Angel’s Gate Page 7

  I shrugged. “Couple of assholes on dream street. I need a delivery.”

  Rojas looked closer. “They’re going to be lumpy tomorrow.”

  “Grumoso,” said Tavo, with a smile. He’d heard of Dick Henry from Rojas and a few other sources. But he’d never met him. Looked like a dude who could handle himself.

  “What does grumoso mean?” asked Devi.

  Rojas grinned. “Lumpy. It means lumpy.” Rojas gestured toward Tavo. “This is Tavo.”

  “Hi, Tavo.” I reached out, we shook hands. His hand was small but hard. If Rojas had brought him, that was enough for me. The kid was okay.

  “Grumoso.” Devi grinned. Ever since Nazarian had returned from the dead she had been filled with a sunny delight. Her calamity was now a situation. “I like that word.”

  Tavo, encouraged, tossed a compliment into the mix. Meant for the Shortcut Man. “Someone throws a mean right hand.”

  Devi slipped into her stance, threw a lightning left-right-left. “Actually,” she allowed, “it was a left uppercut.”

  “You box, chica?” Rojas hadn’t seen this coming.

  “Keep calling me chica maybe you’ll find out.” But then Devi’s eyes twinkled.

  I grinned, spread my hands. She could move. “You heard the lady.”

  Everyone was nodding and smiling.

  “So,” said Rojas, back to the business at hand. “Where’re they going?”

  • • •

  Winston Peckham watched the little indicator lights. Someone coming down from fourteen. An economic opportunity coming down from fourteen. If he could figure how to play it.

  The elevator doors slid back, the two Eastsiders stepped out with the box. This time it looked like it weighed something, some lateral distension at the bottom.

  He tossed out a soft interrogatory. “Things all figured out up there?” Maybe their upstairs success would engender some downstairs generosity.

  The older of the gangsters, Porkpie, paused, stared at Peckham. Gangsters? It suddenly occurred to Peckham that he was entirely uninterested in the activities of these Aztec gentlemen.

  Porkpie leaned in at him. “Hey, buddy,” he said, “they need you up there.”

  “Th-they d-do?” Peckham’s tongue had involuntarily flopped into double duty.

  “Yeah,” said Rojas, ladling in some Eastside menace, “they need you to put your head between your knees.”

  “B-between m-my kn-nees?”

  “And kiss your ass goodbye.”

  There was a long silence. Tavo, charmed and educated, maintained poker face.

  “Mind your own business,” finished Rojas, whispering. Finishing quiet imparted its own message.

  Peckham, whose diaphragm had been frozen, nodded his head and drew in a great draft of replenishing air. “Adiós, amigos,” said his lips, talking on their own. From Olvera Street.

  Rojas touched the brim of his hat in salute. He turned to Tavo. Tavo got moving.

  • • •

  Devi looked up at me. She was frightened. “You’re not having them whacked, are you?”

  “No.” What a night. “I’m not a murderer.” I was having them dumped. “I’m having them deposited.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They’re going to get a ride up to the Mulholland Drive Overlook, then, attached wrist and ankle, they’ll be left in the brush. They’ll find their way from there. Come morning. If the coyotes don’t get them first.”

  Devi shook her head. It was now a situation, true, but either way, overlook or no overlook, she was half-screwed. She didn’t work for Melvin; he was more of an associate, a loose associate at a higher level. Maybe he wouldn’t remember anything. If he did, Nazarian was a debit to his account, not hers. Whew. Still, he’d be furious. Waking up in the bushes.

  It was complicated.

  • • •

  The green van crossed Melrose, Rossmore turned into Vine. There, on the right, was Stein on Vine, the pro drum shop.

  Rojas had played drums for a while. Tito Puente, Alex Acuña, Horacio Hernandez—and Enrique Montalvo Rojas. One day, he’d been positive, the greats would welcome him as one of their own. But first came the day he overheard some acquaintances discussing his talent. He’s okay, said one classmate, damning with faint praise. He sucks, said a second, unvarnished and direct. He sound like a horse with three legs said a chortling Paco Ruelas, smartass, rival for Marisol.

  Rojas grinned. The memory still stung a little. But they’d been right. His was to listen, not to play. Then he’d discovered Eric Dolphy and Thelonius Monk and everything was alright.

  And Marisol. God bless her. Not quite the virgin he’d waited so long for. The power of cerveza.

  Tavo looked over at Rojas. “So who are these guys again?” Rojas had gotten the particulars from Dick. In the blood-splattered kitchen. “The little fuck is a pimp. The other dude beat the shit out of the girl, stuffed a .357 up her coño.”

  “The big guy is a movie director?”

  “I guess.” A distasteful incident rolled into Rojas’s mind. “You know, something like that happened to a cousin of mine. Back when I was a kid. Twelve and shit.”

  “Gun in the coño?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened?”

  “Not enough. Not nearly enough.”

  Tavo sparked his blunt, looked at the big box in the back. “What are you thinking?”

  Rojas was thinking that he was tired, that he didn’t feel like a ride up to Mulholland. Plus these assholes didn’t deserve it, didn’t deserve so soft a fate. Too bad they couldn’t be smoothly paved into an extension of the 710 freeway. Except that community activists in ritzy Pasadena shot down the extension. Which had already been forced on the brown people of South Pasadena.

  Then he remembered Gloria’s cousin, Consuelo. Consuelo worked for the Hollywood TattleTale. Wouldn’t that be something? The TattleTale was a gossipmonger, a dirt collector. No, a filth collector. Always hungry for a turd. How about a couple of turds?

  At Yucca, Rojas turned right, with another right on Argyle. That put him back to Hollywood Boulevard. Then left on Vine, south, back the way they had come.

  Tavo was confused. “You got a plan, brother?”

  Rojas grinned, ear to ear. Oh, yes. He had a plan.

  • • •

  It was plain that Devi wasn’t safe at Rhonda Carling’s.

  Events were like rocks in a pond. If forceful enough, the vibrations returned, flowed back over their point of origin. Once Nazarian and Shea were free, shit would hit the fan. Revenge, cover-up, the works. Devi wouldn’t be safe. Rhonda needed a better babysitter. We needed the doctor back.

  “He’s not going to come back,” said Devi. “I know him.”

  I thought about the flow of events. I saw a way. “We’ll call on his sense of duty.”

  I explained how it could go down. Devi picked up the phone, dialed.

  • • •

  Wolf’s nocturnal journey had shaken forth a cascade of old memories, dark and heavy. Didn’t want to go there. Rather than think, he’d eat.

  Ahh. Here were some cubes of blue cheese in rosemary olive oil. Some prosciutto. And a little wine, yes. Then, on the sideboard, under glass, a reasonably fresh sourdough baguette.

  He sat with a grunt at the stout, oaken kitchen table. It was foolish to regret what was impossible to change. Irrevocable choices had led, with the irrevocable choices of others, to outcomes written in the stars. For a second he smelled the salt water, heard the ocean lap at the sides of the vessel.

  Then that splash in the great enormity, the ghostly flare of phosphorescence, the watery clink of descending chain. And then—then nothing.

  Fractured light upon dark water.

  Moonlight.

  Gretchen padded into the kitchen, sleep all over her face. “Ulli? Is everything alright?”

  He speared a cube of cheese, put it in his mouth. “Everything’s fine. The usual. A bloody nose.”


  “They should know better than to call you for that stuff.” Wolf nodded, tore off a hunk of bread, pushed it into his mouth. “They’ll be charged, don’t worry.”

  Gretchen poured herself a drink of water, drank half, dumped the rest down the drain. “I’m going back to bed,” she said.

  He watched her go. Thank God he didn’t have X-ray vision. Though in a way he did. Underneath that bathrobe would be those grandmotherly undergarments. Capacious, voluminous, accommodatory, as big as home plate at Dodger Stadium and just as white. And shaped like home plate! Not that it mattered, he hadn’t been there in a long time. And she hadn’t mentioned it.

  But there had to be that point. When a woman said to herself these things are just too small. And ridiculous. The discrete moment a woman decided to throw away the blacks, the reds, the greens, the pinks, the lace. Throw them into the can, purchase a parachute, breathe a sigh of relief.

  Luckily, there was Paulita. His cock twitched. Alive and kicking down there. Sildenafil citrate, and away!

  After he finished eating, he sat there in the quiet kitchen, not moving. From outside came the distant rush of Sunset Boulevard—lapsing into the contented silence of Beverly Hills. A dog barked. The universe, calm and serene, did not reward those undeserving. The yin and the yang were in balance. He exhaled. He would sleep well now.

  Then the phone rang.

  “Yes?”

  “Dr. Wolf, this is Devi. At the El Royale.”

  Again? At this hour? Cut to the chase. “If she’s whimpering, just give her another shot of Dilaudid.”

  Vimpering. “Listen, Dr. Wolf, thank you for sending Melvin over.”

  Melvin the pimp. He’d gone over there? What had he said? “I just thought that—”

  Devi cut him off. “It doesn’t matter what you thought. Now that he’s here, Melvin doesn’t want me playing doctor. He wants you over here right now.”

  Melvin wants? He would skin Melvin. “Let me talk to Melvin.”

  “No. Just get over here. Right now. You assholes are driving me crazy. If you’re not here in ten minutes I’m calling the goddamn police.”

  He felt his heartbeat surging in his temples. “Call whoever you like, nothing connects me there.”

  “Except the vials of that shit with your fingerprints all over them. And fifteen other things. Get over here. Melvin says.”

  • • •

  Devi snapped the phone shut. Dick grinned. “That oughta do it.”

  Three seconds later a phone rang on the coffee table. Melvin’s phone. After four rings it went to message. “You’ve reached Melvin Shea. Leave time and date and I’ll get back to you.”

  On came Dr. Wolf. “Hey, Melvin, pick up this goddamn phone.” After a bit, where Wolf’s breathing could be heard, the phone disconnected.

  Ten seconds later it rang again. “You’ve reached Melvin Shea. Leave time and date and I’ll get back to you.”

  Wolf was steamed. I grinned at Devi. “This is Dr. Wolf. I don’t know what you told that little bitch. I am a medical doctor, not a serving boy. I’m on my way. This will be expensive, Melvin. Count on it.” Wolf clicked off.

  “I think we punctured his pride, Dick.”

  “And it’s leaking all over the place.” I rose from the couch. I had bagged the golden gun in a freezer bag. It lay on the table, all evidence, such fluids as there were, undisturbed. In my coat was a small document I’d plucked from the unconscious Nazarian’s coat when we shared closet space. He’d have five million reasons to want it back.

  “Okay, then,” I said to Devi, “don’t argue with the doctor when he gets here. Once he’s in, you split immediately. He won’t be going anywhere. He may be really pissed, but just go.”

  “And don’t go home.”

  “If it were me, I wouldn’t. There’re going to be some very angry people running around. Maybe sooner than we think. You gotta see how things are going to play out.”

  I handed her a paper with my address on it. “I’ll see you in about forty minutes. Alright?”

  “Okay, Colonel.”

  I picked up the gun, slipped it under my coat, split.

  • • •

  “Can I help you?” Peckham wanted to sleep, but habit demanded he cast a last fly on the water. The man who had just walked out of the elevator was one of the fourteenth-floor crew.

  Didn’t look like a pleasant dude. Fuck him.

  Fuck him. The great, unconsulted Winston Peckham would go home, grind up a half tab of Oxy, enjoy the rush, and obliviate till noon. Fuck ’em all.

  • • •

  I walked out of the El Royale. A light rain was falling. Dawn would come soon.

  ELEVEN

  A Very Dead Dog

  In Stage 13 at CBS, it was almost time for the eight-o’clock morning news.

  Edwin Nueves and his dark good looks had come to Hollywood to kiss the girls and make them cry, but chance had intervened and a career had been born.

  Intrinsically, he did not possess the slightest curiosity in news of any kind. He liked history. News was all a bunch of wide-eyed, breathless, artificial earnestness over events only interesting until the next baby drowned in a washing machine. Better yet in a laundromat. Where love of money intersected with bad luck on the field of shoddy maintenance.

  He looked over at Carlita Jimenez. She was pretty, peppy, busty, and could read English. A home run, in other words. And then that cute little Maybelline Marilyn mole. Salsa!

  Eddie George, producer, counted them in. “Five, four, three,” then two fingers, one finger . . . and in.

  “Good morning, Los Angeles,” said Nueves, flashing his celebrated teeth. “I’m Edwin Nueves.”

  “And I’m Carlita Jimenez. It’s raining in Los Angeles and this is the eight-o’clock morning news. Our top story comes from Hollywood, where we have another disturbing tale courtesy of the Hollywood TattleTale.”

  “That’s right, Carlita. We’ve been informed that very early this morning, on a seedy corner in south Hollywood, two Tinseltown bigwigs were found unconscious in a soggy refrigerator box.”

  “Not only unconscious, Edwin. Witnesses at Dunkin’ Donuts, at Melrose and Vine, reported both men reeked of gin, and both had been physically battered.”

  “It gets better, Carlita. The men were attached at the ankle with plastic tie locks and both men had no pants on. Also in the box, in a filthy white blanket, was a very dead dog.”

  Carlita shook her head in disgust. “The names are currently being withheld until the circumstances become clear. We’ll be right back.” She concluded the segment with the fatigued cluck of a professional scold.

  Commercial up.

  She smiled winningly at the three cameramen. They’d never get a taste of what she was sitting on. She was Carlita Jimenez. Life was good and it would only get better. She would leave Edwin Nueves in the dust.

  TWELVE

  Exposure and Intensity

  I’d gone home, made myself a sandwich, waited for Devi. She was right on time, forty minutes later. Now she lay asleep in my living room.

  I studied her as she slept. Ultimately, she wasn’t as starkly beautiful as Lynette had been, but she was very pretty, and she threw a mean left hook. And I just liked her.

  The depth of any relationship is the product of exposure and intensity. You say “hi” to the doorman in your building every day for ten years. You don’t know him from Adam.

  But save a person from drowning, or you and a stranger pull someone from a burning car—you’ve met these people once, but there’s a connection.

  Devi sighed, turned over on her side. I’d only known Devi for—for twelve hours.

  The rain started to come a little harder.

  THIRTEEN

  Bad Law

  The cosmetically perfect metal-flake cardinal-red 2012 Cadillac Sedan de Ville with gold trim pulled up at Hollywood Precinct and oozed to a stop in the no-parking zone. Huntington Derian, Esq. had arrived.

  Derian watched as the
media, scavengers that they were, gathered around his automobile. When a sufficient number had metastasized, he opened up, spread his umbrella, and made exit.

  Derian was of average height, portly but graceful. His red suit, cardinal-red like his Cadillac, was exquisitely cut and hung perfectly. His New & Lingwood Russian calf loafers now suffered the brutal assault of rain. He hoisted and waved a beringed hand with a simple twist of the wrist; in all things he demonstrated the unhurried demeanor of Massachusetts aristocracy. To which he was distant cousin. Vanishingly distant perhaps. For those who calibrated such things. But he was a cousin who’d done very well for himself. He was Howard Hogue’s personal counsel-at-large and his word was money.

  Head and shoulders draped in a torn plastic trash bag, a reporter asked if he’d come to bail out Eli Nazarian and Melvin Shea.

  Derian exuded calm and reason. “Gentlemen, excuse me. I am here to discover the truth. If the truth can be discovered. Though, I must say, those putting stock in the vaporous utterances of Edwin Nueves and Carlita Jimenez have only themselves to blame.”

  With that, he climbed the stairs and entered into Hollywood Precinct.

  • • •

  Of course, Huntington Derian’s visit to Captain Dempsey’s office was a formality. But formalities were necessary and one might take pleasure in their proper execution. The men knew each other, both had consummated business of this nature before.

  Indeed, as the Hollywood TattleTale had hinted, two Hollywood bigwigs were in the can. As rumored, the two men were Melvin Shea and Eli Nazarian.

  Derian coughed quietly and began. What had been the nature of their offenses?

  Dempsey smiled to himself. A conversation with Huntington Derian resembled a dance. A stately waltz of shared values.

  Dempsey tapped his pencil to signify his engagement. The offenses. Indecent exposure, public intoxication, and, in obvious violation of Penal Code Statute 374d, placing a dead animal within a hundred feet of a street, public highway, or road.

  Where had the animal been placed?

  Between the men as they recreated, unconscious, in the box.