Killer In The Hills (A Jack Rhodes Mystery)

by Stephen Carpenter

  The Formosa comes into view, a few blocks ahead, and I start thinking about where I’m going to stash the car. And Karen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I park the car in the underground parking lot at a strip mall, then take Karen down the block, to the loneliest, most desolate spot I can think of in Los Angeles—the Hollywood Public Library. We are the only patrons there when we walk in, unless you count the homeless guy who straggled in before us to use the bathroom.

  We head toward a cubicle deep in the back of the stacks, near the restroom. I grab a copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for her to read—or pretend to read—as we walk through the stacks.

  “You’re kidding, right?” she says, when I hand her the book. She puts it back and searches the shelves and finds a copy of my first book, Killer.

  “I’m flattered,” I say, as I steer her toward a cubicle.

  “It’s the best one of yours,” she says.

  “What’s wrong with the later ones?”

  “They’re just not as good,” she says with a shrug, then sits at her cubicle and opens the book.

  “Stay here,” I say. “Don’t go anywhere except the restroom, if you have to. If I’m not back in thirty minutes, call this number.” I scrawl Melvin’s number on a scrap of paper and give it to her.

  “Don’t talk to anyone else,” I say. “Only Melvin. He’s my friend and he’ll help you if something happens to me. Don’t leave the library. If I don’t come back, ask the librarian if you can use the phone in here. Tell her it’s an emergency. Alright?”

  She is looking at my photograph on the inside of the book jacket.

  “Alright?” I say again.

  “Allright,” she says. “You look older than this picture.”

  “That’s because I am.”

  I leave her there, as she begins reading the book, then head out to make the six-block walk to the Formosa, wondering what the hell did she mean, my later books aren’t as good?

  The rain has stopped but the streets are still wet. Occasionally the sun breaks out from between the thick, dark clouds that scuttle low overhead, promising more rain. I weave through residential streets until I see the Formosa ahead, at the end of the block. I take out my pre-paid cell and pretend to talk on it, hiding my face as I turn the corner and walk away from the Formosa, across the block. I can see the café behind me, reflected in the shop windows as I pass by. I am twenty minutes early, and my guess is Erlacher will arrive early as well. I reach the end of the block and, while I’m waiting for the light to change, I see a sleek black BMW sedan pull up in front of the Formosa and park. Erlacher gets out, alone, and heads into the café.

  I put the battery in the phone and call my voicemail and jot down Erlacher’s number. I hang up and dial the number and step around the corner where I can’t be seen.

  “This is Elli.”

  “Come back out and turn right and walk down the street,” I say.

  “Where are you?” he says. I wait for a moment, then I see him walk out and look around.

  “Turn right and walk down the street,” I say. “Just stay on the phone and keep walking.”

  “Where to, Jack?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get there.”

  I watch him walk for a block or so. I see no cops, no follow-cars, no SWAT team rushing out of the Formosa behind him.

  “You alone, Jack?”

  “Just keep walking.”

  He nears a Mexican restaurant I know, tucked between a boutique and a small office building.

  “Go into the Mexican place,” I say. He reaches the restaurant and stops. I step back into the doorway of an antique shop and watch through the glass as he looks around for me, then goes inside. I head toward the restaurant.

  “Take a booth in the back,” I say. “Stay on the phone until you see me.”

  “Okay.”

  Thirty quick paces and I’m inside the Mexican place. I see Erlacher in a booth in back, phone at his ear. I pull the battery out of my phone and slide into the booth across from him.

  “Hey, man,” he says, extending his hand, his face expressing deep concern. “How ya doin’?”

  “Give me your cell,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Your phone,” I say. “Give it to me.”

  He gives me his phone and I check his most recent calls made and received as he waits, looking me over with his small, ferrety eyes. I see no numbers that mean anything to me, then I open his phone and take out the battery and a waiter comes up to us.

  “What can I get you?” the waiter says.

  “What do you want, Jack?” Elli says.

  “Not gonna be here that long,” I say.

  Elli orders chips and soft drinks and the waiter goes away. Elli looks at me.

  “You okay?” he says.

  I nod. His tiny gray eyes scan me—my eyes, my face, my clothes. It’s hard to imagine what’s going through his head, but I can tell he’s thinking at about two hundred miles an hour, trying to assess me while giving away nothing. There is something feral about him, like he’s coiled, ready to strike, even though he’s trying his best to appear relaxed and sincere. He never looks directly at me, even when he speaks. He is my age, but he could be anywhere from thirty to fifty. His face is long and narrow, his skin tanned and toned, without a line or wrinkle. He has a tall forehead elongated by a receding hairline of carefully shaved stubble that matches the carefully shaved stubble of his salt-and-pepper goatee. He is wearing designer jeans and a black T-shirt and artfully torn Converse tennis shoes with no laces and no socks. If it weren’t for the $100,000 Franck Muller wristwatch and the polished manicure you might think he was a low-rent hipster selling weed out of his car.

  “Where’s the girl?” he says.

  “Someplace safe.”

  He searches my eyes for a second, then leans forward for the pitch.

  “I got a jet,” he says, his eyes steady on me now. “Mine, not the studio’s. It’s at Burbank, fueling right now. It can take you and the girl anywhere you want, all you have to do is say the word.”

  “Can’t leave town,” I say. “It’ll just make things look worse. I need a car and a place in town to lay low for a few hours and I need you to keep your mouth shut and stop calling fixers or anybody else.”

  “You got it,” he says.

  The waiter brings the chips and drinks and I eat, realizing that I am starving. The last meal I had was last night at the Hotel Molique, where I had barely touched my dinner. Elli opens his wallet and thumbs through a stack of credit cards. He hesitates for a second, then gives the waiter a platinum Amex. The waiter leaves with it, then Elli slides his keys over to me.

  “Take my car,” he says. “The big brass key on the ring is the key to the front door of my place in Malibu. I’ll phone ahead and have the guard open the gate for you. I won’t mention your name. I’ll tell my housekeeper to expect you.”

  “No housekeeper,” I say. “Want the place to ourselves.”

  “Fine,” he says. “I’ll call her and tell her to split, and leave the alarm off.”

  “And what do you want for all this kindness, Elli?” I say.

  “Just wanna help an old pal, bro,” he says, with a facsimile of a smile.

  “Uh-huh,” I say, taking the keys. “What’s the address?”

  “You can’t see the address from the street,” he says. “It’s just north of the Colony, right on the beach. You’ll know it when you see it.”

  “How?”

  “It’s the big one,” he says with a smirk that makes me want to slap him.

  “Alright, listen: you talk to nobody,” I say. “No lawyers, no media, no fixers, no Fat Zach…”

  Something changes in Elli’s face. He sits back.

  “Oh,” he says. “You haven’t heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  “Fat Zach’s dead,” he says. “Somebody shot him in the head last night. Tossed his office. His assistant found him this morning.”
>
  Shit.

  The waiter returns with the check.

  My prints…on the desk, the chair…and God knows where else…

  Elli takes a gold Mont Blanc pen from his T-shirt pocket and signs the check. I glance down at the credit card—the platinum Amex he hesitated to hand over to the waiter.

  It’s a corporate card, and the name of the corporation is Thoroughbred Exclusives, Inc.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Nice ride,” Karen says when I collect her at the library and we get in the BMW. I pull out into traffic on Santa Monica.

  “Don’t get used to it,” I say.

  “Why not?”

  “Hang on, I need to make a quick stop,” I say.

  I stop at a liquor store and buy another pre-paid phone. A beat-to-hell pickup truck is parked next to the BMW when I come out. I put the old pre-paid phone under some gardening tools in the back of the pickup, then get in the BMW and continue east on Santa Monica.

  “Where are we going?” Karen says.

  “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

  “Are we going to the movie guy’s place?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Isn’t he gonna help us?”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t this his car?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So he gave you his BMW and you don’t call that helping us?”

  “I need to think for minute,” I say.

  She makes a big show of sighing and sitting back in her seat. I drive for a block and she leans forward and turns the radio on and starts dialing around the stations. I reach over and turn it off. She makes an impatient little snort and sits back again.

  “I need a minute,” I say.

  “Whatever,” she says. She looks out her window, fingering the beads in her hair, her leg bouncing.

  I decide not to tell her about Erlacher’s credit card. Partly because the news might confuse or scare her, and partly because it has confused the hell out of me. I scan around for cops as we cross Highland.

  Think.

  If the simplest explanation was the correct one, it was clear that Erlacher’s interest had nothing to do with movie rights, and everything to do with Karen. He had frequented her site, and was now eager to fly her off on his private jet to God knows where, for God knows what reason.

  The simplest answer was sex, of course. But getting involved with her at this point would be an extraordinarily reckless thing to do. And Erlacher was not reckless. Career, money, and power are all that matter to him, as far as I know. But I don’t really know the guy, or anything about his personal life. I remember that he had been married, then divorced very quickly. I vaguely recall him complaining about alimony payments to a woman he had only been married to for a year or so.

  A better explanation for his behavior was that he was terrified his visits to Karen’s site would become public. He had destroyed his boss’s career by arranging a liaison with an underage girl, and now he would face a ruined career—and maybe worse—for a similar thing. I have no idea what legal penalties he could face, but the slightest possibility of jail time for consorting with a minor on the internet would no doubt compel him to fuel up a fleet of aircraft, let alone a single jet. But Erlacher knew the kind of people who could fix a problem like that—maybe.

  Still, something wasn’t clicking. Anyone could have used that credit card to visit Karen’s site. The smartest thing Erlacher could do was stay as far away from her as possible, and deny everything if his visits to her site were ever made public. Karen had said she didn’t know who she was talking to, so she wouldn’t be able to identify him.

  If Karen was telling the truth.

  I look at her as she stares out her window, leg bouncing, mouth drawn down in a pout.

  If she was lying, then what is the truth?

  Time to call Melvin.

  We pass Normandy, then Vermont, and I turn right on Hoover. When we get close to Rampart I start looking around for an enterprising young man who might want a new $100,000 BMW.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Half and hour later I pass a grimy little body shop. I turn around, then drive onto the lot and stop at the garage bay entrance. Two Latino men are in the garage, sanding Bondo patches on an 80’s-era Cadillac. One of the men is in his forties, wearing greasy coveralls. The other man is in his twenties, shirtless, wearing gang tattoos across his chest and an elaborate mural tattoo on his back that features a nude woman driving a fierce-looking ’64 Chevy that has shark’s teeth instead of a front grille. No one else is in the shop.

  I tell Karen to stay in the car, then get out and enter the garage and speak to the men in Spanish.

  “I’ll trade you the Beamer for any car you’ve got that runs well and has a tank of gas,” I say. “But we have to do it right now. No questions.”

  The men stare at me, then at the car. I turn and walk back to the BMW and open the door and let them look at it. They murmur to each other. I hear the word puerco—Spanish for pig. The young man peers inside the car, then at Karen, then he shuts the door and speaks to me in English.

  “Burns my fingers, ese,” he says.

  I smile sheepishly.

  “Alright,” I say in English. “Look, I’m not a cop, and the car’s not hot. I’m five months behind on my payments and the repo guys are after it. I’ve been moving it around, but they’re gonna find it eventually and I’d rather trade it to you guys for something with wheels than let those pricks have it. I’ll take any car you’ve got that’s working and I’ve never been here, okay?”

  I stare the kid down with the kind of desperation an Anglo like me would have in a situation I’ve just described. It’s not hard. The hard part is holding back the real desperation.

  The two of them go back into the garage and talk quietly in Spanish. The older man is reluctant, but the young man is persistent. After a minute they come back. The older man takes his keys out of his pocket, removes a car key from the ring, and hands it to me. He points to a twenty year-old Toyota Corolla with dull maroon paint and bald tires. I take the BMW key off the ring and hand it to him, then open Karen’s door and she gets out. The man gets in the BMW and pulls it into the garage bay. The kid slides under the car and I hear the whine of a pneumatic drill in short, quick bursts as I gather Zach’s computer gear from the trunk.

  The older man reaches up for the garage door as I turn to leave.

  “Don’t come back here,” he says, as I head out with Karen.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “You might want to disable the LoJack, or whatever’s in it. They keep finding it.”

  The kid slides out from under the BMW, holding a small metal box with wires hanging out of it.

  “Not a problem,” he says.

  The older man rolls the garage door down with a slam and I lead Karen to the Corolla and we get inside. Karen has to move trash and fast food wrappers from her seat. The car smells like beer and stale French fries.

  “You really know how to drive a bargain,” she says, as we pull out of the lot.

  I head for the freeway and Karen pesters me with questions as I drive. I give vague answers, then finally tell her yet again to keep quiet so I can think. She slouches back in her seat and turns sullen. She chews her fingernails and squirms with restless energy.

  I can’t wait any longer to bring her in. She is about to blow, or bolt. Daylight Saving Time began last weekend, so it will be dark in a few hours. I decide I will call Melvin as soon as I can find a place to meet him and cut a deal. But it has to happen right away. It’s entirely possible Melvin is closing in on us right now, and I can only protect Karen if I have some leverage. They’ve probably already lifted my prints at Zach’s, and once they ID them I’ll have no leverage at all. Erlacher said they had found Zach this morning, so he could have been killed any time after I left, just after midnight. Could we have been followed there? By who? If Sal and his crew were that close I’d be nailed to a floor somewhere, or worse—whatever “worse” mi
ght mean. My thoughts race around that possibility until I start feeling panicky and I force the panic back so I can focus on the problem at hand.

  High ground. Darkness. A large, deserted, empty space…

  I think about what I’m going to say to Melvin as I get on the freeway and join the tangle of traffic headed for downtown.

  An hour and a half later I take the Orange Grove exit off the Pasadena freeway and drive through the residential streets I know well.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  On the second Sunday of every month, the Rose Bowl hosts the busiest flea market in the world, in the main parking lot of the stadium. My fiancée Sara and I had furnished our first apartment in two or three visits there, in the months before we were to marry. Twice a month, the flea market takes up the entire parking lot—a huge space, surrounded by hills packed with luxurious homes.

  It is just before sundown when we weave down through quiet residential streets and reach the stadium. I slow as we pass the big parking lot. The vast asphalt expanse is dotted with groundskeeping vehicles parked in shallow ponds of recent rainwater. Other than that, the lot is deserted.

  I turn the car around and head back up into the hills. I find a dark, lonely street that overlooks the stadium. I park and turn off the engine and Karen watches as I take out my phone and put the battery in and wait for it to power up. She hasn’t said a word since I told her to be quiet.

  “So?” she says. “What are we doing now?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute.”

  “Bullshit,” she says. “I’m sick of driving around, not being allowed to talk, not knowing what the hell we’re doing.”

  “You’ll know soon enough,” I say. The phone powers up and I open my door and get out.