Internecine (19 page)

I returned the counterman’s smile and used the advantage to talk him out of a whole fistful of pocket change. In my jacket, on one folded sheet of the dossier, were more phone numbers for Alicia Brandenberg than I had fingers. I figured her direct cell was the best first bet.

Traffic rushed past in all directions, like platelets through an arterial junction jamming up, switching lanes, suddenly busting loose, careening around each other with inches to spare. It was good cover noise; I could be calling from anywhere in the city. I fired up a cigarette, willing myself to look cool—I was Mr. Lamb, the Man from Ad.

I wished I’d felt this certain whenever I was in Vegas, because the voice that answered my very first call said, “This is Linda Grimes.”

Alias “Choral.” Bingo, blackjack, we’ve got a winner. She had answered in the middle of the third ring, as assistants are instructed to do, all business.

“Hi, Linda. Listen, I need to talk to the boss-lady.”

“Who’s calling, and what is this regarding?”

“Well, Linda, first I should say that I hope our abuse of your credit card doesn’t piss off Citibank.”

I heard her suck in a tiny breath before whispering,
oh shit.

“May I call you ‘Choral’? I hope so.”

“What do you want?” There were mufflings and shufflings on her end, as if she was stuck in a crowd, looking nervously around for a sniper, trying to play normal for the company she was in.

“I want Alicia Brandenberg to drop whatever the hell she’s doing and meet with me. Right now. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, but then, I’m not really asking.”

“I can’t do that. Listen—”

“You listen! I can see you, from where I am, but you can’t see me.” How would she know? “Here’s what I want. You can either put her on the phone right now, and watch her squirm, or you can pull her aside and talk in her ear like a good assistant, bringing up an essential item of business. Your call.”

Big exhalation. “Just a minute.”

“Twenty more seconds and I hang up.”

“Just a
minute,
dammit. Geez.”

I racked the phone. It felt . . . wonderful. I finished my cigarette—my first in three years—had a mint, and called her back from the drugstore pay phone across the intersection. This time, the call was snapped up on the first ring.

“Hey, Choral.”

“Jesus—why’d you hang up?”

“Yes or no?”

She frittered. “Yes, yes, goddammit, but we can’t just—”

“Yes, you can.” I kept her on the ropes, interposing. “Here we go. You know the movie theatre near what used to be the Virgin on Sunset?”

Everything in Los Angeles used to be something else. The titanic complex at Sunset and Crescent Heights had been erected on the grave of the original location of Schwab’s Drugstore to house a Virgin Megastore, which of course had gone belly-up after the turn of the century. There’s a Trader Joe’s there now. Nothing endured.

She wanted to say a dozen other things, but she said, “Yeah. Across from what used to be the Teazer.”

“Try to make the nine-thirty show of a movie called
Spiderweb.
”

“But what if—?”

I hung up again. I could walk to the theatre from where I was. Even stop for coffee.

Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant had also died around the time the Virgin store vacated its prime real estate. Outdoor escalators still fed up toward the movie theatre complex on the second level, but the place had a besieged, abandoned air, as though the big players had pulled out amidst conflict and disgrace. It wasn’t as populous as I would have liked; fewer crowds meant less cover. An espresso joint was tucked into one corner like an afterthought, trapped in a bustle of hazard tape. When new businesses moved into old slots, sometimes the tenants even replaced the damned sidewalks. It was cosmetic surgery for the face of the city—nips, smoothing, tightening—and it held the scary plastic sheen of the new and the transitory. Exteriors mattered. Never mind that they’d warp in sunlight or decompose in mere weeks. They were meant to be replaced again, and that obsolescence, that upkeep, had become what passed for evolution on the face of the city.

In a world such as this, how could any sane person expect to do a single job for a number of decades and then enjoy some kind of retirement where their safeties and investments were protected? People had to morph, too, or risk being recycled into something more useful.

It was happening to me, right now.

The person I had been was not the man who growled threats into a phone, who assigned meet-ups by force, who pushed pawns around. Who was now checking stairs and escalators for escape routes. Nope, not me.

Of course I had done each of those things before, many times, in the course of my work. But then I had enjoyed ameliorative language and the protection of business-class excuses. I was erasing my old identity. I was becoming something new, a “work in progress.”

Whether it was a skin-deep makeover—fake, false—or a fundamental change in my own DNA, I had no idea . . . but I was about to find out.

At exactly nine-twenty I saw Choral Anne Grimes and Alica Brandenberg exit the south bank of elevators directly connected to the upper level where the movie theatre was located. If there were bodyguards, they were hanging back, out of sight in public. From my view there were plenty of getaways to street level.

I handed my prebought ticket to an usher and scooted inside, ten minutes after the feature had already begun. Slap my hand, I’d even lied about the start time.

I was able to monitor the two of them most of the way. Choral was suited up in efficient evening chic and black heels. Her legs turned heads in the courtyard.

Alicia Brandenberg’s photo did not do much justice to her allure, or maybe she just naturally exuded magnetism, the way the best politicians do. She was wearing a smart suede jacket and calfskin pants; she knew how to stride in heels, almost imperiously. She led; Choral followed, or rather, kept up. They could have been wealthy, attractive mother and daughter. Alicia was wearing glasses, no doubt costly designer items. Auburn hair, restyled since her headshot. Very pale skin, probably Irish-German. Minimalist jewelry. Matte lip gloss. All top-drawer. Choral eyed the milling consumers in the forecourt and acted frustrated. Alicia kept eyes-front all the way.

I stood in the back corner near the curtains, invisible, with a full view of the multiplex auditorium.
Spiderweb
was a movie about double crosses. The kickoff scene took place in an airport, at night, as twenty or thirty special agents and security watchdogs try to prevent a Chinese fugitive from escaping on an outbound flight. They descend like locusts on their target . . . who turns out to be the wrong man. They reset and realize they’ve been diverted, and hustle to another terminal, where they are just in time to nail another decoy . . . as the real guy boards yet a third flight, in drag. It was one of those movies seemingly shot all at night. No bright scenes to illuminate the auditorium, at least not for half an hour or so.

Alicia and Choral entered, scanning around uncertainly in the darkness while the forty-plus people in the theatre were engrossed in the onscreen terminal-to-terminal rabbit hunt. The paying customers were clustered within the frontmost two-thirds of seating. Alicia and Choral
settled down near the rear, two seats together, not far from the east exit door. I crossed behind them and sat down.

“Ladies.”

They both tried to turn and unleash accusations. I placed a hand on each shoulder to deter them. “Watch the movie.”

“What do you want?” said Alicia, softly enough not to be shushed by the people in the theatre. Her accent was lilted and vaguely European.

“Nice to see you again, Choral,” I said.

“Fuck you,” she said.

“No, I think it’s fuck
you,
” Alicia hissed at her assistant. “After tonight, you and I are no longer related, you dumb little squiff.”

That froze Choral into a blank, standby state.

“Be forgiving,” I said. Bounce images from the movie reflected off Alicia’s glasses, upside down, as in a camera lens. “She didn’t have any choice. Choral, remember when we were on the train?”

Choral nodded.

“Remember what I told you on the train, about being covered?”

She nodded again. Tears brightened her eyes in the lurid glare from the screen. Her nascent career had just turned into sewage.

And I was becoming more and more comfortable with using violence—even bluff violence—as a tool. No drug can equal the narcotic effect.

“Same deal,” I said. “Now it’s Q and A time.”

“How much?” said Alicia.

“Beg pardon?”

“How. Much,” she said. “How much do you want?”

“That’s very kind of you,” I said, just above a whisper. “But that’s a question, and I’ll be asking the questions. First question, How did you get mixed up with
NORCO
?”

Alicia stiffened and tried to bluff. “I don’t know what you’re talking abou—”

I tapped her gently on the back of the head. Her hair was thick and genuine. This kind of woman would hate physical prodding, most of all.

“Licia,” I said, using Choral’s nickname for her. “Do you really want to sit through this entire movie?”

“They came to me,” she said, after a bit of soul-searching.

“See, that wasn’t so hard. What did they want?”

“If I tell you, they’ll kill me.”

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll kill you right now.” God, was that ever easy to say. Rather, for “Mr. Lamb” to say.

On the screen, one of the Chinese malefactor’s decoys got roughly bulldogged to the floor and handcuffed. Choral kept her attention on the action.

Alicia swallowed a lump. “The whole thing was a third-party action. Nobody was supposed to get killed, not for real.”

“Except maybe the guy you selected to do the job.”

“That was
NORCO
’s call. Nothing to do with me.”

“You didn’t answer my question. About what
NORCO
wanted.”

“I met with them one time. One single time. They suggested the setup. But it had to come from outside. Third party.”

“But they suggested whomever. And you sent Choral to make the arrangements?”

“Yes.” She bit off the word. “I should have done it myself.” She turned to Choral. “God, you are
so
fired.”

“Eat shit, you fucking
bitch,
” Choral muttered, still watching the screen.

“Choral, shut up. Watch the movie.”

“I don’t have to put up with this shit,” Choral said. “I did what she asked me to. And now, every five minutes, someone is threatening to kill me. So fuck you, fuck her, fuck y’all.”

“I know how you feel,” I said. The way her Southern accent leaked when she was stressed was just too cute. “I’m not supposed to be mixed up in this either, but here we all are. I want to know what you think is supposed to happen.”

Alicia tried to turn again. Eye contact is important for offensive maneuvers. I tapped her on the head and she startled back to her original position. “Right now, you die, she dies, I’m happy and I can go back to dinner.”

“You said you had a meeting.” I had a firm grasp on Alicia’s shoulder, now. “There must be a name.”

“Don’t you fucking touch me,” she said.

I reached around to squeeze the nerve in her right armpit. It was
something I’d learned by accident, while being tormented by my once-upon-a-time half brother, Clay. He had hoisted me into the air (the way Dandine had lifted Zetts) to begin some mayhem, and while I was flailing, I grabbed his armpit and hit the nerve bundle there. Grab just so, and the whole arm goes numb. That’s what brothers and sisters were for, I guess—practice. Alicia arched slightly, then bulled down against the pain.

“Oww, goddammit!”

“Wrong answer, Licia.”

“Geraldis. Or Gerald Something. That won’t do you any good; they all have fake names anyway;
let go of my arm!
”

She was pissed off, but she still kept her voice down, and that was when I knew I had her. I pulled a Pilot pen out of my jacket pocket and pressed it into the hollow of her throat, from behind, while releasing her arm. “Feel that? This little toy can make you nerve-dead in less time than it will take your body to touch the ground.”