by Tami Hoag
“I’d ask you why you didn’t just call me in and grill me,” he said, “but I know how IA works. Persecute first, ask questions later.”
“Would you have been any more cooperative than you’re being now?” Fuentes asked.
“No. I haven’t done anything wrong. I haven’t done anything illegal. And what I do with my personal time is my personal business. I spent too many years with nothing but this job, and what did it get me? Ground down, and left flat.”
“If you hated it so much, why didn’t you just quit?” Ruiz asked.
Parker shook his head, then clutched it in his hands like a coconut, thinking it might just crack open from the sheer frustration of dealing with such narrow-minded stupidity.
“Did you even think about that before it came out of your mouth?” he asked, astonished that people could be so obtuse. “I don’t hate the job. I love the job! Don’t you get that? Why would I stay if I hated it and someone else was providing me with a six-figure income? Why wouldn’t I tell you all to go fuck yourselves?”
Ruiz just stared at him, trying to look smug and superior, and pulling off neither.
“If you haven’t figured out why I’m still with LAPD, knowing what you know about me, knowing what you were briefed on by whoever sent you here,” Parker said, “you’ll never get it.”
In the old days he would have answered very differently. Back when it was all about him and his image and how many cases he could clear in a month. When all the flash had been stripped away from him, and he’d been forced to take a hard look at himself, it had gradually dawned on him that his career was really about something else, something deeper and more meaningful, more satisfying on a different level.
“What do you do it for, Ruiz?” he asked quietly. “The power? The control? The rush of climbing the ladder? I’ll tell you right now, that’s not enough. If the only goal is the big brass ring, what do you suppose happens to you after you catch it? What does it mean to you? What do you look back on? What do you have?”
“I have a career,” she said.
“You have nothing,” Parker said. “Look inside yourself. You have nothing. I know.”
He looked at Fuentes, who couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Just doing his job, Parker thought bitterly. The panacea for all people who couldn’t otherwise justify their actions.
“I’m taking the rest of the day.”
No one tried to stop him as he walked out the door.
38
The house where Eddie Davis lived in the Hollywood hills looked like something a pornographer might rent to shoot X-rated movies. Seventies hip, a little run-down, an angled flat roof, trapezoidal windows, and teal-green vertical blinds. There was a solid gate leading to the backyard, where Parker knew he would find a kidney-shaped pool, a big hot tub, and a tiki bar. The Eddie Davis Swinging Bachelor Pad.
It wasn’t a high-end neighborhood. No mansions, no big celebs in the immediate area, but probably some mid-range screenwriters, an episodic television director or two. Still, it was probably by far the swankiest place Davis had ever lived in in his entire miserable life. All he needed was the porn actresses naked in his tacky hot tub, and Eddie would be in hog heaven. Good to see he was investing his blackmail money wisely.
Parker sat in his car, up the block. An elevated vantage point. He watched Davis’s house for signs of life, as he waited on hold for his contact at the phone company. James Earl Jones tried to sell him on the idea of Verizon DSL.
“This is Patti. How can I help you?”
“Just the sound of your voice is a balm to my soul, doll.”
He could hear the smile in her tone. “Kev Parker. If you could bottle that charm, you’d have something.”
“Yeah, cheap cologne,” Parker said. “I’m working on it in my free time. Listen, Patti, I need a favor. Can you fax me the local usage details for a possibly notorious criminal mastermind?”
He gave her Davis’s name and address, along with his own home fax number.
“And you’ve got your warrant for this?”
“Not exactly.”
“Kevin . . .”
“I do have courtside tickets to the Lakers–Spurs game next Friday.”
“Courtside?”
“Primo. You’ll be able to smell Jack Nicholson’s breath.”
“That’s never really been a goal of mine.”
“You’ll be the envy of every Lakers fan in the city.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “You know I shouldn’t.”
“No one will be the wiser, doll. None of this goes to court. I just need a break, is all,” Parker said. “And doesn’t your hubby deserve a little night on the town with his favorite girl?”
“He can have a million of them,” Patti said. “I dumped the bastard. But my son would be delighted.”
“They’re yours for the taking. You know, they’re yours either way,” he said. Mr. Magnanimous. “Take your son and have a great time. I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you.”
“Oh, I think they probably did,” she said, but her voice was no longer cheerful. “Everybody tells me I’m better off.”
“Yeah, well, everybody can go through it for you too, then. Let them see what a good time you’re having.”
“Like you would know.”
“I’ve learned from the experiences of my friends.”
He let the silence hang, waiting for Patti to fill it.
“Tell me the warrant is on the way,” she said with a sigh.
“The warrant is on the way. Call me if it gets lost en route,” Parker said. “Pick the tickets up at Will Call. I’ll leave your name.”
There was no activity at Davis’s place. No gardener in the yard. No cleaning woman parked in the driveway. Eddie could have been sleeping off his last murder, Parker supposed, his anger stirring again for Eta and for her family.
An absolutely senseless killing that would alter the lives of many people, and not for the better. And Eddie Davis was lying in bed scratching his balls, or down at Fat Burger, or doing whatever a mouth-breather like that did to pass the day. Sitting around picking his nose and trying to decide if he should go with a mutual fund or put his ill-gotten gains into a big crack-cocaine deal.
Parker eased his car down the hill, past Davis’s driveway, parked, then walked back up to the house. Through the dirty glass panes in the garage door he could see an assortment of older motorcycles, most in various states of disrepair, and a brand-new red Kawasaki Ninja ZX12R sport bike. About twelve K worth of fuel-injected sexy beast. Another sign of Eddie’s new prosperity. There was no big black sedan.
Parker boosted himself up on a big terra-cotta planter full of dead plants to look over the gate into the backyard.
Kidney-shaped pool. Tiki bar. Tacky hot tub. And an ugly orange chow chow that looked like it had mange. The dog got up and sauntered over, sat down and stared up at Parker, then turned to chew at one of the mangy bare spots on its coat.
Parker dropped back down and went to the front door of the house to peer in through the sidelights. The requisite porn-movie furniture—black leather, low-slung sectional sofa, cushions scattered on the living room floor around a Moroccan-looking coffee table made out of a giant hammered brass dish that was littered with beer cans and pizza boxes and open bags of Doritos. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a big, black, phallic, wide-screen television flanked by enormous speakers.
Sliding doors to what was probably the master bedroom were located on the other side of the high wood-plank fence on the south end of the house. As Parker stood on another big pot of dead plants looking in, the chow chow came around from the other side of the house, sat down, and stared at him again. The dog’s eyes were dark, emotionless dots in its big head. Eyes like a stone killer, Parker thought. The bastard would probably take his leg off if he swung it over the fence.
“Hey! Who the fuck are you?”
Parker hopped down from the planter. Eddie Davis stared at him from the driver�
�s side of a black Lincoln Town Car pulled to the curb. He had the same eyes as the dog, and he looked like he’d been tossed into the middle of a hockey brawl—a piece of white tape across his nose, one eye swollen and red, scratches across one cheek.
“Steve,” Parker called, grinning. “You Eddie? Rick sent me.”
“Rick who?”
“You know. Rick from that thing at the beach. He told me you maybe got a bike for sale. A Kawasaki road bike, maybe ninety-eight, ninety-nine? If he’s right, I’ve got money burning a hole in my pocket. I’ve got a hard-on for that bike, you wouldn’t believe.”
“Why were you looking over my fence?”
“I thought maybe you were back at the pool.”
Davis seemed to contemplate whether his greed would outstrip his caution.
“Hey, if you want me to come back another time . . .” Parker offered, spreading his hands. “It’ll have to wait until the end of next week, though. I’m on my way out of town on business. I just thought if I could drive by maybe I’d catch you. . . .”
Davis stared at him for a moment longer.
“It’s your call,” Parker said.
“Hold your coat open.”
“Huh?”
“Hold your coat open.”
To see if he was carrying. To see if he was a cop. Parker held his jacket open.
“Jesus, if you tell me you think I look like a cop, my tailor will kill himself!”
Davis didn’t respond. Same sense of humor as the dog too. He put the Town Car in reverse, backed up, and pulled into the driveway.
Parker walked over, his senses sharpening with each stride, taking in the surroundings, the car, the license plate, a parking sticker on the lower right corner of the back window. He assessed Davis’s body language as he got out of the car—tense, watchful. Parker had no doubt that Davis was carrying a weapon—a gun, a knife, the blade he’d used to cut Eta Fitzgerald’s throat.
The homes in the neighborhood weren’t densely packed together, but they were near enough that Parker thought Davis probably wouldn’t risk killing him in his driveway in broad daylight.
“I don’t know anybody named Rick,” Davis said. His left eye was swollen nearly shut, and tearing. He pressed at it with a dingy handkerchief.
“Rick Dreyer,” Parker said. “Venice Beach. The guy with the tats all up and down his arms and legs. You know. He does the great paint jobs. The guy’s a genius with an airbrush.”
The good eye narrowed. “I know of him.”
Parker shrugged. “Maybe he’s a friend of a friend or something.”
Davis thought about that. The inner workings of his mind moved at the rate of grass growing. “Stench knows him.”
Parker pushed his jacket open again and settled his hands at his waist. “Whatever,” he said with a big I’m-your-pal grin. “Listen, Eddie, I’ve got a plane to catch, so . . .”
Davis pressed the button on the garage-door remote in his hand, and the door started up, grinding and groaning. He tipped his head by way of invitation for Parker to go in. Parker turned a bit sideways, wanting Davis in full view. The guy wasn’t tall, but he was built like a refrigerator.
“So what do you want for this baby?” Parker asked.
“Eight thousand.”
“Holy shit!”
Parker stopped abruptly. Davis went another two steps into the garage before he turned around. The sun hit him in the face and his eyes went shut.
Parker pulled his gun out of the belt holster nestled at the small of his back, and, swinging with both arms, backhanded Davis as hard as he could across the face.
Davis’s head snapped to his right, blood gushing from his already broken nose. He staggered backward, tripping over his own feet, falling. He hit the concrete ass-first, sprawling, arms flailing, the back of his head bouncing off the floor.
Anger and adrenaline pumping, Parker stepped over him, leaned down, stuck the SIG-Sauer in his face.
“Eddie Davis, you’re under arrest for the murder of Eta Fitzgerald. One word out of your fucking mouth and I’ll beat you to death. You would have the right to an attorney, but you killed him too, so you’re shit out of luck. You got that?”
Davis groaned, turned onto his side, coughing, and spat out a mouthful of blood. “Jesus-fucking-Christ!”
Parker gave him a toe in the ribs, and Davis made a sound like a B-movie ninja warrior. “That’s for cursing,” Parker said. “Eta was an upright, churchgoing woman.”
“Who the fuck is Eta?” He sounded like Marlon Brando in The Godfather.
“The mother of four and sole support of her family you cut and left in an alley last night like a sack of garbage, for no reason other than you are a miserable piece-of-shit excuse for a human being. Roll over. On your face.”
Davis groaned, slowly turning onto his elbows and knees. Parker put a foot on his ass and shoved him down.
“What’s going on in there?”
Parker glanced to the side. A shirtless older man who looked like an albino walrus sat at the curb in a golf cart and Bermuda shorts.
“Police busi—”
Parker’s breath went out of him in a sudden whoosh as something hit him hard across the back and ribs. His body twisted away from the pain, and he tripped over Davis’s legs and went down, cracking one kneecap hard on the concrete.
Davis rolled out from under him, struggled to his feet, and hit Parker twice as hard a second time across the back. Parker fell forward into a motorcycle. The bike fell over, hitting a second bike, then a third. They went down like dominoes.
Parker pushed off the bike and went sideways. The length of tailpipe Davis had gotten hold of just missed his head and clanged off a chrome fender.
Parker’s gun was gone, lost in the mess of motorcycle parts on the floor. There was no time to look for it. Parker rolled and came up in a crouch on his feet.
Davis took another vicious swing at him with the pipe, but missed. He looked like a gargoyle now, face contorted, swollen, bleeding, foaming at the mouth. His eyes held the same dead-calm expression as before.
He rushed Parker, raising the pipe over his head. Parker ran backward into the nose of the Town Car, and rolled to the right as Davis brought the pipe crashing down, caving a dent in the hood of the car.
The old guy sat frozen in his cart, mouth agape.
Davis threw the pipe at Parker, got into the car, and gunned the engine. The tires spun and squealed, and the Town Car leapt backward, bashing into the front end of the golf cart, spinning it like a top.
Parker rushed into the garage, found the SIG, and ran back out and down the drive. The old guy had fallen out of his cart and was struggling to his feet. The cart was rolling down the hill on its own.
Limping, cursing, Parker gritted his teeth and ran for his car. With one hand, he caught hold of a roof-support post on a corner of the golf cart, and hopped onto the back end, where the clubs usually rode.
The cart raced downhill. Parker jumped off fifteen feet from his Sebring, and ran hard into the side of it.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” he shouted, tossing the SIG on the passenger’s seat, turning the key in the ignition.
Davis’s Town Car was nearly out of sight, skidding around a curve.
Parker peeled away from the curb and gunned the car down the hill. The golf cart swerved in front of him. He turned the wheel hard left, the back end of the Sebring fishtailing one way, then the other, taking out somebody’s white mailbox and a planter of geraniums.
When he came around the curve, Davis was gone. The road branched off into canyon side streets like streams on a river. Parker spotted no black Town Car going down any of them.
He pulled to the side and called Hollywood Bureau, giving them a description of the car and of Eddie Davis, telling them that he was armed and extremely dangerous.
Eddie Davis. That close, and now he was gone, running. Parker couldn’t know where he’d go. Vermin like Davis had holes everywhere. He would go to ground in one of them,
and no telling when he’d come out.
Now he knew the cops were on to him. Maybe he would try to run. But he didn’t have the negatives, and he was obviously willing to risk anything to get them.
The negatives were the key to luring him into a trap. Davis had no way of knowing Parker had the single negative Lenny had stashed.
Parker tried to call Ito to find out if he had developed the negative Lenny Lowell had hung on to for insurance, but he got Ito’s voice mail instead. He left a message for Ito to call him ASAP, and hung up.
He needed to know what—or who—he was up against. Forewarned, forearmed. The clock was ticking for him to close the case on Lenny Lowell, and open a whole new can of worms. As comeback cases went, this one was shaping up to be a doozie. Ironic, Parker thought, that if he was right about the target of Lenny Lowell’s blackmail scheme—and the reason for the blackmail itself—chances were good this case would be his last. In a city fueled by fame and power, this message would be something nobody wanted delivered: the truth.
39
The media encampment outside the courthouse looked like some kind of techno-geek refugee camp. Lights on poles, generators, wire cable snakes running in all directions on the ground, guys in baggy shorts carrying video cameras with network logos, sound guys in headsets, on-air talent dressed to the nines from neck to waist. From the waist down: baggy shorts, sandals, sneakers.
News vans made their own parking lot. Satellite dishes raised up like strange, giant flowers turning their faces to the sun. Vendors sold cold drinks and cappuccinos, pita sandwiches and burritos, ice cream and frozen fruit bars, vintage bowling shirts and “Free Rob Cole” T-shirts.
The print media were the coyotes of the bunch, roaming at large, not tethered to cables, no need for makeup or lights. Photographers with multiple cameras slung around their necks and ball caps on backward roamed the grounds, hunting for an angle that hadn’t been used. Reporters perched here and there, smoking cigarettes, talking shop.
Parker punched Andi Kelly’s number as he approached the scene.
“Andi Kelly.”
“This is so 1994,” Parker complained. “Hasn’t anybody come up with anything new since O.J.? Isn’t there something more exciting to report on?”
