L. A. Heat (32 page)

“Hey,” the waiter said.

“Draft,” Chris said.

“Sure.” But instead of heading for the bar he
waited.

A month ago Chris would have had the guy’s number
in his wallet by now. Two weeks ago he would have flaunted his own package and
sauntered straight to the bathroom, knowing he would be followed. Now he just
stared into a pair of sharp brown eyes and smiled, thinking of another pair of
brown eyes flecked with green. Wishing he wasn’t on his way to Denver.

“Dos Equis, if you have it.”

“Sorry. Bud, Miller Lite, Rolling Rock.”

Chris grimaced. “Bud.” He thought of Bobby then.
“No, make that a Rolling Rock instead.”

While he waited, he pulled Bobby’s Palm Pilot out
and pulled up the boy’s journal again. He began skimming, doing his best to
ignore the entries Bobby had made on their encounter.

His beer arrived with a frothy head, a cocked hip,
and knowing grin, which he ignored. Only after the waiter left did he suck off
the head before savoring a mouthful of beer. It was cold. It had that much
going for it.

His BlackBerry vibrated. He looked at the number.
My God, it was Petey. The man was like the Black Death; he didn’t know when to
quit.

“I want you in my office the morning you get back
from your trip.”

Something solidified within Chris. “No,” he said.
He sat back and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long. “What?”

“You heard me. But if it wasn’t clear, then hear
this: I quit. The only thing you’ll find on your desk when I get back is my
official resignation.”

Silence. Then, “You’re making a big mistake,
Bellamere.”

“I prefer to think I’m correcting one. I’ll get
this contract for you, then I’m finished with your bullshit. And don’t think
you can give me a bad reference, either, Petey. I know the kinds of sites you
visit when you’re sitting in your office all by yourself.”

“Bellamere—”

Chris broke the connection. Then he punched in
Phil DePalma’s number and gave him the good news. Finally he shut the
BlackBerry off. Now he just wanted to finish his drink in silence. He went back
to reading the world according to Bobby—

“Figures I’d find you here.”

Chris swung around in his booth and gazed up at
Tom Clarke.

“What are you doing here?”

“Delivering this.” He tossed a DataTEK
inter-office mail envelope onto the acrylic tabletop.

Chris eyed the envelope, but made no move to open
it. He didn’t waste his time telling Tom he’d quit. He’d find out soon enough.
Why make the guy’s weekend?

“Hey.” Tom grabbed Chris’s beer and upended it,
draining the glass. “Peter said you needed it.”

“Hey!”

“Oh, was that yours? Here, I’ll get you another
one.”

Chris watched in exasperation as Tom swaggered
across the wildly lit bar and spent several minutes talking up the woman behind
the bar. Chris looked away in disgust when he put his hand on her arm and
leaned down to whisper in her ear.

Jesus, what a clown. He reached for the envelope,
then caught sight of an entry in the Palm Pilot. He pulled it closer to study
the small print. Tom plunked a full beer down in front of him, its pale golden
head wilted by the rough treatment.

Tom slid into the chair opposite Chris. He sipped
his own drink, something dark on ice. The raw odor of top-shelf scotch wafted over
the table.

Chris did his best to ignore the man.

Tom stared across the room at the bartender.

“Like to shove my ten-inch pole up that twat, eh?
Have her screaming for more.”

Chris buried his nose in the beer and gulped a
large mouthful. The man was a pig.

“But I guess that’s not your style, is it,
queenie? You’d rather have that ten inches up your own chute.”

Chris looked up from reading the Palm. “You
volunteer for this or did Petey order you to be an ignorant asshole?”

Tom grinned.

Chris took another sip of beer. Bobby was writing
about some incredible guy he had met who was going to get him into real films.
Some guy who told the poor sap it didn’t matter that he’d done porn, he was
going to be the next Johnny Depp. Chris squinted at the blurred writing. Jesus,
it couldn’t be. He leaned closer, studying the output on the tiny screen. He
recognized that name and how the hell was that possible?

“What’s that?” Tom reached for the Palm Pilot.

Chris pulled it out of his reach. “Personal,” he
muttered, still squinting, trying to make sense of what he saw on the Palm
Pilot’s tiny screen, blinking away a sudden blurriness in his eyes. “That’s not
possible.”

“What’s not possible?”

Shaking his head and wishing Tom would shut up and
go away, Chris stared in befuddled wonder at the fuzzy screen. “On top of
everything this guy Tom’s cute as hell. So far he hasn’t made any moves and I
don’t want to blow it by spooking the guy with a pass if he’s not ready, but
man, he’s hot. He’s going to talk to this big producer he knows and maybe I can
go for a reading next week. We’ll form our own production company to take it to
them. He wants to call it Clarke Pictures. I can hardly wait.”

“What the hell...” The Palm Pilot slipped out of
fingers that felt suddenly like wooden clubs. He reached for it, only to watch
it spin out of control and skid across the table.

Tom caught it and held it up. “My, what’s this,
then?”

Their eyes met; Tom was grinning.

“Who knew the little faggot kept a diary, eh?”he
said and his smile deepened. His eyes remained empty, Chris noticed. Like ice
chips.

“Well don’t think it hasn’t been a slice,” Chris
said thickly. “But I gotta make like a tree and shove off—”

He made it halfway to his feet before his knees
gave out on him. Dizzily he collapsed, rattling the table as he banged it with
his hip. He blinked at Tom, who swam in his vision and momentarily became two
Toms, then a blur of pale flesh.

“Is something wrong, sir?”

Chris looked up to find the waiter bending over
the table, bland curiosity on his wavering face. Chris shook his head in
growing alarm and stared at Tom, who was suddenly standing beside him.

“He’s the—”

“My friend’s just had a bit too much to drink.
I’ll help him get on his flight.” Tom was shaking his blond head. “His wife’s
going to be so disappointed. You swore you stopped drinking, buddy. Even did
the AA thing. Now look at you.”

The waiter receded, losing interest once he heard
wife. Tom grabbed Chris’s elbow in an iron grip.

“No...” Chris tried to pull away. His words came
out as barely a whisper.

“Oh, I’m afraid yes. I’m going to take good care
of you, aren’t I, Chris?”

Chris fumbled with his BlackBerry, trying to hit
keys with wooden fingers. Before he could do more than activate it, Tom
wrenched it away and tossed it onto the chair beside Chris.

“You really won’t be needing that anymore.” Tom
leaned over and his sour breath brushed Chris’s face. “I don’t think you’ll be
disappointed, Chris. It’ll be a real scream.”

Sunday,
9:50 pm, Tyburn Street, Glendale

David pulled off the Hollywood
Freeway. The clock on the dash said ten. He was running late. A two-car
collision on the Santa Monica Freeway had slowed him down. He grabbed the cell
off the seat where Chris had dropped it and speed-dialed Martinez.

“I’m about ten minutes away. Where are you?”

“Just pulling into Tyburn Street. How ’bout I wait
for you and we go up together.”

“Suits me.”

David tossed the phone back on the seat. He caught
the red and white running lights of a plane overhead and watched it briefly.
Chris would be in the air by now. He wasn’t sure what the future was going to
bring them, but after the last couple of days he was no longer going to reject
their relationship out of hand. Give it a chance, Chris had asked. He couldn’t
do less than that. He loved the man. He couldn’t just turn his back, however
big a fool that made him.

He pulled onto Tyburn Street, near the Los Angeles
River, and drew up behind Martinez’s brown Crown Victoria in front of a vacant
lot. Martinez hopped out and strolled back. He stopped at the front fender.

They both stared at the vacant lot. The only sign
of life was a wasted mongrel rooting around in a pile of garbage at the end of
the block.

David kicked at the curb, loosening a fast-food
wrapper that skittered off down the street. “Someone’s jerking our chain. Tell
me this wasn’t a wild goose chase.”

Martinez swore under his breath.

David laid his hand on his partner’s arm. Martinez
flinched away; David pretended not to notice. “It’s a bust. Isn’t the first
time. But listen, we’re not far from the Anstroms’ place. Why don’t we see if
they’re home? Maybe she remembers seeing Daniel with Trevor.”

Before they could go anywhere David’s cell rang.
When he hung up he shook his head.

“That was the switchboard. The Highway Patrol
pulled a body out of a dumpster in the Charlton Flat—in an area the Forest
Service just closed off recently.”

“So if our helpful doer hadn’t sent that picture
it would have stayed there for months.”

“Years,” David corrected. “They close portions of
Charlton Flat for ten years. To improve erosion control.”

“Who’s got the d.b.?”

“They’re going to bring the body down to the
coroner’s. We’ll get the initial autopsy results early next week.” David
brushed his leg. “Ready to go talk to Daniel’s mother?”

Martinez didn’t have a better suggestion, so they
wound their way through dark streets until they pulled into the Anstroms’
driveway.

Several spotlights lighted up the familiar three-story
Cape Cod. Through the front window David could see the flickering blue glow of
a television.

The woman David had met earlier, when he came with
news of her son’s death, opened the door. Edith Anstrom appeared older now,
more careworn.

“Mrs. Anstrom?” David said. “We met earlier...?”

“Yes, I remember you.” She looked from David to
Martinez.

“This is my partner, Detective Martinez Diego.”

“What is this about?”

“We have a picture we’d like you to look at, see
if you recognize someone.”

“I was in the living room watching the news,”
Edith said. She lowered her voice. “Is this about Daniel?”

Preferring not to prejudice her into making an ID
just to get closure on her son’s death, David said, “We’re looking for anyone
who might have information regarding your son’s disappearance.”

Edith indicated a beveled wooden door with
multiple panes of glass engraved with images of old sailing ships. “We can do
this in the living room.”

If Edith wasn’t a sailor, her husband must be one.
The theme of ships and the East Coast permeated the cozy living room.

Above a fieldstone fireplace the wooden
mantelpiece was packed with sailing treasures: a sextant, a pair of finely
wrought reproductions of old sailing vessels complete with cotton sails that
looked ready to catch a stiff southwest breeze.

A gray-muzzled basset hound raised its massive
head when they entered the room. It looked at them with rheumy eyes, then
seemed to decide they were no threat it could handle and promptly went back to
sleep.

Edith watched them through piercing hazel eyes
that had David mentally examining his state of dress. Had he left his fly open?
Was his tie crooked?

“Whose picture is it?” she asked in a whiskey
voice that spoke of years of smoking.

“We don’t know, ma’am,” David lied. “That’s why
we’d like you to look at it. Tell us if you recognize him.”

“At least you admit it’s a man’s picture. You
probably know a lot more than you’re letting on, but you won’t tell me
anything. Don’t want to influence me, do you?”

“Ma’am?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb, young man,” she said. “I
hate it when men play dumb just because some woman lets them know she
understands their game. Now, show me this picture.”

Trying to hide his smile, David handed her the
police artist’s sketch of Trevor Watson. She laid it in her lap. Immediately
Edith’s hands began to shake. She stared down at the picture in her lap.

“What on earth are you doing with a picture of our
nephew?”

“Your
nephew
?” David leaned forward. “This
man is related to you?”

“Well, not really.” Edith fluttered her hands.
“It’s more a relationship by marriage. Trevor was my son-in-law’s brother.
Half-brother, actually. He used to work for some company that made atrocious
movies.”

“Do you see him often?” David asked.

“Once a month, perhaps. Holidays he would come for
dinner. He had no other family. His own parents were dead, had been for years,
as I understand it.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“He was here last weekend. His landlord was
hassling him about paying more rent for that dump he lived in so Trevor asked
if he could stay here a few days.”

“Did Trevor know Daniel?”

“Of course. They weren’t exactly friends, Trevor
being so much older than Daniel, but they got along well enough. At Christmas
they used to horse around and if we had one of our big picnics on July Fourth
they’d usually end up playing football or some other rough-and-tumble boy’s
game.”

“Did you see him just before Daniel disappeared?”
David was making less and less sense of this. Why would Trevor need to drug
Anstrom to get him away from his friends? He could have taken him anytime, and
not from in front of people who might know him.

Edith didn’t answer right away. She stared across
the room at the mantelpiece full of memories, her hand resting atop the Basset
hound’s head. The dog’s snores filled the silence.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I did see him. He brought
Daniel home that night he got so dreadfully sick. Later we figured he must have
eaten a bad hot dog earlier that afternoon. He was down for two days with that.
Then, two days later, Daniel was on his way back to that place he hung out at
and he vanished. Trevor was so upset over that, I think he half blamed
himself.”