A Good-Looking Corpse (2 page)

A crowd has gathered to watch, just as it does at all public death scenes. But on the Westside, this crowd is all buttoned up in suits and looking like millions of dollars collectively. Three men standing near the glass double doors at the entry of the building are taking particular interest in the goings-on and in my arrival. As I walk up, one of them, the middle one, tall, fit, a young type with a coif of brown hair above the azure-tinted lenses of his horn-rim Ray Bans, points in my direction and says something to a shorter and slimmer Indian guy to his left. I don't let on that I've seen him do it, nor do I care particularly. In my white polo and black work slacks, I look like I don't belong among the crowd of executive types. Me and the blue-sunglasses guy are the only non–police officers not wearing suits, but somehow, even in his casual T-shirt and slacks combo, he fits right in. His outfit even suggests that he is probably the richest of them.

A police officer detains me before I get to the yellow police tape and demands to know my business. I grip at the logo on my polo and lift it an inch closer to him. Rule one with beat cops: don't let them bully you. “Got some identification?” he asks, still unrelenting. In this case, I can't blame him—some member of the freelance cockroach media has doubtlessly tried to access a celebrity crime scene or two by pretending they were supposed to be there. I show him my California driver's license, which I know isn't what he wants. “You got a badge or anything?” he persists, uncertain. He is out of his element here and it shows. His higher-ups had likely told him that nobody gets through, now here I am attempting to challenge that. But what identification does he want? There isn't some crime scene cleaners union where they issue us all crime scene passes. All I can do is wait until he calls over a superior on to whom he can pass the buck, which was what I knew he was going to do from the moment I walked up.

“Sarge,” he calls to a nearby officer. The sergeant ambles over and squints at me. “You're that guy,” he says, nodding after a moment. “The famous one.”

I fix him with a winning smile and accept his invitation beneath the yellow tape. Moving past the both of them, I overhear the officer explain exactly who I am. No longer do they use terms like “kid killer”—now it's “hero.” I don't know that I like the one better than the other, but it gets me through the plastic rope faster.
Rule one in Los Angeles? Be a Somebody.

Alan Van's corpse is still on premises, covered under a weighted midnight-colored tarp that allows blood to continue leaking out from beneath. His wrecked body still being on scene means I will be waiting a while. At least the police dicks have completed their cursory investigation, I note. Nobody is paying the remains much interest. I decide to wander around and assess the sum total of my day's work. Slipping my trusty Minolta from my pocket, I begin the process of documentation. Suddenly, a tan-colored hand obstructs my view. “No pictures,” the detective yells, snatching the camera from my hand.

“Hey,” I snipe, reaching for it back.

“Who let this guy on scene?” the investigator, a fit middle-aged Asian guy in a sharp gray suit, demands of the officers surrounding us. He extends my camera up and away, so it is the farthest away from me that he can make it, like it's junior high and he's got my math book.

“He's kosher,” the sergeant from earlier says, but his voice isn't as authoritative as it was previously. “He's the cleanup guy. The one who saved Stack out in Metro.”

The detective is in a tough place here—he's too much of a tight-ass to capitulate in front of the other officers, but he's overreacted. I know which emotion will win out and I am right. “Doesn't matter who he is,” the dick maintains, just as loud. “I don't want pictures until the body is off-site. In fact,” he slides my Minolta into his jacket pocket, “I'm keeping this with me 'til then.” He moves off with my camera before I can retort. It's probably for the best; I don't know that I have much to say—upper-level homicide detective trumps crime scene cleaner every time. If he really wants to make a stink about it, he can have me kicked off the cleanup and another company brought in. But that would require more effort from him than it was probably worth.
Besides, he already thinks he's made me look like the dickhead by taking my camera
.

Suddenly curious, I look up at Blue Sunglasses on the veranda to see what he thinks of the whole episode. He is nonchalant, a cool smirk on his face as he stares right back at me.

I go for my clipboard and decide to write up an invoice in the meantime. I don't need to see beneath the tarp to know the mess I am dealing with. Already cameras are recording and the news vans, with their massive antennas and satellites, are setting up; blonde reporters in tight dress suits are doing their vocal warm-up exercises and attempting to position themselves in a location to reveal what the others cannot. Two are shoving each other and have to be separated by the cops—all part of the show before the show. They'll both be sweet as peach pie when the cameras go on. Evidently, the behind-the-scenes money issues have been settled and now the news crews know exactly whose body is lying behind the police barricades. All media—television, print, and Internet—is about to explode into a frenzy. I am at ground zero.

I find the lead officer on the premises—a captain, the high-profile stuff always brings out the high-level brass. A black man with piercing brown eyes, he wears a name tag that reads Simpson. He signs off on my invoice straightaway, all $13,000 of it. This is the beauty of celebrities: in Los Angeles, they aren't like you and me—they are exempted from standard operating procedure. Normal people die on the street. I can charge the police department only under a grand on-site, no matter the severity of the work. If a celebrity dies in public, the powers-that-be will sign anything I put in front of them and it gets passed through the LAPD's billing-services department quickly.

With my invoice signed, I have nothing but free time until the coroner decides to whisk the body away. Standing back, outside the tape, I gaze again upward to look at the boxy hole where the safety glass had been busted out. The TV cameras, lacking a body to focus on, are doing the same.

“Crazy, right?” a voice to my right asks of me. “One minute here, the next, a meat puddle.”

I glance over to see the Indian man, the one who'd been next to Blue Sunglasses, silhouetted in the ebbing sun. That ball of fire disappearing into the horizon means I will be doing a lot of this in the dark.
Fuck
. The Indian man smiles at me, but it isn't the cocksure grin that had been on the face of his compadre. I glance back in the direction of Blue Sunglasses, but his space on the veranda is empty.

“You know him?” I ask, more out of a reluctance to make small talk than anything.

“Alan Van?” the Indian man confirms. “Yeah, I was there when he died. It wasn't a suicide.”

“Do they know that?” I ask, and thrust my chin in the direction of the scene and its glut of police officers. “Because they don't seem to.” From my brief time behind the screens obstructing the public's view, I could see that it was being treated as a high-profile, but still run-of-the-mill suicide. Of course, like the cops, I didn't have a good reason to suspect otherwise.

“They don't need to know. For all intents and purposes, the stupid asshole killed himself.” The Indian guy shrugs. “Call it suicide by stupidity, if you want.”

“Stupidity?” I ask.

“He was mouthing off to people he shouldn't have been mouthing off to, and he knew better than that. So, suicide by stupidity.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I decide to dispense with the mystery.
Clearly there's some bigger angle at play
.

“We want to hire you.”

“Who is ‘we'? The same people who offed the kid?”

“Tell you what, let's discuss this over dinner, you and I. On me, of course. We'll go whenever you finish.”

“This will take a while. And I won't really be in dinner attire by the time this is over with. And I've got plans tonight. And, in case all that didn't make it clear, I'm not interested.”

The man seems completely unruffled. “Dinner is happening, my man. You and I, tonight. We can do it at nine, we can do it at midnight—it doesn't matter to me. You don't even have to eat. But it will be beyond worth your while to go. In the meantime, good luck with all this. If it makes you feel better, he didn't have AIDS or anything.” The Indian flashes me one more smile, giving me a superfluous once-over, his white teeth still on display, aligned perfectly. “Yeah, you and I are going to be friends, I can feel it.” He nods, agreeing with himself, and walks back toward the skyscraper.

I study him as he goes, taking a mental picture. His camel-colored suit is elegant looking—a sort of glossy fabric I've never seen before and it looks expensive. He's thin but not built—he doesn't hit the gym like Blue Sunglasses. Once he's inside the glass doors of the Fox Plaza building and up the elevators inside, I move toward the detective. It irritates me to do it, the dick doesn't deserve it, and I'm not sure he'll take the help, but I know I have to try. Part of my atoning for Harold's death is disclosing this little tidbit of information that has fallen in my lap.

“I don't think this was a suicide,” I try, coming up to the detective not from behind but by making a wide arc to approach from the front, respectfully, as if doing my best to let him feel like he is the alpha male. Hopefully the gesture is enough and he won't be a complete cunt.

“I'm not really interested in what you think,” he responds coldly, even though there aren't others in earshot.
Oh yeah, he's a cunt
.

“Someone who claims to have been there just told me it wasn't a suicide,” I try again, still maintaining a position of deference. “That Alan Van pissed off the wrong people.”

“That's a hell of a tip,” the detective admits, his tone lightening. Momentarily, I think he is being genuine. Then he turns cold again, waving me off. “Get off my scene, scavenger.”

Well, Harold, at least I tried to be a better person, but that's why I don't like to try.

Sitting in the truck, AC on, I turn the ringer on my phone to silent and wait for the coroner to take away the body. The crowd of employees loitering at the scene outside of the building trickles away, exiting from an underground parking garage that soon becomes a steady stream of upscale cars—Mercedes, Range Rover, Lexus, BMW 5 Series, and one chrome-colored Maserati Quattroporte, its engine vibrating impatiently as it waits to go screaming out of the lot. In place of the bespoke executives come the fans, predominantly women, young and old, and they hold memorabilia that I assume represents Alan Van's film career—to them at least. T-shirts, DVDs, teddy bears, and flowers extend from the crowd, some of whom are tearing up, some of whom are sobbing outright. I imagine some of them won't cry that hard even when they lose a parent.
Weird thing, celebrity
.

The crime scene itself is brutal when I finally get to it, but considering how quickly I'm called in, it's still fresh and goes up easily. Utilizing pole lights, I am able to illuminate the scene, and the news vans with their racks of flood beams that mechanically extend thirty feet from the tops of the vans give me some added perspective in the dark. The crowd is mostly respectful, attempting to add their own radiance with candles or lighters. Someone has a guitar going, but it seems more like they are trying to sell their demo to a crowd than pay their respects. Toward the end of it all though, just when the officers have relaxed their guard some and removed their screens, one heavyset girl breaks from the pack, darting beneath the police tape to lie on the spot where Alan splattered, as if attempting to take a roll-around in his essence. I've long since sanitized and scrubbed the area, so if anything, she just got the benefit of a chemical bath. The girl is led away as the others in the crowd swoon and cheer, inflamed by her passion and dedication to the emotion of the moment.

After that, I carefully keep all the bags of biohazard close so no one can make off with blood or the bits of viscera and hair that loosed themselves from his person during the bounce.

Making sure the flash is on, I document the aftereffects of my work. To the naked eye, it will be as if nothing ever happened here. The fans will be disappointed, of course—they'd no doubt want the bloodstains preserved, and some sort of plaque installed. When the actor Paul Walker died, burned to a crisp in the passenger seat of a Porsche up in Santa Clarita, the fans wanted to rename the street where he died “Paul Walker Way” or some such nonsense. But the city basically said, “What the fuck has Paul Walker ever done for Santa Clarita except die here?” They raised a good point and, for being a suburb of Los Angeles County, showed an impressive amount of restraint toward celebrity. Of course, fans of his movie series,
The Fast and the Furious,
still go up there and do burnouts in front of where he died, even after all this time. The street in front of his crash site is covered in layers upon layers of thick black tire treads, swirling off in all directions. The real irony will be when someone crashes and dies trying to pay a living tribute to the death site.

As I re-bracket my ladder securely to the back of my truck, I hear the Indian man's voice behind me once again. “Ready for that dinner?”

I shake my head. “I told you I'm busy. I gotta get this stuff back to my office space so nobody steals it.”

“Aren't you a little bit curious about what I have to say? About the murder? About the job offer?”

“Why don't you come by my office tomorrow? We can talk about it there.”

“Where's your office?”

I start to say Sun Valley, but I stop and correct myself. “Downtown, Third and Broadway.” I haven't gotten used to the new address for my business yet.

“Excellent. I'll follow you, we can grab a bite in the area. Lots of good meat options.”

I bristle. “You got a thing against daytime?”

“Let's say I like the night. Like Batman.” The Indian sticks out a brown palm, his nails shiny and neatly rounded from a manicure. I can see the edges of a thick gold watch begin to extend from his shirtsleeve, which is, in itself, extending from his jacket sleeve. “I'm Ragdesh, but please, call me Ramen.”

“Ramen?” I ask.

“Like the noodles. It's racist, I know, but everyone calls me it, and I'm used to it.”

“Fine, call me Tom. But I'm still not having dinner with you tonight.”

“I know who you are, Mr. Tanner,” Ramen says. “We were expecting you at this crime scene. I promise you, I would not normally be so pushy in the matter, but would you believe my life hangs in the balance?”

Ramen's eagerness, frank manner, and capacity for dramatics have me curious. “Fine, tell you what. If I can park my truck in your garage, we can grab a quick bite around here. If it's that important, let's get it over with.”

“The gravest of importances.” Ramen smiles large again. “Excellent meat options here too. You like dead meat, don't you?”

We ride down to the mostly empty parking garage together in the work truck and swap my ride for his: an aging Silverado for a bright red Ferrari 458 Italia. “I'm reluctant to ride in this in my work shirt,” I warn him before getting in. “I don't want to get anything on the interior.”

“It's leather—a dead cow.” He laughs. “If I'm going to dishonor my family's heritage and beliefs by riding around on the chemically treated skin of a sacred animal, I think I can tolerate a little sweat.”

“Sweat if you're lucky.” I shrug and hop in, sitting in my first ultra-luxury car. It sits low, which is slightly uncomfortable, and I'm not even that tall. But it smells fantastic and the interior panels glow like something out of an alien spacecraft.

“Top down to experience it properly,” he says and hits a button to mechanically lower the roof into the trunk space.

The Italian pony roars to life under Ramen's control and we burst out of the parking garage, threading a concrete pillar like an alpine skier. The abruptness of the takeoff throws me back in my seat and yanks a smile to my lips. In less time than it takes me to exhale, I get the appeal of the little car.

“You're okay with me buying, right?” Ramen asks, clearly enjoying me enjoying the ride. I nod and he says, “Good, I know a place.” He hits the button for the windows and stops them halfway down, bringing more warm October breeze into the car. I quickly press my finger to the button on my side, allowing my window to drop entirely, disappearing into the door. Ramen gives me a quizzical look. “You just a fan of air or what?”

“I'm a fan of keeping my head. That window, halfway up like that, is a major killer of motorists in side-impact crashes—more than you would believe. It acts like a guillotine.”

Ramen chuckles and lowers his window. “You've seen some shit, huh?”

“More times than you'd believe. Lotta closed-casket funerals because of a car window being half-mast.”

“What's the worst thing you've ever seen?”

“I saw a celebrity who got thrown out of a window once…cops thought it was a suicide, but it wasn't.”

I mean for Ramen to take the bait and explain, but he doesn't. “That was no celebrity today,” he says instead. “That was a fuckin' actor. The real celebrity is the building itself. What do you know about Fox Plaza?”

“It lacks any actual foxes?” I ask.

“Do you recognize it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Dude.” He laughs and pounds a fist on the top of the steering wheel. We are heading up Fairfax now, toward Beverly Hills. “That's Die Hard's house.”

“What?”

“The building they shot
Die Hard
in? That's the Fox building! Well, really they just used the exteriors, but still! Fucking Nakatomi Plaza.”

“I haven't seen that movie in years.”

“Not just
Die Hard
though. The lobby was used for the beginning of the movie
Speed
and it was also used in
Airheads
and
Fight Club
! That's a hell of a pedigree!”

“Sure,” I agree casually. I am more fascinated by the looks we are attracting in the car—a blonde in an older model Lexus makes a blow-job motion in my direction, as if offering it in exchange for a ride. I shrug as we pass her by and turn back to Ramen, who apparently has only just gotten started.

“That's just one of the things that's so majestic about L.A.—I fuckin' love this town, LOVE it.”

“I'm guessing you live in the good part of it.” I nod.

“No, not just because of the swanky shit, man. It's the vibe of the city, the pulse. This city moves to a beat. It has instant lore built into it. Any neighborhood you go to, they all have movie history attached. Even the dark stuff—the shit you deal with is amazing too though! I am fascinated with all the famous death sites, but you must have a whole mental hard drive full of dead-body cleanups around this city, huh? I bet you can't drive more than a few blocks without coming across something that triggers a memory of some cleanup.”

“I've cleaned up a few dead Angelenos, I suppose.”

“Don't be modest around me because I won't be modest around you. We'll just be two straight shooters.”

“Tell me what's so important that it might mean your life, then,” I shoot back, tired of waiting for the man to bring it up on his own.

“You think I forgot? No, I didn't forget. I've got a mind like a steel trap, a memory like an elephant. It goes on for days. It's what makes me a good producer.”

“Is that what you are, a producer? That explains the car, I guess.”

“Sort of. The car was a gift. How much do you know about Mikey Echo?”

“I don't.”

“He was the tall guy standing next to me today.”

“Blue sunglasses?”

Ramen chuckles. “Sure, blue lenses today. That's Mikey—a man of excess. I'm sure he doesn't even know how many pairs of sunglasses he owns. Tomorrow they could be green or red or orange—or no sunglasses at all. Tomorrow he might show up with two dwarves stacked on top of each other, holding a beach umbrella over him.”

“Did he give you the car?”

“He did. Drove it a week and then he heard a Maserati Quattroporte's engine was scientifically calibrated to give women orgasms. Since then, that's all he has wanted to drive.”

“Was he there when Alan Van went out the window?”

“He's the one who ordered him to be thrown out.” Ramen says this all casually, as if an execution is just a part of doing business here. “You want to know another interesting fact about the Fox Plaza building?” If I don't, Ramen doesn't pause long enough to find out. “The thirty-fourth floor, where Alan got thrown out? It used to be Ronald Reagan's office.” He titters, excited. “Yup, the president of the United States used to be in that office. He even painted a watercolor picture, back when he was all demented with Alzheimer's and shit. It still hangs on the wall.”