Green Monster (23 page)

Joey strode over to Fawna as though he intended to beat the hell out of her, but as he reached for the cowering woman, they all heard police sirens begin to wail, coming south on Fairfax and getting louder.

Heather had seen the wreck in her rearview mirror; Sam saw it while he looked backward between the front bucket seats. Frankie heard it, but couldn't bring himself to look.

Heather slowed down when she got to Oakwood and took a left. She went two more blocks west, this time under the speed limit on the residential street, until she got to Fairfax. She waited there at a red light as four squad cars roared through the intersection, sirens wailing and lights flashing.

“Nice timing,” Heather said to Sam.

“Nice driving,” he said.

They exchanged the kind of glances that had led them to bed in the past few days—but things had changed between them. Maybe for the better.

“Have you ever been to Bruce Kenwood's house?” Sam asked Frankie.

“Yeah, once or twice.”

“We need to go there now. Can you find it?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“After that, we're going to the airport. You'd better leave town for a while.”

“Fine with me.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Sam was convinced that neither Mink's gang nor the cops were following them, but he had Heather avoid the freeway and take city streets—La Cienega to Washington, Duquesne to Jefferson—until they picked up the 405 near Marina Del Rey. They exited again on Hawthorne Avenue and headed south toward the oceanfront promontory that was Palos Verdes. On the way, Sam gave Frankie the quick version of how he and Heather had tracked him down.

“After I found out you two had been locked up together, suddenly the ‘lost at sea' story didn't ring true,” Sam said. “The rest was easy to figure out.”

Especially when he realized Frankie didn't have the money or the brains to pull off the job himself—but Sam kept that thought to himself.

“So where does Bruce get his money?” Sam asked. “Palos Verdes is a pricey neighborhood, right?”

“Yeah,” Frankie said. “Even the pool boys drive Hummers out there.”

“And Brucie never got any money from Dad, right?”

“That's what he told me,” Frankie said. “Ever since the stepmom came into the picture. But he got almost a million from that insurance settlement when his warehouse burned down.”

Frankie told Sam that Bruce Kenwood had been a marked man from the day he walked into Lompoc. Few of the inmates knew who his father was, but the stink of privilege, prep school, and wealth was all over him. He was immediately dubbed Preppie, and then Richie Rich, and then Richie Bitch. By then he was literally the bitch of one of the nastiest prisoners in Lompoc, an arson and forgery specialist named Dingo. Bruce never ratted out Dingo for repeatedly raping him, possibly for fear of being murdered, but more likely, Frankie speculated, because the arrangement came to suit him. No one messed with Bruce as long as he was Dingo's bitch.

“Did you ever have a go at him?” Sam asked Frankie.

“Hell, no,” Frankie said. “I wasn't in there long enough to turn queer. Can't say the same for Brucie, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, maybe he liked it. How do you put up with that shit night after night unless part of you kind of gets off on it? Bruce is a strange dude, man.”

“But you got to know him.”

“We were on the same cell block. I'd, like, talk to him at chow, or, you know, in the exercise yard. Hell, I felt sorry for him—at first. But as long as Dingo was around, he was safe.”

“What happened to Dingo?”

“Somebody strangled him in the shower. He was a real prick.”

“How did Bruce manage after that?”

“Not too well, I'd guess. But that's about the time I got out.”

“How much longer before he contacted you?”

“A few years, maybe.”

Frankie said he'd gotten a call from Bruce after the Red Sox won the World Series. He wanted to meet Frankie for a drink, and Frankie figured it couldn't hurt. He'd already decided to take the Bugsy Siegel route to the top in L.A. He was going to be a smooth, good-looking crime boss who knew all the Hollywood heavy hitters—and he wanted to know anybody in town who had money, or could pull strings for him. Bruce Kenwood's dad was a big shot. So what if he'd taken it up the chute in prison? A guy did what he had to do.

When they met at a bar, Frankie had the creepy feeling that Bruce was hitting on him. Hard to blame the guy, Frankie told Sam, when he saw the kind of shape Frankie was in. He'd been in a couple of movies and was hoping for more work, so he kept his weight down, his reps up, and his hair looking good. The side benefit was that the two-bit mobsters who used to blow him off before he went to prison were starting to treat him with more respect. Frankie felt like a guy on his way up. Maybe Bruce Kenwood could help him.

They talked about the movies. Frankie was looking at trademarking some kind of nickname—maybe the Satin Latin, or the Hispanic Panic.

“You know, like Stallone was the Italian Stallion,” Frankie said. Sam glanced over at Heather, who was doing her best to keep from laughing.

Then Bruce had switched subjects. He wanted to talk about sports. He'd been in the memorabilia business, which hadn't worked out too well, but he was still looking for a way to make some money off the pros. Frankie asked him why he didn't just go to work for his dad, but Bruce said that would never happen. Then Bruce said he'd heard that Frankie pumped iron with some of the Dodgers. He asked right away about steroids.

“Did that piss you off?” Sam asked.

“Nah,” Frankie said. “Some guys get pretty touchy about that, but I figure, all of them action heroes did it, and they made it big in the movies. I don't tell the world, but why should I be ashamed? When I show up to collect a debt, nobody asks me if my biceps are real. Which reminds me, I got a bullet hole in my right arm that I should get looked at.”

“Maybe we can help you out with that,” Sam said. “Tell me more about meeting with Bruce.”

Frankie and Bruce had gotten to talking about which major leaguers were using illegal substances, and Frankie finally mentioned trying to blackmail Miranda. Bruce got real interested, but Frankie said Miranda couldn't be blackmailed. He wasn't afraid of the Commissioner finding out he'd used HGH—they couldn't test for it, so he thought he was safe. That's when Bruce said he knew a way they could make a lot more money off Miranda than by blackmailing him. Bruce said it would take him a while to put everything together, but he'd call Frankie when the plan was set—if Frankie was interested in making about $25,000,000.

“Interested? Shit, yeah, I was interested,” Frankie said.

Then Frankie read about the sailing accident, and how they couldn't find Bruce's body. So much for that, Frankie figured. But he got a call from Bruce a while later, inviting him over to his house. Frankie asked him what the fuck was going on—he was supposed to be dead. That's what I want people to think, Bruce said.

Bruce was alive, all right, living in a house in Palos Verdes. When Frankie got there, Bruce poured him some top-shelf booze, rolled some very potent joints, and went through the extortion plan. He'd found some guys to kidnap Miranda's mom in Venezuela; all Frankie had to do was make the contact with Miranda, and send the letter to Lou Kenwood. Bruce would take care of everything else.

“How did you know Kenwood had hired me?” Sam asked.

“Bruce told me.”

“How did he know?”

“You got me.”

Sam again looked at Heather.

“It wasn't me,” Heather said. She brushed a strand of blowing hair out of her eyes. “I told you that.”

“Bruce just said Kenwood hired a dick, and I should take care of it,” Frankie said. “I put out two contracts on you, but I didn't hire the best people. I figured that would change when I got Kenwood's money.”

“Do you think it was O'Brien?” Sam asked Heather. “I found out he got popped once in Southie on a gambling charge.”

“I don't know. He always seemed loyal.”

“Most guys are loyal to whoever pays best,” Frankie said.

They stayed on Hawthorne as it became a winding residential street in the hills of Palos Verdes. They occasionally caught glimpses of the ocean to the west, but Bruce Kenwood's house was on a sloping, tree-shaded lot that faced east.

“Bruce is supposed to be dead,” Sam said. “Who owns the house?”

“It's in his girlfriend's name,” Frankie said.

“Girlfriend? Who's that?”

“Kimberly something. I never met her, but Bruce says they've been living together here.”

That complicated things. Sam had been hoping to surprise Bruce, show a little force, maybe wave his gun around for effect, and scare him into admitting the whole plot and telling them how to find Elena Miranda. There was no telling how much the girlfriend knew, or what she was willing to do to protect Bruce.

They might both give it up immediately.

Or they might be armed, desperate, and willing to pull the trigger.

There was a light shining through the only window that faced the street. Sam told Heather to drive the car up the hill past the house and park it a block away. He didn't want Bruce to spot them coming; he also didn't want Heather getting in the way if Bruce got desperate and began shooting, but he knew he couldn't talk her into staying in the car. He decided to send Frankie to the door. Bruce would have no way of knowing what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. He probably wouldn't be happy to see Frankie show up without an invitation, but he wasn't likely to shoot him, either.

In Minneapolis, Bruce Kenwood's one-story ranch-style house with the three-car garage in front might have sold for $400,000; here, Sam knew it would easily list for over $1,000,000, even without an ocean view. There were nice landscaping touches around the yard—the driveway was lined with purple and white flowers, and there was a two-tiered fountain with a small statue of a nymph inside a brick-lined pool, surrounded by stone pavers and three dwarf orange trees. Yet even in the dark, the property looked run-down; the driveway flowers were wilted or dying, there was no water in the fountain, the lawn hadn't been mown recently, the oranges on the trees looked diseased, and the stucco on the front of the house was cracked.

Frankie walked up the sloping driveway while Sam and Heather stood in the shadows against the side of the garage. There was a porch light above the front door, but the nearest streetlight was half a block away, and Bruce didn't have a yard light. Sam heard Frankie ring the doorbell, wait 20 seconds and ring it again. Then he heard the door open. He cautiously peered around the side of the garage and saw a woman of perhaps 40 standing in the doorway, talking to Frankie. She wore a pair of khaki walking shorts that showed off smooth, tanned legs. Her floral print shirt was untucked, and the tails were tied across her midriff. She had thick, curly brunette hair that hung below her shoulders, and she twirled a few strands of hair in her right hand as she talked to Frankie. She looked safe enough. Sam decided to introduce himself.

“Come on,” he said to Heather. They walked around the corner of the garage to the front door. He kept his gun in the shoulder holster, but his jacket was open. He could get to it in a second, if necessary.

“Evening,” Sam said to the woman in the doorway. “Kimberly, is it?”

“Yes,” she said, in a low, wary voice. “Who are you?”

“A friend of Frankie's here. This is Heather Canby. We're looking for Bruce.”

“As I told—Frankie, is it?—Bruce is out of town.”

“When will he be back?”

“Saturday—or was it Sunday? This weekend, sometime.”

She smiled at Sam, but something was going on. She knew. She was lying for Bruce. She should have been less polite and more freaked out about three strangers showing up at her door at night. She didn't ask what they were doing there, or demand to see I.D.'s. Unless Bruce got visits like this all the time, Kimberly was covering something up.

“I'd offer you something, but it's really very late,” she said. Her eyes suggested that she was about to go back inside. “Can I tell Bruce why you were here?”

“It's about sports collectibles,” Sam said.

“I'm sure he'll be interested. He could call you. Do you have a card?”

Sam did, but he wasn't going to give her his private investigator's business card. Heather opened her purse and handed Kimberly her card. Kimberly scanned it quickly.

“Oh, the Boston Red Sox,” Kimberly said. “Bruce will be sorry he missed you. If that's all…”

Now Sam knew she wasn't being straight with them. Bruce Kenwood wouldn't live with a woman for any length of time and not tell her—if she didn't figure it out for herself—that he was the son of the owner of the Red Sox. But Sam wasn't going to force himself into her home at gunpoint and make her tell him where Bruce was. There had to be some other way.

He looked at Heather and shrugged.

“Guess we're done here,” he said.

“I guess so,” she said. “Nice to meet you, Kimberly.”

Heather reached out to shake hands. She seemed to be examining the bone structure of Kimberly's hand, turning it sideways and rolling the fingers in her palm. Then she pulled Kimberly forward suddenly, reached up with her left hand and grabbed Kimberly's hair. With a downward yank, the wig came off.

“Bitch!” said the man, who was wearing a tight nylon skullcap under the wig. His voice dropped to a lower register.

“Jesus Christ!” Frankie said. “Bruce?”

Bruce Kenwood pulled his hand free of Heather's and tried to get inside the house, but Sam kicked the door shut as Bruce tried to slip through it. His hand was caught in the door frame, and he screamed in pain. Sam grabbed Bruce by the chin and pushed it upward so the top of his head was pressed against the house. The Adam's apple and razor stubble were now apparent. Sam slammed his fist into Bruce's stomach; he doubled over, moaning and gasping for air. Frankie got in a punch with his good arm, too, but Sam pushed him back, opened the front door and shoved Bruce inside. They followed him in.

Sam gave Bruce another hard push backward toward the couch, and he fell into it, not putting up a struggle. He looked up at Sam, Heather, and Frankie, who stood around him in a semicircle, glancing quickly back and forth from one to the other. His hand slowly went up to the top of his head, pulled the hairnet off and threw it on the floor. A lazy grin spread across his face, and he started to laugh.

“Took you guys long enough,” Bruce said, like a teenager who'd been caught making prank phone calls.

The interior of the main floor was designed as a great room, with a large fireplace between the living and dining areas. The walls were decorated with framed posters of Fenway Park and the Green Monster, and portraits of famous Red Sox players: Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Roger Clemens. The biggest portrait of all hung on the wall above the couch in the great room: a young, trim Babe Ruth, standing in front of a row of empty bleachers, his hands on his hips, RED SOX arched across the front of his pure white jersey. The Babe's soft, small-brimmed ballcap was tilted over his left eye; his face had not totally filled out yet, but the wide nose and broad upper lip were unmistakable. The Babe was staring hard at something slightly to the right of the camera, as though he saw his future coming—the brief ascendancy in Fenway, followed by glory with the Yankees as the Red Sox crumbled—and didn't know exactly what to make of it. His pensive gaze dominated the room, making Sam want to turn and look over his own shoulder to see what the Babe was staring at.