Flesh and Blood

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Very little conversation anyway. Mostly one-sided: Dugger made an occasional comment while Black Suit chomped his gum and played Sphinx.

  I stuck with them on their rapid march to the parking lot, was two minutes behind the Volvo as it left the airport.

  Back on the 405 freeway. North. Return to L.A.

  This time Dugger took the Wilshire west exit and drove into Brentwood, and I assumed he'd be heading for his L.A. office— soon to be the exclusive headquarters for his alleged consulting group.

  But once again he proved me wrong, passing the black-and-white office building and continuing into Santa Monica. Back to the Ocean Front high-rise? Then why hadn't he switched to the 10 west? No, he was swinging a quick right onto Nineteenth Street.

  I turned too, in time to see him hook another right.

  Nosing into an alley that fed into a parking lot behind several storefronts. Stationing the Volvo in an empty slot behind a rear door.

  Red, white, and green sign: BROOKLYN PIZZA GUYS. Plastic pie above the lettering.

  I stopped, backed up to the mouth of the alley, the Seville's grille barely extending past a drive-up dry cleaners, just close enough to see the white car.

  Dugger stepped out of the Volvo, looked at his watch yet again. Black Suit was more relaxed than he'd been at the airport, swinging his legs out with unexpected grace, looking up at the sky, stretching, yawning. Still chewing like mad.

  Dugger made for the door to the restaurant, but Black Suit just stood there, and Dugger stopped.

  The thickset man squeezed his eyes into slits. Scratched his head. Buttoned his suit jacket and rolled his neck. Working out kinks after the cross-country flight. But other than this gesture showing no signs of discomfort. No anxiety, either, on his broad, brown mask of a face. Mr. Tough Guy.

  He said something to Dugger, who returned to the car and produced a white tissue. Black Suit extricated his gum, wrapped it in the paper, placed the paper in his pocket. Then he nodded, waited as Dugger held open Brooklyn Pizza Guys’ back door and passed through with an imperial air.

  Gourmet lunch for a goombah? The guy had Brooklyn all over him.

  The way she was hog-tied and head-shot tells me this was all business.

  Central casting goombah. I was willing to bet the pizza joint sported checked tablecloths and straw-wrapped Chianti bottles hanging from the ceiling. Sometimes people defy stereotypes. Mostly, they lack imagination.

  Goombah traveling first-class with expensive luggage.

  High-priced specialist. A guy who lived well when a well-heeled client was paying the bills.

  I drove up the alley, exited at Twentieth Street, drove to the drugstore where Dugger had bought goodies for the church-school kids, and bought a cheap camera. The wonders of technology— for a few bucks you could get one with a zoom.

  Then back to Nineteenth, where I parked on the street and returned on foot to Brooklyn Pizza Guys’ alley entrance. Stationed myself behind a Dumpster and hoped no one would spot me. I was lucky. The neighboring businesses were a hearing aid store and an employment agency, and neither seemed to be meriting any rear-entrance traffic. But the Dumpster reeked of rotten produce, and it was thirty-three smelly minutes before Dugger and Black Suit reemerged.

  The restaurant's air conditioner chugged away, more than loud enough to cover the sound of my click click click.

  Nice, clear medium shot of the two of them, side by side.

  Close-up of Dugger, biting his lip.

  Then one of Black Suit's impassive face and flat, dark eyes.

  I kept the camera going as they made their way back to the Volvo, filling the roll with side- and rearviews. Caught them walking in step. No amiability. All business.

  Dugger backed the Volvo diagonally across the alley and aimed it west. I gave him a two-minute lead before starting my own engine.

  25

  DUGGER DROVE ALL the way to Ocean Avenue. Bringing a hit man home? That surprised me.

  But instead of turning left toward the high-rise, he made a right and swung into the left-turn lane. Only a truck between us now, but the height of the cab kept me safely out of view as we sped down toward PCH.

  I switched to the right lane, got close enough to see Dugger behind the wheel, sitting straight, head not moving. Black Suit turned from side to side. Catching an eyeful of the mansions lining Santa Monica's Gold Coast, the white-clapboard palace William Randolph Hearst had built for Marion Davies, now a crumbling mass of planks, generous expanses of beach parking lot that afforded a clear view of the Pacific, churning and silver under a charcoal cloud bank. Gulls flecked the clouds with avian static. A few wet-suited surfers had paddled out yards from the tide line, despite breakers that degraded to a dribble.

  The ocean is never anything but beautiful.

  Black Suit taking it all in.

  Sightseeing.

  Dugger stared straight ahead and put on speed.

  He sped through the Palisades and into Malibu, past the latest slide zone and Caltrans's feeble attempt to battle nature with concrete barriers and sandbags and pink, gritty fiberglass slopes as genuine as Caltrans promises. A few more wet winters and the coastline would look like Disneyland. Black Suit's head had stopped swiveling— fixed on the ocean. Easy choice: The land side was shopping centers and pizza joints and schlock shops not much different from what he'd encounter in Brooklyn.

  I followed the Volvo through Carbon Beach, La Costa, past the private road that led to the Colony, the emerald hills of Pepperdine University, where the commercial clutter gives way to brown mountains, black gorges, orange poppies, and more than a hint of what Malibu must have been like when the Chumash Indians roamed.

  Latigo Beach, the Cove Colony, Escondido. No suspense: I knew exactly where Dugger was headed and was ready well before his left-turn signal flashed and he pulled into the center turn lane.

  He stopped a quarter mile before the Paradise Cove intersection and Ramirez Canyon. A towering plastic sign advertised the Sand Dollar Restaurant and the trailer park that bordered the restaurant's private beach.

  Malibu's estate zone. A half mile broken by a handful of gates, each handcrafted and unique and flanked by old trees and hedges, too-perfect beds of flowers, closed-circuit TV cameras, No Trespassing warnings.

  Prime of the prime: the few multiacre Malibu properties blessed with sheltered coves and sandy beach and views of the shipping channels that lead to Asia.

  The gate that held Dugger's interest was a tangle of burnished copper tentacles shadowed by the palms and pines I remembered, as well as gigantic rubber trees and schefflera and sagos and birds-of-paradise blazing flamelike in the afternoon sun. He must have had a remote-control unit, because before he completed the turn across PCH the octopus arms swung open and he sailed through. I had my cheapie camera ready and hustled for shots of the Volvo's rear end as it vanished into green.

  Click click click.

  The gates closed. I was going no farther.

  But Dugger had a busy day lined up.

  Chauffering Black Suit to Daddy's place. The pleasure dome conceptual light-years from the little cell in Newport that Dugger had once called home. For all his rumpled guy pretense— attempts to distance himself from his father and what his father represented— when things got rough Junior returned with the volition of a homing pigeon.

  Walking in step with a cold-faced man in a black suit.

  Business. Tying up loose ends.

  Who was next?

  * * *

  I returned to Santa Monica, found a MotoPhoto with a FREE DUPLICATES! banner, had a cup of coffee while my film developed, then inspected my handiwork. Most of the roll was taken up by rear shots too distant to be useful, but I had managed to snag Dugger and Black Suit together in full-frontal midrange and in two individual close-ups. Nice clear view of the Volvo passing through the coiling copper gates but, once again, too far to catch the license plate. Tony Duke's address was partially obscured by greenery, but no matter: Those
tentacle gates were unique.

  I drove home. Robin's truck was gone, and I was ashamed for being happy about that. Hurrying into my office, I called Milo.

  “The gun that killed Jane was registered, all right,” he said. No greeting, no preliminaries. “And guess who?”

  I said, “Charles Manson.”

  “Lauren. She bought it two years ago at a Big Five on San Vicente— not far from her apartment. She probably figured in her line of work, she could use protection. Or maybe she was just another single woman wanting the security of firepower. Looks like she lent it to her mother, and stepdad got hold of it.”

  “Another unfortunate accident.”

  “So far, that's how it's going down, Alex.”

  “What will Mel Abbot be charged with?” I asked.

  “The D.A.'s office is brainstorming because it's a tricky situation— old helpless guy like that. No one dares question Abbot until he has a lawyer, but he's in no shape to hire one of his own volition. He's also too rich to qualify for a public defender, but they may assign him a temporary PD anyway. In addition to an advocate from competency court. Ruiz and Gallardo are searching for relatives, someone willing to assume responsibility. Meanwhile, Abbot's got a comfy bed in the jail ward at County, and the shrinks say it'll be a few days before they can even try to get an accurate picture of his mental status.”

  “Once he gets an attorney, then what?”

  “No one's eager to make a showcase out of it. My guess is he'll be quietly committed.”

  “Nice and neat,” I said.

  “If you call a dead woman and a pathetic old guy ending his days on the funny farm neat.”

  “Everything's relative,” I said. “Unfortunately, I just made a mess.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I described my afternoon.

  He didn't answer, but I had a pretty good idea about the look on his face.

  Finally: “You followed him again?”

  “I know,” I said. “But this time, I was really careful. He definitely didn't see me. The main thing is what I saw.”

  “You think Dugger's personally escorting a hit man.”

  “You had to see the guy. He sure doesn't look like a brain surgeon—”

  “Whatever he is, Alex, if he flew in today from New York, he didn't kill Jane last night in Sherman Oaks.”

  “Granted. But he could've killed Lauren. And Michelle and Lance. Maybe there's a team.”

  “Musical mafiosi,” he said.

  “That's how I'd do it if I had the money. Use pros the locals don't know, cover my tracks by transporting them back and forth.”

  “All that flying means paperwork, Alex. If the guy is a professional— a really heavy hitter— he'd have to worry about that. And like I said, if you're the contractor— a supposedly law-abiding fellow like Dugger— why would you also pick the guy up at the airport yourself? Take him out to lunch in plain view, then truck him straight to Daddy's place in broad daylight and give someone the opportunity to snap pictures?”

  “So you have no interest in looking at the passenger list?”

  “That,” he said, “would require a warrant. And grounds—”

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “He likes black 'cause he's a priest, lost his collar. Tony Duke flew him out for spiritual guidance.”

  “Listen, Alex, I appreciate all you've—”

  “Want me to toss the photos?”

  Pause. “You have clear shots of this joker's face.”

  “Clear enough. In duplicate.”

  He made a sound— not a sigh, too weary for a sigh. “I'll come by tonight.”

  * * *

  He didn't.

  26

  BY TEN THE following morning my phone was still silent.

  Either my Brooklyn Pizza lens work had paled in comparison to some new lead Milo was chasing or, given the benefit of a good night's sleep, he'd decided the snapshots were a waste of time. Still, it was unlike him not to call.

  Robin was smiling again, and we'd made love this morning— though I'd felt some distance. Probably my imagination.

  When in doubt, torment your body. I put on running clothes, stepped out into a cold, wet morning, and struggled clumsily up the canyon. Shoes squeaking on still-dewy vegetation, stumbling along the earthen patchwork laid down by a fast-shifting sky.

  When I returned the house was echoing hollowly, silent but for the whine of the circular saw from Robin's studio. I changed into a sweatshirt, old jeans, and grubby shoes, stuck a Dodgers cap on my head, and left.

  The air had chilled even further, and the sun hid behind a big, iron saucer of the same sooty hue as yesterday's cloud bank. A tongue of wind whipped past me, rattling trees, twanging shrubs. The earth smelled of loam and iron. Not winter in any real sense, but in L.A. you learn to live with pretense.

  On days like this, the ocean was still beautiful.

  * * *

  I took Sunset to the coast highway, encountered no obstruction, and was speeding past Tony Duke's copper octopus by twelve-thirty. No cars were parked on the shoulder, and all the gated estates looked forbidding. Continuing to the Paradise Cove intersection, I turned onto the speed-bumped asphalt that dips down past Ramirez Canyon and ends at the beachfront clearing where the Sand Dollar sits. As I passed the restaurant's plastic sign, I noticed a rectangle of whitewashed plywood staked a few feet in, painted crudely in red.

  The Dollar's Renovation Continues.Sorry, Folks. Please Remember Us When We Re-open This Summer

  I bumped my way past the oleander-planted berms that nearly concealed the trailer park on the north side of the cove. No chain had been slung across the blacktop, and the splintered placard warning that beach parking was twenty bucks a day if you weren't eating at the restaurant appeared in its usual spot, bottomed by the halfhearted announcement BOOGIE BOARD, SNORKEL, AND KAYAK RENTALS. So far, so good.

  West of Spring Street, renovation usually means extinction. The Dollar was going the way of all L.A. landmarks, and I didn't know how I felt about that.

  It had been nearly three years since I'd tackled a fisherman's breakfast from the red-vinyl cradle of a Sand Dollar window booth. Back in the days when Robin and I had rented a drafty beach house ten miles up the coast, as we waited out the reconstruction of our burned-out home. Then a patient's childhood nightmares drew me into a long-unsolved abduction and murder, and the victim turned out to be a waitress at the Dollar. The questions I'd asked had overridden six months of generous tips. Some time later I'd dropped in for breakfast again, hoping all had been forgotten. It hadn't, and I never returned.

  I drove fifty more yards, and the shack that serves as the Paradise Cove guardhouse came into view. The lowered gate was more symbolic than functional— I could've lifted it by hand, squeezed the Seville through. I wondered if it would come to that. Then I saw movement through the shack's window, and the attendant was ready for me when I drove up, shaking his head and pointing at yet another sign that reiterated the twenty-dollar tariff. Older man— seventy-five or so— with blue eyes and a beef-jerky face shielded by a battered canvas hat. Big band music played from a tape deck in the shack.

  “Closed,” he said.

  Down below, through the twisting branches of giant sycamores, I could see ocean and what remained of the restaurant: The redwood façade and half of the shingle roof were in place, but empty holes gaped ulcerously where the windows had been, and through the wounds was a clear view of walls stripped to the studs and snarls of severed electrical conduit. What had once been the parking lot was now a table of raked brown dirt filled with backhoes, tractors, and trucks, sheets of plywood, stacks of two-by-fours. No workers in sight, no construction noise.

  “Big project,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah,” said the old man, stepping out of the shack. He wore a khaki shirt and gray twill pants cinched tight by a skinny maroon vinyl belt. “Didn't see the sign, huh? They should stick it right out front on the highway, so folks don't bother to turn. I'll r
aise the yardarm and you can swing a U-ey.”

  “I saw the sign,” I said, and held out a twenty.

  He stared at the bill. “There's nothing to do down there, amigo.”

  “There's still the beach.”