“No way,” she says. “She never would have said anything.”
“Why not?”
“She was scared of them. And she…depended on them. On Sal.”
“For what?”
“Everything,” she says. “Money, a place to live…”
“Drugs?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Everything. My mom even got them to take care of me. My mom and I lived with Sal, until I got my apartment. Then I could do pretty much whatever I wanted, as long as I did the site. Sal paid me to do it, so I had my own money. He was gonna get me a car when I turned sixteen, as long as I did the site.”
“Did Sal give you a gun?”
“A gun? No. Why would he do that?”
“You never touched a gun that Sal had?”
She starts to shake her head, then stops.
“He took us shooting once, at this range in Burbank,” she says. “He let me shoot this gun he had.”
“What kind of gun?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about guns.”
“When was this? When did he take you shooting?”
“I don’t know. Like a month or so ago, I guess.”
“Do any of these names or numbers mean anything to you?” I show her the list of cardholders who had paid for her private website viewings.
“No,” she says. “I never saw any of that stuff. I just did the site, that’s all. They collected the card numbers.”
I look more carefully at the long list of names and numbers and notice one in particular that appears most frequently—an Amex corporate card with the name Thoroughbred Exclusives, Inc. I show it to Karen.
“How about this one?” I say.
She shakes her head. “I never knew who I was talking to. I never saw any of this stuff.”
I take out my pen and notepad and write the name and credit card number down. Then I Google “Thoroughbred Exclusives” and get nothing. I count the number of times the Thoroughbred Exclusives credit card appears. When I reach twenty-two, Karen interrupts.
“Holy shit.”
She stares at the TV, where our pictures are onscreen. I turn up the sound and listen to the TV anchor rattling off the facts about Karen and me in Spanish, including the events at the airport. It’s the same station the woman in the motel office was watching.
“What’s he saying?” Karen says.
“He’s saying we have to get out of here, right now.”
I close the computer, gather up our things, and take Karen by the arm and our brief stay at the Vista de Las Estrellas is over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
As we reach the bottom of the motel’s stairway we pass an open door on the ground floor. The Latino couple are inside one of the rooms, cleaning. The woman glances at us briefly, then goes back to her work. There was no sign of alarm in her face, so I guess that she hasn’t seen us on the news.
We head for the parking lot, get in the car, and drive down the crooked alley. I notice the small market next door to the motel is open. I pull over and park.
“Stay in the car, I’ll be right back,” I say to Karen, then get out and head into the market. I buy some food, soft drinks, two pairs of sunglasses, a Dodgers baseball cap, a big, floppy sun-hat, and a pre-paid cell phone. I pay cash, which leaves me with a little over two hundred bucks. There is an ATM machine by the door, but my visit to LAPD Cyber Crimes has left me paranoid about planting electronic tracks so I skip it. We’ll need more cash, but that will have to be figured out later.
I head back to the car and a bus pulls up and stops for passengers. The electronic destination sign on the front of the bus says COMPTON/INGLEWOOD. I walk around to the rear of the bus, replace the battery in my cell phone and turn it on, then clip the phone inside the right rear wheel well of the bus and get back in the car and give Karen her sunglasses and the big floppy hat and the pre-paid cell.
“I’m supposed to wear these?” she says, wrinkling her nose at the hat and glasses.
“Yes,” I say, and put on my Dodgers cap and sunglasses. I pull out into traffic as she puts on the hat and pulls down the visor mirror and starts adjusting the hat to make it look acceptable.
“Where are we going?” she says.
“East.”
“East where?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Yeah, right,” she says, and snaps the visor back up.
I give her my voicemail number and tell her to turn on the pre-paid cell and dial it. She dials and listens.
“Oh my God,” she says. “Seventy calls?”
“Can you put it on speaker?” I say. “I want to hear them but I don’t want to get pulled over for using a cell phone.”
She fumbles around the phone, looking for the speaker button. I see a sign for the 10 freeway and follow it.
She turns on the speaker and I hear the voicemail greeting and I guide her through the code to get the messages. I don’t want the phone on for more than a few seconds, even though it is pre-paid. I have to assume they are already monitoring calls to my voicemail, but I can put this phone on a bus to San Bernadino and buy another one. And I need to know if Melvin has any more information. The first message is from five minutes ago. Melvin.
“Jack,” Melvin’s voice over the speaker, his voice flat and expressionless, meaning he is furious. “Call me. Right now.” He hangs up.
“Next,” I say to Karen, who hits the button to play the next message.
Nicki: “Jack, where the hell are you—?”
“Next,” I say.
“Jack, Elli again…” Elli Erlacher. Jesus. “Listen, dude, I meant what I said in my last messages. You’re jammed up and I can help you, man. This is totally fixable and I can make it happen. I just got off the phone with Tony Salerno—you know Salerno—and we’ve got this covered. I’ve got a place you can go, totally discreet, zero contact with anybody but me so you can sort this shit out, okay? I talked to Howard Swartzman and he’s on board, too, ready to roll the second you give the word. Trust me, this is fixable if you call me right away, before you and the girl get picked up. You gotta call me, man, I can fix all of this, okay? Call me at this number, it’s my cell, nobody answers but me and I’m keeping it with me 24/7. I’m not at Panorama, I’m at home, so no one will hear me talk to you. If you’re paranoid about the phone I’ll be at the last place I saw you, remember? We had drinks there, you know what I’m talking about. I’ll be there at eleven and I’ll be alone. I hope you’re there, man.”
He gives his number, then I hear the click as he hangs up.
“Okay, pull the battery out,” I say.
“You don’t want you hear the rest of them?”
“No,” I say. “Not now. They can track the phone if they’re monitoring calls to my voicemail.”
She pulls the battery out and gives it to me, along with the phone. I see a sign ahead for the ramps to the freeway. I can take the ramp on the right and head east, to God knows where, or the ramp to the left and head west, to God knows where. I think about Erlacher.
“Who was that guy?” Karen says. “He said he could help us.”
“Guy I know.”
“He works for Panorama? The movie studio?”
“More like it works for him.”
“Are we going to go meet him?”
I stop at a red light, staring ahead at the two freeway ramps, my mind racing. East to nowhere, or west to Erlacher? Neither choice feels right.
“Well, are we?” she says.
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Seems like a no-brainer to me,” she says.
“No, it’s a Hobson’s choice.”
“What’s that?”
“A choice between what’s available, even if it’s bad, or nothing at all.”
“Is he rich?”
“Yeah.”
“Is he your friend?”
“No.”
“Then why would he do all this to help you?”
“Because he wants som
ething from me,” I say.
“What?”
I don’t respond. I stare at the red light. East or west?
“Why wouldn’t you let him help us?”
“Because I don’t trust him.”
She thinks for a moment. The light turns green and I drive forward, in the middle lane, still undecided.
“Isn’t it like you said to me before? At the motel? When you said you would let me go?”
“How so?” I say.
“You said I had no reason to trust you but that you were the best I’ve got right now,” she says. “Isn’t he the best we’ve got?”
I look at her, then get in the left lane and head for the westbound ramp.
“Yeah,” I say.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We creep through sluggish traffic toward downtown for a few minutes and Karen asks more questions as she eats a pre-packaged turkey sandwich and drinks a soda. The food seems to pick up her mood.
“What is it this guy wants from you so bad that he’ll do all that stuff to help us?”
“This whole thing,” I say. “You, your mom, me—it’s all over the news and will be for long time, probably, and that means publicity and that means money. Book rights, movie rights, whatever.”
“So he’d pay you to write a book or a movie or whatever about everything that’s happened?”
“More or less, yeah.”
“And it’s this big story because you’re a famous writer and you were arrested for murder before and all that stuff, after your fiancée killed herself?”
I look at her.
“How do you know all that?” I say.
“I know all about you,” she says. “I read all of your books.”
“When?”
“After my mom told me you were my dad.”
“When was that?” I say.
“Long time ago. When I was, like, twelve or something. I started reading about you and reading your books and stuff.”
“Did you ever think of trying to contact me?”
“Mom told me I could never do that.”
“Why?”
“Sal would freak.”
“Why?”
She shakes her head, like it’s too complicated to explain.
“Those guys are, like, all about secrecy and being under the radar and all that. There was never anybody else around, nobody that wasn’t in their group. Especially no Americans. I wasn’t allowed to even have friends or anything. They all talked to each other in Russian if it had anything to do with business. I never knew anybody’s name, just, like, nicknames and stuff. They all had different ID’s and fake licenses and credit cards. Sal was all paranoid about anybody getting any attention, and you’re famous so there was no way I could ever tell anyone about you. Sal would even get all pissed at me about the way I was dressed and stuff. Like, if I ever wore anything that got a lot of attention out in public he’d bitch me out—and Mom, too. She told me they cut a guy’s head off once just because he tried to use a stolen black card to buy a Porsche.”
“They?” I say. “You mean Sal?”
She shakes her head. She is quiet for a moment, then she says, “Voldemort.”
“He who must not be named,” I say. “You mean Leukatov.”
She nods.
“Tell me about him.”
She turns and looks out her window. She puts the sandwich on her lap and chews on a fingernail.
“Why can’t you talk about him?” I say.
She thinks for a while.
“When I was a little kid, for as long as I can remember, I was told that if I ever said his name I’d be killed,” she says. “Even if I said it alone, to no one. Just saying it out loud would somehow make me dead. You know how you believe stupid shi— stuff like that when you’re a kid and it sticks with you? I still can’t say it.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“No way. No one but Sal ever met him. No one talked about him, and everybody was scared of him. Supposed to be this big, wicked badass. Like in that movie, with Kevin Spacey?”
“Keyser Soze,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says.
“You think Leukatov really exists?”
“I know somebody did some wicked bad shit, and everybody always just…knew it was him.”
“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says.
I see the sign for the Hollywood freeway and change lanes.
“So if contacting me would get you killed, how come you came to me last night, in the car?” I say.
“Sal told me to. I don’t know why. My mom taught me to just always do what I was told and even asking a question about it would piss them off. Sal said do it, give you the message I gave you—about not talking to the cops or anything—so I did it.”
“Probably thought sending you would get my attention and I’d keep my mouth shut.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Guess he didn’t think you’d…”
“Kidnap you?”
“Yeah,” she says, and I see her smile for the first time—a sardonic little half-smile.
“It’s not kidnapping if you’re free to go,” I say.
“I know.”
I take the Hollywood freeway. The mid-morning traffic is light. I stay in the middle lanes, trying to remain in a pack of cars, to reduce the chance of being spotted. I haven’t seen any CHP or LAPD, and I’ve kept a constant scan going as we’ve been driving.
“So how much would this guy pay you for the book or movie or whatever?” Karen says.
“A lot.”
“Like, millions?”
“Yeah.”
“Why the f— Why wouldn’t you do that?”
“Because it’s blood money. It would be exploiting your mom’s death, and exploiting you.”
“Well then do it and give me the money. For that kind of money you can exploit me all you want.”
“Yeah,” I say. “You need to work on that.”
“Work on what?”
“Your willingness to be exploited for money.”
“The stuff’s already happened. My mom’s dead, and I don’t care what people know about me.”
“You might care later.”
“So what? I’d be rich. I don’t see what the big deal is. With that kind of money I could disappear and I wouldn’t have to work for Sal and all that.”
“You think you could outsmart Sal? You think they wouldn’t find you?”
“Not if I had help,” she says, looking at me.
“I’ll help you, but not that way,” I say. “I have money, I don’t need to sell your life story and your privacy and have the whole world think of you as a fifteen year-old pornstar for the rest of your life. Those things may mean something to you later. When you’re older.”
“I don’t think so,” she says. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“It has to do with your self-respect—the way you think of yourself and your place in the world.”
“That’s all just bullshit, far as I’m concerned.”
“I know,” I say. “That’s why you need to work on it.”
I see my exit coming up and I get in the right lane. “I’ll tell you more about it later but right now I need to think about how I’m going to deal with this guy.”
“Can I ask one more question?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you trust this guy from the movie studio?”
“Because he’s extremely smart and extremely manipulative,” I say. “He’s probably a sociopath, meaning he has no conscience and he’ll do anything to anybody in order to get more money or more power. That’s why I have to be careful in how I deal with him and that means I have to think things out right now, okay?”
“O-kay.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Karen polishes off her turkey sandwich, a bag of pretzels, an apple, and two Cokes while I make my way toward Santa Monica Boulevard an
d think.
She was right about having no one but Elli to trust. I had cut off all contact with everyone I knew in LA after my fiancée’s death—all of the drinking pals, girlfriends, Hollywood people—everyone I knew from that time of my life was either dead or completely disconnected from me. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and sooner or later we’d be picked up. I’m certain they’ve already got the car, the license number, everything. We’ll have to ditch the car right away, but we don’t have time right now. I glance around, reflexively looking for cops as I reach Santa Monica Boulevard and turn left.
I am heading for the Formosa café in West Hollywood—the last place I saw Erlacher. I have plenty of time to get there by eleven. The smartest thing would be to stick the car someplace safe—along with Karen—and get near the Formosa early and wait to see who shows up. If Erlacher shows up alone I could call him from the pre-paid cell and tell him to change locations, just in case there was any chance his offer to me had been arranged by Melvin or LAPD as a trap. Erlacher had already called two notorious fixers—Salerno, a P.I., and Swartzman, a lawyer. And if either Salerno or Swartzman show up at the Formosa I’m in trouble. Both of them are media hogs and they’ll leak everything to their publicists in a heartbeat and everyone will assume Karen is guilty by association. Lawyering up with Swartzman makes you Claus Von Bulow hiring Alan Dershowitz; and having anything to do with Salerno means you have something terrible to fix, or hide, or pull off. It would be like hanging a great big “GUILTY” sign around Karen’s neck—not to mention mine. The mere fact that Erlacher was tight with them was a bad indicator.
The hardest part will be divining the truth from the bullshit when Elli makes his pitch. He will offer the world. He will swear on his mother that he will make every single problem evaporate and I will become wealthy beyond my wildest dreams and achieve immortality and seventy-two virgins will serve my every whim. All I need is safe sanctuary for a few hours and a chance to think up a plan to clear Karen before I arrange a private meeting with Melvin, an attorney, and, eventually, Karen herself. Erlacher will have something in place to trap me just in case I take advantage of his help and then renege on the deal. A contract? No, too dumb, too easy to break. A threat is more likely. Carrot and stick. Safety and money are the carrot, but what will the stick be? What will he threaten me with? Exposure? Turning us over to the cops? But then he’d lose all leverage. It will be something worse, somehow. He had set up his former boss before—the liaison with an underage girl—and he could certainly set us up, too, making Karen and me look even more guilty than we already do.
Killer In The Hills (A Jack Rhodes Mystery) Page 7
