Sunset Express

I finished the merlot and turned off the sauce. It was thick with chunks of tomatoes and black olives and raisins. I had cooked it without being hungry. Maybe I just wanted to give myself something worthwhile to do. 'Of course I know, but it should be.'

Lucy said, 'The law is an adversarial contest that defines justice as staying within the rules and seeing the game to its conclusion. Justice is reaching a conclusion. It has very little to do with right and wrong. The law gives us order. Only men and women can give us what you want to call justice.'

I took a deep breath and let it out. 'God, Lucille, I wish you were here.'

'I know.' Her voice was soft and hard to hear. Then she said, 'You're still the World's Greatest Detective, honey pie. They can't take that away from you.'

It made me smile.

Neither of us spoke for a time, and then Lucy said, 'Do you remember Tracy Mannos at Channel Eight? We met her at Green's party.'

'Sure. The program manager.'

'She called me last week. She arranged for the network affiliate here in Baton Rouge to shoot a test tape of me, and after she saw it she offered me a job as an on-air legal commentator.'

I said, 'In Baton Rouge?'

'No, Elvis. Out there. In Los Angeles.'

I couldn't say anything. The merlot seemed to be rushing through my ears.

Lucy said, 'It's more money, and we would be closer to you, but it's such a big move.' You could hear her uncertainty.

I said, 'You'd come to Los Angeles?'

'There's so much to think about. There's Ben. There's my house and my friends. I'm not sure what to do about Richard.'

'Please say yes.' It came out hoarse.

She didn't say anything for a time. 'I don't know just yet. I need to think about it.'

'I told Joe that I was thinking about moving to Baton Rouge.'

Another pause. 'Are you?'

'Yes.'

'Would you?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'You know why, Lucille. I love you.'

She didn't speak for another moment, and when she did her voice seemed lighter, somehow more at ease. 'I need to think.'

'Call me tomorrow.'

'I may not know tomorrow.'

'Call me anyway.'

She said, 'I love you, Studly. Always remember that.'

Lucille Chenier hung up, and I lay on my kitchen floor and smiled at the ceiling, and not very much later I knew that I had found the last and final way to bring Jonathan Green to justice.

Or, at least, a close approximation.

CHAPTER 39

I called Eddie Ditko first. He came over that night, coughing and wheezing, but happy to eat spaghetti with the puttanesca sauce and listen to my account of the events in the maintenance shed while he recorded my every word. He grinned a lot while I talked, and said that he could guarantee a bottom half of the front-page position for the story. He said, 'Man, the shit's gonna hit the fan when this comes out.'

'That's the idea.'

When Eddie was gone, I called Tracy Mannos, who put me in touch with Lyle Stodge at twenty minutes after ten. Lyle and Marcy anchored the eleven P.M. newscast as well as the five. Lyle was only too happy to talk to me, and only too happy to accept my offer of an interview. He said, 'We've been hoping to get you for a comment on all of this! Can you make the eleven o'clock?'

'Nope.'

'How about tomorrow at five?'

'I'll be there.' The five o'clock newscast had the larger audience.

I phoned every person who had interviewed me in print or on radio or television, or who had wanted to interview me. I spent most of the night and part of the next morning on the phone, and everybody was happy to talk to me. I called both Peter Alan Nelsen and Jodi Taylor, and asked if they could put me in touch with any of the major network and cable news people, and of course they could. Even Daily Variety wanted an interview. Everybody wanted to know if I had been duped by Theodore Martin, and everybody wanted to know what had happened in the maintenance shed, and everyone still considered me the hero of the defense effort, just the way Jonathan had hoped when he had staged the news conferences with his hand on my shoulder. I told them that I would be happy to tell them exactly what happened, especially if we were on the air live.

By three the following afternoon, I had completed eleven interviews, and had provided each interviewer with a copy of Green's amended retainer agreement with Theodore Martin. Seven other interviews were scheduled, and more would be forthcoming. I had copies for them, too.

At twelve minutes after three, I parked in a red zone outside Jonathan Green's Sunset Boulevard building and went inside. I shoved past the receptionist and ran up the stairs and barged past the army of clerks and assistants and minions. There was a noticeable absence of blueblazered security guards, but I guess those few who hadn't been killed in Baldwin Hills had been fired. All the better for Green to separate himself from Kerris.

The Inside News videographer and his sound technician were talking to a slim woman by the coffee machine when I went past. The videographer's eyes went wide when he saw me, and the sound tech dropped her coffee. The videographer said, 'What are you doing here?'

I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him along. 'Do you have tape in that thing?'

'Sure.'

'You're going to love this.'

The sound tech scrambled after us.

Jonathan Green's office occupied the entire east end of the fourth floor. An efficient-looking woman in her early forties tried to tell me that I couldn't go in, but I ducked around her and hit the door, only the door wouldn't open.

The woman said, 'You stop that! You stop that before I call the police!'

The sound tech said, 'You have to buzz it open.'

I said, 'Where?'

The sound tech hurried to the woman's desk and pressed the buzzer. The sound tech was grinning.

I kicked open the door and stormed in and found Jonathan Green on the phone. The two lesser attorneys were with him, along with a younger man with a notepad. Somebody's secretary. The smaller of the lesser attorneys fell over a chair trying to get out of my way. Green said, 'I'm calling the police!'

I pulled the phone out of his hands and tossed it aside. I said, 'Here's the bad news, Jonathan: You've become my hobby. I know what Truly knew, and I am telling it to anyone who will listen.'

Green maneuvered to keep his desk between us. His face had grown white. 'The police are on their way! I'm warning you!'

I threw a copy of the retainer agreement at him. 'I'm also passing out copies of this. The Examiner is going to print it in this evening's edition.'

Green looked at it without touching it and shook his head. 'This means nothing. For all anyone knows you wrote it yourself. It isn't admissible.'

'Not in a court of law, Jonathan. But we're going to try you in the court of public opinion.' I shoved his desk, and Jonathan jumped backward. 'I will hound you, and I will not stop. I will tell everyone that it was you who falsified the evidence, and you who ordered James Lester killed, and you who attempted to take the life of Louise Earle.' I started around the end of the desk, and Jonathan scrambled in the opposite direction.

'You can't do that! I'll get a restraining order!'

'What's that to a tough guy like me?'

'No one will believe you!'

'Sure they will, Jonathan. I am the World's Greatest Detective, remember? Above reproach. Trustworthy.'

Jonathan glared at the lesser attorneys and yelled, 'Don't just stand there! Do something!'

The larger lesser attorney ran out the door.

'I will keep this alive until the DA can finally build a case or until you are driven out of business. I will haunt you like a bad dream. I will come to your house and follow you into restaurants and send videotapes of my interviews to your clients.'

He drew himself up into a vision of outrage. 'We have laws against that, you idiot! That's libel! That's slander! You won't get away with it!'