The Rabbit Factory (33 page)

Biggs answered back. Falco couldn't hear him. But I did.

"Not as tough as Rose Eichmann," he said.

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A ir Rambo was waiting with the engines idling, and we Ś / % were rolling as soon as my butt hit the seat. Sig JL JL. brought a drink menu. There were six wines and ten I ircrs to choose from, most of which I wouldn't be caught dead dking for in a cop bar. I ordered a Bud.

I spent the next few hours reading the books Eeg gave me. I started with Deanie, Prince of Joy and Laughter. The writer was obviously paid to paint Lamaar as a rags-to-riches hero, hcloved by one and all. It did everything but start with Once pon a time and end with and they lived happily ever after. The unauthorized biography was more of a horror story n a fairy tale. The author could have called it Deanie Dearest, I >ut he chose The Rabbit Factory because Lamaar was infamous cir running a sweatshop. He was a cross between Ebenezer p;r

According to D. Tinker, while the public revered Dean I

Lamaar, the people who worked for him thought he was a real prick. And anyone who looked for a job someplace else might find himself the victim of a sadistic little trick that became known as 'rabbit baiting.'

An unhappy Lamaar employee would read about a good job in the classifieds. He'd mail his resume to the address in the ad. The job would be bogus, and the resume would be delivered to Dean Lamaar. The employee, of course, would be fired immediately.

When people at Lamaar finally learned to stop responding to classified ads, Deanie hired phony headhunters to call them. He was always baiting. Legend has it that over the years Dean Lamaar ambushed as many as a hundred employees, until eventually most of his workers would rather eat shit at Lamaar Studios than risk having no job at all.

While the first book glossed over Lamaar's personal life, only briefly mentioning his wife and daughter, The Rabbit Factory provided much juicier details. When he first started out, Lamaar hired Olivia Martin, a pretty girl of nineteen. She would type, answer the phone, and handle all of his personal needs from laundry to grocery shopping to car repair, because the business left him no time for a life. He did, however, find time to have sex with Olivia, and when she became pregnant, she continued her daily chores as Mrs. Dean Lamaar.

Their daughter, Gillian, was born with Down Syndrome and was institutionalized until she died at age twenty-seven. The founder of Familyland would never father a normal child of his own, and when Olivia died at fifty-one, Lamaar rededicated himself to bringing joy and laughter to the world and pain and misery to everyone else around him.

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The most glaring difference between the two books was on l he subject of the break up between Dean Lamaar and Lars Eeg. The first book didn't even mention it. The other painted a pic lure of Dean Lamaar as a ruthless tyrant who rode his friend's l.ilents to success, sucked him dry, then spit him out. The very name words Danny Eeg had used when he told me the story.

I had no doubt that he wrote it. But I wondered why he left nut the best part. Nowhere in the book was there even a hint I hat the untimely death of Dean Lamaar's father could have ten anything but an accident.

A few hours into the flight, Sig brought me a telephone. "It's Hi Ian Curry." I knew exactly why he was calling.

"I guess you heard we're having a bad day here," Curry said.

"Biggs told me. Has Rose changed his mind about paying ihf ransom?"

"Not yet, but he realizes how vulnerable we are. Seventy two percent of our employees make minimum wage. Who's floing to put his life at risk for that? As for the big stars who make millions, they'll just go to another studio. Even if these bustards don't kill any more customers, they can scare away J enough employees so that we can't run the railroad."

"Last night Ike said the company could weather a mass exodus," I reminded him. "His biggest concern was the stock lltinking."

"ft still is. But we have sixty thousand employees around the . W'i >rkl plus millions of customers, suppliers, and stockholders.

-- 3 75 --

Marshall Karp

That's a quote."

"Does that mean he's leaning toward paying the ransom?" I asked. "Right now it means more pressure on LAPD to catch the perps."

"Have you figured out the significance of $266.4 million dollars? It's not a number out of thin air. It sounds like an amount your company owes this guy." "We're still working on it," Curry said. "What did you get out of Eeg?" "He bitched about the company, but I doubt if he's behind the killings. Brian, do me a favor will you?" "The bodies are piling up, Mike. Anything I can do to help."

"From what my partner tells me, Amy is making his life unbearable. Can you call her off?" "Terry spoke to me; I spoke to Ike. There's a big conference in Vancouver, and he's going to send her. She'll be out of your hair by Wednesday." "Good, but I want to talk to her. Tell her to meet me in her Burbank office at eight sharp tomorrow. After that, you can send her to the moon." "That's easy," he said. "I'm really calling you because I just got a message from the cockpit." "I'm sure you did. I've been expecting your call."

"Captain Sheppard tells me you've asked him to make an unscheduled stop."' "Right. Ike said his plane was at my disposal. I'm taking him up on it. I asked the pilot to take me to Las Vegas." I heard him exhale. "That's what he told me. I'll authorize it, but if I remember correctly Ike asked you to not to waste

I your time with the people in Vegas."

"I'm just following in Ike's footsteps." "What's that supposed to mean?" "If I remember correctly a lot of people told Ike not to waste his time with the people in Vegas. But he went there anyway. (iood night, Brian. I'll talk to you to tomorrow."

" had no problem reaching Arabella Leone. As soon as I finished talking to Terry I called the Camelot. The operator .connected me to Leone's office. "I've been expecting your pull, Detective," she said. "Where are you?"

I told her and she agreed to meet me on the plane. "Have Ihi' pilot land at Henderson Executive Airport. It's private. We t?nn avoid the tourist crowd."

"Understood," I said. "I'll be glad to avoid whatever you'd like to avoid."

It was 11 p.m. when she boarded the plane. I had seen Ijiliotos of her, but she was even more stunning in person. Tall, (fork, Mediterranean sexy. We sat in the conference area at the ifHr of the plane. She got right down to business. I "If you're wondering how much I know," she said, "it's every-(jlii)ť. The perv in the rabbit costume, Ronnie Lucas, the woman Ś l l';imilyland, and the bus driver this afternoon. I also know about note asking for $266 million." "Do you know who's behind it all?" "I know it's not me, which I'm sure crossed your mind. Ike's

company and mine have been joined at the hip for the past four years and anything nasty that happens to them affects us. If 1 were going to try to extort money out of Lamaar I wouldn't have invested so heavily in the partnership."

"What about your competition?"

"Good thought. In my world, if your business is going well, the other guy tries to put you out of business. So we looked into it, and we looked deep. None of the other casinos are behind it. Not in Vegas, not Atlantic City, not even Asia. I offered a big fat informant's fee. I guarantee you if another casino were behind this, some low-level gavoon would have picked up on it and ratted out the big guys in a heartbeat."

"What about Lamaar's competition?" I said. "If business is going well in Ike's world, do you think any of the other studios would try to hurt Lamaar? Did any of them lose out to Lamaar when you were looking for a partner?"

"A few, but they're so big, what they lost out on is chump change. The business may be full of scumbags, but that's not how they operate. I think we have a better shot at solving this if we focus on individuals, not companies."

"I didn't realize we were trying to solve this, Ms. Leone." I

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"I'll give it to you straight, Detective. Ike and a lot of smart people at Lamaar have been helping us create a vacation resort that will make every other hotel in Vegas look like a ho-huni honky-tonk. We're supposed to open the first phase of the new Camelot next month. There are billions of dollars of investor money on the line, not to mention my personal reputation. I can't wait for the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI to get their collective thumbs out of their asses and figure out who's threatening my business partner. I'll help you if I think '

The Rabbit Factory

II's in my best interest, but don't spend a lot of your valuable lime trying to hold me back. You'll wind up getting dragged."

4

J

"Ike Rose didn't want me to meet you," I said. "Is it because ie thought I couldn't handle the abuse?"

She smiled. Beautiful white teeth framed by soft red lips and arm olive skin. "What's the matter? You don't like strong w< >men?"

"Not if they get in the way of me doing my job." "I won't get in your way," she said. "If anything, I'll help." "You want to help? What do you know about Ike Rose that I don't?"

h "Plenty." She went on to tell me about Ike's business sucŚ i esses and failures, his family, his friends, his enemies, the Śroinen he slept with, the women he didn't sleep with, you H name it.

I wasn't sure if it would lead me anywhere, but it was I liliTi-dibly thorough. "You seem to know a hell of a lot about Ike Rose," I said. I' "I know a hell of a lot about anyone I get involved with. It's

iNOincthing I picked up from my grandfather. During his career I if had more than five hundred informants on his payroll." I "How many do you have?" "Not nearly that many. Mostly I rely on LexisNexis, D&B, (tjoomberg, and Google. I even managed to find out a few Willies about you." P"Like what?" "l?or one thing, my grandfather wouldn't have liked you." "because I'm a cop?" "No, Detective. Because you're an honest cop." We talked for another twenty minutes. We were both trying

to solve the same problem, but there was no question that we were on two different sides. We agreed to keep the channels of communication open. "After you solve this case," she said, carefully choosing the right pronoun, "come back for a weekend, and I'll comp you across the board. Private plane, deluxe suite, gourmet meals, the best shows, the complete high-roller package." "Thanks," I said. "And if you solve it, I'll pick you up in my Acura, drive you to L.A., and take you on all the rides at Familyland."

386 --

I f m eam Rambo, as the executives at Lamaar are known, IB I have their offices in a ten-story glass-and-chrome JL building in Burbank. It's right up the street from NBC a short twenty minutes from my house. 1 had asked Amy to meet me there at 8:00 sharp. I got to irf office at 8:52, and I was far from sharp. I braced myself for M verbal drubbing as only Amy can drub.

Instead I got a cheery welcome. "Good morning, Detective. Vnu must be exhausted from criss-crossing the country in one My. Where's your partner?"

As far away from you as he can get. "We decided to divide 11 conquer," I said. "He's busy conquering the FBI. You'll have nettle for just me."

"My pleasure, but I did want to apologize to Detective lugs. I was pretty crazy yesterday. I practically ordered him to iMilve this case on the spot."

"I le might have mentioned that you were a little upset," I said. "If he said upset, then he's a real gentleman. I was a total illi li. Angry, frustrated, scared. Shit, I'm still scared. I mean, I

I

work for Lamaar, too. That makes me just as much a target as Rose Eichmann."

"I'll pass on your apologies to Terry," I said.

"I'd tell him myself, but I'm headed to Vancouver for three days. But you probably know that already." A. Cheever was a lot of things. Dumb was not one of them. She knew she had been voted off the island. And she knew that I knew. She had on a charcoal gray skirt and a mint green cashmere sweater. She sat on the sofa and crossed her legs. She looked smashing. I sat in a chair facing her and handed her my copy of The Rabbit Factory. "Eeg gave it to me." "Wow, these are hard to come by. Dean Lamaar bought up every available copy when it came out. Then he let the big book distributors know that if they touched it they would never sell another Lamaar product again." "So much for freedom of speech. Have you read it?"

"I read everything written about the company," she said. "Part of my job is to separate fact from fiction." "And which is this? Fact or fiction?"

"For starters the author's name is a lie. Daniel Eeg wrote it. What I don't understand is why he gave it to you. Is it supposed to help your investigation?" n

"Maybe yes, maybe no. Eeg wanted me to know that Dean Lamaar isn't the saint he's made out to be. He's suggesting that whoever is out to hurt the Lamaar organization hates the man as much as the company." "But the man is dead," she said.

"That may not be enough for whoever is behind this. The may be out to destroy his legacy. So I repeat the question. How much of this is true?"

"You want truth? Dean Lamaar was a legend, a visionary in an arena where it's not easy to break new ground--wholesome family entertainment. His name is right up there with Walt Disney or Jim Henson or Mr. Rogers. The public adored him. All true." She clasped her hands and rested them on one knee. That was apparently all the cooperation I was going to get. Ś "Amy, I know your job is to hype the good stuff, but I need a little help with the shady side. Go off the record for a minute, will you?" f "You told me the other night that cops don't go off the record," she said. "Anything I say can and will be held against me." She gave me a wink. God, she was sexy, even when she Was being a bitch. "I'm sorry I ever said that. You can talk off the record."