McKuen’s Revenge (3 page)

A hard object pressed against her side. Still shaking, she slid the door open and stepped down. He pointed the gun at her cheek.

“Unlock your car. Lie down on the floor by the back seat. Don’t let the alarm go off.”

She punched the remote and the doors clicked. She opened the back door, flung her purse and lay down. His whisper was a snarl.

“I’m not going to tell you not to tell your husband or the cops. You will. But if you try to get the license number, I’ll come back and shoot you, got it?”

She nodded and made a noise. He punched the door lock and shut it.

Eddie Sanchez looked around, jumped in the van and slid in the driver’s seat. He started it up, checked the mirrors and backed out.

Level with her car, he scanned the back seat. She was lying there. Maybe she was trying to use her phone, but she was probably too scared. She wouldn’t move until she heard him drive away.

Not wanting to risk a kidnapping or murder charge, he had taken it as far as he could. She was telling the truth.

Shit.

He took off the ski mask, drove to the exit, paid and pulled onto the street. Return the van, walk a few blocks and pick up his own van. It would take over an hour to reach his garage. Plenty of time to think.

But there was nothing to think about, really. He’d have to go after McKuen.

3

Déjà vu.

Jaw tight, McKuen held Amy and comforted her. Years before, someone had held Mindy at gunpoint and forced her to deliver a message, too.

All of his control was concentrated on soothing Amy. Inside he was like a forest fire. Sooner or later he would let it out, lifting weights or running while thinking through the angles. She sniffled, no more tears.

“OK Steve, I can talk now.” She broke away and went to a chair. He stood waiting. She pulled a fresh Kleenex.

“It was a dark blue van, no windows on the sides,” she said.

Probably a rental. He smiled and nodded encouragement. She wiped under her eyes.

“He was completely covered.” She gestured up then down. “Ski mask, gloves, long-sleeved shirt and work boots. Maybe he had an accent. It was faint and it seemed to come and go.” McKuen raised his eyebrows.

“Like he was born here and grew up in East LA or something,” she said. It took a lot of willpower to steady his eyes and keep smiling.

Son of a bitch, not them. The Five was a Southern California drug cartel. He thought their operations had been shut down by the police, and hoped that subject was closed forever. He held up a finger.

“He asked about the necklace and the scrap of paper, right?” He was pretty sure The Five didn’t know about the necklace. She nodded.

“It’s all he wanted,” she said. “Where did you put it?”

“Not sure I should tell you. If you don’t know, you can’t tell.”

“Are you going to talk to the police?”

“Haven’t decided yet. I’m thinking about asking Dennis to have Zolo ask around, remember Zolo?”

Amy nodded. Zolo was Dennis’s personal P.I., more or less. He’d accompanied her for a couple of days a year or two before when John Christian was in town.

“Well, you know best,” she said. “I think this man is done with me. I’m going to start where I left off and go to school tomorrow.”

McKuen looked away. His impulse was to put three men with guns around her, but she wouldn’t stand for that. The guy was coming after him, anyway.

Talk to Charlotte Coil at the SMPD? There was a jurisdiction issue. The McKuens lived in Santa Monica, Westwood was City of Los Angeles. Ask her to talk to LAPD? Something to think about.

“Why don’t you go upstairs and take a nice long bath?” He wanted to call Dennis.

First he went to the garage. He had built a tiny home gym, soundproof so he could crank up the tunes. He took a deep breath and pounded the heavy bag barehanded.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Ow, that hurt. He stopped and shook his hand.

The Esterhazy murder and his desire to get out of the bar scene were on the back burner. The piece of paper was all-important.

Involve the police? No, they would ask too many questions. He went inside and called Dennis. They talked it over and Dennis agreed: get Zolo working on it.

McKuen cleared off his desk and pulled out a pad and pen. Amy’s safety paramount, he needed to figure this out. Obviously the man was real interested. He would pop up soon.

_____

McKuen walked into Bart’s, his bar in Venice. Dennis’s office was a storeroom with beer cases stacked to make a sofa. He nodded at Zolo and made himself as comfortable as he could.

“You’ve got somebody watching Amy?” he said. Zolo nodded back.

“Dennis say she does not want a babysitter. Somebody is behind her when she drives but she cannot see him.”

“You’re a good man.” They smiled at each other. Zolo stood up and ran a finger across his thin mustache.

“I call Jerky.” He looked at Dennis. “If Mr. McKuen’s wife is detained, we should also watch Miss Olivia.”

“Let me think about it,” Dennis said.

Zolo slipped into a black leather jacket and moved toward the door. Dennis lifted a finger at McKuen.

“Zolo had a question.” He smiled. “All your drawing, I told him it was your plan for world domination.”

McKuen smirked. “Busted.” He looked up at Zolo. “It’s actually diagramming. Some people play music, this is what I do. It started as doodling but it went way past that when I got into the business. Now I have a system.”

“When it works,” Dennis said. McKuen cocked his head.

“Eighty, ninety percent, maybe. But people do random stuff, too much chaos.”

Zolo nodded in agreement. He eased out and pulled the door shut behind him. McKuen looked at Dennis.

“Didn’t want to get into it on the phone, but it’s gotta be about that piece of paper Amy found in the locket.”

Dennis’s head went back, eyes on the ceiling. “Crap. John Christian, dead but still fucking with us.”

“Somebody’s fucking with us.” They looked at each other, silent, mental wheels spinning.

McKuen shook his head. He was glad that Zolo was on the case, but he was still uneasy. What else could he do?

_____

McKuen took the next day off. Amy was shopping and then had to run an orchestra rehearsal. He called an old friend, Tamra Morrison, and made a lunch date.

A minute after claiming a table, he saw a tall, pretty black woman walk in and look around. He waved.

An inspector for the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, Tamra grew up in South Central LA. A single mother, she raised three children on a government worker’s salary. Radiant as ever, her philosophy led to deep peace. She glowed.

“No fighting over the check,” he said.

“I think you forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“Last summer I was on an installment plan for Joseph and Deborah’s tuition. Neither of the bills came, so I called and the colleges said they were paid in full.” McKuen’s eyes flicked to the side.

“While I was talking to the financial offices, I found out the tuition was paid in full through graduation,” she said. “It took me six months to trace it back to a bookkeeper in Santa Monica. She told me there was nothing I could do. I wanted to make payments or something, but she said no.” She pointed at him.

“I suspected you were behind it, but the bookkeeper wouldn’t confirm. So I let go, decided to let God tell me what to do. Steve, I don’t know how to thank you, so all I can say is thanks.” She looked him in the eye and gave him a huge smile.

“It was something I wanted to do,” he said. “You gave me so much and I decided there was no better use for the money.”

“Steve, it was almost forty thousand dollars.”

“Let’s just say I’ve been really lucky, before I bought the bars. I’ve got more than I need, OK?”

“Well, I’m paying for lunch, and that’s that.”

“All right.” He smiled. “Just this once.”

McKuen was serious about the gift. After nearly dying in a car crash, he recovered with the help of Tamra’s philosophy, what he thought of as the illusion of control.

“You’re still in touch with Courtney Perez, aren’t you?” he said.

“Yes, we speak at least once a month. You know she’s creating metal sculptures now.”

“I saw the one at the Art Museum,
Last?
”

“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” McKuen chuckled.

“Amy wanted to buy one of her pieces but she decided to wait. Jan Simon has it priced at nineteen thousand.”

“Courtney earned every penny, she’s an amazing person. Actually, I don’t think she knows the prices of her works, or how much money she has. It’s all God, working however it works.

“That reminds me of a story,” she said. “We have time?” McKuen nodded. He just loved to hear her talk.

“There’s a woman I grew up with. Her name is Carla Starr. When she was a teen, she took a stray round from a drive-by shooting. Now she’s quadriplegic.

“Her hospital bills were enormous, but luck found her. A wealthy pop star made a huge donation when he heard about her. Carla’s exceptionally bright. She’s been totally absorbed in computers for the past twenty-five years.

“She has a control device she works with her chin. Software companies send her the latest voice recognition programs to test. They know they’ll get back an exhaustive review, in their language.” Tamra chuckled.

“She told me one company sent her some kind of setup to use a computer by thought control.” She sat back and shook her head.

“What?”

Tamra nodded vigorously. “I didn’t know that kind of thing existed, either. Carla said it wasn’t really ready, but someday… Anyway, just wanted to tell you that little story. The generosity you’ve shown me is like the gift Carla received.”

McKuen stared, eyes dancing. The story was nice, but the way Tamra told it was unique. It wasn’t so much the telling as her presence. He didn’t know what to say.

Eventually she took care of the check. They walked outside.

“Thanks for caring, Steve.”

He held out his arms. She embraced him for half a minute.

“Thanks for lunch,” he said.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Your one year audit sailed right through.” Her smile bathed him.

While walking to his car, McKuen realized Tamra had felt his mood and responded. When she said, “It’s all God,” she wasn’t talking about religion or even spirituality. It was more like physics.

For her, and at times for him too, it was reality. He wished he could hold onto it. Hell, he wished he could get out of the life, and live like other people. He started his car and sighed.

4

Thursday the 5
th

Courtney was out for a night-time walk. Her memory of the shooting fading, unsure why she didn’t report it, she chalked it up to her dislike of attention. It was scary, almost as bad as the murder.

Walking was new. It was good. She got more ideas this way. Walking also helped her lose weight, something she gave up on a long time ago. She frowned. Sitting down all day painting made her look blocky. Walking got her out of her studio and doing something else, good treatment for her Asperger’s.

So walking was good. Her face smoothed. She wasn’t concerned that sometimes she found herself miles from where she lived. That’s life. She smiled and turned the corner.

And saw the blond girl. The one she saw shoot that man, quickly hiking away from the big old hotel.

Eyes wide, she drew back. Then she followed, carefully.

The blond girl was moving fast. Courtney picked up her pace.

Same person, same gait—precise. Courtney never forgot.

Up the sidewalk on Pico, the blonde turned left. Courtney was a half block behind. The girl jogged across the street. She cut through the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium parking lot. Courtney struggled to keep up—the girl could really move—and could barely see the ponytail bouncing under the yellow lights.

The girl veered left. She cut between buildings. The lighting wasn’t so good and Courtney lost her.

There! Up ahead, she saw the ponytail flash under a streetlight. The girl turned right, Courtney a hundred yards back, huffing along.

She reached the corner and looked to the right. No one there.

She stared across the street at the Santa Monica Police Department building. Now really, how could she just disappear?

Courtney stood, breathing hard, deflated.

On her way home she wondered what to do. First the shooting, now this.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell anyone, she just didn’t know who to tell. She couldn’t tell her broker, Jan. She didn’t know how to say it but she knew Jan was protecting her investment. Telling Jan would be complicated.

Courtney just wanted to create art and live her life. She wanted to keep things simple.

Tell her psychiatrist? No, the doctor would want her to talk to the police. Not that it would be bad, but they would ask why she didn’t report it right away?

Tell Tamra? Maybe. Her friend Tamra was the wisest person she knew.

Courtney decided she didn’t need to decide yet. Passing by a canal, she knew where she was. Almost home.

_____

Detective Jen Delaney breezed into the police station. She waved at the sergeant and headed for the locker room.

.22 in her pocket, she needed to ditch it in her locker, pull out her police-issued Nine, wash up, brush her hair and pull it back again. No telling what she looked like.

She slammed through a swinging door and smiled at a pretty female officer. She keyed her locker, stuffed the .22 in a gym bag and took off her jacket, strapped on her Nine, pulled on a different jacket to forestall lingering traces of sweat or gunpowder, banged the door shut and locked it. Breathe.

She washed her hands and brushed her bright blond hair and headed for the detectives’ table. Excellent, no one around, a clean hit. She loved the thrill of the hunt and the rapture of the getaway. What a rush!

She put a finger to her neck and thought her pulse was about normal, looked around, stifled a smirk and sat down.

Perfect. On her lunch break, slow night, too. Just another few minutes.

Like clockwork, the phone started ringing. She couldn’t help but smile.

The murder investigation went smoothly. Some minor details, but nothing Jen couldn’t handle. After the team dispersed, she settled in at her desk, working through research on the victim, Grimshaw. Easy—she’d done some of it before the hit.

She pretended to read, daydreaming. How many more murders would her lover ask for?

The ghost of a grin. Her sweetheart would have loved it. Tell her about it tomorrow. Jen shifted in her seat, warm all over.

So beautiful, hope she kicks down again soon. God, she’s good. There’s so much of her, oh that long, long tongue. Just want to let her devour me. The kiss lasted all night.

Jen felt herself getting moist and snapped out of it, the station noise dying down. A door slammed in the distance. A phone rang.

She focused on the report. Pretty good. Another pass through and make it perfect. Perfect for Coil, and perfect for her most excellent goddess lover. Her desk phone rang.

“SMPD Detective unit, Delaney.”

_____

Morning sunlight peeked through the fog. Courtney ate a bowl of cereal and clicked on latimes.com. A year or two ago she never knew what was going on. In fact, she never thought to care.

She’d bought a Mac Book and used it to learn geometry and surf around looking for interesting things, but she’d become hooked. There was so much out there.

She barely hung on to the bowl.

A murder, at that hotel? She read the article.

The dead person was discovered at about nine thirty. When did she pass the hotel and see the blond girl, maybe nine o’clock? She saw the blond girl shoot a man a week ago and then she saw the same girl leave the scene of a murder? Oh!

Her head was spinning. She had to tell somebody. Where’s that cell phone? She punched Tamra’s number. The call didn’t go as hoped. Tamra encouraged her to do what she thought was right.

“Courtney honey, it’s your decision. You know people do bad things. Follow your heart.”

“Should I go tell the police what I saw?”

“If you want to.” Finally Tamra had to go and they hung up.

Courtney spiraled down, down, down, the conflicting thoughts too hard. Afraid to get involved, she knew it was the right thing to do. She walked through her studio, arguing. Then she stopped, trying not to talk to herself so much.

Spending five days making a small vase was so much easier than struggling with what she saw. But the first murder tormented her and then she saw the blond girl leave that hotel. She sat down and stared at the screen, not seeing. And decided.

She changed out of her overalls, put on jeans and a jacket and brushed her hair, then drove up Lincoln Boulevard in the vanishing mist. There was parking space near the police station. It wouldn’t take long.

She presented herself and waited. A uniformed officer appeared behind a Plexiglas window and asked if he could help her. She nodded, but didn’t know how to say it.

He was looking at her curiously. People often thought she was odd. Sometimes her eyes didn’t track right, sometimes she stumbled over her words. Especially when intimidated, like now.

As she was about to tell her story, she saw movement. The blond girl walked behind him, carrying a folder. She looked like she knew where she was going.

Oh, oh, oh—she’s a police officer!

Courtney couldn’t talk. It was hard to breathe.

“Miss? Are you all right?” the officer said.

She whirled and ran out, scared and confused. Now she really needed to talk to somebody. But who?

At home, she sat at her workbench. What to do?

Do what she did best. She found a pane of glass, and spent hours painting the girl’s face, perfectly, realistically. Every face is different, and Courtney could paint one as if it were a photograph.

When she was done, she laid the pane on a piece of black paper, then on a piece of white paper. She took it outside and inspected it in sunlight. It was the blond girl. It was exact.

Someday she would know how to use it.

_____

The breakfast table overlooked Santa Monica Canyon, endless sky falling to the ocean. Amy and Steve McKuen sipped coffee, studying twin iPads she bought them last Christmas.

“Shit!” McKuen said. “Uh, sorry honey.” She looked up from a review of
The Barber of Seville
.

“What?”

“Um, well…”

From how his eyes tracked she could tell he was debating whether to share his thoughts. She gave him a mock scowl. He’d better say what he was thinking.

“Oh, an article about a murder in Santa Monica,” he said. “That big old restored hotel near the end of Pico?”

“Um hmm?”

“Somebody got shot there last night, I know him.”

“Who?”

“Name’s Ron Grimshaw, owns a couple of bars in Santa Monica.”

“A friend?”

“Not really.”

“So why are you upset?”

He looked away again. That was a tell, a term she’d picked up trying to learn poker. When his eyes went left like that, he was going to try to soften the impact of his next sentence. She stared.

“Uh, seems like Santa Monica’s more and more—”

“
Mr. McKuen
, you’re not being straight with me. This affects you so it affects me. Out with it.” He winced.

“OK, the guy’s a competitor. Another competitor was shot last week. Dennis said the police are looking at us.” He put down the iPad and raised a palm. “Honest.”

Amy frowned, believing now. “Ridiculous. But look honey, this is getting out of hand. Two murders? The police are looking at you? And this man picked me up and pointed a gun at me? I’m sorry, there’s more, what else?”

He took a deep breath. Was it that he didn’t want to say what he thought, or he was as confused as she was? She waited. He pressed on his forehead.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“You told me about the drugs, about having to pull a gun on a man to get out of a jam.” She softened her tone. “What else, Steve?”

“Amy look, you know about Mindy, but I can’t say any more. I’ve been involved in some other things, that…” Finally he looked her in the eye.

“Remember when I said it was better you don’t know where I put that piece of paper? Well, like that. You don’t know, you can’t be held accountable.”

Lips a pout she put a hand on his. “Steve, I know you want to protect me but I’m a big girl.”

“No, you don’t understand, whoever’s killing is playing by different rules.”

A grey cloud of silence floated. It wasn’t time to push. She stood up.

“Freshen your coffee?” His eyes tracked her.

“Thanks for understanding.” He smiled. “I’ll get things worked out.” She smiled back, relieved. He would tell her eventually.

“Be right back.” He went to the dining room and tapped his phone. She knew who he was calling.

She sat down, picked up her coffee and listened to one side of the conversation. If the boys wanted to spend money on their little schemes, so what? Liv felt the same way.

Keeps ‘em busy. She smirked. Aware of the bodyguards, she tolerated it as long as they stayed out of sight and she didn’t have to feel like she lived in a cage.

She put down her coffee. He was a smart guy, but she would figure it out. She left to get ready for midterms.