The Monkey's Raincoat (8 page)

Pinocchio's eyes went side to side, side to side.

Clarence came in with his briefcase. Clarence owned Wu's Quality Engraving on the second floor, above the bank. I had stopped in a week ago to see about the business cards and stationery, telling him I wanted a more businesslike image. “I made up the samples,” he said. “You had some wonderful ideas.”

I didn't remember having any wonderful ideas, but there you go. He put the briefcase on the desk, took some cards out of his shirt pocket, and laid them out on the case like a blackjack dealer. I looked at Pinocchio. Clarence frowned. “You seem preoccupied,” he said.

“A small loss of faith in the human condition. It'll pass. Continue.”

He turned the case around. “
Voilà
.”

There were four cards, two white, one sort of light blue, and one cream. One of the white ones had a human eye rendered in charcoal in the center with
The Elvis Cole Detective Agency
arced above it and the legend
on your case
beneath. “Businesslike,” I said. He beamed. The other white card had my name spelled out in bullet holes with a smoking machine gun
underneath. Had I thought of that? The sort-of-blue card had a magnifying glass laid over a deerstalker hat in the upper left corner and the agency's name in script. “Victorian,” I said.

“A certain elegance,” he nodded.

The cream card had my name centered in modern block letters with the word
detective
beneath it and a .45 Colt Automatic in the upper right quad. I looked at that one the longest. I said, “Get rid of the gun and you've got something.”

He looked confused. “No art?”

“No art.”

He looked confused some more and then he beamed. “Inspired.”

“Yeah. Gimme five hundred with my name and the
detective
and another five hundred that say The Elvis Cole Detective Agency. Put the phone number in the lower right corner and the address in the lower left.”

“You want cards for Mr. Pike?”

“Mr. Pike won't use cards.”

“Of course.” Of course. He nodded and beamed again, and said, “Next Thursday,” and left.

Maybe I could find Mort by next Thursday. Maybe I could find him this afternoon. There would be advantages. No more trips to Encino. No more Ellen Lang. No more depression. I would be The Happy Detective. I could call Wu and have him change the card.
Elvis Cole, The Happy Detective, specializing in Happy Cases
. Inspired.

I went down to the deli, bought an Evian water, drank it on the way back up, then went through Mort's finances. As of two weeks ago Monday, Morton Lang had $4265.18 in a passbook savings account. There was one three-year CD in his name worth $5000 that matured in August. I could find no evidence of any stocks or other income-producing investment in either his name, Ellen's name, or in the names of the children. Irregular deposits totaling $5200 had been made into savings over the past six months. During the same period, $2200 was transferred to checking every two weeks. Figure $1600 note and taxes, $800 food, $500 cars, another $200 gardener and pool service, another $500 or $600 because you got three kids and you live in Encino. Forty-five hundred a month to live, next to nothing coming in.
You only start dealing with a Garrett Rice when you're scared
.

I dialed ICM. They gave me to someone in the television department who had known Morton Lang when he worked
there fourteen months ago. He had known Mort, but not very well, and if I was looking for representation perhaps he could help me out, ICM being a full-service agency representing artists in all media. I dialed Morton's Lang's clients. Edmund Harris wasn't home. Kaitlin Rosenberg hadn't spoken to Mort in three weeks, and I should tell him the play was going fine. Cynthia Alport hadn't heard from him in over a month and why the hell hadn't he returned her calls? Ric-with-no-K Lloyd hadn't returned Mort's call of six weeks ago because he'd changed agents and would I please pass that along to Mort? Darren Fips had spoken with Mort about two weeks ago because the contracts had never arrived but Mort hadn't gotten back to him and Darren was getting damned pissed. Tracey Cormer's line was busy. Fourteen minutes after I started, the rolodex cards were back in their stack and I still had no useful information. I dialed Kimberly Marsh, thinking maybe she hadn't run off with Mort after all, and got her answering machine. I called Ellen Lang, thinking maybe she'd found something in the phone bills, or, if not, maybe she just needed a kind word. No answer. I called Janet Simon, thinking maybe Ellen Lang had gone over there, or, if not, Janet might know where she had gone. No answer. I got up, opened the glass doors, and went out onto the balcony to stand in the smog.

All dressed up and no place to go.

The phone rang. “Elvis Cole Detective Agency. Top rates paid for top clues.”

It was Lou Poitras, this cop I know who works out of North Hollywood Division. “Howzitgoin, Hound Dog?”

“Your wife's here. We're having a Wesson oil party.”

There was a grunt. “You workin' for a guy named Morton Lang?”

“His wife. Ellen Lang. How'd you know?”

It got very still in the office. I watched Pinocchio's eyes. Side to side, side to side. “What's going on, Lou?”

“Bout an hour ago some Chippies found Morton Lang sittin' in his Caddie up near Lancaster. Shot to death.”

There was a loud shushing noise and my fingers began to tingle and I had to go to the bathroom. My voice didn't want to work. “The boy?”

Lou didn't say anything.

“Lou?”

“What boy?” he said.

After a while I hung up and took out the photo of Morton Lang. I turned it over and reread the description his wife had written. I looked at the picture of the boy. Maybe he was with Kimberly Marsh. Maybe he was fine and safe and away from whoever had shot his father to death. Maybe not. I opened the drawer and took out my passbook and the check and the deposit slip. I put the passbook back and closed the drawer. I tore the deposit slip in quarters and threw it away. I wrote VOID across the face of the check. Her first check. I folded it in two and put it in my wallet and then I went to see Lou Poitras.

I parked in the little lot they have next to the North Hollywood Police Department headquarters and went around front to this big linoleum-floored room. There were hardwood benches on two of the walls, a couple of Coke and candy machines, and a bulletin board. A poster on the bulletin board said
POLICE FUND RAISER—A NIGHT OF BOXING ENTERTAINMENT—COPS VERSUS FIREMEN! SPECIAL EXHIBITION BOUT: BULLDOG PARKER AND MUSTAFA HAMSHO
. Beside the poster a skinny white kid with stringy hair spoke softly into a pay phone. He leaned against the wall with one foot back on a toe, his heel nervously rocking.

I went around two Chicano men in Caterpillar hats with green jackets and dirty broken work shoes and through a reinforced door, up one flight of stairs, and down a short hall into the detectives' squad room. Also known as Xanadu.

The detectives live in a long gray room with all the desks against the north wall and three little offices at the far end. Across from the desks are a shower, a locker room, and a holding cell.
Days of Our Lives
was going on the locker room TV. Two brown hands were sticking out through the holding cell bars. They looked tired. Poitras' office was the first of the three at the far end.

Lou Poitras has a face like a frying pan and a back as wide as a Coupe de Ville. His arms are so swollen from the weights he pumps they look like fourteen pound hams squeezed into his sleeves. He has a scar breaking the hairline above his left eye where a guy who should've known better got silly and laid a jack handle. It lent character. Poitras was leaning back behind his desk as I walked in, kielbasa fingers laced over his belly. Even reclined, he took up most of the room.

He said, “You didn't bring that sonofabitch Pike, did you?”

“I'm fine, Lou. And you?”

Simms was sitting in a hard chair in front of Lou's desk. There was another chair against the wall, but it was stacked
high with files and folders. First come, first served. Simms wore street clothes: blue jeans and a faded khaki safari shirt with an ink stain on the pocket and tread-worn Converse All Stars. “You get promoted?” I said.

“Day off.”

Lou said, “Forget that. Gimme the kid's picture.”

I handed him the little school picture of gap-toothed Perry Lang. He yelled, “Penny!” and flipped the photo over to read the back, jaw working.

Penny came in. There was a lot of dusty red hair and tanned skin. She had to be six feet tall. “Sheena, right?” I said. She ignored me. Lou gave her the little picture. “Color-copy this, front and back, and have a set phoned up to McGill in Lancaster right away.” When she left, Simms looked after her. So did I.

“She's new,” I said.

Simms smiled. “Uh-huh.”

Poitras looked sour. “You two try to control your glands.”

“You get anything new on the cause of death?” I said.

“I called the States up by Lancaster after we talked. They say four shots, close range. ME's out there now.”

“What about the boy?”

“McGill up there, he's okay. McGill said there was nothing in the Caddie to indicate the boy was in the car when his old man got it. They put some people out to search the roadside, but it's gonna be a while before we hear.”

“Okay.”

Poitras leaned forward and looked at me, his forehead wrinkling up like a street map of Bangkok. “Simms says you're in on this.”

I started from the beginning, telling them how Ellen Lang had hired me and why. I told them about Kimberly Marsh and said her address twice so Lou could write it down, and then about Garrett Rice and what Patricia Kyle had given me as background information. I told them what I knew about Mort from Kansas and his failing business and his heavy monthly note and his midlife crisis. It didn't take long. Somewhere in there Simms went out and came back with three coffees. Mine was cold. When I finished, Lou said, “All right. You come up with any angles on Lang?”

“No.”

“Enemies?”

“No.”

“How about connections?”

“Unh-uh.”

Simms liked that. “Sounds like you been busting your ass.”

Lou drummed his fingers on the desk. It sounded like firecrackers going off. I'd once seen Lou Poitras dead-lift the front end of a '69 Volkswagen Bug. “Simms said somebody went through their house last night.”

“Simms knows what I know. The wife figures the husband did it. I don't figure it that way, but it's possible. I think somebody went in there looking for something.”

Simms cracked a knuckle. “You think the wife's holding out?”

“No.”

Lou said, “What would somebody want?”

“I got no idea.”

A tall thin man in a dark gray three-piece suit walked in and gave me the checkout. He had a tight puckered face that made me think of Raid Ant & Roach Killer. He said, “This asshole works with Joe Pike?”

I smiled at Poitras. “You two rehearse this?”

Lou said, “Wait outside, Hound Dog.”

Simms got up so the new guy could sit down, and Poitras shut the door behind me. It made me feel left out. The squad room was empty. Tail end of the lunch hour, all the dicks were still out scoring half-price meals. The big redhead came back with a sheaf of color copies and stopped when she saw the closed door. I was sitting behind one of the desks with my feet up, reading a
Daily Variety
. Half the desks on the floor sported show business trade papers. One of the desks even had
American Cinematographer
. These cops. She looked at me. I said, “Conference with Washington. Very hush-hush.” Then I wiggled my eyebrows. She stared at me a half a heartbeat longer and walked away.

I got up and wandered into the locker room for more coffee. An older cop with a bad toup and lots of gold around his neck was watching
Wheel of Fortune
. The place smelled like a ripe jock but he didn't seem to mind. I poured two cups and brought one out to the holding cell but it was empty.

I was standing by myself in the middle of the squad room with a cup of coffee in each hand when Poitras' door opened and Simms looked out. “I always take two,” I said. “One for me. One for my ego.”

“Inside. Bring a chair.”

I put the coffees down, took a chair from beside one of the squad desks, and went in. Lou said, “Elvis, this is Lieutenant Baishe. He took over from Gianelli a couple months ago.”

Baishe said, “He doesn't need my pedigree.”

I looked at him.

Baishe was leaning into the corner behind Poitras' desk, looking at me like he'd had to scrape me off the bottom of his shoe. Without waiting he went on, “I know about you. Big deal in the Army, security guard at a couple of studios, sucking around town with that bastard Joe Pike. They say you think you're tough. They say you think you're cute. They also say you're pretty good. Okay. Here's what we've got. The highway patrol up by Lancaster finds Morton Lang shot to death behind the wheel of his car, an '82 Cadillac Seville. He's got three in the chest and one in the temple, close range.” Baishe touched his forehead. Wasn't much hair there to get in the way. “No shell casings in the car, but the people up there say it looks like a 9mm. There's blood, but not a whole lot, and some peculiar lividity patterns so maybe he wasn't popped there in his car. Maybe he got it somewhere else and he was put there. No sign of the kid. Car's been wiped clean. Robbery's out. He's still got his wallet and the credit cards and forty-six bucks and his watch. Keys are in the ignition. You got all that?”