by M. Z. Kelly
“He’d still have the problem of Jack not shooting back,” Charlie said.
“He probably would have found the gun on Jack after he shot him, tossed it near his body, and said Jack had pulled it during the confrontation. Or he could’ve had a throw-down gun he would have left at the scene.”
“And when Drake’s attempt to shoot Jack failed,” Pearl said, “he claimed you interfered. The shell casings were planted to make it look like Jack had shot back so Drake could say he acted within policy.”
“Yes, but there’s more to it. The others became worried about what Jack might have told me, so they bugged my apartment and began trying to intimidate me. They tried to run me off the road and nearly ran me down in a parking lot, before they paid an actor to warn me off the case. When I persisted, Kane made a direct threat about Robin being in danger. Eventually my brother was set up on drug charges.”
Natalie said, “Unless I’m off me trolley, this means Kane and Donovan are now workin’ together to keep things covered up.”
“With Drake acting as the enforcer, at least until Kane got back in town,” I agreed.
Charlie said, “I’m worried. After what happened last night, they’re not going to stop at anything to keep this covered up.”
“Worry won’t accomplish anything, Charlie,” I said. “It’s time we had a talk with Wolf Donovan.”
My former partner was out of his chair. “You can’t do that, Kate. We need to go to the department now, maybe take this right to the top. We can get warrants, look at the financial records, and bring Kane and Donovan down.”
I said, “Yeah, maybe we should just wait around for you and Jessica to wrap things up, say in six months or so after I’ve been fired.”
“Kate, that’s not what I meant.”
I ignored Daddy Charlie as Natalie spoke up, quoting one of Donovan’s famous lines from the spy thriller, Deadly Rhapsody, “No more games. No more talk. It’s time to rock.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Kane lies in bed, trying to recover from the bullet that exploded through his thigh. He’s lost a lot of blood and thinks the bullet nicked an artery.
After the chase, a couple of phone calls secured the dingy motel room. His leg is loosely wrapped in an improvised tourniquet and bandaged, but that hasn’t stopped the bleeding or the pain. A hot poker burns in his thigh and his head. A fistful of Vicodin finally cuts the pain, but leaves him groggy.
Kane turns on the television and watches, drifting in and out of consciousness. When he wakes up, it’s almost midnight. The pain is better, but his leg still throbs with every heartbeat. He takes a breath and sits up when he sees his picture on the television screen. He turns up the volume, listening to the announcer.
The Los Angeles Police Department has just released this photograph of a man known as Nathan Kane. He was recently released from prison, but is wanted for parole violations related to the disappearance of a woman in Fresno. If you have any information regarding this suspect, please call the department’s warrant taskforce at the number on the bottom of your screen.
Kane kills the sound. How did they link him to the dead psychiatrist? Maybe he left a fingerprint or some other evidence in her office. Or, it could be someone saw him leaving the residence. It doesn’t matter now.
His mind drifts. He fantasizes about what it would have been like to be with Kate Sexton and the little blonde bitch. The night would have been exquisite. He’s run the scenario of killing Sexton over in his mind at least a hundred times since their meeting in prison.
Now, acceptance finally settles in, replaced by anger. He has to focus on his options. He punches a number into his cell phone.
“I want Sexton dead and don’t give me any excuses about how it will look.”
The man on the line sighs and says, “I guess you know about the warrant. What the hell happened in Fresno?”
“None of your business. What about Sexton?”
After a hesitation, the man says, “I don’t think there are any other options at this point.”
Kane stifles a moan as the pain again shoots through his leg.
“There’s another issue,” the man on the line says. “Sexton was in Arizona. She found Reynolds’s mother.”
The pain is his leg is intense. Kane grips the phone harder. “Where is she?”
“We’re not sure. She was staying with a guy outside of Tucson, but left after Sexton’s visit.”
A stream of obscenities follows. He wants to throw the phone through a window. Finally, he asks the other question on his mind. “Bautista?”
“In jail. Picked up by the local cops on the warrant before we could get to him.”
Kane is outraged, again verbally assaulting the man’s incompetence. When he regains his focus, he knows there’s only one course left to him. It’s time to tie up all the loose ends, including the one at the very top. When he’s taken care of business, he’ll leave the country, maybe settle down in Costa Rica.
Kane says, “I’ll see to Bautista. You need to tell Marvin Drake that if Sexton isn’t dead within twenty-four hours I’m personally coming after him.”
He ends the call and lifts himself off the bed, testing his leg. He nearly passes out from the pain. He sits back on the bed, shakes the bottle of pain pills. They will never do.
Half an hour after another phone call, an envelope arrives. He removes the sticky brown substance from the plastic baggie, mixes it with water, and heats the concoction. He uses a shoelace to tie off his arm. The needle finds a vein and in seconds there’s relief. Heroin surges through his system like an orgasm.
He lets his mind fall into the sweet abyss of the drug-induced stupor. He will rest, sleep, and recover. The last threads of consciousness leave only one thing adrift in The Assassin’s mind.
Murder.
Chapter Forty-Four
The night after our meeting with Charlie, I slept with my gun under my pillow. I had a good night’s sleep because I made sure the duck on my couch was unarmed.
Natalie had begged me to let her borrow Clyde’s pistol, but I held my ground. The odds of her getting lucky and shooting a bad guy again were about the same as me deciding to date Harold Wiener when he got out of jail.
Pearl picked up Natalie and me at noon for our drive to Donovan’s estate. I was wearing a conservative blue blazer and silk blouse. The ankle was better, but I was still hobbling around on a pair of crutches.
I’d clipped the flag lapel pin to my blouse that the narcotics officers gave me the night we discussed Mr. Wiener trying to set up Joaquin Robinson. I planned to record my conversation with Donovan, hoping it might result in something incriminating.
We stopped by my mom’s and decided things were calm enough to take Bernie with us for the day. Mom was still in bed, but had stopped hallucinating. Robin was feeling sorry for himself about his breakup with Clark and was watching an old movie. He seemed to have given up all hope of reuniting with his former partner. Given Clark’s continuing bad behavior, it was a positive sign.
Donovan’s estate, named Olympus, was located on the highest point in the Hollywood Hills with a view of both the city and the ocean.
As we drove, I asked Pearl, “How shall we play this?”
“Ego is an amazing thing. Sometimes it can open doors that have been locked for years.”
“Sometimes for almost thirty years?”
Pearl nodded. “Let’s bait the wolf, see if he bites.”
“I’m up for that,” Natalie said from the backseat as Bernie drank in the air from an open window. “I’ve had practice baitin’ Clyde a time or two. I once got him madder than a box of frogs just because I told him one night that I thought the captain had abandoned the boat.”
I looked at Pearl who shrugged. “I probably shouldn’t ask, Natalie, but were you and Clyde on a cruise?”
“No, just spendin’ time together in the sack. Clyde had his problems findin’ the little man in the boat; happens a lot. Once he even got out his spec
tacles and…”
“Stop, please,” I said.
Pearl was laughing so hard I thought we might run off the road. I gave him a look.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m having trouble letting go of the visual.”
Boys will be boys, even when they’re sixty-something.
The road to Donovan’s estate terminated at a circular driveway with a white marble guard station. An iron gate with a fresco displaying the head of a wolf encircled with spears and lightning bolts announced the entrance to the grounds. A caption below the display read, Play...Prey...Prevail...
The guard opened a window and stared down at us. He looked like something out of a movie from ancient Rome.
“Your business?” The guard was in his fifties, with a silver crew cut and pale blue eyes.
“We’d like to talk to Mr. Donovan.” Pearl handed over a badge without the word retired on the emblem.
The guard took the badge, examined it, and handed it back. “Mr. Donovan is unavailable.” He slammed the window shut and turned away.
Pearl looked at me. “Guess the wolf is hibernating.”
I had Pearl pull his car into a parking space. I got Bernie from the backseat and hobbled up to the guard station window. I pushed open the glass, at the same time I pulled Bernie up until his front paws rested on the window frame. My dog had his head halfway inside the window and began a low, menacing growl. The guard flinched and stepped back.
“Get your boss on the phone,” I said. “You need to tell him Kate Sexton is here and it’s his day of destiny.”
I moved back, pulling Bernie with me. The window slammed shut again. Five minutes later it reopened and the guard sneered at us. “Mr. Donovan will give you ten minutes. Stay on the driveway until you get to the residence. Do not stop until you reach the residence or there will be an armed response.”
The window closed. I knocked on the glass. It sprang open again. “What?”
“Have a nice day, asshole.” I slammed the window shut, nearly clipping off the end of the guard’s nose. Sometimes being a bitch has its merits.
As we passed through the gates and moved up the driveway, I understood why the estate was called Olympus. The flag-lined road was flanked by marble colonnades that provided cover for walkways.
A series of buildings, all modeled in the style of ancient Rome, rose up along the top of the hill. Stone paths led from the main roadway to the buildings, giving the impression we had travelled back in time to an ancient Roman city.
“Wonder if Cesar is nearby,” Pearl said.
“He’s probably busy getting the lions ready for the afternoon feeding,” I said.
Natalie seemed a bit put off by the ostentatious grounds. “You’d think the douche bag could afford a couple a modern buildings. Looks like somethin’ out of the Flintstones.”
So much for impressing Natalie.
As we reached the residence at the top of the hill, the sun shone on its marble edifice. The imposing structure looked like a restored version of an ancient Roman temple, but on an enormously more expansive scale.
A moat encircled the residence and then branched off, the water disappearing into a cave. This was probably what Robin and Clark had described as, The Cavern.
We piled out of the car. Bernie sniffed the air as Pearl surveyed the scene. “Place seems to fit the owner’s ego.”
“Yeah, but it lacks a certain charm,” I offered.
“Looks like Henry the Eighth’s fuck shack,” Natalie said
There was simply no impressing this girl.
As we moved across the bridge to the entrance, I leaned on my crutches and looked up at the edifice of the building. It contained a series of faces that looked down from above the windows. Each face was from a role Donovan had played in his many movies. Every character from thief to general to madman was etched into the front of the building.
My eyes lingered on the face of Simon Bartlett, the mad son of a shipping tycoon. The role was one that had garnered rave reviews from the critics and won Donovan an Oscar. Maybe the mad man staring down at us was the real face of Wolf Donovan.
Before we had a chance to knock on the door, it opened and several people exited. They were chatting and laughing, not noticing us. I was half expecting to see Donovan’s bodyguard, Zen, but he wasn’t around. The party was crossing the bridge, leaving the residence, when a man turned and walked back toward us.
“Are you going to The Cavern?” he asked Natalie.
The man’s eyes didn’t seem to have the ability to elevate above breast level. My friend was wearing a pair of skinny jeans and a tight-fitting white poplin blouse. For Natalie, it was on the conservative side.
“What’s that?” Natalie asked.
“I’ll show you,” the man answered, extending a hand.
I pushed his hand away and pulled Natalie through the doorway. “You don’t want to know.” I slammed the door shut behind us, feeling like her mother.
“Probably just some shit bog,” Natalie said. “Goes with the dump.”
If she only knew.
The foyer of the residence opened into a stone barrel vault radiating from the room’s elliptical center. Massive columns lined the dimly lit perimeter. The building had a quality that made it seem alive, but in a threatening way.
“I’ve been expecting you.”
The voice rumbled down to us from above. Wolf Donovan was standing on a suspended bridge that spanned the entire upper floor. Beneath the arched span of the crossing, I saw there was a frieze of a she-wolf suckling two infants. There was some Latin lettering beneath the scene.
The actor must have seen me looking at the inscription and interpreted. “She gives life so that men may rule.”
“Sexist pig,” Natalie whispered.
Even though he was a good twenty feet above us, I was struck by the sheer enormity of the man. He wore a white bathrobe that barely covered his ample girth.
Donovan was so famous I had to stop myself from associating the man with the many roles he’d played. I reminded myself that, while the actor was extraordinarily famous and wealthy, I also believed he was a cold-blooded killer.
“Take the stairway to the left,” the actor said, his voice again booming down. It was more a command than an invitation.
I was determined to make it up the stairway and set my crutches aside. I hobbled behind my friends up the marble steps to the second floor where sconces dimly lit corridors that receded into the interior of the building. I didn’t see any servants or guards, but assumed they were close at hand, ready to jump at the actor’s command.
We found Donovan at the top of the staircase sitting on a sofa in an alcove. We took seats on chairs lined up a few feet in front of him. I felt like a child in grade school who had come for an audience with a giant.
The actor had a bemused expression on his face. The only attractive feature of the man was his famous blue eyes. From this distance they looked more aquamarine than blue.
The actor’s eyes fixed on Bernie who was standing at my side. I felt a vibration coming up the leash, the beginning of a low growl, as my dog regarded the giant beast of a man in front of us.
“Domesticated and socially castrated,” Donovan said, shaking his head at my dog.
“You’re wrong about that,” Natalie said. “He’s still got his balls.” She turned to me and whispered, “The arseface is so big he probably can’t find his.”
I was about to admonish my friend when Donovan exploded with laughter. I felt my anger rising as I watched the arrogant actor. The behemoth convulsing with mirth in front of me was nothing more than a common bully. He deserved every bit of the scorn Natalie was happy to dish out.
“We didn’t come here for you to insult my dog or for your amusement,” I said.
The laughter died. There was a small, fleshy movement in the rolls of fat on Donovan’s face. I wasn’t sure if it was a smile or contempt.
“And just why would you all pay me a visit on this lovely day?”
“We happened to recently view a film,” I said. “It was written and directed by John Carmichael and produced by Conrad Harper—Days of Destiny. It’s rather curious that your part in the film isn’t listed in any of your biographies”
The rolls of fat returned to their resting state, which I decided was a permanent scowl of contempt. “Oh, now I understand. You’re amateur film historians out on a field trip.”
I started to respond, but Donovan went on, "A rather unremarkable plot, and the performance was that of a young man trying to find his voice. I believed, or should I say I had hoped, the film had been destroyed—relegated to the dustbins of cinematic history.”
“It’s in a vault in Kansas,” I said. “We have a copy. Tell us about your relationship with Mr. Carmichael.”
“A small time filmmaker who, unfortunately, went missing before he could leave his mark on the world. He was kind enough to offer a fledging actor a small part.”
Pearl said, “Let’s cut to the chase, Mr. Donovan. We know Conrad Harper used John Carmichael, setting up the first of several dummy corporations to launder the drug money that you all made with Nathan Kane. Roger Diamond was Kane’s drug runner. He and Cassie Reynolds were murdered because of what they knew.”
The fat snarled into contempt as the actor’s gaze swept over Pearl.
“Let us speak candidly,” Donovan said. “I know why you are here. I had nothing to do with the disappearance of Mr. Carmichael, the business arrangements you allude to, or, for that matter, the death of the whore you all appear to be obsessed over. Your little game ends right here, right now.”
“We also know about the frame—how you all set up Jack Bautista to take the fall for Cassie’s murder,” I said.
My hand had brushed over the flag pin affixed to my blouse as I spoke. If it worked, I hoped it would record anything incriminating Donovan might say.
Before he could respond, Natalie broke in, “And this is no game. Cassie Reynolds wasn’t just a whore, as you call her. She was a child once, someone’s daughter. You might keep that in mind when you go callin’ people names. It would be like me sayin’ you’re a fat shit with a little dick.”
