'Uh, Mr. Souza.'
My body tightened.
'What is it, Tully?'
'The car's low on gas. Want me to fill it?'
Bravo.
'Go ahead,' said Souza. 'Be back in half an hour to take us to the Biltmore.'
Antrim touched the visor of his cap, pivoted, and walked toward the Rolls. Souza used his fingers to push the door open.
'Come,' he said impatiently.
Inside the law building was shadowy and cold, the marble floor amplifying every clack of Souza's glossy shoes.
He walked under the winding staircase, toward the back of the mansion, moving briskly for someone of his age and build. I followed him past the law library and the photocopy room and waited as he swung open carved double doors.
The panelled walls of the dining room seemed fleshlike in the soft light, each knot a spiralling black eye. The stone mantel housed a spitting tangerine fire that, from the look of the logs, had been burning for a while. A portable Chinese rosewood bar had been wheeled next to the oval Victorian table, which had been set with cut-crystal decanters and silver-jacketed tumblers. Icy facets picked up the firelight and winked it back prismatically. The tabletop gave off a burnished glow, like a lagoon at sunset. The silk rug glimmered like iridescent moss. Very elegant. Deathly quiet.
The Cadmuses were seated next to each other, on one side of the table. Souza took his place at the head and motioned me across from them.
'Good evening,' I said.
They looked up long enough to utter frozen greetings, then pretended to be fascinated by their drinks. The room was sweet with burning cedar, heavy with the echoes of attenuated conversation. Souza offered me a drink that I declined. While he poured himself a bourbon, I gazed across the table.
Dwight looked bad, diminished by stress. In the two weeks since I'd seen him, he'd lost weight. His tuxedo bloused, and his shoulders rounded under some invisible burden. He'd removed his glasses and placed them on the table; the skin under his eyes was loose, dull, smudged with fatigue. Next to the spectacles was an empty tumbler. The film coating its sides said it hadn't been empty for long. One of the decanters was within reach. Between it and the tumbler was a hyphen of wet blisters: droplets of spilled booze.
Heather still looked girlish. Her hair had been piled high, revealing a long, porcelain neck circled by a diamond choker. Her ears were small, thin, elfin. A carat of blue-white diamond graced each lobe. She wore a gown of midnight blue chiffon. Her arms were white tendrils filmed by see-through sleeves. Between choker and decolletage was a milky triangle of chest, faintly freckled by the merest hint of cleavage. Wind streaks of rouge above her cheekbones gave her lady-in-waiting features a vaguely feverish cast. Above her wedding band was a ring set with a pear-shaped sapphire the colour of a newborn baby's eyes. Her tumbler looked untouched, filled with something rosy and sparkling.
'This had better be important,' said Dwight, words thickened by alcohol.
'Darling,' said Heather, in her little-girl voice, touching his arm gently.
'No,' he said angrily. 'Haven't we been through enough?'
She smiled at me, apologetically, and removed her fingers from his sleeve. He reached for the decanter and poured himself a double. She turned away, embarrassed, as he drained his glass.
Souza had seemed to ignore the exchange. Now he drew closer, cleared his throat, and said:
'Doctor, just what are these medical developments you were so insistent upon discussing?'
'They're more than developments,' I said enthusiastically. 'I think I've solved all your problems for you. Proved that Jamey was innocent - at least in a legal sense.'
'Really?' A millimeter of smile, a mile of scorn.
'Yes. I've asked the doctors at County General to run some lab tests to verify this, but I believe he was poisoned with a class of drugs called anticholinergics. They disrupt nervous transmission and cause exactly the type of psychotic symptoms he displayed. If I'm correct, he'd be no more responsible for his actions than a somnambulist. Certainly you could use that to get him off.'
'Poisoned?' said Dwight. He stared at me with sick fascination, the kind of pained look the respectable reserve for carny freaks and comics dying onstage. Then he raised his drink to his lips and snorted disgustedly.
His wife shushed him with a finger to her lips.
'Go on please, Doctor,' said Souza. 'How did you arrive at this intriguing hypothesis?'
'Too many things didn't fit. The slashings weren't the work of a psychotic. And Jamey's psychiatric history was puzzling, even for a schizophrenic. He'd present symptoms that were typical for chronic psychosis one day, atypical the next, shift abruptly between lucidity and delirium. The night he called me he was able to converse, when I saw him shortly after, he was unreachable - stuporous. His response to Thorazine was strange, too: up and down, like a roller coaster. And he developed premature neurological reactions to his medications, the kind of thing you usually see in patients who've been treated for years. The more I thought about it, the more toxic it sounded; something, some foreign substance, was making his nervous system go haywire. I raised the point with Dr. Mainwaring but abandoned it because he assured me he'd tested Jamey for all the common narcotics. But afterward - alter I left your team, Mr. Souza - I couldn't stop thinking about how wrong everything seemed. Off kilter. I started wondering if there was some other class of drugs that Mainwaring hadn't tested for - something a doctor wouldn't normally think of because it was rarely abused. I tried to call Mainwaring to talk to him about it but wasn't able to reach him. In fact, I'd started to think he might be avoiding me -perhaps at your request, Mr Souza. But today I called Canyon Oaks, and his secretary said she hadn't heard from him in days and was starting to get worried. Has he been in touch with you?'
'No,' said Souza. 'Perhaps he took a couple of days off. Impulsively.'
'He didn't strike me as an impulsive person, but perhaps he did. Anyway, I did some research on my own. No need to go into the technical aspects right now, but suffice it to say that I've come up with a group of chemicals that fit perfectly - anticholinergic alkaloids. Atropine, scopolo-mine, belladonna extracts. You may have heard of them.'
Heather looked at me raptly, like a coed with a crush on her professor, and shook her head.
'Vaguely,' said Souza.
'They were used extensively in the Middle Ages to - '
'Middle Ages,' said Dwight. 'This is pure crap. Psychological bullshit. Who the hell would poison him?'
'Please excuse my husband's tone,' said Heather, 'but his point is well taken. How in the world - and why - would anyone want to poison Jamey with these... anticole...'
'Cholinergics,' I smiled. 'That I don't know. I suppose it'll be up to the police to look into it. But in the meantime, if the lab tests pan out, we've got a way to get Jamey off the hook. And to help restore him to normality! Because if he has been given belladonna, there's an antidote, a drug called Antilirium that can reverse its effects!'
'That would be something,' said Souza. 'These tests. Who's running them?'
'The neurologist who's caring for Jamey. Simon Platt.'
'And you simply called him and requested that he run them?'
I smiled, shrugged, produced my best boyish grin.
'I told him I had your permission. I know it's a little irregular, but given the seriousness of the issue - the threat to Jamey's sanity and his life - I didn't think you'd mind. And please don't come down on Platt for not verifying it with you. He and I know each other; we're both med school faculty members. So he took me at my word.'
Souza folded his arms across his barrel chest, looked at me sternly, permitted himself an avuncular smile.
'I admire your resourcefulness and your dedication,' he said, 'if not your disregard for the rules.'
'Sometimes' - I smiled - 'the rules have to be bent a little to get at the truth.' Looking at my watch: 'The results should be in by now. I have Platt's beeper number if you want to call him.'
'Yes,' said the attorney, rising. 'I believe I do.'
'Oh, come on, Horace,' said Cadmus. 'You're not taking this seriously.'
'Dwight,' said Souza sternly, 'Dr. Delaware may or may
not be correct. And though he's overstepped his professional bounds, it's clear that he's done so because he cares about Jamey. The least we can do is investigate his theory. For the boy's sake.' He smiled down at me. 'The number, please.'
I pulled out a scrap of paper and handed it to him. He snatched it up and walked to the doors. Swung them open and came face-to-face with Milo and Richard Cash. And behind them, a sea of blue uniforms.
ARROGANCE CAN be comforting, the belief that one is a blossom of cleverness springing from a dung heap of stupidity a snug bit of emotional insulation. But it's a risky delusion, leading to ill-preparedness, a sudden lack of balance, when reality comes crashing down and clever is no longer good enough.
It was that kind of vertigo that caused Souza to sway at the sight of the police, his lawyerly self-assurance crumbling like old cheese. But his recovery was quick, and within moments his features had reconstituted themselves into a dignified mask, as cold and immobile as one of the marble busts that dominated the corners of the room.
'What's this about, Sergeant?' he asked Milo.
'Loose ends,' said the detective. He was carrying a large briefcase, and he stepped in, reached for the rheostat inside the doorway, and spun it. As the wattage climbed, the room was stripped naked, transformed from a hushed, private world into four walls filled with expensive clichés, every nick, glitch, and faded spot confessing its existence under the heartless flood of incandescence.
Cash entered and closed the door, leaving the uniformed men outside. He took off his shades, folded them away, straightened his tie, and looked around the room appreciatively, settling his gaze on a print above the mantel.
'Currier and Ives,' he said. 'Nice.' Milo had positioned himself behind Souza, and the Beverly Hills detective walked over and stood behind the Cadmuses, taking a tactile tour along the way, inquisitive fingers caressing the polished contours of marble, porcelain, hardwood, and gilt before coming to rest at the lower hem of his suit jacket. The Cadmuses had reacted characteristically to the intrusion. Dwight darkening with bewilderment and annoyance, Heather straight-backed and still, as outwardly self-possessed as a prom queen. I saw her hazard a quick look at Souza, then return her attention immediately to her husband's quivering profile. As she watched his jaws work, one delicate hand took flight and rested on his sleeve. He didn't seem to notice.
'Horace,' he said. 'What is this?'
Souza quieted him with the lift of an eyebrow, looked back at Milo, and indicated the decanters.
'I'd offer you gentlemen drinks, but I know it's against regulations.'
'If you have plain soda water, I'll take some,' said Milo. 'How about you, Dick?'
'Soda's fine,' said Cash. 'On the rocks, with a twist.' 'Yes, of course,' said Souza, smiling to conceal his pique and pouring the drinks.
The detectives took them and found seats. Milo slumped down between Souza and me, putting his briefcase on the floor next to my legs. Cash sidled next to Heather. He took in her jewellery with hungry eyes, shifted his scrutiny to the swell of her breasts. She pretended not to notice but, as he kept staring, fell captive to a tiny, reflexive squirm. Dwight noticed the movement and swung his head around. Cash met his eyes defiantly, then buried his smirk in bubbles. Dwight looked away furious, checked his watch, and glared at me.
' You called them in, didn't you, Delaware? Played hero
without letting us know because of some half-assed theory.' He put his glasses on and barked at Souza: 'Horace, first thing tomorrow I want you to file a malpractice suit against this - '
'Dwight,' said Souza quietly, 'one thing at a time.'
'Fine. Just as long as you know where I stand.' He looked down his nose at Milo. 'We need to be out of here soon, Officer. There's a major fund-raiser at the Biltmore, and I'm on the dais.'
'Kiss off tonight,' said Milo.
Dwight stared at him, incredulous.
'Now wait one sec - '
'In fact,' added Cash, 'kiss off a whole bunch of tonights.'
Dwight's nails dug into his placemat. He started to rise.
'Sit, sir,' said Cash.
'Darling,' said Heather, exerting subtle pressure on her husband's sleeve. 'Please.'
Dwight sank down. The icy contours that anger had etched upon his face began to melt around the edges, softened to slush by a cloudburst of fear.
'Horace,' he said, 'what the hell are they talking about?'
Souza tried to placate him with an avuncular smile.
'Sergeant,' he said to Milo, 'I represent Mr. and Mrs. Cadmus's legal interests. Surely, if there's some issue that needs to be discussed, you can take it up with me and allow them to fulfill their social obligations.'
Milo hadn't touched his soda. He held it up, squinted as if inspecting for taint, and put it down.
'Sorry,' he said. 'That would be against regulations.'
'I'm afraid I don't understand,' said the attorney coldly.
In lieu of a reply, Milo got up, opened the doors, and stood aside as a young uniformed officer wheeled in a video monitor on a stand. Atop the monitor was a Betamax recorder. Both monitor and recorder fed into a battery rack.
'Set it up there,' said Milo, pointing to the far end of the table. The officer complied, working quickly and competently. When he was through, he gave Milo a hand-held
remote control unit and asked if there was anything else.
'Nothing for now, Frank. Stay close.'
'Yes, sir.'
Dwight had followed the installation with a baffled look on his face. Now he filled his tumbler with scotch and emptied it. His wife watched him drink, allowing herself a momentary look of loathing. Erasing it quickly, she pulled a white silk handkerchief out of her evening purse, dabbed at her lips, and held on to it, veiling the lower part of her face. The grey eyes visible above the silk were still, yet dilated with interest. But not in her husband, for when he spoke again, they failed to follow him.
'This is damned outrageous,' he said, trying to sound authoritative. But his voice had risen in pitch, leavened by anxiety.
Milo pushed a button and the monitor lit up, pushed again and the tape began to roll. The screen filled with a series of numbers - LAPD file codes - which gave way to a medium shot of a small yellow room, unfurnished except for a metal table and chair.
On the table were an ashtray and a pile of Polaroid pictures. On the chair sat Tully Antrim, dressed in a blue jump suit, eyes furtive, a cigarette smouldering between the fingers of one hand. The other lay flat on the table, big-boned, scarred, terminating in blunt fingertips capped by dirty nails. At the upper right edge of the picture was a dark fuzzy shadow of vaguely human proportions: the back of someone's head.
Antrim picked up the cigarette and inhaled. Blew smoke through his nostrils, looked up at the ceiling. Picked something out of the corner of his eye. Coughed and stretched.
'Okay, Tully,' said the shadow, speaking in Milo's voice. 'Let's go through that again. Who was the first?'
Antrim picked up a photograph and flexed it.
'This one.'
'You've just identified Darrel Gonzales.'
'Whatever.'
'You never knew his name?'
'Nope.'
'Did you know him by any other name?'
'Nope.'
'Little D. Tinkerbell?'
Antrim dragged on his smoke and shook his head. 'Never heard any of that.'
'Where did you meet him?'
'Boystown.'
'Where in Boystown?'
Antrim bared his teeth, amused.
'I think it was near Larabee. Just off Santa Monica. That what I said the first time?'
'Tell me about the pickup,' said Milo
Antrim yawned.
'Again?'
'Again.
'
'Yo. We cruised Boystown looking for someone to off. A scuzzy one, zoned-out, so there wouldn't be any problem getting him in the van, you know? Found this one, agreed on a price, and he climbed on in.'
'Then what?'
'Then we drove around, got him blasted on downers, played with him, and offed him in the van.'
Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 03 - Over the Edge Page 45
