L. A. Heat (7 page)

He looked up to find that Laine had followed him.
“Thanks for bringing me,” he said.

“Nice wheels. What color do you call this?”

Chris pursed his lips. “Prasecca metallic. Always
thought it looked gold to me, but I guess the marketing department didn’t
agree.”

“Yeah, they do like to fancy things up,” Laine
murmured, trailing a hand along the sleek curves of the SUV. He paused briefly
at the back bumper, and Chris wondered if he’d spotted a scratch. Finally he
circled around the other side and came back to the driver’s side. “Nothing’s
ever what it seems anymore,” he said.

“Get pretty good mileage out of it, do you?”

“Not bad, considering.” Chris got into the
driver’s seat, slid the key in, and cranked the engine. It purred. “Was there
anything else, detective?”

“No, nothing—” the cop turned away, then swung
back before Chris could shut the door. “One question, Mr. Bellamere. Just a quick
one.”

“God, you really are Columbo!”

“You don’t strike me as the type, but, do you wear
glasses?”

“Glasses—no. I don’t. Why?”

“Have good vision do you? Or do you wear
contacts?”

“Twenty-twenty,” Chris said. “What’s this about?
You think I might have missed something the other day?”

“No, chances are whoever did this was long gone by
the time you got there. Just idle curiosity.”

Chris didn’t think this cop had an idle bone in
his body, but he kept the thought to himself. “Fact is, I have nearly perfect
vision.”

“You’re very lucky, sir.”

He stepped away from the truck and Chris backed
out. He flipped his hand at Laine, who nodded, still fixated on the back of his
truck.

He was still staring when Chris pulled out of the
lot and headed west.

Monday,
11:35 am, DataTEK, Studio City, San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles

“Thomas, good to see you again.
Glad to see you’ve settled in.”

Executive row was a maze of small offices and
conference rooms. The walls were cubicle-thin, without doors. Chris glanced up
from the VP’s computer he’d been working on for the last ten minutes. He
recognized the voice of Saul Ruben, DataTEK’s chief financial officer. Then he
also recognized Tom Clarke’s voice.

“Uncle Saul. I thought you were on your way to San
Francisco.”

“This evening.” The distaste was heavy in Ruben’s
voice. “I prefer to spend as little time as possible in that Sodom and
Gomorrah.”

Tom made noises of agreement.

“How’s your father these days?” Ruben asked. “I
haven’t seen him since the last stockholders’ meeting.”

“He’s fine. Enjoying his retirement.”

“That’s right, he left his firm, didn’t he?” A
desk drawer slammed shut. “Still think he should have taken that House seat. We
need more men with his fortitude in Washington. Too many of these panty-waists
running things these days.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m glad you stopped by,” Ruben said. “Your aunt
wants you to come by this Sunday. We’re having some people over. The
Armstrongs’ daughter is visiting from Boston and she needs an escort.”

“Uncle—”

“Could do worse, boy.”

“Yes, sir.”

Chris grinned at the pain in Tom’s voice. A pair
of shadows crossed in front of the frosted glass fronting the VP’s office.

Chris watched Ruben pass by in his Brooks Brothers
suit. At least he knew where Petey got his fashion sense. Tom followed in his
knockoff Calvin Kleins. He needed a little more of his uncle’s money to afford
the real thing.

Chris finished up with the VP’s computer. He found
Tom in the cafeteria picking at a mandarin chicken salad. Chris dragged a chair
around and straddled it.

“Well that explains a lot,” he said softly.

Tom’s tentative smile froze, became a grimace.
“What the hell’s your problem, Bellamere?”

“Just wondering how a guy like you got here with
nothing going for him but brass balls.”

“At least I’ve got balls.”

“So, uncle bought you a job, did he? He trying to
buy you a society wife, too?”

Tom clenched his fists so hard Chris swore he
heard the knuckles crack. “I earned this position, same as you. Why the hell
can’t you give me any credit?”

“Because I’ve seen your work. And if you think I
don’t know about you trying to get Petey to can me, think again.” Chris thumped
to his feet. “You want respect, don’t ride in here on someone else’s coattails.
I could drag in a dozen guys who have forgotten more than you ever knew, who
don’t have cushy jobs because daddy sits on the board of directors. Even Petey
knows it.” Even if he’d never admit it.

“I’ll bet you could drag in a dozen guys—bunch of
faggots standing in line for a blow job.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Chris
smiled. Leaning forward he took his time selecting a mandarin slice from Tom’s
salad and popped it in his mouth.

Tom flushed, his mouth a thin white line. “There
are going to be some serious changes around here, just you wait. I don’t care
how irreplaceable you think you are. We’ll see who’s laughing then.”

Chris was thoughtful as he made his way back to
his desk. He knew the CFO, Saul Ruben. At least he knew his reputation. But
what didn’t he know?

His cubicle neighbor, Becky Chapman, slapped their
shared wall, then rolled her chair around into his cubicle. She glanced at his
computer, where he had just opened Google. “Working on something?”

“You know who Clarke is?”

“Trick question?” She grabbed an apple out of his
ever-present fruit basket. “Last time I checked his name tag, it said Tom
Clarke. I miss something?”

“His father’s a major stockholder. And our
esteemed CFO’s brother. How much you wanna bet Petey gets a fat bonus at year
end for bringing the kid in?”

She grinned sourly and took a bite of apple. “You
should try giving him a chance. Maybe he’s not as bad as you make out.”

“You think?”

“No. But we
are
stuck with him.”

“Ever the pragmatist.”

“That’s me. Plays well with others, too.”

When she rolled back to her desk Chris checked his
phone messages while he did a scattershot search for information on Saul Ruben.

One message was from Des. “Let’s do the Pit
tonight. Kyle’s got an audition. We can have dinner. Your choice. Call me.”

Chris did. The phone was picked up on the third
ring.

“Masturbation corporation—can I give you a hand?”

“Aren’t we just the cutest.” Chris rolled his
eyes. “Is Des there, Kyle?”

“Haven’t seen you in a while, Mary,” Kyle said.
“The interstate rest stop reopen for business?”

Chris ground his teeth. “Give it a rest, will you?
This hostility is so yesterday. Is Des there?”

“No, he isn’t. And if you’d stop horning in on us
I wouldn’t care what you did.”

“Des and I are old friends, that’s it. It never
was anything else.” Not entirely true. For a two-month period, during their
sophomore year at UCLA, he and Des had tried to take their new friendship to
another level. It had failed so miserably they had sworn never to try anything
so foolish again.

“Yeah, right. I see the way he looks at you.”

The dial tone filled his ear. Chris held the phone
away from him and stared at it.

Becky popped her head around the corner. “You
aren’t going to do something stupid, are you?”

“Who, me? Never.” Chris quickly hung up and swept
his fingers through his spiked hair. “Stupid how?”

“I’ve heard some things about Ruben...”

“Oh?” Chris straightened, Kyle forgotten. “Juicy
things? Tell.”

“I heard he’s a real hard-ass. Doesn’t give slack
to anybody.”

“Boring. Is that all?”

“He’s also a raving homophobe.”

Chris shrugged. “Him and all the other
Republicans. Anything else?”

“He apparently disowned his own sister when she
came out. When she died last year he refused to go to her funeral.” She lowered
her voice. “Refused to let anyone else in the family go, either. Said anyone
who went was out of his will. Disowned.”

“So anybody go?”

“Never heard. Want to bet Tommy’s daddy didn’t?
Maybe DataTEK is Tommy’s reward.”

“Well there’s a cheery thought.”

“Ain’t it?”

Return to Contents

Monday,
11:20 am Northeast Community Police Station,

San
Fernando Road, Los Angeles

WHAT DID I see in Bellamere’s
vehicle?

David grabbed coffee from the pot, which had the
dubious distinction of always being full. He sipped and grimaced. Even copious
amounts of cream couldn’t cut the bitterness of squad-room coffee.

The words of the elf man who had found the last
body returned. The man he had claimed to see had been blond, driving a golden
vehicle. David and Martinez had been quick to assume he meant yellow. But what
if he had truly meant golden?

As in Prasecca metallic?

And what had he seen behind the driver’s seat in
the back of Chris’s SUV? Eyeglasses?

Jason Blake had worn glasses. That had been in the
initial report.

His desk was its usual clutter of half-finished
reports and must-read documents. A new one lay on top of the Jason Blake
report. It was Blake’s autopsy.

A sticky note was attached to it. Martinez had
scribbled a hasty “Check the tox report” in his sloppy handwriting. While
David’s fevered mind worked over the possibilities, he skimmed the autopsy.
“Substantial quantities of chlorophenyl dimethylamino cycolhexanone
hydrochloride present in the victim’s liver and stomach.”

“Nice, eh?” Martinez slid his rump gingerly onto
the edge of David’s desk, almost dislodging a stack of paperwork. David caught
the papers and moved them out of danger. “Well, at least we know how he
immobilizes them.”

“Ketamine,” David muttered. “Special K.”

“Raver’s drug,” Martinez said. “Think our victims
are being picked up in raves?”

“It’s also big in the gay scene. I think it’s time
we paid a visit to this Nosh Pit.”

“
Madre de dios.
”

David looked at him sharply, but Martinez wasn’t
even looking at him. Instead he was eyeing one of the new female junior D’s.

“Your wife catches you looking at that and you and
your
cojones
have got some serious explaining to do.”

Martinez grinned. “No harm looking, right? You
telling me that’s illegal?”

David glanced across the room at the tall,
statuesque blond. Thank God she was ignoring them. He forced himself to smile,
flipping back through the report as though that distracted him.

“Probably is in some states. Now about this.” He
tapped the paperwork in front of him. “We need to put some D’s out in the more
popular clubs.”

“Talk about being popular—man, you’re ratings are
gonna go through the roof when you assign that one.”

“They’ll survive.”

“Guys should get hazard pay. They touch you and
your dick falls off. Talk about the heebie-jeebies.”

David knew his partner didn’t really believe that.
No one was that ignorant in this day and age. But he knew it reflected a view
shared by many in the department. The new tolerant attitude only went skin-deep
with many of the older cops. They remembered all too well when nobody had to
tolerate anyone who wasn’t “normal.”

Martinez was grinning, and David braced himself
for his next dig. “Maybe this is one of those cases where you can’t ask the
rank and file to do what you wouldn’t do yourself.”

David picked up the report and read through it
again. “You talked to Lopez about the others? I want to make sure they run tox
screens on all of them.”

“Sure,” Martinez said. “Said she’d have them to us
early next week. So, you gonna do it?”

David’s jaw clenched and he stared down at the tox
report. “Sure, why not?”

“You get hit on, I don’t want to know, okay?”
Martinez laughed all the way back to his own desk.

David pulled up Jason Blake’s murder book. The
older brother lived in Orange County. He had provided most of the background
for the report. It was woefully thin, so it didn’t take David long to find the
entry.

Brother remarked that Blake wore glasses for
astigmatism. Neither the glasses, nor any other item of clothing, had been
recovered. The report described the glasses. The description matched the
glasses in Chris’s vehicle.

David knew he’d never get a search warrant. All he
had were suspicious circumstances. No probable cause. No evidence even the most
pro-cop judge would look at.

So it was time to find the evidence. Laine dialed
the Orange County number.

A cool-sounding woman answered the phone with the
words “Gilbert, Michelson and Gabronni,” and acknowledged that Mr. Blake was a
partner there. She rung his extension and a male voice said, “Hello?”

“Mr. Blake.” David pulled up a new database entry
form on his desktop PC and entered the day’s date while he listened to Blake
ask who was there. Before answering he entered Richard Blake’s name and his
relationship to the deceased. “This is Detective Laine. We spoke—”

“I remember,” Richard Blake interrupted him. “Are
you calling to tell me you have someone in custody for killing my brother?”

“I’d like to meet with you,” David said, rubbing
his temple with the tips of his fingers. “I can come out to your workplace if
that’s more convenient—”

“I hear there have been others. Is that true?”

“Mr. Blake—”

“Is it true?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Blake. I can’t comment on an
ongoing investigation. As a lawyer, you must be aware of that.”

“Lawyer,” Blake spat. “I’m an entertainment
lawyer. I handle spoiled, nihilistic musicians who think every word out of
their empty minds is a pearl of unaccounted wisdom.” Blake sucked in a breath
and let it out in a long sigh. “Do you really think it’s going to do any good
talking to me again?”