Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 11 - The Clinic

by The Clinic(Lit)

  'Did Hope talk about Big Micky?'

  'No. The only one she talked about was Lottie. Then, as I said, she cut it off, changed the subject. I got the feeling the visit had been an experiment for her: How far was she ready to go? And I hadn't encouraged her enough... I lost a lot of sleep over it, Dr Delaware. Thinking about that poor child tied up, what I should do. Then, with all the hurt things I was taking care of, I managed to forget about it. Until you showed up.'

  Another glance at the cuckoo.

  'And that's all I know,' she said, rising and walking quickly to the door. She pushed it open and stepped out onto the porch and a tide of canine noise rose. By the time I reached her she was out in the yard, surrounded by the dogs. Leopold, the Bouvier, watched me imperiously.

  I thought of Hope's Rottweiler, unable to protect her, probably poisoned.

  Hope transforming herself from prisoner to guardian of other women's rights.

  But no one had ever protected her.

  Elsa Campos continued to the front gate. 'If you find out who murdered her, would you take the time to tell me?'

  'Yes.'

  'You mean it? Because I don't want to wait for nothing.'

  'I promise.'

  'All right, then... I'm going to force myself out of here, take a drive up to the Bakersfield library, see if I can find her book. Not too many kids from here become famous.'

  The last word came out strangled. Suddenly tears were dripping down her weathered cheeks. She wiped them with her sleeve.

  'Good-bye,' she said. 'I don't know whether to thank you or punch you.'

  'Good-bye. Thanks for your time.'

  I started to go and she said, 'When all this comes out, I'll be the idiot teacher who didn't report it.'

  'No reason for it to come out.'

  'No? You're here because you think it relates to her murder.'

  'It may end up having nothing to do with it.'

  She gave a short, hard laugh. 'Do you know how she rationalized it? Being tied up? She said it had made her stronger. Taught her how to concentrate. I said, "Please, child, it's one thing not to complain but don't tell me it was for your own good." She just smiled at me, put a hand on my shoulder. As if she were the teacher. As if she pitied me for not understanding. I still remember what she said: "Really, Mrs Campos, it's no big deal. I turned it to my own advantage. I taught myself self-control."'

  I covered the thirty miles to Bakersfield in twenty-five minutes. But when I arrived I knew it had been a waste of gas.

  How long since I'd been up here? At least a decade. The city had maintained some of its country flavor -western-wear oudets, cowboy bars too new and flashy to be the skin joints Elsa Campos had described. But it was a big city, now, any city. Steadily homogenized by Wai-Marts and fast-food stands, the cold, clean comfort of franchise.

  No one I spoke to knew anything about the Brooke-Hastings Company but when I mentioned the slaughterhouses to an old man working the counter of a Burger King, he gave me a suspicious look and directions.

  The northern edge of the city, melting gradually back to agriculture.

  Segments of the railroad track were there - fragmented like discarded playthings.

  So was the building, huge, gray, so ugly it was hard

  to believe anyone had actually designed it. Square holes where the few windows had been. No roof.

  ...The Brooke-Hastings sign painted in white had eroded to wisps. Other signs: pure pork sausage.

  LIVESTOCK AND FEED. PRIME MEAT.

  A high barbed-wire fence surrounded the concrete corpse.

  Acres of fields in all directions were planted in tomatoes and corn.

  Stoop-laborers scuttled through the fastidious rows.

  One saw me and smiled.

  A Mexican woman, still on her knees, swaddled in layers of clothing despite the heat, hands so dusty they looked like clay models.

  Fear in her eyes as she took in my face and clothes, the Seville's polished grille.

  I headed back to L.A.

  Self-control.

  Years later Hope had reduced it to an academic paper.

  A prostitute's child. It wouldn't play at the Faculty Club. If Seacrest knew, it was obvious why he'd want to minimize her family history.

  Little Micky. Little Hope.

  Smartest boy, smartest girl.

  Ceremony at the county fair. Smiles, flashbulbs, 4-H banners, brass bands. I could almost smell the corn dogs and horse dung.

  A little girl imprisoned. A teenage honor student listening to her mother scream, nightly. Seeing the bruises.

  Cruvic, smelling the slaughterhouse stench on his father?

  The two of them bonded by good grades and high aspirations, the strain for respectability.

  High-school pals, maybe sweethearts.

  Collaborating. On fertility, abortion, sterilization.

  Control.

  Big Micky moving to San Francisco. Getting into racier clubs, producing porn - Robert Barone, the lawyer, did pornography defense. From his San Francisco office.

  Hope consulted to him, too.

  Fertility, termination. What else?

  Grown-up 4-H projects? A new slant on animal husbandry?

  I'd done 4-H my thirteenth summer. Raising angora rabbits for fur because it meant shearing, not slaughtering. My teacher had been a pretty, black-haired farmer's wife, serious, with rough hands. Mrs Dehmers... Susan Dehmers. She'd sat me down the first week: Don't get attached to them, anyway, Alexander. You won't be living with them forever.

  I pictured Big Micky and his bat. The packaging and selling of women as meat.

  His son leaving surgical residency after only one year.

  Leave of absence at the Brooke-Hastings Institute.

  Nice little in-joke.

  Had Hope laughed?

  I got back just after five. The house was empty and Robin had left a typed note on the dining-room table:

  Darling,

  Hope your trip went well. A big bargain on some old Tyrolean maple came up out in Saugus and then I've got to deliver some instruments to the HotSound studio in Hollywood. Spike and I will try to be back by 10:00 but it could be later.

  Here're the numbers I'll be at. If you haven't eaten, check out the fridge. Milo called. Love you.

  Inside the fridge was a hero sandwich cut into six segments. As I phoned Milo at the station, I chewed on one, wondering how the thing had gotten its name. Milo was on another line and I held and got a beer. When he got on, I said, 'I know now why control was such a big issue for her.'

  When I finished, he said, 'Nothing like mother love,' very softy. 'Listening through the walls... you think Mama got her involved with clients beyond listening?'

  'Who knows.'

  'Tied up for her own good. Jesus.'

  'She convinced herself it was for her own good, Milo. Grew up and reverted to what she knew.'

  'Bound and hurt - so who bruised her, Seacrest or Cruvic or some boyfriend - hell, why not Locking?'

  'Why not,' I said. 'Talk to Cruvic today?'

  'No, he's avoiding me, big-time. Answering machine at the place on Mullholland - the house is his, but he rents, doesn't own. And when I called his office, old Nurse Anna came on real cold and referred me to his lawyer. Guess who?'

  'Robert Barone.'

  'Bing, you get the washer-dryer. How'd you know?'

  'Big Micky was a porn merchant in San Francisco.'

  'From that to my-son-the-doctor,' he said. 'How does he spell his last name?'

  I told him.

  'I'll see what S.F. knows about him. I did find out about that hospital in Carson where Sonny went after leaving Seattle. One of those for-profit chains, ran into financial problems and sold out to a bigger chain. The comptroller said Fidelity was one of their less profitable outlets so it got canned. Couldn't pin him down but my impression was it hadn't exactly been the Mayo Clinic. So you're right about it being a come-down for Little Micky. The burrowing bastard.'

 
'The incident with Ballitser put him in the public eye,' I said, 'and he's got lots of things he doesn't want scrutinized: the way he practices medicine, his checkered academic history. Gangster heritage. And maybe Hope's murder. Anything turn up at Darrell Ballitser's place?'

  'Dope - meth, that's probably what got him hyped up. But absolutely nothing to tie him to Hope, so unless he confesses, Kasanjian will be able to get him out on bail. And if Cruvic keeps low, the D.A. probably won't be interested in prosecuting the attempted battery. Which doesn't bother me, I never saw Darrell as Mr Stalker. Herr Doktor Cruvic's looking better and better for that. It's the best explanation for her being dead and his walking around. Something real bad must have happened that Hope wanted no part of. Cruvic was worried she'd squawk, so he quieted her.'

  'And Mandy Wright,' I said. "Who Cruvic could easily have met through Daddy's business.'

  'You got it. Club None's exactly the kind of place a gangster's kid would hang. And Mandy just may turn out to be the wedge that pries the shithead out from behind Barone's custom suit. Because Vegas came through, bless their souls, and located Ted Barnaby, the boyfriend. Still dealing blackjack, but not in Nevada. Right here in Palm Springs, one of those Indian-reservation casinos. I'm heading out soon as I clear some paper, gonna do a surprise shake and see what tumbles out.'

  'Want company?'

  'No plans tonight?'

  'Robin's out for the evening. Were you planning to stay over?'

  'Nah, no reason to, I don't golf. Or tan. Rick took the Explorer so I've got the Porsche, which means an hour and a quarter each way and who the hell's gonna give me a speeding ticket?'

  L.A. to Palm Springs is 120 miles of a single monster interstate, the 10.

  The first half of the trip takes you through downtown, Boyle Heights, and the eastern exurbs - Azuza, Claremont, Upland, Rancho Cucamonga - and into San Bernardino County, where the air varies from sweet to toxic depending on wind and God's whim, and the view from the freeway is a lulling homogeny of marts and malls and car lots and the kind of housing you'd expect to find hugging the freeway. Then comes agriculture and rail yards near Fontana and just after Yucaipa most of the traffic drops off and the air gets dry and healthy. By the time you pass the cherry groves of Beaumont, you're rolling through a platter of gray dirt and white rock, Joshua trees and mesquite, the San Bernardino Mountains off to the right, capped with snow.

  The empty road's an invitation to speed and most people RSVP yes. During spring break, golden kids tank up on beer and weed and delusions of immortality, whooping and high-fiving on truck beds, hanging over

  the sides of little convertibles, flashing sexual greetings. Most make it to downtown Palm Springs, some end up roadkill. The highway patrol stays furtive and watchful and does its best to keep the death toll within acceptable limits.

  Milo got stopped only once, just before the San Gorgonio Pass, well after darkness had set in. He'd pushed ninety since Riverside, the Porsche barely working. It's a white 928, five years old, in perfect condition, and the young CHP officer looked at it with admiration, then inspected Milo's credentials, blinking only once when Milo said he was working a homicide case and he needed to catch a material witness by surprise.

  Handing back the papers, the Chippie recited a warning about nuts on the road and the need to keep an eye out, Detective, then he watched as we rolled out.

  We cruised into Palm Springs at 10:00 P.M., passing block after block of low-rent condos and entering the outer edges of the business district. Unlike Bakersfield, here little had changed. The same seedy mix of secondhand shops posing as antique dealers, motels, white-belt clothing boutiques, dreadful art. All the big money was in Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage, along with the streets named after Dinah Shore and Bob Hope.

  'Look for Palm Grove Way,' said Milo. 'The Sun Palace Casino.'

  'This doesn't look like an Indian reservation.'

  'What'd you expect, tepees and totem poles? These are the lucky Indians: booted into the desert but their

  patch just happened to leak shiny black stuff so they got rich, learned about loopholes, figured they were a nation to themselves and sued for the right to run games. The state finally gave 'em bingo but remained penny-ante about the immorality of gambling.'

  'Then the state started running the lottery,' I said, 'so that argument became a little inconsistent.'

  'Exactly. Indians all around the state are catching on. There's a new casino up in Santa Ynez. State continues to screw around, taking its sweet time to grant permits, not allowing the Indians to manufacture slot machines or bring them in from out-of-state. Which is a big deal because slots are the number one moneymakers. So they smuggle the suckers in on produce trucks and once they're on the reservation, nothing anyone can do about it.'

  'Detective,' I said, 'sounds like you're condoning law-breaking.'

  'There's laws and there's laws.'

  'Palm Grove,' I said, pointing to the next block.

  He turned left onto another commercial street. More motels, a laundromat, a run-down spa, fast-food joints crowded with people soaking up grease and the hot night air. Then up ahead, bright, blinking turquoise and yellow lights in the shape of a cowboy hat, crowning a fifty-foot tower.

  'Tasteful, huh?'

  'So all of downtown's a reservation?' I said.

  'Nope, it varies from lot to lot. The key is to search land records, find some square foot once owned by an Indian, go into partnership. Here we

  are.

  He zipped into the massive dirt parking lot surrounding the casino. Behind the hat tower was a surprisingly small one-story building trimmed with more blue and yellow lights and huge, upslanting letters that shouted sun palace in orange neon surrounded by radiating fingers of scarlet.

  Between the tower and the building was a brightly lit car drop-off. A brand-new purple Camaro was parked up against the building, a pink ribbon wrapped around its hood. The sign on the windshield said four

  BLACKJACKS IN A ROW WINS THIS CAR!

  Another sign leaning against the hat tower promised valet parking! but no one was around and Milo found a space in the lot. Just as we got out, a husky, brown-skinned boy in a white polo shirt and black slacks trotted toward us.

  'Hey, I woulda taken that for you.' Hand out.

  Milo showed him a badge. 'I woulda joined the Beades if my name was McCartney.'

  The valet's mouth closed. He stared for a second, then ran to open the doors of a urine-yellow, boat-sized Cadillac full of laughing, sun-broiled, silver-haired optimists.

  We walked through the casino's glass double doors and into a wall of noise just as a very tall man in Johnny Cash black stumbled out. Behind him was a four-hundred-pound woman in a flowered sundress and beach sandals. She looked ready to deliver a speech and he kept well ahead of her.

  The doors closed behind us, locking in the noise and eye-searing fluorescence. We were on a small, elevated, brass-railed platform covered with blue-green

  industrial carpeting and sectioned by arbitrary columns of polished mahogany. Steps on both sides led down to the playing room: one single space a hundred by fifty. More aqua carpeting and columns under acoustical-tile ceiling. White walls, no windows, no clocks.

  To the right was a single stud-poker game: hunched men in plaid shirts and windbreakers, black-lensed sunshades, paralyzed faces. Then row after row of slots, maybe ten dozen machines, rolling, beeping, blinking, looking more organic than the people who cranked their handles. The blackjack tables took up the left side of the room, crammed together so you had to either sit or keep circulating. Dealers in deep red polo shirts and white name tags stood back-to-back, laying down patter, scooping up ante chips, sliding cards out of the shoe.

  Bings and buzzers, nicotine air, cash-in window at the rear of the room. But this early no one wanted out. The players were a mixture of desert retirees, Japanese tourists, blue-collar workers, bikers, Indians, and a few dissolute lounge bugs trying to look sharp in fused suits and long-collar
shirts. Everyone pretending winning was a habit, pretending this was Vegas. Perfect-body-less-than-perfect-face girls in white microdresses walked around, balancing drink trays. Big men dressed in white and black like the valet patrolled the room, scanning like cameras, their holstered guns eloquent.

  Someone moved toward us from a corner of the platform, then stopped. A gray-haired, gray-mustachioed man in a gray sharkskin suit and red crepe tie, fifty-five or so with a long, loose face and purse-string lips. Walkie-talkie in one hand, hair-tonic tracks in his