The Monkey's Raincoat (22 page)

At the bottom of Sunset Plaza I parked behind a gelato place and used the pay phone to call Pat Kyle at General Entertainment and ask her if she'd heard anything more about Mort or Garrett. She asked if she could call me right back. I gave her the number on the pay phone, then hung up, bought a cup of double chocolate banana, and enjoyed the extra butterfat.

The minutes ticked by, slow and heavy. I took small bites of the gelato and thought about the girl behind the counter to keep from thinking about Perry Lang and Ellen Lang and Domingo Duran and a guy named O'Bannon. She caught me staring and stared back. She couldn't have been more than sixteen, pretty despite yellow and black eyeshadow, yellow lip gloss, and yellow and black paint in her hair. The hair was spiked and stood out straight from her head like thick fuzz. The bumblebee look. She had a nice even tan and large breasts and probably two parents who wouldn't think kindly of a thirty-five-year-old man wondering what their baby looked like without clothes.

I said, “I'm John Cassavetes.”

“Who?”

I said, “Tell me the truth, do I look more like John Cassavetes or Tony Dow?”

She cocked her head. “I think you look like Andy Summers, only bigger and more athletic-looking.”

“Nah, I don't look like Andy Summers.”

“I bet you don't even know who Andy Summers is.”

“Useta play lead for The Police.”

She grinned. Her teeth were even and white. “Yeah,” she said, “You look like him. Thoughtful and smart and sensitive.”

Maybe if everyone wore yellow and black makeup the world would be a better place. I sat up straighter and was considering marriage when the phone rang. Pat said. “Sorry. I had someone in the office.”

“It's okay. I fell in love during the wait.”

She made her voice cool. “Perhaps I should call back later. Give you time to consummate the relationship.”

“It's as consummated as it's going to get. What's the word?”

“I didn't hear anything new about Mort, but I did confirm those rumors about Garrett Rice. He's a glad-hander with the weasel dust. He gets invited to parties because he always brings along a little something and he's willing to share it.”

“Gosh, you mean what I hear about those Hollywood parties is true?”

“No. I mean what you hear about
some
of those Hollywood parties is true.”

“How'd you confirm it?”

“Friend of a friend at another studio. Someone who is very much involved in that world and who knew firsthand.”

I said, “Patricia, if I had two kilograms of pure cocaine that I wanted to sell and I was around the studios like Garrett Rice, who would I call?”

She laughed. “You're talking to the wrong person, Elvis. I'm into health and the perfect body.”

“Would your friend of a friend know?”

“I can't tell you her name.”

“Would you ask for me?”

She sighed. “I don't know. She might be scared.”

“It's important, kid.”

She said okay, then hung up. I went back to my seat at the table and looked at the counter girl some more. She said, “What's going on?”

I said, “Can you keep a secret?”

“Sure.”

“A mobster from Mexico is holding a little kid ransom for two keys of cocaine. I'm trying to get the cocaine back so I can trade it for the kid and maybe nail the mobster at the same time.”

She laughed. “What bullshit,” she said.

“No bullshit. I'm a private detective.”

“Yeah.”

“Wanna see my gun?”

She put her hands behind her and gave me a look. “I know what you want to show me.”

Such cynicism. Two women who were probably Persian walked in and the counter girl went over to them. The phone rang and I picked it up. Pat said, “My reputation may be ruined. I was just invited to a freebasing party.”

“You get a name?”

“Barry Fein. He's probably the guy Garrett dealt with.”

I thanked her, hung up, and called the North Hollywood PD. The same tired voice said, “Detectives.”

“Lou Poitras, please.”

“He ain't here.”

“How about Griggs?”

There was a pause, then Griggs came on. “Griggs.”

“It's Cole. You guys got anything on a guy named Barry Fein?”

“You got some nut, you know that. We don't run a goddamned library service here.”

“Considering what I saw this morning, it ain't much of a cop house, either.”

He hung up. I took a deep breath, let it out, called back. A different bored voice answered this time, “North Hollywood Detectives.”

“Let me have Griggs, please.”

“Hold on.”

A minute, then Griggs picked up. “Griggs.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I shouldn't have said that. It was dumb, and I apologize. I know you guys don't like it any more than I did, and I know it's tougher for you than it is for me.”

“You're fuckin'-A right it is, bubba. Lou's downtown raising hell right now, goddamnit. Even Baishe is down there, that sonofabitch. So we don't need any bullshit from you.”

“Can you give me an address on Fein?”

“Hold on.”

While I waited, the counter girl gave one cup of something light-colored to one of the women and a cup of something so brown it was almost black to the other. They took their gelato to a little table at the front of the shop and spoke to each other in Farsi. Two men entered, one wearing a conservative gray Brooks Brothers, the other something resembling a pale orange pressure suit. The spaceman looked intense, and snapped his fingers at the girl. I didn't like that.

Griggs came back on the line. “Fein's a goddamned dope dealer.”

“Yeah.”

“You're supposed to stay the hell away from this Duran thing.”

“I know.”

I could hear him breathing into the phone. In the background,
I could hear other cops talking and phones ringing and typewriters tapping and a deep, coarse laugh. Cop sounds. The sort of sounds Griggs would miss if he had to stop hearing them. Griggs said, “Try 11001 Wilshire, Suite 601. That's in Westwood.”

“Thanks.”

“Cole, the wrong people find out I gave you this, it's my badge.”

“Gave me what?”

Griggs said, “Yeah” and hung up.

The counter girl was holding a cup in one hand and a scoop in the other, waiting for the guy in the pressure suit to make up his mind. He kept asking to taste the different flavors, then making a big deal about a place in Santa Monica that made this place look like shit. The two Persian women glanced at him.

The counter girl put down her scoop, looked my way, and chewed her fingernail. I hung up, walked over, smiled at the counter girl, and said, “The double chocolate banana was excellent, thank you.” Then I turned to Captain New Wave. I was very close to him. “Do you dance?” Smiling.

He had a healthy tan and coarse black hair and a gold Patek Philippe watch. There'd be the health club and handball and somewhere along the way he would've taken judo and been pretty good at it. His eyes flicked to the guy he'd come in with, wondering, what the hell is this?

“Not with boys,” he said. Tough, but uncertain. In over his head and just beginning to realize it. He had walked through a door and now he was in something and it could go in any direction, and in any direction he'd lose.

I put my hand in the small of his back and pulled him close. He should've stepped back sooner, but he hadn't because he was tough. Now he couldn't. One of the Persian women stood up.

“Try the double chocolate banana,” I said softly.

He wet his lips, again glancing at the man he'd entered with. The man hadn't moved. I pulled him tighter, letting him feel the gun.

“The double chocolate banana,” I said.

“The double chocolate banana.”

“To her.”

“Chocolate banana.” To her.

“Please.”

“Please.” To her.

“Good. You'll like it.”

I let him go. He started to say something, wet his lips again, then stepped back.

The counter girl was frozen with wide bumblebee eyes. More scared now than when it started. Some days, you can't win.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “It's been hell the past few days.”

She nodded and gave me a shy, quiet smile, more young girl than grown-up woman, which is the way it should be when you're sixteen. Everything's gonna be okay, the smile said.

I leaned over the counter and put one of my cards by the cash register.

“If anyone ever bothers you,” I said, shooting a glance at the guy in the spacesuit, “let me know.”

I walked out the door, went to my car, and drove west along Sunset toward Westwood and Barry Fein.

11001 Wilshire is a nine-story high-rise done up quite nicely in gray and white and glass, what the big ads in the real-estate section of the
Times
call “a luxury address.” There is a circular drive of gray cobblestone running up beneath a tremendous white and gray awning to the large glass lobby and two waiting doormen. A Rolls and a Jaguar were parked by the glass doors. In the lobby was a security officer behind an elaborately paneled security station who probably took great pride in collecting the mail and calling the elevator and giving the arm to peepers and process servers and similar social debris. It was not a place where you could go to a call box, press a lot of buttons, and count on someone buzzing you in.

I turned up one of the little side streets that ran north through a pleasant residential section, parked by a sign that said Permit Parking Only, and walked back to the high-rise. On the east side of 11001 there was a parking garage with a card key gate leading down, elegantly landscaped with poplar saplings and California poppies. I sat on the ground by the poplars. It was getting hotter, but the smog was manageable. After about ten minutes, the gate groaned to life, folded up into the roof of the building, and a long forest green Cadillac nosed out onto the street. By the time the gate closed, I was in the garage.

There were two cars parked in the slot for 601, a powder blue Porsche 928 and a steel DeLorean. Barry Fein was home. I looked for the elevator and found it on the other side of the garage, but it was one of those security jobs that didn't have buttons down in the garage, just another card key slot. There would be stairs, but the stairs would go up to the lobby and the guards and I wasn't ready for them yet. I went back to the gate, pressed the service switch, and let myself out.

It was a six-block walk to Westwood Village along elm-shaded sidewalks.

If you ignore the surroundings, Westwood Village could be
the center of a college town in Iowa or Massachusetts or Alabama. Lots of fast food vendors, restaurants, collegiate clothing stores, bookshops, art galleries, record stores. Lots of pretty girls. Lots of young guys with muscles who thought playing high school football and being able to lift 200 pounds made them memorable. Lots of bicycles. In a drugstore next to a falafel stand I bought a box of envelopes, a roll of fiber wrapping tape, a stamper that said PRIORITY, an ink pad, and a Bic pen. On the way out I spotted a little sheet of stick-on labels that said things like
HANDLE WITH CARE
. I bought that, too.

Back at the car I tore an old McDonald's Happy Meal box into strips, put it in an envelope, sealed it, and wrote
Mr. Barry Fein
on the front. I put the wrapping tape along all four edges, then across the flap on the back, making sure to keep the fiber bands even. Even in crime, neatness counts. I stamped PRIORITY twice on the front and twice more on the back, then put a sticker that said
DO NOT BEND
where you normally put the stamp. I looked at it. Not bad. I bent it twice, then put it on the ground and stepped on it hard. Better.

I walked back to 11001 Wilshire and went in to the guard at the reception desk. “Got something here for Mr. Barry Fein,” I said.

The guard looked at me like I was somebody else's bad breath and held out a hand. “I'll take it.” He'd crossed the line into his fifties a couple years back. He had a broad face and a thick nose that had been broken more than once, and eyes that stayed with you. Ex-cop.

I shook my head. “Unh-unh. Hand delivery.”

“Hand deliveries are made to me.”

“Not this one.” I waved the envelope under his nose. “My ass is in the grinder as it is. Guy tells me, get this to Mr. Fein and be careful with it, right? Like a dope I drop it and some asshole kicks it and the wind picks it up and I gotta chase it half across Westwood against the traffic.”

He was impressed. “This is as far as you go.”

I put the letter in my pocket. “Okay, you're a hard ass and you don't give a shit if I get chewed. Call Fein. Tell him it's from Mr. Garrett Rice. Tell him that even though he wants this you've decided that he shouldn't have it.”