Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella (22 page)

"
Apparently he's dead. I'm sure there's a whole
lot more to that story that she's not telling me."

"
Let them stay here," Caroline said. "Maybe
I can pry some information out of Munch." Her eyes softened, and
he saw a hint of the old tenderness there. "How about you? Can
you stay for dinner?"

He wanted more than anything to say yes, to end the
drought between them. But he still needed to go back over to the
apartment in Hollywood, and he still hadn't heard what Steve Brown
had to tell him. "How about I bring back dessert?" he said.
"I'll pick up a pie at Polly's."

"Try not to be too late," she said.

Kiss her you idiot. Tell her you want to change,
that you have already. Tell her how sometimes you look at the long
days and years ahead without her and you're gripped with such
terrible emptiness that you can't believe you he still drawing
breath.

"
Lock everything up," he said. Gutless,
totally gutless, St. John.

"
We'll be okay We've got the dogs to protect
us."

"
Oh, right, as long as one of the bad guys
doesn't come armed with a tennis ball." He made his mouth smile
and felt the rest of his body twitch in confusion as his emotions
fought for control of his facial muscles and glands. His mind, always
his strongest suit, maintained control.

"
I think if someone was really threatening us,
they'd do something," she said.

"You like to think the best of everyone,"
he said, and instantly regretted his words when the smile left her
face. Great, he'd done it again, brought up the ghost of one of their
arguments. The one where he always accused her of being too liberal.
Maybe she was right about the counseling. He'd tell her that when he
returned, when the time was right. "Apple all right with you?"

"
Whatever looks good to you," she said.

He reached over and gave her arm a squeeze, a tight
smile on his face. He wanted to say something else, but couldn't come
up with anything, so he just nodded. She stood on the curb and
watched him get into his car. He raised his hand once more in
farewell and started the engine. It wasn't until he was all the way
to the stop sign at the end of the block when it came to him. "You
look good to me," he said out loud. How hard was that?

On the way to Hollywood he slammed the steering wheel
with his open palm. "Dickhead," he said, addressing himself
in the rearview mirror. "Moron." The only thing that
comforted him was that at least he had them all together and safe
under the same roof. At least he'd done that right.
 

CHAPTER 18

Mace peeled back the barricade tape at the Hollywood
apartment and let himself in with the victim's keys. He went directly
to the couch, the one Munch had identified as a hide-a-bed. The SID
crew had spent little time in the living room; their main focus had
been on the sites where the bodies were discovered, and rightfully
so. Everybody's impression had been that the living room was hardly
ever used. The only object the techs had dusted for prints was the
telephone. He reached down to pull off the couch cushions and
stopped. They were now all pointed out the right way.

He lifted the cushions up one at a time and placed
them across the room, keeping them in exact order. Then he lifted
open the mattress mechanism. The mattress pad was missing. The rest
of the hide-a-bed had a faint ammonia odor. He was certain now that
he had found the scene of the women's slaughter. The old mattress
must have soaked up the blood, making cleanup a simple matter of
coming back later and removing the pad and with it such trace
evidence as pubic hair and semen. He should have posted guards at the
crime scene. But it was too late for that now. The damage had been
done. He returned everything as he'd found it and let himself out the
way he'd come in.

From a pay phone on the street, he called Cassiletti.

"
Munch and her kid are going to stay over at
Digger's house for now. She's going to need to go back to her house
and pick up some clothes. I want you to take her over there. Have a
black-and-white unit back you up."

"
Sure, Mace. Anything else?"

"
Yeah, send the photographers back over to the
apartment on Gower. I want them to shoot another roll of film in the
living room. Tell them to bring Luminol. I want the couch taken
apart, vacuumed for fibers, and everything sprayed. Carpet, couch,
baseboards, the works." If there was any trace of blood left in
that living room, the Luminol would find it. It didn't matter how
well the place had been cleaned.

He called Steve Brown next and arranged to meet him
at Madame Wu's in Santa Monica. Twenty minutes later, the waiter
seated them in a private booth under a red-lacquered archway. Mace
and Steve had little to say while the tea was brought. They each
ordered the special. The waiter beamed at the wisdom of their choice.

Mace glanced around the room at the other diners. He
stopped short when he saw a familiar face. "Hey," he
whispered excitedly to Steve, "Muharnrnad Ali is sitting over
there."

"
Be cool," Steve said.

"Oh, man. Wait till I tell my . . ." Mace
stopped mid-sentence. The familiar pall of memories dimmed his
pleasure.

"
How long has it been?" Steve asked gently.

"
March, four months. The worst is watching ball
games. Every time the Dodgers score, I keep picking up the phone to
call him. We always talked to each other during ball games. Sometimes
I'm halfway through dialing his number before I realize he's not
there anymore?

Steve poured them both tea.

"
What did you find out?" Mace asked.

"
I couldn't find any paper trail on Raleigh
Ward," Steve said, "and believe me, you won't either. He
never existed. The apartment in Culver City was stripped to the
baseboards."

"
Some kind of spook, right?"

Steve nodded. "Looks like. The way those guys
operate is to have three sets of ID. One will be a civilian cover,
another as a government employee, and then a third as a CIA or FBI
agent and even that one will be under an alias. Now, the other guy.
Victor Draicu. He's real."

"That's cornforting," Mace said. "What's
his deal?"

"
He's the third secretary of cultural affairs
with the Romanian embassy He speaks English and was an Olympic
gymnast. So maybe he is what he seems. He's been in Los Angeles on
and off since December overseeing the accommodations for the Romanian
Olympic team."

"
Since December?" Mace asked, his pulse
quickening.

"
Way ahead of you, buddy," Steve said. "I
called a Securitate major in Bucharest I know."

"
What's the Securitate?" Mace asked. "State
police?"

"
Yeah, they're controlled by the KGB, though."

"
And this guy talked to you?" Mace asked.

"
We have an arrangement," Steve said. "Any
information that's strictly criminal activity—none of the political
bullshit—we share. I asked him about murders fitting your killer's
M.O. He found me one. A little gypsy girl in Transylvania. She
disappeared from her camp. Two days later, they found her in pieces.
First the head, then the rest. My guy remembered the case because it
was so weird to him how the killer had taken the time to wash all the
body parts and tape the wounds shut."

"
How about the hand-over-the-heart thing?"

"
He didn't know about that," Steve said.

"
Did you ask him if Draicu had any kind of a
record?"

"
No," Steve. said, pouring himself a second
cup of tea.

"
That would have been pushing it. You ask the
wrong question or you start naming names, and you don't know what
kind of shit you might be stirring up."

The waiter delivered the
sweet-and-sour pork. Mace ate without tasting it.

* * *

The effects of the dope still lingered in Ellen's
system, making her nose itch and her pupils tiny. As soon as she had
stuck the needle in her arm, she knew she was making a mistake. She
hadn't even enjoyed the rush. The anxiety and fear that the dope was
supposed to quiet still raged full blast. Only now her thought
processes were too clouded to deal with solutions. One thing hadn't
changed, though. Whenever she shot dope, she had this overwhelming
compulsion to wash dishes, clean floors, and put things in order. She
did the best she could with Farmer's dungeon given the limited amount
of cleaning supplies he kept on hand. After bringing some small
degree of organization to her surroundings, she did what she could to
clean herself up.

She showered in his tiny bathroom, drying herself off
with a small threadbare white towel with Gold's Gym stamped on it.
She combed her wet hair straight back. Rummaging though Farmer's
drawers, she came across a tube of flesh-colored foundation and
dabbed it over the two telltale little pinholes over the veins in the
crook of her left arm.

To be caught with fresh tracks was an automatic
misdemeanor, especially if coupled with a blood or urine test. And
for a person already on parole, it guaranteed an instant return trip
to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Your ass
is gone.

God
, she thought,
what
is wrong with me? I've risked everything: my freedom, my future, and
for what?
All she had to show for it was an
itchy nose and not even a momentary break from her problems.
Most
of which
, she thought miserably,
are
really not even my fault.

She waited two hours before she dared venture out
from Farmer's apartment. His telephone, she had discovered, only
worked for incoming calls. Her destination, an apartment building on
Paloma Avenue, was only two blocks away. It seemed like two miles.
She kept to the alleys, hoping that Tommy still lived there and was
home.

Tommy was a fiity-something-year-old guy who had
never gotten past adolescent angst. He had greasy hair, one of those
complexions that was forever erupting in pimples, and a nervous tic
that made his eye flicker whenever a woman addressed him directly. He
worked as a bartender at the Oar House and occasionally scored a date
at 2 A.M. with some poor hapless female too drunk to realize what she
was doing.

Ellen had learned that fact the hard way. She'd tried
to forget waking up next to him almost as soon as it happened. After
giving him an eight-digit phone number when he kept insisting on some
way to reach her, she had stumbled out of his tiny apartment on
Paloma and into the bright morning vowing to put as much distance
between that night and her memory as possible. Now she was wondering
if everything didn't happen for a reason.

"
Hey, Tommy," she said, when he came to his
door, "you still tending bar over at the Oar House?"

"
Sure am, eh—"

'"Ellen. You remember me, don't you?"

His eye went into overdrive. "Yeah, sure. Ellen.
How you doin'?"

"Fair to middling." She stepped across his
threshold.

Tommy took a step back, buttoning his shirt. "My
car broke down just up the street a ways. I hate to bother you, but I
was supposed to pick up my girlfriend, and I don't want her to worry.
Think I could use your phone?" she asked, stroking his forearm
with the tip of her finger.

Both eyes were going at it now. "You mean now?"

"
I haven't come at a bad time, have I?"

"Uh, no," he said, stumbling backwards.
"Now is fine. You want a beer?"

"
Thanks, darling. I'd just love a beer."

While Tommy went into the kitchen to fetch her drink,
she dialed quickly. She crossed her fingers as the phone rang. After
the third ring, Munch's voice came over her answering machine. Ellen
waited impatiently for the outgoing message to play out. "You
there?" she asked. "Please be there. Look, I'm so sorry.
The car broke down. But, don't worry"—she patted the money in
her pocket—"I've got you covered. I don't know what more to
tell you other than I know it looks bad, but believe me, shit got out
of Control real fast. It wasn't my fault. Those guys were nuts. Oh,
God, I wish you were there. I really need to talk to you." She
bit her lip. Think, she told herself "I, uh, I'll call you back
later. Don't worry."

She hung up. Tommy walked back into the room and
handed her a can of Budweiser. She popped it open. He lit a
cigarette. "You got another one of those?" she asked.

He handed her the pack. She took a smoke and held his
hand while he lit it for her. She smiled encouragingly.

"
You mind if I make one more teeny call? My
girlfriend wasn't home."

"
All right," he said, his hands fluttering
about his belt and shirttails as if trying to fmd a place to roost.
He finally jammed them in his pockets.

Ellen placed her second call, taking another long
drag of her cigarette.

"Hello," the man answered.

Ellen exhaled quickly. "Dwayne? Is my mom
there?"