Over the Edge (49 page)

'And who might those be?'

'The family, of course. They're the ones who hired that Surtees cow to give him the poison.'

'How do you know she did it?'

'She had daily access to him.'

'So did others. Including you and Guy.'

'We didn't do it. We had no reason to.'

'Poverty's a hell of a motivator.'

'If we'd been paid off, why would we stick around?'

Milo didn't answer.

'Sergeant,' said Andrea Vann, 'there was no logical reason for Marthe Surtees to be there. She was weird, poorly-trained. Guy accepted the family's story about wanting one-on-one care, because people in that situation are highly stressed and he was being compassionate but-'

The detective wheeled on Mainwaring:

'How much did they pay you to let her in?'

'Two thousand.'

'Cash?'

'Yes.'

'The uncle give it you directly?'

'Through the lawyer, Souza.'

'These people are filthy rich,' said Vann. 'Their type runs the world by manipulating people. Can't you see that they manipulated us?'

Milo scowled.

'So now you're victims, right?'

She tried to lock eyes with him but gave up and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Milo let her light up and began pacing the room. From outside came the sweet, liquid tones of a steel-drum symphony - raindrops dancing coyly on hollow stucco walls. When he talked again, it was to Mainwaring.

'Way I see it, Guy, you're in the crapper, ready to be flushed. If you've lied about not participating, I guarantee I'll find out and bust you for attempted murder and accessory to murder. But even if you're telling me the truth, you're up to your neck in malpractice and whatever else they charge doctors with who allow their patients to be poisoned. Hope you know how to whittle or work a cash register or something, 'cause practising medicine sure as hell isn't in your future. Not to mention fatherhood.'

'Bastard!' hissed Vann.

'Same goes for you. said Milo. 'No more RN; bye-bye. Mustang. And if old Pat ever had designs on getting custody of little Sean, he'll have his chance real soon.'

She choked back a cry of rage.

'Damn you, keep her out of this!' shouted Mainwaring.

Milo smiled.

'Now how the hell can I do that, Guy, when she put herself right in it?'

Mainwaring looked at Vann, and what little composure he had gave way. His mouth began to tremble, and the tears that had pooled in his eyes overflowed and trickled down his unshaved cheeks. She ran to him and held him, and he began to sob. It was a pathetic scene that made me want to disappear. I looked at my friend to see if it had affected him and thought I noticed something - a flicker of empathy arcing across the ravaged terrain of his face. But it didn't last - if it had ever existed.

He observed them with clinical detachment, sternly watched them share their misery, before saying:

'On the other hand, maybe there is something I can do.'

They broke apart and gazed at him in supplication.

'I'm not talking salvation, you understand. Just a little damage control. Cooperation traded for sealed records. And I'm not guaranteeing I can pull it off, gotta clear it with the brass. Plus, even if we do strike a deal, I doubt you could stay in California. Understand?'

Dumb nods.

'But if you help me get what I want, I'll do my damnedest to keep things quiet enough for you to start up somewhere else. You want to talk it over, that's okay.'

'We don't,' said Andrea Vann. 'Just tell us what you want.'

Milo smiled paternally.

'Now that,' he said, 'is what I call a positive attitude.'

IT WAS a small, sad room filled with bored, sweating men, and by nightfall the air had soured.

Whitehead dozed in a grubby blue armchair, shoeless, mouth agape, a disc of chewed gum wadded on the wall behind his head. Cash sat on a plastic-topped end table, next to a lamp, its shade half shredded, its base a headless golden female torso, extravagantly bosomed and freckled with white where the paint had chipped off the plaster. He smoked a cigarette down to the butt and added it to the pile in the gold scallop ashtray.

Milo hunched on the edge of the bed, at the foot end, drinking a Diet Coke and reading his notes. I sat cross-legged at the head, my back to the gold-flocked wall, trying, without much success, to get into the latest issue of Consulting and Clinical Psych.

At first glance the bed seemed the natural place to settle: a California king-sized water mattress covered with a luridly turquoise velveteen spread, so expansive that it virtually filled the room But the other detectives had taken care to keep their distance throughout the hours of waiting

The video equipment was set up on a sticky wood-grain vanity table. Before it sat a technical sergeant named Ginzburg, bald, moustached, with a bull neck and shoulders to match. Having checked and double-checked every switch and knob, he contented himself with cold coffee and a book of mathematical puzzles. The trash can overflowed with empty styrofoam cups, taco sauce containers, crumpled napkins, and wax paper greased to translucence. A half-eaten burrito stiffened next to the video monitor.

Displayed on the screen was the room next door: the Scheherezade Suite of the Studio Love Palace. The suite was no more than a room, set up identically to the one we were in, with the exception that the bed was covered in scarlet satin - upon which lay a grey man. But that kind of hyperbole seemed appropriate in a palace that was no more than a peeling motor court, a sordid little retreat just off Ventura, in the east end of Studio City, a forgotten finger of the Valley that reaches into the cookie jar called Hollywood. The sign on the roof advertised ADULT MOVIES and EROTIC MASSAGE, the former exemplified by a peep-show channel on the TV, the latter by a vibrator gizmo attached to the bed. Both were coin-operated; both had been tried by Cash and found lacking ('Call this a massage? 'Bout as energetic as a hand job from a corpse' and; 'Look at that, Cal. The guy's a stone junkie, and she's got scars and a twat you could drive a truck through. Couldn't pay me to fuck her by proxy').

There was sudden movement on the monitor: Mainwaring getting up from the bed, walking back and forth, and approaching the wall that separated the rooms. He licked his lips and stared up at the hanging plant that housed the hidden lens.

'Goddammit,' said Ginzburg. 'There he goes again. I told him not to say that.'

Cash stretched and yawned.

'Maybe I should go in there and remind him.'

Milo looked at his watch. 'No,' he said. 'Too close for comfort.'

Cash consulted a wafer-thin gold watch.

'What, eight-thirty? Thing's supposed to go down at nine-four-five.'

'Let's play it safe. Just in case.'

Cash looked at Ginzburg, who'd returned to his puzzles, then back at Milo.

'Whatever. But if he keeps doing it, I'm gonna go in there and kiss his ass.' As if on cue, Mainwaring went back to the bed and lay down with one arm over his eyes. One of his feet wagged like a puppy's tail. Cash watched him for a while, then said: 'How long have we been here, five hours?'

'About eighteen minutes,' said Ginzburg.

Cash looked at Mainwaring again, then asked Milo: 'What do you figure the chances are of this panning out?'

'Who the hell knows?'

'Got to learn to live with ambiguity,' said Ginzburg.

'Yeah, right.' The Beverly Hills detective lit another cigarette.

'Could you cool it with the smoke?' said Ginzburg. 'Place smells like cancer.'

'Fuck,' said Cash, going into the bathroom and closing the door.

Milo chuckled.

'Nothing like forced intimacy, huh, Lenny?'

Ginzburg nodded, picked up the burrito, looked at it, and threw it into the trash. It landed with a thud that opened Whitehead's eyes.

'Where's Dick?' he asked drowsily.

'In the John,' said Ginzburg. 'Beating off/

Whitehead's forehead creased. He got up, put two sticks of gum in his mouth, began chewing, and walked to the TV. Fumbling in his pockets, he came up with a palmful of change.

'Shit, all nickels. Anybody got quarters?'

Ginzburg ignored him. Milo produced three coins.

'Keep the volume down,' he said, handing them over.

"S it time?' asked Whitehead.

'Not yet. But let's play it safe.'

Whitehead looked at his watch, mumbled, 'Eight thirty-four,' and dropped the quarters into the slot atop the TV. Seconds later a loop called Jungle Love came on: a jerky, hand-held pan of a plywood-panelled room, followed by a long shot of a naked black couple squirming on a daybed in time to a rhythm-and-funk beat. The camera zoomed in drunkenly on contorted faces, fingers kneading nipples, then a series of gynaecologic close-ups that revealed the man to be exceptionally well endowed.

'Figures,' said Whitehead disgustedly, but he kept his eyes glued to the screen.

The door to the bathroom opened, and Cash came out, zipping up his fly.

'Good morning,' he said to Whitehead, who nodded absently. Then Cash saw the movie and settled back down on the end table to watch.

At nine-ten the phone rang. Ginzburg picked it up, said 'Yeah,' several times, and hung up.

'That was Owens in front of the 7-Eleven on Lankershim. Might not mean anything but two sleazes on a Harley Hog just turned east on Ventura. One was a porker.'

'All right,' said Milo. He checked the blackout drapes to make sure no light was escaping. Cash went over to the TV and turned off the sound, extinguishing, mid-note, the sounds of heavy breathing and the sympathetic rasp of an asthmatic saxophone. He watched for a few seconds, proclaimed the woman on screen a pig, and drew away. Whitehead continued to stare at the silent images, jaws working, then realised he was the sole voyeur and reluctantly switched off the set. He pulled out his .38 and inspected the barrel.

Ginzburg sat up straight and fiddled with his machines.

Cash walked over and eyed Mainwaring.

'Cool fucker,' he said, 'lying there like that.'

'Don't bet on it,' said Ginzburg. 'Look at that foot.'

Twenty-five minutes passed uneventually. The momentum that had begun with the phone call from Owens began to dissipate. After threequarters of an hour it

was gone, and a numbing cloud of torpor descended on the room. I found the shifting levels of arousal draining, but Milo had warned me about that. ('Trapp's impressed with your good citizenship - quote: "First shrink I ever heard of who wasn't a crybaby pinko" unquote - so I can probably arrange it. But it's boring, Alex. We're talking brain death.')

Nine forty-five came and went noiselessly.

'Think they'll show?' asked Cash. 'Think it's them?'

'What's the matter,' said Ginzburg, 'You got something to do?'

The
 
Beverly
 
Hills
 
detective
 
thumbed
 
his
 
chest
 
and

answered in a jive whine.

'I always got me something going down, my man. Something sweet and fuzzy, you dig?'

'Yeah, right,' said Ginzburg sullenly.

'Hey! What's eating you?'

Ginzburg shook his head and picked up his puzzle book. He tapped the point of his pencil against his teeth and started scribbling.

Cash muttered something unintelligible and returned to his perch on the end table. After pulling out a cigarette, he lit up and blew the smoke toward the monitor. If Ginzburg noticed, he didn't let on.

'Hey, Dick,' said Whitehead, between chews, 'how's it going with the screenplay?'

'Real good. They're looking at it over at MGM. Seriously.'

'Oh, yeah? Anybody in mind to play you?'

'Maybe Pacino, maybe De Niro.'

'Right,' muttered Ginzburg, suppressing a snicker.

Cash flicked an ash toward the monitor. 'Whatsamatter, Lenny, baby, you jealous - '

'Shut up!' whispered Milo, pointing toward the door. From the other side came noises: the trace of a shuffle; the hint of a scrape; the mouse squeak of a heel lowering softly. As brief as a heartbeat, but for vigilance, inaudbile.

All eyes fixed on the monitor.

A knock sounded on the door of the Scheherezade Suite.

The speaker on the vanity table transformed it to a hollow bark. Mainwaring sat up, eyes nightmare-wide.

Another knock.

'C'mon, answer it, asshole,' whispered Cash.

The psychiatrist pulled himself to his feet and stared at the camera, as if awaiting rescue.

'Oh, no,' murmured Ginzburg. 'Wet pants time.'

'If he doesn't answer it,' whispered Milo, 'let's go out there and bust them.'

'For what?' asked Whitehead. 'Loitering? We need conversation.'

'Anything's better than letting them go.'

The sheriffs investigator grimaced and chewed faster.

'Snap out of it, goddammit,' urged Ginzburg. 'Do you believe this? The chickenshit's going into lens hypnosis.'

Mainwaring kept staring. A third knock got him moving. He went to the door, opened it, and was pushed backward, as if by a storm gust. Stumbling and tripping, he landed on the bed, winded and terrified.

The door closed. Two dark figures entered the room. Split-second blurs of hirsute face flashed across the screen then faded to black before they could be processed mentally; the bikers had turned their backs to the camera.

Ginzburg tinkered, distancing the lens and endowing the blackness with texture and contour: greasy leather, filthy denims. To the left, a bald head atop a bottom-heavy mound larded with excess flesh, the neck supporting it segmented like a rolled roast. Inches to the right, a rangy, lean phsique topped by stringy dark hair under a Marlon Brando cap. Both bikers had their hands on their hips. Mainwaring's face was a pale wisp floating in the space between their elbows.

The camera picked up glints of metal: The skinny one held a buck knife parallel to his leg; the fat one made tiny circles with a chain.

'Uh-oh,' said Milo. 'Rough stuff right away. Let's position.' He bounded up, sprinted to the door, and pulled out his .38. Easing the door open, he stuck his head out, looked both ways, and closed it softly. 'Clear. The bike's at