by Marc Strange
“How long you been working for Leo Alexander?”
“Eight years.”
He’s shorter than I am, broad in the shoulders, heavy-browed. He shuffles around the room restlessly. I get the feeling he wants to show me he can take care of himself. “How’d he come to hire you?” he asks.
“I was available.”
“As his full-time bodyguard?”
“Supposed to be for a week or so.
“Then you took a couple of bullets for him.”
“Not on purpose.”
“That’s pretty loyal for a guy on a short-term contract,” he says. “I guess he felt he owed you something, giving you a job, place to live, good salary.”
Mooney comes in and they play it together for a while. Mooney sits across from me, hands folded on the table. Pazzano stays on point.
“Pretty much locked himself up there for eight years, right?”
“You could say that.”
“Like he was afraid whoever took the shots might come back to do it right.”
“You’d have to ask Leo,” I say. “He’s a private man. He never told me what he was thinking.”
“Or who to watch out for?”
“Nope.”
“Or why someone might hate him that much?”
“Nope.”
“Makes your job a lot harder, doesn’t it?”
“These days my job is hotel security.”
Mooney finally speaks up. “Except last night,” he says. “Last night you were back to being a bodyguard.”
The two of them pay Leo a visit and I sit by myself for a while, writing up a statement. I don’t much like being in a police station; you’re never there because you want to be; you’re either suspected of something, or a witness to something, or waiting for the cops to be finished with someone you know. Any minute I’m expecting them to start asking about the ruined plaque, or the switched drivers. I haven’t written those details down and I won’t bring them up until they do. Withholding information of this kind probably isn’t covered by any recognized confidentiality privilege and at some point no doubt I’ll pay for it, but right now my concern is strictly for my boss. I haven’t told him about the plaque either.
Mooney comes back to resume our conversation.
“Castle in the sky, right?” Mooney says. “Any ideas how the guy got in?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Detective.”
“I figure he must’ve had an elevator key. Don’t you?”
“Could be.”
“Unless she let him in herself.”
“That’s another possibility.”
“Which means she would have known him.”
“Or her.”
“Yeah, right, or her, or them.”
They trade off. Mooney goes back to Leo, Pazzano steps into the room. He looks like he’s run out of questions. He waggles his head a couple of times as if to loosen his thick neck.
“We’ve got some fighters on the force,” he says. “Boxing club.”
“You part of that?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“What do you fight at,” I ask sociably. “One-ninety-five?”
“Ninety-nine,” he says. “You?”
“Fighting weight was two fifteen,” I say. “I’m up about five, give or take.”
He’s looking me up and down, wondering. He’s about ten years younger, belongs to a boxing club, works out regularly. Only natural for him to speculate.
“You should maybe come down sometime, put the gloves on, give us a free lesson.” He rolls his shoulders. “Weed says you used to be pretty good.”
“Quit before I lost too many brain cells,” I say.
“You ever meet this Vivienne Griese before?”
“Saunders. She said she was going back to her maiden name. And no, I’d never met her before.” I’ve just remembered something. “Her husband was around last night. Outside the hotel. Drunk. Angry.”
“Hey now. Pissed-off husbands go to the top of the list,” Pazzano says. “’Course, in your boss’s case that would make for a long list.”
“I wouldn’t know, Detective.”
“Oh, yeah,” he says. “Word is your boss had lots of lady friends. Three wives, at least. Who knows how many mistresses, or unsatisfied wives, or hotel maids for that matter.” He pretends to smile. “I hear you were pretty friendly with the deceased yourself. She was giving you Spanish lessons.”
“Mostly correcting my pronunciation.”
“Teach you any new words?”
“Sure.”
“Such as?”
“Let’s see, Puede usted donde el aeropuerto?”
“What’s that?”
“Can you tell me where the airport is?”
He likes that. “Were you two planning a trip?” He glides back in my direction. “You ever see her outside the hotel?”
“You mean socially?”
And now he’s in my face. “I mean any way at all, in the kitchen, down in your room. Private lessons so to speak.” He smiles a nasty smile. I repress the urge to wipe it off his face. “Anything going on between you and Miss Chimi Changa?”
My turn to smile. “Once fought a guy from East L.A.,” I say. “Now he was a trash talker. He’d say just about anything to make you lose your temper, nasty remarks about your girlfriends, always mentioned the size of his penis. I never understood that.”
He nods his head. “You should really come down sometime. Put on the gloves, just for a ‘friendly.’”
“I never thought of it as recreation, Detective. It was my job.”
The door opens. Mooney pokes his head in. “You signed that statement?”
“Barring any spelling mistakes, it’s as accurate as I can make it,” I say. I avoid adding that it’s somewhat incomplete.
“Got that motorcycle business in there?”
“Makes for one short paragraph,” I say. “You find out the name of the guy who fell?”
Mooney declines to answer. Typical cop. “We’ll be talking to your boss for a while longer,” he says. “You can wait out there.”
When I stand up, Pazzano braces me for a moment. I can see that he’s considering things.
“Nice to see you two getting along so well,” says Mooney.
I say, “Detective Pazzano was just inviting me down to the Police Boxing Club.”
“Some tough guys down there, Grundy,” Mooney says with a grin.
“I’m sure there are. Wouldn’t have to fight them all, would I?”
“Just the toughest one,” he says.
“And who would that be?”
“That would be me,” says Pazzano.
“Figured,” I say.
A familiar face is coming into the detective’s room. Sergeant of Detectives Norman Quincy Weed is wearing his finest green suit. It must be getting close to St. Patrick’s Day. He’s wearing a brown tie and brown shoes. He looks like a hedge. Norman has his own sense of style.
The detective’s room has a new Bunn-O-Matic. They’re very proud of it. It grinds fresh beans every time.
“Did you get a coffee?”
“I could use another one,” I say. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep.”
Weed sips, makes a face. He misses the old hotplate. “You want stuff in that?” He offers me a sugar packet.
“Just the caffeine,” I say. The coffee tastes fine to me.
He checks out the bruise on my jawbone. “You been brawling again?”
“Chasing shadows,” I say. “One of them tried to run me over.”
“Where’s your boss?” he asks.
“Interview room. It’s hit him pretty hard.”
“Un hunh,” he says. He doesn’t sound too sympathetic. “They were close, weren’t they?”
“I think he was closer to her than anyone in his world.”
“Got any ideas?” he asks.
“Not a clue. It looked like a break-in, all the damage. She was a fighter. She probably threw one of them over the
side.”
“Anything stolen?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I say. “They didn’t get into the safe. I don’t think they were up there to rip off the TV-set.”
“Tough place to burglarize,” Weed agrees. “You need a special elevator key, don’t you?”
“It was a fortress,” I say. “See if you can find out how they got in, will you?”
“Not my case, Joe.”
“I know that. But when it won’t break the rules or kick you back down to crossing guard, you might pass me the word, right?”
“Sure, Joe,” he says. Norman’s a friend. He’s also the ranking detective in this room.
“You identified the other guy?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“But he was up there, right?”
“I’ll wait till I get a report from my detectives,” he says. “After that … I might not tell you anyway.”
“Thanks,” I say. “The lead guy, Mooney, he’s competent?”
“Oh, yeah,” Weed says. “So’s his partner. They’ll do a good job.”
“Leo really wants to know who did this.”
“Sure he does. And if he asks you to meddle, pretend you didn’t hear him.”
“I’m just trying to watch his back,” I say.
“Mmm hmmm.” My response hasn’t satisfied him much. “How much do you know about your boss?”
“Not that much. He’s a private person.”
“Yeah, well, he’s got a lot to be private about.”
“Meaning?”
He sips his coffee, adds more sugar. “You’re working for a pirate, pal,” he says. “That’s all I’m saying.” He tries his new coffee combination and deems it passable. “A real buccaneer.”
I remember him saying something similar when I first met him.
Eight years ago.
Second day in the hospital, a sleepy-eyed guy rolls into the room wearing an orange and green tie and a cerulean blue suit. He sits down beside the bed without being asked and helps himself to my juice box.
I say, “Help yourself.”
“Were you drinking this?”
“Hadn’t started.”
“They’ll get you another one. The doc tells me you missed getting your ticket punched by about an inch and a half.”
“I don’t think it was that close.”
“Close enough,” he says.
“You’re a cop.”
“Detective,” he says. “Norman Weed, middle name Quincy for some reason. My mother was coy on the subject.”
“I never got a look at the shooter,” I say. “He was over the wall by the time I turned around.”
“Yeah. People are either staring at the gun or diving for cover. Your boss says he saw the guy’s face but didn’t recognize him. A stranger, he says.”
“Anyone else get hurt?”
“One guy got dinged in the leg by a ricochet. Not serious. He’ll be dancing again in a week.”
“Any leads?”
“Yeah, well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? Whoever it was, he was there to shoot your boss, but your boss isn’t very forthcoming.”
“About?”
“About why someone would be gunning for him.”
“I don’t think he was expecting anything that serious.”
“Because?”
“He just wanted someone to watch his back.”
“Because?”
“Didn’t say. I asked him what he was worried about, just so I’d have some idea what to look for, and he said he’d had a phone call.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. I assumed it was a threat of some kind but he wasn’t specific.”
“Mysterious guy.”
“Wish I could help you. First time anybody took a shot at me.”
“Five shots. Three of them drew blood.”
“Suit was too good for me anyway.”
He stands up and puts my empty juice box back on the tray. “Here’s my card if anything comes to mind.”
“All right.”
“Nice talking to you.”
“You know Manny Bigalow?” I ask him.
“Who’s he?”
“Sells suits,” I say. “He told me never to wear bright blue. It doesn’t go with anything.”
“Yeah, well, I have my own sense of style,” says Norman Quincy Weed.
Leo is coming out of the interview room. He’s not the same man I saw doing the tango with the classy divorcée last night. He’s running low on vital juices, folding inside himself, not as tall.
Leo and Weed don’t shake hands.
“Sorry for your loss,” Weed says to Leo.
“She was just the best person,” Leo says.
Pazzano is standing in the background, watching us. Mooney is already at his desk, transcribing notes, making phone calls.
I take Leo’s arm and start to move him toward the exit. I can feel his shoulders shaking.
Margo Traynor is waiting to escort us to the Ambassador Suite. She has Leo’s messages collated according to import and substance, all neatly clipped together. “Nothing that can’t wait,” she says. “And I’d be happy to attend to any responses you don’t want to make personally.”
“Either of my sons call?”
“No, sir. They may not have heard. Would you like me to get in touch with them?”
“It can wait.” Leo has a look around the suite, his home away from home. “They did a passable job with the decor, don’t you think?” He checks out the bedrooms, the new fixtures in the master bath, doesn’t appear impressed. “Fifty million doesn’t buy a lot these days,” he says wearily.
Margo says, “The police have assured me they will be finished with the … finished with your floor by this afternoon, sir.”
“I can’t go back up there,” he says. “Not for a while.”
“Of course. But we’ll be able to collect anything you might need and have it brought down here.”
“Joseph can do that,” he says. “I’ll give him a list. I want him to check things out.”
“In the meantime,” Margo says, “Anything else you might need …”
“Thank you, Ms. Traynor,” Leo says. “May I say that I’m grateful you handled this yourself. I don’t think I could have borne Lloyd Gruber’s ministrations just now.”
“He did ask me to convey —”
“Of course,” says Leo. “Tell him, tell him whatever you want to tell him.”
He crosses the room, stares out at the building across the street. Margo looks in my direction. I try to gesture that she’s done well, that things will settle down, that Leo’s okay. I’m not sure I manage to get that across. I’m even less certain it’s the truth.
“Thank you for stocking the bar,” he says.
“I wasn’t sure what —” Margo begins.
“You covered all the bases.”
She finally manages to complete a sentence. “May I offer my own sympathy for this terrible loss.”
Leo looks at her with what might have been an attempt at a brave smile but comes off as a grimace of pain.
“I appreciate it,” he says.
Margo gives me a glance that suggests general helplessness. I show her to the door.
“He’ll be okay,” I whisper.
“Everybody’s shaken up,” she says. “Downstairs. They’ll do anything. Even Lloyd.”
“Best thing is, keep the place running like nothing’s happened.”
Margo leaves.
Leo pours himself a drink. I wait for orders. It’s a long wait. Two minutes is a long time if you’re waiting for someone to speak, if you’re watching a man in pain pull himself together by an exercise of dogged will.
“Is there anything I can do for you, sir?”
I can see the tendons in his fingers and I worry that he’s going to crush his whisky glass, but his voice when he finally speaks is as cold as death. “Yes, there is, Joseph. You can find whoever did this … thing.”
“The
police —”
“The police will do what policemen do,” he says. “If they catch the bastard they’ll charge him with second-degree murder which will probably get knocked down to manslaughter or aggravated assault and he’ll be a free man in seven years if the courts are feeling really tough that day.”
“I suppose that’s possible.”
“I’m seventy-four years old, Joseph. I may not have seven years to wait. Otherwise I could plan how I’d kill the sonofabitch as he walked out of prison.” He has a sip of Scotch and smiles at me. It isn’t a friendly smile. “You think I’m joking?”
I choose my words with care. “I think you’re understandably angry and that you want whoever did this to be punished.”
“I don’t want them punished. I want them dead.”
“One of them is.”
“Good,” he says. “It’s a start.”
chapter seven
Rachel gives me a sad smile when I come into the office. She looks likes she wants to give me a hug. I’m not in a huggy mood but I open my arms enough for her to get close, accept a quick squeeze.
“You okay, slugger?” she asks.
“Oh, sure,” I say.
She steps back and checks me out. “We had the same name you know,” she says. “Raquel, Rachel. It’s an ancient name.”
“You should hear it in Hebrew,” Gritch says. He’s sitting in his corner. “How’s the old bugger doing?” he asks.
“He’s okay I guess. His doctor came by, checked him over, gave him something to help him sleep tonight.”
“Hit him hard,” Rachel says.
“He kept saying how we should have gone straight up, that she was waiting for him to come home, that he shouldn’t have been downstairs listening to music.”
“Wouldn’t have made any difference,” Gritch says.
“Maybe not.”
“Seriously,” he says. “I was talking to one of the uniforms. The pretty one?”
“Chinese?”
“That’s the one. Melody Chan. Nice kid. Wants to be a detective.”
“What did she have to say?”
“Says it probably happened between midnight and one.”
“She tell you anything else?”
“Well, I had to chin for a while, bits and pieces, she’s pretty sharp, had her eyes open. She says there were at least two intruders, maybe three.”
“She knows this how?”
