The Rabbit Factory (41 page)

"I don't know yet. RCFL, CART, maybe NCCS."

"Give me a break," I said. "I don't even know what FBI stands for."

"We have a Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory in San Diego. We also have an alphabet soup of computer crime squads. Some handle cyber fraud, some look for terrorists, and ever since 9/11 we keep making changes to our IT. Personally, I'm a street cop. I never remember which bunch of geeks handles what. Do you care who gets assigned?": '.

"No, but Terry and I work with a really good Comp Tech at j LAPD. Can he be included?"

' "There's always room for one more nerd," Church said "We've got our work cut out for us. The Bureau has set up a dedicated 800-Number Tip Line on this case, and it's the lead story on the fbi.gov Website, which means we'll get lots of calls and e-mails, most of which go nowhere. But we have to follow

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up on everything. Two hundred agents will transfer here in the next twenty-four hours to help with the load, so brace yourself for long days and longer weeks."

"Weeks?" It was Ike Rose. "This can't take weeks. We know who's behind it."

"We think we know," Church said. "Remember the anthrax attacks right after 9/11? Five people died. Three different bloodhounds sniffed the anthrax letters that were sent and each one led the Bureau to the same apartment in Maryland. Everything pointed to one man. But we never proved anything. I'm sorry for the way things worked out today. When we were loading the van this afternoon I truly thought we'd nail these fuckers. I'm trained to expect the unexpected, but I never expected them to obliterate a quarter of a billion dollars. It must be my middle-class sensibilities that I couldn't even imagine someone destroying that much money."

"If it's any consolation," Ike said. "I'm in a higher tax bracket than you and it never crossed my mind either."

"I'm sure you and your people have a lot of work to do now that the threat is public," Church said. "Have you thought about how you're going to handle it?"

"We'll keep Familyland closed. Beyond that I don't know yet. Curry and his people are working through the night to come up with a security plan. I'm meeting with them at 7 a.m. I've scheduled a press conference for noon."'

"I'm going to assign a round-the-clock team to be with you."

"Thanks, but I can save the taxpayers' money and hire my own bodyguards," Rose said.

"The taxpayers respectfully decline your offer," Church said. "You're a high-profile target, but my people won't just be there

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to protect you. They're also there to let me know what you're up to. Whatever measures your security people are taking, I need to know about. With one exception, you're free to do what you have to do, but I need to be kept in the loop."

"What's the exception?"

"Everything you heard here tonight, especially aboul Kennedy, Barber, and Lebrecht, is classified. You could do a lot of damage if you told anybody what we know, what we suspect, and what we plan to do. Understood?"

"Have no fear, Agent Church," Rose said. "I've spent the last four years working with Arabella Leone. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."

"Alright," Church said. "Now that we're all squared away, there's one last thing I would like to get to the bottom of tonight."

"What's that?" Rose said.

"That vodka bottle with my name on it. Good night, gentlemen."

Terry and I had left our cars at Familyland when we took the helicopter. Curry had his people drive them to the hospitaL and leave them in the parking lot, keys in the visor.Ś

I drove home in time to catch the eleven o'clock news. Tin death threat to the Lamaar organization and anyone who cairn near it was on every channel including the Spanish stations.

There were five messages on my machine. One from Diana saying she was going to bed and not to call after ten. One from Kemp letting me know that Andre was a great chick magnet, and he'd be glad to dogsit as long as I needed him. And thnv from Big Jim, who told me to call any time of the day or night. There was no immediate Frankie crisis. He just wanted to know

what I knew about this Lamaar business that the TV wasn't telling him. I called him back, told him I knew plenty but I wasn't at liberty to discuss it.

I was in bed a few minutes after midnight. It was now Friday. It had been less than two weeks since Terry called me and said we had a dead guy in a rabbit suit. To say that my little homicide case had escalated to monumental proportions would be an understatement.

fhe telephone woke me at 6:30. It was Terry. "There's a strange man lurking at your front door," he said. "He's got hot coffee and he's here to help you with that baffling case you've been trying to solve."

I stumbled to the door and let him in. "What the fuck are :>u doing here so early?" I said. "R He had two Starbucks coffee cups. "Amazing how much (line you can save in the morning if you don't have to shave." ie stepped in and I got a better look at his face. I could still ee the cuts, but the redness had calmed down.

"You look a hell of a lot better than last night," I said. . "I've never heard that before. It used to be some broad would wake up next to me in the morning and say 'Christ, [you're even uglier in the daylight.' Marilyn fixed me up with )me kind of homeopathic powder so I don't look like a full blooded Cherokee." "How's your chest?"

"I now know how Dolly Parton feels when she runs into a prick wall." He handed me a coffee. "They hit again. Lamaar has

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a kids' radio network. A bomb went off at their station in New York. They were off the air for the night, so it only destroyed the transmitter. But it scared a lot of people. Minimum casualties, maximum message. Get dressed."

I drank the coffee in the shower, dressed, and went to the kitchen. Terry was eating a bowl of Cheerios, and there was a second bowl for me. "I thought of something that might help when we talk to the three old men," he said.

"And you just couldn't wait to wake me up and share."

"Did you ever read The True Believer by Eric Hoffer? I read it in college."

"I was too busy getting laid in college. Can I get the Cliffs Notes?"

"The book gets inside the mind of fanatics; what makes them tick. You ever wonder how a suicide bomber can get on a bus and blow himself up just so that a few innocent civilians will die with him?"

"I pretty much figure he's out of his fucking mind."

"He is. But he believes he's doing the right thing. The people who crashed those planes into the World Trade Center, they were what Hoffer calls 'True Believers.' They really thought this is what God wanted them to do. I think maybe that's what',1 driving these three old men."

"God is telling them to destroy the Lamaar Company?"

"Not God. Dean Lamaar. Don't laugh, but to them, he'M i God."

I didn't laugh. "Interesting," I said. "The first time I talked lo Big Jim about Lamaar he said something like 'If your name's on that front gate, you are God Almighty.' BurLamaar is dead. Did he leave instructions telling them to destroy the company, or cli >

they just think this is what he would want them to do?"

"Jesus is dead," Terry said. "He left instructions, and lots of people follow them. You and I can't make sense out of how a fanatic thinks. But Hoffer's book not only tells you how their minds work, it explains how your basic Joe Average can wind up crazy as a shithouse rat."

"These guys worked for a movie studio," I said. "At what I point along the way did they start believing they're on a mission from God?"

"Marilyn thinks that..."

"Wait a minute," I said. "Your wife came up with this?"

"No. I did. And at four in the morning, I wanted to talk to 1 somebody about it, and I had two choices. Wake you or wake her."

"Good call. What did she say?"

"In the beginning, Dean Lamaar created the company. She said it biblical like that to make the point. Lamaar is God. He's tile Father. But for the next fifty years Kennedy, Barber, and Lebrecht shaped the company. They nurtured it. It became their purpose in life. Then along come the Japanese and Ike Rose, and the company doesn't need them any more, doesn't want lliem any more, and starts changing everything they built. Hlngo, they have no purpose."

"That happens to lots of guys," I reminded him. "Sometimes you see a cop who retired from the force, and he's like a zombie."

"These guys didn't retire. You told me last night. They got "shanghaied by the Japanese. Hostile takeover. And then Ike Hose shows up with the sexy movies and the casino in Vegas tii id all the smut they bitched about yesterday before they blew

up the van. To them Rose is the Devil. And the company is hti evil empire. So now they found a new purpose in life. If llir company can't be the way the great God Dean Laniaai intended, they're going to destroy it."

"Marilyn came up with this idea?"

"I told you, I landed on it. She just helped talk me through it. You seem to be having real trouble accepting the fact that I am funny and smart."

"You're right. Maybe it's because your face looks like sonic body used it as a dartboard. But it's a good theory. Should w< call Church and tell him?"

"I'd rather talk to Kennedy, Barber, and Lebrecht first. Wi can't arrest them without evidence, so let's get inside thdi heads. The more we understand how they think, the betlei chance we have of getting something out of them."

I finished my Cheerios, cleared the table, and washed the dishes. It gave me time to let it all percolate. "It fits," I finally said. "These guys have spent most of their lives treating Dean Lamaar like he's God. Not just because he created the Lamayi Company, but because he created them."

"I like that," Terry said. "Marilyn will like that. Dean Lamaar created them."

"Last night Ike Rose gave me some more background on the three of them," I said. "After the war Kevin Kennedy went back to Boston and got a job driving a bus. If Dean Lamaar hadn't sent for him he would have wound up being just another bus driver who could draw.".

.'Ś "How about the other two?"

"Different details, same story. LVmaar helped all of them to j live lives that were beyond their wildest dreams. I think you hil

li right on the head, partner. These guys believe they owe it to his memory to destroy the new company."

"Yeah," Terry said. "The hard part is going to be catching I hem before they actually do."

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ferry and I drove to Mitchell Barber's house in Bel Air. Nobody was home. Kevin Kennedy lived half a mile away. "He's gone for the day," his maid told us. "You should have called first. I could have saved you a trip."

"There's a helpful hint for homicide detectives," Terry said, when we got back in the car. "Call ahead to let the murder suspect know you're on the way."

"Actually the fact that the first two weren't home bodes well," I said. "I'll bet the three of them are hiding under the same rock. If they're all together in Ojai, you want to run the business card play?"

"It's worth a shot. Who's our weakest link?"

"From what I read, and from talking to Ike, Mitchell Barber."

"You know what he looks like?" Terry said.

"Yeah, the Fortune article had pictures of all of them." I lapped my pocket. "And I got all the business cards I need right here."

We stopped in Ventura for gas, then merged onto Route 33(taunting the pit stop, it took us an hour and fifteen minutes to

get to Ojai. I spent twenty of those minutes on the phone with Muller. I gave him the broad strokes, then I told him the FBI was already searching the ether for anything that would connect Kennedy, Barber, and Lebrecht to Innocenti in Sicily, Benjamin in Israel, or the tall guy from Eastern Europe. "But I thought you might have fun playing the game."

"This is a mercy assignment, isn't it?" he said. "You knew how bummed I was when Lucas got murdered and my pedophile research got thrown out, so you're just throwing me a bone. Right?"

"Right," I said. "It's strictly out of pity."

"Yeah, well all I can say is this is the best bone I've been thrown in a long time. Thanks, Lomax. I won't let you down, man."

I hung up. "Good news," I said to Terry. "There's joy in Geekville."

Compared to the Kennedy and Barber estates, Lebrecht'.s house was modest. Assuming you consider the five-million dollar range modest. There were four cars in the driveway. In most places that would be a sure sign that the three people we were looking for were all there. In Southern California it's jusl as likely to mean that nobody is home, and the guy who owns the house is tooling around in Car Number Five.

A man in his early fifties answered the door. He was blue eyed, thick-lipped, with a bald dome that was polished to a high gloss. He had on black pants, a starched white shirt, ;i pearl-gray tie, and one of those striped vests you see butlers wear in old movies. We flashed our ibadges and politely answered, No, we did not have an Appointment. "Just ;i moment," he said in the same tone of voice that most people

save for "fuck you." He closed the door in our faces. H "Seems like a pleasant fellow. A bit authoritative, but then, who isn't?" Terry said, clicking his heels and snapping to attention. Ś :A minute later the door reopened. "Mr. Lebrecht will see you in the Media Room," the butler informed us. "Follow me."

EWe followed. Terry, of course, had to take a few goosesteps, because what's a mass murder investigation without a few yucks. I The furniture and the art on the wall were minimalist, very Bauhaus, which made sense, considering Lebrecht's heritage. The Media Room had three television sets, all of which were tuned to different news channels. It also contained the three old men. Before any of them could get up I walked over to Mitch Barber and shook his hand. "Mr. Barber, how are you today?"

I turned to Lebrecht. He stood up. He was tall and lanky, Lincolnesque, but without the beard. He extended his hand. I put my business card in it. "Detective Mike Lomax, LAPD, and tfiis is my partner Detective Terry Biggs."

He looked at the card and put it in his pocket. "How do you do, Detective. I'm Klaus Lebrecht."