“This is Detective McCrea,” Andi said when the woman answered her cell.
“Hello,” Angela Hawthorn said. “I’m at home. I don’t work at the Gulag anymore. Dmitri fired me because I wouldn’t put out for one of his rich Russian customers. I have some information that might help you.”
“I’m listening,” Andi said.
“Up in the corner of the building by the window to Dmitri’s office there’s a video camera that sees everything on the smoking patio. During the party I’m pretty sure it was there like it always is. But when you showed up it wasn’t there. Dmitri probably took it down so you wouldn’t see it.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He’s paranoid about bad publicity and cops and courtrooms. And he doesn’t want trouble with black hoodlums. In fact, he doesn’t want black customers. He just wouldn’t want to be involved in your murder case. Anyways, if you get that camera from him I’ll bet you’ll see that black guy sticking the knife in that kid. Just keep my name out of it, okay?”
When Andi hung up, she said to Brant, “Do you need money?”
“Why?”
“You’re going to be getting even more overtime. There might be video at the Gulag with our murder shown right there on it!”
Brant looked around, but all the other detectives had gone home. Only the night-watch detective Compassionate Charlie was there, with his feet up on the desk, sucking his teeth as usual, reading the L.A. Times sports page.
“I’m all you got?” he said.
“Don’t be a wuss. This is more fun than being an IA weasel, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m starting to miss the Burn Squad. At least I got fed every once in a while.”
“When we’re all through tonight, I’m making you a very late supper with a bottle of good Pinot I’ve been saving. How’s that sound?”
“Suddenly I’m renewed,” he said.
“One thing, though,” Andi said. “I think I should call Viktor. We might find a Russian translator very useful if this nightclub owner starts lyin’ and denyin’ like he probably will. Viktor is a master at handling those people, a kick-ass skill he learned in the bad old days with the Red Army.”
“He’s just getting home by now,” Brant said. “He won’t be pleased.”
“He owes me,” Andi said. “Didn’t I do a dumpster dive for him? Didn’t it cost me a busted bra strap?”
Eavesdropping as usual, Compassionate Charlie said, “Hey, you guys looking for Viktor? He left in a hell of a hurry with Hollywood Nate and that big kid Nate works with. I love to watch Viktor run. Like a bear on roller skates.”
EIGHTEEN
THE BLUE PINTO was registered to a Samuel R. Culhane who lived on Winona Boulevard. Viktor Chernenko was sitting in the backseat of the black-and-white, concerned about whiplash with Hollywood Nate still driving in his high-speed redemption mode.
Wesley said to Viktor, “You know, Detective, the only problem here is that the first time we talked to Trombone Teddy he said the guy’s name sounded like Freddy or Morley.”
“Maybe Samuel sold the car to a Freddy,” Nate said. “Stay positive.”
“Or lent the car to Morley,” Viktor added.
The house was almost a duplicate of Farley Ramsdale’s old Hollywood bungalow except it was in good repair and had a small lawn in front with geraniums along the side of the house and a bed of petunias by the front porch.
Wesley ran to the rear of the house to prevent escape. It was dusk, and he didn’t need a flashlight yet. He took cover behind the garage and waited.
Viktor took the lead and knocked, with Nate standing to his left.
Samuel R. Culhane wasn’t as thin as Farley but he was in a late stage of methamphetamine addiction. He had pustules on his face and a permanent twitch at the corner of his right eye. He was several years older than Farley and balding, with a bad comb-over. And though he couldn’t see Hollywood Nate standing beside the guy at the door, he knew instantly that Viktor was a cop.
“Yeah?” he said cautiously.
Viktor showed his badge and said, “We need to talk to you.”
“Come back with a warrant,” Samuel Culhane said and started to close the door, but Viktor stopped it with his foot and Nate pushed past and into the room, touching the badge pinned to his shirt, saying, “This is a brass pass, dude.”
When the back door opened and Nate whistled to him, Wesley entered and saw the tweaker sitting on the couch in the living room looking glum. Viktor was formally reading the guy his rights from a card that every cop, including Viktor, had memorized.
Nate handed Samuel Culhane’s driver’s license to his partner and said, “Run him, Wesley.”
After Viktor had finished with the rights advisement, he said to the unhappy homeowner, “You are not pleased to see us?”
“Look,” Samuel Culhane said, “you ain’t searching my house without a warrant, but I’ll talk to you long enough to find out what the hell this is all about.”
“We must find out where you were on a certain night.”
“What night?”
“Three weeks ago. You were driving your Pinto with a lady friend, no?”
“Hah!” Samuel Culhane said. “Driving with a lady friend? No! I’m gay, dude. Gayer than springtime. You got the wrong guy.”
Persisting, Viktor said, “You were driving on Gower south of Hollywood Boulevard that evening.”
“And who says so?”
“You were seen.”
“Bullshit. I got no reason to drive down Gower in the evening. In fact, I don’t even go out till around midnight. I’m a night person, man.”
“There was a woman in your car,” Viktor said.
“I told you I’m gay! Do I gotta blow you to prove it? Wait a minute, what crime was I supposed to’ve done?”
“You were seen at a mailbox.”
“A mailbox?” he said. “Oh, man, now I get it. You’re gonna try to fuck me with a mail theft.”
Wesley came in then and handed an FI card to Viktor on which he’d scribbled some of Samuel R. Culhane’s rap sheet entries.
Reading, Viktor said, “You have been arrested for fraud… one, two times. Once for counterfeiting. This is, as they say, consistent with the theft of U.S. mail from a public mailbox.”
“Okay, fuck this,” Samuel Culhane said. “I ain’t spending a night in jail till you guys get your shit together and figure out you got the wrong guy. I’ll come right out and tell you what’s what if you’ll go away and leave me be.”
“Proceed,” Viktor said.
“I rented my Pinto for a week to a guy I know. I got another car. He lives down there off Gower with an idiot tweaker who calls herself his wife but they ain’t married. I warned them both, don’t fuck around and do any deals in my Pinto. They didn’t listen to me, did they? I’ll show you where he lives. His name’s Farley Ramsdale.”
Hollywood Nate and Wesley Drubb looked at each other and said it simultaneously and with such gusto that it startled not only Samuel Culhane but Viktor Chernenko as well.
“Farley!”
That goddamn Olive, she never puts anything in its proper place. Farley was still thinking of Olive in the present tense although he knew in his heart that she was in the past. He had to admit there were things he was going to miss. She was like those Bedouin women who walk through minefields while the old man stays fifty yards behind on the donkey and follows in her footsteps. Never less than obedient. Until now.
Finally he found the key cards in the bottom drawer of the kitchen together with the egg timer she’d never used and a badly burned skillet that she did use. They were the best key cards they’d ever stolen, and they had always fetched a good price. Just the right size and color, with just the right mag code to look exactly like a righteous California driver’s license once they slapped the bogus facsimile on the front. He was going to have to find another woman partner to hang around that particular hotel and get more of them. Maybe a halfway classy woman who would never arouse suspicion. He tried to think of a halfway classy woman he might know but gave up trying immediately.