“And his orders were to harrass Ms. Johnson?”
“Yeah. He said all the letters and the phone calls were their idea, not his. And of course, the bomb in her car yesterday. According to him, he didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“No. Of course not. I don’t suppose he was able to give the cops any names?”
Browne shook his head. “He told them he doesn’t know any names. They never gave him their names, or showed him their faces. All his orders came over the phone, he said, except on two occasions when he and the people he met with were completely in the dark—he couldn’t see a thing. Which is fairly common for the Defenders, right? Isn’t that how they always operate?”
Unbeknownst to Browne, Gunner could vouch personally for the fact that it was. In his own previous encounter with the DOB, he had come in contact with no less than four men who had done the Defenders’ dirty work, yet he’d survived the experience knowing the name of only one: Byron “Blue” Scales, a lean and mean young brother who was presently serving a thirty-year sentence up at Folsom on, among other things, a kidnapping conviction pertaining to Gunner himself. The remaining three Defenders Gunner had run into were still at large and unidentified, including the one who had ostensibly ordered the investigator’s kidnapping so that they might meet, Gunner bound to a chair and blindfolded at some unknown site all the while.
“Ms. Johnson still think Nance was working alone?” Gunner asked.
“She says she does. But I don’t think she really believes it. It’s just what she has to say in order to blow off my concerns for her safety. She wants to keep pretending everything’s okay.”
“Yeah? Well, wait until the Feds call. That could change her mind quick.”
“The FBI? What have they got to do with this?”
“The Defenders are a pet project of theirs. The DOB’s a national enterprise, not a local one, so that automatically makes them the Bureau’s business. If they haven’t taken over the LAPD’s investigation into last night’s bombing yet, they will soon. You can bet on it.”
“Jesus,” Browne said. “I hadn’t thought about that. The FBI! Sparkle’s gonna have a coronary!”
“Don’t knock it. Once they get involved, they’ll cover her like a blanket twenty-four/seven, and my friend and I will be able to go home.”
“Yeah, but until then …”
“We’ll be here. Of course.”
But Browne went right on worrying. Jolly still wasn’t his first choice as a bodyguard for Johnson, and he wasn’t shy about reiterating the fact. The big man was physically imposing enough, he said, but he doubted Jolly had the temperament necessary to resort to violence, should circumstances ever call for him to do so.
The irony in that was laughable, of course, but Gunner never told Browne as much, just reminded him again that, for another twenty-four hours at least, it was either Jolly or nothing. Browne seemed tempted to go with nothing this time, but eventually relented when Gunner wouldn’t budge.
A few minutes later, Gunner’s large friend entered Browne’s office in the radio executive’s stead, Gunner having asked Browne if he could have a word with Jolly in private.
“I want you to start carrying this,” the investigator said, pressing a .45 caliber Para-Ordinance P10 firmly into Jolly’s right hand.
Jolly looked at the gun as if it were a live tarantula. “What for?”
“Because the game’s changed, and you may need it. Has Browne talked to you at all about what’s going on?”
Jolly shook his head.
“Ms. Johnson’s boyfriend’s claiming he’s been harrassing her under orders from a group called the Defenders Of the Bloodline. Ever hear of ’em?”
The big man took so long to answer, Gunner was beginning to think he hadn’t heard the question. “The Defenders?”
“Yeah. Also known as the DOB. They’re a bunch of black crazies who think conservatives like Johnson are the scourge of our people and should be wiped off the face of the earth. Which would be somewhat amusing, except that they aren’t just talking. They’ve already killed a number of people here and elsewhere, and the Feds have been getting nowhere trying to stop ’em.”
Jolly paused again, came back with a simple shrug this time. “I don’t get it.”
“Get? There’s nothing to get. Johnson’s boyfriend could be full of shit for all we know, but just in case he isn’t, we’ve gotta prepare for the worst here. If the Defenders really are involved in this like he says, Jolly, size and strength alone aren’t gonna cut it against ’em. Even you are gonna need a little gentle persuasion to sweet-talk ’em with, they make another move on the lady while you’re watching her, and that means I want you strapped from here on in. No ifs, ands, or buts.”
“Yeah, but …”
“You’re worrying about violating your parole, don’t bother. You use that thing to take a Defender down, the cops are gonna be too busy planning the parade route to even think about busting you on a parole beef. Believe me.”
“Sure, sure. I just…”
“What? The Lord’s not telling you you can’t protect yourself properly, is he?”
“No. It ain’t that.”
“Then?”
“Hell, I’m just thinkin’ ’bout you, that’s all. I mean, this ain’t your only piece, is it?”
“My only piece? No.” Gunner couldn’t help but find Jolly’s concern slightly touching. “That’s just a spare I had lying around the house. Don’t worry about me, Jolly. Worry about yourself, and Ms. Johnson. And please, not necessarily in that order.”
Shortly thereafter, he left Jolly to it.
But their conversation stayed with him for some time afterward. Jolly’s question about the Para-Ordinance being the investigator’s only weapon had led him to start giving some serious thought to a possibility he hadn’t cared to fully acknowledge before, namely that the Defenders Of the Bloodline had finally decided to make good on their promise to keep him under some form of surveillance. Up to this point, he’d written that off as a hollow threat, just something the Defenders had said in parting to make him lose a little sleep, but now he wasn’t so sure. Now he had to wonder if the silver Le Baron that had seemed to be following him for the last several days was relevant to something other than his efforts in the Carlton Elbridge case.
Could inserting himself and Jolly into their plans for Sparkle Johnson have finally put him back on the Defenders’ hit list?
It was probably best to consider it likely, and operate accordingly. So he sat in Poole’s car now, down in Culver City, one eye looking for Antoinette Aames and the other for the silver Chrysler, hoping like hell to see the former first. Because once Aames was out of the way, he could concentrate on Johnson and the Defenders. Aames and her girlfriend Felicia White were the only holes in the Elbridge investigation left to fill, as far as the investigator was concerned.
Unfortunately, neither lady was anywhere to be seen.
Aames’s apartment building was a two-story number on Barrington Avenue that dated back to the sixties, the kind of ubiquitous structure that featured a carport out front and a giant starburst on its face, the latter mounted just above the ridiculous name its builders had pretentiously bestowed upon it: Seacrest Manor. In two and a half hours, Gunner and Poole saw a grand total of four people pass through the Manor’s unlocked doors, three men and one woman, and none of them resembled either Aames or White in the least.
After the last of this quartet had disappeared inside—a young, brown-skinned man with a ratty beard and ponytail to matcli—Poole turned to his right and said, “Okay, Gunner, you win. Get outa my car, I’m goin’ home.”
He braced himself to hear Gunner argue, but the investigator lacked all incentive. “I’m with you,” he said, nodding. “This is a bust—take me back to my car.”
“You’re givin’ up?”
“Not giving up. Just regrouping. I’ll either come back later or try to draw a line on White instead. Her old pimp answers the phone the
next time I call, he might be able to give me a new address for her.”
Poole started the car without comment, pulled the Ford slowly away from the curb. A more patient man might have kept going south on Barrington, circled the whole block to get back to Washington Boulevard and the 405 Freeway on-ramp he sought, but Poole just turned the unmarked cruiser into the first driveway on his left, backed out again to reverse his field. Seeking the shortest distance between two points, as was so often the cop’s wont.
Meanwhile, Gunner took one last look at Antoinetta Aames’s apartment building, saw the ponytailed man they’d seen enter earlier come out again, moving as if something big with sharp teeth would soon be hot on his heels.
“Hold up a minute, Poole,” Gunner said.
“I see ’im.”
Poole slowed, watched first through his side mirror, then his side window as the guy hustled past them on the left, built a slight lead on his way out to Washington. Gunner had never seen him before, but he knew the type; hype or crackhead, rummie or stoner, addiction always gave them the same look of anxious desperation, clothed them in the same thin layer of sour sweat.
Gunner opened his door while the car was still moving, stood up to yell something out to the guy as Poole, surprised, hit the brakes.
“Hey, Marvin!”
Marvin Felipe never turned around, just took off at a dead sprint at the very sound of his name.
Gunner jumped out of the car to follow him on foot, snapped at a startled Poole to head him off in the Ford. Felipe already had a half-block head start on them both. He was younger than his pursuers, and fast, but his health was shot, and that made the difference. Over the next four blocks, along the quiet residential streets just north of Washington, Felipe stumbled twice, then fell altogether before Gunner and Poole collapsed upon him, the cop from the north, the investigator from the south.
Gunner reached him first, had to duck a few wild punches Felipe threw at his head before a hard right of his own put the bearded man down again, eyes rolling around in their sockets like dice being shaken in a cup. Gunner watched as Ray Crumley’s alleged killer retched onto some poor devil’s perfectly manicured lawn, then snatched him up by the back of his neck and marched him over to Poole’s car. It sounded as if every dog in the neighborhood was barking in applause.
“What the fuck is this, man? I didn’t do nothin’!” Felipe cried, as soon as Gunner tossed him into the Ford’s backseat and got in right behind him.
“I take it this is La Porte’s suspect? Marvin what’s his name?” Poole asked Gunner, turned around in the car’s front seat so as to take a good look at their quarry.
“Marvin Felipe,” Gunner said. “Yeah. Unless he just takes off running every time he hears the name.”
“I don’t know what you assholes are talkin’ about! My name is Julian!” Felipe cried. “Julian Ashby!”
“Julian Ashby. That’s a good one. You got any ID on you, Mr. Ashby? Something with your picture on it, specifically?”
The man with the ratty pony tail just blinked at him, mouth nervously chewing on something completely imaginary.
“No. I didn’t think so.” Gunner took out the Ruger he’d been carrying since he picked up the Para-Ordinance for Jolly, trained it more or less in the direction of Felipe’s midsection. He then turned to Poole again and said, “Let’s go back to Ms. Aames’s apartment, see if we can’t figure out why he was so anxious to leave.”
Felipe’s mouth flew open to object, his eyes wide with fear—but he decided at the last minute to hold his tongue instead. He sat back, stared straight ahead as Poole turned the cruiser’s engine over, drove them all back to Antoinetta Aames’s apartment building on Barrington Avenue.
The door to Aames’s apartment was standing open when they reached it, but both Gunner and Poole had known bad news awaited them long before that. They’d had to take turns ordering Felipe out of the car before he agreed to come along, wearing Poole’s handcuffs now, and they recognized his reluctance as the reaction of a man who did not want to view the same nightmare twice.
“I didn’t have nothin’ to do with this, I swear to God,” Felipe said, starting to cry.
Gunner and Poole traded glances, their respective weapons already out and at the ready, then gently pushed the crackhead forward to lead their way inside.
s i x t e e n
COMPARED WITH THAT OF THE LATE RAY CRUMLEY, Antoinetta Aames’s homicide was damn near antiseptic. Blood was at a minimum, and physical dissarray was non-apparent. Aames’s killer had simply arranged for her to lie facedown on her living room carpet, then put a single bullet in the back of her head. No muss, no fuss. From the lack of markings on her fully clothed body, it appeared Aames had cooperated with her murderer all the way.
By the time Steven La Porte and his partner, Peter Chin, arrived on the scene in answer to Poole’s call, the Culver City Police Department had already descended upon it in full force, rendering Gunner and Poole mere observers to their investigation into the Aames homicide. La Porte and Chin’s only interest here was Felipe, but the CCPD wouldn’t let them anywhere near him. This was Culver City’s case, and Felipe was their perp, and nobody from the LAPD was going to talk to him until the CCPD had talked to him first. All night long, if necessary.
“Fuckers,” La Porte said, striking a match to light a cigarette when he, Chin, Gunner, and Poole had all gathered in the parking lot behind Aames’s building.
“Hey, SOP,” Poole said in commiseration. “If we were in their shoes, we’d do the same thing.”
La Porte appraised Poole carefully, said, “With all due respect, Lieutenant, what’s your interest in this? You workin’ a connected case?”
Poole shook his head, slightly embarrassed. “Not at all. I was just giving Mr. Gunner here a hand on my off hours, as I’m prone to do from time to time. You might say it’s my own unique way of giving somethin’ back to the community.”
Gunner cut his friend a look that Poole pretended not to notice.
“Okay,” La Porte said to the investigator, letting the nature of Poole’s relationship with him lie for the time being. “Why don’t you take me and Pete through this from the top.”
“Sure thing. In a nutshell, La Porte, I was right and you were wrong. Looks like your homicide and my suicide are connected.”
“Yeah? How so?”
“Same way I’ve been saying all along. Felipe went into Ray Crumley’s apartment Monday night to get my hotel surveillance tape. Seems he and Aames were close friends, they’ve known each other for years, and Monday afternoon, she offered him fifty dollars to break into Crumley’s place and get her every blank tape he owned. She was only interested in one, he said, but she told him to take everything, just in case.”
“Very interesting. He happen to say why?”
“The surveillance tape Crumley had showed her and a girlfriend named Felicia White visiting C.E. Digga Jones a few hours before the kid died, and Aames was terrified Crumley might use it to broadcast the fact. White’s an ex-pro who’s apparently got full-blown AIDS, and Felipe says Aames had it in her head that taking the lady up to the Digga’s room that night was some kind of prosecutable offense.”
“You’re joking,” Chin said.
“No. It sounds screwy, I know, but Aames was a certified paranoid schizophrenic, she had a history of mental problems longer than your arm. Worrying about getting ten years to life for introducing the Digga to a sex partner with AIDS wouldn’t have been all that unusual for her.”
“Yeah, but even if that were true …” La Porte started to say.
“How could Crumley have known about White?” Chin asked, completing his partner’s thought.
“That I couldn’t tell you,” Gunner said, “and neither can Felipe. Unless he knew the lady personally, blackmailing Aames with the tape should have never even crossed Crumley’s mind.”
“All right, all right. Enough about Aames already,” La Porte said. “What I wanna know is, does Felipe admit
killing Crumley, or not?”
“He didn’t admit it to us, no. But his denials made it pretty obvious he did. Impression I get is that he did Crumley by accident, just like you always said—in a panic after Crumley discovered him in his apartment—and if our friends inside are any good at what they do, they should probably turn him over to you with a signed confession to that effect.”
“And Aames?” Chin asked. “What about her?”
“He cops an innocent plea there too. He said she only gave him half the fifty she promised him when he delivered the five tapes Crumley had Tuesday morning, told him to come back tonight to get the rest. Only when he got here …”
“She was dead,” La Porte said. “Naturally.”
“Call us stupid, La Porte, but Poole and I believe him,” Gunner said. “One, because he genuinely seems to have loved the lady, and two, because this murder seems way out of his league. Killers change their MOs all the time, sure, but this guy’s not that bright. Beating a man’s brains out with a blunt instrument is a job he can handle, but killing a lady with one shot without leaving a mess of any kind behind?” Gunner shook his head again. “Very unlikely.”
“Besides, we were on top of him the minute he broke to leave,” Poole said. “There’s no way he could’ve ditched a weapon somewhere without one of us seein’ it.”
“Okay. Not that my partner and I really give a rat’s ass, you understand,” Chin said, “but seeing as how we’re here with nothin’ else to do but ask you guys questions until we get to talk to Felipe ourselves … If he didn’t whack Aames, who did? White?”
“For lack of a better suspect, yeah,” Gunner said. “For all we know, she was as spooked about Crumley’s tape as Aames was. Maybe more. If it turns out the tapes Felipe says he gave Aames aren’t in her apartment somewhere, I’ll have to assume her killer lifted them on his or her way out the door, the same way Felipe did over at Crumley’s place, and right now, I can’t see anyone else doing that besides White.”
“You tell CCPD that?” Chin asked, breaking the ying-yang rhythm he and La Porte had going by opening his mouth twice in succession.
All the Lucky Ones Are Dead Page 18
