by Ross Thomas
“It's your call, of course, but since you raised the question of life after death, how soon does Twodees find out if there is one?”
“The sooner the better,” the General said. “How much did Emory Kite charge us for the Captain and his wife?”
“Fifty thousand for them and twenty-five more for a rush job well done.”
“You pay him?” “Not yet.”
“Pay him and then give him the fix on Twodees.” “He’ll try to double his price.” “Don’t haggle with him,” the General said. “That's extortion.”
The General chuckled. After a moment, Millwed smiled and said, “How do you really want to handle it?”
The General examined his cigar, then put it back in his mouth, puffed a few times, drew in a large mouthful of smoke and blew four fat smoke rings at the ceiling. He watched the rings dissolve, turned to the Colonel and said, “Pay Emory some up-front money for Twodees. When he's done the fix and comes around for the rest of his fee, we’ll have to decide what should be done about Emory himself.”
“And your nephew,” Millwed said, “out in L.A.?”
The General frowned, looked up at the ceiling and sighed.
CHAPTER 14
Millicent Altford awoke after midnight in her hospital room to find a doctor bending over her. She knew he was a doctor because of the surgical mask, shirt jacket and hair cap, all pale blue, and the no-color surgical gloves he wore over hands that held a fat pillow only a foot or so from her face.
The pillow erased his medical degree and made Altford scream although it was more yell than scream. She went on yelling as she rolled over twice to her left and fell off the bed. After landing on the floor with her eyes squeezed shut, Altford continued to yell and even swear so loudly she didn’t hear the false doctor leave. She was still making a racket when someone slapped her face. Altford shut up, opened her eyes and found Liz Ball, the night nurse, kneeling beside her and wearing that half-concerned, half-irritated expression that's taught at nursing school.
“You just slap me?” Altford asked, knowing the answer.
“Damn right,” Ball said. “You were having a nightmare and cussing your head off.come on. Let's get you back into bed.”
“I fell out of bed?”
“Fell or jumped, you’re on the floor.”
“Maybe you ought to get that big doctor to help,” Altford said, not proud of her slyness, but unable to think of anything better. “What big doctor?”
“Well, maybe he was just an orderly—a real big guy who sorta popped in on me.” “White or black?” “White.”
“We haven’t got any white orderlies on this floor,” Ball said. “Fact is, we haven’t got any orderlies at all. It's the shift change and one orderly left early and the other one's late. And at this time of night, we sure as hell don’t have any doctors up here, big or little, white or black. Now let's get you back into bed.”
Using the nurse's strength, Altford rose slowly and carefully to make sure nothing had been sprained or broken. After she was back in bed, the nurse asked if she’d like something to help her sleep.
“I’d like a big glass of ice, please, Liz. And after you get that, I’d be ever so grateful if you’d pour in one of those miniatures of gin and let it sort of percolate down?”
The nurse left Altford propped up in bed on pillows, her hands wrapped around a tumbler of iced gin. Altford had two large swallows, put the glass on the bedside table, placed the nearby telephone on her lap and tapped out a number that was answered halfway through the second ring by Edd Partain.
“How long's it gonna take you to get over here?” she said.
Millicent Altford let Partain drive this time and noticed he was a timer who hit most of the traffic lights on the green or yellow. She liked the way he drove and also the way he listened to her tale of the failed smothering.
When Partain was sure she had finished, or at least run down, he said, “The guy waited for the shift change.” “Obviously.”
“Would you recognize him again?”
“In a second—providing he wore a blue mask, coat, hair cap and see-through plastic gloves.”
“You said he was big. How big?” “Six-four at least.” “What about his eyes?”
“You mean were they the cruel eyes of some crazed proctologist who’d rather kill than cure?” “Just their color.” “I don’t remember.” “Too bad,” Partain said.
“Would you remember their color if a pillow was about to cancel your breathing?”
“Yes, but that's what I do. Or did. Notice things. Like how many fingers has Mickey Mouse got?”
“You’re asking me?”
Partain nodded.
“Three,” she said. “Because it's easier and cheaper to draw three than four.”
“Then you do notice stuff.”
“Yeah, when guys aren’t trying to smother me.”
Partain nodded his understanding.
“Fact is, I closed my eyes,” she said. “That's a lie. After that first look at him, I squeezed them shut, just like a little kid.” “A little kid wouldn’t have rolled off the bed,” he said. “I reckon I also yelled and cussed a lot.” “Even better,” Partain said, then asked, “He say anything?” “Not a word.”
“If he’d said something, maybe you’d recognize his voice, if you ever heard it again.”
“Maybe,” Millicent Altford said.
It was just after 1 A.M. when Partain stopped the Lexus in front of the Eden's glass doors, switched off the engine and turned to Altford. “Don’t get out till I open your door. I’ll see you up to your place, then come back down and put the car away.”
“You think he’ll try again?” she said, sounding more interested than frightened.
“I don’t know what he’ll do,” Partain said, got out, went around the car's rear and opened the right-hand door. As Altford stepped out, a dark brown windowless van with no license plate stopped on Wilshire Boulevard, shifted into reverse and backed quickly into the Eden's concrete drive until it was no more than thirty or thirty-five feet from the Lexus. By then, Partain had slammed the passenger door shut and forced Altford to kneel beside the right front wheel where it and the car's V-8 engine would provide some protection should the shooting start.
But there were no shots. Instead, Partain heard, but didn’t see, the van's back door open, then close. In between the opening and closing was the sound of something landing on the concrete drive. It made that peculiar sound of something that doesn’t mind being dropped. Huge sacks of flour or rice don’t mind, Partain thought, and neither do dead or unconscious bodies.
After he heard the dark brown van speed off, heading west on Wilshire, probably toward a freeway, Partain rose, hurried around the nose of the Lexus, went another seven or eight quick strides, stopped and stared down at the dead man who wore a lot of light blue clothing.
Altford called to him from behind the Lexus. “What is it?”
“I think it's your fake doctor.”
She rose slowly and even more slowly joined Partain. The body lay on its right side, facing the street. The blue hair cap was still in place. So was the blue shirt jacket, but the surgical mask was gone. The one hand they could see, the left one, still wore a transparent surgical glove. The pants and shoes were the only clothing that wasn’t blue. The shoes were sockless cordovan leather loafers and the pants were tan cavalry twill, now badly soiled.
“Let's make sure,” Partain said as he moved around the body.
“Of what?”
“That he's dead,” Partain said.
“He's dead all right,” she said, joining Partain in his inspection of the man's face, which belonged to Dave Laney, late of Guadalajara. Laney's eyes were open. So was his mouth, and something other than his tongue was sticking out of it.
Partain removed the car keys from his pocket and gave them to Altford. “Call 911 on your car phone.”
She absently accepted the keys, still gazing down at the dead man. “Dave tried to
kill me,” she said, giving each word equal emphasis so that her sentence was neither accusation nor question but merely a statement of fact.
“Go make the call,” Partain said. Altford nodded, still staring at Laney until she turned and hurried toward the car.
Partain knelt to remove the thing that had been protruding from Laney's mouth. It was a plastic key card that Partain was almost sure would unlock the front doors of the Eden and also the door to apartment 1540, the residence of Millicent Altford, her daughter and their temporary live-in bodyguard.
CHAPTER 15
The stay-behind LAPD homicide detective sergeant, Ovid Knox, reminded Partain of certain Special Forces types he had known in the Army. Not the dumb ones, who liked to boast of their membership in a chosen elite, but the smart ones, who scoffed at elitism even though they devoutly, if secretly, had believed in it since they were four years old or maybe even three.
After Millicent Altford's 911 call, a swarm of plainclothes detectives, uniformed police and technical staff, most of them from the Westside Division, had quickly arrived and slowly departed, taking with them the late Dave Laney. But Ovid Knox had lingered on because of what he said were a couple of minor items he needed to check with Ms. Altford, her daughter and Mr. Partain.
Knox was closer to 40 than 30 and still had a lot of tousled sun-streaked blond hair that complemented his easy manner and lazy smile. Partain suspected the smile and manner of being a mask for the contempt that lay just behind a pair of sardonically amused blue eyes.
At 2:44 A.M., the four of them sat drinking coffee in the significantmoney salon, which was how Partain now thought of Millicent Altford's huge living room. She still wore the gray pants and sweater. Her daughter wore baggy dark green shorts, a white T-shirt and laceless white jogging shoes. Partain wore the blue suit, white shirt and the same carefully knotted tie. Of the four, Ovid Knox seemed most at ease, perhaps because he was the law and also the most elegantly dressed in his sand-colored suede jacket, chocolate-brown gabardine pants, tieless off-white shirt and the plain loafers whose leather resembled carefully polished black walnut. It was an outfit whose retail price, Partain guessed, would top $2,000. But Partain also guessed that Knox never paid retail for anything over $100.
The detective's first question had dealt with what he called Jessica Carver's “relationship” with the late David Laney (“We lived together for a year in Mexico”), and also with Laney's futile attempt to meet with her yesterday morning (“Mr. Partain convinced Dave I didn’t want to talk to him, so he left”).
It was then that Partain asked Knox, “Mind if I ask you a question?”
If Knox minded, neither his voice nor his expression did. “Not at all.”
“What killed him?” Partain said. “There weren’t any obvious bullet or stab wounds, no signs of strangulation or massive blows. That leaves lots of other stuff of course—ice pick, hot shot injection, poison, even a heart attack.”
“Maybe he was smothered.”
Partain nodded and said, “Now why didn’t I think of that?”
“Probably because big guys like Laney are hard to smother. But that's why we do autopsies—to find out what killed our customers.” He examined Partain briefly, then added, “I assume you saw some dead folks in the service.”
Partain nodded.
“Where’d you serve—all over?”
“Pretty much,” Partain said. “First with the infantry in Vietnam, then the States, then Germany and then Central America.” “Still with the infantry in Central America?” “Army intelligence.”
“Was your Army intelligence experience why Ms. Altford hired you—or am I hopping to a conclusion?”
Millicent Altford supplied an answer. “He was recommended by an old friend of mine, a retired Army general.”
Knox looked only slightly interested. “To do what, Ms. Altford?”
“I’ve been told or warned—unofficially, of course—that I’m being considered for an appointive job in the new administration, one that’ll require a full field FBI investigation. I retained Mr. Partain to poke around in my past and see if there's anything that’d upset anybody.”
Knox looked at Partain. “That the kind of stuff you did in the Army, Major?”
“Did I say I was a major?”
“No, but we live in the age of fax, phone and computerized files,” Knox said, smiled apologetically and then asked, “How long were you in?”
“Nineteen years.”
“If you’d stuck it another year, you’d’ve had your pension.”
“Plus PX privileges. I chose to resign instead.”
“Where were you in Central America?”
“El Salvador mostly.”
“Got a little hairy there, didn’t it?”
“Not for an observer—a cautious one.”
Knox had a sip of coffee, put his cup down and, without looking at her, asked, “How's your health, Ms. Altford?” “Just fine.”
Knox turned to look at her with that quick practiced gaze thatboth policemen and doctors use. “You were in the hospital for what, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“For observation,” she said.
“No bad news, I hope.”
“None.”
“You checked out at a little past midnight this morning. Kind ofan odd time to check out, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t check out. I simply left because I was fed up and my stay there was giving me nightmares. That's why I called Mr. Partain and asked him to come fetch me.”
“You have any visitors last night?”
“None—except for those in my nightmare.”
“Mr. Partain drove you home in your car—a Lexus, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Like it?”
“Very much.”
“He got out first, went around the car and opened your door. Is that when you saw the brown van—after you got out?”
“I never saw the van,” she said. “Almost before I knew it, Mr. Partain had me down on my hands and knees beside the right front wheel.”
Knox looked at Partain. “Why’d you expect trouble?”
“A van stops on Wilshire, backs into the driveway and doesn’t have a rear license plate. I took routine precautionary measures, that's all.”
“You saw its rear door open?”
“By then I was down beside Ms. Altford.”
“Then you didn’t see who threw Laney out?”
“No.”
“But you heard him land?” Partain nodded.
“You know what a dead body sounds like when it hits concrete?” Partain again nodded.
“Then what?”
“I heard the rear door close and the van drive off.”
“East or west?”
“West.”
“So it was your ears and not your eyes that told you it turned west?”
“My ears are pretty good.” “What’d you do then?”
“I got up, saw the body and decided to take a closer look.” “Could you tell it was Laney?”
“No. He was lying on his side, facing the street. As soon as we saw it was Laney, I asked Ms. Altford to call nine-one-one on her car phone.”
Knox smiled contentedly, leaned back in his chair and, still smiling, inspected Jessica Carver first, then Partain and, finally, Millicent Altford. He stopped smiling and asked, “Why d’you think Dave was all dressed up like a doctor, Millie?”
The use of the diminutive was a routine interrogative ploy that Partain had never cared for, especially in Latin America, where it was usually counterproductive. Still, he was curious how Altford would react.
She smiled sweetly at Knox and said, “No idea.”
The detective nodded, turned to Jessica Carver and, once again smiling a little, asked her, “Who wanted Dave dead, Jessie?”
“I did sometimes and don’t call me Jessie. Now then. Back to Dave. I sometimes wanted him dead because he was a liar and a cheat but much better at cheating than lying.”
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“Then why’d you stay with him?”
Partain kept his eyes on the detective, waiting for his reaction to Carver's reply. She cocked her head a little to one side, studied Knox for a moment or two, then said, “Because he was the best fuck in six states, maybe seven.”
Partain heard Millicent Altford's sigh as he watched Knox give Jessica Carver a cold stare before he said, “But even so, you left him. Why?”
“I ran out of money.”
“Didn’t Laney have money?”
“At first he did, then he didn’t, then suddenly he did but claimed he didn’t and even though I knew he was lying, we spent mine. When that ran out after the first of the year, I told him I was going back to L.A. and find some work.”
“You were in Mexico then?”
“Guadalajara.”
“How’d Dave react when you told him you were splitting?”
“We had a long loud argument that didn’t change my mind. Then, the day before my plane left, he came home and dumped a whole bunch of money on the bed and begged me to stay.”
“How much is a whole bunch?” Knox said.
“Lots.”
“Twenty thousand? Fifty?” “More.”
“What happened then?”
“We celebrated,” she said. “And after he passed out, I packed my bag, called a taxi, went to the airport and took the first flight I could get to L.A.”
CHAPTER 16
After coming across what might turn out to be a money trail, Ovid Knox's interest in the late Dave Laney's sudden wealth increased sharply. “How much cash did he dump on the bed, Miss Carver?” “I don’t know.”
“Come on. Dave's passed out. The money's just lying there. He's snoring. You’re all packed. The cab's on the way. But there's plenty of time for a fast count. So how much was there, Miss Carver?”
“Fifty-four thousand and I prefer ‘Hey, you’ to Miss Carver.”
“What’d Dave call you?”
“Jessie, honey or bitch—depending on his mood.”
