“Okay.” Galloway looked over at Binchy, in the opposite corner of the driveway. Having an apparently friendly chat with the other valet. Both of them relaxed, the thin, sallow, sixtyish man tapping a foot. Probably a discussion of music, Binchy’s favorite topic. His perfect record of never meeting a stranger unblemished.
Galloway said, “You brought three guys? There’s gonna be trouble?”
“Not if we can help it, Rudy. When’s the last time you saw Nobach?”
“Couldn’t—okay, if you don’t want exactly, I’ll estimate.”
“Do that, Rudy.”
“Let’s see.” Pretending to calculate. “Maybe two hours ago? Could be three.”
“He bike over?”
“No, came in his Bimmer.”
“Anyone with him?”
“Couldn’t tell you,” said Galloway. “I focus on what’s here. They drive in themselves and don’t call us to retrieve, it’s not my business. Also, he’s got tinted windows. Even if I looked I couldn’t see.”
Milo studied him.
He said, “That is the total truth.” Crossing himself.
“Wouldn’t assume otherwise,” said Milo. “So you’re on board.”
“With what?”
“Two things,” said Milo. “First, keep out of it—not a word to anyone. Second, tell us how to get a key to Nobach’s place without his knowing.”
Another lip-lick. “Is there gonna be…noise? It’s a big thing here. Someone’s always bitching about noise.”
“The quieter the better, Rudy. As long as you and your partner—what’s his name?”
“Charlie,” said Galloway, rolling his eyes. “Civilian. Been parking cars his whole life.”
“Can Charlie be trusted?”
“Yeah, he does what I say. He’s a little, you know.” Tapping his temple. “No rocket scientist.”
“Good. You take charge and make sure Charlie doesn’t screw up.”
Galloway frowned. “Basically, all you want is I do nothing.”
“Yeah, but a really professional nothing,” said Milo.
“Huh?”
Milo covered his eyes, ears, and mouth in rapid sequence.
“The monkey thing,” said Galloway.
“The smart thing, Rudy. Now how do we get a key?”
“The head guy, sits at the front desk.”
“Don’t see anyone at the front desk.”
“That’s ’cause he’s a lazy bastard, goes into his office, that door behind the desk, does who knows what, leaving all the crap to us. Luggage, packages, dog walking. Not in the job description. We’re supposed to load and unload but once it goes inside, him and the other inside guys are supposed to handle it.”
“Bunch of slackers, huh?”
“Wasn’t perfect before but now it’s worse,” said Galloway. “They used to have four of them. Now it’s that prick Petrie and one other and today Other’s out sick.” He laughed. “Petrie’s nephew, like he’s gonna give a shit.”
“Same old story,” said Milo.
“Same old same old,” said Galloway.
Couple of old-timers united by the pleasure of their discontent. All that was missing was beer on tap and ESPN above the bar.
Milo said, “Okay, Rudy, we’re ready to rock, appreciate your being on board.” Motioning to Binchy, who shook Charlie’s hand and ambled over.
Galloway said, “Sure, no prob. I’ll take care of the genius.” He pulled a pack of Kents and a lighter from his pant pocket, arched a thumb at the booth. “Not supposed to smoke in there, but screw it. It’s like I’m back on the job. Doing my thing, screw civilians.”
“There’s the old team spirit, Rudy.”
* * *
—
Binchy and I waited in front of a semicircular pink marble desk as Milo went behind and knocked on a rosewood door.
Laurence Petrie took a minute to emerge. Swallowing some sort of snack, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Forties, narrow-shouldered, and delicately built, Petrie had wispy peanut-butter-colored hair and a questionable beard the same color. His double-breasted blazer was well tailored and festooned with brass buttons. Gray slacks were pressed, a white-on-white shirt was starched and spotless.
All that nattiness ruined by a clip-on repp-stripe tie pretending to evoke memories of a prestigious school.
He looked us up and down and said, “Ye-es?” like one of those classical music radio hosts who talk like they stuff plum pits in their cheeks.
Milo vaulted into the hard-line approach: Compressing his eyes and mouth and advancing rapidly until he was three inches from Petrie’s now-pale face. Talking softly but fast. Telling not asking. All the while, creating an expanding loom that dwarfed the one he’d inflicted on Darius Cutter.
Petrie said, “Law enforcement? No problem, let me call my bosses.”
“Who’s that?”
“The management company.”
“No,” said Milo. “No calls to anyone. In fact, you’ll need to leave the building and surrender your cellphone.”
“Why would I do that?” said Petrie. More question than defiance. As Milo had grown, he’d shrunk.
“Because there’s a situation, here, Laurence.”
“I understand, sir, but the building is my responsibility.”
“I respect that, Laurence. Right now, your responsibility is to avoid getting caught up in something you don’t understand.”
“That’s true, I don’t understand,” said Petrie. Relieved. A man whose loyalties ran shallow.
“Your phone, please,” said Milo.
Petrie handed over an i6 in a black leather case. “Why not? They don’t pay me enough to mess with you guys.”
“Smart move, Laurence.”
“Lance,” said Petrie. “That’s my nickname.” The eager-to-please sociability of the newly conquered.
“Smart move, Lance.” Milo switched off Petrie’s phone, pocketed it, and held out his hand. “The key to twenty-four hundred.”
“Of course, Lieutenant. You’ll actually need two. One for the elevator, one for the door. There’s only two units on top. No hallway, just a vestibule. His is to the left.”
“Who lives to the right?”
“Austrians,” said Petrie. “They’re away. You’ve got it all to yourself.”
Milo held out his hand.
Petrie said, “Oh, sure, keys. All I’ve got are the masters.”
“I promise to take good care of them.”
“Can I ask how long will this take, sir?”
“Not a second longer than it needs to, Lance.”
“Welfare check,” said Petrie. “We’ve had them before. Old people. Sometimes they die.” No emotion.
Opening a drawer. No jangly ring like in Cutter’s desk, just two gold-plated keys on a black-and-gold plastic lanyard.
“My daughter made this,” said Petrie, swinging the chain. “I’d like to get it back.”
* * *
—
Milo guided Petrie to the motor court. Petrie walked past the valets and turned left.
Galloway watched and flashed a see-what-I-mean sneer. Smoking openly and flicking ashes perilously close to one of the Mercedeses. Off to the side, Charlie stood looking unperturbed and still tapping his foot.
Milo and Binchy turned toward the elevator. Only one for a building this size. No easy escape but the chance of confronting Amanda or Nobach in a small space was a new factor.
He’d walked three steps when his cell vibrated his inside jacket pocket. He yanked it out, read a text, froze. Mouthed a silent obscenity.
Texting back, he showed the original message to Binchy and me.
From Alicia Bogomil: negative at nobach’s place but amanda’s place her mother. Bound and gagged, head inj
ury, breathing but not conscious. 911 on its way. We figure best to wait until she’s taken care of before detail searching nobach place?? Maybe one of us should go to hospital??
Milo’s response: right on both counts. She look fatal?
Alicia: Im no doc lt but at least her breathing’s regular okay hear the siren. Over and out.
Milo put his phone back and turned to me. “How do you see this?”
I said, “Sandy Burdette paid an unannounced visit to Amanda, wanting to talk to her about Nobach. She might’ve known something about him, had concerns about Amanda’s attachment but hadn’t wanted to make waves. Then Garrett came home and kicked up her anxiety. When she got to Amanda’s room, Nobach was there. Words were exchanged, he attacked her from behind, tied her up, and brought Amanda here.”
Binchy said, “Is Amanda a victim or a co-conspirator?”
“Only one way to know.”
CHAPTER
47
The elevator arrived within seconds, rosewood doors gliding open with a whoosh. The car was paneled in the same wood. Stingy compartment, barely enough room for the three of us, filling with the odor of ripe sweat as the doors eased shut.
Milo inserted the smaller gold key into the slot next to 24 (P) and we sailed upward. Moments later, we were facing a massive Venetian mirror affixed to a white wall. The vestibule floors were white marble. Bad for noise suppression.
Milo unholstered his Glock and tiptoed out into the vestibule. Binchy armed himself and followed. Then me. Function unclear.
Long narrow vestibule, nothing but the mirror relieving the starkness. A white door to the left was designated PH1 by blocky, steel characters. Same for PH2 to the right, where an unopened package sat near the threshold.
Gun in hand, Milo tiptoed to the left, pressed his ear to the door, waited, pressed again, then made a zero-sign with thumb and forefinger. Looking down at his gun for a moment, he breathed in and slid the larger key into the bolt, turning slowly.
Slight creak, then silence.
He waited, shoulders bunched, before toeing the door open an inch, waited some more before peering through. His eyebrows arced as he nudged the gap another couple of inches. Another brief inspection. Head shake. Half a dozen more inches. Finally, he created enough space to slip through, gun-arm extended.
Binchy followed, motioning me to hang back.
I stood there until he stuck his head out and nodded. Joined the two of them in a vacant ten-by-ten foyer.
The same white marble flooring, noise mercifully cushioned by a high-pile, black-and-gold Chinese rug.
Snarling dragons and chimeras, fanged mouths agape, serpentine tails intertwined.
Beyond the foyer was five hundred square feet of space meant to be a living room.
No living here; not a stick of furniture, no windows, just three walls of floor-to-ceiling ebony bookshelves. Every inch filled with volumes but for a scarlet door notched into the broad rear unit.
Thousands of books. Not the bland-jacketed texts Susie Koster had hoarded. Every one of these was covered in gilt-trimmed, tooled leather, the bookbinder’s art displayed in a riot of colors and textures.
I stepped closer and read a few spines.
WORDHAM’S MUSINGS ON THEOSOPHY. VOLUMES I THROUGH IX
The Collected Verse of Mrs. Aphra Sleete
Price & Worthington’s Annual Autumnal Survey of Sedges and Other Marsh Vegetations
Von Boffingmuell: The Man, The Plan
Yorkshire Fancies, Possibilities, and Various Other Indulgences
Milo and Binchy were reading, too. Milo looked angry, Binchy puzzled.
Milo edged over to the scarlet door. More leather, pebbled; oval red-lacquer doorknob.
No key-slot, no bolt.
He repeated the ear-press, retreated several steps, and repeated again, footsteps on the cushy rug no more than puffs.
I became aware of the utter lack of sound.
Not a serene silence. This was cold, blank, negative air, rife with bad possibilities. The kind of clogged silence that promises malignant surprise.
Milo placed his hand on the red knob. Rotated. Sprang back.
The scarlet door swung out smoothly on hidden hinges. Milo inched forward, allowing his Glock to lead the way.
He hazarded a peek. Then a longer look.
Nodding, he stepped through.
Same drill: Binchy leaving me to wait, followed by the go-ahead.
Now we stood in an even larger space, this one floored in black granite as glossy as an oil spill.
To the left was a white kitchen that looked as if it had never been used.
Finally the taming of the silence: a faint hum, courtesy the electronic veins, arteries, and capillaries that run through every high-end building.
Good insulation, those books.
In this room, two walls of glass offered jaw-loosening western and northern views. Dead-center on the granite, a pair of black leather Eames chairs flanked a silver six-foot cube aspiring to be a coffee table.
Atop the cube: a plastic packet of orange-tipped hypodermic syringes and a small baggie empty but for bits of white grit toward the bottom.
Behind the cube, an open doorway.
No sound but the electronic hum.
Sidling as far from the opening as possible, Milo advanced, Binchy close behind.
No permission for me to enter but I followed. Heard music rising above the hum, faint but unmistakable.
Lilting, trebly, reedy—some sort of flute, a chiffon of notes rising in pitch then returning to base.
The same arpeggio, over and over.
The kind of New Agey stuff looped in strip-mall day spas, designed to relax.
It stiffened both detectives’ gun-hands and prickled the short hairs on the nape of my neck.
They advanced. Again, neither of them held me back so I walked through the opening after they did.
Dim bedroom. Sparse but massive, likely created by combining two sleeping chambers.
This floor was cushioned by a snowdrift of white flokati rug. A black leather base held a bed wider than a king, draped tautly in silver silk. Pillows in hues that recalled the books out front were scattered on the bed and the rug. A doorless entry to the right revealed a slate, walnut, and smoked-glass bathroom.
Milo pointed to the wall facing the bed.
Covered by gray flannel drapes except where it wasn’t.
An eight-foot gap revealed the handle of a sliding glass door that led to a marble-floored balcony.
The southern view, barely encumbered by a waist-high glass railing aiming for invisibility.
I imagined what would be seen. Planes landing at LAX. Miles of the neighborhoods avoided by people who lived in the Wilshire Corridor.
From this high, everything would be beautiful.
Today it wasn’t.
At the rightmost periphery of the window was a hint of brown wicker and orange cushion. High-end, weather-resistant outdoor furniture.
Resting near the edge of the cushion was a bare foot.
Small, white. Inert.
Milo charged.
* * *
—
We burst onto the balcony, three sets of eyes camera-clicking.
Amanda Burdette, prone on her back, on a stylish brown wicker chaise.
Face as gray as her shapeless dress.
The hem of the dress riding up, legs white as the marble floor where they weren’t encased by a black body shaper.
On the floor, a coil of rubber tubing and a used syringe.
Ruby dot in the crook of her left arm.
Thurston Nobach, in a white, hooded caftan that trailed onto the floor, had been standing with his back to her, enjoying the view. Behind him, a pulsating tide of soun
d, the beeps, chitters, and burps of the city. Muted by altitude but not vanquished.
Milo’s and Binchy’s “Police! Freeze!” duet caused him to wheel. His lower jaw dropped like a dump-truck scoop.
Staring at us. Long hair ponied, the tail flopping against his shoulder. Harder, rougher face than in his website photo. Thirty-seven but I’d have guessed ten years older.
I’ve seen that in psychopaths: oozing through life apparently glib. But their bodies know different and their cells die in rebellion.
Nobach’s mouth slammed shut, surprise giving way to rage.
As the photo from Warsaw had suggested, tall man, just below Milo’s six-three. High-waisted, broad-shouldered, hints of muscularity beneath the billowing caftan.
He said, “What the fuck gives you the right?” Looked at Milo’s gun, then Sean’s, and added his own roar to the city sonata.
Fisting his hands and bracing his body. Arrogant enough to dare warfare?
Milo sidestepped him, offering Binchy direct access to Nobach. That confused me until I saw him reach for the secondary bulge in his pocket—what I’d assumed to be a second weapon.
He drew out a squat white plastic cone with a clear plastic spout at the bottom and a clear plastic push-button at the top.
Naloxone nasal spray. LAPD patrol officers carry it now, and so do county sheriffs. Not so much detectives. This Boy Scout had come prepared.
As he bent over Amanda and inserted the cone into her nostril, Thurston Nobach shoved Sean aside and hurled himself at the chaise.
Sean body-blocked him. Nobach roared again, louder, and clamped his hands around Sean’s neck.
Sean’s one of those habitual optimists who mainline good cheer. Despite years as a cop, that had worked out just fine. Now it threw him off.
Unprepared.
He struggled to free his gun-arm but Nobach had pressed against him so close that the limb was immobilized.
Nobach’s large hands blanched as they pressed harder. Sean’s eyes rolled and he gave up on the weapon, gasped, and flailed at Nobach’s grip with his free arm.
The Wedding Guest Page 32
