All the Lucky Ones Are Dead (24 page)

“Sure, sure, I remember. I'm just askin' for a little clarification, that's all. I came along hopin' to learn somethin' about how
real
law enforcement officers like you do your job, but if you aren't gonna bother to
explain
anything …”

“We're here because the address you had for White turned out to be an old one, and she isn't in the book. Okay?”

“Not okay. Why do you you wanna talk to either one of these yahoos? What are you expectin' them to tell you?”

“I told you. I don't know. Something.”

“Something?”

“The tape Ray Crumley removed from the Westmore only showed three people visiting the Digga's room the night he died, and Aames and White were two of them. Crumley's boss at the Westmore says his only interest in the tape was a pair of ladies it caught getting nasty on each other out in the hallway, but I don't buy that. That's too easy. I think Crumley wanted that tape for something it showed either White and Aames doing, or Danee Elbridge, the Digga's other visitor that night.”

“So why aren't we talkin' to Danee Elbridge?”

“Because I've already asked her about Crumley, and she didn't bat an eye. She's a pretty cool customer, Poole, but I don't think she's that cool.”

“Still. My comrade La Porte told you to forget about the Crumley homicide, you said. He's got a perp, he's got a motive, and the whole enchilada's got nothin' to do with C.E. Digga Jones.”

“Nobody's saying it does. I'd just like to be sure it doesn't, that's all. 2DaddyLarge said Aames was all freaked out that she was gonna somehow get blamed for the Digga's death. Before I put my toys away and go home on this one, I think I should ask her why, don't you?”

Poole shook his head, drank some more of his coffee. “You already know why. Because she took a girl up to the kid's room to do a three-way with 'im she probably knew had AIDS. You and I wouldn't make a murder rap outa that, but we're not crazy. Aames is. She's a bona fide psycho-ward beauty queen, Gunner, just like your friend 2DaddyBig, or whatever his name is, told you, and her arrest jacket clearly confirms that.”

“Fine. So let her prove it. Let's put the question to her personally, and see what she says.”

Poole sighed heavily, showed Gunner a smile full of unabbreviated condescension. “Okay. You're the boss. But I tell you one thing …” He turned away, tossed the remainder of his coffee out the open side window of the car onto the street. “Next week I'm buying myself a fuckin' dish, order every sports channel they've got. Better I should be at home watchin' Eastern Montana Tech kick the shit out of Gomer Pyle U than spendin' my free nights like this.”

“Tell you what, Poole. You can leave at any time. I can do this just as easily on my feet as I can sitting here with you.”

Poole just ignored him, reverted almost subconsciously to his cop-on-surveillance mode. Silence flooded the car as the two men studied the entrance doors to Aames's apartment building again, waited for something even remotely worth their interest to appear in the vicinity. Gunner didn't know how Poole was passing the time, but his own mind drifted back in time two hours, when he'd gone out to Wally Browne's home in Bel Air to check on Jolly Mokes as promised.

Browne had answered the door, but Jolly was standing just behind him, watching Browne's back like any good bodyguard would. Sparkle Johnson was in the den reading, out of Gunner's sight, and never came out while he was there. Which was just fine, because he'd really only come to speak to Browne and Jolly, individually and in that order.

“I gather from the new orders you've given your man that you heard what Sparkle's friend Nance had to tell the police today,” Browne said after leading Gunner to a first-floor library adjacent to his kitchen and closing the door behind them. The look on his face wasn't a smug one, exactly, but it could easily have been mistaken as such.

“I heard,” Gunner said.

“I hate to say I told you so, Mr. Gunner, but I did say from the beginning that those bastards were involved in this. Didn't I?”

“There's still no guarantee that they are, Mr. Browne. I only moved Jolly inside as a precautionary measure.”

“Come on. Who're you kidding? The Defenders Of the Bloodline are behind Nance, and you know it. He said so himself.”

“Did he?”

“Sure he did. They didn't tell you? He's been workin' for 'em all along. He told the cops he's not a Defender himself, but the guys who've been giving 'im his orders are.”

“And his orders were to harrass Ms. Johnson?”

“Yeah. He said all the letters and the phone calls were their idea, not his. And of course, the bomb in her car yesterday. According to him, he didn't have anything to do with that.”

“No. Of course not. I don't suppose he was able to give the cops any names?”

Browne shook his head. “He told them he doesn't know any names. They never gave him their names, or showed him their faces. All his orders came over the phone, he said, except on two occasions when he and the people he met with were completely in the dark—he couldn't see a thing. Which is fairly common for the Defenders, right? Isn't that how they always operate?”

Unbeknownst to Browne, Gunner could vouch personally for the fact that it was. In his own previous encounter with the DOB, he had come in contact with no less than four men who had done the Defenders' dirty work, yet he'd survived the experience knowing the name of only one: Byron “Blue” Scales, a lean and mean young brother who was presently serving a thirty-year sentence up at Folsom on, among other things, a kidnapping conviction pertaining to Gunner himself. The remaining three Defenders Gunner had run into were still at large and unidentified, including the one who had ostensibly ordered the investigator's kidnapping so that they might meet, Gunner bound to a chair and blindfolded at some unknown site all the while.

“Ms. Johnson still think Nance was working alone?” Gunner asked.

“She says she does. But I don't think she really believes it. It's just what she has to say in order to blow off my concerns for her safety. She wants to keep pretending everything's okay.”

“Yeah? Well, wait until the Feds call. That could change her mind quick.”

“The FBI? What have they got to do with this?”

“The Defenders are a pet project of theirs. The DOB's a national enterprise, not a local one, so that automatically makes them the Bureau's business. If they haven't taken over the LAPD's investigation into last night's bombing yet, they will soon. You can bet on it.”

“Jesus,” Browne said. “I hadn't thought about that. The FBI! Sparkle's gonna have a coronary!”

“Don't knock it. Once they get involved, they'll cover her like a blanket twenty-four/seven, and my friend and I will be able to go home.”

“Yeah, but until then …”

“We'll be here. Of course.”

But Browne went right on worrying. Jolly still wasn't his first choice as a bodyguard for Johnson, and he wasn't shy about reiterating the fact. The big man was physically imposing enough, he said, but he doubted Jolly had the temperament necessary to resort to violence, should circumstances ever call for him to do so.

The irony in that was laughable, of course, but Gunner never told Browne as much, just reminded him again that, for another twenty-four hours at least, it was either Jolly or nothing. Browne seemed tempted to go with nothing this time, but eventually relented when Gunner wouldn't budge.

A few minutes later, Gunner's large friend entered Browne's office in the radio executive's stead, Gunner having asked Browne if he could have a word with Jolly in private.

“I want you to start carrying this,” the investigator said, pressing a .45 caliber Para-Ordinance P10 firmly into Jolly's right hand.

Jolly looked at the gun as if it were a live tarantula. “What for?”

“Because the game's changed, and you may need it. Has Browne talked to you at all about what's going on?”

Jolly shook his head.

“Ms. Johnson's boyfriend's claiming he's been harrassing her under orders from a group called the Defenders Of the Bloodline. Ever hear of 'em?”

The big man took so long to answer, Gunner was beginning to think he hadn't heard the question. “The Defenders?”

“Yeah. Also known as the DOB. They're a bunch of black crazies who think conservatives like Johnson are the scourge of our people and should be wiped off the face of the earth. Which would be somewhat amusing, except that they aren't just talking. They've already killed a number of people here and elsewhere, and the Feds have been getting nowhere trying to stop 'em.”

Jolly paused again, came back with a simple shrug this time. “I don't get it.”

“Get? There's nothing to get. Johnson's boyfriend could be full of shit for all we know, but just in case he isn't, we've gotta prepare for the worst here. If the Defenders really are involved in this like he says, Jolly, size and strength alone aren't gonna cut it against 'em. Even you are gonna need a little gentle persuasion to sweet-talk 'em with, they make another move on the lady while you're watching her, and that means I want you strapped from here on in. No ifs, ands, or buts.”

“Yeah, but …”

“You're worrying about violating your parole, don't bother. You use that thing to take a Defender down, the cops are gonna be too busy planning the parade route to even think about busting you on a parole beef. Believe me.”

“Sure, sure. I just…”

“What? The Lord's not telling you you can't protect yourself properly, is he?”

“No. It ain't that.”

“Then?”

“Hell, I'm just thinkin' 'bout
you
, that's all. I mean, this ain't your only piece, is it?”

“My only piece? No.” Gunner couldn't help but find Jolly's concern slightly touching. “That's just a spare I had lying around the house. Don't worry about me, Jolly. Worry about yourself, and Ms. Johnson. And please, not necessarily in that order.”

Shortly thereafter, he left Jolly to it.

But their conversation stayed with him for some time afterward. Jolly's question about the Para-Ordinance being the investigator's only weapon had led him to start giving some serious thought to a possibility he hadn't cared to fully acknowledge before, namely that the Defenders Of the Bloodline had finally decided to make good on their promise to keep him under some form of surveillance. Up to this point, he'd written that off as a hollow threat, just something the Defenders had said in parting to make him lose a little sleep, but now he wasn't so sure. Now he had to wonder if the silver Le Baron that had seemed to be following him for the last several days was relevant to something other than his efforts in the Carlton Elbridge case.

Could inserting himself and Jolly into their plans for Sparkle Johnson have finally put him back on the Defenders' hit list?

It was probably best to consider it likely, and operate accordingly. So he sat in Poole's car now, down in Culver City, one eye looking for Antoinette Aames and the other for the silver Chrysler, hoping like hell to see the former first. Because once Aames was out of the way, he could concentrate on Johnson and the Defenders. Aames and her girlfriend Felicia White were the only holes in the Elbridge investigation left to fill, as far as the investigator was concerned.

Unfortunately, neither lady was anywhere to be seen.

Aames's apartment building was a two-story number on Barrington Avenue that dated back to the sixties, the kind of ubiquitous structure that featured a carport out front and a giant starburst on its face, the latter mounted just above the ridiculous name its builders had pretentiously bestowed upon it: Seacrest Manor. In two and a half hours, Gunner and Poole saw a grand total of four people pass through the Manor's unlocked doors, three men and one woman, and none of them resembled either Aames or White in the least.

After the last of this quartet had disappeared inside—a young, brown-skinned man with a ratty beard and ponytail to matcli—Poole turned to his right and said, “Okay, Gunner, you win. Get outa my car, I'm goin' home.”

He braced himself to hear Gunner argue, but the investigator lacked all incentive. “I'm with you,” he said, nodding. “This is a bust—take me back to my car.”

“You're givin' up?”

“Not giving up. Just regrouping. I'll either come back later or try to draw a line on White instead. Her old pimp answers the phone the next time I call, he might be able to give me a new address for her.”

Poole started the car without comment, pulled the Ford slowly away from the curb. A more patient man might have kept going south on Barrington, circled the whole block to get back to Washington Boulevard and the 405 Freeway on-ramp he sought, but Poole just turned the unmarked cruiser into the first driveway on his left, backed out again to reverse his field. Seeking the shortest distance between two points, as was so often the cop's wont.

Meanwhile, Gunner took one last look at Antoinetta Aames's apartment building, saw the ponytailed man they'd seen enter earlier come out again, moving as if something big with sharp teeth would soon be hot on his heels.

“Hold up a minute, Poole,” Gunner said.

“I see 'im.”

Poole slowed, watched first through his side mirror, then his side window as the guy hustled past them on the left, built a slight lead on his way out to Washington. Gunner had never seen him before, but he knew the type; hype or crackhead, rummie or stoner, addiction always gave them the same look of anxious desperation, clothed them in the same thin layer of sour sweat.

Gunner opened his door while the car was still moving, stood up to yell something out to the guy as Poole, surprised, hit the brakes.

“Hey, Marvin!”