Angel Eyes

by Ace Atkins

  They moved with authority and knowledge, standing on each side of the car, eyeing us as we passed. One of the men had a mustache and slick black hair. He had on a bright blue tracksuit and appeared to have a tattoo on one side of his face.

  The other one was young, sallow-faced, with a shaved head. He had serious black eyes and took great interest as Z mashed the unlock button on his keychain. The Mustang’s taillights flashed on and off.

  “Hey,” the tracksuit guy said. “Hey, you.”

  Being the curious type, I turned around.

  “You the one they call Spenser?” he said.

  I didn’t answer, as I felt it was a rhetorical question. Z walked up next to me, both of us a few feet from the trunk of his car. Z and I were both armed. But in the trunk was a twelve-gauge Mossberg that Hawk had given Z as a going-away present from Boston. In close spaces it gained respect and immediate attention.

  “Stop looking for this girl,” he said. “This is none of your business. Go back to where you come from.”

  His accent was thick and Slavic, sounding almost Russian to my untuned ear.

  “And who might you be?” I said.

  “Mr. Nobody,” he said. He looked to his younger friend, the driver, and the man snickered. He had horrible-looking teeth.

  “Did you get a deal on that tracksuit?” I said. “Or did you lose a bet?”

  “My friend,” he said. “You listen. You listen to me? Where I’m from, we have this saying. There are no second warnings.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Where I’m from, we have a saying, too.”

  The dark-haired man waited, hands loose at the sides of his sweatpants. In my best Dorchester accent, I told the guy to go have intercourse with himself.

  “Looks like me and you,” he said. “We have problem.”

  I shrugged, hand resting on my belt, a quick move up to my holster. Neither man showed a gun. I watched their hands as they walked forward and then noticed a light go on in another car, five spaces down from where Z had parked. Three men, looking just as rough and ugly, emerged from a blue sedan. Perhaps some kind of self-help group.

  “How many clowns have you packed in there?” I said.

  “Throw down your guns,” he said. “You come ride with us. Okay? We not bite. We talk. Like men.”

  I didn’t answer. Z didn’t say a word. We all stood there as the three men walked up the ramp, the other two standing still. Z watching the three, my eyes still on the other two.

  Just then a car wheeled around the lower ramp, heading up toward us, sending the three men off to one side and cutting us off from the two by the Mercedes. The headlights roved across us and over the men’s faces. Z mashed another button on his keychain and the trunk popped open. As he reached for the shotgun, I watched as Mr. Nobody pulled a pistol from his tracksuit pants. I pulled my gun as Z warned the three to stay back. I kept my eyes on the two men. I had my back to Z now. The concrete walls seemed to grow closer in to us.

  Mr. Nobody yelled something in a language I didn’t understand and I heard the blam of Z’s shotgun and several pistol shots. Z pushed me hard out of the way as if stiff-arming a linebacker. I stumbled and we found cover behind the Mustang. More shots and the back window shattered into tiny pieces. Z shot again. Blam. I fired my .38 three times, squeezing off the rounds at Mr. Nobody as he climbed back into the black SUV, the taillights clicking on and the car reversing.

  I turned back to see the three men had retreated. Z kept his shotgun trained in their direction as he stood and walked down the ramp. They’d left their car empty, doors open, and had run into a stairwell up to ground level. Above, I could hear the Mercedes’s squealing tires as they headed up and out of the garage.

  I walked up on Z, sliding my gun back in the holster. Z set the Mossberg back in the trunk and we followed where the stairwell door had just slammed shut.

  We made our way to the third level and heard the door. Both of us arrived at the landing at the same time and pushed through the doors into a wide-open space by a store that sold Dodgers gear and a designer sunglasses shop. The Hollywood and Highland Center was open-air and four stories tall, lined with railings down into a common area filled with kiosks and small cafés. We looked for the men in both directions without luck. The shots had been fired deep underground, the shoppers blissfully unaware.

  “Glad you left the shotgun,” I said.

  “People may have started to stare.”

  Blood began to drip onto the concrete. I looked up at Z. His face was ashen and his left arm hung loose at his side.

  “How bad?” I said.

  “Only hurts when I laugh.”

  “I’ll try to keep jokes to a minimum,” I said. As we started to move back to the elevators, it seemed like everyone we passed was watching us. Z had a great deal of blood splattered on his jacket and across his jeans. He held his arm tightly with his right hand.

  We heard the sirens and saw two prowlies cut off the exit to the shopping center.

  “Can you make it out?” I said. “We’ll find a doctor.”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “We can cross the street to my office.”

  I didn’t like the look on his face or the way his arm hung ragged in his hand. It looked as if some bones had been shattered in the scuffle. The elevator seemed to take forever, blood pooling at Z’s feet. He clenched his jaw and set his gaze at the doors, waiting for them to open.

  When they did, two LAPD officers had their guns raised and asked to see our hands.

  It wasn’t a request.

  13

  Idon’t see you for years and now I see you twice in two days,” Samuelson said. “Wow. Just wow.”

  “Some people are just born lucky.”

  “Not you, Spenser,” he said. “According to the patrol guys, you and Sonny Sixkiller turned a Hollywood parking garage into the O.K. Corral.”

  Samuelson sat down in the interview room at LAPD headquarters and shook his head. The officers had taken me to the county lockup for processing and Z to the hospital to look at his arm. It took three hours before I could convince them to call Samuelson and check my story.

  “We were just getting into Mr. Sixkill’s vehicle when they ambushed us,” I said. “They’d been waiting. Probably followed Z to the hotel and then waited for us to come back.”

  He nodded without an iota of empathy.

  “We impounded the car they left,” Samuelson said. “A 2012 Chevy Malibu. Stolen, of course. It was boosted in Marina Del Rey two days ago.”

  “No style with hoods these days,” I said. “Think they could’ve stolen a Corvette.”

  “When we catch ’em, I’ll let you tell them that.”

  I leaned forward in a very uncomfortable metal chair. My wrists were sore from being cuffed and my fingers were stained from being printed.

  “Did you recognize ’em?”

  “Nope,” I said. “But one recognized me. He knew my name and kept calling me his friend. Thought maybe it was from my bubble-gum cards.”

  “Your what?”

  “You know, trading cards of famous private eyes,” I said. “Sam Spade. Philip Marlowe.”

  Samuelson leveled his eyes at me, fingering at his droopy mustache. “Not in the mood,” he said. “How about you just tell me what these assholes looked like?”

  I described the man from mustache to blue tracksuit to the rubber soles of his Nikes.

  “And they had accents?”

  I nodded.

  “Eastern European?”

  “I once had a run-in with Ukrainians,” I said. “They sounded very similar.”

  “Ah,” Samuelson said. “A guy sporting a funny tracksuit and speaking in a funny accent. I’ll put out an APB. Can’t be too many of those in the city.”

  “Maybe I should have asked them for their passports,” I said. “And birt
h certificates.”

  Samuelson tilted his head and looked at his phone and then back at me. He wore an expression less telling than that of a sphinx. “Your friend is stable at Cedars,” he said. “After we’re done, I’ll take you over to see him. He lost a decent amount of blood and the bullet broke a few bones. I guess it’s good news he got shot in the left arm.”

  “Sure,” I said. “If only he wasn’t left-handed.”

  “Damn,” he said. “Your southpaw gunslinger is benched.”

  I nodded.

  “Guess you better leave this to us now,” Samuelson said. “If I remember my Saturday-morning serials correctly, the Lone Ranger wasn’t jack shit without Tonto.”

  “Or his horse,” I said. “Silver was a pretty big part of the deal, too.”

  “Do you own a fucking horse?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “My landlord can be particular about farm animals.”

  Samuelson leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling, letting out a long breath. For some reason he’d never quite taken to my charm the way Quirk and Belson had. I knew I only needed to give him more quality time. He kept staring up at the sagging tiles.

  “Looking for divine intervention?”

  “Something like that,” he said. “You’re a fucking classic. You know that?”

  “Thank you.”

  “A fucking classic pain in my ass.”

  I shrugged as someone knocked on the door. Samuelson excused himself and left for several minutes. I spent my time trying to wipe the ink from my fingers and studying the collection of anti-drug and anti-gang posters, many of them in Spanish. One particularly harsh poster showed a coffin being loaded into a hearse with the tagline You Can’t Pimp This Ride.

  I’d nearly cleaned the ink off my thumb with a Kleenex when Samuelson opened the door and walked back into the room. This time he didn’t sit. I was still sitting and I continued to sit. I was tired.

  “You were close,” he said. “Not Russian. Your guys are Armenian Power.”

  “Is that a cover band?”

  “Nope,” Samuelson said. “A well-known and nasty group of killers and crooks. Some of our gang people took a look at the garage video and IDed two of them. They work for fucking Vartan Sarkisov.”

  “Should that concern me?”

  “Yeah,” Samuelson said, nodding. “Probably should. How the hell did you manage to piss off this crew in less than forty-eight hours? Really, Spenser. That’s goddamn amazing. Some kind of fucking record.”

  “The only person I’ve intentionally pissed off is Jimmy Yamashiro.”

  “Yamashiro has been very cooperative in the girl’s disappearance,” he said. “He’s been completely open and honest about having the affair and given us access to his whereabouts.”

  “Maybe they’re hired muscle?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But guys like Yamashiro tend to send out an army of attorneys. Not some Armenian gangbangers.”

  “You say that with the utmost certainty.”

  “I’m not certain about shit,” he said. “But Yamashiro did send word he wants to see you. He wants to make contact with Gabrielle Leggett’s family and even put up a reward.”

  “That’s very big of him,” I said. “And he’s not a very big man.”

  “Would you quit being a hard-on for maybe two seconds and pay attention to what’s going on?”

  “Sure,” I said. I did my best to look serious and solemn. I waited for the answer as I drummed my fingers on the table. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I would if I could,” he said. “But Vartan Sarkisov. Holy mother of Christ. You better watch your ass. Don’t expect anyone to do it for you.”

  “Can you call around for my horse?” I said. “I’d like to ride over to the hospital to see my friend.”

  “How about a slightly used Crown Vic,” he said. “And as a bonus, I’ll let you sit up front like a big boy.”

  “Will you flash the lights?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You’re too good to me, Captain.”

  14

  Early the next morning, I drove back to downtown and Olvera Street to find Chollo.

  In the past, Chollo preferred more opulent surroundings in Bel-Air, working for a heavy hitter named Victor del Rio. But after a few well-placed phone calls, I was told Chollo had some of his own interests in the oldest section of the city.

  I parked near Union Station and walked across to the mouth of the old Mexican market. Many of the shops and kiosks hadn’t opened yet, and workers were spraying down the pebbled streets. The ones that were open offered piñatas and wrestling masks, T-shirts, and leather goods. Many professed pride for both Mexican heritage and being an Angeleno.

  I found Chollo sitting in the shade of a twisted fig tree, so old it had to be propped up with metal beams. He was speaking in Spanish with two old men tuning their guitars. Behind them was a small arcade with its doors propped open. I could feel the blast of air-conditioning and smell the tortillas.

  “Chollo,” I said, nodding.

  Chollo nodded back. He wore dark jeans and a denim shirt overlaid with a long tan suede coat. All of it slim-fitting and seemingly molded to his body. He looked up at me and shook his head. “Hombre.”

  The two older men stopped tuning their guitars, as if they expected trouble. Chollo stood and stretched to his full lean, medium height. The suede coat hung low over his belt and the gun he always wore. I started to whistle the theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Haven’t you finally realized I’m the best there is?”

  “No,” Chollo said. “Not yet.”

  He put out a hand, but in a single quick movement feigned a move to the left and then the right, wrapping me in a big hug. As he patted my back, I noticed the posture of the two old men ease. They went back to tuning their guitars as the T-shirts and linen dresses fluttered along the kiosks.

  “I heard you have interests here.”

  “Sí.”

  “Not the same interests of Mr. del Rio?”

  He shook his head, pointing down into the arcade, toward a number of Mexican fast-food offerings. “My accountant told me I needed to diversify,” he said. “Invest.”

  “Chollo’s Churros?” I said.

  “Sí,” he said. “Has a certain ring to it. Don’t you think?”

  “Service with a smile.”

  Chollo nodded down the street, away from the men and away from the little restaurant down Olvera Street. We walked in the brisk morning, the old street smelling of flowers and wet stones. He kept his hands in his jacket pockets, the street hustlers averting their gaze as he passed.

  “You didn’t come for the churros, my friend.”

  “But should I?”

  “Sí,” he said. “They are quite delicious.”

  “Perhaps later,” I said. “I understand Mr. del Rio employed Sixkill last year.”

  “Sí,” he said. “He was concerned about the welfare of his daughter.”

  “And did he fix the issue?”

  Chollo shrugged, moving toward the end of the street, a large wooden cross at the other entrance of Olvera Street. “Sixkill relayed useful information,” he said.

  “And then?”

  “Bobby Horse and I acted upon it.”

  I nodded. The less I knew about Victor del Rio’s business, the better. A large woman who looked a lot like Katy Jurado, dressed in a purple peasant top and long, flowing dress, hung handmade wooden puppets on a sidewalk display. She smiled as we passed, commenting to Chollo about it being a beautiful morning. Chollo agreed, calling her by name.

  “Last night, five men ambushed me and Z at the parking garage at Hollywood and Highland.”

  “Terrible place for an ambush,” Chollo said. “
Hard to escape.”

  “Sixkill was wounded,” I said. “He’s fine. But had to have surgery last night to fix his arm.”

  “And now you want to take me and Bobby Horse away from Mr. del Rio?” he said. “Like the other times.”

  “No. Not right now,” I said. “Right now, I only need information.”

  “Bueno,” Chollo said. “Mr. del Rio doesn’t go anywhere without Bobby Horse. These are strange times, my friend. The lines are not so clearly drawn. Honor, respect. Men don’t understand these words.”

  “These men had little honor and no respect,” I said. “They tried to scare us. And when that didn’t work, they tried to blast us into kingdom come.”

  “Who were they?”

  “Armenians,” I said. “They work for a guy named Vartan Sarkisov.”

  Chollo stopped cold by the wooden cross. He reached into his pocket and dropped several bills into a wooden box for a local church. He looked at me, the sun growing high over our heads. He squinted and nodded with understanding.

  “You know him?”

  “Sí.”

  “You like him?”

  “The man is a snake,” Chollo said. “The worst kind of scum in this city. Why are you here, Spenser?”

  I told him a condensed version of Gabby Leggett’s disappearance and crossing paths with Jimmy Yamashiro. And the possible plan to blackmail him.

  “Blackmail, intimidation,” Chollo said. “Yes. That’s Sarkisov.”

  “If that’s true,” I said, “then Sarkisov might know what happened to Gabby Leggett.”

  “Sí,” Chollo said. “His people, the Armenian Power, used to do business at a mini-mall in East Hollywood.”

  “And now?”

  “They have expanded.”

  “Diversified?” I said.

  “More than churros, my friend,” Chollo said. “They sell big truckloads of stolen goods from a small town south of here called Furlong.”

  “L.A. County?”

  “Sí,” he said. “But there’s no law there. Sheriff won’t go there. Only law is from the AP.”