“Mug a blind guy, fake a robbery,” he said. “Telling us: Look how goddamn clever I am- press here for my score.”
He rolled up onto the freeway.
“Learn anything from the body?” I said.
“Not really. The poor guy was hashed.”
“So much for neat and clean,” I said. “So much for mercy killing. He's picked up the pace and increased the violence level. And the risk leveclass="underline" broad daylight. He may think he's got a serious philosophy but he's just another psychopath.”
“What's really picked up is his confidence level, Alex. He has no idea we even know what's going on, and with Carmeli's gag order we can't flush him out. Though what kind of warning could we issue? Anyone with a dark skin and a disability is a potential victim? Just what this city needs.”
“Anyone with dark skin and a disability plus Malcolm Ponsico. Who joined a group that just might believe handicapped people aren't human. Myers's death says we need to get closer to Meta, Milo. And why not use the fact that the killer doesn't know we're on to him as an advantage? I'll go to the bookstore, see if they've got a bulletin board, check out Zena Lambert. Maybe I can get invited to the next Meta party.”
We were going eighty-five on the 10, now. He passed under the bridge at the Crenshaw exit. “If Lambert turns out to be a literal femme fatale, chatting her up could be more than just a social thing.”
“Femme fatale,” I said. “So now you like the idea of a boy-girl killer team?”
“At this point, I'm not dismissing anything.”
“A collaboration could explain some of the diversity in M.O. Two self-rated geniuses getting together to play human chess. She serves as a lure, he steps in and does the heavy lifting. So when do I go to Spasm?”
“Thought you hated parties.”
“Sometimes I'm more social than others.”
We stopped for coffee at a fast-food stand on La Cienega, where I called Robin and told her there'd been another murder and I'd be late.
“My God- another retarded child?”
“A blind man.”
“Oh, Alex…”
“I'm sorry. It might be a while.”
“Yes… of course. How did it happen?”
“Fake mugging,” I said. “Downtown.”
I heard her inhale sharply. “Do what you have to do. But wake me when you get in. If I'm asleep.”
It was after eleven by the time we returned to Sharavi's house. He took a while to answer the door, had clearly been sleeping but he did his best to hide it.
The gold eyes were red-rimmed. He wore a plain white T-shirt and green cotton athletic shorts. As he ushered us in, he revealed his good hand and the black-matte pistol dangling from it.
“Plastic,” said Milo. “Glock.”
“No, a smaller manufacturer.” Sharavi slipped the weapon into a pocket of the shorts. “So the blind man was part of it.”
Milo told him what we'd learned and we returned to the computer room. Moments later we learned that Melvin A. Myers had no criminal record and had received various forms of public assistance for most of his life. No family.
“Let's try the school,” said Milo. “Central City Skills Center.”
Unsurprisingly, no one answered and Sharavi played with data banks for a while, finally locating a two-year-old article on the school in the Los Angeles Times. The director at that time had been a woman named Darlene Grosperrin.
“At least it's not Smith,” said Milo. “Look her up.”
He was sitting on the edge of his folding chair, moving in rhythm with Sharavi's one-handed stabs at the keyboard. Unaware of the harmony.
Sharavi complied. “Yes, here it is, DMV: Darlene Grosperrin, Amherst Street, Brentwood.”
Milo's long arm shot forward as he grabbed the phone and dialed 411. He barked, listened, wrote down the number. “Grosperrin, D., no first name, no address, but how many of those can there be… Here's what you get for your trusting nature, Ms. G. A midnight call.”
He punched numbers again.
“Darlene Grosperrin? This is Detective Milo Sturgis of the Los Angeles Police Department, sorry to call this late- pardon, ma'am? No, no, not your daughter, sorry to scare you, ma'am… it's about one of the students at the skills center, a gentleman named Melvin A. Myers- no, ma'am, unfortunately, he's not okay…”
He put the phone down ten minutes later.
“Top student, she says. And not retarded, smart, one of their best trainees, could type over one hundred fifty words a minute on the computer. He was due to graduate in a few months, she was sure he'd get a job.”
He rubbed his face.
“She was pretty broken up, couldn't tell me what he'd been doing in the alley. Sometimes he ate dinner downtown before heading back to Crenshaw but there'd be no reason for him to wander in there. And he was pretty good with that cane, knew the street layout.”
“So he was lured,” I said. “What about family?”
“None- lucky for Bob Pierce. Myers has been living alone for the last five years, since his mother died. Apparently she sheltered him and after she was gone he decided to pull himself together. First he took some training at the braille center, then he enrolled at the school. They've got an eighteen-month computer program and he was acing it. The address on Stocker is a state-financed group home.”
Sharavi removed the black-matte pistol and placed it next to the computer. “A blind man… my contact back east called me while you were gone. He's found nothing on Meta in New York, but the lawyer who wrote that article in The Pathfinder-Farley Sanger- is still practicing at the same Wall Street firm. The editor- that woman stock analyst, Helga Cranepool- is still working at her job, too. Neither of them comes up in Lexis, so Sanger doesn't go to court on important cases. My source says the firm does estate planning for rich people.”
“What kind of car does he drive?” said Milo. “What kind of shampoo does he use?”
“Mercedes station wagon, one year old. I'll try to find out about the shampoo. And if he uses cream rinse.”
Milo laughed.
Sharavi said, “The Mercedes is registered in Connecticut. Sanger's got a home in Darien and an apartment on East Sixty-ninth Street. He's forty-one years old, married, has two children, a boy and a girl, no record of criminal activity.”
“So Sanger's being watched.”
“For a while. I also looked up Zena Lambert, the bookstore clerk. No criminal record for her, either. She's twenty-eight years old, lives on Rondo Vista Street in Silverlake. The bookstore's nearby. She has a MasterCard but rarely uses it. Last year, she earned eighteen thousand dollars.”
He smiled. “I'll check into her hair-care, as well.”
“You surveilling her, too?” said Milo.
“Not without your agreement.”
“How long are you planning to surveil Sanger?”
“Long as necessary. In view of his belief that retarded people are- what was the phrase, Dr. Delaware-”
“Meat without mentation,” I said.
“- meat without mentation, it seems a good idea, maybe he'll do something that tells us more about the group. On both coasts.”
“Speaking of coasts, any chance of accessing his travel records?” said Milo. “Corporate lawyers fly back and forth all the time, nice cover.”
“Good idea,” said Sharavi. “I'll do it tomorrow, when offices open in New York. In view of Myers's murder, I did call all the major hotels here in L.A., just to check if Sanger's registered and he's not. But he could be traveling under a different name.”
“Thanks for all the work.”
Sharavi shrugged. “What next?”
“I've got an appointment to meet with Mrs. Grosperrin tomorrow morning, see if I can learn more about Myers, why he was lured, as opposed to some other student.”