by R. J. Kaiser
The bitch turned, disappearing down a side street. Angel stepped hard on the accelerator, sailing right through a stop sign. By the time he got to the corner where she turned, she’d gone another block and was turning again. Christ.
Punching the gas pedal, he quickly reached the next intersection. Another stop sign. He ignored it, which proved to be a bad mistake. He was halfway across the street when a van coming the other way bashed right into his right front fender, spinning him like a top so he was sitting ass backward in the middle of the intersection.
For a moment Angel sat there in a daze. But he wasn’t really hurt. Opening the car door he got out and looked over the top of the car at the driver of the van, an old fart with a gray beard and ponytail. He looked at Angel sort of cross-eyed, a little trickle of blood running down the side of his face.
Angel looked down the street in the direction Jade Morro had gone. She wasn’t even in sight. Christ. He kicked the fender of his stolen car and glared over at the driver of the van. “Asshole!”
“Hey, you went right through that stop sign,” the guy stammered.
“Fuck you!” Angel screamed at him.
The old guy looked bewildered. Angel reached in his car and got the gun out from under the seat. He had a notion to walk over and waste the sonovabitch, but decided against it. He didn’t have any extra bullets.
Instead he crammed the gun under the band of his pants, pulled his shirt out over it and walked away. There’d be cops in a few minutes, so he couldn’t fart around. As he reached the next street, a bus came along and stopped to pick up a woman with a kid. Angel jogged over and clambered onto the bus after them.
He sat down near the rear door and decided he needed a new approach. Maybe he’d go to East L.A. and find a chico with a gun, maybe some guy looking for drug money. Sometimes the best way was muscle. Break down her front door, find her and waste her. This following people around was for the birds.
Angel got off at the next stop and went looking for another car to steal. Christ, he hoped he wasn’t going to all this trouble for nothing. There was no way to be sure his fucking sister would come through.
Studio City
Stella called Mac from her car phone as she sat out front to say that she’d arrived. He imagined that she didn’t want to be seen coming to his office two days running for fear she would look desperate, though he couldn’t imagine how she’d care what his employees thought. The fact that she had come to see him two days in a row gave him pause for thought, though. And, as the morning wore on and he reflected on the situation, he’d grown concerned. Jaime Caldron must have put the fear of God in her.
His wife lowered the window as he came out. “Would you mind driving your own car, so I don’t have to bring you back?” she asked without ceremony. “I’ll want to leave directly from the restaurant.”
“No problem.”
“You lead the way.”
Mac got in the Lexus and drove out of the lot, with Stella right behind him. He saw no reason to put on the dog when the principal objective was conversation, so he went to a large upscale coffee shop called Harvey’s located over on Colfax, a place he appreciated for the apple pie, if nothing else. They got a window booth at the end with relative privacy.
Stella was surprisingly dour—he might have said petulant, except that she’d hardly said a word. Mac was beginning to get a funny feeling.
His wife was dressed in simple linen pants and top. Minimal jewelry. Understated. Somehow that also struck him as a bad sign.
The waitress was there immediately. Stella ordered a salad, Mac the soup-and-sandwich special. They each had iced tea. Little was said until their drinks came. Stella spent a lot of time looking out the window next to them. She seemed wistful yet nervous. Mac knew something was up.
He grew impatient with her obfuscation. “So, what’s with Caldron, Stella?”
“Before we get into that, I want to ask you something. What are the chances of you investing in Amal’s project?”
Mac eyed her, not liking the juxtaposition of his question and hers. “Nil,” he said. “I think I’ve made my position clear.”
She grimaced. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“You couldn’t have expected otherwise.”
“No, you’re nothing if not consistent, Mac.”
“So, what’s going on? Caldron putting pressure on you?”
Stella took a drink of tea, setting the glass down carefully on the paper coaster. “He made me an offer, Mac.”
There was something ominous in her tone. He sensed a dramatic announcement coming. Or a threat. “What kind of offer?”
“If I testify against you, they go light on me.”
Mac had a bad feeling. “And you said…”
She lowered her voice. “I told him there was nothing to testify about, that you didn’t kill Aubrey.”
He was relieved.
“But Caldron told me something very distressing, Mac. He said they’re tearing out the pool and he plans to be there when they do. He knows.”
“I already know about the pool,” Mac said. “We’re building the new one.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I’m thinking about that. Since I’m involved, I’ve got some control.”
She ran her finger down the side of the glass, looking very unhappy. “We’re in the most danger we’ve been in since ’78.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Caldron’s making it very easy for me, Mac,” she said.
That gave him pause. “What are you trying to say?”
“I need a good reason not to save my own neck,” she said.
He stared at her, seeing clearly now what she was getting at. “Spit it out, Stella.”
“I was hoping you’d want to invest with Amal for Troy’s sake and for mine. Unfortunately, you’ve chosen not to, which is within your right, of course. But if you’re going to look out for yourself, why shouldn’t I, Mac?”
He hesitated for a good long time, looking her in the eye. “You’re saying you want me to make it worth your while not to cooperate with Caldron. You want me to buy you off. Two million for your silence. Is that it?”
“It’s asking a lot of me to stand by you, possibly go to prison for you, when you’re not even willing to help Troy and me by making an investment you can easily afford.”
“That’s extortion, Stella.”
“No, it’s asking why this is a one-way street.”
He flushed. “Need I remind you we’re in this together and have been for twenty years? And it’s not like any of this was my idea to begin with. You were the one who insisted we not go to the police. This whole thing would have been over and behind us if we’d done the right thing from the beginning.”
The waitress came with their lunches. Mac and Stella sat in stony silence until she was gone.
“Aren’t you forgetting something, Mac?” Stella said as soon as the waitress was beyond hearing. “Who killed Aubrey?”
“It was unintentional,” he said in a low, angry tone.
“But the facts are the facts, and Jaime Caldron is giving me a very easy way to spare myself a lot of grief. All I’m asking is that you give me a damn good reason to lie for you, Mac.”
“Let’s call a spade a spade. You want me to buy you off.”
Her eyes filled, shimmering with emotion. “I’ve got one last chance. I don’t want to lose it.”
“And you’ll stop at nothing.”
“I want to be in that film,” she said through her teeth, resolute, determined. “And I will be, one way or another.”
“I guess our marriage has been reduced to its essence, hasn’t it, Stella? Two million. That’s what it’s come to.”
“If you insist, Mac, then yes, it has.”
Mac McGowan looked down at the food he hadn’t touched. He not only had lost his appetite, he was disgusted to the point of nausea. Then, looking Stella in the eye, he said, “I guess I’m going to have to think abou
t this.” He slid out of the booth, took out his wallet and dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table. “Oh, and by the way, you’re not the only one after my money. I had an anonymous call from some woman this morning. She wants to blackmail me, too.”
Stella looked genuinely surprised. “About Aubrey?”
“Yes, about Aubrey. Looks like you’ve got competition. Either that or questionable friends.” With that, he turned and walked from the restaurant.
West Hollywood
Jade had ridden extra far that morning, probably double what she should have, but whenever she was anxious she tended to do that—overexercise. Some people ate, others got reclusive or slovenly or depressed. Jade just got an overwhelming urge to burn calories.
It was because of Mac McGowan. Something had happened the previous evening as they’d sat in her kitchen having a silly conversation about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and their childhoods. Jade realized they were having a relationship. Not a big relationship in the sense of dramatic happenings. A small one, small in the sense of a feeling of togetherness, rapport.
It wasn’t a date even, but they’d been together. That hadn’t happened since Ricky. Some things about it were nice, but it also made her uncomfortable because she wasn’t sure what it meant. She was also afraid—afraid it was somehow connected to Ricky. After all, Mac had walked in on the heels of Ricky Santos’s final departure. Maybe what she was feeling toward Mac was a reaction to that. Getting involved with someone when on the rebound was always dangerous. Her mother had done that time and time again, sometimes finding the next guy before the bruises from the last guy had healed.
As Jade poked at the bowl of soup in front of her, the telephone rang. It was Mac. A twinge of nervous happiness went through her at the sound of his voice. He didn’t spend long on pleasantries.
“Things seem to be coming unraveled fast,” he said.
Jade listened to him describe the phone call he’d gotten from the mystery woman and his conversation with Stella over lunch. When he’d finished, she said, “Boy, you’re getting it coming and going. I’m really sorry, Mac. That’s got to be rough when your own wife does that to you.”
“I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m not all that surprised. I’ll give Stella one thing—her priorities have always been consistent. I guess I should consider myself fortunate that all she wants is money.”
“Still…”
“So, I guess I need a plan,” he said. “And frankly, you’re about the only one I can turn to for advice.”
“I don’t think I can advise you about your wife.”
“Yeah, I’ll have to figure that one out, but this mystery woman, that’s a whole other thing.”
“I suppose you have no idea who it could be.”
“I assume it’s the person behind the notes. And the bad part about it is that I feel completely vulnerable, out of control. Stella and Caldron are at least known quantities. Caldron might get me yet, but I know who and what I’m dealing with. This woman, on the other hand…”
“I know what you’re saying. Let me give it some thought,” Jade said. “Maybe I can come up with a plan.”
“We don’t have the luxury of much time.”
“What’s your schedule like this evening? I can come by after dinner.”
“How about I take you out?” he said. “Someplace nice. Seems to me I owe you. Besides, I could use a little pleasant conversation with a friend. I feel like a baby in a crib, surrounded by hungry rats.”
It was a chilling metaphor, but she got his meaning. Oddly, despite her fears, the prospect of seeing Mac was not unpleasant. Maybe she even relished it. She wanted to help him, but more than that she wanted to understand him because something told her there was a key in that to understanding herself.
Santa Monica
Percy Gaylord, his head throbbing, awaited the arrival of the private investigator. Miraculously, he’d awakened from his morning nap to discover his memory had come back. It hadn’t happened in a sudden flash, though. He awoke from a dream, the guy in the dream was Percy, and he was the guy. For a good ten minutes he’d lain in a sea of confusion, not altogether certain what he knew and didn’t know, where dream and reality diverged, where the past and the present met.
For the longest time he struggled with the events that had gotten him where he was. Had they happened to him, or were they part of his dream? Had that been him wandering numbly through the streets? Was he the lad who’d taken the tumble off his bicycle, the young man in the auto accident with the donkey cart in Bombay, the gay blade who’d had his wallet pinched at knifepoint in Lewisham? Yes, the bits and pieces of his life were falling into place.
By the end of an hour Percy had reconstructed his trip to America and his dealings with Venita Kumar. For a while he wasn’t sure if she’d come to see him in hospital or if he’d dreamed it. That was the most confounding interlude of all, even more than the murky events that had transpired in the garden of that house in the hills overlooking the ocean.
By lunch, Percy had pretty well recollected everything. And though his head ached dreadfully—the worst since he’d been in hospital—he did feel he had a grip on reality. The question was, what did he do next? Enough confusion continued to reign in his skull that he wasn’t certain whether his interests were best served by consultation with the authorities or keeping his own counsel.
When the orderly had cleared away his tray, Percy again thought over the conversation he’d had with Venita, only then recalling the envelope she’d given him. Searching the drawer in the table beside his bed, he found it. Then he opened it and read her cryptic note: “Okay, you win. Spare me and I’ll give you R.B.’s head on a platter.” She’d simply signed it “V.”
It had taken several minutes for him to sort out the full implications of the note. Venita was surrendering, she was going to give him Ramda Bol. Percy had indeed won—if Venita was to be trusted.
He realized he needed to give the meaning of that some thought. Should he proceed, it would have to be with caution. Venita Kumar was a viper. But she did hold his future in her hands and she’d offered her sword. Considering his condition, he was hardly in a position to joust with the lady. He needed a champion.
The hefty investigator, Boots Conroy, had come to mind. But Percy realized he wouldn’t be able to do business with Boots without dealing first with hospital staff. And so, he’d spent the early afternoon talking to the doctors, who, as expected, immediately notified the police. A detective soon arrived to question him, but Percy had been circumspect, recalling certain things, but not others. “I’m sorry,” he’d told the policeman, “the circumstances of my injury refuse to come to mind.”
Eventually, they’d allowed him to rest, but he’d been permitted to ring up Boots. Now he awaited the investigator’s arrival. It was time for the final, triumphal scene of this melodrama, and Boots was his man.
Holmby Hills
Soon after she arrived, Mike O’Gill had asked Manuela if she wanted some coke or a speedball or something. She’d said no, that a couple of shots of tequila was all she needed to have a good time. And so Mike got her a tumbler half full of booze.
The three of them were in the family room. Mike had a video playing on the projection TV. It was a skin flick. A black guy and a white guy were doing a Chinese girl. The sound was down low, but high enough to hear the grunting and groaning. Manuela couldn’t figure out how a guy could think that seeing some chick poked and probed by two different guys at the same time would turn a woman on—unless she was into pain. Maybe one guy out of ten understood women, but probably not that many.
No, the flick was for their benefit, not hers. Arnold, seated on the sofa in a white terry robe that made him look like a polar bear, scarcely said hello when she sat down. He was busy doing a line of coke, all the while keeping one eye on the screen. Worse, he looked like he’d gained thirty pounds since yesterday. The thought was enough to make her shiver. She gulped some tequila.
�
�I thought maybe we could spend a little time in the spa,” Mike said. “Never hurts to be relaxed.”
Unconscious might even be better, Manuela thought, but she wasn’t going to be snotty and say that. Mike and Arnold would have to have a good time if she was going to get the money.
Mike, not surprisingly, had driven a hard bargain. She’d have to do five threesomes with the O’Gill brothers for five thousand and the other five thousand she could pay off interest free over the course of a year. “That’s not a bad deal,” Mike had said. “A grand is getting up into the fancy call-girl range.” What Mike didn’t say and what Manuela didn’t have to remind him was that there weren’t many fancy call girls willing to fuck two three-hundred-pound elephants at the same time.
They’d made the date early enough in the day that Manuela could fuck the O’Gills and still get to the club for the last show, though walking would probably be a trick after doing Mike and Arnold, never mind dancing. But she’d already resolved to do it. How else, if she wanted Mac McGowan and the bitch cop dead?
“You going to tell me what you need ten G’s for so urgently, Manuela?” Mike asked as he dropped down on the sofa next to her. “Or is it a secret?”
“You don’t want to know, Mike.”
He shrugged. “Maybe I don’t.”
Mike was in shorts and a flowered Hawaiian shirt. His pudgy pink feet were bare. He put one up on the coffee table, then he put his hand on her knee and glanced over at the screen, savoring the show. Manuela took another slug of tequila. Already she was starting to feel it in her head.
Now Mike was dragging his hand up the inside of her thigh as he watched the screen, sort of absently, the way somebody would pet a dog while watching a football game on TV or something.
Arnold, who was getting himself stoked, put down the little mirror he’d been using to do the line and leaned back heavily in the sofa. “So, we going to do this, or what?”
