“His name is Andrei. He’s a Russian gentleman who said he worked as manager at the Gulag in east Hollywood. And he gave me a business card from there. I think you should check on him and see if he’s ever been accused of doctoring a girl’s drink either at his nightclub or elsewhere. I still think I was affected too suddenly by the martinis.”
“Anything else you’d like to add?” Budgie said, intending to get the hell out before a news team arrived.
“Only that I intend to have my father call the Gulag or go to the nightclub in person if necessary to make sure someone from the police department properly investigates my crime report. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get myself together for Channel Seven.”
When Budgie got back outside, Fausto, who had stepped into the office during part of the interview, said, “Would you call that a righteous felony or an example of first-stage alcoholism and a slight PMS issue?”
“For once, you sexist old bastard,” Budgie said, “I think you got it right.”
Dmitri would have been even angrier, if that were possible, had he known that Andrei, his night manager, had been out on his night off trying to pick up a woman who subsequently got herself involved with the police. Dmitri did not want the police at his place of business ever, not for any reason. But this night he had cops all over the place, including Andi McCrea, who’d been called in from home by the night-watch detective Compassionate Charlie Gilford.
When Charlie told Andi that he was having trouble reaching other members of the homicide unit, two of whom were sick with the flu that was going around, she suggested he try one of the detectives from Robbery, and gave him Brant Hinkle’s cell number.
Charlie rang up Brant Hinkle and told him there was a murder at the Gulag and asked if he’d be willing to help out Andi. Brant said he thought he could manage and that he’d be there ASAP.
Then Brant closed his cell and looked over at Andi, naked in bed beside him, and said, “That is a very dirty trick.”
She kissed him, jumped out of bed, and said, “You’d rather investigate a homicide with me than lie here alone all night, wouldn’t you?”
“I guess I would at that,” Brant said. “Is that what you would call a commitment?”
Andi said, “When two cops are committed, the definition is similar to the one meaning residents of an asylum. Let’s go to work.”
There had been a large private party in the VIP section on the upper level of the Gulag, an area roped off and guarded by a bouncer. Dmitri had assigned two waitresses for the party and wished he’d scheduled three when the party grew much larger than had been expected. Soon the sofas along the walls and every chair was occupied in layers, young women sitting on the laps of any guy who would permit it. Everyone else was standing three deep by a railing, watching the mass of dancers writhing in the pit down below on ground level.
They were foreign students from a technical college attending this gathering put together by a party promoter who dealt with various Hollywood nightclubs. Most at the soirée were Arabs, some were Indians, a few were Pakistanis. And there were two uninvited guests from south L.A. who were members of the Crips gang, out for a night in Hollywood, one of whom claimed to be a cousin of the promoter.
Dmitri had installed a video camera on the patio outside, where customers could go for a smoke, and it was there on the patio that the crime occurred. One of the young Arabs, a twenty-two-year-old student, didn’t like something that the taller of the two Crips said to his girlfriend, and a fight started. The taller Crip, who wore a raspberry-colored fedora over a head rag, got knocked down by the Arab with some help from his friends. While several people were separating the combatants, the shorter of the two Crips, the quiet one, walked behind the Arab, reached around, and stabbed him in the belly.
Then both Crips ran from the patio and out through the nightclub’s front door as people screamed and an ambulance was called. The young Arab lay thrashing and bled out, displaying no signs of life even before the RA and the first black-and-whites arrived. Still, he was taken straight to Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital while a paramedic worked on him futilely.
It was B.M. Driscoll and Benny Brewster who sealed off the area and kept as many actual eyewitnesses in place as they could, but the nightclub had started emptying fast after word got out about the stabbing. When Andi McCrea and Brant Hinkle arrived (in separate cars so as to stay discreet), Benny Brewster and B.M. Driscoll were writing down information from half a dozen of the Arabs and two of their American girlfriends, who were crying.
Benny Brewster briefed Andi by pointing out the party promoter, Maurice Wooley, a very worried black man who was sitting at the far end of the now-empty bar drinking a tall glass of Jack. He was plump, in his midfifties and wearing a conservative, double-breasted gray suit. He was also bleary-eyed from the booze.
Benny said to him, “Mr. Wooley, this is Detective McCrea. Tell her about the homie that did the stabbing.”
“I really don’t know much about him,” the promoter said to Andi. “He’s jist somebody from Jordan Downs, where I grew up, is all. I don’t live down there no more.”
“I understand he’s your cousin,” Andi said.
“A much younger cousin to my play cousin,” the promoter said quickly. “I don’t know his real name.”
Benny Brewster abruptly changed tack, glared at him, and said, “So what’s your cousin to your play cousin’s street name? Whadda you call him?”
The promoter’s jowls waddled slightly and he said, “Doobie D. That’s all I ever did call him, Doobie D. I swear on my momma’s grave.”
Benny scowled and said, “Maybe your momma has room for one more in there.”
Andi said, “What’s his phone number?”
“I dunno,” the promoter said, twisting his zircon ring nervously, glancing every few seconds at the tall black cop, who looked about ready to grab him by the throat.
Andi said, “This officer tells me you invited him here as your guest tonight.”
“That’s ’cause I run into him on the street when I went to visit my momma. He said he wanna go to one of them Hollywood parties I promote. And me, I’m a fool. I say, okay, when I get one, I’m gonna let you know. So I get this job and I let him know and I comp him in here as my guest. With one of his crew. And look at the grief I get.”
“If you don’t have his number, how did you reach him?”
“I jist have his e-mail address,” the promoter said, handing Andi his cell phone. “His cell company is one of them that you can e-mail or phone.”
When they were finished at the Gulag and ready to go, Andi was approached by a man with an obvious hairpiece and a peculiar smile. He extended his hand to both detectives and said, “I am Dmitri Zotkin, proprietor of the Gulag. I am sick to my heart from the terrible think that has een-wolved my club tonight. I shall be of service if you need any-think. Any-think at all.”
He gave them his card and bowed slightly.
“We may have some questions for you tomorrow,” Andi said.
“On the back of the card is my cell number,” he said. “Anytime you wish to call Dmitri. Please, I shall be at your service.”
After getting back to the station, Andi Googled Doobie D’s Internet provider from the text message. Then she left a phone message with the provider, requesting that the customer’s name and phone number be pulled up, with the assurance that a search warrant would be faxed to them in the morning before the provider faxed the account information to her.
Andi said to Brant, “We’ll write a three-page search warrant and run it over to the Hollywood court tomorrow. Have you ever done it?”
“I’m real rusty,” he said.
“The provider will triangulate from the cell site towers. If we’re real lucky and Doobie D uses his phone, the provider will call us every hour or so to tell us where he is. It’s like a GPS on the cell phone. If he disposes of the cell, we’re outta luck.”