“Like I said, one step at a time.”
Grant patted the porch step, so she came and sat beside him. He glanced at her, then stared off into the distance with his best Clint Eastwood squint. No poncho or stubby cheroot but the same idea. He didn’t have the ponytail to glare like Steven Seagal, although he didn’t think Seagal had the ponytail anymore, just four stone of extra padding—about fifty-odd pounds, since Americans didn’t work in stones.
Grant waved at the stand of trees down the hill. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Not, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” which he could certainly justify. Anybody else skulking around with a hidden camera and he’d be truly pissed off. It was hard to get angry with someone as beautiful as Robin Citrin. She was wearing tight gray trousers and a white blouse today. Sensible shoes, not high heels. Business clothes if sneaking around with a camera crew was your business. She wasn’t a TV news reporter, the face of Fox News or CNN or any of those networks. Citrin was a working stiff. Another reason he wasn’t annoyed at her.
She turned to him and smiled. “Proving a point. How discreet we can be.”
“Sneaky, not discreet. Discreet means to be careful and circumspect in one’s speech or actions in order to avoid causing offense or revealing private information.”
“You read that lately?”
“Had to point it out to somebody else the other day.”
“I was circumspect in my actions.”
“There’s no way you can argue it was discreet.”
“Covert, then.”
“Oh, you were covert, all right. Thought you were a tree for a minute there.”
“What are you doing all the way out here?”
“Visiting a friend.”
“What for?”
“For something private.”
“Friend not home?”
“None of your business. Could be in there right now, making lemonade and ice cream.”
“You don’t make ice cream. You buy it.”
“You scoop it, though. Into a bowl to go with the lemonade.”
“That would be nice right now. Funny way you’ve got of visiting, though—that door thing you did.”
He didn’t reply.
Citrin glanced up at Grant, then joined him in staring off into the distance. Not far off, being a female Clint Eastwood but without the squint and the cheroot. Squinting encouraged wrinkles. Tobacco gave you bad breath. She spoke calmly, but not to him. As if she were talking to the wind.
“Should see the footage we got. The Resurrection Man in his orange jacket, unarmed, checking the windows. Cautious at the front door before ducking inside. Very dramatic. With a trailer-man voiceover, that would sell right there. The reality of life on the edge.”
Grant spoke to the wind too. “You liked that, huh?”
He nodded at the dusty hills. “Reminds me of all those old black- and-white Westerns they used to churn out here. Saturday morning serials we watched at the local cinema club. Supposed to be in the big wild country, but you could see the same trails and hillsides. The film speeded up to make it look like the horses were galloping.”
He turned to look at Citrin. “I saw a Batman serial one time, was filmed in exactly the same place. Car chase along the winding trail. Ruined the illusion for me. Couldn’t watch another Western without thinking about Batman escaping from the car as it crashed over the cliff.”
Citrin patted Grant’s knee, the little boy who’d lost his faith in movies. “Nothing is what it seems.”
Grant put his hand over hers. “Some things are.”
He squeezed it as he stared into her eyes. “Some of the things I’ve seen—they are exactly what they seem to be: real and hard and painful. Everything you film—it’s just entertainment.”
He sensed the atmosphere taking a dip and quickly broke into a smile. “But we all need a good laugh now and again, don’t we?”
Citrin joined in the charade.
“That’s what Hollywood’s all about. Let the good times roll.”
“You’re serious about this TV thing, aren’t you?”
“Why d’you think I was hiding in the bushes?”
Grant stood up. His bad knee cracked again but didn’t sound as loud outside the enclosed space of the living room with the blood on the carpet.
“Tell this L. Q. character I’ll pop in to see him this afternoon sometime.”
Citrin stood up too, one step down from Grant. It made the height difference even more pronounced. They were looking into each other’s eyes when the tires squealed off the tarmac onto the dust and gravel driveway. A cloud of dust followed the patrol car up the hill. There were no red and blue lights flashing. There was no siren. They were only needed if you wanted to clear traffic out of the way or scare the crooks off before you arrived.
The car skidded to a halt in the turnaround. The cloud of dust swirled around the front porch. It wasn’t until it settled that Grant realized it wasn’t an LAPD black and white. It was plain white with blue detailing and a Police Department City of New York shield on the side.
TWENTY-TWO
Chuck Tanburro eased the patrol car along the winding canyon road toward Beverly Hills with Jim Grant sitting relaxed in the passenger seat. Twenty-five minutes after scaring Robin Citrin and surprising the Resurrection Man. Tanburro glanced across at his passenger.
“Sorry about that back there. Couldn’t resist.”
“Been that long, has it?”
“It’s been a while. Yes. You were right. You kinda miss it.”
“Doesn’t teaching Gary Sinise to walk right fill the void?”
“It fills my bank account. And nobody shoots at me.”
“Nobody shoots at me.”
“They did outside the bank the other day.”
“Never got to that stage. Police nearly shot me, though.”
Tanburro jerked a thumb back toward the cabin they’d just left and Robin Citrin.
“You in bed with reality TV now?”
Grant wondered if last night showed but then realized it was just an expression.
“They’re courting me. I’m keeping my options open. How’d you find me?”
“Called by the hotel but you’d already left. Concierge said you’d taken a cab.”
“You understood him?”
“Japanese guy. Not very good English. But yeah, enough.”
“I bet you enjoyed the detective part, didn’t you?”
“Tracking down the driver? Yeah. Gave me a bit of a buzz. Guy could moan for the Olympics.”
“Didn’t need to come out here. You could have given me a ring.”
“We getting engaged?”
Grant mimed holding a phone to his ear with the fingers and thumb of one hand.
Tanburro shook his head. “I didn’t want to talk on the phone.”
Grant was intrigued. “What you got?”
Tanburro smiled, driving with easy movements and casual observation. He looked completely at ease behind the wheel of a cop car. His eyes took in everything around him. His fingers caressed the steering wheel. Grant could imagine the sense of pride and belonging that the ex-cop was feeling. He’d felt it himself when he used to chase the radio on patrol in Yorkshire. The knowledge that you were making a difference in the world, protecting the innocent and locking the bad guys away.
Bad guys. A phrase that was developing shades of gray. Grant was beginning to wonder what kind of father could brush off even the possibility of his daughter being kidnapped. Not a good guy, that’s for sure, in Grant’s book. Then there was the porn movie producer.
Tanburro’s voice became all business. All cop.
“Stuart Ziff. Zed Productions, Alamo Court, Long Beach.”
Grant nodded. “I nipped down to see him yesterday. Low-re
nt porn outfit. Seems to be making a decent living out of it.”
“He might well be. But making dirty movies isn’t his only source of income.”
Now Grant was really intrigued. He began to wonder about the heavies that the producer had hanging around the studio. Not Spitz and Swallows—they were porn stars, not muscle—but the other three. You didn’t need hired muscle if all you were doing was making sex films.
“That a fact?”
Tanburro recited from memory. Like most cops, he didn’t need the sheet in front of him; memorizing a suspect’s history was part of the job. Fine details he could research later.
“Real name: Franco Zeffirelli.”
“Like the Italian movie director?”
“The same, but younger. Got a sheet for theft, armed robbery, and extortion.”
“Armed robbery? Guy doesn’t look big enough to carry a gun.”
“Could have been acting in consort. Gets you the same sentence if you go in with the gun, drive the car, or just act as lookout.”
“I can see him being lookout. Maybe organizing a job.”
“Organizing would be the same.”
“I thought he seemed to have more attitude than just a movie producer.”
“You haven’t been around Hollywood much, have you? Producers are bigger sharks than any bank robber you’ve ever met.”
“Judging by the two I met the other day, I can believe it.”
“These top guys, they’re real ball busters. Grind you up and spit you out.”
“Spit instead of swallow?”
Tanburro smiled. “I like that. Very funny. This guy Ziff though. He ain’t so funny. He’s in bed with worse than reality TV.”
Grant stared into the distance. He was thinking his own thoughts but having to translate them into American. “Extortion. That’s like blackmail, right?”
“Right.”
Grant thought: influential female, a broken window, and blood on the carpet. “His sheet say anything about kidnapping?”
Tanburro scrutinized Grant’s face as if trying to get a read on his thoughts.
“No. That would send him to Federal. Nobody wants to go that deep. Some of these young girls they use in the porn industry, an element of coercion sometimes might skate close, but nothing that would stand up in court as kidnapping. You thinking about your friend’s daughter?”
Grant was thinking that he needed to have another chat with Stuart Ziff. “Just a thought. Can you drop me at the Metro?”
Tanburro glanced over at his passenger.
“You don’t need the Metro. I’ve got the car for a couple of hours before they need it back.”
Grant nodded, then shook his head. “Thanks, but it’s better I go alone.”
He smiled across at Tanburro. “I don’t want them ball busters getting on your case.”
“Why? What you planning?”
Grant stared out of the window. “Something they don’t teach in detective school.”
Tanburro didn’t ask for any more. He just kept his eyes on the road and eased the patrol car through the sprawl of West Hollywood, looking every inch the dedicated cop he used to be.
TWENTY-THREE
In the end, Grant didn’t use the Metro. Tanburro took him all the way down the boulevard and dropped him in the parking lot of Superior Super Warehouse opposite Popeye’s Chicken & Biscuits, a bit farther up and out of sight of Zed Productions. The parking lot was huge. Grant reckoned Superior Super Warehouse must be the biggest grocery store in the world. A store so big it had super in the name twice.
Tanburro became serious when he pulled into a space and parked. “You sure you don’t want company? The guys Ziff hangs with can be rough.”
“I met a couple of them last visit. They aren’t so bad.”
Tanburro tilted his head and shrugged in a have-it-your-way kind of gesture. The sun was beating down, bleaching the sidewalk and turning the buildings into concrete blocks that were hard to see without squinting. Grant understood now why so many people wore sunglasses in LA, especially the cops. You don’t want somebody bearing down on you while you’re squinting to see what’s going on. Grant didn’t like wearing sunglasses. He preferred people to see his eyes. That’s where the core of his expression came from. Happy eyes. I’m-cool eyes. Angry, don’t-mess-with-me eyes. He’d stopped more than his fare share of trouble just by staring down the troublemakers. He thought he’d have to do more than stare this time.
Grant opened the door and put one leg out before turning back to Tanburro. “You don’t want Gary Sinise seeing one of his cars on the news.”
“A marked patrol car can give you an edge.”
“If it looked anywhere close to an LAPD car, you might be able to blind ’em with red and blue flashing lights and some attitude. This thing looks like a cab.”
Tanburro patted the dashboard as if calming a horse. “You’ll hurt its feelings.”
“Not its feelings I’m worried about. You turn up with bullet holes and broken windows, you’ll be in deep shit.”
“Thought you said they weren’t so bad?”
Grant got out and closed the door. He bent to look through the windshield and grinned. He gave an energetic thumbs up. Then he slapped the car roof twice and set off across the parking lot, squinting at the concrete building behind Popeye’s.
He crossed the road and walked around the back of the food mall via Alamo Court. The tall palms on East Tenth threw exotic shadows across the dusty back street. The back door of Zed Productions was anything but exotic.
Grant stood in the shade of a dumpster in the alley. The medical center parking lot behind Zed Productions was almost empty, just two small patient transports three bays up from a Cancer Care minibus. There were no pedestrians cutting through Alamo Court. There weren’t many walking past the end of the dusty back street along East Tenth either. A few cars drove past but didn’t stop.
The front entrance of Stuart Ziff’s empire had the silhouetted nude sign above the door. The back door simply had plain lettering that said staff only. Grant ignored the front. This was going to be a back-door entry, something he was sure Ziff’s wonder boys knew all about. A narrow wire enclosure ran along the length of the back wall with a small industrial dumpster and a pushbike. He couldn’t imagine anyone he’d met inside riding a bicycle.
Grant stepped out of the shadows and crossed the dusty track. He glanced across East Tenth at the clapboard houses with their porches and American flags. There were no faces at the windows. No twitching curtains. Nobody was paying him any attention at all. There were a couple of cars in Blockbuster Video’s parking lot next door to the houses.
He walked straight up to the fence. The gate wasn’t locked. Once inside the enclosure, he smiled at the small camera above the door. If nobody was monitoring the CCTV, they would be in a minute. Grant knocked on the door. The rhythmic cop knock that was unmistakable. He paused to let the first broadside dissipate, then knocked again. Hard.
The door opened outwards. The staff entrance obviously doubled as a fire exit. Fire exits always opened outwards. Mark Spitz stood in the doorway. He looked nervous. Somebody shorter stood behind him in the shadows. No prizes for guessing who that was.
Ziff spoke from behind his protective muscle. “What the fuck d’you want?”
Grant kept his tone light, his eyes soft, giving Ziff the I’m-cool look. “Now, that’s not very polite. And to someone who was nearly your latest sex stud.”
“Granted, you could’ve got the job. Don’t think the chief of police would have been happy about it though.”
“I’m from out of town. The LA chief doesn’t worry me.”
“He worries me. Doesn’t pay to shit on your own doorstep.”
The fence rattled behind Grant as the gate opened. Danny Swallows closed the gate and stepped in close, a small silve
r gun in one hand. Spitz moved to the side of the doorway, smiling now.
Ziff came out of the shadows. “You, on the other hand, don’t worry me at all.”
Grant kept the I’m-cool look in his eyes, but his mind was focusing on the man with the gun. He hated guns. They had brought nothing but pain into his life and today didn’t look like being an exception. He calculated angles and distances, weighing up his options while keeping Ziff occupied.
“D’you remember that film with Sean Connery? Not the submarine one where he plays a Russian with a Scottish accent, the Al Capone one.”
“The Untouchables. Yeah, I remember that.”
Grant relaxed his body. Arms loose. Knees flexed. “He gives that speech about the Chicago way. You know, ‘If he brings a knife, you bring a gun. He puts one of yours in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue.’ That speech.”
Ziff could play this game. “The Irish cop with the Scottish accent.”
“That’s the one. Well, that’s not the line I liked best.”
“It’s not?”
Grant kept his breathing smooth and even, his eyes soft, not betraying what was coming next. “No. I like the bit where the Italian climbs in the window with a knife, and Connery comes out with a sawn-off shotgun or something and says, ‘Just like a wop to bring a knife to a gunfight.’”
Ziff leaned against the doorframe. “If that’s supposed to be symbolic, you don’t have a knife.”
Angles and distances. Grant didn’t need to look behind him to know Swallows was only a couple of feet from him. There was no room in the narrow enclosure for him to keep his distance. Being that close meant less reaction time. Grant spun round in a flash, his leading arm knocking the gun hand to one side and his second arm, all elbow, slamming into Swallows’ throat. The big lug hadn’t even cocked the gun. In less than three seconds, Grant had taken the chrome-finished Smith & Wesson and was back facing the door, two steps to one side to keep out of reach.
“And he doesn’t have a gun.”
Swallows was clutching his throat and gasping for air. Grant slipped the pistol in the back of his belt and nodded to Spitz. “Want to get him a glass of water?”
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