Of course he knew that the junkyard rendezvous was very dangerous and might be a trick of Cosmo’s to kill them, but after he’d told Cosmo that Olive had boogied and Cosmo still wanted him to make delivery, he figured it was probably okay. That fucking Armo wouldn’t dare try to kill him with Olive out there able to dime him to the cops if Farley went missing. Would he?
He might. Farley had never dealt with anyone as violent as Cosmo, so that’s why he’d devised a little plan of his own. Sure, he was going to drive to that lonely junkyard on that lonely fucking road in east L.A., where no white man in his right mind would roam around at night. But he wasn’t stepping one toe out of his car, no way. He was going to drive up, wrong side of the road to that fence, reach out, and grab the paper bag. And if the money was in there, he’d pull into the yard, spin a sweeping U-turn, blow his horn until Gregori came out, toss him the paper bag with the key cards in it, and zip on out of that yard and back to white man’s country-if Hollywood could be called white man’s country these days.
And if there wasn’t a trap at all and Gregori got insulted by his method of delivery and threatened not to do business with him anymore, too fucking bad. Gregori shouldn’t hang with gun-packing Armos like Cosmo. He should stick with thieving, chiseling, blood-sucking Armos like himself. Yeah, Farley thought with waxing confidence as he fantasized about the glass he’d be smoking tonight, where’s the glitch in that plan?
Suddenly he was hungry from all that thinking, but he couldn’t bear the thought of a cheese sandwich. He had a yearning for Ruby’s doughnuts, especially for a couple of those big fat cream-filled, chocolate-covered specials. He found the emergency twenty-dollar bill he had stashed in his underwear drawer, where Olive would never look, then propped up the broken back door as best he could and left for Ruby’s. Like Pablo’s Tacos and the cybercafé, Ruby’s Donuts was one of the last stops on the Tweakerville Line.
He saw a couple of tweakers he knew in the parking lot, looking hungry but not for doughnuts. Come to think of it, this was the first time he’d ever gone to Ruby’s looking for something to put in his stomach. The Hollywood nights were growing more and more strange and weird and scary for Farley Ramsdale, and he couldn’t seem to stop it from happening.
They didn’t really need Samuel R. Culhane to lead them to Farley’s house. A call took care of that. The FI file was full of shakes involving Farley Ramsdale and Olive O. Ramsdale, and it also had their correct address as shown on his driver’s license. Like other tweakers, they were always getting stopped and FI’d. But Viktor pretended that Culhane’s presence was needed just to be sure that if left alone, he wouldn’t make a warning call to Farley.
Driving his Pinto, Samuel R. Culhane did as he was told and led 6-X-72 and Viktor Chernenko to Farley’s house, where he slowed and indicated the house with his left-turn signal. Then he took off for home while the cops parked and piled out of the black-and-white, approaching the house with their flashlights off.
As before, Wesley went to cover the back door. He found it partially ajar, one hinge hanging loose, and propped in place by a kitchen chair. Nate and Viktor got no response and there were no lights on in the house. Wesley checked the empty garage.
“He’s a typical tweaker,” Nate said to Viktor. “Out hunting for crystal. When he finds it he’ll come home.”
“I must arrange for a stakeout,” Viktor said. “I feel very strong that this Farley Ramsdale stole the letter from the mailbox that led to the jewel robbery. Yet it is only a feeling. But I am positive that the jewel robbers are the ATM killers. This shall be the biggest case of my career if I can prove that I am correct.”
“This could be one for the TV news and the L.A. Times,” Hollywood Nate said.
“It is more than possible,” Viktor said.
Hollywood Nate paused for a moment and only one word came to him: “publicity.” He thought about walking into a casting office with a Times under his arm. Maybe with his picture in it.
“Viktor,” he said, “since we’ve been in on this with you so far, how about calling us if the guy shows up? We’d be glad to transport for you or help you search for evidence-whatever. We were there during the grenade trick and we sorta feel like this is our case too.”
“Detective,” Wesley added. “This could be the biggest thing I’ve ever accomplished in my whole life. Please call us.”
“You may be sure,” Viktor said, “that I shall personally call you. I am not going home tonight until I have a talk with Mr. Farley Ramsdale and his friend who calls herself Olive O. Ramsdale. And if you wish, you can go now and look for them at tweaker hangouts. Perhaps we do not have enough to tie them into crimes but we do not have to just sit back and cool our toes.”
Now Ilya was lecturing Cosmo as she would a child, and he sat there with a cigarette in his nicotine-stained fingers, taking it gladly, a man bereft of ideas.
“Understand me, Cosmo, and trust,” she said. “Olive is gone and Farley will not get out of his car in the junkyard of Gregori. He will not, because of you. Do not think all people are as stupid as…” She stopped there and said, “You must kill him in his car. Outside the yard.”
“Ilya, I cannot find no place to hide myself outside. It is open road and no cars parked on the road at night. Where can I hide myself?”
“Think on it,” Ilya said. “Use the brain. After you kill him you take him away in his car. You park one mile away. You leave. You go back to the yard and get our car.”
Interrupting, “How must I get back to the yard? Call taxi?”
“No!” she said. “You do not! You want police to find out that taxi takes somebody from a scene of dead body to the junkyard of Gregori? Goddamn, Cosmo!”
“Okay, Ilya. Sorry. I walk back.”
“Then you and me, we drive to Dmitri. You have some diamonds in your pocket. Not too many. You give diamonds to Dmitri. His man inspect diamonds. You say, please bring money downstairs to the nightclub. Give to Ilya. I shall be sitting at the bar. He give me money, I go to ladies’ room and get the remaining diamonds from where I hide them in a safe place. Lots of people around in the nightclub. We shall be safe.”
“But Ilya,” Dmitri said. “You forget about ATM money.”
“No, I do not forget. You must tell Dmitri mostly truth.”
“Ilya! He shall kill me!”
“No, he wants ATM money. You tell him we know where to find Olive. You tell him we shall find her tomorrow. We shall get money and kill her. We shall bring half of money to Dmitri like our deal say we do.”
“He shall be very angry,” a despairing Cosmo said. “He shall kill me.”
“Dmitri wish to kill someone? Tell him to kill his goddamn Georgian who give us a goddamn car that don’t run!”
“Then, what we do tomorrow? We cannot find Olive. We cannot get money to Dmitri.”
“The Americans have saying, Cosmo. I am not for sure what each word mean but I understand the idea. Tomorrow we get the fuck out of Dodge.”
The Oracle was having a bad night. The lieutenant was off and he was watch commander, so he had to deal with the angry phone call from the lawyer, Anthony Butler.
“Mr. Butler,” he said, “the detectives have gone home, so if you’ll just call back tomorrow.”
“I have been waiting all day for your detectives!” the lawyer said. “Or rather my daughter has. Do you know she was given a date rape drug at a place called Omar’s Lounge?”