by Robert Crais
I dialed ICM. They gave me to someone in the television department who had known Morton Lang when he worked there fourteen months ago. He had known Mort, but not very well, and if I was looking for representation perhaps he could help me out, ICM being a full-service agency representing artists in all media. I dialed Morton’s Lang’s clients. Edmund Harris wasn’t home. Kaitlin Rosenberg hadn’t spoken to Mort in three weeks, and I should tell him the play was going fine. Cynthia Alport hadn’t heard from him in over a month and why the hell hadn’t he returned her calls? Ric-with-no-K Lloyd hadn’t returned Mort’s call of six weeks ago because he’d changed agents and would I please pass that along to Mort? Darren Fips had spoken with Mort about two weeks ago because the contracts had never arrived but Mort hadn’t gotten back to him and Darren was getting damned pissed. Tracey Cormer’s line was busy. Fourteen minutes after I started, the rolodex cards were back in their stack and I still had no useful information. I dialed Kimberly Marsh, thinking maybe she hadn’t run off with Mort after all, and got her answering machine. I called Ellen Lang, thinking maybe she’d found something in the phone bills, or, if not, maybe she just needed a kind word. No answer. I called Janet Simon, thinking maybe Ellen Lang had gone over there, or, if not, Janet might know where she had gone. No answer. I got up, opened the glass doors, and went out onto the balcony to stand in the smog.
All dressed up and no place to go.
The phone rang. “Elvis Cole Detective Agency. Top rates paid for top clues.”
It was Lou Poitras, this cop I know who works out of North Hollywood Division. “Howzitgoin, Hound Dog?”
“Your wife’s here. We’re having a Wesson oil party.”
There was a grunt. “You workin’ for a guy named Morton Lang?”
“His wife. Ellen Lang. How’d you know?”
It got very still in the office. I watched Pinocchio’s eyes. Side to side, side to side. “What’s going on, Lou?”
“Bout an hour ago some Chippies found Morton Lang sittin’ in his Caddie up near Lancaster. Shot to death.”
There was a loud shushing noise and my fingers began to tingle and I had to go to the bathroom. My voice didn’t want to work. “The boy?”
Lou didn’t say anything.
“Lou?”
“What boy?” he said.
After a while I hung up and took out the photo of Morton Lang. I turned it over and reread the description his wife had written. I looked at the picture of the boy. Maybe he was with Kimberly Marsh. Maybe he was fine and safe and away from whoever had shot his father to death. Maybe not. I opened the drawer and took out my passbook and the check and the deposit slip. I put the passbook back and closed the drawer. I tore the deposit slip in quarters and threw it away. I wrote VOID across the face of the check. Her first check. I folded it in two and put it in my wallet and then I went to see Lou Poitras.
9
I parked in the little lot they have next to the North Hollywood Police Department headquarters and went around front to this big linoleum-floored room. There were hardwood benches on two of the walls, a couple of Coke and candy machines, and a bulletin board. A poster on the bulletin board said POLICE FUND RAISER—A NIGHT OF BOXING ENTERTAINMENT—COPS VERSUS FIREMEN! SPECIAL EXHIBITION BOUT: BULLDOG PARKER AND MUSTAFA HAMSHO. Beside the poster a skinny white kid with stringy hair spoke softly into a pay phone. He leaned against the wall with one foot back on a toe, his heel nervously rocking.
I went around two Chicano men in Caterpillar hats with green jackets and dirty broken work shoes and through a reinforced door, up one flight of stairs, and down a short hall into the detectives’ squad room. Also known as Xanadu.
The detectives live in a long gray room with all the desks against the north wall and three little offices at the far end. Across from the desks are a shower, a locker room, and a holding cell. Days of Our Lives was going on the locker room TV. Two brown hands were sticking out through the holding cell bars. They looked tired. Poitras’ office was the first of the three at the far end.
Lou Poitras has a face like a frying pan and a back as wide as a Coupe de Ville. His arms are so swollen from the weights he pumps they look like fourteen pound hams squeezed into his sleeves. He has a scar breaking the hairline above his left eye where a guy who should’ve known better got silly and laid a jack handle. It lent character. Poitras was leaning back behind his desk as I walked in, kielbasa fingers laced over his belly. Even reclined, he took up most of the room.
He said, “You didn’t bring that sonofabitch Pike, did you?”
“I’m fine, Lou. And you?”
Simms was sitting in a hard chair in front of Lou’s desk. There was another chair against the wall, but it was stacked high with files and folders. First come, first served. Simms wore street clothes: blue jeans and a faded khaki safari shirt with an ink stain on the pocket and tread-worn Converse All Stars. “You get promoted?” I said.
“Day off.”
Lou said, “Forget that. Gimme the kid’s picture.”
I handed him the little school picture of gap-toothed Perry Lang. He yelled, “Penny!” and flipped the photo over to read the back, jaw working.
Penny came in. There was a lot of dusty red hair and tanned skin. She had to be six feet tall. “Sheena, right?” I said. She ignored me. Lou gave her the little picture. “Color-copy this, front and back, and have a set phoned up to McGill in Lancaster right away.” When she left, Simms looked after her. So did I.
“She’s new,” I said.
Simms smiled. “Uh-huh.”
Poitras looked sour. “You two try to control your glands.”
“You get anything new on the cause of death?” I said.
“I called the States up by Lancaster after we talked. They say four shots, close range. ME’s out there now.”
“What about the boy?”
“McGill up there, he’s okay. McGill said there was nothing in the Caddie to indicate the boy was in the car when his old man got it. They put some people out to search the roadside, but it’s gonna be a while before we hear.”
“Okay.”
Poitras leaned forward and looked at me, his forehead wrinkling up like a street map of Bangkok. “Simms says you’re in on this.”
I started from the beginning, telling them how Ellen Lang had hired me and why. I told them about Kimberly Marsh and said her address twice so Lou could write it down, and then about Garrett Rice and what Patricia Kyle had given me as background information. I told them what I knew about Mort from Kansas and his failing business and his heavy monthly note and his midlife crisis. It didn’t take long. Somewhere in there Simms went out and came back with three coffees. Mine was cold. When I finished, Lou said, “All right. You come up with any angles on Lang?”
“No.”
“Enemies?”
“No.”
“How about connections?”
“Unh-uh.”
Simms liked that. “Sounds like you been busting your ass.”
Lou drummed his fingers on the desk. It sounded like firecrackers going off. I’d once seen Lou Poitras dead-lift the front end of a ’69 Volkswagen Bug. “Simms said somebody went through their house last night.”
“Simms knows what I know. The wife figures the husband did it. I don’t figure it that way, but it’s possible. I think somebody went in there looking for something.”
Simms cracked a knuckle. “You think the wife’s holding out?”
“No.”
Lou said, “What would somebody want?”
“I got no idea.”
A tall thin man in a dark gray three-piece suit walked in and gave me the checkout. He had a tight puckered face that made me think of Raid Ant & Roach Killer. He said, “This asshole works with Joe Pike?”
I smiled at Poitras. “You two rehearse this?”
Lou said, “Wait outside, Hound Dog.”
Simms got up so the new guy could sit down, and Poitras shut the door behind me. It made me feel left out. The squad ro
om was empty. Tail end of the lunch hour, all the dicks were still out scoring half-price meals. The big redhead came back with a sheaf of color copies and stopped when she saw the closed door. I was sitting behind one of the desks with my feet up, reading a Daily Variety. Half the desks on the floor sported show business trade papers. One of the desks even had American Cinematographer. These cops. She looked at me. I said, “Conference with Washington. Very hush-hush.” Then I wiggled my eyebrows. She stared at me a half a heartbeat longer and walked away.
I got up and wandered into the locker room for more coffee. An older cop with a bad toup and lots of gold around his neck was watching Wheel of Fortune. The place smelled like a ripe jock but he didn’t seem to mind. I poured two cups and brought one out to the holding cell but it was empty.
I was standing by myself in the middle of the squad room with a cup of coffee in each hand when Poitras’ door opened and Simms looked out. “I always take two,” I said. “One for me. One for my ego.”
“Inside. Bring a chair.”
I put the coffees down, took a chair from beside one of the squad desks, and went in. Lou said, “Elvis, this is Lieutenant Baishe. He took over from Gianelli a couple months ago.”
Baishe said, “He doesn’t need my pedigree.”
I looked at him.
Baishe was leaning into the corner behind Poitras’ desk, looking at me like he’d had to scrape me off the bottom of his shoe. Without waiting he went on, “I know about you. Big deal in the Army, security guard at a couple of studios, sucking around town with that bastard Joe Pike. They say you think you’re tough. They say you think you’re cute. They also say you’re pretty good. Okay. Here’s what we’ve got. The highway patrol up by Lancaster finds Morton Lang shot to death behind the wheel of his car, an ’82 Cadillac Seville. He’s got three in the chest and one in the temple, close range.” Baishe touched his forehead. Wasn’t much hair there to get in the way. “No shell casings in the car, but the people up there say it looks like a 9mm. There’s blood, but not a whole lot, and some peculiar lividity patterns so maybe he wasn’t popped there in his car. Maybe he got it somewhere else and he was put there. No sign of the kid. Car’s been wiped clean. Robbery’s out. He’s still got his wallet and the credit cards and forty-six bucks and his watch. Keys are in the ignition. You got all that?”
“I’m watching your lips, yes, sir.”
Baishe looked at me, then at Lou. Lou said, “Cole has a brain imbalance, Lieutenant.”
Baishe unwrapped his arms, came out of the corner, leaned on Poitras’ desk and looked at me. He looked like a Daddy Longlegs. “Don’t fuck with me, boy.”
I pretended to be intimidated. After a bit he said, “How do you fit into this?”
I went through it again. Baishe said, “How long have you known the wife?”
“Since yesterday.”
“You sure it hasn’t been longer?”
I looked from Baishe to Poitras to Simms and back to Baishe. Poitras and Simms were looking at Baishe, too. I said, “Come off it, Baishe. You got nothing.”
“Maybe we dig into this we see a bigger connection. Maybe you two are pretty good friends, so good you decide to get rid of her old man. Maybe you rig the whole act and you pull the trigger. Setup City.”
“Setup City?” I looked at Poitras. His mouth was open. Simms was staring at a spot somewhere out around the orbit of Pluto. I looked back at Baishe with what we in the trade call “disbelief.” He was looking at me with what we in the trade call “distaste.”
I said, “The Postman Always Rings Twice, right? 1938?”
“Keep it up,” Baishe said.
“That’s a real good thought, Lieutenant,” Lou said, “only Cole here is known to me personally. He’s a good dick.” I expected Baishe to laugh maniacally. Only the Shadow knooowwzz. I was getting tired and just a little bit cranky. I said, “Is that it?”
Baishe said, “We’ll tell you when that’s it.”
I stood up. “Screw that. I didn’t come down here so you guys could work out. You got any other questions, book me or call my lawyer.”
Baishe went purple and started around the desk. Lou stood up, just happening to block his way. “Lieutenant, could I talk to you a sec? Outside.”
Baishe glared at me. “Have your ass in that chair when I get back, peep.”
“Peep. You’re really up on the patois, aren’t you?”
Baishe’s jaw knotted but they went out. I glared at Simms. He looked bored. I glared at Lou’s desk. Behind the desk on a gray metal file cabinet were pictures of a pretty brunette and three children and a three bedroom ranch-style home in Chatsworth. One shot showed a couple of comfortable lawn chairs in the backyard beneath a poplar tree, just right for drinking a beer and listening to a ball game while kids played in the backyard. There was a picture of Lou doing just that. I had taken the picture.
Lou came back in alone. “He expects your continued cooperation.”
Simms laughed softly.
I said, “You notify the wife yet?”
“Not home. We got a car there waiting for her.” I could see a couple of street monsters parked in her drive, scratching their balls and waiting for a fadeaway woman in a light green Subaru wagon with two little girls in the back. Sensitive guys. Guys like Baishe. Sorry, lady, your old man caught four and he’s history. I said, “Maybe I’d better do it.”
Lou shrugged. “You sure you want to?”
“You bet, Lou. Nothing I want more than to sit down with this woman and give her the news her husbands dead and her nine-year-old son is missing. Maybe I’ll even break the word to the two little girls, too, for the capper.”
“Take it easy.”
“I’m taking it easy,” I said. Simms had stopped smiling.
The redhead came back in with the color copies and the little picture. She put the copies on Lou’s desk and the little picture on top of the copies. She looked at me. “What, no cracks?”
“They broke my spirit.”
She smiled nicely. “Penny Brotman. Studio City.” And swayed away. Simms said, “Sonofabitch.”
I took the little picture and put it in my pocket. I sneered at Simms, then gave Lou a flat look. “If we’re finished, I want to get out of here.”
He looked at his hands. “I didn’t know he was gonna pull that, Hound Dog. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.”
I went back along the short hall, down the flight of stairs and out through the reinforced door. Nothing had changed. The Chicano guys still stood by the front desk, the white kid still murmured into the phone. People came in and went out. A fat woman bought a Coke; it wasn’t a diet drink. A black cop with heavy arms led a man past the desk and through swinging doors. The man’s fragile wrists were cuffed. There were knots in my trapezius muscles and in my latissimus dorsi and my head throbbed. I went up behind the kid on the phone and stood very close. He looked at me. Then he murmured something into the phone, hung up, and sat on one of the wooden benches with his head in his hands. I dialed Janet Simon and let it ring. On the thirty-second buzz she answered, breathless. I said, “Does Ellen Lang have any close relatives nearby? Sister or mother or something like that?”
“No. No, Ellen doesn’t have any relatives that I know of. She’s an only child. I think there could be an aunt back in Kansas, but her parents are dead. Why?”
“Can you meet me at her house in twenty minutes?”
There was a long pause. “What is it?”
I told her. I had to stop once because she was crying. When I was through I said, “I’m on my way,” then I hung up. I stood with my hand on the phone for several seconds, breathing deeply, in through the nose, out through the mouth, making my body relax. After a while, I went over to the kid on the bench, said I was sorry, and put a quarter on the bench beside him. It was shaping up as a helluva day.
10
At twenty minutes before three I pulled into Ellen Lang’s drive and parked behind Janet Simon’s Mustang. Ellen’s Sub
aru wasn’t there. I went to the front door and knocked. Out on the street, cars driven by moms went past, each carrying kids home from school or off to soccer practice. It was that time of the day. Pretty soon Ellen Lang would turn in with her two girls. She’d see the Corvette and the Mustang and her eyes would get nervous.
I knocked again, and Janet Simon opened the door. Her hair was pulled back and large purple sunglasses sat on top of her head. Every woman in Encino wears large purple sunglasses. It’s de rigueur. She held a tall glass filled with amber liquid and ice. More ice than liquid. She said, “Well, well. The private dick.” It wasn’t her first drink.
Ellen Lang had made the house spotless for Mort’s return. Everything was back in its place, everything was clean. The effort had been enormous. Janet Simon brought her drink to the couch and sat. The ashtray beside her had four butts in it. I said, “You know when she’ll get home?”
Janet Simon fished in her pack for a fresh cigarette, lit it, and blew out a heavy volume of smoke. Maybe she hadn’t heard me. Maybe I’d spoken Russian without realizing it and had confused her.
“In a while. Does it matter?” She took some of the drink.
“How many of those have you had?”
“Don’t get snippy. This is only my second. Do you want one?”
