The Rabbit Factory (8 page)

you hear from him, tell him to call his aging father."

The main course was over, and we all heaped mucho praise on Angel. I helped clear the table. "I made flan for dessert," she announced. "I'll have to take a rain check," Diana said. "I'm on an early morning shift this week."

We all expressed our regrets as Diana threw a white cardigan sweater over her shoulders and picked up her purse. "Thank you for a lovely evening," she said. "Mike, the Sauvignon Blanc was particularly excellent." I smiled. Mr. Big Shot Wine Connoisseur.

"Mike, do me a favor," Big Jim said. "Let me know if those automatic floodlights over the truck garage went on. They've been giving me trouble lately. And as long as you're going out, you may as well walk Diana to her car." "Oooh, a police escort," Diana said, and once again I caught a glimpse of the bouncy cheerleader from days gone by. "How exciting." She kissed Jim and Angel goodnight. I clucked to Skunkie, and the three of us walked to her car. The sky was peppered with stars. The moon was a few nights away from being full, and Diana Trantanella looked extremely desirable in the heavenly blue-white glow of night. Under different circumstances, it could have been a hell of a moment. I took her hand. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm usually better company. I really do apologize."

"I'm sorry too. I didn't mean to sandbag you," she said, squeezing my hand ever so slightly. "I didn't even know you were coming. Big Jim told me ten minutes before you got here." I shook my head. "There's nothing worse than a well

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meaning parent."

"What do you expect from a jerk who flies a Piper?" She smiled. Her mouth looked very kissable in the moonlight. But I had been a total asshole this evening. I know the rules. I was in no way entitled to a goodnight kiss. And then she kissed me. She leaned forward and gently pressed her lips to my cheek. It was just a kindhearted little peck to let me know that she accepted my apology, but her lips were soft and full and warm, and I felt a tingle run from my brain to the pit of my stomach. '"Night, Mike," she said, and she got into the Jeep and drove off.

Skunkie was parked at my feet, and I crouched down to scratch him behind the ears. "What do you think, boy?" I asked him. "Interesting woman." He didn't answer. He just rolled over on his back so I could scratch his belly. Hey, we've all got an agenda.

II

When I got back into the house Big Jim had finished eating his flan and was already working on Diana's.

I sat back down at the table, picked up a spoon and toyed with my dessert. "The outdoor floodlights seem to have come on just fine," I said, drilling a hole in him with my best pissed off stare. "I'm not surprised. They've been working well for years," he said, inhaling the rest of his second bowl of custard. "I didn't send you out there to check on the lights. Did you apologize to her for behaving like an asshole?" "Me? What I should have done is apologize for you behaving like an asshole. What the hell were you thinking? Since when do I need you to mastermind my playdates?" "It's six months today, isn't it? I loved Joanie like a daughter, but it's time to move on with your goddam life," he said. "Look who's talking. When Mom died you spent the first six months holed up in this house."

"That was different. Your mother and I were married almost

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forty years. I needed more time." He eyeballed my dessert. "You gonna eat that?"

I shoved the bowl his way.

"So," he said, digging into the caramelized gooey brown sugar topping, "now that the ice is broken, are you gonna call Diana?"

"No," I answered loudly. "I am not calling her."

"Don't be an idiot," he said. "I have all her phone numbers. Work, home, cell. She's not doing anything Saturday night. I checked."

"You asked her if she... Jesus F. Christ!" I tried to count to ten. I got to three and exploded. I started furiously tapping my fingers on the tabletop as if it were a computer keyboard. "DearAbby," I said, typing. "I am a forty-two-year-old widower. It's only been six months since my wife died, and in my heart I don't feel ready to start dating. My problem is that my meddlesome father won't mind his own fucking business. He invited a recently widowed woman over to dinner in a pitiful attempt tojumpstart a relationship for me. I love my father, and I really don't want to hurt his feelings, but how do I tell the fat, nosy bastard to back the hell off? Signed, Pissed-Off Police Officer in LA."

Jim swept aside the dessert bowls in front of him so he could create his own imaginary computer. He began to type. In real life, he can barely hunt and peck using two fingers. But now he raised both hands and let all ten fingers fly across the phantom keyboard with all the passion of Billy Joel in concert. "Dear Pissed-Off Police Officer" he said, spitting out each word. "First of all, I'll bet your father has more brains in his left butt cheek than you do in your entire head. Do you think he wants you to be miserable? No, he's looking after your happiness. Don't

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be a dumb fuck. Do what he says. He's never been wrong. And he never will be. Love and kisses, Abby."

I stomped into the kitchen. Angel was making coffee. "I hear much yelling," she said, setting a creamer and a sugar bowl on a gleaming silver tray.

"I'm sorry, Angel, but your husband is driving me crazy."

"In my family, yelling is another way to say te amo. I am making Irish coffee. That will make you both feel better."

"I'm driving," I said. "I'll have the coffee. Hold the Irish."

I helped her carry the tray into the dining room. Big Jim had finished my flan, his third. "Do you believe this guy, Angel?" he said, angling for spousal support. "He won't ask Diana out on a date."

She set a cup of aromatic, steaming black coffee in front of him and added a hefty shot of Bushmills. "Maybe he should invite Diana to move in with him and become his housekeeper. It worked for you."

Jim's face flushed. I burst out laughing. It's always a joy for me when someone nails the big guy, and Angel was getting to be almost as good at it as my mother. Finally, Big Jim let loose. "Fuck you both," he erupted, and then all three hundred pounds of him shook and whooped with laughter. "Just what we fucking need around here. A drop-dead gorgeous Mexican wiseass."

Angel poured me some coffee, but it didn't smell half as comforting as Big Jim's. So I put my two fingers very close together and said, "un poquito, por favor." She added a tiny splash of the whiskey, and I inhaled deeply. The heady blend of rich, dark French Roast and smoky Irish spirits wafted up my nostrils and into my brain. Without even taking a sip, I felt that

warm calming buzz. I inhaled a second noseful.

Angel sat down with us and shared her flan with Big Jim. He had long ago converted her to his Oprah religion, and she recounted some of the highlights of that afternoon's show. It was all about aging gracefully and accepting where you are in your life right now. "So many women, they resent growing old," she said. "They can only think about the wrinkles, the sagging breasts, the menopause. But what they forget is that now we have so much more wisdom, we have life experience, we are in touch with our inner spirit. Getting older can be a joy." She stopped abruptly. "I'm sorry, Mike. This is not good talk for you."

She had suddenly thought of Joanie, who would never see menopause or wrinkles or experience the joy of growing old with grace. "No, please, it's fine." I said.

Angel's eyes welled up, and a tear trickled slowly down her cheek, leaving a visible streak across her perfect makeup. "It's my bedtime," she said, quickly blotting her face with a dinner napkin and standing up. "You two macho men can stay up and yell at each other all night. It won't keep me awake."

I stood up, and she hugged me. Not a perfunctory goodnight squeeze, but the compassionate, consoling embrace reserved for loved ones in pain. "I miss her too," she whispered.

Then she put her arms around Jim's neck and kissed him gently, and I could see him melt. I wondered what my mother would think about Jim and Angel. Was she joking when she used to say "next time we go up to The Hillview we should bring her back home with us," or did she have a vision?

Angel left the room. Skunkie curled up at the foot of Jim's chair. I tuned in to the rhythm of his breathing as he drifted into Happy Doggie Slumberland.

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"Can we drop the Diana thing?" I said. "I'm working on a homicide, and I need your help."

He bowed his head. "I live to serve."

I took him through the Elkins murder. The jump rope, the flipbook, the missing ear, every detail. He didn't utter a single word until I got to the part about Rambunctious Rabbit being a convicted pedophile. "When you find the killer," he said, "somebody should pin a medal on him." When I finished, he simply said, "How can I help?"

"All my cop training tells me to follow the pedophile path. Somewhere in Elkins's past is a person whom he hurt so bad that they had to kill him." "That's what your cop training tells you. What do your instincts say?"

"Something is rotten at Lamaar. Terry was there ahead of me," I said, giving credit where credit was due. "He says if you want to kill the guy who molested your child, why not go to his house? But whoever killed Elkins took the trouble to get through Lamaar's security and killed him on Lamaar property while Elkins was dressed up as Lamaar's signature character." "Sounds like Terry's right. The killer's got a grudge against Lamaar."

"It feels like a real possibility, and if that's the case, then the bodies will start piling up. Victim Number Two, Number Three, Number Four," I said, counting them off on my fingers. "I've seen it before. Then it won't stop." "Did you see what you just did?" Jim asked.

"No, what'd I do?"

"You counted the victims off on your fingers," he said.

"So?"

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"Show me Victim Number Four again."

I held up four fingers.

"Now show me Victim Number One."

I held up my index finger.

"Now show me Victim Number One, but use a different finger."

It took a few seconds for me to process what he was getting at. Then I slowly closed my index finger and held up a different finger. The middle one. "Damn," I said. "The finger in the flipbook. It doesn't mean 'fuck you.'" "Sure it does," he said. "But I think it also means 'Victim Number One.'" "Big Jim Lomax, you're a fucking genius," I said. "I guess the three years I spent working on the set of Murder She Wrote finally paid off." "So Terry nailed it from the get-go," I said. "Somebody is out to kill off the Lamaar characters, one at a time." ' "That would be my take on it." "Terry and I are going to have to learn a lot more about this company if we're ever going to figure this out." "There's a couple of real good books on Lamaar," Jim said. "You could just turn to the last chapter and find out who the killer is." He sipped his coffee. "Or you could just ask your dear old Dad to help." "I already asked for your help," I said. "What do want me to do, beg?" "Hell, no." He grinned, and I knew what was coming next. "I just want you to go out with Diana." "You realize you're blackmailing an officer of the law," I said.

"Arrest me," he said.

If there's one thing I learned growing up, it's that Teamsters know all the studio dirt. They're the first ones on the job in the morning and the last ones to punch out at night. It's a long day, but there's a big chunk in the middle where they don't have much to do except sit on their asses near the catering truck and soak up the gossip. They're like flies on the wall. He had me and he knew it.

"Give me her phone number," I said. "I'll ask her out." He passed me a folded piece of paper, which he already had palmed in his hand.

I took a sip of my Irish coffee. It felt good. I took two more sips, then I put it down. I like alcohol, but I drink more like a schoolmarm than a homicide detective. I know a lot of cops who can't sip. They pound. Their shift ends and they deadhead for some cop-friendly bar so they can drink the demons away. A few of the more desperate ones can't always wait till the end of their shift.

It. Kilcullen, who sponsors six recovering alcoholics in the department, is always on the lookout for number seven. Any cop who doesn't show up on time for duty on a Monday morning is immediately on the suspect list. Be a no-show two Mondays in a month, and he'll interrogate you till you're ready to confess to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby.

I'm lucky. I don't get shit-faced. Some guys get that little glow on, then kick it into high gear. I stop at the little glow. It drives my two-fisted friends crazy. I've only been drunk twice since I got out of college. The night my mother died, and exactly six months ago today. I I tell people I'm a beer man, but the truth is I'm an alcohol

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I slut. I'll drink almost anything. Joanie taught me the pleasures of red wine; I love a good Cognac, especially when somebody else is buying; and while I would never walk into a pub and order an Irish coffee, when your family tree branches all the way to County Cork, there's no better beverage for a father and son to bond over. And now we were ready to bond over a homicide. But first I had to lay out the ground rules. "You're a veritable Font of Industry Insider Information," I said. "I have no doubt that you can help with my investigation." "But?" he said. "I can hear a 'but' at the end of that sentence." "But, it's late. I want to get home by midnight." "And you think I'm just gonna sit here and talk your ear off?" "I just want the straight 4-1-1. None of the usual colorful details." "I see," he said. He played hurt. The wounded giant. "Please, Dad. Just this once, give me the short version." "Fine," he said. "I'll bet Danny Eeg killed Elkins." I pulled out my pad and pen. "I didn't expect an actual name. Who is Danny Eeg?" "That's the long version," he said with a little victory shrug. "Want to hear it?"

he swatch of pink-and-white polyester that had been sliced from Rambunctious Rabbit's head sat in the center of the black lacquered writing desk. It had been delivered by courier just hours ago. By now, the swarthy man who had sent it was back in the hills of Sicily counting his American dollars.