The Rabbit Factory (40 page)

"Happy to do it. See if you can work it into your stand-up act." "I'll be lucky... if I can stand up." A team of men and women in green scrubs transferred him from the chopper to a gurney and wheeled him off.

I didn't need medical attention, so they "set me up in a private waiting room reserved for families of their most generous patients.

It was nothing like the Day Room where Diana had taken me to meet Hugo. The furniture was polished mahogany. The 11s and carpeting were muted shades of blues and tans. Even

the No Smoking signs were gold lettering on ebony plaques. Il was the first-class lounge for those who had to be inconvenienced by being in the vicinity of people who were sick.

Ike Rose joined me an hour later. He had a bandage over his left eyebrow. "I'm fine," he said. "Five stitches hand-sewn by the second-best plastic surgeon in all of Los Angeles. The first best is working on your partner's face."

"What about his lungs?"

"According to the docs, his chest is bruised, but his lungs are fine."

Rose could read the relief on my face. "Terry means a lot to you, doesn't he?" he said.

I nodded. "He's my best friend. How are the other guys doing?"

"Collins is in audiology. He's got some hearing damage, but it will be a while before we know if it's permanent. Garet Church is having an MRI on his shoulder. He's surrounded by the best orthopedic team in California."

"It's always nice when us civil servants get quality medical care. Thanks for making that happen."

"I'm the one who should be thanking you. You saved my life. How did you know there was a bomb?"

"I don't know how I knew. My wife died last October. I think maybe I have a guardian angel up there."

"Or maybe you're just a damn good cop. Sorry about your loss."

The hospital had sent up a beverage cart. Ike opened a bottle of water and downed half. "And I'm sorry about Terry," he said. "If I had run when you told me to, he wouldn't have gotten hurt."

"You were furious. You put up a lot of money to save your company, and those bastards pulled the rug out from under you."

"I'm not that noble. I put up the money to save my daughter. When they rejected it, I knew her life was still at risk. That's why I went ballistic. You probably think I'm a hypocrite, but you have no idea what it feels like to have your family living under a death threat."

Well, not my whole family, but there is a contract killer looking to whack my dumb-ass brother.

f. "Who would want to do this to a great American institution like Lamaar?" Ike said. "When they killed Ronnie Lucas I was sure it was Daniel Eeg paying us back for fucking his father. And by the way, he does have a legitimate beef. Lars Eeg helped to make this company what it is today, and he got screwed."

"If you believe that, why don't you settle with Eeg and be done with it?"

"Eeg is a total asshole. Not only does he want a billion dollars, which is out of the question, but he wants us to make a public statement that his father was the genius behind Lamaar's success. I can't. It would tarnish our image."

"Speaking of images, the people who blew up that van seem to think you've had a negative effect on the company's 'family value' image."

"Don't pussyfoot. They called me a smut peddler. I'm the devil, the amoral bastard who subjects your family to sex, violence, and--coming soon--the perversions of Las Vegas. They also said, do you think money will stop us? Us. It's probably .some fucking right-wing fundamentalist religious group."

"I doubt it," I said. "It feels too personal. Whoever they are, I think they're connected to your company."

"I've racked my brain," he said. "The only ones capable of this kind of violence are the ones connected to the Leones. But they're not the type to blow up all that cash. I can't think of anyone who would destroy that much money."

"I can," I said. "Three old men who already have more money than they'll ever need for the rest of their lives. The Cartoon Corps."

He froze. "The Cartoon Corps," he said. "Kennedy, Barber, and Lebrecht." He said their names again. I could see the wheels turning.

"You worked with them," I said. "How did they feel about the R-rated movies? What did they say about your going into business with Arabella Leone?"

He ignored the questions. "The Cartoon Corps. Deanie's little henchmen. Why didn't I think of them? Nakamachi didn't just buy this company. It was a hostile takeover. Dean tried to block the sale, but he didn't have enough votes. As a gesture of goodwill they gave him a lifetime contract, but no power. He hated it. They all hated it, but they had no choice. It was my company to run."

"Did they ever tell you they didn't like the way you ran it?"

"They couldn't. It was in their contracts that if they ever got vocal in public or in private about the way the company was run, they'd be out. It shut them up. Except for one night at a big, black-tie dinner. Deanie got drunk and told me how I was destroying his legacy."

"What set him off? Was it the movie Home for the Holidays?"

"No, with all the major changes I made, he finally exploded

over something that was almost negligible. Something I did at Familyland."

"Familyland is where this all started," I said. "What did you do?"

"Familyland is good, old-fashioned, traditional Lamaar fun. I never wanted to change it, but I started getting complaints that we only catered to traditional families. Translation: heterosexual. There are lots of alternate-lifestyle families in California and they said we never created a comfortable environment for them. They started a Website accusing us of discrimination. They even said that the actors inside the character costumes were instructed to avoid gay people. At first I thought it was complete bullshit..." He paused.

"Was it true?"

He shrugged. "When Dean Lamaar first opened Familyland lie was personally involved in training the characters. I'm sure his homophobic tendencies crept into the process. Then over the years, it just permeated the culture. The characters would always gravitate toward the traditional mom, dad and two kids, and steer clear of the other kind. It was an unwritten, unspoken rule. I wouldn't admit it, but I knew I had to fix it. We developed a new training program for the characters, and the following summer, we held a Gay and Lesbian Family Weekend at the park. It was a huge success. It's now an annual event."

"But Dean Lamaar couldn't deal with it."

"That's an understatement. He tore into me that night at the dinner. The dirty movies weren't bad enough, he said, now I opened the doors to his house to perverts and sexual deviants. I was going to burn in hell."

"So he trashed you in public. Did you fire him for violating

lii

Marshall Karp

his contract?"

"No, I felt sorry for him. I tried to calm him down. T reminded him that the company was in deep financial trouble when I took over, but now we were making money, and he was making money along with everyone else."

"How did he react?"

"He reached into his pocket, grabbed all the bills out of his wallet, and threw them in my face. He said, 'Here's your money, you fucking kike bastard.' That was the last thing he ever said to me. About a month later he died."-' 'Ś

Rose sat down and took a deep breath. I was sure he needed a cigarette. He picked up the Thank You for Not Smoking sign on the coffee table in front of him and turned it face down. "Do you think the three old men are trying to get back at me for whatever they think I did to Lamaar and his company?"

"Did they say anything to you when they retired?"

"No. They left gracefully. We threw them a nice party. Gave them gifts. Not that they needed anything. They're all multimillionaires."

"So they could easily afford to hire a whole army of assassins," I said. "Knowing what you know about them, could they be behind this?"

"Definitely. They could hate what I've built so much thai they want to destroy it."

"That's called motive," I said. "And we know they've got the means."

He stood up and started pacing. "They have the imagination, too. As ghastly as this is, it's pretty fucking ingenious. Barber is a screenwriter, one of the best plot guys in Holly

--

Wood. And Kennedy and Lebrecht could put it all together. It Would be like producing and directing another movie."

"And they also know a thing or two about flipbooks," I said.

"Holy shit, the flipbooks. Cartoon animation is where they l;iited. Lomax, it all fits. They're the ones behind this. You've gut to arrest them before they kill somebody else." I "It's not that easy," I said. "A couple of days ago you were lure Daniel Eeg was behind this, and you wanted me to arrest iliiu. Now it's Kennedy, Barber, and Lebrecht. We may have fig(Uifd it out, but we still need evidence. I was planning to talk to lit'iri yesterday, but, as you know, I got sidetracked."

"Okay, but now you're back on track. How do you nail Jlcm?"

"Start by asking them a few questions about the company, fell them they know it better than anyone, and we could use "Their help. If we treat them like suspects we might scare them into covering any tracks they haven't already covered. So we'll list make a couple of friendly house calls.

"Fine," he said. "And if that doesn't work out, I'll hire a Icon pie of professionals to make some house calls and murder [lc bastards in their beds."

H

i

Rose went outside for a smoke break. When he came back he started giving me as much insight as he could into the three old men. Fifteen minutes into it Garet Church showed up, his right arm in a sling.

"Thank you for saving my sorry ass, Detective Lomax," he said. "You have taken the spirit of interdepartmental cooperation to new heights."

"It was totally self-serving," I said. "I hated the thought of having to break in a new guy."

"I've been on the phone while the doc was working on my shoulder. The helicopter belongs to L.A. Sky Tours. The pilot is a twentytwo-year-old kid named Darby McQuade. He's in custody, and his story is that someone from Lamaar Studios hired them to drop the flyers as part of a promotion for a new Lamaar film."

"He's lying," Rose said. "Every pilot knows that the air space _over Familyland has been a No Fly Zone since 9/11."

"He claims this guy from Lamaar gave him an FAA permit to . do the drop. We went back to his office and the permit is totally

bogus, but we polygraphed him and he's telling the truth."

"Wasn't he just a little suspicious when he saw the Death To Lamaar flyers?" Rose said.

"He never read them. They were bagged and ready to be dropped. He's just a kid. He told us that having an FBI helicopter chase him down was the highlight of his career."

I filled Church in on our thoughts about The Cartoon Corps.

"That's pretty good detective work, Detective," he said. "What do you have that looks like hard evidence?"

"Nothing hard, but Danny Eeg called me right after the shit hit the fan this afternoon. He thought maybe Lamaar screwed the three old men out of money, and they might be behind the extortion. I told him the money motive went up in smoke. But listen to this. Eeg started digging into their financial records, and they've been systematically selling off their Lamaar stock. Small sales so that nothing stands out, but they've been dumping stock for the past two years. Little by little they've unloaded ninety-five percent of their original holdings."

"That's a huge sell-off," Rose said. "Those guys are all big shareholders."

"They were," I said. "But for the past two years they've been betting that the stock was going to tank, and they sold off so they don't get burned."

"Jesus," Rose said. "And the only way they could know the stock would crash is if they're behind the plot to destroy our company. Isn't that evidence?"

"Maybe for the SEC," Church said, "but I can't arrest people just for dumping their stock in a company."

The door to the waiting room opened. It was Terry. His face was peppered with little cuts. A hundred, maybe two hundred

tiny red lines that ran from ear to ear, forehead to chin. There was a greasy sheen over it all, probably an antibiotic ointment. "My modeling career is ruined," he said. K He had me laughing right off the bat. "Apart from that, how

you doing?"

m

m "My chest feels like someone clubbed it with a night stick,

and I just spent three hours on a table while some Beverly Hills doctor plucked little pieces of glass out of my face with a pair of eyebrow tweezers. How you doing?"

"I'm just happy to see you."

P "You're happy to see this face? Look at me. I used to be just another unattractive man. Now I look like the world's ugliest strawberry. Apart from that, I feel fantastic. I hope you didn't solve the case while Dr. Frankenstein was rebuilding me. I'm ready to go back to work."

"Don't you want to take some time off?" Church asked.

"Hell, no. Did you see Bruce Willis in Die Hard? He was in much worse shape than me and he worked right through the final credits. I just caught the tail end of what you were saying. Who's been dumping stock in the company?"

"Kennedy, Barber, and Lebrecht. The same guys who helped start it.",,,-.ŚŚ.

"If they built it, why would they want to destroy it?" Terry asked.

"Why did God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah?" I said. "He was pissed at the way they were running the operation."

' "As the CEO of Sodom and Gomorrah," Rose said, "I'd be real happy if you came up with a different analogy."

"Gentlemen, it's late," Church said. "I'm tired, my shoulder is killing me, and I'd like to go home. There's a vodka bottle

with my name on it that's going to help me wash these painkillers down, so let me lay out a game plan.

"I'd like you guys to interview the three old men. We might suspect them for being the brains and the money behind this, but proving it is another story. First thing tomorrow, I'll ask for phone taps. My best bet is to find a federal judge to sign the warrants. No local judges who might know them. We'll also check out their travel history. We'd especially like to know if they've been to the places where we think some of the paid killers came from. And we'll do a head-to-toe financial. Corroborate the stock transaction information Eeg gave us, and go over their bank records and credit card transactions with a microscope."'!ťŚ t> "Who gets assigned to that?" I asked.