The Rabbit Factory (53 page)

Ike announced that the company would reopen for business in the morning and that all employees who had quit were welcome to return. Those who took a leave of absence would be paid. Familyland would reopen on Saturday. Admission for the first one hundred thousand people would be free.

"One more thing," Ike said. "Our company stock has gone down significantly, because investors weren't sure how badly these crimes would affect us. Now that the ordeal is over, I can promise you that the future looks brighter than ever for Lamaar.

"With that in mind, tomorrow morning when the market opens, I will be buying $10 million worth of Lamaar stock. Every senior executive who was with me throughout these dif

.f

ficult days has agreed to also buy at least $200,000 worth of

stock. We are going to make Lamaar Enterprises great again, and we're all putting our money where our mouths are. Thank you."

I don't think the media usually applaud during press conferences, but this group did.

I

Lieutenant Kilcullen was waiting for me and Terry after the press conference. He was with a woman I didn't recognize. Five-foot-two, early thirties, minimal makeup, no nonsense pants suit.

"Good job, boys," he said. "This is Shannon Treusch. The Chief will ram a hot poker up my ass if LAPD doesn't shine as bright as the FBI when the kudos are given out for solving the crime. Shannon is your publicist. She'll set up all your interviews and coach you along the way."

I shook her hand. "Do we really need a publicist?" I said.

"Maybe you don't," Shannon said. "But the Department does. We get enough bad press. Hero cops are what I live for." She walked up close to Terry and looked at his face. "I heard you got all cut up in the explosion."

"We can cover it with makeup," he said.

She laughed. "The hell we will. I don't want it to heal. A wounded hero cop is as good as it gets."

"In that case," Terry said, "tomorrow I'll shave with a Swiss army knife."

Shannon spent the next hour briefing us. It was a real education.

She picked us up at 4:00 the next morning and took us to a TV studio, so the East Coast audience could see us chat live on The Today Show with Katie Couric. At 4:45 we were having a similar chat with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America. Terry ate it up.

After that it was a barrage of newspapers and radio. Then on Friday night, we made the big time. We were on The Tonight Show.

The producers let us know that Jay Leno would interview us with all the respect and dignity a case of multiple homicides deserves. "But Jay is a comic, so he's going to look for a place to get laughs."/

Leno was good. And at one point he said, "Now that you guys have solved the Super Bowl of homicides, I guess you're going to Disney World." It got a laugh.

But Terry got the biggest laugh of the night. Leno asked him what happened after the explosion cut up his face. "They took me to UCLA Medical," Terry said. "The doc walks in and he says, 'Don't worry, I'm one of the top plastic surgeons in L.A. I work on all the big stars.' I say, Like who? And he says, 'Joan Rivers.' So I shot him."

The taping was over at 6:00 and Diana and I drove out to have dinner and watch the show with Big Jim, Angel, and Frankie.

After dinner Frankie asked if he could talk to me alone. We went to Jim's office at the far end of the house. The walls are cheap pine paneling that gives it a 1950s Dad's Den look. The floors are covered with mismatched carpet remnants, because

according to Jim, "My boots are always dirty, so why would I want to spend good money on fancy carpeting?"

In one corner of the room is the desk that Jim made from an old barn door and a couple of double-drawer steel file cabinets that someone at Universal threw out thirty years ago.

Four bookcases, all painted dark green to create the illusion that they actually matched, were placed against various walls, not based on how they looked, but whether or not they fit. They were filled with car and truck manuals, parts catalogues, ledger books, files that hadn't yet made it to the file cabinets, and a hodge-podge of crap that was my father's life as a Transportation Captain.

The room was musty and dusty and absolutely off limits to any interloper with a vacuum cleaner or a bottle of Windex. "I know where everything is," Jim always said. "A cleaning lady would totally screw up my system."

My Mom had a different point of view. "A rampaging bull running through it every hour on the hour couldn't screw it up any worse than it is."

Frankie and I love Jim's office. It's where we used to come as kids to hear our nightly bedtime stories. It's where we shared our first father-son beers.

"This place brings back memories," I said.

"It does," Frankie said. "Hey, I like your girlfriend."

"And I thoroughly enjoyed meeting yours."

"You would've liked her better a couple of months ago," he said. "She was a really nice person till I walked off with her fifty thou."

"Well, try not to let it happen again," I said.

"That's why I wanted to talk to you," he said. "Did you ever

hear of Claymore House?"

"It's in Montana. They have a twenty-eight-day inpatient program. No alcohol or drug addiction. Just gambling," I said. "Don't look so surprised. I've researched every rehab from here to Tokyo."

"I should have known," he said. "I'm dealing with a detective."

"No," I said, "you're dealing with a firstborn. Taking care of our baby brothers and sisters is the cross we all have to bear. What about Claymore?"

"I want to go," he said. "I'm ready for it. There's just one small snag."

"Let me guess. You need money."

He laughed. Then I laughed. "Ironic isn't it?" he said.

"Pack your bags," I said. "I'll pay for it."

"I'll pay you back. I promise." He caught himself. "Shit, I guess I'm addicted to promising, too."}

"Frankie, there's only one way you can pay any of us back," I said. "And that's to get your addiction under control before it ruins your life."

"Again," he said. "Before it ruins my life again. I was holed up here with Dad and Angel for two weeks. I can't tell you how many times I prayed to God for one more chance. I'm not going to blow this one Mike. I prom..."

I punched him on the shoulder before he could make another promise. Then I followed up with a serious hug. "Now let's get back and watch me on TV. I'll bet a month's pay that halfway through the show Dad says, This is boring, let's watch Letterman."

Frankie looked at me and lifted both hands in the air. "Nice try, bro," he said. "But I'm not betting."

The next day was Saturday and we were guests at the grand reopening of Familyland. Terry brought Marilyn and the girls. I brought Diana, Hugo, his parents, and two sisters. Hugo only stayed for two hours, but you can see a lot in a short time when you have a golf cart and you get backdoored to every ride.

Saturday night Terry and I turned down at least ten dinner invitations. Everyone from the Mayor of Los Angeles to some film studio executive I had never even heard of had us on their A-List. The only invitation we accepted was to come on over to Brian Curry's house for his own personal secret recipe barbecued chicken.

It was a nice low-key way to end a heady week. Brian's wife Giselle was an entertainment lawyer. She also made a mean coconut custard pie. After dinner, we were sitting on the deck and Giselle asked if anyone had called us about turning the Lamaar case into a movie.

Marilyn Biggs let out a little shriek. "Oh God, no, please," she said. "Terry's been impossible to live with ever since he

talked to Katie Couric. And after Leno, forget it. A movie would ruin our marriage."

"But just suppose it happened," Brian said. "Terry, who would you want to play you in the movie?"

"It's a toss-up between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Unless there's a nude scene with Michelle Pfeiffer, in which case I'd have to play myself."

He got a big laugh from the group and a punch in the arm from Marilyn.

"How about you, Mike?" Brian said. "Who should play you?"

"I don't know, Brian. I'm thinking maybe Denzel Washington."

"The hell you say. If Denzel's in this movie, he's definitely playing me."

We carried on like that till midnight. Three couples, friends who had been through hell together, eating, drinking, laughing, and sitting under the stars on a warm spring night. I had forgotten what it felt like to be normal. It was almost like living someone else's life.:

Diana and I went back to her apartment and made love. It started out soft and tender, but there was a passion that had been building in both of us and what began as gentle lovemaking ended in a heaving, sweaty heap of pure animal sex. I didn't just come, I exploded. The orgasm reached that intense peak when I normally would have collapsed, totally spent, but instead it kept cresting and I rode through it to a state of sexual bliss I had never experienced before. In the middle of it all, I buried my face in Diana's neck and said, "I love you, I love you, I love you," over and over and over.

When the sex ended I stayed inside of her and held her. After a few minutes we caught our breath, and I lifted my head

so I could look in her eyes. Maybe the first time I told Diana I loved her had to come from a screaming libido in order for me to get it out. But this time I let it come from the heart.

"I love you," I said.

Her eyes turned liquid. "I love you too," she said.

Sunday we stayed home, watched the Dodger game on TV, played Scrabble, cooked dinner together, and just generally basked in each other's glow.

On Monday morning I went back to my office. Terry and I had no doubt that we would be razzed relentlessly about our TV appearances, and sure enough when I walked into the squad room, everybody was wearing sunglasses. Throughout the day ball-busting cops yelled Hollywood inanities at each other.

"Get my agent on the phone."

"Dahling, you look deeee-vine. Let's do lunch."

"I can't believe the Cannes Film Festival is next week and I have nothing to wear."

Terry and I bitched and moaned that Lieutenant Kilcullen

i'

I. forced us to become media whores, which only made the other

guys stick it to us harder. We loved every minute of it.

By the end of the day, we also got handshakes and back pats from every cop in the room.

Things settled down, and by mid-week we had wrapped up all the paperwork on the case and caught a couple of new ones: a shooting in a beauty salon and a stabbing at a car wash. It was great to be back to normal.

On Friday night Diana and I went to Big Jim's house for Frankie's going-away dinner. He had to be at Claymore House Monday morning, and Jim and Angel were driving him to Montana.

"Are you following Lamaar stock?" Frankie said, when we all sat down.

"No," I said. "I'm trying to detach myself from all things Lamaar."

"It was down eighty-five points by Monday night," Frankie said. "Dad and I bought a thousand shares first thing Tuesday morning. It's up thirty-two points already. That's a $32,000 profit in three days."

"And you're going to rehab for what?" I asked him.

"Don't yell at him," Jim said. "It was my idea, my money. I just asked Frankie if he thought it was a good investment."

"And what was Frankie's advice?" I said.

"He told me it was a sure thing. I even had him call a bunch of my friends and turn them onto the stock."

I pounded my fist on the table. "Damn it, Dad! What the hell are you thinking?" And then the two of them started to laugh like a couple of underage drunks at a fraternity party.

"Gotcha," Jim said.:

"Gotcha real good," Frankie said. "Welcome home, Mikey. We missed having you around."

"Why just last week this time he was sitting on Jay Leno's couch," Big Jim said. "And now look at him. Humble once more."

By now Angel and Diana were laughing, and I had to admit it was pretty damn funny, so I laughed along with them.

The following Tuesday was May 17 and Lebrecht and company went before a federal judge. They pleaded Not Guilty. Trial was set for the following March. That was it. No hoopla. No TV cameras. Just three old men, standing up one at a time, uttering two words apiece to let the judge know that they really didn't do anything bad.

Freddy was turned loose. In the grand scheme of things he really was a small fish. And as Terry explains it, "We don't have any proof that he aided, abetted, or participated. He just butlered. He did it badly, but that's not a crime in this country."

Three of the hired guns were locked up, and the FBI was working with the Mossad, Interpol, and the police bureaucracies in several countries in the hopes of being able to extradite the rest of the people that Kennedy, Barber, and Lebrecht had hired. It wouldn't be easy. But it wasn't my job. ,

That night Diana switched shifts with a friend, so I was on my own. I called Kemp and told him it was time for me to reunite with my dog yet again. I got home at 6:00 and Andre showed up just in time for dinner. Some dogs can be pissy when their owners finally come back after leaving them for a long time. But when Andre came through the front door he jumped on me, licked my face, barked his happy-to-see-you bark, rolled on the floor, and in general let me know that he wasn't the kind of dog to hold a grudge.

I apologized to him for being away and explained that it was partly business, but mostly love. I gave him as much of an update on Diana and her cat as I thought he wanted to hear. Then I rubbed his belly and told him that she and I were talking about living together, and wouldn't it be cool if we were all one big happy family.

At 7 p.m. my cell phone rang. No Caller ID. I answered.

"Hello, Detective Lomax, this is Danny Eeg in Woodstock."

"Hello. I'm surprised to hear from you."

"I won't take much of your time," he said. "I just wanted to thank you for whatever it was you said to Ike Rose."

"In regard to what?"

"In regard to my lawsuit against the company."

"I didn't say anything."

"Well, something happened to influence him," Eeg said. "They made me an offer. It's significantly less than what I asked for, but of course that was grossly overinflated anyway. What's important is that they agreed that I have money coming to me because of the contributions my father made to Lamaar."