Therapy (41 page)

“Can you sound like a con?”

“Hey,” I said, deepening my voice. “Don’t crowd me, man.”

He laughed. I maneuvered voice mail structured to make me give up, finally ended up talking to a brusque, hurried woman. How many felons would have the patience?

She barked, “You one of his assignments?”

“That’s what they tell me,” I said.

“Got an appointment?”

“No, but I—”

“You need an appointment. He’s not here.”

“Oh, man,” I said. “Any idea when he’ll be back?”

“He left,” she said. “Like a minute ago.”

I gave up.

*

Milo cursed. “Three o’clock, and the guy takes off.”

“She said a minute ago,” I said. “If he parks outside the building, maybe we can spot him leaving.”

Traffic wasn’t moving. Then it crawled. And stopped. Four cars in front of us. Downtown shadows turned the sidewalk charcoal.

“What the hell,” said Milo, slamming the station wagon into PARK. He got out and looked up and down Broadway. The right lane was closed, blocked by groupings of orange cones. The cones demarcated oblong excavations. The air smelled of asphalt, but no work crew was in sight.

Milo flashed his badge at four startled drivers, got back in, watched them veer to the right, perilously close to the cones. He drove through the parting.

“Power,” he said, waving his thanks. “Intoxicating.” He coasted another ten feet, found an illegal parking spot next to a cone-surrounded hydrant. Right across from the parole building. The sidewalks were crowded, and no one paid attention.

Seconds later, a husky female parking officer approached, pad in hand. When she reached his window, out came the badge. He talked fast, gave her no chance to speak. She left glowering.

He said, “I’d cast her in a prison movie. The ruthless matron with no heart of gold.”

We waited. No sign of Bennett Hacker.

“A minute ago, huh?”

“Maybe there’s a rear exit,” I said.

“Wouldn’t that be sad.”

Five more minutes. Big, gray government building, lots of people coming and going.

Three minutes later, Bennett Hacker was disgorged through the front door, in a crush of other civil servants.

*

He was easy to miss, stepping away from the crowd to light up a cigarette.

But when the view cleared, he was still puffing. Wearing an ill-fitting gray sport coat over navy chinos, a dark blue shirt, a silver and aqua striped tie. Still smoking, he walked up the block to a hot dog stand.

Milo cruised forward, and I took Hacker’s picture. Mouth full of chili dog.

Hacker walked another block, eating and smoking. Unhurried. Not a care in the world.

Following slowly enough so as not to be noticed was a challenge. Traffic either sat still or spurted ahead. Milo broke lots of traffic laws, managed to pull it off. I took Polaroids when I had a clear shot. The prints revealed the ultimate forgettable man: tall, lanky, unremarkably featured and colored. One noticeable trait: slightly pigeon-toed. It made him seem unsteady, almost drunk.

At the next corner, Hacker finished the chili dog, tossed the greasy paper wrapping at a wastebasket, and missed. He turned without stopping to pick it up.

“There you go,” I said. “You can bust him for littering.”

“I’m keeping score.” Milo edged up to the corner.

Hacker entered an outdoor municipal parking lot.

Milo said, “We stay here and wait till he comes out. We’re looking for a ’99 Explorer. The reg says black, but that coulda changed.”

“He has two addresses, but just one car?”

“Yup.”

“He doesn’t spend on fancier wheels,” I said. “Or clothing. The place in the Marina is his prize.”

“Got to be. His crib on Franklin’s a dump. One-bedroom walk-up in an old three-story building. I drove by last night, figuring to catch a glimpse of him, maybe with Degussa. No luck. His mailbox is full. Now I know why. He prefers the sea breeze.”

*

The Explorer was black turned to gray by weeks of dirt. Bird shit speckled the top and the hood.

Bennett Hacker avoided the freeway and took side streets west: through the downtown crush to Figueroa, then south to Olympic, past Staples Center, all the way to Robertson. Then a right on Pico, to Motor, southward to Washington, where the avenue dead-ended at the Sony studio lot. Another right turn, and we were heading for the Marina.

A circuitous route; it took nearly an hour. Hacker made no attempts at shortcuts or slick maneuvers. He drove the way he walked. Slow, easy, not even a lane change unless it was essential. He smoked constantly, rolled the window down and flicked butts.

Milo stayed three cars behind him, and there was no sign Hacker noticed. At Palms, Milo phoned Sean Binchy and told him to forget about joining the tail, it wasn’t looking complicated. Binchy was mired in bureaucracy and enjoying it: airline records, the border patrol, querying the IRS for Jerome Quick’s tax records.

Milo told him, “Glad it’s fun for you, Sean.”

At Washington, just east of Palawan Way, Bennett Hacker stopped at a 7-Eleven and bought himself a Slurpee, and I took a picture of him sipping through two straws. Still drinking, he got back in the Explorer, turned onto Via Marina and drove right past his apartment. Tossed the empty cup out the window where it bounced along the median.

He continued through the Marina—past Bobby J’s and a spate of other harborside restaurants—and pulled into a strip mall on the south end.

Coin Laundromat, liquor store, window grate company, boat outfitters.

HOG TRAIL MOTORCYLE SHOP.

Fat-lettered, Day-Glo banners above the garage entrance said a big sale was going on. Big shiny bikes, many of them chopped and customized, were arranged in a tilting chorus line out in front.

“Here we go,” said Milo. “A new toy for our civil servant.”

I photographed Hacker entering the shop and kept clicking away when he came out a few moments later talking with another man.

His companion bummed a cigarette. Big, solid guy in a white T-shirt and tight blue jeans. Work boots. His hands and arms and the shirt were grease-stained.

Multiple tattoos, slicked-back dark hair. Raymond Degussa looked heavier and older than his most recent mug shot. He’d grown back his mustache, now graying, and added a soul patch that emphasized a heavy lower lip.

“Well, well,” said Milo. “Mr. Ray does have a day job. Probably another cozy cash situation, like the club. No papers filed, no tax returns.”

“Look what’s on the floor to his right,” I said.

Three rolls of black tarpaulin. Neoprene; a shred had been found at Flora Newsome’s crime scene.

Milo’s jaw set.

“I don’t want to push good fortune,” I said, “but that window grate company over there has got to keep iron bars in stock. Talk about one-stop shopping.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Milo. “How about some more pictures?”

Click click click.

Degussa found a rag and wiped his hands. Bennett Hacker talked, and both of them blew smoke that vanished in the beach air. No expression on Degussa’s long, hard face.

Then he nodded and grinned and snapped the rag and flicked it ten feet away into a white bucket just past the Neoprene rolls. Two points. This one could shoot.

He peeled off his greasy T-shirt, revealed slab pecs, a hard, protruding belly, bulky hirsute shoulders, arms, and neck, a thick waist softened by love handles. Some definition, but mostly size. Prisons had free weights for bulking up, no fancy toning machines.

Crumpling the shirt, he returned inside the bike shop, came out wearing a short-sleeved black silk shirt that hung loose over the same jeans and boots.

“Untucked,” I said. “Wonder if he’s armed.”

“Wouldn’t shock me.”

I reloaded the camera and photographed Degussa and Hacker as they got in the Explorer. The SUV hooked an illegal U, returned to Washington, turned south on Inglewood and pulled to the curb just shy of Culver Boulevard, in front of a bar called Winners.

One of those clay-colored, cinder-block masterpieces with a Bud sign in the single fly-specked window and a HAPPY HOUR WELL-DRINKS discount banner above the door.

Milo spotted a space across the street, ten yards north. He hung his own illegal U and parked.

I
click-clicked
the front of the bar.

Milo said, “Too small for us to go in without being noticed, so we just wait.”

*

An hour later, Hacker and Degussa still hadn’t emerged. Half an hour in, Milo had chanced a walk down the block and a look-see around the back of the bar.

“The rear exit’s bolted. Eventually, they’ll have to show at the front.”

As we sat there, he checked with Sean Binchy a couple more times. No record, so far, of Jerome Quick or Angela Paul flying anywhere.

Jerry and Angie.

Gavin and Christi.

Like-father-like-son had spawned a nightmare, and I found myself feeling sympathy for Quick, no matter what else he’d done.

Milo groused, “No record at the Mexican border, but what the hell does that mean? After 9-11, you’d think they’d register every damn car, but they don’t, it’s still that stupid
random
crap. Leaving a big fat hole for Quick to walk through.”

I was about to commiserate when movement in front of Winners caught my eye.

“The party begins,” I said.

*

Hacker and Degussa and two women stood on the sidewalk as their pupils adjusted to the light.

A blonde, a brunette, both in their late thirties. Big hair, heavy in the hips and bust. The blonde wore a black tank top over epidermal jeans. The brunette’s tank was red. Backless high-heeled sandals gave them both a mincing, butt-jiggling walk. Alcohol added some wobble.

Faces that had once been pretty had been paved over by bad decisions.

Hacker stopped to light up, and Degussa stretched his arms around both the women. Cupped their breasts. The blonde threw her head back and laughed. The brunette made a playful grab for his groin.

Milo said, “Classy.”

The four of them got in the Explorer and returned to Hacker’s apartment, entering the subterranean garage through an electric gate.

“Party time,” said Milo, “and yet again, I’m not invited.”

CHAPTER

43

T
he building’s manager was a man in his sixties named Stan Parks. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt and gray slacks, had thinning hair and a disapproving mouth. A thirty-year-old Caltech engineering diploma hung behind his desk. His office was on the ground floor, next to the elevator, and the rumble of the lift shook the room at random intervals.

He said, “Hacker has no lease, just a month-to-month. He and his roommate.”

“Raymond Degussa?”

“Raymond something. Let me check.” Parks tapped the keys of a laptop. “Yup, Degussa.”

“Did he move in the same time as Hacker?”

“Two months later. Hacker cleared it with me. I told him no subleases, the check had to come from him, no split obligations.”

“How are they as tenants?”

“They’re okay. Your month-to-months, they’re the ones who give you troubles. I prefer leases, but it’s not one of the best units, stayed vacant a long time.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just not one of our best. Not the harbor side, and the way the trees grow at that particular height you can’t see much of anything on the other side.”

“What trouble has he given you?”

Parks frowned and played with a pencil, stippling three fingertips, then passing the shaft between his fingers. “Look, I’m not just the manager, I’m part owner. So if there’s something going on that affects the building, I need to know.”

“Who are the other owners, sir?”

“My brothers-in-law, the dentists.” The elevator vibrated the room. Parks sat through it, stoic. “I depend on this place. Is there something I should worry about?”

Milo said, “At this point, no. What kind of problems have Hacker and Degussa given you?”

“At this point,” said Parks.

“The problems, sir?”

“A few noise complaints at the beginning. I spoke to Hacker, and it stopped.”

“What kind of noise?”

“Loud music, voices. Apparently, they bring women in, throw parties.”

“Apparently?”

“Mostly I’m sitting in here,” said Parks.

“Ever see the women?”

“A couple of times.”

“The same women?”

Parks shook his head. “You know.”

“Know what, sir?”

“The type.”

“What type is that?” said Milo.

“Not exactly . . . high society.”

“Party girls.”

Parks’s eyes rolled. “Hacker pays his rent. I don’t get involved in the tenants’ personal lives. After those first few complaints, they’ve been fine.”

“What’s the rent on their unit?”

“This is a money issue? Some sort of financial crime?”

“The rent, please.”

Parks said, “Hacker pays 2200 a month. The unit has two full bedrooms and a den, two baths, and a built-in wet bar. On the harbor side it would be over three thousand.”

“The women you saw, would you recognize any of them?”

Parks shook his head. “Everybody minds their own business here. That’s the point of the Marina. You get your divorced people, your widowed people. People want their privacy.”

Milo said, “Everyone doing their own thing.”

“Like you, Lieutenant. You ask all these questions, tell me nothing. You seem pretty good at keeping your business to yourself.”

Milo smiled.

Parks smiled back.

Milo asked to see Hacker’s parking slot, and Parks took us down to a subgarage that smelled of motor oil and wet cement. Half the slots were empty, but the black Explorer was in place. Milo and I looked through the windows. Food cartons, a windbreaker, maps, loose papers.

Stan Parks said, “Is this about drugs?”

“Why would it be?” said Milo.

“You’re examining the car.” Parks went over and peered through the windows. “I don’t see anything incriminating.”

“Where’s Mr. Degussa’s spot, sir?”

Parks walked us a dozen slots down to a Lincoln Town Car, big, square, the predownsize model. Chrome rims, shiny paint job. Custom job, a heavy, brownish red.

Parks said, “Pretty ugly color, don’t you think? Put all that money into restoration and end up with something like that. I keep a few collector cars, no way would I go this color.”

“This color” was the precise hue of dry blood.

“Ugly,” I said. “What cars do you keep?”

“A ’48 Caddy, ’62 E-type Jag, a ’64 Mini-Cooper. I’m trained as an engineer, do the work myself.”

I nodded.

Parks said, “By the way, Degussa also drives a motorcycle, puts it over there.” Indicating a section to the right, smaller slots for two-wheelers.

No bikes in sight.

“He pays extra for that,” said Parks. “Wanted it for free, but I told him twenty bucks a month.”

“A bargain,” said Milo.

Parks shrugged. “It’s not one of the better units.”

*

We left the Marina, and Milo asked for the 805 number I’d written down and the name that went with it.

Cody Marsh.

The Volvo was equipped with a hands-off phone system, and Milo plugged his little blue gizmo into it as he drove. He punched in Cody Marsh’s number. Two rings and a voice said he was being rerouted to a mobile unit. Two additional rings, and a man said, “Hello?”

“Mr. Marsh?”

“Yes.”

“This is Lieutenant Sturgis.”

“Oh, hi.” Fuzzy reception. “Hold on, let me switch off the radio . . . okay, I’m back, thanks for calling. I’m in my car, coming down to L.A. Any way you can see me?”

“Where are you?”

“The 101 Freeway, coming up on . . . Balboa. Traffic’s not looking great, but I can probably be in West L.A. within half an hour.”

“Christina Marsh is your sister?”

“She is . . . was . . . can you find time to see me? I’d really like to find out about her.”

“Sure,” said Milo. “Meet me at a restaurant near the station. Café Moghul.” He spelled the name and recited the address.

Cody Marsh thanked him and cut the connection.

*

We drove straight to the restaurant, arrived in twenty-five. Cody Marsh was already seated at a corner table drinking milk-laced chai.

Easy to spot; solitary patron.

By the time we stepped through the glass beads, he was on his feet. Looking exactly as if someone had died.

“Mr. Marsh.”

“Thanks for seeing me, Lieutenant. When will I be able to see my sister—to identify the body?”

“You’re sure you want to go through that, sir?”

“I thought I had to,” said Cody Marsh. “Christi has no one else.”

He looked to be around thirty, with long, wavy, brown hair parted in the middle, had on a gray shirt under a cracked, brown leather jacket rubbed white at the pressure points, rumpled beige cargo pants, white running shoes. Ruddy square face, thick lips, and tired blue eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. Five-ten with an incipient beer belly. The only hint of kinship to the dead girl, a dimpled chin.

“Actually, sir,” said Milo, “you don’t have to do it in person. You can look at a photo.”

“Oh,” said Marsh. “Okay. Where do I go to see a photo?”

“I’ve got one right here, sir, but I have to warn you—”

“I’ll look at it.”

Milo said, “How about we all sit down?”

*

Cody Marsh stared at the death shot. His eyes closed and opened; he folded his lips inward. “That’s Christi.” He raised his fist, as if to pound the table, but by the time the arc was completed, the hand had stopped short of contact.

“Dammit.”

The pleasant sari-draped woman who ran the café turned to stare. Milo never talked business to her, but she knew what he did.

He smiled at her, and she resumed folding napkins.

“I’m sorry for your loss, sir.”

“Christi,” said Cody Marsh. “What
happened
?”

Milo took the photo and put it away. “Your sister was shot while parked in a car on Mulholland Drive, along with a young man.”

“Was the young man a friend?”

“Seemed to be,” said Milo. “His name was Gavin Quick. Know him?”

Cody Marsh shook his head. “Any idea
why
it happened?”

“That’s what we’re looking into. So Christi never mentioned Gavin Quick.”

“No, but Christi and I weren’t . . . in close communication.”

The saried woman came over. Milo said, “Just chai, right now, please. I’ll probably see you tomorrow for lunch.”

“That would be lovely,” said the woman. “We’ll have the
sag paneer
and the
tandoori
salmon on special.”

When she was gone, Cody Marsh said, “Can the . . . can Christi be released? For a funeral?”

“That’s up to the coroner’s office,” said Milo.

“Do you have a number for them?”

“I’ll call for you. It’ll probably take a few days to get the papers in order.”

“Thanks.” Marsh
pinged
his teacup with a fingernail. “This is horrible.”

“Is there anything you could tell us about your sister that would be helpful, sir?”

Ping ping.
“What would you like to know?”

“For starts, when did Christi move to L.A.?”

“I can’t say exactly, but she called me about a year ago to tell me she was here.”

“You guys hail from Minnesota?”

“Baudette, Minnesota,” said Marsh. “Walleye Capital of the World. People who somehow find themselves there get their picture taken with Willie Walleye.”

“A fish.”

“A forty-foot model of a fish. I got out as soon as I could. Did my undergrad at Oregon State, taught grade school for a few years in Portland so I could save up enough money to go to grad school and study history.”

“History,” Milo repeated.

“Those who forget the past are condemned, and all that.”

I said, “Did your being in Santa Barbara play a role in your sister’s coming out to California?”

“It would be nice to say yes,” said Marsh, “but I seriously doubt it. The entire year we’ve seen each other exactly twice. Spoke on the phone maybe three or four times. And we’d been out of contact for a long time well before Christi left Minnesota.”

“Those two times,” I said.

“Here, in L.A. I was attending symposia and called her. Actually, I called her three times, but once she was busy.”

“Busy doing what?” said Milo.

“She didn’t say.”

“Where’d you meet her?”

“We had dinner at my hotels.”

“Which hotels?”

“That’s important?” said Marsh.

“Anything could be important, sir.”

“You’re the expert . . . let’s see, one was a Holiday Inn in Pasadena, the other was a Holiday Inn in Westwood. Christi met me in the coffee shop and came dressed totally inappropriately. For an academic meeting, I mean. Not that she was attending meetings, but the . . . the place was teeming with academics.”