and that worried him. He
looked at his watch and removed his key ring from his pocket. The hand holding the key ring was trembling and his palms were
damp. There was nothing to do but wait, since the imbeciles who checked the tracking numbers at the delivery services were
never reliable.

Dewey felt his heart banging and his bowels rumbling when he heard the grinding of gears as a white delivery van began crawling
up the steep residential street. This kind of anxiety wasn’t worth it anymore. By the time he paid expenses and sold the merchandise
to his usual receiver, he figured he’d be lucky to net $1,500 from this whole gag. One thing was certain: If men with badges
leaped from the van after Dewey took delivery, he was going to offer a deal the moment they Mirandized him. He was going to
ask the detectives to phone the DA’s office, and in exchange for a promise of a plea bargain, he was going to give up Eunice
and every runner they’d ever used. He would do all this right after he crapped his pants at the sight of them.

The Latino driver parked the delivery van in front of the house and got out with a clipboard. He quickly came up the walkway,
seeing Dewey standing at the front door with a set of keys in his hand. Another trucker, this one a younger black man, got
out of the van on the passenger side.

“Are you Mr. Harold Phillips?” the Latino said, looking again at the name on the delivery form.

Losing his German accent, Dewey said, “You caught me just in time. I’d gotten tired of waiting for you and was leaving.”

“Sorry,” the driver said. “We got hit with a couple of extra stops we hadn’t planned for.”

“It’s okay,” Dewey said. “You’re here now.”

Dewey signed “Harold Phillips” to the trucker’s invoice, and the driver said, “One more signature.”

“Of course,” Dewey said, signing the second invoice.

Then both men walked back to the truck and opened the rear doors. No men with badges jumped out. Dewey looked both ways on
the street but still didn’t see Creole and Jerzy. The delivery team was carrying a Sony forty-six-inch HDTV up the three steps,
when Dewey said, “Just leave everything on the front porch.” Then for their benefit, Dewey spoke into his cell phone to an
imaginary installer, and said, “Roger? Are you and Slim on the way now?” A pause and then, “See you in fifteen. Everything’s
here.”

“The front porch?” the Latino said. “Don’t you want this stuff inside the house?”

“I’ve got my geeks coming. They’re gonna set up the plasma in the den, a Sony in the living room, and the other in my bedroom.
Just haul everything to the porch and they’ll bring it in as needed. Easier for them, easier for you.”

The Latino shrugged and both men returned to the truck. It took four trips up the long walkway before everything was on the
porch, including another Sony and a Pioneer sixty-inch plasma HDTV. Then the Latino hesitated, as though something wasn’t
quite right here. He said, “Why don’t you let us —”

Dewey distracted him with a $20 bill, saying, “Thanks, guys. Stop and get yourselves a sandwich on me.”

Both deliverymen smiled and thanked Dewey, then hurried back to the truck and were gone. Within seconds Dewey saw his runners
driving down from somewhere near the top of the hill. They parked and got out quickly.

“You had me worried,” Dewey said. “I couldn’t see your car.”

“You’re not supposed to see our car, boss,” Tristan said. “That’s the idea.”

“Let’s get to work,” Dewey said. “Our window of opportunity is closing.”

After having loaded the merchandise into the rented van, Tristan and Jerzy were following their employer’s car to the storage
facility in Reseda, when Tristan said, “When we got to that house, did you notice somethin’ funny about Kessler?”

Jerzy, who’d been dozing in the passenger seat, said, “Naw, he looked like the same butt-tight Nazi he always looks like.”

“He was way nervous, man,” Tristan said.

“Why not?” Jerzy said. “The fucker jist raided somebody’s credit-card account for several grand and had some sweet fuckin’
electronics delivered to the sucker’s crib. Didn’t you feel your asshole wink every time a car drove up the street?”

Tristan said, “Yeah, but when he was nervous, he didn’t sound so much like Schwarzenegger. In fact, he sounded like a regular
old citizen of the U.S. of A.”

“What’s your point, dude?” Jerzy said.

“That made me check him out a little closer, and I don’t think his hair looked the same. His forehead looked higher.”

“So, maybe the old fuck wears a rug,” Jerzy said.

“He didn’t look so old today neither,” Tristan said.

“So he got a good night’s sleep.”

“I think he wears a disguise when we’re with him.”

Jerzy said, “I don’t give a fuck if he decides to dress up like Wonder Woman and hustle tourists on Hollywood Boulevard. Jist
so he pays us for the jobs.”

“It might be worth our while to find out who he is.”

“For what?”

“You never know. How about we follow him home and see where it’s at?”

“In this fuckin’ van?”

“Just leave it to me,” Tristan said.

A ten-foot-high chain-link fence enclosed the storage facility, with wire strung across the top of it. The runners watched
their boss stop outside and punch in an access code to open the car gate. They followed him in and waited while he stopped
and presented his ID to a woman in an office adjacent to the storage rooms. After he returned to his car, they followed him
to the rear of the facility, where he waved them to a parking area.

While they were unloading the van, their boss unlocked a double-size storage room and began shoving aside other crates and
boxes to make room for the new merchandise. It only took a few minutes to carry it inside, and while his two employees were
surveying the other stacks of crates to see what they might contain, their employer began counting currency he’d removed from
his wallet.

“Two hundred for each of you and one hundred for the van rental,” he said.

“We got somethin’ more for you, Mr. Kessler,” Tristan said, glancing at his partner, who looked perplexed.

“And what might that be, Creole?”

“Some very good mail. We worked the hills yesterday and did some Dumpster-diving outside a law firm on Wilshire Boulevard.”

“Since I didn’t order that service, how much are you expecting me to pay?”

“Real cheap. A hundred takes all of it.”

They waited while their boss pondered before he said, “All right, let’s have a look at it.”

“It’s not here. It’s in my car,” Tristan said. “Can we meet you back at the office late this afternoon?”

Dewey hadn’t planned on going there, and Eunice still hadn’t worked the last batch of mail they’d received, but the price
was right, so he said, “All right, meet me there at six o’clock.”

“We’ll see you there at six,” Tristan said.

When they were driving out the gate of the storage facility, Jerzy said to Tristan, “Now, what’s this all about? We ain’t
got no new mail for him.”

“We will have,” Tristan said. “We’re gonna make a quick run through the Hollywood Hills and grab what we can.”

“Fuck you!” Jerzy said. “What, for a lousy Franklin we’re gonna risk our ass again?”

“Trust me, wood,” Tristan said. “After we sell him the mail, we’re gonna tail him right to his crib. And that’s gonna pay
off in robo-bucks. I may jist take me a trip back to New Orleans to meet my cousins. My momma and me left there when I was
five years old and came to L.A.”

Jerzy mulled it for a moment. He hated to admit it, but this little nigger was smarter than he thought. Finally he said, “Whadda
people in New Orleans do in their spare time besides drown?”

There was one crime that Sergeant Murillo read at roll call that got everyone’s attention. After he went over the information
concerning yesterday’s attack on a woman who lived in the southeast corner of Hollywood Division, he said, “Of course, this
has to be the same box cutter suspect. The victim in this one gave a description that matched, but she didn’t see the guy
as an Arab. She thought he looked Hispanic, but she couldn’t say for sure. The box cutter nails it.”

Dana said, “Sergeant, is this victim middle-aged? And do you happen to know if she’s a blonde?”

Hollywood Nate jerked a thumb in the direction of the surfer team sitting on his right and said, “These days, who isn’t blond?”

Everyone had a chuckle except Flotsam and Jetsam. Then Sergeant Murillo said, “I don’t know if she’s blonde. You might check
with the sex crimes detail at West Bureau. It might be meaningful or maybe not. He might go after a brunette next time. One
thing for sure, though, with a guy like him there
will
be a next time. He clocked her bad but didn’t rape her.”

“He didn’t cut her?” Dana said.

“He dropped the box cutter during the struggle,” Sergeant Murillo said. “She was lucky. After he was through punching and
kicking her, he picked up the weapon and fled. This attack was a lot more violent than his first try, and the victim’s in
the hospital. I’m guessing we’ll see a gathering storm of violence with this guy. Both times he struck in the evening, the
same time that you’re nice and fresh and ready to rock. It’d be terrific if one of you midwatch units were to stop a likely
guy on a shake and come up with a box knife. If you do, I’ll buy you pizza for a week. Hell, make it two weeks.”

“Maybe we’ve got a shot,” Dana said. “Same approximate time of attack. He’s gotta be a local guy.”

Sergeant Murillo said, “If you get him, I will also write you a fabulous attaboy, Dana. Or in your case, an attagirl. And
it’ll be so effusive that Napoleon’s letters to Josephine will sound like mash notes in comparison. Now let’s hit the bricks.”

“Napoleon Harris is a good middle linebacker, but I didn’t know he’s a letter writer, did you?” R.T. Dibney said to Mindy
Ling. “And who the hell’s Josephine anyways?”

As always, after everyone gathered their gear, they touched the picture frame of the Oracle for luck before they left the
roll call room.

D
EWEY GLEASON WANTED
to hook up with the new kid, Clark, before day’s end, but that would’ve meant a costume change. He couldn’t do that now because
he had to go back to the duplex/office in east Hollywood to meet Creole and Jerzy and buy the new batch of mail that Creole
claimed was so excellent. Eunice estimated that only five percent of the mail they bought from runners had any value whatsoever,
and less than two percent had identity information that could make significant money for them. Still, she demanded lots of
it and bitched if he paid too much to get it. Dewey knew he couldn’t win with her, no matter what.

If it were up to Dewey, he’d just drive around with a laptop and pick up computer signals. He’d talked to lots of identity
thieves at the cyber café, tweakers and crackheads mostly, who were doing just that. Then they’d go online and log in on the
target’s Internet service provider to access his computer and retrieve information they needed. Since there were so many businesses
these days offering free Internet access, they could later log in on one of those ISPs to surf the Web and buy merchandise
with stolen card numbers. Most people didn’t bother to change their security codes with their ISPs, so it seemed to Dewey
that it only made sense to update the way they were operating.

But would Eunice permit this safer and more sensible approach to their business? Of course not. It was too slow and uncertain
for her. And she repeatedly said he wasn’t capable of handling anything technical and could barely use a computer well enough
to send e-mail. She preferred that Dewey do things the old-fashioned way, the way Hugo had done it, so she could get her “retirement
fund” faster, and never mind the risks he had to take to get it done.

Eunice had lately set a target of $1,000,000 tax-free, after which they would quit the game and go to San Francisco, even
though she knew that Dewey hated the city. He recalled an incident back when they were still sleeping in the same room. He
was singing in the shower and changed the lyric of an old standard. He’d crooned, “Hate San Francisco, it’s cold and it’s
damp, that’s why the lady is a tramp!”

Then he’d dried off, grinned at Eunice, who was lying in bed, smoking, and said to her, “That’s the way Rodgers and Hart shoulda
written the song. That’s the way I sang it when I did little theater in Santa Barbara. That was a great gig. Santa Barbara’s
really a nice town.”