by Paul Neuhaus
“Just that: ‘huh’. I’m seeing something I rarely see.”
I didn’t want to ask, but I did anyway. “What do you mean?”
She sighed and her breath smelled like Armenian bread. “Look at me. This is an affectation. Nobody decides on this as a personal style. I do it because it gets results.”
“Results from who?”
“Men, mostly. Although some women too if I’m being honest.”
I nodded, catching her drift. “So, you’re saying you’re not so much being Evelyn right now as you’re being Coquettish Spooky Evelyn because Coquettish Spooky Evelyn opens doors?”
She didn’t say anything, she just pointed at the tip of her nose and then at me.
“Huh,” I said, not meaning it as an expression of further interest.
“What if I was just Evelyn-Evelyn? What if I went out and came back in again? Would you listen to me then?”
I mulled it over. “I dunno. Let’s try it.”
She got out of the car, rolling up the matnakash bag and putting it where she’d been sitting. She closed the door, and before she could open it again, I had the car in gear and I was driving away.
When I got back to my place in Sherman Oaks, it was dinnertime. I should’ve been hungry, but I wasn’t. Something about having your unmentionables properly smushed puts an unpleasant warmth in your guts. The kind of of warmth that isn’t interested in food. All I wanted to do was take a hot bath and go to sleep. Wherever Tad Albright was, he would have to wait another day. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to get a respite, at least not right away. As I drove by my steps, Randall Dunphey rose and waved at me. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to him; it was just that I didn’t want to talk to him right then. It wasn’t like I could tell him to go away though.
The same rain that fell on Glendale was falling on Sherman Oaks. Randy met me halfway up the driveway and reacted to my face and my awkward ambulation. “Jeeze. What happened to you?”
“Inside,” I said through an exhale. “Daddy needs to sit.”
Right then, Hailey came down the back steps carrying a bag of trash. I didn’t believe the timing was coincidental. The trash was a prop to give her plausible deniability. When she saw the state I was in, her eyes flashed. It looked as though she might say something, but then she saw Randall.
“Hailey! Hi!” Randall said.
Unsure of where to put her focus, my soon-to-be-ex hugged Randall. “Randy, so good to see you!” She held the garbage bag out away from his body.
After the hug broke, Dunphey said, “Okay, so this is the part where I say nothing at all for fear of things getting awkward.”
Hailey’s eyes flashed between the two of us. Later, I’d get an earful about telling Randall our personal business. Of course, if I hadn’t told him, I’d’ve gotten an earful about that too. Six of one, half-dozen of another. “Have a good evening, fellas.” She walked back toward the dumpsters and Randall and I resumed out progress toward my apartment.
When we got inside, we found Ava sitting on the couch watching HGTV. Right away, she muted the television and stood. When she saw me, her expression read, “Do you need anything?”
I shook my head no, then I said, “Could you pick up where you left off in the bedroom? Give the two of us a little space?”
She nodded, turning off the television and the streaming box. Soon, Randall and I were alone. I noticed something: Before she’d gone, she’d only paid Dunphey the most cursory attention.
“Drink?” I said, indicating to Randall he should sit on the couch.
“Not for me,” he replied. “Anyway, I wouldn’t make you get it. It looks like you got creamed by an entire defensive line.”
I looked regretfully toward the bedroom. “Right. I should’ve asked Ava to get it.”
Randall plopped down and shrugged. “I’m good.”
It didn’t matter. I took a deep breath and gave Dunphey a summation of my day up to where I left Kohar Gasparyan’s house. I didn’t include the part where I’d talked to his boss and, apparently, Gary hadn’t mentioned it.
“You saw Noah get killed?” Randy said when I was finished.
I shook my head. “He was behind me when he was shot, but I sure as hell saw the aftermath. Bullets do heinous things to a body. You knew about him? About him and Tad?”
Randall sat back, crossing one leg over the other. “I knew him, yeah, but I make it a policy not to give a shit about coworkers’ personal lives. If they’re in a sharing mood I meet their partners, but mostly I’m not interested. The less I know the better. Anyway, Noah was a good guy. I’m kinda freaked he’s dead.”
“You can’t think of any reason anybody’d harm him?”
“Fuck, no. I mean, you met the guy. He was harmless.”
“Right, yeah. I agree.”
“What’s next? Are you gonna stake out this old lady’s house? See if her grandson pops up with Albright?”
I nodded. “Seems like the smart play. Going back over it, I don’t guess there’re any other angles I can work.”
“Mmm. Here’s my advice for day two: Get a good night’s sleep going into it, and don’t get your ass kicked so many times.”
I grinned at my old mentor’s son. “Gee, I wish you’d told me sooner.”
“There’re a lot of surprises in your business, aren’t there?”
“It’s what keeps me young.”
“Here’s the thing… I didn’t come over for a progress report. Not that I mind. It seems like, so far, I’m getting my money’s worth. I came to warn you about a potential surprise. It seems like maybe I did something kinda stupid…”
I didn’t like the sound of that. I started to say something, but I noticed Randall’s eyes flick to a place over my shoulder. I turned to see what he as looking at and saw Ava Amelia looking around the doorframe leading to the bedroom. She looked concerned. “Hey. Honey. Do me a favor, would you? Run me a bath. A hot bath. With tons of bubbles. I need to soak my undercarriage.”
Ava went off without comment toward the bathroom. A moment later, we heard the water come on. I leaned in toward Dunphey. “Something stupid you say?”
He looked embarrassed. “Yeah. I broke a rule. You know how discreet I was with you? I like playing things close to the vest. I wish I’d stuck to my guns last night, but if you can’t blab to your girlfriend who can you blab to?”
“You told your girlfriend you were looking for Tad Albright.”
“No, I told my girlfriend you were looking for Tad Albright.”
I didn’t see the problem. “So? Is she the loose-lipped type?”
“Uh-uh. I mean she’s a little wild, but she’s not a busybody. Here’s the rub: I met Evelyn through Tad. She used to be Tad’s assistant. Still is occasionally. She brought him some scripts. Into our production offices. She and I got to talking. Sparks flew.”
My whole body deflated. “Does your Evelyn have a black fetish?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Why, whatever do you mean?”
“The color, not the race.”
“She does.” That raised a red flag in my head. Evelyn had told me the Goth thing was a deliberate affectation. A deliberate affectation she was using on Randall. Whatever. It was none of my business. Dunphey’s chest sagged. “I’m too late, aren’t I?”
“You’re too late. She was waiting for me in my car when I came back from Kohar’s.”
“Oh,” he said. “You didn’t mention that.”
I shrugged. “It didn’t seem pertinent until you told me she was your girlfriend. Have you always been into the Goth type?”
“Not really, but I’m kind of getting off on the Nightmare Before Christmas thing. Plus, she and I share certain interests. Interests I may have already mentioned.”
“You did mention to them, and I’m going to borrow your rule. Your rule about not wanting too much detail about your coworkers.”
“‘Nuff said,” he replied. “Did she lay it on you? I mean did she tell you what she wante
d?”
I sketched in my encounter with Evelyn, leaving out only the part about her trying to undo my pants.
“Good,” he said. “I’ll talk to her when I get home, but could you do me a favor? Could you keep her out of this? We’re doing well. I dig her, and I don’t wanna see her get hurt.”
I scrunched up my brow. “Okay, Randy, but if she’s got pertinent data, if she’s got info that could help me track down Tad, shouldn’t I talk to her?”
The kid sat back on the couch. “Ordinarily, I’d say ‘yes’, but Evelyn is excitable. Just talking to her wouldn’t be enough. I know why she approached you. It’s a dangerous parallel track that could get into trouble. What you and I’re up to is safe by comparison. What she’s into is… fraught.”
“What we’re into is safe, Randy? That kid who got shot in West Hollywood today might disagree.”
“Yeah. Right. That part is troubling. It doesn’t fit with the rest. But Evelyn’s deal… It’s ugly, weird and treacherous. It’s not a road any of us wanna go down. You’ve only got a couple of days left on this case. Monday’s coming up fast. If Evelyn tries to put herself in your path again, could you do me a favor and deflect her?”
I shrugged from the elbows and stood. “You’re the boss, kid.”
Randall took my standing as a signal for him to leave. He did so with good grace. Once I’d locked the door behind him, I walked toward the bathroom, discarding items of clothing until I reached it. When I got to the tub, I was naked, and I slipped into the hot, frothy water. Ava was sitting on the toilet lid with a loofa in her lap. As soon as I was seated, she got on her knees beside the tub and scrubbed my back. After a bit of warm-up, she reached down between my legs and took my cock tenderly into her small hand. I swatted her small hand away. “Not now,” I said. “Willie Wonka went through the wringer today.”
4 The Concordance
My head was in a weird place when I turned in. Like when you’ve got the flu and you’re not sure for a while if you’re asleep or not. Once I was fully under, Noah Nguyen haunted my dreams. My waking self knew the truth: I hadn’t gotten him killed. I was likely in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he would’ve died whether or not I’d been there. My sleeping self knew no such thing. When I replayed the scene at his apartment, I sent a mysterious signal to the kid’s killer. A psychic signal as obvious as a flare. I’d led the shooter to his quarry. If I hadn’t been there, the hit could never have happened. My unconscious mind wanted me to do penance.
Ava had cleaned up my face the night before, so it didn’t look as bad when I set out Saturday morning. I had two tasks dancing in my brain pan as I headed toward the Jeep: 1) I would spend the morning digging into Noah Nguyen and 2) In the afternoon or evening, I’d head back to Glendale and stake out the Gasparyan house. Both tasks were dangerous.
Seeing what I could see about Noah wouldn’t be physically dangerous—especially since I’d be staying as far away as I could from Ivory Snowden. No, the “danger” in the task was one of judgement. Was I trying to learn more about Nguyen because it’d help my case, or was I doing it because I felt bad about his sudden death? The dreams of the previous evening had made a deep impression.
Hanging around Kohar’s house was physically dangerous, and not only because the grandson I’d yet to meet was a member of organized crime. Kohar had boasted about her skills with a rifle. I didn’t doubt her for a second.
I wasn’t looking forward to the day. I was also fully aware I had one day to wrap things up or Randall would lose his job.
Right as I was getting into my ride, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I pulled it out and looked at it. It was a text from Dennis Hill, and it said, “I’m at the Holiday Inn on Santa Monica Boulevard. Near the NuArt. Get down here as quick as you can”.
I took my old friend up on his invitation—mostly because it involved doing something that wasn’t one of the other things I had planned.
I parked on Beloit Avenue and backtracked on foot to Santa Monica. I peeked into the Holiday Inn garage and thought I saw Dennis’ car. Still, I figured it was better to go in through the front. Luckily, my friend was in the lobby with one uniform and what I guessed was the hotel manager. Dennis had his notebook and was nodding and writing as the manager talked. I joined the three men and said, “What’d I miss?”
Hill didn’t want to interrupt his conversation with the manager, so he turned to the uniform. “Welk, would you…?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said. The policemen took me by the elbow and pulled away closer to the windows looking out onto the street.
I’d met Welk a time or two. He was Dennis’ favored wingman. “What gives?”
The cop was taller than me and geeky-looking for a cop. He had an Ichabod Crane neck with a prominent Adam’s apple. He wasn’t un-handsome, just weirdly birdlike. “There was a fight here this morning,” he said. “Between a long-term guest and a guy with David Lynch hair.”
“David Lynch hair? Dennis briefed you on the Nguyen murder?”
“Not only did he brief me, the manager, when we asked him to describe the perpetrator, said, I kid you not, ‘The guy had David Lynch hair’. Dennis texted you right after.”
“No shit? I saw the David Lynch guy hair in Glendale yesterday afternoon. After the WeHo murder.”
“I’m sure Dennis is gonna wanna hear that.”
“He will. What time did this beating go down?”
Welk turned his head sideways and scratched his neck as he answered. The gesture made him look even more crane-like. “Nine a.m. according to the guy at the desk. The one who put in the call. It was a floor above the lobby and the dude could tell just from the noise he needed to involve the fuzz.”
“Did he see David Lynch come in?”
“Yeah. Him and the manager both. They watched him and didn’t think anything of it. So much so the manager went back into the office to do some paperwork.”
I nodded. “I’ve seen the guy twice now and there’s nothing inherently suspicious about him.” I looked past Welk toward the desk. A girl with cute, cropped brown hair now manned it. “Where’s the desk dude? The one who called it in?”
“He had classes at UCLA. Dennis got the Reader’s Digest and told him to go to school.”
“What about this long-term tenant? Was he the beat-ee?”
“Yeah. It was a lady. The long-term tenant.”
I took a step back and gave him the side eye. “David Lynch came in bright and early and put the hurt on a lady?”
“That’s about the size of it,” the uniform replied.
“I’m assuming Lynch beat a hasty retreat?”
“Oh, fer sure, yeah. Our perp was gone before hotel security reached the room.”
“What about the lady? Is she still on site?”
Welk shook his head. “They took her to St. John’s. Possible concussion.”
“Okay. What about—?”
Right then Dennis Hill joined us by the windows. “You get him up to speed?” he asked Welk.
“I’d say so.”
“So, David Lynch beat up some lady?” I said.
Hill gave Welk a cranky look. “You told me you had him up to speed.”
Welk shrugged.
“What?” I said. “What’d he leave out?”
“David Lynch’s victim was named Nikki. Nikki Nguyen.”
Dennis Hill, Officer Welk and I walked up the front sidewalk of St. John’s. As we did, I noticed some odd little birds sitting in the bushes next to the entry. They were blue all over except for their bright red heads. My father had been a birder, and I was familiar with most California species. These guys didn’t ring a bell. I had to shake that mystery out of my head to focus on the more relevant one at hand. We went into the lobby and Dennis stopped to talk to someone at the front desk. “Okay, good,” he said when he came back. “They admitted her for observation. And she’s conscious. Mason, you wait here. Jack, you’re with me.”
Mason Welk waited in the lobby as Hill
and I headed for the elevators. As we boarded and Dennis pressed the button for the proper floor, I said, “Why’re you being so nice to me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not a cop. This is official police business. I mean we’re friends and all, but most cops’d rather take a sack of shit with them than a private detective.”
He grinned. “We’re friends and all, but I’ve always thought of you as a sack of shit.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Seriously.”
“You got me started on this. You gave me my only lead on the shooter. Plus, you were the last one to talk to the victim alive. You won’t give me any of the details of your case and that pains me, but I think I’ve caught you in a loophole.”
“Yeah? What loophole?”
“I’m gonna let you co-interrogate the victim’s sister. It’s a golden opportunity, and you can’t afford to be cagey. I figure I can learn just as much from your questions as I can from her answers.”
“Wow,” I said with a smile. “Now who’s a sack of shit?”
The elevator opened and Hill took a moment to read the arrows on the wall we faced. Once he picked the one with the right spread of numbers, we set off in that direction. We had to weave around busy hospital personnel and patients who were obviously newly ambulatory. At last we came to Nikki Nguyen’s room. We ducked in and the girl was sitting up in bed. She had two black eyes and a cut on the right side of her mouth. She looked a lot like her brother. She’d’ve been pretty were it not for the recent pounding. When she saw Dennis, she spoke to him in a raised voice. “Hey! They admitted me! I’m stuck here!”
Hill had his notebook and pencil in his right hand. Despite that, he raised both hands in a sign of helplessness. “That’s on the docs,” he said. “Hell, I didn’t even call the ambulance. That was the Holiday Inn.”
“But I don’t wanna be here! It’s not safe.”
Dennis’ brow furrowed. “You think your assailant might come here?”
