“We need to know now. Herbert’s information could give us some direction.” I turned to Milo. “Did you tell him about our friend the bartender?”
Milo nodded.
“Everything?”
“Don’t bother being subtle,” said Huenengarth. “I saw the masterpiece your junkie bartender produced and no, it’s not me. I don’t hack up women.”
“What are you talking about?” said Stephanie.
“Stupidity,” he told her. “They’ve got a description of a murder suspect — someone who may or may not have murdered this Herbert character — and they thought it bore a resemblance to yours truly.”
She put her hand to her mouth.
He laughed. “Not even close, Steph. Last time I was that thin was back in high school.” To me: “Can we get to work now?”
“I’ve never stopped,” I said. “Do you have any information on Vicki Bottomley?”
Huenengarth waved a hand at Milo. “Tell him.”
“We’ve done phone traces from her home to the Jones house and Chip’s office.”
“We?” said Huenengarth.
“Him,” said Milo. “Federal warrant. Next week he sprouts a fucking pair of wings.”
“Find anything?” I said.
Milo shook his head. “No calls. And none of Bottomley’s neighbors have seen Cindy or Chip around, so if there is a link, it’s pretty damn hidden. My intuition is she’s got nothing to do with it. She’s certainly not the main poisoner. Once the chips fall, we’ll see if she fits in, anywhere.”
“So where do we go now?”
Milo looked at Huenengarth. Huenengarth looked at me and held his hand out toward the couch.
“Been sitting all day,” I said.
He frowned and touched his tie. Stared at everyone else.
Milo said, “Any more federal doublespeak and I’m outa here.”
“All right,” said Huenengarth. “First, I want to reiterate my demand of total discretion — total cooperation from both of you. No improvisation. I mean it.”
“In return for what?” I said.
“Probably enough technical support to bust Cindy. Because I’ve got federal warrants on Chuck Jones, and with a two-minute phone call I can include Junior and everything he owns in the deal. We’re talking audio, video, home, place of business — they go bowling, I can have someone peeking from behind the pins. Give me two hours alone in their house and I can rig it with peep-toys you wouldn’t believe. Got a camera that goes right in their TV so when they’re watching it, it’s watching them. I can toss the house for insulin or whatever crap you’re looking for and they’ll never know it. All you have to do is keep your mouths shut.”
“Cassie’s room is the one that needs to be rigged,” I said. “And the bathroom connecting it to the master bedroom.”
“Tile walls in the bathroom?”
“Tile walls and one window.”
“No problem — whatever toys I don’t have at hand, I can have delivered in twenty-four hours.”
Milo said, “Your tax dollars busy at work.”
Huenengarth frowned. “Sometimes they are.”
I wondered if he knew what a joke was. Stephanie didn’t care if he did; her expression said he danced on water.
“I’ve got a meeting scheduled at the house tomorrow night,” I said. “I’ll try to change it to the hospital. Can you have your equipment ready by then?”
“Probably. If not, it will be soon after — day or two. But can you assure me the house will be totally empty? I’m ready to pounce on Daddy, I can’t afford any screwups.”
I said to Stephanie, “Why don’t you call Chip and Cindy in for a meeting? Tell them something came up on the lab tests, you need to examine Cassie and then speak with them. Once they get there, make sure they stay for a long time.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll keep them waiting, tell them the labs got lost or something.”
“Action, camera,” said Huenengarth.
“How come you can get Chip included in the warrant?” I asked him. “Is he involved in his father’s financial dealings?”
No answer.
I said, “I thought we were being frank.”
“He’s a sleaze, too,” Huenengarth said, irritated.
“The fifty parcels he owns? Is that really one of Chuck’s deals?”
He shook his head. “The land deal’s for shit — Chuck’s too smart for that. Junior’s a loser, can’t hold on to a dollar. Gone through plenty of Daddy’s already.”
“What’s he spending it on besides land?” I said. “His life-style’s pretty ordinary.”
“Sure, on the surface it is. But that’s just part of the image: Mr. Self-made. It’s a crock. That dinky junior college he teaches at pays him twenty-four thousand a year — think you can buy a house in Watts on that, let alone that entire tract? Not that he owns it, anymore.”
“Who does?”
“The bank that financed the deal.”
“Foreclosure?”
“Any minute.” Big smile. “Daddy bought the land at a bargain price, years ago. Gave it to Junior, the idea being that Junior would sell at the right time and get rich on his own. He even told Junior when the right time was, but Junior didn’t listen.”
The smile became a lottery-winner’s grin. “Not the first time, either. Back when Junior was at Yale, he started his own business: competition with Cliff Notes because he could do it better. Daddy bankrolled him, hundred thousand or so. Down the drain, because apart from its being a harebrained scheme, Junior lost interest. That’s his pattern. He has a problem with finishing things. A few years later, when he was in graduate school, he decided he was going to be a publisher — start a sociology magazine for the lay public. Another quarter of a million of Daddy’s dough. There’ve been others, all along the same lines. By my calculation, around a million or so urinated away, not including the land. Not much by Daddy’s standards, but you’d figure someone with half a brain could do something constructive with that kind of grubstake, right? Not Junior. He’s too creative.”
“What went wrong with the land?” I said.
“Nothing, but we’re in a recession and property values dropped. Instead of cashing in and cutting his losses, Junior decided to go into the construction business. Daddy knew it was stupid and refused to bankroll it, so Junior went out and got a loan from a bank using Daddy’s name as collateral. Junior lost interest as usual, the subcontractors saw they had a real chicken on their hands and started plucking. Those houses are built like garbage.”
“Six phases,” I said, remembering the architectural rendering. “Not much completed.”
“Maybe half of one phase. The plan was for an entire city. Junior’s own personal Levittown.” He laughed. “You should see the proposal he wrote up when he sent it to Daddy. Like a term paper — delusions of grandeur. No doubt the bank’ll go to Daddy first, before taking over the deed. And Daddy may just divvy up. Because he loves Junior, tells everyone who’ll listen what a scholar his baby boy is — another joke. Junior changed his major a bunch of times in college. Didn’t finish his Ph.D. — the old boredom thing.”
“One thing he has stuck with is teaching,” I said. “And he seems to be good at it — he’s won awards.”
Huenengarth let his tongue protrude through his small lips as he shook his head. “Yeah. Formal Organizations, New Age Management Techniques. We’re talking Marxist theory and rock ’n’ roll. He’s an entertainer. I’ve got tapes of his lectures, and basically what he does is pander to the students. Lots of anti-capitalist rhetoric, the evils of corporate corruption. You don’t have to be Freud to figure that one out, right? He likes rubbing the old man’s face in it — even the wife’s part of that program, wouldn’t you say?”