the Prostitutes' Ball (2010) (2 page)

"I'd sure like to know who Jeb s gonna put with me. You heard anything?"

We were about five miles from the transition to the San Diego Freeway, which would take us to Venice Beach, where our little canal house was located on one of the waterways there. When Alexa didn't answer I glanced over.

I knew that expression. She was trying to make up her mind. It was always a problem for us when she knew something that affected me but that she wasn't supposed to confide.

"I'm hoping it's not going to be Sumner Hitchens," I gently prodded.

Then she said, "I think Detective Hitchens is going to be transfered to CAPS in the Valley. But please don't say anything because I don't think he's been told yet."

CAPS was Crimes Against Persons, and if that was true, it was a big demotion for him to go from the elite Homicide Special squad where he was currently assigned to some Valley purse-snatch detail.

Hitchens, or "Hitch" as he preferred to be called, had somehow gonzo'd his way into our unit, then had burned through three partners in less than a year. All of them eventually became so frustrated with him they demanded reassignment.

"You sure he's going to the Valley?" I asked.

"It's just something I think I heard," she responded vaguely.

"Okay, that's good. Actually, that's great. But it leaves us with an odd number up there. Means they'll have to transfer in someone new to partner with me. Bobby Shepherd has been trying for the unit. I worked great with him when we were in patrol. You think you could put in a good word? I'd love to get Shep as my new partner."

She poker-faced my dash.

"I hope making captain isn't going to fuck up that nice, easy management style you're so widely appreciated for," I said, trying to kid her along.

"Come on, Shane, you know who gets in Homicide Special is Jeb's call. I can't micromanage my commanders and then hold them responsible for their performance."

At that moment the radio call that put this story in motion burbled out of the scanner.

"All units and One Adam Twenty. A 415 with shots fired at 3151 Skyline Drive. Nearest cross street is Mulholland. One Adam Twenty, your call is Code Three."

"Isn't that about a mile or two up there?" Alexa said, pointing off at the hills to my left where some very pricey real estate was located. We'd both been patrol officers for five years and as a result had a pretty thorough knowledge of the city.

"Yeah," I said. "I think Skyline Drive is just off Mulholland near Laurel Canyon."

Alexa snatched up the mike and keyed it.

"This is Delta Fifteen. Scully and Scully. Off duty, but in the immediate vicinity. We will take the Skyline Drive 415 shots-fired call."

"Roger that," the RTO replied. "All units, all frequencies, Delta Fifteen is in the vicinity of 3151 Skyline and is responding Code Three. All other units, your call is now Code Two."

Code Three is red lights and siren. I hit the switch, and the strobes I'd had installed in the grille and back window of my Acura flashed on. Simultaneously Alexa reached out and flipped another toggle and as the siren began to bray I floored it.

A 415 radio call is a disturbance where the 911 caller is so hysterical or incoherent that dispatch doesn't know the exact reason or nature of the event. In the Patrol Division, 415s were dreaded calls because you could be rolling on anything from an old lady locked out of her house to something as deadly as the North Hollywood bank shootout.

One night, years ago, when I was still in an X-car, I got a "possible major 415 with knives and chains." It sounded like a riot. We squealed in with our adrenaline surging and our weapons out. It turned out to be two eighty-year-old men fighting over a garden hose. We were so keyed up, and the lighting in the backyard was so bad, we could have easily shot one of them by mistake.

You had to be extremely careful but ready for anything on 415s. The shots-fired tag definitely upped the ante.

We exited the freeway on Laurel Canyon and headed into the hills. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Alexa fishing in her purse for her 9 mm Spanish Astra. I caught her eye just as she tromboned the slide, kicking a fresh round into the chamber, then clicked on the safety.

"Merry Christmas, sweetheart," she deadpanned.

Chapter
4.

We powered up Laurel Canyon with the siren squealing and turned right onto Mulholland Drive, which runs for a way along the top of a mountain ridge that separates Hollywood from the Valley. The road was almost a thousand feet up and provided spectacular views of Studio City on the right and Hollywood to the left. The view was the reason so many multimillion-dollar estates dotted this hillside.

About a mile down Mulholland, we saw Skyline Drive. It cut in on the left heading farther into the mountainside. As I made the turn I almost hit a blue Maserati that flashed past, speeding onto Mulholland. Alexa snapped her head around to look through our back window but the car had already disappeared.

"Didn't get it," she said, referring to the license plate.

The engine on the Acura roared loudly beneath my siren as w
e c
ontinued up the grade, passing more cantilevered mansions that hung off the mountain like glass-walled palaces. We were in the 2800 block, which meant we still had a ways to go.

Then a red Ferrari Mondial sped past us. There were two people inside. The savvy driver flashed his high beams up into our eyes so we couldn't read his plate.

"Didn't get that one, either," Alexa said. She was looking out the back window again but missed the rear plate because of the dark, underlit street.

We passed two bumper-chasing Escalades. Both had their headlights off and were screaming down the hill. No front plates. Next, a half-million-dollar Mercedes McLaren whipped past, its high beams blinding us, followed by a Bentley Azure, then another Maserati. This one was yellow with a maroon racing stripe.

"Nope," Alexa said, turning again. It was way too dark to see much.

"Cockroaches running for the baseboards," I muttered as I grabbed a curb number. 3140. The house we wanted was going to be near the top of the hill.

The last car to pass us was a new black Mercedes 350. It was also running without lights, but this time as Alexa spun around she managed to catch the first four letters on the back plate.

"4 L M C!" she exclaimed. "Didn't get any other numbers."

We got to the address and I skidded the MDX to a stop, flipping off my emergency package as Alexa and I bailed.

I clawed my party gun, the backup Taurus Ultra-Lite .38, from my jacket-slimming ankle holster and we both surveyed the scene, our hearts pounding.

3151 was at the very end of Skyline. The driveway looked like an extension of the street leading up a hill onto a large property dominated by a looming overgrown mansion on the left. We were the first unit on the scene.

The huge house was a big, rundown Spanish structure that looked like it was built in the early 1900s, well before the rest of the sixties
-
style neighborhood had filled in around it. The front yard had gone to seed. An old wooden gate was hanging crooked but standing open across the driveway. I could hear Christmas music coming from the back Bing Crosby singing "Silver Bells/'

"Let's clear it," Alexa said.

I nodded and we passed through the open gate and started up the drive with our guns drawn, moving carefully, ready for anything.

The mansion was dark. As far as I could see, not one light was on inside. We walked up the steep drive, hugging the mansion's south wall, heading toward the sound of the music.

When we neared the top of the hill a huge eight-car garage came into view and we could see lights coming from a large backyard area. We crested the drive and saw that the house sat right on a promontory point. A magnificent half-acre pool area with a spectacular view overlooked the lights of the Valley on the left and parts of Hollywood on the right.

There were neighboring houses on either side but they were newer and sat a little farther back from the point, allowing them views in only one direction or the other. This property was obviously the first estate up here and, as a result, was in the prime location.

There was a pool house with Spanish arches that matched the old architecture of the estate, but newer plate-glass windows indicated it was a more recent addition. It looked empty but was ablaze with lights. The Christmas music seemed to originate from a sound system located inside.

We kept our backs to the wall and edged around the corner to get a better look at the layout.

It was then that I saw two female bodies floating facedown in the rectangular, Olympic-sized pool. Their tangled hair and colorful dresses were illuminated by the powerful underwater lights. Both appeared to be Caucasian, their inert bodies leaking large amounts of dark arterial blood into the turquoise water.

Alexa and I continued to stand with our backs to the wall of the house, surveying the terrain for any sign of movement. In addition to the two women floating in the pool, I could now see a third person. There was a man bent over the back of a pool chaise with his ass poking up in the air. His face was looking down at the green canvas chair pad as if it contained something of great interest to him.

"Police! Stay where you are! Put your hands in the air!" I shouted.

He didn't move didn't twitch. In that instant, changing categories, going from potential adversary to victim number three.

"Go," Alexa directed.

While she covered me, I ducked through the gate into the backyard and sprinted across the deck to the side of the pool house, throwing my back to the wall. From where I now stood, I could see the rest of the backyard. It looked deserted.

"Backyard looks clear," I called as I raised my gun into a firing position to cover Alexa. "Go!" I shouted and she sprinted across the lawn, past my position and into the pool house. I followed behind her and covered her as she threw open changing room doors, checking both bathrooms.

"Clear," she called.

I left her and sprinted to the far side of the house to check the north side of the property and the path that led back to the street. It was also empty, the pathway lit by an old rusting Spanish-style carriage lamp.

"North side clear!" I shouted, then checked the back door of the house. It was fastened securely by a heavy commercial-sized Yale padlock. The bracket was bolted to the side of the house and attached to the door with two-inch bolts that went all the way through the solid oak.

I looked through the kitchen windows into a pantry. The house was dark and appeared deserted more than deserted, it looked to be in terrible disrepair. For some reason only the backyard and pool house of this estate had been maintained.

Next Alexa and I checked the mammoth garage. All eight pull-up doors and the side entrances were securely padlocked.

Once we were finished we returned to the man who was still bent over the pool chaise, obviously very dead. He was a middle-aged Caucasian, and had three huge grapefruit-sized exit wounds in his back. All of them were oozing thick blood the consistency of ketchup but the deep purple-reddish color of eggplant. He'd been shot with some kind of large-bore weapon.

"I'll check on the others," Alexa said, moving toward the two women floating in the pool.

They looked young and fit, both in colorful strapless party dresses, which in death had floated up around shapely thighs. Their leaking wounds were now beginning to turn the Olympic-sized pool a weird greenish pink.

Alexa grabbed the nearest one by the arm, pulled her over, and checked for a pulse. Then she repeated the process with the second body.

"Both dead," she said, but made no attempt to pull them out of the water. We had to leave the scene pretty much as we found it for the homicide tech teams and photographers because our 415 with shots fired had just morphed into a triple 187.

As I studied the bloodstained man bent over the pool chaise, I noticed a wallet in his back pants pocket. I carefully fished it out using my thumb and index finger, then dropped it onto a nearby glass-top table and took a pen from my jacket.

I flipped the wallet open, revealing a driver's license encased in a plastic sleeve. The picture of a tanned, good-looking man smiled out from under the State of California seal. The date of birth on the license revealed that he was fifty-five. Then I read the name.

"You won't believe who we have here," I called over to Alexa, who was still by the pool. "This vie is Scott Berman."

Alexa stood, her face now drawn. "Then we're sitting on a fullblown disaster," she said.

Bing Crosby didn't seem to get it. "Have yourself a merry little Christmas," he sang happily.

This incident, I later learned, was something screenwriters call the inciting story event. But for me, it was the beginning of two weeks I'm going to call "Shane's Midlife Crisis."

*

Chapter
5.

Scott Berman had produced some of the biggest movies in the history of Hollywood. Until tonight, he'd sat atop a massive production empire located at Paramount Studios, where I'd read he had just made an overall deal. His last three blockbuster hits had been produced there. Berman was an A-list Hollywood player, one of the few world
-
famous producers whose name was as important as those of the stars who worked for him.