Rage (23 page)

She
sat back against the seat cushion. Ran her hand over her eyes. “I tried to do
something about it.”

“About
what, ma’am?”

“You’re
talking about the little white kid, right? The kid who killed that baby girl.”

“Troy
Turner,” said Milo.

Anita
Moss’s shoulders tightened. A fisted right hand drummed the seat. “
Now
you’re
here?”

“What
do you mean, ma’am?”

“Right
after Nestor told me about it I
tried
to tell the authorities. But no
one listened.”

“Which
authorities?”

“First,
at Chaderjian. I phoned them and asked to speak to whoever was in charge of
solving crimes that take place in the prison. I spoke to some therapist,
counselor, I don’t know. He listened to me and said he’d get back but he never
did. So I called the cops— Ramparts station because Nestor lived here. They
said it was Chaderjian’s jurisdiction.”

Her
eyes blazed.

Milo
said, “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“I
called because Nestor was scary. He was living with Mom, I didn’t want him
doing anything crazy.”

Her
eyes were wet. “It was
hard
to tell on him. He
was
my brother.
But I had to think of Mom. No one cared then, and now Nestor’s dead and you’re
here. Seems like a waste of time.”

“What
exactly did Nestor tell you?”

“That
he was a hit man at Chaderjian. That he got paid to hurt or kill people and
that he’d killed a bunch of kids in the prison.”

“When
did he tell you this?”

“Not
long after he got out— a couple of days after. It was my brother Antonio’s
birthday and we were at my mom’s, trying to have a family dinner, my brothers
and their families, Jim and me. Mom wasn’t feeling well, she really didn’t look
good, but she made a beautiful dinner. Nestor showed up late, with expensive
tequila and a dozen Cuban cigars. He insisted all the guys go outside and
smoke. Jim doesn’t touch tobacco so he refused but my brothers went out on the
balcony. Soon after my oldest brother Willy came in and said Nestor was running
his mouth about all kinds of crazy things, violent things, and he didn’t want
Mom to hear,
I
should quiet Nestor down.”

She
frowned.

“You
handled Nestor better than anyone,” I said.

“I
was the only one willing to confront him and he never got hostile with me.
Maybe because I’m a girl and I was nice to him even when he was a wild little
kid.”

“So
you went to talk to Nestor.”

“He
was smoking this gigantic cigar, making all this stinky smoke. I told him to
blow it the other way, then I said stop talking trash. He said, ‘I’m not
talking trash, Anita, I’m talking
real.
’ Then he gave this bizarre smile
and he said, ‘It’s kind of a Christian thing.’ I said what do you mean and he
said, ‘Hanging dudes up and letting them bleed is making ’em like Jesus, right?
That’s what I did, Anita, I didn’t have no nails but I tied up a dude and cut
him and made him bleed.’

“It
made me sick. I told him to shut up, he was grossing me out and if he couldn’t
behave himself he should leave. He kept going on about what he’d done, like it
was really important for him to talk about it. He stayed on the Christ thing,
saying he was like Judas, got twenty pieces of silver to do the job. Then he
said, ‘But he was no Jesus, he was the Devil in a little white kid’s body, so I
did a good thing.’ I said what are you
talking
about and he said the
dude he hung up was some little white kid who killed another little white kid.
Then he pulled something out of his pocket and showed it to me. It was an I.D.
card from Chaderjian, just like Nestor’s but with another kid’s picture on it.”

“Troy
Turner.”

“That
was the name on the badge. I said you could get that anywhere. Nestor went
nuts, said, ‘I did it, I did it! Hung the dude up and made him bleed, look him
up on your computer, smart girl, there’s gotta be something there.’ ”

A
tremor ran down the center of Anita Moss’s throat. “He’d made me sick to my
stomach. Mom had cooked this beautiful dinner, all her beautiful food and I
felt like it was all coming up. I yanked the cigar out of Nestor’s mouth and
ground it out with my foot. Then I told him to shut up, I meant it, and went
back inside. Nestor left and didn’t return, which was fine with everyone. That
night, trying to sleep, I couldn’t stop thinking about that kid’s picture on
the badge. He looked so
young.
Even with Nestor’s always bragging and
lying, he freaked me out. ’Cause of the details.”

“What
details?” said Milo.

“He
insisted on telling me how he did it. How he’d followed that little boy for
days. ‘Hunted the dude like a rabbit.’ He learned Troy Turner’s routine,
finally cornered him in a supply room off the gym.”

Her
face crumpled. “Talking about it
now
makes me sick. Nestor said he hit
him in the face to subdue him. Then, he . . .” She gulped again.
“That night, after Jim fell asleep, I got out of bed and went on the computer
and plugged in Troy Turner’s name. Found a short article in the
Times
and a longer one from a paper near Chaderjian. What they both said matched
everything Nestor told me. Maybe Nestor didn’t do it, maybe he just heard about
it and got that badge somehow.”

I
said, “Knowing Nestor, you believe he could’ve done it.”

“He
was proud of it!”

“Nestor
said he’d been paid to kill other boys,” said Milo. “Did he mention any other names?”

She
shook her head. “Troy Turner was the only one he wanted to talk about. Like
that had been a real big accomplishment for him.”

“Because
Troy was notorious?” I said.

She
nodded. “He said that. ‘Dude thought he was a stone killer but I killed his ass.’ ”

“Did
he say how much he’d been paid?”

Anita
Moss shook her head. Lowered her eyes. “I came to hate Nestor, but talking
about him like this . . .”

“Did
Nestor ever talk about who paid him, ma’am?”

She
kept her head down, spoke softly. “All he said was that it was a white guy and
the reason was Turner had killed a baby.”

“Did
he give you any details about this white guy?” said Milo.

“No,
just that. I told the exact same thing to that counselor. When he didn’t call
back, I phoned the police. No one cared.”

Her
lips folded inward. She shook her head back and forth.

“That
boy,” she said. “That picture. He looked so
young.
”

M
ilo and I sat in a rear booth of a coffee shop on
Vermont just north of Wilshire, drinking Cokes, waiting for Ramparts Detective
Philip Krug. Krug had been in his car when we reached him and he welcomed the
opportunity for lunchtime company.

The
locale was his choice, a big, bright, half-empty place with puce-colored vinyl
booths, cloudy windows, and the outward profile of a toy rocket ship.

He
was twenty minutes late and I used the time to raise the issues Allison had
brought up.

Milo
said, “The premeditation thing’s interesting, but I don’t see where it takes
us. Rand wanting to feel less guilty by blaming Lara could be important. If he
tried it on Malley. What do you think about Nestor’s bragging?”

“Sounds
authentic. He knew all the details,” I said.

“I
was thinking about the white guy hiring him.”

“Revenge
hit. It fits.”

He
looked at his Timex.

I
said, “Troy bragged, too, when I interviewed him in jail. Said he had plans to
be rich.”

“You’re
thinking he had hit-man fantasies, too?”

“I
don’t see him planning for the Ivy League. Maybe he saw Kristal as career
practice.”

“Goddamn
little
savages.
What do you
do
with them?”

* * *

Phil
Krug was a compact man in his forties with thin red hair and a copper-wire
mustache so thick it extended farther than his crushed nose. He wore a gray
suit with a navy shirt and a pale blue tie. The waitress knew him and said “The
usual?” before he had a chance to sit down.

Krug
nodded at her and unbuttoned his suit jacket. “Nice to meet you guys. Tell
Elise what you’re having.”

We
ordered burgers. The waitress said, “Phil orders his with blue cheese.”

Krug
said, “That’s ‘the usual.’ ”

Milo
said, “Sure.”

Nonconformity
seemed impolitic. I said, “Ditto.”

* * *

In
between bites of cheese-slathered ground chuck on an undistinguished bun, Krug
discussed the little he’d learned about Nestor Almedeira’s murder. Unknown
assailant, no leads, granules of heroin on the dirt near the body.

A
single head-shot, close proximity, through-and-through temple wound, coroner’s
guess was a .38, no bullet recovered and no casing, so the killer had picked up
or used a revolver.

I
side-glanced at Milo. Expressionless.

“Lafayette
Park,” he said.

Krug
wiped cheese from his mustache. “Let me tell you about Lafayette Park. Coupla
months ago I got called for jury duty, civil case, they hear them over at the
courthouse on Commonwealth, which is right near the park. I knew I’d be
disqualified but I had to show up and wait and do all that good citizen stuff.
Lunch break comes and the clerk reads off this prepared statement telling all
the jurors where to eat. Then she goes into this speech about never going into
Lafayette Park, even during the day. We’re talking a courthouse yards away
swarming with law enforcement, and they’re saying don’t step foot inside.”

“That
bad,” I said.

“It
sure was for our boy Nestor,” said Krug. “So what’s the connection to West
L.A.?”

Milo told
him about Rand Duchay and Troy Turner’s murders, but left out Lara Malley’s
suicide and the similarities between the shootings.

“I
remember that one, snatched little baby,” said Krug. “Depressing, glad it
wasn’t mine. So maybe Nestor was the hit boy on Turner, huh?”

“He
claimed he was to his sister.”

“She
never mentioned that to me.”

“She
told C.Y.A. right after Nestor bragged about it, got no interest, phoned
Ramparts, same deal.”

“She
probably talked to some clerk,” said Krug. “We don’t always get the sharpest
knives in the drawer . . . they do that, the idiots. Brag. How
many you solve that way? Plenty, right?”

“Plenty,”
said Milo.

“So
what are you thinking, someone went on a revenge kick and hit the other baby
killer? With all those years in between? What’s it been, ten?”

“Eight,”
said Milo.

“Long
time,” said Krug.

“It’s
a problem, Phil, but there’re no other leads.”

“I’ve
been figuring Nestor as your basic dope thing. Patrol officers I.D.’d him as a
bottom-feeder with a bad disposition, he was working Lafayette and MacArthur
and the streets.”

“Bottom-feeder
user?”

Krug
pantomimed a bellpull. “Bingo. His arms and legs were full of tracks and there
was dope in his blood. You know what it’s like when they get to that point.
They’re just selling to stay healthy.”

Milo
nodded. “How much heroin was in him?”

Krug
said, “Don’t remember the numbers, but it was enough to get him high. The way I
figure, being numbed out made him easier to kill. They found a knife on him but
it never got out of his pocket.”

“The
killer feeds him, then does him?” said Milo.

“Or
Nestor fed himself and ran into bad luck. If I was out to get a guy like
Nestor, that’s how I’d do it. And a guy like Nestor would have enemies.”

“Bad
disposition.”

“The
worst,” said Krug, “but we never picked up any specific street talk on who he
pissed off.”

“Where
was he living?” said Milo.

“Dump
on Shatto, pay by the week. You could go there but you’d find nothing. Nestor’s
total belongings fit into one box and there was nothing interesting. Maybe the
coroner still has it but you know the storage problems at the crypt. My guess
is it got tossed.”

“Nestor’s
sister said he showed her Turner’s I.D.”

“It
wasn’t in his stuff.”

“What
was?”

“Clothes,
needles, spoons, crappy clothing.”

“Anyone
at his crib have anything to say?”

“You’re
kidding, right?” said Krug. “We’re talking transients and a clerk who does the
blind-dumb-deaf bit.”

Krug
took a bite of his burger. “Excellent, huh? One thing the French are good for
is cheese . . . anyway, whatever bragging Nestor might’ve done
in the past, his crowing days were over.”

He
reached in his pocket and brought out a postmortem shot of a hollow-cheeked
visage. Matted hair, sallow complexion, death-glazed eyes bottomed by gray
pouches. Patchy facial hair came across as a gray skin rash.