“So will you. You want a hotel in L.A.?”
“Yes, please.”
“Zenith always puts people up at the Westwood Marquis,” Mindy said. “Okay with you?”
“I’ll make do,” I said.
“Okay. Corner Hilgard and LeConte, in Westwood Village.”
“I’ll find it,” I said.
“Super sleuth,” she said, and hung up.
I checked out of the Islandia and headed back up the freeway. Having a production coordinator wasn’t bad. Maybe I should employ one. I needed a hotel reservation and airline bookings every two, three years. In between times she could balance my checkbook.
The drive from San Diego to L.A. is not much more interesting than the drive from L.A. to San Diego. While I drove, I thought about what I was doing. As usual I was blundering around and seeing what I could kick up. So far I’d kicked up a child and another significant other in Jill Joyce’s life.
So what?
So I hadn’t known that before.
So how’s it help?
How the hell do I know?
The Westwood Marquis had flower gardens and two swimming pools and a muted lobby and served tea in the afternoon. All the rooms were suites. Zenith Meridien must be doing okay.
Everybody I saw in the lobby was slender and tended to Armani sport coats with the sleeves pushed up. I had on jeans and a sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off. My luggage was a gray gym bag with ADIDAS in large red letters along the side. I felt like a rhinoceros at a petting zoo.
I unpacked in my pale rose room and took a shower. Then I called an L.A. cop I knew named Samuelson and at 3:30 in the afternoon I was in my rental car heading downtown, on Wilshire.
The homicide bureau was located in the police building on Los Angeles Street. Samuelson’s office looked like it had eight years ago when I was in there last. There was a desk, a file cabinet, an air conditioner under the window behind Samuelson’s desk. The air conditioner was still noisy and there was still something wrong with the thermostat because it kept cycling on and shutting off as we talked. Samuelson appeared not to notice. He was a tall guy, nearly bald, with a droopy mustache and tinted aviator-style glasses. His corduroy jacket hung on a hook on a hat rack behind the door. Beyond the glass partition the homicide squad room spread out like squad rooms in every city. They all seemed to have been designed from the same blueprint.
“Probably a squad room on Jupiter,” I said, “looks just like this.”
Samuelson nodded. He had on a white shirt and a red and blue striped tie with the tie at half mast and the collar unbuttoned. He leaned back in his swivel chair and put his hands behind his head. He wore his gun high on his belt on the right side.
“Last time I saw you,” Samuelson said, “you’d finished fucking up a case of ours.”
“Always glad to help out,” I said.
“So what do you need?” Samuelson said.
“I’d like to talk with a guy named Victor del Rio.”
Samuelson showed no reaction.
“Yeah?” he said.
“He’s not listed in the L.A. book,” I said. “I was wondering if you had anything on him.”
“Why do you want to talk with him?” Samuelson said.
“Would you buy, ‘it’s confidential’?”
“Would you buy, ‘get lost’?”
“I’m backtracking on a murder in Boston; del Rio was once intimate with a figure in the case. He fathered her daughter.”
“And the figure?” Samuelson was perfectly patient. He was used to asking. He learned everything he knew this way. One answer at a time, nothing volunteered. If he minded it didn’t show.
“Jill Joyce,” I said.
“TV star?”
“Un huh.”
“You private guys get all the glamour work,” Samuelson said. “She try to bang you yet?”
“Ah, you know Miss Joyce,” I said.
Samuelson shrugged. “Victor del Rio runs the Hispanic rackets in L.A.”
“That’s heartwarming,” I said. “A success story.”
“Yeah, a big one,” Samuelson said.
“So where do I find him?” I said.
“If you annoy del Rio you will be in bigger trouble than I can get you out of,” Samuelson said.
“Why do you think I’ll annoy him?” I said.
“Because you annoy me,” Samuelson said. “And I’m a cupcake compared to del Rio. You got a gun?”
“Yes.”
“You licensed in California?”
“No.”
“Of course not,” Samuelson said. “Del Rio’s got a place in Bel Air.”
“Not East L.A.?”
“Are you kidding,” Samuelson said. “That’s where he makes his money. It’s not where he lives.”
“You got an address?”
“Wait a minute,” Samuelson said. He picked up the phone and spoke into it. Outside in the main squad room an L.A. cop with his handcuffs dangling from his shoulder holster was talking to an Hispanic kid wearing a bandanna wrapped around his head. The cop would lean forward every once in a while and tilt his head up to full face by chucking him firmly under the chin. The kid would hold the gaze for a moment and then his head would drop again.
Samuelson hung up and scribbled an address on a piece of paper. He handed me the paper.
“Off Stone Canyon Road, you know where that is?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t give del Rio a lot of lip,” Samuelson said. “I’m overworked now.”
I stood and tucked the address into my shirt pocket.
“Thanks,” I said.
“I can’t give you a lot of help with del Rio,” Samuelson said. “He is very connected.”
“Me too,” I said. “Detective to the stars.”
Chapter 24
BEL Air had its own gate, opposite the point where Beverly Glen jogs on Sunset. There was a gatehouse and alert members of the Bel Air patrol in evidence. I went past the gate on Sunset and turned into Stone Canyon Road. There was no gate, no members of the private patrol. i was always puzzled why they bothered with the gatehouse. Stone Canyon Road wound through trees and crawling greenery all the way up to Mulholland Drive. I wasn’t going that far. About a mile in I turned off the drive onto a side road and 100 yards farther I turned in between two beige brick pillars with huge wroughtiron lanterns on the top. I stopped. There was a big wrought-iron gate barring the way. Beyond the gate a black Mercedes sedan with tinted windows was parked. I let my car idle. On the other side of the gate the Mercedes idled. The temperature was ninety. Finally a guy got out of the passenger side of the Mercedes and walked slowly toward the gate. He wore a black silk suit of Italian cut and a white dress shirt buttoned to the neck, no tie. His straight black hair was slicked back in a ducktail, and his face had the strong-nosed look of an American Indian.
He stood on the inside of the gate and gestured at me. I nodded and got out of the car.
“Name’s Spenser,” I said. “I’m working on a case in Boston and I need to see Mr. del Rio.”
“You got some kind of warrant, Buck?” His voice had a flat southwestern lilt to it. He spoke without moving his lips.
“Private cop,” I said and handed him a business card through the gate. He didn’t look at it. He simply shook his head at me.
“Vamoose,” he said.
“Vamoose?”
“Un huh.”
“Last time I heard someone say that was on Tom Mix and his Ralston Straight Shooters.”
The Indian wasn’t impressed. He gestured toward my car with his thumb, and turned and started away.
“Tell your boss it’s about somebody named Zabriskie,” I said.
The Indian stopped and turned around.
“Who the hell is Zabriskie,” he said, “and why does Mr. del Rio care?”
“Ask him,” I said. “He’ll want to see me.”
The Indian paused for a moment and pushed his lower lip out beyond his upper.
“Okay,” he said, “but if you’re horsing around with me I’m going to come out there and put your ass on the ground.”