Free Fall

by Robert Crais

"This wine." She laughed nervously, and still didn't look at me.

  "Sure. Me, too."

  I backed away from her and went into the entry hall by the kitchen. I liked the way the tights fit her calves and her thighs and the way the sweatshirt hung low over her hips. She was standing with her arms crossed as if it were cold. "I'm sorry."

  I said, "Don't be." Then I said, "You're quite lovely."

  She flushed again and looked down at her empty glass and I left.

  I stood in the street outside her apartment for a long time, and then I drove home.

  Pike was gone and the house was cool and dark. I left it that way. I took a beer from the refrigerator, turned on the radio, and went out onto my deck. Jim Ladd was conning the air waves at KLSX. Playing a little George Thorogood. Playing a little Creedence Clearwater Revival. When you're going to listen to radio, you might as well listen to the best.

  I stood in the cool night air and drank the beer and, off to my left, an owl hooted from high in a stand of pine trees. The scent of jasmine now was stronger than it had been earlier in the evening, and I liked it. I wondered if Jennifer Sheridan would like smelling it, too. Would she like the owl?

  I listened and I drank for quite a long while, and then I went in to bed.

  Sleep, when it finally came, provided no rest.

  CHAPTER 15

  At ten-forty the next morning I called my friend at B of A. She said, "I can't believe this. Two calls in the same week. I may propose."

  "You get that stupid, I'll have to use the Sting tickets on someone else."

  "Forget it. I'd rather see Sting." These dames.

  "I want to know who financed the purchase of a place called the Premier Pawn Shop on Hoover Street

  in South Central L.A." I gave her the address. "Can you help me on that?"

  "You at the office?"

  "Nope. I'm taking advantage of my self-employed status to while away the morning in bed. Naked. And alone." Mr. Seduction.

  My friend laughed. "Well, if I know you, that's plenty of company." Everybody's a comedian. "Call you back in twenty."

  "Thanks."

  She made the call in fifteen. "The Premier Pawn Company was owned in partnership between Charles Lewis Washington and something called the Lester Corporation. Lester secured the loan and handled the financing through California Federal."

  "Ah ha."

  "Is that 'ah ha' as in this is important, or 'ah ha' as in you're clearing your throat?"

  "The former. Maybe. Who signed the papers?"

  "Washington and an attorney named Harold Bellis. Bellis signed for Lester and is an officer in that corporation."

  "Bellis have an address?"

  "Yeah. In Beverly Hills." She gave it to me, then I hung up, showered, dressed, and charged off to deepest, darkest Beverly Hills. Portrait of the detective in search of mystery, adventure, and a couple of measly clues.

  The Law Offices of Harold Bellis were on the third floor of a newly refurbished three-story office building a half block off Rodeo Drive

  and about a million light-years from South Central Los Angeles. I found a parking space between a Rolls-Royce Corniche and an eighty-thousand-dollar Mercedes two-seater in front of a store that sold men's belts starting at three hundred dollars. Business was brisk.

  I went into a little glass lobby with a white marble floor and a lot of gold fixtures and took the elevator to the third floor. Harold Bellis had the front half of the building and it looked like he did very well. There was a lot of etched glass and glossy furniture and carpet about as deep as the North Atlantic. I waded up to a receptionist seated behind a semicircular granite desk and gave her my card. She was wearing one of those pencil-thin headphones so she could answer the phone and speak without having to lift anything. "Elvis Cole to see Mr. Bellis. I don't have an appointment."

  She touched a button and spoke to someone, then listened and smiled at me. There was no humor in the smile, nor any friendliness. She said, "We're sorry, but Mr. Bellis's calendar is full. If you'd like an appointment, we can schedule a time next week."

  I said, "Tell him it's about the Premier Pawn Company. Tell him I have a question about the Lester Corporation."

  She said it into the microphone, and a couple of minutes later a rapier-thin woman with prominent cheeks and severely white skin came out and led me through a long common office where secretaries and aides and other people sat in little cubicles, and then into her office, and then into his. Her office held a bank of designer file cabinets and fresh-cut tulips and the entrance to his office. You want to see him, you've got to get past her, and she wouldn't be easy to beat. She'd probably even like the fight.

  Harold Bellis had the corner office and it was big. She said, "This is Mr. Cole."

  Harold Bellis stood up and came around his desk, smiling and offering his hand. He was short and soft with pudgy hands and a fleshy face and thinning gray hair that looked as soft as mouse fur. Sort of like the Beverly Hills version of Howdy Doody. "Thanks, Martha. Harold Bellis, Mr. Cole. Martha tells me you're interested in the Premier Pawn Shop. Would you like to buy it?" He sort of laughed when he said it, like it was an obvious joke and we both knew it. Ha ha.

  "Not today, Mr. Bellis, thanks."

  Martha looked down her nose at me and left.

  Harold Bellis's handshake was limp and his voice was sort of squeaky, but maybe that was just confidence. An original David Hockney watercolor and two Jésus Leuus oils hung on the walls. You don't get the Hockney and the Leuus by being sissy in the clinches. "I'm working on something that brought me across the Premier and I learned that you're an officer in the company that owns it."

  "That's correct." Bellis offered me a seat and took the chair across from me. The decor was Sante Fe, and the seating was padded benches. Bellis's chair looked comfortable, but the benches weren't. He said, "I have a meeting with a client now, but she's sorting through records in the conference room, so we can squeeze in a few minutes."

  "Great."

  "Does this involve Mr. Washington's death?"

  "In part."

  Bellis gave me sad and shook his head. "That young man's death was a tragedy. He had everything in the world going for himself."

  "The police say he was fencing stolen goods. His family suspects that, too."

  "Well, that was never established in a court of law, was it?"

  "Are you saying he wasn't?"

  "If he was, it was unknown to the co-owners of the shop." Bellis's smile grew tighter and he didn't look so much like Howdy Doody now.

  I smiled at him. "Who are the co-owners, Mr. Bellis?"

  Harold Bellis looked at my card as if, in the looking, something had been confirmed. "Perhaps if you told me your interest in all of this."

  "Mr. Washington's family implied that he was the sole owner of the Premier, but upon checking, I found that something called the Lester Corporation arranged the financing and carried the paper."

  "That's right."

  "Since Mr. Washington had no credit history, and was working at a minimum-wage job at the time, I was wondering why someone would co-sign a loan with him for such a substantial sum of money."

  Harold Bellis said, 'The Lester Corporation provides venture capital for minority businessmen. Lewis Washington made a proposal, and we agreed to enter into partnership. That's all there is to it."

  "To the tune of eighty-five thousand dollars."

  "Yes."

  You co-signed a loan for a man with no formal education, a criminal record, and no business experience, because you like to help underprivileged entrepreneurs?"

  "Someone has to, don't you think?" He leaned forward out of the Sante Fe chair and the Howdy Doody eyes were as hard as a smart bomb's heart. Nope, he wouldn't be sissy in the clinches.

  I said, "Does Akeem D'Muere own the Lester Corporation?"

  Bellis didn't move for a long moment and the eyes stayed with me. The smart bomb acquiring its target. "I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to discuss the L
ester Corporation or any other client, Mr. Cole. You understand that, don't you?"

  "I understand it, but I was hoping that you'd make an exception."

  The hard eyes relaxed and some of the Howdy Doody came back. Howdy Doody billing at a thousand dollars an hour. "Do you suspect that this Mr. D'Muere has something to do with Lewis Washington's death?"

  "I don't know."

  "If you suspect someone of criminal activity, you should report it to the police."

  "Perhaps I will." Elvis Cole makes his big threat.

  Harold Bellis glanced at his watch and stood up. The watch was a Patek Philippe that wholesaled out at maybe fourteen thousand dollars. Maybe if you could blow fourteen grand on a watch and keep Hockney originals around for office decorations, you didn't think twice about giving eighty-five thousand to a total stranger with no credentials and a spotty past. Of course, you didn't get rich enough for the watch and the Hockneys by not thinking twice. Harold Bellis said, "I'm sorry I couldn't be more help to you, Mr. Cole, but I really have to see my client now." He looked at my card again. "May I keep this?"

  "Sure. You can have a couple more, if you want. Pass'm out to your friends. I can use the work."

  Harold Bellis laughed politely and showed me to the door. The thin woman reappeared and led me back through the office and out to the lobby. I was hoping she'd walk me down to my car, but she didn't.

  Outside, my car was still bracketed by the Rolls and the Mercedes, and gentlemen of indeterminate national origin were still going into Pierre's to buy three-hundred-dollar belts and twelve-hundred-dollar shoes. Slender women with shopping bags and tourists with cameras crowded the sidewalks, and foreign cars crept along the outside lanes, praying for a parking space. I had been inside maybe fifteen minutes and not much had changed, either with Beverly Hills or with what I knew, but I am nothing if not resourceful.

  I fed quarters into the parking meter and waited. It was eleven twenty-five.

  At sixteen minutes after noon, Harold Bellis came out of his building and walked north, probably off to a business lunch at a nearby restaurant. Eleven minutes later, his assistant, Martha, appeared out of the parking garage driving a late-model Honda Acura. She turned south.

  I ran back across the street, rode the elevator up to Bellis's floor, and hurried up to the receptionist, giving her the Christ-my-day-is-going-to-hell smile. "Hi. Martha said she'd leave my calendar with you."

  She gave confused. "Excuse me?"

  "When I was here this morning, I left my date book in Harry's office. I called and Martha said she'd leave it with you for me."

  The receptionist shook her head. "I'm sorry, but she didn't."

  I gave miserable. "Oh, man. I'm screwed. It's got all my appointments, and my account numbers. I guess it just slipped her mind. You think it'd be okay if I ran back there and checked?" I gave her expectant, and just enough of the little boy so that she'd know my fate in life rested squarely on her shoulders.

  "Sure. You know the way?"

  "I can find it."

  I went back past the assistants and the cubicles to Martha's office. It was open. I went in and closed the door, then looked over the files until I found the client index. It took maybe three minutes to find the client index and twenty seconds to find the Lester files.

  The articles of incorporation of the Lester Corporation, a California corporation, were among the first documents bound in the Lester Corp files. The president of the Lester Corporation was listed as one Akeem D'Muere. D'Muere's address was care of The Law Offices of Harold Bellis, Attorney-at-Law. Sonofagun.

  I flipped through the files and found records of the acquisitions of nine investment properties throughout the South Central Los Angeles area, as well as two properties in Los Feliz and an apartment building in Simi Valley. The purchases included two bars, a laundromat, and the pawnshop. The rest were residential. I guess the weasel-dust business pays.

  The Premier Pawn Shop location was purchased nine months and two days prior to Charles Lewis Washington's death. There was a contract with a property management firm for six of the businesses, as well as receipts from contractors for maintenance and renovation work performed on seven of the businesses. Each property had a separate file. The Premier showed plumbing and electrical work, as well as a new heating and air conditioning unit, and there was also a receipt from something called Atlas Security Systems for the installation of an Autonomous Monitoring System, as well as a Perimeter Security Alarm. Similar systems had also been purchased for the two bars. I wasn't sure what an Autonomous Monitoring System was, but it sounded good. The cost of these things and their installation was $6,518.22, and there had been no mention of them in the police reports. Hmm.

  I wrote down the phone number of Atlas Security Systems, then closed the file, and borrowed Martha's phone to call them. I told a guy named Mr. Walters that I was a friend of Harold Bellis's, that I owned a convenience store in Laguna Niguel, and that I was thinking of installing a security system. I told him that Harold had recommended Atlas and something called an Autonomous Monitoring System, and I asked if he could explain it. Mr. Walters could. He told me that the Autonomous Monitoring System was perfect for a convenience store or any other cash business, because it was an ideal way to keep an eye on employees who might steal from you. The AMS was a hidden video camera timed to go on and off during business hours, or whenever a motion sensor positioned to my specifications told it to. He gave me cost and service information, and then I thanked him and told him that I'd get in touch.

  I hung up the phone, returned the files to their cabinets, left the door open as I had found it, then walked out past the receptionist and drove to my office.

  As I drove, I thought about the video equipment.

  No one shot at me on the way, but maybe they were saving that for later.

  CHAPTER 16

  When I got to my office at five minutes past one, there was a message on my machine from James Edward Washington, asking me to call. I did.

  James Edward said, "You know a taco stand called Raul's on Sixty-five and Broadway?"

  "No."

  "Sixty-five and Broadway. I'm gonna be there in an hour with a guy who knows about what's going on. Ray came through."

  "I'll meet you there."

  I hung up, then called Joe Pike. He answered on the first ring. "Pike."

  "I'm going to meet James Edward Washington at a place called Raul's on Sixty-five and Broadway in about one hour. He says he's got a guy who maybe knows something."

  "I'll be there."

  "There's more." I told him about the Lester Corporation and Harold Bellis and the contract with Atlas Security. I told him about the video equipment.

  Pike grunted. "So Akeem D'Muere saw what happened to Charles Lewis."

  "It's possible."

  "And maybe it shows something different than the police report claims."

  "Yeah. But if that's the case, why doesn't Akeem use it to fry these guys? Why is he protecting them?"

  Pike fell silent.

  "Joe?"

  "Watch your ass out there, Elvis. It's getting too hot for these guys to sit by. They're going to have to move."

  "Maybe that's how we finally crack this. Maybe we make it so hot that they've got to move, and when they move we'll see what they're doing."

  "Maybe. But maybe their idea of a move is to take us out."

  Nothing like a little inspiration.

  Thirty-two minutes later I exited the freeway and turned north on Broadway past auto repair shops and take-out rib joints and liquor stores that had been looted in the riots and not yet rebuilt.

  Raul's Taco was a cinderblock stand on the west side of Broadway between a service drive and an auto parts place that specialized in remanufactured transmissions. You ordered at a little screen window on one side of the stand, then you went around to the other side to wait for your food. There was a tiny fenced area by the pick-up window with a couple of picnic benches for your more elegant sit-down dine
rs and a couple of little stand-up tables on the sidewalk for people in a rush. A large sign over the order window said WE HAVE SOUL-MAN TACOS. An hour before noon and the place was packed.

  I drove up to Sixty-fourth, pulled a U-turn at the light, then swung back and parked at the curb in front of the transmission place. James Edward Washington and a young black guy maybe Washington's age were sitting across from each other at one of the picnic tables, eating tacos. The second guy was wearing a neon orange hat with the bill pointed backwards, heavy Ray-Ban sunglasses, and a black Los Angeles Raiders windbreaker even though it was ninety degrees. Washington saw me and nodded toward the table. The other guy saw him nod and turned to watch me come over. He didn't look happy. Most of the other people in Raul's were watching me, too. Guess they didn't get many white customers. Washington said, "This is the guy Ray was talking about. Cool T, this is the detective."

  Cool T said, "You say his name Elvis I thought he a brother."

  I said, "I am. Amazing what a marcel and skin lightener will do, isn't it?"

  Cool T shook his head and gave disgusted. "And he think he funny, too."

  Cool T started to get up but Washington put a hand on his forearm and held him down. "He's white, but he's trying to help about Lewis. That means he can be all the funny he wants."

  Cool T shrugged without looking at me. Aloof.

  Washington took a taco wrapped in yellow paper out of the box and offered it to me. He said, "This is a Soul-Man taco. These Mexicans grill up the meat and the peppers and put barbecue sauce on it. You like barbecue?"

  "Sure." I unwrapped the taco. The paper was soaked through with oil and barbecue sauce, but it smelled like a handful of heaven. The taco was two handmade corn tortillas deep-fried to hold their shape, and filled with meat and chili peppers and the barbecue sauce. The sauce was chunky with big rings of jalapeño and serrano peppers.

  Cool T finished off the rest of his taco, then pointed out the peppers. "It's pretty hot, you ain't used to it. They probably make one without the peppers, you ask." He was showing a lot of teeth when he said it.