Guilt (31 page)

I said, “Tell me about it.”

“I don’t remember specifics.”

“You buy what you’re told, all part of the job.”

“That
is
the job. Period.”

“Service assistant.”

“Yeah, it’s stupid, I know. I need to eat, okay?”

“You get a call to—”

“Never a call, always email.”

“Buy me bugs.”

“I order all kinds of things. That’s what I’m paid to do.”

“You do all the purchasing for the Premadonny compound?”

“No, just …” Head shake.

“Just things they don’t want their name on?”

Silence. Wrong guess. I’d try the same question later.

“So how many times have you ordered beetles and knives?”

“Just that once.”

“You didn’t find it weird?”

“Wondering wastes time.”

“Busy guy,” I said. “They work you hard.”

“Like I said, I like to eat.”

“Don’t we all.”

He stopped. “You don’t get it. I don’t ask questions and I’m
not
allowed to answer any.”

“About …”

“Anything. Ever. That’s Rule Number One. Numbers Two through Ten say refer back to One.”

“That sounds like something your boss told you.”

No reply.

I said, “Privacy’s a big deal for Premadonny.”

“They’re all like that.”

“Stars?”

“You can call ’em that.”

“What do you call ’em?”

“The gods.” His lips turned down. A sneer full of reflexive disdain. The same flavor of contempt I’d heard in Len Coates’s voice.

Perfect opening for me.

“Funny, Kev, you’d think they’d want nothing
but
attention.”

“They want it, all right. On their terms.” Long slow intake of breath. “Now I’m fucked, I already said too much.”

I said, “Service assistant. That could mean anything.”

Kevin Dubinsky emitted a high, coarse sound that didn’t approach laughter. “It means fucking
gopher
. Know what they actually pay me?”

“Not much.”

“Less than that.” He laughed.

Resisting the urge to pluck the loose thread from his collar, I said, “That’s the way the Industry works. The gods perch on Olympus, the peasants grovel.”

“Better believe it.”

“So no sense getting screwed on their account, Kevin.”

“I like to
eat
, man.”

“I’m discreet. Tell me about the job.”

“What’s to tell? I order stuff.”

More eye movement. Time to revisit his first evasion. I said, “Not for the entire compound.”

He gnawed his lip.

“Eventually we’re going to find out, Kevin, no sense complicating your life by getting tagged as uncooperative.”

“Please. I can’t help you.”

“Who’d you buy that crap for?”

Silence.

I said, “Or maybe we should assume you bought it for your own personal use, that could get
really
interesting.”

“Her, okay? I only buy for her, he’s got his own slave.”

“Who’s that?”

“Like I know? I do what I’m told.”

“You buy stuff she doesn’t want traced back to her.”

“I buy for her because she can’t dirty her hands being a real person.” He laughed, patted a trouser pocket. “I use a Centurion—a black card—just for her swag. Get to pretend every day.”

“Must get interesting.”

“Nah, it sucks.”

“Boring purchases?”

“Boring expensive purchases.” He mimed gagging himself with a finger.

I said, “You buy, the stuff ships to Culver City, the paperwork gets filed somewhere else, so if someone goes through her garbage they can’t figure out what she’s into.”

“Maybe that’s part of it,” he said. “I always figure, it’s God forbid they do anything for themselves.”

“Do you handle groceries and stuff like that?”

“Nah, that goes through her staff at the compound.”

“What do you buy?”

“ ‘Special purchases.’ ”

“Meaning?”

“Whatever she feels like.”

We walked half a block before he stopped again, drew me to another display window. Manikins who’d have to plump up to be anorexic were draped in black crepe garments that might be coats. Blank white faces projected grief. Nothing like a funeral for selling product.

He said, “I’m going to tell you this so you’ll understand, okay? One time—I don’t know this personally, I was told it—they actually set up a scene so she could fill her car up and look like a regular person. They picked a gas station in Brentwood, Apex paid to clear the place out for a day, masked it off with those silver sheets photographers use so no one could see what was going on. They gave her a car that wasn’t hers, something normal, and she pretended to fill it up.”

I said, “For one of those stars-are-just-like-us deals.”

Another contemptuous look. “Five takes for her to get the hang of putting gas in a fucking car. She had no fucking clue.”

“Unreal.”

“Her life is unreal, man. So what’d she need those bugs for?”

I smiled.

“Okay, I get it, shut up and cooperate.”

“Do your purchases get audited?”

“Every month a prick from accounting goes over every damn thing. I charge a pencil that can’t be explained, my ass is grass. A girl who
used to work in the next cubicle, she bought for—I can’t tell you who—she got busted for a bottle of nail polish.”

I said, “Sucks. So what’s the most expensive item you’ve ever bought for her?”

“Easy,” he said. “Last year, time share on a Gulfstream Five. Seven figures up front plus serious monthly maintenance. She never uses it.”

I whistled.

“That’s the point, dude. Doing stuff no one else can do, to show you’re God. One day I’m going to find a real job.”

“How long have you been at Apex?”

“Little over three years,” he said. “Started out doing messenger shit. Which was basically bringing envelopes from one schmuck boss to another, picking up lunch, all kinds of scut. When I signed up, I figured it would be temporary. So I could save up enough and go back to school.”

“What were you studying?”

“What do you think?”

“Acting.”

He chuckled. “They taught you to detect pretty good. Yeah, I was like every fool comes to L.A., thought because I was Stanley in high school and my drama teacher loved me I could live … atop Olympus.” He shook his head. “My crib’s a barf-hole in Reseda, I’m barely getting by, and now I got cops talking to me. Maybe it’s time to go back and study something real. Like real estate. Or online poker.”

He reached for my sleeve, retracted his hand before making contact. “Please don’t screw me, dude. All I did was what I was told.”

“If that’s true, I don’t see you as having any liability, Kevin.”

“I don’t mean problems with you, I mean the job. Rule One.”

“I’ll do my best to keep you out of it.”

“The way you said that scares me.”

“Why?”

“It could mean anything.”

“What it means, Kev, is that we need each other.”

“How?”

“You don’t want me talking about you and my bosses can’t afford you telling anyone about this meeting because there’s an ongoing investigation.”

“No prob, I won’t say a word.”

“Then we’re cool.”

I held out my hand. We shook. His skin was clammy.

“Thanks for talking to me, Kev.”

“Believe me, my yap is permanently shut. But can I ask one thing? Just for my own sake?”

“What?”

“Did she do something bad with that shit? I figured it was for the kids, some sort of science project, you know? She’s always getting stuff for the kids.”

I said, “Ever hear of the Lacey Act?”

“No, what’s that?”

“Protection for endangered species.”

“That’s what this is about? Those stupid bugs were illegal?”

“Protected.” I ran a finger across my lips. “Like this communication. Have a nice day, Kevin.”

“I’ll try,” he said. “Getting harder, but I’ll try.”

T
he morning after meeting Kevin Dubinsky, I dressed in sweatpants, a T-shirt, running shoes, and a Dodgers cap, was ready to leave by eight. Blanche, figuring it was time for a stroll, bounced up to me and smiled.

I said, “Sorry, honey,” fetched her a consolation strip of bacon that she regarded with sad eyes before deigning to nibble, carried her to Robin’s studio, and left the house.

I drove up Beverly Glen, turned right at Mulholland, passing the fire station near Benedict Canyon, stopping once to pick up a nice-sized branch that had fallen off an ancient sycamore. Sailing through pretty, dew-livened hills I reached the Coldwater Canyon intersection, across from TreePeople headquarters.

A little more than half a mile south of the private road that led to the Premadonny compound.

I drove two miles north of the property, found a patch of turnoff not meant for long-term stay, left the car there, anyway. Stick in hand, I returned south on foot.

Crows squawked, squirrels chittered, all kinds of animal noises became
evident once you listened. I spotted a deer munching dry grass then speeding toward a McMansion that blocked far too much canyon view, came upon the desiccated remains of a gorgeous red-and-yellow-banded king snake. Juvenile, from the size of it. No signs of violence to the little reptile. Sometimes things just died.

I kept going, using the branch for a walking stick that I hoped would imply Habitual Hiker. Nice day to be out walking, if you ignored the occasional car roaring toward you, oblivious or hostile to the concept of foot travel. Fools texting and phone-yakking and a notable cretin shaving his face made the journey an interesting challenge. More than once I had to press myself against a hillside to avoid being pulverized.

I kept up a steady pace, tapped a rhythm with the stick, pretended to be caught up in pedestrian Zen. In L.A., that makes you strange. In L.A., people ignore strange.

When I reached my destination, I found a tree-shielded spot across the road and had a look at the entry to the compound. A discreet sign warned against trespassing. An electric gate ten or so yards up blocked entry. The road to that barrier was a single lane of age-grayed asphalt in need of patching, shaded by bay laurels and untrimmed ficus. A stray plastic cup lid glinted from the shrubbery. Appropriately secluded but a little on the shabby side; not a hint this was Buckingham West.

I continued walking, searched for police surveillance. None that I could see; maybe Milo hadn’t gotten around to arranging it.

I hadn’t heard from him since the meet at Melvin Wedd’s crime scene. Probably inspecting Wedd’s apartment, locating next of kin, all that logical detective procedure.

Correspondence with Wedd’s family would be an exercise in deception: prying out dirt about a victim/possible suspect under the guise of consolation. Milo was good at that, I’d seen him pull it off plenty of times. Later, he’d mutter about the power of positive hypocrisy.

I covered another mile, reversed direction, took a second look at the access road to the compound, repeated the process several times, never encountering another person on foot.

They say walking’s the best exercise, if we had time to do enough of it, we wouldn’t need to jog or run or tussle with implements of gym-torture. By the time I got back in the Seville my feet were starting to protest and I guessed I’d covered at least ten miles.

It had been a learning experience. Body and mind.

When I was minutes from home, Robin called. “Guess what, Brent’s back in town, can’t wait to talk to you.”

“Eager to do his civic duty?”

She laughed. “More like his un-civil duty. He hates them, Alex. Quote unquote. He’s lunching, guess where?”

“Spago.”

“Grill on the Alley. Karma, huh?”

“Last time I was there the company was a whole lot cuter.”

“But nowhere near this informative, baby. Good luck.”

The Grill bustles pleasantly at dinnertime. During lunch it roars, filling up with Industry testosterone, every power booth occupied by movers and shakers and those too rich to bother doing either. Each bar stool is occupied but no one gets drunk. Platters of food are transported smoothly by an army of white-jacketed waiters who’ve seen it all. Sometimes tourists and others naive enough to venture in without a reservation bunch up at the door like immigrants seeking asylum. A trio of hosts seems genuinely remorseful when they reject the unschooled.

My hiking duds were far below the sartorial standard but you’d never know it from the smile of the woman behind the lectern. “May I help you?”

“I’m meeting Brent Dorf.”

“Certainly.” She beckoned a waiter with an eyebrow lift and he led me to a table on the south side of the restaurant, concealed by the center partition.

Far from the see-and-be-seen; Brent’s clout was beta.

He was hunched over a Caesar salad, forking quickly as if he needed to be somewhere else yesterday. When he saw me, he didn’t stop eating. A millimeter of white wine remained in his glass.

The waiter said, “Cocktail? Or Chardonnay like Mr. Dorf?” and handed me a menu.

I said, “Iced tea’s fine. I’ll also have a Caesar.”

“No croutons, dressing on the side, like Mr. Dorf?”