Romeo's Rules

by James Scott Bell

  “Did you really think you could come in here and talk to him?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why did you come here?”

  “To find out who you were, Mr. Meeks.”

  He scowled.

  “Every guy like Mayne has a guy like you, and now that I know who you are, it will make my investigation that much easier.”

  Meeks froze for a moment, pressed something on his desk, then said, “This sounds like some sort of threat.”

  “I came here in good faith. Mr. Mayne is a man who likes to know who he is doing business with, yes? I’m exactly the same way. Which is why it’s been nice to meet you, Mr. Meeks.”

  Meeks just looked at me.

  “Did you ever take any philosophy classes, Mr. Meeks?”

  “Do you work for Mrs. Mayne?”

  “I’m an independent businessman.”

  “What if you were?”

  “Were what?”

  “In someone’s employ?” Meeks said.

  “It depends.”

  “On?”

  “Who pays me,” I said.

  “What if someone were to pay you a lot of money for investigative services?”

  “How much money?” I said.

  “A lot,” Meeks said.

  “It sounds like buying silence.”

  “Loyalty,” Meeks said.

  “Loyalty must be earned,” I said. “The great emperors knew that. It’s sort of a lost art today.”

  Meeks sighed and stood at the desk. Behind him, out of floor-to-ceiling windows, I could see downtown Los Angeles in all its urban glory. Modern, mirror-reflective exteriors trying to put the squeeze on architectural beauties from the 40s and 50s.

  Meeks was about five foot nine. He had to look up at me to say, “Thank you for coming to see us, Mr. Rizzoli.”

  “I wish I could like you, Mr. Meeks. You seem a decent fellow.”

  “You made my day,” he said.

  “Tell Mr. Mayne I will be seeing him soon.”

  “I don’t think I will.”

  I heard a noise behind me, turned and saw the very large security guy from the desk below standing there like a eunuch in a harem.

  “Come on,” I said. “Is this necessary?”

  “Just routine,” Meeks said.

  “Come with me,” Security said.

  “I wish you would have said, Walk this way.”

  He looked at me like I was nuts.

  I said, “So I could have said, If I could walk that way I wouldn’t need the talcum powder.”

  He frowned. He obviously did not know the old joke. But he did put his big paw on my arm. I swatted it off and said, “Let’s keep this platonic.”

  He frowned even more. Obviously he did not know the history of philosophy, either.

  Meeks said, “You probably shouldn’t come within a mile of this building again, Phil.”

  “A whole mile?”

  “Just a little hyperbole,” Meeks said.

  “I like the vocab. Where’d you go to college?”

  “Yale,” he said.

  I almost gave it up then. I almost told him I went to Yale, too, that in fact I had been accepted into Yale at the age of fourteen. But this wasn’t the time to compare pedigrees.

  That time would come.

  JUMBO THE SECURITY MAN said nothing as we took the elevator down. I asked him to let me off at Sporting Goods, and he just kept staring ahead. I asked him what life was like without a sense of humor. He didn’t answer. I told him for Halloween he should put an apple in his mouth and go out as a luau. Nada. But I was enjoying annoying him. I had to salvage something from this trip.

  When the elevator doors opened I was facing two clothing models, a man and a woman who could have been in this season’s Professional Look catalog. The don’t-mess-with-my-day expressions, leveled at me like a sniper scope, screamed federal law enforcement.

  Jumbo was smiling now. “Have a nice day,” he said.

  “Thanks for the conversation,” I said, as the man took out a leather credential and flashed me an FBI ID.

  “Special Agent Dominic Posting,” he said. “This is Agent Holly Samara of the DEA.”

  “That’s a lot of letters,” I said.

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions,” Posting said. He was about six feet tall, black hair, a face like a discus thrower from ancient Rome.

  “Can my friend come along?” I said, nodding at Jumbo.

  No one laughed.

  “This way,” Posting said.

  I was escorted out of the building to a black Suburban that was parked illegally at the curb. I stopped and said, “If this is voluntary, I think I’ll pass.”

  “We can always arrest you,” Posting said.

  “I don’t believe you’re feds, either one of you,” I said.

  That got them frowning. I was having that effect on a lot of people.

  “Anybody can fake an ID,” I said.

  “We’re not anybody,” Posting said.

  I turned to the woman. She was about five ten, wide shoulders, like an Olympic swimmer. Short brown hair cropped to no-nonsense length, and eyes that could melt your face if they got hot.

  “What’s the mission of DEA?” I said.

  She knew what I was doing and didn’t flinch. “Controlled substance law enforcement, targeting organizations involved in illegal trafficking. And hassling wise guy citizens.”

  “Good answer,” I said. “Thanks for playing.”

  THEY TOOK ME to an office building on Wilshire, into an underground garage. I was starting to dislike underground garages a lot.

  We went up an elevator and out to a corridor that smelled of industrial floor cleaning chemicals and Old Spice. They led me to a room with a small conference table, several chairs and a whiteboard.

  Posting indicated that I sit at the head of the rectangular table. He and Agent Samara sat on the side facing the door.

  “I’ll take that cappuccino now,” I said.

  “You serious?” Posting asked.

  I said, “With light foam and just a hint of nutmeg sprinkled across the top.”

  Posting stared at me. Samara stared at me. I stared at Samara. I almost smiled at her.

  “Forget the cappuccino,” I said. “Just make this fast.”

  Posting nodded. “What’s your real name?”

  “Phillip Rizzoli,” I said.

  “I don’t think that’s it. I think your name is Mike Romeo.”

  “Very impressive,” I said. “Very fast work. Mark David Mayne must’ve got hold of you the moment I stepped into the building.”

  “Now that we’ve got that all out on the table,” Posting said, “let’s get through these questions as quickly as possible and we’ll all go about our day.”

  “I have a doctor’s appointment,” I said. “My hand.”

  “What happened to it?” Agent Samara asked.

  “Piano lesson,” I said. “My teacher is very strict.”

  Posting said, “I can make this really hard if you want to.”

  “It’s already hard. I don’t like being questioned by anybody unless I know why.”

  “All right,” Posting said. “I’ll let Agent Samara fill you in.”

  Agent Samara said, “You were at the scene of a bombing and homicide, at the church in Los Feliz.”

  “Very good,” I said. “But what does that have to do with DEA?”

  “We have ATF involved in this too,” she said.

  “Holy cow,” I said. “Not even Vanna White can tap that many letters.”

  “Do you mind answering a few questions for us? As a witness?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Can I ask about this investigation?”

  Samara said to Posting, “You mind?”

  Posting said to Samara, “Be my guest.”

  “It involves a cartel,” Samara said, “out of Mexico, operating in Southern California, New York, Florida, parts of the Midwest.”

  “That’s not
exactly news.”

  “It’s a new product. Designer biologicals.”

  “Biologicals?” I said.

  “For the body, for rejuvenation. The fountain of youth kind of thing.”

  “And this is from Mexico?”

  “It’s manufactured in India, but comes in through Mexico.”

  “You should call it Breaking Bio,” I said.

  Neither agent laughed.

  Samara said, “Actually, we do.”

  “Why don’t you just give me a badge right now?” I said.

  “It’s a booming market,” Posting said. “At the high end.”

  “Like Botox?” I asked. “I thought you could get all this stuff from your doctor.”

  “Not this stuff,” Samara said. “It’s expensive and it’s dangerous, and it includes side effects on the brain. But it promises new skin, like you’re twenty again, new sex drive, new strength, and no Alzheimer’s.”

  “Wow, does it come with a tote bag?”

  “It’s not funny,” Samara said. “It’s the new drug of choice for gays and teens.”

  “How did this happen?” I said.

  “Think of it this way,” Samara said. “It would be as if Donald Trump spoke Spanish and decided to build a new business. He invests overseas in R & D. It’s not billions of dollars we’re talking about. Yet. But it’s hundreds of millions, and enough for an enterprise to get hold of and carve out a niche market with potential to grow.”

  “Harvard Business School goes to Guadalupe?” I said.

  “Mexico City,” Posting said. “With offices in New York and Los Angeles.”

  “But you don’t know where these offices are?”

  “They move around,” Posting said. “There is a lot of commercial space in L.A. Empty warehouses, storage, half-finished offices.”

  I knew exactly what he was talking about. But I didn’t tell him that. I said, “So what's all this got to do with a bomb that went off at a church?”

  “We were hoping you would be able to tell us that.”

  “Because you think I’m involved somehow?”

  “Because you show up at the oddest places. And you get involved with some interesting people.”

  “So do you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mark David Mayne,” I said.

  “We’re all interested in each other now, aren’t we?” Posting said. “But Mr. Romeo, our interest is greater than your interest. As far as we know you’re only looking out for yourself.”

  “Are you telling me that the government is more important than the individual?” I said. “Would you like to get into a Madisonian discussion about that?”

  “Did you just say Madisonian?” Posting said.

  “Yes I did.”

  “Why did you say that?”

  “Because,” I said, “I’ve read The Federalist.”

  “Interesting. You are an interesting man.”

  “We’ve established that the keyword is interesting,” I said.

  “But here’s the thing that bothers us,” Posting said. “You don’t appear to have a background. We can’t find out anything about you. That is really …”

  “Interesting?”

  “Exactly,” Posting said. “You want to explain that?”

  “No.”

  A moment of stunned silence. I like silence when it’s stunned.

  “Mr. Romeo,” Samara said, “can you account for your whereabouts for the last two weeks?”

  “Whereabouts?”

  “Yes.”

  “How specific?”

  “Just tell us where you were.”

  “West of the Mississippi.”

  “Can you be more specific than that?”

  “West of Lake Itasca, the headwaters of the Mississippi.”

  Agent Samara’s nostrils seemed to flare in an irate Cuban manner. “All right, have it your way,” she said. “Have you been residing in Los Angeles?”

  “Yes.”

  “Address?”

  “Yes.”

  She pursed her lips. Lip pursing is a universal show of consternation and this time she wanted me to see it. “I mean where, sir?”

  “I’m not going to tell you. Are we finished?”

  “Have you been in Los Angeles the whole time?”

  I gave her a look, a smile and a pause. “Your questions are beginning to sound accusatory.”

  Posting said, “And the way you’re talking makes it appear that you have something to hide.”

  “Everybody has something to hide,” I said.

  “Are you refusing to answer our questions?” Posting said.

  “I’m refusing to be sucked into custodial questioning without counsel present. So unless you have something to hold me on, I’m going to go now and thank you very much for your time.”

  “That’s your privilege,” Posting said.

  I started to stand but Posting held up his hand. “One more thing, Mr. Romeo. You need to be aware that you’re stepping into waters that are very dark.”

  “And you’re issuing me a friendly warning?”

  He nodded.

  “Well,” I said, “it looks like I’ll have to get my cappuccino elsewhere. I’d appreciate a ride into Hollywood.”

  “We don’t do rides,” Posting said.

  “You brought me here,” I said.

  “Good luck,” Posting said. “You’re going to need it.”

  I WALKED OVER to the Civic Center subway station where I could catch the red line to Hollywood, wondering why the feds were so interested in what seemed like a small trade in bogus biologicals. Sure, you don’t want contraband coming in, but hard drugs and aliens were the more pressing need. Always had been.

  Federal manpower is limited. They have budgets just like state police or a restaurant. Why would this be on their radar?

  What kind of connection was there with Mark David Mayne?

  Was he moonlighting as some undercover guy? This wasn’t as absurd as it sounds. Mayne, according to Natalia, was into the rush. He was like Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, who described his first flip of an office building as better than sex. He was into the Los Angeles development scene as big as anybody, so who better to keep tabs on the sorts of usage Posting had been talking about?

  Or he could have been involved in the trade himself, which might be plausible. Commercial development had hit the skids in recent years and guys like Mayne operated on money.

  I remembered reading about John DeLorean, who started a car company when everybody said it was impossible to do. His car ended up in Back to the Future. He was a guy addicted to his adrenal glands, just like Mayne, and when he got into a money squeeze he thought he might traffic in cocaine.

  But if these feds knew so much about me, why didn’t they hold me for questioning?

  One reason was that they wanted to put an old-fashioned tail on me.

  That’s another thing Joey Feint taught me—the art of spotting a tail. And the first job is not to look like you’re trying to spot a tail. Since I wasn’t in a place with a bathroom, I couldn’t duck in there and wait. I was leaning on a pylon in a subway station.

  That’s when you call out the old peripheral vision.

  Which you can train. I used to look in store windows and at people without turning my head. I was hoping someday to be able to look behind me. Hasn’t happened. Yet.

  I gave a casual glance to my left, back toward the stairs leading down to the platform. A quick scan gave me an Asian kid with a backpack and earbuds, a black couple with a baby in a stroller, a couple of Hispanic high school girls looking at their phones and moving their thumbs, a rotund Caucasian woman in a charcoal coat that was not right for the weather—and at the far end, looking my way, a man in a suit. He could have been a lawyer, because downtown is a hive for the legal profession. He was not carrying anything, though. Not a briefcase or a paper. He had an earbud in one ear.

  All this I saw in one second.

  Then I looked back at the tra
ck in front of me, keeping the platform to my left in my peripheral vision, seeing if the guy in the suit looked my way.

  He did. Briefly.

  I turned my back on him and walked further toward the interior of the platform, stopped, looked at the track again.

  The guy hadn’t moved, was looking at the track himself.

  Then toward me again.

  This was about the time I felt the onrush of air from the subway tunnel, signaling the arrival of the red line.

  I eased my way a few steps further. If the guy in the suit was a tail, I wanted to hook him, reel him in, and use him as I saw fit.

  Which, if he was a fed, would have to be with a gentle touch.

  The train stopped. The doors opened. I happened to be at a rear door. I went immediately to the back of the car and found a seat. I looked up at a train ad and saw, peripherally, the guy in the suit get on through the front doors.

  Something about this did not smell right.

  Something in the car did not smell right, either.

  It was a man in clothes that had not been washed in months. The sheen of grease and grime was all over the coat, the jeans, the shoes with flaps. It was a good excuse to get up and walk toward the middle of the car.

  As I did, the man did nothing to indicate he was watching me. He looked unconcerned and happy to be listening to whatever was in his earbud. Was it another agent? Or music?

  At the first stop, Pershing Square, I stepped off the train, paused, and watched to see if the guy got off.

  He did not.

  But some other people did.

  So I stepped back onto the train.

  And so did the rotund woman in the charcoal coat.

  We made eye contact the moment she was back inside. I smiled at her. She mouthed an obscenity. I shrugged my shoulders. She shook her head.

  At the next stop, 7th Street Metro, I got off and waited for her. She approached me on the platform.

  “Are you going to make this hard on me?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Are you FBI, DEA, ATF, or ADHD?”

  She sighed.

  I said, “I can shake you now. Why don’t you just go back to your office?”

  “Can we at least make it look good?” she said.

  “Like how?”

  “I just follow you home. You go to where you’re staying, I see you go inside, I come back with a report.”

  “But I don’t want you to know where I’m living.”