"Where are the tapes?"
"I gave them to Gus."
"Come on."
"I gave them to him. He sent me on an errand and I delivered."
"That's a strong-looking knee. Pity to pulverize it to bone meal." I stepped on the back of his leg and bore down. It forced his head up, had to hurt.
"Stop! Okay. I made a copy. I had to. For leverage. What if Gus wanted me out of the way one day? I mean I was his golden boy now but you could never know, right?"
"Where are they?"
"In my bedroom. Taped to the bottom of the mattress."
"Don't go away." I released my foot.
He gnashed his teeth like a netted shark.
I found three unmarked cassettes where he said they'd be, pocketed them and returned.
"Tell me some names. Of the molesters in the Brigade."
He recited like a kid delivering his confirmation speech. Automatic. Nervous. Overly rehearsed.
"Any more?"
"Isn't that enough?"
He had a point. He'd mentioned a well-known film director, a deputy D.A." a political biggie--a behind-the-scenes man who managed to stay in front-corporate attorneys. Doctors. Bankers. Real estate honchos. Men whose names usually got in print when they donated something or won an award for humanitarian service. Men whose names on a campaign endorsement roster brought in votes. Ned Biondi would have enough to turn L.A. society on its ear for quite some time.
"You're not going to forget all of this when the police ask you about it, are you, Tim?"
"No! Why should I? Maybe cooperating can buy me out?"
"You're not getting out. Accept it. But at least," I added, "you won't end up fertilizing McCaffrey's vegetable patch."
He considered that. It must have been hard to count his blessings with the ropes biting into his wrists and ankles.
"Listen," he said, "I've helped you. Help me make a deal. I'll cooperate--I didn't kill anyone."
The power he attributed to me was fictitious. I used it anyway.
"I'll do what I can," I said magnanimously, "but a lot of it's up to you. If the Quinn kid gets out of this healthy, I'll go to bat for you. If not, you're down the toilet."
"Then get going, for God's sake! Get her out of there! I don't give her more than a day. Will put Gus off but it won't be for long. She'll have an accident. They'll never find the body. It's just a matter of time. Gus is sure she saw too much."
"Tell me what I need to get her out of there safely."
He looked away.
"I lied about where she is. It's not the furthest building, it's the one just before it. With the blue door. Metal door. There's a key in the pocket of my tan pants. Hanging in the closet in my room."
I left him, fished it out and came back dangling the key.
"You're batting a thousand, Tim."
"I'm being straight with you. Just help me."
"Is anyone with her?"
"No. There's no need. Will has her on sedatives. Mostly she's out of it or sleeping. They send in someone to feed her, clean her up. She's strapped to the bed. The room's solid, concrete block. Only one way in-through the door. There's a single skylight window they keep open. Close it, anyone inside suffocates in forty-eight hours."
"Could Will Towle get into La Casa without arousing suspicion?"
"Sure. Like I told you, he's on twenty-four-hour call for when the Gentlemen get too rough on the kids. Most of the time it's nothing serious--scrapes, lacerations. Sometimes the kids freak out, he gives them Valium or Mellaril, or a quick dose of Thorazine. Yeah, he could show up any time."
"Good. You're going to call him, Tim. You're going to tell him he needs to make just such an emergency call. I want him entering La Casa a half-hour after dark--let's say seven-thirty. Make sure he's on time. And alone. Make it sound convincing."
"I could be more convincing if I could move around a little bit."
"Work with what you've got. I have faith in you. Use your dramatic training. You were pretty good as Bill Roberts."
"How'd you kn--"
"I didn't. Now I do. It was an educated guess. You're a trained actor, you were a natural for the part. Did your role include killing Hickle, too?"
"Ancient history," he said. "Yeah, I made the call. Setting it up in your office was Hayden's idea of a joke. He's a mean little mother. Sick sense of humor. But like I told you before, I didn't kill anybody. For the Hickle thing I wasn't even there. That was all Hayden and Cousin Will. They--and Gus--decided to shut him up--same old story, I guess. Hickle was a member of the Brigade, one of the originals. But he free-lanced with the kids at his wife's school.
"I remember after he got busted, the three of them were talking about it. Gus was ranting. "Damned stupid shithead!" he was yelling, "I furnish that fool with enough hairless pussy to keep him smiling for the rest of his life and he goes and does a dumbshit thing like this!" The way I figured it Hickle'd always been regarded as weak and stupid, easily influenced. They bet that once he started confessing the school stuff he'd open his yap and bring it all down around them. They had to put him away.
"The way they did it was for Hayden to call him and tell him he had good news. Hickle'd asked Hayden to pull strings downtown with the DA., which just goes to show you how stupid he was. I mean at that time Hickle was page one. Just knowing him was the kiss of death. But he called Hayden, asked him anyway. Hayden faked it like he was going to try to help. Couple days later he called him, said yeah, there was good news, he could help. They met at Hayden's house, very hush-hush, no one around. From what I gather Will slipped something in his tea--the guy didn't drink booze. Something you could time precisely and that wore off, so traces were hard to find unless you were looking for something specifically. Will fixed the dosage--he's good at that. When Hickle was out they moved him to your place. Hayden picked the lock--he's good with his hands, does magic shows for the kids at La Casa. Dresses up like a clown--Blimbo the Clown--and does magic tricks."
"Forget magic. Go on about Hickle."
"That's it. They got him up there, faked the suicide I don't know who pulled the trigger. I wasn't there. The only reason I know anything about it is I did the Bill Roberts bit and a few days later Gus told me what it was all about. He was in one of those dark moods when he talks like a megalomaniac. "Don't think your cousin the doctor is all that noble, my boy," he was saying. "I can fry his ass and the asses of lots of noble men with one phone call." He gets that way--anti-rich, after he thinks back to how he was poor and all us rich folk mistreated him. That night, after they killed Hickle, we were sitting in his office. He was drinking gin and he started to reminisce about how he used to work for Mr. Hickle-- Hickle's father--from the time he was a little kid. He was an orphan and some agency basically sold him to the Hickles, like a slave. He said old Hickle had been a monster. Vicious temper, liked to kick the help around. He told me how he took it, kept his eyes open, learned all the nasty family secrets--like Stuart's kinks, other stuff--saved it all up and used it to get off Brindamoor, to get the job at Jedson. I remember him smiling at me, half-drunk, looking crazy. "I learned early," he said, 'that knowledge is power." Then he talked about Earl, how the guy was damaged goods, but would do anything for him. "He'd eat my shit and call it caviar," he said. "That's power." "
Kruger had arched his back, picking his head up, stiff-necked, as he talked. Now exhausted, he sank back down.
"I guess," he said, "he's getting back at all of us." He lay in the ochre stain of dried urine, pitiful. "Anything else you want to tell me, Tim?" "I can't think of anything. You ask, I'll tell." I saw a tension travel up and down his bound limbs like a handcar on a twisted track and kept my distance.
There was a phone on the floor several feet away. I brought it near, stayed away from his arms and laid the speaker near his mouth. Holding the gun to his brow I punched in Towle's office number and stepped back.
"Make it good."
He did. I would have been convinced. I hoped Towle was. He
signaled me the conversation was through by moving his eyes back and forth. I hung up and had him make a second call, to the security desk at La Casa to set up the doctor's visit.
"How was that?" he asked when he was through.
"Rave review."
Oddly enough that seemed to please him.
"Tell me, Tim, how are your sinuses?"
The question didn't throw him. "Great," he blurted out, "I'm never sick." He said it with the bravado of the habitual athlete who believes exercise and firm muscles are guarantees of immortality.
"Good. Then this shouldn't bother you." I crammed a towel into his mouth while he made enraged, muffled noises through the terrycloth. Carefully I dragged him to the bedroom, emptied the closet of anything that resembled a tool or weapon and shoved him inside, molding him to the confines of the tiny space.
"If I get out of La Casa with the kid and myself in good shape I'll tell the police where to find you. If I don't, you'll probably suffocate. Anything else you want to tell me?"
A shake of the head. Beseeching eyes. I closed the door and moved a heavy dresser in front of it. I replaced the gun in my waistband, closed all the windows in the apartment, drew the bedroom curtains and shut the bedroom door, blocking it with two chairs stood on end. I cut his phone line with a kitchen knife, drew the drapes so that the view of the ocean was erased and gave the place a final once over Satisfied, I walked out the door, slamming it tight.
28
The Seville was running, but shakily, as a result of the grand prix with Halstead. It was also too conspicuous for my purposes. I left it in a lot in Westwood Village, walked two blocks to a Budget Rent-A-Car and picked up a dark brown Japanese compact--one of those square little boxes of molded plastic papered with an allegedly metal shell. It took fifteen minutes to putt-putt through the traffic from one end of the village to the other. I pulled into the Bullocks garage, locked the gun in the glove compartment, locked the car and went shopping.
I bought a pair of jeans, thick socks, crepe-soled shoes, navy blue turtleneck and a windbreaker of the same dark hue. Everything in the store was tagged with plastic alarm clips and it took the salesgirl several minutes to liberate the garments after she'd taken my money.
"Wonderful world," I murmured.
"You think this is bad, we have the expensive stuff--leather, furs--under lock and key. Otherwise they just waltz right out with it."
We shared righteous sighs and, after being informed I was likely to be under surveillance, I decided not to change in the store's dressing room.
It was just past six and dark by the time I was back on the street. Time enough to grab a steak sandwich, Greek salad, vanilla ice cream and lots of black coffee and watch the starless sky from the vantage point of a front table in a mom-and-pop eatery on West Pico. At six-thirty I paid the tab and went into the restaurant's men's room to change. While slipping into my new duds I noticed a piece of folded paper on the floor. I picked it up. It was the copy of the Lilah Towle accident story given to me by Margaret Dopplemeier. I tried to read it again, with not much greater success. I was able to make out something about the Coast Guard and high tides, but that was it. I put it back in the jacket pocket, straightened up and got ready to head for Malibu.
There was a pay phone at the back of the cafe, and I used it to call the West L.A. station. I thought of leaving a convoluted message for Milo, then thought better of it and asked for Delano Hardy. After being kept waiting for five minutes I was finally told he was out on a call. I left the convoluted message for him, paid the check, and headed for Malibu.
It was slow going but I'd constructed my schedule with that in mind. I reached Rambla Pacifica just before seven, and the county sign announcing La Casa de los Ninos at ten after. The sky was empty and dark, like a drop down an endless well. A coyote howled from a distant gully. Nightbirds and bats flittered and squeaked. I switched off my headlights and navigated the next mile and a half by sense of touch. It wasn't all that difficult, but the little car resonated at every crack and bump in the road, and transmitted the shock waves directly through my skeletal system.
I came to a stop a half-mile before the La Casa turnoff. It was seven-fifteen. There were no other vehicles on the road. Praying it stayed that way, I swung the car perpendicular to the road and blocked both lanes: rear wheels facing the ravine that bordered the highway, front tires nosing the thick brush to the west. I sat in the darkened compartment, gun in hand, waiting.
At twenty-three after seven I heard the sound of an approaching engine. A minute later the Lincoln's square headlights came into view a quarter-mile up the road. I jumped out of the car, ran for cover in the brush and crouched, holding my breath.
He saw the empty car late and had to screech to a stop. He left his motor running, the lights on, and walked into the beam, cursing. The white hair gleamed silver. He wore a charcoal double-breasted blazer over a white open-necked shirt, along with black flannel pants and black-and-white golf shoes with tassels. Not a crease, not a wrinkle.
He ran a hand alongside the flank of the little car, touched the hood, grunted, and leaned through the open driver's door.
It was then that I sprang silently on crepe and put the gun in the small of his back.
As a matter of taste and principle I hate firearms. My father loved them, collected them. First there were the Lugers he brought home as World War II mementos. Then the deer rifles, the shotguns, automatic pistols picked up in pawn shops, an old rusted Colt.45, nasty-looking Italian pistols with long snouts and engraved butts, blue steel.22s. Lovingly polished and displayed in the den, behind the glass of a cherry wood case. Most of them loaded, the old man toying with them while watching TV. Calling me over to show off the details of construction, the niceties of ornamentation; talk of chamber velocity, core, bore, muzzle, grip. The smell of machine oil. The odor of burnt matches that permeated his hands. As a small child I'd have nightmares of the guns leaving their perches, like pets slipping out of their cages, taking on instincts of their own, barking and snarling
One time he had a fight with my mother, a loud and nasty one. In anger he went to the case and snatched at the first thing he put his hands on--a Luger: Teutonically efficient. He pointed it at her. I could see it now: she screaming "Harry!"; he realizing what he was doing; horrified, dropping the gun as if it were a venomous sea creature; reaching out to her, stuttering apologies. He never did it again, but the memory changed him, them--and me, five years old, standing, blanket in hand, half-hidden by the door, watching. Since then I've hated guns. But at that moment I loved the feel of the.38 as it dented Towle's blazer.
"Get in the car," I whispered. "Sit behind the wheel and don't move or I'll blow your guts out."
He obeyed. Quickly I ran to the passenger side and in beside him.
"You," he said.
"Start the engine." I put the gun in his side, rougher than I had to be.
The little car coughed to life.
"Pull it to the side of the road, so that the driver's door is right up against that rock. Then turn off the engine and throw the key out the window." He did as he was told, the noble profile steady.
I got out and ordered him to do likewise. The way I'd had him park, the exit from the driver's side was blocked by forty feet of granite. He slid out the passenger's side and stood motionless and stoic at the edge of the empty road.
"Hands up."
He gave me a superior look and complied.
"This is outrageous," he said.
"Use one hand to remove your car keys. Toss them gently on the ground over there." I pointed to a spot fifteen feet away. Keeping the gun trained on him, I scooped them up.
"Walk to your car, get in on the driver's side. Put both hands on the wheel where I can see them."
I followed him to the Lincoln. I got in the back, right behind him, and placed the tip of the gun in the hollow at the base of his skull.
"You know your anatomy," I said softly. "One bullet to the medulla oblongata a
nd the lights go out forever."
He said nothing. "You've done a find job of mucking up your life and the lives of plenty of others. Now it's coming down on you. What I'm offering you is a chance for partial redemption. Save a life for once, instead of destroying it."
"I've saved many lived in my day. I'm a physician."
"I know, you're a saintly healer. Where were you when it came to saving Gary Nemeth?"
A dry, croaking sound came from deep inside of him. But he maintained his composure.
"You know everything, I suppose."
"Just about. Cousin Tim can be talkative when the circumstances are right." I gave him a few examples of what I knew. He was unmoved, stoic, hands melded to the wheel, a white-haired mannikin set up for display.
"You knew my name before we met," I said, "from the Hickle thing. When I called you invited me to the office. To see how much Melody had told me. It didn't make sense to me then, a busy pediatrician taking the time to sit and chat face-to-face. Anything we spoke about could have been discussed over the phone.
When the Bough Breaks Page 36
