Stalking the Angel

by Robert Crais

  He turned and went out the back of the kitchen, the midget swaggering behind him. Eddie Tang went with them, walking backward and keeping his eyes on Joe Pike. He stopped in the door, gave Pike a nasty grin, then peeled up his sleeves to show the tattoos. He worked his arms to make the tattoos dance, then snarled and flexed the huge traps so they grew out of his back like spiny wings. Then he left.

  Pike said, “Wow.”

  We went out through the dining room and past the bar. The kid I’d talked to was gone. The Butterfly Lady was busy with customers. People ate. People drank. Life went on.

  When we got back to the Big Boy lot, Pike said, “He knows something.”

  “You got that feeling, huh?”

  Nod.

  “Somebody else might know something, too. Mimi Warren used to come here.”

  The sunglasses moved. “Mimi?” He was doing it, too.

  “She came with friends and she hung out and she probably met a wide variety of sleazy people. Maybe whoever grabbed her was someone she met here and bragged to about what her daddy had sitting in his home safe.”

  “And if we can find the friends, they might know who.”

  “That’s it.”

  The sunglasses moved again. “Uh-huh.”

  Forty minutes later I pulled the Corvette into my carport, parked, went in through the kitchen, and phoned Julian Becker at her office. She said, “Yes?”

  “It’s Elvis Cole. I’d like to talk with you about Mimi and her father and all of this.”

  “You were fired.”

  “That may be, but I’m going to find her. Maybe you can help me do that.”

  There was a pause, and sounds in the background. “I can’t talk now.”

  “Would you have dinner with me tonight at Musso and Frank?”

  Another pause. Thinking about it. “All right.” She didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic. “What time?”

  “Eight o’clock. You can meet me there, or I’ll pick you up. Whichever you prefer.”

  “I’ll meet you there.” It was clear what she preferred.

  After we hung up I pulled off my clothes, took a shower, then fell into a deep uneasy sleep.

  18

  I woke just after six feeling drained and stiff, as if sleeping had been hard work. I went downstairs and flipped on the TV news, and after a while there was something about Mimi’s kidnapping.

  A blond woman who looked like she played racquet-ball twice a day gave the update standing in front of the New Nippon Hotel, “site of the kidnapping.” She said the police and the FBI still had no information as to Mimi’s whereabouts or condition, but were working diligently to effect a positive resolution. The screen cut to a close-up of a photograph of Mimi with a phone number beneath her chin. After the blond woman asked anyone who might have information to call the number, the news anchor segued nicely into a story about a recruitment drive the L.A.P.D. was launching. There was a number to call for that, too.

  Mimi Warren had been given seventeen seconds.

  At seven o’clock I went into the kitchen, drank two glasses of water, then went upstairs to shave and shower. I ran the water hot and rubbed the soap in hard and after the shower I felt a little better. Maybe I was getting used to the pain. Or maybe it was just the thought of dinner with an MBA.

  When I was dry and deodorized, I stood in the door to my closet and wondered what I should wear. Hmmm. I could wear my Groucho Marx nose, but Jillian already thought I joked around too much. My Metaluna Mutant mask? Nah. I pulled on a pair of brown outback pants and gray CJ Bass desert boots and a white Indian hiking shirt and a light blue waiter’s jacket. I looked like an ad for Banana Republic. Maybe Banana Republic would give me a job. They could put my picture in their little catalog and under it they could say: Elvis Cole, famous detective, outfitted for his latest adventure in rugged inner-city climes! Did Banana Republic sell shoulder holsters?

  I went downstairs, put out food for the cat, then locked up and drove down into deepest, darkest Hollywood. Yep. Thinking about dinner with Jillian was working wonders.

  At two minutes before eight, I parked behind Musso and Frank’s Grill on Hollywood Boulevard and went in. Jillian Becker walked in behind me. She was wearing a conservative eggshell pants suit over a light brown shirt and beige pumps. Her nails and her lip gloss were one of those colors between pink and flesh, and went well with the eggshell. Her fingers were slim and manicured and there was a single strand of white pearls around her neck. She looked tired and harassed, but I couldn’t tell that until she was closer. She said, “I’m sorry I’m late.” It was one minute after eight.

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “At the table.”

  A bald man led us into Musso’s huge back room to a very nice booth. There’s a long bar back there and leather booths and it looks very much the way it looked in 1918, when Musso’s opened. A busboy came with sourdough bread and water, then a waiter appeared, giving us menus and asking if we cared for something to drink. I ordered a Dos Equis. Jillian Becker ordered a double Stoly on the rocks. Must have been some kind of day.

  “This room,” I said, “is where Dashiell Hammett first laid eyes on Lillian Hellman. It was a romance that lasted ages.”

  Jillian Becker glanced at her watch. “What did you want to talk about?” So much for romance.

  “Have the cops come up with anything?”

  “No.”

  “Have there been any demands from the kidnappers?”

  “No. The police and the FBI talk to us a dozen times a day. They have a tap on Bradley’s home phone. They have a tap on the office phone. But there’s been nothing.”

  The waiter came back with the drinks. Usually it takes about a year to get your drinks, but sometimes they’re fast. “Are you ready to order?” he said, pencil poised.

  Jillian said, “I’ll have the crab salad.”

  The waiter looked at me.

  “Grilled chicken. Home fries. Broccoli.”

  He nodded twice and wrote it down and left. Jillian lifted her glass and took a long drink.

  “Rough day?”

  “Mr. Cole, I’d rather not discuss my day if it’s all the same to you. You could have asked me what the police had over the phone.”

  “But then I wouldn’t have been able to admire your beauty.”

  She tapped her glass with a manicured fingernail. Guess we’d proceed directly to business.

  I said, “Have you ever heard the name Yuki Torobuni?”

  “No.”

  “Yuki Torobuni owns a dance club downtown called Mr. Moto’s. It’s very new wave, very hip, cocaine in the bathrooms, that kind of place. Yuki Torobuni also heads the yakuza here in L.A. Do you know what the yakuza is?”

  “Like the mafia.”

  “Yeah. How about a guy named Eddie Tang? Ever heard his name?”

  “No.” Impatient. “Why are you asking if I’ve heard of these people? Do you think Bradley’s involved with them?”

  “It crossed my mind.”

  She lifted her glass and took a careful sip, thinking about that. She thought about it for a very long time. When she put the glass down, she said, “All right. It’s reasonable for you to consider every possible solution to a problem.” Business school. “But Bradley is not involved with organized crime. I see where the money comes from, and I see where it goes. If there were something shady going on, I’d know it, or at least suspect it, and I don’t.”

  “Maybe it’s very well hidden.”

  She shook her head. “I’m too good for that.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Let’s try this. I talked to a guy at Mr. Moto’s who told me that Mimi came there often, and that she came with friends.”

  “Mimi?” Everybody does it.

  “Uh-huh. A girl named Carol and another girl named Kerri.”

  Jillian took another sip of her drink. “She’s never mentioned them to me. Not that she necessarily would.”

  “How about other friends?”

&n
bsp; Jillian shook her head again. “I’m sorry. Mimi always seemed very withdrawn. Sheila complains endlessly that she never leaves the house.” Jillian put her glass down and eyed it coolly. “Sheila is something else.”

  The waiter came with a little stand and all of our plates on a large oval tray. He put the stand down by the table, then the tray on the stand. He set out Jillian’s crab salad, then my chicken and broccoli and home fries, and then he took the tray and the stand and left. The chicken smelled wonderful. It always did.

  Jillian said, “Bradley’s not going to pay you a dime, you know. He intends to sue you, if he has to, to recover the money he’s already paid.”

  “He won’t have to do that.” Bradley Warren’s blank check was still in my wallet. I took it out, tore it in quarters, and put it on the table by Jillian Becker’s plate.

  Jillian Becker looked at the check and then at me. She shook her head. “And you’re still going to look for Mimi?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I told Mimi I would take care of her.”

  “And that’s enough.”

  I shrugged. “It’s an ugly job, but somebody has to do it.”

  Jillian frowned and ate some of the crab salad. I had some of the chicken, then a couple of the home fries. Excellent.

  I said, “I need to find out who Mimi hangs out with. Bradley and Sheila might be able to tell me. If they won’t talk to me, maybe you could talk to them for me.”

  Jillian frowned more deeply and put her fork in the crab but only played with it. “Bradley had to fly to Kyoto.”

  The Dos Equis was cold and bitter. I sipped it. I had a little more of the chicken. I had a little of the broccoli. Two guys at the edge of the bar crowd were looking our way. One of the guys was overweight and balding. The other guy was very tall with dark hair and thick glasses and a heavy jaw. He looked like Stephen King. The shorter guy was drinking what looked like scotch rocks. The taller, Campari and soda. They were staring at Jillian and the taller guy was smiling. “His daughter is gone,” I said, “but business continues.”

  Jillian Becker’s lips tightened and she put down her fork and I thought she was going to stand. She didn’t. She said, “Bradley has been very fair to me. He’s treated me just as he’s treated everyone else in his organization. He’s recognized and rewarded my abilities. It’s a good job.”

  “And you’ve got the BMW to prove it.”

  “It’s so easy for you, isn’t it? Tearing up checks. Standing on your head in your office.”

  “How about Sheila? You think I could talk with her?”

  Silence.

  “Sheila went with him.”

  Slow nod.

  I finished off the Dos Equis. “Parents of the Year, all right.”

  Jillian started to say something, then stopped. She looked angry and embarrassed.

  I said, “You could get me into their house. We could look in Mimi’s room.”

  “Bradley would fire me.”

  “Maybe.”

  Her jaw worked and she sipped some water and didn’t say anything for a long time. When she did, she said, “I don’t like you.”

  I nodded.

  Her jaw flexed again, and she stood up. “God damn you,” she said. “Let’s go. I have a key.”

  19

  We took two cars, Jillian pulling out in her white BMW and me following her west along Sunset toward Beverly Hills, then up Beverly Glen to the Warrens’. Jillian parked by the front of the house and I parked next to her. She had the front door open by the time I got out of my car. She said, “Mimi’s room is in the rear. I’ll walk back with you.” She walked in ahead without waiting.

  The big house was as cold as a mausoleum, and our footsteps echoed on the terrazzo entry. I hadn’t heard it when I’d been in the house before, but when I was in the house before there’d been other people and things going on. Now the house seemed abandoned and desolate. Life in an Andrew Wyeth landscape.

  Mimi’s room was big and white and empty the way I remembered it. The single bed was made and tight and the desk was neat and the walls bare and the high shelf of Britannica and Laura Ingalls Wilder just as it had been before. I had hoped that since the last time I had seen the room, posters would have gone up on the walls and someone would have doodled on the desk and a pile of dirty clothes would’ve grown in the corner. Jillian said, “Sixteen years old.” She was standing with her arms crossed and her hands cupping her upper arms, feeling the cold.

  I nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  She looked at me. “As long as I’m here, I may as well help you.”

  “Take the desk.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “Address books, yearbooks, letters, a diary. Anything that might have names and phone numbers. Search one drawer at a time. Empty it item by item, then put it back together. Make yourself go slowly.”

  Jillian went over to the desk and opened the large bottom drawer. Hesitant. She said, “You do this a lot, don’t you? Look through people’s things.”

  “Yes. People keep secrets. You have to look into personal places to find them.”

  “It makes me uncomfortable.”

  “It makes me uncomfortable, too, but there’s no other way.”

  She looked at me some more, then bent to the drawer and started taking out things. I went to the bed, stripped down the covers, threw them into the center of the room, and lifted the mattress off the box springs. No hidden diary. No secret compartments cut into the side of the mattress. I tilted the bed up on its edge. Nothing beneath the box springs. I put the bed back the way it had been, then I looked through the Britannica and the matched set of Laura Ingalls Wilder. A pink $50 Monopoly money bill fell out of volume E of the Britannica. The Laura Ingalls Wilder books had never been opened.

  To the left of the desk there was a walk-in closet. A rail of clothes hung on the right side of the closet with a shoe board and shoes beneath the clothes, each pair neatly together and all the shoes forming a nice neat row. On the left side of the closet there were shelves with more books and game boxes. On the lowest shelf there was a blue hat that said Disneyland and a little stuffed monkey and what had once been an ant farm but was now just an empty plastic box. Next to the ant farm there was a very old set of a children’s encyclopedia and a book about standard poodles that looked like it had been read a lot and four brochures on the work of a Japanese artist named Kira Asano. The brochures showed reproductions of bleak landscapes and described Asano as a dynamic, charismatic visionary whose gallery showings and lectures were not to be missed. One of the brochures had a picture of Asano made up like a samurai with a white and red headband, no shirt, and a samurai sword. Visionary, all right. Beneath the brochures were two slim volumes of what looked like Japanese poetry. There was something handwritten in Japanese in the front of each volume. I put the volumes of poetry aside and called Jillian.

  “Can you read this?”

  “Haiku by Bashō and Issa.” She read the inscriptions and smiled. “They were a gift from someone named Edo. ‘May there always be warm sun.’ ”

  “Can Mimi read Japanese?”

  “Maybe a little. I don’t really know.” Mimi Warren, the Invisible Child.

  I put the poetry back on the shelf. “Did you finish going through the desk?”

  “I didn’t find anything.”

  I nodded. “Okay. I’ll finish here in a minute.”

  “We could carry this stuff out and I could help.”

  “If we carried this stuff out, we wouldn’t remember where it belongs.”

  She cocked her head at me. Curious.

  “These aren’t our things,” I said. “We have to respect that.”

  She stared at me some more, then stepped back. “Of course. I’ll wait in the front.”

  Halfway through the games, I found seven smudged envelopes in a Parcheesi box. They were postmarked Westwood and had been addressed to Ms. Mimi Warren at the Shintazi Hotel in Kyoto, Japan, and were
return-addressed to Traci Louise Fishman, 816 Chandelle Road, Beverly Hills. Both the address and return had been neatly printed in bright, violet ink, with plenty of curlicues and swirls and hearts rather than dots over the i’s. I took out each letter and read it. Traci Louise Fishman was sixteen years old, and wondered why Mimi’s father had to ruin every vacation by dragging her best friend off to Japan. In one letter, she had a crush on a boy named David who went to Birmingham High in Van Nuys, and desperately wanted him to “make her a woman.” In another, David had become a stuck-up shit who wouldn’t look at her, being a typical shallow Valley dude more interested in brainless bimbos with surfer-chick tans than women of intellect and sensitivity. Traci smoked too much, but was going to quit, having read a Harvard Medical School Health Letter which said that teenage girls who smoke would almost certainly have deformed children and breast cancer. She really really really liked Bruce Willis, but she’d just die if she could ever meet Judd Nelson, even though he had a funny-looking nose. Her dad had promised her a new car if she took two summer-session classes at the Glenlake School for Girls so maybe she could graduate one semester early. She was gonna do it ’cause what she wanted more than anything else in the world was a snow-white Volkswagen Rabbit convertible even though her old man was such a cheap shit it would probably never happen. She couldn’t wait for Mimi to get home, she missed their talks soooooooo much! And—ohmyGod, fur shure!—she had spotted in a pair of white pants through a Super Tampax and was so embarrassed she thought she would die!!!! The letters went on. The stuff of life.

  When I had read all seven letters, I returned them to the Parcheesi box, then went through the rest of the boxes, but found nothing else. When I left the closet, Jillian Becker was gone. I made sure the closet was as I had found it, fixed the bed, shut the light, then left and went back through the dark house to the front.

  Jillian was leaning against a little table in the entry with her arms crossed when I got there. I thought she might have looked sad, but maybe not. She said, “Did you find anything?” Her voice was quiet.

  “No mention of Carol or Kerri, but I found seven letters from someone named Traci Louise Fishman. Traci Louise Fishman told Mimi everything that was going on in her life. Maybe Mimi returned the favor.”