Private Vegas (25 page)

“I will if I can.”

Tong led Scotty and Justine to his desk, brought over some stools, and said, “I understand you’re interested in this rash of car bombings. I was victim number one, you know. I gave the police names of people to interrogate. They refused to do it.”

Scotty asked, “Why do you think they refused?”

“I told them that the arsonists were kids,” Tong said, “but I had no proof.”

“You had some reason to believe what you told the cops?”

“Sure. As a group, the kids here are overeducated and un-dercivilized. But they
are
smart. They function at college level, even in the ninth grade. They seem angelic, but they’re fearless. And they don’t respect authority. Not at all.”

Tong polished his glasses, repositioned them on the bridge of his nose, and went on. “Add their rich parents to the mix, and you can see that the school must have kept everything quiet. Look, no one died, so no one cared—until now.”

Justine averted her eyes from quart jars of assorted eyeballs. She said to Tong, “See, what worries me is that arsonists escalate.”

“Dr. Smith, that worries me too. I’ve blown the whistle and I have rung the bell. The headmaster and the board have told me to shut the hell up or get out. If I’m blacklisted by the headmaster, I can’t get another job in LA. Maybe I can’t get another job anywhere.”

“We’re private investigators,” Scotty said. “Private.”

Tong nodded. He opened his desk drawer, took out a small notebook, flipped through it. Then he pulled a page out of the binding and handed it to Scotty.

It was a handwritten list of names.

“Please keep me out of this,” said Tong. “One of these insects set fire to my car. Next time, they could set fire to
me
.”

JUSTINE PHONED CHARLES Boyd Jr., the first name on Peter Tong’s alphabetically organized suspect list. Boyd was seventeen, an A student, in the honor society, a math wonk. Tong had added a note next to the boy’s name:
A vicious little centipede. A tease. A plotter. A bully. Smart, but also dumb. His parents donated three million—yes, three followed by six zeros—to the gym-renovation fund. They own strip malls.

The Boyd residence on Malibu Road was an impeccable, many-windowed modern beach house with an unobstructed view of the Pacific. The front gates opened for Scotty and Justine’s fleet car, and Scotty parked on the gravel near the entrance of the house.

Boyd had told Justine to just come in, and in fact, after ringing the bell a number of times, Scotty realized that the door was open.

The two investigators stood in the foyer taking in the drama of waves crashing ahead of them, right outside the living-room windows. Scotty said, “I’ve actually never seen anything like this. I don’t ever want to leave. In fact, I think I could live here and no one would even know.”

Justine laughed. It
was
breathtaking. It was as if there were no walls, just white sofas and exotic animal skins on shining hardwood floors that led out to a pool, a deck, and then the beach. The anthemic sounds of Florence and the Machine singing “Never Let Me Go” pounded over expensive, unseen speakers.

“Um. Let’s follow the music,” Justine said.

Following the music took Justine and Scotty through many splendid rooms, all of them empty until they reached the second floor and what was likely a bedroom. The music was turned to “deafening.” The walls vibrated.

Justine knocked on the door, calling, “Charles, it’s Dr. Smith.” But her voice was overwhelmed by the music. So Scotty beat on the door with the heels of his palms and yelled, “Charles,
open the damned door
.”

Florence and the Machine cooled their jets, and the door cracked open, releasing the heady aroma of pot.

Justine said, “Charles, I’m Dr. Smith. I called you, remember?”

The kid’s face was slack, his pupils the size of Frisbees in bloodshot eyes. He wore a stained school T-shirt and red plaid boxers. His room was a rich kid’s playpen, decorated by a pro and equipped with every favorite accessory of a teenage boy.

“Welcome to my abode,” Charles Boyd said, making a dramatic bow.

Behind him, a teenage girl wearing only sheer black panties laughed.

THE TEENAGE GIRL sprawled across the California king. She was thin, with translucent skin and dark, messy hair. She raised herself on one elbow, looked sleepily in the direction of the open door, said, “Could you…turn up the music?”

The two kids were drinking
and
stoned, but still awake.

Justine crossed the room, opened all of the windows. Then she went to the side of the bed, picked up a cotton pullover and a pair of jeans from the floor, said to the girlfriend, “What’s your name?”

“Jess. Ica.”

“Jessica, put these on, please.”

“But. I just took them off.”

Charles Boyd lurched toward the bed and took a menacing stance between the girl and Justine.

“Leave her
alone
,” he said.

Justine gave Boyd a little shove. He lost his balance and toppled sideways onto the mattress. The teens giggled, clutched at each other, and rolled around, ignoring Justine and Scotty entirely.

Scotty said, “Are you guys insane?”

He picked up an open bottle from the floor, capped it with his thumb, shook it up, then showered the kids with beer.

The girl shouted,
“Hey. What? Are you doing?”

Scotty plucked a blanket from the floor and tossed it at the girl, saying, “Cover up.” Then he brought a chair over to the foot of the bed and sat down.

“We’re not the police,” said Scotty. “We’re private investigators. If you help us, we’re gone. If you don’t help us, we’ll call the cops, who will charge you with possession. Then they’ll interrogate you for three days until they get everything they need to charge you with murder.”

Scotty had taken a direct approach, riskier than befriending the kids and teasing it out of them, but it was a safe bet that they’d never been confronted by law enforcement before. Justine thought Scotty’s method might work.

Justine said, “I’d listen to Investigator Scott, Charles. If you play this the wrong way, your life—all of this—will be over. Understand?”

“No,” Boyd said.

Scotty said, “No?”

Scotty pulled his cell phone out of his back hip pocket, started tapping in numbers. Boyd rolled onto his back. He said, “I plan on going to Northwestern next year.”

“That depends on what you do in the next five minutes,” said Scotty.

WHILE SCOTTY WORKED on Charles Boyd Jr., Justine stepped over to the dresser and took a good look at a metal cash box made of burnished steel, about ten by twelve and about six inches deep.

There was a combination lock showing 000. Justine raised the lid and saw a neat row of snack-size baggies filled with white powder, an opened box of Pleasure Plus condoms, and a small metal gizmo, like a mousetrap, that looked to be a remote-controlled detonator.

“Uh-oh, Charles,” she said. “I don’t think this looks good for you.” She opened her phone, took a few shots of the makings of a car bomb, took a few more that showed the placement of the box on the dresser, kids on the bed in the background.

“I’m just
holding
that stuff,” Boyd shouted. “
I’m not in charge
.”

Jessica pulled the blanket up to her chin. “We’re the good guys,” she said angrily. “Who cares about those cars? It’s a crime that they even exist. I mean, two-hundred-thousand-dollar cars that get eight miles to the gallon? You’ve gotta be kidding.” The girl fluffed her pillow.

Justine had treated enough teens to know that their brains weren’t fully formed. They lacked foresight. They didn’t understand consequences. They thought things were cool that were felonious, dangerous, deadly.

In many ways, teens were still children, which was why the police couldn’t interrogate underage kids without permission from their parents.

Private wasn’t the police.

Scotty said, “Charles. You’re losing the advantage of getting ahead of this thing. Right now, we have time to get to whoever
is
in charge. Otherwise, well, I know what my partner is thinking. The smoking gun is right here, in your possession, with your fingerprints. So what are we going to do, buddy?”

Boyd bolted off the bed, angry, blustering, chest out, hands curled into fists. Justine read his posturing as meaning that
he
was the victim here, and he wasn’t going to accept this.

“Mr. Tong sent you, right?” Boyd spat. “He’s a fucking douche. Zero Sum worked out the mechanics and we executed the plan, okay? We killed Mr. Tong’s
car
. Are you
gone
yet?”

Justine said, kindly, “Did you kill all of them? The Bentley, the Lambo, etcetera. The Aston Martin?”

“Zero Sum did the last one solo. I was driving. But we didn’t know anyone was inside that car. It was an
accident
.”

“That’s what you should say,” Justine said approvingly. “Say that it was an accident.”

Charles Boyd ignored her, but he was afraid of Scotty.

He said, “Look, don’t tell my parents. I’ll tell you who Zero Sum is and where he lives. He’ll straighten you out. He’ll tell you who the bad guys
really
are.”

AS THEY LEFT the Boyd house, Justine said to Scotty, “Want to bet Charles is giving Zero Sum a heads-up right now?”

“It’s okay. We’re only five or six minutes away.”

Justine dialed chief of police Mickey Fescoe’s cell phone. A woman’s voice was on the recording, Mickey’s assistant saying he was away for the weekend and to leave a message.

“Mickey, it’s Justine Smith. We found two of the kids involved in the serial car bombings and they have information about the Wilkinsons’ car.” Justine gave the name and address, then said, “You’re going to need a warrant to search the house for explosives.”

She forwarded the photos of Charles Boyd’s bomb kit to Fescoe’s mailbox.

“I hope he gets the message,” she said. “Soon.”