“And look at what he achieved with that time,” Saul said. “He made sure he would be remembered forever. What about you, Floyd? What have you done with the time given to you?”
Floyd knew better than to respond to the man’s philosophical questions.
Marcel, the waiter, arrived with a tray carrying five teabags and a steaming pot. He set the tray and pot on the table.
Saul pointed at the first bag. “This is Yame Gyokuro. Grown under the shade rather than the sun, this green tea is harvested only two weeks each year in Japan, making it one of the more valuable and treasured of teas. With a full, lingering mouthfeel, the aroma is of sea salt and vegetation, and the flavor is sweetly complex, hints of baked pear giving way to a buttery aftertaste. The tea next to it is the most prized of all white teas, Baihao Yinzhen, also known as Silver Needle, with only the top buds of the plant used to produce the tea. It leaves a lingering sweetness in the mouth, tasting of maples and peaches and smelling of cacao and pine. An exquisite tea. Third, we have Tieguanyin, an oolong tea named after the Chinese Goddess of Mercy, Guanyin. This tea becomes a creamy amber liquid and smells of fresh flowers. Fourth is Darjeeling black tea, named after the area in India in which it is grown. It’s known as the Champagne of teas for its nutty muscatel notes unlike any other tea. And, finally, we come to topgrade Irish breakfast tea, a misleading name as in Ireland this tea is drunk morning until night. A true classic black tea, rich and strong, it is taken with milk and sugar in that country, which, while a strange practice for traditional tea-drinkers, is one I have become quite fond of.”
Saul looked at Floyd, Marcel beside him, waiting. “The tea you choose will depend on how you feel, what you’re looking to get out of the experience. Which tea will you choose, Floyd?”
Floyd looked at the tray, already forgetting which tea was which and most of what Saul had said about them.
“I’m feeling a little Irish today,” he said.
Saul smiled. “Good choice. Marcel, return with some milk and sugar, would you?”
Marcel nodded and took the fifth teabag off the tray and ripped the packet open. He withdrew the teabag, placed it inside the empty cup on the table, poured in the steaming water from the pot, and drifted away.
Saul watched Floyd for a moment, neither of them saying anything.
“You know what I dislike even more than curious pigs?” Saul said.
“What’s that?”
“Pigs curious about murder. When it’s drugs, they can be paid off, or they lose interest, move onto the next case. But when it’s murder they won’t stop until they’ve caught their killer. It’s political. You can get away with a lot being vaguely associated with most crimes, but when that crime is murder, anyone that so much as smells like they’re involved is going down for it. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I think so.”
“Why is Eddie not sitting in front of me right now?”
Floyd scratched his chin. “There was … complications.”
Marcel returned with the milk and sugar.
“Thank you, Marcel. I’ll have the lobster now,” Saul said.
Floyd watched Marcel nod again and float away. The man was like an apparition.
Floyd went to take the teabag out of the cup.
Saul raised a hand. “Not yet. This tea steeps for five minutes.”
Floyd sat back.
“What do you mean by complications?” Saul said.
“Eddie didn’t wanna come with us. We had him in the club, sitting there about to walk out with him when this waitress appears outta nowhere and spills some drinks all over Sawyer. Next thing I know she’s screaming ’bout Sawyer hitting her and the security get on our ass. One of them grabs Sawyer, pins him to the floor. Then the fuckin’ barman points a shotgun at my head. While all this is going on Eddie slips out the front doors with the waitress. I think he told her to cause a distraction.”
Saul rubbed the tablecloth, frowning. “I like Eddie. He’s been a good worker. Smart enough to not get greedy, dumb enough to not ask questions. But, lately, his heart hasn’t been in it. He’s been restless, hungering for something else. And he’s been drinking too much, talking too much … and now you’re telling me that he split with some slut. Apart from the money he cost me, which I consider owed to me, him on the loose like that is dangerous. Even if the cops don’t track him down, he’s likely to get arrested for being a drunken fool. The thought of Eddie and his big mouth sitting in a police station, paranoid and caught off guard—that thought makes me nervous.”
“What you saying, Boss?”
“I’m saying Eddie’s a stray dog, riddled with rabies. Dangerous. There’s only one thing to do with a dog like that.”
Floyd nodded. He’d been hoping Saul wouldn’t say that. He looked around. A cream grand piano gleamed in the center of the oval-shaped dining area. Later, as every evening, it would be played by a world-class pianist as people paid hundreds of dollars to eat tiny portions of food at the tables spread out around it. Mirrors along each wall created the illusion that the tables continued forever in each direction.
Floyd was about to ask Saul what he planned to do about Eddie when Marcel arrived with the biggest, reddest lobster Floyd had ever seen. He placed the lobster on the table and left, Floyd nearly drooling at the tangy smell of the lemon-garlic butter wafting up from it.
Saul picked up his napkin and tucked it into his collar. He grabbed the lobster with both hands and ripped off the tail, then peeled the shell loose until the meat slipped out. He picked up the meat with his fingers, steam rising from it, dipped it into olive oil, and shoved it into his mouth.
“My chef makes the best lobster in the world,” Saul said, glistening butter sliding down his chin. “People come from all over the world to taste it.”
But you won’t offer me any, will you, asshole?
Saul picked up the lobster and twisted off a claw.
“I have a plan that will sort out both problems,” he said. “The other problem being the money we need for expansion.” He pressed the claw into his plate and pulled out the meat. “Have you ever heard of Diego de Dios, otherwise known as the Puerto Rican?”
“The hitman? I’ve heard some stories.”
Saul looked interested. “Tell me one of those stories.” He pushed more lobster into his mouth.
“Well, I heard he ice cold. If looks could kill this nigga couldn’t leave his house without people dropping dead. I heard one time some mob guys in New Jersey hired him to take out a judge who was gonna put one of the higher-ups away. They told him to make it obvious the judge was taken out, send a message. The Puerto Rican, never one to disappoint a client, had no trouble with that. The judge was found naked on the floor of his kitchen, his kidney missing from a bleeding hole in his side and a puke-filled plastic bag tied around his head. Later, they found the kidney. Was in a hundred little pieces floating around the vomit. The Puerto Rican had made the man eat it before he smothered him.”
Saul clapped a hand on the table and laughed heartily. “I love it. The man’s got style.”
Floyd grimaced as Saul continued shoveling lobster into his face. ‘Style’ wasn’t the word he’d had in mind.
“Why we talking ’bout a crazy motherfucker like the Puerto Rican?”
“Because that crazy motherfucker is going to sort out our Eddie problem, and you are going to be there to sort out our money problem.”
Floyd looked at the whale in the painting, then the tiny men in the boat. He didn’t like the sound of that. Didn’t like the sound of it at all.
Jerry Boylan sounded even more whiny in person than when he’d called to say that Bill had been murdered. Rufus sat across from him, the man behind a big desk in his private fourth-floor office. A photo on the desk faced Jerry, probably of a wife and kids. Behind him, a wall of glass overlooked the ordered gray and green of Pershing Square in L.A.’s financial district.
“Mister Kane, once again I’d like to offer my condolences
for your loss. I got to know Bill quite well over the years and we always got along. He seemed a decent man.”
Fucking lawyers. Bullshit coming out their ears.
“My brother was the furthest thing from a decent man a man can get. Let’s cut the bullshit and get to it. I don’t want to be in this city any longer’n I have to.”
The lawyer shifted in his seat. “You’re not happy to be back then?”
Rufus narrowed his eyes at the man.
“Bill talked about you every now and again,” Jerry said. “Told me you were quite the player around here a decade or so ago. What was it he said? ‘My brother’s name used to strike fear into the hearts of every no good sonofabitch in this town.’” Jerry smiled. “You were a contractor, right? Killer-for-hire?”
Rufus couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I’ve killed men for saying less than that.”
“Well, Mister Kane, the reason I ask is I might have need of your services, should you be willing to provide them.”
The man seemed pretty dumb for a lawyer.
“I don’t do that no more.”
“I’m talking big money.”
“I said I don’t do that no more.”
Jerry nodded. “All right, no problem, just thought I’d ask. I’ve got a case I don’t think I can win, and, well, never mind.” He fiddled with something on his desk. “Is it true you’re a Christian now? Bill was worried you’d found God in that trailer park you went back to.”
“No man finds God. God finds the man.”
Jerry looked at him thoughtfully. “How does that work, being Christian and coming here to take care of your brother’s killers?”
“‘For the Lord loves the just and will not forsake His faithful ones. Wrongdoers will be completely destroyed; the offspring of the wicked will perish.’ Psalm thirty-seven twenty-eight.”
“So God’s cool with it?”
“‘When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.’ Proverbs twenty-one fifteen. ‘Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.’ Isaiah one seventeen.’ I’m just God’s hand.”
Jerry appeared irritated. “Sounds like you found more than God out there.”
“No man—”
“No man finds God, yeah yeah. Well then, let’s get down to it. As I mentioned on the phone, someone seems to have wanted Bill dead. I don’t know who. There’s only one person I can think of that maybe would, you might know him, Saul Benedict, came up in the years since you’ve been gone. Owns the drug trade in this city, among other things. Practically runs the place.”
Rufus said nothing.
Jerry continued: “Bill was the middle-man between Benedict and the Mexicans that supplied the coke. But Bill carried more of the stuff than Benedict could sell, so Bill delivered the rest to other buyers in other states. For the privilege, Bill had to make regular payments to Benedict. This arrangement worked for a while, until Benedict started expanding his business. Then things got … murky, because Bill was selling to the competition. Thing is, I can’t see why Benedict would want Bill dead. Bill was just the middle-man. If he had a problem with the Mexicans selling it to everybody, that’s something Benedict would have to straighten out with them. I imagine that he has straightened it out with them, in fact. Bill just transported the stuff where the Mexicans told him to. In a way, it was unfair for Bill to ever have to pay Benedict for the privilege of selling to other buyers in the first place when it was really the Mexicans selling it to them and Bill just moving the stuff. But ‘fair’ and ‘Benedict’ are two words you’ll never hear in the same sentence. And to be honest, I think Bill just found it easier to keep the man happy. I mean, Bill was making a fortune.”
“Where can I find Benedict?”
“He owns a restaurant in Beverly Hills called The Long Goodbye. Pretty famous place, has two Michelin stars, I believe. Benedict is there most of the time, specially during the day before the place opens. Or so I hear.”
Rufus nodded and went to get up out of the chair.
“Easy cowboy,” Jerry said, raising a hand. “I got a little more for you than that.”
Rufus sat down.
“Bill liked to frequent a certain strip club. Well, he didn’t call it that, he called it a gentleman’s club, and the place refers to itself as a gentleman’s club, but, trust me, I’ve been to gentleman’s clubs and I’ve been to strip clubs, and this place is a strip club. Anyway, this club is where Bill met the girl who was with him the night he was killed. The cops haven’t identified her, but I know it’s her; Bill had her around all the time the last few months. Her name’s Kaya. So, today, on my lunch break, since I had nowhere else to look, I paid a visit to the place, spoke to some of the girls, asked them if they knew Bill. General consensus was that they knew who he was, and that last they heard he’d stopped going there around the time one of the girls stopped working there, a girl he had a particular fancy for, the same girl I just told you about. Apparently it’s not uncommon for the more rich clients to find a girl they like, you know, one they really like, and pay for her to be their own private dancer, if you know what I mean. But then they tell me something else, something that really piques my interest. Yesterday, a new girl started working at the place and spent the whole time asking about the girl, Kaya, saying that she was worried about Kaya, that they used to be close until they fell out of touch and the last place she knew Kaya worked was this club. Then, to make matters even more interesting, that same day some guys come in and cause some trouble with this new girl, one of them shoves her or something, and the way the whole thing looked to one of the other girls working there she was sure that they were trying to kidnap this new girl asking about Kaya.”
Jerry leaned forward, getting excited. “So, I’m thinking, what if we’re looking at this the wrong way around? What if it’s the girl that was into some shit and Bill was the one caught in the middle? It’s a leap, I know, specially ’cause why would they kill her in Bill’s home and not hers, but maybe that’s to throw the cops off the scent. And, to be honest with you, anything is better than trying to go after Saul Benedict. I don’t care who you are, Hand of God or the grim reaper, going after a man like that is suicide. And this girl asking about Kaya like that two days after Kaya was killed and then maybe getting kidnapped right after? That smells like something to me.”
Rufus digested this information.
“How do I find the girl?”
Jerry smiled, his eyes with a glint in them now. “That’s the best part about this whole thing. This new girl was being pretty cagey to these other girls, asking lots of questions but not giving much away. She told them she was new in town and when they asked her where she was staying she just said it was some shithole motel nearby run by a creep in a wheelchair who doesn’t clean up his cat’s shit.”
Jerry licked his lips. “Thing is, I happen to know the exact place she’s talking about. I represented the person who turned that guy in the wheelchair into a guy-in-awheelchair. My client hit the guy and run but was seen on camera speeding from the scene. A messy case; I got him off with a settlement ’cause the guy he hit had been in the wrong too, sprinting across the street like a fuckin’ lunatic. Like all my clients, that client was a rich one and the settlement was nothing to him. So, to arrange this settlement, I visited the wheelchair guy at the motel he ran and, my god, the stench. I can still smell it. There was a litter tray on the floor full of shit. I mean full of it. Couldn’t even see the stuff the cat was supposed to shit on. I felt sorry for the cat. And the place is a shithole if ever I saw one. Not far from the club either. That’s our guy, no doubt, which means that’s the place. It’s called the Starlight, just off the one thirty-four outside Eagle Rock. It would be a good idea to check that girl out before you go kicking down Benedict’s door.”
The lawyer was a fool but Rufus saw his point. He stood up, had learned all he could from this man who knew his intentions, h
is name, and what he looked like.
“I take it you don’t believe in God,” Rufus said, one hand reaching inside his jacket.
7 | Showdown at the Starlight
Eddie woke alone in his motel room with a head like a bowling ball. Damn hangovers. Almost enough to make him quit drinking. He staggered into the shower, so thirsty he stuck out his tongue and let the hot water collect on it. Memory of the night was slippery. There was the pizza place, he remembered that clearly ’cause he’d been sober then. After that came the bar. He danced with Dakota, her looking gorgeous, and pretty sober too if he remembered correctly. Then there was Humpty Dumpty at the bar, mouthing at him. Shit, did he get in a fight with the guy? Dakota won’t be impressed with that. Explains waking up alone.
Eddie went to put clothes on and remembered he didn’t have any, just the smelly jeans and shirt he’d worn the entire day and night before. Then he remembered that he didn’t have anything at all, not even cash, just those smelly clothes.
He put the clothes on and called for a cab, his cell nearly dead, and left the motel room to knock on the door of Dakota’s.
It opened.
“You’re still alive then,” Dakota said. She looked like she’d been up and dressed for a while.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“That hungover, huh?”
“Nothing a beer won’t fix.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Just kidding,” Eddie said, not sure if that was true.
They were silent for a moment.
“So …” Dakota said, looking cute with her hands in her back pockets. Eddie hoped the bar fight had been the worst of it.
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