Eats to Die For! (7 page)

I opened my mouth to respond, and then shut it again. Ricardo Sandoval's assessment that his sister had gotten all the brains in the family appeared to be quite accurate.

“Louie was always neat, even as a kid,” he said, looking around and the well-rummaged apartment. “She wouldn't have left the place like this.”

“Did anyone else have a key to her apartment?” I asked him.

“I dunno. I doubt it, but I dunno. Think we need to call the cops?”

Now it was my turn to say I didn't know, but only because I was trying to think this thing through.

Finally, I said, “Mr. Sandoval, how is it you have a key to Louie's apartment?”

“Oh, she had it made for me. I bunked here for a while when I was in between places of my own, and you can call me Ricky.”

“All right, Ricky.”

“Louie was always great that way, helping me out when I needed it. Why?”

“Well, I don't want to alarm you, Ricky, but if you call the police and they know you have a key, you might become a suspect.”

“A suspect in what? Messing up my sister's place?”

“They might think you had something to do with her disappearance.”

“That's loco talk!” he said.

“Yes, I know, but I'm trying to think like a policeman.”

“
Are
you a policeman?” Ricky asked, suddenly suspicious. “I thought you said you worked for the newspaper.”

“What I said was that I was doing a job for Louie's editor, which I am.” I fished out a business card and handed it to him. “I'm a private investigator.”

“Really?” the big man asked, inspecting the card. “I didn't think there really were private eyes. It thought they were only in movies and TV shows.”

“The real job isn't the same, but we're still here,” I told him. “It's probably not that different from what you do as a security guard.”

“Well, I'm not really a guard. I'm more of a bouncer. I work at the Tropico Room on the Strip.”

I knew that the Tropico Room was the current incarnation of a nightspot owned in the 1950s by a hugely popular entertainer with underworld ties.

“Pretty classy.”

“Last week I had to carry Lana Loncraine to her limo. She was a little…” He made a drinking gesture.

Lana Loncraine was a former child star who had lived the high life before falling on hard times, and had just recently blown her six-hundredth chance at rehabilitation.

“Managed to cop a feel while doing it, too. They aren't real. Her chichis, I mean.” Just in case we didn't get it, he held his hands out in front of his own impressive chest.

“They look real on TV,” Avery said.

“I know. I was surprised too.”

“Guys, can we please forget about Lana Loncraine's boobs for a moment?” I broke in. “We need to concentrate on a plan here.”

“What kind of plan?” Ricky asked.

“First, I think you're right, Ricky, you should call the police and report Louie as missing. But they don't need to know you have a key, and frankly, they don't need to know that you were here today.”

“Isn't that like lying?” he asked.

“It's
like
lying, but only if they ask you point blank, ‘were you there, did you have a key?' and you say no. What I'm suggesting is that you don't offer the information that you were inside Louie's apartment and saw its condition. Just call the police and report her missing, and let them handle it. If they show up here, the manager can let them in when they come.”

“So he has a key?”

“Of course, he's the manager,” I said, but then realized that Ricky had managed to make another good point. The drunk downstairs
did
have access to the apartment. I would have to figure out how that fitted into the mix later, though.

Right now I thought we should not be standing here with Louie's door hanging open, just in case someone else came by.

“Ricky, I'll tell you what. You give me your key for safekeeping. That way you don't have to lie to the police about having a key.”

“Wouldn't you be taking a risk by keeping it?”

“Risk taking is part of what I get paid for.”

You're a devious bastard
, Lauren Bacall said inside my head.
I like that.

“If you say so,” he said, handing the key over to me.

“Okay, so here's what we do, guys,” I began, feeling less like the brains heavy of a crime drama delivering instructions to his henchmen, than Moe hatching a doomed plan for Curly and Larry to follow.

“We leave here and I lock the door. Ricky, you go home and call the police. You haven't seen Louie in days, you're worried, so you're going to ask what you should do. Got it?”

“Haven't seen her, worried, what do I do?” he repeated.

“Good. Avery, you go to your place, but keep an eye and an ear out for anything. If the cops do show up, let me know, okay?”

“How?”

“Oh, right.” I fished out another business card and gave it to him. “So we're all agreed, right?”

“Right,” the two said in unison.

Ricky then left the apartment and strode down the hall toward the elevator. I started to leave, too, but Avery stopped me.

“You really think something bad happened to Luisa?” he asked.

“I really don't know. I hope not. But I do know that if the police get in the way I won't be able to investigate anything. Now come on, let's get out of here before someone else shows up.”

In the hallway I looked both ways to make sure no one else was there, then closed the door and locked it, pulling out my handkerchief to wipe the knob clean.

“If the police talk to you, tell them everything you know about the last time you saw Louie, but don't tell them you were in her apartment. And whatever you do, Avery, don't tell them about the balcony trick. Call me if you need me.”

“I will,” he said, sticking out the dead halibut he wore at the end of his arm for me to squeeze. “Should I tell them about the messages on the phone machine?”

“If the police are any good, they'll find those themselves.”

And unless they're stupid, they'll realize they've been listened to
, I thought.

“Avery, I think you might have just saved our butts,” I said, explaining that the fact that the phone messages were not old phone messages, and having been reviewed, meant that someone else had been in the apartment after Louie disappeared.

It might not be ethical, in fact it might even fall under the category of withholding evidence. But better safe than sorry; the messages had to go.

“Will that get us in trouble?” Avery asked.

“You? No. Because you're not going to do it. Go home and shut the door, and don't think about it. If anyone asks you if I erased the messages, you have no direct knowledge of that.”

“But you told me you were going to.”

“That's called hearsay. Trust me, I used to be a lawyer.”

“I think I see why you're not one anymore.”

“Just go home. Leave the worrying to me. I'm good at it.”

“Okay.”

I waited until he disappeared inside unit 214, and then quietly unlocked the door again and entered Louie's place. Going to the machine, I ran down through the messages, hitting the delete button at the start of each one.

When I got to the threatening message, I considered deleting it as well, but decided against it. Suppressing evidence to keep oneself out of the interrogation room is one thing, but suppressing genuine evidence that might lead to the solution of a potential crime was another. And the police would likely conclude that Louie herself had listened to it prior to disappearing.

After reclosing, relocking, and re-wiping down the door, I slipped the key into my pocket. I decided not to risk the elevator, where I might be seen, and instead found a stairwell and took it down. I didn't feel like I had to hide or slink as I walked to my car, though once I had arrived there, I rather wish I had been more discrete, because standing across the street, about a half-block down, was someone I recognized.

It was the female security guard from the Sherman Oaks Burger Heaven.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Or maybe it wasn't, maybe I'm just nuts.

(
Maybe
? Robert Mitchum shouted, but I had anticipated that.)

Maybe I hadn't really seen the same woman following me around Los Angeles. This was, after all, the facelift capital of the world, and it was pretty amazing how many women one ran into on the street or in stores or in offices who looked like they were sculpted from the same prototype face by the same doctor.

If, on the other hand, I was not crazy—

(Shut up, Mitch.)

—and it was all the same person who had been assigned by someone to tail me, she was pretty poor at it. Then again, Sheldon Leonard and I had already agreed that the break-ins had been the work of an amateur, so it stood to reason that if I really were being tailed, it was also by an amateur.

But
why
?

No matter from which direction I approached the problem, all roads seemed to lead to Burger Heaven, and it was close enough to dinner time for a combo. Since I was still carrying around that coupon for a free meal, it wouldn't even have to go on my expense report.

The question was, did I have the strength to leave a bit of it so as to try and sneak it through the doors again.

Oh, oh, if you need someone strong, I-I-I'll help you…sure I will
! the voice of Lon Chaney, Jr. said in my head. Thanks, Lennie, but I think I can do this.

While my intention was to jump back on the freeway and head over the Sepulveda Pass back into the Valley, then go to the newly opened one, I spotted a BH on Pico Boulevard, half-way to the on-ramp of the 405 freeway.

This was truly miraculous, since in my experience the only quick eating places to be found anywhere throughout the West Side were frozen yogurt shops or that ubiquitous sandwich chain whose stores smell a thousand times better than the polystyrene food they serve up tastes.

There's a rumor that a pizzeria exists somewhere on this side of L.A., but I've chalked that up to urban legend.

I pulled in to the spacious restaurant parking lot—another miracle on this side of town—parked and went in. While standing in the predictably long line, I fished the gift certificate out of my wallet, and upon getting to the counter, where I was greeted by a young blonde who actually looked too happy to be working in a fast food joint, I ordered a Twin Halo combo. When I presented the gift certificate, though, she looked at it as though she was uncertain how to handle it. Frowning slightly, she turned and flagged down a fortyish man wearing a tie, presumably a managerial type, and showed it to him.

“Well, congratulations, sir!” he beamed, pulling out a pen to initial the coupon before calling the order into the back. He he asked me to initial it too, which I did.

It seemed to take a little bit longer than usual for my order to be prepared, but once I received it, I decided that it was the result of waiting for a fresh batch of fries to come out of the grease. They had to be fresh because they were nearly too hot to pick up.

The hamburger was equally hot and good, but I actually managed to force myself to leave a bit of it uneaten. It wasn't easy; in fact, it was so difficult that I wrapped it in a napkin so as not to have to see it, and got up to go get back in line at the counter.

All right, I'm weak! But it's a hamburger, not a fix of heroin! It's my reward for actually saving a piece to sneak out.

“Are you finished with your tray, sir?” I heard a voice ask, and turned to see a kid with a wet wipe rag in one hand, while half-way reaching for my tray with the other.

“No, I'll be back,” I said, reaching for the wrapped burger ort as casually as I could and palming it. “Please don't take the tray away, I'm coming back. You're food is so good I'm going for seconds.”

“Excellent,” the kid said, grinning, and then moving on.

I got a single burger this time, which turned out to be as much a masterpiece of hot, juicy goodness as its big brother the Twin Halo. When I was finished, I piled everything onto the tray, except, of course, for the wrapped piece of my first burger, which I could feel was leaking secret sauce through the napkin in my pants pocket, then carried it to the trash bin, and then started to walk out.

And I made it.

I made it all the way to through the door, into the patio dining area, which was filled with cement tables and benches and halo-shaped sun umbrellas, and into the parking lot. And then into my car. And then out of the lot and onto the street.

Nobody tried to stop me, nobody tried to hassle me, nobody said a word.

So much for the rumor that Burger Heaven would go to any lengths to prevent their food from being taken off the premises. The first time I tried this stunt, only to be stopped by the security guard, who imprinted her image so firmly onto my brain that I see her everywhere now, it must have been a coincidence.

As I got closer to the 405 freeway, I could not help but notice that the lane for the on-ramp was backed up several blocks. This was not a good sign. Even with recent widening efforts, the 405 could be a nightmare, so I needed to avoid it for a while.

The answer was simple: since I was not far from the offices of the
L.A. Independent Journal
, and since I had the piece of evidence I had been charged with obtaining, I decided to drop it off on the way back. Maybe traffic would have lessened by the time I finished.

And maybe giraffes can fly, hoo hoo hoo!
Hugh Herbert said inside my head.

Okay, then maybe Zareh Zarian would realize that I can accomplish what I set out to do.

About twenty minutes later I pulled up to the
Journal
offices, parked and went in, telling the receptionist, “I don't have an appointment, but I need to see Mr. Zarian. I have something he wants.”