by David Freed
I should have said that it’s a small world, and that I just happened to have met Zambelli on the street, or in some restaurant somewhere. Better yet, I should’ve just kept my mouth shut. But I didn’t.
“Your father didn’t come to see me, Savannah. I went to see him.”
She planted her hands on her hips and glared. “I don’t believe this! I ask you to talk to the police and you tell me to kiss off. But my father asks and it’s, ‘Yessir, Mr. Carlisle. Whatever I can do for you, sir!’”
“He wants to know who killed Arlo as much as you do. He asked me to talk briefly to the police. I did.”
I walked into the guest bedroom. She stormed after me.
“He paid you, didn’t he?”
“I’m getting dressed now, Savannah. You have two options: Do a one-eighty or enjoy the show.”
She turned her back to me, arms folded indignantly. I dropped my towel and dug a clean pair of boxer briefs out of my flight bag.
“How much, Logan?”
“That’s between your father and me.” I stepped into my underwear, then put on a fresh polo shirt. I retrieved my semi-dirty jeans from the bed where I’d left them to go swimming and pulled them on. “Show’s over,” I said, cinching my belt. “You can turn around now.”
“Miles Zambelli couldn’t have killed Arlo,” Savannah said, turning to face me. “He would’ve had no reason to. There was absolutely nothing between us. Just the one night. Like I said.”
“How long before Echevarria was killed did you sleep with Zambelli?”
“I don’t know. Three weeks. A month. I really don’t remember.”
“Did you tell the police this?”
“Why would I tell the police? I told you. It had nothing to do with what happened to Arlo.”
“Does your father know?”
“He knows. Zambelli’s the son my father never had. He wasn’t exactly thrilled, but he understood. Things happen. God only knows my father has made his share of mistakes, too.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed and tied my shoes. The thought of somebody like Zambelli having had his way with Savannah, however briefly, made my stomach raw.
“Anybody else you did I should know about?”
“Jesus, you’re really something, you know that?” She turned and started to walk out.
“I need to borrow your car,” I said.
“Seriously? You treat me like shit, then expect me to let you borrow my car? Just like that?”
“I need to go see where Arlo died.”
Savannah’s Jaguar had a dash-mounted GPS with one of those automated voices that remind you when to turn and when to “stay on the motorway.” The voice was male and upper-crust British and irritating as hell. I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off without turning off the whole navigational system.
“Please . . . return . . . to . . . route.”
“Please shut the hell up.”
Whoever programmed The Voice never factored in normal counter-surveillance methods. Descending the Hollywood Hills to the flats below, I negotiated several quick turns onto twisty side streets, checking my mirrors, pulling over and killing my lights, trying to spot any tails, the little revolver tucked under my left thigh for easy access. Each deviation from my designated route prompted a rebuke from The Voice.
“Please . . . return . . . to . . . route.”
With the possible exception of the Invisible Man, no one was following me. I merged onto the Hollywood Freeway and headed westbound into the San Fernando Valley, toward Northridge and 5442 Williston Drive, the address Savannah had given me, where Arlo had lived out his final days.
It was nine-thirty on a Friday night, long past rush hour, but traffic remained at a crawl. Brake lights sparkled ahead of me, an endless ribbon of rubies, while to my left, four lanes of headlights gleamed like rhinestones from the southbound procession of cars inching along in the opposite direction. Nobody honked their horn. Being trapped in your vehicle at any given time surrounded by thousands of other similarly imprisoned Los Angelinos is an accepted part of life in Southern California. A land going nowhere fast. It took me more than an hour to travel less than ten miles.
“Exit right in . . . one-half mile.”
I got off the freeway on Reseda Boulevard and turned north. It was a five-minute drive to the working class suburb of Northridge. The Voice told me to make a hard right onto Roscoe Boulevard, then a left, another left, then a right. In the darkness, every street looked the same, every home the same as the one before it. The houses were tired and small, cracker boxes that once trumpeted the embodiment of postwar, middle-class privilege, but were now the domain of low-income renters, immigrants mostly, struggling to hang on in a weak economy.
The Voice announced that I had arrived at my destination. It was a good thing, too. I would’ve otherwise cruised right past 5442 Williston Drive.
I parked the Jag at the curb, behind a primer-gray Pontiac Bonneville. Bolted to the Bonneville’s left front wheel was a yellow Denver boot for unpaid parking citations. On the back bumper was a sticker that said, “How’s My Driving? Dial 1-800-EAT SHIT.” Somewhere down the street, a small dog yapped incessantly. I untucked my shirt, slipped the revolver into my belt, and got out.
A real estate broker’s sign was planted in the tiny patch of coarse, yellowed grass that had passed for Echevarria’s front yard. On the wooden post below the sign was a clear plastic box with one-page color flyers inside. I took out a flyer and read it under the fluorescent mantle of a street light. The house boasted two bedrooms and one bath, fresh carpet, new paint, a self-defrosting refrigerator, and a “private and secure” backyard. It was, according to the flyer, “freeway convenient” and close to shopping—the “perfect, affordable home for the young professional or a small family just starting out.” What it didn’t say was that 5442 Williston Drive was a dump at any price. Nor did it say that a man had been shot to death just inside the front door. The wonders of creative marketing.
I folded the flyer and put it in my back pocket. Then I tried the door. Locked. Likewise the front window. I rubbed the back of my neck. I didn’t know what I hoped to discover inside, only that on some vague level I couldn’t define, I felt the need to find something that might help explain why Echevarria had been killed. I thought about the chase with the Honda, and about what Savannah had said, her concern that I might be next. I needed to rule out that possibility before I could return with any sense of security to my regular scheduled programming. For the moment, anyway, whether I liked it or not, I realized my future and Echevarria’s past were linked.
I stood there on the front step where his killer had stood, a rectangle of cracked concrete no bigger than a four-by-eight sheet of plywood, and waited for divine inspiration to strike, but none came. I decided to force the lock. I slid my ATM card out of my wallet and was working it into the doorjamb when, from behind, a deep voice intoned, “The fuck you doing, man?”
I glanced back over my shoulder as casually as surprise would allow. Standing there was a light-skinned African-American fellow in a black sweat suit. He was staring at me down the barrel of a sawed-off, pump-action, 12-gauge shotgun.
“House hunting,” I said.
“House hunting? What kind of crazy-ass motherfucker goes house hunting at eleven o’clock in the middle of the motherfuckin’ night? Get them hands up, fool.”
I raised my hands.
He was billiard-ball bald, probably close to sixty, but still formidable enough to be a threat even without the shotgun. A gold hoop glinted from his left earlobe in the street light. He resembled what I imagined Mr. Clean might look like someday when he’s eligible for the senior discount at IHOP.
“Now,” Mr. Clean said, “y’all wanna tell me what you’re really doing out here?”
“I used to know the man who lived here. We were . . .” I swallowed hard and forced the word, “. . . friends. I’m trying to find out where he went.”
“Where he went? He’s dead, tha
t’s where he went. Somebody capped his ass. Maybe you, for all I know. Now, put them hands down and start walking across the lawn, normal-like—and nice and slow.”
“Normal-like?”
“Walk! To the sidewalk—and don’t be thinking about running, neither, cuz I will put a fuckin’ hole in you. Now, walk.”
I stepped off the porch and walked across the weeds toward the sidewalk. Mr. Clean stayed put, pivoting, tracking me with the barrel of his gun.
“Now turn around and walk back to me.”
“And the point of these calisthenics would be . . . ?”
“This ain’t Twenty Questions, motherfucker. Do it.”
I turned and walked back toward him slowly. He kept the 12-gauge trained on me the entire way. Whatever he was hoping to discern by me strutting my stuff, I had no idea. The Buddha said that the greatest prayer is patience, but my patience with Mr. Clean was waning rapidly. I noticed that his trigger finger was extended, resting on the trigger guard, not curled around the trigger itself. This told me that he was schooled in the use of firearms. Or watched a lot of war movies. It also told me that it would take him an extra split second to move that finger off the guard and onto the trigger when I moved to take the shotgun away from him.
“Always a good idea to slide your weapon off safe when you’re planning to put a hole in somebody,” I said, nodding toward the safety button forward of the gun’s trigger guard.
He looked instinctively, checking to see if the safety was on. I sidestepped the barrel as he glanced down, grabbed the shotgun, twisted it out of his grasp, flipped it around, and leveled it at him.
A smile came to his face. “Ain’t that a bitch. You Special Forces, ain’t you? Some sort of Chuck Norris Ranger Delta motherfucker. I can tell by the way you move. Like a goddamn cat.”
“Not my cat.”
“Yeah, I was a SEAL myself,” he said with a nonchalant sniff. “Saw some shit in the ’Nam, man, you wouldn’t believe. ’Course, that was back in the day. I must be pretty goddamn rusty, letting you get the jump on me like that.”
I asked him what SEAL team he’d been with.
“Which team? Team Six. Best of the best, baby.” The same team that greased Osama bin Laden. Mr. Clean rubbed his nose with his thumb and index finger. When people feel anxious, their blood pressure rises, prompting soft tissue to swell, which makes their skin tingle, which causes them to scratch or rub. People feel anxious when they lie. His rubbing and hesitation in answering my question were easy giveaways.
I asked him why he made me walk back and forth across the lawn.
“Wanted to see if you was him.”
“Him who?”
“The dude who capped the fella who used to live here. But you ain’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Ever watch Gomer Pyle?”
“A bit before my time. Caught a few reruns, though. An intellectually challenged Marine. Now, there’s a novel concept.”
“You know Big Foot?”
“Not personally. But I hear his feet are, like, huge.”
“Shooter, he walked like Big Foot, or Gomer Pyle. Big rangy motherfucker, hunched over, like this.” Mr. Clean demonstrated how the killer moved, stooped at the waist, arms swinging loosely. “I seen him gettin’ away. With my own eyes. You walk different from him. More white boy. All stiff and shit. Like you got starch in your armpits.”
I pumped out six shells, then tossed him back the empty 12-gauge.
“I lied,” I said. “The weapon was off safety.”
Mr. Clean grinned. “You bad as hell.”
He told me he couldn’t remember ever having had a conversation with Echevarria. They might’ve nodded to each other once or twice getting in or out of their cars, he said, or getting the mail, but that was about it.
“People around here, they ain’t too neighborly cuz they be coming around, asking to borrow a couple eggs. Pretty soon it’s ten bucks for baby milk or diapers. Then a C-note for the rent, just until next pay day, some shit like that. Then the moving van shows, motherfucker splits in the middle of the night and you ain’t never gonna see one nickel of that money back.”
Mr. Clean said he had no clue who might’ve murdered Echevarria or why, but expressed no surprise about the shooting. The neighborhood, he said, had been going to hell for as long as he’d been living there.
“The week before Arlo got it, there was some retired schoolteacher got shot one block over. I know two women been raped in the last six months, walking down Ventura Boulevard in broad fuckin’ daylight. I mean, damn, the whole city’s going to hell, you know what I’m sayin’?”
“Where’s the Lone Ranger when you need him?”
“Or Batman,” Mr. Clean said.
I gave him my card and told him to call if he came up with any superhero crime-fighting ideas.
I awoke early the next morning, made coffee, took a quick dip in my ex-wife’s lagoon, an even quicker shower, and called the listing agent on Echevarria’s house. We made arrangements to meet there at nine-thirty a.m. I was out the door by nine a.m. Savannah was still asleep.
A few deviations onto side streets assured me there was still no one tailing me. I got on the freeway. The westbound 101 was moving at a respectable fifty miles an hour. A raven-haired hottie in a convertible Saab glanced my way and smiled as she passed on the left. I decided I was in a good mood. The mood lasted all of five seconds.
“Prepare to exit,” the GPS announced.
“That’ll be enough out of you.”
I didn’t need The Voice harshing my mellow. Good pilots have innate navigational skills. I knew where I was going. I’d been there the night before. I turned off the GPS.
I was northbound on Reseda when my phone rang. Caller ID showed a private number.
“This is Logan.”
“This conversation never happened,” Buzz said.
“What conversation?” I said.
My DIA buddy had done some snooping. Made a few backchannel calls “across the river” to Langley, he said, where he learned that the CIA had concluded its investigation of Echevarria’s murder. The agency’s Counterterrorism Center could find no connection between the interests of their directorate and Echevarria’s untimely demise.
“They could give a giant shit about him,” Buzz said. “As far as Christians in Action are concerned, the guy never existed.”
“A lot of help you are.”
“Did I say I was done, dickweed?”
Buzz had logged into ALIEN, the DIA’s super secret squirrel computer system, and queried whether Echevarria’s name had appeared in any recent requests for intelligence information. The computer spit back a hit.
“Some dumbass at CENTCOM stiffed in an RFI for him about three months ago and was dumb enough to input Echevarria’s name as the requester,” Buzz said. “Echevarria doesn’t show up on any cleared active TS-SCI registers so, boom, the request automatically gets dumped out of the system. The RFI never went through.”
“He never got the information he wanted?”
“I believe I just said that.”
A two-man LAPD cruiser proceeding southbound on Reseda Boulevard whipped a quick U-turn and settled in behind me. I could see the cop in the right seat typing on his Mobile Data Terminal—no doubt the Jaguar’s license plate number, to see if the car was stolen.
“I need the name Echevarria wanted on that request for information.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“My eternal admiration.”
“What about a gift certificate to Dave and Buster’s?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
The subject Echevarria sought to research in official files, Buzz said, was none other than Pavel Tarasov, the independent oil broker I’d met in El Molino—the same guy my former father-in-law hoped to do business with in Kazakhstan. Buzz started to spell out Tarasov’s name for me phonetically. I stopped him.
“I know who he is,” I said.
“Wa
it. Lemme guess. Gay lover?”
“You’re my only gay lover, Buzz.”
“Eat me, Logan.”
“In your dreams, old friend.”
He laughed. According to Buzz, Tarasov’s name turned up in a handful of intelligence cables ranging as far back as the late 1990’s. The man from Minsk had been identified variously as a self-made tycoon, an international playboy with a taste for large-breasted Scandinavian teenagers, and a suspected asset with peripheral ties to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.
“Could be Echevarria was freelancing a counter-intel op,” Buzz speculated. “Drops his guard one night and this guy Tarasov fucks him up.”
“Doesn’t wash. I broke bread with Tarasov. He didn’t strike me as a killer.”
“When do they ever?”
Buzz had a point. The best killers rarely look the part, especially state-sponsored ones. Certainly, Tarasov would have been no exception to that rule. But Buzz knew as well as I did that “peripheral ties” to an intelligence operation did not a full-blown hit man make. Intelligence officers, theirs and ours, routinely debrief thousands of civilian business people every year whose travels take them to countries with perceived strategic importance. Tarasov, I suspected, was likely such an asset. Low grade. Hardly Boris Badenov. I told Buzz I appreciated his help, regardless.
“Just don’t say I never gave you anything,” he said.
“OK. I won’t.”
I signed off as the cops hit their candy bar lights and pulled me over.
A beefy black cop and his vertically challenged white partner climbed out of their patrol car and cautiously approached the Jaguar from either side, hands resting on the grips of their holstered pistols. I kept both hands on top of the steering wheel where they could see them.
“License, registration, and proof of insurance,” the little cop said.
No, “Good morning, sir.” No, “May I please see your license?” I don’t care for imperiousness and I have serious problems with authority—a potentially bad combination at any traffic stop—but even more so in the city of Los Angeles, where a rookie was once rumored to have asked his sergeant, “We collared a guy who was beating the hell out of some poor slob for no reason at all. What do we charge him with?” The sergeant was alleged to have responded, “Impersonating a police officer.”
