The girl tittered nervously, likely thinking what a shame it was that Khezir was gay. He stood on the street with Gozan and waved good-bye to the females as they drove up Rodeo toward Wilshire. Then the two men proceeded to the Bentley at the curb.
Gozan ripped up the parking ticket and said in Sumarin, “This place is starting to stink.”
Khezzy grinned and waved toward the black glass of the storefront. He was turning toward the Bentley when he felt a touch on his arm. He jerked around and saw the young salesman called Brian standing on the sidewalk, his mouth quivering and his eyes frightened.
“Mr. Mazul. Would you like me to ring up that jacket for you? Or will you want to see some other things I’ve put aside for you?”
“I want you to kiss your ass,” said Khezir. “No joking, I really want to see you do that.”
“You can’t do this, Mr. Mazul. Please don’t do this.”
Brian reached out again for the sleeve of the shimmering jacket, and Khezir knocked Brian’s arm away. Brian had just enough time to look surprised as Khezir let fly with a blow to Brian’s gut, followed quickly with a kick to the thigh.
Brian expelled air, then sucked it in and screamed before he took a chop to the back of his neck and dropped to the ground, squirming in agony.
“You have the keys, Gozan?” Khezir asked.
Gozan held them up and waggled them.
The two men were inside the Bentley when three more boys ran out of the store; two fell to the ground to attend to Brian, while the third raised his phone and shouted, “I have your license plate. I’m on the phone with the police. Give me that jacket, and maybe we won’t press charges.”
Khezir got out of the car and went toward the salesman, who backed up, screaming into the phone, “I need the police. Mariah Koo, Rodeo—”
Khezir grabbed the phone from the young man’s hand, threw it at the store window. Then, as onlookers screamed, he dropped his fist down on the back of the boy’s head.
The salesman’s knees buckled and he fell.
Police sirens could be heard coming up Wilshire, but the Sumaris had the advantage of time.
Khezir said, “I left my jacket in the store.”
“Leave it. This one is better.”
Khezir nodded, then said, “Which do you like more? The mother or the daughter? I want the daughter. She is closer to my age. Maybe she can keep up with me.”
“Anything you want, Khezzy. Anything at all.”
Chapter 32
CAPTAIN LUKE WARREN arrived on Rodeo Drive at 3:18 that afternoon and found five squad cars double-parked and uniforms keeping the tourists away from the entrance to the ritzy boutique Mariah Koo.
The first responder was Officer Fox Welky. Welky was from the Wilshire Division, Warren’s precinct, and was waiting for him at the curb. Warren opened his car door, and Welky walked him to the sidewalk, talking the whole time.
Welky said, “Why I called you, Captain. There were these two guys, one maybe fifty, the other about thirty, foreign accents, sounds like the guys who mugged those women at the Beverly Hills.
“These foreigners were in the store for about a half hour then left with a couple of women plus a jacket that had a ticket price of two thousand nine hundred ninety-nine dollars plus tax. They didn’t pay.
“Brian James Finnerty, he’s a salesclerk here.” Welky indicated the store with his thumb. “He ran out to get the crooks to come back in and pay up. He put his hand on the younger one’s arm and the guy turned on him and used some kind of karate. Really hurt the kid. Broke some of his ribs, for sure.
“Then the same thirtyish guy beat up on this other kid. Ravi Hoffman. Hoffman is on his way to the hospital to be checked for head trauma.
“Hold on, Captain, I got the goon’s name here.”
Welky took out his notebook, said, “Khezir Mazul. I think I said that right. He’s the one did the beatings, and Finnerty can identify him. Said he had a lot of weird tattoos over most of his body. And he also had tattoos circling his arms that looked like writing.”
Warren said, “Is the Finnerty kid okay?”
Welky said, “I think so, Captain. He’s hurt, but he’s talking. Ambulance is on the way for him.” Then Welky went on. “Mazul and the other one were last seen driving toward Santa Monica in a midnight-blue Bentley with rental plates. Those are the guys you’re looking for, right, Captain?”
“Nice work, Welky. Very good job.”
Sirens were singing up Wilshire.
Welky said, “Thanks, Captain. Finnerty is still inside, and we also got other witnesses who were watching through the door.”
Captain Warren went through the black glass doors into a slick clothing store that didn’t appeal to him at all. Too much black. Looked like the walking dead shopped here.
Warren found Finnerty lying in a fetal position on a checkered rug, squirming and crying and rocking himself. A bunch of twenty-something salespeople were clustered around him.
“Brian? Are you Brian Finnerty? Brian, the ambulance is coming now. Anyone else see what happened here?”
A salesgirl with white-blond hair identified herself as Angela Lanzadoro. Ms. Lanzadoro said she’d helped a couple of women tourists, sold one of them a Nicole Miller dress.
“They’re mother and daughter. Susan and Serena Stanley from Ann Arbor. The older man, his name was Gozan? He friended them? He and his boyfriend.”
“What makes you say they were boyfriends?”
“I’ve got excellent gay-dar, Officer. Anyway, I think they made plans to have dinner with Susan and Serena tonight.”
The hair on the back of Luke Warren’s neck stood up. He knew full well that those douche bags were not gay.
“Do you know where the Stanleys are staying?”
“They never said.”
“I need a copy of their sales receipt.”
Captain Warren knew there was little he could do to put the blocks to Remari and Mazul. Even if they were caught with the stolen jacket in their possession, even if they were positively identified by Brian Finnerty, it would still be swept under the diplomatic-immunity rug.
The captain got the name of the Stanley women’s hotel from the credit card company and he called their room. No one answered, so he left a message on voice mail asking them to get back to him immediately and not to go anywhere with the men they had met at Mariah Koo.
Then he called Jack Morgan.
Chapter 33
I HAD BEEN following Tommy’s car since the end of the business day. He left his office alone, drove to his house in Hancock Park by the shortest route, and not long after that, he got back into his car and headed west.
Sure, I might be wasting time and energy, but while my eyelashes grew back, and before something else blew up in my front yard, I really couldn’t have too much information about what my brother was up to.
I was driving my loaner car, a black Mercedes like a hundred thousand identical cars in LA, and Tommy didn’t know that I had it. I was sure that he hadn’t noticed me weaving in traffic behind him, staying on his tail, but suddenly, I lost him. Tommy had made a red Ferrari disappear.
With luck, I’d be able to put a GPS tracker on his car, save me tailing him in the future.
The sun was going down as I headed east on Beverly Boulevard, passing the Wilshire Country Club on my left, looking for the Ferrari in all directions at once. That’s when I got the call from Captain Warren saying that Khezir Mazul had almost killed a couple of salesclerks on Rodeo Drive and he and Gozan Remari were planning to take two women tourists out for dinner that evening.
“Drug them, you mean. No dinner.”
“Jack, I don’t know where to look for them. I can’t even put out a BOLO, since as far as the chief is concerned, these guys are off-limits.”
“I’ll get back to you,” I said.
I was passing through estate country, an area of expensive homes and grounds manicured to the quick. I called my hotelier friend Amelia Poole, known to her
friends as Jinx. She made a few calls to her inner circle and then let me know that two men had checked into Shutters, in Santa Monica, under the name Remari.
I called Cruz and then I got back to Captain Warren, told him what I was doing. I was saying I’d check in later when Tommy’s car suddenly appeared. It took a right onto Melrose, then, a short distance later, another right onto the 101 South to LA. Then the car crossed the 110.
I was three cars back, and then I was right on Tommy’s tail. I thought for a second that the Ferrari had slowed so that he could check me out, but I was wrong. Tommy was taking the Broadway exit. Then he made a sharp right. And I stayed behind him.
Tommy’s brake lights flashed and I saw the club up ahead.
Was that Tommy’s destination?
A club?
Tommy pulled into a parking spot and I drove past him, watched him get out of his car. If he’d seen me, he’d have given me the finger. I kept him in my rearview mirror, and when he crossed the street on foot, I parked.
A minute or two later, I stuck a tracker under his bumper. Then I went toward the entrance of the homely cement block building that had once been a lightbulb factory and was now a club called the Socket.
Chapter 34
PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS EMILIO Cruz and Rick Del Rio were sitting in loungers on the deck overlooking the canal outside Del Rio’s house. It was a nice house and a nice view and a pretty sunset, but both men were wired as tight as guitar strings.
They were drinking beer and throwing bread to the ducks, and when Del Rio spoke at all, it was only to say some version of “Maybe this is the last time we’ll get to do this.”
And Cruz would say, “Don’t be crazy, Rick. You’re innocent.”
Del Rio had told Cruz that he hadn’t beaten Vicky Carmody, and Cruz believed his partner, but he was afraid for him. No one knew what a jury would do, and Del Rio didn’t look like a choirboy.
Cruz felt awful for Rick, but after sitting with his partner for hours, there was nothing left for him to say that he hadn’t already said.
Del Rio said: “This could be the last fresh air I breathe for ten years.”
Cruz, half joking, half exasperated, said, “Look. I’ll rent your house, Rick, okay? You’ll make money, and you’ll only be how old when you get out? Fifty-five?”
Del Rio looked at Cruz like he’d just said that he was having sex with Del Rio’s mother.
“What did you say, you son-of-a-bitch? You think this is funny?”
Del Rio leaped from the webbed aluminum chair, grabbed Cruz by the neck, squeezed his throat with both hands, then pushed the chair over and managed to straddle Cruz while pressing his thumbs into Cruz’s throat.
Del Rio was yelling, “You prick. You stupid prick. You want to do ten years? Huh? You couldn’t do ten days before you’d be crying like a girl.”
Cruz had a muscular neck along with the muscular rest of his body, and his arms were free. He gave Del Rio a shot to the jaw that sent Del Rio backward. It was enough to break the choke hold, but Del Rio wasn’t done. He scrambled to his feet, and as Cruz got up, Del Rio hurled himself at Cruz, who stiff-armed him.
Del Rio stumbled back, recovered his footing, threw a punch that connected with Cruz’s solar plexus. Cruz grunted, then lowered his head and ran at Del Rio; the force lifted Rick off his feet and sent him off the deck and into the canal.
Ducks flew up, squawking.
Del Rio sank, disappeared into the dark water, then bobbed up, sputtering.
Cruz shouted down at him, “Cooled off yet, Ricky? Are we done?”
“Shit,” Del Rio said. He reached for the rope ladder.
Cruz’s phone rang. He grabbed it out of his shirt pocket, flipped it open with his thumb, gave Del Rio a hand up to the deck.
The caller was Jack and he had an assignment for him: surveillance of those scumbag Sumaris, who had just checked into Shutters.
“I’m taking Del Rio with me,” Cruz said.
“Fine,” Jack said.
“He needs something to do. The waiting is killing him.”
“I said, ‘Fine.’”
Cruz stood back as Del Rio sluiced the water off his clothes with his hands. Cruz said, “I’m sorry, asshole. Your jaw is going to be purple tomorrow.”
Del Rio rubbed his jaw and said to Cruz, “So where are we going?”
Chapter 35
THEIR CORNER SUITE at the fabulous Shutters on the Beach hotel had a wide view of the ocean and the endless sandy beach tinted by the setting sun at the horizon.
Gozan relaxed in a chaise and perused the room-service menu. He wanted a cocktail before dinner and maybe fresh oysters.
Behind him, Khezir angrily thumbed the television’s remote control, speeding through the channels.
“Khezzy, your father would have loved to see the ocean. I wish he could be here with us.”
“Those stupid bitches,” Khezir said in Sumarin. “What a waste of our time. All day working on them and then, ‘Sorry, we are not feeling well. Thank you anyway.’”
“There will be other women. This hotel is full of them.”
“Don’t speak to me of women.”
“Okay, Khezzy.”
No one understood Khezir the way Gozan did. He had been like a father to Khezzy since the day his brother-in-law, Khezzy’s father, had been murdered, stabbed through the heart by his disgruntled mistress while he was asleep.
Khezir was only fifteen at the time, but he had sought the woman out and restored his family’s honor, meeting blood with blood. Afterward, he inked his body with the dead woman’s name.
It was the first of many tattoos.
Now Khezir threw the remote control at the flat-screen, strode to the sliding doors, and went out to the balcony. Gozan knew that Khezir was bitterly disappointed that Susan and Serena had canceled the evening’s plans.
Tension was building inside Khezir, and Gozan was responsible for keeping the young man on track. Having fun was a by-product, not the objective. Much was at stake.
Gozan sighed as the sun slipped beneath the water. He was of the same blood as Khezir and he loved him.
“Khezzy,” he called out. “I am ordering oysters for two and a nice bottle of champagne. Is there anything else I can get you?”
Khezir shouted back, “You’ll be the first to know.”
Chapter 36
TWENTY MINUTES AFTER the fistfight at Sherman Canal, Cruz parked the fleet car in a lot adjacent to Shutters, a rangy white clapboard-sided hotel with hundreds of balconies and windows and doors looking out over the Pacific. Lights were on inside, and the place looked beautiful against the cobalt sky.
From where they were parked, Cruz and Del Rio had a clean sight line to the third floor. Del Rio affixed a small, military-grade electronic listening device to the car door, angled the receiver at the suite of rooms in the northwest corner, pinpointed and locked in the settings. They were too far away to see the Sumaris through the windows, but their voices were coming in clearly and the conversation was being amplified and recorded.
Like most stakeouts, this was going to be as exciting as Bingo night in a retirement home, but Cruz was just happy he could get Del Rio out of the house and give him something to think about that wasn’t his trial.
Del Rio said to Cruz, “I’m sorry I started that fight.”
“Forget it.”
“One of us could have gotten killed,” said Del Rio.
“That’s the TV,” Cruz said of the sounds coming through the receiver. “Someone is channel surfing.”
Del Rio turned up the volume, and he and Cruz listened to snatches of a ball game, a real estate show, Two and a Half Men, an escort-service ad, and the ball game again. Then there was a cracking sound, like something had been thrown or had fallen.
Del Rio said, “Okay, they’re talking to each other in Sumarin. Wait. Now in English.”
One of the Sumaris said, “I am ordering oysters for two and a nice bottle of champagne. Is there anything
else I can get you?”
And the other, the one with the younger, higher-pitched voice, said something from the balcony, his words blown away in the wind.
The first one put in the room-service order, asked how long it would take, and said thank you.
About fifteen minutes went by. Cruz and Del Rio listened to the TV anchors reporting the local news, and then there was the sound of a door buzzer, a door opening, the man’s voice, sounding hollow because he was behind a wall, probably in the foyer.
A woman’s voice chirped, “Would you like me to set this up near the window?”
Something, presumably a cart, rolled and squeaked over the carpet, and the older man said, “Let me help you with that, dear.”
“I’ve got it, sir.”
Cruz and Del Rio heard the female voice say, “Shall I open the champagne?”
There was the soft pop of a cork being ejected from the bottle, the older man calling out, “Khezzy, come and see what we have here.”
The younger man said, “Maybe later.”
The other man sighed deeply, said, “Ah, well. What is your name, miss?”
“I’m Luanne. When you’re ready for the cart to be picked up, just call star eighty-eight and put the cart outside.”
“Luanne, can you stay for a moment? I’m sorry that my partner changed his mind. Will you have a glass of this excellent champagne?”
“Thank you very much, but I can’t. It’s against—”
“Oh dear, I apologize,” said the one that had to be Gozan Remari. “I didn’t want to put you in a difficult spot. I have been at death’s door for a very long time, and now that I’m in remission, this is the first champagne I’ve had in five years. And I don’t wish to drink alone.”
“Well, that’s good news,” said Luanne. “I guess I could take a tiny sip.”
“Good. It is good to celebrate all the important moments.”
Private Vegas: (Private 9) Page 8
