Everybody Takes The Money (The Drusilla Thorne Mysteries) (24 page)

“I want everyone to get something out of this. Everyone walks away happy. What is it that you need to walk away happy?”

“I’ve gotten the short shaft from this group since Erica Rose signed on. She needs to be respected as a professional. She’s not doing this as a favor.”

Translation: he wanted money.
 

Fine. We haggled a bit and I offered him a number in the mid four digits, in cash. Less than I’d been prepared to offer, that was for certain.

“What else do you need, Chris?”

“She’s sixteen. She can’t work all day and all night.”

Translation: he wanted her to show up and leave almost immediately.
 

“She is on stage at seven o’clock and she sings four songs,” I said.

“Two,” he said.

She barely had the voice to do two in a row. I sighed heavily. “Three. What else?”

He paused.

He’d had a short list of demands.
 

“How about you, Chris? Are you being taken care of? Is there anyone you’d like to meet? Possibly discuss Erica Rose’s movie career?”

His eyes widened. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I would. I’d like to get Erica Rose a new movie agent.”

“Do you have someone in mind?”
 

McClanahan mentioned some name, Tony somebody-or-other. I didn’t keep track of who the top agents in Hollywood were. But I was certain Roberto could find out who this person was.

“We can make that meeting happen,” I said, “provided you stick to what we’ve agreed to here. Erica Rose shows up on time, and she does three songs. She shows up late or she leaves early, no one’s going to be happy.” And he wasn’t going to get any of his money under the table.
 

He nodded. He put his hand out to shake.

“Not so fast, Chris. There’s one thing you need to tell me to make me happy.”

“Erica Rose will—”

“Will appear at the party she already agreed to be at. But now I’ve had to chase you halfway around creation to get you to agree to that. So you need to tell me something.”

“Okay. What?”
 

“It’s about your arrest.”

His anger was instant. He
really
did not like talking about it. “Fuck you. No. I’m not talking about that with you.”

“Chris, you did your time. Your history doesn’t affect our agreement or Erica Rose’s performance tomorrow night. But there’s something you know that I need to know.”

He stuck his index finger in my face. I didn’t blink. “I got nothing with that shit anymore, do you understand me?”
 

I nodded. My cheek hit his index finger mid-nod. “Excellent decision on your part. I still have a question, though. It doesn’t go beyond our conversation here and now.” I waited until McClanahan was ready. “The bloke who arrested you. Tennyson.”

If I hadn’t had the mild suspicion before, the way McClanahan shook his head and gritted his teeth told me I was definitely about to ask the money question.
 

“You knew him before the arrest, right?”

“Fuck you, I’m not saying a word.”

“You think Roberto Montesinos has a cop working for him?” I said.

“People who are too helpful make me suspicious.”
 

I lifted up the edge of the blouse I was wearing. He stared at my stomach, with its bandage and bruises. “Broderick Tennyson did this to me a few days ago. Also, you might notice while you’re looking that I’m not wearing a wire.” I dropped the hem. “So could you answer my question, please? You knew him before he arrested you, right?”

“Yeah. You might say that.”
 

“He was part of your operation.”

McClanahan nodded. “Yeah.”

“Tell me how it worked.”
 

“Why? This was ten—twelve years ago. What do you care?”

“Because I think he’s doing it again, Chris. He’s doing it here, in Los Angeles. And I think he killed someone this week because of it. Tell me how it worked.”

He told me. It was pretty simple.
 

The construction crews around Los Angeles were almost all Mexican or Central American immigrants. Very few of them had the right papers. Chris McClanahan had set up a smuggling operation with incoming workers: they carried in meth from Mexico and when they got to Simi Valley, they had semi-legitimate work waiting for them. McClanahan delivered the meth to Broderick Tennyson, who not only distributed the drugs but arrested McClanahan’s main competition.
 

“How big was your construction firm?”

“We did five million in projects a year.”

“And how much did you clear in meth?”

“About fifty percent of that.”

Wow, I thought. Nice work if you can get it, except for the murders and the addiction and lives ruined and such. “What did it depend on?”

He shrugged. “How many guys I could get on the crew. They didn’t want to keep coming in and out, and who can blame them?”

I nodded. “Did Greg Hitch—”

McClanahan exploded with anger. “That fucker? You come here and ask me about him? You know he was going to be the main witness against me, right?”

I shook my head. The stories about McClanahan’s trial had been sparse. The whole thing had been put to bed rather quickly. “I didn’t know that. I’m sorry. Why was he the witness?”
 

McClanahan seemed to finally accept he was going to stand there and talk to me until I was satisfied. “We shared crews. When guys finished their shifts for me they’d go pick up work from him and vice-versa.”

“Which is how he found out about this.”
 

McClanahan shrugged. “I told people about Tennyson’s involvement and it got covered up.”

Maybe Hitchcock had proposed a deal to Tennyson: they both move to L.A. and start doing this on a much bigger scale. Tennyson would go to work in Vice as an undercover cop, arresting the competition and protecting Hitchcock. And Hitchcock wasn’t going to share workers with anyone this time. And how many workers did Hitchcock have going at any one time? On large-scale projects?

I wondered if Stevie could piece together how much HCFC was clearing a year in contracts. If he was doing fifty percent again importing meth—

McClanahan pulled another cigarette out of the pack. He really did not enjoy reliving his glory years. Good. Maybe he had his eyes firmly focused on the future. “We done now?” he asked.
 

“A limo will be at your house enough time before the fundraiser to get you and your daughter,” I said. I put my hand out, and we shook. “Thank you very much, Mr. McClanahan. You’ve been extremely helpful.”

In my car I called Anson Villiers’s office and left the message that everything should be straightened out with Erica Rose. “If there are any problems, if she’s late, if she behaves badly, call me immediately.”
 

I left a message for Roberto and told him he needed to get in touch with Tony Somebody-or-other, a movie agent, to have a meeting with Erica Rose. Just a meeting. That was all I promised.

When I hung up, I stared at the phone for a moment. Should I tell Anne about what I’d just learned from Chris McClanahan? In the end I decided she ought to know. At the very least, she could start investigating it, and maybe she could make a bigger story out of it. “Ring me as soon as you can,” I told her voicemail. “Not only do I have a way out of our problem with Sabo, I have a gigantic story for you.” I gave her the short version on the phone, mentioning Sabo’s real name.

And there’s nothing that keeps a freelance journalist happier than a big story dropped in their lap.

Well, if I were a freelance journalist, that would keep me happy.

There are several reasons I wouldn’t make it as a journalist, and my problems with reading comprehension were among the least important.

I LAY DOWN on the sofa in the library, staring up at the tin ceiling. Now that Gary and Randi weren’t in here, it was quiet and relaxing again. Stevie wasn’t enjoying the silence much, so I told her what I’d learned from McClanahan. “Way, way bigger than money laundering. And Courtney knew something about all of it.”
 

“Perhaps you should call Detective Gruen with this information,” she said.

I grinned. “Maybe I should, huh?”

She sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”

My phone buzzed with a text. Stevie glanced at it. “Anne’s outside. She needs to talk to us.”

My phone message about a possible story had piqued her interest. But she couldn’t call first? Even I think it’s a little inconsiderate to stop by someone’s house without calling first. Well, unless I’m breaking in. I don’t call before doing that. And since when did Anne text before she came over instead of call? “Finally. Where the hell—Hades has she been?”
 

Stevie did whatever tech magic she does to open the front gates of Gary’s estate and we walked through his house. “Hades is not the equivalent of the Christian hell,” she said. “It’s more akin to—”

“Tell me all of this again, when I’m reading comparative mythologies at some university. Oh dear, you’ll be waiting a very long time.”

She pursed her lips and stared straight ahead.

Anne’s white VW convertible was rounding the fountain as we opened the front door. But she didn’t park in one of the spaces under the pine trees. She parked by the fountain and got out.

She looked mad.

To be more specific, she looked mad
at me
.
 

Lots of people have reason to be furious with me. Especially after what had already happened so far that day, let alone during the entire week. Anne wasn’t supposed to be on the list. What had gotten under her skin?
 

“Anne! I’ve been calling you. What’s going on?”

Anne didn’t even come all the way around her car. She stopped at the rear bumper, pushed her glasses up her nose and glared at me. “I can’t believe how stupid I am. I thought maybe I was different. You and me, we’re friends. But you just think everyone’s dumber than you, don’t you? Well, I guess we all are.”
 

I was about to offer her a gigantic news story. What had her back up? “What are you talk—”

“When I came here Tuesday morning, I told you about Courtney’s murder. And you said later how it happened in North Hollywood.”

I shook my head. “You told me—”

“I said she was murdered in her motel room. Not where. Didn’t occur to me until later that you somehow knew where. All I said was ‘motel.’”

“It was on the news.”

“You didn’t know Courtney was dead until I told you, remember?” she screamed. “
You’re the witness!
I’ve seen the report. You witnessed Courtney’s murder and you didn’t say a goddamn word to me.”

If the cops were releasing my name publicly, I was in trouble. Very big trouble. I skipped past worrying about Sabo. My name in the news—that would get back to Roberto in seconds. “Anne, calm down.”

“Jesus Christ. What the hell happened? You go to talk to Courtney and she ends up dead. Is that supposed to be some kind of
coincidence
? Aren’t you the one who’s going on about how there’s no such thing as a goddamn coincidence?”

“Anne. Stop.”

She waved her arms in the air, like she was dispelling my words like they were bees attacking her. “No. No more. Whatever you say, you’re probably just going to lie. Sometimes being with a person like that is fun. It’s not fun anymore. It’s crazymaking.
You’re
crazymaking.”

First Gary, now this.

Had everyone in my life lost their damned mind today?

“How do you dare come here and say this to me?”

“Because I don’t believe anything you say anymore!” she yelled. The stone facade and brick of the courtyard made quite the echo chamber—I wouldn’t be surprised to find out most of our neighbors could hear us.
 

“Let me finish!” I yelled back, walking down the steps. “You’ve said your piece, now let me say mine. You don’t come here and talk to me like that and expect I’m going to take it. No, I didn’t tell you I was with Courtney. I watched her die, Anne. Why in the hell would I tell you about that? The police want me to tell them what I saw. If I’m not telling them, what the fuck makes you think I would tell you?”

“Because I’m your friend.”

“Funny way you have of showing it.”

“Dru,” Stevie said.
 

“Save it, Stevie. Oh, and Anne? Anything I did tell the police? It would go straight back to Roger Sabo. You want to know why? He’s an undercover cop by the name of Broderick Tennyson. In addition to his other activities, such as beating up women and dealing, he’s also got a massive methamphetamine operation with Greg Hitchcock. How’s that for me telling you something?”
 

Anne’s righteous indignation faltered when her interest in hearing more about those little revelations surged.

“No, no, no,” she said. “I am done with your lies and your bullshit.”

“Oh, no,” Stevie said. “What she said just now is absolutely true.”

Anne shook her head. “You seem like you’re genuinely nice, but you have her as a big sister and I feel sorry for you.” She walked back to the driver’s side door.

“Hold up a minute, Anne,” I said.

I would have told Stevie to close the gates to force her to talk, but it was too late: the VW headed out to the road.
 

“Dammit,” I muttered.
 

Priorities. What was the top priority right now? I couldn’t do anything about Anne’s little hissy fit at the moment. I needed to know if her getting a hold of my name was because she had sources or because the LAPD was getting ready to release it publicly. Maybe I should call Nathaniel.

Or I should take Stevie up on her previous suggestion.

I handed Stevie my phone. “Text Detective Gruen.”

“Drusilla, now isn’t the time. Did you hear—”

“Text him and ask him how his day’s been going.”

“You’re reacting quite poorly to Anne’s visit,” she said.

“Just do it.”
 

Stevie held the phone without doing anything. “What if he doesn’t respond?”