Rage (32 page)

“Was
the story the Kristal Malley murder?” I said.

“Yup,”
said Boestling. “Two kids kill another kid and go to jail. Not exactly
Titanic.
”

“Whose
idea was it?”

“Can’t
say for sure, but my bet is Daney was your typical delusional jerk and he
infected Sydney.” He snickered. “Along with other things.”

“You
know for a fact that he gave her the clap?”

“Or
it was one of the other five thousand dicks she rode. He’s the one I saw, so
I’m putting a face on it— so to speak.” He shrugged. “For all I know it was the
other kid’s lawyer, some Latino guy.”

“Lauritz
Montez,” I said. “She slept with him, too?”

“For
sure.”

“How
do you— ”

“When
Sydney first started on the case, she did nothing but bad-mouth Montez. Stupid,
no experience, an albatross who was going to drag her down. Then, a couple
weeks in, she started taking late meetings with him.
Lots
of late
meetings. Working on a joint defense. I bought it until I caught her with that
scumbag Daney and finally stopped being the densest moron in the galaxy. The
only joint defense going on was when Montez tucked his dick back in his pants.”

I
said nothing.

Boestling
said, “Just another waltz down memory lane. Now if you— ”

“Did
Sydney say anything about the Malley case that you thought was unusual?”

“This
is about
that
? After all these years?” he said. “What’s Daney suspected
of?”

“Can’t
get into details. Sorry.”

“One-way
conversation.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Well,
unfortunately for
you,
all Sydney told
me
was that her client was
a murderous little monster and there was no way she was going to get him off.
Seen her recently?”

“I
tried to talk to her a few days ago. She got very upset— ”

“And
went nuts on you and started screaming, right?”

“Right.”

“Good
old Sydney,” he said. “Freaking out was always her technique. In court she was
real controlled, but outside, anyone tried to disagree with her she’d just
blast out with this wall of Indy 500 noise. At me, the boys, her parents.” He
shook his head. “Amazing what I put up with. My second wife was a different
story. Mellow, couldn’t be sweeter. Dead in the sack, though. Eventually, I’ll
find the right combination.”

He
got up and headed back toward his store. I walked with him, pressed for more
details about the movie.

“Never
saw a script. Never got involved directly. Don’t forget, I was just a
TV
guy.”

“You
were good enough to set up meetings,” I said.

“Exactly.”
He scratched his chin. “I did all kinds of stupid things back then. Had a
little substance-abuse problem that clouded my judgment. I’m talking to you in
the first place because my sponsor says I need to be honest with the world.”

Same
thing Nina Balquist had said. How much of what passed for honesty nowadays was
atonement?

I
said, “I appreciate that.”

“I’m
doing it for myself,” said Boestling. “Should’ve been a lot more selfish when
it counted.”

* * *

I
drove to Beverly Hills and caught Lauritz Montez exiting the court building on
Burton and Civic Center. The double-wide briefcase he toted dragged at his
right shoulder as he headed for the rear parking lot.

“Mr.
Montez.”

An
eyebrow lifted but he never broke step. I caught up.

“What
now?”

“A
reliable source tells me you and Sydney had more than a business relationship.”

“And
who might that be?”

“Can’t
say.”

No
answer.

I
said, “Tell me about Sydney’s movie ambitions.”

“Why
would I know anything about that?”

“Funny,”
I said. “You didn’t say ‘what movie?’ ”

We
entered the lot and he walked to a ten-year-old gray Corvette, put his case on
the ground. “You’re getting annoying.”

“Judge
Laskin’s retired but he’s got friends. I’m sure the judiciary and the bar
association would be thrilled to know how you comported yourself during a major
case.”

“Is
that a threat?”

“Heaven
forbid,” I said. “Then again, maybe you’d rather file indictment forms in
Compton for the next twenty years.”

“You’re
a real piece of work,” he said, keeping his voice low. “My money says LAPD has
no idea what you’re doing.”

I
held out my cell phone. “Speed-dial five.” Which would’ve connected him to my
dentist.

He
didn’t take it. A Beverly Hills cop drove past us in a brand-new Suburban. One
officer, all that curb weight. Gas economy doesn’t mean much in 90210.

I
pocketed the phone.

Montez
said, “What do you really want?” His voice wavered on the last two words.

“What
you know about the movie and anything else you can tell me about Sydney and the
Daneys.”

He
backed away, positioned himself between the Corvette’s scoop-nose and the
parking lot wall.

“The
Daneys,” he said, smiling coldly. “Always figured them for your typical Jesus
freak hypocrites, and I was right.”

“Right,
how?”

“Daney
was doing Sydney any way he wanted.”

“How’d
you find out?”

“Saw
her going down on him in her car. In the parking lot, after dark. Asked her
about it the next day and she screamed at me to fuck off and get out of her
life.”

“Which
parking lot?”

“County
jail.”

Same
place she’d offered her baby blue BMW for the interview with Jane Hannabee.
“High-risk behavior,” I said.

“That
was the thrill for Sydney.”

“So
Daney broke the eighth commandment,” I said. “What made his wife a hypocrite?”

“C’mon,”
said Montez. “She had to know. Sydney and Daney were hooking up all the time,
how
couldn’t
she know?” He worked his lips as if to spit, wiped his
mouth with the back of his hand. “She rubbed me the wrong way.
Psychobabble-spouting airhead. The only one she cared about was Troy, I
couldn’t get her to even talk to Rand. You really care, you reach out to
everyone.”

“Why’d
you want her involved?”

“Character
reference.”

“Why’d
she favor Troy?”

“They
both did. Because they knew Troy from before,” he said. “He was one of their
do-gooder projects at 415 City. Which shows you how effective they were.”

“Rand
wasn’t a project.”

“Rand
never got into big-time trouble until he met up with Troy, so he never had the
benefit of their wise counsel. Not that it would’ve made a difference, like I
told you.”

“The
script.”

“If
you don’t believe there’s a script for everything, you don’t deserve that
Ph.D.”

“What
happened with the real script?”

“Sydney’s
movie? What do you think?
Nothing
happened. This is L.A.”

“What
was the story line?”

“How
would I know?”

“Never
read it?”

“No
way, this was top secret. Don’t even know if there was a script.” He pulled out
a remote and disarmed the Corvette’s alarm. Moving around me, he opened the
door.

“What
was there?”

He
didn’t answer.

“Suit
yourself,” I said and clicked open my phone.

He said,
“All I saw was a summary, okay? A
treatment
Sydney called it. Only
reason I knew about it was I found it in her desk when I was looking for
matches.” Tiny smile. “I like to smoke afterward.”

“You
and she got it on at the office?”

“Those
cheap government desks are good for something.”

“What
did the treatment say?”

“The
names were changed but it was basically Kristal Malley. Except in her story,
the boys had been manipulated by the kid’s father into killing her.”

“What
was his motive?”

“It
didn’t say, we’re talking two paragraphs. Sydney came back from the john, saw
me reading, tore it out of my hand, and did the old scream bit. I said,
‘Interesting theory, maybe we can use it for real.’ She freaked out and kicked
my ass. Literally, she kicked me.” He rubbed his rump. “She had on these pointy
pumps, it hurt like hell.”

“So
the treatment was written before the case closed.”

“Before
the formal sentencing, but everyone knew how it was going to go down.”

I
said, “Whose idea was the deal?”

“Sydney
proposed it, Laskin accepted. She lied and told him I’d agreed. I ended up
agreeing anyway, because I thought it was the best I could do for Rand.”

“Get
the boys started on their sentence and party with co-counsel,” I said.

“It
wasn’t like that,” he said. “That night— her desk— was after we’d done the bulk
of our work. That’s when Sydney and I really started getting it on. Before
that, it was only minor stuff. We kept it outside the office.”

“Motels?”

“None
of your business.”

“In
her car?”

“You
want to be a judgmental prick, go ahead. It’s no crime to have fun.”

“Fun
till she started kicking you.”

“She
was insane,” he said, “but let me tell you. She had her talents.”

N
ymphomaniac,” said Milo. “To use a quaint old term.”

He
blew cigar smoke into the air. The way the air felt today, he was cleansing it.
“Not that I’m nostalgic for quaint old terms. Having borne the brunt of such.”

“ ‘Queer’
is common parlance now,” I said.

“So’s
‘niggah’ if you’re Snoop Dogg. Try it on some dude at Main and Sixty-ninth and
see how many giggles you get.”

Smoke
rings floated upward, wiggled and dissipated. We were two blocks from the
station, walking slowly, thinking in silence, talking in bursts.

“So
everyone’s screwing everyone,” he said. “Literally and otherwise. You think Weider’s
story line pinning it on Malley was fiction? Or did she and Daney latch onto
something eight years ago? Like Malley not being Kristal’s father. Like Troy
telling Weider that Malley had put him up to it.”

“Montez
jokingly suggested to Weider that they use it as a red herring and she freaked
out. Maybe that was more than keeping her hot idea under wraps.”

“She’s
got exculpatory evidence but conceals it. Because her main goal isn’t defending
Troy, it’s cutting a film deal. Cold. As in what passes for morality in
Hollywood.”

I
said, “If Weider needed to rationalize, she could’ve. Malley pulled the strings
but the boys did the actual murder and were going down for a long time, no
matter what. She said as much to Marty Boestling. Her advice to Troy would’ve been
keep quiet, I’ll get you out of jail quickly and you’ll be rich. That would
explain his fantasy of wealth.”

“Troy
was a streetwise little thug, Alex. Think he’d buy it?”

“He
was also a thirteen-year-old with no future,” I said. “Kids flock to Hollywood
every day believing in Rich and Famous. Still, because he was a kid, his
patience couldn’t be relied on indefinitely. Maybe Troy’s death wasn’t Malley’s
doing, after all.”

He
bit down on the cigar. Choppy smoke created a jagged halo. Picking a scrap of tobacco
from his tongue, he spat and frowned. “Weider was a P.D.; she’d have known how
to connect to a guy like Nestor Almedeira.”

“Maybe
so would Daney,” I said. “Working with disadvantaged youth. He and Cherish
both
visited Troy.”

“Daney
was the white guy Nestor talked about, not Malley? Jesus.” Puff puff. “Yeah, it
could go that way as easily as Cherish being Jacqueline the Ripper. Especially
’cause I’ve got no real evidence for
either
scenario.”

He
dropped the cigar, ground it out on the sidewalk, waited until the butt cooled,
and pocketed it.

“What
a good citizen,” I said.

“Enough
dirt in this city. So how would Rand’s murder fit with a Weider-Drew thing?”

“Same
as with a Cherish-Barnett thing. Rand was never in the loop so he was allowed
to live. Somehow, he figured out the truth behind Kristal’s death and made
himself a target.”

“The
truth being Malley’s revenge, because he wasn’t Kristal’s daddy.”

“That
seems to be the constant,” I said. “Any progress on the DNA?”

“Filled
out a requisition, waiting to hear from the muck-a-mucks. I’d still like to
know how and when Cherish started sleeping with Barnett. But now maybe we know
the why: payback for Drew screwing around.”