She was awake now. All the way awake.
Buddy Paladino represented their primary suspect in her last case. But he was more than that. A criminal defense attorney who made his mark championing underdogs and attacking the LAPD after the ’92 riots. He enjoyed his work and he was good at it, bleeding taxpayers for hundreds of millions in damages. Most of his cases read like fiction, but Paladino had a special talent for picking a prosecutor’s case apart-no matter how solid-finding its primal weakness and winning a jury over with his soft voice and trademark smile. His million-dollar smile. That was more than fifteen years ago, his reputation as a dangerous attorney just taking flight. Now Paladino was in another league, a slippery heavyweight who represented only those clients who could afford his exorbitant fees.
“My apologies for calling on a Sunday morning,” he said. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Lena grimaced. If Dean Tremell had hired Paladino to represent his son, they could have picked a better time to tell her. Still, Paladino was the perfect choice.
“You didn’t wake me,” she said. “How did you get my cell number?”
“A mutual friend who wasn’t really a friend and is no longer with us.”
Although it sounded like Paladino doing another one of his convoluted dances usually reserved for trial, it wasn’t. She knew the friend who wasn’t a friend and was glad the attorney hadn’t used his name.
“What is it?” she said finally.
“We need to meet, Lena. We need to talk.”
“About what?”
“I’d rather not say too much over the phone. But it’s important to me and I would regard it as a personal favor. I would be in your debt. Given the state of the world, you might need me someday. I need you right now.”
Lena walked over to the slider, looking out at the city but not seeing it. Paladino was speaking in code. Something was wrong. She moved to the counter and grabbed a pen.
“Where?” she said.
He gave her an address in Hollywood and she jotted it down. Barton Avenue was off Gower, just north of Paramount Studios, directly across the street from the Hollywood Memorial graveyard.
“Thanks, Lena,” he whispered before hanging up. “See you as soon as you can get here. It’s important.”
She looked at her phone, spooked. But as she left the room, she felt a certain degree of relief that Paladino had used her cell number. Internal Affairs had spent another night outside her house. Although she was still forwarding the home number to her cell, the detectives monitoring her calls would hear the first ring before the telephone company’s computers rerouted the signal. Rhodes had called last night as he drove up to Oxnard to see his sister through her surgery on Monday. Lieutenant Barrera had checked in. And Matt Kline, a detective from Pacific Division, called to confirm that she received his Field Interview cards after canvassing the neighborhood in Venice and interviewing the victim’s neighbors. Kline had also taken the time to change the lock on the victim’s apartment. The new keys had been delivered with the FI cards. Sooner or later, the guys from Internal Affairs would figure out what she had done with her phone.
She took a quick shower and changed, then grabbed a salted bagel. As she pulled to the end of the drive, she paused a beat and searched out the Caprice. She could see it through the tree branches, off the road to her right and around the bend. She could see it fading away in her rearview mirror as she turned left and hit the accelerator. Her mind was shifting gears faster than her Honda. She could feel her heart beating as she thought about the sound of Buddy Paladino’s voice. How strange it was that he had called her.
Barton Avenue was a straight shot two and half miles down the hill from her house. When she reached the graveyard, she made a right and started looking for the attorney. The neighborhood had been lost a long time ago, hidden behind graffiti-covered walls and miles of razor wire. A mix of cheap apartment houses and pueblo-styled homes cut against single-story shotguns with wood siding and a full front porch. They were called shotguns because they were narrow, boxlike structures no more than one room wide. It was said that if you fired a shell from the front porch, the shot would make a clean exit through the back door. But the history of the neighborhood had more to do with the glory days of Paramount Studios and the need for low-cost housing. This was the place where set builders and lighting technicians and all those extras who made up the cast of thousands once lived. Now the neighborhood was in a state of ruin. Left behind by a world that had moved from black and white to color before going digital.
Lena spotted a car that had been jacked up and left on cinder blocks. The windows were punched out, all four wheels stolen. As she pulled around the wreck, she saw an Acura RL parked on the right a few houses this side of El Centro. Buddy Paladino was stepping off the porch and waving at her.
He wore a pair of khakis, an Oxford shirt, and a leather jacket. She had never seen him dressed casually before. Never seen him in public or print looking so bleak, so worried and concerned.
She pulled in front of the RL. When he reached for the door handle, she popped the locks and watched him climb in.
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
“Are you representing the kid?”
“What kid?”
She looked him over. The defense attorney with the million-dollar smile was visibly nervous.
“Maybe you ought to tell me what this is about,” she said.
Paladino nodded, then looked past her through the driver’s side window. “You see that house over there?”
Lena followed his gaze to the shotgun across the street. The wood siding appeared warped and blistered from too much wind and sun. Two windows needed to be replaced and the screen door had rusted out and was hanging off its hinges.
“I grew up in that house, Lena. I spent five years of my childhood in this neighborhood before we moved north. And you know what? It was better back then, but not that much better. The only people left are the Andolinis.”
He turned and gazed out his own window at the Andolini’s house. A garage stood at the end of the driveway, but Lena couldn’t really see it. Although the lawn had been cut and the place appeared clean and neat, the roof needed to be replaced and the house was five to ten years past needing a decent paint job. Like every other house on the block, security bars had been installed over the doors and windows. Lena imagined the view for the people inside wasn’t that much different than the view from a prison cell.
Paladino cleared his throat. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t know that they still lived here. I didn’t even know that they were still alive. I guess when you’re only a boy everybody seems old. My family didn’t have much. Mrs. Andolini used to love to cook. Her door was always open. To this day I think of her every time I eat a slice of pizza. Nobody makes it as good as her. I’ve met a lot of people since then. No one’s ever been nicer.”
Lena released her seat belt and turned toward Paladino. She let him talk it out, but it was difficult. A lot like watching a black funnel cloud on the horizon and counting the minutes until it arrived. Something horrible was waiting for her at the end of this conversation. She could see it on the man’s face.
“The reason I called you, Lena, is that these people are part of my life. They’re good people. They’re poor people, and they’re very old. You’ve been through enough that I thought I could count on you to treat them right.”
“What is it?” she said. “What’s wrong?”
He met her eyes. “Let’s take a walk back to the garage.”
They got out and started up the narrow gravel drive, the feeling in her chest growing stronger. As the garage behind the house came into view, she noticed a door cracked open on the right side of the building.
“They rented the place out,” Paladino said. “They were afraid to call the cops because they thought they might get into trouble.”