I slipped the comb into his breast pocket. “You and I both know that Charles Conklin is a career criminal with a rap sheet about half as long as he is tall. Child molestation, pandering, dealing, theft, you name it. If he hadn’t gone down for shooting Officer Wyatt Johnson, he would have tumbled on something else. Unless he got shot on the street first. Right?”
“If Conklin held to pattern.”
“Tell me why, in all the fuss about this gross injustice, no one has mentioned Conklin’s record.”
“Because it isn’t germane.”
“What is germane, then?”
He picked up the stack of messages with my card on top, and started to rise. “The cops fucked up.”
I rose with him. “Cops that fuck up attract a lot of press.”
“Margot.” The way he said it sounded like a challenge. “What is it, exactly, that you want?”
“I want to talk to the witnesses.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’ve tried. Hanna Rhodes was a body under a sheet before I connected with her. LaShonda DeBevis is doing a good impression of the invisible man. And I understand that when anyone tries to contact Detective Jerry Kelsey, your office puts out a tail. Exactly who does George Schwartz work for?”
“Margot,” he said again, slowly, looking hard at my card. “I guess Maggie could be short for Margot.”
“No. For maggot. My older brother and sister used to call me maggot.”
“And MacGowen?”
“My husband’s name.”
I had not read him well. Once he made the connection, he was amused by me in the way a cat is amused when he has a rat squirming under his paw. I’d never been so sympathetic with rats before.
“Now I get it,” he said. “I know what you want from me.”
“What?” I asked.
“Absolution for Mike Flint.”
“No.” I matched his slow, considered tone. “I want the truth, the whole truth, and you know the rest of it. Don’t feed me any more bullshit fine points of the law or fairy tales about dashed innocence. It is unconscionable the way you have exploited real people just to get your face on the tube as much as you possibly can before the election.”
He flushed. “That’s not what I’ve done.”
“That’s how I read it. That’s how I will present it unless I am persuaded otherwise. I can have a red-hot package ready in time for the early news broadcasts tomorrow. Network news. With photos and footage. The lead will probably be some variation on ‘Conklingate.’ The theme will be boundless ambition. Where were you at two-thirty this morning, Mr. District Attorney, when Hanna Rhodes took a couple in the chest? Where was your investigator, George Schwartz? What the hell are you up to?”
He reacted the way a seasoned courtroom attorney should. He stonewalled all expression.
Roddy O’Leary, Marovich’s campaign manager, came in just then, and I knew there would be no more discussion. Roddy was visibly unhappy to see me, but he came over and gave me a big smooch anyway.
“Working late?” he said, putting himself between me and the candidate.
“Normal hours for me,” I said. “You know, no rest for the wicked.”
He gave me a token chuckle. He said, “Studio time is expensive. You two want to debate, find a cheaper hall. Mr. D.A., they’re waiting for you on the set. At their rates, every minute wasted is the equivalent of two-hundred direct-mail fliers. So, let’s go do it.”
Marovich fixed the knot in his tie as he studied me, memorized me. “Nice meeting you.”
“LaShonda DeBevis,” I said. “Get me access to LaShonda DeBevis.”
“I don’t have her,” he said. He walked away shielded by the considerable mass of old Roddy.
“You’d have made a good she-wolf,” I said to Roddy as I gathered my things, “the way you watch over your cubs.”
“I do what it takes,” he said. “Anything it takes.”
“Anything?” I asked.
“What’s on your mind?”
“George Schwartz. How far will you have him go?”
“Schwartz, you say?” Roddy turned his hands up. “Never heard of the guy. Nice talking to you, MacGee. I gotta go to work.”
All the way home, I tried to sort what I knew from what I surmised. As always, the first column was tremendously shorter than the second.
Mike was in the kitchen with the telephone against his ear and a pencil poised above a notebook. The stills I had taken the night before were spread out on the table, along with stills made from Guido’s videotape. I picked one up, a blow-up of the back end of a car. The quality was flat and fuzzy, but I could read the license plate. I could read license plates in eight or ten other shots as well.
“When did you see Guido?” I asked.
“Didn’t. I talked to him this morning. He had this stuff sent over while we were at the game. For a commie, your Guido’s damn smart. Hector says hi.”
“Me, too,” I said. “And Guido isn’t a commie. He’s a democrat.”
“Same thing.”
“I’m a democrat.”
If he heard me, he didn’t bother to retort. He was back on the phone with Hector. I got a soda from the refrigerator and drank it while I eavesdropped. Mike would read a license number to Hector on the phone. Hector was, I presumed, plugging the numbers into the Department of Motor Vehicles computer and sending back to Mike the names and addresses of the owners.
I rested my arm across Mike’s shoulders and watched him write Ozzie Freemantle, 1931 112th Street. He thanked Hector and hung up.
I asked, “Can’t Hector draw a suspension for unauthorized use of the files?”
“If he does, I’ll make it up to him. Anyway, who’s gonna beef him? Hec is a homicide dick working a case.”
“But you’re not.”
Mike pulled me down to his lap. “But who’s gonna tell?”
“Me,” I said. “I just bawled out the district attorney for not playing by the rules. You think I’m going to live with cheating in my own home?”
“Damn right. If I’m a cheater, you’ll live with it.”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself, Mike Flint.” I nestled my face into the soft crook of his neck and closed my eyes while he rocked me. I felt sleep-deprived and would have been very happy to spend the next eight or so hours right there on his lap. “Pretty damn sure of yourself.”
“Tell me about the D.A.”
I yawned. “Later, okay? I have to be up early to get Casey to school. I’m going to bed now.”
“I’m off, remember? I’ll drive Casey.”
“Okay, but one condition.” I managed to stand up. “If anyone follows you, I don’t want you to beat him up until after you have dropped off my baby. Got it?”
“Got it.” He laughed.
I took him by the hand and gave him a pull. “Come on. Bedtime for cheaters.”
Chapter 13
Etta didn’t call Wednesday morning. I thought maybe she was still partying with Baby Boy. Or maybe he had worn her out so that she couldn’t drag herself down the street to a pay phone. Whatever the reason Etta didn’t call, I was relieved to be saved the long detour into Southeast L.A.
At eight-thirty, when I got on the freeway, the air was already hot and the sky was a ridiculously showy blue. The day’s ration of smog still hovered in a low, dense brown layer along the ocean horizon, waiting for a change in the wind. At the tail end of morning rush hour, traffic down the Hollywood Freeway to Guido’s house was heavy but moving steadily.
According to the news on the radio, the pro-Conklin demonstrators outside Parker Center had grown both in number and in volume. The police department had asked all of its workers to enter the building through the guarded, covered garage on San Pedro Street for their own safety. Two members of the police commission had nearly come to blows during last night’s meeting called to discuss how the department would proceed. I turned the radio off.
Guido lives in a rugged canyon behind the Hollywood Bowl, his small gem of a house surrounded by groves of eucalyptus and dusty pine. Though he is only ten minutes from the festering armpit of the city-his description-once you turn off Highland Avenue and start up his winding road you are deep in wilderness. So, okay, maybe it’s an illusion of wilderness and locals dump their bodies off the side of his road with scary regularity. Still, at night coyotes howl at the moon from the rise behind his house.