Therapy (27 page)

“I’m tired.”

“Dr. Barry Silver?” said Milo. “Your gynecologist?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did Dr. Silver give you the referral personally?”

“He gave it to Jerry, Jerry called him. Jerry said he was smart—can I
sleep
, please?”

“One more thing, ma’am. Gavin’s room was cleaned out, but I noticed his clothes were still in the closet.”

“Jerry was probably gonna take those, too, and give ’em away. Those really pretty Ralph Lauren shirts I bought Gav for Christmas. Gav loved to go shopping with me because Jerry’s so cheap. We went to all the stores. Gap, Banana Republic, Saks . . . Barneys. Sometimes we went on Rodeo Drive when they had the end-of-season sales. I got Gav a Valentino sports jacket on Rodeo, better than anything Jerry has. Jerry prolly woulda given Gav’s clothes away, but he didn’t have time.”

Her hands balled into fists. “Jerry can
fuck
himself if he thinks I’ll give up Gav’s clothes.”

*

We helped her up the stairs and into a master bedroom turned to night by blackout drapes. Rumpled tissues and night shades and two small airline liquor bottles on the nightstand. Bourbon and Scotch. A quarter inch of water floated in a crystal highball glass.

Milo tucked her in and she smiled up at him and licked chapped lips. “Nighty-night.”

“One more question, ma’am. Who’s your husband’s accountant?”

“Gene Marr. With an H.”

“Maher?” said Milo.

She started to answer, gave up, closed her eyes.

By the time we were out of the room, she was snoring.

*

Before we exited the house, Milo brought me to Gavin’s room. The same pale blue walls, stripped. The queen bed made up with a deep blue comforter. Gavin’s bookcase held a few softcovers and magazines, and two model airplanes. The carpeting was dingy.

The closet was filled with jackets, slacks, shirts, coats.

“Nice wardrobe,” I said. “Jerry didn’t take the papers out to the garbage. He made sure no one would see them.”

Milo nodded and pointed to the stairs.

*

As we drove away, he said, “Bastard knows why his son was killed, and he’s trying to hide it.”

He found Quick’s business number in his notes, phoned, waited, snapped the phone shut. “Not even a machine.”

“He travels and gives blue-nailed Angie the secretary time off.”

“Angie of the petty but very definite criminal record. Quick’s starting to smell like something more than a grieving dad.”

“His landlord hires troubled souls, and so does he,” I said. “Maybe compassion’s contagious. Or Sonny sent him Angela Paul, as well.”

“Sonny the fixer? Get you a medical referral, invest your money.”

“Maybe Quick was into him for more than back rent.”

“His own kid, and he doesn’t say a word.”

“Maybe it’s more than knowing,” I said. “What if he’s implicated?”

“Wouldn’t that be pretty.”

“What’d you find in Gavin’s pockets?”

“Who says I found anything?”

“Those questions about Gavin’s clothing. You didn’t need ten minutes to flip through a few books and pockets.”

He slapped a slow three-four beat on the dashboard with one big palm. “Bastard took the computer—should I even bother calling Beverly Vista school to see if he donated it?”

Without waiting for an answer, he made the call, hung up grinning with rage. “First they’ve heard about it. You wanna know what I think? Gavin found out about something dirty going on in that building—something to do with Koppel and Charitable Planning and
Daddy
. The kid fancied himself an investigative reporter and figured he’d got himself a nice little scandal. Brain-damaged, but he kept some sort of records. And his old man destroyed them. My damn fault, I shoulda gone through that room first thing.”

“What’d you find in the closet?” I said.

He opened to the center of his pad and showed me something sandwiched there, encased in a plastic evidence bag.

Wrinkled sheet of paper the size of an index card. Miniature lined paper, from a pad not unlike Milo’s. Numbers written in blue ink. Cramped, smudged. A wavering column of seven-digit number-letter combinations.

“License plate numbers?”

“That would be my guess,” said Milo. “Stupid kid was
surveilling
.”

CHAPTER

30

M
ilo said, “Drop me back at the station. Gonna run these numbers, then head over to the Hall of Records, see if I can find any other link between Jerry Quick and Sonny beyond tenancy. If I leave soon, I can make it downtown in time.”

“Want me to take you straight there?”

“No, this is gonna be tedious, I’ll do it alone. I also want to talk to Quick’s accountant. Luckily CPAs don’t get confidentiality. Any word from the
Times
on running the picture?”

“Not yet.”

“If your pal Biondi doesn’t come through, I’m having a chitchat with my habitually unresponsive
capitan
. He hates seeing my face, so maybe I can promise not to surface for another year if he goes over the heads of those losers in Community Relations and gets someone to push the media. With all the deceit on this one I don’t need a victim I can’t identify.”

“I’ll try Ned again.”

“Good,” he said. “Thanks. Let me know, either way.”

*

I phoned Coronado Island.

Ned Biondi said, “No one called you? Jesus. I’m sorry, Doc. I thought it was worked out. Okay, let me see what’s going on, I’ll get back to you ASAP.”

An hour later, the phone rang.

“Mr. Delaware?” Plummy, theatrical baritone. Every syllable, foreplay.

“Speaking.”

“This is Jack Mc
Tell
. From the Los Angeles
Times
. You’ve got a picture you’d like us to
run
.”

“Picture of a homicide victim,” I said. “An LAPD detective would like it run, but his superiors don’t think it’s got enough of a hook for you.”

“Well,” he said, “I certainly can’t
promise
anything.”

“Should I bring it by?”

“If you
choose
.”

*

Times
headquarters was on First Street, in a massive gray stone building that studded the heart of downtown. I got stuck in freeway mucus, trolled for parking, finally scored a space in an overpriced stacked lot five blocks away.

Three security guards patrolled the
Times
’s massive, echoing lobby. They let several people pass but stopped me. Two of the uniforms made a show of staring me down as the third called up to Jack McTell’s office, barked my name into the phone, hung up, and told me to wait. Ten minutes later, a young, crew-cut woman in a black sweater and jeans and hiking boots emerged from the elevator. She looked around, saw me, and headed my way.

“You’re the person with the picture?” A
Times
badge said Jennifer Duff. Her left eyebrow was pierced by a tiny steel barbell.

“This is for Mr. McTell.”

She held out her hand, and I gave her the envelope. She took it delicately, between thumb and forefinger, as if it was tainted, turned her back, and left.

I blew another twenty minutes waiting for the parking lot attendant to move six other cars and free the Seville. I used the time to leave Milo a message that the
Times
had the photo, and it was up to the editors’ good graces. By now, he was downtown, too, reading microfiche at the Hall of Records, just a couple of blocks away.

Cars were queued up at the 101 on-ramp, so I took Olympic Boulevard west. Avoiding another jam wasn’t all of it. That route took me past Mary Lou Koppel’s office building.

I made it to Palm Drive by three-thirty, hooked a left, and swung around into the back alley. Gull’s and Larsen’s Mercedeses were there, along with a few other late-model luxury cars. Next to the handicapped slot, a copper-colored van was stationed. A white stick-on sign on its flanks read:

THRIFTY CARPET AND DRAPERY CLEANING

A Pico address near La Brea. A 323 number.

The rear glass doors had been propped open with a wooden triangle. I parked and got out.

The corridor smelled like stale laundry. The polyester beneath my feet seeped and made little sucking sounds. At the far end of the hall, a man pushed an industrial shampooer in lazy circles.

Two doors of the Charitable Planning suite were propped open the same way. Mechanical groan from inside. I had a look.

Another man, short, stocky, Hispanic, wearing rumpled gray work clothes, guided an identical machine over the thin, blue indoor-outdoor felt that covered Charitable’s floor. His back was to me, and the din overrode my footsteps.

To the right was a small office. A swivel chair had been lifted and placed atop a scarred steel desk. Off in the corner was a rollaway typing table that hosted an IBM Selectric. On the desktop, next to the chair, were five rubber-banded bundles of mail.

I checked out return addresses. United Way, Campaign for Literacy, the Thanksgiving Fund, the Firefighters Ball. I flipped through all the bundles.

Everyone wanted Sonny Koppel’s money.

The rest of the suite was one enormous room with high, horizontal windows covered by cheap nylon drapes. Empty save for a couple of dozen folding chairs stacked against the wall. The Hispanic man flicked off the machine, straightened slowly, as if in pain, ran his hand through his hair, reached into his pocket for a cigarette, and lit up. Still with his back to me.

He smoked, was careful to drop the ash in his cupped hands.

I said, “Hi.”

He turned. Surprise, but no con wariness. He looked at his cigarette. Blinked. Shrugged.
“No permisa?”

“Doesn’t bother me,” I said.

Resigned smile. No hardness around his eyes, no sloppy tattoos.
“Usted no es el patron?”

You’re not the boss?

“No,” I said. “Not today.”

“Hokay.” He laughed and smoked. “Mebbe tomorrow.”

“I’m thinking of renting the space.”

Blank stare.

I pointed to the wet carpet. “Nice job—
muy limpia
.”

“Gracias.”

I left wondering what he’d cleaned up.

*

Sonny Koppel had been truthful about Charitable Planning, but what did that mean? Perhaps parceling out partial truths was a strategic defense.

All that B.H. square footage left vacant in case Mary Lou needed it.

If Milo was right about Gavin hanging around, spying, writing down license numbers, what had the boy seen?

Empty room. Two dozen folding chairs.

What more did you need for group therapy?

Had the sessions already begun?

What had gone
on
in there?

*

I drove a block away, pulled to the curb, and thought more about Gavin Quick.

Brain-damaged, but he’d managed to hold on to his secrets.

Or maybe he hadn’t. Perhaps he’d confided in his father, and that’s why Jerry Quick had cleaned out his room.

Now Quick was traveling, after stashing his wife at her sister’s. Business as usual, or was he on the run because he
knew
?

Eileen Paxton said Quick hired sluts as secretaries. The secretary I’d met had a dope bust and nails too long for typing.

House in Beverly Hills, but a shadow life?

Gavin had been murdered alongside a blond girl whom no one cared enough about to call in missing. All along, I’d wondered if she was a pro. Jerry and Gavin were both sexually aggressive.

Had the blonde been a gift from father to son? Another referral by Sonny Koppel?

Angie Paul claimed not to know her. Milo had noticed her blinking. I’d explained it away as a reaction to death.

The blonde.

Gavin’s type. Two miles north, in the high-priced spread, lived a blond girl who knew Gavin before his accident. A girl we still hadn’t spoken to.

The last time I’d followed Kayla Bartell she’d driven to a midday hair appointment. That meant she wasn’t holding down a nine-to-five job.

Rich girl with plenty of leisure time? Maybe she’d spare me some.

*

The Bartell mansion was lifeless as a mortuary behind its white iron security blanket. A white Bentley Mulsanne with rear plates that read MEW ZIK was parked in the circular drive, but no sign of Kayla’s red Cherokee.

I continued to Sunset. Cars whizzed by both sides of the median strip, and I waited for a lull to hook right and retrace to the turnaround. It took a while. Just as I swung onto the boulevard, I caught a glimpse of red in my side mirror.

Probably nothing. I got back on Camden anyway.

*

The Jeep was parked in front of the house.

I drove six houses down and parked, figuring I’d give it half an hour.

Eighteen minutes later, Kayla, dressed in white but carrying a big black bag, exited the house, got in the red SUV, waited until the gates slid open, and sped past me.

*

Exact same path she’d taken the last time. Santa Monica west to Canon Drive. More pampering at Umberto?

But this time, she passed the salon and continued two blocks down to a Rite Aid pharmacy.

First hair, now makeup? Wouldn’t a girl like that buy her cosmetics at a boutique?

Watching her for five minutes gave me my answer, but it wasn’t what I expected.

*

She went straight for the nail polish. I stood on the end of the aisle as she studied a rack of small bottles. The white outfit was a midriff T-shirt that advertised her tan tummy, over white ostrich-skin lowriders and open white sandals with orange plastic heels. Her long hair was tucked into a white denim cap that she wore at a jaunty tilt. Big white plastic earrings. She bounced on her heels a couple of times, seemed to settle down as she peered at the polish.

Big decision; her pretty face creased. Finally, she chose a vermillion bottle and dropped it in her shopping basket. Then so fast that I almost missed it, two other bottles were slipped into the big black handbag—same bag I’d seen that first night, oversized, embroidered with roses.

Not a good match for the white-white duds, but something that size did have its utility.

She moved up the aisle to the eyeliners. One in the basket, two in the purse. Brazen, not even a cautionary look. The store was quiet, poorly staffed. If surveillance cameras were operating, I couldn’t see them.

I hung back, pretended to browse mouthwash, strolled to the next aisle, sauntered back, keeping my head down. Now she was over by the lipstick. Same routine.

She moved through the store that way for ten minutes, concentrating on small articles. Dental floss, contact lens cleaning solution, aspirin, candy. Boosting double the amount of whatever she put in her basket.

I bought a ten-pack of gum, was behind her when she checked out.

She walked cheerfully to her Cherokee, swinging her bag and wiggling her tight little butt. I managed to get to the SUV first, slipped out from the front of the vehicle, and took hold of the black bag.

She said, “What the—” then she recognized me.