Kind of Blue

by Miles Corwin

  “I don’t even know if these figures mean anything,” I said. “They might have no connection whatsoever to Relovich’s murder. But the way they were hidden interests me. And I don’t have a hell of a lot at this stage of the investigation. So I might as well track them. Any way to find out where they came from? Any way to see if they were stolen?”

  Papazian swiveled around, hunched over his computer for a few minutes—typing with two fingers—printed out a half dozen pages and handed them to me. “I’ve listed a few databases for stolen art and some netsuke associations I worked with on my case. You can search their Web sites and see if there’s any record of them.”

  “Thanks for the help,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

  “Before you go, let me mention something to you. Since you live around a lot of painters, let me know if you come across any promising ones who’re still flying under the radar. I’m always looking to pick up pieces by artists before they’re discovered by those westside collectors who drive the prices out of sight.”

  “Will do. And thanks again.”

  I cut through the squad room to Felony Special. There was a note on my desk from Duffy: “Wegland called. He wants you to stop by his office.”

  I took the elevator to the sixth floor and stood in the doorway of the anteroom adjacent to Wegland’s office. The commander’s adjutant, Conrad Patowski, was staring at his computer screen.

  I knocked on the open door. Patowski jerked around, surprised, and looked up at me.

  “Yes, Ash,” he said, sounding irritated.

  “Is Wegland free?”

  Patowski frowned as he perused a daybook.

  “You really should call ahead for an appointment,” Patowski said, frowning.

  “Wegland wants to see me.”

  Patowski rubbed his palms together. “That’s different.”

  He slipped into Wegland’s office, returned a minute later, and intoned somberly, “The commander will see you now.”

  Wegland must have had a busy morning because his comb-over, usually carefully sprayed into place, was disheveled and peaked at the top of his head like the wick on a candle. “So how’s the investigation coming?”

  I explained how I found the Japanese figures underneath the tile at Relovich’s. “I just talked to Papazian. I’m trying to figure out where they came from. If they were stolen, that might be a lead.”

  “Pete Relovich was no thief,” Wegland said indignantly.

  “I’m not saying he was. Maybe someone else hid them. Maybe Pete didn’t know they were there.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Before you go, I want to talk to you about something. I’m not your commanding officer and you’re not working for me, so I can’t tell you how to conduct this investigation. But I know from a friend of mine at Internal Affairs that they’re not happy about you nosing around there.”

  “I’m not nosing around,” I said, irritated. “I’m conducting a murder investigation.”

  “Well, the Internal Affairs people think you’re pursuing this angle because you’re pissed that they nailed you with that suspension Duffy recommended. They think you’re following this lead so you can dig up something on them. Some sort of vendetta.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it!” I snapped.

  “You do what you have to do. I’m just giving you a heads-up.” He lightly touched his hair with his palms. “Something else I wanted to mention. I heard about what happened the other morning with Graup-mann. You can scrap on the squad room floor with anyone you want. I don’t really care. But that kind of thing’s going to hurt your credibility. It’ll hurt this investigation. And that’s something I do care about. So let me give you some free advice—”

  “Save it,” I said as I walked to the door. “You heard about my desk?”

  “I did. But how do you know it was Graupmann?”

  “It’s pretty damn obvious.”

  Wegland walked over and slapped me on the shoulder. “Good work finding that stuff beneath the tiles. Bottom line is we’re both on the same side; we both want the same thing. I care about this investigation—just as much as you—and I just don’t want anything hindering it.”

  When I returned to the squad room, I flipped on the computer. As I searched art theft and netsuke sites, I heard Graupmann tell his partner how much he missed the LAPD’s good old days. “We used to be a real police department. Now we’re just a division of the fucking ACLU. The guys on the street are castrated. They pull over some asshole and say, ‘Excuse me sir, would you please put your hands behind your back.’ If the guy doesn’t comply, they don’t know what to do. They call their sergeant, their lieutenant, their captain, like they’re running to their mommy for help.

  “When I came up we asked them to put their hands behind their backs. If they didn’t, we told them. Then we showed them. Then we beat them. Then we choked them. And if they still hadn’t complied, we shot them.”

  A few detectives chuckled. But I had spent so much time around badge-heavy cops that I was bored by the macho rap.

  Graupmann then launched into a disquisition on his number one travel rule when he visited other cities to search for a fleeing suspect. “I immediately check out the maps and find out where Martin Luther King Street is. Every city has one. Then I make a point to avoid it. Because there’s one thing I know—that it’ll be one of the most high-crime streets in the city, where people are peddling drugs on every other corner, where the odds are you’ll be carjacked, ripped off, robbed, or beaten, before you go a dozen blocks.”

  While I was trying to tune out Graupmann, Papazian stopped by my desk. “I thought of something else that might help you.” He handed me a piece of paper with some names and phone numbers scrawled at the top. “Here are two gallery dealers. They’re both knowledgeable about Asian art. They’ll be able to help you out with those objects you found. I gave them both a heads-up that you might be calling. One of ’em is an old fag who’s got a gallery in Westwood. The other one’s a babe who’s got one in Venice. Either one should be able to fill you in. If you need anything else, I’ll be glad to do what I can.”

  I thanked him, and returned to my computer. I finished searching the Web sites, but could not trace the netsuke. After studying the names on the piece of paper Papazian had given me, I called the woman in Venice and set up an appointment with her in the late afternoon. Then I called the old guy, but a woman at the gallery who answered the phone told me he was out of the country until the end of the month. I asked if there was anyone else at the gallery who was knowledgeable about Japanese art.

  “There is not,” she said curtly, and hung up.

  As I walked out the door, Duffy waved me into his office. “I hear you had a cordial visit with Commander Wegland.”

  “I couldn’t believe it. He was giving me a hard time about visiting Internal Affairs and about my fight with Graupmann. He’s got his head up his ass.”

  “It’s good to keep him on our side.”

  “Doesn’t seem like he is.”

  “Oh, he is. Let me tell you something.” He tapped his temple with a forefinger. “Deputy Chief Grazzo thinks you’re fucking unbalanced. Quitting the department in a snit, along with your other crazy habits. But on my recommendation, he goes out on a limb and brings you back. Then he hears about you going fist city with Graupmann. He wanted to bounce you off the case. But Wegland stepped up big time and persuaded Grazzo to stay the course with you. Wegland might be a pencil-neck geek, but he’s very well connected in this department. He’s got a lot of clout. And he’s with us—with you—on this one. He’s convinced—in fact he told me this—that the best way to clear this case is to turn you loose on it.”

  Duffy clasped his hands and said, “He’s not the most personable guy in the world. But I think he laid that shit on you about Graupmann and Internal Affairs because he was trying to let you know that you don’t have much of a margin for error anymore. I also think he was trying to warn you and, when you get right
down to it, I think he was trying to protect you.”

  I started to walk out, but lingered in the doorway for a moment and then turned around. Duffy was leafing through a sixty-dayer. “You mentioned that South Bureau Homicide was handling the Patton case,” I said. “How about the Bae Soo Sung homicide?”

  “I had to ship both of ’em back to South Bureau,” Duffy said, without looking up.

  “When we picked up the Sung case, they hadn’t done shit,” I said.

  “Well, we didn’t do so well on it either, did we?” Duffy said, finally pushing the sixty-dayer aside and looking up at me.

  “It’s important to me that—”

  Duffy slammed his palm on his desk. “Leave it alone, Ash. That case got you suspended, sunk your marriage, and almost ruined your fucking life. Now you’re back with a clean slate. Be smart. You don’t want any part of it. I wish they’d never sent it over to us in the first place. As far as I’m concerned, those South Central homicide dicks can have both cases.”

  • • •

  I drove to Venice to see Nicole Haddad, the gallery owner referred to me by Papazian. The gallery was flanked by an antique store and a herbal medicine/massage clinic. I opened the door, a single shimmering sheet of stainless steel, and walked inside. The long, narrow gallery was a sleek, spare space with blonde hardwood floors, and brightly illuminated by overhead track lighting. It housed an eclectic array of artwork, ranging from jagged cement sculptures to huge canvases displaying Rorschach test pen-and-ink swirls.

  “Can I interest you in anything?” a woman asked.

  Startled, I swiveled around. She was almost six feet tall, about the same size as me, with an olive complexion and startling eyes that I initially thought were brown, but then flickered with specks of green when she turned her head, catching the gallery’s overhead lights. Her hair was cut in a bob with the sides sharply sheared just below her ears, two parallel black slashes. She wore black pants, a black silk jacket with a Chinese collar, and a pale green blouse that matched her carved jade earrings.

  “I’m looking for Nicole Haddad.”

  “Oh,” she said, looking surprised. “You must be Detective Levine. I didn’t think you were a—”

  “A cop?” I interrupted.

  “Yes,” she said flatly.

  “So what do I look like?” I asked, smiling.

  “You look like the kind of guy who might buy some art.”

  I handed her my card, and she studied it for a moment, nodding with recognition. “I know who you are. I just Googled you.” For a moment, she stared at me so brazenly that I felt a bit exposed. She lightly touched my chest with the tip of a long red fingernail and said, “You’ve been in some trouble.”

  Unlike Virginia Saucedo, the Internal Affairs detective who slipped me her card, Haddad did not gaze at me with that maternal expression of concern. She seemed to find something alluring about my brush with notoriety.

  “But I know you’re not here to talk about that,” Haddad said, grabbing my arm and leading me back to her office.

  She sat behind a small, antique desk, inlaid with arabesques of mother of pearl, and said, “Detective Papazian said you might be calling. He said you’ve got some interesting things to show me.”

  “Do you know much about Japanese art?”

  She extended her hand toward the gallery and said, “The westside buyers only want contemporary art. But my knowledge is a little broader. I have a master’s in art history from UCLA. I was in the Ph.D. program, but dropped out. Japanese antiquities are one of my passions.” She dropped her chin and gazed up at me. “Do my qualifications meet with your approval?”

  I pulled the jewelry bag out of my pocket, and emptied it on her blotter. She studied the objects through a jeweler’s loupe. Then she picked up the netsuke, flicked on a small flashlight, and examined it and the smaller object. As I leaned over, watching her work, I caught the herbal scent of her hair.

  “I don’t want to bore you, Detective Levine, with too much background, so tell me how much you want to know.”

  “Take it from the top.”

  She carefully set the object at the corner of her desk blotter. “Okay. During the Edo and Meiji periods in Japan everyone wore kimonos.”

  “What time period are we talking about?”

  “Roughly, from about sixteen hundred to just after nineteen hundred. Kimonos were wonderful. They were exquisite creations, functional works of art. They were only missing one important thing: pockets. Women usually tucked their personal items into their sashes or in their sleeves. Men created their own pockets. They had cases for things like pipes and tobacco, sake, and knives, and hung them from their kimono sashes with a cord. The cord was secured to the sash by a kind of toggle—the netsuke. A bead was used to slip down the cord and secure the pouches.” She picked up the smaller object found at Relovich’s house. “This is that slip-bead. It’s called an ojime.”

  “They’re both beautifully made,” I said.

  “The Japanese have a very interesting attitude toward beauty, form, and function. They believe the practical should be aesthetic and the aesthetic should be practical.”

  “What can you tell me about these particular pieces.”

  She picked up the ojime. “See the horns, the fangs, the terrible scowl, the menacing red eyes, the hands with three fingers, the feet with three toes. This is what the Japanese called an Oni. He represents bad luck and sickness and evil. He’s a devil.”

  She set the netsuke next to it. “Now look at this stout fellow with his long robe and his sword and his purposeful expression. He’s a demon queller. The Japanese called him Shoki.”

  “Were Oni and Shoki always together on the kimono?”

  “No. But sometimes they are. These two pieces are probably a set.”

  “Are these pieces worth much?”

  She held the netsuke and then the ojime to the light. “The most valuable ones can sell for more than thirty thousand dollars. But most of the good ones I’ve seen run between five and ten thousand. These are probably in that range.”

  “I checked some computer sites Dave Papazian told me about. But I couldn’t track them.”

  “Let me give it a try.” She held up my card and then flicked it down on her desk like a blackjack dealer hitting a player. “If I come up with anything, I’ll call you.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  A bloodcurdling scream suddenly echoed from next door. Then another scream, even louder. And another.

  I instinctively tapped the side of my suit coat, over my Beretta.

  Haddad reached over and rapped on the wall with her knuckles. “This isn’t another murder case for you. Just primal scream therapy. A hundred bucks an hour. Welcome to Venice, Detective Levine. When I get home, I scream every night for free.”

  I placed my hands on my thighs, about to stand up, when I paused and said, “Haddad. A Lebanese name.”

  “Very good. How’d you know?”

  “I spent a little time in that part of the word.”

  She turned her head, studied me with one eye. “Levine. A Jewish name.”

  “That’s an easy one.”

  “I’m glad to help you with this case so I can do my part for Arab-Jewish relations,” she said, flashing me an arch look.

  There was something about her that reminded me of those beautiful Israeli women who had intrigued me, with their black hair, green or deep blue almond eyes, and dusky, flawless, makeup-free complexions. She also had the bold, confrontational demeanor of so many Sabra women I’d met.

  “You Muslim or Christian?” I asked.

  She patted her hair and gave me a coquettish look. “Do I look like the type who’d ever wear an chador? Lebanese Christian, of course. But now, the way people in this country view the Arab world, I’m reluctant to even tell people I’m Lebanese. I think I should call myself,” she said with an amused expression, “a Phoenician-American.”

  I decided to change the subject. The less we discuss
ed Arab or Jewish issues—in light of Israel’s recent history in Lebanon—the better off I would be with her. “Any suggestions on where I can go from here to get a line on that ojime and netsuke?”

  “Let me do my own search first.”

  “If you come up with anything,” I said, standing up, “let me know.”

  I drove home through rush hour traffic and walked up to the roof of my building. The pollution and lights of downtown usually obscured the night skies, but it was unusually clear tonight with a dusting of stars overhead. To the east, I could see the back of the old soot-stained Ross-lyn Hotel, its enormous neon sign buzzing and snapping. A police helicopter zipped by—the whap-whap-whap reminding me of nighttime assaults on Hezbollah garrisons—its spotlight scanning the streets for a dirtbag they probably would never find. When it passed, I could hear the contrapuntal blare of sirens, car horns, and rap and cumbia from the passing cars. Below me, two crackheads argued over a cardboard box, a room for one.

  Staring up at the stars, I thought about the Shoki and the Oni. A demon and a demon queller. Isn’t a detective’s job, at its core, to quell demons, or at least chase them? Isn’t it curious that those two objects were found in the house of a retired cop? A retired cop who was killed.

  When I was a detective trainee, Bud Carducci, the salty old cop who taught me the rudiments of homicide investigation, once told me: “Rule one of the homicide dick: there are no coincidences. Rule two: there are no rules.” I interpreted that to mean that coincidences are highly unlikely, but not impossible. Was it a coincidence that Relovich, an excop, had a demon and a demon queller in his house? Did these objects have any connection—even tangentially—to his murder?

  I then thought about the way Nicole Haddad had tapped me on the chest with her fingernail and that jolt I had felt. But I had always made it a point not to date women I met during the course of an investigation. At least until the investigation was finished. Maybe after this case was cleared I’d give her a call. But I knew I probably wouldn’t. The Jewish-Arab thing might be too much to overcome.

  CHAPTER 12