The Mercedes Coffin (29 page)

“Yes.”

“Didn’t Marilyn Eustis tell us that she didn’t know Martel or Perry?”

“Yes, she did, but that doesn’t mean that Ekerling didn’t know him.” He explained Cindy’s downloading of Martel’s rap song and the B and E lyrics.

“Ordinarily I’d say that’s reaching, but maybe not.” She recapped her conversation with Jervis Wenderhole. Decker had been sitting for around twenty minutes, taking notes and talking theories, when he was interrupted by a small, dark-complexioned man banging on his window. The chap was middle-aged with slicked black hair, and dressed completely in yellow. Even his croc boots had been dyed deep gold.

“Hold on, Marge.” Decker rolled down the window.

“You have to move right away,” the man yelled out in accented English. Out came Decker’s badge. “I don’t care if you’re the president, you have to move!”

Bossy dude, but he was in the right. Decker said, “One minute—”

“One minute!” The man screamed. “You’ve had twenty!”

“You’ve been timing me?”

“You bet your — … you need to move! I have a very important client coming any moment. This is a big space and he has a Phantom Rolls-Royce.”

Decker told Marge, “I have to call you back. I have to move. I’m blocking a space for a very important customer—”

“Client.”

“Excuse me. Client.” He hung up the cell and started the motor. “Sorry. You’re right. This is your space and you’re entitled to it.”

“That’s okay.” The man calmed down. “That’s okay.” As Decker was about to pull out, the little yellow gnome held up his hand. “Hold on.” He ran into the store and came back with a bag. “My new aftershave. No hard feelings. I just need the space. Besides, it’s smart business. Who knows? Maybe someday you’ll be rich and you’ll be a very important client.”

EKERLING’S FORMER OFFICE
room had been reduced to a generic couch, a bare coffee table, a couple of club chairs, a clear desk, and a filing cabinet. The shelves, however, were still triple stacked with CDs, but gone were the multitude of cardboard boxes and with them, probably any evidence that Ekerling had worked with Travis Martel.

Marilyn sat on the couch, her legs crossed with the right one extending up and down at the knee like the arm of a railroad crossing. She had a cigarette in one hand and a Coke Zero in the other, periodically flicking ashes into the pop-top opening. The blue-eyed blonde looked fetching in black latex jeans and a scoop-necked tee. “I’m taking over Primo’s clients.”

“I didn’t know you were a producer.” Decker had settled opposite her in a chair.

“I’m not. I’m talking about being an agent. I can probably do it as well as anyone else, considering the client list.” She shook her head. “Poor Primo was a good guy, but he didn’t exactly burn up the airways with success stories.”

Decker pointed to the bookshelves. “He seems to have amassed a lot of CDs.”

Marilyn craned her neck to look at the jewel boxes, and then turned her attention back to Decker while puffing on her cigarette. “You’re impressed by that?” A roll of the eyes. “Ninety-nine point nine of them puppies went to the pound and were never heard from again. And the point one percent who had some success left Primo as soon as they could. Don’t confuse quantity with quality. Demos are cheap.”

“I didn’t know that Primo was an agent.”

“There you go. Yes, he was an agent, but not a very good one. Talent and charisma don’t just show up at your doorstep. You’ve got to go out and chase it. When you’re numbed by alcohol and shit, ambition and hard work seem like dirty words.”

“How far back do these demos go?”

“I dunno. I haven’t gotten to them yet.”

“Are you going to chuck them?”

“I’ll go through them to see if any of them have promise. What I should do is box them all up and take them to my place. The lease here is up in a couple of weeks and I’m not going to renew it. I can work from home. All I need is a CD player and a good set of ears.”

“How long do you think it’ll take you to box them up?”

“I dunno. It took me a long time to sort through his paperwork. Gawd, it was tedious.” A flick of the ashes in the can. “You didn’t come here to listen to my woes. What do you need?”

“Well, for one thing, I’d like to go through those CDs.”

“What are you looking for?”

“For anything by a rap artist named Rated-X, Travis-X, X Marks the Spot, or just plain X. Anything of those names sound familiar?”

“Primo didn’t do a lot of rap.”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t get rap demos.”

“That’s true, but the guy doesn’t sound like a client.” She knitted her brow. “But the name isn’t foreign. Should I know this guy?”

“Travis Martel used those names when he rapped.”

“Travis Martel?” Marilyn took a deep drag on her cigarette. “The guy who’s in jail?

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re kidding! You think this punk and Primo worked together?” Another puff. “C’mon. While I don’t know all of Primo’s clients, I’d know if that fucking murderer worked with him.”

Decker was quiet. His silence made Marilyn turn red with fury.

“Why would Primo work with a punk like that?”

Decker pointed to the CDs. “All sorts of people sent him demos.”

“And with all those demos, how many do you think Primo actually contacted?”

“I don’t know. Maybe twenty.”

“How about three?”

“So maybe that’s the issue, Ms. Eustis. Maybe Travis Martel sent in a demo and when Primo didn’t get back to him, Travis got pissed.”

“How do you even know if Travis went beyond taking a rap name? A lot of these assholes who call themselves aspiring rappers don’t even rap. They just like the titles and the idea of rapping.”

“Travis posted his music on his MySpace.”

“Him and every other loser.”

“In one of his pieces, there’s a line that refers to ‘the music and the crime — the shit of B and E.’ That could be a reference to the crime of breaking and entering, but it also could be Banks and Ekerling.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute.” She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “What does Rudy Banks have to do with any of this?”

“This is just conjecture, but what if Primo turned Travis down, Travis went to Rudy Banks. Maybe Rudy promised Travis a recording contract if he’d murder Ekerling.”

Marilyn’s eyes got wide. “That’s incredible.”

“It’s possible that Banks had done something like it before — hiring punks to knock off his enemies.” Decker liked his theory, but Marilyn’s expression was highly skeptical.

“You’re telling me that somehow Rudy found out that Travis Martel had been turned down by Primo. So he hired the punk to kill Primo?”

“Maybe he didn’t even need to hire him. Maybe all he needed to do was encourage Travis. Being the punk that he is, he then acted on his own. What intrigues me is now Rudy Banks is missing. I’m wondering why.”

“Missing?” She smiled warmly. “With any luck, he’ll show up dead!”

“Ouch!”

Marilyn dragged on her smoke again. “Okay. Maybe that was harsh. All I’m saying is, it would be a lot easier on the two remaining guys of the Sluts if he was.”

“Liam O’Dell and Ryan Goldberg.”

She nodded.

“I’ve talked to Liam a couple of times. He said he initiated the lawsuit for Ryan’s sake.”

“First of all, it was Primo who initiated the lawsuit.”

“With Liam’s blessing.”

“Of course. Maybe there is some altruism in Mad Irish, but he’s also doing it for himself. The guy’s a washout.”

“He seems at peace with himself.”

“Yeah, and I’m going to be a famous actress!” She puffed mightily on her smoke. “Let me tell you something. Once you’ve been infected by the fame bug, the germ is like herpes, always there lurking in your system, waiting for that chance.”

“After a while I would think that you get realistic.”

“You would think and you’d be wrong, Lieutenant. That’s what happens in the thrilling journey of ninety-nine percent of rock stars: from fame to obscurity before they’re thirty. A few talented souls are able to tread water by doing something else in the industry, but the rest drown. It’s brutal, but in a youth profession, you can’t be onstage for all your life. Primo knew it, so did Rudy.”

She paused to smoke. “Where do you think he is? Rudy, I mean.”

“I don’t know. I was going to ask you the very same question.”

“I don’t know anything about his personal life. When I met Primo, he and Rudy had already been involved in a number of lawsuits, mostly for money that Rudy owed Primo when they produced together.”

“How did they meet?”

“They were in the L.A. music scene together. Two rebel guys just hanging and doing a lot of drugs. Then they met Ryan and Liam. The personalities meshed and the band clicked — meteoric rise, meteoric fall. Ryan freaked, Liam faded into obscurity, and Rudy and Primo tried to parlay their fame into something a little longer lasting.”

“They worked together on a couple of projects before the partnership went south,” Decker said. “What happened?”

“Rudy’s a psycho, that’s what happened.” She shrugged. “A band is one thing. Business partnerships are quite another. See, what I don’t understand is why would Rudy suddenly kill Primo if they’ve been involved in lawsuits for years?”

“Maybe the opportunity? In the form of Travis Martel?” Decker smiled. “I’ve got a dandy supposition but nothing to back it up. That’s why I wanted to look through Primo’s papers and find out if he ever produced the kid. But it looks like you threw away most of Primo’s old papers.”

“I shredded them to little strips. About a quarter of the pieces are in my mulch pile at home. You’re welcome to dig through it, but I must warn you it’s a bit stinky and about four feet high.”

“A mulch pile.” Decker chuckled. “My wife has one. She’s into gardening in a big way.”

“Flowers?”

“Everything.”

“Tell her they have a new variety of tea rose: lemon kiss. It’s bright yellow and has a pungent citrus smell. It’s gorgeous.”

“I’ll pass it on to her. And, no, I don’t want to dig through your mulch pile. But if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to go through the demo CDs and old tapes just to see if I can find something by Travis Martel.”

“Be my guest. Lots of them have photo pictures on the covers so that may help.”

“Thank you very much for being so cooperative.” Decker gave her a closed-mouth smile. “It’ll probably take me a while. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Nah, just close the door when you leave.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “Why don’t I do this? I’ll bring out some boxes. After you’re finished with the cases that you don’t need, instead of putting them back on the shelves, just pack them up. As long as I’m being so cooperative, you might as well help me clean up.”

BY THE TIME
Decker arrived home, Rina was dressed in flannel pajamas and in bed, the duvet’s pattern obscured by dozens of brochures and travel books. She looked up from her makeshift desk and smiled. “Don’t mind me. I’m just having a fantasy.”

“A fantasy without me?” Decker said.

“Not that kind of fantasy, although I suppose that in my fantasy I can include that kind of fantasy.”

Decker laughed. “I found a turkey sandwich with coleslaw and potato salad on a plate wrapped with Saran in the refrigerator. Is that for me?”

“Yes, it is.”

“I am starving. I’m also dirty. Do I shower first or do I eat?”

“You shower, I’ll set your dinner up on a tray and you can eat it in bed while I read and pretend.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Twenty minutes later, the bed had been cleared, the books and brochures stacked on Rina’s nightstand. A tray held his dinner and two cans of diet root beer. Decker bit into the juiciest turkey sandwich he had ever tasted. The rye bread was very fresh and Rina had slathered it with mustard and mayo. She also added some cranberry sauce. He was in heaven.

Rina gave him a few minutes of peace to eat his dinner. Then she said, “Good day?”

“Long day?”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“You’re right. It was a long day and a pretty good day. It ended better than it started.”

Rina brightened. “You found Rudy Banks?”

Decker gave a sad smile. “See, that’s why I said it was a pretty good day. Finding Rudy would be a very good day.” He polished off one can of soda and opened the other. “No, I didn’t find Rudy, but I found a connection, albeit a weak one, between Primo Ekerling and his alleged murderer, Travis Martel.”

“That’s good.” Rina paused. “What’s the link?”

“Martel had sent several demos to Primo Ekerling. One actually included a note that said: ‘Yo. Here’s more. Let me know when it’s happening.’”

“What’s happening? A record deal?”

“That’s what I took out of it.” After finishing his sandwich, he methodically devoured the potato salad, washing it down with the second soda. “Primo dated every song demo he got.”

“Compulsive guy.”

“Thank goodness. The date on this particular jewel box was over a year ago. I don’t think a record deal ever happened.”

“So you think Travis Martel murdered Primo because he couldn’t get a record deal?”

“Maybe. Or maybe somebody put him up to murder. Somebody who didn’t like Primo anyway and took advantage of Travis’s own anger at Ekerling.”

“Rudy Banks hired Travis Martel to murder Primo Ekerling?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you have a link between Travis Martel and Rudy Banks?”

Decker took another swig of root beer. “No. My next step is to talk to Martel. See if I can squeeze something out of him… if Hollywood will even let me near him.”

“Didn’t you initially have your doubts that Travis did the murder?”

“I did. I thought that Martel and Diaz just boosted the car not knowing that Ekerling was in the trunk. Because who would drive around the city in a stolen Mercedes with a body in the car? Only somebody very stupid, right?”

“Right.”

“Now I’m thinking it might have been a murder for hire. It’s possible that Hollywood has the right kids sitting in jail. So if I’m now on the same page as Garrett and Diaz, maybe they’ll give me a chance with Martel.” He finished the coleslaw and his root beer. “Enough about me. What did you do today besides conspire with my elder daughter about how to spend our money?”