Hollywood Station (38 page)

"I think we must pack the suitcase and make ready to fly away."

"Yes, Ilya," Cosmo said. "What you say, I do."

"On other hand," she said, looking from one palm to the other for emphasis, "we do not know for absolute truth that Farley has our money."

"Ilya, please!" Cosmo said. "The money is gone. Farley is gone. I cannot get to Farley with cell. Farley always have cell with him. He is addict. Addict must have cell."

"One way we find out," she said. "Sit up, Cosmo!"

He obeyed instantly.

"Call Farley. Go with plan. Tell him Gregori need key cards. Many more. Will pay top money. Let us hear what he shall say."

Cosmo's head was aching too much for this but it was impossible not to obey her. He felt as though he was back in Soviet Armenia and the Comrade Chairman himself had spoken. He was afraid of her now. He dialed.

"Hello!" Farley yelled into his cell.

Cosmo was stunned. He couldn't speak for a moment and Farley said, "Olive? Is that you?"

Looking at Ilya, Cosmo said, "Is me, Farley."

"Cosmo?" Farley said. "I thought it was Olive. That fucking tweaker has up and disappeared!"

"Olive?" Cosmo said. "Gone?"

He saw the wry smile turn up the corners of Ilya's mouth, and he said, "You know where she go to?"

"No," Farley said. "The cunt. I ain't got a clue."

Ilya was mouthing the words "Ask him," and Cosmo said, "I very sorry, Farley. You know Gregori? He need more cards right away."

"Key cards? Cosmo, you forgot that you and me got a little business deal coming up? You think I'm gonna keep waiting? You think I'm gonna fuck around with key cards?"

"Please, Farley," Cosmo said. "Do this for me. I owe big favor to Gregori. Just drop off cards at his junkyard tonight. He work to midnight. He will give you fast hundred fifty. You buy crystal."

The word "crystal" struck a chord with Farley. He wanted to smoke ice more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. This was the kind of deal where he desperately needed Olive. If she were here, he'd drive her over there to the junkyard and send her in. If Cosmo had a plan to waste them, he'd have to settle for Olive. Goddamn her!

"I only got about ten of the primo cards left," Farley said.

"Is enough," Cosmo said. "Gregori got a bunch new worker who must have driving license. Gregori so cheap his old worker not stay long. Always new worker."

"Is that dog in the yard?"

"I tell Gregori to tie up dog. No problem."

"You tell Gregori to call me. If he says come, I come. He ain't a violent type. He's a businessman. You I ain't so sure about."

"Okay, I call Gregori now," Cosmo said. "And if he say come?"

"Then I'll be there at nine o'clock. Tell Gregori to put the money in a bag and stick the bag between the links of the gate. If the money's there, I'll drive in and give him the cards."

"Okay, Farley," Cosmo said. Then he added, "Call me if Olive come home."

"Why?"

"I think I got good job for her."

"You better have my big bucks this weekend, Cosmo," Farley said. "Let me worry about Olive if she comes home."

When Cosmo closed the cell, Ilya took a great puff from her cigarette, sucked it into her lungs, and with her words enveloped in smoke clouds said, "If he go to junkyard tonight, he don't know nothing about ATM robbery."

"But I shall kill him anyways. The diamond blackmail shall end."

"Blackmail still there, Cosmo. Olive has our money and Olive know all about both our jobs. Olive is full of danger for us. Not Farley so much."

"But I shall kill him anyways?"

"Yes, he must die. Olive may give up the blackmail. She got lot of money now. She buy lot of drugs and die happy in two, three years."

"Our money," he said.

"Yes, Cosmo. She got our money, I think so. Call Gregori now. Say again and make him to believe you only scare Farley to pay a debt he owe you. Tell Gregori you will pay money for the Mazda on Monday."

Before phoning Gregori, Cosmo said, "Ilya, you tell me. When Gregori come to bring key to junkyard, you fuck him. No?"

"Of course, Cosmo," she said. "Why?"

"If he getting scared about Farley, scared about Mazda that I want to crush to scrap, is okay if I tell him you wish to make him glass of tea one more time? To make him calm?"

"Of course, Cosmo," she said. "My tea is best in all of Hollywood. Ask Gregori. Ask anybody who taste my tea."

Six-X-Seventy-two got the call twenty minutes after they'd left the House of Chang. Hollywood Nate spun a U-ee and floored it. He craved redemption.

When they got back to the restaurant, Mrs. Chang tossed her head in the direction of the kitchen. And there they found Trombone Teddy sitting at the chopping block by the back door, happily scarfing down a huge bowl of pan-fried noodles.

"Teddy," Nate said. "Remember us?"

"I ain't causing no trouble," he said. "They invited me in here."

"Nobody says you're causing trouble," Nate said. "A couple questions and you can sit and enjoy your noodles."

Wesley said, "Remember the fight you had on the boulevard? We're the officers that got the call. You gave me a card with a license number on it. Remember?"

"Oh yeah!" Teddy said, a noodle plastered to his beard. "That son of a bitch sucker-punched me."

"That's the night," Nate said. "Do you still have the card? With the license number?"

"Sure," Teddy said. "But nobody wants it."

"We want it now," Wesley said.

Trombone Teddy put down his fork and searched inside his third layer of shirts, dug into a pocket with grimy fingers, and pulled out the House of Chang business card.

Wesley took it, looked at the license number, and nodded to Nate, who said, "Teddy, what kind of car was it that the mail thief was driving?"

"An old blue Pinto," Teddy said. "Like I wrote down on the card."

"And what did the guy look like?"

"I can't remember no more," Teddy said. "A white guy. Maybe thirty. Maybe forty. Nasty mouth. Insulted me. That's why I wrote down the license number."

"And his companion?" Wesley said.

"A woman. That's all I can remember."

"Would you recognize either of them if you saw them again?" Nate said.

"No, they was just dark shadows. He was just a dark shadow with a nasty mouth."

"Tell us again what she called him," Wesley said.

"I don't remember," Teddy said.

"You told me Freddy," Wesley said.

"Did I?"

"Or Morley?"

"If you say so. But it don't ring a bell now."

"Have you seen them either before or after that?"

"Yeah, I saw them try to hustle a clerk in a store."

"When?"

"A few days after he insulted me."

"What store?"

"Coulda been like a Target store. Or maybe it was RadioShack. Or like a Best Buy store. I can't remember. I get around."

"At least," Nate said, "you got another good look at them, right?"

"Yeah, but I still can't remember what they look like. They're white people. Maybe thirty years old. Or forty. But they could be fifty. I can't tell ages no more. You can check with the guy at the store. He gave me a ten-buck reward for telling him they were crooks. They had a bogus credit card. Or bogus money. Something like that."

"Jesus," Nate said, looking at Wesley in frustration.

Wesley said, "If we can find the store and find the guy who saw them, at least you can say that they're the same two people who stole from the mailbox, isn't that right?"

"He stole from the mailbox," Teddy said. "She didn't. I got a feeling she's okay. He's a total asshole."

Wesley said, "If the detectives need to talk to you, where can they find you?"

"There's an old empty office building on that street on the east side of Hollywood Cemetery. I'm living there for now. But I come here a few nights a week for supper."

"Can you remember anything else?" Hollywood Nate said, taking a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and putting it on the chopping block.

"Hell, half the time I can't remember what day it is," Teddy said. Then he looked at them and said, "What day is it, anyways?"

Viktor Chernenko was known for working late, especially with his obsession to solve the jewelry store robbery and the ATM robbery-murder, and most of the veteran cops from Hollywood Station were aware of it. Nate knew it and was busting stop signs and speeding to the station faster than he'd driven to the House of Chang.

They ran into the detective squad room and were overjoyed to see Viktor still there, typing on his computer keyboard.

"Viktor," Nate said. "Here it is!"

Viktor looked at the business card, at the license number and the words "blue Pinto" written on it, and he said, "My mail thief?"

Since he had been on the initial callout, Brant worked all day in southeast L. A. with Andi on the Gulag homicide. Doobie D, whom they had identified through data received from his cell provider, was Latelle Granville, a twenty-four-year-old member of the Crips with an extensive record for drug sales and weapons violations. He had begun using his cell in the afternoon.

With a team of detectives from Southeast Division assisting, the cell towers eventually triangulated him to the vicinity of a residence on 103rd Street known to be the family home of a Crips cruiser named Delbert Minton. He had a far more extensive record than Latelle Granville and turned out to be the Crip who had been fighting with the slain student. Both were arrested at Minton's without incident and taken back to Hollywood Station for interview and booking. Both Crips refused to speak and demanded to call their lawyers.

It had been a very long day, and the detectives were hungry and tired from working well into an overtime evening. Then Andi returned a phone call from a cocktail waitress, one of the people she'd interviewed at the Gulag on the night of the murder. At that time, the waitress, Angela Hawthorn, had told Andi she was at the service bar fetching drinks when the fight broke out and had seen nothing. So why was she calling now? Andi wondered.

"This is Detective McCrea," Andi said when the woman answered her cell.

"Hello," Angela Hawthorn said. "I'm at home. I don't work at the Gulag anymore. Dmitri fired me because I wouldn't put out for one of his rich Russian customers. I have some information that might help you."

"I'm listening," Andi said.

"Up in the corner of the building by the window to Dmitri's office there's a video camera that sees everything on the smoking patio. During the party I'm pretty sure it was there like it always is. But when you showed up it wasn't there. Dmitri probably took it down so you wouldn't see it."

"Why would he do that?"

"He's paranoid about bad publicity and cops and courtrooms. And he doesn't want trouble with black hoodlums. In fact, he doesn't want black customers. He just wouldn't want to be involved in your murder case. Anyways, if you get that camera from him I'll bet you'll see that black guy sticking the knife in that kid. Just keep my name out of it, okay?"

When Andi hung up, she said to Brant, "Do you need money?"

"Why?"

"You're going to be getting even more overtime. There might be video at the Gulag with our murder shown right there on it!"

Brant looked around, but all the other detectives had gone home. Only the night-watch detective Compassionate Charlie was there, with his feet up on the desk, sucking his teeth as usual, reading the L. A. Times sports page.

"I'm all you got?" he said.

"Don't be a wuss. This is more fun than being an IA weasel, isn't it?"

"I don't know," he said. "I'm starting to miss the Burn Squad. At least I got fed every once in a while."

"When we're all through tonight, I'm making you a very late supper with a bottle of good Pinot I've been saving. How's that sound?"

"Suddenly I'm renewed," he said.

"One thing, though," Andi said. "I think I should call Viktor. We might find a Russian translator very useful if this nightclub owner starts lyin' and denyin' like he probably will. Viktor is a master at handling those people, a kick-ass skill he learned in the bad old days with the Red Army."

"He's just getting home by now," Brant said. "He won't be pleased."

"He owes me," Andi said. "Didn't I do a dumpster dive for him? Didn't it cost me a busted bra strap?"

Eavesdropping as usual, Compassionate Charlie said, "Hey, you guys looking for Viktor? He left in a hell of a hurry with Hollywood Nate and that big kid Nate works with. I love to watch Viktor run. Like a bear on roller skates."

Chapter
EIGHTEEN

THE BLUE PINTO was registered to a Samuel R. Culhane who lived on Winona Boulevard. Viktor Chernenko was sitting in the backseat of the black-and-white, concerned about whiplash with Hollywood Nate still driving in his high-speed redemption mode.